After my trip last year, a lot of people have been asking me time and again about the trip and for some tips on this route.

The Manali to Leh road route is considered by many to be the greatest and arguably the toughest motorcycling road in the world. Every year, dozens of bikers from all over the world ride over this road, which crosses over some of the highest mountain passes of the world. The road is open from the end of May to about October, give or take a few weeks. The exact timings are dictated by the amount of snowfall that the passes recieve each year. This road is maintained by the Indian Army and is of strategic importance and so the Army takes all pains to ensure that for the few summer months, the road is never closed for more than a day or two, even if the weather is particularly bad.

The Route: Manali – Rohtang Pass – Tandi – Keylong – Jispa – ZingZing Bar – Baralacha La (Pass) – Bharatpur – Sarchu – Ghata loops – Nakee La – LachLung La – Pang – More Plains – Tanglang La – Upshi – Karu – Leh

Planning

You can never plan enough to ride on this highway. There are just too many unknowns. Even if everything else is all hunky dory, the weather can play spoilsport anytime. The only way to ride on this route is to keep an open mind and be open to exploring new options.

The Manali-Leh highway is full of bad roads, water crossings, glaciers (if you’re lucky) and crosses over some of the world’s highest passes and such the journey is highly unpredictable. Be prepared for uncertainties like inclemental weather, tyre punctures and any other mechanical problems with your vehicle. Carry any spares you think your vehicle might need and prepare for the worst.

Plan to take atleast three days to complete the journey although some people do the entire stretch in two days, it doesn’t make sense to rush up. The real fun is in the journey and not the destination.

Manali

Manali is the biggest town that you’ll hit on this highway and as such this should be your base if you’re coming from Delhi or any other part of the country. It is a very popular hill station and you can get fuel, food, accessories for your bike, clothes and just about anything imaginable in Manali. Also, it’d be advisable to stop for a night at Manali to acclimatize to the altitude.

Top up the fuel tank of your vehicle the night before you have to leave as you’ll be able to make an early start from Manali the next day, leaving the hordes of summer tourists behind. Rohtan Jot (Rohtang La) pass is a big attraction and practically all tourists who come to Manali visit it and leaving late will invariably mean ending up in a big traffic Jam (probably the world’s highest traffic jam) going up towards Rohtang.

Once you’ve crossed Rohtang, the road winds its way down to Tandi, which is the last village with a petrol pump before Leh. You should tank up here and also carry atleast 5 litres of extra fuel with you.

About 7 kms from Tandi is Keylong which is the only major town on the Manali-Leh highway. There are proper hotels, including an HPTDC hotel at Keylong and the town is at a lower height than Manali. If you want to break your journey further, you can stop here for the night, although there is not much to see in this sleepy town so I’d advise to carry on and probably stop here on your way back, if you’re using the same road.

Day one

For the first day you can break your journey at either Jispa or Darcha. Jispa has atleast one luxury hotel. Darcha is a temporary tented accomodation run by some enterprising locals. Of the two, Darcha is definitely the more enticing with the Bhaga river for company.

Day 2

This is the most amazing day of the ride. And as such it’d be advisable to stop at Sarchu, just about 120 kms from Darcha, instead of hurrying down the road to Pang.

You will be crossing the Baralacha La pass at 16,500 ft to reach Sarchu. At the foot of the pass is a collection of tents/dhabas at a place called Bharatpur, which is another place you can think of for stopping, but it’d be advisable to cover some more distance since Sarchu is just another 40kms from Bharatpur.

Each turn and each hairpin bend will offer new vistas. Make sure you take enough time admiring the rugged terrain. This road is as much a test of the man as the machine, so don’t even try and push the bike. Ride slow and steady and take as many photo stops as you can.

Sarchu is another temporary collection of tents, slightly more luxurious than the ones at Darcha.

The campsite is situated on the side of the Sarchu plains and because of the location, high winds are the norm. Be prepared for the cold and doing your morning duties out in the open, unless you stay at one of the costlier camps, which usually have a Loo tent.

