Ladakh Marathon Trip - Day 5

• Early we raise, that day getting ready to take up a travel to pangong lake, planning to leave by 7:30 AM, had an early breakfast and hopped on to our respective cars
• Tried and sneaked into one of the cars to get the front seat so that I can get some of my writing done, and managed to cover up for quite a bit

• Many were so interested to get to the Pangong lake, for its familiarity were the Climax Scene of 3 idiots was shot, not knowing the long drive that we had to go through
• It was totally 185 kms from leh to pangong lake, with majority of it through ghat roads, with some parts being washed away and some parts being worked upon by the Border Roads organisation

• Briefly did we stop at a tea shop and munching stuffs, when we were told that the lunch stop just 5 kms away, we had a nice lunch, first chance to meet all the fellow runners other than hyderabad runners
• After lunch, headed out towards the lake, soon after few kms we had a glimpse of the lake, by fact 40% of the lake is in the Indian territory and 60% by china.

• We were appraised by the driver that we will reach the camp in some time, but after off roading, he went on and on and every single person in every car for sure would have lost patience
• It was like the climax scene which had suspense to just have a glimpse of some camp site, finally after close to an hour's off roading ride we reach our camp site
• We dump our baggage into our respective tents and settle for a high tea, was a great relief after a long drive
• Quickly we set out to walk along the lake, tons of photos clicked, myself , gupta and balaji went on walking along the stretch to the level of covering over 3 kms or so. It was nice and different views

• Walking across some sections along the shore I felt like getting stuck into quicksand, the layers were like that it gives such instant feeling
• We climbed on to a high spot, where we had quite a different view, awesome feeling, lying on our back, with wide lake in the foreground and pale blue sky up, what a serene experience it was
• We potentially walked for around 2 hours, and soon to be joined by madhu, devyani and santhoshi, we tried to find our way back to our camp jumping over some fences :)
• Soon did madhu realize that she hasn't run at all, starting running towards the camp, only to stop few hundred meters ahead :)

• We finally sneak into our camp, settle in for dinner, everybody was getting introduced to runners from other parts of the country.
• Our own Uday was potentially overselling runners from Hyderabad runners group and luring folks to register for Hyderabad marathon.

• We did see one of the folk struggling to breath, later to realize that he was really low on oxygen levels and also potentially had infection, doctors in the crowd was helping out to get him back to normal.
• Gupta having first hand experience with high altitude sickness during his trek in roopkhund, was worried about the guy, checking the camp site owner and doctor about the potential evacuation plan.

• Upon inquiry is when we realized that there was NO evacuation plan set in place and the tour organizers did not even have the basic stuffs like stethoscope, BP monitor which the doctor was asking the tour organizer. A feedback to the tour organizers for sure
• Had a awesome dinner, the tastiest food that we had all over the trip, with some veg mamoos and hot soup, was a tasty dinner, with prolonged conversations with fellow runners.

• While we were busy having dinner, few of the Air-India pilots who were on their road trip , were there into our camp kitchen to invite the whole crowd for a bonfire.
• Post dinner few of our folks set out to the bonfire, it was a clear sky, pitch dark, with umpteen number of stars to sight with a sight of milky way as well.

• We spent some time around the bonfire, with the really drunk pilots, who were happy to have some company. We headed back by around 11 PM and crashed into our beds

We were to wake up by 5:30AM the next day to have a sunrise walk, so all set into their tents.