5:30am.
Its exactly 5 and a half hours, or GMT time different with IST after midnight.
At this time most of Britain would be sleeping.
Even most of India would be sleeping.
On other days even we would be sleeping, as daybreak is after 10am for us.
But today at 5:30am we were more than awake.
We were ready to go, and loading the stuff into the white elephant.
It was still quite dark, and the highway was awaiting.
Being second night at 3100mts above sea level, there was no tiredness, and my back was feeling as good as new.
Time to start the white elephant.
The ambient temp was a brist 8 degrees, and thankfully she started on the first crank.
However I let her roar from 700-1200rpm for 5 minutes or so, as she went on with her morning rpm fluctuations.
With the needle more or less settled down around 5:40 we started the journey.
The odo read 22028kms. We had come 714kms since Friday, and it seemed like 7000. Just around 350 or so more to go. Just
Early morning start meant there would hardly be any other travellers, except sweater and mutton, on their way to green pastures.
After crossing many such herds, we were on our way to Darcha, our breakfast stop

Breakfast was Aloo Paranthas, thankfully decent ones, and we also got a couple of them packed for lunch, as we had no idea about the food on the rest of the journey
Thats me. I am not fat, its just the clothes

After Darcha it was the drive to Baralacha-La our first pass.
Roads were a mixed bag. Some good some bad. If it continued like this, we will be in Leh much before sundown

The sun was slowly coming up

It was around 7:45 that we met the first water body of the day, Deepak Tal
Sky was inky blue as expected

And the white elephant still relatively clean
Soon it was time to feast on the first rock formations

the road turned into a dirt track, or rather rock track

But the views made up for that

Far away we could spot what was proably bara lacha la

And as we got closer and started the climb, the road turned into a delicious black topped surface. Miracles do happen, don't they?

We had to go up there, but unfortunately hardly any snow to greet us.

The road was nice though, well topped with little bumps

But even black topped roads are not enough to wean way from the lure of the shortcuts
But it turned out to be a very bad decision...... CONT