The Leh–Manali Highway can be driven in two hard days. People do it every summer, and every summer some of them spend their first day in Leh horizontal, with a headache that no amount of garlic soup will fix. The road climbs from 2,050 metres in Manali to a 5,328-metre pass at Tanglang La — that is more altitude gain than most trekkers take on in a week, compressed into hours of sitting still in a car.
The rule we plan around
Above 3,000 metres, the guideline is simple: sleep no more than about 500 metres higher than you slept the night before, and take a rest day for every thousand metres gained. A two-day schedule breaks that rule twice before lunch on day two. Our seven-day itinerary exists to keep it.
That is why the first driving day out of Manali stops at Jispa, which sits at a considerate 3,200 metres, and why the day after is deliberately empty — a walk up the Bhaga valley, an afternoon of tea and nothing. It looks like a wasted day on a spreadsheet. It is the most important day of the trip.
What to watch for in yourself
Mild altitude sickness feels like a hangover you didn't earn: headache, poor sleep, no appetite. That is normal and it passes. What we watch for — and brief every traveller on — is the headache that doesn't respond to rest, breathlessness while sitting still, or confusion. Those mean one thing: go down, now. Our support vehicle carries oxygen and the crew makes that call without negotiation.
Small habits that help
Drink more water than feels reasonable; the high desert air strips it from you invisibly. Skip alcohol until Leh. Eat light and often — the body digests poorly up high. And drive the passes in the morning, not because of sickness but because of wind: Tanglang La in the afternoon is a different, angrier place.
None of this is complicated. It is just patience, planned in advance. The mountains decide the schedule; we simply agreed in writing.
