Wednesday, July 21, 2010
day_3
World's highest road:
the third day was a very special day we were about to bike on the world's highest road, we didnt know how it would be like to bike until that point, would that be okey to climb from 3500m to 5600m just in 2-3 hrs.. how our body would react to it.. we had reached Leh just 2 days ago and were struggling with sleep.
with all such things in mind, we left our Khan manjil guesthouse at 7:30 on the 'Pulsars' that we had rented and taken with us previous evening. we went to our fav chai shop for a cup of tea and samosa.. and started the journey..
surprisingly we lost our ways few times, one time we went couple of kms on wrong way.. (after-all to err is human ;-) )
Finally we reached and we took a deep breadth .. well actually the whole breathing pattern was different at that height .. all of them were fast and deep :D
then we climbed to nearby peak .. I wasn't so much in mood but Parth had already started and to catch up I also started but by the time I reached where he was standing earlier, he had reached much higher ... this continued for some time until we were at some ~100m higher from Khardung La(5602m).
It felt GREAT to be at such a height.. the max which I ever achieved in my entire life (not counting plan trips ;-)) .. don't know if I would ever go beyond this one (it was ~5700).. although the actual height of Khardung La is a controversy :(.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khardung_La
below is the view of the khardung la from the place where Parth had taken me to.
the third day was a very special day we were about to bike on the world's highest road, we didnt know how it would be like to bike until that point, would that be okey to climb from 3500m to 5600m just in 2-3 hrs.. how our body would react to it.. we had reached Leh just 2 days ago and were struggling with sleep.
with all such things in mind, we left our Khan manjil guesthouse at 7:30 on the 'Pulsars' that we had rented and taken with us previous evening. we went to our fav chai shop for a cup of tea and samosa.. and started the journey..
surprisingly we lost our ways few times, one time we went couple of kms on wrong way.. (after-all to err is human ;-) )
path was quite winding as one would expect with countless hairpin bends..
but the view was getting better n better as we were going up.. but also as we were going up there were new peaks and new roads.. and it was endless :D
slowly it was all covered in snow and the road had completely disappeared and replaced by potholes and big stones on the road.. many times there were water-streams crossing the road, but they were harmless.
then we climbed to nearby peak .. I wasn't so much in mood but Parth had already started and to catch up I also started but by the time I reached where he was standing earlier, he had reached much higher ... this continued for some time until we were at some ~100m higher from Khardung La(5602m).
It felt GREAT to be at such a height.. the max which I ever achieved in my entire life (not counting plan trips ;-)) .. don't know if I would ever go beyond this one (it was ~5700).. although the actual height of Khardung La is a controversy :(.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khardung_La
below is the view of the khardung la from the place where Parth had taken me to.
Time to pose and celebrate ..
yes, we did it..
Day_2
ready to take off:
we woke up at 10:30pm.
after having a very difficult time in trying to sleep, I got some at 7:00am.
we had some plans for the day to get better acclimatized and start the activities, we didn't come to Leh to sleep all the day. :-)
due to some bad planning, we spent (wasted) next few hours in getting administrative work done for next day we wanted an inner line permit which is needed to visit Khardung La.
after all this we hired a Enfield Machismo bike and left towards Nimo .... to once again witness the confluence of Indus and Zanksar rivers..
Nimmo is 30kms from Leh (I had visited this place last time but Parth hadn't and it was anyway worth one more visit).
There is a supposedly 'Magnetic-hill' on the way which pulls metal objects but I missed to recognize it this time as well :-(
It was about 200m and was our first climb at such an high altitude. In the beginning it was killing but later on I was ok but Parth became very tired. He was also wondering about his fitness level for Stok Kangari at this time.
we woke up at 10:30pm.
after having a very difficult time in trying to sleep, I got some at 7:00am.
we had some plans for the day to get better acclimatized and start the activities, we didn't come to Leh to sleep all the day. :-)
due to some bad planning, we spent (wasted) next few hours in getting administrative work done for next day we wanted an inner line permit which is needed to visit Khardung La.
after all this we hired a Enfield Machismo bike and left towards Nimo .... to once again witness the confluence of Indus and Zanksar rivers..
Nimmo is 30kms from Leh (I had visited this place last time but Parth hadn't and it was anyway worth one more visit).
There is a supposedly 'Magnetic-hill' on the way which pulls metal objects but I missed to recognize it this time as well :-(
After a stop where we took some snaps, I started driving and guess what I started on right side. omg!! it was a curvy slope and a truck coming from other side and another one from behind. Both of them were amazed by seeing me on wrong side and I was also equally amazed to see them on 'wrong' side .. it lasted for around 30 secs all of us wondering the same thing: 'whats wrong with this guy' .. then I was awakened by Parth and I realized that 'oh! I am wrong, they are right'.. oh boy! it was such a terrible mistake.
there were some good snaps...
after our biking trip we came back and rested a bit.. then we climbed (as advised by everyone) nearby hill to visit 'Leh Palace' which was of ruins of old palace but it had great view of Leh town and nearby mountains.
It was about 200m and was our first climb at such an high altitude. In the beginning it was killing but later on I was ok but Parth became very tired. He was also wondering about his fitness level for Stok Kangari at this time.
but since we had plans for further climbing on next day (day_3) we were a bit relieved that we are progressing gradually and we should be well acclimatized before starting the trek on day_4.
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