[Ace F355]

Day 10: Karu - Chang La - Durbuk - Tangste - Chushul - Pangong Tso

Woke up early in our room early. Like I mentioned earlier, the place was just about okay, we freshened up quickly and checked out.

A sunny morning finally, after clouds chased us for so many days


The intersection of 3 different roads at Karu, left one in this pic goes towards Pangong Tso.


Had breakfast at a nearby eatery, familiar masala bread omelette and tea.


Fortuner ready for another day!


Left for Pangong Tso after breakfast.


Chemrey Gompa, as viewed from Leh - Pangong Tso road


We thought the tarmac was pretty fine, unfortunately it lasted only a couple of kilometers. There was road blockage ahead and we were told to wait for one hour to get road cleared up ahead. We caually asked the guy whether there was another way that could take us to the main highway, bypassing the blockage. He smiled, looking at our Truck , and said we could take a short cut which would also save us 30 mins from the main highway! We gladly asked for directions and moved towards the shortcut.


The road quickly turned into broken tarmac


and then into sandy kaccha tracks... as seen in a couple of pics below.










We literally flew over these roads, thanks to four wheel drive grip of our Toyota.


And were soon on the main highway...












45 mins later, we were at Chang La, another very high mountain pass in that region. Stands at 5360 meters (17580 feet), and is claimed to be second highest motor-able pass in the world. But we all know that is factually incorrect! Never the less, a beautiful pass to visit.




The road was closed ahead. Lots of people were seen returning back to Leh... We inquired about the reason and were told that the main road connecting Pangong Tso to Tangste was washed out and it will take another a couple of hours to repair, estimated time: 4 PM. I went to the BRO officer there to ask whether he was sure the road will open today only. He replied, there is nothing called 'Sure' in these areas. I talked to Anshuman and he said we could go to Chushul and then we could turn north towards Spangmik from there. But this would mean a drive of additional 100 kms and would mean that we will have to find diesel before Tso Moriri. Our additional diesel buy from Leh into a jerry can was after considering total remaining distance. Going towards Chushul require proper permits from Leh and that was the reason why almost everybody was returning back because they only had permits of Pangong Tso.

The barrier was down, we told BRO guys that we will continue towards Chushul. They asked for permits, we provided them a copy and off we went ahead.

[Ace F355]

Day 10: Karu - Chang La - Durbuk - Tangste - Chushul - Pangong Tso

CONTINUED...

Harong Stream passing alongside of the road towards Tangste


The road towards Tangste was fine and we kept good pace!


We weren't here to drive on roads, tarmac was good but it was boring. Soon we could see Tangste village down in the valley and big open sandy/gravelly spaces along with roads. Decided to take Fortuner off-road and we will find some new shortcuts!




Below are some stunning pics clicked by Anshuman!










When the gradient looked too steep, we got out on foot and and tried finding possible exits for the main road further.








The off-roading was lots of fun and we managed to save many kms of on-road driving.




Soon we were in Tangste and took our route towards Chushul.






BRO workers were surprised to see a big Delhi registered strange looking SUV, flying on non-existent roads... in the pic below, BRO guys in process of laying a new tarmac.


Stopped along Harong Stream to enjoy the rarely visible greenery in this high altitude desert region.








Some sections of this road were pretty decent.






Crossed a few tiny streams on-road and had some good fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-TLrctvznw

[Ace F355]

Day 10: Karu - Chang La - Durbuk - Tangste - Chushul - Pangong Tso

CONTINUED...

Harong Stream kept us company for some while...






The roads were kinda on and off.


















Then we started climbing up again... we started realizing that Chushul should be at our next valley's floor!


Tonnes of even more short cuts!








Finally, we reached on top and got our first glimpse of Chushul village, down in the valley.




At the time of clicking this pic, we had traveled quite some distance down from the high pass, however a quick check in the GPS indicated we were still at 5100 meters altitude!

Meaning, the high pass which we didn't even realize must have been pretty close to Chang La in terms of altitude!

