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Unforgettable 17-day road trip in my BMW X3: Pune to Leh and back

2nd June 2024, 11:26 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

While returning from Magnetic Hill, we thought of doing some off-roading with the SUV but the Check Engine Light came on and we were stressed about it the whole trip.

BHPian GAPune recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Why Leh?

In 2022, after a soft off-roading in Lonavala, I was glancing through team bhp and came across Leh Travelogue. The travelogue by Worldcrawler is world-class, and exceptionally well illustrated with pictures. Inspired by this, I was motivated to make the trip happen in 2023, but got postponed to 2024.

Brief Intro

I’m a passionate driver who has owned five cars in the past 15 years, and I currently own a BMW X3 and a VW GT TSI 1.2. I have completed several long trips, including Pune-Bandipur-Pune (Karnataka), Pune-Bangalore-Pune, Pune-Rajasthan-Pune, Pune-Goa-Pune, Delhi-Mussoorie-Delhi, Delhi-Corbett-Kausani-Nainital-Delhi, as well as many shorter trips.

While planning my next adventure, I consulted a few friends and found another enthusiastic motorist who once went out for a cup of tea in Pune and ended up driving to Hyderabad. He's done such spontaneous trips many times. We both teamed up well and did 50-50 driving.

We also had a third driving partner who unfortunately had to drop out for valid reasons and that's where our families joined us in Leh (Pune-Delhi-Leh flight)

Summary

We embarked on a 17-day journey from Pune to Leh and back, from May 3rd to May 19th, 2024. During this trip, we covered 6,415 kilometres (3,986 miles) of driving - Pune-Indore-Delhi-Jammu-Sonmarg-Leh and back via the same route.

Our altitude ranged from 570 metres to 5,384 metres, reaching heights 20 metres above the Everest Base Camp in Nepal.

The minimum temperature during our trip was -2 degrees Celsius one night, and we travelled extensively in temperatures around 2.5 degrees Celsius. It was a great, fun-filled adventure.

Expedition Highlights

By Road or Flight, high altitude sickness can always happen and differs from person to person - acclimatise properly.
Should not drive in desert dust so that the car's Air Filter is not clogged with dust.
UPI is accepted everywhere (95% of the time we used GPay), carrying cash is good to have.
If cold, do not turn the heat to maximum, because the room heater uses Oxygen and consumes more oxygen from the enclosed room - causing breathing difficulty
Keep sipping warm water.
Use sunscreen as the skin burns in 1 day.
Have the doctor’s recommended dose of Diamox if needed.
People and culture of Leh are amazing, helpful and down-to-earth people.
Giving lifts and taking lifts is very normal in Leh.

Preparation

We did not book enroute hotels, we only booked hotels in Leh. We kept one extra buffer day before Leh, in case roads are closed.

All 4 tires were changed before the trip at Darshan tires, Baner, Pune. These are upgraded tires for X3 from 245/50/R19 to 255/50/R19

Pictures

This is from Sonmarg

Grazing horses in Sonmarg

Open Door Policy in Baltal

This is after Zoji La Pass is crossed.

This is after Zoji La Pass

Internet speed in Leh, yes one can do work from hotel/resort

Leh, View from Hotel's terrace

Hall of Fame in Leh

Sun's Halo

Khadungla Top, Blu's achievement to reach there.

Directions on Khardungla Top

Cold Desert

Sand in Nubra Valley

This is in Nubra Valley

Double hump Bactrian camels in Nubra Valley

Horses in Pangong Tso

Blu posing itself in Pangong Tso

Beautiful Blue colours in Pangong Tso

Frozen lake (Yaya Tso) on the way to Hanle Observatory

Check out the zig zag track on the way to Hanle Observatory

Red fox clicked on the way to Hanle

This is Blu with the Observatory behind.

This is Gamma Ray Telescope in Hanle

On the pay to Pangong Tso, we stopped and crossed stream of rivers to click Yak's closeup picture.

Yak's horn with Blu

One of the petrol pumps

Videos

Detailed Journey

As they say, Ladakh has been inhabited since Stone Age times and it is of historic value. It’s a beautiful cold desert with rocks, snow and sand as it’s unmatched beauty. Every mountain tells a different story. The colours of the mountain vary in different shades of Maroon, Brown, Black, etc

DAY 1: 3rd May, Pune to Indore (569 Kms, 11 hours)

We started at 7 am from Baner, Pune and reached Indore at 6 pm.

Lot of it was a bumpy ride because of narrow roads and potholes via villages because Google maps took us via Lasalgaon.

The route was: Pune-Chakan-Sangamner-Lasalgaon-Malegaon-Dhule-Indore Via Nashik is a better road which skips Lasalgaon and takes us via Nashik, which we realised while coming back. Nashik has flyovers and there was hardly any traffic jam.

The roads in MP were very good and unbelievable, smooth and not at all bumpy. Their cement roads were better too as compared to many states.

