I am sitting down wearing a T-shirt which
has a bike and biker’s logo both positioned in the sun with the word
‘KHARDUNGLA’ boldly embroidered and almost screaming at you in your face. For
those who do not know what ‘KHARDUNGLA’ is, the shirt specifies, ‘KHARDUNGLA’,
‘Highest motor able road in the world’, ‘Ladakh’ at 18380 feet and it’s
been almost a week since am back from this incredibly adventurous
and at times torturously long ride on my 11 year old, 2 stroke Yamaha
RXZ. This is every bikers dream, and my story of the 10 minutes to personal
glory and triumph.
Note-- This ride was done in 2011 but uploading my triplog finally in 2012 :)
Note-- This ride was done in 2011 but uploading my triplog finally in 2012 :)
It all started in 2006 when I got my first
job after finishing B-school that I had money to burn petrol and do some small,
mid-distance bike touring around Pune. As I progressed from one small adventure
ride to another, the longest being my Pune-Bangalore solo 1600kms, it always
was at the back of my mind that, I have to go to Ladakh and ride to Khardungla
top. I did attempt for this biker’s glory consecutively from the last 3 years
but it never happened. On the first occasion in 2008, I was in Gurej valley
above Kargil sector in J&K and was scheduled to travel with an army convoy
to Leh and hire a bike there and ride to Khardungla, but at the last minute
when I reached Srinagar from the Kanzalwan sector, the Amarnath yatra shrine
row broke out. During my second attempt in 2009, a guy contacted me via my blog
and asked if I wanted to join their group to Ladakh and I was ready, but this
was peak recession time and I was on bench for 2 months and had just been
assigned to a project when the trip was to commence and thought it would not be
wise to request for 2 weeks plus leave, so again plan shelved. IN 2010, well
not exactly my 3rd attempt , but the cloud burst happened in Leh, so
thankfully it was a blessing in disguise that I wanted to go, had not planned,
would have planned, but nature halted everyone.
In June 2011, finally the ride I wanted to
do and then probably semi-retire from biking happened. I was in touch with the
same guy who contacted me in 2009 and went to Ladakh; he said he will go again
after 2 years. I spoke to him in June 2010 and he said, 1 more year left to go.
I was hoping I could go this time, but did not keep any high hopes, as I have
realized, its best to keep low expectations and then chances are bright you
exceed at at least a few however small they might be. We were also in touch via
gtalk. As 1 year turned to only 1 month left to go, I was just neutral in my
mind and trust was packing and preparing till the very last minute I departed
from Pune. Initially about 7-8 bikers were to come along, but in the end when
the final hour arrived, it was only 3 including me who were to travel this
mammoth distance of 6000kms over 18 days. Out of the 3 , 2 of us were to start
from Pune and the 3 rd guy from Thane. Both these guys were related and I had
met them once each before we were to ride together for 18 days, but what
actually happened is a different story. A detailed plan was prepared and shared
with me about the do’s, don’ts, what to get, what to avoid, for the bike and
the biker along with the entire trip itinerary with approximate distances,
duration and place names to be covered in a day. My bike was giving some
problems, the mechanic guy did a good oil treatment job and things seemed ok.
But after my short visit home to Nagpur I discovered the 2t oil pipe to the
engine piston chamber was cracked and this caused vibration, and engine bearing
noise besides oil leakage. Again the bike was in the garage , but when I got
it, I was still not happy as I heard some constant sound while riding. So
about 2 days before our trip, me and my fiancée spent around 2 hours at the
mechanic again and discovered that the front tyre bearings needed to be changed
along with the chain sprocket one. Rest I had got new clutch, brake cables and
oil, petrol pipes fitted. The garage owner, a young guy advised me to take the
following spares along, a tyre tube, brake & clutch cable, brake &
clutch lever, which I did along with 2 engine oil cans and three 2t oil cans.
Finally I felt the bike is going smooth after addition of neulon and bardahl
addictive directly in the fuel tank as mine is a 2 stroke bike. The bike seemed
ok, but still packing was left, the plan was I was to attend office and leave
early on 15th June and then around 5 pm, leave for Thane from Pune.
Day1- 15th JunePune
–Thane -150kms I left for office early
and was happy with how smooth the bike was running, seemed almost like new. I
had registered for a compulsory certification which every employee has to do
and planned to leave after I got over with that. Fortunately for me, I secured
70% and 70% was the pass percentage, so I heaved a sigh a relief and was in an
upbeat mood. My fiancée was to come to my place to help me with packing and other
general stuff, she was kind enough to buy me a raincoat, gloves, socks, waist
pouch, bandana for head, recharge my prepaid mobile, and see me off.
We met at Vanaz corner on Paud road (me and
the other guy from Pune) and left around 5.15pm for Thane. While nearing
Lonavala it started raining, but it was fine as we had our raincoats on.
Besides I had wrapped my main big bag in a bike’s cover (used to cover a bike
in a parking lot) and the back pack in a polethene and all items inside these
bags were further in polethene bags. The octopus strings deserve a special
mention as they held the bags securely. Our first halt was at Lonavala where
the weather demanded that we have some tea and kanda bhaji (onion pakodas). It
was nice and lush green, but soon after our tea, as we went further, it got
dark and it began pouring torrentially with fog all around to complicate
issues. Things were such that even a giant truck and trailer were not visible
at a hand’s distance. The bike’s headlights reflected the fog and created an
impression as though some haunted film is being shot. But despite the heavy
rain and extremely poor visibility we rode on , entered the Pune-Mumbai
expressway briefly via Khopoli and later Mumbai. I was not aware of the road so
was just following the other guy. The rain stopped for 5 minutes and it was a
relief , but it started again and this time was even more relentless. It was
dark as hell with wind, heavy rain, but thankfully the fog problem ended after
Khopoli ,I was glad I had covered my petrol tank cap with a small piece of
plastic so that rain water does not percolate inside and cause problems. All
went well, soon we hit Mumbai city and were in Thane at the other guys place
for dinner and our night halt around 10 or 10.30 pm at night as there was a
massive traffic jam we encountered in Mumbai en-route to his house.
We had dinner, some chit chat, and slept
around 12 am, I could not really fall asleep, and slept in patches.
Day2 16th June Thane- Bayad (
Gujarat) 550kms approx
We woke up around 4.30 or 5am on the 16th
of June and again tied our bags on the bike and got prepared to face more
water, the rain gods were not yet done with us. I deiced to empty a can of 2t
oil and that’s when I discovered, someone had tried to steal petrol from my
bike and the petrol pipe was unplugged from the filter side. This was fixed by
the Thane rider for me, but now I first had to re-fuel. The bikes started; no
issue there. Three coconuts was broken, one for each bike as we were officially
commencing our journey to the Himalayas from Thane. Later two temples were
visited in quick succession, one happened to be closed; in the other we just
said our prayers from the outside. Two coconuts were again broken, one at each
temple and I began wondering, how many coconuts is this guy carrying and asked,
‘anymore coconut breaking halts?”
Oh yes before I forget, the plan was to
reach Himmatnagar, around 600kms from Thane on the Rajasthan –Gujarat border.
It was sort of decided that I will ride in the middle as I was not aware of the
roads at all. The rains just refused to leave us alone and it was muddy,
slippery, with trucks and traffic even at that early hour and the Pune guy fell
off from his bike as I reckon a truck over took him dangerously. We discovered
this as we did not see him after around 2 minutes, so his relative, the Mumbai
fellow went looking for him and saw what happened. It seems he injured his foot
during this early fall and had a wound. Later just minutes later, my bike
swerved like a helicopter in between the uneven gap on the concrete road, but
luckily I did not fall, but was a tense moment no doubt. Several petrol pumps
were closed along the way, and we tanked up at the first one we found open. It
was an Indian oil pump and after re-fuelling there, I felt the smoothness of
the ride reduced a bit, so decided to fill petrol at Hindustan petroleum or
Bharat petroleum pumps later. There was water, water and more water from the
skies with poor visibility, wet slippery roads and trucks for company. We
halted at Vapi in Gujarat for some breakfast around 11am and we were glad it
was not raining. I had some of the best Medu Vada sambar I have ever had till
date in that restaurant on the highway. The vadas were fresh, tender and tasty.
I had another plate of them as the restaurant manager spoke to us and asked us
about what seemed to one and all ‘crazy plan’. The rain had stopped, I took off
my rain coat and my jeans and t-shirt dried off in the sunny climate. I was
going at my own comfortable pace on the highway, I thought the other 2 guys
were going fast, they thought I was going slow, but I stuck to my pace. I would
catch up with them wherever they stopped for tea/coffee ahead of me.
After our breakfast, as we entered deeper
into Gujarat, the skies turned black again, luckily my rain coat was straddled
in between one of the octopus strings, so took it off and wore it before the
clouds decided to empty their content at an accelerated pace. On going ahead, I
found that the Mumbai guy’s bike was parked and both the guys were fidgeting on
it. On reaching closer, I discovered, it would not start as water had
percolated into the petrol tank, mostly while driving in the heavy rains. He
tried loosening the screw of the carburetor and letting the contents (lots of
water initially and petrol later) to come out and then started his bike again.
It worked and we thought all is well, but later it broke down again, same
problem. I was ahead so did not know of this, till I called one of them,
thankfully we had constant cell phone range on the highway. His bike was taken
to the nearest petrol pump and the fuel tank emptied and then refilled; this
resulted in about a 2 hour loss in time. I took some service roads and bought
some Vaseline, more 2t oil cans and had some jack fruit etc near Surat on the
highway itself. Later on when I again stopped for a cold drink as it began to
get hot and sweaty, and called one of the guys, he gave his location and I
discovered, they were ahead of me by around some 20kms near Ankleshwar and had
stopped on the highway for me. I caught up with them and we had some lunch
around 4pm. It was a Muslim guy’s restaurant, we ordered only daal tadka and
rice, but it was wonderful. I must say, we had nice food all along the trip. I
soon discovered, these guys drove fast, but took too many halts and I drove at
my comfortable pace, but hardly took any halts, so would catch up with them
soon, but was mostly driving alone. Our next planned halt was Ahmadabad, but
these guys lost their way and whatever road we took, were not sure of it.
Anyway we halted later for dinner around 9pm and had fantastic pav bhaji again.