A lot of travellers cross Sarchu and head over to Pang to stay for the night but that is not recommended. Pang is at a much higher altitude than Sarchu and to reach there you have to cross two more high altitude passes, Nakee La and Lachlung La. Even if you haven’t had a single attach of AMS till now, staying at Pang is a sure way of inducing mountain sickness.

Day 3

Right after Sarchu, you’ll be riding over the Gatta (ghatta/ghata/Gatha) loops, a series of 21 hairpin bends that’ll take you 1500 ft higher to the first pass of the day, Lachung La. Cross over the Lachung La and Nakee La passes and reach Pang for an early lunch.

Pang is at the base of a huge plateue and as soon as you get out of Pang, a short climb of about a kilometer or two will get you to More plains. Almost 40 kms of plain and barren land at over 16000 ft. The more plains are a sight to behold.

Right after the more plains, the climb for Tanglang La begins. Tanglang La is the second highest motorable pass in the world at 17, 582 ft.

Tanglang La is the last pass on the Manali Leh highway and after this the road is relatively straight and well tarred all the way to Leh. Picturesque villages, beautiful gompas and the constant company of a stream or two are the memorable parts of the last few miles of this trip.

The Manali – Leh trip can be easily done in three days and infact, take more time if you have the luxury. The friendly nature of the locals, the rugged beauty of the terrain are just some of the memories to take back from this trip and make sure you have enough time on hand to really have fun.

AMS – Acute mountain sickness

Wikipedia explains it much better than I ever can. I just have one thing to add: AMS can be extremely dangerous and do not ignore it. The only way to overcome AMS is to acclimatize well. And for that the rule of thumb is to ride high and sleep low. That is why Sarchu is recommended over Pang as a stop for the night, even though the distance from Darcha to Pang is easily doable in a day. Drinks lots of water and eat food on time even if you’re not hungry. Also keep a stock of chocolates, glucose or other high energy food with you.

Stuff to carry

This depends on person to person, but apart from the usual, make sure you have all necessary spares for your vehicle with you. If you’re travelling in a group, it makes sense to carry just one foot/electrical pump, but atleast make sure you have one spare tube each as well as cables for the accelerator and clutch. For people travelling by cars/SUVs, apart from carrying fuel, carry lots of water and any other necessary spares with you.

Also, keep some vaseline and sun screen handy since at that altitude you will most likely need oodles of both.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil

We had barely gotten out of Pathankot and were getting petrol filled when it started drizzling. We took out our rain gear and kept moving on. Within a couple of minutes the drizzle turned into a heavy rain and when I saw, heavy, I mean downright downpour. It was almost as if the gods had started throwing buckets ful of water at us. The roads started getting flooded in no time and it was getting difficult to drive. I was actually more worried about the water getting in the engine since the water was almost till the exhaust. Our rain gear also was of no help in this downpour and we were all soaked. Fortunately, I had the camera and my phone stored in a polyethene bag seperately so that was safe. I would have loved to take a picture of the flooded streets but that was the last thing on my mind at the time.

We stopped at a roadside dhaba for a nice and filling breakfast of paranthas. The turn off for Chandigarh was a little ahead and we bade farewell to each other. I moved on towards Chandigarh and the rest to Delhi. The weather was lovely and I reached Chandigarh safe and sound for lunch and slept peacefuly for hours at home after eating a hearty meal :-)

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• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil
• Day 10: Leh Khardung La and Back

The gates open at around 7 in the morning and there was no point getting up before that, so we had a good sleep and got up at our own sweet time. Got out of the cantt, after collecting our cameras and mobile phones which had been deposited at the main gate, and started on towards the city to get petrol for our bikes. Bikes tanked up we started towards the Dal lake and stopped there to take a couple of quick shots.

Amar wanted to stay back for a couple of hours and visit a couple of local touristy places and so we all bade farewell and started on our journey out of the chaotic but charming city of Srinagar.

