Alex's Asian Adventure

This morning we got in jeeps, again, and went for a drive to Keylong, a stop on the way to our roadhead at Darcha (tomorrow's destination). The road to Keylong is a winding mountain path that's partly paved and partly crap. It goes over the Rohtang Pass, one of the weirdest places I've ever seen. It bears elaboration.

The Rohtang Pass is about 60km north of Manali, and is a huge tourist destination for Indians. It is close to civilization and they can play in the snow! On the way up you pass countless shops selling three things:

• Fur-like coats in all kinds of strange colours and patterns, like leopard skin and neon green.
• Old-looking ski suits.
• "Snow shoes" that are, in reality, rubber overboots - a poor man's Sorel boot.

When you get to the top of the pass, you find hordes of Indian tourists parading around in their leopard skin furs and their snow shoes, all over the dirty, nasty snow. Between the snow banks you find a lot of brown mud, so it's not exactly in a scenic location. There are horses that drag sleds up the snowbanks for Indian tourists to toboggan. There are snowmobiles that you can ride. There are even skis you can pose on with a mountain backdrop. The whole thing is really, really surreal.

Anyway, once you cross the Rohtang Pass the scenery changes dramatically and the Indian tourists disappear completely. Instead of lush forest of the Kullu Valley (where Manali is located) you see rugged mountains and alpine scenery - bushes, grass, etc. Not many trees. This region is called Lahaul, and stands right before the main Himalaya range. On either side of the Lahaul valley you see countless snow-covered 6000m peaks. One of the peaks here reminded me of Mt. Edith Cavell near Jasper, a very striking peak - gorgeous. It's a pretty incredible drive to Keylong.

Keylong, a ways down the Lahaul valley, is the capital of the region and feels a lot like a very small town. Population of maybe a few thousand. The women here dress in a distinctive purple & gold costume - very pretty. The place is laid back. Our hotel overlooks the river next to town, and has great views of a few 6000m peaks, one of which looks vaguely like the Matterhorn. Wow.

Tonight we stay in Keylong, and tomorrow we'll go for a climb up to Keylong Gompa, on the other side of the river. I'm looking forward to doing a bit of hiking after all these days in Hong Kong, Delhi and Manali. In the afternoon we're driving to the end of the road at Darcha, where we get to meet our crew and our homes for the next few weeks: a collection of Marmot tents!

The trek itself is going to be about 300km and ends in Leh, the capital of Ladakh. From there Joel & I are heading down to the nearby village of Stok where we'll climb Stok Kangri, 6122m. I'm back in Delhi on July 4th, and back in Canada July 7th.

There is no 'net access between here and Leh, except maybe at Purne (though I somehow doubt it). I even hear that access in Leh is sketchy. In other words... no posts for a while.