After having a big day again the day before we decided have a smaller day again today to get the legs rested as we were fast approaching the big climbs and passes. Once again the day is planned to be 20kms...
The road surface quickly deteriorated and turned extremely dusty and the temperature is high. Still it is only going to be a short day. We got to our destination within an hour and a bit. A town on the map called ZingZingbar turn out to be yet again, nothing. Just one small poorly equipped Dhaba, we had our breakfast there; a Parantha, which consisted of chapati/roti filled with potato and onion and some explosive chillis. We decided our only option was to go up over the next pass to where we knew there was a larger settlement.
The objective was the Baralacha La Pass at 4891m. This for me and Lara was to be the worst climb, the bugger just never seemed to stop. Every time you thought you where near the top, it would be another blind summit, it was unbelievable. The most morally draining climb on a bicycle I have ever done.
It was here that Lara started to get a huge headache due to the altitude. There was not much we could do for her, just try and encourage here to just dig deep and keep going. This was here also that I think Scott should be done for animal cruelty.
This lovely little puppy came and said hello to him whilst he waited for Lara and I (she had really slowed down due to the headache) so he fed it a Bourbon biscuit. This poor wee fella then proceeded to follow us right to the top in the hope of another. Doesn't sound too bad but the top was over 12km away and Scott never gave him another biscuit, who ever said the Scots are tight are correct!
After a few more blind summits, corners to be turned and more disappointment when the pass eluded to show itself, it finally appeared.
This trip was starting to become a hunt for prayer flags as it always pointed out where the top was. We just stood around a few moments to take a few pictures
But we didn't want to spend long up there as we wanted to loose altitude to try and alleviate Lara's headache.
We set off happy that we knew it was all down hill to Sarchu, our aim for the evening. We had 25km of gravity assisted cycling to get there. We were all starving by this point and we all had our fingers crossed for a Dhaba to try and get some food. Thankfully one came pretty quickly and all sorts where bought, mainly crisps as we were all craving something savoury by this point.
The scenery was fast changing, the further north we got the dryer it got. The mountains stop the Monsoon rains from getting this far north and it was a hge difference from the green Kullu valley where sits Manali.
In a time honoured tradition, we once again were fighting with day light to get to our destination before it got dark. We had to get a wriggle on to make it. Thankfully it was downhill so we could really paste out the kms.
Lara on one of the bridges we learnt to fear. These were made from steel girders and only have sheet metal layed loosely on them. Some of them we would have to stop and rearrange the sheets before we could pass over them as the gaps where just to big for a bike and we ran the risk of falling through them.
So we got to Sarchu, yup that is it, that collection of tents in the bottom right, quicker than we thought as it was all downhill. Once again a short day had turned into a monstrous climb and 70km in total. As we set up our tents we all agreed that we needed to be more careful of how we plan our days. From here there was less food and water (hard to imagine I know) and we could really stuff ourselves if we were not careful.
We decided on another rest day the following day as we were all tired. The tour group we had seen the night before was also in Sarchu, they were very surprised to see us rock up doing the same as they had that day but with carrying all our stuff. We found Ed and had a good relaxing evening chatting and talking about the day's ride, happy in the fact that we had nothing to do the next day apart from maybe a bit of washing and sleeping.
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