As the photos taken at Baralacha will bear
witness, it started to rain while we were up there. So we finished the photo
shoot quickly and started our descent. The rain got heavier as we descended, so
when we came to a little tented teashop we decided to pop in and have some tea
and possibly wait the rain out.
Like most shops in the area, this was also a
restaurant-cum-hotel. You could have tea, coffee or snacks there and you could
also, if you wanted, rent a bunk for the night. Hilton it was not, but with the
rain washing the ground away outside and the warmth of the clean, soft beds
inside, it seemed better than Hilton to us.
[Photo 90 – The shop in Bharatpur, restaurant in
front, beds around the periphery of the circular tent.]
While we were having the tea, the rain turned
into a real downpour and this added motivation to stay here for the night even
though it meant deviating from the original plan.
Baralacha top is at a height of 16,500 feet and
sticking to our strategy of sleeping slightly higher than the previous night we
were planning to descend to Sarchu and sleep there. Sarchu is just about 14000
feet so this would have been perfect for us considering we spent the last night
in Keylong at a height of 11,000 feet. It matters to your body at what altitude
you sleep each night during the upward journey. Advisable height-difference is
900-1000 feet every night.
If you climb too high too quickly your body
cannot adjust to it and then there is such a thing as High Altitude Sickness.
It’s much more serious than just giddiness or nausea and in its severest form
may cause the patient to go up to meet his ancestors!
There were a few factors that forced us to
change this plan, one of them being our unwillingness to step back out into the
rain and drive further. Another factor was meeting Dennis there who was going
to spend the night there and was good company. One more factor, though it seems
downright stupid in hindsight, was the price factor. We found out that the
price for a bed in Sarchu was 5 times the price of a bed that was available to
us there.
While the difference in the prices compared on
percentage basis was 500%, actually the amount was so small even in Indian
currency that it was ridiculous and foolish for us to consider that. The cost
of a bed for the night in Bharatpur was 20Rs., roughly equal to about 28
pennies of a British pound, roughly equal to about 40 US cents. Five times that
would be 100 Rs., about 1 and a half pounds or 2 US dollars.
All in all we decided to spend the night in the
tent and that was that. We would have driven through a storm if we knew what it
would really cost!
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