Deccan Odyssey – Maharashtra Splendor

We booked a trip to Ladakh based on positive reviews on tripadvisor. It was a personal 7 nights 8 days trip. They asked us our preferences and came up with an itinerary and price with 3 or 4 star hotel options. The trip included leh, pangong tso, shyok,nubra valley, turtuk, alchi and travelling through high altitude snowy passes khardungla and changla and kargil (we added kargil). We went late june early july. It was beautiful and flowers were starting to come up, and also snowmelts. A bit scary in shyok as the road in places disappeared and we drove over stones and through water for a few kilometres. We saw marmot, wild donkey and free horses, yak and several birds. The mountains are majestic. The altitude does make you a bit breathless, none of us had any health condition and we felt it. Our local contact in leg provided by traeminent tours advised us on altitude sickness and he emphasised several times on contacting him if we ever felt unfortable beyond the usual symptoms, how much and when to sleep. We followed his instructions carefully. We also took diomax for tge altitude breathlessness the first night which helped but it makes you thirsty and gives you a headache so we stopped taking it after. For our stay in Pangong tso our Leh person Gurmeet told us to take an oxygen cylinder reason being its higher altitude and there are no hospitals. An oxygen cylinder has 3 hours worth of oxygen should you need to drive to a hospital. We considered the Rs 2,500 an insurance and we did feel more breathless at pangong. While we could have managed without oxygen the oxygen did help ease the tightness in our chest (maybe coming from hot humid sea level singapore we took probably longer to adapt). We chose the 3 star option and did not regret it. Most cases the rooms were spacious and had great views. At pangong tso we asked to upgrade to a room with a view for an additional Rs 6.6k per person we were 3, sharing a room so we paid Rs 19.8k we felt was steep but were told taxes are high and dinner was included. Our Rs 51k per person for the trip included an excellent calm careful and informative driver Jimme and a sturdy spacious vehicle, breakfast and in two places dinner. Jimme's playlist is also great so after our trip we asked him for it. We saw beautiful monastries at Alchi, Lamayuru, Diskit, moonland the impressive Indus, Shyok and Suru rivers which we drove along. Jagmohan our tour coordinator was helpful and accommodating of our requests to add Kargil. Over all an excellent trip and we were glad we chose Traeminent. 

July, 2026