The traffic out of Srinagar was nothing that we had imagined it to be. There were cars, trucks, motorcycles and humans everywhere and on top of that, there was an Army convey which was in front of us. The Army convoy didn’t let us overtake them and in fact, one of the soldiers even pointed a gun at Pandey when he tried to overtake the convey. The look on Pandey’s face was quite hilarious after that incident :-)

The convoy took quite some time to get out of the Srinagar traffic even when all the traffic was virtually stopped for it to pass. Once we were out of Srinagar, the convoy let us overtake them and after that, it was just us and the open road in front of us, all the way till Pathankot. Well, not really, we had lots of smoke spewing trucks, taxis and buses for company and of course, so many armed soldiers deployed every 50 mtrs that it was almost spooky.  For breakfast/snacks, we stopped at one of the umpteen free food stalls put up for the amarnath yatra devotees.

The road was nicely paved all the way till Udhampur and we easily reached Patnitop in time for Lunch, but since the only dhaba open for lunch didn’t look inviting enough to some of us, we decided to move further and stop for lunch at Kud.

The whole time we were playing a game of cat and mouse with the Army convoy and trying to stay ahead of it, since getting behind the convoy would have meant losing a lot of time again, which we couldn’t afford. The convoy finally left us at Ramban and after that we did an almost non stop run till Udhampur where we reached around 4pm.

Instead of entering Udhampur city (which btw was where I completed my 12th standard) we took the bypass road which took us through some lovely countryside.

But, of course, we couldn’t have reached Pathankot without us mishap ! Apjoo’s bike had a puncture but fortunately, there was a mechanic’s shop closeby who unfortunately didn’t have all the tools with him. So, we had to take the tyre off the bike and take it to another puncture shop a little further down the road.

By the time the bike was fixed, it was quite late, but having taken this nice country road, we were actually stuck and our only option was to keep moving and try and reach pathankot any which way. We reached Pathankot around 10 at night and found the place where we were supposed to spend the night and slept away to glory. This had really been a long day, like almost every other day of this journey.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil
• Day 10: Leh Khardung La and Back

We got up early and since the plan was to reach srinagar by afternoon, we had to be quick. We tied the luggage to the bikes, made a few quick calls back home to let them know we’re safe. Kargil was the hotbed of activity during the Indo-Pak war in 1999, otherwise known as the Kargil war, and our families back home were rightfully worried when we didn’t get in touch at all after leaving Leh.

Kargil is a major military base and the town has Army presence all over. There are points in the town where the enemy (Pakistan) posts are visible and signs like the one below have been put up to warn visitors of the presence of the Pak army.

We had decided to stop for breakfast at a place called Dras, about 50 kms from Kargil. Dras is believed to be the second coldest inhabited place in the world, based on the temperature recorded on 9th Jan ‘95, -60 degrees centigrade.

We had a quick breakfast at Dras and moved on. The ascent for the Zojila pass starts soon after Dras and the roads were nice and smooth, that is till the actual climb started, and Apjoo even managed to take some time out to pose with some local kids :-)

As for the actual pass, the road was almost non existant and it looked like the BRO was trying to make this into an all weather road. They were making the new roads with square blocks of stone which hopefully would be able to withstand the harsh winter that Zojila pass sees. The Zojila pass stands as the entry to the Kashmir valley and lets the valley retain a distinctive green color all year round which is very different from the rugged moonscape of the other side.

The Zojila is also a very important pass for the Indian Army since this serves as the gateway to the Dras/Kargil and Leh regions from the Kashmir side. During the Kargil conflict the Pakistani Army tried to capture points overlooking the highway which runs over this pass and onto Dras and Kargil as that would have meant essentially blocking the supply of essential goods to this region and eventually taking control. The Indian Army, of course, managed to win back all the positions and is now stationed at all the high altitude posts all year round. At Dras, the Indian Army has built a monument dedicated to the memory of the soldiers who fought and laid down their lives in the Kargil conflict. The memorial is built on a piece of land just outside Dras, and in the shadow of the Tololing and Tiger hill ranges which saw a major part of the Kargil conflict.

The Zojila pass as has been mentioned before is a strategic pass for the Indian Army and we were not allowed to stop at the top of the pass for too long, nor were we in the mood since, despite the beautiful scenery, the stone road was taking a toll on us. We kept moving stopping only for a couple of pics and that too without getting off the bike. As soon as you cross over Zojila, the scenery changes quite dramatically. The barren land gives way to a lush green valley.

