leh.html

A Road Less Travelled

Part 1

Last week I had gone to Ladakh, a place not normally associated with an Indian tourist. The reasons are not hard to guess, it is a land one associates with deserts, hardships and lack of beauty(read greenery)

So I had much apprehension initially about how enjoyable the visit was going to be. I would have rather gone for a trek from let us say chandratal to baralacha la. But since any place would be better than staying in delhi in the sultry heat I just decided to go anywhere.

Now there are two ways to go to ladakh(leh actually). You can undertake a road journey from manali or srinagar or you can fly there. I am an ardent admirer of road journey because other than it being cheap it allows you to look closely at the landscapes instead of being a distant admirer:) . So we took an overnight bus to manali and reached there around nine in the morning. Our plan was very simple: just get into any vehicle which was going in the general direction of Leh. An idea which looks very exciting as it adds to the thrills. But while we were having breakfast some enquiries revealed that a hired taxi would cost about the same as travelling by bus etc. However, as we had plans to travel leisurely and trek:), at whatever places we felt like trekking, we booked a taxi for 4 days to reach Leh. (It in general is a 2-day journey). This would cost us an additional 400 per head but we thought it was well worth it.

So we had our plans ready. We would halt at darcha, sarchu, pang and then reach leh on the fourth evening. This would allow us to explore all the four places in midway and also allow us to stop us at anyplace we felt like exploring.

Our first exposure to height(in this trip only, most people had been to higher altitude places) was at rohtang pass where there was a soaring wind and impregnable fog. Early in the journey, we were thrilled to look at a rare glacier somewhere distant. I, in particular, was hoping to see some of them from close, not having seen any ice for quite some time(many years actually) now (outside a fridge). So when the first glacier was spotted by khem, our stud driver, the enthusiasm was immense with everybody trying to catch a good view of the glacier and the people on the different sides of the jeep, a mahindra armada (It is a really sturdy vehicle:who says that Mahindra is a failing company:)), would claim the glacier as their:) glacier whenever a turn on the road would bring the glacier to their side.

Soon as the glaciers became more common the energy levels started to fall with a big one(abe yeh to massive hai types) raising the excitation level at regular intervals. So after some of these glacier battles (Hamare side wala glacier to mast hai, tumhare side wala ghatiya glacier kaun dekhega) and some maggi we reached darcha, our first halt. By the way, a tent is the only accomodation available at most (read all except upshi which anyway is so close to leh that there seems no sense to stay there) places enroute to Leh.

Now darcha was chosen as a halt as it had a confluence(not exactly) of two rivers, which meet and then separate here. I had always considered rivers as different from most humans, in the sense that when they meet they always stay together. But here, you have two rivers which come together for a moment, share a joke, and then part ways to continue their own separate journeys. I and Udupa climbed up a slippery and wet hillock to have a better view of the place from the top, took some snaps, feeling that acclimatisation is something only old people needed. (Till then this was an all-pervasive feeling in the group, after all everybody is so fit and we are all studs aren't we:)) Then we (I, Udu, makku and tanveer) explored the river bed which was uneventful as the meeting point we were looking for was right at our campsite (we realised it only after going some distance). Also enquiries revealed that there was nothing else to do there as all the trekking trips were pretty long so we had a bad dinner and slept early (later reports indicate that atleast two of us had a very distubed sleep that night, the significance of which will be realised by the reader later). The next morning I was the only one to wake up early. So I made some fruitless attempt to wake up the others and after realising it was useless decided to explore the area in daylight. After going up the river side for some time, I came to a place wherethere was a very narrow path overhanging the river through which I could pass. I decided to go back as the path was atleast 50 metres over the gushing river and a fall was a sure way to commit suicide. As I started back I saw a local coming from the opposite side effortlessly passing through the stretch. What a local could do, I could do better thought I. So I just gathered some courage and started on the path. After going some distance I came to a stretch which was wet, and as a result slippery, so I did a smart:) thing. I climbed up some distance and then crossed the area and started descending and then.. and then I did a stupid thing. I looked down to see how could I go down to the path and I looked down to the river and I looked at the gushing water and I looked at the treacherous (loose pebbles and all) steep(70 degress) descent and I had the worst fearstroke (if there is a term like that) in my life. I just sat down there trying to calm down and then retraced my path after I had sufficently calmed down. The Easy Climb-up thoery: With high probability, while trekking if u can climb up a slope, then you can come down the slope, but the converse does not hold. However, once down, the familiar fight between ego and pride surfaced and I thought if I go back now probably I would never be able to something similar again, which anyway is not a bad idea. So I figured out a way to sort of crawl through that slippery area and reach the other side.

