Voyage of a Lifetime- The Manali-Leh Road

 

I dedicate this work to the Jawans of Border Roads Organisation, whose contribution to the country’s defence is often shadowed by their counterparts serving the Infantry and Artillery.

I also dedicate this to the thousands of contracted labour who actually toil endlessly in these hostile regions to enable Ladakh stay connected with the rest of India.

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Prologue-

I am one of those privileged few who had a chance to see this God’s spectacular creation named by its inhabitants as LADAKH in June 2010 after completing my final year engineering exams. Such is the exquisiteness of the place that I had resolved to write this travelogue whilst voyaging on the Manali-Leh road itself!!!

Sadly, as always, things did not go as per plan. My joining date at the new job in Larsen & Toubro Limited, came too soon after returning home in July and this resolution went on the back burner. Meanwhile, very suddenly and equally sadly the recent floods converted Leh-Ladakh into prime-time news topic which triggered back the Ladakh memories forcing me to honor my resolution. A little word of encouragement from Sanjay Sainani, a college friend at VESIT [Vivekanand Education Society's Institute of Technology, Mumbai] set me going finally.

Really speaking, I had actually planned to write a travelogue on Ladakh-the place. While writing that, I realized the Manali-Leh road has to get its share of space in it. So, as it happens with Mumbai University engineers, we start with something, go in a different direction and end up with a product totally different. A humble note to all, even though this work is a result of improper planning, it has taken great efforts to make it what it is. I have spent 10 days writing and I expect atleast a reading time of ten odd minutes from you, before you comment on this.

To make your reading more enjoyable, I have divided this work in 4 chapters, so that you can read it in sessions at your leisure. If you are too occupied to even read a complete chapter, I have introduced some break-points within the chapters too, so you do not miss the link whenever you want to switch-on your new session.

Break point indication- * * * * *

A word of caution, to all who think this work as some insipid and monotonous stuff or who consider this road as any other Mountain Road [Ghats] without actually being there, PLEASE DO NOT BE UNDER FALSE IMPRESSIONS.

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1. Foreword

Mountains, without any flora, exposing their bare brownish texture. That is the spontaneous image created in every tourist’s mind at the sound of word ‘Ladakh’. This one sentence in itself captures the complete charisma of Ladakh. But those are not any ordinary brown mountains. God himself has rightly housed Ladakh within the heaven on earth, Kashmir situated in the extreme north of India. Rather it is Ladakh which has been prominently responsible for Kashmir being proclaimed as the heaven on earth. The sky penetrating mountain peaks, encompass Ladakh valley from all sides. One can sense, they are the ones actually accountable for the very special feel this region has. 

One has to see it, to believe it. Besides, one has to be extremely lucky and needs to have some good money in his pockets to even see it. The splendidly magnificent, serene and divine nature of the place itself decides whose foot-step has to be permitted on its territory and whose has to be barred. So if you have been there, consider yourself extremely lucky to have reached there and do trust me when I say people have lost their lives in their quest to reach Ladakh.

If you do trust your luck and are already geared up for a trek with your friends or a holiday with your family over there, the most beautiful, memorable and adventurous way to reach would be, plying the 460 km long Manali-Leh road. If you do ply on this road, there will be nothing better than boasting that journey before your friends and relatives for many years together. No other road in this world gives you such a feeling of adventurous triumph. I can bet my life on the fact that every kilo-meter you travel will be many times more than the worth of diesel you burn. Every moment you spend, over the engineering marvel carved out by the BRO soldiers affiliated to Project Deepak and Project Himank, will engrave a permanent slot in your memory for years to come. Picturesque as it is, the road never ceases to keep you on your toes. A full depiction of the Manali-Leh road as a travelogue is worth the effort it took as well the number of lines and the amount of space it occupies.

 On the way to Leh near Sissu, some 70 km from Manali

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2. Day One

The most enjoyable way to take pleasure in your journey would be by breaking the journey in atleast 2 days if not 3. My personal suggestion would be to go for 3 break points. So the further portrayal in this travelogue would be in sync with that.

The day before you start, please do sleep early and sleep well. The roads are not made to be slept on, they are made to be seen!!! Local transport agents and tourists at Manali have a tendency to jam up every single day at Rohtang pass, which is the first pass en-route to Leh.