The annual Amarnath pilgrimage was on at the time and the base camp for the pilgrimage was at the base of the Zojila, which could be seen as a colorful collections of tents from the top of the Zojila.

After we descended Zojilla we were caught in a stream of traffic either coming from Srinagar to the basecamp or going from the basecamp towards Srinagar. It was quite a challenge for us to navigate through this traffic since we had become used to just the 5 of us on road for miles with not even a human in sight.

We had a light lunch at a punjabi dhaba at pahalgam and then stopped only at Srinagar which was about 70kms from Pahalgam. Srinagar came across as just another small Indian city growing at a feverish pace, with no respenct for the architecture or aesthetics of the city. It is quite sad to see a lovely town like Srinagar being spoilt by all the developement taking place, but I guess its a good thing for the people of the city since development is what would bring tourism and the much needed revenue to this poor state grappling with Pakistan sponsored militancy since the last decade.

We stayed at the BB cantt. at Srinagar and let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot of secure cantonements in my time, but this one takes the cake. The place is a fortress. Even though we were supposed to stay inside the cantt and knew people inside, we still had to go through all the security procedures which included sniffer dogs, bomb squads and the works. It took us almost three hours to get in after depositing our mobile phones, cameras and any other objectionable stuff that we had. I was pretty impressed with the security arrangements.

We ended the day with a nice contenental dinner and a bottle of chilled beer.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil
• Day 10: Leh Khardung La and Back

They were taking a long time and we got tired of waiting for them and so we called them and told them to reach the pathar sahab gurudwara that we were supposed to stop at. Pathar sahab is about 30 kms from Leh and is believed to be the place where guru nanak meditated while in Leh. A demon had thrown a big rock on the guru from a nearby hill while the guru was meditating. The rock on touching the guru melted and the shape of the guru’s back can still be seen embedded in the rock at the gurudwara. The place is now maintained by the Indian Army.

Pandey had still not reached and after an hour or two Sandhu called up Akhilesh who told him that Pandey had met with a small accident while getting out of Leh and was at the local dispensary. Sandhu then rushed back to Leh while Amar, Joshi, Apjoo and I waited at the gurudwara for them to return. Fortunately the injury wasn’t much but his bike’s fork had bent and that had to be repaired. So, while Sandhu and Pandey got his bike repaired, the rest of us decided to go a little further and catch up with them around lunch at a small place called Nimu.

Sandhu and Pandey finally caught up with us at Nimu, not because they were fast, but because we had an extended lunch of momos and thukpas at the a small but functional shopping complex at Nimu. After that it was a mostly smooth drive till the Lamayuru village where we stopped to have a look at the monestary.

Lamayuru is a small village with a monestary which is more than a 1000 years old and a visual delight. The village is set amidst moonscape with the lamayuru gompa looking over the village and its well being.

We should have known that the day was jinxed for us when Pandey had the small mishap. But, after havind ridden for over 1500kms we weren’t that bright. While negotiating a small turn for the Lamayuru monestary, Amar’s bike slipped and when he got up, he realised that his tyre has a puncture. While we had a spare tube and an air pump with us, the tools to open the tyre were with Apjoo who having seen the monestary before us, had already left. So, Amar, Joshi and I were left with a punctured tyre and no mechanic in site for miles. We came to the conclusion that the only way to move ahead was to fill the tyre with air every few kms and try and reach some place where there is a mechanic to fix the puncture.

We managed to go on like this for about 10-20 kms but didn’t find any mechanic and when we did find one at a place which looked like a popular stop for truck drivers, the mechanice had gone on leave or something.

We finally met up with the rest of the group and stopped at Fotula top for a photo op :-) Fotula top is the highest point on the srinagar Leh highway and a pretty lonely place. There was no one in sight for miles and our only hope was to reach a village or some kind of settlement before the sun sets and forget about reaching Kargil today.

Fortunately, we found a tyre puncture repair shop in a small village, whose name I can’t remember right now. The people at the village were quite friendly and even though the mechanic had never repaired a motorcycle puncture before, he used our tools and helped us put the new tube in the tyre.

