The document provides an account of a 10-day road trip through Ladakh, India taken by 8 men in 3 vehicles. They camped near beautiful lakes, dealing with harsh conditions like freezing temperatures and vehicle issues. Their Ambassador car proved very durable and useful for improvised repairs. The group bonded over the challenges of the journey and enjoyed scenic highlights like Tso Moriri lake at sunrise. The trip allowed for reflection on life priorities while experiencing the striking natural beauty of Ladakh.

1. Extra Masala Follow @poetbelly
I’ll be
back! I fell… was it for the star-filled sky, the
sweeping valley or the cold desert—as
treacherous as it was spectacular? I’m not
sure yet, but I know the 10 days of endless
magic cannot end there. I want more…
By lesl ie x avier
Photographs by anirban dat ta roy
spot the car
My friend Siddharth’s maroon
Ambassador turned out to be the
star of the trip, enchanting the local
residents at every village.
OFF TRACK
New Delhi
709 ft
New Delhi
709 ft
Mandi
3,425 ft
Rohtang
Pass
13,054 ft
Manali
6,398 ft
Rohtang Pass
13,054 ft
Kullu
4,193 ft
Jispa
10,500 ft
Jispa
10,500 ft
Baralacha
La
16,040 ft
Baralacha La
16,040 ft
Sarchu
14, 070 ft
Sarchu
14, 070 ft
Lachung La
16,600 ft
Tso Kar
14,800 ft
Tanglang La
17,480 ft
Mori Plains
14,500 ft
Leh
11,562 ft
Tso Moriri
15,080 ft
Mahe
14,700 ft
Lachung La
16,600 ft

2. off track
sun creeping up on us to the famous shadow
chase scene in the old cowboy flick Macken-na’s
Gold. “We don’t have horses, that’s all,”
joked Anirban Datta Roy, a wildlife biologist
and our trip’s unofficial photographer.
As soon as the sunrays hit the cars, the
ice crystals started smoking and melting
away in a magical haze. This land is full of
magic, I thought while sipping tea made by
Mohan Joshi, who was the most active of the
lot for he had completed a basic mountain-
extra masala
Being a former heavyweight
wrestler has its advantages
when it comes to road trips.
For starters (pun intended),
you are always in demand
when it comes to supple-menting
the power of the engine with some
muscle, especially if the vehicle is diesel
and the location is among the highest and
coldest motorable roads and trails in the
world. And there were quite a few of those
good old push-start moments.
We were on an eight-man, 10-day trip
through Ladakh, where we pitched tents
with our three cars as makeshift windbreak-ers
near the famous lakes of the Himalayas.
The water bodies ensured that temperatures
remained below zero, freezing the radiators,
even making greenish stalagmites out of the
dripping coolant of the leaked radiator of
one of our vehicles—a Mahindra MM 550
Jeep. The cold was expected as it was late
September, and, as someone remarked, we
had missed the best camping weather in
Ladakh. “Off-season pe kaha nikle aap (where
are you off to during off-season)?” said a
tea-selling gentleman in Jispa, which, at
10,500 feet, was our base camp of sorts. We
spent three days (two en route Leh and one
on the return leg to Manali) in the sleepy,
sparsely populated valley to “acclimatise”
000 | Sports IllustrateD | OCTOBER 2014
tripping out
The eight-man group travelled across
the Ladakh valley, through its high
passes, camping next to some of the
world’s most beautiful lakes.
in-the-bag jokes.
Suresh Babu, who was driving his Mit-subishi
Pajero, seemed lost in his own
world—his eyes distant and dreamy, be-holding
“the Milky Way in its full glory”. I
looked up and there it was, magic. I have
never seen the sky so clear, the enormity
of the stellar spectacle above warmed my
heart as I stretched my legs near the fire,
pressed my back against the Jeep, and just
watched in silence, the banter around the
fire drowning as the thoughts in my mind
became louder…dreams, poetry, love and
life from time eternity flashing in the sky.
