Khardung La Pass

We headed out of Leh around 9am to climb through the Khardung La Pass, the second highest pass in the world at 18,380 feet (the highest is, of course, also in the Himalaya and nearby) to descend into the Nubra Valley to spend a couple of days exploring.  I was a bit worried about the trip as I was still feeling the altitude— although my nausea was gone, my headache was still in force (despite the Diamox) but our car carried oxygen if needed…. Again, I was missing my younger body, because when I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro we camped at 18,300ish feet and I had NO PROBLEM.  Sigh. Of course, there was no acclimatization time built into this trip…. (Enough whining…)

The road up to the pass was high adventure.  Parts of it were dirt, parts of it were well paved and marked road, parts of it -regardless of whether it was dirt or paved- had huge potholes and parts of it were either really narrow or roughly two plus lanes wide. About 80% of the traffic heading over to the Nubra Valley were tourists, the vast majority Indians out on holiday.  I did not see too many foreigners- apparently most foreigners come in July.  Suryia, our guide, told us that the commercial traffic tends to be on the road later in the day (to avoid the tourist traffic).  Like any mountainous road anywhere, it hugged the slope, winding along the contour or changing suddenly into a series of switchbacks that ascended steeply. And because this was the Himalayas, home to the highest, steepest mountains on the planet, the drop-offs at the edge of the road were spectacular, as was the scenery.

Another part of the adventure was the fact that cars were constantly passing each other, in both directions, regardless of the width of the road or whether there was a blind turn coming up.  It was like a big game of slow-motion chicken the whole time. No one was driving fast by US standards which is why the system worked, I imagine.  Hilariously, along the way, probably every quarter mile or, so were signs reminding people to drive safely, drive slow, don’t drink and drive (super bad idea!) all written in cute catchy prose- kudos to the individual at the Border Roads Organization responsible.

We stopped occasionally to take pictures because the vistas were vast and majestic. No where else on Earth offers the magnificent size and immense sense of space as the views in the Himalayas; it really is a special place.  As we reached the top of the gap, at 18,380 feet, all of a sudden we ran into a traffic jam and found ourselves waiting in a line to traverse the gap.  As we inched closer it was easy to see what the problem was- basically complete chaos reigned. Recall about 80% of the traffic was tourists.  Most of the Indian tourists were from the south and had never seen snow before. Consequently everyone wanted to stop at the top to take pictures (and we did too!). Also recall that the road is fairly narrow.  What that meant was that when people pulled over at the top to get out of their cars to take pictures, the already narrow road was necked down further. Add to that the fact that people parked randomly, any car trying to move in either direction through the pass had to avoid parked cars, random people walking around and traffic trying to move in the opposite direction, requiring careful weaving with little space to do so. It was funny in a horrible sort of way.

There was snow at the pass as it had snowed the day before and there were warnings out for snow later that morning so the border patrol, who had a station at the pass, was warning everyone to not linger.  The people who had never seen snow before were blithely ignoring the warning. As a matter of fact the border patrol monitors the people coming and going and we had to stop several times along the way and show our permits.  Our guide pointed out several spots as we descended from the pass where risks of avalanches were high and that fact was reflected by the condition of the road in those areas—dirt with lots of potholes.  We passed that area quickly, however, and found ourselves on paved road once more, winding our way down into the valley mirroring in reverse our journey to the pass on the other side.  Eventually we found ourselves following the Shyok River, which originates at a glacier several miles away where the India, Pakistan and China borders meet.  Apparently all three countries keep garrisons there to stake their respective territorial claims despite the -40C temperatures in the winter.

We worked our way down to the valley floor and checked into our hotel, which featured en-suite tents-a fancy glamping setup. My tent had a wonderful view of the surrounding mountains and I relaxed on my veranda for some of the afternoon prior to our short walk in the early evening.  Once the sun had started to disappear behind the mountain ridge we headed over to a nearby village for a walk around town and some insight into how the governing process works from the national level to the local level (its complicated).  Then we headed over to the sand dunes.  Yep, there are sand dunes in the Himalayas- who knew? We were staying right at the confluence of two rivers and three valleys- two of the valleys formed by each river and the third containing the outflow of the confluence of the two rivers.  Apparently the wind and weather patterns through the three valleys, combined with the water fluctuation on the valley floor created fine sand in this area.

The result of mother nature’s efforts is a large area of sand dunes, now a major tourist attraction, especially for Indians.  When we got there we found a large parking lot, packed to the gills, multiple fast food trucks-Indian style, an area where native women were showcasing dances-which we went to watch, an archery range, four-wheel drive rides and, of course, since there were sand dunes, camel rides.  The place was hopping!  We hung around until dusk taking it all in and headed back to the hotel for dinner and to call it a night.