We finally got the tyre fixed at about 8 at night with the help of the friendly locals. We now had two options before us. Either, spend the night at the village guest house or risk riding at night and try and reach kargil. We were told that kargil was about 100 kms or so from this place and since the weather was quite lovely, we decided to take our chances.

In retrospect, it was probably a bad decision. Driving at night in the hills is never a good decision. Driving over a pass, Namik La, at night is suicidal. Fortunately nothing untoward happened and we managed to reach Kargil around 11 at night. Topped up our tanks at a gas station just outside Kargil and the owner told us to look for a place to sleep around the city bus stand as at that hour, the bus stand would be the only place with some human activity.

Kargil is a convenient halt for all tourists and locals heading from leh to srinagar or the other way round. The vehicles start at night from Kargil and reach their destination early in the morning. We found a small dhaba open and while some of us had dinner, the rest went around to search for a place to sleep. We, fortunately, found a small hotel and slept away to glory after what had been an incredibly long day.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 10: Leh Khardung La and Back

Apjoo had taken permits for the Nubra valley for all of us and most of the group was actually planning to spend the night at hunder or diksit after crossing over Khardung La. I wasn’t too interested and wanted a rest day for myself. It had been raining the whole of yesterday and last night was also pretty cold. But we didn’t realise that it could have snowed at Khardung La and because everyone else wanted to go further to Nubra, we all started early. Which was a bad thing ! It was freakin’ cold and within a few kms of the ascent to K’La, we had to stop and warm our hands on the bike’s engine. The gloves were of no use at all.

When we finally reached South Pullu, the southern checkpoint for access to K’La, we were told that Khardung La is closed and no one was being allowed to pass through. We were quite disappointed but decided to stick around in case the J & K police personal changed their mind. In the meantime, we went to the Army checkpost to ask them about the situation. They invited us inside their shelter and offered tea, which we refused, but accepted their offer to sit in front of the fire and warm our hands a bit. God bless the Army :-)

They advised us to stay for a little while and wait till the sun comes out. To our relief, that wasn’t too long and once the weather cleared up, and the once batch of stuck vehicles came down from the pass, they allowed us to pass through. The first couple of kms were fine but it started getting tough after that. The road was bad and we started getting snow, first on the sides of the road, then on the road and finally snow which had frozen to ice on the road. Anyone who has ever ridden a bike on snow would know how difficult it is to control a bike on ice, and none of us had any experience with that. We still managed to tread along slowly, till we were stopped by a couple of tourist vehicles heading up.

They told us that the road ahead had hard ice and even their vehicles were having difficulty in driving, so we should also probably wait for the ice to melt, since by now the sun was out in its full glory. We didn’t have much time to wait though, so we still decided to move on slowly. It was clear that we won’t be able to do this alone, so we helped push each others bike over this stretch. It was quite tough but we somehow managed and since we had broken the ice sheet, the rest of the vehicles also could pass now :-)

We finally did manage to reach the top with just a couple of minor slips :-) And man what a feeling it was. There was hardly any oxygen to breathe but all that was a distant thought now. We had finally completed the journey and were quite elated. The usual photo sessions took place.

Everyone had dropped the idea of doing Nubra as soon as we’d heard about the other riders who got stuck at Khardung La the other day because of the bad weather, and so we spent almost two hours at the top and then proceeded back to Leh. The ride back to Leh was pretty uneventful. The ice on the road had almost melted away and it was easier to drive on the way back.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil

After a nice and heavy breakfast, we went for a little shopping in the market. The Leh market is filled with fake chinese clothes and shoes. For some reason, everything seemed more expensive than what we were used to and some of the shopkeepers even downright refused to tell us their prices saying that we won’t be able to afford their wares ! Guess, they were more used to the firangs walking around the streets and willing to pay a premium for the substandard goods on display.

The shopkeepers aside, Leh seemed like a very calm place with a nice and friendly people.

