Here we are in the early days of summer.
Lots of things come to mind each summer. It’s a time when we spend a lot of time outdoors as a family. Our weekends are beyond crazy. Every summer we get to see friends from out of town and we have a few vacations planned. Our firm makes a number of new…
Google acquire http://www.ruba.com/. Ruba team announce the new on their blog.
Ruba is community site where user can create and the travel guide and review them. And you can plan you trip based on the information gathered in Ruba. They also have community feature like ask a question to community.
Ruba’s team profile
Recently there has been Google acquisition of ITA Software.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aJXdCOdgJmw4
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2010-05-05-googletravel05_ST_N.htm
There might be chances something coming out from google in this domain.
I was trying to figure out the accommodation in Leh. I went through the popular hotel booking site (makemytrip, yatra, cleartrip). Result I got was not pleasant.
result from makemytrip:
There is a offer going on makemytrip. most economical was Rs 3360 for two days for two person, so cost is 840/person/day.
result from cleartrip:
They have only one result Rs6747 for two person two days. So cost is Rs1687/person/day.
result from yatra:
most economical was Rs4024 for two person for two days. So cost is Rs1006/person/day.
While I was doing research on Leh, I came across the JK Tourism guset houses(Tel: 01982252094), so I called and get the information that double bed room guest house are available from Rs250 to Rs1000 for one day. So cost range from Rs125 to Rs500/person/day.
But the booking process is bit tedious, you have to write a application and send to Tourist office in Leh, then they will process it to make it happen, you can do it after reaching there, but there are chances that those guest house might be full that time. In peak season prior booking to these guest house is highly advisable.
After researching the online hotel booking site and govt tourist guest house, I tried other hotels and tried to contact then and deal I received are
And they book it through phone and pay when you reach there. All you have to do is to call them and tell them how many room, check-in & check-out date.
Accommodation constitute a significant chunk of your travel budget, bit of information before hand might help big time if you want to do it in budget.
That is all for now. Feedbacks are welcome.
Stumble upon the site called trazzler.
Their about us page shows
Trazzler recommends trips—original, hand-picked, concise travel experiences—customized for your location and travel personality. As you explore the world, we will get to know your Travel Personality. Save and share the trips that you want to take—and skip those that don’t appeal to you. The more you do, the better your recommendations become.
We start from the premise that the quality of the writing matters and we read every trip submitted to Trazzler. This allows us to hire the best writers. Every trip that you see in your TripStream was selected by an editor and written by a person who visited the place in question and felt compelled to share it with other travelers. So many other travel sites, in their attempt to be online travel megastores, present an unedited, overwhelming morass of recycled information. Trazzler highlights more meaningful travel experiences, those that tend to slip through the cracks elsewhere—the secret places that you might only tell your friends about… the defining travel moments that reside in your memory long after you have returned home.
They invite travel writer to write about the trip and recommend trip to user based on their profile. Capture the profile based on the activities of user. They attract travel writer via contest running around the year. They are freelancer travel writer and put decent budget(15-20%) to pay them. If you are interested go to http://www.trazzler.com/about/write-for-trazzler. You might make some money by writing you travel experience.
Adam Rugel, founder of Trazzler, used to work at Odeo, a podcasting company which later morphed to Twitter. Evan Williams, one of Twitter’s founder is one of early invester of Trazzler.
This is the continuation of my last post. Here I am listing down places worth visiting in Ladakh region.
Leh:
This is biggest town in Ladakh region. This is also the administrative center of this region. There are a few places in Ladakh region where you need permit (they call it Inner Line Permit or ILP) and Leh is the place to get it.
Most of the people, who come to Ladakh, are foreigners and most of them are from Israel. Changs Pa, is the Israel dominant area, and there are good food joints in that area. I stumple upon this link
and have clearly mentioned the address of German Bakery shop in Leh, this the the best bakery shop in Town. Another one is Penguin Garden Restuarant, which is famous for it German Bakery product (also known as Penguin Bakery).
Leh is at an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,483 ft). It is always recommended, specially if you are reaching to Leh via flight, to spend around a day or two to allow your body to acclimatize to the high altitude and use this time to roam around the town and get required permit. Try some food joint, visit monastries, chilling out.
Places to visit in town:
DM office is near Parade ground, in case you need to go there to get the permit, other option is that some travel agent will do it for you but it will be a bit costly, or you can go yourself and can do it for free. (take 6 copies of these passes, as you might need in some check point along the way)
In all Leh deserves atleast two days of stay.
