Leh - Khardung La

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The last of the big passes for this holiday. 

This was always going to be a tough day so we started early at 6am which meant missing a free breakfast which hurt. Threading our way through the back streets of Leh to avoid having to descend before climbing took a bit of map reading on the mobile but wasn't too difficult.

At least today would be without the bulk of our panniers and this had a significant impact on the rate of climbing. Normally we would climb 200m then stop and regroup but without the heavy panniers the first stop was at 900m. However which ever way it was looked at 38km relentlessly uphill with 1800 m height gain at altitude wasn't going to be a push-over.

Unfortunately with 15 kms to reach the top the tarmac ran out which combined with the altitude began to have its effect of draining us. There were other road users who inevitably gave us the thumbs up which always helps but even despite the best motivating efforts it took 6 hrs to get to the summit where I quickly wrapped up in the bitterly cold winds with surrounding snow. We don't usually allow ourselves to be separated by to big a distance in case of breakdowns [ only one pump ] but as this was an out and return day we had gone at our own pace, chancing that there would be no punctures.

After a long freezing wait Mrs P still hadn't arrived and I began to ask people arriving at the top in cars whether they had seen her, “Oh yes, Maria is fine, we gave her an apple, she'll be here soon” was the answer.

Breathtaking views from the top and great entertainment for a couple of local kids who got to play on our bikes for 20 minutes, shame they hadn't turned up whilst we were climbing.

The descent was chilly and took over 2 hrs back to Leh where we began the slow process of boxing our bikes. We had been pleasantly surprised to find somewhere in Leh that had a cardboard bike box but surprised also to be expected to pay 1000 rupees per box!  

Gompa's

Not sure if the sign 'You are on the highest motorable road' is good or bad.

Always pleased to see more prayer flags.

It is doubtful whether we will ever be in a higher place than this. Strange thought!

Looking back down to Leh

08/09/2017 Upshi-Leh

08/09/2017 Upshi-Leh

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Garmin Connect   Two garmin logs today because the gadget switched off whilst sightseeing in Thikse 

This was our last proper cycling day and we were taking it easy. The roads were much busier now and the whole area was very build up with villages and endless army bases. There is a heavy army presence and perhaps the threat from China on the one side and Pakistan on the other is much more real then we think. There certainly is frequent trouble in Srinigar and we are told that tension between the Indian and Chinese army is rising.The road from Manali to Leh is carved out of the mountain side purely to enable the army access to Ladakh and Kashmir. It is a very different experience from the Spiti and Kinnaur valleys with it's  traditional Indian settlements and way of life. The Manali – Leh Highway is almost devoid of any villages  and the scenery is very stark and apart from the road (or what passes as a road) it is devoid of any human evidence. There are only the parachute camps which offer food and overnight stays for the lorries and tourists.  Many of them motor bikers on Royal Enfields and the odd cyclists. During the winter they are all closed because it is too cold and the road is impassible anyway. On the whole the roads have been very quiet with traffic nearly always passing in clusters. The tata trucks frequently belching out black clouds of diesel fumes. It was always a case of how long can I hold my breath when I'm deprived of oxygen already at this high altitude before I suck in the carbon monoxide.

On our final day we stopped of at the Thikse gompa which was truly impressive before we tackled the final climb into Leh. Leh is so different. At this time of year it is very lush. Apple and apricot trees in abundance. Lots of fruit and veg for sale by little road side vendors. The garden of our hotel is a riot of coulour dahlia's, marigolds, holliehocks, mixed in with onions, cabages, carrots etc. It's a garden to be envious of. But both access roads are closed in the winter and we are told that supplies have to be flown in which makes everything very expensive. It must be a very different place here in winter.

Of course we celebrated our arrival with a beer or two with Max our fellow cyclist in one of the many roof top terraces in Leh. Mission accomplished.

For us it was mission accomplished. For Max and Dave it was only just beginning.

07/09/2017 Debring – Upshi over the Taglang La

07/09/2017 Debring – Upshi over the Taglang La

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Our own tent. Pitched at 4620m and boy was it windy
in the night 

Today we climbed the arguably highest motor-able road in the world at 5626m and how proud we felt! Actually it wasn't that bad. The climb was very gradual and the road surface was excellent. Also, every time  you think you are doing well you meet someone who is much more courageous and amazing. We met a young woman, cycling by herself who was carrying sticks on her bike. She explained that she didn't really want to use petrol for her stove (gas canisters are rare ) so she uses sticks and dung to light a fire. She doesn't stay in any parachute tent choosing to pitch her own tent somewhere isolated. She has hiked her way from Keylong to Leh stopping along the way to help with the harvesting and live alongside local families for weeks on end. Now that is what I call tough.

