It is said that in a race between human and nature,
nature always triumphs. In our case, we got a 1st hand experience of this
saying.
It was never in our plan to stay in Manali. But after the
mayhem, the trip from Delhi to Manali caused, we thought it would be wise to
have a pitstop here. Our original plan was and should have been to reach Manali
around afternoon and then head over to Keylong by late evening. In a perfect
scenario, this was a perfect plan.
But we improvised and stayed over at Manali owing to the
cloud burst. Late evening in Manali, we came to know that the road to Leh which
begins with Rohtang Pass was now deemed ok to be travelled on. We also came to
know that the transport trucks would be given a nod next morning (which was our
morning) at 6 am to use that road.
After settling the bills, getting some breakfast packed, we
left Manali at 530 am exactly all thanks to our
driver who came in late. Once
we hit the road, it was a beautiful picturesque journey right uptill the
beginning of the pass. We had heard stories about the pass’s beautiful view of
the valley, but clearly someone left out the journey of the pass itself.
We were greeted by ankle high soft mud which ensured that
our cars swayed like rally cars as we tried going up the mountain. It’s a 2
lane road (1 for incoming and 1 for outgoing) but when your cars slide like
that, even 2 lanes aren’t enough. If that wasn’t going to cause panic, imagine
this, getting your car stuck in mud at 8000 feet! So, we had to step out and
push the car out of the ditch and hope that it doesn’t get stuck some place else!
This entire transit continued for around 4 hours. At one
point, we were part of a traffic jam resulting becoz one of the cars ahead of
us got stuck and at the same time, its tire was punctured! So, there we are,
at 8000 feet, behind a battery of trucks and SUVs while people are trying desperately
to help out the poor car driver! One fellow traveler almost lost his senses
when he saw the driver of a fuel tanker lit a burner next to the driver seat
just so that he can make tea!
After a successful tire change which saw done despite some
really ingenious thought process of changing tires (I meant it sarcastically),
the traffic moved again. But as fate would have it, the same ditch caught its
next victim – Us :(
The thing about such routes is that once you are able to
accelerate, you shouldn’t stop otherwise you risk getting stuck again. So, we
had to leave our car and push it out of safety. Not only that, once the car got out of the
ditch, painting my face with mud in the process, the driver told us that he
wont stop. All we had to do was to jog at 8000 feet climbing a slope!
If that wasn’t enough, after slowly panting our way upto the
car, the driver informed us about another fun trivia – “rocks are sliding
ahead, you would have to get out of the car and walk some more distance”. So,
grabbing my wife’s hand, cautiously we made our way through fallen rocks to the
other side!
The entire frustration of the trip till now melted quickly
as we reached the top of the Pass. It was simply beautiful. Just as I had
expected – mountains looked as a milk chocolate cake with some white icing on
top, an icing which I could touch and throw around. The pushing of the car, the
mud on the face was forgotten and forgiven. We moved on from that to some snow,
some fire to warm ourselves and MAGGI! :)
After having some fun at the pitstop, we began our descend
which was nothing like the things which we saw during our way up! It was
spectacular. I can never have words enough to describe the beautiful snow mountains.
It was clearly nature at its finest!
Admiring the beauty, we made our way to Keylong where we
were greeted by another troubling news. Due to the heavy rains, the small
rivers in the area had flooded. More specifically, a ‘nala’ called ‘pagal nala’
had taken its name to heart. It had really gone mad and had flooded the road
which connected Keylong to Sarchu. The only way around it was a single lane
road through an adjoining village. Further to intrigue our endurance trip, we had
all sorts of electric poles and wires blocking our way. To add to that, we had
traffic coming from the other side – imagine managing 2 cars side by side on a
road meant for only 1!
Finally, we made our way across and reached a petrol pump
which had a sign board which read – “Next petrol pump 365 Kms away in Leh
Ladakh”. Although some people would find it scary to see something like this,
it is really intriguing for me personally,
The road from Keylong to Sarchu
passes through a military controlled area (its termed as NH21) and is
considered to be relatively safe. However, due to all the experiences of the day,
a new enemy surfaced for us – time! We had around 2 hours to cross over from
Keylong to Sarchu before night fall. To make matters more complex, we had 2
fellow travelers suffering from nausea and trouble adapting to drop in oxygen
levels and another small fact of an impending snow fall.
The 2 hour drive was the most tensed one. Although the passage was extremely beautiful, I personally wasn’t able
to enjoy it. I never experienced snow fall before and as it started to shower
flakes of snow, I wasn’t able to enjoy it. During these 2 hours, barring a
couple of stops due to health issues, we drove at a consistent pace and finally
reached 13000 feet camp!
The cold was unreal – something none
of us had ever experienced. Enroute to our pitstop for the night, the drivers
stopped to drink tea at a shop which also sold warm bed covers. Seeing the
opportunity at hand, one of my friend got out of the car, and jumped into the 1st
bed cover he could see and covered himself up and began walking around in it!!
Of course, he didn’t buy it J
Finally, we reached the base
camp. To be honest, I don’t really recall anything that happened that evening. I,
myself, had a splitting headache and only had blur memories of our car getting
stuck in the parking area of the camp, me getting out and asking someone as to
which tents are booked for us, opening one of the tents, and then falling on
one of the beds. The final thing that I do remember correctly was the intense
chill my body experienced on heading the bed – it was as if I fell onto a block
of ice, covered in cloth!