 Heavy local traffic of Rohtang Tourists

Avoid the mad rush by starting very early, around 6. The locals only travel 51 km to reach Rohtang but you have a 117 km travel to be done to reach Keylong, your first break point. And yes, forget no matter what, but do not forget to fill up your fuel tank and carry some 30 liters of spare fuel. Who knows how your Internal Combustion engine would behave at those altitudes.

As you start from Manali [6398 ft], you continuously climb a steep gradient to reach Rohtang Pass [13051 ft]. When you drive, you see the never ending shops renting out warm clothes for Rohtang visitors. The road travels in endless loops to climb up one mountain from the other, but amazingly the entire road revolves around only about 5 mountains in its pursuit of Rohtang.

 The entire road in loops across these mountains visible just a notch below the Rohtang-Top

‘Malana’ is the last town on the road to house some cloth rental shops before reaching Rohtang and Kothi is the last town offering a decent inn. The stretch of about 20 km from Malana to Rohtang Pass will be the most tiresome stretch of the day. Reason being, the gradient is very steep and it rains almost every alternate day in heavy volumes to wash-off whatever little road was built on dry days.

 At the mercy of mountain mud, from ‘Malana’ to Rohtang.

Marhi is the last place before Sissu, yet another tinsel town of Himachal Pradesh, to host a ‘Dabha’. The Dabha at Marhi is the best place to have your breakfast too. Else, the cold winds of Rohtang clubbed with your empty stomach may nauseate you. Some 5 km before Rohtang you would be already seeing the small snow gatherings at a few mountains in the vicinity and some on your own road too. To avoid being excited too much by the snow, it is advisable to have a separate trip to Rohtang, ideally 2 days prior to your Leh trip. Firstly it helps you get acclimatized in those high altitude areas and secondly you have a lot of time at your disposal for enjoying both, the snow at Rohtang as well as your Leh road.

 The Dhaba at Marhi

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The Rohtang Pass is a great Geographical, Physical and Psychological divider. Every word of this last statement is worth its weight in gold. Its location, position and the height it commands powers it to close the link to Leh at any moment of the year. The floral state of your vicinity too begins to undergo a change after Rohtang. No more tall Deodar trees, it is all now limited to shrubs and small apple trees barring a few tall trees scattered at some places along. And the most visible proof of the geographical change, no more sight of Beas River to give you company, showcasing you its breathtaking views. The river originates from the southern valley of Rohtang, after crossing the pass you are welcomed to the Northern part of it. Still, to fill the void there are many small rivers you will come across, but none as beautiful as Beas, instead ones that carve out menacingly deep gorges into the valley. 

 One of the last views of River Beas before the final ascend to Rohtang from Manali

At one point after Rohtang, your road is at such a great height of the mountain that it becomes impossible to view the deep valley sitting in your car. But if you have the nerves, you can enjoy the sight by stepping out and peeking right down from the very edge of your road. The picture below will mesmerize you more.

 This single mountain captured in the above frame, is exactly opposite to the mountain housing Keylong city. The line like thing highlighted in red is actually the road which brings you to the place from which this photo was taken. And the height of a normal person is well below the half-thickness of red line!!! The entire mountain could still not be captured in one picture, taken almost 500 meters away from it. Also notice the shrinking density of tall trees unlike the typical Himachal Pradesh. At the extreme right of the frame, just above half the height, you can see a ‘3 floored’ monastery.

If you are a good observer, you can easily notice why Rohtang is a great physical and psychological divider. As you cross over the pass it takes some time for you to come across some inhabitants of the region as you are already at a height of over 13,000 ft with the place covered all over by snow and not conducive for sustaining human and animal life. After crossing Rohtang en-route to Keylong, you discover that you are descending all the more rapidly. You lose about 2000 feet within a flash of just 20 km!!! Now you finally come across some small villages like Khoksar and Sissu. If you stop over at these for the traditional Indian mid-way halt of ‘chai-biscuit’ you can notice the changed features of the natives. They appear quite different from the Punjabi speaking locals of the rest of Himachal. It will be now that the Indo-Tibetan nature of the place finally starts to sink in.  Welcome to the world of courteous, tourist friendly people of the Keylong valley. It gives you a break from the commercially exploiting Kullu-Manali valley. This is the psychological difference between the northern and southern sides of Rohtang.

