Maybe you heard of the most notorious and dangerous road in the world, the "Camino de la Muerte" or translated the "Death Road"?
It is situated in Bolivia, a good 80 kilometers long and considered the most dangerous road in the world.
A notorious accident, when a bus skidded, crashed into a ravine and killed the 24 passengers, is considered Bolivia's worst traffic accident. According to an estimate, until 1983 every month 100 vehicles were involved in accidents and between 2007 and 200 passengers were killed on the route every year. Numerous crosses at the roadside mark the accident sites. In 300, the Yungas Road was named "the most dangerous road in the world" by the Inter-American Development Bank. Since the 1995 years, however, the Yungas Road has become a popular tourist destination for this very reason. Especially mountain bikers appreciate it as a route for downhill biking. (Copyright Wikipedia).
The images look truly frightening. And yet, for a certain kind of people, it seems to have an insurmountable attraction.
Sometimes you do the strangest things
Everything you might say about the Camino de la Muerte also applies to the Manali-Leh Highway in northern India. It has a dubious reputation for being almost as dangerous.
The annual casualty numbers prove this claim.
The highway stretches 485 kilometers across the ranges of the Himalayas. In the past, caravans used to move in week-long marches between India and Ladakh, today private vehicles, buses and taxis cover this distance, but you have to allow at least two days for the journey.
But there is an explanation. The highway is the only road connection between Ladakh and northern India during the summer months, i.e. between April/May (if the snow has disappeared) and September (if there is no early onset of winter). During the other months Ladakh can only be reached by air. It is not surprising that most locals take the much cheaper way by highway than the flight, not affordable for most.
However, this does not apply to tourists. Most prefer the faster and safer flight and avoid the risk of the dangerous road.
But not all.
There are a few who think that the highway is just the right way to push the adrenaline level higher up.
I am one of them.
In my opinion, an appropriate way to say goodbye to Ladakh ...
Whatever the cost ...
Why do people do this to themselves?
No idea.
A first surprise
The family, in whose hotel I spent the last days, invites me for breakfast to say goodbye. As always, a mixed pleasure, because the language barriers are simply too high. And so we sit in the half-dark dining room, smiling at each other or nodding approvingly (in my case), even if the well meant offered food doesn't fit the taste of the westerner. But that' s not important, because only the gesture counts and that' s simply charming.
A short time later I arrive at the meeting point heavily loaded. Surprise: the photographer who initiated the trip (and made it clear that he would sit next to the driver without exception) has cancelled. In his place, a kindred spirit, Anja from the Lüneburgerheide, is waiting, and so I am not the only weirdo on this memorable day.
So for two days we have a driver with a perfectly equipped car all to ourselves, we can swap places to our heart's desire, stop wherever we please.
The start is quite tame
At eight sharp we start, initially along the Indus valley towards the east, take a last look at the car pool and the huge tents in Hemis (see Thiksey) and then finally turn into a side valley that will take us to the first pass in the north, with 5350 meters the highest of all, the Taglang La.
It is seven o'clock in the morning, in the distance some of the highest mountains greet in the soft morning light, somewhere in between the highway passes through.
The road is paved and in amazingly good condition, a fact that we will painfully remember many times later. If it continues like this, we might be under some illusion. So far rather disappointing in terms of danger and adrenaline level, but we suspect that it will soon be very different.
Red cliffs line our way, loud gushing streams carry ice-cold water, fed by the still existing glaciers. Then again the valley opens up, trees and barren meadows, now and then whitewashed stupas, standing alone and abandoned on the other side of the valley.
The road follows the bluish-cold river in countless curves. Like an artificial, kitschy scenery in a lousy play, the weirdest rock formations grow into the sky around the river, mostly yellow-brown desert-like, then again greenish or almost black, changing structures, criss-crossed by jagged edges, rounded hills with deeply buried cracks, the upper ones glistening in the sun, the ones in the shadow ominously dark.
Towards the sky
A single breathtaking spectacle for the eyes. I thought I had seen all the variations of shapes and colours after the treks and excursions, but what I am witnessing now in passing is always new, always surprising. Apart from admiring "Ahs" and "Ohs" and "Wows", it has become quiet in the car. The driver can't help but grin from time to time. According to his calculations, he has guided tourists along the track already sixteen times this year. We are number seventeen.
A lucky number, we hope.
The first Highlight - the Taglang La
After the Khardung La (see there) the 5350 meters (or rather 5260?) at the top of the Taglang La don't seem to be very exciting anymore (one quickly becomes arrogant), but the panorama is once again overwhelming. It is the highest of the four passes to be crossed and is declared as the third highest pass in the world (it is doubtful whether this is true; the Indians would like it to be so).
As the altitude has increased, so has the cold, and a sharp breeze sets the hundreds of prayer flags fluttering. The Taglang La is a rather windy and cold area. With its small building at the top of the pass, it appears as a spot of colour in the middle of a uniform wasteland, hardly noticeable from afar. The only sign that there exists, even if very limited, something like life.
A few Indians are doing some selfies (what a surprise), take a short, rather bored look around and escape into the warm car. It always amazes me, and so cultural pessimism is not far away. But we are talking about symptoms, symptoms of illness of our time. Selfie mania is a comparatively minor problem.
