June 20, 2016
to Kargil - 2900m: from Buddhism to Islam
Despite our room being right along the main road and the honking habits of Indian drivers, we both sleep well. That is until about 5:30 am when the Monastery across the road starts broadcasting Buddhist chants over their speaker system.
Today should be a fairly easy day, so we are not in a hurry, but enough is enough. Tomorrow we'll probably awake to the Muslim call to prayer. We have our cereal, wait a bit to use the shared bathroom across the hallway, and start carrying our stuff down. The staff at Paradise Guesthouse is very helpful carrying everything back to the road.
We are off following the Wakha Chu River through a beautiful valley. Where the valley widens the flat bottom is terraced and irrigated. The fresh green crops and willow trees contrast sharply with the red, brown and yellow rock mountain sides. A section of the road is under construction, since Leh we have had such nice asphalt that we had almost forgotten the "fun" of bumpy gravel roads and dust.
At about 11:00 we reach Kargil. We have left the Buddhist area and into the first Muslim town, only to find out once again we are in a Muslim area during Ramadan. The first hotel we try is fully booked, but the PC Palace Hotel has nice rooms for 2000 rupees. More than what we typically aim for, but we have heard that prices from here to Srinagar are substantialy higher. We're not complaining though, a hot shower, BBC on tv and wifi so we can update this blog. And an afternoon to relax for the final push to Srinagar.
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Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 18,391 km (11,421 miles)
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