Horse ride in Sonmarg

                         After exploring Srinagar, we continued on the Srinagar – Leh highway on the fourth day with our destination set as Kargil. The mountains in this part of the Himalayas takes green color in most of the parts, as it is covered with grasslands, bushes and coniferous trees. The river Sind flows in the valley below, which makes the entire nature around look like a beautiful painting. We stopped at the banks of the Sind River for a snacks-break in the afternoon, soaking in the captivating beauty of the valley.
Sind River
                         
                         We reached Sonmarg by 2 in the evening, a historically important place that was a gateway on the ancient Silk Road. This beautiful hill station with grassy-meadows in the hill slopes and pristine water streams flowing in the valley has no permanent population. The population is a few hundreds that too only in the tourism season that last around 5 months. On reaching the place, we were approached by people who operate horse-riding through these hills. Initially, we were a bit reluctant to opt for it, but later decided to give it a try. After negotiation we got a deal of 3 horses for Rs.1500, which was a pretty decent deal for a 2-hr horse ride.







                         This horse ride happened to be one of the best activities we went for on the entire trip. The ponies took us to the Suicide point, the valley famous for being the shooting location of many Bollywood movies. There is a point here which is named after the movie Bajrangi Bhaijan. The interesting part of the ride was that the man, who came with us controlling the horses, gave tips on how to change the direction of the horse, control its speed and so on. So, it felt like we were riding the horse completely on our own. He was so friendly, but we felt bad for him as he was walking (at times running to catch-up with the horses) behind us all the way to the hills for 2hrs, for earning his livelihood. These were moments that reminded us how privileged we are and how thankful we should be. After a hugely satisfying 2hrs of horse ride, that gave us view of the glaciers and the vivid valleys, we left the place and continued our ride towards Kargil.


                         We started climbing the treacherous Zoji La, a pass famous for its worst riding conditions. It was all dust, tiny rocks and small puddles of water in the 'road' (if it can be called so). The ride was quite adventurous and we were gently climbing to its top. 

                         That’s when something unexpected happened. My friend’s bike chain got broke while lubricating, on the midway of the Zoji La, by around 6 PM. We had to transport the bike to Kargil, in a truck that passed by, and I had to drive alone in the night all the way to Dras, and halt there for the day as it will be very dangerous to drive all the way to Kargil itself that night. That whole experience can be read here in detail…

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