[Ace F355]

Day 10: Karu - Chang La - Durbuk - Tangste - Chushul - Pangong Tso

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xJI1gY3hI

I will shut up for a minute and let you guys soak up the pics below... We felt really fortunate to see Pangong Tso's real beauty! It was absolutely surreal and having the whole lake to ourselves only meant we could enjoy it even more (remember, the main route was blocked and lack of people having permits for Chushul meant we were there all alone).




















Kept driving at slow speeds towards Maan & Merak villages...








Lush Green Barley fields in Maan village provided very good colors and contrast. It continued to get even better and better...




Found ourselves a open ground right next to lank banks, and decide to camp for some minutes, cooked our lunch and soaked the beauty around...














A few of the views around... the lush green fields nearby, tall mighty mountains, nicely cooked meal and a lake constantly changing its color from deep blue to turquoise blue... the experience was out of this world and can't be put into words...

[Ace F355]

Day 10: Karu - Chang La - Durbuk - Tangste - Chushul - Pangong Tso

After a hearty meal and spending some awesome time on the bank of Pangong, we moved on towards Spangmik. The amazing views kept getting better and better...





































After another hour's driving, we reached our place to stay... spent some quality time around and wrapped up another excellent day of the trip.

[Ace F355]

Day 11 First Half: At Pangong Tso

Once our program for the day was fixed, we drove back to lonely lake side and spent some more quality time.

























At the banks of the lake, pulled our camping chairs out and relaxed. The crisp and cold breeze, the changing colors of Pangong Tso and absolute solitude was really enjoyable.












Anshuman, after relaxing some time, went ahead for some bird photography on the lake.
















A few clicks of Atlantis as well...

[Ace F355]

A couple of you might have noticed that we have not discussed our place of stay on Day 10. Our stay for Day 10 and 11 was at an (undisclosed) awesome location, and we sure had plenty of fun. We visited some places (not like one or two, many) where no traveler has ever been, however we are not going to discuss that here or post any pictures in this thread, however we can tell those 2 days were rather special.

Then why aren't we discussing all that fun here...

The reason is simple, we are keeping our promise to have a few things secure and confidential.

About 4 years back, there were many places nearby Pangong Tso which were open to visitors having permits issued from Leh headquarters. Some amazing places, lonely and probably most exotic in India. However, the ignorance of some travelers has resulted in total and strict ban by local administration on visiting these places. I would like to remind us and many travelers going in this region, these places are much venerable and source of dispute between India and our hawk eyed neighbors. While we get to see these places displaying their surreal beauty in Normal season, the bitter truth is that our soldiers in Army & ITBP spend hellish time in these very areas during winters; protecting, patrolling and doing recce of our land. Some of these mountains and places have their strategic importance and have been readied to serve contingency purposes in case of conflicts.

However, some (not all) travelers have been so ignorant about these basic facts that they don't even realize the kind of damage can be caused by their silly mistakes. In my humble opinion, even throwing the water bottles in tourist spots should be a punishable offence. And we were equally disappointed to see garbage being thrown around like it didn't even matter! Why can't we behave responsibly, in order to protect these areas, which in my opinion, are one of the coolest places in our wonderful country. It doesn't take much effort, just a matter of understanding one's responsibly to preserve the environment and raw natural beauty of these places.

Much worse have been that lot of tourists, who knowingly or unknowingly have been clicking the pictures of these places and show off on social media platforms. We need to understand the strategic importance of some of these places and appreciate the valor of our soldiers protecting these areas with their blood and sweat! A few likes of Facebook posts, Thank clicks on TBHP or thumbs up on other social media should not even hold a candle in front of risking sovereignty of our country!

We, therefore, request future travelers to please behave responsibly and respect the set rules by local administration. Hope this message is taken in positive spirit and can inspire tourists to have some genuine self-responsibility and make them understand the future importance of their current actions.

Back to the topic, next post is of our Day 12...