It’s not only the human physical appearance which undergoes a drastic change. The local birds too expose some easily noticeable physical diversity. The local crow in Keylong valley has a yellow beak and is fully black unlike the one in Manali, which is quite similar to a city crow.

The local crow at Keylong with a yellow beak.

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 From the point you descend the other side of Rohtang, you will be under the safeguard of B.R.O a subsidiary of Indian army, formed especially to build and maintain roads near the borders and at hostile areas of India. Your vehicle details will be registered at each check-point on road till you reach your destination safely. If you do not reach the next check-point within a threshold limit a search operation will be initiated by B.R.O.

If you desire to keep in touch with your near & dear ones from this point onwards, use a national roaming activated ‘postpaid’ service of MTNL/BSNL. No other private operator even bothers to install their transceivers at these remote villages on the way, spaced almost 25 km from each other with a population of hardly 200 locals, housed at such difficult terrains of India. BSNL towers will support you almost fully barring a few ‘dark-spots’ ranging from 100 meters to 3 kilometers.

Shortly after descending the mountain housing Rohtang, you come across a two-way junction, one way of which goes to some interior towns like Spiti, Kaza, Losar and many more all the way to the Indo-China border, earlier known as the Indo-Tibetan border, and the other to Leh via Keylong. As you take pleasure along the journey, you will awe the giant sized fold mountain structures of Himalaya. If you are lucky enough and the sky is clear you will be able to see the whole larger than anything imaginable structures. I say this because the mountains are so huge that clouds are present in 3 layers along the entire height of those. Seeing the entire structures in one frame is a spectacle in itself.

Some 10 km before Keylong you reach Tandi [a.k.a Tandipur], where you find the last petrol-pump before reaching Leh. Do observe the sky-high prices, petrol pump owner commands and also the mad-rush of biking enthusiasts filling up their not-so-economical-mountain-bikes, which is usually a Royal-Enfield. After driving some 2 km from Tandi you will be on the mountain shown above, from where you can easily see the Keylong town. It’ll be now that AIRTEL SIM cards start receiving signals from the lone Base Transceiver Station [BTS] of Keylong valley.

Keylong is also the last place, on the Manali-Leh route, upto which the Himachal Pradesh state govt. [HPTDC] runs its buses. [Once in a blue moon, HPTDC starts its Manali-Leh service too]

 Excellent engineering & planning enables BTS of BSNL & AIRTEL networks cover a 15 km stretch of Manali-Leh road on hilly terrain

The beautiful journey of Day-1 finally starts coming to an end. HPTDC has built up a beautiful gigantic hotel in the upper half of the town named ‘The Chandrabhaga’, located just near the local bus-stand, rooms for which can be booked from Manali itself. But it’ll take some fortune to get a good room with an excellent valley view. It will be better, in two perspectives, to stay put in one of the many small hotels available at the bottom half of Keylong town [Keylong town is spread over a single mountain. So it can be divided into the upper & lower half]. Firstly you get to explore the ‘real’ features of the people, as the lower half is a home to most locals, and secondly though these hotels are small they offer you much better view-rooms and go easy on your pockets too. With the first day, comes the end of most comfortable part of your journey.

As a part of next day’s preparation, eat healthy but eat light .Most importantly do sleep well because- The roads are not made to be slept on, they are made to be seen!!!

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3.  Day Two

The second day will be the most comfortable only in terms of the starting time. You can easily start at around 9 am and reach Sarchu, a place in Jammu & Kashmir some 115 km from Keylong located at a height of 14,500 feet above the sea level, your break-point for the second day comfortably before dusk.

The second and third day’s travel continuously ascends you to heights even greater than that of Leh itself. As soon as you cross over the Keylong valley, after driving some 15 more kilo-meters you come across the last town in Himachal Pradesh on the Manali-Leh route, named Darcha. After crossing the Darcha region, a geographical transition from Himachal Pradesh to Jammu & Kashmir region becomes apparent. You will easily notice some distant barren brownish mountains at many curves on the road now, welcoming you to the Ladakh valley even though you are still some 275-300 km away from Leh city!!!

 Distant mountains with Ladakh-like features seen from road near Darcha exhibiting the transition from Himachal Pradesh to Jammu & Kashmir.

