Today, we would visit a place, without a visit to which, any trip to Ladakh is incomplete. Today, our group would also start declining in numbers, leaving only Mohsin and me by the time the next chapter made an appearance. The decline of numbers also brings in a motley crew of characters into our story, as promised long ago. But first, today, pandemonium would break loose before we left on our scenic sojourn.The trouble with the morning we left for Pangong, was that there were too many things happening- too many moving parts in our machine. The Pangong Tso is a saltwater lake at an altitude of 14,400 feet, about 135 kilometres away from Leh. The road's pretty bad, and tends to get flooded because of melting snow as the day progresses. Needless to say, one needs to leave fairly early. First, there was the part where we woke up a little late. Shao was still not a hundred percent fit, but her enthusiasm made up for what her body couldn't. Ruchira also needed to be dropped at the airport, so there was that time constraint as well. In the middle of all of this, one man called Siddharth Krishnamoorthy refused to be photographed beside a beautiful, azure lake with a four-day stubble and made a hurried attempt to remove any trace of beard or moustache from his face. In the process however, I (I shall now stop referring to myself in third person) somehow managed to slice my upper lip. Not cut, slice. Of course my lip gave my brain the customary half a second to send an "uh-oh" message to the rest of my body before it began to spout blood. The end result of the time wasted because of the sudden injury, was the Mohsin went off in another cab to drop Ruchira at the airport, and the four of us met Jigme about 40 minutes after the designated time, and then drove to the airport in the opposite direction to pick up Mohsin. It was about 8 am by the time we finally set off in the direction of Leh. There was Jigme, the five of us (with me with a tissue over my lip that remained as it is for about an hour), and the first of our interesting co-travellers- Gill. Gill, a dentist from "Ludhiana, Punjab", as he put it. Here's an interesting fact about Leh. Travelling by cars is very expensive. To minimize costs, one can approach one of the many small tour organizers, who put out a board asking for people to join your trip and divide the cost. Not only does this reduces costs, but also leads to meeting many interesting people. Gill's story was one of betrayal. He had apparently been abandoned by his friends in Srinagar, and had proceeded to Leh on his own. He now occupied the front passenger seat, and spoke little during our ride.
We first crossed Shey and Thikse as we exited Leh, where I gave Shao a quick introduction to the place (because she'd missed out on the local sightseeing). We soon went past our first check point at Karu, and began the slow climb to the world's third highest motorable pass- Chang La, at an altitude of 17,382 feet. The usual dozing-off disease struck one passenger after another, and most of the inhabitants of Jigme's white Qualis were sleeping when we reached Zingral- the army's check post about 20 kilometres before Chang La. The road from Zingral is narrow and steep. As we slowly chugged our way up to the pass, we were bounded on one side by the mountain, but to our left were the beautiful, stark colours of Ladakh- starting with green near the valley floor, then brown (as the dearth of water withered away any chances of finding greenery) until the snow began to appear and everything turned white, and finally the clear blue sky. We soon found ourselves in touching distance of Chang La, and two changes from the last time I went, were immediately apparent. First, there were telltale signs of the violent weather that had preceded us, because there was a lot more snow this time as compared to the last time I had crossed the pass. The second and more disturbing change was that there were at least fifteen cars parked at Chang La. Last time it was just our car and this other couple. There was this Bollywood movie called "Three Idiots" which released late last year, and used Pangong as a location for their last scene. This, combined with the increasing popularity of Ladakh as a tourist destination has made sure that there has been a massive increase in the influx of tourists going to Pangong. The realization of this fact had me alarmed, and a little angry to be very honest. There wasn't much time for that, though, because the lack of oxygen was catching up fast with some in the group. Shao had to go the army's medical tent and get medicines for altitude sickness. Manav also decided to partake, since he was also beginning to feel breathless. We took a few pictures, had the casualties take their medicines, and were on our way back down the mountain. The medicines knocked out both Manav and Shao as we drove through some very scenic stretches on our way to Pangong. Just before the lake finally began to peek at us from the base of the mountain, we also came across a small patch of land that had small dunes of grey sand- another one of Ladakh's quirks.
(Above: Clockwise from top-left: The colours of Ladakh, on the way to Chang-La, at Chang La, Pangong sneaks a peek through the mountains)
Pangong, like I said is a lake at 14,400 feet above sea level. Like all other lakes in the area, this one too seems to be a snow-fed remanent of a primordial ocean. Th reason I say this is that all of the lakes in the Ladakh area are saltwater lakes. Arrival at Pangong was bittersweet- of course the lake was beautiful, with its pristine, blue waters that would often change to blue-green as the sun played hide and seek with patchy clouds; but there was also this giant horde of tourists that had populated the place at the same time. Along with the increase in tourists influx, there was the customary feeding the few seagulls that populated the place (a really bad practice), some chips packets lying along the shores of the lake, and also children toppling over piles of stones that locals sometimes erect as memorials to the deceased. All of this made me really irate. The last time I was here, we had gone about seven kilometers further down the lake to a place called Spangmik, which requires an additional permit. At that time there were just seven people around the lake. This time there were more than twenty families.
