It was day 10, I woke up early in the morning, I rushed out to the solitary shit house which was away from the main structure. It was still dark and the early morning chill had my teeth chattering. To my dismay it was occupied. I stood out in the cold with my hands in the pocket and my toes had started to get numb so I was stamping my feet. It was not even winters. At that time I was wondering what it would be like during winter months especially when the local people were snowed down.
After easing myself I went back to my room and packed my bags and went back inside the warm blanket, waiting for others to wake up. Col. Gurung, Capt. Gopal Rana and myself were sharing the room. They all woke up one by one and got ready, for the onward journey. We marched down for breakfast Tokpa and his wife were busy in the kitchen preparing food for us. She was making pancakes and I had never eaten pancakes like that ever before. These pancakes were so soft that they simply melted in the mouth. We had them with peanut butter and jam. Then we had momos left over from the previous night. After breakfast we went to our pick up and packed our bags. In the meantime Tokpa spoke to one of his neighbor who promptly pulled out a can of 25 liters of diesel and Tokpa refueled his vehicle. Just close to the place where our vehicle I saw a state transport bus which must have come from somewhere during the night. I was fairly impressed that this remote village has a government bus service.
Today we were supposed to visit Losar, Kunzum La, and Chandertal and then onwards to Sissu.
Losar was the first place where we stopped. It is about 50 kms from Kaza, at an elevation of 13500 ft. The river Spiti flows on the left side of the highway. It is mainly very dry and does not support any kind trees, however villagers grow some variety of barley and peas here. Usually they have three, four month window to sow and harvest the crop. The villagers use Yaks to plough the fields.
As we were passing through we met a local person who stopped our vehicle and said something to Tokpa. Later on Tokpa informed us that Mr. Saklani was spotted here and he was on his bicycle. Soon we reached a junction and we turned right to go to Chander Taal .The road was narrow and very bad condition. The B.R.O. was busy trying to finish the repair work before the onslaught of the winter months. All this time I was thinking how fun it would been if we had gone cycling, and I was slightly envious of Mr.Saklani.
We crossed Kanzum-La which is at a height of almost 14500 ft. This pass connects Lahul valley and Spiti valley together
It was here that I learnt from Tokpa that one should always keep the Gompa on the right hand side when passing. The landscape was changing. The ground was covered with dried moss and grass, and rocks were fairly darkish in color. We continued on this track, I tried to capture the stark raw beauty of this place in my mind. This was in between the few micro seconds when we were not thrown around like pebbles in an empty can!! We stopped at a check point, and there I notice that lot of tents were being dismantled and packed in pick up vans. It was the end of tourist season. I could spot a few toilet commodes thrown around and in pieces. On seeing this I was little disappointed, and thinking if they would pick it up later or leave it lying around. (Similar thing I had noticed at George Everest Estate near Dehradun many years ago) A few eating stalls were open offering tea and Maggie, but the workers seemed to be in no mood to serve. They were just sitting around enjoying the sun. A few kilometers before Chandertal we parked our pick up. Beyond this point vehicles were not allowed. Actually it was a kind of enclosure made of stone walls on three sides.
We climbed the stone wall and started to walk towards Chandertal. Here the wind was fairly strong and one could feel the chill. Probably wind factor. All of us were taking it easy as we were at an elevation of 14500 ft. plus. Along the way I noticed typical tourist left overs, like cigarette butts and empty wrappers of lays chips. This actually was quiet annoying. Soon we reached Chandertal lake.
This lake is near the mouth of a river which joins the Chenab rive. It is supposed to be sweet water lake though we did not taste. The water was so clear that we were able to see the stones at the bottom of the lake .It is in a shape of moon. In hindi the moon is called Chandra hence the name. There was a notice issued by the forest department of Himachal Pradesh which forbade anyone from jumping into the lake. The beauty of the lake and its surrounding were mesmerizing. The water was so crystal clear that one could see the bottom of the lake All of us took photographs, but the beauty of the place cannot be captured by any camera. Soon we returned to our pick up van.
Now we proceed towards Sissu and I think all of us were little tired mainly due to the rough ride.
I don’t remember about having lunch somewhere but I am sure we must have eaten.
We passed through a place called Koksar which according to our guide was one of the starting points for treks. There were lot of dhabas around here. The landscape was slowly changing. It was greener as compared to the brown barren landscape of Spiti.
I think I must have dozed off for a fairly long time because when I opened my eyes we were close to Manali or rather Atal tunnel. We stopped for tea at a roadside tea shop which was managed by lady. Capt. Rana tried to flirt with her and politely was told to have his tea peacefully. This incident gave us an opportunity to pull his leg for the onward journey. We crossed the north portal of famous Atal tunnel which links Manali to Leh. This tunnel is about 9 or 10 kilometers long. It is built under Rohtang pass and is situated at an elevation around 10000 ft. When the tunnel was finally finished it gave all weather access to Lahul valley. When I saw this I was fairly impressed by the size of this, and once again I thought to myself how one would feel cycling through this. I could see that on either side of the road there were I kind of special lanes were made keeping in mind that one day cyclists would pass through this tunnel. This was later confirmed by Mr.Saklani when he used this tunnel o his way to Manali.
We reached Sissu. We quickly off loaded the cycles and our baggage from the pick up and then two incidents which upset Capt. Rana immensely as both the incidents involved him.
We forgot to remove his helmet from the pickup and had to recall Tokpa back. Fortunately he was not far. He returned and gave the helmet. Capt Rana’s cycle frame had been rubbing against the pickup and due to vibration was almost in two pieces. So as soon as we discovered this we made enquiries for a welding shop if they could repair it but unfortunately there was no welder who could repair this. So we got three pieces of Iron rods, each piece must have been about six inches in length and about 6 to 8 mm in diameter. We taped this using rubber from a discarded tube and this was good for the whole journey till we reached Dehradun. Then we did a quick service of our cycles. By this time it was almost dinner time and when we asked the owner about food, she told us that there was no dinner and we would have to go out. Personally I found her behavior little rude unlike other places where the owners were polite. For dinner we found a small eating joint run by Nepali persons. What I noticed there were many eating joints which were run by people of Nepal.
We came back to the home stay and a quick bath went off to dreamland.
Trash Bucket 