Pangong Lake

Got up early the next morning - 5am. The Jeep picked us up, and another lady (Lydi) - who was Swiss and 67 and very active and has been coming to India for the past ten years every year. And another fellow (Uwe) from Germany - difficult to talk to. He'd make a statement - overly serious statements I thought - and then intensely look into your eyes leaving you very uncertain whether he was going to say something else, or whether he wanted you to respond to his quite factual statement.

The road took us past several monasteries - literally perched on top of a high rock in the empty landscape. We went up Chang La (La means pass) - the second highest motorable road in the world - about 5400m. It was snowy and icey and generally very cold up there. On top were a few soldiers, an officer's toilet (very clean with towel and soap - a bit bizarre), some black barrels for tar, a round hut with glass all round and some hot chai in thermos bottles inside. Along the way you could look down into the green valley with kidney shaped and oblong shaped and finger shaped fields, and a small stream (melted snow probably) running through it. And all around just bare scree covered mountains - totally barren and inhospitable. The higher peaks were covered in snow.

On the other side of the pass we drove through several small villages - perhaps not even a hundred people stayed in these villages. Feeding yaks, and wandering nomads, and packed ponies, and small nomad tent settlements, and burnt out black tar barrels, and lone checkpoints where you had to show your passport and permits. Pangong Lake has only recently been opened for tourists, as it is so close to the border.

We got stuck in an icey stream - I helped pack rocks underneath the tyres with the cold water running through my sandals.

Having passsed not a single vehicle, we eventually arrived at Pangong Lake. The water was so blue and clear and cold and salty. There was no smell, no sound - except for a small bird once, and the quiet rush in the ears when a gust of wind swept over the lake. Had the lake not been surrounded by high (brown) mountains, the water surely would have emptied out into the valleys below. The lake stretched around the corner toward China and in the distance the snow covered mountains were Tibet.

We drove back the same day and arrived back in Leh at 7pm.