Starting a travelogue on Ladakh or La Dags – the land of many passes – is not easy. Where do you begin? With the fat brown marmot with teeth like Eddie Murphy that you startle basking in the sunshine in the middle of a mud track? With the herd of handsome golden wild asses – kiangs – that stare with beautiful eyes and then bound past – disinterested – noses lifted loftily to the sky? Or, with the craggy faced Yak-dragging Brokpa tribal you meet in the middle of endless white sand – his face cratered with patterns so interesting that they appear to have been carved – just like the landscape – by the screaming wind over millions of years.
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I guess I’d like to begin with the Ladakhi lad driving a taxi crammed with grinning locals, who brazenly scraped past our car at one of the passes, nearly throwing us into a bottomless crevasse with a toothy “Juley”. The only reason he missed being pulled out through the car window for some well-deserved spanking was because he was cheerfully around the next bend by the time we had recovered from shock.
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Little glitches apart, Ladakh is a world far removed from the regular – where cell phones keep humans on leash, success is measured in bank balances (and not happiness) and people play silly mind games with each other. If you really want to experience life without this excess baggage, pack some basic comfortable clothes and get on the road track to one of the most fascinating deserts in the world.
Little glitches apart, Ladakh is a world far removed from the regular – where cell phones keep humans on leash, success is measured in bank balances (and not happiness) and people play silly mind games with each other. If you really want to experience life without this excess baggage, pack some basic comfortable clothes and get on the road track to one of the most fascinating deserts in the world.
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The pic above is of Pangong Tso with the floating clouds casting their shadows on the barren hills. And below are the gulls in Pangong.
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You have the option of driving up via Kashmir, like we did. There is the risk that you may have to dodge angry stones, bullets and demonstrations – routine in the Valley. Other than that, it is heaven. You drive past tall poplars, transparent lakes and rice fields so startling green that they look like scattered pieces of an unstrung jade necklace. The survival trick is to have a local contact who will tell you if trouble is expected and then start so early that you are at your next destination before local people wake up and start gathering to stage protests.
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The other sight we quickly get used to are the army trucks carrying AK 47 yielding young soldiers with expressionless faces – these are the boys who have left their homes and families behind and are paying the biggest price for ensuring peace in a land where every other person seems to be plotting trouble.
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Across Sonamarg with its golden trout laden waters, the route has us splashing across icy mountain streams. The SUV hugs the edges of deep crevasses; we meet the Ladakhi taxi driver I could have happily murdered and reach Zozila, an awesome pass that is the gateway to Ladakh. We gasp at roads cut out of snow that stands as high as 20 feet on both sides of the track bringing on nauseating bouts of claustrophobia and we keep tabs on the river flowing faithfully beside, disappearing and appearing from holes it has cut in the slow sliding glaciers. Mostly, it is dishwater brown from the soil that the glaciers are bringing along as they slide down mountainsides. At Drass, the highest inhabited place in the world, we tilt our necks to look at the peaks that the Indian Army lost so many brave soldiers defending and at Kargil we marvel at the sleepy hill town where apricot orchards grow, the bloody war with Pakistan forgotten.
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The next day, starting for Lamayuru, we cross an amazing lunar landscape – dry dunes and craters carved in the sand. The Hungroo loops – the road that tortuously twists and turns down the side of a mountain like a giant snake – make our head spin and finally, after a rajma-chawal lunch at a roadside shack we are on the tarred road to Leh in the middle of a flat unending plateau where the car is flying at 100 kms an hour with the wind howling its disapproval in our ears.
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Finally Pangong
The other sight we quickly get used to are the army trucks carrying AK 47 yielding young soldiers with expressionless faces – these are the boys who have left their homes and families behind and are paying the biggest price for ensuring peace in a land where every other person seems to be plotting trouble.
