TRAVELOGUE

What’s in a hair pin? Nothing spectacular if you ask me, except for the fact that in actuality it is a contraption that holds together a disparate mass of things ranging from long hairs of a lady to her clothes from falling into a disheveled mass. Simply put it, a contraption to hold together a bunch of things to render an orderly look to the entire being. While describing the same logic in terms of mountainous roads, a typical ‘Hair pin bend’ is a travelling convenience that is often built when a route climbs up or down a steep slope so that a traveller mostly crosses the slope with moderate steepness.

In other words and drawing a similar simile, a typical hair pin bend is built to hold together the steepness of a slope either in climbing or going down the road without causing any undue alarm in a driver’s mind. Travelling is an education is an age old adage that still retains its essence. With modern means of transportation man has been able to map such areas of our planet that was considered till a few decades back a strict ‘NO-GO’ zone. The northern areas of our country bordering the high plateau of Tibet still has pockets of areas that resemble a typical ‘Moonscape’ owing to its sheer remoteness and inaccessibility.  These areas slightly north of our frontiers used to be the proverbial ‘Boxing ring’ for the famous ‘Great Game’that was being fought surreptitiously between the Czarist Russia and the Victorian England for the possession of the so called ‘Jewel in the crown’ i.e. India.

India’s northern Border States particularly Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand and the UT of J&K as well as ladakh have been bestowed with one of the most geographically challenging and unreachable spots to include mountains, lakes, and glaciers. Ladakh bordering Lahaul and Spiti of Himachal Pradesh and Tibet in the east has within itself a plethora of mountain passes and trekking trails yet to be discovered for a tourist’s delight.  My interest in Ladakh was triggered primarily by my stay in Siachen glacier as also having few short visits to Machoi & Zojila pass as part of my training at the HAWS (High altitude warfare school) in Sonamarg. After having had my share of Siachen glacier posting, self was posted along with my battalion to another equally interesting mountainous location in district Kinnaur of eastern Himachal Pradesh going by the name of ‘Rupa valley’. Route to Rupa valley or district Kinnaur can be followed either from Shimla or from Leh, with both sides offering a range of exciting opportunities waiting to be exploited by a die-hard traveller.

Since self was supposed to move out from Leh via road to my new place of posting after my Siachen tenure, and with the traditional Leh-Srinagar road choc-a-bloc with tourist vehicles it was decided to route out from Leh to Rupa valley via Manali following the Leh-Manali highway. The Leh-Manali highway is a 490 km / 300 miles long mountainous route connecting Leh, the capital of the UT of Ladakh with Manali in HP. This highway is open for only about 5 months starting fromMay till September, when the snow is cleared and closes mid –October when the snow fall again blocks the high passes on this moonscape land. The main destinations on this highly demanding highway being—Leh—Shey-Karu—Upshi—Gya-Sarchu( state border)—Zingzingbar- Patseo—Darcha—Jispa-Keylong—Tandi—Sissu—Khoksar—Gramphu—Rohtang—Manali.

The highway was designed, built and maintained by the BRO (Border roads organization) of the Indian army which it still continues to do so being one of the most strategic highways of our northern frontiers. It supports the heaviest of vehicles. The average elevation of this highway is more than 4000 meters / 13,000 feet, with highest elevation touching 5328 meters / 17,480 feet at Tanglang la pass. The highway is generally 2 lanes wide (one lane in each direction) with a road divider, but it has only one and half lanes at some of the places. It has more than a dozen bailey bridges, some in poor condition. Having started from Leh in a long convoy of about 50 odd Stallion 7 Tonner trucks loaded to the brim early morning, we crossed Upshi via the famous ‘Sheygompa’.

Having crossed Upshi, suddenly the mesmerizing beauty of Ladakh unfolded in front of us with all its splendour. The road from Upshi to Sarchu via Gya is all along river Indus meandering its way across in all its beauty. In fact from Upshi to Sarchu via Tanglang La Mountain pass which is a distance of 60 kms is one of the most hazardous to say the least. From Sarchu to ‘Gata loops’ is about 24kms which passes through Nakeela pass at 4739 meters /15547 ft and Lahung la pass 16,714 feet respectively. The ‘Gata loops’ the main subject of this so called Tangled tale are a complex set of 21 hair pin bends with the highest bend at 4667 meters / 15320 feet on this important highway.

As per the tangled version of these loops doing rounds in the high altitude wilderness of Ladakh, these loops are a haunted one routinely visited by a Himalayan apparition (ghost) that has been seen by many at different times of the day. When I crossed these loopsas part of my unit convoy way back in 1996, never did it occur to me even once that I was traversing an area that was the sole preserve of an apparition who was by nature benign entity. It has to be understood by a reader that the Himalayas of our northern frontiers are full of such tangled tales of apparitions which raises one’s hairs on its end.

The tangled version that has been now the folk lore of this area per se goes by the story that a truck many years ago loaded up to the brim and carrying 2 travellers (driver and the cleaner) was on way to Leh in the month of October when this highway is about to close for the year due to heavy snowfall. Both the individuals with the loaded truck crossed the ‘Rohtang pass’ which was already frozen by that time of the year. The ‘Kunzam pass’ too had already closed due to heavy snowfall and hence the possibility of any vehicle coming from ‘Kaza ’side too was very bleak.

Unfortunately the truck developed a technical snag at the ‘Ghata loops’ making the truck stop at the loops itself. In the meantime the cleaner of the truck had fallen very sick and barely able to stand. Since he truck couldn’t be left unattended at such a forbidding height, the driver on his own volition started walking to the nearest village to get some help that was a little distance away. The weather took a turn for the worst with a still more heavy snowfall. Having reached the village in the meanwhile, the driver was cautioned of the dangers going out in the snow back to his truck by the villagers. The heavy snowfall resulted in the driver getting stuck at the village for days to no end.

Help did come back to the beleaguered cleaner of the truck after many days but unfortunately by that time he had passed away due to hypothermia and frozen in his sleep. The tangled tale further says that whenever any traveller goes to the ‘Ghata loops’ unattended by anyone, he is stopped by a beggar asking for water. All those who do not offer any help are met with some or the other mishap or accident on their journey, contrarily those who come forward to help this beggar have reported that the moment they offer the water bottle to the beggar ,the water bottle simply falls from their hands with no sign of the beggar. It seems probably the cleaner died due to lack of water or other refreshments coming his way and now his spirit roams in these forbidding heights causing a scare on these 21 hair pin bends to no end.

Though self was not traveling alone on that particular day in September 1996, I still wonder it would be worth a try in present day and time to unravel this tangled tale for everyone’s curiosity. The exact place where this tale was enacted has now a makeshift templededicated to this unfortunate soul with heaps of water bottles in the fore ground of this site left behind by hundreds of travellers over the ages. The northern frontiers of our country is choc-a-bloc with such hair raising tales that are equally backed up by an enthusiastic as well as well as intrepid traveller; with the only caveat that the traveller ought to respect the law of the land and try not to circumvent it to monopolize his very version of the tale that becomes his sole motive during the sojourn with the high altitude bareness of Ladakh region.

(The writer is a retired army officer and can be approached on his email: slalotra4729@gmail.com)