The guys are for road and directions and it was pitch dark, we were lagging on
our plan of covering 600kms due to the bike break down, inclement monsoon and
lost road. We kept asking for directions and took some internal roads which
were pitch dark, narrow and started our night driving with blinding truck
lights and I must say I hate night driving plainly due to visibility issues. In
one patch, the road was good, but it was like the highway was in a black hole
and I was following a truck as the intensity of the blinding light from the
opposite side and risk of some mishap due to overtaking reduces at least for me
and it works for me. That’s when I heard a loud ‘thud’ sound. It just took me a
second to realize that my backpack had fallen down, I was driving around
50-60kmph , my Yamaha is an old one with the old brake technology, so I stopped
around 20 meters ahead and then turned back to fetch my backpack. Luckily the road
was empty, else who knows, some truck would have trampled all the contents of
my back pack. I found it bang in the middle of the road, picked it up quickly
before any vehicle came from either direction and loosely attached the strings
again. It was around 11.30pm, with nobody around, suddenly 2 people came
walking out of the dark as I was tying my bag back, they said something in
Gujarati, but before I could hear them clearly, I kick started my bike and
left. You never know what their intentions might be, even though it appeared
they had come to help. I found the guys ahead as the dark but nice road ended
and merged in another village road where everyone was having tea. The tea stall
guy gave instructions of the road ahead. The road was horrible and narrow, just
potholes, dust and it was dark so we had to be careful of trucks and their
blinding lights. There were lots of thud sounds from the shock absorbers of the
bike and the engine fender at the bottom and nobody fell, but we were all
worried about a flat tyre. Finally after again asking for directions, some
truck drivers told us that we could stay at a guest house in Bayada and it was
around 10-15 kms ahead. All of us were tired and wanted to rest a little, this
horrible road in the dark was irritating and it was hot as hell. We arrived at
Bayada and located the guest house on the main road itself and stayed there for
the night. The guest house was again pathetic, in fact some other guy would
have vomited, but after slightly more than 600km ride in the rain, heat, dark
on shitty roads, you just fall asleep. We discovered we had gone ahead of
Himmatnagar, our target for the day despite the issues, so was a little
satisfying also and we were on schedule, so this is how our first day ended.
Day3- 17th June
Bayad(Gujarat) -100kms short of Jaipur (500kms approx) We left from that shitty guesthouse in the morning around 7.30
am. I remember after having a bath, I was drenched again in sweat, it was hot
and humid. I refueled my tank and mostly followed this routine every morning as
my bike is infamous for its low average which it provides with the zip of the
accelerator. We soon stopped in another village where a state bank ATM
was present and I was advised to take out some cash if I was running low on it
while the guys were sipping some sugar cane juice. Soon I joined them for the
same, trust me again, it was a heavenly feeling, I will always remember this
glass of sugarcane juice I had in that Gujarat village. It was fresh, cold
super tasty; off course I had another glass before we set out. As we mounted on
our bikes, a man in his 50’s asked us “where are these bikes from?” as he saw
the MH registration on each. Soon he was told, 2 of us are from Pune, and the 3rd
guy from Mumbai. It turned out that he was also from some district in
Maharashtra, the name I do not recollect now and spoke to us in Marathi and
insisted we have tea with him. He was if I remember correctly, a garage owner.
I reckon he consumed 15-20mins of our time before we set out again. We asked for
some directions and on day 2 our destination was to be Jaipur, which was again
some 600kms away.
As we drove we encountered the usual,
lovely farms on either side of the road, fortunately the road was good and I
was again at my own pace, with the other two guys ahead of me. I encountered a
sign board which said ‘Tropic of Cancer’ passes through here. But sadly, I did
not stop and take a picture of this interesting bit of trivia for god knows
what reason. Soon we were almost on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border and this is
where I got my first photo after 1.5 days of riding clicked with a signboard
which gave distances of Gandhi nagar, Himmatnagar, Udaipur and Shamlaji in the
background. The former 2 places are in Gujarat and latter 2 in Rajasthan.
Thankfully it was not raining but it was getting hotter every minute. We soon
came across a board which said ‘welcome to Rajasthan’ and again took one odd
shot here. We were around 120 kms from Udaipur and 520 kms from Jaipur
respectively at that signboard. There was a small ghat thereafter on which I
saw a long trailer which had met with an accident after crashing into the
divider railing of the highway. Soon ahead I stopped at another milestone
signboard which said Jaipur is 500kms away on the NH-8 highway. I requested a
lad passing by to take a 2-3 pictures. After this was done when I sat on the
bike, to my horror I discovered I had a flat tyre and was alone as the other
two guys never rode as a group and always went ahead. Thankfully I had a flat
tyre about 50m away from a petrol pump where there was a puncture fellow
too. Instead of getting the puncture fixed I decided to use the new tyre
tube I had carried along. Fortunately on the highway, there was cell phone
range so could inform the guys about my situation. They said they are waiting
at another village ahead for me. Thank god the flat tyre happened in Rajasthan
where people speak Hindi else I had a problem communicating with the locals in
Gujarati in Gujarat, they would not speak Hindi and I could not speak nor
understand the fast spoken village Gujarati. When the guy fixed the puncture
and I sat back on the bike, but heard a disturbing noise from the chain side
and promptly turned back to the puncture fellow, finally we decided to remove
the lower casing of the chain and keep the upper casing as this was causing the
noise due to rubbing of the chain against the lower casing. He told me to get
the lower casing fixed if I wanted at the next village, so I carried it after
plugging it in the octopus strings. I soon found the guys at the next village
and we all had some good buttermilk there, this time not the best in the world
like the vadas, sugarcane juice but decent. Later on I saw some images which
were quite common but strange and new to me, I saw that dozens of people were
stuffed in and hanging outside dangerously on Mahindra jeeps on the highway.
This was a mode to ferry people and even the ladies were found dangling from
the doors of the jeeps, was quite a sight. It was around 2 pm and as we rode
ahead on the good roads of Rajasthan I saw small shops which said Desi aur
Angezi shabrab milti hai and a line below which said thandi beer milti hai,
meaning you can get country as well as Indian made foreign liquor along with
chilled beer here. The peculiarity of all shops was that they all had huge bars
on the outside like a prison and the shop keeper provided you with whatever you
wanted through these bars. It was so hot, that I was tempted for a nice chilled
beer, so I stopped at one such shop and nice a nice chilled beer with some
local Bikaneri sev. It felt awesome after riding in such hot conditions, but
thankfully of good roads in Rajasthan to be sipping on beer. Once I was
finished, and I sat back on the bike again, I remember, I rode like a robot
else I was getting frustrated due to the heat of Rajasthan, but the beer made
me into a robot and my hand was on the accelerator and I did not mind the heat
any more. When I caught up with the guys, I was again told that they had missed
some road and we had taken some other route, but I was cool courtesy the
chilled beer. We rode on again and found the highway again leading to Jaipur
and Delhi. The roads were good and we were all going at our own comfortable
pace. Our next halt was supposed to be Udaipur and I by mistake went inside
Udaipur city as I did not spot the guys were supposedly waiting for me on the
highway below one of the signboards. I however had a giant glass which was fit
for a demon of sugarcane juice again and the glass thrilled me no end, I have
taken a picture of this glass, trust me it was huge, from top to bottom its
height was that of a half liter bottle of cold drink. Later I called the guys
and headed back for the highway where they were waiting for me. Day driving on
good roads despite the hot weather is so much better than night driving on good
roads. Oh yes, I almost forgot to add, on the way from Udaipur to Jaipur on the
highway, there were several marbles rocks and neatly cut pieces on display for
sale. Marble stones cut into squares, rectangles as mini temples, idols on the
highway for purchase and believe me, it must have been for a minimum of 5-8kms
I saw continuously saw only white marble, after all marble is what drives the
economy of Rajasthan is what villagers on the highway told me. In fact there
were some good marble stones on the stretch that I was tempted to get down and
pick up one odd stone as a souvenir, but I did not. There were also some
trailers with some different cargo here, off course, huge and I mean uncut
marble rocks which were the size of a tractor on their way to some marble
cutting and polishing unit, it was quite a sight. I remember we stopped
for dinner at around 9pm and were still 200kms from Jaipur which was our
destination for the night. Here I must mention, I had lovely chola bhaturas, we
were planning to stay at a hotel adjacent to the restaurant we had our dinner,
but there was no vacancy. So the other guy from Pune decided, we are still
200kms from our destination and due to my flat tyre lost out on 1 hour, so we
ride till Jaipur 100kms away board appears and stop there for the night. It was
10pm , the roads were good, but again the blinding lights of trucks and a
little fatigue, however I rode alone at my own pace , stopped after every
50-60kms , stretched my arms, had some water at an HP petrol pump and finally
around 12pm caught up with the guys who were looking for a hotel to stay at
12pm at night, luckily we got one and a decent one this time unlike the vomit
inducing place of the previous night. It was a mini resort with a nice lawn,
and hills in the back ground. We unloaded our bags and crashed.
Day 4- 18Juneth 100kms
short of Jaipur- Chandigarh (600kms approx) When
I woke up next morning and as per my daily routine went to empty half liter of
2t oil into my bike, I saw that the rear tyre was shaking, I felt this during
the previous night, but could not do anything at night. Actually the nut which
held the tyre firmly was loose and I suspect the puncture guy had not fixed
this tightly, so went to a puncture fellow whom I found on the way about
2kms away and got it fixed. We stopped for some breakfast, this time early,
when I discovered that the pune guy was feeling sleepy while riding so it was
his idea to stop at this road side dhaba for some early breakfast. However
nobody complained as we were served delicious aloo parathas sliced as though a
pizza was being delivered again by a Muslim guy. Our destination on day 3
was to be Chandigarh and we started about 100kms short of Jaipur. I was only
told we were headed to Jaipur first, so again I was on my own as the 2 guys
took off as usual, en-route I again stoped for some sugarcane juice as it was
bloody hot. I have lived 9 years in Nagpur where is gets really hot and dry,
but my last 7 years in Pune have left me de-accustomed to very hot , cold and
humid climates. Hence I was grumbling at times, but a sugarcane juice would
calm me down and a beer would turn me into a robot driving the bike. I again
ventured inside Jaipur city as I was told of reaching only till Jaipur. I felt
something is amiss and called one of the guy’s and voiced about my unhappiness
of pushing ahead without giving me proper directions. I was told to take the
Delhi road and come ahead, however I told that one of them should sms / call me
and give directions / names of places which they plan to ride though, so that I
can reach that place accordingly a little later. It was really bad, dry and
hot, I remember I did not halt for lunch but en-route had some beer and
proceeded asking people if I was on the right track. Later I got a call from
one of the guys saying, turn from the highway when you are 96kms away from
Delhi into a place called Revadi and ask for Panipat, sonipat and proceed. I
did the same, I discovered I was cutting through the heart of Haryana. The road
was shit, there were speed breakers every 100meters for god know what reason.
Basically these guys thought that this would be a short cut via Rohtak in
Haryana but it was not worth it at all. The road was strewn with pebbles and gravel
and as mentioned there were speed breakers every 100meters. The farms along the
road were huge with police checkposts to accompany the irritating speed
breakers only this time every kilometer or so. I was stopped by 1 Haryana
police constable, he asked me why my front number place was missing some
details. Actually the paint had come off on the front mud guard, I told him, I
was from Maharashtra and was just touring on a holiday. He saw that the rear
number plate was in proper condition and told me in chaste Haryanavi , jaldi
nikal ja, mera senior dekhega toh rok lega tujh ko chore, nikal nikal, meaning,
push off fast before my senior sitting there spots you and stops you. On the
way I asked a few villagers for directions as we were criss crossing though village
roads and not a highway, I could just partially understand their Haryanavi
hindi, so asked every fellow to repeat what he said again to make some sense to
me. On my way, I was pleasantly surprised to see a large and pretty peacock
which was perched atop a tree branch fly down and hurriedly cross the road
right in front of me and disappear into the bushes, unfortunately you cannot
capture such golden peacock moments in your camera, but it’s there in my mind
offcourse. In between I kept updating my location to the guys via
sms in relation to how far I was from Rohtak whenever I saw a signboard which
gave the distance from Rohtak. On the way I remember a huge statue of
Lord Sri Krishna and Arjun on arch and below which was written ‘Kurukshetra’
and it struck me, the famous battle of Mahabharat had been fought at
Kurukshetra which was now in Haryana. The statue was quite captivating and I
wanted to tuen left and go right under the arch and see this place once where
the lord even recited the Bhagvadgita to Arjun. But I had a destination to
reach , so had to stick to the highway and ride on. Soon , around 8pm, I landed
in a traffic jam, am not sure about the name of the place, guess it was Rohtak
city and I enquired about the road which went to Chandigarh. After a while, I
called one of the guys and told them that I am on the Ambala –Chandigarh
highway and they were surprised at hearing this, as it seemed they were behind
me, although maybe just 3-4 kms behind, but the surprising fact for all of us
was that, at one point they were around 35kms ahead of me and now they were
3-4kms behind me . I waited for them after a flyover on the Ambala-Chandigarh
highway, but Chandigarh if I recollect correctly now was still around 200kms
ahead. I thought we have a nice flat road on our hands now after the horrible
ride through the villages of Haryana, but I was in for a shock, the highway had
diversions every 2 kms and was the road was not what you expect of a highway.