We met up with Max at the summit and Dave also made a brief appearance and it did all feel wonderful because it was pretty much downhill from here to Leh.

Cooking on the floor was not at all unusual for local
people. 

I was very glad I donned all my warm gear because after the summit of the Taglang La followed hours of descent. We met some poor cyclists coming up the hill who were seriously struggling with the altitude. Both were younger and looked fit but one was really struggling and the other had thrown in the towel and was hoping to get a lift with his bike to the top We were so grateful that we had slowly acclimatised coming up from Shimla because we didn't really have any problems.

As we descended we entered a different world. It became green again and villages appeared and eventually even electricity lines. There was a menu and choice of food again which got us pretty excited. The change was gradual though. Our bedroom for the night did have electricity but there was no socket to charge anything. The en suite bathroom had a foot step toilet and a bucket with water.  The long awaited shower would have to wait another day!

Malc dancing to The Dandy Warhols whilst forced
waiting for me to catch him up

In 2005 after more accurate measuring the Taglang La actually measured one meter higher than the Kardungl La to the north of Leh but it hasn't claimed it's status 

Taglang La 5360 m 

Icicles by the side of the road. Warm weather gear needed for the
long downhill. All on tarmac yippee!

06/09/2017 Pang -Tso Kar Lake – Debring

06/09/2017 Pang -Tso Kar Lake – Debring

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Looking back over Pang

It's amazing how a long night sleep recovers the body. I felt raring to go and was also very pleased with the prospect of a long down hill on a good road. The ride over the Morei Plans was fantastic. The scenery amazing, a nice gentle down hill so you never had to brake, hardly any traffic so we could cycle two abreast, glorious weather and a tail wind. What more can you want. We had to stop once or twice to let a heard of sheep and goats cross the road. To the east of the Highway ( what a misnomer!) lies the region of Rupshu or Tibetan Plateau, home to the Chang-pa nomads who raise flocks of yak, sheep and goats. The temperature drops to below -40C in winter and the goats raised here are famed for their warm underbelly fur, know as pashm which is woven into pashmina shawls in Srinagar.

We decided to take the 14km round trip detour over a sandy jeep track to have a look at Tso Kar Lake which is quite a well known tourist attraction. It did look beautiful but in my opinion lakes aren't the best feature in the Indian Himalaya. It's the mountains. It was only after we arrived in Debring that we realised that there is a new fully tarmacked road to Tso Kar Lake. We needn't have slogged through the loose sand after all. All in all it had been a very good and easy day though.

On the way to Tso Kar Lakes

Tent camp at Tso Kar Lake We just stopped for lunch 

Now where is that track? 

It's quite nice not to have to pack up the tent in the morning

I should have bought a shawl made from the belly fur 

We arrived quite early at our night stop in Debring. Time for
a coke and even a bit of crocheting. No electricity, never mind
 wifi means you can just sit and relax. 

05/09/2017 Sarchu – Pang

05/09/2017 Sarchu – Pang

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This proved to be a very tough day indeed. The undulating but mostly down hill road to Brandy Nalah and the start of the Gata Loops was great. We had made another early start which is most unusual for us but it was beautiful in the morning sun. Then came the 21 Gata Loops. It's amazing how easy it is to loose count. On the whole they weren't too bad but the 10 km uphill which followed were pretty awful.  Malc and I have an agreement that we stop after every 200 meters height gain. I know that sounds ridiculous. At home or in Europe on our road bikes we easily climb 600 meters per hour but during this holiday on our heavy bikes and at altitude I can barely manage 200 meters per hour. When you have a 900 meter climb or so ahead of you I really need to break it up into chunks otherwise it seems overwhelming. 

The downhill from the Nakeela La was horrendously rough and I was beginning to realise this was going to be a 'character  building' kind of day. Whisky Nalah despite it's appealing name was cold and miserable and we didn't even stop other than to agree that we would stop every 100 meters on the way up to the Lachulung La at 5077. Road works, convoys of Tata trucks which had been commandeered by the army, dreadful road surface, it all conspired against me and I really struggled to get to the  top and down the other side. We were rewarded though with the most incredible scenery of wind blasted turrets, spires and flutes before bumping totally exhausted into Pang.

A few of the gata loops

And more loops

You can just work out where the road goes

NAkeela L (4937m) and then down hill to Whisky Nalah ( Don't
be fooled. No Whiskey here. Just a desolate cold and windy place)

And then uphill again to the top of Lachulung La ( 5077)

The scenery was amazing though. 

