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Today,
travellers from Srinagar drive on this route in the relative comfort
of taxis, local buses or their own vehicles, taking two days and
breaking journey at Kargil.
It provides the best possible introduction to the land and its people.
At one step as you cross the Zoji-la, you pass from the lushness
of Kashmir into the bare uncompromising contours of a trans-Himalayan
landscape.
Dras, the first major village over the pass, inhabited by a population
of mixed kashmiri and Dard origins, has the local reputation of
being the second coldest permanent inhabited spot in the world.
But in summer when the pass is open and the tourists are going thourgh,
the standing crops and clumps of willow give it a gently, smiling
look.
After Drass, the valley narrows, becoming almost a gorge. Yet even
here it occasionally allows space for small patches of terraced
cultivation, where a tiny village population ekes out a precarious
existence. This is indeed a mountain desert, greened only by such
scattered oases.
On departure from Kargil, the road plunges into the ridges and valley
of the Zanskar range over a huge mound of alluvium, now made fertile
by a huge irrigation scheme. Mulbekh with its gigantic rock engraving
of Maitreya (Buddha-tocome) and its gompa perched high on crag above
the village, is the transition from Muslim to Buddhist Ladakh. It
is followed by two more passes, Namika-la (12,200 feet/ 3,719m)
and Fotu-la (13,432 feet / 4,094 m).
From
Fotu-la, the road descends in sweeps and shirls, past the ancient
and spectacularly sited monastery of Lamayuru, past amazing wind-eroded
towers and pinnacles of lunar-landscape rock, down to the Indus
at Khalatse- a descent of almost 4,000 feet/ 1,219 m in about 32
km. The Indus valley from Khalatse up to Upshi, where the road from
Manali comes in, is Ladakh's historical heartland. The road follows
the river, passing villages with their terraced fields and neat
whitewashed houses, the roofs piled high with fodder laid in against
the coming winter.
Here and there the observant traveller notices the ruins of an ancient
fort or palace or the distant glimpse of a gompa on a hill a little
way from the road. The last of these is Spituk, only eight km. Out
of Leh. And at last, Leh, the capital town of the region is visible,
dominated by the bulk of its imposing 17th century palace.
Today,
travellers from Srinagar drive on this route in the relative comfort
of taxis, local buses or their own vehicles, taking two days and
breaking journey at Kargil. 
From
Fotu-la, the road descends in sweeps and shirls, past the ancient
and spectacularly sited monastery of Lamayuru, past amazing wind-eroded
towers and pinnacles of lunar-landscape rock, down to the Indus
at Khalatse- a descent of almost 4,000 feet/ 1,219 m in about 32
km. The Indus valley from Khalatse up to Upshi, where the road from
Manali comes in, is Ladakh's historical heartland. The road follows
the river, passing villages with their terraced fields and neat
whitewashed houses, the roofs piled high with fodder laid in against
the coming winter.