Traffic was heavy, trucks, buses from Delhi going towards Manali, cars from
Punjab goes real fast. So once again for the 3rd night in a row, a hat-trick of
night driving. I stopped in between when I saw a family dhaba , as was hungry
around 10pm . I asked the waiter what I could get really quickly, he said daal
and roti and I instantly agreed as I love daal tadka , but I soon
discovered that this is North India and here daal means, daal makhni and not
daal tadka . Actually I do not fancy daal makhni, but this one was the best
daal makhni I ever had, trust me, it was really tasty, along with it, I ordered
some lassi, even the lassi was out of the world, really good food I must admit,
my compliments to the chef. I have never had daal makhni and lassi like this
ever before, I think I was at this place eating and making phone calls
back home for around 40minutes. Once again my rear was on the saddle of the
Yahama and I headed towards Ambala, on the highway which had a diversion every
2 kms and was being built by Soma developers. When I was quite close to Ambala,
I got a call from one of the guys saying that they have reached Chandigarh and
are locating a hotel, I said, I would ask them for directions once I reach
Chandigarh or get closer as I was around 80kms away. From Ambala onward the
road was excellent and I neared Chandigarh, it was just superb, but it was past
mid-night and I wanted to crash, I located the hotel after making a few calls
to the guys, this time we were in a 3 star hotel, with good beds a nice air
conditioner, so had a nice sleep.
Day 5 -19th June Chandigarh-Manali(
300kms approx) Our next destination was to be
Manali where we were going to spend one full day , oh what a luxury for
everybody’s ass , but still Manali was if I remember correctly now, around some
300-350kms away from Chandigarh. One might say, well we had been doing around
550-600kms a day till now, so 300-350kms should be easy, but those were flat
roads, here the hill ride starts! I distinctly remember, we all woke up with my
mother calling me around I guess 8am, I spoke to her and then used the bathroom
leisurely while the others got an excuse to sleep a little more. I thought I
must shave now, but had no shaving cream, I decided to innovate and use the
shampoo sachet I had as shaving cream, it was a smooth shave and I felt good. With
the fair looks, stubble/beard and a bandana , I am quite used to being labelled
as a kashmiri terrorist , so with a shave, I go from being a kashmiri terrorist
to a kashmiri tourist. We left finally around 10am I guess and decided to stop
for some breakfast and then a mechanic’s place for engine oil change as by then
we had covered 1500-1600kms. We crossed over into proper Punjab and had
parathas at a street vendor, with a fly falling in my tea cup, I do not why
these guys resorted to such cost cutting which I was not enjoying at all. The
mechanic could not open the nut of my engine’s chamber to change the oil, so he
just checked the level and it was fine, in my 2 stroke bike, more of 2t oil is
needed and engine oil lasts easily for around 2500kms. The roads were good as
we headed for Manali. At a railway crossing we saw 3 guys on an Enfield
motorcycles, the first biker group other than us. They asked us where were we
from and the usual stuff, those guys were from Karnataka and had shipped their bikes
till Delhi and were riding from Delhi, so their journey had just commenced
while we had burnt around 1600kms of rubber already. One of those South Indian
tambi guys, when he saw my bike, asked rather with some hint of sarcasm,
do you have a 50liter bottle for carrying petrol, how do you think you will
reach Leh from Manali considering the average of your bike? Well, I just said
in my mind which he sort of read and backed away, ‘that is none of your
business, buzz off’. But it did prompt some thinking for all 3 of us , we
decided to buy a 5 or 10 liter jerry can to carry petrol for my bike in
Manali, the pulsars had a bigger fuel tank and their average was better so they
did not require one.
After a while, of good flat roads, I saw a
sign which said, welcome to ‘Himachal Pradesh- Incredible India’ and the
topography also changed along with the road. Immediately there were hills all
around me with a long ghat section of road to ride on. It was a 2 lane ghat
road in good condition but the traffic was like what you see in Mumbai city. It
was a mix of hundreds of trucks carrying goods for Manali , tourist cabs and
jeeps, and also families driving their own cars on the long two lane ghat.
Everyone was trying to overtake each other , but it was fine, we stopped on
this stretch of road about one odd time for some tea and the tea breaks
provided relief to everyone’s butt as well. Well, throughout this journey, we
easily had about 50 liters of tea individually am sure. I still remember, there
was a time till about 6-7 years back (am running 30 now), when I did not
touch tea, well same goes with liquor, and now, I personally think, my blood is
one third water, one third tea and coffee and one third liquor(beer, whiskey
and rum). The hills here were not too threatening and quite similar to
the Sahayadri range around Pune, but don’t get fooled here, as it’s just the
beginning. As the hills were thickly blanketed with trees, it was like a mini
forest , and in a forest the easiest animal to spot, rather which spots you is offcourse
– the monkey, there were dozens of them which came up to the road and ate
whatever leftovers they could find from food packets like chips, peanuts etc
which travellers had chucked from their vehicles. I think it was the river Beas
, I may be mistaken here, on which a couple of large hydro-electric projects
were seen along the way. Even though the road was bad later on, the
surroundings were quite a sight, I stopped close to Mandi village/town
for a beer, I mean I automatically stopped and for the first time I had a beer
called Thunderbolt, it was good. Later I approached Mandi , it was a nice small
town like Lonavala or Mahabaleshwar or Pahmrhi and I was reminded of my
Engineering college days. We had a lad from this very town Mandi in Himachal Pradesh
and he was also called just Mandi rather than his real name which I did not
know at all. He was a typical small town guy from Himachal, fair and simple, we
played football together and I wondered how nice it would be it I saw him as I
drove across the town, but this never happened. I kept going, soon the greenery
in the hills disappeared as it got dark and same was the case with the road, it
too got dark and bad, full of pebbles, and small pieces of rock and stone.
Night driving again, a pain the ass which was already bearing a lot of pain,
but this time on a road which was carved out from a hill, so we had the long
continuous mountain chain on one side, the rough narrow potholed road in
the centre and a deep valley with a long river running on the other. The
trucks, and jeeps coming from the opposite side of the road did not help at
all, as again their lights momentarily blinded you and the helmet visor( glass)
had some scratches, so if I kept it on, the light would get reflected and
affect vision again, so in order that I do not crash into a oncoming vehicle or
into the mountain or fall into the valley , i.e in short to remain alive , I
had no option but to open my helmet visor and let blinding lights and
heavy dust fly into my eyes and continue without any further grumbling. I
did the next best thing which almost always do during any sort of conditions
while night driving, i.e drive behind a truck or big jeep and hence I
found a Tavera jeep who was not going too fast and followed him comfortably and
it again reduced the blinding light and dust issue quite a bit. But
unfortunately somewhere close to Kullu that jeep stopped and I had to
proceed without any cover. I soon found out that my bag pack was tending to
fall off which did not off course help with the constant adjustment required. I
again stopped at Kullu and made a call to the guys, they were almost at Manali
which was some 40kms ahead and told me that it is cold ahead, so I accordingly
prepare for the last patch of the day’s ride, it was around 10.00 pm, and I
promptly stopped to buy some rum and peanuts for the night, as part of the
preparation. The liquor shop owner told me that Manali was another 40kms away,
hence I would take an hour or so depending on how I drive. What he did not tell
me was that the road was really pathetic, and trust me, night driving on
non-existent narrow hills roads is not to my liking at all. But I had no choice
, so progressed at a slow and steady pace admiring the lights coming out from
the houses located in the hills in between which the Kullu hill station
lay. The passengers of a few jeeps as they passed me , told me that
my backpack might fall, this was irritating, I already had enough on my
hands with a horrible road and now my backpack could for the second time
fall down. I distinctly remember, I was cursing the potholed road , and the
backpack, honestly, if not for the backpack, I would have had a lot more space
for my almost iron butt on the seat as it would slowly slide and occupy the
entire seat. Soon ahead, I began to hear the loud gushing noise of water
flowing, in the valley next to the road. This gushing roar of flowing water got
only louder as I progressed ahead and it did feel as if the water is trying to
intimidate you. I could not go fast courtesy the darkness, and the winding bad
road and slowly it was already 11pm. Finally I came to a checkpost where a
guard asked me to alight and pay the Green tax for Manali, how relieved was I ,
that am within kissing distance from my destination. The checkpost officer
asked me, how many of you, I said, ‘well am alone’, hearing this he was
shocked, and where to he asked, I answered ‘ 1 day in Manali and then off
Ladakh’ , he looked at me sort of rudely and said, jao jao and did not take any
money, this was surprising as even two wheelers are required to pay
‘officially’ a green tax of fifty rupees on entering Manali , and the two guys
with me had to accordingly loosen their purse strings by fifty bucks
each. As I entered Manali, my god, I was in for a shock, it was 11.30 pm
and there was a traffic jam in the narrow streets surrounded by hotels on
either side which was caused as there were hundreds of goats which had
blocked the way and this I wont forget ever, my first impressions of Manali
were totally screwed, traffic jam, a mob of people, it was like half of Delhi
and Punjab had come to Manali for vacation and at 11.30pm it was like as though
it’s a bright sunny day. Since I was stuck in the jam, I removed my helmet and
held it by inserting my arm between the gap of the helmet visor, but to my
horror a few minutes later, as I put my arm on the clutch of the bike, I heard
a sound I did not like, my helmet visor’s glass had cracked into two pieces, as
I wondered, what the bloody hell and what more is to follow. I managed to again
successfully locate the hotel the guys had managed to get reservation when they
landed about an hour before me. What a relief for my ass literally as we were
going to spend the next whole day in Manali as rest day plus some sightseeing is
what I thought as I shows the guys the cracked helmet glass and opened the
bottle of rum and then gorged upon some well prepared chicken before we all
crashed around 1am.
Day6-20th June-Manali rest day After 4 days of non-stop riding, this rest
day was a welcome relief for our asses. Originally this rest day was scheduled
for Chandigarh, but later was shifted to Manali. We woke up at leisure, had
some breakfast and a nice hot water bath. One of the guy’s bike had developed
some clutch problem and I had to buy a new helmet, so a visit to the mechanic
and the mall road in manali was mandatory. My helmet was old and its inside
lining was almost non existent, so I did not mind substituting it for a new one
, it was nice and spacious and I never felt claustrophobic wearing it but in
Manali nobody would repair the glass, so no choice but to get a new one.
