The Pangong patrol

Pangong Lake, the highest saltwater lake in the world, has a lovely, if vertiginous, approach. Only hardnosed military security detracts from maximising its tourism potential.

By Yatish Yadav

When I first heard about Pangong from my friend Ashraf, who has several trekking records to his name, I was suitably agog when he described various dangerous and challenging roads.

In the summer burn of cities like Delhi, cool places and beautiful surroundings become locations of hope and figments of the imagination. Much though the Delhi tribe might love to unwind in Shimla or Kullu Manali, the fact is that both these tourist pilgrimages have become hotbeds of ripoffs and, indeed, searing heat.

So, on to Pangong Tso, or Pangong Lake (Tso means “lake”) in Ladakh, which, at 14,256 feet above sea level, is the world’s highest salty lake. It is yet unspoilt and a far- corner tourist getaway. Although it remains classified as a “sensitive border area” that was prohibited to tourists till just a few years ago, the route to it is today open but under strict army surveillance. The upside of being constantly watched is that there are several army bases en route that provide medical help to many people with gimpy knees and altitude sickness.

The 160-km trip from Leh to Pangong Lake is, well, adventurous. The road traverses Changla Pass, the third-highest pass in the world, where army sentries and a small teahouse greet visitors. It is from the remote Thiksey village that the road meanders up the hills. Beyond Thiksey, there is nothing but an extreme mountain ridge. It is scary, lonely, silent, and the Eternal Footman is a constant companion.

The gigantic topography is indifferent to human scale and, indeed, to human needs. Perception is warped: speculating on distances is useless, because what the eye cannot measure, the eye cannot understand. One cannot anticipate what threats might lie beyond that bend in the road. The slopes are abrupt and vertiginous.

As one approaches the Tangste Valley, one is greeted with, of all incongruous sights, a chain of war memorials to the soldiers who died during the Indo-Chinese war, or fiasco, of 1962. It is of no little quaintness that a group of armymen still uses the almost half-century old bunkers. They are part of the timelessness of the place.

A special permit is required to visit the lake, but Pangong Lake, clear and eternally reflecting a cerulean sky, is flocked by adventure tourists from all over the world. (While an Indian can get an “individual permit” at Leh, non-Indians must apply in groups of at least four.) Everything at the lake is minimal and tuned for security: no boating, and the only dhaba, a cursory construction, serves just dal and rice. The security is a result of the fact that Pangong Tso is a divided area: only a third of the 150 sq km lake belongs to India, the remaining to China. It has had a fractured identity from as long ago as 1684 when, under the Treaty of Tingmosgang signed between the king of Ladakh, Deldan Namgyal, and the Regent of Tibet, the lake was divided between Ladakh and Tibet. Today, of course, Tibet is part of China. Not everybody is happy with the arrangement—certainly not the tourists or the military— but in today’s insecure world, you take what you can get, and click great photographs when you get the chance.