twoislandtravellers: Keylong, stop for one night and stay for three days.

The road from Manali to Leh seemed to be a motor bike riders dream, but with the current weather conditions we were having it might not have been quite the experience they were looking for. Most travellers embarking on the journey tend to take a nights stop over in Keylong around 6 hours local bus from Manali, but we had quite a bit of traffic before the rotang pass, which if the weather is bad is a complete waste of time. Unless you want to see a lot of Indian tourist seeing snow for the first time, it's hard to describe how stupid the whole set up is but once you see it you'll understand what I mean. We ended up being stranded in Keylong for 3 days, I use the word stranded because we were accompanied by a girl that was in a mad rush to get to Leh to see a festival, but my interests were not in watching a festival set up for a mass tourist photo fest. I was therefor in no hurry to board a bus or jeep over one of the highest roads in the world and get stuck half way in the snow for a night. Although with the clothing and sleeping bag we had I think we'd been prepared to do it, however Alex our insistent Polish roommate wearing only sandals, summer clothes and shawl to keep her warm would not have enjoyed that night in the bus.

I enjoyed the time we spent in Kelong, it became a little bit like ground hog day, Alex would wake each morning at the crack of dawn to wait at the bus station running from place to place trying to get the latest news on where the bus was, coming from Leh to Keylong, meanwhile Mayu, Jerry and I would sip our chai's from the hotel restaurant (conveniently opposite the bus station) watching the mornings madness unfold. Alex would also attack the bus station around lunchtime and Dinner, It became a sort of meal time entertainment each day. Bless her with all her hard work necessary or not she did manage to get everyone a ticket to board a bus bound to Leh, only question was how long would it take to get there?

So the 6am bus left at 9am and our bus was meant to leave at 8am but still had 't arrived, so being woke up by Alex at 6am didn't put me in the best of moods, however things were made much better having the best seats on the bus. Things went really smoothly to start with, the weather was amazing, incredible scenery and Alex seemed almost happy! However we hit a traffic jam, but it has to have been one of the best traffic jams I've been in, Joe will understand what I was experiencing when I was listening to Segue, full blast with amazing snowy mountain scape and a crazy Indian traffic battle as a stark contrast, it will be a memory I hope to remember vividly. Once we were up on one of the high passes we began to get the story, some people had been in this particular traffic jam without food or water through the night, which was exactly what I'd feared, but our bus driver was fearless, the Vinny Jones of north India. He pretty much directed the army to direct the traffic and got us moving. We were told at one point that we'd come at our own risk and a night sleeping in the bus would be a night we would want to forget, but a quick Indian hand gesture from the driver and we were on our way. After the jam the roads were surprisingly clear, I won't go on about Indian driving manners it's just too painful to talk about.

There was no chance in reaching Leh that day but we could easily make it to one of the camps to sleep the night. We stopped at Sachu, I may have got the name wrong. Luckily we were all acclimatised to heights by that point, as the camp was 4700m which can be dangerous for some people. I did hear quite a few times in the night people throwing up as they were not used to the heights. Mayu and I had a decent nights sleep, Jerry not so, seems as though the chow main didn't sit well in his stomach.
He was soon distracted by the views that followed. We were definitely in Ladakh now and the landscape was like nothing I'd seen. There was a moment where the mountains that surrounded us were all a red stone which meant the river ran red next to the road, linked with still being half asleep it felt very dream like.

With a few hairy moments with sliding and getting stuck in the snow it was a bus journey to remember and bus journey that many people will enjoy. I almost felt sad when we arrived in Leh, but we had things to be getting on with, a month left in India, still places to be seen, banana pancakes to be eaten, we got on our way.