Blue Lake & The Storm

RIDE TO PANGONG TSO

 

Continued after first part of ride from Manali to Leh - click (http://drift-man.blogspot.in/2012/03/ninja-that-leaped-through-himalayan.html)

 

Leh-Karu-Shakti-Chang La-Tangtse-Pangong Tso

21st July 2010

 

 

 

After spending couple of days in Leh and doing rounds of near by monasteries like Shey and Thiksey, it was time to for another interesting ride to Pangong Tso. Past two days had made us a little lazy so instead of starting early morning we left around 12 noon for this 240km long journey.

 



Steep ride up for Chang La Pass



One has to cross world’s second highest motorable Chang La pass to reach the lake. Like most of the other passes approach road to this pass was in terrible shape. The only difference was that the climb was steep, so you gain height very quickly. By now we were use to bad roads, water streams and narrow roads. Besides the quick winding roads one also comes across breath taking views of green patches of farms from top of the hill. Since mountains in this region are loose rock and soil so farming only be done on plain stretches of land. From a height the green patches looked very beautiful. There are stretches of long plain roads but just like Sarchu here again the road level keeps on varying so one should be careful while speeding. But without our luggage bags were still ready for some of those surprise trough and crests, infact I was enjoying revving up my ninja on straight stretchs.

 

Green farm patches

We reached Chang La around 3.00pm. Suddenly I realised that I had dropped my glares when I had stopped to take pictures few kilometres before the pass. While I could have gone back to look for it but I didn’t have the patience to again cross the same bad patch of road and then come up again. So I decided to let it go and move on.

Road going down after the pass was in bad condition, so much so that we had to push few of the bikers as their bikes were stuck. After few kilometres we were riding on superbly laid tarmac coupled with beautiful scenery awaited us. The next town we reached was a major army supply centre called Tangtse. We got our selves registered at the check post after crossing a small bridge. Ride after this was mostly flat but very scenic as were riding along river. Multiple river streams flowing from one mountain valley towards another with evenly cut green grass and multicoloured flowers under strikingly blue sky. It couldn’t get better than this. Though this route is not that long but the terrain still keeps on varying.

 

 

It looked like a nice sunny day but by the time we reached Pangong Tso it was 4:00pm. Pangong Tso is the highest salt water lake (4250 mts) in the world and is 134 km long, one third of which is India and rest in China.  It is about 5km wide at its broadest point and during winter the lake's surface freezes completely despite it being a salt water.this fascinating lake's water changes colour from blue to green to tints of red as well. It could be due to reflection of blue sky along with reflected sunlight from naked limestone mountains surrounding it. backdrop of named mountains, some snow capped peaks and no civilisation till the farthest point you can see makes it look even more beautiful. we stayed here for over an hour, ate Maggi  and enjoyed hot chai before starting our ride back to Leh.

Pangong Tso (Tso means lake in local language)

By this time it had started getting cloudy, I wanted to cross the Chang La pass as soon as possible, it was an hours ride from the lake. My friend suggested that we should stay over as it was late to go back but I was worried about delay in rest of schedule we had for remaining days. There are few accommodation options near the lake and I’m sure staying by the lake side would have been a unique experience.
 

Road leading to Leh after crossing Chang La Pass

As we started we witnessed the worst mountain storm. My friend now insisted that we shouldn’t ride back. The storm actually looked scary. We could see swirls of sand in air across long stretch of land under dark clouds. What was worse for me was my visor had broken and I didn’t even have my glares now. I had no option but to borrow glares from a female co-traveller. Yes, I looked very funny with those big round feminine glares but no one smiled as focus on was getting through the storm. I was scared, this was the first time nature was scaring me, primarily because we had never seen anything of this sort and we had no clue about the magnitude. With day coming to an end if anything happened to us then we would freeze as help will come only next morning. I realised that if I don’t move ahead my reluctant friend would choose to stay back. So I decided suppress my fear and started riding. We could hardly see road ahead but still decided to continue riding, my friend was upset with my stubborn act and within my heart I felt that I was being stupid by not listening to him. The same pile of sand which looked beautiful while going up was now causing blistering storm. Thankfully storm lasted for around 20 minutes and soon we were out of it. Ride up to Chang La was again bad with water flowing on super bad road, our bikes required push.  Few kilometres post Chang La ride was fine as we rode into the sunset. 

 

Shakti Monastery