**
Across Sonamarg with its golden trout laden waters, the route has us splashing across icy mountain streams. The SUV hugs the edges of deep crevasses; we meet the Ladakhi taxi driver I could have happily murdered and reach Zozila, an awesome pass that is the gateway to Ladakh. We gasp at roads cut out of snow that stands as high as 20 feet on both sides of the track bringing on nauseating bouts of claustrophobia and we keep tabs on the river flowing faithfully beside, disappearing and appearing from holes it has cut in the slow sliding glaciers. Mostly, it is dishwater brown from the soil that the glaciers are bringing along as they slide down mountainsides. At Drass, the highest inhabited place in the world, we tilt our necks to look at the peaks that the Indian Army lost so many brave soldiers defending and at Kargil we marvel at the sleepy hill town where apricot orchards grow, the bloody war with Pakistan forgotten.
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The next day, starting for Lamayuru, we cross an amazing lunar landscape – dry dunes and craters carved in the sand. The Hungroo loops – the road that tortuously twists and turns down the side of a mountain like a giant snake – make our head spin and finally, after a rajma-chawal lunch at a roadside shack we are on the tarred road to Leh in the middle of a flat unending plateau where the car is flying at 100 kms an hour with the wind howling its disapproval in our ears.
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Finally Pangong
Crossing the frozen Chang La at 17,700 feet, stopping to gape at Napo or the blue sheep that are nonchalantly grazing just a few meters away from the road and halting at a place called ‘hell’ because the wind speed touches 70 miles an hour we finally touch Pangong Tso. It is easily one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life. If you reach early morning, when the wind has not picked up, the water is still like a massive mirror, reflecting the gorgeous shades of the sky. It looks like someone has emptied bottles of ink in the still waters. Towards afternoon the breeze picks up, the colours start mixing and waves lap the shores gently making the swimming ducks and geese rock on their bottoms.
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There will always be some tourists at Pangong. Tents are picked at a location close by and it must be amazing to wake up in the morning and see gulls diving into this stretch of breathtaking beauty in the middle of nowhere, from the warmth of your sleeping bag. However, if you prefer to enjoy the lake by yourself get an inner line permit and continue to drive on, as we did, following the lake all the way to where it finally meanders into China. It’s tough on the joints as there is almost no road in many places and you can hear your bones creak as the car bounds over loose rock, but the sights make up for it.
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La Dags is not for everybody. But dare to do a road journey and you come back with your head full of indelible memories that promise to haunt you for life. Of cumulus clouds wafting across the startling blue sky, their shadows moving over the grey hills. Of cocky geese waddling around with a train of obedient offspring following in military precision. Of maroon robed Lamas with gentle faces and prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Of roadside bushes of pink Sia blossoms after which Siachen – the glacier – is named. And of Mohammad Rafi singing “Mai zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya” from the car stereo with the brilliant blue Pangong Tso stretching as far as the eyes can see. Now that’s a memory I would be happy to die revisiting.
There will always be some tourists at Pangong. Tents are picked at a location close by and it must be amazing to wake up in the morning and see gulls diving into this stretch of breathtaking beauty in the middle of nowhere, from the warmth of your sleeping bag. However, if you prefer to enjoy the lake by yourself get an inner line permit and continue to drive on, as we did, following the lake all the way to where it finally meanders into China. It’s tough on the joints as there is almost no road in many places and you can hear your bones creak as the car bounds over loose rock, but the sights make up for it.
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La Dags is not for everybody. But dare to do a road journey and you come back with your head full of indelible memories that promise to haunt you for life. Of cumulus clouds wafting across the startling blue sky, their shadows moving over the grey hills. Of cocky geese waddling around with a train of obedient offspring following in military precision. Of maroon robed Lamas with gentle faces and prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Of roadside bushes of pink Sia blossoms after which Siachen – the glacier – is named. And of Mohammad Rafi singing “Mai zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya” from the car stereo with the brilliant blue Pangong Tso stretching as far as the eyes can see. Now that’s a memory I would be happy to die revisiting.
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Rachna Bisht-Rawat is a journalist and writer but mostly she is mom to an 11 year old and gypsy wife to an Army officer whose work takes the Rawats across the length and width of India. She blogs at http://www.rachnabisht.com/