04/09/17 Patseo to Sarchu

04/09/17  Patseo to Sarchu 

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We continued our climb through the Lahaul valley and over the Baralacha La pass which at 4918 is a 110m higher then Mont Blanc as Laura Stone our guru states in her book Himalaya by bike. She truly is a legend. She explored the Himalayas on her own over a two year period and recorded her findings in a book. It is incredibly helpful to have height profiles, distances,food and sleeping places all mapped out for you. It's quite something else to just cycle off into the unknown. I don't think I have the courage to do that. The Baralacha La is a three way pass joining Spiti, Lahaul and Ladakh. We've passed through some places with exotic names like ZingZing Bar but they often offer nothing more than a simple Dhaba ( a place where you can buy a cup of tea and a dahl meal) But we welcome any. When we approached Sarchu we found hundreds of parachute tents to choose from and we were very pleased to find one to ourselves. It had beds and rugs for sheets and rugs on the floor. The long drop toilet was a bit dodgy though. The hole was so big that you feared you might fall through. In the morning the owner really struggled with our order for drinks and food. He kept checking and getting it wrong, it was almost comical. In the end we did have our omelette wrapped in a chapati to take away for lunch though. We found that it makes a great snack. Our tent which we had to ourselves cost 400 rupees. The first tent owner we asked wanted 2000 rupees. We have learned to shop around a bit

We decided to give the 'Shanti Hotel' a miss

Plenty of places to stay in Sarchu. Many use this a stop over to acclimatise

We were very impressed with our home for the night.

We had some nice rugs for bedsheets

Max is more hard core. He puts his own tent up 

03/09/17 Keylong to Patseo

  

03/09/17  Keylong to Patseo

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Leaving Keylong early morning

We steadily climbed after Keylong and the weather became sunnier and warmer. The scenery remained much the same with us following the river with steep sided valley walls on both sides. Just before Jispa we met a group of Indian cyclists having coffee  at a local dhaba. They were travelling as a group of six, [ one Swedish women included who turned out to be their strongest cyclist ], and were being followed by their two support vehicles including an enormous camper van in which they slept. Very nice. We were to see them repeatedly over the next few days. As was often the case the next village was something other than expected and Jispa had several Guesthouses to choose from for brunch. The reality however was that we were spotted and pounced upon by a local owner who directed us to his Hotel where we had omelette yet again.

Carrying on we saw some of the Indian cyclists get picked up by their sweep vehicle and met them all again at Darcha where we had another passport check. After the checks we left them behind and began the long climb up to Patseo. The kilometre roadside marker posts counted down steadily and eventually the marker post said zero but there was nothing there ! Another 1.5 kms and over the crest of the hill we found an isolated Resthouse where we were the only clients. Extremely basic but  at least it had a bed and additionally a nice veranda to enjoy the views. It was a godsend to have the solar panel at this stage to recharge the Garmins and phones as there was no electricity and wouldn't be for days.

Other than for cups of coffee we didn't use our stove a lot. We did like to boil our packets of noodles though.  Some people
eat them raw we were told.

Later on whilst relaxing  we saw the Indian group arrive separately. Confusingly the first two pushed on and the followers looked confused and waited and eventually the campervan arrived, started to drive up the approach track towards us but turned around and continued up the valley , around the corner and out of sight. We were surprised that they were prepared to cycle on as they were usually slower than us.

A bit later Max arrived at our Resthouse and negotiated camping and food for 150 Rupees. Like us Max had stocked up on whisky and we had an excellent evening getting drunk and swapping stories. As usual , people you meet on the road are often very interesting characters with amazing life stories and adventures to tell and Max  was no exception.

I think these were the last of the building we saw  until after we crossed the Taglang La

02/09/2017 Khoksar – Keylong

02/09/2017 Khoksar – Keylong

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The following morning we woke up to brilliant sunshine and a completely different world. We dried the last of our wet clothes by tying them to the panniers as we cycled along. Even though we were climbing it was easy going because the road surface was good. We met a 70 year old Indian cyclist who had already covered 17.000 km and was by no means finished. Language was a barrier but he managed to convey that he planned to come and cycle in the UK and Europe next.

We rolled up in Keylong by lunch time and were very pleased to see Max again. We first saw Max on the road to Kibber. He was cycling by himself because his friend came of his bike near Nako and broke his collarbone. Both guys had given up their jobs in order to come to the Himalyas and it was a grim reminder for us how quickly dreams can end. Of course it could all have been a lot worse for Dave but still he remained in good spirits.

Keylong is the last place to stock up before we continued on the Manali to Leh Highway. As well as lots of high calorie food we stocked up on whisky to help us through the next difficult section of our route.

We were pleased to have some wifi so we could catch up with the children. Unlike in South America where almost every place however isolated had wifi. Here in the Himalayas it is very scarce and intermittent.

Leh doesn't seem that far away but there were some majorpasses to cross .The lowest one just
over a hundred meters higher than Mont Blanc at 4918meters. 

Some machinery for a change. Not just human power.