Having decided to leave Menchukha a couple of days earlier than originally planned, it suddenly got dearer. The continuous rain did not help though. Woke up to an interesting sun rise toward the Yorlung side. Snapped a quick mobile phone photo before leaving Menchukha Valley at about 0800 hours. No more new insect bites. Picked up a bit of the local alcoholic brew called “Chhang”, which is made from rice. It is slightly sweet and fruity and I didn’t drink enough to figure out how strong the alcohol is but I can imagine it would be easy to drink a LOT without realizing.
The previous day had brought tragic news from Tawang, which is also in Arunachal Pradesh, where more than a dozen people lost their lives due to a landslide. Even in Menchukha, it had been raining pretty much non-stop for more than 24 hours and I was wondering whether we should delay our departure, wait for the rains to slow down.
We didn’t have to delay our departure luckily, the sun shone the morning we were leaving and while the previous days’ rains had done some damage to the roadside, most of our drive, although bumpy, was uneventful.
A couple of fresh landslides were being cleared by the BRO as we drove to Kaying where we would be spending a night before proceeding to Aalong. Pretty blue skies and white clouds accompanied us but it got grey and rainy as we reached Kaying.
Was definitely a good idea to get rid of both my inner layers of thermal wear before leaving Menchukha. It gets exponentially warmer as one moves away from Menchukha toward Aalong.
