India 2024 Part 9 – Zanskar to Manali – Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures

We planned on spending a day around Padum, before moving on to Manali. Why rush? Padum is at the base of the Himalayan range. If we hiked up the other side of the valley, we’d have an awesome view. After another exhausting night for me (Padum is 100m higher than Leh) Marta decided we are leaving immediately.

Notice the color difference of these two merging rivers.

I have no idea what are the geotechnical properties of the scree slopes these roads are built on, but I anticipate there will be some work to keep them open.

It was a sad drive for me – grieving the fact that I’ll never try to sleep above 3000m again. This rules out a number of interesting places around the world.

Humidity is increasing as we get into the Himalaya, there are even clouds now.

Don’t think of this as a bridge, it’s a really big culvert. Not big enough.

They probably don’t reuse bridges

This Nepali worker behind me talked non-stop for 8 hours. Eventually someone with physical diarrhea runs out of fluids

Tractor was pulling a wagon of rocks uphill. New rule – never to buy a used tractor from India

Marta reports that this is the cleanest public toilet she’s used in India.

And a massive traffic jam as we descend into the touristy valley of Manali. It’s crazy how much work is going into road infrastructure in Ladakh, and so much of it bottlenecks here

Scrotum tree? Actually chestnuts. No good raw, turns out roasting chestnuts is not optional.

As soon as we leave Ladakh, we start to see alcohol for sale again. In Ladakh, we only seen booze as an offering to monks. No joke. Fortunately, we are big fans of English wine.

The first breaker panel I’ve seen in India. To be fair, I haven’t been snooping too hard. Even in a cement building, this is probably a bad idea.

A water bottle that we finished on a high mountain pass, before closing it and descending to 2100m.

The fellow on the right is riding his bike across India. Haven’t looked too much, but he’s here – https://youtube.com/@ghansu__run

After so many weeks of poor sleep, I was starting to think something else was wrong. We got a quiet hotel – we suspect we were the first guests ever… and promptly got 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Not grieving the high mountains anymore – I’m enjoying feeling human!

The Mica in the mountains is extraordinary. This rock looks like it was dipped in silver.

Trees are very happy here. Our sinuses are enjoying the 99% humidity too

This is a Suzuki Gypsy. Great little 4×4. Most SUVs in India are just RWD

Made by Mahindra, I call this the Indian G-Wagon. Likely more reliable than the Mercedes.

We are staying in Barheta, where hotels are growing up out of the orchards like mushrooms after a rain. The village of Buruwah has a nice loop and is more authentic.

Old and new. Mud roofs of Ladakh have been replaced by sheets of slate in Himchal Pradesh. Cows live on first floor, people on second floor.

Many houses under construction are massive – we stopped and asked at one that was 3 floors, perhaps 8000 square feet. A house, not a hotel, for perhaps 3 families. Are these second homes for wealthy Indians. Is this Canmore?

Huge apple orchards around us, crates of apples stored everywhere to keep them out of the rain.

Marta observes that India seems like a more communal culture. We’ve observed the apple harvest – looks like local labour, local pickup trucks. No shouting, no drama. The Gig economy here is big – people working part time as guides, at the ski hill, apple pickers, and so on.

I know squash is a vine, but am still surprised to see a 7kg squash growing up in an apple tree

We always feel shy to ask the locals for photos but are very rarely refused. Spectacular teeth as a rule – orthodontists would not make a living in northern India.

Easy to take off a tire when the outer wheel bearing is completely destroyed.

This lady and her teenage daughter moved a lot of granite blocks. We struggle to take photos of the poorest people that we see.

Lots of unsupervised cows with places to be.

The village we are staying in is adding dozens of hotels, with restaurants that don’t actually cook. They get the local street vendors to cook to order. This lady was delightful, but we kept getting bumped when hotels wanted food…

Marta has an objective – Mangankot, a peak 1200m above us. There’s a trail on Gaia, seems legit. Someone is building a house where the trailhead was, so we snoop around.

Doors and windows are made on site in India, literally in the same room. In Canada, we oversize the hole and order the window from a factory.

Frame the window snug in the hole in the concrete, cut a piece of glass to fit. Done. Of course, it’s a leaky single pane window. Indians seem to be happy with it.

And the window can be any shape you want.

We are immediately struggling to stay on trail. Anywhere the sun reaches the ground is a jungle.

At one point, we have bugs whacking us from all over. Was actually seeds that popped and flew when you brushed into them

Huge conifers down the mountain give way to deciduous hardwoods higher up the mountain. Is this normal?

It’s insane that all that separates us from the brutal dryness of Ladakh is one mountain pass. This feels like Vietnam

Marta gets the summit. We are so disgusted with our route up that we roll the dice taking a different route down.

All is good until the trail drops off the ridge into a huge bowl full of 6’ thistles and stinging nettles. Cliffs all round and there is no way we would go down the drainage. Fortunately the trail is exactly where the phone says it is.

What happened here? Why does such an awful route look so good on the phone? We theorize that the flocks of goats and sheep have been chased out of the valley by the tourist industry, but they were keeping the trails open.