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The road to Leh
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Our traveller discovers there are places to see on the way to Leh
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Every summer the temperamental Rohtang Pass opens its doors to travellers and has them mesmerised once they go over its top. The road to Gramphu from Rohtang is the driveway into Himachal's Lahaul district and going down the Rohtang Pass on this side will have anyone awestruck.
Unfortunately, at most times, travellers just rush through this place on their way to Leh. But this is a good place to visit to get that magnificent mountain experience but yet not do the entire slog to Leh. Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that the scale and geography can be compared to that of the Pir Panjal Ranges beyond Keylong, but having said that, these mountains too will take your breath away.
This time I branched off the Leh road towards Udaipur and the Triloknath temple at Tandi. These are small rustic Himalayan towns where you can find good campsites to pitch your tents and wake up to the glory of snow capped peaks.
Local bee farms pop up ever so often and these sell the freshest honey you can buy.
When I got to Udaipur, the road was blocked by a landslide so it was impossible to drive into Udaipur town then and so we turned around and headed back 9 kilometres to go to Triloknath. Here there was a path leading down to the playground of the elementary school there. This makes a good site as the ground is even and there is a water tap on the edge of the playground. However the road going down the playground needed extreme caution, but the fully loaded Toyota Innova tackled it with aplomb never once getting bogged down even while traversing streams and deep ditches. I was worried about next morning when the car would have to climb up this road but again it went up the broken track like a mountain goat.
We spent the night surrounded by snow capped peaks and river views. Fresh mutton that we had bought in Koksar was converted into a lip smacking mutton curry by our cook Santu. Since we were camping on a school field the ground was flat and afforded a comfortable night's sleep in our sleeping bags.
The next morning I awoke to the mouth watering aroma of Santu preparing eggs and porridge for breakfast.
From our campsite we had fabulous views of the Triloknath temple that reminded us of the Kee Monastery in Kaza. Perched atop a hill this temple is representative of the Kashmiri-Kannauj style of, Lalitaditya of Kashmir (725-756). Most of the Trilokinath temple is of much later period, but the column bases of the original porch of the sanctuary are of a very special type characteristic of the reign of Lalitaditya.
The road to Udaipur was now open and we drove past the town and set up a second camp at an open meadow 5km from the town.
That night too Santu cooked up some fabulous dinner from the veggies we'd bought at the local bazaar and when we finally broke camp and drove back towards Rohtang it was with the satisfaction of spending time in the mountains and coming back rejuvenated.
RISHAD SAAM MEHTA
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