25 June 2011 - The Road to Keylong (Manali to Keylong)

1130am - we had a short sleep of 4 hours last night but it was a good one. Jocelyne didn't get to sleep at all but she seemed on good spirits. A quick breakfast at the Banon resort and we're on our way to Keylong! The drive to Leh will take 3 days and gives us ample time to stop and smell the roses (we hope!).

Sleep not enough!

Breakfast at Banon Resort

Vippin, our driver for the Manali-Leh leg, loading up the bags for us. He'll be our driver for the next 3 days on the legendary highway which is only open in 3 to 4 months a year.

The first 45km did not disappoint. A rapid climb via long winding roads to Marhi (80km) was relatively clear of traffic and we made good ground. The steep climb and jawdropping drops at Just last week, we read reports of landslides after Marhi and many turned back. This was because the locals love to go up to Rohtang Pass (3995m high) to enjoy the high altitudes and snow. This causes massive jams on the single lane carriageway, dubbed the highest traffic jam in the world.

Excellent roads to Marhi

 

 

 

 

The first of many excellent roadsigns in Ladakh

We see signs of the highest traffic jam in the world, but thankfully it was smooth flowing all the way to Marhi

Then the roads start to get really excellent

So inevitably, we see this.

And the rest of the trucks salvage the petrol in the tanker, presumably to help out their buddy.. :)

And many men selling barbecue corn along the way. method of cooking - stuffing the entire corn cob into the fiery wok of ash, wood and whatever's burning inside.

The men of Borders Road Organisation (BRO) doing whatever they can to fix up the roads for vehicles to pass. Landslides and river washouts are common as the rocks are brittle from the unforgiving sun and glaciers suffer terribly from global warming.

 

Still, we enjoy the roads.......

Now, we are stuck at Marhi, praying hard that we can make it thru, because the landslides are making certain stretches impassable. The army is now controlling the route to Rohtang as I type.

Since we're heading up to Keylong, we didn't have to grapple with the return journey to Manali, unlike the locals who are going up to Rohtang Pass for a day trip only. The rest are sleeping in the car taking a break from the non stop shooting of videos and pictures along the way.

A royal enfield at Marhi awaiting permission to head up to Rohtang La (La is the Ladakhi word for Pass)

Indian Army personnel manning the roads up to Rohtang Pass

Only 16km away from Rohtang and away from the crowds

Corn sold at Marhi and their "unusual" cooking style

1230pm-looks like everyone's heading up now! Looked like it was because a huge convoy of army trucks were coming down the Pass. Fingers crossed!

Convoy of army trucks - about 30 to 40 trucks went pass Marhi as the crowds jostle for prime property to be in the front of the queue to head up to Rohtang

The roads up Rohtang gets really goood

We realised what caused the jam. Certain sections of road disappeared, so the lane was only passable to one direction of travel.

Signs we're nearing Rohtang La. Cut-up ice walls line up along the road

one slip and down you go into the fog and way below (approx 4000m ASL now)

Honda Hero - My Hero!

it was starting to get reallly cold but we headed onwards to Rohtang

230pm.- we are up at the beautiful Rohtang Pass! But more significantly, Rach's first touch of snow! The road was in terrible condition. Many times one direction of travel had to wait for another. Our veh scrapped its axle 3 times on the way up. Looks like the view's gonna get better but the road down to Keylong looks to be even worse state. At least we don't have to fight the crowds now.

Rohtang La - beautiful but toooo many people

Racheal's first touch of snow!

Cs cannot resist planking at 4200m in the Indian Himalayas

giddy from the extraordinary view

warm-up to the snowfight!

made the wise choice of heading further up where the crowds don't come

As we head down, the roads became rivers as the ice melts

Then we start to see waterfalls streaming on the roads!

One of the highlights of this highway is the crossing of shaky metallic bridges..but first, we got to wait for the other side to finish their crossing

It should have been us.. :p

6pm - reached Keylong in one piece! The road from Rohtang to Keylong were devilish in the car but I reckon that it'll be a wet dream from motorcyclists. In fact, from this stretch onwards, we've seen mostly royal enfields, Honda Heros and Bajaj Pulsars. In fact, there was even a caucasian couple on a royal enfield waiting to cross a bridge with us. I was extremely jealous to say the least. I had half a mind to kick the riders out and hijack their bikes for the 'roads' ahead.

The roads became tarmac as we neared Keylong

An excavator carving through the thick snow so as to enable traffic. Yup, there is a road hidden somewhere in there.

More breath-taking views

 

The last real Shangri-La

The last petrol stop until you reach Leh at 395km away!

 

We arrived at Tashi Deleg Hotel which was looking like an institution from afar. The rooms were excellent from a backpacker's perspective and the food in the hotel was excellent. There was also a group of Americans from the World Learning Organization on their annual pilgrimage. Looks like they're spending the night with us at Sarchu, which is 3 hours away.

Shop signs of Keylong - cassettes mentioned in the same breadth as DVDs!

Vegetable shop in Keylong

A very nice mall you got there, Sir!

very old skool

this is where hepco and becker get their idea from

with the Tibetan sun, there shouldn't be any jaundice in this part of the world!

strolling through Keylong town, which consists of several streets at different altitude level. Needless to say, we stayed at one altitude.. :)

Very good advice from the Indians!

Menu of our service hotel, Tashi Deleg. Tashi Deleg broadly means welcome and a commonly used greeting among Tibetans

A panoramic of the view from our hotel

More shops... and a very interesting one too!

makes me hungry now..

We had to stay on the top floor...and there are no elevators.

830pm - We also had our Kingfisher beer and bought the locally produced Thunderbolt and Godfather, which was to be kept for our night at Sarchu. Hopefully, the AMS don't hit us tonight! We are going to have an early night at 10pm and wake up really good for the drive tomorrow.