@anujmishra: The road condition is quite good and you can maintain a healthy speed, plus there is lot of traffic in night too, so it seem safe to drive at least till Bhopal in night too.
@tsk1979: not sure about the cause, it may not be the altitude, the major cause might be the excessive shock as I hanged the laptop bag with seat and that might have caused HDD to crash.
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Day 3 Evening, while going toward Rotang, we rented the cloths for Snow and we made a mistake not to note the shop no, while returning I searched for an hour for the shop all along to return the cloth, but was not able to locate the exact shop, I spent lot of time showing the cloth to all possible shop but was not able to locate, later after lot of discussion with one of shop owner I returned the cloth to that shop with my hotel details and other information, he assured me about that they would trace the shop and return the cloth. I hope and assume that it get to the actual owner! Day 4 [2nd June Tuesday] Started early in the morning to beat the traffic at Rohtang and carry onward, the initial plan was to stop at Jispa, as there was no confirmation related to the tent at Sarchu, I talked to few people in and around hotel and also to few people who where there in Leh[HVKumar shared the mobile with me] they said there were no tent as on 31st May. The plan was to reach Jispa and roan around Jispa and later start early to make it to Leh. All along the journey I was preparing myself to take the risk and go to Sarchu, I discussed with my wife and we agreed to move on till Sarchu. I came across few bikers from Mumbai and asked about the tent accommodation at Sarchu, they too were not sure but said possibly the tents may have started.
The road was in worst shape the only thing that we were seeing all along was just snow and snow, the Rohtang that we saw at day 3 was just a small snapshot, the complete move was playing now, there was nothing else apart from snow, at some places the Scorpio was touching the snow of both the side, there was no scope for the both the rear view mirror to be opened, it was touching on both the side, for the first time I was scared at the thought that I was all alone in this alien territory and no one to be seem on either side. I stopped at few location just to see if there were any vehicle coming, but most of the vehicle made a stop at Rohtang!
Jispa come and went and now there was no turning back, at one location I am not sure about the location I saw 2 biker at a nalla, the nalla was deep and wide enough for the biker to stop and negotiate that manually, I again enquired about the tent but they too didn't have any info related to tent. Now I was worried and tried to make it faster to Sarchu, so incase I don't find any accommodation I need to have time on my side to do something.
rest of the Journey toward Sarchu was uneventful and I was nearing Sarchu by 3 PM, to find a tent company putting tents[just 8 kms away from Sarchu as per the milestone], went there to find that this is the first day of the tent and they were just able to put the first tent and I am welcomed as the first customer. The temperature at Sarchu was quite low and we were for the first time feeling uncomfortable in the surrounding, I and wife were having mild headache, while my son was fine and he wanted to play all around the tent. The tent guy warned us of the temperature in the night and told us that temperature in the night will be in rage of -5 to -10 and everything will freeze.
As the day past we saw 2 more vehicle and people and felt good to have some company in and around. later on by night there were few more and they wanted the tent accommodation "as is" because only 3 tents were ready and all other were just not ready but they wanted the accommodation! By 9 PM the condition was getting worse the headache was more prone and breathless started, at that instance I thought game over may be I will have to return back, somehow we managed the night. The good part was my son was doing well he was able to sleep properly without any problem.
The tents were at a height of 4400 meter above sea level, I will update the exact GPS coordinate of the tent later. Day 5[3rd June Wednesday] I was waiting for the morning so we can start early, by 5 AM I came out of the tent to start my Scorpio, but it refused to start, I was worried, I tried for few more time but it refused the start, there were a layer of snow everywhere on Scorpio, I didn't had any option other than just to retry, I was more worried about battery now, if I go of trying I would possibly kill the battery, whenever I tried hard there was black smoke from the exhaust. The other 2 vehicle too were Scorpio but they were old turbo one and by 5.30 or so each one come out to start their vehicle and they were able to do so, now I was too worried and went to get hot water to be poured over engine compartment, and lastly the hot water trick did work and the Scorpio came to life. It was almost 6.30 when we started your Journey toward Leh!
-Pramod |