As we headed out, there was for s chance no dearth of people now, I heard
different languages being spoken, people from
almost all parts of India has decended to
this famous hill station called Manali in India. We had to encounter a small
traffic jam again as we headed to locate a mechanic, the mechanic guy was a
young enthusiastic man. He fixed up all bikes after taking a small ride on
each. We complained to him about the bad roads and he said, if you think that
the roads till now were bad, well its just the trailer, the movie has yet to
begin. I was a little worried about my bike, but as the mechanic kick started
my Yamaha, he had a smile on his face as both of us heard the loud roar which
the Yamaha 2 stroke engines make. He made a declaration looking at one of the
guys, your Pulsars might fail on the way, but this Yamaha will not, I was
pleasantly surprised tohear this, but this was what I heard from all mechanics
thereafter along the way, they were all Yamaha 2 stroke bike fans like me. He
only adjusted my clutch setting, and makde it rather loose saying, extensive
use of the cluth will be required henceforth and this would ensure that the
clutch plates do not conk off in the middle of nowhere. The sky was a
little overcast and as it cleared up later, we saw snow capped moutains from
the very road on which the mechanic was doing his work, we took some pics and
were quite thrilled as it was a lovely sight. Our the mechanic guy was done, we
gave our bikes for washing and had some tea in the meanwhile, and looked around
lazily and admired the sights of a small rivulet flowing with heavy
rocks on its sides adjancent to the bike wash guy and a young boy fishing in
the same. There was a Tibetian re-settlement camp on this side with lots of
Tibetians who had their houses and shops set up along the road. I ended up
chatting with a driver who ferried tourists who came to Manali on several
topics, some of what I remember is he said, these Tibetians are very dirty,
they eat Yak meat and god knows what else , India has only given them shelter
as refugees and they can be driven out any time from Himachal and other parts
of the country, lastly he said, the government has come up with some new rule
that only people from Himchal can purchase property there and nobody else can
do so, unless he gets a power of attorney from a local Himachali resident as he
said this, I thought soon Goa will also come up with this kind of rule. After
the bikes were washed we headed for the famous Hidimba temple of Manali and
trust me , this temple is not to be missed, it is fabulous, to reach it, we
again encountered a heavy traffic jam due to the narrow roads and high influx
of tourists, but it was totally worth it. While we were abut to park our bikes
I saw a lady carrying a huge white furry body but it seemed like a giant and
all of us were surprised, the hlady heard my exlamation of ‘look at that
sasa(rabbit) to one of the guys and followed us to the parking space. She then
suddenly asked one of the guys to hold the rabbit and take a picture, I guessed
right, she would charge some money for this, but I was ok with it, the
other guy did not agree to hold the rabbit and she blurted out to him , ‘tu
kitna kanjoos hai’( you are such a blood miser and she was right, they were
both cheap miserly guys and I was just tolerating them for the sake of the the
trip’. I held the giant rabbit, it was the size of a pomerian dog and nice and
soft and cuddly, I took 2-3 pics and paid here twenty rupees and left for the
temple. The setting of the temple was abosultely enchating for me personally,
despite hundreds of people arund I felt a certain kind of peace I have not felt
in ages, there are huge thick pine trees all around and in midst of them is the
wooden Hidimba temple. Hidimba is the demon wife of Bhim in the Mabharat
and this is the only temple dedicated to her in India. It was a sight,
which autmatically gave made me feel peacefull , a huge tract of land with pine
trees and this temple built in one corner and there were some gardens and one
could take a walk among the trees also. I did not take a big walk,but instead
sat on one of the swings present there as I soaked my eyes and soul
of this lovely temple setting. I believe some famous Bollywood movies have also
been shot in the these surroundings. We spent about an hour in this
mermerising enviroment and left after having some fruit juice and chat from one
of the street side vendors. We headed back for the hotel, negotiating the
heavy traffic once again and then set out on foot to the Manali mall road with
the aim of finding a hemlet shop. It was a nice short walk to the mall road
with several shops all around selling mainly wollen clothing , but there were
several artificial, stone etc jewellery stores also. It was like a mini fair
being held, with street vendors also selling keychains ,wooden paintings with
your name embroidered on besides several other trinkets. After asking around in
2-3 shops we finally located a store which had some helmets to sell, there were
no helmets in the shop, but the owner sent a young boy with me to a small,
dinghy and rickety godown in which he had some helmets lying around. I picked
up one and bargained and bought it for five hundred, besides I bought additonal
two strings for hundered and twenty rupees which were meant for tying up the
luggage and these really helped in the deadly journey ahead. Next
on my list was to buy some jerrycans for carrying fuel and soon asked around
and located a store selling utensils and he kept jerrycans ofdifferent sizes
and shapes also, I deciced on buying two five liter jerrycans instead of a
single ten liter jerrycan. Later on all three of us were checking out the
market and what it had to offer, one more thing on my mind was buying the
locasl Himachali caps, and I did buy two high quality colorful ones, first
being for myself and second for my future father in law. One of the guys
suggested , buy a shawl for your mother, I checked out one exclusive shawl
store, but the Pachmina variety was eight thousand onward and I decided,next
time, not now as there was no space in the bag and too much of it in my
wallet! Actually despite being a guy, I love shopping but only difference is I
buy quickly or atleast even if I do not buy, move out qucikly unlike ladies who
turn the whole store upside down spending hours but do not buy anything if they
do not like, prime example is my mother. While walking ahead I walked into one
Lakdhi man’s stroe and bought a lovely colorful muffler and later a shawl. The
shawl was good looking and soft and came for sebety bucks, this I bought
primarily to keep under my bums while riding. My back was fine due to the
luggage tied on the seat but my ass was getting tortured a lot now and I can
definitely enroll in the Iron butt club of India or of the world, we had
covered only about 1500kms till now and another 4500kms was still left!! One
vendor was selling different kind of knives and I always wanted to own a
hunting knife like the one shown in the movie Rambo, and this guy had cheap
imitations of the same, but I did not buy, I guess I will get myself an
original Rambo knife soon. There is lots of shopping one can do here, but
you need one spare bad for the same and my bag, somehow was getting heavier
each day which was not helping at all. We spent some more time strolling along
different shops on the road before heading to the hotel and ordering some
dinner. As we were about to sleep, we heard lot of fire crackers and sounds of
celebrations right outside our hotel room. All of us headed out to check out
what this commotion was all about as we wanted to sleep and start early next
day for Sarchu which is on the Himachal and Jammu and Kashmir border. We
discovered that a traditional Himachali wedding was being held in the hotel
adjacent to ours, hence all this drama, but soon my anger evaporated as I saw
for the first time in my life a live traditional Himachali wedding cermony.
There were huge horn pipes which produced some not so pleasant sound, people
dancing, since they were Himachali, its obvious, good looking girls J, people in
the traditional dress and caps, in short people having fun, I watched for
around 15mins during which I took some snaps also and then it was good night
for me.
Day 7 21st June Manali—Sarchoo(220kms
approx) Oh yes before I start typing any
further, let me add, when people saw us and our bikes in Manali, many asked us
about us, and we told them our past and future journey plans, that’s when a few
guys said that , the Rohtang pass is closed every Monday/Tueesday by the police
for tourists, so better not go the next day. Some said, just bribe the cops and
go, others said, it will be open, just go , but these answers did freak us out.
The majority answered that the pass would be closed, but anyways we decided to
move on next morning as scheduled. We started earlyin the morning and the
scenery around was just amazing, you gotta see it to believe it. It was a
mixture of snow covered tall moutains interrupted by barren tall
mountains with no road of course on which we were riding with a valley
all along the side of the road to gobble anybody up in case of any mistake on
the drivers part. There were waterfalls flowing from the melted snow in the moutains,
sometimes a single tall tree in between the barren rocks on the moutains with
snow all the way in the distance. The road was bad, but no traffic except the
one odd truck which came in the way which was ovetaken with ease. I
thought so far so good, the fresh air, the sun rising amongst the snow capped
moutains which was a mesmerising sight as the sunlight scattered from the
moutain peaks in all directions made up for the non-existent road, the visual
delight compensated for the ass pain, bad road and cold conditions. Suddenly we
saw a big traffic jam on a ghat section of the road which was quite close to
Rohtang. I will never forget this patch in a hurry, there was slush ans slurry
which was half to a foot deep on a trecherous mountain patch and we had to bloody
ride through it, all the curse words I knew came to mind suddenly to describe
this patch, stones, gravel, rocks half a foot of slurry caused by water melted
from the snow in the moutains and a valley always along the side to swallow
anybody like a python who commited a mistake. We drove on, I was in 1st
gear, the first gear provided maximum traction and power ensuring I did not
slip in the foot deep slurry, trucks were stuck along with cars and jeeps on
ths narrow upward patch which lead to Rohtang pass. Initially I was reluctant
to go ahead once I saw that even trucks were stuck in this slurry and there was
hardly any room to negotiate to move ahead, but the local guys immediately came
and told us to move on and even helped a lot by holding the bike as I
accelerated in first gear on a very slippery slurry, muddy patch. As I went
ahead, I saw that the jam had been caused as a Tata sumo carrying some
foreigners had a flat tyre on a crucial turning on the ghat and was being
repaired. But nobody was complaining, people were helping each other out so
that atleast small vehicles and two wheelers can move ahead while the rest
simply got down and were enjoying a early morning view of the snow capped
moutians and valley while clicking some pics. Obviously these guys admired our
guts to ride a two wheeler in such life threatening circumstances. I remember
as I went ahead, the left side of the road was blocked and there was a truck on
the right side which was parked, next to the truck there was some little narrow
space and directly the valley next to it, I decided to go from this narrow itsy
bitsy space , it was one hell of an experience, it was so narrow that, the left
side of my bike’s handle was always touching the body of the truck and even
10cms of error on my part and I would have been history in the valley, but I
guess I have a lot more history to make, so nothing happened,but was one hell
of an experience. I then stopped as saw two boys clicking some pics and
requested them to click one odd pic of mine here with main focus on the slurry
patch , they did a good job, when you see it, you get an exact idea of what I
am talking or rather typing about. A sardar saw me accelerating in 1st
gear and a Yamaha’s exhaust always manages to catch attention especially in 1st
gear, he looked at me and said, hmm..Yamahaaaaa,, badiya hai( very good), I
smiled and saw him again later somewhere . one of the guys fell in the slurry
and got a nice coating of mud on his bag and jacket. He was the same guy
who fell at Mumabi and incidentally had the most falls on this trip. But most
were stationary falls for all of us, so nothing life threatening. Soon we
reached Rohtang pass and it was a relief, the temperature was in minus and was
very windy and cold. There was quite a bit of anow around and Rohtang is famous
for sking in Himachal. There were a lot of jeeps on top with several tourists
around. Surprisingly I realised that I had network here when my mother called
me and I told her about this slurry experience in short. We enjoyed having
maggi there with some tea and spent about 45mins at Rohtang taking some snaps,
eating and chatting with the locals who had puts up these eating stalls. When
we saw the bikes before riding ahead, it was a sight, the slurry had dried up
and left a neat silver coulor coating on the tyre spokes, shock absorbers and
even the side body, how I wished it was real silver. We drove on , thankfully
no more slurry but the road was bad as usual, I mean what a bloody road, it was
a path laden with rocks and pebbles , but that’s what this ride is all about,
get screwed by the road below but enjoy the sights all around you. I soon
discovered that we would be entering the Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal
pradesh. Well a lot of people come to Rohtang and then head back, they are most
the fat , soft , noise making family crowd,only the more hardcore guys carry on
ahead. So no more traffic jams on the mountain roads. This time, the hills were
barren, just rocks , rocks and even bigger rocks, the road was also strewn with
rocks which had did slide due to landslides. For quite some distance
there was river running with us in the valley for company. We stopped at
several places on the way for mouth watering shots, one such place was Sissu
where there was a medium sized lake in the valley in whose waters the clouds
could be seen clearly, with barren mountains at the sides and a snow capped
mountain at the back in the distance, just amazing. We obviously stopped here
for pics and am quite pleased with the outcome of these shots. A lilttle ahead
I will alwayas remember, there was this quaint , pretty, isolated bunglow
nestled among the snow capped hills just like the houses I saw in the Swiss
Alps a year ago, truly facinating. I have always wished I could own such a
retirement home , one in the hills just like the one I saw near Sissu at around
a little more than ten thousand feet and one near the sea on a beach, am
29years, but till now no signs of any of the above retiement homes
materialising for me, anyway. On the way ahead I saw a bridge washed away due
to a landslide, it was a disturbing sight, for those who do not know, the
bridges in Himachal and J&K are mostly made of wood or only steel frame borders
and the main passageway for vehicles is again planks of either wood or steel ,
and when one goes over these planks which are often loose, they vehicle makes a
noise as though a thunder storm is on its way, and if you have a truck with you
for company while you are ahead or behind it, well what can I say, just
enjoy the feeling of the bridge about to collapse and you falling into
the valley or river below, but these are strong bridges, never the less its an
odd feeling! Well , well, later on we arrived at Tandi, and let me tell you
something about the petrol station at Tandi, it’s the last fuel filling station
in that barren, inhospitable virgin terrain and the next filling station is 365
kms ahead , directly in Leh. If you don’t believe me, see the photograph on the
following link-http://www.flickr.com/photos/pariandhiswanderlust/ .
