Next day we started off early morning for rafting. I have done rafting in Sita River and Kali River in karnataka, but I knew Zanskar river (is going to be different experience. Infact we can not compare all 3 raftings, each one is unique experience. Sita river is rainy river, so its fun if u raft when its raining heavily. You can get more adventures by jumping off the raft, pushing others off the raft, toppling the raft ;)... but Kali river is more ferocious and got better rapids.... rafting is allowed only after Monsoon. In both Sita and Kali you pass through dense forest unlike barren mountains in Zanskar. In Zanskar the speed of raft and rapids are not comparable with Sita and Kali, but you can not even think of getting into water... because water is more chilled than chilled beer :).
Few of us wanted to be adventures and wanted to swim at least for milli second, but instructor didn't let us. The finishing point was where Zanskar joins Indus River and just around that point, there was plain stretch without any rapids or rocks... so the instructor let us get into river only if the person is confident about swimming... and getting back into raft. Like a professional I took proper position standing on raft and dived as much away from raft as possible, and as soon as I was in water, first reaction was to turn back and swim as fast as possible towards raft, since I was almost getting freezed.
After thrilling rafting, we were back in Leh. Prepared our self for the big day and highlight of our trip - FINAL DESTINATION 5 - Pangong Lake, the highest altitude lake in the world. In fact what ever you find in Leh can be prefixed with - "Highest", Highest swimming pool in the world, highest golf club in the world, highest chai shop in the world :). Its 5 - 6 hour drive from Leh. I had planned to do Pangong trip in 2 days but since we were getting short of time we had to cut it short to one :(. But if anyone planning Pangong Lake, then do spend at least a night in Pangong Lake, its completely worth it. We started early morning, on our way passed through Third highest motorable road in the world - Changla.
As soon as we got to Pangong lake, I was speech less. There are many places in world which are over hyped, and when you visit that place, you might feel its not worth the hype around it. It will be excellent place, but not worth the hype. I had fear of Pangong Lake being one such place, but I was totally wrong. Pangong Lake is class apart and any hype around it would always be understatement.
Pangong lake is very close to Aksai Chin, the China occupied J&K :(... they got 6 lane highway there it seems and we do not even have proper 2 lane road :(
Had good tibetian food at near by Home cum resto, spent some time and got back to leh by evening.
Next day morning the Nav-Jawan team was about to get split, with everyone getting back home, except for 3 Idiots from Bangalore and 1 from Pune. We four finalised on renting bike for our next motor biking expedition to Diskit via Khardungla and Nubra valley
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