14th October, 2019:- Last day after visiting Pangong Lake we stayed at Tangtse (Pangong Residency). For you tube video of that part please follow this link :-
After a very cold night at Tangtse (12880 ft) the morning was very bright though a bit cold. Today we will return to Leh via Chang La, the 2nd highest road in the world for civilians. It is at a distance of 39 km from Tangtse and 75 km from Leh. So the total distance we will cover today is 114km.
Changla Pass-This is the 2nd highest road in the world for civilians at an altitude of 5360mt (17585ft). From Tangtse we came upto Durbuk , from where if you take right you will go towards Nubra Valley and we took left towards Changla. The ascend started soon after Durbuk. The road was loose dirt and broken at many places for 20 km before the Pass and it also continued on the other side of the pass. This 40km stretch on both side of the Changla top was the only portion where we found bad road in the entire tour. The all other roads were very smooth. October is the month to avail the best road condition. We slowly started ascending towards the top. In many cases we had to stop to give side to our Army convoy coming from opposite direction. This road has huge importance for Army convoy and leads towards Marsimik La the highest road in the road but not for civilians. It is restricted for Indian Army only. So Khardung La is the highest road for civilians and Marsimik La is the highest road in the world, though different sources declare different altitude of these higher passes. It took about one and half hour to reach Changla top. There were snow on both sides of road few kilometers before the top and the snow dome in front of the top was shinning brightly in sunshine. Though the altitude of Changla was less than Khardungla but we faced breathing problem here which we did not at Khardungla. So our halt at Changla was very narrow just for 5-7 minutes and then we started descending from Changla Top.
The road in this side was also not in a good shape for 15-20 kms. After that we got some better road (comparatively). Actually the hill of this area is having loose soil so prone to landslide and the road repairing is not complete any time. After some time we had to follow village road as repairing work was going on and we enjoyed our journey through that village road.
Hemis ,Thiksey Monastry & Shey Palace:- While you are coming from Pangong side towards Leh Hemis Monastry, Thiksey Monstry and Shey Palace are on the road so you need not require to keep an extra day during Leh city tour. Only you need to move extra 7km from Karu to reach Hemis Monastry. We actually planned to travel minimum distance as at Changla my son faced some problem. So we skipped Hemis Monastry and headed towards Thiksey Monastry.
Thiksey Monstry:- Thiksey Monstry is a goompha situated 19km east to Leh . It has great historical significance. The monastry has 49ft high statue of Maitreya Buddha. This Monastry is the largest structure in central Ladakh, The monastery is situated at the foot of the hill and has a courtyard from where a flight of steps leads to the main monastery (one of the 10 temples here). The Monastry has 12 stories in height. It has two main chambers. The monastery is painted in red, ochre and white and houses 60 lamas. The view from the upper floors of the monastery is awesome and the statue of Maitreya Buddha resembles the symbol of peace. The staircase of the Monastry is very steep so may be problem for aged people to climb there but the architecture of the monastry is beautiful. We spent some time there and headed towards Druk Padma Karpo School where some scenes of the movie 3idiot’s were taken. The school is situated at distance of 1 km from main road leading towards the school. The school premises is very beautiful and as it was off season there was very less crowd. We spend some time there and then started to move towards Leh.
The journey towards this portion was very colourful as the tree leaves had started to get yellow colour (autumn colour) and the trees on both sides of the road made the journey heaven like. As we approached Leh we saw Indus River on the left side and the colour of the river was aqua blue. October is the month of beautiful colour in Ladakh and one can enjoy the beauty of Ladakh without any rush of tourists.
We reached Leh at around 1.00 p.m. and this time we planned to stay at some place near Leh Market so that we can have some taste of local cuisine. After some search we settled at The Glacier View GH, it has very newly built big rooms with spacious toilet and nice garden in front. The hotel people quickly arranged lunch for us and we were pleased with their prompt service. After a relaxing afternoon we went to market area for some “MOMO” and then returned to our hotel. This hotel was very close to main market area (The night was cold but bearable and the rooms were very cozy with proper blanket arrangements.
Glacier View GH -7006853438 we stayed here in last 2 days. We got very big and clean room at very descent rate. The GH is near to the market area, so you can go for Lunch or Dinner to market by walk and have Tibetan food
Some contact details of car owners :-
Skarma Skitchen— 9419447979/9622964354- Owns an innova, we hired car from him. Very helpful person .
Rigzen Namgyal—9622950842/9419844285—Owns Xylo. He is also very helpful and charming. He referred Skarma to us.
Karma Sonam—9906991011/9419215110— has a Xylo and very good reputation
Dorje—9419889795/9906971501
All are very helpful and before my trip I had talked to many of them. There were not much difference in rate ( as the rate is fixed by Leh Taxi Association). Only difference was in discount amount in October and it was between (12-15)%.
In next part I will share some more car owners contact and some idea about Leh Taxi Association’s system.
to be continued…….
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