Preface
After exploring amazing Nubra Valley on the previous days, we departed from Hunder early morning exploring Diskit Monastery and traveled along one of the most difficult terrains of the valley along the Shyok river to reach Pangong after the sunset. We stayed in a camp just in front of the lake, but the lake wasn’t visible due to the dark surroundings and heavy cold weather. Read it here
Plan for the day
As we reached after sunset to Pangong Lake, we couldn’t get the view of the lake and its surroundings. So we had to spend some time early morning exploring the lake and its surroundings. Then we had to reach Hanle by any condition at night, so that we can cover entire Umling La, Photi La and reach Tso Moriri lake.
Pangong Lake->Chusul->Nyoma->Hanle
The journey was not so long, but the road was in a very terrible condition until we reached Nyoma and hence the journey extended to a very long time. We also visited Rezang La war memorial, one of the most iconic memorials of India which is just few meters away from the LAC.
Waking up with the view of Gorgeous Pangong Lake
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 I went to witness the beautiful night sky which is one of the best views I’ve ever seen. The cool breeze, clear night sky and lovely pattern of stars made the surroundings appear gorgeous.
I woke early at around 6 AM and was stunned to witness the dark blue lovely Pangong Lake which expanded so long and long along with the beautiful hills and snow capped mountains. This pattern is something which I can never forget and this lake being so famous because of the movie 3 Idiots is in the bucket list of every traveler visiting Ladakh. Also not everyone is familiar with many passes and famous places in Ladakh, but everyone definitely knows this iconic lake for sure.
Exploring the Lake
After witnessing the lake from our camp, we just took a cup of coffee and breakfast to enjoy it with the best views of the Lake. It wasn’t much crowded and we could see Army helicopters and speed boats patrolling around the lake every now and then. The water in the lake was crystal clear and would be flowing in a fish like pattern as per the direction of winds.
Decoding the Pangong Lake
After having breakfast, we went down to the lake and observed that the changing color of lake is due to the color of sky and keeps changing with weather and time of the day. It was dark blue due to the color of sky and it appeared colorless as we went to the banks of lake. I was never aware that this is a salt water lake, which is almost 140km long and 5 kms wide, which is humongous.
Almost half of the control is with India and rest half is with China. It is actually expanding its territory and slowly taking over many patrolling points one by one. So its recommended to visit this lake as soon as possible to get the best views of the lake and its surroundings.
The Three Idiots Scenes
There are many localites who have kept the movie like scooters and 3 chair seats to recreate the scenes of this movie. They charge 50 or 100 Rs for photos. This is a major highlight of this tourist place. Even we clicked some pics for memories of this lovely place. We actually had stayed and explored on the starting of this lake. This is much longer and the road to Chushul runs parallel to it.
Departing to Chushul
So after exploring the surroundings of the lake and making some of the best memories of lifetime, we finally prepared our bike to continue our journey. We had to cover almost 180-190kms of distance today, but the very surprising and the most challenging thing is the road to reach Hanle. We are very safe once we reach Nyoma, but the road till Nyoma is one of the worst ever roads of Ladakh.
We were disappointed that we were leaving this lovely lake very soon, but later I chose a route which runs parallel to Pangong Lake almost until Chushul. This was one of our best decision ever.
Riding along the Pangong Lake
This has to be one of the best parts of exploring Ladakh in bike. We chose a route running parallel to Pangong Lake and oh man this was a very amazing feeling. The best ever I’d say. This route was just above the lake with no barricades and right below us was gorgeous dark blue Pangong Lake.
The road was very narrow and hardly there were any vehicles around. The atmosphere was completely silent with just our bike and the lake. I was constantly losing focus because of the lovely scene right in front of us. This was probably a moment which can’t be forgotten at all. After sometime we found another Three Idiots kind of scooter and chair completely for free with the best views of lake and had another round of photoshoot.
After sometime we finally had to say goodbye to the lake and we turned right to head towards Chushul. All this time we were just few kms away from the Chinese territory. Chushul is another major base of Indian Armed Forces known for a battle with China before and even tensions today.
Chushul
A small beautiful village with very little population but connecting Pangong Lake and DBO to Hanle sector in Ladakh. There’s a ALG as well for the usage of Indian Armed Forces. The road from Chushul to Hanle runs parallel to the large hills where the other side is actually under the control of Chinese Armed Forces. This was such an adventurous journey.
Even many tourists follow the same plan until Pangong and then skip off directly to Leh missing many amazing unexplored places in the Southern Ladakh. But we had planned the full Ladakh circuit and there’s no way in excluding this important tourist locations.
Rezang La War Memorial
After reaching Chushul, this was the first stop for the day. This was one of the places where heavy fighting took place between India and China in the 1962 war. Our brave soldiers failed to defend some areas but still fought bravely to defend some of our posts, even some of them martyred in the fierce battle in the time where our forces didn’t have much advanced weapons and equipment.
On the note of their bravery this war memorial has been built to honor their bravery and sacrifice. It was an amazing experience filled with patriotic feelings to visit this holy place. We explored the memorial and got ready to continue our journey.
The Deadly roads
The roads until Chushul was very peaceful and good to ride. But once we reached Chushul the pattern changed entirely. As the road from Chushul to Nyoma runs parallel to Chinese border, we haven’t been able to build roads due to Chinese interference and hence we had to suffer very terribly. It seemed that the road is being constructed but not sure what was actually happening.
The entire road was very dusty and once a car/truck passes we would be completely soaked with mud all over and the road was very challenging to ride as well. Moreover there aren’t any hotels, any localites staying in this area and it was a very challenging to ride for many reasons.
Conclusion
This was actually just 20% of our journey and the best road of the day to reach Chushul. But the real challenge was about to start after Chushul. We had a very long journey which was short in terms of distance but challenging in terms of the terrain. But it was definitely worth experiencing and a lifetime experience. Will be continued in the next blog.
