Manali to Leh

After my yoga teacher training course Carl and I hung out in Manali for a couple days. Manali is already pretty far north and a lot of the shops and hotels were shutting down for the winter/low season. Since we are crazy we decided to head even farther north where it is colder and even more things are closing for the winter. We talked to a couple travel agents and half of them said the road going north to Leh was closed, the other half said it was still open. One agent told us we could get a ride for the next night leaving at 1am. He told us it was 16 hours but we knew from talking to other travel agents that it would be at least 18 hours. We heard Leh was really beautiful, and there is some amazing trekking so we decided to book the journey and start mentally preparing for a crazy scary, bumpy ride. 

View first thing in the morning

Snowy mountains

On the day we were supposed to leave it was raining so we called our travel agent to see if there were any changes because of the weather. He told us that they would move up the ride departure to 10pm. We said that was fine and then 5 minutes later he called us back and said the bus would be now be leaving at 7pm. It was 5pm so we quickly packed our bags, payed for our hotel room and took a rickshaw to where we were being picked up. We found a place to quickly eat dinner and we were ready to head out by 7. Then we stood around for an hour waiting for the driver. Go figure; hurry up and wait. We were also puzzled as to what we were waiting for because Carl and I were the only passengers on the mini bus. Yay, a whole stinky mini bus to ourselves!

Once we were finally on the road we tried to get some sleep because the road was in pretty good shape and we knew the roads would only be getting worse. However we didn't sleep because even a good road in India has lots of pot holes.

It was literally freezing (I'm actually using literally in the correct way here). Snow was falling and it was really really cold. Personally when I drive over cold mountain passes the heat is usually on and the windows rolled up, call me crazy. This is apparently not how they do things in India. Not only was the heat not on but the driver's window was rolled down the whole time. At midnight we stopped for a chai break and the driver complained about how cold he was. All I could think was "well duh you're cold, roll up your window, you idiot,"

I was so happy that I had my sleeping bag. I had it cinched all the way up around my neck and was praying we didn't hit any really big bumps because my hands were trapped inside and I wouldn't have been able to catch myself from falling because of course our mini bus didn't have seat belts. Carl wasn't as prepared and didn't have a sleeping bag so he put on basically every piece of clothing he owns. Incase you are wondering the window was not broken, it got rolled up once or twice for five minutes. Carl and I have thought long and hard about why the driver didn't keep his window rolled up. There would be so much more heat and less dirt. Alas we can't figure it out, it will just remain among the hundreds of things we will never understand about India.

We stopped again at about 2am. The driver told us that all the cars and trucks were stopped here for the night because it was snowing on the pass and it wouldnt be safe to drive. He brought us blankets and we settled in for a couple hours of sleep in the mini bus.

Good morning! 

Warm fire

Thank goodness for my down booties for keeping my feet warm

I'm not convinced the fire is doing anything besides making me smell like smoke

Where is the road? 

In the morning we had a chai and headed over some magnificent, huge,  snow covered mountains. The views were truly unparalleled. Driving over these mountain pass is like climbing the last bit of a 14er where there is nothing but rock. To climb to the top you have to scramble from rock to rock. The scrambling usually last an hour or two max before you make it to the top. But when you are driving through the himalayas the scrambling never ends. Maybe you will get to stop for a chai and some noodles but there are still hours and hours ahead of bumpy driving on barely paved roads which drop off into cliffs. And the only thing around you are rocks, red rocks, gray rocks, and brown rocks which all make up massive snow covered mountain peaks. 

We stopped in some really tiny villages for breakfast and lunch. Tin shacks were adversed as hotels and tents made from old parachutes claimed to be restaurants. Theses places were small and basic but the chai was delicious, the food was hot and we got to take a break from being shaken and bounced around in the bus for 45 minutes. 

Carl enjoying some chai

Village of tents where we ate lunch

Hotel?

We drove over the Chang La pass at 17,590 ft it is the third highest motorable road in the world. Leh is a small town in a high altitude desert valley. Buddhist monasteries are carved into the mountains sides surrounding the town and it is at an elevation of almost 11,500 feet. By the time we made it to here we had been traveling for 24 hours. Eating a real meal instead of the cookies we had been snacking on and sleeping in a bed felt amazing.

Thank you to everyone for your comments and emails. I have so much graditude that you guys are reading and suppoprting my journey. It's so great to keep in touch with all you! Thanks so much!!

And finally thank you to Carl for editing my writing and traveling with me.