Day 5 & 6: Leh to Pangong and back...

Itinerary:

Day 1: Delhi – Manali (Volvo)
Day 2:  Manali– Jispa (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)

First Glimpse of  TsoPangong 

Day 5: This way the day to feel the much talked about, TSO PANGONG. The route to Pangong was as exciting as the lake itself. By now we got acclimatize with the high altitudes and also we were sipping garlic water every now and then to prevent any kind of altitude sickness. So we happily crossed the zig-zag roads of the brown mountains and hopped from one to another mountain..

Zig-zag Roads to Chagla

On the way to Pangong

We crossed the 3^rd Highest Motor able Pass in the World -  The mighty ChangLa at the altitude of 17800 Ft. Lot of vehicles were parked there, we found few army men also. From Changla one route goes towards the Siachen glaciers, hence lot of defence people were around that area. Never the less the views were awesome!!

Aakash with Army Man @ Changla

 As we started the descending the tarmac and the scenery, started getting greener and better. We halted near a meadow just capture the serenity is our heart forever, and experience the un-interrupted views of nature.
Few miles away there was a herd of yaks roaming around the field, so we stopped again to capture these magnificent creatures.

Few miles ahead of Changla

Pet Yaks: this white one was really short tempered ..

After around 6 Hours there is the first glimpse of the serene lake. It just looks as if you are part of painting. It looks like very fine strokes of a painter on the huge canvas of nature.
As you approach the lake, you the get to realise the magnificence of the lake by the time you reach its shore. Turquoise blue water having huge mountains at its backdrop makes it tranquil. The lake is approximately 130 KM long. And goes all the way to China, in fact 2/3^rd lake is in China. If you move further along the lake after around 10 kms we reached our camp. Spent the evening by the lake side.  

We timed our visit to Tso pangong so that full moon night can be experienced, but our despair, entire night it was raining like cats and dogs. So much so that at once I felt that my tent will flown away with the blowing wind. Though our tents were very good, best tents I had ever stayed in.
The tents were cosy and warm and had attached toilet what more can you expect in the lap of serene nature and the Food was also above expectation. We were inside the tents soon as the weather was chilling.

Day 6: After few hours of thunderstorm there was a quite morning. The blue water of the pangong was bluer than ever. It was a bright sunny day with a clear blue sky giving its perfect reflection blue in the still waters of the Pangong Lake. We spent few hours just to admire the serenity of the Landscape. After spending few hours there we started our journey back to Leh.

Pangong in the morning

At the opposite side of the lake

Enroute to Changla we stopped on the roads for clicking photographs with the walls of snow and there the snowfall started.. It was the very first experience of snowfall for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After travelling kms, we again halted at Changla and played with fresh snow.

Lalit leaning against the snow

As usual we were accompanied by some awesome captions by the road side.

We reached Leh by the afternoon and had explored leh in the evening. We went to the Potala Palace and War memorial.


Enterance of the Palace

The Palace

View from the Palace

 The War memorial is full of the stories, pictures, maps and other artifacts of the Kargil War, War at Siachen Glacires and others.. And it brings out the patriotism hidden inside you and being an Indian one can easily be overwehlmed with the feeling of pride and honor just by reading the proceedings/ history of the wars and you feel like saluting to the matyrs, who devoted their lives for our Mother Land.

Proud Moment .. infront of the War Memorial

Rest of the journey will be published soon.. :)