My stupidity was however rewarded as after walking for some time I witnessed an amazing scenery. The sun had just risen and there was one hill over which there was a patch of light giving it an icy glow which gradually increased to cover the whole top and then spread to the next hillock and so on in a cascading fashion. I then started my back journey which was fairly uneventful unless you classify my walkng on all fours as exciting. By the time I was back some of the snoozers had decided to get up and in an hour or so we were off from the place to reach Deepak taal, a lake 16 km from darcha.

Initially tanveer had plans for trekking to deepak taal, which I accept, I had found interesting. However, better sense prevailed and we went there in our jeep. As we were drunk with confidence we embarked on a climb to track the source of the stream feeding Deepak Taal, a reasonably easy climb, if you ignore its elevation, around 3900 metres. But as we anyway are fit from gym, young and these acclimitisation are only for the old we climbed up for some time, were unable to find the source and came back(which by the way was slightly disconcerting because of the terrain). A simple climb and a mildy difficult descent, no sweat for us ,cool and in less than 2 hours. We can do tougher stuff:). Atri running and shouting "ye acclimatization kya hota hai". Everybody else echoing the same thought though in a few hours we had the answer to the acclimitisation question. The wet-paint acclimitization theory:You will believe that a bench has wet paint, only after touching it. Similarly, you will believe u need acclimitization, only after experiencing AMS (acute mountain sickness). (End of part I , will write later as I get time) After having spent some time at Deepak Taal we moved on and reached Baralacha La Pass. I guess people might have heard about this pass as the popular ChandraTaal trek ends here. It is not a really high pass (when compared with the others on this road) standing at a mere 4600+ metres above sea level. But its fame rests on its beautiful location as it is surrounded by massive glaciers and has a breath-taking view around it. The SurajTaal lake lies at its foot although it is not that impressive. With our eyes contented with all the snow we wanted to see, we moved on to a place called Bharatpur to satiate our growling stomachs.

We had the best meal of the trip till then at Bharatpur. A simple meal of daal. roti, chawal and omlette felt sumptuous after the tiring trip and everybody ate to their heart's content. As the distance from darcha to sarchu is about 75 kms only we just enjoyed the sun and view for sometime before setting off. In the meantime, we had a heated discussion about whether it makes sense to travel just 70 kilometers in a day and waste the day off or rather we head off to Leh as soon as possible. As it turned out later, the decision was already made for us. In an hour or so, we reached the most intriguing place I had ever seen. This was my first encounter with a desert mountain. I am at a loss of words to explain how it looked like so I just give examples. At one moment it looked like a fort, the next like a man frowning, and the very next as if somebody is peeping from the fort. (probably the photographs would do some justice to the locale) Before we reached Sarchu a few of us had found the journey as uneventful as it was just a long stretch of glaciers and we had travelled hardly 4 hours in the whole day. So we were trying to convince the others that we just move on to Pang which would take another 3 hours or so. However, as we reached Sarchu, Atri was the first to switch over to the other side bowled over by the beauty of Sarchu. Pandit and I had a long argument about the logic of just travelling 70 kilometres in a day but before we could reach any conclusion, the decision was made for us. Two of us had a severe headache starting and it became obvious that there was no way we could continue for the day. So we settled down at Sarchu (elevation 4100 metres) for the day. The beauty-demand theory: Greater the beauty, the greater is its demand.This thoeory is widely believed to be true for humans:) (I'm trying to be politically correct here), but we made an extenstion that the thoery is also applicable to places. In case of Sarchu, the demand was fitness as there is absolutely no moisture in the wind, which is also merciless in its intensity. So other than the air being rare, it compounded the difficulty in breathing by being absolutely dry and forceful. As the evening progressed it became clear to us that acclimitazation is something needed even for young men. Three people had vomitted and were feeling serious weakness alongwith the headache. Only makku and I were able to make a short trip to the river which was flowing around 500 metres away. I had also developed a mild headache and as I am not used to headache(I can count on my fingers the number of times I had headache in my whole life), it was very disconcerting. It had become clear to us by then that it does not make sense to stay at Pang for the next night which was sitauted at an elevation of 4700 metres but to progress straight to Leh (3500 metres). Most of us had a sleepless night which was attributed to the rarefied air by the locals.

