India 2024 Part 4 – Over Zoji La – Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures

After a few days, we always get the itch to keep moving. Our hosts have lots of ideas, a relative offers to drive us around to our next destination (Sonamarg). For a price of course, it’s important to remember that this is extra cash for them.

We’ve been watching diesel SUVs rolling through the village – shared taxis – which are the local version of minibuses. We walk down, and find one in 15 minutes to ride down the valley. At the bottom of the valley, (New Theed) everyone piles out and we immediately jump into an identical rig for the trip into Srinagar

Packed into an suv with 11 people, no seatbelts, headed into the unknown and couldn’t be happier

Srinagar is trickier. This city is well over a million people, with roads going to all points. Sonamarg is a Banff of Kashmir, so well served by private cars and tourist buses. The bus leaves at 7am, and we are determined to get there today, rather than wait for tomorrow’s bus. As the locals do, which means more shared taxis.

The trouble is all the taxi drivers want to drive you themselves, not help you find a shared taxi. A little googling gives us two choices for where the shared taxi depot is. We take off on foot, seeing a magnificent market along the road. A taxi driver finally cracks, and gives us the name of the more distant bus stop. A auto rickshaw driver takes us there for 150 rupees – our first ride on these little tricycles of death. At least to my western eyes.

A massive clothing market that goes for 10 blocks. We ask a friendly Indian soldier if we can get a picture. Hard no

We’ve gotten used to not having seatbelts. Three wheels with no door is a little more spicy.

Now we wait for the shared taxi to fill up

The other key was realizing that the shared taxi routes are short, and you can’t get to your final destination in one ride. As I write this, we are pulling out of Kangan on our fourth ride, which will climb 900m up the valley to Sonamarg.

Luggage goes on the roof. Fitting one extra passenger would make all the difference for this business model.

Lots of heavy but stylish truck traffic. All of Ladakh is supplied by truck during the 6 months the pass is open. 4 day round-trip to Leh

Sonamarg may be a little Banff, but it’s also one of the jumping off points for the Indian version of the Camino de Santiago. A huge ice cave up in the mountains is the pilgrimage destination for 600-800,000 Hindus each year, during a two month summer window. Fortunately we’ve missed the high season. The pilgrims have been the target of extremist attacks, and the Indian army takes this seriously. We passed endless army convoys on the drive up to Sonamarg.

Sonamarg- Line of shops with small hotels on top. Town is in starvation mode until pilgrims and domestic tourists return next spring

Looks like a permanent camp for animal herders. Gujjars?

Awesome plaster work in the lobby of our hotel

The most gorgeous hotel room we’ve had on the trip

Sonamarg has a few trails. Thajiwas valley is a popular day trip, with several hanging glaciers

Many tourists ride horses up to the glaciers. The horse herds have chewed the grass very short everywhere

Pine trees in the Kashmir valley are massive

In a few hours, we realize Sonamarg has almost no trails. We hiked to the glaciers, another trail starts 9km out of town, and the Great Lakes trek is a week long affair that goes well over 4500m. We decide to keep moving, over Zoji La pass.

There are two ways into the Ladakh territory, where a single road goes through the Himalaya range. North pass and south pass. Zoji La is on the north end, and it’s the speedy way. 450km from Srinagar, a two day 20 hour bus ride. Update – now a one day 14 hour bus ride

The passes snow in for 6 months of the year, and it’s likely they will close before we leave Ladakh in mid October. We are breaking this epic drive into short trips (<100km), to get in some hiking and acclimating. And travelling with the locals in shared taxis.

Our shared taxi to Dras, halfway to Kargil

Marta talked the driver into popping the hood. Naturally aspirated diesel, five speed manual, rear wheel drive. Gets 6 to 7 L per 100 km. Old tech and so effective

The problem with shared taxis is they don’t go until the taxi is full. We waited for an hour and we were still the only customers. At 10 AM the tourist bus from Srinagar rolled into town, so off we went.

The drive up Zoji La is impossible to record. Overhanging cliffs on one side and a kilometre deep Canyon on the other.

We chose the town of Dras for our next stop because at 3100 m it’s 400m higher than Sonamarg. Our guidebook says there’s nothing redeeming about this town, but we noticed an intricate system of roads and trails high into the mountains, particularly to the north

After carefully studying the trails, we thought what’s that funny line on the top of the map? Oh, that’s the line of control with Pakistan. This may not be a good idea.

We found a great hike up local roads to the south of the valley. Sure enough, the north side of the valley is strictly off-limits, and even has minefields

Dras is a small enclave of Sunni Muslims. We were concerned about the black flag, but it’s normal.

We did a little trespassing, but nobody seemed to mind

When we meet locals, it always seems impossible that they will be able to speak any English. and then you’re just astounded that you’re able to have a conversation

As we arrived back to our hotel courtyard, four buses of Indian soldiers rolled in. They explain that there is an election in Kashmir this month, so security is being increased.

Easier to get soldiers to agree to a photo when they aren’t on duty

A good road leads up Lamochan mountain, so we hire a taxi to eliminate 11km of walking and 550m of vertical. Dras is the first town where we are not aggressively pursued by taxi drivers, and we have to go find them.