Hello Boys and Girls, the story so far….
2nd August – Left Kaza (3650m) after a rest day and with a nasty cough due to the high altitude. Went straight into a climb and my breathing was terrible, constantly fighting for oxygen, after about an hour we stopped for some chai and noodle soup in a dhaba (local tea house) in a tiny settlement called “Hull” (LOL). We had an hour break here and what a difference it made, my breathing after that was fine, due to the small acclimatisation gained from sitting still for an hour.
We pushed on, following the Spiti river again as it went into a spectacular gorge (see pic), looking more like Arizona than India, with sheer vertical rock walls plummeting down 2000ft to the river below. As we left the gorge we were confronted by something we’d seen very little of recently, that was grass, which stretched out on a plain in front of us, a sure sign we were coming to the end of the desert that was the Spiti valley and it’s river, which had been a constant companion at our side for the last week or so.
As we turned on to the plain we were immediatelty hit by a strong cold head wind making our progress fairly slow. We stopped on the plain and sheltered from the wind (and a breif shower – something else we’d not seen in a long time) behind a huge rock and cooked some soup and noodles and had a sleep. We left at around 4pm expecting a fairly steady ride up to our destination, “Losar” – but the wind had different ideas! The final 15 miles weren’t fun, the temperature was dropping and the wind was getting stronger making life difficult as we ascended the spiti river up to it’s source in the Kunzum mountain range, passing ugly black glaciers, which looked all the more daunting due to the dark cloudy sky.
We stopped in a tiny dhaba for some well needed chai to warm our bodies and spirits and eventually arrived in Losar (4075m) cold and tired just before night fall. We got a room in a run-down rustic little rest house, had a dinner of rice-dhal-chappati (the staple diet in these remote villages) and hit the sack, ready for the next day and our first Himalayan pass – the “Kunzum La” dividing the Spiti and Chandra valleys and lying at 4550m (15015ft).
3rd August – both overslept in Losar (probably due to the lethargy of sleeping at over 4000m) and finally headed off about midday after producing our passports at the local police checkpoint and being warned by a local the weather was not going to be in our favour. Today we were to conquer our first Himalayan pass, the culmination of riding uphill for 3 weeks and to the source of the Spiti river, the Kunzum La.
The first few miles out of Losar were were fairly flat, but being at over 4000m we were noticing the lack of oxygen and were both feeling a bit strange with headaches and nausea. As we started climbing the pass the weather deteriorated (as the local had warned) but we pushed on regardless. The temperature started to plummet, so we put on some warm clothes and gloves, it was a bit late by now though as our fingers were already going numb. As we turned a corner on the pass we saw some local tribeswomen sat around a small fire, Matt made a shivering gesture towards them and they immediatley invited us up the grassy bank to sit and warm oursleves by their fire. They then proceeded to make us hot butter chai and stoked their small fire for our benefit. They were truly wonderful people who gave us everything in return for nothing, although Matt gave them a gift of a pocket compass they never expected anything in return but a smile and to see us warm.
After warming our hands and feet by the fire and our insides with the butter chai we pushed on for the final few miles of the pass as the weather further closed in. We reached the top (see pic) and after a few photos headed straight for a little hut we spotted situated next to the Buddhist shrine on the peak of the pass. Inside the hut was an old hermit who invited to sit next to his oven and warm ourselves, while another passing traveller provided us with hot chai from his flask in exchange for a share of our 2-day old chelsea bun which we all devoured. After 45 mins of warming up we wrapped up in ALL the warm clothes we had, including some thick socks which we placed over our gloved hands and headed straight for the downhill side of the pass, saying goodbye to the Spiti valley and entering the Chandra valley and the district of Lahaul. It was a slow, bumpy, cold and damp ride down the pass which eventually led us to the tiny “summer” settlement of “Batal”, containing a dhaba and a shrine, luckilly, as it was getting late, the dhaba had a small bunkhouse in the cowshed adjoining it. We spent the evening in the dhaba eating rice-dhal-chappati and drinking chai (and even a beer!) and retired to the cold cowshed. The dhaba owners were freindly, hospitable people, the dhaba was warm and cosy and we slept like babies in the cowshed!
4th August – After breakfast at the Batal dhaba we bade farwell to our hosts and headed off at 9.30am. Today was going to be a downhill ride, so we were expecting a fairly steady day. True to form however the ride was far from easy and we should know by now that a “steady” day is rarely heard of when cycling the Himalaya! We were to be following the Chandra river all day and unknown to us at the time the Chandra Valley has the second highest snowfall in the world after Antartica, over 30 metres per year and as a consequence of this the valley remains buried under snow for some 6 months of the year and, as we were finding out, the ruined roads had to be rebuilt every year, so it was we’d stared our “fairly steady” day on one of the most rocky, boulder strewn, broken and unimaginably tough roads in the Indian Himalaya.
