The Mother of All Drives - Part 5. Tso Moriri - Polongka La - Pang - Chhatru.

Descent from the Polongka La

5 July 2001. Karzok / Tso Moriri - Polongka La - Pang.

I have always considered the ubiquitous omelet, made Indian style with freshly cracked eggs, chopped onions, chopped green chillies and chopped tomatoes - all whisked into a glutinous semi liquid paste and poured directly on to a pan sizzling with hot oil - a great way to start the day when at altitude and when the morning is crisp and cold. The last thing I worry about are the calories and the cholesterol.

The enticing aroma of just such a treat wafted through the small tea shop in Karzok where we sat ourselves down for breakfast. There was a sprinkling of people, intrepid backpackers and globetrotters included, hunkering down under the parachute cloth ceiling. Our omelets soon reached us and as we began to wolf it down, we were interrupted by a petite young girl speaking with a distinctly American accent.

"Oooh! Eggs! That is just awesome, I didn't know you could get eggs here!" she said.

I glanced up and saw a Chinese face looking at our plates.

"Sure you can," I said. "Just tell the cook to bring you some before his stock is depleted!"

"Oh my God! Thank you, thank you, I will, I will!" She ran over to the kitchen side of the establishment and when she returned she looked extremely pleased with herself. It turned out that she and her friend (also Chinese) were from New York and their staple food during their sojourn in Ladakh had been Maggi noodles. The third person in their group was a pleasant middle aged English woman who had decided to see Ladakh after attending her daughter's wedding to an Indian in Kerala.

"Are you serious?" I said, "You have been living off the instant 2 minute Maggi noodles all this time?"

"Ooh," she squealed again, "I think they are delicious! I have never tasted anything like it in New York. I am going to take a whole box of Maggi packets when I go back!"

I looked at her incredulously, shook my head and went back to eating my omelet.

It was a perfect morning perfectly suited to the pursuit of soaking in the gorgeous landscape.

Tso Moriri in the morning

But we had plans to make it to Pang before the curfew was clamped down on the Leh-Manali highway and so, reluctantly, we drove slowly out of Karzok. It was 8:30 am and we reckoned we had ample time to cover the distance. We passed some cyclists on the rough gravel road and admired their grit and tenacity.

The road on the shores of Tso Moriri was an absolute delight

In two hours' time we came to a fork in the road and took the one which would lead us over the Polongka La and into the valley of the Tso Kar. We drove through a stretch of country that was bristling with salt deposits and we even passed the remains of what seemed to have been a salt processing plant. Now it stood mute and disused, perhaps a forlorn testimony to the challenges of trying to do business at these altitudes and in the harsh climate.

The salt flats beyond Puga

A very rough stretch of track followed, rising steeply to the pass. The Gypsy required the 4WD low setting and the first gear to tackle the terrain all the way to the crest. My Suunto watch altimeter indicated a height of 4950 m / 16236 ft at the pass. Since leaving Tso Moriri we had not seen another vehicle or human, the route we had chosen was obviously rarely traversed. We reveled in the sense of isolation and remoteness. On the downside, if we were to have a mechanical breakdown, we would pretty much have to walk out of the area with just the clothes on our backs.

The Polongka La (4950m) 

A long gradual descent to the valley of the Tso Kar followed, the road becoming indistinct and often we would be following old and faint tyre tracks on the sand. Short grass growing in a sparse fashion added a green hue to the landscape, dominated by gentle brown snow clad  mountains under blue skies punctuated by beautiful white clouds. Various species of ducks populated the waters of the lake, often skimming over the surface in short bursts of flight. The Ladakhi pop singer Phunchok Dorjay's album Thundel played in the cassette player, his melodious songs wafting effortlessly into the ether.
(For a sample of his latest numbers check out http://www.saavn.com/s/Thundel )

Tso Kar

Finally we rejoined the Leh-Manali metalled road on the More Plains, about 40 km before Pang. The fuel indicator showed that we were running low on petrol. Using four wheel drive and low gears had been steadily eroding the supply in the tank. We refuelled about 6 km before Pang, emptying the contents of our 20 litre container with the help of a short length of rubber tubing attached to a plastic funnel. The day before we had used up the contents of the 35 litre container on the way to Tso Moriri. I  hoped that we would have enough to last us up to the pump at Tandi bridge.

