The final vote was to go on upto Jispa before the real climb upto Baralacha-La (4890 mts) starts. Jispa is 25 kms from Keylong and I had read that it was a beautiful place to camp out. The idea was to setup camp at Jispa if we liked the place, or otherwise to start riding back to Manali the same day. A little more confident about the bikes after the service (although ChuniLal made it perfectly clear that the bikes were trash, we knew we did not have to go too far ... hence the confidence. Leh, even Sarchu - the border between Ladakh and Himachal - was out of the question. So the most we would ride was another 200 kms.), we were enjoying the ride now. There was one particularly beautiful spot on the route, where we stopped to take some pics.
We went past Jispa and another 6 kms to Darcha where the road crosses the river Bhaga and goes on up the mountains towards Baralacha-La. It was already 04:00 PM, and we decided to break for lunch. There are a few stalls here where you can get some grub. None of the places looked very inviting, and we chose one at random. The food was not exceptional, and we just had something to fill our stomachs. The same stalls also provide cheap accommodation i.e. bed and blanket. After Darcha (3360 mts) is a 45 km climb to Baralacha-La, beyond which is Sarchu, where the road crosses over into Ladakh. Given the condition of the bikes and our constraints on time, we could not manage that part of the journey and decided to turn back from where we were. The night halt would be Jispa, where we would pitch camp.When we've planned for months to get to a place, and finally have to give up on it because of reasons that were actually well within our control, that's a really disappointing thought. In one way, the whole trip was a failure.
The other way of looking at it ... We've had a great time upto now, even though there was a lot of pain involved. So might as well continue having a great time. Not many people ever come this far, and we still have the satisfaction of trying. And what's more ... we're gonna do this again next year and go all the way!
Anyway ... we got back to Jispa and were looking at our options for spending the night. Hotel Ibex is set in a pretty location just by the highway. It's overpriced for the amenities it provides, but there's no competition to drive down the price! Right next to it is a set of tents which are also let out for Rs.300 per person per night. Bed and blankets are available. For Rs.50 a tent, you have the option of pitching your own. We decided on this option.
Hotel Ibex charges Rs.500 per person for a white water rafting session in the Bhaga river. Although we had decided not to take the hotel, we did not want to miss the chance to try this out when it was so readily available! So we decided to come back from the rafting trip and then pitch the tents. All except Abby, who was still sulking a bit about the lost items and decided to give it a pass (He still insists that it was really the thought of getting drenched in the cold water while he felt a cold coming along. It is a fact that his undies hadn't yet got a chance to dry after the drenching in Koksar, but I still don't buy this :-D ). The trip lasted some 45 mins, 8 kms from Darcha to right in front of the hotel in Jispa.
At Darcha we got on into our lifevests. While we waited for the raft to be ready, we checked out the water. 'Freezing' would probably be a mild word. The thought did cross my mind as to whether it was really worth it, but chickening out is not my thing, especially when it could mean that the rest would take my case for the remainder of the trip! We were given some simple instructions by our man who told us what we do at each direction the man at the back shouted out (He made it sound complex by teaching us instructions like 'Left Forward, Right Backward' ... or something on those lines, but the only ones finally used were 'Forward' and 'Relax'). A Mr. Ranjith led the way in a kayak, with the added responsibility of picking up anybody who spilled overboard (This man started off with a couple of somersaults himself, really bringing us to doubt his credentials with regards to saving someone else's life!).
All said and done, the bone-chilling cold lasted only the first few minutes. Once you start rowing hard, the body generates enough heat for the temperature to not bother you. Except when you try to feel your legs - which being locked in position - really cannot be felt at all! We enjoyed every bit of the ride ... especially because Zappy kept relaying all the instructions from back to front loud enough for all of Keylong to hear it, "Forward ... Forward ... Forward ..."!
By the time we got off the raft, we were just too cold to try and do any tent pitching, resulting in Hotel Ibex making a nice sum of money. Abby, who was chatting with the guy from the hotel figured out that this was a common thing ... most people who take the raft end up taking rooms, a neat scheme I think!
Our calendar now left us just one day to do the 150 kms to Manali, so we decided to sleep early and wake up early the next morning and leave. And the real surprise came next morning ... when we actually managed to wake up, pack, and leave the place by 08:00 AM!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment