There and Back - III. Review on Manali

Note: This is Part III of my Travelogue about the trip from Manali to Leh and back. The first part in under the Leh heading, second under Ladakh and this is Part 3. It would help for continuation if you read the earlier 2 parts beforehand :)

17th August 2005, 8:30 a.m. I got up in the morning, in Leh! I pinched myself and checked again. Yup! I was indeed in Leh, in this magical and completely indescribable land. But still I am going to attempt to describe it a bit.

For the more obvious information about Leh, it is located in the state of Jammu & Kashmir and in the district Leh. It is at an altitude of around 11500ft. Leh-Ladakh has a history spread over more than a thousand years. Leh city is situated on the once very important ''Silk Route'', the trading route between China, India and the European countries. Strong Buddhist influence in every aspect of the Ladakhi life is quite evident from the presence of around 100 Gompas (Buddhist temples) in the region. Apart from that, a lot many artifacts on sale in the local stores reflect a distinct Ladakhi Buddhist style. In the matter of size, Leh city is not too big and could be easily covered in a single day. Also being a major tourist destination, it has a lot of hotels and lodges to cater all types of tourists, Indian or foreigners.

You don't actually have to go to Leh to get all this information actually, a little research on the internet will give you all this. What you won't know is that the city is extremely vibrant and lively! Its full of different types of people from all over the world. Israelis, British, French, Italian, German, American, you will find all sorts of people here in Leh, of course during the tourist season. With boards of ''nous parlez francais'' and ''noi parli italiano'' on every other shop, the city gets a very distinct look. But the best part about Leh by far is the sky! I just cant start to describe the beauty of the sky there. I mean, they teach you in school and all that Sky is blue but you never get to see Blue sky in Mumbai. But once you see the sky in Ladakh, you can bet on it and say, Yes! Sky IS blue! and The sun IS shining BRIGHT!

So in this sort of electric atmosphere, we set out to see the sight in and around Leh. We did some local site seeing and visited this beautiful Monastery right in the middle on the market. Then we roamed on the streets on Leh glancing through the memorizing displays of artifacts on the shop window. At the first couple of shops, all the stuff felt like kinda cool, all these Tibetan antiques, but after a few more shops it became really difficult to differentiate the real from the fake. We left our quest of finding souvenirs at that and headed back to hotel for lunch.

We had hired some local jeeps to take us around the place. Among the prominent places to visit in the city are Spituk Monastery, Samkar Stupa and Shati Stupa. While the first two are quite old, the Shanti Stupa was built recently by the Japanese. It's a very serene little place up on a hill with a huge verandah in the front. The ambience around that place is really peaceful and quite, or rather it was, until we arrived. As the sun was spreading its last few saffron coloured rays on the white Shanti stupa, we had spread enough Ashanti there to leave the place. Lastly we went to an old and dilapidated palace called the Leh Palace. It is said that the kings of Ladakh ruled their land from this palace for more than 400 years. Its glory days behind it, now it just stands there on the hill, witnessing the traffic of tourists passing through it, passing through its halls meant only for the King. Anyways, that evening we all gathered for dinner and sat around the table chatting for long time.

18th August 2005 6:00 a.m We all got up early that morning. The plan was to visit a place called Pangong Lake. It's a high altitude salt water lake and we had heard that it's quite a view. So off we went in out hired jeeps towards Pangong Lake. En route we passed through Chang La, third highest pass in the world! Altitude 17800 ft. We stopped there for a while and did a little chitchat with the soldiers stationed there. We just casually asked them, out of curiosity, the minimum temperature that place records. Actually this question came to our mind because even while asking this, we were shaking like a leaf! The wind was freezing cold. Anyways, so this soldier says, ''It reaches about 30-35 degrees ... below zero!'' We got into our jeeps and moved out of the place.

After around 5 hours of bumpy roads, new roads, steep roads, dangerous roads and sometime no roads, we reached Pangong Lake. I looked at the place and felt like it was worth all the bone crushing jerks I endured on the route.

The Lake is like this huge mass of crystal clear water stretching all the way to the horizon. It is around 20% in India, rest is in China. The water was absolutely clear and see-through and equally chilled. We spent our afternoon there by the lake clicking snaps and having fun and also having a sumptuous lunch of parathas and beard butter. The evening saw us back again in Leh city. We were feeling a bit experimental that night, so we decided to dine in one of the fine restaurants in the city. A few of us went to the German Bakery there, hoping to get the 2's Germany is famous for. We did have a nice dinner and went to bed satisfied and full.

19th August 2005 6:00 a.m. What a wonderful morning it was! I was feeling like top of the world! Actually was very close to it. It was our third day in Leh and probably by that time we had got acclimatized to the altitude. At least I was. I was feeling very refreshed and very energetic that morning. We set out again. This time we were going to Khardung La. It's the Highest Motorable Road in the World! Altitude 18380 ft. Its around 40 kms from Leh towards Nubra Valley and further to Siachen. We reached there by around 8:30 a.m. The feeling one gets just by reaching there is phenomenal. The view is literally breathtaking, actually the altitude is breathtaking you can't breath properly there. But the view! Wow! We stayed there for some time. That was probably the epitome of our whole trip, to be able to visit the highest motorable road. We were at an height of more than 18000 ft and to think of it Mt. Everest was just 10000ft more. How cool is that! There is a military camp there on the pass and they do endure some tough climate to safeguard and maintain the road. The military also has a small setup where the tourists can buy souvenirs for their visit. I mean, what is the point coming to worlds highest road and not being about to brag about it. We all bought something or the other to take back with us. I got myself a nice big beer mug and a key chain which reads ''Khardung La - Highest Motorable Road in the World!''. Man, how I like to show that around. After staying there for some time we headed back to our hotels.

p.s. Continued in the comments section ...