Leh–Ladakh Road Trip Guide: Passes & Pangong
Two roads lead into Ladakh and the choice decides how well you handle the altitude. Permits, acclimatisation, the local taxi rule, and how to plan Pangong and Nubra.
There are two ways to drive into Ladakh and the choice matters more than most itineraries admit. The Manali–Leh highway is 430 km over Baralacha La, Nakee La, Lachulung La and Tanglang La at 5,328 m, and it typically opens from late May to October. The Srinagar–Leh road is 434 km over Zoji La and Fotu La, opens earlier in the season, and — because it gains altitude gradually via Kargil — is far kinder to a body that has not been above 3,000 m before. If you can, drive up from Srinagar and return via Manali.
Altitude is the whole trip
Leh sits at 3,500 m and the standard advice is to do nothing at all for the first 48 hours. That is not a suggestion. Acute mountain sickness does not care about fitness, and the people who get into trouble are almost always the ones who landed at Leh airport and drove to Pangong the next morning. Spend two nights in Leh, drink far more water than feels reasonable, skip alcohol, and talk to a doctor about Diamox before you leave home. A headache that does not clear with rest and fluids means going down, not pushing on.
Permits, and the taxi rule nobody mentions
Nubra, Pangong, Tso Moriri and Hanle sit in protected areas. Indian travellers need an Inner Line Permit, applied for online and stamped at the Leh DC office; foreign nationals need a Protected Area Permit and cannot travel solo. Carry several photocopies — they are collected at checkposts. The second rule catches road-trippers out: vehicles registered outside the union territory are generally barred from local sightseeing circuits inside Ladakh, which are reserved for the Leh taxi union. In practice that means driving up in your own cab, then hiring locally for Pangong and Nubra.
What the days actually look like
Pangong Tso is five hours from Leh over Chang La at 5,360 m, and while it can be done as a long day, a night at Spangmik is the better version. Nubra is over Khardung La and deserves two days for the Diskit monastery, the Hunder dunes and Turtuk near the border. Around Leh itself: Thiksey monastery at dawn for the morning prayers, Hemis, Shanti Stupa at sunset, and the Hall of Fame museum. Mid-June to mid-September is the reliable window; Hemis festival falls in June or July.
Fuel stations are sparse past Keylong and Kargil, mobile coverage is postpaid-only across Ladakh, and cash matters where card machines have no signal. For the drive up from Delhi or Chandigarh, YantraCabs runs the Manali and Srinagar approaches as multi-day SUV bookings with drivers who have done the passes before — which, on a road with no margin for a wrong line at 5,000 m, is worth more than the vehicle.
