Day 18, 7 July, Pang to Keylong

From Pang, we started at 6 am. Weather was cold. The water at the drinking place was frozen because of freezing temperatures. Just after leaving Pang, we came across first pass, Lachulung La situated at an altitude of 16,616 ft. Ride was good through beautiful scenery. A few Kms down after Lachulung La came another pass Nakee La, 15,547ft. Roads in this part were not so good as compared to before.
Next came the famous Gata Loops, it is the collection of 21 loops taking us down from an altitude of 15,302 ft. Roads from Gata loops till Sarchu were in good condition. The structures created by the river in the mountains were amazing. Later, we reached Sarchu at around 9.30 am.
Sarchu has also a collection of tent hotels / restaurents run by Ladakhi / Nepali people. Also, we saw some groups having their own tents.

We left Sarchu after spending around 1 hour. Next came 3rd pass of the day, Baralacha La. It was the first place where we could see so much of snow. One more surprising thing was, roads were ultimate that too at an altitude of 16,500ft. Such good roads are even difficult to find it in a city :). Hats off to BRO .
One can see a frozen lake while going by this pass, the "Deepak Tal".
We captured some good snaps on the way. However, while descending down the pass roads were not constructed well. At one place, we had to pass through a stream where the bridge was broken. We removed our shoes to avoid getting them wet. However, the water was too cold that our feet were almost frozen while getting the bike across. After a few kms, the terrain started changing. We could spot small shrubs on mountains and as we went ahead it turned into dense forest.
Soon, we reached Darcha in Himachal Pradesh. Roads just before Daracha and further till Keylong were in worst condition as the road widening work was going on.

At Darcha, one can see a tremendous avalanche fallen in river bed. It's difficult to imagine what would have been the condition at the time of the avalanche. We can observe from here onwards people living up in
the mountains. I wonder, what would be their life in monsoon or snow fall seasons.

Keylong is 32 kms away from Darcha but it took one and half hour as the roads were full of dust, mud and water. We were in Keylong at around 4 pm. Keylong is a small mountain village with beautyful scenery.
We found one good economic guesthouse after a small search.
Later, the main task was to get carrier fixed as it was broken third time. One can imagine the conditions my bike would have passed through :). One boy from the owner's office helped me to get to a mechanic. He did quite a good job. I was assured that it would not break again.

In the night, we went to a small restaurent closeby. It was pretty cold at that time but the view at the night with lights glowing at the mountain houses, was extra ordinary. We had some good meal after a long time and went back to the guest house for rest.