Road to Ladakh - via Manali (Day2)

Second day of our trip started with a beautiful morning at Sarchu. The night was bit rough for my husband. Cold weather, mountain sickness and indigestion, everything attacked at once. But we were prepared for this and were carrying medicines with us, so situation was managed. In addition the morning view of the place was rejuvenating and breathtaking. With huge mountains on both the sides, we human appear to be miniscule part of this universe. We had our breakfast and left for the journey further, by 9:00am. Though sun was high on the sky still the weather was cold. Here I will like to mention that we were still with in the boundary of Himachal Pradesh. But soon after leaving
Sarchu, territory of Jammu and Kashmir starts. It is interesting to note here that border between HP and J&K is marked by a river. Once you cross the river, you are in J&K. This picture is taken just after entering J&K. Leh is still 251kms away which is a day's journey. But the roads were better from here onwards. 

Soon enough we were at the starting point of Gata loops. These are a succession of 21 hairpin bends which lift you 1,500 feet higher. Mountains on the way to Ladakh are rocky and not green. But this was the rockiest mountain I had seen, no vegetation at all. The road after the loops was quite narrow and seeing a truck coming from front was little scary. Still somehow we passed them and gradually crossed Lachlung-La pass followed by Naki-La pass.


We reached Pang by noon and took a tea break there. Though food was also available there but we weren't hungry by then. Moreover we were carrying our snacks, biscuits, etc. which is a good idea considering scarcity of resources on the way. After climbing up from Pang we reached Moray plains which was very surprising view. No one can imagine such a vast plain stretch midst of mountains. Around 42km of straight road was a welcome relief after a journey with twists and turns.


While travelling further we climbed up for Tanglang-La pass which is the last pass on this highway. Once this pass was crossed journey was mostly downwards and small villages started to appear. Weather was also getting warm and we were able to take off the jackets. We reached Karu by early evening hours and had lunch there. From here Leh was only 35kms away and we were able to see local people, vegetation, houses, etc. All this while we had no mobile network but now the mobiles were getting there life back. Once we entered Leh city we really felt victorious and so we were. Travelling through these mountains wasn't an easy job. We had pre booking in a hotel so we directly went there and our eyes were searching only for one thing - Bed, as we knew tomorrow there's no traveling!

This journey was more like a dream to us which we wanted to come true. If you share the same feelings, do let me know in comments.

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