Since, we didn’t have much to do in Leh, we decided to explore some of the monestaries outside Leh and asked some taxi drivers for the fare. Surprisingly, the fare they were asking for a half day trip sounded much more than what a full day tour would cost. I guess, they’ve also been spoilt by the rich foreigners that tend to visit Leh.

Anyway, we ditched the taxi idea and took out our bikes and went for some sightseeing of our own. The first stop was Shanti Stupa, overlooking Leh city, built with the help of the Japanese government and dedicated to piece. After seeing all the ruins around Leh, this memorial was a welcome change.

After this we went to see the Thiksey monestary outside Leh. This was about 15-20 kms from Leh and even though it had started drizzling now, we still decided to take our chances, and since we didn’t have any other day free, we had to do this sightseeing thing today only.

The monestary itself was amazing but even more beautiful was its location.

The monestary had a lot of old scriptures and a three story high budha statue in the main prayer hall. The climb to the top though was a pain and something we could have done without. Now, where are those escalators when you need ‘em ;)

This is the view from the top of the monestary.

After this we went to see the Shey palace. The palace itself looked pretty run down and a lot of restoration work was on at the time. After spending some time there, we all went back to Leh with a stop at the mechanic to get our bikes checked up. The mech’s verdict: No problem with the bikes, which we already knew :-)

The evening was spent at a nice restaurant serving north indian food and booze. We went to bed excited about the next days trip to Khargund La, the highest motorable pass in the world.

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• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil

Woke up everyone, loaded up our bikes, had a nice breakfast and in between all this called the officer in-charge of the mess to thank him for the accomodation and to ask for a favour :-) None of us were able to figure out the problem with Akhilesh’s bike and so we asked the officer if he could get someone to look at it. We were in luck since he found someone at the EME workshop and sent him to our rescue. He diagnosed that the vehicle’s ignition switch has a problem and the proposal that he had was, well, a little extreme but it worked for us. He changed the wiring to bypass the ignition switch and managed to start the bike. That worked for us and we asked Akhilesh to stay ahead of all of us and to not stop anywhere.

While all this was happening, Kunal got a call from the traffic control post that his bike, which we had left at Pangong Tso had reached Tang Tse and so he and Pandey went to collect that and possibly get the puncture repaired. They found a puncture repair shop in the main tang tse village and got the puncture repaired there while we all waited for them at the tang tse junction. They did take a long time and it was almost noon by the time we could leave tang tse.

Joshi, by this time, had realised that his bike was running out of fuel … real fast. And so he was in a panic mode of his own. It was actually quite hilarious looking at him asking anyone and everyone on the road for fuel :-) Sounded like doomsday was here and mankind was on a hunt for fuel which was hard to get.

Just before the climb for Chang la started, we met a couple of bikers who were trying to repair a punctured tyre. They were stuck at a small TCP manned by the military police who had no tools available to repair a punctured tyre. I’m sure they were used to dealing with huge army trucks only and not motorcycles in that terrain. We stopped to ask if they needed some help and the first thing that Joshi blurted out was, “Can you guys spare some petrol ?”. They, ofcourse, ignored his plea for help, till the rest of us came and helped them change the tube and fill air in the tyre, since we had a pump with us. Only after we helped them get back on track, one of them heard Joshi’s cries and agreed to lend some petrol to him.

My bike was also low on Petrol but I figured I had another 2-3 litres of Petrol and decided to take a chance. I stayed ahead of the rest of the gang just so that if, in case, I ran out of fuel, I’ll atleast have someone to help me. My eye was on Sandhu’s bike, since his bike had the most fuel left :-) Thankfully I didn’t need it and I managed to cross Karu and hit reserve just about 2 kms from the Petrol Pump.

This is Akhilesh approaching Karu where I stopped to wait for the rest of the gang.

We stopped at Karu for lunch at a small punjabi dhaba which served amazingly delicious rajma chawal. After that it was smooth sailing till Leh with a stop to top up our bikes.

If you found this post interesting, you may also want to read ...

• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
• Day 13: Srinagar to Pathankot
• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil

Apjoo, btw, decided to skip this part of the trip since he wanted to acclimatize properly for the ride to Khardung la, and get permits for Nubra, if possible.

