The next day we began our last leg of local sight seeing before hitting the road to Kargil and then on to Srinagar. Our first stop was the Hall of Fame, which is a museum of sorts erected in remembrance of the many soldiers that have lost their lives in the Ladakh Region. The museum has a beautiful monument erected to remember those who have fallen in the mountains of Ladakh and boasts of an impressive collection of artifacts relating to both the wars fought here as well as the local culture. After the Hall of Fame we went began our journey towards Likir Monastery. En route we passed Magnetic Hill and the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers. While most of us had enough of Monasteries, the sheer beauty of the Likir Monastery won us over. As usual, the multi-level monastery offered us some stunning artwork to see as well as fabulous 20 foot statue of the Buddha. But what really stood out was the view of the valley from the Monastery. It was breath-taking!!

View from Likir Monastery

After lunch we went onwards to our camp site at Uley-Topko where we would camp for the night. The accommodations here were also way beyond our modest expectations. Our tents were nestled among lavender blossoms with the majestic mountains in the backdrop and a river flowing in the gorge behind the tents.

After resting for a bit we decided to go and explore the area a bit. Along the way we found a sign to an ancient out of the way Monastery. To reach the monastery we needed to cross a bridge over the raging river. However the monastery was a good 6km away and we realised that we wouldnt be able to trek to the monastery and back before dark. So we just crossed the bridge and spent sometime exploring the gurgling mountain streams and rivulets near the bridge before heading back to camp.

After dinner, we started collecting firewood – it was campfire time!! Pretty soon we had a nice small little fire started. The warm fire, the cold night and the sky was studded with a million stars, it was beyond magical!!
After some time we were joined by a group of Belgians who were also staying at the Camp. We shared stories over the warm fire and after a long time we finally called it a night.