A far off affair

While today, you can choose to land in the heart of this dustbowl at the Leh Airport, or at any other place along this ancient highway, just from Srinagar to Leh would be a 16-day journey over a dirt path till as late as 1960’s when the Indian army engineers carved a road up to Zoji-la to maintain supply lines. This army road has today developed into the Srinagar-Leh Highway (NH1D) and is one of the two arterial routes connecting this remote district to the rest of India. The road then further extends to Manali and is known as the Leh-Manali Highway (part of NH21). It is roughly 900 kms from Srinagar to Manali, (approx. 425 + 475). Journey to Ladakh through either one of these routes will take two days. A third motorable road from Leh does exist, which connects Leh to Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet but is in disuse as China does not allow Indians to use this all-weather road to go to Mansarovar.