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Renuka Manghwani

Lustrous Ladakh: Delhi to Leh on a bike

A land like no other, bounded by two of the world’s mightiest mountain ranges, the Great Himalaya and theKarakoram. The district is bounded by Pakistan occupied Kashmir in the West, China in the North and Easternpart and Lahul Spiti of Himachal Pardesh in South East. An amazing world of cold barren desert mountains ofvarious colors, dif f erent temperaments, rivers.. streams… stones… sand…glaciers…lakes… yaks… prayerwheels…age old monasteries… stupas… momos…Buddhism… maggi noodles… basic living!This trans-himalayan district of Jammu & Kashmir has now become a f avorite of both adventure f reaks &culture enthusiasts and attracts travellers f rom all corners of the globe, trekking, cycling, biking, camping f ordays together. We actually saw many more f oreigners than Indians here. Our sojourn began f rom Delhiat midnight. It was a smooth ride to Manali via Chandigarh.. a f ew halts… a f ew picture sessions. We reachedManali the next evening, showered & were out in the Manali market in no time..Agenda : Shopping!!!! Af ter a nice evening in Manali, we lef t early morning on one of the most amazing routesthat one can travel.

Highlight of the entire journey…Manali – Leh Highway: The 485 km route opens only f or 4 months in the year,June to Sept. Every turn in this route of f ers f ascinating, breath taking views, amazing landscapes, clearskies… unbelievable sights! Seemed like we were driving thru a “Museum” of the mountain ranges, they were ofALL kinds! Lush green terrain in Manali.. brown, black, grey mountains towards Leh… the colors though dullwere unique and pleasing to the eyes, a f ew of them seemed like God had painstakingly painted each one ofthem in various colour combinations.. neat strokes of brown, grey, rust, black, dark brown, amber, maroon areal paradise f or any artist visit ing Ladakh…a f ew of them were covered with snow, melting to f orm smallstreams of water that added even more lif e to the barren giant mountains… some were covered with sand,conf using the human eye if it were in the mountains or the deserts…. some seemed so calm & serene, laythere like a quite innocent baby smiling away… while some stared at us with vengeance, roaring and angry, likesomething was troubling them… some were in very dif f erent, weird shapes, wild mountains… some weredusted with the shade of the clouds, making the colour combination even more interesting… they seemedalmost unnatural.. like someone had just painted these scenes and created a set around us… depicting thevarious ‘Moods’ of the mountains!

Pang o ng Tso Lake | Imag e Cre d its : Prave e n

Trust me.. NO pics,NO

description, NO words can do justice to what we experienced.. to the pure, unadulterated, natural beauty thatLadakh has to of f er. Adding more spice to the museum of mountains…. were the river streams…. desertvalleys… glaciers…. green strips… dried river beds… layers of stones… sheep grazing… amazing clouds… allsprinkled in between the “Giants” only to make the entire look even more scenic! This route is a MUST DO… atleast ONCE in a lif etime.

Enro ute Sarchu

Chang la Pass | Imag e Cre d its : Bhisham Pratap Pad ha

Our next stopover was atSarchu – which has onlytents as accommodation,adds to the adventure! Wereached Leh at night,wading through the serenevillage houses, gompas andTanglangla – the SECONDHighest Motorable Road inthe world. Next 4 days wereplanned in and around Leh-the capital of Ladakh. Wedidn’t rest therecommended one day toacclimatize as we’d drivenf or 3 days to reach Lehand we also had the ‘HolyDiamox’ (medicine f oralt itude sickness) whichwas taken as an OATH byall 7 of us, in case any ONEf aces alt itude sickness, therest have no choice but thereturn back to base! Though a couple of people did experience a bit of vomiting, head aches, nausea butnothing really much to write about.

The 160 km, 4 hour roughand dramatic drive f rom Lehto Pangong Lake is viaChangla – the worst THIRDHighest Motorable road inthe world. Pangong Tso issituated at a height of4,250 M, is 134 Km longand is shared between India& China. Two third of thelength of this lake lies inChina. In Winter, the lakesurf ace f reezes completelydespite being salt water.The deep… bright… richshades of blue and greencan give Nerolac, Berger orAsian paints a run f or theirmoney… errr… theircolour!!! It ’s a realMasterpiece… a true visualtreat!

