Solo-trip amidst Coronavirus pandemic to Langkawi - Part 1

Update: The prices mentioned in my blog are all of 2020. My viewers who are or will be visiting Langkawi AFTER 2020 - the prices are subject to change.

Tried to click a panorama of the jaw-dropping view from the Skybridge

Did the header catch your attention? Of course! That's what it was supposed to do. So we are now in the 9th month of 2020 - a year in which surely I consider myself "fortunate" enough to have witnessed & lived through (till now) the year of the millenium. After relocating to Malaysia with a new job, I was in my own utopian bubble, fantasizing all the beautiful places I would be traveling to slowly. But alas! The Covid-19 or Coronavirus pandemic transmitted all over the world in such an accelerated rate before even the countries could realize how pestilent it is. More than half of the year is almost gone but a successful vaccine is yet to be invented.

Backpacking to Kalgha Village, Parvati Valley, Himachal Pradesh

It's been quite some time since I published about our backpacking trip to Chalal village & Kasol. So after spending idyllic 2 days vegging out in Chalal village, we were ready for the next leg of our backpacking trip and that was Kalgha. We packed our stuff & left for the bus stop as the next bus was to arrive soon at 10.50-11 am sharp. The weather was charming with the sun just warm enough not to make us sweat in that October early afternoon. Soon our public bus arrived & all of us were not expecting it in the condition it was when it arrived - crammed up with the villagers & the locals, along with a small kid (I mean a baby goat here :D). We could have left earlier as well to avoid the horde (classic mentality of the quintessential "middle class" families, more so when they are starting out young), the timing of the previous bus was 9.30 am but we were confident that we wouldn't be able to wake up so early.

Parvati River at Chalal

Nevertheless, we boarded our bus and pushed our way through the multitude and secured a standing spot near the window with support. The driver was one hell of a driver, I think all the mountainous drivers are - they drive though the perilous roads everyday every hour all around the year.

Kargil & Hundurmaan/Hundermaan, J & K, India

Rugged landscape of Ladakh

After an enthralling ride via Zoji-La and pumped up visit to Kargil War Memorial with the River Indus continuing to flow along-side us, we reached the hustling Kargil town at around 12 noon.

Entering Kargil town, crossing River Indus

My immediate yearning reaching the town was to have momos/dumplings (my absolute favorite which I had been craving for a pretty long time). The hotel which was booked for us was Hotel Siachen which was right at the marketplace, so in a way accessible to any restaurant if you are not keen to have food in the Hotel Siachen itself. We were quite exhausted, perplexed whether to do some sightseeing in Kargil or not.
Leaving that aside, we freshened up and suddenly realized that all of us are starving terribly so we left the hotel to search for a nearby restaurant to gorge on food (momos for myself). We did come across a very popular restaurant right near the end of the marketplace (I have forgotten the name) but unfortunately it was full & there was no space for the 6 of us (also, they had ran out of momos :P). So we tried our luck at another restaurant nearer to our restaurant. The first question on entering the restaurant was from my side to the attendant was whether they have momos or not, to which, much to my jubilation, he replied in the affirmative. Myself & my brother ordered 2 bowls of thukpas while the rest of the squad ordered simple daal & chawal. Now, I hadn't given much importance to this aspect but the people there (and within the restaurant itself) had a very strange odour exuding from them. I couldn't decide the source of the stink but it came crystal clear when the thukpas arrived. The restaurants there had no chicken items, all they had were lamb items. So we had ordered lamb thukpas and the malodour was intolerable. I just took one bite and couldn't put anymore inside my mouth. Thankfully my brother finished up the two bowls. Poor me - I had to share the daal & chawal with the rest of them (the daal was equally disastrous).

En-route Kargil via Zoji-La, J & K, India

After spending a night full of intolerable stomach aches & upsets, all of us except my school buddy; yes, because he had a paneer meal as dinner while the rest of us - the greedy ones, had a chicken meal as our dinner. The ordeal started at around 3 am and continued till 4 o'clock, and we were supposed to leave sharp at 5 am to avoid the traffic that usually occurs at Zoji-La due to wretched road conditions after the thawing of the snow. So after flushing out the disastrous nutrition we had the previous night, we got ready to leave our hotel and commence our next leg of the whole trip - Ladakh. Our driver took us along the precarious winding highway while we enjoyed some truly breathtaking landscapes.

First glimpse of Zoji-La

The view from Zoji-La just took our breath away, the view of Amarnath Yatra base camp at Baltal.

Amarnath Yatra base camp at Baltal