[Guna]

Originally Posted by .anshuman

The cars could not go all the way till the river bank here, so we decided to try another place to get to riverside. The river was shallow, not too deep, we even got Rohit to cross the river on foot to check the depth. Now was the time to get the SUV’s across, in the process Storme went through the wrong place, the only place which was sandy, without momentum it was stuck in no time.

Did you initially plan to cross the river?
Looking at the rescue video, this is what I was thinking: when the Storme has got the LSD, why only the rear wheel spinning while the front wheel is stationary? With LSD, some amount of torque is supposed to be directed to the wheel which has got some traction even when the other wheels are spinning. Technically some manufacturers claim that a single wheel on a good surface is sufficient to pull out of these type of situations.

[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by Guna

Did you initially plan to cross the river?
Looking at the rescue video, this is what I was thinking: when the Storme has got the LSD, why only the rear wheel spinning while the front wheel is stationary? With LSD, some amount of torque is supposed to be directed to the wheel which has got some traction even when the other wheels are spinning. Technically some manufacturers claim that a single wheel on a good surface is sufficient to pull out of these type of situations.

Yes, we planned to cross the river. Ace even crossed it on foot and gave us the green signal from the other side. Unfortunately we started from wrong point, every other place was solid, this was the only soft patch.

LSD in Storme transfers too little power to the other wheel to be of any help, sounds good on paper, little help on ground.

[Ace F355]

Day 12 started off relatively early in the morning. We had rested good and sufficient during previous 2 days.

So, you are heading from one lake to another, haan! Our friend at Pangong Tso asked us.

It was easy to see curiosity in his eyes, wondering what could better the experience that Pangong had offered to us in previous 2 days.

It's just another lake, one more ticker in our travel diaries! We laughed it out, thanked our host for his amazing hospitality and started our journey from Pangong Tso towards Tso Moriri, looking forward to see some more spectacular vistas this amazing place had to offer.







Pangong Tso is magical, truly magical. It is hard not to stop and breath a lungful of its beauty everytime you pass by it. All you do is stare at it, peacefully, standing speechless.


Click a few more panorama shots.


Capture even more interesting perspective!


A few more B&W shots.


Enjoy the 35 kms long shore drive, one last time in 2016!






Crossed some more small streams...


And some corrugated sections which rattle every single piece of your spine. Thankfully, Ironman suspension was working overtime for us!








Soon we were back in Chushul.


Our plan was to continue on our way to Mahe. However, a check post in Chushul mentioned that the route was closed for some road obstruction issues. Bummer!!!


It meant that we will have to take even longer route towards South to Nyoma! Shortage of diesel was already looming in our minds. But this is what it is, we had no option but to continue on our way to Nyoma.

There was basically no road at all, it was all dirt tracks over which we literally flew.











After almost 20 mins of drive we reached RezangLa Memorial.

[Ace F355]

RezangLa Memorial is a nice calm place, it celebrates the sacrifice of 13 Kumaon Regiment of the Indian Army. After a quick break at the place, we continued on our way to Nyoma.



A lonely and peaceful drive, we kept up good pace and covered ground as per our expectations.












Some interesting red soiled tracks...




Kept driving, weather was pretty awesome as well. Sun and Clouds played their hide and seek in the sky through out the day. It was quite warm in the morning when we left from Chushul, however it turned a bit cloudy around noon.




And then we saw some quick outbursts of showers... was pretty cool to watch...

[Ace F355]

Continued our journey towards Nyoma through the now-familiar terrain.



Near the banks of Indus River...


Spotted some excellent looking sand dunes!


Indus kept us company for a while.






Finally, we reached Nyoma around 1 PM. Since procuring diesel was in our mind and Nyoma was probably the only place where we could find some, we decided to searched for diesel in the town. Asked a few local villagers and a lady offered us to provide us diesel from her home. Asked her the price and we are pleasantly surprised by the quote which was cheaper than even Leh bunkers.

We drove to her place in the village and she brought out a 20 litre jerry can for us. At first look, diesel looked a bit blue in color and we thought it must be adulterated. We asked her about it and she said it was as pure it could be since she procured it from local Army depot. We were a bit skeptical, but decided to take it since it was our only hope to find diesel in this remote location. Filled in 40 litres into our car, paid the lady and drove off, now we were confident that we had sufficient fuel with us for rest of the journey.