Nub ra Valle y | Imag e Cre d its : Dmitry Rukhle nko

A 150 Km,5 hr drivevia theWorldsHIGHESTmotorableRoad –Khardongla(18380 f t)throughthe

spectacular ancient Silk route took us to Nubra Valley- f amous f or double humped camels, sand dunes, hotwater springs, the Desert Mountains in the TRUE sense. This route also leads us to Siachen and we did gettempted to drive along and a wave a quick ‘Hi’ there (yeah rite).. but we lesser mortals – the civilians- are notpermitted due to security reasons.. sigh!!! Travelling to Pangong & Nubra also required special permits withoutwhich you would be looked upon in suspicion and if lucky, only be packed back by the Army Jawans, whoincidentally had a nice time taking our driver WANCHUNG’s trip, asking him if it really was a name or somethingto eat!!

The next 3 days were slotted f or the return journey. Since the Manali-Leh Highway was : 50% No roads, 30%an apology f or a road & only 20% was something that can be called as a road, we drove back via Kashmir. Thehighlight on this route was passing via Kargil, where I HAD to click a “Patel Snap” – as in a ” We Were Here”kinda pic. The f reakiest part was when we were passing Kargil and we see a sign board pop up to our right thatstates ” Caution, you are under enemy Observation – Saawdhan, dushman aapko dekh raha hai”… suddenlythe otherwise noisy Innova goes silent and all eyes move to the huge mountains laying behind the sign board…just wonder how many km.. or maybe meters away is Pakistan Border .. or a Pakistani soldier!!!

Dras, the next town, is the second coldest place in the world, where the temperatures drop to -60C in thewinters… how brrrrr is that??!? Our next halt was at Srinagar! On asking directions to a hotel, we were greetedwith very ‘f riendly’ lines like ” jao, khuda ke hawale jao… bedarr hoke jao… allah bharose jao ” made us wonderif we should FREEZE right there or actually JAO!!! We stayed in a comf y hotel opposite Dal lake. Next halt wasat Patni Top, a peacef ul, serene hill station. As we moved out of the Ladakh sector towards Kashmir.. thelandscape began to change … f rom brown to green… f rom dry to lush…. f rom barren to rich trees.. Itsamazing how ONE state which is completely mountainous still of f ers such varied views. Next morningbreakf ast was hot parathas in Jammu. Finally out of J&K, we passed ‘Aavar (our) Punjab’.. Pathankot, Ludhiana,Jalandhar, Ambala.. bef ore we reached back to base, Delhi late night.

This 11 days trip had ALL the adventure that one can think of , were stuck in a landslide between Dras &Sonmarg f or 8 hours… had 2 punctures, so were stuck f or 6 hours on manali- leh route where we have NOnetwork, NO humans, NO f uel stations f or at least 100 km around us… so while a f riend gets a lif t to go f ixthe tyre, we have a semi picnic on the road, only t ill it gets dark, chilly, rains, thunders and we all get back in thecar t ill 11 PM, wondering if we gonna spend the rest of the night in there.. thankf ully our f riend was back withhelp. Once, on a turn of a wet road, our car skid and perf ormed a 360 degrees turn.. thankf ully nothinghappened! Not a scratched and except f or the mild shock we 7 were in.. all our parts were absolutely intact! Ofcourse we had 15 punctures in 8 days.. and that got the boys level on tyre puncture repairs to a completedif f erent level. While they did the needf ul.. we girls would walk of f f or some site seeing or a photo session(heck whose complaining?;)

Did I mention that the entire Kashmir route had a Army Jawan stationed with a gun at every 50 meters.. with hiseyes piercing through the Innova while we whisked past.. I think it f elt saf er, having this kind of security around.Enroute, over a chai (and of course a puncture) we got chatting to a couple of them. Also f aced some f loodingon the highway in Pathankot, due to which we had to take a 2 hour detour into the city. We had a trulymesmerizing, memorable and pleasurable one! Tiring and exhausting but exhilarating and rejuvenating!