2 Suru Valley

The Alpine Hut where I stayed one night in Parkachik.

Thats me..... near the GH fence

The Nun-Kun Massif seen from Parkachik in Suru Valley

on 17th May 2006 from Kargil (Ladakh) took the 11:30am bus going down into the Suru Valley. The bus was to go only till Parkachik via Sanku & Panihar. They said beyond Parkachik the road to Rangdum and Padum were still snowbound and even trekking to those places would be difficult. It was a bone shattereing ride on rough mountainous roads in a bus overflowing with local villagers.

Arrived at Parkatchik at 6:30pm, when it was already dark and then trekked up another 1 km to the J&K Tourism's comfortable Alpine Tourist Rest House sitting on a beautiful meadow. I got a spacious double bedroom and Ibrahim the chowkidar made me tea and later dinner for me. I was the only guest there that night. The bill for night stay, dinner, breakfast & a tip to Ibrahim all added upto to Rs 100 ... thats about $2 and 22 cents! Wow!!

Next day (18th May 2006) early morning the entire Valley was visible from the Rest House and the Kun peak (of the Nun-Kun pair at 7135m) was visible over the valley ridge, to the left. Since Ibrahim also advised against my trekking to Padum, as the trails were still snow covered, I decided to take the 7:00am Bus back to Kargil. The 40-seater bus carrying over 80 villagers and many school kids, swayed and lurched and somehow managed to reach Kargil by Noon.

Nun-Kun Massif ...only a small bit of Kum peak can be seen in the left most top corner of the picture ... see a zoomed view of that in below picture.