After a long and difficult bike ride from Leh to Pangong, we settled comfortably at Spangmik Village and spent the next few days gazing at the lake and admiring the landscape.
Spangmik is a small village with a handful of families spread across a narrow stretch of earth between the lake and adjoining mountains. The blue expanse of the lake, stretching for more than 100km and spread across two countries, clearly dominates the local landscape. An army truck driver who conversed with me on the day of our arrival pointed at the distant mountains to the east and said, ‘do you see those faraway peaks? They are in China.’
Perhaps very few places on earth can boast of a landscape of such immense beauty. Who would imagine seeing a 135km long deep blue stretch of water trapped in the middle of a stark mountain landscape at an altitude of 14,000 feet? Despite having seen it in pictures, having read a great deal about the landscape of the region and fully knowing what to expect, its expanse and beauty still took me by awe and surprise. I wonder how the first explorers who came to here without a map would have felt on seeing this giant blue strip of water that appears unannounced suddenly after climbing over a ridge.
Pangong is a brackish water lake located in Changthang Plateau bordering Tibet. Wiki says that the lake once ‘had an outlet to Shyok River, a tributary of Indus River, but it was closed off due to natural damming.’ A striking feature of Changthang region is the presence of several such brackish water lakes, including Tso Kar and Tso Moriri besides a few smaller ones. Nomadic herders called changspa inhabit the grass-laden flat lands of Changthang and make a living by rearing Yaks and Pashmeena Goats. Spangmik Village is a permanent changspa settlement next to Pangong, where the inhabitants are now beginning to find additional income from tourist inflow.
Spangmik is one of those places where you don’t feel a need for something to keep you occupied; the lake and the mountains make sure you are kept happy and contented in the middle of them. Here is my journal entry from the days I spent at the lake.
“..the lake spreads so long that I can’t see the other end. The place is beautiful enough that we decide to stretch our stay by a day more than we had initially planned. We could stay longer, but we intend to attend a festival a few days later that requires us to leave.
The lake keeps changing its shade as the day progresses. It has deepest hues of blue when the sun is high, with a turquoise shade near the bank and deeper hues in the middle of the lake. It looses colour later in the day and turns dull as the sun moves towards the horizon. At times when there is no wind, the clear surface of the lake reflects the brown mountains surrounding it. The water near the shore occasionally turns murky when there are strong waves, but clears up in no time. Sitting and gazing at the expanse of the lake and watching small waves hitting the shore, I look for small flat pebbles and bounce them off the lake surface, counting the number of jumps it makes on the water before sinking.
Snow has melted on most of the peaks to the other side of the lake except for small patches where the peaks slope gently. The mountains are in various shades of brown, their colours doubled by the play of light and shade created by small patches clouds blocking the sun. Waterways on the slopes formed by melting snow have made striations along the depressions in the slopes.
It is a sunny day, but the cool breeze from the lake makes me wish I had some warm clothes on. I look for some life in the lake, but there is none to be seen. After hours of staring at the lake, I see a school of tiny fish arrive from the depths of the lake. They are thin, hardly an inch long and barely visible. A small army of them kept arriving and swam near the shore in a nonchalant manner, but disappeared quickly when they saw me move. Up in the sky, I kept seeing brown headed gulls flying from one end of the lake to other, occasionally landing gracefully on the water. They would fly far into the mountains towards Tibet, caring little about borders, hostilities and access restrictions that we humans have imposed on each other. The other commonly seen inhabitants of the lake are bar-headed geese, but just a small family is all that I could see while I am here.
I dip my fingers into the water, hoping it is not frigid and doesn’t numb my fingers. It is not. The water freezes over during the winters and, as locals say, one can drive on the frozen lake surface during peak winters. But there is no sign of that cold now. I put a few drops of water on my tongue to check how salty the waters are. It is barely salty, but has a taste that indicates the hardness of the water. Knowing that the water is not cold gives me some ideas: how about going swimming? I do see a few people swim in the lake later, but the thoughts of getting serious sunburns keeps me out of it.
The sky and the clouds play the same game at Pangong every single day. Mornings begin with a clear blue sky with not even a small white dot to see anywhere from horizon to horizon. A rim of orange appears in the eastern ridges and rest of the landscape breaks into a dull dawn. The lake is dull grey, but slowly acquires its blue as the sun comes up. Clouds begin forming slowly and settle comfortably on the peaks to the east. They gather more moisture with progress in day and form an orange crown over the peaks during sunset. But for reasons I can’t comprehend, the sky to the west of the lake remains a clear blue but for a few small patches of puffy clouds. As the sun makes his way past the mountains to the west in the evening, the clouds begin to disintegrate and fall apart, making way for another clear morning next day…”
Next post: Journal entry on Spangmik Village.
The bike troubles were not meant to end soon. During the struggles in getting the bike up and running, the rare breaks had somehow stopped working. It was getting dark and there wasn’t much time left for us to inspect and fix the problem. We treaded in a slow pace using front-wheel breaks and made it to Thangse just before dark.
The break problem turned out to be easy to fix and took no more than a minute. But we had a bigger issue to address next morning.