We reached Pang at around 3 pm, only to be told that the "gate" for further travel to Manali had closed at two o'clock. My driving license had to be surrendered to the check post for the night, to ensure that I did not entertain any foolish notions of slinking out of Pang in the cover of darkness. This was a regular procedure. We were not the only ones to miss the deadline. There was a little collection of jeep taxis and vans and cars clustered around the little village of parachute-cloth tents which spring up in the summer months to cater to stranded travellers. We found accommodation in the form of sleeping space in one of these and spent the evening going for a bracing walk above the highway.

Walking above Pang

On our return to the tent lodge, I was impressed by the young lad who was single handedly cooking and serving hot rice, dal and vegetables to a hungry clientele. His cooking was excellent and his service skills even better. It was not the first time that I had marvelled at the talent of people like him slaving away in unknown corners of the world. They would never make it to the glossy pages of Conde Nast Traveller, but they would always leave a lifelong impression on me.

The cook and innkeeper

6 July 2001. Pang - Sarchu - Bara Lacha La - Chhatroo.

Outside our tent motel

I was among the first in queue in the morning to retrieve my license from the check post guards. We set off at 7:30 am after a quick breakfast (of omelets, what else!) but within 20 minutes of driving the Gypsy sputtered to a halt.

I alighted from the vehicle and opened the hood with trepidation, not knowing what I would find. Everything seemed in order. On closer inspection I noticed that the wire attached to one of the battery terminals had worked itself loose. I reconnected the wire, tightened the clamps holding it in place with a small spanner and turned on the ignition. The Gypsy came to life. We all sighed with relief. Since it was a gorgeous morning in a gorgeous location, I was compelled to take a picture before moving on!

The rest of the drive passed pleasantly enough and without incident: a coffee break with Vijay Dutt at his Northwest Adventures camp site near Sarchu, lunch at Bharatpur below the Bara Lacha pass, a refuel stop at the Tandi bridge pump and onwards through Khoksar and Gramphoo towards Batal where we planned to spend the night before crossing the Kunzum La into Spiti. My plan was to return to Delhi via Spiti and Kinnaur and Shimla, thus avoiding repeating the drive from Rohtang and Manali to the plains.

The distance from Pang to Batal was only about 275 km but I had not reckoned with the mountain roads, our leisurely pace of travel and our frequent stops. The sun had set and it was getting quite dark as we tackled the stretch from Gramphoo to Chhatru. The stretch along the Chandra river in this part of Lahul is extremely rugged. There were waterfalls cascading off the cliffs to our right straight on to the road and driving through them provided us with a free car wash. The headlights picked out the potholes  as we progressed slowly and the sheer drop on our left to the torrent below kept me alert and nervous.

We crossed the bridge at Chhatroo to the true right bank of the river and immediately halted at one of the few teashops for dinner. We asked the owner if we could spend the night here and he agreed. Relieved of the anxiety of further night driving we relaxed and settled down to enjoy the simple and wholesome dal bhat sabji dinner.

Chhatroo owes its importance to being the pit stop for travellers taking the Kullu - Kaza bus. I had camped here with Bir Singh on a meadow above the road in Sept 1985 after descending the Chota Shigri glacier from the Sara Umga Pass.
(See http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2012/07/sara-umga-la-follow-sheep.html). Running out of kerosene for my little Primus stove, I had bought some diesel to keep it going and I can still remember the acrid flavour of our dinners laced with the sulphur fumes of the fuel!

Now, sixteen years later, our entertainment arrived suddenly in the form of five Israeli youth - four males and a female - who tumbled out of a Sumo at around ten o'clock in the evening in the darkness. They were having an animated argument amongst themselves and seemed quite agitated. The driver of the Sumo followed, shaking his head in a gesture of resignation.

"What's up?" we asked him.

"These people hired me to drive them to Chandratal from Manali. We left at 6 in the morning, reached Chandratal by afternoon, they spent a couple of hours there - more than they should have done, given the fact that they wanted to be back  in Manali this evening - and now they insist that I drive them all the back in the dark to Manali!"

"That's a bad idea," I cautioned him. "I have just driven the stretch from Gramphoo to here. There has been a lot of rain up above the road and it is in pretty bad shape. You would be risking your life and theirs by tempting fate. "

"They are offering me five hundred rupees more if I get them to Manali tonight. I've told them that I am exhausted."

"Five hundred rupees is not worth your life," I tried to reason with him. Spend the night here and go back at first light."

We entered the teashop where his clients had already ordered some food. We exchanged cursory hellos and I reiterated that they should not coerce their driver to drive in these conditions, the risk was unnecessary. It was well past ten o'clock and we rolled out our sleeping bags, sought out some appropriate spots in the inner recesses of the shack and promptly fell off to sleep. It had been a long day for us and we planned to make an early start on the morrow.

to be continued....