The first few miles were torture, we could not go much quicker than 4mph with every turn of the pedal jarring our bikes, bodies and heads. We couldn’t even admire the scenery about us for fear of taking our eyes off the “road” and hitting a bike stopping boulder! After about 4 miles we’d had enough and sat by the edge of the road contemplating the unthinkable and hailing down a jeep, lorry or bus to take us down the valley to better roads. However, traffic on the road was extremely light (for obvious reasons!) so we pushed on, and we were glad we did, for after a while the road improved from terrible to bad, the downhill slope got steeper and we were treated to the most stunning scenery we had experienced so far on our trip, in this little known most remote part of the Indian Himalaya, known as the Chandra Valley in the district of Lahaul.
We followed the fast flowing Chandra river on this most broken of roads, fording waterfalls and rivers exploding down from the steep slopes above us and cutting the road in two at every bend. The valley was littered with boulders bigger than houses, brought down by thousands of years of glacial metling and freezing, the valley was narrow with towering black bare rock mountains and glaciers above us, but looking so close that we could touch them, while the valley floor gave way to grassy meadows housing grazing wild horses. After a while we found an isolated dhaba and went in to warm oursleves as the temperature outside was still pretty cold. Just as we eneterd the the dark little dhaba and placed ourselves on the cushions and blankets it started to rain heavilly, so we hung around for a couple of hours drinking chai, eating rice-dhal, being closely watched by the curious locals and waiting out the rain.
We continued down the valley stopping every few minutes to admire the majesty of what was before us, this was the real Himalaya, a dark foreboding mouth filled with jagged snow capped teeth, we were cold, our bodies jarred by this broken road, but we were in our element and we knew it.
After a few more punishing hours for us and our bikes we arrived in the tiny settlement of “Chatru”, we’d descended about 500m down to 3400m and we’d had the best day so far, in this, the wild expanse of the Indian Himalaya. We camped at the local dhaba, or host supplying us with food, chai, beer and stories of his days as a trekking guide while we sat in the warmth of the dhaba covered in blankets and feeling that we were in the about the remotest part of the world that we’d ever had the good fortune to be in. The Chandra valley had been imprinted on our minds forever and had left us with a smile that would take a long time to wear off.
5th August – We awoke to rain pelting our tent so went straight back to sleep, eventually rising after the rain ceased at 10am. After a slow start to the day and a late breakfast we eventually hit the road at midday on what was to be the fourth cycling day in a row and the toughest day yet.
We went straight into a long climb taking us high up above the Chandra River winding it’s way past numerous waterfalls and solid walls of rock eventually emerging, after a small altercation involving some feral moutain dogs and some well aimed stones, at the road junction settlement of Grampho on the famous Manali-Leh Highway, which was to be our home for the next two weeks. We stopped in a a dhaba for chai and noodles and waited out yet another bout of rain.
We continued to follow the Chandra river but the valley had opened up and the scenery was not as exciting as the previous days. In the distance however we could see huge Himalayan giants as the clould occasionally broke to reveal their snow capped peaks. The area was very green and agricultural, with potatoes seemingly the crop of choice. We descended back to the Chandra river and followed a rough rolling road to the village of Sissu where we stopped for a coke in a breif period of sunshine. After Sissu we began to climb again, a climb that would go on for 9 miles on our now tired legs. It was getting late and we started to think that we may not be able to reach our destination of “Keylong” before nightfall. The climb finally ended and we began a nice long descent on decent roads back down to the Chandra River and it’s confluence with the “Bhaga River” at the village of “Tandi”. It was about 6.15pm and according to our map there was a huge climb to Keylong, one which we would never have made in the hour or so of daylight left. We realised quite quickly that Tandi, an ugly little place, consisting of nothing but a petrol station, a few outbuildings and a bunch of dodgy looking characters hanging about, would not be a place we would like to spend the night. We decided to ask the petrol pump attendant about the road to keylong and as luck would have it our map was wrong, it was not the monster climb we were expecting, but a fairly moderate climb of 200 meters over 5 miles. We decided to continue and pushed our tired bodies and bikes (both which were in need of some serious maintenance) up the road to keylong, following the Bhaga River now, arriving at last light and luckilly getting a room in the town which was full due to a Police recruitment fayre happening the next day.
We’d had four tough days of cycling with the elements well and truly against us and we were looking forward to a rest in keylong.
7th August – had a couple of days rest in Keylong eating nice food, servicing the bikes and our bodies, in the form of a full-on tough “Auyervedic” massage. Tomorrow we head into the real big stuff of the Manali-Leh highway, 8 days of 5000m (16500ft) passes, and the high altitude desert plains of “Ladakh” where nomads camp and water is scarce. The next time I’ll post we’ll be in “Leh” with the Manali-Leh highway behind us and several stories to tell….
Until then.
Some pics….
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