Rode to heaven ... Through hell-Day 4

The mechanic took a grueling 6 hours yesterday...no,no...not on the bikes, but to wait for the turn. Eventually I had to fix half the bike myself. I realized, The route is a killer and almost 10 bikes at the mechanic shop had only 2 problems, worn out clutch plates and disc brake pads.

Thanks to the mechanic and the weather(it's cold and one doesn't feel thirsty), I get up with a hangover sort of headache. I drink a lot of water and take a tablet to avoid altitude sickness as we will be gaining a lot of altitude today.
Looking at the sky brings some relief and a smile, it's sunny.

A fly hovers around my cup of tea, a begger begs next to me, with one hand I shove away the fly and with other hand make a roll of my parantha and push it down my throat. My rubber gum boot bites me at 2 places and I imagine my feet having blisters like Karishma's on the saurkundi trek.

We are informed that the bridge has collapsed but the BRO (border roads organization) has repaired the road somehow to allow traffic to pass. There is a stream of water about 2 feet high to be crossed to continue towards Leh.

For next few hours it's only nice roads, dry weather and the thud-thud of bullet.
There are many bad patches of roads that we cross, mainly the pain is water crossing where you cross water streams of high speed flowing water about 2 feet high and 10 to 20 meters wide.

We are joined by another british couple who occasionally need our help at the water crossings.

Our target for today is Pang and by 8 pm we are just about 10 kilometers away from it when we see there is a patch of road about 20 meters wide washed away by water. There is a whole river flowing where a few hours ago used to be a road. I try to step in to see how deep the water is and am almost swallowed by the river. The water is only knee deep but the flow is so fast I can't stand there for a second. The water is super super super cold and terrible fast flowing and if this was not all, we are at 15000 feet and oxygen is scarce. Ever blown at an ant sitting on your hand and itching you???? We felt like that....We have just 2 options, cross it risking life or die here of hypothermia.
We park our bikes on this side and form a human chain and one step at a time cross the stream heavily panting and thanking ourself we are alive.
Now all 5 of us grab 1 bike with full force at a time and with slow and firm feet cross the river stream, come back, take the second bike(which almost fell off), come back take the third bike (and everytime my gum boots get filled with ice cold water and I empty them again and again and cry with pain from cold) and this whole process takes half an hour and my feet are numb. They are so numb I can't feel them(those who did saurkundi trek with me will understand) and request my t-shirt to be burnt with petrol to get some heat, unfortunately the match box is wet and the lighter doesn't work due to lack of oxygen...ggrrrhhhh.....I scream out at god for few minutes....
Half dead I reach Pang and like god was listening to my painful groan, there is a stove lit outside the tent we plan to live in. I warm my feet and since I can't feell them, I actually end up burning them a little....
Dinner and sleep, forget about them ..the lack of oxygen is working on us, almost all of us feel all the symptoms of altitude sickness.....including the bikes.... The combustion inside the bikes is half done and this has reduced the bullets to a mere hero-puch at this altitude.
I sleep but with cold feet and difficulty in breathing.