Camp Drilbu resort located a mere kilometer from the gas station is a stupendous resort perched on a hill overlooking the Chandrabhaga river and the highway. It is here that we stopped for a chai break. 
The camp was hustling with activity as a Korean tour group led by a rather beautiful Korean tour guide had just docked. We would have loved to spend the night at the camp (not because of the Korean tour guide but because of the beauty of the place) but there was a room already awaiting us at Hotel Chandrabhaga, just a few kilometers down the road at Keylong.
When we reached our hotel at Keylong twenty minutes later, the sun was playing a game of hide and seek, the birds were singing and a cool breeze was blowing. There was both magic and romance in the air. Hotel Chandrabhaga offers a majestic view of four snow capped peaks and of the Kardang monastery. Although there was no electricity at the hotel, we enjoyed every moment of our stay there. The staff was so friendly that it almost felt like home. The rooms were rather huge, the toilets clean and the furniture quite neatly laid out for the price.
Day Three
Day three got off to a rather slow start. Ashok was down with a headache and by the time he had dispelled it with the aid of five cups of tea and two sinister looking pills it was way past 8. The road from Keylong to Sarchu where we would halt for the night was something right out of an adventure storyteller’s book. It takes one over Baralachala Pass situated at a height of 15,750 feet. Driving through these narrow and treacherous roads is an experience. The roads are so narrow that on many 
an occasion we had to back-up for traffic (especially army convoys) coming from the opposite direction to pass. The Endeavour performed admirably in these inhospitable terrains, but there were times when you wished that there was a bigger engine with more horsepower under the hood.
At Patseo we stopped at Deepak Tal whose water was so blue and crystal clear that you could see yourself in it. I dared to step into the water and my legs went numb almost instantaneously. Two German bikers coolly undressed and jumped into the lake, and one even began to hum a tune and shampoo his head as if he had been taking showers in near frozen lakes, 12,000 feet above sea level all his life.
The snaking and long winding roads, the massive peaks staring down at you, the glorious cascading waterfalls and the glaciers conspire to make a scenery that is simply out of this world. If there is a heaven then I am quite certain it would look like this.
The road from Patseo onwards is quite dusty and rugged and the ride gets really bumpy. The SUV suddenly transforms into a pogo stick. And then came Gemur glacier and suddenly the unpleasantness of the bumpy ride and the involuntary jumping around inside the car seemed absolutely worthwhile to 
say the least. Here we were, standing with our hands rested on our hips and shaking our heads incredulously at the stupefying beauty of the glacier. Gemur glacier is another one of those sights that make you stand and gape in awe at god’s craftsmanship. Ashok zoomed the lenses of his SLR to the limit and captured some stunning images of the top the glacier, wherein the frozen ice were contoured in the form of tombstones. Surreal as the scene was, there was also a hint of morbidness to it, you couldn’t help but draw resemblance with an icy graveyard.
Lunch station was at Bharati’s Dhaba at Bharatpur. Bharati turned out to be an amiable women with rosy pink cheeks who was bad at math (it took her ten minutes to calculate our bill with the help of Sharmaji ). Lunch was followed by a quick nap at the Dhaba which was more like a tent fully kitted with mattresses and blankets which we found too hard to resist. What was to be a quick nap turned into a proper afternoon siesta and if Sharmaji had not woken us up we never would have got to Sarchu that day.
During the drive from Bharatpur to Sarchu we were left flabbergasted at the dramatic beauty of the jagged and barren mountains that took astounding shapes and sizes. The land was so barren that it almost resembled a desert at some places. The mountains looked like they were made of loose earth and as if coming off. They were an interesting play of light brown hues with not a single blade of grass on them. Sharmaji who doubled up as our guide informed us that they were mud-mountains that could not withstand rain and would collapse in the event of heavy rainfall.
We reach Baralacha La, which means the big pass at an altitude of 16500 ft. Both the Chandra and Bagha originate from here to become Chandrabhaga at Tandi that gets renamed as Chenab in J&K. A sign-board ominously tells you, “You are about to descend. Check your brakes now.”
We take one last look at the awesome scene of the myriad stones piled up one on top of another on our left in great numbers and start descending. We realize we are entering a land very few have witnessed. The road snakes around the mountains on one side and the river on the other-and this is no mean river. The banks seem to have been carved out with a giant knife leaving a deep gorge-like feeling. This was certainly our version of The Grand Canyon.