This fuel station at Tnadi is the most
picturesque one that I have ever seen, surrounded by snow capped and barren
moutains and a valley on different sides. The petrol pump guy said, fill only
one 5 litre jerry can, and not both, it will be enough and you will reach
without any problem to Leh. Well these guys know the best, so I listened
to him and filled up only one jerrycan with my bike tanked up too, and he was
spot on, I reached Leh without any fuel issues the next day in the evening. Our
next helt was decided as Keylong which was just after the Lahaul and Spiti
district started, we got there , it was a bad and dusty road and stopped for
some tea and snacks. I had some banana split which I obviously did not expect
on the menu , and it was good. Soon we fgot chatting with a guy who was from
Andhra Pradesh and he stopped at Keylong at he started suffering from mountain
sickeness , hence he decided not to go ahead. Moutain sickness is as follows,
basically your head stars paining as though some one is hammering it with a
thousand of nails at one time from inside your brain, this is basically caused
due to lack of oxygen at heights, I suffered from the same for a few hours at
Sarchu and not here. This Andhra guy it seems had rented a bike from Manali and
had come till here where both he and his rented Pulsar conked off, he asked us,
from where had we rented our bikes, we had a cheeky smile on our face and told
him, man we have been riding all the way, he was shocked but we had got used to
such shocked expressions. Lahaul and Spiti district borders Jammu and Kashmir
in the north and Tibet / China to the East. The terrain is rugged and barren ,
just tall mountains all around you, some moutain peaks even seem to touch the
sky with hardly a person in sight. Here ahead I saw a lady with her male
companion and there were bloody cycling, they were obviously foreigners, but
hats off to their guts and stamina, the lady had stopped, but still I salute
her even if she rode 5 kms on such trecherous mountain slopes, and here we were
on bikes but still complaining and they were cycling at more than ten
thousand feet at near sub zero temperatures! Soon later we discovered that we
would have to cross some patches of a small river on the road ahead, something
interesting happens later on! Initially we came across a small, non-threatening
water stram on the road, and we passed easily. Later we stopped at two Dhabas
again for tea and snacks, they were named Padma and Garja dhaba. The view was
just amazing around Padma dhaba, let me try and describe it, to the right and
behind the dhaba was a dried up river with the rocky river bed showing and
behind the river were two barren mountains laden with rocks forming a ‘V’
shape with their edges and right behind this ‘V’ was a tall and majestic fully
snow capped mountain in the form of an inverted ‘V’. It was fabulous, barren
mountains and a fully snow capped mountain in the same frame. After taking some
photographs, we proceeded on. I distinctly remember, as I drove on, I later saw
a group of bikers on their bullets, what was different about them was that, it
was a guy riding and a girl sitting behind him and they were carrying no
luggage like me, to me it was like, ‘wow, no luggage and plus you have your
girl behind’. The luggage caused quite a bit of discomfort while sitting even
solo. I overtook them and soon was ahead by quite a distance and I did not
realize I would be seeing them again later.
What happened next was quite interesting ,
as I was again riding on the rocks on the hills and going upward by circling
the mountain , out of nowhere, I saw my two co-riders and a group of bullet riders
in front of me and in between us was a mini –river formed out of snow melted
ice gusing down at great speed into the valley to my left. All these guys had
crossed this mini gushing river of snow melted ice and had parked their bikes
and were waiting for their friends( the bullet rider couples I had overtaken
about 15 minutes ago). They asked me if they had seen any bullet riders
and from across and I replied in the affirmative saying they were on their way
up here. Then one girl from the bullet group suddenly distracted me by using
sign language that, put your bike in 1st gear and accelerate fully and cross
the stream, she did this again and again and slowly everyone began to do the
same, some say it, some use sign language as the mini-river formed was making a
hell of lot of noise. I did as instructed but was a little distracted seeing so
many guys suddenly out of the blue, but what happened was something else, I put
the bike in 1st gear and accelerated, but not quite enough as I was wearing a
double set of gloves on my hands and it did not provide me with a good grip( I
think I had not slipped them on correctly and I paid the price for this), soon
in 5 seconds I was stuck in the middle of this river, I tried to accelerate
again, but tilted to the right from where the water was flowing and had a
stationary fall. My god, this was a deadly experience, my right leg was a
little trapped under the bike and the water was at maybe 1 degree centigrade as
it was freshly melted ice water flowing at great speed. You will never
understand how cold water can feel unless you have this very same experience. I
tried to free my leg but it did not happen immediately as I was in an awkward
position, suddenly then one of my co-riders from thane Mr Lele came rushing
into the water and picked up the bike just a shade and that when I could free
my leg, later we immediately lifted the bike and held it together, else who
knows the flow of water was so strong, it might have got even washed away into
the valley below. I was asked if my leg was fine, and it was, we tried starting
the bike , it did not start immediately but after about two minutes it did as I
thanked god for the same. I suggested that the two of us pull the bike across
the mini-river, but Mr Lelel did not agree for the same, he told me, do not
panic sit and ride. We were in this literally freezing water for about 5
minutes now and don’t even ask how our legs felt. After a little hesitation, I
sat on the bike, asked Mr Lele to be on the left for any assistance if needed,
put it in 1st gear and accelerated and this time crossed the mini snow melted
ice river amid cheers from the bullet riders. Boy I fell, but it was one hell
of an experience, soon we took off our shoes and socks and were sitting
and joking discussing about the event of which I was the star attraction just a
few moments ago. I was fine, but Mr Lele’s legs had turned blue, it was a
little worrying but we had to ride on. I checked out if my camera was fine and
it did turn on but was behaving oddly i.e sometimes switching on and them off
automatically as probably some water might have seeped in due to my fall. My
luggage on the right hand side had got wet too. Everybody had tried to save
their legs, but everybody’s legs tasted how cold water can be, difference was
theirs was maybe 30secs and for me it was a full 5-10minutes. We enquired as to
where were the bullet group was from , they said they were from Bangalore and
had shipped their bikes to Delhi with luggage in another Toyoto Qualis and were
headed to Leh like us. This solved the mystery of the no luggage part for me J, lucky
fellows we thought. The 3 of us decided to wait a little longer and we watched
the bullet group get on their bikes to start, but something took us by surprise
again, one girl from that group was riding a 500cc bullet, she was the same
girl who distracted me initially before I fell with her sign language, but we
immediately congratulated her and took a pic of her with her bike. As we sat
down each examining his injuries and luggage, we out of the blue saw a a
huge army truck convoy approaching us. It was quite a sight, in these mountains
one have to move in a circular / semi circular/ S –shaped fashion while
descending or ascending as the mountains has been cut that way for movement
and in the distance we saw the moving ‘S’ shaped convoy approach us. All three
of us raised our hands to say ‘hi’ to the Army jawan’s driving as the trucks
came closer and cleared the mini-river without any fuss in their 4*4 wheel
drive. I tell you these Army trucks have cabins so high above the front tires,
that it feels they are on the 2nd floor and we are on the ground floor.
Soon we put on our wet shoes and rode on,
but I decided to not wear double gloves again and now only hat a single pair of
cut gloves on which exposed my finger tips, but atleast now I was mentally
assured of a good grip. It was around noon time and as we progressed and the
landscape was barren all around but, another amazing sight, boy this particular
day was quite eventful, I found myself riding on a rocky path and surrounded by
2 feet of snow walls out of the blue and slightly ahead was a nice mini lake formed
out of the snow melted ice on one side of our path and around of 2 feet ice
walls intact on the other side of the road. This was just too amazing and
definitely was a ‘kodak moment’. We stopped for a good 10-15 minutes here;
imagine riding in between 2 feet high snow walls on side and a blue mini lake
formed out of recently melted snow on the other side, simply fantabulous!! It
was quite cold, and I had an instant urge to take a leak, I guess the height of
the 2 feet snow walls must have increased by a few centimeters laterJ. I guess the
snow had melted in the other regions but was intact here. We soon left and
after about 15 minutes, we were back in back territory, boy how fast does the
landscape change in this part of the world, just less than 20 minutes ago we
were surrounded by snow and now, rocks and landslide prone hills again. It was
around 4pm by then and I encountered another mini-river which had to crossed
like the earlier one in which I had a stationary fall described earlier. But
this time the landscape was different, it was a plain landscape all around with
no water flowing off mountains cliffs, but a sort of proper river formed and
fed due to ice melted far away. Also I was ahead of my two companions for a
change and was alone at this spot, but this time no mistake, 1st gear and
accelerate and use your legs to balance was the mantra and was followed by me
to the ‘T’, I cruised but again my legs did kiss the water and it was cold as
hell like before! Later Mr Lele told us that he got stuck in this river for
15mins before a trucks driver’s helper rushed and helped him out. My aim
was to reach Sarchu before sunset, one thing if I have not mentioned earlier,
would like to put down here, the sun stayed with us till 8pm every day, so that
really helped. I reckon since it was June when the days are longer and being in
North India , the days were so long. If am not wrong, same season in
Maharashtra (my state back home in India), the sun sets probably by 7.20pm, so
we had 30-40 minutes of extra sunlight to drive. I was again riding alone with
some awesome barren landscape for surrounding, this time instead of rocks and
stones, there were some mud or coarse earth formations below the barren hills
and a dried up river below these peculiar almost pillar shaped coarse earth
formations. At times the pillar shaped formations gave way to almost a flat mud
slope straight into the valley in which which a dried up river bed lay, all
quite a sight. As I progressed, there were less of mountains and more of open land
and I did spot quite a few tents pitched up, with some adventure sport banners
on them. But I decided to continue and stop only at Sarchu, and by around 7pm I
was at Sarchu reaching first for a change. There was a huge board in the middle
of a small tar patch of road for a change which said Sarchoo-Thanks visit
again Leh- 252 kms, Upashi-202, Tanglangla-156kms, Pang-88kms. I stopped
at this board and saw some bikes and tents to the left of the vast open space.
