Bus service from Delhi to Leh restarts

Shimla, June 7: The bus service from New Delhi to Leh in Jammu and Kashmir has restarted for the summer season, an official of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) said here on Tuesday.

"We started plying the daily to and fro bus service between Delhi-Leh via Manali from Monday," the official told IANS.

The one side fare on this route is Rs 1,365, he said.

The arduous 1,050 km non-stop bus journey from Delhi to Leh in Ladakh division takes 33 hours.

The route passes through four high mountain passes and remains snowbound from October to May or June.

Also, the luxury bus service linking picturesque tourist resort Manali in Himachal Pradesh with Leh will restart on July 1, more than six months after it was halted for the winter, Vijay Sharma, the General Manager of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC), told IANS.

The 35-seater bus will leave Manali at 11 a.m. on every alternate day and will arrive in Leh the next day in the evening after covering 475 km.

The bus will halt overnight at Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district. From there, it will depart at 4 a.m.

One-way fare, including a night's stay at Keylong, dinner and breakfast, is Rs 2,700.

For the night stay, a special camping site has been developed at Keylong for the passengers by the HPTDC.

The HPTDC is running the luxury bus service to promote tourism in Himachal Pradesh.

The bus crosses four high mountain passes in the cold deserts of Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir - Rohtang Pass (13,050 ft), Baralacha Pass (16,020 ft), Lachungla Pass (16,620 ft) and Tanglangla Pass (17,480 ft).

Backpackers flock to Manali from August to September every year. And most of the travellers from there to Ladakh prefer to drive down the Manali-Leh highway.

IANS