Day 6: Leh to Pangong Tso

We were gearing up for another long travel day. Little did we realize that this would end up being the most beautiful travel experience of our lives. You will be left wondering how on earth could you not know about such a place before. I am not talking just about the destination which was the Pangong Lake. The whole journey from Leh to Pangong Lake takes you through such a wonderful experience which is way more overwhelming than your travel from Leh to Nubra through Khardungla. Since the lake itself is situated at an altitude of 14,000 ft., if you are planning to camp at the lake, you run the risk of hitting the mountain sickness if you are not well acclimatized to the high altitude already. Hence, its always advisable to do this stretch at the last.

Most vehicles which leave Leh to Pangong Lake start their journey very early (at around 6 am) as they plan for only a short stop at the lake (2 hrs) before returning back to Leh on the same day. Since we were slated to camp at the lake, we had the luxury of leaving a little late. As planned the day before, we left at around 8.30 in the morning. The journey from Leh to Pangong is around 145 km with good roads for the most part. On the way, you will reach Changla pass (around 70 km from Leh) which is the third highest motorable road in the world. Before Changla and closer to Hemis Monastery, you will see the Shey palace, which is where the climax of 3 idiots was partly shot (the school part). We decided to not stop and carry on with the journey as planned before.

The road gets bad as you approach Changla. We stopped at the top to stretch our legs and spent around 20 mins there. Since most of the vehicles leave Leh early to Pangong, you will not find it crowded.

The stretch from Changla to Pangong takes you through the mountain ranges which are more green in nature, holding lots of small water spots in between and hence, a greater degree of animal life. We encountered large groups of Yaks, wild horses, huge herd of sheep, and we even found a few Himalayan Marmots on the way.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Tangtse, which was close to a large army camp. After lunch, we drove on, to our destination – The Pangong Lake. The scenery gets even more beautiful as you go closer to the lake. The weather was just perfect with the diffused sunlight seeping through the clouds. I felt like taking out my camera every 5 mins to capture what my eyes were witnessing. Unfortunately, since we had to cover a lot of distance and the roads in that region don’t encourage frequent impromptu stops, I had to settle for the limited shots I got of the journey. Though, we did stop in between to take pics of a Ladakhi kid, which was one of the unfulfilled wishes of my wife so far on that trip.

We finally reached the Pangong Lake at around 3 pm. The first thing that hit us the most about the lake was the blueness of the water. Its unlike anything that I have seen before. The blueness of crystal clear water, the seagulls sitting on the water, the mountain ranges in the backdrop, the endlessness of the lake all made for a spectacular setting.  We got down at the entrance to the lake where apparently the 3 idiots climax was shot. I guess we ended up at the lake at just about the right time as the sun was not too harsh. The lake itself they say is close to 135 km long with one third of it being part of India and the rest belonging to China. I felt no camera in the world could do justice to the majesty of this place. There are a lot of stalls near this location named after the 3 idiot movie themes – Rancho cafe, 3 Idiots cafe etc. After spending an hour soaking in the beauty and trying to capture it in my camera, we moved on, as our camp was 10 km further from this spot.

It took us 20 mins to reach our camp. Once we reached there, we realized we were not alone. Our booking was at Shambala camp and there were a whole host of camps out there, some closer to the water than others. Most of these are not even listed online. Our camp was located at a 10 min walking distance from the lake overlooking it. The tents were pretty compact, lined one after the other with an attached bathroom for each. As was the case in Nubra, the electricity was limited to short periods. We freshened up, ate something in the restaurant and made our way to the lake. The wind was picking up and we managed to take a few pics of the lake before the sunset. The sunset itself is, as they say, not very good around the lake, as was the case with us.

We headed back to our room to have our dinner. After dinner, we arranged for a camp fire of our own and had some fun time with others from our touring group, before we went to sleep at around 10 pm. The bed was quite small (a man of 6 ft. height will struggle to stay on the bed). We were given 2 thick blankets which were quite heavy, required to keep us warm in those high windy conditions. This significantly restricted our agility and we found it very difficult to even turn around. Nonetheless, we managed to catch sleep after few mins.