Driving in thin air - Ladakh

Thanx roshe & game. thanx for the kind words. i have just fallen in love with this place. plan to go again in dec this year, although driving will be out of question as rohtang onwards the roads will be closed. lets see how it works out.
cheers
pen

Hullo Roshe that was an excellant piece, not all have the ability.We (wife & me) have already driven the routes from Delhi to Gangotri & Mana (Badrinath).
We are planning a drive in Aug 09 with the following halts : Delhi-Udhampur-Srinagar-Kargil-Lamyaru-Leh- Jispu/Sarchu-Manali-Delhi.
Looking forward to some advice/experiences, specially regarding carrying of emergency oxygen, high altitude medicines etc etc.
Thanks. Rajiv

Rajiv,

We didnt have many problems with the passes and heights, only after 'Taglang La' pass both of us got headaches and some lightheadness. We didnt carry any emergency oxgyen, but maybe you should. The medicines we carried were crocin, something for mountain sickness (i think emcet), acetazolamide (injectable form with syringes and needles, this is a must because cerebral odema is an emergency can only be saved by this injection immediately and one cannot predict who will get it), salbutamol inhaler, antibiotics. Cant remember other drugs, if any. Carry a lot of bottled water for the journey and do drink a lot.
Also think about going the reverse route i.e from manali to leh to delhi. One the manali-leh route is way tougher than the leh-kargil-delhi route, so the hard work gets over first. From DElhi to Srinagar via Udhampur there is an option of going via some dam (i forget the name) please check whether that route is open as it was closed due to some Independence day threat for a week when we passed there in 2006. I dont know whether it is closed every year. We did take a large plastic can full of petrol. We couldnt get a metal can, i think it is available in some army areas of Delhi, if possible take the metal one, as the plastic can couldnt be sealed properly and with the non-existent roads, the swinging car always caused some leakage of petrol.
Will write later if i think of anything else.
Have a great trip (i call it the trip of our life)

Thank you Roshe !! That was very kind of you , and I have all the answers. Mom's quite unwell, so we have postponed the trip from 21 to 27 Aug 09. Hope we can pull it off before the "snow". Will send in a feed back if and when we go through it. Thanks a ton. Take care.

Hello,
What a great blog! You have taken some great photos. I am starting a blog for people interested in Buddhism, and I am wondering if I could use your image of the Maitreye Buddha statue in Thiksey?
Wishing you happy travels,
Matthew

Thanks Matthew. Please go ahead and use the photo for your blog.