Back on the road towards Mahe...




Indus again for our company...


Crossed Mahe and turned left for Karzok...


Now we were on our way to Tso Moriri...




A little bit of drive further and we had our first glimpse of another small but beautiful lake, Kyagar Tso.

[Ace F355]

Kyagar Tso was very nice and we knew what to expect from Tso Moriri if the day will remain sunny...



The road from Kyagar Tso to Karzok was single strip but freshly laid. However, we weren't interested in that. After spending so many days off-roading and driving on gravel roads, we were kind of fell in love with these type of road conditions only. So, despite that the tarred road was lovely, we simply continued on sandy and gravel tracks running parallel to the road. Saved a few clicks on odo as well, perhaps!









When no shortcut or tracks to drive on, tarred road was our companion.


Soon, had a first look of Tso Moriri...




At the banks of Tso Moriri...


There was a landslide that was being cleared up, so we took a break and enjoyed the amazing calmness of the Tso Moriri for some time.


Entered Karzok village after a little drive.


Crossed the village and went straight to vantage point for a better view...






Did a little bit of off-roading to reach further where we were right at the banks of the lake...


Here is a quick video I took while relaxing at the banks of Tso Moriri.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bodPVqA-0TE

After spending some time there, drove back to the vantage point.


Pulled out our camping chairs and relaxed while enjoying the surreal beauty of Tso Moriri at sunset. Below are a few pictures clicked by Anshuman from that evening...

[Ace F355]

Our night stay at Tso Moriri was in camping tents. We managed to negotiate a decent deal with one of the camp sights. The night was extremely cold at night due to strong winds and we slept just about okay. Woke up around 7'O clock next day, freshened up quickly, had a quick breakfast at the camp and started our day.

A quick picture of the camp where we stayed.


Even in the morning, we drove back to the vantage point to click a few more nice pictures at Tso Moriri...


And at Kyagar Tso which was looking even better than the previous day...






Although our plan for Day 13 was to drive towards Kyon Tso as well, we decided to drop the plan because we realized that the day was going to be a bit cloudy again. Slight change in plan, we would not visit Kyon Tso and head towards Manali by catching Manali-Leh Highway near Meroo. A quick look at the map and we started our day towards Manali. The drive was uneventful, we enjoyed some more shortcuts and off-road sessions.













And hit the Manali-Leh highway around noon...


Time for another quick re-fueling which turned out to be a little messy when we shifted 40 litres of diesel into the Fortuner tank from our Jerry Can.


Crossed Pang and continued towards Sarchu.






Had to stop for around 1 hour just before LachungLa due to BRO's ongoing road repair work due to recent landslides.



.

[Ace F355]

Soon we were at Lachung La and heading towards Sarchu.



We never missed any chance to take our Fortuner off the road. Every single short cut was taken in order to save on miles & time.










Soon we hit the Gata Loops... What route did we take? You guessed it... all the shortcuts!










Hit Sarchu in the afternoon...


Made an entry into the checkpost and continued further.


Once we were into the plains between the valley, it was time to take a quick break and have another cookout for lunch.




Cooked our RTE meals for lunch, relaxed a little.




It started to drizzle and we wrapped up our lunch break soon, back on the road... Climb to Baralacha La was in quite heavy rains! Anshuman took a little nap while I drove to cover more ground.

It was still raining by the time we descended on the other side of Zing-Zing Bar, Darcha, Jispa and Tandi.





We made quick progress towards Rohtang Pass through Sissu, Kokhsar and Gramphu through light drizzle because it was getting a bit late in the evening. We managed to cross Rohtang Pass by the time sun got down... Now it was just a small descend towards Manali from Rohtang that we needed to do in dark. Uneventful drive, we managed to reach Manali by 10 PM. Booked ourselves a nice hotel on our way into the city, checked in, had a quick dinner and wrapped up another long day of the trip.