The painted bright blue sky
The peaks of the Karakoram and the Himalayas stick out like vicious little spikes into the bright blue sky, as if painted with a brush. The view to the west shows the mountains in Pakistan, to the north are China and Tibet, to the south India. An impression of desolation, loneliness, abandonment, if it were not for barely visible paths and roads cutting through the immaculate.
The Moore plain - calm before the storm
On the ascent to Taglang La, there were also some places which - if there had been more oncoming traffic - would have led to more or less vicious evasive manoeuvres. However, as Saturday traffic is very modest - hardly any trucks, especially not many military vehicles - we already come to the conclusion that the danger of this route is overrated. Far from it! Because now, after we have been following the pass down into the valley, it will really start now.
But for the time being, there's no reason to be alarmed. The road is still perfect, running along long valleys, where flocks of sheep are grazing, although there is hardly anything edible to be seen.
But first of all we have to cross the Moore plain. For 35 kilometers we drive on a dead straight, flat road, not much different from a normal highway somewhere in the world. It is assumed that the plain is a dried up lake. This is, as the driver tells us, the last calm before the storm. He suggests to enjoy the leisurely drive along the plain, because in the foreseeable future we will remember the asphalted road with melancholy. He laughs a rather mean laugh.
His laughter fades away shortly afterwards, because we actually have a flat tyre. Until now the road is still in a good condition, so one wonders how the tyres will survive the next kilometres when it's getting worse. We will see …
And then suddenly animals, far out, barely recognizable. Could it be Takins? Although they have a cow-like shape, they belong to the goat species. Very rare, very endangered. Like many other animal species, they are hardly able to survive the coming transformations brought about by climate change.
We'll watch them for a long time ...
The landscape is getting rougher, a river has dug a deep cut into the plain. The images are becoming more and more surreal, a painter seems to have assembled the whole palette of crazy colours in a single painting.
Below the river, whose grey-blue surface gives reason to doubt whether it carries water. On its banks shady slopes, spiked with dark brown jags, like teeth in a grim face. And at the very top, almost in the sky, the mountain tops, crowned by cloud wisps, slowly and steadily gliding over them.
Stopover
According to the driver, a final stopover before the race really gets underway. The terrain is reasonably flat, and just right for a few low buildings, a few tents, chairs and tables in the sun, just right for a snack. The Fried Rice tastes really good, considering the modest infrastructure. But it could also be that you find just about everything fine in the meantime.
And then they are there, the yawning chasms
But after the break we continue, and after a few curves it gets really uncomfortable.
Did I describe the Khardung La as "not for the faint of heart"? Ridiculous!
That was the exaggeration of the century. Because now the road is getting really bad, now suddenly a crazy oncoming traffic starts, now huge trucks push us to the outermost edge of the road, and now, yes, now, the looks into the abyss, into the yawning abyss, begin.
The Lachalung Pass
While the driver is steering his vehicle over hill and dale with stoic calm, his hand casually on the steering wheel as if it were nothing special to navigate in the millimetre range, we both become rather quiet. But what do you say when a few centimetres outside the window a hundred metres deep abyss looms, where there is not a single barrier between us and nothingness, no wall, no safety planks, just a bit of dusty hot air?
But then we arrive at the next pass summit, the Lachalung Pass (or is it called Lachung La?). Again 5000 meters above sea level, but this is normal now. A sad sight – the prayer flags are not fluttering in the wind as usual, they are lying on a pile, like garbage, disposed of. Somehow incomprehensible considering the deep religiosity of the Ladakhis.
When the road becomes better, maybe even wider, we take a deep breath, knowing that it is only a short break before the next stomach twister appears round the next turn.
The anxiety is understandable, because several times we discover the shattered remains of trucks at the bottom of the chasm, but also of smaller vehicles, like the one we have. The threat is permanent, even if after a while you believe you have gotten used to it. This is an illusion, because every little inattention of the driver (or of the oncoming chauffeur) can mean a catastrophe and the end. All the time you are aware of the danger, feel the adrenaline rushing through your veins, the state of emergency, that grey area between hope and reality.
But that's the reason I came here in the first place. One is in a borderline area, possibly with slightly pathological features, but to experience this feeling of potential disaster is pure folly!
In between - quite normal - hunger, thirst, another lunch stop in no man's land, where the passports are checked for the umpteenth time. The coffee is horrible to say the least, or no, it might be the worst coffee ever. But it doesn't matter. We sit in the sun on shaky chairs, let the honking and crowding pass us by, take a deep breath and feel just great. We are about halfway through, we have survived, we feel the pulse after the nervous strain, convinced that the worst is over.
No way!
It is now late afternoon, hundreds, thousands of curves, dangerous evasive maneuvers, the crossing of raging water that flows over the road, behind us, a new pass, the fourth and last for today, and it will be the worst of all.
While our vehicle is dancing hard along the side of the road so that you forget to breathe, you can only hear rapid breathing. I try not to give a peep, but I also notice how my breath is catching, how for a moment the question arises as to what I am actually doing here. But this brief moment of clarity passes quickly because the next curve is approaching, the next giant shadow of a completely overloaded truck appears in front of us, we estimate the remaining gap, just a few bent centimeters more than our car is wide ...
Jispa - today's destination
And then we approach Jispa, it took us 11 hours to cover two hundred kilometers. Not bad, I'd say, but tomorrow the adventure continues, part 2 of the adventure called Manali-Leh-Highway ...
PS Matching Song: Stone the Crows - Danger Zone
And here the trip continues on the Manali-Leh Highway ...