Except for Sandhu, Kunal and Akhilesh who got petrol filled from leh, the rest of us needed to get petrol filled as there wasn’t any other pump on the way to pangong. The only petrol pump was about 5 kms before Leh and that meant a 70 kms round trip for us. Fortunately, we found shopkeepers in the Karu market selling petrol in black. We decided to take our chance and get petrol filled from here only.

Akhilesh and Pandey went back to Leh in the morning to get Akhilesh’s rented bullet repaired, which had given them problems last night. Kunal’s rented pulsar was so far doing well.

Petrol topped up, permits in order we started around 10 in the morning for Pangong. The road was pretty good for the first 10 kms or so and the ascent for Chang la started almost as soon as we left Karu. This was going to be easy … or so we thought.

The climb to Chang la turned into a nightmare pretty soon. The road was non-existent and we all had a tough time riding up the pass on first gears. Even then, we would slip a bit here and there because of the lose stones that we were riding on. At one point the road was so steep and full of lose stones, that the pulsar almost gave up. We all did manage to reach the top without any major problems. Chang la is supposed to be the third highest motorable pass in the world.

This had been the toughest climb till now. The pass did live up to its sobriquet, “Mighty” Chang la. There is a small Army post on the pass, a temple dedicated to Chang la Baba and free hot tea provided by the Army :-)

The oxygen level at the pass was quite low and it was starting to get windy and cold so we had a couple of cups of tea each and moved on to the other side of the pass. Kunal, however, was so dazed and disoriented that he forgot which side he came up from and started going back towards Leh. We all had a good laugh about this later, but I’m sure he didn’t find it funny :-)The road didn’t improve for the next 10-15 kms but the snow and the views made up for the stiff ride.

Akhilesh and Pandey still hadn’t turned up and we were taking it slow so that they could catch up with us. We stopped for a while at Tangtse (which, btw, would be our halt for the night) and then later at a tea stall run by a friendly nomadic family.Finally, when we couldn’t wait any longer, we decided to atleast reach the lake and wait for the two of them there. Atleast, we’ll have the lake for company there :-)As we reached closer to the lake the scenery started looking more like a desert. There were small streams here and there that we had to cross but we weren’t expecting the desert like sand dunes.

And then we saw it … The first glimpse of Pangong Tso. I cannot even begin to describe how we felt then. I had goosebumps all over. After that the only thing we wanted was to reach the lake shore as fast as we could. All the tiredness had gone away and we didn’t even mind the bumpy roads anymore.

It took us another 20 minutes to cover those last 4 kms, and trust me, those were probably the longest 20 minutes of my life. Pangong Tso was easily the most beautiful sight of the trip. Photos absolutely cannot do justice to the place.

While we were all busy taking pics of our bike and the lake, Kunal was walking towards us pushing his punctured bike !! Yes, that would have been enough to give us frightful moments anywhere else, but here … we didn’t even bother. Call it the soothing effect of the lake’s calm water or the fact that we were all too tired to think about it, but we asked him to park the bike somewhere and start admiring the beauty of the place :-)

Photos clicked, breath reclaimed and the beauty absorbed. The sun was going down and it was getting a little cold. We got back to our bikes and asked around the few dhabas there for a puncture repair shop. As we had thought there were none. We tried filling some air in the tyre with the pump we had, but that too didn’t work. So, we took the only other option that seemed feasible at the time. We asked the Army guys stationed at the Lake to keep the bike with them and send it back to Tang Tse the next morning in their vehicle. Our Army background helped and they agreed to it.

Now the only problem was taking Kunal back to Tang Tse. Sandhu and Joshi took my bike’s luggage and tied it to theirs and off we rode with Kunal as my pillion. We had a deal though, that any stream we had to cross, he’d walk and cross it and I’ll ride through. But, he of course, begged me to let him sit on the bike after a couple of streams :-) And btw, we met Akhilesh and Pandey while coming back from the lake. They had finally caught up with us, without Akhilesh’s bike !!

