The Great Escape : Day 2 - Solang Valley - Darcha

5th July

We started very late from Solang Valley at ~ 10 am. The road to Rohtang was in very bad shape. There was a traffic jam also, because BRO (Border Roads Organization) was repairing the roads.

Leh Trip , July 2009

From Solang, Rohtang was only 40 km, but it took 2 hrs to reach there. We stopped at Rohtang for half an hour. It was filled with SUVs, horses and people selling long black boots.

Leh Trip, July 2009

Rohtang is the last place to visit for most of the tourists. They generally spend half of the day there and come back to Manali. After crossing Rohtang, we were going down hill and the roads started to deteriorate further. We had to stop at couple of places for directions. I remember a signboard on which there was no sign. After asking BRO people, we took the left turn from there. The right one was going to Chandertal.

On our way to Keylong we saw an oil tanker almost completely submerged in water. We don’t know how it got there.

Leh Trip, July 2009

We reached Tandi and filled our tanks. This time mileage was 33. Tandi is the last petrol pump before Leh, which was still 380 km ahead. Despite of all advice we decided not to carry extra fuel with us. It was a right decision. Even if my bike would have given a mileage of 30 till Leh, i wouldn’t need extra fuel. Doing mileage calculations on the way proved useful for us.

We reached Keylong at 3 pm and had our lunch. After Keylong roads were in pathetic condition for most of the time. We had planned to stay at Jispa. 2-3 km before Jispa, i saw some guest houses, but i was waiting for the 0 km milestone, which never appeared. Finally we stopped, a few hundred meters after Jispa. There were no accomodation sort of things available there. We didn’t want to go back, so we proceeded for Darcha, 6 km away from Jispa.

We reached Darcha at 6 pm and easily got a room. When i asked for the toilets, people started smiling. Pointing their fingers towards the river, they said, it’s all yours. We had the fun next morning 🙂

Darcha is a very small place surrounded by mountains from all sides. I took some pictures of the moon and the mountains.