Day 4: Kargil – Mulbekh – Lamayuru – Nurla – Khaltsi – LEH
31st May 2016
Checked out from the hotel and fired the engine of our cars to start our next stretch of journey at 5:15AM. With the exception of a 8 KM stretch just after Kargil, which was under construction, rest of the road till Leh is an excellent condition. You can cruise at fairly good speed except at bends.
Mulbekh was the stop over for a tea break, it is a small village with few home stay options in case someone want to stay over. There are many attractions enroute to Leh on this road and we had a plan to stop over on most of them and complete this journey at ease.
Mulbekh
Mulbekh to Lamayuru
Mulbekh to Lamayuru
Our next stop was Lamayuru for breakfast. Lamayuru is roughly 100 km before Leh, right after Fotu la, the highest pass on the Srinagar Leh highway. Due to an excellent road, it was a pleasure to drive through this pass and reach Lamayuru.
Lamayuru
HomeStay in Lamayuru
Lamayuru is also place where we found famous Moon Land, these are soft craters, golden color land simply add charm to the beauty of Lamayuru. One can learn the science of mountain formation looking at moon land, which is not a rock nor a dust.
Moon Land in Lamayuru
Before 40 KM from Leh, one can find Castle Basgo’s ruins, some of the bollywood movies were shot here e.g. a song for Dil Se. Basgo palace or castle is around 500 year old.
Next attraction (under Sham Valley) was Confluence of river Indus and Zanskar. The colours of the two rivers (Indus – green and Zanskar- grey) can be distinctly seen at the confluence,
The very peaceful Indus meets the super rapid Zanskar and flows towards Pakistan. There is also a road which goes alongside the river to reach Chilling Village which is around 25 KM from Confluence. May be we will try this road on next trip to this region.
Confluence (Sangam) of Zanskar & Indus rivers in Sham Valley
Next attraction (30 KM before Leh) is magnetic hill, it is really interesting to see your car moving upward direction when put in neutral. The layout of the area and surrounding slopes creates an optical illusion that the downhill road is actually an uphill road.
Magnetic Hill
We managed to reached Leh by 4:00 PM and with little efforts we found a very nice hotel with enough parking for our two Innova cars. Hotel Bijoo is convenitnely located near Leh Main Market and we found owner of the hotel and staff quite helping. Parking is a big issue in Leh main market area and if travelling by own car, always look for a hotel with parking facility.
Day 5: Day trip to Pangong Lake – World’s most beautiful lake
Acclimatisation is required and necessary for 1 to 2 days in Leh before excursing to any of the sightseeing passing through high mountain passes including Pangong and Nubra valley. Low oxygen level can make you sick otherwise and whole experience might become terrible and suffering.
Pangong Tso (Tso stands for “Lake”) is 134 KM in length and nearly 5 KM in width at an altitude of 4267m. The water is slightly salted and during winters it freezes completely.
This lake lies on the Indo – China boundary, with only one fourth of the lake being in India and rest extending into Tibet.
The road to this lake passes through Chang-la, the world’s 3rd highest motorable road. The passage is also tough to cross by car (we found this toughest road in our entire trip).
ChangLa Pass, the 3rd highest motrable road at 4267m altitude
Changla Pass, the 3rd highest motrable road at an altitude of 4267 meters
The first glimpse of the beautiful Pangong Lake
Me at Pangong Lake
Three children at Pangong Lake
Pangong Lake
It’s around 4 to 5 hour drive 149 Kms) from Leh to this place with below route
Leh – Karu (36 KMs) – Sakti (10 KMs) – Chang La (34 KMs) – Durbuk (32 KMs) – Pangong (37)
You can cover Thicksey, Hemis and Shey monasteries as well as Rancho’s school, situated in Shey town while going through this route (around 5 KM from Leh)
Pangong Lake – view
I shall conclude this trip in my next post with the journey back home from Leh via Manali. Thanks for being with me so far. God bless.
That seemed quick Asif. What pictures man. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks a lot Nandan
Adding the link of Part-1 and Part-3 in top most comments:-
Part-1
https://www.ghumakkar.com/leh-road-journey-chandigarh-srinagar-kargil/
Part-3
https://www.ghumakkar.com/desert-greens-drive-back-leh-via-keylong-manali/
Agree with Nandan on the pics, some of them seems to be heavily PS’d, though.
None of the pic is photoshopped :) all of them are taken by Nikon D5300
Well, I’m speechless !! :-)
But all said, Photoshop is indeed a very very neat software :-) @ghumakkar-74791edf1f8e8b8289a5067737630874:disqus @ghumakkar-812b4ba287f5ee0bc9d43bbf5bbe87fb:disqus
Being loyal is the game, eh? :-)
Asif is extremely courteous to say that he took the comment regarding PS as complement. You have to be in that region to experience the ambiance of photography there. I had been in all the places described by Asif. I know it.
Beautiful description of a heavenly place…a great life time experience for those not visited…
thank you for sharing!
Hi,
Can you please give me a advice from where can I book a private car from Chandigarh.
The same route which you took. (Chandigarh – Srinagar – Leh – Manali) same itenary
What would be the overall expense for 1 car.
Regards,
Rushikesh Pawar
Hi,
Can you please give me a advice from where can I book a private car from Chandigarh.
The same route which you took. (Chandigarh – Srinagar – Leh – Manali) same itenary
What would be the overall expense for 1 car.
Also can you please share the contact details from the place you booked the car
Regards,
Rushikesh Pawar
In my case, we were using our own car (Innova) for this journey. However there are lot of options and bargain available from Chandigarh, a small online search will give you access and contacts of hundreds of taxi operators. Ensure that the driver is experienced in that region and card is well maintained (ask year of make). Please note that you can’t take the self drive car (e.g. zoom car etc) to Leh region.
Hi Asif,
I am planning for the same trip from Chandigarh To Leh via Srinagar in the month of July.
I am planning to take Zoomcar from Chandigarh. I am fully aware of the fact that due to taxi union in Leh, we cannot do sightseeing in Leh using self-drive cars(which includes Pangong Lake).
Could you give me an estimate on the distance of Chandigarh-Jammu-Srinagar-Leh-Sarchu-Manali-Chandigarh?
First of all you can’t rent Zoom or any other self drive car for Leh, it is clearly mentioned on their site that you can’t take the car to Leh.
Regarding distance, you can check the same on google maps, it is around 1800 KMs.
Beautifully described Asif,
i am going bike trip to leh/ladakh this june.
hi asif,
do we require any military passes etc. for passing through kargil?
Actually good post which helps us to find useful information. I like to bookmark this post and surely visit again for getting such kind of more posts.
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