The D-day of the expedition is just a few days away and the fun and games is giving away to more serious pursuits. From today started the recee of the expedition route. Of the dozen passes that I need to cross, I know more than half of them having traversed them many times – Baralacha La, Nakeela, Lachulung La, Kangla Jal, Tanglang La, Khardung La, Wari La, Chang La and Marsimik La. That is nine passes. The ones I have never done are Namshang La, Polokang La, Tsaga La, Thit Zarbo La and Horlam La. That is five bringing the total number of passes to fourteen. I have the grid coordinates of these five passes, but when I plot them on a map, they do not seem right. I have to physically go and check them out. Talking to people in and around Leh draws a blank. None of them seem to have heard about any of these passes, making my life a lot more difficult. Anyway. We load up and are ready to roll after breakfast.
I have never been to Tso Moriri after my
first trip to Leh in 2003. A lot would have changed by now and for the better.
We head off through Karu and into Upshi for the detour into Tso Moriri. Traffic
is minimal, this being beyond the end of the season. I knew that we had to take a turn at the Mahe
bridge for Tso Moriri ... I just did not remember where it was. We drove on and
soon crossed the village of Likche. Soon thereafter, we came to a bridge which
I assumed to be the Mahe bridge. There was no one to ask for directions and no
sign posts either. Even the base map on my GPS did not show these roads. We
crossed the bridge and started climbing. It was a steep climb and from what I
remembered from my 2003 trip was that the road was bad and steep.
We kept climbing till we reached a small
village called Tarchik ... and the road ended right there. The road we have
been climbing on for almost an hour led nowhere! Back again it was, down to the
“Mahe” bridge and further southeast. We stopped at a smaller than small
ramshackle dhaba at Hemiya for lunch of Maggi. And drove on. Still no sign of
the Mahe bridge and still no signposts either. We crossed Nurnish, Keshar and
Chumathang where we stopped for a cup of tea. There were some locals there and
I decided to do some research. Sure enough Mahe was a little further up and one
local had a map of the region which he promptly took out when queried about the
passes we were looking for. A small crowd had gathered and everyone was looking
at me kinda funny ... people wanted to go to the Lakes and here was this crazy
fellow looking for unheard of passes. Anyway, Namshang La and Polokang La were
on the map and when I asked he gladly gave away his map to me. At least now we
had a map.
Soon thereafter, a little before dusk, we
reached the Mahe bridge and took the right turn towards Tso Moriri. Here there
was a signpost announcing the bridge to be the Mahe Bridge. Night was falling
and Tso Moriri was still a long way away. And it was getting cold. We arrived
at a fork, the right turn took one to Sumdo while the left went to Tso Moriri.
A passing local informed us that Tso Moriri would take us another hour and a
half or so. The drive was good, the road decent, the night cold and we could
see nothing after a while. We drove on. We did not know where we were going,
all we had was a GPS system which showed the lake and sure enough we were
headed towards it.
We crossed three high passes which had no
signposts announcing their lineage. I guessed these must be three of the five
that we were looking for. We would find out more at Tso Moriri. We reached the
northern end of the lake and found a board announcing that the road was closed.
OK. We took the other road which looked decent. We drove on for about ten kilometres
and then decided to look at the map the kindly neighbour at Chumathang had
given us. We were headed for Karzok which was at the eastern end of the lake
while we were driving on the western bank. U-turn happened and we drove back to
the fork with the ROAD CLOSED sign and decided to go down the non existent
road. The road was being constructed and it was back breaking work driving
through that. We knew we were driving alongside the lake and we could see some
lights in the distance that we homed in on. About an hour later, we hit the
town of Karzok. It was late and everything had closed down. And it was almighty
cold. Saw what looked like a Guest House and parked in front of the gate. Soon
enough the caretaker came in and graciously agreed to host us for the night.
It was cold, way below freezing and I knew we
would have a problem starting the vehicles the next morning. We were carrying
some spare gas and decided to keep the engine running through the night. Dinner
done, all of us went off to sleep after what had been a fantastic drive,
despite the wrong road at the first “Mahe” bridge and then through the darkness
of the night into Tso Moriri and Karzok village. An eventful day indeed.
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