A Lake
The thought started with a potential journey to a Lake. However, the trouble is that is Lake is at 13,862 ft, in the trans-himalayas, and requires crossing a pass that is 17,688 ft; and I was at New Delhi, with a weekend to spare! The Lake is Pangong Tso in Ladakh, India. It is not particularly hard to get to, but the elevation and the short duration that my friend Peter and I had posed the challenge. It is just logistics and things needed to work perfectly for the trip to work as planned. The main problems are weather related delays and altitude effect. None of that was in our control, but I am glad we took the chance.
I wrote about the Leh trip on a previous post. That same trip continued further and longer over the fabled Chang La to the Pangong Tso, at 4 hours drive on a good day, but can be 6-8 hours or never on a bad day!
We rented a 4WD with a driver for the trip. It is inexpensive in western stadards and I didn't particularly want to drive over high mountain passes while feeling altitude sickness, which I knew I was going to suffer from, as 2-3 days was not enough time to acclimatize. Anyways, the journey took us south of Leh along the mighty Indus River with the incredible views of the river and multiple monastries alongside and virtually on it.
This is a picture of the Stakna Gompa (monastry), which from a distance seems like on the Indus River itself, in reality it is on a rocky outcrop just at the bank of the river. The word Stakna refers to Tiger's nose. The Monastery is on a rocky outcrop which is shaped like a tiger's nose and hence the name. This picture is take from the side of the main road and not from any special view point.
Then there is Chemri Gompha (monastry), completely unreal in looks on the east bank of the river. If someone says Sangri-la, this is the picture I typically think about it! Potentially I can spend days in places like this and write about it, but onwards we go!
The road quickly left the Indus River valley and started climbing towards Chang La!
Higher and higher we went...thiner and thiner the air got...
Then we were way above the tree line and the headache and tiredness came rushing in, while just siting down in the car and not doing anything....
And then, its Chang La...
Well, I didn't climb on it, trust me, I didn't have any energy!
It is then downhill on the other side towards Pangong. The road network here is maining my a sub-unit of Indian Army, called Border Road Organization (BRO). Generally there is a lot of army presence in this area. Historically China and India had multiple border conflicts and tensions between to two Asian Super Powers remain high. There are often traffic hold up in this area due to military convoys.
The far side of the pass is absolutely desolate and spectacular at the same time. The only population other than seasonal tourists and military are few nomads and small shepard settlements.
Vistas are nearly endless until you get the first glimpse of the Pangong Lake.
We stayed near Mann village, which is a bit away from the busy tourist area. I loved the fact that we visited the shoulder season in late September and there weren't many around. I have heard from others that this place can get really crowded. I hardly saw anyone, and mostly had the lake to ourselves, which is an incredible feeling.
We spent the night in these makeshift little huts of steel and plywood! Its nothing much, but we didn't have to pitch a tent and got ready made food. At that altutude, that is enough.
Right outside Peter can look into China as long as he wants!
Thanks for reading!