This was what our trip was all about. A
test of our resolve and bodies, like fellow
traveller Shankar Chandra fighting and
beating claustrophobia demons inside his
single-person tent. But beyond that, it was to
find a space to reflect on why we were living
the way we were. No wonder the Himalayas
are known as the abode of the gods and
are the home of philosophers and saints,
I thought, as we hit our sleeping bags for
the much-needed rest before the long drive
the next day—to Leh, through Tanglang La,
which, at 17,480 feet would be the highest
point in our trip.
Morning brought with it pleasant
surprises and a couple of prob-lems.
I was one of the first out of
the tent, and noticed a sparkling layer on all
the cars—ice crystals had formed overnight.
It was around 7 a.m., the sun was up but
the rays hadn’t reached the valley yet as it
had to clear the natural barriers made by
the mountains. In time, we could see the
shadows recede as the temperature started
to become bearable. Someone compared the
OCTOBER 2014 | Sports IllustrateD | 000
our plain-bred, summer-burnt bodies to the
altitude and dips in temperatures.
Going back to the wrestler’s bulk, push-starting
the car was, perhaps, my only ad-vantage,
as the terrain and harshness of
Ladakh’s cold deserts tested the limits of
our bodies in more ways than one. Oxygen
starved and giddy when we rolled into Tso
Kar late in the evening on the fourth day, our
priority was pitching the tents. The wind was
relentless and the mercury was dipping. We
did manage to erect our tents, but the exer-tion
and the long drive had caught up with
me as well as my friend Siddharth Saxena,
who was driving his Ambassador. Yes, the
good old Amby, which, I would proudly say,
is built like an akhara-forged wrestler too—
maroon in colour, the same hue a wrestler
would take as red dust from the arena mixes
with blood and sweat and sticks to his body
after a bout. A real desi dangal champion this
Amby is, as we saw later on the trip.
In Tso Kar (14,800 feet), as soon as the
first four-man tent was up, I decided to step
in to catch my breath and get warm. My
sleeping bag, brought by trip-mate Raman
Kumar, an environmental scientist, was
unpacked. Getting into a sleeping bag is
one area where being custom-built like a
wrestler doesn’t help. I realised it the hard
way, more so as the bag I had was a size too
small. I squeezed in and finally managed
to cover the most part of the body though I
couldn’t quite zip myself in. Siddharth, to
my right, was already inside two sleeping
bags. “Dressing in layers helps,” someone
had told him. So, he decided to use an extra
sleeping bag.
Things got better as the wind died down;
we gradually got used to the temperature,
helped partly by a campfire and some grilled
sausages and the lifesaver of our trip—tea,
Maggi instant soups and noodles. After an
hour in the sleeping bag, I decided to step
out of the tent. It was around eight in the
night and I walked straight to the campfire
where the rest of the mates were hunched,
cooking, and cracking, well, those big-men-
AS SOON AS THE SUNRAYS HIT THE
CARS, the ice CRYSTALS started
MELTing IN A MAGICAL HAZE.

3. extra masala off track
eering and acclimatising course a month
back. Joshi, nicknamed Mojo, is an excel-lent
cook, and loves clicking selfies. Ladakh
is selfie heaven, no matter how bad an
angle you click, the background will always
be breathtaking.
Soon we were about to lose our breath
and the wrestler was going to be called into
action. Before that, the other wrestler, the
petrol-powered Amby, had warmed up to
daylight at just one twist of the ignition key.
It had to be reversed back onto the trail and
as Siddharth maneuvered it, we heard the
scraping of metal on rock. The low clear-ance
of the heavy rear-wheel drive car had
hit a hidden rock and we could see the plate
protecting the gearbox bent and hanging.
