You’re driving up toward a high pass in Ladakh, and the road ahead is blocked. No warning sign, no clear explanation at first glance — just a stretch of tarmac that’s been cordoned off, and a small queue of vehicles waiting to find out why.
It’s the kind of moment that plays out on high-altitude roads across Ladakh, Kashmir and India’s border states every single day. A stretch closes, a soldier or road official explains why, and the traveller is left to either wait it out or take a detour.
That scene is also, roughly, what’s playing out in a video doing the rounds again this month — a traveller in Ladakh questioning why the road ahead was blocked. Strip away the noise around it, and it’s a useful reminder of something worth knowing before you book: for a certain kind of Indian holiday, this is simply part of the itinerary.
That’s the part most people don’t plan for until they’re standing at the barrier — not just the permits and IDs, but the very real chance that the road itself won’t cooperate. Here’s why both of these show up so often in these regions, and how to plan around them well before you leave home.
Ladakh and Kashmir: what the checkpost actually wants from you
Ladakh and Kashmir sit close enough to international borders that the government keeps a close watch on who travels through them.
Until 2021, every Indian citizen entering inner Ladakh needed an Inner Line Permit, checked at army posts along some of the highest roads in the country. That permit has since been replaced by an Environment and Development Fee, which is worth applying for online well in advance and carrying as a printed receipt, since a payment confirmation on its own isn’t always accepted.
The checkpost process itself hasn’t really changed: at South Pullu and Khaltsar, you’ll still need to show that receipt alongside a valid government photo ID before you’re waved through — so it helps to keep that ID on you at all times, not just for hotel check-in.
The safest way to explore high-risk mountain routes is to plan for uncertainty, from carrying printed documents to checking weather conditions before each leg of the journey. Photograph: (Facebook)
Foreign nationals and Overseas Citizens of India need a Protected Area Permit instead, best started early through a registered local agent.
Seasoned solotraveller Shruthika Parupalli, speaking about her first trip to Srinagar, described how unsettling the army presence felt at first — soldiers stationed every few hundred metres, ID checks at multiple points along the route.
“By the end of the trip, it was this same visible security that had made me feel safest. It’s a useful reminder that a heavy security presence in these regions is a planning detail, not a red flag. People should expect ID checks at several points on a single day’s drive, build a few extra minutes into every leg of the journey for it, and it becomes routine within a day,” she says.
The Northeast: same idea, different paperwork
The Northeast works on a similar principle, just with different names on the form. Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram all require an Inner Line Permit for Indian citizens and a Protected Area Permit for foreign visitors, checked at the state border — best applied for online well ahead of arrival rather than at the checkpost itself.
Assam doesn’t require a domestic permit at all, which is why it tends to function as the gateway into this region, but foreign nationals still need to register with the local FRRO within 24 hours of arrival, and border-adjacent pockets of the state carry their own protected-area rules.
If your trip strings together more than one Northeastern state, map the route first and budget time for a separate permit at each border — one folder rarely covers all of them.
Even with the right papers, the weather gets the final say
Getting your documents in order is only half the job. The other half is timing your trip around the season.
Uttarakhand’s Joshimath–Badrinath highway — the only road to Badrinath and the ancient village of Mana beyond it — runs along a slope that has never fully settled.
Landslides shut it down almost every July and August, sometimes for days, while road crews work to clear the debris, which makes this exactly the window to build buffer days into a Char Dham itinerary rather than book it back to back.
For travellers heading into the Northeast, permits can vary by state, making it important to map the route and paperwork before setting out. Photograph: (Tirtha Yatra)
Journalist Sriroopa Dutta recalls being stopped by the Army on the road to Badrinath, about three to four kilometres short of Mana Gaon, India’s last village on the Indo-Tibetan border, while travelling with her mother as a child.
Their first assumption was that it had something to do with travelling as a woman — but the personnel was quick to clarify that it had nothing to do with a woman travelling without a male companion.
The reason, as Dutta puts it, was simpler and more immediate: the terrain itself. Landslides and mudslides had made parts of the road unstable, and the Army was redirecting travellers rather than risk letting them cross the affected stretch.
It’s a small detail that captures the whole logic of these closures — as Dutta says, “a road that appears safe one moment can become dangerous after heavy rain, a landslide or a sudden mudslide,” which is exactly why the Army has to make quick, on-the-ground calls, sometimes stopping people or rerouting traffic before conditions get worse.
Rishi Juggi, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, saw the same pattern play out one state over, on a trip to Thachi valley in Himachal Pradesh, after locals had already warned her group that heavy rain could cut them off. It did.
“Driving back toward Aut, our jeep slid across roads that had turned into streams overnight, and a stretch of hillside gave way just 15 to 20 metres behind us. That taught us to check the India Meteorological Department’s forecast each morning instead of the night before, because a warning that arrives too late doesn’t help at all. So I always urge travellers to stay on top of weather updates,” she says.
Monsoon journeys through the Himalayas and Western Ghats require room for delays, as landslides can close key roads for hours or even days. Photograph: (Tripoto)
This isn’t only a Himalayan problem. The Western Ghats see it too — in July 2022, the Agumbe Ghat connecting Shivamogga and Udupi districts in Karnataka stayed shut to traffic for nearly two weeks after landslides hit two of its sharpest curves, sending vehicles on a long detour through Someshwara instead.
It’s the same lesson from a different range: book accommodation with flexible cancellation on any monsoon-season Ghats trip, because a single closed ghat road can turn a one-night stop into two with no warning at all, and look for travel insurance that specifically names landslide-related delays, since many standard policies leave that out.
Before you hit “book”
None of this should put you off travelling to these places — it should just change when you start planning. If you’re headed to Ladakh, Kashmir or the Northeast, apply for your permits well ahead of time and carry printed copies with you, plus a spare tucked away separately, in case your main bag gets checked and set aside.
A screenshot on a phone with low battery and no signal won’t get you very far at a checkpost with patchy network. If you’re driving through the Western Ghats or the Char Dham route in July or August, that same instinct applies to the weather: check forecasts daily, build in slack, and book stays you can shift without a penalty.
A little preparation goes a long way here. The checkpost will be there next season too, and the slope above Joshimath will keep watching the sky the way it always has. The traveller who plans around both is the one who actually gets to enjoy Ladakh, or Badrinath, or Thachi valley — on schedule, and without the story turning into a cautionary tale.
