One White SUV, and Seven Days Through Ladakh: Nadim's Leh Trip with Thrillophilia

Thrillophilia Verified Booking
Rating: ★★★★★
PNR: BKDHDHAY0UH
Travellers: Nadim Shaikh, Soham Bhalekar, Vasim Shaikh and Abhijeet Nimase
Trip Duration: 7 Days | 6 Nights
Date of Travel: 07 April 2026 - 13 April 2026
Package Booked: Leh Ladakh Tour Package with Turtuk Visit

Ladakh is one of those trips that does not really do well on a quick weekend escape. The altitude alone wants two days from you before it lets you enjoy anything. The roads need a driver who actually knows them. The food, the cold, the basic hotel facilities at Pangong, the inner-line permits, the oxygen cylinders, none of it works without proper planning.

Nadim Shaikh, Soham Bhalekar, Vasim Shaikh and Abhijeet Nimase finally blocked their calendars in April 2026 for the much-awaited ‘boys’ trip. Seven days, four friends, one private SUV, and a route that took them from Leh up to Khardung La, into Nubra Valley, out to the Balti village of Turtuk near the Pakistan border, across to Pangong Tso, and back to Leh via the Rancho School.

When Nadim wrote his review afterwards, he wrote it the way young male friend groups usually write reviews. Short, warm, and to the point.

“Best trip fully supportive thrillophilia local staff very supportive kindfully helpfully.”

Three short lines that say more than they look like they should.

Leh Was the Acclimatisation City, and It Earned Its Place

They landed at Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport on the morning of the 7th of April. The Eeco was waiting at the airport. The transfer to the Leh hotel was sorted within thirty minutes.

The first thing about a Ladakh trip that nobody really prepares you for is the altitude. Leh sits at 11,500 feet. The air feels normal for about fifteen minutes after you step off the plane. Then your head starts feeling slightly off, your breathing gets a little shorter, and you realise this is going to be a different kind of holiday.

Day one was kept at leisure on purpose. No sightseeing, no driving anywhere far. Just settling into the hotel, drinking water by the litre, and letting the body catch up with the altitude. The four of them spent the afternoon wandering Leh Market, picking up Tibetan handicrafts, and stopping at the small cafes that line the lanes around the main bazaar.

The second day was the Sham Valley excursion. Magnetic Hill, the confluence of the Indus and the Zanskar rivers at Sangam Point, Gurudwara Pathar Sahib, Hall of Fame, and the Pathar Sahib monastery. A short day on the road, deliberately not too far from Leh, designed to ease the group into longer drives without pushing the altitude too hard on day two.

Khardung La and the Crossover to Nubra

Day three was the big crossover. Leh to Nubra Valley via Khardung La Pass.

Khardung La sits at 17,582 feet. The road up to it climbs steadily through hairpin bends, the temperature drops noticeably as you go higher, and the snow lines the road on either side even in April. The four of them stopped at the top for the obligatory photographs at the army-maintained signboard, then dropped down the other side into the cold desert of Nubra Valley.

Nubra is one of the strangest landscapes in India. Sand dunes at high altitude, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Double-humped Bactrian camels left over from the old Silk Route trade. A river running through what should be a desert. It does not photograph as well as it looks in person.

Day four took them further into Nubra, all the way out to Turtuk village. Walking through Turtuk feels different from anywhere else in Ladakh. The architecture changes, the language shifts, the apricot orchards line the irrigation channels, and you are within touching distance of the Line of Control.

One Thing That Was Different, and How It Got Handled

Anyone who has read a Ladakh trip review will know the part that usually catches first-timers off guard. The accommodation at Pangong Tso is basic. Electricity runs for only three hours at night. There are no heaters in the camps. Hot water comes in buckets in the morning. The toiletries are limited. The whole setup is, by design, more rustic than what most travellers expect from a holiday.

The four friends had been warned about all of this ahead of time. The package itself included the oxygen cylinders for the high-altitude leg, the toll charges, the parking, the Ladakh Union Fee, all the mandatory permits, and the driver expenses — the kind of pre-empted small frictions that build up if a planning team has not thought about them.

By the time the group reached Pangong on day five, they were not surprised by anything. The lake was frozen at the edges in April, the sunrise the next morning shifted through pink, orange and gold across the water, and the cold was the cold they had been told to expect.

The local staff at the camp made the difference on the ground. Nadim called this out specifically in his review. A camp with only three hours of electricity sounds harsh on paper. The people running it make it work.

Pangong Tso and the Rancho School Day

Pangong is the lake everyone has seen in photographs before they get there. The colour of the water at sunrise, the bare brown ridges on the far side, the silence that you only get at over 14,000 feet.

They spent the night at the camp. The morning at the lake was the photograph day. By mid-morning, they were back in the SUV heading west to Leh. The school is in the Druk Padma Karpo educational complex near Shey, and visiting it is one of those quirky stops that is very different from a usual Ladakh trip.

The final night was back in Leh. The morning of the 13th was the airport transfer. The trip closed without anything left to figure out.

The Thrillophilia Part of the Trip

A Ladakh trip with four friends in a private SUV does not happen by accident. The day-by-day pacing was the part that mattered most for a group of four men flying in straight from sea level.

The acclimatisation day in Leh was non-negotiable. The Sham Valley short-distance day after that was deliberately designed to ease the group into longer drives without overdoing the altitude exposure. The crossover to Nubra on day three was timed for early morning, so the Khardung La crossing was done before the afternoon weather could turn. The Turtuk excursion was kept as a single-day round trip to avoid an extra overnight in an even more remote stay. The Pangong night was put on day five, so the group had four days of altitude exposure before the night at over 14,000 feet.

That kind of sequencing is the part travellers do not see when they look at the itinerary on paper. It looks like seven days and six destinations. What it actually is is a carefully ordered set of altitude-aware decisions made by someone who has done this before.

Then the practical inclusions. Oxygen cylinders from day three onwards. A backup vehicle for the remote stretches. All mandatory permits handled by the driver, including the inner-line permits for Nubra and Pangong. Ladakh Union Fee, toll charges, parking, and driver expenses all built into the package, so the group never had to pull out cash for anything other than meals and entries.

The driver in the photograph, standing in the yellow jacket in the middle of the group, was the fifth member of the trip in practice. He carried the SUV across every road, every pass, every checkpoint, and every late-evening descent into Pangong, and the trust the four friends placed in him is what you see in the picture.