Akhilesh had had a fall from the bike and it refused to start up after that. So, they left the bike a little before Tangtse and rode on Pandey’s bike till the lake and back to tangtse. We found the place we had to stay and Sandhu, pandey and Akhilesh went back to get Akhilesh’s bike which refused to start and they had to tow it back to tangtse. The place was heavenly. You have to give it to the army for creating the oasis in the middle of the desert. The rooms even had color TVs !!

After we’d unloaded our luggage, Sandhu, Pandey and Akhilesh went back to collect Akhilesh’s bike. They managed to start the bike and it ran for half the distance and then pushed it the rest of the way.

Technorati Tags: Leh,Travel,Ladakh,Motorcycle,Pangong,Snow

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Joshi and I somehow managed to drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags and went to wake up the others. Even walking around at that altitude felt like a chore. I was also quite tired and even though I didn’t have a headache or anything, I was in an irritable mood. The nice guys at the mess gave us hot water to freshen up and we all were ready in time for breakfast. The breakfast was amazing, typical mess fare of aloo puri and curd.

By the time we were done with breakfast and loading our bikes, the convoy had already started moving towards leh. This was bad news because crossing a whole convoy would be tough in the hilly terrain. We decided to let the convoy move ahead of us and give them a head start.

Ashok’s altitude sickness was also quite bad by now, so we took him to the MI room and got him a couple of minutes of oxygen too. It felt nice, according to him :-)

The camp was located at the bottom of a plateau and as soon as we climbed up the hill, all we could see for miles ahead of us was arid dry land known as the more plains. I knew we would hit more plains today but didn’t know that it would be so soon. That combined with my irritable nature today I kept moving on even when Joshi and Sandhu wanted to click the obligatory more plains pics. Now that I think about it, I think I was also suffering from a mild case of altitude sickness, just that I didn’t have a headache. Anyway, the others took a couple of pics while I kept moving.

This was supposed to be a flat land with miles and miles of flat good roads, or we’d been led to believe. But that wasn’t to be. The road was fine for a couple of kilometers and then it vanished, just like that ! And all we were left to ride on was … sand and dust, the really minute small kind, the kind that gets into your mouth/nose and clothes even when you’re all covered. A couple of jeeps full of tourists were stuck in the mud and helping each other get out and we’d have stopped to help them had it not been for the fear of getting stuck outselves. Ashok almost got stuck once and I had to go back (after getting out myself and parking my bike on solid ground) and push his bike out of the sand.

The convoy had taken a different route once on the top of the plains and were travelling on the far end essentially making their own road, so atleast they weren’t a problem for us.

I took a break only after the plains ended and just before the climb for the next pass, Tanglang la, started. The climb was quite uneventful and we made to the pass in good time. The road was still bad but I guess we’d gotten used to that by now. It was scary site, though, watching trucks trying to take an ascending hairpin turn. We saw one truck almost go down the hill when the driver misjudged the turn and had to brake and go back a bit to turn (and climb) again.

Tanglang la at a height of 17582 ft is considered to be the world’s second highest pass. Ashok did a wise thing, considering his condition, and didn’t spend too long at the pass. He had already moved down the other side of the pass to lower altitude by the time the rest of us reached the top. We took a couple of obligatory pics and paid a visit to the temple of moved on.

Once we crossed the pass and came down, the road was mostly good and we were riding through small villages with awesome views of beautiful multi-colored mountains.

The scenery was so good that we didn’t even realise we were so close to leh. Infact, we had finally entered Leh district. We were all excited and in a hurry to reach karu as soon as possible and so didn’t stop much along the way.

We reached karu well in time and started looking for the place where we were to stay for the night. Our mobile phones were working again so called up a couple of people and found out about the acco and dumped our luggage. Sandhu had to go on to Leh to get Akhilesh and Kunal who had reached in the morning by air and were arranging to rent bikes for our trip to Pangong tso the next morning. That took them quite a while and then they had some problems with the rented bullet which they somehow managed to get back to karu. They reached Karu around 10 at night. The rented bikes, btw, would continue to give us problems.

If you found this post interesting, you may also want to read ...

• Day 14: Pathankot to Chandigarh
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• Day 12: Kargil to Srinagar
• Day 11: Leh to Kargil