India, Day 15 & 16

We leave Manali at 3am, in a 4WD Jeep. There is a Slovak couple in the car with me, Hanna and Stanislaw. We drive for an hour and come to a very long queue of cars – everybody lining up for the road to open at 8am. We fail to figure out why did we leave so early. We try to sleep in the car for 4 hours now.

The road is spectacular. We very quickly pass all the heavy vehicles. Our driver tackles most turns with one hand. Only when it’s a 360 degree turn, he applies both. I somehow feel good in his hands. We pass a dead cow on the road, 5 vultures on it, cleaning up the road. The road is well marked for passenger and driver's entertainment. I write some down. "This is not a race or a rally, enjoy the valley", "There is no space for Gama in the land of Lama", "Darling, I like you, but not so fast", "Use the horse power, not the rum power", "Don't gossip, let him drive". Some taken from some American training book; "Your smile our satisfacion". Some more patriotic "Ladakh, our national pride and glory".

I say this is one of the most spectacular days of my life. The Manali-Leh road is a Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Jurassic Park drive-through. I feel like Alice in the Wonderland. Every 30 min we enter a different room. Every 1 hour, we are in a different world. It's the mini-Grand Canyon one moment, Gobi Dessert another, then we enter the Mongolian plains. I will not attempt to describe the scenery, I let the photos do the job. Stanislaw says it's the best day of his life. I tell him to watch what he says, Hanna may think meeting each other was it.

Manali, our starting point was at the 2000-2500m altitude. The road takes us higher and higher, at 4000m I start to feel the effects. It starts with a numb headache, then I float in space. I feel like a beaten up dog. "Eat the garlic, Magda" Hanna feeds me with 3 cloves of raw garlic. We stink like 3 Jews. They got 1kg of this remedy. The garlic partly relieves my headache.

Hanna and Stanislaw are troupers. They hardly suffer from altitude sickness. They are set to trek for 6 days around Leh on their own and scale a 6000+m mountain (Stok Kangri). They carry a tent, full supply of food, burners, sleeping bags and garlic. They seem surprised at my constant expressions of admiration.

After 16 hours of driving, we force the driver to get a rest. We stop at 4600m rest area. I feel very sick, my brain is dead, rotating my eyeballs is painful. Hanna talks to me, I listen lying down, eyes closed. We are in a Mongolian-styled tent, in front is the eating area, all carpetted. At the back there is the sleeping area - there are 20 people in it, the entire camp laid with woollen blankets, sleeping bags. You can sleep naked here. Snanislaw tells me if I'm cold they will combine their super-extreme sleeping bags and have me jump in. I tell him to better ask Hanna first. The temperature drops to below 0. I try to fall asleep and not think of peeing again. I listen to Chemical Brothers. This is unreal. I like contrasts, they aspire me in some ways. Lying down at 4600m in a mongolian tent, sick as a dog, listen to "Push the Button". But the locals are not in a sleeping mood. They play local Hindi and Ladhaki hits, then he dancing starts.

I feel better in the morning. A quick hot chai, and we are off. Our drivers uses a cassette to scrap off the frost from the car windows. Everything has a double-purpose here. The road ascends rapidly now. We see people vomiting on the side of the road, they offer us altitude sickness pills. We reach 5328m at Tanglang - the highest point of the highway. I forget about my altitude sickness. We run around the pass, snapping away like children. This is the highest altitude I've ever been on. I have tears in my eyes, it's so unbelievable here. We have the Himalayan snow peaks staring at us on one side, the desert plains on the other.

We tank a few times on the way, buying petrol from the road contractors. The last petrol station was 240km away. The road workers look like human trash. They live in self-built black-rubbish-bag tents, improvise a firecamp in the middle. We pass overturned tankers and lorries. Every accident is a form of entertainment, a distruction to the lives of the third world. Our driver stops and chats with almost every Jeep driver from the opposite direction. I'm guessing they are exchanging the latest road updates, mishapes, road-warrior gossip. There is a sense of camaderie amongst the people of the highway.

The journey is painfully beautiful. I don't want it to end. Then I also realise we've been on the road for the past 28 hours. We arrive Leh at noon. We were on the road a total of 34 hours.

I say hello to Leh. It's the capital of Ladakh, a province in Jammu & Kashmir. Ladakh is a desert in the Himalayas. The Leh Palace is what brought me here. When I saw the photo in my guide book, an instant decision was made. My guestroom window now overlooks the Palace. How much better can it get?