From failed Ketto campaign to Diskit School, Nubra Valley — How we survived on a very low budget
When the team from Stay On Skill (a free-stay platform of skilled travelers) asked me whether I’m interested in traveling to Leh Ladakh to teach students of Diskit village, in exchange of free stay and breakfast, I immediately said Yes! Without thinking any of my financial difficulties, since it has been one of my biggest dreams to teach village students. Tsering Chosdol, a native of Leh and my lovely host (whom we found through Stay On Skill) told me that students at Diskit village don’t have proper academic infrastructure and will benefit more from donation in the form of books and stationery. I then looked at my bank balance. I had two options, either to take the opportunity or to leave it because of my financial difficulties.
I chose the first after talking to my cousin brother and my co-traveller, Ajesh. First I booked two tickets from Kerala to Delhi without thinking. Most of my friends suggested to start a crowdfunding campaign in Ketto to raise some funds. I started it without knowing anything. I expected my friends to contribute. But everyone started giving a lot of excuses. But to my surprise unexpected people whom I didn’t even contact in the last few years read my facebook post and supported the cause. Daredevils from Tamil Nadu amused me with their support. Some of them formed a group among themselves and collected fund from their friends. “Life is full of surprises Sneha”, I thought to myself.
Still I struggled to raise full amount, but I stuck to my plan. Only place where we could spare some amount was our food cost. So we carried bread, biscuits and drinking water with us — on which we survived for nearly 7 days. We chose to travel during night so we don’t want to spend anything on accommodation and during day time we roamed around and visited various places working as tourists. Suggestions from Google helped us know the place more like a local. Thank you Google…
As we were traveling to Leh from Delhi, we realized that there were no proper roads. And I was suffering from very bad headache and cold — due to increasing altitude. Finally on the 8th day we reached Leh. Then we realised that we have to spend Rs.200/day/person for permit to stay in Diskit village. It was out of our budget and we were running out of food and water. So we thought to take fasting to save on our expenses.
With all these thoughts on my mind, when we reached our guesthouse, I met two guys from Delhi, Nitin & Ajay who were smiling at me at the reception. To my surprise they were also traveling to Diskit (on bikes) — which is 7 hrs drive from Leh, and asked whether we want to join. “Of course yes”, I yelled with excitement. We took the offer without any hesitation. And from there to Diskit and back to Leh they took care of our entire expenses — which included food and travel. Nithin who is a professional trainer helped me out to organise some games for students along with my classes. With everyone’s support we contributed library books and some stationary products to the students.
“When you want something, the entire universe conspires you to achieve it…” well said by Paulo Coelho. And I’m a living proof of it. I met God in different forms and names throughout my journey. Thank you all my friends, family and unknown people I met during this journey who supported and inspired me.
I created a video of my journey to Leh. Check it out here.
If you are an expert at a particular skill and want to get free stay with locals at a touristy location, check out Stay On Skill. This was my third such trip with them. Looking forward to many more…
