Keylong was very cold. Thankfully the blanket was cozy and good enough to keep me warm. I had a good sleep. As we had reached Keylong late, I had not seen the surroundings. As i went upstairs, the beauty was simply awe inspiring. Keylong was at the foothills of huge mountains on either side. The mountains were covered with snow at the top and and small fields at the foothills up to our Hotel, one field right behind our hotel had cabbage.
As there was no chance of reaching Leh on the same day, we had 2 days to reach Leh, so a distance of around 430 km was to be covered in 2 days. So we had plenty of time to take it easy. So we had the luxury of sleeping till 7:30 a.m.The Original plan included Tso Moriri and Tso Kar for which we had to take a detour. But as the plan had already been wrecked, we shelved the plan to go to these 2 lakes. Even by not going to these 2 lakes, we would be late by a day to reach Leh. So I was worried that we cannot reach Delhi on time.
There were only 2 or 3 tented accommodation from keylong to leh, - Jispa, Darcha, Sarchu, Pang, etc - with Darcha and Sarchu being too close from Keylong we had decided to halt at Pang, around 220 Kms away.
We checked out of the Hotel at 8:30 set towards Pang. Keylong to Jispa was around 21 km. It took us approximately 45 mins to reach Jispa and came across a Mosque or rather a small Praying ground. And a group of people were praying. As it was Eid-al-Fitr , we let our driver Naeem pray while we explored Jispa.
Jispa is a beautiful village at the foothill of the himalayan Mountains with a river also flowing right next to it. We stopped on the outskirts of the village and went to the bank of the river Bhaga. Though the river flow was high, as it was end of the summer , I guess the river was almost half as wide as it would be when the summer starts. We stayed here for almost 1 hour and started walking towards the town. Almost as soon as we entered the town, our driver came back and we again started traveling.
We had not done breakfast till 11 am. So as soon as we came to darcha we stopped there for breakfast. We ate Parathas and omlettes. Also our food supplies had depleted, so we refilled by buying junk food of about 700 rs. All the stuff we bought was overpriced 1.5 times the MRP. Understandable considering only tourists buy such stuff and the road is open only during summer time.
This day Mayur also was not feeling well, probably because we were traveling at such high altitude. The whole day we were consistently above 10000ft above sea level.The Manali-Leh highway is maintained by Border roads organization. They have done a commendable job in keeping the road well maintained. Even some of the most busy roads in other parts of India are not well maintained as this one. Though this road opens only for 5-6 months in the year because of snow, it is very strategic considering it connects the border areas and are required to move the army.
Because the water at the top mountains melts in summer and the stream flows over road, the road gets washed away. Putting pipes under road for water to pass does not help because every year these small streams change their path. Add the land slides to this and the roads are in need of repair or are to be rebuilt every year. Because roads are repaired and rebuilt throughout the year, the travel speed is considerably lowered.
Majority of the day we spent going through brown barren mountains with some high mountains having snow at the top. When crossing these mountains, we came across snow. The whole day the atmosphere was chilly but with sun beating down on us.
At noon we came across deepak tal, a small stunning blue lake. The place was very refreshing. With two mountains on either side of lake and a snow covered peak visible between those two mountains directly behind the blue lake, it just looked unreal. With September last week being almost the end of tourist season, there were no other tourists apart from us.
Next we came across snow covered mountains. As soon as we came towards these mountains, we wanted to stop and play a bit in snow. But our driver was wary of these snow peaks because if the snow slides, we would get stuck over there with no one to help. We did not stop till we came across mountains which were not steep enough. We stopped at one of the places where there was less chance of snow sliding onto roads and played in snow and played for a while. Immediately after this stop, we came across snow covered barlach la Pass. Bhaga river that we came across in Jispa originates here as also the river chandra.
As we were moving at such high altitudes, even our vehicle started having breathing problems. So whenever we had a steep ascent, the vehicle- though would not breakdown- used to have problems with accelerating. So we stopped at lots of places on the road side, so that vehicle could get a breather. This only made the trip much more enjoyable. We used to just sit on the warm road, to get away from the freezing temperature.
At one point of time, we came across a stretch of road which was hardly a few 100 metres away from us, but to reach it we had go almost 10-15 kms because it was separated by a deep valley.
We reached sarchu at 4 pm and we had lunch here. If you think Sarchu and darcha are villlages, then you are totally wrong, these are just temporary settlements of hill people, who stay in tents and provide tourists with tents to stay and also serve food.
As there are no refueling stations on this highway for almost 400kms, we had got a 40 liter can filled with diesel. So we emptied the can into the fuel tank here.
We reached Pang at around 7:30. We ate Dinner in the tent. Pang was very cold at night, so cold that the chapatis that were being cooked, were getting cold the instant they were removed from the pan. So before eating we ourselves used to heat them and then eat. As it was the first we were sleeping in tent and also leh being only 200 kms away, everyone was excited. Little did we know what was to happen that night.
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