Exploring India has always been on my bucket list. In September, the opportunity presented itself to travel to India with some girlfriends. While in India, my solo female travel group used Delhi, India as a homebase and traveled to 3 other regions of India via plane flights while not at our homebase in Delhi. My 21 days wandering India were everything!

The first side trip for our solo female travel group in India after a few days at our homebase exploring Delhi, was a four day trip to the beautiful mountainous town of Leh. At 3,500m/11,560ft above sea level, this is an experience so different than most places I have been before, similar to what I imagine Nepal or Tibet would be like.

Our Driver/Transportation:

My friend connected me with a local from Leh. Her name is Tenzin and she has her own travel agency. Tenzin also owns a BnB in Northern India. She handles transportation as well as the travel permit required to cross borders in Leh. Tenzin arranged a car and a driver (cutie) for the whole trip. The total cost was 28,500 rupees.

Visa/Passport Control:

Because India shares a border with China, we needed to get a permit to cross into the undisputed territory. We handed our passports to the front desk, and it took about a day to get our permits for the area. We had our passports and visas with us when traveling around the Nubra valley, when they were checked, but kept them with us most of the time.

Altitude:

Out of every region we visited in India, this was the most physically taxing. Upon arrival, I saw signs of people doing hikes and mountaineering expeditions and I was upset that we had not booked any. A few hours in, I quickly discovered that I could not have managed.

To paint you a picture of how we felt at this altitude, we needed rest breaks after a single flight of stairs! We also experienced extreme heavy breathing at any walks uphill. I felt all my energy drain out of me. It was hard to do anything whatsoever. To give you a baseline for my fitness level, two weeks prior to this trip I had just finished walking 400km on the Camino de Santiago with a backpack and now I could hardly manage a staircase. I had never felt more out of shape in my life.

Due to the high elevation, we limited our eating to two meals a day because we were just not hungry. We also needed a nap every afternoon so you may want to account for that when planning a trip.

Day 1:

My solo female travel group flew in the morning from Delhi, India and arrived around lunch. After checking into Hotel Lingzi, we went to Wanderers for lunch, which had a cool vibe.

Our driver then took us to Leh Palace and Shanti Stupa, a dome stupa with Buddha relics. For dinner, we went to Bodhi Terrace. The tea was some of the best we had in India.

The hotel we stayed at was in a great location, right next to the Leh market, and had good amenities. There were a few times that the Wi-Fi was completely out and we had to ask the receptionists for a hotspot because none of us had a phone plan that had service in Leh.

Day 2:

Today my female solo travel group went to three different monasteries: Shey, Thiksuy, and Hemis. Most of which charged around 200-300 rupees per person.

Out of the three, my favorite was Thiksey. It had an open plaza with stairs, steep but not too long of a staircase. The temples are beautiful and it also allows for a rooftop climb, which at certain times of the day, monks would blow a horn across the valley.

Hemis has a big open plaza with some beautiful architecture. It has a museum to look at the history of the monastery which is interesting.

Shey monastery had a bit more stairs so it was difficult to see. Two of my friends waited near the bottom while one of my friends and I walked to the top. It was a challenge. We had to take a few breaks to get to the room with the oil lamps. Upon getting to the room, the smell was intense and it was extremely warm. We took a few pictures and left shortly after. While the monastery did have beautiful views, of the three that day, it was my least favorite. However, it is a stop between Thiksey and Hemis so it breaks up the drive.

On the way back to Leh, we stopped at the Sindhu Ghat Viewpoint. For dinner, we went to Bon Appetit, which had very good food and we had our first momo, a dumpling that is popular to the region. While our first wasn’t very traditional (it was a chocolate one), we did have more traditional momos later on in our trip.

Day 3 For My Female Solo India Travel Group

This is a day that probably could have been planned better on our part. We got up early and drove four hours to Nubra Valley.

On the way there, we drove to one of the highest drivable points in the world! While the highest point is in the south, at 5,640m/19,300ft, this point was pretty close at 5,480m/17,982ft. We had gone to this valley for camel riding but unfortunately, the timings of the camel riding stopped at 12pm and resumed at 3pm. And we arrived at 12:15pm (we did not know about the timings until we arrived).

We arrived a bit late because we stopped at Diskit monastery. This was a beautiful monastery but unfortunately, it had a lot of stairs. Because of this, we only made it up to the shop (seen on map). I am sure that if you had more energy you could see more of the monastery but unfortunately, we were channeling our inner old grandmother.

Because we could not ride the camels, we had lunch at Stone Henge Ladakh hotel, on the rooftop which had a beautiful view of the valley. We left after lunch and drove back to the hotel, and had our daily nap.

Every evening we spent in the markets of Leh, doing some shopping and wandering around.

Day 4: My Solo Female India Travel Group

We had a slow morning, getting breakfast at Bodhi Terrace (we went back, its quite good). The other days we either skipped breakfast or ate the hotel breakfast.

At 11am, we drove to River Zanskar to raft on the highest raft-able river. The elevation was a little over 3657m/12000ft. There were three rafting options and we opted for the 16km/2-hour raft option. This started with some pretty intense rapids where the other raft ahead of us almost flipped completely, but then by the last 8km, it was very chill to the point where we hung our feet over the edge and we were given the option to swim.

The location we chose charged 1800 rupees per person. They provided us with wetsuits, water shoes, and helmets. There were men in kayaks who followed us down the river and would help in case we had any major issues, and we had a safety lesson beforehand. We did not bring our swimsuits, dumb on our part, as we were soaking wet by the end of it.

The bathroom situation was pretty horrible so we went beforehand to a big rock near the bathrooms. While the photo included was not the exact bathroom situation, I am sure the sanitation was not far off. The only person I saw use said bathroom, put her mask on just to walk into the concrete block because of the smell. But yes, our rock that we picked out was much more pleasant. There is a café at the finishing point that served Kawa tea, a saffron tea, which was very sweet but tasty.

After rafting, my solo female India travel group went to an ATV place right near Magnetic Hill. This is a hill, that makes it look like your car is rolling uphill when it is in fact going downhill. Personally, I think it is overrated. The ATV site was a little too sand stormy for my preference so only one of my friends went. It was 1200 rupees for a roughly 2-minute ride around the track (you only get one lap). In my opinion, it was not worth it. (See photo of me at magnetic hill).

In the evening, I went to Asian Emporium and bought a carpet for my parents. I had been looking at it every day and they have good prices and it arrived at my parents’ house about a week after I placed the order. For dinner, we went to Ill Forno, a pizza place. We left the next morning to head back to Delhi.

Review of Leh, Ladakh India:

Overall, this was a beautiful trip.

Unfortunately, the altitude got to us a little too much and we may not have been able to enjoy our time here to the full extent.

I think you could probably skip the Nubra Valley unless you want to go to a high drivable point and then come back. Four hours one way is a long way to drive for a camel ride, and there are camels in other parts of India (like Rajasthan). The Nubra Valley is, however, a great place to extend your trip if you want to actually do some hiking.

You could also spend the night at Stone Henge Hotel in the Nubra Valley which is very gorgeous. The day visiting local monasteries was great, and the rafting was lots of fun.

Please read my 3 other India posts (links below) to learn about my my remaining 17 days traveling India…