First day on the Manali Leh Highway.

After carrying and pushing the bikes for over the  Shingo La, its finally time for some real cycling. The day before, we obtained cash, food and gasoline in Keylong, we are ready to start now. 

(If you are planing you trip: There is no gas station in Keylong, I got lucky to get gas at a workshop)

 

At first you follow more or less the river, but after Dacia is the first real ascent.

Darcia ist the last permanent settlement. Everything beyond is not accessible in Winter. 

 On the next day, we towards the  first of the 4 upcoming high altitude passes.

 It's pretty easy to climb these flat roads. They were built this way because the trucks can go steeper in this altitude.

 In the early afternoon, we reached the first pass, the Darachlang La.
The view is quite scenic, and could be a trekking route. I initially planed on stopping here when getting back to Leh, and follow this valley which would finally lead me to the Spiti valley. I wasn't able to find out whether, there is a trail or not, so I disposed this plan.

 You can clearly see, that the climate after the pass is very different. It is so dry, that there is hardly any vegetation.

 There are campsites on the roads, where the buses going from Manali to Leh stay overnight. There are also some crazy taxis though, which will do the trip in one stressful day.

  In the evening, I ran out of water, and had to ride for several additional kilometres to finally be able to reach the river.

Labels:
manali, leh, highway, keylong, bicycle, touring, india, himalayas.