The Road to Leh..
The past two days, I’ve been on the most grueling road journey of my life. More importantly, I’ve been on THE most outstanding road journey of my life. Will dwell on both aspects in a bit, but first – for everyone reading this and for all those who are genuinely interested and curious to know what Leh Ladakh is all about – the ONLY way to do it is by road. Flying in directly to Leh is taking the sissy way out! Sorry if that sounds pompous….and then again I’ve earned it totally! :)
Anyway, the point is that if you want to want to experience the real Ladakh, experience for yourself what this truly resplendent corner of the earth has to offer, you have to be prepared to rough it out - more than a bit. And take the road.
In fact, the only pang of regret I have about the road journey if at all is that my mode of transport was a four wheel drive and not a two wheeler! Hire a bike, people!!
Getting back to the journey – every travel article on Leh Ladakh worth its salt will tell you that the 485 km stretch of road between Manali and Leh is the most spectacular road journey. The thing is - no matter how much you’ve read up or how much you’ve heard from others, nothing can prepare you for experiencing it up close.
Having said that, for obvious reasons I’m going to try and capture what I can. Here goes nothing:
The road to Leh, takes you through a myriad of landscapes to say the least - from lush and fertile as you leave Manali, to increasingly stark and eccentric as you go further away from the Himachal region. The diversity is endless.. AND seamless! You come across snow capped mountains, hanging glaciers ( some of them so close by that you can actually reach out!), wind eroded mountains, steep sandstone cliffs, valleys that plunge so deep that you cant even begin to see the bottom – you name it!(and then some). Simply put, it was like watching a show where Mother Nature is at her most assertive, completely commanding and unyielding best!
Apart from the landscape in general, the other thing that I really enjoyed was going through the high altitude passes. The road takes you through five high altitude mountain passes ranging from 13,000 ft to 17,470 ft.
--------
Mountain Pass: In a range of hills or especially of mountains, a pass is a lower point that allows easier access through the range. On the route through the range, it is locally the highest point on the route. Since many of the world’s mountain ranges have always presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have been important since recorded history and have played a key role in trade, war and migration.
Source: Wikipedia
---------------
You learn that this land is not called the ‘Land of High Mountain Passes’ for nothing - you go through Rohtang La @13,044 ft, then on to Baralacha La @16,042 ft, on to the lesser known Nake La @ 16,414 ft, then comes Lachung La @ 16,613 ft and finally, on to the mother of all passes on this stretch, Tanglang La @ 17,469 ft.
If you’ve come out of Tanglang La unscathed, then you are more or less set! The road to the pass is so steep at places that our vehicle was straining under the pressure and we had some tense moments - and of course, the less said about the nausea-inducing hair pin bends, the better. Fortunately for my co-passengers and me, all of us were lucky enough not to have any major setbacks – our driver/chauffeur on the other hand wasn’t as fortunate and he was a victim to high altitude sickness. That was not a pretty sight! (You don’t want to get this one, trust me. The only thing that seemed to really help is drinking water. Oh boy, did we drink a lot of water!!
Morey Plains is another highlight on the journey worth talking about – At almost 50kms; this is the longest stretch of plains in the journey. It’s a VAST tableland which seems to fall right off the horizon.
There is not a speck of civilization in sight and the only thing you can see are gigantic mountains flanking the single stretch of road - dwarfing everything around - the road, the vehicle, and the people IN the vehicle! The desolation of this stretch is so complete that you can’t help but instantly retrospect about how tiny a speck of matter you really are, when placed in the bigger picture. A person could get seriously lost here – in more ways than one!! Extremely surreal.
Frankly, I could go on and on - and I still wouldn’t be able to do justice to everything I’ve seen and experienced and been moved by. It’s a fairly pointless exercise. So I’m going to leave it at this for now and just hope that all the souls out there with even a tiny bit of adventure in them, will make this journey at some point or the other in their lives!!
The Route:
Manali – Rohtang Pass – Rangcha – Keylong – Darcha – ZingZing Bar – Baralacha La – Sarchu – Lachung La – Pang – Morey Plains – Tanglang La – Upshi – Gya Valley – Leh
Although only 485 kms – the roads are deplorable post Rohtang and non existent in most places. Whether a four wheeler or a two wheeler, it’s absolutely imperative the vehicle is in top condition. The word is that there’s an alternate route being mapped out to Leh from Rohtang, but not entirely sure by when and if that will be in place.. Who knows?
The popular break-journey point is Sarchu (about 222 km away fm Manali) which has some picturesque campsites. However, we went a little berserk on the first day of the drive. We kept stopping the car literally around every corner, taking pictures and generally jumping up and down with excitement. No surprise then, that we didn’t make it to Sarchu (Baralacha La has to be crossed before sundown). So we ended up stopping over at Keylong - which has a single resort (Hotel Chandrabaga, a very nice and comfy place)
Obviously we paid for this indulgence on the second day of the drive – we drove for a straight, 16 hours! On those roads!Suffice to say, no one was jumping up or down towards the end of the journey...
The sight of Leh was one helluva welcome sight, that much I can tell you.
|