DAY 2: 4th May, Indore to Delhi (830 kms, 11 hours)

Left Indore at 7 am and reached Delhi at 6 pm.

Indore-Ujjain-Agar-Jhalrapatan-Kota-Delhi

Again the MP and Rajasthan roads were a lot better.

This route was via NE4 and Western/Eastern Peripheral Expy. NE4 experience was great, very less traffic and only food courts nearer to Delhi were open which was a challenge.

Instead of somewhere in Gurugram, we went to my uncle's house in Gurjinder Vihar in Greater Noida. My uncle had served in the Indian Army and was posted in Leh for 2.5 years, hearing out a few Ladakhi stories was mesmerising.

DAY 3: 5th May, Delhi to Jammu (660 kms, 11 hours 30 mins)

We left Delhi at 6:30 am and reached Jammu by 6 pm.

On the way, we had to cross via Punjab’s village because the farmer protest was still on with a complete roadblock on the highway. It was a real rural experience with no roads and farmlands.

Weather in Jammu was like Pune, hot and steady. The highway work was still going on so a long 1-way stretch was used for both ways of traffic around Jammu.

DAY 4: 6th May, Jammu to Sonmarg (326 kms, 9 hours)

This was an exciting journey as it crossed via Udhampur, Ramban, Banihal and Awantipora, Srinagar and then Sonmarg.

We crossed through beautiful tunnels, one of them was approx 9 kms long and very well lit.

It is called Syama Prasad Mookerjee Tunnel in Jammu which is the longest highway tunnel in India which connects Udhampur to Ramban in Jammu.

We left around 6:30 and reached Sonmarg around 3:30 am. So, we decided to venture further to Kargil.

But, After Sonmarg - the pass through the Snowy Mountains is called Zojila Pass which is kind of a one-way through many stretches. Zojila Pass route is open on alternate days, one day to go up (Sonmarg to Kargil) and another day to come down (Kargil to Sonmarg).

We crossed Sonmarg Check Post#1 (numbering is done by me and it’s not a check post number) and reached the Check Post#2 near Baltal (30 mins drive from Sonmarg). They said it’s not open and mostly will open tomorrow. But locals told us they were allowed many times, so we waited in the Baltal area for 3 hours, which is close to the Sind River.

We came back to Sonmarg and checked-in to the first available hotel, did not do a lot of research.

DAY 5: 7th May, Sonmarg

We got ready and left by 6:30 am and got stopped at Check Post#1 in Sonmarg. We waited there for 3 hours and somehow managed to cross Check Post#1 and reached Check Post #2 where they denied and asked us to stay at Baltal.

We waited for 11 hours that day, kept on checking at Check Post#2.

These 11 hours were beautiful, we had Maggi and Bread-Omelette at a Tapri.

By evening the office in charge pushed us back to Sonmarg.

DAY 6: 8th May, Sonmarg to Leh (338 kms, 7 hours)

We left by 6:30 and the queue was very long.

The cars which were coming from Kargil, I asked 4-5 local (Kashmiri and Ladakhi) drivers how the road was. They assured me that our cars could go easily and asked us to drive slowly and safely since the road is very bad.

After 3 hours (9:30 am) the check post opened the traffic. We passed through the Zojila Pass which we are calling Godzilla Pass, it was outstanding as 15 feet of snow walls on both sides and the road was cut through the middle by BRO (Border Road Organizations). Excellent work done by BRO.

The condition of those roads was like the roads in Pune and Mumbai during the rainy season and also otherwise. So, they were not very bad for us. Huge difference in road quality and expectations people have. They are getting used to BRO quality roads, they will get the shock of their lives if they look at Pune/Mumbai roads.

Near Magnetic Hill, a few folks were enjoying their bikes in the mud. We too took our Blu for a spin which was a great experience, the car looked like leaving contrails behind like a Jet.

Videos

DAY 7: 9th May, Leh

Today our family flew from Pune to Leh with a connecting flight from Delhi joined us and our number grew to 5. This day was spent as a rest day for everyone to adapt to the altitude.

DAY 8: 10th May, Leh

We visited the Leh market. I bought a leather jacket from a shop called Leather House. In the evening we went to Magnetic Hill. It is said that an optical illusion makes you see that you are travelling downhill instead of uphill. It is very famous, but it was the same as a normal road. My son did an ATV ride of a few kms which was INR1200.

While turning back, we again thought of going off-road, but the ‘Engine check’ light started to shine. We were stressed about it the whole trip. More on that in the Extra notes and precautions at the end.

We met a mechanic named Thinley around 9:45 pm and he helped us connect the OBD port and read the error in the laptop, he formidably charged us INR500 only. The warning was “Air Mass System, Plausibility: Measured Air Mass Too Low Compared With Calculated Air Mass (With Inactive Exhaust-Gas Recirculation)”. Very helpful and kind person.