(Above: The Pangong Tso)
(Above: Left to right: Seagulls at Pangong, a typical Buddhist memorial pile)
We clicked our pictures, sat by the lake and philosophised for a bit, before heading for lunch at the army-run restaurant. Lunch seemed to have put some words into Gill's mouth, as he discussed his preference for Ladakhis over Kashmiris; because he believed that Kashmiris "chhoti baat karte hain" (are narrow-minded). While this caused some irritation to Mohsin, Manav and I were smirking to ourselves, because of Gill, and also about a running gag that Manav was involved in, along the same lines. The drive back from Pangong was fairly uneventful. Most roads had been flooded by the melting ice in the afternoon, which made the going a little slow. But this also meant that we were able to spot a local resident- the Himalayan Marmot, an oversized rodent that populates this part of the world. Manav and Shao needed another dose of anti-AMS medicine, which meant that they slept most of the way back home.
(Above: Left to right: Chang La on the way back, Icicles hanging along the road)
The ride back seemed a lot faster, and we were back in our hotel rooms by about six in the evening. Shao wasn't feeling well, so the rest of us went out for a nice dinner at the "World Garden Cafe" where we ended up having most of our meals from that point on. I returned to the hotel to find Shao feeling rather ill, and since all of us had travelled almost three hundred kilometers, we too were very tired; and decided to call it a day without further delay.
*(To be continued)
We first crossed Shey and Thikse as we exited Leh, where I gave Shao a quick introduction to the place (because she'd missed out on the local sightseeing). We soon went past our first check point at Karu, and began the slow climb to the world's third highest motorable pass- Chang La, at an altitude of 17,382 feet. The usual dozing-off disease struck one passenger after another, and most of the inhabitants of Jigme's white Qualis were sleeping when we reached Zingral- the army's check post about 20 kilometres before Chang La. The road from Zingral is narrow and steep. As we slowly chugged our way up to the pass, we were bounded on one side by the mountain, but to our left were the beautiful, stark colours of Ladakh- starting with green near the valley floor, then brown (as the dearth of water withered away any chances of finding greenery) until the snow began to appear and everything turned white, and finally the clear blue sky. We soon found ourselves in touching distance of Chang La, and two changes from the last time I went, were immediately apparent. First, there were telltale signs of the violent weather that had preceded us, because there was a lot more snow this time as compared to the last time I had crossed the pass. The second and more disturbing change was that there were at least fifteen cars parked at Chang La. Last time it was just our car and this other couple. There was this Bollywood movie called "Three Idiots" which released late last year, and used Pangong as a location for their last scene. This, combined with the increasing popularity of Ladakh as a tourist destination has made sure that there has been a massive increase in the influx of tourists going to Pangong. The realization of this fact had me alarmed, and a little angry to be very honest. There wasn't much time for that, though, because the lack of oxygen was catching up fast with some in the group. Shao had to go the army's medical tent and get medicines for altitude sickness. Manav also decided to partake, since he was also beginning to feel breathless. We took a few pictures, had the casualties take their medicines, and were on our way back down the mountain. The medicines knocked out both Manav and Shao as we drove through some very scenic stretches on our way to Pangong. Just before the lake finally began to peek at us from the base of the mountain, we also came across a small patch of land that had small dunes of grey sand- another one of Ladakh's quirks.
(Above: Clockwise from top-left: The colours of Ladakh, on the way to Chang-La, at Chang La, Pangong sneaks a peek through the mountains)
Pangong, like I said is a lake at 14,400 feet above sea level. Like all other lakes in the area, this one too seems to be a snow-fed remanent of a primordial ocean. Th reason I say this is that all of the lakes in the Ladakh area are saltwater lakes. Arrival at Pangong was bittersweet- of course the lake was beautiful, with its pristine, blue waters that would often change to blue-green as the sun played hide and seek with patchy clouds; but there was also this giant horde of tourists that had populated the place at the same time. Along with the increase in tourists influx, there was the customary feeding the few seagulls that populated the place (a really bad practice), some chips packets lying along the shores of the lake, and also children toppling over piles of stones that locals sometimes erect as memorials to the deceased. All of this made me really irate. The last time I was here, we had gone about seven kilometers further down the lake to a place called Spangmik, which requires an additional permit. At that time there were just seven people around the lake. This time there were more than twenty families.
(Above: The Pangong Tso)
(Above: Left to right: Seagulls at Pangong, a typical Buddhist memorial pile)
We clicked our pictures, sat by the lake and philosophised for a bit, before heading for lunch at the army-run restaurant. Lunch seemed to have put some words into Gill's mouth, as he discussed his preference for Ladakhis over Kashmiris; because he believed that Kashmiris "chhoti baat karte hain" (are narrow-minded). While this caused some irritation to Mohsin, Manav and I were smirking to ourselves, because of Gill, and also about a running gag that Manav was involved in, along the same lines. The drive back from Pangong was fairly uneventful. Most roads had been flooded by the melting ice in the afternoon, which made the going a little slow. But this also meant that we were able to spot a local resident- the Himalayan Marmot, an oversized rodent that populates this part of the world. Manav and Shao needed another dose of anti-AMS medicine, which meant that they slept most of the way back home.
(Above: Left to right: Chang La on the way back, Icicles hanging along the road)
The ride back seemed a lot faster, and we were back in our hotel rooms by about six in the evening. Shao wasn't feeling well, so the rest of us went out for a nice dinner at the "World Garden Cafe" where we ended up having most of our meals from that point on. I returned to the hotel to find Shao feeling rather ill, and since all of us had travelled almost three hundred kilometers, we too were very tired; and decided to call it a day without further delay.
*(To be continued)
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