Enter Mr Dharamvir Saini, the resident
Ambassador whisperer, as Siddharth calls
him. Any time of the day, at the Hindustan
Motors Safdarjung petrol station service
centre in central Delhi, you will find at least
10 white government-plated Ambys wait-ing
for Saini or other old-timers. Saini was
Siddharth’s guest on the trip and, despite
being a bit groggy from altitude sickness,
he quickly slid under the car, unbolted the
plate, took it to a nearby rock, pulled out his
hammer and beat it back into shape. All in
just 15 minutes! Imagine being able to do
that with one of those Japanese or Korean
two-wheel drive imports.
“Yehi Ambassador ka advantage hai (this
88 | Sports IllustrateD | OCTOBER 2014
celebrity, with people waving and applauding
the seemingly out of place maroon monsieur.
We got back onto the Mori Plains road,
which was a rough ride for us—Siddharth,
Saini and I in the Amby—as the loose metal
and small rocks were tossing the car around.
We decided to get onto the sand trail parallel
to the road, which we figured would last till
the start of the climb to the Tanglang La.
Contrary to off-roading practice, the Amby
had to be driven with care. The ruts, which
are the smoothest path in a trail, had to be
avoided as the Amby’s clearance was so low
that we feared the undercarriage might rub
against the ground and damage the fuel pipe
or the oil sump, and that would spell disas-ter.
Siddharth loves his Amby, and like any
love affair, this one had blossomed through
mutual understanding. He understands the
limits of his car and has developed this easy
way of negotiating the bumps and rough
roads that smoothened things out, not just
for us, but for the car too.
We reached the foot of the climb to Tang-lang
La and had to get back onto the road.
There were two trails to do it and Siddharth
decided to go on the first one. A mistake. The
car hit a bump on its way up and started to
roar louder than usual. The exhaust pipe was
broken. We drove it onto the road through
the second trail and Saini, for the second
time in the day, slid under the car to inspect
the damage.
“Koi nahin, jugaad toh ho jayega, Leh tak
(no problem, it can be fixed, at least till Leh),”
he said, before reaching for a couple of span-ners
to take out the broken exhaust pipe
bend. “Agar ek welder mil jaata, toh bahut
accha hota (if we could find a welder, it would
have been great),” he added, after inspecting
the bend-pipe whose neck, where the packing
comes in, was a bit damaged.
We looked around and, what do you know,
a welder was at hand. The Border Roads
Organisation (BRO) had a camp nearby and
they had a resident welder who forged a few
spots on the pipe to make it roadworthy once
more. The Amby was ready to roll, after the
jugaad. This car is indeed Indian, for only an
Indian would be so at ease with the practice,
rather the culture here we all call jugaad.
On that patriotic note, we moved up
the pass, the nationalistic fervour stirred
up at the sight of a few Army convoys. We
overtook trucks, cyclists, a couple of local
dogs (the Bhutia breed), even as the regular
is the advantage of an Ambassador),” said
Saini, trying to catch his breath. “Jugaad toh
aasani se ho jaata hai (makeshift arrange-ments
are easy on this car).”
More of the famous Indian ju-gaad
was to follow, as our Amby
proved its worth on the lunar-ish
landscape from Tso Kar to Leh, through
the Mori Plains and Tanglang La; and, on
the return leg, through Mahe, Tso Moriri,
Lachung La, Gata Loops, Sarchu, Baralacha
La, Jispa, Rohtang Pass, Manali, Kulu right
through to Delhi.
Back at Tso Kar, we had more glitches to
sort out, and it came from the most off-road
ready car in the lot. The Pajero wouldn’t
start. The Mahindra sputtered to life after
its radiator warmed up to the sun, but the
Mitsubishi’s 2.8-litre turbo engine stayed
silent. It was time for muscle power. We all
pushed, fighting the dizziness that followed
with each spurt of activity, to get the Pajero
back on the trail while the Mahindra pulled
up behind to nudge it down the dirt road
for a rolling start. After a few attempts, a
torsion cable was employed, the Jeep giving
the Pajero a tug as it roared to life. That cost
us almost an hour, while we all joked about
how the Amby, which we feared would give
the most trouble, was the least stubborn of
the three cars. The Amby, in fact, was the
the other side of beauty
Stunning scenery and spiritualism
apart, Ladakh held out the reality of
its residents’ everyday life, which is a
perpetual struggle against the elements.