So we left sarchu, a place which had initially bedazzled us by its beauty and then mercilessly tore our egos down, in the morning for Leh. The confidence level by then had so fallen that no one was willing to even get down from the jeep and take a walk. We crossed Nakila Pass (4730 metres) and LachLung La(5000+) to reach Pang by lunch time. On the way there was a place where there was a glacier below the road hardly 50 metres away. After some thinking, I and Makku,(more aptly Makku and I as he was the first to say yes) decided to go down. Going down was the easy part, as we just slided down.( By then the moh-maya of clean clothes had vanished and our only concern was conserving our strengths.) We reached the glacier but instead of enjoying it, I was preoccupied by the thought of how to go back up. So after spending a minute or two there, we started climbing up. I had considered myself to be an okish runner because of my stamina. I, in general, can run for a reasonably long time at a constant decent pace in the plains, but that is it. At above 4500 metres I had to take a break in climbing a mere 50 metres back. But it was a proof to myself that I was still alive and kicking (as they say). The easy climb-up theory is not applicable at high-altitude places, especially if the terrain has loose gravels. At Pang, some of us had some food, which might be even less than what people at Somalia eat. We had lost our appetite alongwith our confidence. Pang leads on to probably the highest plain in the world as after climbing for 5 kilometres (Yes, one has to climb up from 4700 metres) we reached to a flatland extending to TangLang La Pass, a stretch of approx 60 kilometres. So you can actually drive at 70Kmph on the top of the world for about an hour to reach TangLang La Pass, the second highest motorable pass in the world (5300 metres). This pass is a really beautiful one owing to its height and even after the sickness, we were able to appreciate the wide expansive view it offered from the top. You can even look at Tso-Moriri lake (a massive lake(15 Km by 8 km) more than 100 kilometres away at the Chineses border) although I could not as this fact was shared by Khem only with Atri. From Tang Lang La it is just smooth sailing to Leh as you need to just go down and very soon you reach a comfortable height of below 4000 metres. There are a few roads:) one may call short cuts, which some of the daredevil drivers use to go down quickly (sometimes probably very quickly). These shortcuts are at places more than 60 degrees steep and it is unimaginable how sombody can control an old bus on such a steep downslope. Thankfully, I did not need to find out as Khem took us through the long winding roads safely to Leh.

End of Part 2 Ok so after a not so short break I am back with the narration. So, we had arrived at Leh before the day was over. I guess everybody just wanted to book a room now, have a shower and then sleep for as long as possible. We stopped at the New Bus stand at leh and decided we would just check out a few of the nearby hotels and select the most appropriate. However, we were set to receive a surprise we hardly expected. Now, in Leh, majority (read 99.9%) of the tourists are foreigners and the hotel owners have got used to giving rooms to foreigners only and for a variety of reasons that I am not entirely convinced of, they prefer not to give their room to Indians, atleast Indian bachelors. So it took us more than two hours to actually find a decent hotel which would be kind enough to accomodate us Indians (on Indian soil). Our friendly hotelwalah gave us his version of the reason. It seems that non-Indians are very obedient when it comes to instructions as to what they are supposed to do (or rather not supposed to do). So it simplifies the life of the hotel-owners. By the way, for any Indians planning to undertake the trip I would refer Hotel Nirvana as a nice place to stay as it is good value for money (Rs 500 for a double bed) and more importantly has no qualms about taking Indians in. I hope our staying there has not changed the status quo.

The tourists in Leh come here primarily for two reasons : the infinite number of gumpas (monastries) and the treks that start from this place. Since, none of us was really religious minded , the gumpas held scant interest for us but nevertheless we sampled one called Spituk gumpa. The only reason in my humble opinion to visit gumpas is they generally are situated at a hillock and hence offer a good view. There is also a delapidated Leh Palace, which you can actually look at, albeit from outside, as it is closed for visitors. However, you can have a look at the Ladakhi culture near it as a daily cultural program is organised by Ladakhi Art Association (or some similar named group) at around 5:30 p.m. There is nothing spectacular about it in terms of quality and synchro but it is worth one visit and you also get the bonus of a free dance at probably the world�s highest dance platform.

You could (read must) also pay a visit to shanti stupa (a recent structure build by the Japanese) for the rigorous workout you do to climb up the stairs. We had gone there in the evening and the climb separated us into many groups. We were really exhausted by the time we reached at the top but there was a sense of let us say ego-satisfaction as we had beaten a local girl on our climb up. The stupa is a colorful one and is lighted up during the night. It also has a large verandah type of structure which offers a bird-eye view of Leh. While coming down, we could understand how these hill people are so honest and truthful with each other. The stairs which lead down from the stupa are uneven and more importantly there is absolutely no light there. To give a better picture the stairs continue for the height of probably a 10 storey building and are treacherous and are winding and are pitch dark at night. So it was a case of saathi haath badhana while getting down with the person at front doing a running commentary on the type and state of stairs approaching. So the only suggestion is take a torch whenever you go for a walk/climb in Leh.

