Where The Streets Have No Name

Ladakh Chronicles, part 6 – Pangong Tso

April 5th, 2009

A play of nature and disappointments amidst unexpected adventures.

11^th July

Although we stayed up till quite late in the night (fighting over song selection for the CD), we were up and fresh early. Unfortunately, it was Amjad (our driver) who was late that morning. For some reason, we were excited about Pangong lake. After all, it is one of biggest lake; even though most of it lies in China territory. Supposedly, on a clear day the lake looks it’s most beautiful, displaying at least four different colors on its vast water surface. Mixture of reflections, of sky, its surrounding mountains and part of shallow surfaces in between create a wonderful imagery of nature’s trickery. I said this supposedly a bit too early because… well…, you will find out in due course.

Our first halt was at Thaktok gompa, a beautiful monastery. Although Maggi and Jaimin weren’t much interested in visiting a monastery early in the morning as the lake was on their mind; Me (with my newfound love for monasteries), Prateek, Nups and Neerja decided to take a short n a quick trip. It turned out really a short trip anyway as we had entered in old monastery, which was locked in most of the areas and empty. Apparently, it was shifted to a new place right next to it, on some hill. The old monastery which we visited was really beautiful and the empty courtyard and rooms were adding more to the peaceful surrounding. The woodwork on main door of prayer hall was absolutely stunning, and as colorful as the interior of prayer hall. We couldn’t enter the prayer hall as it was locked. As there was nothing more to do, we descended quickly. Though I wanted to make another quick trip to new building, I changed my mind as we were already late on our drive.

We resumed our journey, as we drove past beautiful farms amidst rocky earth. In about hour and half we were at the world’s second highest motorable pass, the mighty Changla pass (17800 ft). We decided to take a halt and have a cup of hot tea with the army guys. Though it was a sunny day, the wind was really chilly. A hot cup of tea felt like a real blessing, as we sat with the soldiers for some warm conversation. There was another group of some Korean guys taking shots of soldiers and camps. As a hot cup of tea rejuvenated our senses, Prateek got in mood for mischief and engaged in conversation with one of the Korean guy. I decided to go out as I couldn’t hold my laugh, as Prateek was bowling verbal bouncers to the already confused fellow. The look on his face was funnier than his answers to Prateek’s questions. Maggi was sitting in car, having high hopes for some snowfall as wind got even colder. We experienced a light snowfall in Khardungla pass earlier, while returning from Nubra valley. But true to the tradition of “yeh dil mange more” (my heart wishes for more), she wanted more, bigger, heavier snowfall. I really curse her for such wishful thinking when it becomes true. Sometimes you really need to be careful for what you wish for. As we descended from Changla pass, we took a halt for lunch at a small camp past Changla village. As usual, the menu was Maggie noodles and Black tea. The camp was situated near a small river in beautiful surrounding of rocks and greenery. As soon as food hit our stomach, the natural laziness took over us and we spent most the time taking short naps.

At about 2:00, we reached our destination… Tangtse village. A small village located about 40 km before Pangong lake. Our halt for night was booked there in a small guesthouse, called Doodhgooling. We unpacked and decided to rest for a while. While I wasn’t much content with the idea of sitting ducks in a room, Maggi instantly invaded the bed. Me and Jaimin spent next 30 minutes irritating her. Nupoor and Neerja freshened up and instantly went to the health center located bang opposite to our guest house… hello doctors!! After fighting for a while with Maggi, I was really getting pissed off, so I took my camera and decided to take a walk around village. Tangtse was rather a very small village; apart from farm land and small stream of river, most of the residential area consisted of one long street and houses on both side. I walked along the street up to the start of village, near a small bridge crossing the stream. Soon after Maggi joined me for photography. We reached back to our guesthouse, and sat outside having some coffee. Meanwhile Maggi caught some monks who had come down to the convenience store, for some photography. By the time I finished my coffee Jaimin came down; Nupoor and Neerja also returned from their Health Center exploration. So we all decided to take a walk to other side of village. We met a group of really sweet school kids. Soon enough girls were all over them, playing with them and buying them sweets. Sigh!! I missed being in school. Prateek joined us when we were returning for another round to bridge. As we were taking shots, the atmosphere started changing. I had spotted a couple of rainclouds on nearby mountain. It was now moving towards the village and soon enough we were greeted with very light drizzling of rain. We instantly returned to our guesthouse.

We had a plan; to leave at 4:00 in the morning and catch sunrise at Pangong. So we all took early dinner and retired to our rooms. I have certain problem with sleep and waking up. Whenever I have to wake up early like this and if I get feeling that the short sleep is not going to suffice… I can’t sleep, no matter how much I try. I tried a lot but I couldn’t sleep. So I got up and decided to fire up the laptop and work on some of the photos to kill time. Apparently Maggi couldn’t sleep either. She also joined me for editing photos. But our newfound time-pass didn’t last long, as lights went out soon after. As these villages are near to border, electricity is only available for limited period. The nights are total blackouts for security reasons. As we didn’t want to burn laptop battery we retired to our respective beds. But it was even more frustrating as I couldn’t sleep even a wink. Rain was getting louder and heavier outside the window. I stood in the window trying to see something, anything I could; but all I could see was dark night. Even though the windows were closed, I could feel the cold outside. I just wished my watch ran faster.

