Road trip to Leh - Through NakeeLa, Sarchu, past Deepak Tal and then over Rohtang Pass to reach Manali. Visit to Naggar Palace and Roreich art gallery.
Day 10 : Tso Moriri to Sarchu
Monday, 10 August 2015
Spent first part of the morning along the lake taking snaps and then we headed back to Debring for a quick lunch. Then continued on, driving past Pang, Biskynala, NakeeLa (altitude 15547 ft.), the steep winding multiple hairpin bends of Gata Loops, Sarchu, while the Tsarap river flowed besides the road all the way till Sarchu. It was late evening and dark but the time we past the first overhead sign board stating we were entering Sarchu. Drove a couple a kilometres while we passed-by several camps until we finally reached the camp booked for us. Settled in, had dinner and a few drinks too.
Day 11 : Sarchu to Manali
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
From here we continued on, driving past Zingzingbar, the beautiful Deepak Tal (lake), further down to Keylong, Tandi, Sissu and then to stop at Khoksar for a filling lunch of Mutton rice and alu parathas. It was now towards Rohtang Pass. At the beginning of the climb, there was a land slide that needed to be cleared up, so another half hour halt before proceeding up to the top of Rohtang Pass that was partly covered with much fog with light drizzle that getting a clear view of the road ahead was seemingly difficult. Carefully drove down up to Marhi to stop for a hot pipping tea break. Then, we continued on to reach Manali by late evening.
The camp that was booked to stay for the night had river water wetting the grounds there, so we looked for an alternate online and booked one that showed on the maps as being in the city, but later we were all quite upset to realize that it was in fact about 14 km away from the town of Manali. Drove up there and settled in for the night.
Day 12 : At Manali
Wednesday, 12 August 2015
Up early morning, Deepak and I were out on a morning stroll, taking snaps of the flora and fauna around the resort of stay. When all turned up for breakfast, most of us decide to try out ‘Channa Batura’ which was in fact tasty considering the amount of ‘Dal chawal’, ‘Maggi’, ‘Parathas n’ pickle’ we have had throughout this trip. Later, we headed out to visit the famous Naggar Palace, which was built around 1460 and what’s most interesting here is it’s architecture – simple and yet robust.
Then after we visited the Nicholas Roreich art gallery. Here, Roreich’s distinct style is visible in all of his paintings, that which depict the varied mountainous terrain against the different colors of the sky. Svetoslav Roerich’s paintings unlike his father’s was more portrait oriented and impressive too. Devika Rani’s pictures gave the presence of her charm and beauty.
With couple of hours well spent here, we all headed to town for lunch and then spent some time and money on shopping of local handicrafts till about 7 pm. Then in resort room party with some cocktails made by Pramod.
Day 13 : Manali to Chandigarh
Thursday, 13 August 2015
Today was just a boring drive from Manali to Chandigarh. Somewhere along the way, Pramod’s RE had issues and had to stop. After much pondering, figured out that the engine oil compartment was close to being bone dry, apart from the brake fluid casing showing low. Deepak and Lokesh went ahead in the Xylo and about half hour later returned with a bottle of engine oil. It worked and we all continued on the boring route just to get to Chandigarh by evening.
Day 14 : Chandigarh to Bengaluru
Friday, 14 August 2015
Morning blues with thoughts of returning back to the ‘concrete jungle’ and ‘computing’ life. We get packed up, have breakfast, check out from the hotel and take booked taxis to the airport. Group photo of us there and we board the flight back to Bengaluru.
