TGT : Day 4 -- 05/09/07 -- Pang - Leh

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Date : 05/09/07
Starting Point : Camps at Pang
Destination : Leh, finally!
Start Time : 10.00am
Distance Covered : (11998.4 - 11811.8) = 186.7 kms
Itinerary: Pang - More Plains - Tanglang La - Rumtse - Sasoma - Gaya - Lato - Miru - Upshi - Thiksey - Shey - Leh
Fuel : What ever you already got in the tank and jerry cans.
Connectivity : No cellular network & no STD booth. There are STD booths in Upshi but it is hardly 50kms away from Leh. So for a better part of the day, nothing...
Road Conditions : Probably the best mix of roads. Smooth roads through out except some muddy/sandy diversions on More Plains. Awsome tarmac all the way from Rumtse all the way till Leh. Roads up towards Tanglang La are good and only a few scary sections downhill.
Food & Shelter (And hot water!) : Leh has accomodation to suit all kinds of budgets. From 3 stars (5 star by Leh standards) to basic dormitory kind of accomodation. Room rents in hotels with good bedding and hot water is around Rs.300/day on twin sharing basis. Ask if hot water is running all day or there are specific timings! Most hotels refuse running hot water in case there are not sufficient clients in rooms. Will provide you with hot water in a bucket but that is mostly never enough to wash away the grime & dirt & after enduring the cold for 3 good days!
Daily Expenses : Food + Water - Rs.35 + Stay @ Pang - Rs.?/person
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I had seen pictures of More Plains and in the hindsight, this was probably one day I was most excited about. And the terrain didn't let me down one bit! It was one lazy morning since it was known before hand that there wasn't much distance to cover. In fact I felt more relaxed and lazy thinking of all the warm water and other creature comforts that were awaiting me in Leh. So the start was only at around 10am long after seeing off Vodka & his trusted bicycle at around 8.30am. The breakfast was the now-usual-feast of maggi, tea & omlettes. ;-)
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Right after Pang (in about an hour was it?), we hit a long and vast stretch of open land midst of the mountains. It was during the first picture break that I asked if this was More Plains cause it was as scenic as any plain could ever get. Affirmative was the answer! I was in two minds on whether to indulge in photography or take the innumerable dirt trails by the side of the pukka road and kick some dirt. Not bad that i managed to do both. The pictures speak for me. There are lots of muddy/sandy diversions one needs to take along the tar roads, since a lot of road construction is on at different sections of the route. Some of these diversions are nothing but smooth-powdery-dry-dust-like mud and not sand as it seems from far. Grip? Zilch!!! Too late to do much but trudge through them and make it back to the road. And then there was this absolutely dry river bed that looked like Rann-of-Kutch from far away. I was riding along side Shamik who kinda seemed skeptical to rumble down the hill to get there. It was only after i reached the dry bed that he rolled down and it was worth all the trouble! Look for yourself in the pictures!
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Before we realized, we were at the foot of the Tanglang La climb. The climb itself was not an issue, either for the bike or any rider. Guess we had done enough passes already? We were at Tanglang La by 1pm. It was the usual pictures around the sign board and of a few awsome snow peaks before i realized a now familiar headache returning. By then, Yogesh had already given the marching orders so we had to begun the decent. The road downhill seemed as if it could do with some mending. There are a few scary sections and on one such, that had a water crossing, i was trying to pass a convoy of trucks. One wrong maneuver and the bike was on its side right in front of a truck i was passing! ;-) The usual kushti was required to get it up. Never muscle with the nature! But that probably was the only rough patch along the way.
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At the base, we reached Rumtse at around 2pm and from then on it was riding bliss! It was as if we were riding in the smooth Western Ghats, only with much more abundant glory, all along the way. Absolutely super-fast, expressway roads all along till Upshi with minimum traffic. I never encountered such high visibility, high speed curves again, except for one more instance later! (Most of you who do it after reading this will encounter such sections all along once the army finishes the all-season roads in 2008-2009!) I was riding along with Suyash and we were the last of the lot. It would have been sucha a criminal waste, an insult to such roads, if i had not zipped and so i gave up on accompanying him, the photography and just soaked in the ride part! Just ripped and ripped some more till i saw the other bikes ahead standing by the roadside in Upshi. Not one regret! :-) BTW, a small village - Lato, is a great place for pictures since the river runs real close and real shallow to the village.
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The stop at Upshi, 50kms from Leh at around 3.30pm, opened up a host of options on the food menu and we gorged on parantha's! They were good! Or maybe they just tasted so good after feeding ourselves only on maggi and omlettes for what seemed like forever. What ever! We made it to Leh stopping a bit by Shey & Thiksey to catch a gilmpse of the Shey Palace & Thiksey Monastary. Guess all i wanted was to go see how hot water feels!
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The trick wasn't in reaching Leh, it was in reaching Leh & finding where was Dharam! He had left, what was now 2days ago from Darcha and had already spent a day in Leh. Hopefully! He took 1 day to reach Leh & our plan was to make it the same night as him. But the plans changed & there was no way to contact him and let him know. Not a nice situation to be in right? While i was going over all this in my mind, he finally called on Bhuwan's phone and we managed to setup a meeting point. The rest of the gang would go settle down at some place while i went and stay put where Dharam was for that night. So that was it...but nope. Dharam was fuming and i didn't know where to hide though it was nobodys fault. But he managed to vent it all in an hour and the rest of the evening was spent in TAKING HOT SHOWER, searching for STD booths near Polo Ground to call back home, calling the rest of the gang to figure out next days plans & finding a decent place to eat near the Moti Market. The food that night was nothing to write about but I managed to get vegetables is all i want to say! We celebrated the trip-so-far with two cans of juice and called it quits for the night! I don't remember unpacking or looking too much around the room (& bathroom) except for where the bed was!
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So far so good! Rather great!