Day 11: Zing Zing bar to Pang (4th Sept 2014)

I woke up at 6: 40 AM. I couldn’t sleep properly as I was having some breathing problem. It was the first signs of high-altitude sickness. “Good morning”, greeted Sonam with a warm smile. I greeted him and Tashi too.  

As I had arrived late last evening I could not observe much of the surroundings. The first thing that I realized once I stepped out of the camp that morning was that I was already in the laps of the cold desert. I had passed the treeline somewhere near Keylong. My eyes slowly got accustomed to the brown mountains. Green would be a colour hard to come by.

It was raining all night long and it was a cloudy morning with a slight drizzle. Getting wet in that cold weather was not a very good idea. I guess the rain Gods had played enough with me because the rains stopped within an hour and the weather started clearing. While I was getting ready to leave, I met Jayesh who was put up in another camp next to us. Coincidentally it turned out that Jayesh used to work with a media planning agency in Mumbai but had quit his job to start an adventure company named Odati adventures. He had come with his group of clients and they were cycling from Manali to Leh. One amongst them was a middle-aged guy in his late 50s, not at the prime of his fitness, but I really appreciated his will power to cycle at that altitude when I was having difficulty to breathe standing. It’s amazing what our body and mind are capable of doing only if we step out of our comfort zone and give it a slight push. For me, he was a “mutant”. I also knew that I will be seeing many of such characters on this route I now call “The X men route”.

Jayesh (left) and his client

I hit the road by 9:10 Am. The road was a gravel road and a pretty nasty one at that. I reached Baralacha la (4890 meters) at 10 am. As soon as I reached, it started snowing. It was extremely cold, so I immediately started descending downhill. I had to remove my helmet visor which had sunflim on it because that area was pretty dark and besides, the snowflakes hitting the visor was obstructing my view. I didn’t know that the harmless-looking snowflakes, when it enters the eye, causes so much pain. Every time a snowflake entered my eye, it felt like a needle pricking my eye. A lesson to be learnt is that while riding on mountain area, one should ensure that the helmet visor is not sunflim coated. To avoid the snowflakes from entering my eyes, I started riding at 10km/hr with my eyes almost closed.

Baralacha la

 Owing to the gravel road my average speed was about 25km/hr. By the time I reached Sirchu  (State border), my feet were freezing so I bought a pair of woollen socks, not Chinese. The store owner advised me to halt at Upsi rather that Pang as Upsi was relatively a warmer place.

My onward journey took through the famous Gata loops which are a series of 21 hairpin bends. Locals believe that this place is haunted by a ghost who stops vehicles for a bottle of water. Thankfully, he didn’t choose me.

Gata Loop

Chitti at Gata Loop

View from Gata loop

Met few cyclists along the way and I gave them a thumbs up for their endeavour. As I was riding, one cab frantically waves to stop me. As I was slowing down, the driver of the cab popped his head out of the window and said, “Landslide ho raha hai , dhyaan se” (There is landslide happening, be careful). I thanked him nervously and stated riding slowly chanting “Om Mani Padme Hum”, which is a Buddhist prayer to calm an agitated mind. The gravel road was very rough and had stirred everything inside me.

The grinding gravel road

'Brown'ie Points 

 I reached Pang (4600 meter) at 3 pm. Though I had some two and a half hours of daylight remaining I didn’t have the energy to ride any longer and also, as the weather was very cold, the woollen socks that I had bought at Sirchu was not very effective in warming my feet. Halting was a much wiser option. As soon as I entered Pang, I saw many camps there, but I choose to ride a little further. Just about 200mteres ahead there was one check post wherein they recorded my details again. As soon as I crossed the check post, I saw Padma Guesthouse, so I decided to stay there. It turned out to be a good call because the area where Padma guesthouse was built came under the army area and had electricity throughout the day. The area below the checkpost was beyond the army area and had no electricity there. The camp owners there had arranged for their own power, but would switch on the generator only after 6 Pm.

 The first thing that I did was changed into warmer socks to keep my feet from falling off. Then I ordered for a hot meal and gobbled up all that was served. I don’t know how it tasted, I just swallowed it to kill my hunger. Once my body had met its calorie level, I charged my camera battery as it had drained out.

Meanwhile, one more rider joined in. His name was Nagender. An engineer graduate who too had quit his job and started an adventure company. Quitting job was a common story in “The X men route”. Nagender was riding his “K2K mission” – Kanyakumari to Kashmir. He was coming back from Leh and his mission had already been accomplished. He was heading towards Keylong but since his bike was having some problem, he decided to take a rest at Padma guest house.

Nagendra and me

As I was completely cut off from the wired world, I didn’t know about the devastating flood in Jammu and Kashmir until Nagender told me.

Slowly, my mind started getting excited as my brains started to put things together.

All that rain that beat me from Bangalore, my cellphone getting wet, my prayers not being answered as my cellphone could not be repaired in Ahmedabad, and then finally, me changing the route via Manali (Original plan was through Jammu and Kashmir). All these happenings were a part of the grand design by God so that I reach Leh. Had my phone not got wet then I would have stuck to the original plan of riding through J&K and I would have been stranded in the flood, or maybe even worse. If there is any day that I have felt God right next to me, it was that day.*

I asked Padma, the owner of the guest house, if there was any way I could make a call. She informed me that the army camp has a phone booth which is opened for local use after 4 pm. She asked me to try that and so at 4 pm, I went to try my luck. Just as I was entering the army compound, I read a sign which read, “World’s highest transit camp”. I was stopped at the gates by the army guard. I told him that I had not called home for the past two days and it was very critical for me to make that call as my family would be worried about me. He asked me for my ID proof, had a look at it and then let me in. So, I called Linda from the world’s highest transit camp*. As others were waiting in the queue, I could not speak for a very long time, but it was the most meaningful five minutes conversation that I had with Linda.  

Worlds highest transit camp

   

Later in the evening, four more riders from Delhi walked into the guest house as they had a flat tyre. One of them was looking very sick due to the altitude sickness. They were on a lookout for a mechanic but couldn’t get any, so I offered to fix their tyre in the morning as I had all the required tools.

All excited, I hit the bed by 10 pm. Leh – the Promised Land was only a few hours of ride away from me. 

At the end of the 11^th day, I had covered 133 kms.

*All the special moments which I would not get a chance to do otherwise are in bold

(Do read the other days chronicle listed in the same page)