Breathing easy at Khardung La

 

Breathing easy at Khardung La

Leh Diary -2

                                             Photo - Gyanesh Tewari

Last week I had written about reaching Leh town but our journey was not even half done yet. Coursing through the barren stretch of land, we took off for Nubra valley, crossing Khardung La pass (17382 ft., though some sources claim that it is at 18379 ft.) that day, claimed to be the highest motorable road in the world (And as all claims go, this too has now been contested).

According to Wikipedia  

In 2013-2014, Chisumle-Demchok Road via Umling La (19300 ft.), which is one of the India-China Border Roads built as a part of Project Himank by BRO, surpassed Khardung La in elevation to become the world's highest motorable pass.

The area got drier and drier as we drove up the mountains. Scores of spluttering Royal Enfields crossed us, some carrying only a five-litre jerry can of petrol yet some others with enough stuff to last a month on the road. The riders, dressed in black and mostly wearing knee guards, looked as if they belonged to one school.

To me the Khardung La summit point came as a damp squib. There were scores of vehicles and not enough parking space in that small area. The tea shops looked like run-down shacks and please, don’t even ask me about the toilets. There was just one pillar announcing to the world where you are, and dozens of people crowding to take a selfie or get photographed. It was simply chaos. All the helmets and scarves had been taken off and now you could see various models of mobile phones aiming at faces with bright lipsticks and carefully brushed down hair. 

 

Photos - Gyanesh Tewari

Maybe the Border Roads Organisation can put up more such pillars which would ease the rush at this famous spot.

I am told this summer was hot, so the snow had melted although some people tried to scrape whatever white fluff could be seen, to get a picture.

We were warned not to stay there for more than 20 minutes to avoid breathlessness. Thankfully, nobody in our group encountered any breathing issue.We moved on because the job had been done and there was not much to brag about there.

Khardung La takes you from Leh to Nubra Valley in the Union Territory. After the pass, we stopped at Khardung village (15,000 ft) to have a cup of tea. I love my regular cuppa and must have drank thousands of cups, mugs and glasses of tea in my years on this planet. But this one cup could easily be on the podium as the winner for one of the worst. Spoiled my taste for hours after that!

Yet it was refreshing to talk to some of the bikers (Beware, unlike my wiser half, I have no qualms about talking to strangers!) who had come from West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Karnataka and of course, Delhi and Punjab etc. Most of them had rented motorcycles at Leh for their road trips. (There are no foreign tourists for these last two years due to Covid restrictions.) While some of them were passionate riders who tried to scale the whole road map of our country on these gigantic ant-like two-wheelers, some others admitted that it was just this one trip, much against the wishes of their parents {especially mothers, the sign on the truck (top photo) on way to Khardung La, says it all}.  

The army monitors the whole South Pullu- Khardung La - North Pullu stretch in winter to keep track of our northern neighbour’s unneighbourly activities.

Nubra is a cold desert, and sparsely populated. You see patches of greenery in small villages with few houses which are surrounded by poplar and willow trees. The residents grow apples, apricots, wheat and some other food crops. Because the days are hot and nights cold, it is better to take clothes which you can layer, as need be. Thick jackets are useful only if you are biking. But a cap and a sunscreen/sunblock are a must if you want to avoid damage to the skin or compete with the (paid) model on the TV screen for a clear, blemish-free twacha (skin).  

Now it was time to traipse back to lower grounds. Our destination for the night was Diskit, the headquarters of Nubra.  On the itinerary for the day was going to see Maitreya, the 33 metre tall statue of Buddha, which faces the West and is said to be a symbol of peace.

The Diskit Monastery, built in the early 15^th century, takes care of it. No chance of climbing so many steps to visit the monastery, but I did visit the small temple on the lower floor.

The next stop after a couple of hours’ drive was the sand dunes which can be found in the area between Hundar and Diksit towns. Yes, the whole area is a cold desert which rewrites all your expectations of the hills. The to-do activity there seemed to be camel-ride. Scores of people dressed in rented pahadi (hill area) costumes were making a beeline to where the camels were.

The tiny brown things towards the right are the camels!

These two-humped Bactrian camels, native to Central Asia, look shorter and stockier than the single-humped ones seen in our country. GT was the only daring one among us who chose to go for a ride. But he too soon came back. Why? Riders on the flock of camels are meant to move as a group, they are slow and it is a short ride. Not only that, he brought in the information (not confirmed officially) that out of the 1000 camels brought into India as tourist attraction, more than a quarter had died due to heat and some bacterial infection. And I had forgotten to point out to him that camels do not take a bath or use deodorants, so that was another reason.

We spent the two nights in Diskit in a guest house. It is a small town with a population of a few thousand.

The shocker was that one of the members of the group fell sick during the night, throwing up and dizzy, in no state to move the next day and had to spend the day in bed.

All of us tried to act the doctor guessing the cause - from imbalance of salts or acute mountain sickness to her taking the anti-allergic for cold which one is not used to. GT went looking for a pharmacy and he was told that there are only three medicine shops in the town and none of them was open at that time. The government hospital staff were, however, very sympathetic and cooperative and gave him the medicines he required along with packets of Oral Rehydrating Solution.

I do not want to throw a bummer in the plans of those who want to go some time or the other to this raw, naturally beautiful area, but Diskit, like most other places in the region, has electricity supply for only a few hours from six to nine in the morning and five to eleven in the evening. Although the people there do not need to use air-conditioners or air-coolers, even fans or refrigerators, very few hours of power supply poses practical problems for leading a normal life. Those desirous of taking photos must charge their mobile phone and cameras in that time slot. 

Halfway through our journey, we were set for our trip to Turtuk the following day which I would share with you next Saturday.  

 

                                                 

Rock art by nature !

Photo - Gyanesh Tewari

Bright orange Lehberry (right) (Seabuckthorn) growing in the wild adds a touch of  colour  to the otherwise dry brown area. 

- Anupama S Mani