Hemis Monastery:
Situated around 49 km from Leh towards south.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemis_Monastery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_years_of_Jesus#Saint_Issa
Hemis festival happens during late June or early July.
http://www.visitladakh.com/en/component/content/article/53-head/357-hemis-festival.html
Lamayuru Monastery:
Situated around 127 km from Leh towards West on the Srinagar highway, just short of Kargil.. This is the largest and oldest gompa(monastery) in Ladakh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamayuru_Monastery
http://www.visitladakh.com/en/the-news/401-a-peek-into-buddhist-culture-at-ladakhs-oldest-monastery.html
photo gallery of Lamayuru Monastery
Other sources for photo galary:
http://scriptures.ru/india/kashmir/lamayuru/indexen.htm
Tso-Moriri and Tso-Kar:
Tso moriri Lake or Lake Moriri, is high altitude lake (4,595 m or 15,075 ft). This lake is entirely within India as opposed to Pangong Lake.
This picturesque lake is situated in around 215 km from Leh towards southeast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tso_moriri
Tso Kar lake is a salt water lake, and is around 80 km from Tso-Moriri.
Tso-Moriri Photo Stream from flikr.com
Tso-Kar Photo Stream from flikr.com
Pangong Lake:
Pangong Lake is also one of the high altitude lake (4,350 m or 14,270 ft). This is famous for its grandness (134 km long and max width is 5km). 60% of length lies in China. In winter it completely freeze.
Situated 145 km from Leh, in route passes Chang La pass(It is named after the sadhu Changla Baba, to whom the Pass temple is dedicated). Chang La pass is the gateway to Changthang Plateau (Chang-pa is the nomadic tribe of this area).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangong_Lake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_La
Enjoy the photo gallery of Pangong Lake:
Nubra Valley:
Situated 150 km from Leh towards north. Siachen Glacier lies to the north of the valley. The Shyok River and Siachan River meet here and form a valley.
Village name Diskit situated on the Shyok River and famous for Diskit Monastery (famous for its position).
Way to reach this valley is via Khardung La(Khardung Pass). (I have read somewhere that “The Road to Khardung la is closed every Monday”)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubra_Valley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskit_Monastery
Hanley, Ladakh:
Hanley (high altitude area 4517, metres) is close to borders with China and Pakistan, it is closed to foreigners and even Indians need a permit to enter. The world’s highest observatory, run by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, is situated there.
It is from eight hour drive from Leh, and for accomodation is either camp or ask to be accommodated in a village house.
visit this site to get the hang of the place
http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/hanley,ladakh
and this one too
Sarchu-Ladakh:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarchu
http://wakdtalk.blogspot.com/2008/08/ladakh-trip-day-four-manali-sarchu.html
Indus Valley:
Valley streched along the Indus River. It runs through Ladakh region. Indus river has a strong impact on civilization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
When I started this post, my plan was to cover every places worth visiting in Ladakh region. But its very difficult to cover it all in one blog post (I believe at least a short book will do some justice). So Now I am putting end to this post. Places/regions I covered in this post are enough to have at least one month stay in Ladakh.
I will update my plan/itinerary here.
If you have been to Ladakh before, then please contribute your experiences or any valuable information through comment or via mail. I will incorporate it into post.
Ladakh has been in our discussion since quite a long time. Vastness and stunning landscapes always attracts me towards Ladakh. So I am prompt to do some research for the Ladakh trip, although it is not sure when will I go there, but it is due in this year.
I will update about my plan/findings about Ladakh here.
Geographically upper area of Indus river west is Ladakh. And Leh the main city of this region.
You can go to Ladakh with different mindset and this changes the way you see/explore the region. So for Ladakh
1) If you are in a adventurous mode, then trekking, rafting, mountaineering are the thing.
2) Exploratory mode. There are few niche of people who go to Ladakh to know the its culture, region, some go there to write books (Hieght of Madness by Myra Macdonald is one of them), to do research (on Indus river, civilization, on Siachen, culture etc), to see monasteries.
3) If you are in a leisure mode, then sight seeing in Ladakh region is a nice way to spend your time.
4) Bike tour is one more way to explore the region.
Some people go there to shoot movies (Gaurav jani and latest movie 3 idiot) . Although most of the time you will get a mix of all these, again weather is extreme and can play vital role in the whole trip. Ladakh is an extreme/vast region (around 97000 sq km) so sight seeing involves a lot of traveling, which itself can be not so comfortable. One thing is sure in any case, difficult weather conditions.
Due to vastness of region, duration of trip also comes into picture. I feel that at least a week should be the minimum duration for Ladakh.
Anybody who are interested in going there can contact me via comment or mail. Anybody, who has been there, are welcome to share(correct) the experience (information) they had.
I will update about my plan/finding about Ladakh here.
References:
