Drinking whisky makes driving risky! ---HP police sign

Namaste! I'm in Leh, Ladakh. We FINALLY made it! we had a very interesting taxi ride...somewhere in the middle of Himachal Pradesh we spent the night in a Nepali woman's hut/restaurant because the Jammu & Kashmir police don't let you cross their border at night or some crap like that. psh...whatev...it's just a little war! ;) JOKING.
Okay so we got into Manali and rented a private taxi to take us from Manali to Leh overnight. "yeah yeah, as you like, no problem. Overnight, nonstop....yeah yeah as you like no problem." were the taxi drivers exact words. Turns out there is a big problem. The road is, as he said, risky...we saw two overturned dump trucks that had fallen down the cliffside....and at a town called Sachu (something like that at least) the Jammu & Kashmir (JK) police checkpoint apparently doesn't open until daylight. At about 8pm we arrived, with our very happy and energetic driver Rama, to a town called Darcha. And by town I mean tents along a river. and by tents I mean blue tarps on sticks with indoor lighting, benches for a restaurant and a few beds. We're so happy that we took this woman's advice and stayed. It was the best night's sleep I've had in a week and the road really was "risky". We fell right to sleep after some veg & cheese paratha, about 9pm, and woke up at 3am to finish off the remaining 12hrs of our trip. oi veh.
Until daylight we climbed. The road is like the Hana Highway on steroids. It's more narrow, there are fuel trucks every few kilometers that we had to inch around, there are waterfalls that have overtaken parts of the road, and it's through Kashmir. 'Nough said. But wow was it beautiful! I can't begin to explain the scenery and how it was constantly changing. I believe I took about 200 pictures at least and will upload them if I remembered to bring the uploader-thingy. The road went through timber to desert to snow-capped peaks and back again. Rock cliffs shot up vertically out of the ground. There was a lake with a perfect reflection that we came upon around dawn. Glaciers bumped up against the road, threatening to recapture their territory.
Sleep was unattainable. The car rolled over the rocky terrain and the unfinished roads. About every 5 kilometers or less there was an "inconvenience regretted" sign put up by the Himachal Pradesh government. There were also awesome signs like "divorce your speed" - because clearly speed and the Leh-Manali road have irreconcilable differences - and "drinking whisky makes driving risky." There were other great ones that I wrote down but don't have with me at the moment.
At around noon we ascended to the second highest "road" pass in the world...topping out at over17,o00 ft. All I could think is, (1) if this is a "road" pass, that means there are other kinds of passes according to the Indian government definition. Mule pass? Horse pass? foot path...god forbid. I about kissed my jeep! and (2) oh well hello altitude sickness! Where have you been all my life?! My head experienced two very conflicting afflictions: light headedness & skull expansion. Like my brain was both gone and trying to make a break for it out the side of my skull! Katie and I immediately took our meds the chemist in Manali gave to us...a double dose. I layed down after that ordeal.
When I awoke, I could have been on the road by Wells Dam for all I knew! Seriously! That priest who said Kashmir looked like our little slice of heaven was right! About an hour further on down the road I could have been on the Chelan highway...only with a much smaller river racing alongside the road. It's the same confused state of mountains and desert meets a river valley. The snowcapped Himalayas are taller than the cascades but the Indus River is nothing compared to our mighty Columbia (roll on Columbia, roll on!). Finally, around 4pm, we made it to Leh! Praise Jesus! We have a cosy room for the night and took showers. Tomorrow at 5pm we leave for Srinagar. We'll get in to Srinagar, the capital of JK, around 8am.