True blue: The Lakes of Ladakh

"So is it Pangong Tso tomorrow or Tso Moriri?" asked Dorjee, my guide and driver as I stretched my legs and gulped another cup of green tea. Most tour operators recommend just one of these high altitude lakes, but I was greedy. I wanted to visit not just two, but the third lake, Tso Kar as well. Dorjee grinned when I told him our plans and he suggested that we camp at Pangong. On an impulse, we agreed.

It was barely dawn when we drove from Leh. The mountains reveled in the golden light. The sky was fast changing colours as the clouds showed up in the horizon. It was bright and sunny within a few hours. The weather, I realized in Ladakh is downright moody. I went there expecting some snow and all I got was some harsh sunlight burning my skin.

The journey however was a dream. Our jeep was packed with our tents and we had a new travel companion, our personal cook who brought in some hot steaming momos.  We stopped by a mountain stream amidst the mountains and out came tiny chairs and a dining table. It was breakfast time.

The landscape changed drastically as we gained altitude. We crossed Changla Pass at 17590 feet and stopped for tea .and then plunged a few feet downhill to about 14270 feet.  We saw the marmots and had a close encounter with a pair of black necked cranes on the way. But there were no roads. The mountains circled us. And then we saw it! A thin sheet of blue, almost like a mirage, appearing out of the various shades of greys and browns. It was the first view of the lake.

Pangong is one massive stretch of blue, except that one can see various shades of blue. The colours kept changing by the minute. We were there rather early and had the lake to ourselves for a while, until the tourists finally arrived. We drove down, looking for a place to pitch our tents as we crossed Spangmik, the smallest settlement and possibly one of the last Indian villages which housed less than ten families. It was like almost being on the edge of the world for the Line of Control does pass through the lake itself.  In fact locals told me that only one third of the saline lake lies in India and the remaining in Tibet.

Dorjee decided to pitch a tent in a small enclosure, located right on the banks of the lake. I looked around and saw some fields in the distance and a small house further away. And the tents came up – there were four of them, one for the bedroom, another for the dining, third for the kitchen and the last for the dry toilet. It was our private piece of paradise. The sky was clear as we walked along. A soldier with a prayer wheel guarded the border at the further end. The villagers brought their precious pashmina goats home. The stars came up as the lake was bathed in moonlight, the mountains beaming with a glow. A sumptuous meal was waiting for us, as we tucked into our sleeping bags for the night.

We drove back to Leh the following day, took a break and then continued onto the next lake, Tso Moriri . A different village, a different lake .Korzuk, the village had one of the most charming monasteries in all of Ladakh and it was getting ready for its festival.

We spotted birds and beasts and loads of the Changpa nomads grazing their cattle. Tsomoriri is indeed a birder’s paradise. The saline lake is one of the breeding grounds for a variety of birds, most of them rare and endangered. The mountains reflected in the bright blue waters, their tips glistening with ice and snow. The landscape was vivid with colours . Most of my friends prefer Tsomoriri to Pangong , but my favourite however remains the latter .

Meanwhile the weather changed. The bright blue skies turned dark as the rains lashed the mountains. The waters drenched the lake. The temperature suddenly dropped and the tented camps where I was staying had no heaters. We shivered and quivered, finally putting the thermals to use as the temperatures slid below zero.

Dorjee predicted it would snow and we decided to leave early the following day stopping by at Tso Kar, the third lake which seemed more like a wetland to me. The colours had turned into a monotone and all the blues had melted into shades of white. We stopped at a local shop for lunch-a quick bite of noodles and momos and just as we neared Tanglang La at 17580 feet, it started snowing. And before we knew it, the snowstorm interrupted our journey as a truck, stuck in the heaps of snow stalled all the vehicles.

We were still very far from Leh and we remained there, high up in a mountain road surrounded by snow. Finally Dorjee got bit impatience and walked out into the snow storm, in his thin jacket and shoes to remove the snow with bare hands. Soon a crowd gathered to help and many hours later we were back on the road. I did want to see snow capped mountains, but I had no idea it would be a stormy experience.

Soon we were back on familiar territory. It was not the bright blue sky that welcomed me to the plains but the blue of the River Indus that greeted us. My tryst with the mountains was heading to an end as it was my last day in the Land of high passes.

Lakshmi Sharath is a media professional, a traveler, travel writer and blogger. After 15 years of sitting in front of a desk in several media organizations, she decided to travel and see the world. Since then she has covered 20 countries across five continents; her passion lies in exploring the nooks of India.