12^th July

At about 3:00, my patience broke. I decided that it’s about time everyone shared my pain. Although we had decided to get up at 3:30 am; so we could leave by 4:30 am. I woke everyone up and apparently no one had actually had a good night’s sleep. Turned out, Jaimin was also half awake most of the time and so was Maggi and other girls. I freshened up and lit up my second cigarette of night as I waited for others to get ready. We left for Pangong at 4:30. The rain was still falling, as we drove past villages. After an hour of drive as we neared Pangong, we came to grinding halt near Shaitan Nala. A heavy truck was stuck in nala. I skipped a beat as daylight started sipping in sky. The rainfall was now turned to light drizzling as it was turning into a snowfall slowly. The sky was covered in clouds; we could barely see the mountain tops. Whatever we could see was covered mostly in fresh snow.

After 30-35 mins or so, the truck was moved. As we breathed a sigh of relief, another thing was waiting for us. As soon as we entered Shaitan Nala, our vehicle got stuck at the same spot. Apparently, while moving the truck, its tires had made the deeper holes in rocky bed of stream. For next ten minutes Amjad tried everything to drive out, but all in vain. We couldn’t afford to wait for help to come by at such an early hour, so we decided to try good old brute force method. We had no other choice; as water level would rise as day came up. I, Jaimin and Prateek got down and started pushing our vehicle. Soon we were moving rocks underneath the tire to gain some more traction for Amjad to race it out. Girls also joined us and we all were struggling against a huge metal beast, cold wind, rain and freezing water under our feet. After lot of pushing we were able to get out of there. But, there was another problem. We all had got down in stream with our shoes on and now our feet were wrapped in water soaked footwear. Our feet were already half-numb. And what did we get after all this exercise in rain and cold? A completely clouded, fogged up and barely visible view of lake, as we reached there. Getting down from vehicle was big problem as it had already started snowing lightly and we were all barefoot. Secondly, most of us weren’t carrying much of heavy winter gear as the weather was sunny and rather warm when we had left from Leh. But the hunger from all the exercise and need for something hot to drink made all of us walk to the only restaurant at lake. I had a steaming cup of black tea while others had hot aloo parathas. Nupoor and Neerja were the only ones who dared to walk up to the banks. I was feeling quite disappointed with the overall fiasco of the weather, as I missed chance for some really good photographs.

As snowfall started getting significantly heavy, we decided to rush back. If the snowfall would continue, there was big fat chance of Changla pass closing down. As we neared Shaitan Nala again, we had already devised a plan to avoid getting stuck again. Luckily another group who had left ahead of us from Pangong, did all the work for us. We had shared our experience with them when we were having breakfast at lake. So before crossing the stream, they filled and leveled the rock bed with more rocks. While we waited for them to finish and cross, everybody took a chance to play in snow. I am heavily vulnerable to cold, plus my feet were already killing me so I opted for staying in car and take photos instead… while Maggi was enjoying the time of her life with her wish of heavy snowfall coming true!

Soon we reached our guesthouse and we finished our packing in record breaking time. As my stuff was mostly packed, I took the opportunity for a quick cup of hot coffee and smoke. As we left Tangtse, the view had changed dramatically. Everything that we saw while coming merely 15 hours earlier was turned into a white carpet. All the green patches, dark gray rocks and road were covered in snow. As we started our ascent to Changla pass, the snow was getting thicker. Even the roads were covered in at least 6 inches thick layer of snow. As we went higher, the drop in temperature was getting significantly obvious. My iPod hard-drive experienced short term death due to sub-zero temperatures.

After the series of unfortunate events since morning, all of us were praying that we make it through Changla pass before it closes down. There were other groups who had stopped to play in snow in between. Couple of our genius members also had strong urge to do the same, but the idea getting stuck in the event of pass closing down returned them to their senses. As we reached Changla pass, we met even more people halting and taking opportunity to play snowball fights. Amjad had bit of snowball of his share, by his other driver friends. But we didn’t stay for long. Soon we were off; and as soon as we started our descent we all felt the huge relief. After we reached guesthouse, Amjad informed us that ours was the last vehicle to get past Changla pass. Apparently, Changla pass was closed down just in 15 mins after we left from there and all those snowball fight champions were stuck there. Though I feel bad for the trouble those people must be facing against cold weather.

As we reached Leh, there was another thing. There was mix-up of dates in booking of rooms. Our rooms were booked for another group on that day. As a gesture of an apology, our guesthouse owner had made an alternative arrangement for us in another hotel for a night, on his behalf. After having lunch we were bit clueless about what to do. As it was raining even in Leh, going out was bit difficult. Jaimin opted to sleep. I wasn’t feeling sleepy despite being awake for night. Maggi and I, decided to sit down to work on some photographs. As rain subsided a bit in the evening, Nupoor and Neerja decided to venture out. Me, Jaimin and Maggi decided to wait for some more time for the rain to stop. At around 7, as rain finally stopped we decided to hit cybercafé. After cybercafé, all went to meet Qayyum (our Leh coordinator for entire trip) at his office to check arrangements for Tso-moriri trip. I usually don’t bother with these things so I headed back to hotel.

At dinner table the talk of the hour was the entire episode of disappointments and misadventures. We all hoped for weather to clear up for next day, as we were going to visit three prominent monasteries around Leh.

I and the shutterbug inside me prayed really hard, as I was really looking forward to visiting these monasteries.

Related videos from Maggi’s youtube channel:

Next : Ladakh Chronicles, part 7 – Monasteries

Tags: bad weather, Changla, China, cloudy, Doodhgooling, fog, highest motorable pass, Ladakh, Leh, misadventures, Pangong Tso, rainstorm, Shaitan Nala, snow, snowfall, snowfight, sub-zero, Tangtse, Thaktok, yak
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