Getting Leh-ed: The longest day - Mandi to Keylong Part 2

Rohtang Pass, in Lahaul & Spiti district, is quite popular among tourists and a trip to this gateway on the Pir Panjal range is considered almost de rigueur, if visiting Manali. Doesn’t matter, whether you’re here as a pensioner-patriarch with your kids and grandkids, a honeymooner with your bright eyed bride/groom, a Bengali or Malayali family guy who finally has a good reason to slip on a balaclava bought by mom in the 6^th grade, or an Israeli 20 something, here to score cheap and smooth ganja post the conscription back home.

Tourists flock to it in the thousands every day. A longish climb which takes a few hours, followed by exclamations on spotting snow in June, then a spirited session of hurling snowballs at each other for about 6 minutes post which you get frostbitten on your extremities and your fingers fall off and you can’t press the click button on your camera anymore to record this event for posterity or ever play a flute in your life again and it all becomes a wasted trip really. Still, it remains a popular spot as evidenced by 20 odd tented shops that sell beverages, biscuits and Maggie noodles at Rohtang.

Well, this seemed to have been another of those days. The narrow road from Manali to Rohtang is busy as hell. However, at this time of day, it’s mostly traffic headed back from the pass. We seem to be among the few intrepid souls actually heading up.

As the air turns colder and we climb, a sense of steadily heading away from the safety and warmth of civilization starts to set in. But the view is getting bloody better with every hundred feet. The climb gets steeper as we see the Beas-kund spewing water from the massive side of a mountain, as if from a giant busted faucet which makes for so much levity and fun down in the valley when rafting in it or sipping a beer sitting beside it. Here, it just looks bloody cold. Soon, Darius falls on a steep hairpin bend. I stop to get off and help, and fall myself. Some foreign tourists in a taxi look aghast. Aha…the game is afoot.

Marhi, described as a "shanty town of roadside restaurants" midway between Manali and Rohtang is where we halt. The snowy mountain tops seem much closer and somewhat formidable. Some hot chai and slipping into woolen long johns are much needed. Now is when we get to test out our newly acquired gear. Forty minutes later, with the snow gloves, inners, thick socks, rain suits and balaclavas, we are ready to continue the ascent. I know now what the Michelin man feels like finally. Poor sod. But we’re warm as fresh, sweet, thick porridge served by mum.

The road gets really dodgy now. All broken and rutted and slushy. Patches of slippery sheet ice here and some rivulets of murky water running into evil looking ditches there. The riding gets very rough and serious. There is no turning back now, of course, even if we wanted to. It’s been 4 years since I rode seriously and I can sense some nervousness working its way up my spine. I’ve had a nasty experience with sheet ice and snow on the road as a kid and this isn’t helping. And it’s dark.

8 pm. We’re at Rohtang top. Cold and dark. And we’re alone. Miles of mountain in all directions. The snow makes everything look a bit eerie. And hostile. So, the appropriate response is to try and pee your name into it by the side of the road.

The descent is a right royal bitch. Pitch dark except the trusty headlights, a slippery, precarious slope, deep and dangerous potholes of icy water and an unseen, unexplored terrain for the three of us. If something were to happen or if the weather turned now, we’d be completely and irrevocably screwed. This would be scary as hell on any other day, but no option except press on. It takes an hour and a half of this to get us to the other side of the range to the miniscule village of Coaxar.

We’re tired and a bit overwhelmed but pleased as punch. We had crossed our first pass. A tricky one, like Rohtang. In the dead of night. And survived. The only celebration we can afford here is hot soupy Maggie noodles, glucose biscuits and hot chai at a wee little dhaba, far, far away from the office in Gurgaon, stupid escalation emails, follow-ups, meeting requests, reviews and presentations. I wonder what part of my life feels more unreal right now...