After a night of camping at Nubra Valley it was time to move onto to the next place on the list. However spending most of the night in the dark, as the electricity (and wifi) was only available from 7 to 10, there was debate whether we should spend one more overnight stay at our next place, Pangong place. The other reasoning being that after seeing the lake, clicking pics, what next? Was it worth staying overnight, after all it was another five hours drive from Nubra to Pangong, and another five hours from Pangong to Leh. Anyway we decided to take a call on this once we reached our destination, so it was put on the back burner.
So on the advice of our driver, a total entertainment package when he was well rested, we set out early, after settling the bill and thanks to the management for packing sandwiches for our breakfast, we started on our journey to Pangong, so that we could avoid getting stuck while crossing the streams that came in our journey.
So once again we took to the road that twisted and turned, rose and fell, and left us in awe, left us shaken (especially when we took to kaccha roads, which was most of the time), that left us a bit terrified, especially when it was narrow and you had oncoming vehicles. Most of the road ran by a river that was powerful and furious and majestic, but strangely the water looked like slag (i.e. cement mixed with water). We even got a closer look at those ranges, which was mostly felt like sand and stones frozen together (after all Ladakh is a desert, something that an ignorant me learned today). Even noted the vegetation was something out of the geography books we learned in school, small shrubs that the cattle were grazing on.
We stopped in between to click pics (since we are so camera friendly people) in places that were made famous by movies (looks like Ladakh is filled with them), had breakfast and continued on our journey.
The first glance of Pangong Lake left us wanting to see more. And when we finally took in the sight of this majestic lake, it didn’t disappoint, in fact it left us spellbound. We stood there and took in the view of the emerald green and peacock blue waters that went endlessly into the horizon (and into China), surrounded by mountains. Obviously we clicked a lot of pictures, a whole lot of them. You had items from movies that were shot at Pangong, available on rent just to click pics, even a yak (which Jaj readily mounted just to get a couple of pics). Though I didn’t click any pics with these movie memorabilia, mumma very sportingly even took part in these shenanigans. So we clicked thousands and thousands of pictures (if not thousands then surely hundreds of pics), enough to change DPs of everyone for the next couple of months.
So finally, after all the possible pics had been taken, it was finally decided to return to Leh on the same day. So after stopping for a late lunch, we undertook the journey back to Leh, through the Chang La mountain pass. Now once again the condition of the roads weren’t too good, but the way it twisted and turned around the mountain was spellbinding. And singing to old Hindi tunes (yes I love old Hindi songs) only made the journey more fun and less hectic. We didn’t feel the cold, so when we stepped out of the car to capture pics at Chang La the cold weather outside really hit us, but us.
So after almost spending the past two days on the road, having quite a memorable road trip, it was back to Santo Green and preparing for the race on Sunday. To see how much the body can push on Sunday. But till then we will always have the memory of an awesome road trip.
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