As we were short of time as far as treks are concerned (treks are generally longer than a week) and since health was also a consideration (as far as going to high altitude places was concerned) it was concluded (by lack of quorum: as no one was willing to say that we should go for any of the jeep safaris i.e Tso-mori, Pangong, Nubra) initially that we should leave back, only the route to go back was contentious. So, after some deliberation it turned out that two bahadurs(Makku and tanveer) would go back through kashmir whereas the rest would find their own way back. As I am not a bahadur I just accompanied the bahadurs to the bus-stand and bought a ticket to Manali while they were pataoing the bus-driver for srinagar to take them along in the cabin.

However, when we (Atri and I) came to the hotel we came to know that Udu and Pandit are planning to go to Khardungla Pass and as a result they plan to get their flight tickets postponed. After some deliberation again, it was decided that Nubra Valley would be a better option and if we(Atri and I) could get near-confirmed flight tickets, we would also join them for Nubra valley. Tourists going to Nubra valley need to get a permit from the local DC�s office which usually takes a day. So after spending another day at Leh spent taking walks along the exteriors of the city we were off for Nubra valley.

Enroute to Nubra valley, I experinced my first snowfall at Khardungla Pass (5600 m) and also my first big glacier which was just along the roadside. After a couple of falls, it was realised that our shoes (not we, our egos were back by now) were incapable of climbing up the slippery glacier so it was better to stay there at the foot of the glacier. After leaving Khardungla we were treated to some of the most scenic beauty, I have ever seen, enroute to Khalsar (the place where Nubra valley starts). The differnet colors you get to see are simply mindblowing and instead of wasting words to describe them I would refer the reader to the snaps, when they come. (They are in the last reel and not processed yet).

The uniqueness of Nubra valley lies in the bewildering variety it showcases. Actually it is the route I am talking about right now where you get to see red hills, green hills, reddish-green hills and possibly all the other shades of red and green. For any blue-philic people, you can always look at the bright blue sky if the reds make you green. And, surprsingly things get more and more varied as you move on as you get beaches, rivers, forests, snpw-capped peaks, barren mountains and ..

...

...

...

sand-dunes, yes sand-dunes, the trademark ones you see in geography book (expression borrowed from Atri) in a single breathtaking view as you reach Hunder. An interesting incident happened at Hunder the last town to which our permit was valid along the Shyok river.

There is a bridge over a rivulet at Hunder which sort-of separates Hunder from the forbidden land and while exploring the town, actually a village, we crossed the rivulet at some other point. While coming back, instead of retracing the path we decided to take the bridge on the main road. As I reached the bridge (I was slightly ahead of the others), I could see some army-men at the other end of the bridge looking at us and as we approached closer there was a sly smile on his face, the kind which says Ab aayega mazaa.

For a second I though of turning back, as it was clear we were not expected here, but then better sense prevailed as it could have been taken as willing violation of the permit. So, we put on our stupid, innocent(which we actually were) but harmless garb and avoided the sitaution getting out of control. After the army men had their quota of timepass and threats of sending us to jail and having looked at our permits they allowed us to go. So after rolling in the sand dunes for some time we went to our hotel at Diskit. (Non-drinkers rolling down from a sand dune is probably the closest approximation to the drunken feeling.)Next morning we went to Panamik which has some hot springs (nothing great and can be skipped if you are short of time) and the same scenery minus the sand- dunes.

We reached Leh the next afternoon, prayed for good weather, which would mean our chances of getting the flight would improve and reached the airport the next moring. After a lot of drama, we eventually could board the flight. Now the situation with IA in Leh is something like these. These people book only 56 confirmed tickets in a Boeing 737 (capacity of 119) and waitlist the others. Later on the cargo is weighed and the pilot decides if he can take any more passengers. If after the new passengers board and are weighed, the pilot feels he can take any more passengers he says so. As a result, there is utter chaos at the airport. There is also the added suspense of flight getting delayed or even cancelled. (The flight on our previous day was cancelled) Morale of the story: Book a confirmed Jet Airways ticket.

However, our flight eventually left and we reached Delhi safe and sound so that I could give you this account.

Tips for people travelling to Leh: 1) Take a flight while going and come back by road. (One way road journey is a must)

2) Acclimatization is needed for all (young and old)

3) Carry an Identification document. (Driving License. Emp ID card)

4) Speak in English while checking hotels in Leh.

5) While travelling avoid unnecessary trekking.

6) Visit Nubra Valley

7) Apply for a permit on reaching there.

8) Fly Jet and get a conformed booking in advance.

9) Start a lot of jogging and running from tomorrow. You will need as much stamina as you can develop.

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