ATV Ride - They claim it to be the World's highest one, next to Magnetic Hill

DAY 9: 11th May, Leh to Nubra Valley (126 kms, 8 hours)

We left around 8 am and before Khardungla the roads were not great. There was a landslide and hence we had to wait 45 mins in a queue. We saw Halo as a ring on the sun when the light refracts off ice crystals present in a thin veil of cirrus clouds. We connected with the BMW service centre and they mentioned “As per the technical team, the air supply intake is not proper, might be the air filter clogged, air tube pinched, or the level of Oxygen/air is low”.

The top of Khardungla was cold and breezy. It was crowded so we couldn’t get a great picture. The roads going down from Khardungla Pass were okay but further ahead it was average. We stopped on the way to the World’s highest Go Karting.

After that, the road to Nubra was blocked for widening, so we had to travel through a dry riverbed called Shyok. It was totally full of pebbles, so we nicknamed it Pebble Road. We drove for an hour on this kind of road and Blu took it easy.

Nubra Valley was beautiful with Snow Capped Mountains, Rocky Mountains, Muddy Mountains, Fine Grained Sand, River and Greenery - all in one place. There were sand dunes and patches of a grass-cactus type of plant surrounded by tall rocky mountains. We tried Ladakhi breakfast and tea.

DAY 10: 12th May, Nubra valley to Pangong Lake (180 kms, 8 hours)

The road was very poor, approx 60 kms was no road and we drove slowly. While we were close to Pangong Lake, the roads were extremely good.

We experienced light snowfall near the lake. Road was as good as ever. There were high winds and a lot of dust. It was very cold at night and sometimes it felt like the wind will blow the tent we lived in. Still living in a tent in the cold desert is an unforgettable experience. Pangong Lake was beautiful and felt untouched. We spent hours in the evening.

Pangong was very windy and cold in the night.

Drive to Pangong Tso

DAY 11: 13th May, Pangong lake to Han-le (154 kms, 7 hours)

We stopped by the lake again for scooter and bike pictures from 3 idiots. Left around 10 am from there for Hanle. We saw Yaks near snow, so we ran towards them to click pictures and crossed 2 small river streams where our shoes got wet. We had lunch in an Army Canteen in Nyoma. We reached Hanle around 6 pm. Han le was very cold. It is known for its observatory, but visitors are not allowed to talk to the staff or disturb them. The hotel we stayed in had no heaters and there was no electricity from 11pm to 6pm. Fortunately, the whole trip there did bear some fruit. We had an indirect connection with one of the scientists. He explained how the telescope works, but we couldn’t see real-time images because we had to visit during the day since it was too cold at night. They declare 30 kms as Dark Sky Sanctuary in the night, so power was cut off from the grid. Only BSNL works in Hanle without the internet.

DAY 12: 14th May- Han-le to Leh (256 kms, 6 hours)

We were going to go to Tsomoriri after Han-le, but because of our experience in Han- le, we wanted to go somewhere warmer. So we went back to Leh since it was as far from Han-le as Tsomoriri was. In Leh, we went back to the market because it had been too much time away from any shop. Sadly we couldn’t shop as the shops closed early in Leh. We had dinner in a newly opened restaurant called ‘Zilla’s restaurant’. For all book lovers, there was an admirable collection of books.

DAY 13: 15th May, Leh

In the afternoon, we met Thinley again and he cleaned the air filter which was easy to take out and checked the warnings again on the OBD port and Phew, the warning was gone. Basically, the Air filter gathered dust, and the air filter is the lungs for the engine where it was having a problem breathing in (i.e. engine not getting enough Oxygen). We had lunch at Chef’s Kitchen in Leh market itself. Everyone loved the food. I recommend you give the place a visit. We found out that the Manali route is still blocked due to snow around Darcha, so the only way back was via Srinagar.

DAY 14: 16th May, Leh to Pune and Leh to Sonmarg

Our family left for Pune in the morning by flight and we drove to Kargil. Visited Kargil war memorial and then thought of taking a chance via Zojila pass. We reached the check post at 4:30 pm. This was not the dedicated day of Zojila Pass to come down (Kargil to Sonmarg). Around 7:00 pm they allowed us to pass through and we drove through a white snow-capped mountain in the night which was glowing like anything. The temperature was 2.5 degree and by then we had acclimatised to the cold weather. We crossed Zojila, there were both side traffics and someone managed the one-way routes very well, so we had to stop by in a queue. We reached Sonmarg by 9 pm and checked into the same hotel.

DAY 15: 17th May, Sonmarg to Delhi (944 kms, 21 hours)

This was a 21-hour long stretched drive. Jammu’s hilly area was so badly blocked that it took 2 hours for which was supposed to be 30 mins. We reached Delhi around 3 am.

DAY 16: 18th May, Delhi to Indore (787 kms, 12 hours)

We got up a little late and reached Indore in time. The start was via NE4 (Delhi Mumbai Expy and then it rerouted outside Kota. The roads were pretty good while returning.