Stok Kangri - the Travel to Leh

Thanks to the exorbitant flight costs from Delhi to Leh, Emily and I decided to reach Leh by road, with a stop-over at Manali. We took a bus from Delhi one evening, which promised to deposit us at Manali early the next morning. The journey was uneventful – we reminisced about the Chadar trek that Emily and I did together earlier this year, and tried our best to ignore the insufferable movie 'Ashiqui 2' which was playing on the TV in the bus. Finally the hero of the movie died and the movie got over; and we dozed off to sleep.

Manali

The next couple of days that I spent at Manali were the kind which one gets impatient with while they are occurring, but the memory of which is a source of comfort during the chaotic and busy day-to-day life. We did NOTHING at Manali – except eating and sleeping. We hopped from cafe to cafe, sat with our books on the banks of the Beas, and made fun of the typical tourists who throng Manali at that time of the year. The joblessness bored us at the time, but now, when I shuttle daily between home and office enduring the suffocating traffic, I fondly remember the fun I had walking up and down the hilly roads amidst the misty rain, looking at the tall Deodar trees.

The Beas

The Streets of Manali

This eat-sleep-and-eat-some-more routine was put to an end when we met Sandeep and the rest of Trek The Himalayas team (who would be guiding the trek) at Manali. We also met Abhijeet, another fellow-trekker, and all of us set out in a mini-bus on the long journey to Leh.

Heavenly Highway

There is no worthwhile travel show which has not featured the Manali-Leh highway at one point or the other. I was looking forward to this road trip almost as much as the trek to Stok itself. And the journey proved to be every bit as exciting as I expected, and then some.

We started off from Manali on an overcast afternoon, and made our way towards Rohtang. Dense clouds had descended on the road, and visibility was close to zero. I have no idea how the driver managed to keep the bus on the road, but I decided to leave those troubles to him, and settled down at a window seat for the roller-coaster path ahead. Rohtang pass was lost somewhere amidst these clouds, and we continued further till Khoksar. There was a tea-break here, and when I got out of the bus, I could feel the chill in the air. The road was along the Chandrabhaga River, and at Tandi, we saw the confluence of the Chandra and Bhaga rivers. Here, the road followed the Bhaga. Soon we were driving through the Lahaul Spiti valley. When we passed Keylong, it had started getting dark.

Khoksar

Zingzingbar

This highway is only two-lane wide at max, and is open in the summer months thanks to the BRO, which keeps constantly working at this road, cutting snow, clearing off landslides and repairing bridges. All along the road, we saw message boards put up by the BRO asking drivers to be alert and drive carefully. (Some of them were so amusing that the messages themselves could have distracted the driver: “Love thy neighbor; but not while driving”, “Driving after whisky can be risky”). The road was extremely bumpy in places. At one point, when it was pitch dark outside, the tires of the bus got stuck among the rocks and the bus would not go any further. The driver asked all the guys to get down and push the vehicle, while Emily and I kept sitting in the bus. As the bus climbed over the rocks, it tilted at a precarious angle, and the guys had to support it from the outside to keep it from toppling over. I was getting tired of this difficult drive, when we decided to stop for the night at Zingzingbar (4290 meters). Warm and cozy tented accommodation was available here for only Rs.100 per person. It was very cold at Zingzingbar. After a quick dinner of rajma-chawal, we borrowed extra blankets, and called it a night.

Suraj Taal

Baralach La

The next morning we proceeded towards Baralacha La (4890 m), after passing along Suraj Taal. A little further, the inevitable flat tire occurred. The sun had raised high in the sky by now, and we stood soaking in the sunlight while the tire was replaced. At Sarchu, there was one of the numerous army check posts that we saw on the way. Emily had to get her passport checked at each of these check posts. The road climbed from here over one hairpin bend after another. This series of hairpin bends is called the Gata Loops, and it is guaranteed that no organ in your body remains in its proper place once you have traversed these loops. To let them settle a bit, we stopped at Pang, and also decided to have lunch there.

At Pang - the Mother-Daughter who served us lunch

The bus with the flat tire

Bikers

As we were sitting down for lunch at one of the temporary tented restaurants on the way, we saw several groups of motorcyclists passing by. This highway attracts biking enthusiasts from all over the world. Though not easy to ride on, riding on a bike on this road is an experience one should not miss. Sitting inside a closed vehicle and driving down the road cannot be compared to being in direct contact with the atmosphere with the pure mountain air brushing against the biker’s faces. Seeing the bikers stopping at their will to rest or to spend some time just gazing at the rugged mountains and staring up at the wide sky made me envious of them. ‘I have to defer this dream till another time’, I thought.

Gata Loops

Morey Planes

Vire from Taglang La

Taglang La

The driver got the punctured tire repaired and we set off further. After Pang, the stretch of road becomes almost flat as it traverses the Morey plateau. In the summer time, these planes were covered with lush green grass framed by enormous mountains on the sides. I found this stretch of the road most stunning in the entire journey. And so the road continued until it started ascending again. This time the ascent brought us to Taglang La, the world’s second highest pass at 5238 meters. The deep brown mountains contrasted against the blue sky lent a nice backdrop to the colorful Buddhist prayer flags fluttering in the wind.

Descending from Taglang La, we drove alongside the Indus till the check point at Upshi. As we got closer to Leh, we got our first glimpse of the Stok Kangri, the mountain, to climb which, we had travelled so far and so long. The journey to Leh had been beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable, but equally tiring. When we reached Leh, I was thankful to set feet on the ground again. 

Leh