As you keep driving and climbing, you notice the road slowly starting to get covered by snow. Small patches of snow become visible across the mountains in vicinity. The mountains on your road too by now become almost devoid of vegetation. All these geographical indicators mark the approaching Barlacha Pass a.k.a Barlacha La [The word ‘La’ in Tibetan language means a mountain pass]. Barlacha La is a mountain pass situated at an even higher altitude than that of Rohtang. Its height above the sea level is 16050 feet!!!

 Large patches of snow starting to appear on the way, indicating the approach of Barlacha La.

It is from this point of road onwards, that people start experiencing the Acute Mountain Sickness [AMS], a feeling common amongst tourists travelling to places situated at heights more than 12,000 feet above the sea-level. Not only you but your vehicle too starts showing some altitude problem symptoms, most easily observable being the half-combusted black smoke coming out of your vehicle exhausts.

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The route from this point until some 10-15 km beyond the Barlacha point will be most exhilarating one of your entire journey. The scenes you saw a day before, near Rohtang will now feel like child’s play compared to these extravagant ones. Slowly the entire mountain starts being covered in snow which encroaches on your road too. The snow covered mountains appear as if they have been ‘Mummified’ with white cloth to preserve their magnificence!!!

 A complete mountain blanketed by snow on the most vulnerable and avalanche prone zone of the Manali-Leh route.

  Both sides of the road now start to have a snow wall to drive within. At some points this pseudo wall encroaches so deep, that even a single vehicle cannot pass without crashing it slightly on the sides. It is this stretch of about 20 km which is the most avalanche prone and vulnerable one on Manali-Leh route. Majority of the times, the entire Manali-Leh road gets closed due to this single 20 km stretch. Most of the traffic jams you witness on the entire route will be on this stretch and the queues are painstakingly long. So long that most of the times people from either side have to return back at Keylong or Sarchu respectively to try their luck the next day. On a positive note this stretch has featured in many famous Bollywood movies, most famous scene being the one in the song ‘Yeh Ishq Hai..’ in the movie ‘Jab We Met’, where the jeep ferrying Shahid and Kareena maneuvers through this stretch.

 The snow wall formed on both sides of the road leaving a bare minimum space for a single vehicle to pass through.

More and more amazing sights await you, like the big frozen lake just a km before the Barlacha La point.

 The Barlacha La point

The Barlacha region will sometimes even force you to get down from your vehicles and start removing the ice on the road for your vehicle to pass through. There’s a real feeling of achievement when you literally carve out your road and drive your vehicle rather than the insipid feeling of vehicle driving you on the expressways.

The sights on descend from Barlacha La will be the last sights of heavy snow over your roads till Leh. You will now cross the Himachal Pradesh border to enter the Nyoma region, which is the first valley of J&K and also the first division of Ladakh district. You will now officially be in Ladakh valley but Leh is still some 200-250 km away. A 60 km drive from Barlacha La will bring you to Sarchu, marking the end of second day’s journey. There are no hotels to stay in Sarchu, only some Swiss tent camps with basic furniture and bathroom facilities available. It’s basically a transit place for tourists and an army check-post. Even the people who put up their tents live there only for the four months of tourist season, while permanently staying in Leh. From this point onwards, till Leh you will get only Maggi as a solid food and the traditional Indian ‘Chai-Biscuit’ to compliment your travel. There’s no need of an advice for light food when Maggi is all you can get!!! But yes do sleep well to enjoy the longest journey of all days, which is approx 200 km, the next day, because- The roads are not made to be slept on, they are made to be seen!!!

Sarchu also marks the end of Project Dipak of B.R.O which is responsible for maintaining the Manali-Sarchu section as well as it marks the beginning of Project Himank of B.R.O which is responsible for the Sarchu-Leh section.

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 4.  Day Three

Your third day will be the longest of all in terms of the number of kilo-meters you have to go [approx 200]. As you move out a 2 km or so from the vicinity of your tents, you will be witness to the most outlandish of mountain patterns, shapes, forms or whatever you may call them. Suddenly out of nowhere you see a plateau running more than 2 km at the base of those, now completely ‘Ladaki’ mountains. And then the river has excavated out a perfect rectangular slot for its flow, as if it’s a canal carved out by skilled engineers. The severely V-shaped valley has suddenly turned into this shape -

 The perfect slot excavated by the river in the first picture with the vast plateau over it visible in the second picture below it, and a complete picture in the third one displayed above.