I parked my bike close to the board near the near so that the guys could know
am here as I went to enquire about some accommodation . I was told one tent
would cost Rs 600 oer night and we could get tea, snacks and dinner also. So
all seemed fine and we could crash here. Soon the guys arrived about 30minutes
later with one of them complaining something has gone wrong with his bike tyre.
Anyway , we got ourselves a tent and I opened my bag and took out the clothes
which had got wet and put them on the tents to dry. I must add here, the wind
was blowing furiously and it was cold even though there was no sight of snow
anywhere. The temperature was definitely in minus and must have been -2 or -3
degrees. I asked the guys who had set up tents if the wind chill and speed
reduces in later months, he said, in fact it gets much worse. We ordered some
cups of tea as usual with some hot magi. Later we had dinner in a sort of
common tent which acted as a dining room where there were other bikers also and
we struck up some conversation. It was getting windier with the wind almost
growling and threatening to blow off the tents, in short conditions were really
bad. I opened the Rum I was carrying and finished whatever was remaining in the
bottle during dinner as I struck up a conversation with the other bikers also present
at that time. Among them was an Indian Army officer on leave on his
Jammu-Ladakh –Jammu solo trip and some guys from Chennai. After dinner or
rather after the Rum, my head was beginning to knock around a little and this
only later got worse as I could barely sleep in the tent at night despite no
wind entering the tent. I think I barely managed 2 hours of sleep and was
tossing and turning for the remaining of the night. When the sun came up, my
head was paining severely, let me describe it, it was like it was being
hammered with nails from the inside as well as the outside. This is commonly
known as altitude sickness caused due to lack of oxygen and I suffered from it
for around 6-8 hours and believe me, it was quite bad with my head aching and
it being windy and cold. Sarchoo was at an altitude of above 13000 feet and
since we did not get time to acclimatize, I guess is what caused it. Somehow I
held my nerve picked up the closethes I had left to dry with heavy stones put
on them, packed and we left Sarchoo and our next end destination was to
be Leh, yes finally.
Day 8 22ndJune Depart Sarchoo arrive
Leh---(252kms approx)
Before departing, I had some tea and asked
the guys who had put up tents at Sarchu about my head ache, they said ,
it happens to people who come for the first time and slowly ones gets used to
it. They were from Manali and it seems came to Sarchu every year from June to
September as this for a tourist season and they carried out their brisk
business. Well even during this so called ‘season’ of tourism I felt
Sarchu was quite inhabitable but it was quite an experience. As I lumbered
along Mr Lele told me empty the 5 liter petrol jerry can into my bike before
proceeding, I did the same and every drop of fuel vanished from the jerry can into
the fuel tank of my bike. It was bloody cold and windy and I still put on
my cut gloves with finger tips exposed as I wanted a good grip on the
accelerator for reasons already explained somewhere in this write up of mine. I
do not think I was more heavily dressed ever as on this day, for the first time
in my life woolen inners, on top of it jeans, socks and heavy woodland shoes
and for the upper half of my body, a shirt, then a thin jacket and top of it
another thick jacket, cotton balls in my ears and a monkey cap and my helmet on
top of the cap, only my finger tips were exposed and swollen like an elephant
with cuts and bruises and were slightly bleeding due to the wind and cold by
the time I reached Leh.
As we left and I was on my own as usual, I
had no clue what was in store ahead of me, as usual there was no road, but just
a trail of stones on which I rode, there was not a soul in sight for miles and
sometimes I spotted a truck going slowly and overtook it gingerly as we were
always on a narrow hill acclivity and on the other side a valley, so no
room for error. Soon I realized, if I put the bike in 3rd gear, it would not
respond to my liking, so I had to force it in 2nd and later for most part of
the journey in 1st gear itself. This was very strange and I began to feel eerie
now as it was getting colder , the bike would not go beyond 15-20kmph speed and
there was not a soul in sight , all this amongst a never ending trail of stones
I was riding on amongst tall snow covered mountains. I somehow felt a
little better when I saw that trucks also very going at around 5 kmph on these
mountains uphill climb. My fingertips almost felt like they were frozen, but I
did not dare to stop the bike in such hostile circumstances and examine them or
shield them. My philosophy was, there is not a soul in sight, and all I
saw around was just rocks and snow and valleys all around the uphill climb of
this part of the journey, so just keep going and ignore all pain and urge to
even urinate. It must have been close to 2.5 hours when finally I seemed to
have reached the top of this never ending mountain pass and spotted a small
board saying, ‘welcome to Baralacha-la pass, Altitude- around 15500 feet’, boy,
no wonder I was feeling cold all along and the bike would refuse to go beyond
2nd gear. I did not get down from the bike, here, but kept going, at least now
I had answers to some doubts that were creeping in my mind about the cold, bike
speed and desolate land all around, hence there was a much needed mental
comfort in my mind now. But as I went ahead, the mountains seemed to get much
taller, the air seemed to get much colder and the bike now refused to go beyond
1st gear. I had a small prayer on my lips as I made slow progress at a speed of
around 10-15kmph through this mountain pass riding uphill only to look in awe
of the tall mountains all around. I did not even dare to think of what would
happen if the bike broke down in that part of the world where only rocks and
snow survived and everything else like the trucks I passed, myself and the bike
seemed totally insignificant in the lap of these gigantic hills. It was around
more than 3 hours that I had been riding, but now slowly my confidence had
increased, and I finally decided to halt for a leak and stretch my body and
tighten the strings which fastened my luggage on the bike seat. But I made
sure, I did not switch off the engine and carefully got off the bike, oh let me
tell you, I had problems sitting on and getting off the bike as my seat was
small and the luggage occupied a large chunk of it during stops all along the
way. Finally I had to lift my leg at a right angle and place it over the petrol
tank to sit and keep the bike on side stand and get down quickly before the
bike fell due to the luggage load. I tell you it was all a circus. I was
admiring the mountains and always listening for the roar of my bike’s
engine. I was all alone in the middle of nowhere but now had got
used to it and again sat on the bike’s saddle and rode in 1st gear, after
about another 2 hours from Baralach-la pass, I came across a board with lots of
colourful flags tied to it as is the custom in this part of the world, it
said ‘Tanglang-La, Altitude 17502 feet , You are passing through the
Second highest pass of the World’ --- whoah, this was swesome, I stopped here
and looked around for somebody to take a picture of the three of us i.e. my
bike, me and the board and to my goodluck , I spotted a BRO (Border roads
Organization) employee who came towards me and the needful rather cheerfully.
I was not 364 kms from Manali and 673 kms from Chandigarh, this is what another
board said. I took a picture there too, and the clouds were as though God has
put them there. I will always cherich these 2 photographs for life as crossing
Tanglang-la pass on my bike was the most difficult part of my entire journey of
18 days and till date. I spoke to him for about 5 minutes, he said, during
winters the conditions are unimaginable and he told me that after around 20kms
more, the oxygen level would be fine and the way forward would be a downhill
slope. I asked him where was a town called Rumtse and he told me that it was
the roads would also get better ahead. Hearing these few words from him lighted
my face and I progressed ahead, but the road conditions were the same , i.e
just ride on stones. However ahead, again out of no where there was a lot of
snow and the same story, 2 feet high snow walls on one side and valley of the
other, and a slushy , muddy rod laden path in between on which one has to ride.
There were lots of mini-streams on the path due to melting of snow, so one has
to be careful to go dead slow, least you skid and fall.
Now if I am not mistaken after I decended
from Tanglang-la pass completely, after a while the tall snow laden hills
vanished and the landscape changed completely, it was brown and dusty with much
smaller barren hills around on a flat land and there were stone boulders
painted at intervals saying’ Ladakh-god’s sculpture in the sky’, Ladakh- Jewel
of India etc. so I reckon I had arrived in Ladakh finally and it was really a
mind blowing mindscape all around me, you literally felt, it was God’s hand at
work, the clouds were simply amazing, silvery white in a crystal blue sky amid
small barren rock formations with not a soul in sight. Now if I remember
correctly here( I think it was after Tanglang-la and immediately after Sarchu
or could be vice versa), as I went ahead there appeared a proper road, a proper
tar road and it was straight like a highway, this was like discovering that I could
walk on water!, unbelievable , but however I again discovered that the road
ended after 3-4 kms with some diversions into a desert. Yes you read it
right a desert, if riding in sub zero temperatures at over seventeen thousand
five hundred feet(17500 feet) was not enough in a day, I had to ride through a
desert J . I was back again in 1st gear going very slowly, it was windy and
I decided to stop and take a few shots. I got down, took a few shots of my bike
amongst the desert with the clouds in the frame off course. Here I must
mention one incident, it was very windy and while taking photographs, I saw
that courtesy the wind, a cover meant for covering which bike which I had
folded and placed on the seat to provide cushioning for my bum flew away and kept
flying. I ran to fetch it and must have run about 50 meters and finally caught
it, but it felt like I ran for 10 kms and was gasping for breath. I am used to
running for an hour everyday back in Pune, but well no prizes for guessing why
this happened, again lack of oxygen. I slowly walked back the 50meters I had
run to fetch the cover and took a sip of water and again started to go ahead,
it did not take me long to realize that I have lost my way in this mini desert,
and this I discovered later , happened to almost everybody. I saw a car passing
by and a couple was in it, the lady waved frantically to me and indicated I am
on the wrong track, I waved to thank her and indicate that I got her message. I
lumbered along but no falls for me and after about 30 minutes the desert
disappeared and a mountain range started again. I met the guys from
Chennai along with the Army officer ( they were also camped at Sarchu),
told them to tell my 2 fellow riders that I am behind in case they spot
them ahead as I was going at my own slow and steady pace. These guys from
Chennai did exactly this and I met my 2 fellow riders at Rumtse village where
we again had some tea and snacks. This was the end of hill riding now, and from
here on it was riding on flat land. Soon we arrived at some smallish city in
Jammu and Kashmir and stopped again for tea. While getting off my bike, I had a
stationary fall and the solitary mirror left on my bike broke. We saw a lot of
Army movement here with small Ammy camps and trucks with gun totting
soldiers. While sipping tea and laughing over my fall, I was told by Mr
Londhe that he fell in the desert and was then helped by a passing truck driver
to get up back on his feet and continue. We were counting each other’s falls,
and Mr Londhe emerged the winner in the end. From here on the road was crisp
and nice, I guess as they was a heavy presence of Army there and it was for
their quick movement. Leh city was still around 35kms away , it was around 5pm,
and we had 2 .5 hours more to ride before the sun god says good-bye. Now
the road ahead was good, nice straight road with lovely scenery all around, the
mountains will never leave you but for a change there were farms quite a few
vehicles and people around. I finally reached Leh around 8pm and was looking
for an STD booth to make phone calls to my co-riders and back home as well. In
Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir only post paid cell phones connections
work and I had a prepaid number, so my phone was like a brick till I got out of
Jammu and Kashmir as on prepaid phones one cannot make and neither receive
calls as per Government rules. My co-riders had post paid conections, so I
called them and found out where they were put up and then called my fiancée
–ketaki and mother. Boy I always wanted to bike down to Leh-Ladakh and I was
there, but only half the battle was won, we still had to return back. I soon
traced the hotel where we put up for the first night, it was called hotel
Khangri and now we would spend 4 days in Leh, so my ass would get much needed
rest and I would be roaming /biking without luggage till I departed from
Leh. We had dinner and it again got quite cold and we were given thick
blankets by the hotel staff. All of us crashed feeling good that sort of half
the battle was won.
