You wake up in the morning, head out and soak in everything you see and loudest thing out here are your thoughts which flows like the Bhaga river right next to you. You sit on the bench and close your eyes and the sound of the river makes it way into every cell and your brain slows down, you focus on the sound of water and open your eyes!
Index of all this entire series
The sun slowly makes its way over the mountains! It lights up the top of the mountains and you see snow in places you didn’t the last time you saw them. The western disturbance had brought with it some fresh snowfall and that meant only one thing, Baralachala was closed due to snowfall. Made me wonder, if the pass was again playing games with our trip. The butterflies in the stomach about the Leh – Manali road were slowly turning into nerves. Looking at the Himalayas, you always end up feeling insignificant no matter how high you are. You could be 15000 feet about sea level and the mountains tower over you, they just have no business being so big! Especially since the entire mountain is just gravel and sand, not rocks, not massive stones just pebbles at times!
The temperature had fallen below zero, the night must have been a lot cooler. I wanted to check if JC would start, we needed to top up the Ad Blue as well since we had done close to 3000 kms and Ad blue was close to the half way mark! The JC started without any drama and we went for stroll to soak up the cool crisp air. We were still struggling to climb two floors given that we were at 10k feet, so we didn’t venture down to the river and climb all the way back!
The great thing about staying in places like this you get to meet others over a meal and end of sharing your travel stories. We met two other couples one also from Bangalore and another couple from UP! Towards the evening we spotted trucks and vehicles coming from Darcha which was an indication that the pass was open again, we stocked up on water and zeroed in on hotel on the outskirts of Leh for our stay. Hopefully we would not have problems tomorrow since we were supposed to have good weather tomorrow. A gap of a day before it starts snowing and raining all over again!
Lahaul valley is probably a highly underrated place and should not be used as just a stop over when one heads to Leh, its actually a beautiful location in itself! Since it below than 12k feet mark you still have greenery, visit in the right seasons and it will look magically! Lots of monasteries and places to visit in Lahaul valley!
As we were getting ready for dinner, we lost power in our room and that meant we would not have the electric blankets and had to switch to using two blankets initially which later changed to three in the night! A combination and nerves about the Leh – Manali and cold meant I didn’t really sleep very well. I was up by 4 in the morning and we got ourselves some sandwiches packed and were off on our way to Darcha by 6:30 AM.
The road was thankfully open and we were through the Darcha Checkpost before the crowd and the traffic picked up in the day! The roads were amazing and mountains were keeping us mesmerised, our target to have some breakfast was Deepak Tal.
The lake wasn’t frozen but the side of the mountain had snow so we ate a little and posed a little before we started for our next nemesis – Pagal Nallah!
This stretch has been tamed by a very large extent by the BRO, they have done a fantastic job and building culverts and bridges to make sure almost any car can do this stretch now. Not many deep water crossings – Killing Sarai is no longer something you worry about, Pagal Nallah is still quite pagal but with all the pipes they have managed to control the flow of water, its still rocky and two wheel drive sedans will have problems and might need some pushing and skill to cross this stretch.
As we started the climb for Baralachala it started snowing a little, a small sample of the drive up
The roads were still brilliant and the car warned me of “Ice on the road” not a moment too soon and we saw a couple of patches of black ice on the road, the temperature was below zero again now and we were well and truly climbing and it at least looked like Baralachala was actually rolling out a welcome for us!
We stopped for a large army convoy heading down Baralachala , I found a wide patch after a hairpin bend and halted for a good 15 minutes to allow everyone in a hurry to go! We had snow by the side of the road but it was quite windy and cold, that did not deter us from playing around as we waved at the army convoy. They must had a good laugh looking at me in my eskimo suit!
We resumed our climb again and were greeted by a frozen Suraj tal, we stopped in the same place we had parked our Linea the last time and the clicked this picture!
Last time I couldn’t soak in the beauty of the place so decided to do so this time! We proceeded to reach the top of Baralachala and since we didn’t want to spend too much time at the top we just clicked a snap of the pass as we crossed the board
At 4850 meters or close to 16000 feet is not the tallest pass on the Leh – Manali stretch but can be the trickiest to pass at times, if you think climbing up Baralachala is beautiful the other side actually takes your breadth away!
We finally reached down after numerous stops and had the rest of our breakfast, we realised we had taken more than 3 hours to just cover this stretch and if we continued at this pace we wouldn’t reach Leh before nightfall! Baralachala was one of the targets for this trip and boy did we enjoy our drive till this point, it did not disappoint!
The roads heading into Sarchu were great and I was enjoying my time behind the wheel, we hit Sarchu in no time and bumped into a fellow Jeeper from Bangalore! We had actually spoken before the trip so knew we might bump into each other at some point!
For some reason you need to make entries in two checkposts in Sarchu, and the stretch between the two checkposts is quite horrible. It looked the same as the last time we passed through here and we were trying to figure out which was the road and which was off road! With a 360 camera and an automatic 4×4 it wasn’t even a challenge this time, again comparing it last time when my wife had to get down and act as a spotter as I crawled up.