We were warned earlier by jeep drivers about a stream-crossing few kilometres before Pangong Lake. The bridge across the stream had collapsed long ago, thanks to the ferocious currents. The stream would look like a pretty brook running down the mountain in the early hours, but as the day progressed and sunrays melted more ice on the slopes, water would rise to chest levels, making it impossible to cross. Its unpredictability had earned it the name ‘Pagal Nala’ – mad stream.
It seemed like a simple task to leave early from Thangse and make the 40-kilometer journey before the water level rose. But crossing a big stream usually came with its share of troubles. The path could be strewn by boulders, slippery rocks and shifting sands that could make things difficult. We had no idea how hard it would be, but there wasn’t an alternative but to try it out.
The road from Thangse turned out to be unusually green and beautiful. Excellent roads helped me forget the pains of riding and focus on the scenery instead. The narrow valley was filled lush grass, supported by a stream that ran in the opposite direction. The near-flat terrain occasionally became marshy with small streams criss-crossing the road. We saw cows and horses grazing peacefully on the way, their owners nowhere in sight. Himalayan marmots played in the grass with child-like enthusiasm. They would look cautiously from their hole before getting out to wrestle playfully with each other. I am told that the marmots have become tame enough to accept food from tourists in these parts, but none came up to us with a begging bowl. We were in a hurry as well, anxious to get across Pagal Nala before the water level started rising.
Water was less than a foot high when we got to the stream, but it didn’t look like an easy crossing. With the unpredictable nature of the nala, BRO made no attempt whatsoever even to make a temporary road across the stream. If they had ever done so, the mad stream has done sufficient hard work to ensure that there was no sign of it left.
A few vehicles were already parked near the nala before we got there. Some had given up and asked the tourists to walk across, while a few others were contemplating on crossing. The stream bed was a fifty-meter wide boulder strewn expanse with no definite clearing anywhere to let vehicles to pass. Two-wheel drive vehicles like Qualis and Innova made no attempts to get past, while a few Gypsys laboured hard over the stones.
I could not make up my mind on what to do next. A smaller bike would have had no trouble wading across the nala. You could simply push it across and even lift it over the stones if needed, but something like a Thunderbird came with its disadvantages. As we waited at the edge of the stream wondering at the next step, unsolicited advices came on our way. ‘You will never make it,’ said someone, while another said ‘it should not be a problem.’ An army officer in civilian clothes looked at us and said that we were attempting something suicidal. It did not look like an easy job in any case, but we decided to take the plunge.
We trod slowly and made it to half-way mark with some difficulty. It seemed like we will make it in no time, but quickly got stuck at the main channel, stopped by big stones that blocked our way. The bike too, decided that it is a good time to stop co-operating with us. Each time I started and revved the engine, it would struggle for ten seconds and go off again. For sometime, we were stuck on the main channel and risked the possibility of water entering through the silencer that was just an inch above the flow. Add to all this, the chill of the water was affecting my feet immersed in it as I tried to balance and support the heavy bike.
This repeated for a few minutes when the army officer took pity on us and came back to help. He ‘ordered’ us to dismantle all our luggage and instructed a jawan standing nearby to assist us. The jawan, with his perfectly polished leather shoes stood on a rock wanting to help, but couldn’t afford to get his shoes wet. As the engine failed to stay alive despite repeated attempts, he asked me to switch it off and wait for a few minutes. ‘The engine is heating up and going off,’ he told me, ‘wait till it cools a bit.’ This seemed to work and we were now guaranteed of the bike’s horse power. We managed to get across the main channel, but there were still many boulders to cross before we reached the other end. By this time, we must have spent good thirty minutes struggling in the middle. A few onlookers now came to help, pushing the bike bit by bit and getting it closer to the other side. A hefty jeep driver took over the bike from me and made the final effort to take it across. A big ordeal was over, but it was still not the end of all the troubles.
The struggles with pagal nala had left me tired and drained all my energies. Another smaller bridge a little ahead had recently given away and we were forced to tread slowly and carefully on an alternate track full of sand and gravel. Somewhere at the end of this dirt track, when we just got back to smooth tarmac road again, we had our first sighting of Pangong Lake.
The lake appeared as a small blue strip barely visible in the middle of the mountains. Its colours were of a superb deep hue that I had never seen anywhere else before. We had finally set sights on our destination. The effort, the struggle with starting the bike yesterday and efforts of getting across pagal nala were worth every single drop of sweat. It was moment of joy worth working for.
We struggled further for another half hour, riding through gravel, small streams and poor roads to reach Spangmik Village on the bank of the lake. The next three days were to be spent gazing at the lake and the mountains beyond, doing little else but admire the landscape.
We rode past the unnamed lake, descending steadily since we left Chang La. I turned off the bike’s engine and cruised gently downhill for nearly ten kilometers. When the road became nearly flat again and the bike lost its speed, I engaged the gears, trying to bring the engine into life. In response, instead of blasting Thunderbird’s trademark knocking sound, the bike coughed, sputtered and slowly came to a halt. We were in trouble!