Days 9-10-11 23rdnd-25th June What a relief, we had 3 days of sightseeing in Leh on our hands now.
This meant waking up at leisure and enjoying in true sense. Leh city is quite a
bit like Manali in terms of narrow streets and tourists, but some major
differences are the way people look and the surroundings look , i.e Ladakhi
people look more like people from Tibet/China side and the landscape around is
what can be called barren beauty. Also there are lesser Indian tourists and
quite a few foreign tourists here. The small city has nice typical Buddhist
bells every few kilometers , these I guess are akin to small temples found in
other parts of India. We woke up at leisure and it was decided by my budget
freaky co-riders that we need to shift from this hotel and move into a lesser
expensive one. They found a cheaper option and the name of the hotel
where we spent the next couple of days was Lung-je-Sung. When we moved into
this hotel I saw about 11 bullet bikes parked in the compound and what struck
me was, some nice customization on them in the form of getting a welded frame
which was used to carry luggage and this was mounted and fixed behind the rear
seat of the bike leaving the rider with the comfort and luxury of the whole
seat to himself. Also the iron frame had racks to hold fuel and 2 big bags plus
other luggage with ease, these guys were from Mumbai and I guess they also rode
all the way from Mumbai and had their group name Road Stallions painted on
their bikes along with a flag sticking out, it all looked cool!
It was first decided we show the bikes to a
mechanic , take permits for Pnaggong lake and Nubra valley. Mechanics are not
hard to find in Leh during the tourist season from June- September as there
hundreds of bikers who come from different parts of India and across the
world and why not, about 60kms from is the highest motor able road in the world
a.k.a Khadung-la pass! The mechanic saw our bikes and he said, my bike is fine
, so no need to fiddle with it, except an engine oil change but I felt I had problems
changing gears and they had become too tight. Mr Lele’s bike had some problem
and in general we ended up spending more time than anybody would have liked at
the mechanic, but boy in this part of the world a mechanic is like a demi-god
for you and the bike! Well just for information purpose, I would like to state,
if people have problems with their bike, the mechanics insert a pin in the
carburetor thus increasing the flow of air-fuel mixture during combustion, this
is because at high altitudes vehicles need this extra boost of air-fuel mixture
during combustion due to lack of oxygen. We then decided that the two guys
would get permits and I would stay back till the mechanic is done, for the
permits if you are riding, you need to carry your driving license Xerox copy. I
spoke with a couple of locals and sipped some tea, it was quite interesting to
what all they had to say, some of them told me what spots to check out besides
enquiring about my origins . After the mechanic was done and the guys were back
with permits we decided to visit the Leh war memorial which is very close but
unfortunately it was closed that day due to some high ranking Army officer’s
visit to the region. We then headed for two palaces which are also close by. As
I rode, I could still feel my gears not shifting smoothly and this did not seem
normal, my bike was giving a signal, something was wrong, hence I decided to
see another mechanic once we were done with the palace visit. The approach to
the palace is via crowded narrow streets surrounded by small shops selling
mobiles, cameras, vegetables and such stuff. The view from the palace of Leh
city below is terrific as it is situated on a hill. There are two palaces,
close to each other and one can visit both, I however visited only one. As I
was taking photographs, my camera suddenly stopped functioning properly , the
lens would come out and then go back inside. I suspected this was partly due to
the water and sand which had seeped in during one earlier falls. I would often
put the camera around my neck as it had a long strap and stop on the way to
shoot some photographs of the infinite marvelous sights around all along the
way after I left Manali. When the camera started malfunctioning , my mood got a
little upset and I did not venture much into the palace but instead decided to
enquire if there were some repair shops to fix my camera problem. The guy /monk
who was collecting the entry fee to enter the palace was worth speaking to
about my predicament is what I thought and I started a conversation with him,
he then took me inside his cabin where there were a few old Ladakhi men and a
guy who worked as a civil contractor and was currently involved in the palace
maintenence. Luckily everybody speaks Hindi, so communication was not an issue.
They all concurred that sand had got into the lens section of camera and this
was easy to believe as Ladakh is quite dusty and sand had got into the area
around the camera lens despite having the lens cover on. I was offered some tea
and biscuits and they told me how old the palace was and details of its
occupants like the King and other interesting history. They also mentioned that
nothing happened to the palace despite a cloud burst just the year before which
caused havoc in most parts of Leh city , but could not shake and rattle the
almost more than 400year old palace if I recollect correctly. I had a good time
chatting with my new friends and they gave me directions to a camera repair
shop to the best of their knowledge. I then left the old palace which was a
declared heritage monument by the archaeological society of India. I
asked around as usual for directions to a camera repair shop but
everybody said, there was no shop which repaired cameras, except one chap said
something more which was there is a mobile repair shop ahead, you could try
there. I went to the mobile shop with great hope, but the shopkeeper told me,
it would not be wise for him to open up the Sony H-10 camera I owned as he had
no idea and added that the nearest repair shop would be in Delhi , however I
could possibly get a new camera in the market or one of the shops . he saw the
disappointment on my face, I was only half way in my journey and there were
many more breath taking sight to be captured and cherished by me for years to come.
Suddenly he suggested, why not try cleaning the area around the lens with a
soft paper by inserting it around the 3 edges of the circular lens one by one
to remove the sand, I said why not, let’s do it and can you help me do the
same, he took the camera and did the same with a surgeons precision and viola,
my camera started working fine again and I started smiling again. I thanked him
profusely for his out of the box thinking and left after clicking his picture.
Now my next mission was to fix the bike gear shifting problem, as I went along
and lost my way a little, I spotted a mechanic shop and went stopped and walked
straight to the mechanic and explained my problem. He immediately told me, your
clutch wire is about to break and showed me the same after removing the cover
which covers the clutch wire and added, I would need new clutch plates as the
current ones have got damaged. I told him go ahead, he went to get the clutch
plates and wire along with a can of engine oil and again I was chatting with him
and the others mechanics in his shop while watching them work. These guys were
from Punjab and like a ritual they come to Leh during the tourist season as
biking is the flavor of the season. It took about close to an hour to fix the
bike and the sun had set by then, I was handed a bill of one thousand rupees in
total and I told him to accompany me to the ATM so that I could pay him , and
this he gladly did. Now in Leh, there are ATM’s but most of them are either out
of cash or have a huge queue of tourists, so its always better to load your
pockets early in the morning. We waited for almost an hour before I got my
chance to withdraw cash and pay the mechanic. I then went back to the hotel,
parked my bike and was exploring Leh city on foot. It was so colorful despite
nightfall with Tibetian refugee shops selling all kind of odd trinkets,
shops selling machine embroidered t-shirt with several designs to select from
along with shops filled with woolen garments for sale, also there were
several small eateries and restaurants teeming with tourists. When I
returned after my smallish walk in the city after buying an antiseptic cream
for my swollen and badly cut fingers, we gave our soiled, dirty and dusty
clothes for dry cleaning , later had dinner and slept off. So day one in Leh
was spent inhaling fresh air, getting the bike fixed , camera fixed, and a
little bit of sightseeing.
Day-2 in Leh—day 2 was going to be an important day for me, we were going to go
to Khardungla and Hundar and Nubra valley. We started early in the morning
around 5.30am and our first stop was to be Khardungla pass. Now Khardungla is
around 60kms from Leh city and around half or roughly 25kms of the intial road
is really good, then again the same old story begins, ride a mountains uphill
by circling around it along a path ridden with stones and a valley on the other
side. Since we left so early, there was hardly anybody we saw on the way up. It
was again , very cold with sub-zero temperatures and as usual, I was fully
covered with layers of clothes , except my finger tips which were again exposed
because of the cut gloves and fear not having proper grip on the accelerator
which could lead to a problem in the hazardous conditions. The mountain peaks
seemed taller than before and seemed heavenly with the sun slowly rising in
between them , it seemed even the sun god took some extra time to rise
beyond these gigantic snow covered Himalayan peaks. Suddenly ahead after
a while, I saw 2 local Ladakhi guys in my way and a sheet of frozen snow covering
the path ahead and I halted with my co-riders having stopped after passing this
obstacle. The locals told me to keep still, accelerate in 1st gear and that
they would hold my bike , one on each side to support me as I ride on this ice
sheet. Boy, this was an experience like never before, as soon as my bike’s tyre
kissed the ice sheet, it started to skip and slip, I lowered my legs for
balance, but even my shoes started slipping instantaneously as they landed on
the ice sheet. I began wondering, how would I cross this 10 feet ice blanket
ahead, but the local guys did not let me fall by holding my bike and just told
me accelerate with control and with their splendid assistance, I crossed this
ice sheet which was as slippery as some of our Indian politicians without a
fall. I simply don’t know how all of us would have gone ahead if those two
helpful local had not been there at the early hour to assist bikers like us. I
guess we would have had to wait till the ice melted and then ride through the
cold as hell steam which would have been formed, but this would have taken a
few hours. But anyway, we were fine and progressed ahead and after about an
hour, I saw a board and temple and lots of colorful flags adorning both the
temple, and board. It said, ‘Khardungla- Height -18380 feet, Highest Motorable
road of the world’, boy I was finally there and my dream had been realized. I
immediately got down, took my bike as close as possible to the board and asked
an Army soldier who were camped there to take some pictures. It was a wonderful
feeling, I felt like the king of the world for a few minutes with my Ymaha Rxz
bike as my throne and Khardungla as my kingdom. Khardungla had been conquered
and for a biker, there is nothing more left to do as this was the ultimate test
of strength, stamina, endurance, and passion. I then just admired the sights
below and above from 18380 feet, and all I can say is, it’s beyond words. There
is a small souvenir shop here also, which proudly had the words
painted ’ Highest souvenir shop in the world’. Almost everything in
and around Leh is the highest in the world, you have the highest Air field,
highest motor able road, highest souvenir shop , I guess I remember spotting
highest golf course in the world too J
After spending about 15 minutes at
Khardungla top we rode on and now started descending the mountain pass in a
circular fashion, rest everything else remained the same, no road but just a
path laden with rocks, gigantic mountain peaks of the Himalayas all
scrutinizing you and freezing cold air. Now we were on our way to Nubra
valley and Hundar. As I progressed again at a slow pace I suddenly saw a group
of 10-15 people in full white clothes with glasses on the eyes and a bag on
their back running cross country through the mountains and leading them was a
man in only a track suit. This was quite surprising, I was wondering who the
hell would go cross jogging at 18 thousand feet in freezing cold conditions ,
and as I got closer I saw that these guys were not foreigners and as I got even
closer , I could read what was printed on the bag of the runners, it said
‘Siachen battle training school’, and then everything fell in place for me,
