The Ladakh Series: PangongSo Lake

My dear friend Murali has been really happy man these days. His last post on my blog has brought an unnoticed writer into limelight. So he insisted on writing another article, which seems to be the only way to Sucess. Lol. Kidding folks....

............................

Pangongso Lake By Murali rajan

After spending a day wandering around Leh, we started out for “the lake”… with Lotus bhai at the helm and Jitendra Singh Ji by his side, we left by 8, late by more than a hour… risking the cliché, the song for the day was from 3 idiots, which I believe, made land of numerous passes and the lake a must visit place… the terrain changed immediately on exiting leh, winding roads, slowly and steadily we climbed…
.
en route to Pangong Tso lies the third highest motorable road in the world… The Chang La, standing tall at an astonishing 17,590 ft (5360m)… as we moved on towards the pass, the landscape changes from green fields and dusty hills to all white mountains demarcated by electric (or telephone) lines… thick blankets of snow adorning the sides of NH 1D welcomed us… a small temple, couple of army shacks, few loos, a yellow sign and lots of prayer flags, all beautifully framed in pure white… our defense personnel was extremely hospitable to all… serving hot tea (herbal as well)… a lifesaver for many in pretty cold locale… the temp it seems had touched 5 deg below zero early morning… that is cold… we had been warned not to stay up there for more than half an hour and to drink loads of water, as altitude and thin air could cause headache and nausea on the way down… lack of time explained why the shutterbugs were buzzing around… however, I felt that, for most travelers, the snow seemed to create the flutter rather than the pass… everyone was running around in the snow… throwing snow balls… somebody had made a snow man as well… very good one… complete with a red cap and a carrot nose… seemed to come right out of calvin & hobbes strip…
.
we were soon on the way down through the town of dubruk… there seemed to be very few climbs after the biggy… the roads were great with amazing views to leave anyone dazed and dreamy… Tangtse was the next town and the only town in the way… lunch time… the hotel (unfortunately, none of us remember the name of the place, but there are very few places anyways to eat and stay) threw us a surprise… in the hallway were pictures of the hotel owner with the stars of 3 idiots… aamir, madhavan, sharman and saif (oh, he is not in the movie, but kareena is, but couldn’t find any pics of hers) all of them nicely framed… guess the star value rubbed off on the prices as well (only slightly more expensive than the eateries on the Jammu- Srinagar – Leh route)…
.
the road takes us through many wildlife protected areas in ladakh… yaks and horses roamed freely, but the star of the day was marmots… cute little animals, belonging to the rodent family, they prefer high altitudes… found them chilling out in the sun…seems that these rodents hibernate through the entire winter… cool…
.
finally, we laid eyes on the bluish green waters of the one of the world’s highest salt water lake… the colours seemed to change every time u looked at it… another 20 min and we were at the edge of the lake… it was a sight for sore eyes… the lake just did not seems to end… snow capped mountains on both sides… clear blue skies… and lots and lots of bar headed goose… but then the shutter bugs complained… there are only a few shots to take and that is it… ha ha… it didn’t matter… the silence is like music… gives u a high… damn good one ;-)
.
we had not booked anyplace to stay… all the places were booked, but one tent owner did take us in for nights stay and food at his house… got just what we wanted, however some kind of training would be required to tackle the ladakhi toilets… there was one room for us with a lot of beds on the floor and some thick blankets… the room had glass windows and wooden roofing… once settled into the our new pad, we headed to the lake shore… the place was getting cold and we put on all the possible warm clothing that we could… the lake shore had other ideas… as warned our host, the winds started blowing, and suddenly cold was killing… the trip or rather trek back to the room was rather painful… nightfall and time for campfire… soaked up all the heat that we could under the starry skies… diamonds all around complemented by golden silence… probably only the cold kept us firmly rooted to the ground… our host cooked some wonderful food, hot hot food… seemed like icing on the cake on a marvelous day…