Sometimes I really wonder, what
would I classify as my more horrific nights? Was it the one when I saw a horror
movie for the 1st time? What it when I was left home alone? Well,
the night I spent in Sarchu was definitely one of the horrific ones. Headaches
dominated the night with the low temperatures (dropping to -10 degrees) to give
it company. The bed was unforgiving as well. Turning ice cold within a blink of
an eye! I vaguely remember getting frustrated, getting up in the night and
gulping a shot of brandy and trying to go back to sleep. A help note – drinking
brandy in such a cold and high altitude environment doesn’t help at all!
But as we all know, the night
changes a lot of things. I was woken up by the local caretaker who gave half a
bucket of warm water for me and my wife to finish off our morning chores. When
asked for more water, we were told that due to shortage of kerosene, they weren’t
in a position to warm a lot of it as they had to ration it for the next
2-3days. Of course, no one in their right mind would even think about taking a
bath in that weather. Once I freshened up, I was a changed man! Felt upbeat and
somehow I had a feeling of triumph as I survived a night which I felt was
unlivable.
Unzipping the main entrance of
the tent, I felt as if I entered heaven. Snow covered mountain peaks seen up
close and then greeted by the Gods with white flakes of clouds showering down
on you – I experienced my very 1st snow fall. It was simply
amazing!! Never really imagined that I would experience such a feeling at such
an unlikely place!
Rest of the gang weren’t as high
spirited as I was. The snow fall continued and intensified as time progressed.
Our drivers urged us to get started on the road as soon as possible.
After having some really god sent breakfast
(omlette and bread with warm warm tea), we jumped into our cars and decided to
head off to the Leh-Ladakh, our final destination in a race against nature!
The 1st couple of
hours were pretty smooth considering the journey experienced till now. The
route was pretty beautiful – rocky path covered in snow with a single trail
which would indicate the route to be taken! We were approaching the 2nd
highest motorable roadway in the world – Tanglang La Pass!!
But before we reached there, we
had a scary moment! At around 15000 feet, as we were approaching a turn, we heard
a soft little sound of the tyre giving away! As we stopped and inspected the
puncture, we noticed another thing – the 2nd car which had been
driving in front of us had disappeared and now was nowhere in sight!
Life at 15K feet is tough…so
imagine changing a tyre at that height…especially when your Toyota Innova is
jam packed with luggage, it’s snowing and you realize that the tiny jack which
is supposed to elevate a car filled with 4 individuals isn’t working due to the
rough terrain it has to rest on!! Panic set into my friend and then into me.
However, looking at the positives, we thought – it’s the middle of the day,
this is an open road – someone is bound to come through this route and help us!
And help we did get!! A fellow travelling Sumo approached, lent its jack to us which
helped us to change our tyre and get the hell out of there before we all froze
to death!
As we resumed our journey, we saw
a familiar sight – our 2nd car who realized that we aren’t behind
was coming back for us!
From here on it, in typical filmi
style, the weather started clearing, snowing stopped, we dropped down to a
modest altitude - 11 thousand feet – and for the 1st time in 2 days,
we started enjoying the drive! Moods started getting better and excitement
started reaching the high point at which it was when we boarded the Rajdhani
from Mumbai! The road translated from a cold snowy one to a more dry
mountainous one! However, we noticed that the air wasn’t as dry and hot as the
surrounding was! We had our final pitstop in Pang before heading off to the
beautiful place that is Leh Ladakh!
The area is quite a secure area.
On the outskirts of ladakh, we halted for some refreshments. The drivers took
the opportunity to clean the car. It is here where I had my very 1st
Kashmir tea – kava!! In the words of the planner, it was Jannat for me!
We had to cross 3 check posts
before we could enter Ladakh. Once in, we were told that in Ladakh, outside
vehicles cannot be used and only local transportation needs to be availed off.
This is to ensure that locals make some money off you. The drive from the check
post to the actual ladakh town was around 50 kms and we had to pass through
some military camps - More on the military establishments later on. One more
thing – in ladakh only Airtel network is the one which can be used. Prepaid
numbers do not work and the post paid numbers get network as we get water in
Mumbai – only 3 to 4 hours in a day. Fortunately, we had a couple of airtel
guys – so 1st thing we did was to contact our parents. We weren’t in
contact with them for over 2 days now!
Finally, cruising now towards
ladakh, we finally entered the ladakh town and started searching for our hotel –
google really disappointed here! We might have crossed our hotel – Hotel Chubi –
a couple of times before we finally arrived at it. The hotel was a modest one
but it had a homely feeling. The owners had lend their house as a hotel. They
interacted with the guests, provided them with a home like feeling – apart from
the annoying head caretaker – helped us enjoy our ladakhi experience.
We quickly checked in, went up to
our rooms, kept our bags and finally soaked in the feeling of being on a
vacation!
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