The Unforgettable Laddakh: Day 3: Jispa to Leh via Sarchu, Pang, More Plains

Day 1: Delhi – Manali (Volvo)

Day 2:  Manali– Jispa (Car)

Day 3: Jispa– Leh (Car)

Day 3: Jispa– Leh (Car)
Day 4: Local Sight Seeing (Car)
Day 5: Leh– Pangong (Car)
Day 6: Pangong – Leh (Car)
Day 7:  Leh – Nubra Valley (Car)
Day 8 & 9: Nubra Valley– Leh (Car) + Leh – Delhi (via flight)

Day 3: On Monday we started at 8.AM towards Leh. The landscape was changing every 15 mins from the time we started. Our first halt was at a small lake, having clear still water to give perfect reflection of green mountains.

Deepak Tal around 20 Km from Jispa

As the altitude was changing very quickly, it was little difficult to acclimatize our self to atmosphere. The only saving grace was awesome and ever changing surrounding, I felt as if I have entered a different world. Life is so still that the only the moving the is your imagination, so quite that only noise you can hear is of your own heart beat, the only thing you see are those huge barren mountains, in different shapes, sizes and colours, creating breathtaking landscapes on the canvas of nature.

Suryatal @ 9.40 AM in Baralacha Ranges

Our Next stop was at Barachala Pass, the route passing through the snow patches. We were excited to see and play with snow at this point.

 @ Baralacha La

Our driver warned us to take baby steps and walk slowly to avoid breathlessness, so we followed his instructions. The barachala pass is a beautiful sight having snow on both the sides of the road and having loads of stone piles which are considered auspicious in Tibetiyan culture.  

Few miles ahead of Baralacha la

After spending sometime there we moved forward for our journey. Our next stopover was sarchu.. There stood huge barren mountains gazing at you from the height of few thousand meters and in its laps, a small establishment of camps ready to provide shelter to tired travellers. Though we couldn’t spend much time here due to our tight schedule. 

Landscape @ Sarchu

Sacrhu lies at the border for Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashimir. Once you cross sarchu you have entered the blissful land of Kashmir. The mud mountains, strange sand formation are common the only landscape available.

Camps at Sarchu



Mountains covered with beautiful clusters of clouds

The road we travelled

Sand Formations on the mountains

At the beginning we were excited with the tarmac but as we travelled further altitude sickness started taking over our heads. And we were all down by the time we reached pang. Pang has 3-4 small shops to help you acclimatize with high altitudes. We halted here to take some refreshments, the aunty who was running the shop was very helpful, she made tasty garlic soup for us, and believe me garlic soup is like an ultimate remedy for altitude sickness. We bought some munchies and juices from here and continued our journey further. 

Aunty who saved our lives ;) @ pang

Morre Plain is a desert mountain plateau, surrounded by the Nakee La Pass and the over 5000m high mountain Lachulung La. Its an amazing experience to drive through a 40 Km stretch of straight road at the altitude of around 4000 meters, while being accompanied by the breathtaking views of the valley on the one side of the road. 

By the time we reached here Two member (Sumi and Aakash) were totally down, they didn't get down from the car. Myself and lalit didn't wanna miss even smallest of the opportunity to embrace this beautiful landscape and here it was the Baap (father ;-)) of all opportunities.. 

Without a wasting even a Nano-second we jumped out of car, and started suddenly a thorn pierced my feet that's when I realised I was bare feet. Myself and Lalit spent some time in open.

I was awed with the magnificence of nature. I had never-ever witnessed something like that in my life didn't know how to vent my joy out so kept mum and just admired the nature with bare eyes and bare feet too.. 

More Plains:1

More Plains: 2

We resumed our eventful journey from here didn’t stop till Taglang La, this is the world second highest pass. We crossed it in the evening and the wind was on full blow at this our. Me and summi decided not to go out, but the other two guys went out to get the feel of chilled wind.

@Taglang la

Finally we got relived once we plateau by the river side and Leh was around 70 Kms from here, but the journey was much more relaxing as we were not going up and down on the mountains.

First Sight of Vegetation after a Looooooooong Day :)

We reached hotel at 8 PM had our Dinner, and were off to bed after a few gup-shup. This was the end of the most difficult and beautiful day of the tour.

Stay tuned for remaining journey....