+ The next few posts in the Ladakh series will focus on traversing the Manali – Leh highway. These posts will cover transport options from Manali, what to see, where to stop, and everything else you would want to know when taking this route.
+ The prices mentioned here are as of 2008. Please factor in inflation!
It is the difficulty involved in traversing the road that attracts travelers to make the journey from Manali to Leh by road. Nowhere else in India do you get to drive hundreds of kilometers without seeing a single permanent habitation. The road runs above ten thousand feet for almost entire journey, and the highest point on the road is above 18,000 feet. The landscapes are unparalleled. The superb greenery on the way out of Manali will be the last stretch of abundant vegetation that you encounter until the day you return from Ladakh.
The journey is hard by itself, and very often the mode of transport chosen can make things harder.
The Delhi – Leh Bus
It took some time to register in my mind that there really is a bus that goes all the way from Delhi to Leh. It is an ordinary bus with 2+3 seats, run by Himachal Road Transport Corporation. It is the cheapest way to get to Leh, and probably the most uncomfortable. It arrives in Manali around 10am and leaves an hour later for Keylong. Reaching Keylong by 5pm, the bus continues towards Leh next morning, arriving at the destination in the evening. Most of the time it will be crowded when it arrives in Manali. If you are lucky, you might find a few seats unoccupied in the last row when the bus leaves Keylong.
The first hotel we looked up on arriving at Keylong did not have any rooms available. So did the second, third and the fourth. The one hotel which could take us in was the most expensive in town. I must have spent a good thirty minutes without much luck, searching through all the hotels near Mall Road. It is not the best feeling – having arrived in some remote town in the middle of the mountains, faraway from everything, only to find out that there is no place to stay. A supposedly nice guesthouse recommended by a friend was closed for good, rented out to house the offices of a government body. The options left, it seemed, were the most expensive and the least expensive. The latter was a bunch of grubby dorms near the bus-stand, mostly used by passengers who take the Delhi-Leh bus that halts for the night in Keylong.
A House on the Slopes of Keylong
It helped making some inquiries at the mall road before resigning to the expensive place. A recommendation by a friendly man (who worked at one of the hotels that was full) lead us towards the old bus stand, along the mall road for a quarter kilometer and then a steep climb through long series of steps. The heavy backpack weighing a dozen kilogram, along with the thin mountain air made it all seem like work. But the place we stumbled into was just how we would like it – clean rooms and loo with wide windows opening up to views of the mountains and the Bhaga Valley. The place was good enough to keep us stay put for four days.
Slopes of Keylong
Of the four days in Keylong, the first was spent visiting the ancient temple filled with fine wood carvings in Udaipur village. Another day was spent gallivanting in Keylong, and the day after that was a festival in Shashur monastery. On the third day we realized we were running out of money! We had forgotten to draw cash at Manali, the last place to find an ATM on the way. So the evening and the next day have to be spent trying to find ways to get to Leh with whatever money was left. The Delhi-Leh bus, discomfort at its best, was the cheapest option, but even that was completely booked. After running around for sometime in search of all possible options, a kind travel agent let us book a shared taxi, accepting only part of the money in advance. The rest was to be paid once we got to Leh, drawing money at one of the ATMs in the market. We were to find out later that it was not as simple as it seemed. And being penniless meant we had to travel direct to Leh, without stopping anywhere on the way. The plan to break the journey at Sarchu, Pang and any other place we wished to on the way, was not to happen.
We waited at Manali’s bus station, reluctantly taking one of the grimy seats for lack of better options. We were planning to be at Keylong that evening, stopping for a few days on our way to Leh. We only knew that Keylong is going to be our next stop, but had not taken the trouble to plan how long. After Keylong, we would just hop to the next place we would feel like staying at. It could be Sarchu, Pang or any other lone parachute tented hamlet on the long road across the Himalayas.
Bhaga River Valley at Keylong. To the right of the valley is the road we took to Keylong.
Keylong is one of the major towns across Rohtang Pass and is the district headquarters of Lahaul. Manali happens to be a tourist hub and the gateway to further north. We took it for granted that there will be many buses linking the two. Bad thinking! The 10am bus had left Manali fully loaded a little before we got to the bus stop. The next bus would arrive only at 2pm and it was likely to run full too. The grimy seat at the bus stand was going to be our associate for longer than we wished for.
A few inquiries for alternate transport resulted in the obvious suggestion – hire a taxi. We did not want a cab for ourselves and there were no shared taxis heading to Keylong. A few people waited along with us, looking for a faster way to get to Keylong. In an hour or so, one of them came back with a good news – there was Tata Sumo heading towards Keyong.
The driver of the Sumo was a young boy, probably in early twenties. He thought for a while when we asked him for two seats. He had to calculate the tourist rate by assessing our clothes, the manner of speech and then guessing the depth of our pockets. After a pause of few seconds, the premium on our seats was set at Rs.50 above the price quoted for the rest. But I knew what the others were paying, which made negotiating easy. We agreed to pay a premium of Rs.25 and bargained for the best seats at the front in return. We were ushered into the Sumo, and I expected to get going in a few minutes, heading out of Manali towards the mountains with five figure altitudes.
It turned out I was wrong. Filling up rest of the seats in the Sumo took more than an hour’s work. In fact, while the driver went around in search of passengers, a few who were already in the jeep went away, tired of waiting. The vacated seats prolonged our wait but thankfully it did not result in a chain reaction. When we finally left, we had just 30 minutes lead time from the 2pm bus.
The journey was a breeze once we took off. In the next two hours, we climbed up Rohtang pass and got down to Chandra Valley, stopping at Khoksar Village for a break. It was just after sunset when we arrived at Keylong, and all that was left to do was to find a place to stay and rest for the night. It turned out to be a job not as simple as it seemed to be.
