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2003-06-22 - Road to Leh (Day 2) - Kelong - Jispa (Day 68)

We continue on down the road passing the village of Gemer with the distances between tea stalls widening completely and signs of civilization quickly dropping off. At the only tea stop on the way, we are passed by some other foreigners on bikes heading to Leh, with a Nigerian and his pet monkey on one bike and to my delight a woman riding an Enfield on her own. It brings a smile to see a woman get out on a bike and dare to ride in country like this just because so few would undertake the challenge. We get into Jispa just after noon, pleased with an easy ride and feeling good. Paul suggests we stop here even though we have only gone 23 km, which proves to be genius. If I had been alone not knowing what was ahead I would have pushed on as the distance to the next stop at Sarchu doesn't appear to be a big problem on the map, that would have been a disaster which could have even been life threatening.

The hotel at Jispa is the last Hotel for the next couple of hundred kilometers and the owner is not budging the expensive rooms. We have no other choice and he knows it and we end up paying much more then the rooms deserved. After a walk into town, which proves to be very tiring even though it was short due to the altitude, which leaves us breathless, we return to the hotel for lunch, as it seemed that the 2 km into Jispa proper to look for a restaurant and another 2km back would have been too tiring. The food at the Jispa hotel turns out to be about the same quality as the hotel - ok, but very over priced, but things really deteriorate when after the power goes out, there is a high-pitched wine from somewhere, which pierces the nerves of both Jo and myself. Headache fully in force we eat dinner and head off to an early bed. I'm up late doing photo-retouching which proves to be a problem as at 1 am, just an hour after falling asleep someone is yelling in the hallways waking me, at 3am another jeep arrives who sounds his horn for a good 10 minutes waking up the entire hotel before the hotel staff goes and unlocks the front doors. Sunrise comes and finds us all in a bit of a testy mood due to the poor sleep.

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