It was 10:30 AM and we had crossed Sarchu, it was no longer that cold and the sun was out and it was quite sharp. We got ride of all the layers and proceeded to what can only be described as the dust zone of the stretch. With the road construction happening in full swing, you have to get off road and follow trucks which literally kick up a sand storm. Always carry a couple of extra bottles of water as the BRO folks who work tirelessly on these high altitude roads as they may ask you for water.
Nevertheless, we were feeling fine so far and made decent progress and started climbing the now famous Gata Loops by 11 30 AM, this would be our last photo for the day because after we reached the top of the next pass which is Nakeela at 15500 feet both me and my wife started with a dull headache, probably the altitude which we had expected. The stretch between Gata and Pang is a high altitude stretch with very few dips, your almost constantly at 15000 feet. Knowing this I decided to stop as we got down Nakeela and got ourselves some lunch. And I made the mistake of popping Diamox for the first time in my life at this very point! My wife did point out that it was risky to take a new tablet in the middle of essentially nowhere. But heck, I had specifically consulted a doctor on this so I just popped up as I just wanted the headache gone!
With all the technology in the world now, we managed to check our blood oxygen and mine was 68 and my wife’s was 72. Again, expected when we were at 15k feet. What I did not realise was that Diamox can have side effects of nausea and dizziness, because by the time we had cross Lachung La – another 16k feet pass and Pang I was feeling both of this and I just stopped the car in time as I opened the door I brought my lunch out and now my head was hurting quite badly. I would guess this a combination of the side effects of the tablet and AMS. I continued to drive till we reached Moore plains and I handed the car over to my wife because was finding it difficult to concentrate on the road! Thankfully, she had driven JC on Hyderabad’s ORR but this was definitely going to be a challenge as we had the highest pass of the day ahead of us! Tangalangala standing proudly at 17500 feet. At that point of time I did not think these were the side effects of the tablet, and decided it was AMS so got out the portable oxygen cylinders we had and emptied a 6 litre can of it. It gave me some relief but I was still feeling like I needed to sleep, my wife was constantly giving me concerning glances as we had just read the new of tourists having difficulty in Pangong due to AMS.
She managed to drive us all the up to Tangalangala and decided that she wasn’t going to drive further since the road had a lot of ice around and going down in an automatic can be a little tricky and the first time you doing it you don’t want to do it on one of the highest passes around! So I got back into the drivers seat and just had one goal to get us back below 12k feet and fast. I wasn’t as gentle with JC as I was all this time so we just bounced our way down and until I reached Upshi I continued to feel nauseous, I didn’t have problems breathing other than at Tangalangala top which again was to be expected at 17500 feet
A full 3 hours of feeling quite weird, we were finally close to Leh and I was feeling good again. We reached our hotel – The Indus River Camps by 4:30 PM and I got myself some nice Kawa and a delicious sandwich since all my lunch was out there somewhere near Pang!
JC performed admirably and was a breeze to drive with the 360 camera helping us out immensely The 4 wheel drive step up working silently in the background, the traction control light coming up once when we were driving over ice and only the rubber trim below the bumper rubbing a couple of craters. The car did not bottom out anywhere and made the full driving experience so much easier, the 9 speed auto which searches for gears in the city was just perfect up in the mountains and It even holds the gear without upshifting when you are heading down hill. A real mountain goat!
I had concerns about the 18 inch alloys and the highway terrain tires but I didn’t face any problem so far. No sidewall cuts or punctures so I was a relived soul. No DEF warnings or issues as well, I just shifted it in manual in 2nd or 3rd and drove above 3k rpm when we were climbing up passes and still managed an amazing FE of 12.5 KMPL from Jispa to Manali! That’s more than what I get in Bangalore!
This is how she looked after our drive – finally an expedition look!
We spent the next couple of days just acclimatising to the altitude and lazing around at the resort, it is a beautiful hotel on the banks of the Indus River and is 20 mins before you reach Leh, so you avoid the mad crowd in Leh!
Indus River Camps would be highly recommended as a place to stay as they have fantastic hosts and the owner Nico is just and amazing guide and helped us plan the next phase of our trip better! He understood exactly what we were looking for and gave us great suggestions.
Some photos I shot in Indus, they have a lovely pound inside which is a great place to unwind and spot birds and ducks!
Would our plan remain the same, given what happened or would we actually come back via Leh – Manali again?
Racing through the plains (Information Post)
White Carpet – this post
Lion of Nubra- next post
Ice and Dust
Musings of a wanderer 
🙂 waiting …… were you guys drinking enough water when you got sick ? One way to counter the lack of oxygen is to increase water intake so your body can draw O2 from water.
LikeLike
Yep constantly
LikeLike
I guess that’s why they warn you to take your time ascending…..to allow fir acclimatisation! 😬😬 we live and learn 😄😀😄
LikeLike
Yep
LikeLike
Keep ‘em coming Tejus. Love reading about your adventures. Take some cocoa leaves and chew on them, when you get altitude sickness be next time 😁
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will have to try it out next time!
LikeLike