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Published: June 27th 2011
Day 5 – 30.07.2010: An unforgettable breathless night at an altitude of 4290 mts was then the past. Some of us had a sound sleep like MF 😊 and some had just pretended to sleep and some had constantly changed sides. But still, despite unfavourable bodily responses of previous day, it was the most beautiful morning in the valley of Sarchu. ASO was the first one to wake-up. Slowly and steadily others too left their beds. It was 0700 hrs, the sun was shining brightly on the east horizon, bikers and transporters had already started their day. But we were not at all in a mood of hurry.
Task – 1 for the day was to use an open air toilet which was made of old drum sheets from the sides with lots of holes. There was nothing to lock the door from inside but a piece of lace to be knotted on a nail. The water was extremely cold.
We took bread, butter, jam, honey, omelette and tea in the breakfast and started our journey at around 0930 hrs. The road ascended towards the higher passes with totally barren mountains and amazing sand structures. Within half an
hour we reached 21 Gato Loops. As the name suggests, the road had 21 steep turns with increasing elevation. Salute to the brave soul we found there cycling. To drive car is a challenge, to ride bike is more challenging and needs a lot of energy but to ride a bicycle that too alone is commendable and hilarious. But this is not the reason why we salute him; the reason was - he was having only one leg!!!
Passing through Lachalang La 54 kms from Sarchu at an altitude of 5019 mts, we reached Pang 76 kms from Sarchu – the most beautiful valley, lies at the border of Himachal and Ladakh. The view was enchanting and unexpected. This was the first place after Rohtang where we saw a lot of people – travellers some returning from Leh and others ascending forward. There were tens of tents with colourful Tibeti people calling you for lunch. But the question was to order everything in one go or to order a bit and let our taste buds decide. We ordered Rice, Rajma & Choumien. As expected, the choumien was half cooked but the Rajma-Rice with homemade pickle was good.
We
took few water bottles and moved on, passing through the world’s highest military transit camp and the unimagined 40 kms Plains started somewhere around 4 to 5 kms from Pang seems to be the battle ground of “Lord of the Rings”.
Just before reaching Tanglang La – the highest pass on that route, we were trapped in the traffic jam. It was told by a BRO Engineer incharge that the traffic was stopped due to the ongoing blasting activities at the highway to trim the mountains. It seemed that it would take several hours. We were at around 5000 mts altitude and it is not recommended to stay there for more than 20 minutes. It took about more than an hour to clear the road by that time symptoms of uneasiness were visible on MSN’s face. Within 20 minutes we reached Tanglang La, the feeling of passing through the world’s second highest motorable pass was enough to overcome AMS atleast psychologically.
Another Traffic jam, this time it was due to a drill machine being used for breaking the heavy boulders which were narrowing the road. It took around half an hour. At around 1515 hrs we started descending
towards Upshi – 60 kms, Shakti – 84 kms and our final destination Leh 109 kms from Tanglang La. The color of mountains was more reddish and a bit of vegetation was visible. Within two hours of drive, we entered Friendship Gate i.e. the main entrance into Leh City. Passing through wider roads, we reached into main market area with smaller lanes. Kangri was the first hotel we explored and finalized without much bargain. The rooms were big and spacious. Highly in the mood of acclimatization, all of us slipped into the beds with no intention to wake-up.
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Abbas
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Fabulous
Good job yaar... full of inspirations and exitment.