Mandi i'm off: Srinagar to Leh Adventure

Fond farewells made to my hosts Manzoor and Neeofar,Nazir and I set off as planned at 9am for Kargil,,plain sailing for the first couple of hours camera at the ready I travelled as comfortably as the road allowed enjoying the scenery.At Sonamarg Nazir asked a soldier about the road ahead and was told "no worries" not far out of Sonamarg we began the climb up to Zho Ri La,a zigzag route up the mountain,sheer drops off one side,near the peak of the pass at 11600ft everything came to a halt because deliberate avalanches of rock were being created on the road above us and the tons of rubble were bouncing down the mountain and blocking our progress.We waited 1.5 hours for the roadwork to cease and then the convoy of waiting traffic took off at a rush in typical Indian fashion with the oncoming traffic doing the same thing on a single width ledge of rock at high speed.I was terrified,it wasn't a stiff upper lip approach that kept me quiet,it was the knowledge that Nazir is one of the best drivers around and the fact that all the other vehicles contained families and women and a few kids and none of them seemed as alarmed as I felt so I just faked "cool".Even just waiting around I felt very breathless and uncomfortable so I knew I was altitude affected it didn't help my nerves when a falling rock crashed through the window of a nearby vehicle,and while we waited a very large vulture picked at a cacass nearby.
The military presence was incredible,I saw my contempories the high altitude warfare specialists everywhere and lots of troops in forward positions at total readiness.At one checkpoint I had to produce my passport and sign a foreigners register.

During the drive Nazir told me of how he was pressed into service as a driver at gunpoint during the 1997 control line invasion,he told me that an estimated 30,000 Pakistani troops came over the mountains near Kargil and that thousands of Indian army soldiers were killed for very little loss to Pakistan.He said each night he was handcuffed to prevent him from absconding and each day he would drive out to pick up the dead and wounded.

Near the bottom of the pass we stopped for a cup of tea at the village of Drass which is the second coldest place on earth,the winter temperatures fall to -50,and any day now the villagers will leave until after winter.

Just 5 kilometers out of Karkil we were stopped again whilst unsafe mountainside was blasted by explosives and heavy plant pushed the rock into the river,another 1.5 hours we waited for a path through the debris to be made.At this point Nazir told me he had once been isolated for three days when the blasting had brought down a large portion of the mountain as well.He told me they had no food or water,some old people died of the heat,and he and a few others raided a live chicken carrier truck for food.

The main reason I am in a very expensive hired car for this trip is because the road is oficially closed from Sept 22 for winter so most of the buses and shared taxis cease.I am currently holed up in an overpriced Kargil hotel for the night because the locals know we have no choices,they hold all the cards.

Tomorrow Nazir and I plan to continue our journey to Leh with an early start,we have 230K and three high altitude passes to negotiate and Leh sits at 13200ft so it will be another interesting day.