Tso Moriri : A spontaneous Visit!

When we reached Tso Moriri, it felt eerily quiet and desolate. There were no tourists, no locals. We wondered if our bus tickets had got us to the right place after all. And then we heard a feeble sound at a distance, a group of children were playing cricket on the banks of the lake. We started walking towards them. There they were, engrossed in their game, each wearing just a thin sweater on top of a cotton shirt and drainpipe pants. And here i was loaded with god knows how many clothes one on another.

It was still very early in the season and it appeared that the camp was not yet set up at Tso Moriri. We drove for seven long hours from Leh through a dry brown road. The Indus had given us company for most of the way, snaking along the road like a shiny green ribbon. But I couldn’t bear the thought of driving back to Leh now that we were already here. It was a journey of 250 kilometres back. That apart, this place obviously deserved more than just a fleeting visit.

Tso Moriri is at an altitude of more than 15000 feet, and the only word to describe it is stunning. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the lake stretches on for more 28 kilometres and its broadest span is almost eight kilometres. I stood on the shore and watching the water change colour with the sun every minute. From a pale grey, to suddenly shifting to a deep cobalt blue and then aquamarine. Shades I had only heard of were playing themselves out in front of my eyes!

Suddenly, there is some bustle behind us, as some trucks pull up with tents and supplies. It turned out that the camp – the only one allowed here – was about to open in a couple of days. I sent our driver, to negotiate and soon we had a deal. They pitched one tent for us and got the kitchen going. This was a good thing, since breakfast was long forgotten and it was already way past lunchtime.

We went for a stroll while lunch was getting ready. High altitude makes it tough to even breathe deep or walk steady. Some portions of the lake were still frozen, although the native Brahmni ducked to make his way placidly through the water.