By this time we had come nearly two hours away from Shakti, the last village on the other side of Chang La. The next village—Thangse—was thankfully not so far, but a good 30km away and too far to seek help. We were stranded in the middle of the mountains with a 200km monster of a bike that refused to do its job. It was already beyond 3pm and we did not have much time to find help before it got dark.
I made repeated attempts to kick-start the bike in the vain hope that it may show some mercy on us. If you have handled a Bullet, you know the kind of effort needed to coax one of those unwilling bike to life even in normal terrain. Out here in the mountains of Ladakh where the air is thin and slightest effort leaves you panting for breath, I had to give up in no time. An attempt to push-start did not work either. My first instinct was to look at the spark plug, but we did not have tools needed to take it out for inspection. Back in Leh when I hired the bike, I had asked the vendor to give me a tool kit. He had laughed in response and said, ‘what would you be able to do there if the bike breaks down? Just flag a truck and get it shipped back to Leh.’ He was more or less right: my knowledge of bikes was only slightly better than my knowledge of a space ship’s engine.
I resigned from all actions and let fate decide the next course of action. The only thing I could think of doing was to stay optimistic. Perhaps someone nice would come on the way and help us out, a truck might take us to Thangse where someone from the army might be able to look at it, or at best a jeep driver passing by would inspect the bike and bring it back to life.
Thankfully, it did not take long for help to arrive. It was hardly five minutes before a truck arrived from the opposite direction. The driver stopped to ask what the problem was, and pulled over to take a look at the bike. In the next hour or so, I was to see how helpful the people in these parts can be. The driver and a bunch of labourers in the truck struggled to get the bike working, as if it is their own problem.
Everyone took their turn inspecting the bike and trying to kick-start the engine, but nothing much happened. It roared once a while and got me excited, but would not last more than a few seconds before it went silent again.
I had presumed that they would try for a few minutes before giving up and offering us to load the bike into the truck and take it back to Shakti Village or Leh. But the stayed on, trying to help us with the bike for more than an hour. In the meanwhile, we discussed our choices, which included staying at a parachute tent a little ahead for the night or to get back to Shakti on the truck.
We could not really come to a consensus on staying at the parachute tent. Waking up next morning, we would be in no better position than today and may have no choice but to take a truck back next morning. It would be a pointless effort. Going back with the truck was an easy thing to do, but having come three-fourth the way to Pangong, that would cause a terrible disappointment.
I have a disease that sometimes surfaces when I am in faraway places, especially in the mountains. When I am closer to the destination where an excitement awaits me, few things can force me to stop and head back. The thoughts of disappointment that I would suffer later keep me going and do all that I can to reach the destination. A few years ago, when I was on a 6-day trek to Goecha La pass in Sikkim, I was in a similar situation where I had difficulty in walking the last few kilometers to the pass. It was my first Himalayan trip and the cold was troubling me. I felt mildly feverish the night before and had decided not to walk the last stretch. But next morning, I found myself unable to hold back and decided to walk slowly to the destination. I must have taken thrice the normally required time, but had finally made it to the pass.
A similar emotion conquered me on the way to Pangong. I would not have been able to take the disappointment of not visiting the lake. So we kept toying with our options though it would have been prudent to load the bike in the truck and head back. As the workers continued their effort to start the bike, we struck a conversation with the truck driver. Like most people who come to Ladakh from outside for work, he too did not seem to like the place much. ‘What is there to see in Ladakh? Why do you come here?’ he asked us repeatedly. He continued, helpfully suggesting us of a better place to visit. ‘Go to Chumathang,’ he said, ‘you will see hot water coming out of the ground there!’ Srinagar was another place he thought was worth a visit. ‘It is green and beautiful,’ he said, ‘the mountains are all bare in Ladakh.’
As the bike did not seem to come alive even after an hour, I drifted away from the problem and into the scenery around. A stream ran parallel to the road, carrying clear waters from the snow-melt. Lush grass and an eruption of purple flowers spread on a thin line at the edge of the water. It was a narrow valley with stark slopes on either side, with just one tall snowy peak glowing in the evening light. I was instantly in love with the place and wished I could spend the night right there.
In the meanwhile, a decision was finally made to put the bike on the back of the truck and head back to Shakti Village. It looked like there was no other choice left. Several hands joined together as we tried to lift the bike up. But the Thunderbird is no small bike and it is not easy for even half-a-dozen people to lift it by 5 feet. The task at hand was not easy and we had to give up and look for smarter ways to get the bike into the truck.
We made another attempt at starting the bike again, without much success. But even at a time when they tried all that they can and there was nothing much to be done, the truckers stuck with us and pondered on possible options instead of moving on and leaving us to handle the problem ourselves.
A bunch of bikers arrived as we were pondering on what to do. As luck would have it, one of those guys happened to be a mechanic. He spent a few minutes with the bike and quickly unearthed a loose-contact in the wires connecting the spark plug. The next moment, as if by magic, the thundering sound of Thunderbird filled the valley like music to my ears!
We continued our journey towards Thangse along with other bikers. But as it turned out, our troubles with the bike was far from over!