To know what happened before this day, Check this post – Leh to Nubra Valley – Getting Leh’d Part 4
Day 6
Places covered: Hunder – Khalsar – Shyok – Durbuk – Tangtse – Pangong Tso
Distance Covered: ~175kms
It was a big day for us. Pangong lake was our destination for the day and we were looking forward to it from the beginning of our trip. We had enough rest the earlier day and so we were all packed and ready to leave Hunder by 7.30am.
We started and rode our way out of Hunder. 10kms out of hunder, we crossed Diskit after which we climbed down a small mountain where we witnessed some amazing roads. This was the road that we traveled two days earlier. If you had gone through my earlier post, you would have seen a photo, completely dark with night blue sky. It was well past sunset when we rode on these roads that day with zero visibility. But we had a good feeling that this road and the view is going to be amazing when we return back. And without a doubt, it was! Here I’m showing you a video from our GoPro recorded on these roads and you can probably relate why it felt that way.
Note: This below video is from my IGTV. Watch it on full screen to experience it better 🙂
After crossing this place, we stopped at Khalsar for breakfast. It was a small village with some shops attached to their homes. We had some hot Maggie and Chai. It kind of became our usual breakfast menu. In the meantime we saw another group halting in a shop right opposite to us. I could definitely say they were Punjabis from the colorful turbans that they were wearing. They were around 3-4 guys on Royal Enfield bikes and a Van carrying few ladies and their essentials. All their bikes were empty unlike ours because they had the extra vehicle carrying it for them. We were discussing how they were missing the actual adventure by having that extra vehicle or in other words you can say, we were consoling ourselves. Quickly after that we left and was on our way towards Pangong.
There was a lot of offroad experience from Khalsar towards Pangong Tso. The Shyok river was flowing on one side of the road all along. Strange thing about this river was that the water flowing in this river didn’t even look like water. It looked as if some muddy thick sand was flowing in it. We encountered a lot of water streams in this route and we rode through it. It was fun and at the same time scary. Because, we didn’t know where the waters were deep. So if we get our bike stuck somewhere in the middle, it would be difficult to pull it out without having someone to help standing in those waters. And the important point being, these running waters were so cold and none of our shoes had protections or covers to safeguard it. We were warned earlier at Hunder that the water flow may rise during the day because of the melting ice. Half of us rode with wet shoes till we reached Pangong.
Here is one such water crossing video.
After crossing Shyok, we stopped at Durbuk for some rest. I remember it was a junction road at Durbuk where one led towards Tangtse and further to Pangong and the other one was back to Leh. It was just around noon and we had avoided stopping on the way for breaks from morning because we wanted to reach Pangong early. We don’t want to miss the daylight there at any cost. We found a small restaurant near the junction and decided to finish our lunch there. We left our wet socks and shoes hanging on the bikes to let it dry while we finished eating and then left. The roads after this were pretty good. We enjoyed riding on it. Here is a short video grab of our ride in Tangtse.
We entered Pangong somewhere between 3-4pm. We were so excited to see the beautiful blue water from 2 kms ahead. Gautham almost lost control of his bike looking at the beauty of the lake. Luckily, Mohan on his pillion saved him. The place looked that amazing. It definitely was love at first sight. It was magical to see the lake and the mountains around. Sitting at an altitude of 14000+ft, this lake is 134kms long and it extends all the way from India to China. You couldn’t take your eyes off it. Why would you, if you are riding into a view like this? Check this video that was recorded as we entered Pangong. (Edited it with some background music 🙂 )
The end of the above video where we stopped our bikes is the location that you see in the climax scene of 3 idiots movie. As you can see, the place was crowded. Everyone there was trying to recreate that epic pose from the movie. We just stopped there for a little while. None of us went in to take pictures there. We wanted somewhere alone and so we drove further down the lake where we spent our time. Luckily we got our tents right in front of the lake. If you walked out of our tents, you would be standing on the banks of this lake. That was how close we were. The water in it was crystal clear. The blue color reflection from the sky adds even more beauty to it. The most important thing to mention is the temperature and weather here. It was sunny when we reached the place but it was freezing cold as well. I couldn’t bear the chillness. I was wearing my sweatshirt along with my riding jacket and gloves and it still felt cold.
Here are some pictures of the mesmerizing view. The other side of these mountain is China. Say Hello!
So what we did here the rest of the day? Just enjoyed the view and took hundreds of pictures. We dropped our bags in the tent and was out the entire time. Compared to the spot that I mentioned earlier, this location was almost empty. It was just our group and a couple of others. The Bokeh mode in Amos’s phone was giving us brilliant photos with the golden hour lighting. Everyone took turns to click photos and he got tired clicking us the whole time. More pictures of us.
Few were resting inside the tents and few went to the cafeteria nearby to take some food. They met with other groups who were there among which were few foreigners. I would have spend probably a couple of hours outside, near the lake. As the sun started to set, it got even colder and I was not able to withstand it. I went inside the tent, ate the food that the guys got from the cafeteria behind and snuggled under a blanket. That is the last thing I could remember on that day. Electricity availability was 7pm to 11pm, similar to what we had in Hunder.
After this, the guys told me they were having some chat in the other tent till past midnight. They had left Gautham sleeping alone in his tent. Poor guy woke up in the middle of the night and went to call Mani to give him company 😀 And they also told me they saw the milky way galaxy in the midnight sky. But in the state of mind that they were that night, I couldn’t tell if whatever they saw was milky way or not 😛 and I think it is better not to discuss about it.
That ends Day 6 of our trip! What happened the next day? – Pangong to Leh – Getting Leh’d Part 6
creativentechno 
Interesting journey
Would never forget the moments that we had during this trip ! 🙂