Until recently it had been necessary to drive all the way over Rohtang Pass, an infinity of switchbacks cresting at four thousand meters, then down an equal number of switchbacks into a hamlet on the upper Chenab at more like three thousand meters. From there the highway followed a maddeningly indirect route up into Ladakh, the water- and oxygen-starved province that bordered China. Remote and thinly populated as it was, Ladakh was connected to the rest of India in only a few places through which all traffic in and out of it was funneled. Hence all this traffic in the wee hours in what otherwise seemed like the middle of nowhere.