Mission Spiti 2015 - Day 08

Kaza – Losar – Kunzum La – Rohtang La - Manali

The night seemed still young with no power. My brother took bath, as was my wish and advise. Today was to be the most difficult drive in our trip as well as in our lives – rather his life. It was 04:08 when started the car and made our way through the dark silence of Kaza towards Deyzor. To our surprise, the other party was loading the car and were supposed to leave in few minutes. My brother had told them that we are together on our road to Manali but nobody will wait for the other. If you are able to leave early – leave and if we are ready earlier – we will leave.

As soon as we crossed the Spiti bridge to reach Rangrik, there was a slight light that appeared on top of the peaks. The sky had a peculiar color between black and blue which, obviously, we cannot describe in words. And, with that growing light in the Spiti Valley, we started our most photographic day in our drive. We stopped at many places for the clicks with me quickly getting out of the car, taking the shot with the car and jumping back inside. We did not want to, no matter what, lose the early departure advantage. Soon the RJ-27 Innova overtook us smiling.

 

After Rangrik

After Kyato 

Before Losar

Clicking & Driving, we crossed Kyato to reach Losar in time at 06:15. The Tashigan Guest House, an associate of Jamaica, was the only one that seemed to be working so early morning. Walking in, we again met the 5 DL bikers with Support Innova staying there for the night before. Also we met the enthusiastic docile young Couple from Bangalore whom we had met at Ki Gompa 2 days back helping explain the Buddhism & Gompa concept & history to the large Caucasian group whom we had overtook inside the Gompa. They were on their way to trek ChandraTal and my guess was that the Losar stay must have helped them acclimatize. We had a hearty toast-chai breakfast at Losar when the temperature was still negative along with some khakra and dry fruits before proceeding ahead.

Approaching Losar

Entering Losar

Breakfast at Losar

Upstream with Spiti

Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear

The River is our Map, The Rocks our Milestones
The Grass makes our Bed, The Pebbles make our Road

Maneuvering & Video-taping, we finally reached atop Kunzum La at 08:00 sharp thereby giving us the feeling of an accomplishment not only w.r.t. our capacity but also our timing. After a long session of photography and relishing the achievement, we took back to the road. Although, not really to our surprise, there was no actual road after Batal that we could see or figure out or follow. It seemed like we were driving through the river. In places, the rocky trail took us away from the river but then it again brought us back to the pebble bed – no, the rocky bed. For the first time in our trip, we were now driving downstream with a river – the Chandra River originating from ChandraTal which means the highest point of our trip was Kunzum La. At a point after Batal, we actually had to pull the car to complete stop because we felt confused as to which trail to take but our far-sight and fore-sight helped us take the right trail each time and proceed on the right path. Soon after Batal, a local Bolero driver coming from opposite side waved us down and advised us in a jiffy “Chhatru ke baad 2 bade Naale hain. Rukna mat, jaldi Cross karlo. Paani khoob badhta ja raha hai.” On asking how far from Chhatru, he said “Hmmm, 10 km baad – aage”.

Climbing Kunzum La

A Little More

Just Around the Corner

Kunzum La

Kunzum La

Kunzum La Accomplished!

Looking East from Kunzum La

Approaching Batal

Leh 565 km from Batal

Today, as I write this log, the next 4 hours of that drive, seem to me as if I lived through them in my dream. And I feel moved – my eyes stare at oblivion – my throat skips and swallows – I forget whether I am breathing or not – when I reminisce those 4 hours through which my brother treaded the Batal – Gramphoo road. Contrary to my habit and need of putting everything in words, for once, I will not write anything about it. I request everybody to just watch pictures and our videos and then get inspired to drive through that path. I still get shocked and I believe I will continue to get appalled all my life looking at what we could achieve.

The terrain changed gradually after Batal but changed drastically after Chhatru when we started climbing. To answer our hunger pangs, we had decided to stop for Lunch at Gramphoo but as we joined the main Manali-Leh Highway, there was not a single person from whom we could even ask directions for. So we had to proceed to Rohtang La where we hoped we could get something to eat.

Water Crossing

Glacier Science Laboratory at Chhota Darra

Chhatru

Approaching Gramphoo

BRO Welcomes you to Rohtang Top

As we drove towards Rohtang, the Road looked very bad and felt very bad to drive on – still the traffic was thin limited to that going towards Keylong or Leh. I advised my brother in the movie Lakshya’s style (where Om Puri advises Hrithik Roshan before the final Mission): “Agar Kachchi Sadak khatm hojaye aur Black Top Road aa jaye to fauran laaparwah na ho jana. Yeh Off road dobara palat kar zaroor aayegi”. He burst into a laughter and I felt happy at being able to relieve his nerves at driving such a terrible road even after Gramphoo. However, Our happiness vanished as soon as we crossed Rohtang after having lunch. The road became butter-smooth but the traffic merging at Solang diversion was too much to handle for the little road and the resulting jam was longer than what seemed to be eternity. The smoke from the vehicles gave me the cough which no high altitude or low temperature could give me.

We felt quite uneasy with the punctured tyres but had the pump and the courage to drive on by filling the air and not getting it corrected at the Manali Fair. Inside, the actual reason, that we knew was that the puncture actually could not be repaired. It needed replacement. Period.

As we spread our legs at the Greenfields, the RJ-27 Innova caught up to us and we had an hour long chat relishing and reliving the day. After bidding happy and see-ya-soon goodbyes, we had a nice meal of Paneer-Roti-Dal-Rice and retired for the day. We had parked our Car on the road itself so that we could leave early at 04:00 again. I had decided not to take bath again.