After the windy downhill all the way from Khardung La Pass, we stop by Khardung village via a local New Punjabi shop to have our lunch. Even with only basic Masala Maggi soup with fried egg and milk tea, that was delicious and good enough to warm us up and energize us for the remaining of the journey. The journey continue and we did stop by for a great viewpoint overseeing Tsati village on the valley. Another 40 KM of rides, passing through a moderate size town of Diskit, we have finally reach Hunder village and check in our accommodation of the day, Habib Guesthouse. We unload our stuff from the car and take some minor rest, before heading on to the magnificent Hunder Sand Dunes which was just very close to our guesthouse.
The New Punjabi via Khardung.
Smiley donkey!
Hungrily waiting for our lunch.
Cute kid in the restaurant.
Tsati village lying down there on the valley as seem high up from the viewpoint.
Fabian trying to get some nice shot on the village with the valley.
On the road to Diskit.
Groceries shop in Diskit town.
Seem to be main street on the town.
First peek on the magnificent sand dunes on Nubra Valley.
Cute kids via our accommodation.
Is this a smiley lion?
Oops nope, it was a Bactrian camel!
It was a long journey, let's take some rest.
Before making our visit to the sand dunes.
It was really rare to see a sand dunes on the valley that standing high at the elevation of 3000 Meters above sea level. More amazingly, when the view did framing in gorgeous snow mountain that seen everywhere from the valley. It was winter now and there was almost nobody else but us on this huge playground, hence we just enjoying the private park by exploring around wildly. Beside breathtaking view of sand dunes pairing with those snow mountains around, there was also a portion of frozen Shyok river that we explored as well.
The out of this world view as soon as I went down from the car.
Frozen ice scattered close to the river.
Everyone marching cross the bridge to explore the wilderness here.
The sand dunes was quite some distance from the car park still.
Hybrid very concentrate in his shot.
This was a sea-buck thorn tree, as the name describe, it was full of sharp thorns!
OK, is times to walk over to the sand dunes.
They are so small now from far away as I continue to walk high up on the sand dunes!
The only foot print was mine.
Massive size of the sand dunes here in Nubra Valley.
Princess jog along the edge of the sand dunes.
Never imagine a framing of sand dunes along with snow mountain, this was impressive.
Keep on exploring around the area, now towards the direction of Shyok river.
The area was full of sea-buck thorns plant, not sure if we can find a road over to the river.
And yeah, we did!
As expected, the river was frozen as well here.
Not sure why, this zone looked so mysterious for me.
Seng Soon on the entrance to the frozen Shyok river.
Princess enjoying the run on the frozen Shyok river so much!
Thanks for borrowing me the scarf for photo in this mysterious spot!
After wandering around, we start to gather on our way back to cars, but out of nowhere a camel with a tag number of 139 suddenly appear and walking towards us, it seem to be the only camel that we saw on the whole sand dunes hence we were very excited and keep on chasing it hoping that it will play with us. At first it seem that it was reluctant a bit, but after a while it just standing there, kind of like waiting for us to approach when it know that we have no bad intention. When we get closer, we realized that it's skin got stacked with lots of sea-buck thorn, and it must be very painful for it. We then gather around and slowly help to detach those thorns hopefully to make it feel better. We were glad it looked truly relieve and relax after that before the owner came over and bring it home. It was truly a memorable encounter with it, the camel 139 in Hunder!
Mysterious guest appear out of nowhere!
It was a Bastrian camel!
OMG what it was doing there?
I ran over it try to calm it down when snap this photo.
It seem that my first try to comfort it failed miserably!
Finally, it calm down a bit.
Now it even allowed us to pet it!
As seen from close up, there was lots of sea-buck thorns stacked to its skin and fur, it must be hurt.
The team work relentlessly to help detach those thorns from it.
We don't know your name, hence will just call you camel #139 in Hunder!
The owner come over to bring camel #139 back to its home. Perhaps it running all the way here just to have a memorable encounter with us.
The winds getting stronger and the temperature getting lower, is time to back to our shelter.
Hunder Sand Dunes - India
January 2018