WE WERE IN LADAKH FOR
THAT MISSING LINK, the missing
beauty in our lives

4. extra masala
taxis plying the route honked past us, to
reach Leh, which, by the way, was not our
final destination. In true traveller spirit, our
itinerary was based on that ancient adage:
sometimes the journey teaches you more
about the destination.
So, after a day in Leh, visiting mon-asteries
and watering holes, we hur-ried
onto another rough trail—to Tso
Moriri via Mahe, negotiating a landslide that
was cleared by the BRO workers, while the
Pajero was fighting its own demons—over-heating
thanks to a damaged radiator pipe.
Suresh, a professor at Ambedkar University
and a stickler for detail, had carried a spare
radiator pipe for such an eventuality. Saini
worked his magic and, though late, we even-tually
made it to Tso Moriri by nightfall. That
meant we had to see off the night to enjoy
the full splendour of the lake.
Sunrise brought out the real beauty of
Tso Moriri—enchanting each one of us, so
much so, that we lost track of time. Raman
and Suresh sat by the lake, gazing into
the sparkling blue water and the horizon,
while the rest went about clicking pictures. I
made a small prayer mount with pebbles
near the lake—contemplating life more than
praying during the process. It was more like
a time-out in between a ball game. But in
my case, the time-out was used to refresh
the weary priorities that have been piling
up within a system that has been fine-tuned
to suit my profession and life in a busy city.
90 | Sports IllustrateD | OCTOBER 2014
off track
driving around ladakh was great
but doing the 21-hairpin gata
loops at night was priceless
Our reverie was cut short by the call of
another priority. We had to get to Jispa,
at least 160 kilometres away. The dis-tance
isn’t much, but in Leh it’s as good
as 600 kilometres on a national high-way,
considering the rough roads and the
high passes we needed to negotiate, all the
while fighting the urge to stop and lose our-selves
in the harsh yet serene beauty sur-rounding
us.
Eventually, the route to Jispa took us 12
hours, traversing a valley that was, well, in
the middle of nowhere. We stopped to watch
and click cranes, wild asses, marmots and
an array of birds that were duly identified
by the naturalists in the group—Roy and
Raman—who used to run out toting their
cameras and binoculars after spotting a bird.
“Stop running behind chicks,” was the joke
of the day.
But, jokes apart, serious business was at
hand as night caught up with us just before
the tricky Gata Loops—a 21-hairpin downhill
stretch after the Lachung La. There began
our list of cheap thrills of the trip. To drive
around in Ladakh is great. But to go down
semi-blind through the Gata Loops and then
to climb up again to cross the Baralacha
peak performance
Our off-season jaunt meant a longer
acclimatising schedule, not just for us
but the three cars as well, which were in
for a rough ride, especially on the passes.
La in the dead of night, negotiating rough
roads as well as tricky and swollen up,
seemingly angry, water crossings, was
indeed priceless.
The decision to press on into the night was
unanimous. It was not exactly for the thrills.
The group of eight comprised blokes who
have seen their fair share of thrills to know
better. The logic, I reckon, had more to do
with the state of our minds at the time. By
then, we had spent eight days in a beautiful
place that was alien to all of us. Alien be-cause
such beauty is missing in our rarefied,
climate-controlled city abodes.
We were in Ladakh for that missing link,
the missing beauty in our lives. The decision
to drive through the night was our way of
trying to experience the darker side of the
beauty in Ladakh: the one after sundown,
where that ridge, whose brighter side the
sun showcases, suddenly becomes an abyss
whose depths are unfathomable. Unless you
fall into it. Obviously, we didn’t!
However, I did fall for something. I just
can’t figure out what. That is why I have
decided to retrace the path again, again,
and again…in the coming years till I find it
out. A quest, a yearly pilgrimage! ±