Where The Streets Have No Name

Ladakh Chronicles, part 3 – Manali-Leh Journey

April 5th, 2009

Mountain Roads, Changing Nature and one incident of AMS

6^th July
Early morning 5′o clock. Cold atmostphere. Hot cup of coffee and Ashok’s warm good morning. Our journey started with only one little problem. The weather was rainy and clouds were covering most of the view. The road was wet and foggy, slowing down our vehicle. I usually like to photograph rainy season, but we all were hoping for bit clearer weather. Prateek said that we should get clearer weather past Keylong or at max Baralachla pass. We had nice filled breakfast before Rohtang pass, I relished on nice double omelet, while Maggi and Jaimin feasted on Parathas and Bhutta (Corn Cob)

Before passing Rohtang pass, weather was quite rainy and foggy. Past Rohtang the rain was reduced to occasional drizzle. Mountains along the way were still amazing with clouds resting on their shoulders like thick wool muffler. The air was clear and fresh and occasional spray of rain was working wonders. Maggi wasn’t too happy with the rain, as it was ruining her video with blurry glass on the windshield. Ashok was cracking his wise comments on her and finding chance to have a puff or two on every halt we were taking for photography. He was very co-operative and didn’t bicker or complain about our halts every now and then for taking shots.

At Keylong we had a nice meal of Rajma sabji and rice. As we had some network coverage in Keylong, we called up our families and reported about start of our journey like good kids. Besides we weren’t going to get any network till Leh after this. Journey after Keylong was consisted of small naps, change of roles between me and Maggi (she took my camera, I took video cam and so on), Prateek’s stories of his past trips. Couple of halts for photos and increasing desperation for clear sky (with my personal desperation to have smoke, which was complete no-no in the journey to avoid any chances to AMS). As we passed Baralachala pass we decided to halt for the night at Bharatpur (rather than Sarchu). We got two things… One that we were really looking for, clear weather and blue sky; and other that we were looking to avoid, AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) . Well, not we… but I got hit by a nasty AMS bug. As we settled down in the tent, after a small snack I took a short nap. An unsettling feeling woke me up and I screamed for a barf bag. Before Maggi could register my words in her brain, my stomach rumbled and I threw up the entire day’s meal. It was bad, really bad… my stomach was crunched to hell for two entire minutes. I could hear the tent owner’s wife saying something in her native language and it didn’t sound anything good. As Prateek blasted her I retired back to sleep with an empty stomach and a heavy head. Exactly after an hour I got up again, luckily I was in my senses as I signaled Maggi to hand me a plastic bag. My stomach twisted and I threw up again. There was nothing to come out but it felt like it would suck my blood out if nothing else is there to throw out. Maggi was worried sick as she thought the dark stomach acid I was throwing up was really my blood. Anyway, this whole drama kept repeating every hour for most of the night. After third or so occurrence, I realized that this isn’t going to stop so soon. I looked at my watch, it was just 10:30 or so. I said to myself, “Shit… you’re so fucked bro!! There still lots left of the night to go.” I knew what I had to do, I stacked few plastic bags next to me and retired back to sleep; ready for next cycle. Luckily, after 4:30 or so, it stopped… and I could get some sleep undisturbed. So did Maggi, as she was just sleeping next to me and getting up every time I would get up to make me feel comfortable.

7^th July

In the morning, I had some black tea (while praying nothing to happen till Sarchu). There was an Army hospital near Sarchu, which was my hope for rest of the journey. When we reached the hospital, I explained my case to the doctor. I could see expressions of non-belief on his face. He was probably wondering if I was telling the truth or making up. I could understand his confusion, anybody would have hard time expecting a patient who threw up like 8-10 times in a night every hour to walk up to them and explain everything in detail. He asked Prateek if I had taken anything, as in if I was under influence of alcohol or any drugs. Finally, he believed and gave me proper medication and 15 mins of Oxygen. In fact, almost everyone took 5-10 mins of Oxygen. I was good and set for rest of the journey… almost. I fell asleep past Sarchu after some breakfast, and Ghata loops got me. At the end of Ghata Loops, as we halted for photos… I threw up again. But luckily it didn’t take huge toll on me, in fact it felt kinda good afterwards. Ghata Loops was an amazing sight from top; the 22 hairpin bends look like some nasty kid must have made them, to play with his toy cars. The Nakeela pass after Ghata Loops was actually pretty soft pass, though little shorter (15547 ft) than Baralachala (16500 ft) it was rather a pleasant drive. Lachungla pass was nice drive too, but tad higher (16616 ft) than Baralachala.

By the time we hit Morey Planes I was doing pretty good. I was back taking shots (all this while Maggi did a fabulous job taking shots in between my naps). Morey planes was a beautiful drive. No proper road, dirt drive, vast ground and far mountains. When you grow up in city, such vastness baffles you. The distance becomes deceiving and your viewing sense lies to you. You look at the mountain at far end of the ground and think that this looks like 10-15 mins drive to the mountain base… and you drive for 30-35 mins to actually reach there. Mountain surface looks like covered with sand and as if it’s been leveled by some giant hands… but as you go near you realize that “the sand” is actually a pile of thousands of huge rocks. You just look at everything in awe, bedazzled by the scale of the nature around you. You realize how small you are against the grand mother nature. Soon we reached the last and highest pass of Manali-Leh journey, Taglangla pass (17582 ft). Although the stone reads “Second highest motorable pass in the world”, it’s actually little below Changla pass (17800 ft). So that actually makes it “Third Highest”, I guess they haven’t updated the writing yet. Drive after Taglangla was different as we neared Leh. Along the banks of Indus river, we were cruising between the mountains mostly as ground level (don’t mistake it; we are still at 1200ft to call it a ground level). We reached Leh at about 7:30, which was according to Prateek and Ashok was early for first time. Usually they would reach after 8:30 to 10:00 in night. I think my condition had to do something about it, as our photography halts were lessened on second day. Besides, as the sky was clear and with ample of daylight it was easier to shoot at high shutter speed from moving vehicle without taking halt, unless required specifically. Two girls, Nupoor and Neerja, who were to join us at Leh were already at hotel. As they were sleeping already (since they flew directly to Leh, they were still in process of acclimatizing) and we were also tired from the journey, we decided to rendezvous with them in the morning. We took early dinner, called up our families and retired to bed, dreaming about our rest of the stay in Leh and other places we were about to go. (oh and I finally had one smoke before calling it a day, after three long days since last smoke in Mumbai).

Related videos from Maggi’s youtube channel:

Next : Ladakh Chronicles, part 4 – Settling down in Leh

Tags: Acute Mountain Sickness, AMS, Baralachla, Bharatpur, clouds, Debring, Ghata loops, Jispa, Keylong, Khoksar, Ladakh, Leh, manali, Morey planes, mountains, Pang, rohtang, Sarchu, Suraj tal, Tanglangla, Zingzingbar
Posted in Travel | Comments (1)

One Response to “Ladakh Chronicles, part 3 – Manali-Leh Journey”

1. Rajesh Says:
   January 27th, 2010 at 10:32 AM

   Nicely written Yogi!!
   Even I am planning for a Leh trip in few months from now…need some help/advice/contact details for hotels/driver, could you please be kind to help me )

   Also, I am not sure how to track this post (I do not blog), please drop me an email.

   Lehed,
   Rajesh

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (required) [will not be published]

Website

© 2012 Where The Streets Have No Name
Original design/concept by DemusDesign | Customized version of Choice theme by Theme Lab. Powered by WordPress