Day 16 - Pang to Keylong

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We started from keylong this morning @ 7 am and reached mandi by 7pm.

We first went into Tandi and went to the petrol pump there but found that it was closed then decided to skip and take chances to reach Manali. Had breakfast at Tandi and then started. Tried to get petrol in lot of places on the way but in vain. Some how Ravish managed to get .75 lts of petrol in some road side shack.

We reached Rohtang pass by about 9:30am. Had lot of fun at the top did some power sledging and took lot of picutres and spent about 2 hours there. The ride till there was fun. We were all excited in seeing a board which read Manali 51kms but our happiness was short lived. The road between Rohtang and Manali was Horrendous. Lot of land slides and washed of roads with absolute knee deep waters and slush. This was really a treacherous. Added to this thousands of vehicles stranded to go up to Rhotang killed our speed and by the time we reached Palchan it was almost 2 pm. We had lunch in a hotel there and We decided to give a skip to Manali & Kullu hence rode directly to Mandi.

From Manali to Mandi via Kully we came across an unexpected tunnel of 2.809 kms which is longer than JT, it is a part of a hydo electric project dam by Himachal Pradesh Electric board, near Aut which is a part of Pandoh hydel project.

Reached Mandi by 7pm and checked into a fairly new hotel called River Side.
Did 223 kms in 12 hrs straight. We did keylong to Rhotang in just 2 hrs but Rohtang to Manali was lousy and crowded and it took 4 hours.

Total odo 2087

Photos taken on Day 16

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=pottumarthi&target=ALBUM&id=5625482628095290481&authkey=Gv1sRgCPqgud6P75X7JQ&feat=email

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