Exploring Ladakh, Ep – 06. Exploring Tso Moriri, The Hidden Unexplored Gems of Ladakh

Tso Moriri lake

Preface

The previous day was the most memorable day of my life ever reaching the World’s Highest Motorable Pass, along with the 6th highest and a magnificent journey of 350 kms in a single day. Read it here. We started very early from Hanle to cover all the things and reach before the sunset, but things doesn’t go as planned always. Still we reached Karzok, a lovely village on the banks of Tso Moriri lake.

Plan for the day

We stayed right in front of the lake as the village is very small. So we woke up with the gorgeous view of the lovely Tso Moriri. The plan for the day was to explore the lake and travel back to Leh. We planned to reach as early as possible so that we can take some good rest before our journey next day.

Karzok->Puga->Tso Kar Lake->Debring->Tanglang La->Leh

The journey was of 230kms approximately but most of the parts of road we would be travelling would be in good condition, so this distance didn’t seem much challenging.

A Beautiful Himalayan Village: Karzok

Tso Moriri lake
Tso Moriri lake

Karzok is the name of the village we stayed in last night. This is approximately 60kms from the Hanle Leh highway after a diversion from Mahe. It is very close to Chinese border once this lake ends. This lake is extremely huge and spreads at a very large area, but not as huge as Pangong and other major lakes. The road later leads to Chumur and then to Chisumle bridge and other one not sure if there are any villages ahead as Chinese area starts from there.

This village is very small with few mud houses here and there. There are a few hotels and homestays. Even in this generation, this is a classical example of a village disconnected from outside world. Though they say Ladakh has poor network connection, all the remote villages we visited had Airtel, Jio network along with good internet. But here nothing works except BSNL. The nearest major city is Mahe or Leh.

Though out of sight from cities, this village is truly truly beautiful. The gorgeous lake is right in front and there is a ITBP check post too. Mostly the villagers are originally from this place itself and involved in agriculture or their kids are into different places to work.WhatsApp Image 2025 07 29 at 22.25.15 scaled

Waking up with the view of Gorgeous Tso Moriri

We were very tired after the ride on previous day and hence slept very soon so that we could explore the lake on the next morning. Also at night, though we travelled a lot of distance parallel to the Tso Moriri lake, we couldn’t see it because of the darkness. So the wait was finally over and we got an amazing sight. It was bright sunny morning and the lake was shining bright blue in color. It looked so attractive from the village.

Ladakh map
Ladakh map

I haven’t personally met anyone who had visited this lake earlier and I had a strong desire to visit it at any cost. Trust me it was totally worth it. The long range of snow capped mountains, the crystal blue sky and the shining lake. It’s just a treat to our eyes.

Getting ready for the ride

We had a great tea and breakfast and got ready for the journey. We planned to take small breaks as and when we see good view points. So we stopped at multiple points of Tso Moriri lake and had a great sight from all the angles. Every angle was worth it.

Then we continued ahead to Sumdo and then to Puga. We also got to visit the hot springs in Puga, which are very famous. Though the hot springs was far, we can reach until there to check it out. This is again remote stretch which travelers mostly don’t take. The ones who are going to Manali/Leh from Tso Moriri come here or vice verse, so you don’t get to see many hotels, villages or anything.

Puga hostprings
Puga hostprings

Tso Kar Lake

On the way before reaching the Manali-Leh highway, we found a small lake named Tso Kar. It was kind of dried up and not looking so aesthetic, but this is famous too. We didn’t find anyone on this way and hence we didn’t stay here for so long.

Then we went ahead to reach the famous Manali-Leh highway and had a lunch break as we didn’t have anything since morning. Leh was getting closer and as we were out of the remote roads and were confident of this roads.

Tanglang La

This was another mountain pass which was in my bucket list. At a height of 17,475 ft, this is the highest point on Leh-Manali highway and one of the highest passes of the world. The best part is, the road around this pass is the best as its wider and condition is better as well. As we were already on high altitude, the altitude difference didn’t feel much. We captured a few pictures and left ahead to Leh.

Tanglang La pass
Tanglang La pass

Reaching Leh

We continued the journey and reached Leh by evening. We collected our essentials as we packed only necessary stuff for the journey. We already had booked a room and straight away went there as we were very tired and had to take bath, freshen up and gear up for the next day.

We came down to Leh market at night for dinner and to explore the market as well. We did a little bit of shopping and went early to get ready for the next leg of the journey. We had 2 days left and we had to make a round trip to Drass and back. Everything was going on as planned and the bike was behaving good as well, so we wanted to continue the same momentum and get done with the memorable trip

Leh market
Leh market
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