Lucky to Have Gone When We Did: A Trip by Bus to Kashmir and Ladakh (Part Three)

Sind River after leaving Srinagar.  Our Ladakh-bound bus (on the left) stopped for sheep and a military convoy.

3.  Bus Trip to Leh (1980)

Ladakh is politically part of India and culturally part of Western Tibet.  Its main town of Leh is some 11,500 feet in elevation.  Once we'd reached Srinagar, Ladakh was temptingly close but it involved what seemed a treacherous trip crossing three Himalayan passes.  Zoji-la, Namika-la, and Fotu-la ... "la" for "pass."  The road supported military convoys and so was acceptable, but it was also without guard rails and the drops were terrifying, the sort where, as one of us said, you unwittingly curled your toes in an atavistic attempt to hang on.

It seemed better to go by bus (434 kilometers or 270 miles) than by plane both to gain the dramatic effect of the change of scene as well as to become acclimatized to the altitude.  Hiring a car and driver would have cost $635 round trip, but taking an A-Class Bus (two seats across rather than three in B-class) took two days and cost $8.50 one way.  (With a flight back to Srinagar.)

"Is the road scary?" I asked the Tourist Office official when making inquiries.

"It's the most terrifying thing I've ever done.  I was scared stiff.  But you must go and see Leh.  It is a town of another century." 

Earlier, when I asked someone else if the road was safe, he'd said, yes, it was safe.  Was it scary?  Where did I get the idea it was scary, he asked?  "Well, he added, "just close your eyes at those parts."

A tea stop early on where hawkers approached selling apples and blankets

Sonmarg with its alpine meadows, horses for rent, and tea stalls.  A vegetable curry and rice lunch cost 58¢.  The latrine out back was an open-air structure raised above ground with four floor boards strategically placed to leave a hole in the middle.

Though paved early on, when we really needed the road to be at its best--when we started climbing after Sonmarg--it turned into a rough, rocky, narrow dirt road, pretty much staying that way for the rest of the trip.  Highway signs included such warnings as, "Death Lays Its Icy Hands on Speed Kings."  And "Do Not Show Strength With Accelerator."  Black fumey exhaust poured out of our vehicle (as well as passing ones) and came up through a hole in the floor. 

The great Zoji-la (11,500 feet high) as it snaked from bottom to top.

Looking out from the Drass army checkpoint onto the bleak, cold landscape

Next morning, after spending the night in a Shi'ite Muslim town, Kargil, we ascended the second pass, Namika-la (12,100 feet high).

We stopped to give a stranded bus a spare tire.

View from the town of Namkeela

We began noticing evidence of Buddhism our second day, including prayer flags and this chorten outside the town of Namkeela.

Our bus in Namkeela.

Looking down from the third and final pass, Fotu-la (13,500 feet high), onto hair-pin turns yet to maneuver. 

Ladakh's treasure and oldest monastery in the town of Lamayuru.

Back on flat land, no more dizzying passes, we drove through the town of Khalse.  Horses grazed in grain fields.  People were out harvesting.
 

Footbridge over the Indus River between Khalse and Saspol

Military compound near Leh with the snow-covered Karakorams in the distance.

After what we thought should have been billed "a trip of cheap thrills" (for $4.25 per day, we were literally on edge the entire time), we reached Leh where a man breaking stones with a hammer sat near a sign which, referring to Ladakh, welcomed us to The Broken Moon Land.



Part 1.  Bus Trip to Srinagar
Part 2.  Srinagar, Kashmir, India
Part 3.  Bus Trip to Leh
Part 4.  Leh, Ladakh, India