As you move forwards towards Pang- yet another camping place, an army check-post and your breakfast halt for the third day, you notice the mountains exposing their even weirder shapes. At a few places, if you observe well, you easily decipher some meaningful objects from their silhouette, including a human face as well. At this point, after seeing such hugely gigantic mountains and the shapes they portray as if communicating something, one may wonder if the old fable which states, mountains were earlier some giants who could walk and hence were called ‘Chala’, meaning one who can walk, in Sanskrit, are true enough. For those who find this tale interesting, these ‘Chalas’ boasted of their power and caused destruction of lives. Finally the Gods were fed-up and cursed these giants to be immobile for life. That’s when the mountains came to be called ‘Achalas’, meaning one who cannot walk. So, at this point, if you are a psycho like me, it may strike you that some of these can still move or at-least change their shapes to secretly communicate, otherwise how can you justify such weirdest of nature’s splendor.

The human-face like shapes portrayed by mountains out of nowhere

Just as a food for thought, for those who are enchanted by the ‘Chala’ and ‘Achala’ story, even J. K. Rowling narrates this fable of ‘Mountains can walk’, in her own breathtaking way, in the famous Harry Potter series by showing Hagrid’s family of Giants.

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As the journey becomes more photogenic, it now starts becoming tiring too. Prime reason being, the tar cover over your road by now is fully washed off, so you are on the mercy of raw sand and stones. You may even feel as if you are driving on some road in Afghanistan, as depicted in the film ‘Kabul Express’. The secondary factor which adds up to your tiring quotient is, now the mountains are not closely bound as such. So if you want to migrate from one giant to other, you have to climb down the entire slope and, drive in the short valley, and again climb up the subsequent one. The Indian govt. simply cannot afford to build huge viaducts to span these terrains, used by not even 100 vehicles daily. A picture will explain better.

 Notice the tiny army overpass, taming the river, which has to be crossed after climbing down the entire mountain.

 When you reach Pang, take a deep sigh and enjoy your break, because the worst is almost over. You have just crossed Lachung La, yet another high altitude pass of the road. After Pang, you climb up a few more mountains to be subjected to the vast ‘Morey Plateau’ [some maps show it as Morey ‘plains’, but I haven’t read a definition which states a flat region within mountains being called a plain], more than 35 km in range. Something you would not have imagined just a few minutes before while negotiating those irksome curves near Lachung La. The plateau is so vast that till the time you reach the end, you feel as if the car is moving but you are still on the same spot. To add up there is no road beneath your tires, you are over the raw earth of the ‘Morey-plateau’. This 35-40 km stretch will be a welcome relief after those whirlpool turns you would have just come across.

This stretch of Morey plateau ends at a small camping place, called Gya. It is from this point onwards that you start seeing some J&K state govt. run buses ferrying people to Leh.

 This picture of mine was taken near the end of Morey plateau. The Mountain you see in the back-drop is a kilo-meter away.

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Immediately after the Morey plateau adventure, your final climb of the road till Leh starts. You are now on the way to surmount Taglang La [Height 17582 ft], the second highest motorable road in the world and also your final pass before you reach Leh!!! The road will again bring some nausea with it, but don’t let the mountain sickness overcome your excitement and anxiety of reaching your destination. Road on this particular climb will be stony, dusty as well as narrow with a steep valley on one side. Temperatures will again start to fall as it brings back the memories of Rohtang and Barlacha La. Even after being the second highest motorable road you see very less snow in your vicinity as compared to the scenes you witnessed in Barlacha La, reason being this mountain region lays in the rain shadow region of Himalayas. The Barlacha La ranges have already consumed most of the South West monsoon winds. After some vigilant and skilled driving by the driver and perseverance on the passenger’s part you finally are on second top of the world!!!

 At the Taglang La top.

It’s only a matter of time now before you reach Leh, though still some 111 km away. You will see this distance being covered within 3 hours from this point onwards. The climb down from Taglang La will be the only bad phase of your path now. Shortly after descending the mountain within a run of 15 km, you reach the area already at the height of Leh [13000 ft]. From now on, it’s just a plain road to be plied on with one of the Indus’s tributary giving you beautiful companionship. By now your driver will go all out to remove his hill-road-frustration by driving at velocities not less than 75 KMPH. You too will now anything but enjoy that speed. The 60 km plain road till Upshi, though plain in itself, will be covered severely by the mountains with no view whatsoever, a strange choking feeling after the vast line of sight range you experienced at Taglang La top.

Shortly you will be at Upshi, your last ‘Chai-biscuit’ halt of the expedition and the last army check-point of the Manali-Leh road. Here you finally get a ‘Darshan’ of the original Indus a.k.a Sindhu River over there, because of it being the most revered river by Sindhis [The Indus terminated into Arabian Sea in Sindh province of Undivided-Prepartitioned India and Leh is now the only place where you can have a good-safe dip in the river]. Here the J&K govt. recovers a green tax from you against the privilege of the drive you will soon take pleasurably in Leh. The beeps from your private network powered mobiles will soon raise your spirits!

 First ‘Darshan’ of the ‘Holy Sindhu’ near Upshi.

Very soon you will reach Karu, the outskirts and the army cantonment of Leh. For security reasons I do not wish to disclose the details of the vastly spread cantonment, stretched across about 10 sq km of the land at Karu. Nevertheless, when you travel there, feel proud of your country’s defence. At this point it may already be 4 in the evening, and still some 45 km to go before you reach Leh city. As matter of advice inform your hotel in advance about the dinner you may like, if you stay at a small one like mine [The market there closes early in the evening].

The next 45 km, from Karu to Leh will be by far the best. Firstly, now you are on the National Highway-1, the most prestigious of our country connecting Delhi to Leh via Jammu and Srinagar. Secondly you see some trees after a very long time. Thirdly, the thrill of reaching your destination and lastly you enjoy a panoramic view, the view-choking mountains being very far away from your road now. Within all this excitement do notice the small white-coated temple like builds on either side of the road, built by Ladakh natives. The local Tibetan migrants pray in these individually built temples. Also notice the small channels excavated from Indus, to bring in water for the man-made cultivations on either side of roads, an attempt to turn Leh more beautiful and comfortable to live in.

As you notice these beautiful pictures sink inside you, go, fall in love with the most diversely beautiful voyage you have just finished, which has demonstrated all of the nature’s marvels from dense green Deodars to blankets of snow to the ocher colored  trademark mountains of Ladakh valley, finally immersing your thoughts in the deep-blue waters of Indus.

 Mesmerizing aqua of the deep blue Indus is at its striking best, in addition to the ‘Dessert’ with an ‘Icy topping’.

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 Note- This picture has directly borrowed from the internet for representational purpose. The division of the break-points of the 3 days are the owner's portrayal.

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Acknowledgements-

This work is not a result of my efforts alone and would hence be incomplete without thanking the people who helped make this what it is.

Firstly, I would thank my parents, uncle and aunty for sponsoring and planning this trip so well, by chalking out the minutest details well in advance and executing it so meticulously. Their efforts in the background helped me enjoy and observe the road to my full, which makes this work achieve the depth it has.

I also thank my siblings Sidhesh, Neelesh and especially Priya for tolerating my facetious remarks and ‘pakau’est of jokes, accompanied by those songs with the stupidest of lyrics, in my hoarse voice while travelling. I actually wanted to bring in some amusement in the journey but, it turned out that, I actually made their trip a hell!!!

Last, but never the least, I would be too rude if I do not thank our driver Manjeet Singh, who accomplished this 3 day task in just 2 days, by driving almost for twelve hours with very little breaks on the second day, and still managing to be cheerful at the end of it all. 

* * * * *

Epilogue- 

The next 4-5 days I had at Ladakh were the days to remember for life. It had everything from the shimmering sand at Mt. Lamayuru to the remotest of Monasteries at mountain tops, the Leh palace with the King living there till date, the double humped camels at white desert sand in Nubra valley, a Bon-fire at a camp in Nubra valley with an overnight stay and the most beautiful Pangong lake, which features in the last scene of 3 idiots. Nevertheless, more than these places, the roads which take you there are a treat to drive on, with Khardung La, [Ht- 18380 ft] the world’s highest motorable road and Chang La, [Ht- 17585 ft] the world’s third highest motorable road, on the way, completing the trio of 3 highest roads in the world. 

Watch out for all this and more in my sequel- Ladakh- A Beautiful ‘Dessert’ with An ’Icy-Topping’ 

-Ashish S. Lalla [The Travelover]