these were Indian Army soldiers being acclimatized to inhuman living conditions
and they would soon head to Siachen glacier which is the most expensive
battle field in the world at over 22 thousand feet , so you can imagine how
conditions would be there.Later I discovered that at North Pullu I was around
200kms away from Siachen glacier base camp. Soon in about 15 minutes, I saw my
co-riders having some tea and maggi noodles at a small dhaba and there were
other tourists also. The place had a board and was called North Pullu, I joined
them and asked, how much further do we have to go, I think it was another
70-80kms ahead is what they told me. Hearing this I was not impressed, my aim
was Khardungla and that had been done, I asked the dhaba owner guy if there was
a petrol pump ahead, he replied saying there is one, but the fuel has finished
it seems in the pump. He further said, today morning 2 bikes came in trucks as
their riders ran out of petrol. I told the guys you go ahead, I’ll stay back
here and head back to the hotel. I knew giving Nubra valley and Hundar a
skip after biking all the way from Pune to Leh-Ladakh would be like being
invited to Amitabh Bachhan’s house but leaving without meeting him because you
were told he would take 15minutes more to arrive. The road was horrible
and since my heart and mind both were in agreement of not riding further
I decided to spend some time at North Pullu itself and then head back. I said
to myself, Nubra valley is pretty, but the valleys of Lahual and Spiti in
Himachal were also out of this world and I have seen the Swiss Alps also, so
how much better could it get. Yes, I wanted to go to Hundar , as again from
snow clad mountains, out of nowhere you approach a desert and this place is
Hundar and one gets to see double humped camels here, as this was something
totally novel, this was not to be missed, but I told myself, there is always a
next time , so let’s relax at North pullu. As the guys and tourists left
the left for Nubra and Hundar, I sat down and struck up a conversation with the
dhaba fellow. He was a young , lively guy and really chatty. He said he was from
Drass, that explained why he was in a t-shirt and I was in 2-3 layers of
clothes. For those of you who do not know, Drass is the second coldest
inhabited place in the world where temperatures dip to minus 40 degree(-40
degrees ) and beyond. He told me , during winters it gets so cold that if
adequate protection is not taken, the blood inside a human body freezes and no
prizes for guessing what happens next. I asked him what was he doing in North
pullu, he replied that actually he had come to become a driver for tourist
vehicles, but ended up opening and running this dhaba instead during the
tourist season. He offered me some more tea and biscuits and refused to accept
money and suddenly said, let’s go to the rear side of the dhaba and I’l show
you some places where you can trek. As usual it was a picturesque sight with a
small stream with ice cold water flowing in between a grassland were some wild
yaks were grazing and beyond this was a nice inviting hill to trek, but apart
from the wild yaks, I saw no other living creature. The landscape changes
drastically in Ladakh, its mostly barren, then suddenly there is snow all
around, and to again almost make your jaw drop there is a desert and then again
there is some greenery around where wild yaks graze, how amazing is that. I
went for a small stroll, took some pictures of the wild yaks and came back. I
bid bye bye to my dhaba friend from Drass and headed back to the hotel after
spending a good hour and a half at Noth pullu. As I rode I hoped that that the
ice sheet on which we had problems would have melted, after about an hour I was
back at Khardungla top with the board mentioning ‘Khardungla- Height -18380
feet, Highest Motorable road of the world’, but this time it was different,
there were close to around 30 bikes and people all around the board trying to
take a picture. I was happy we started early in the morning with absolutely no
crowd and could take good snaps and admire the surroundings as well. As I had
rightly hoped, the ice sheet had melted forming a stream across the pass, and
handling the stream was not a problem. I reached our hotel room and had drink
and slept peacefully for around 3 hours. When I woke up , I decided to head to
visit the Leh war memorial, and let me tell you, everyone who come to Leh must
visit this war memorial. It almost brings tears to your eyes; this has been
constructed by the Indian Army as a tribute to the sacrifices made by several
brave officers and jawans during the Kargil war and other wars. My father was
in the Navy and paternal grandfather was in the Army, so I know how tough life
can get for the men in uniform. You can also view some of the weapons captured
from the Pakistani intruders and Pakistani Army personnel like AK-47’S, AK-56
guns, sniper rifles, light machine guns and other such stuff. There is a also a
lot of information on the kind of snow equipment the Indian Army uses for
survival in such deadly high altitude conditions. After my visit to the Leh war
memorial, I came out and was just loafing around, admiring the idyllic beauty
all around me and then went to the fuel station in the city and let me tell
you, this fuel station is always crowded and it can easily take 15-20mins
before your chance comes as there is usually one filling machine and one
attendant at the pump. But the good part is that people wait patiently without
honking, yes without honking for their turn. Later I explored some of the many
shops which were buzzing with tourists, had a filling meal and slept under the
heaviest blanket under which I have ever slept. Trust me, the blanket provided
at hotel Lung-se-Jung was so heavy, that even if I had to turn to one side, it
took some effort to do the same.
Day3 in Leh
Next morning we were to see the 3 Idiots
lake or the Pangong lake, if I recollect correctly, this lake is around
70-80kms away from Leh city, but the good part is that the road is good for
most of the journey. But again the altitude keeps increasing and then slowly
the road again starts getting bad as you circle round and round the mountains
in order to climb up. One has to cross Chang-la pass which is again above
17000-seventeen thousand feet on the way to reach Pang ong-Tso lake which is at
around 13500feet and lies in between India and China. Well, I was lucky to
having spotted for a brief moment a snow fox with its big bushy tail, which
quickly crossed the road and disappeared into the bushes. Even though Ladakh is
a high altitude desert, the flora and fauna found here simply amazes you. I
again for some reason stopped mid-way and turned back, without visiting
Pangong-Tso lake, maybe this is a sign that I will bike down to Leh again in
the future. On my way back, there were loads of tourist cars and bikers passing
me and we waved to each other as we crossed each other. The view from top was
astonishing, it was barren all around and one could see the twisted and curled
road leading up, but right down below, amongst the barren landscape nestled in
the lap of the mountains was a lush green almost landscaped farmland, well
again the hand of god at work here. After I descended , I stopped at a
small dhaba in the foothills of the mountains and had terrific steamed chicken
momos and a cold drink. With every bite I took, I was also soaking nature’s
beauty with my eyes. As I left after spending a good 30mins at the dhaba, I
decided to head to Thiksey monastery and spend some time there, going to Ladakh
and not visiting a monastery is like going to Goa and not visiting a beach. On
my way a young Ladakhi lady with her kid asked me for a lift, and she was quite
grateful for the same when she got down. The drive was lovely, with a clear
blue sky and pearly white clouds, one narrow dusty road surrounded by mountains
which I think changed colour every minute with one odd ramshackle house present
in a corner and at times Himalayan wild asse’s grazing in the distance, it all
added to the charm. Thiksey monastery is a beautiful and big monastery, it has
its own restaurant, some clinic, a museum and even a souvenir shop for tourists
like us who come from far and away. The inside of the monastery’s walls are
totally colorful painted with ancient Tibetain gods, demons, animals, Buddha
etc, it looks really like to see so much of colour , makes the secluded place
seem lively. Inside in one chamber, you have a huge photo of the current dalai
lama along with huge Buddha statues, and further inside, I could not believe my
sight, in front of a buddhe statue, there was a thin rope, similar to the kind
on which we hang out clothes to dry , and people had hung currency notes on
this rope. Am sure, the total amount hanging in front of my eyes with nobody
guarding it was easily around fifty thousand rupees as most of the notes were
of high denomination like 500 and 1000 Indian rupees. In this monastery, young
lads come to study and spend a good percentage of their lives in their small
chambers located within the monastery premises. I finally managed to take a
nice picture of the Buddhist bells which adorn most of Ladakh in this
monastery. After sitting in the tranquility of the monastery for about
20minutes, I came out of the chamber and spent some time chit chatting and
taking pictures with the young monks and then headed for Leh city about 2 hours
at the monastery. I reached the hotel, slept a little and again went exploring
the shops and bought a few t-shirts for myself and my fiancée. Then one guy who
was it seems staying in our hotel, and had seen me there started a
conversation, he was from Srinagar and it seems set shop in Leh every yoear
during the tourist season. He sold Kashmiri dress materials which included
shawls, salwar suits, coats etc, the stuff was quite exquisite. As we got
chatting, and he came to know that I have come from Pune, he got more chatty as
his uncle lived in Pune and he visited Pune every year and loved it there.
Actually initially he thought I was from Kashmir itself, as like everyone did,
but now am used to it. He told me about his life in the Jammu and Kashmir
police and why he left it etc. it was an interesting conversation we had
, soon his friends also joined in and we discussed a whole lot of things under
the sun. one of his friends was a local guy and he told, how Pangong-Tso lake
gained prominence after the release of the super-hit movie 3 Idiots in which it
featured and earlier not many people went there. Trekking, rafting, the lives
of the porters and life in Pune, Maharashtra, bikes, my god, we were just
chatting away. We exchanged contact numbers and hoped to be in touch. This was
my last night in Leh and next morning we were leaving for Drass via Kargil.
Day12 June26th—Leh to Drass (300kms
approx) My journey from Leh to Drass via Kargil
was again quite an eventful one. We left around 8am in the morning taking the
Srinagar- Leh road, and now after 3 days of riding and resting without luggage
, tying the luggage and riding with it was like clearing a difficult exam and
being happy, but now giving the same exam again as the exam papers were
leaked, so preparing and worrying a little again. The story was the same,
only the destination was different, the landscape was the same and got prettier
also, but the road kept getting worse. If I was God, I would definitely build
solid, all weather roads in this part of the world as it’s just so amazing and
there is so much to explore, only question you have to ask yourself is how much
time you have. It was again very cold , and I was back circling the
mountain passes in the same old round and round manner. After a while, one
approaches a nice idyllic small village called ‘Lamayuru’, you could spend time
here also if you have the luxury of spending time. Later I approached ‘Futu-la
top’ at 13479 feet which is the highest point on the Srinagar –Leh road and
trust me, it was bloody windy, was difficult to even keep our eyes open while
you were being photographed. There were a few biker groups clicking aay at
Fotu-la top and also along the way ahead. Later I saw around 4-5 bikes
bearing MH12 or Pune registration ahead of me at close quarters , at times they
overtook me at I times I overtook them. The NH-1 route from LEH-Srinagar
is very dusty in a lot of patches. Later I caught up with the guys and we
stopped for some tea and snacks. Soon the riders from Pune arrived with their
new MH-12 bikes, and when they removed their helmets, it was quite a surprise,
they were all 40 and above couples who were riding from Jammu to Leh and back
to Jammu. It was good to see their enthusiasm but slowly I guess the age factor
came to the fore as I did not see them at Kargil or Drass. I kept going, just
kept going , riding alone , circling the hills on the dusty, rocky path in
between the mountain passes. At about 4 pm in the afternoon I was closing in
towards Kargil , and luckily for me, I discovered that it had rained a while
ago, but had stopped now. I did not spend much time in Kargil just 5 minutes
and took a photograph with a board which said ‘J& K tourism welcomes you to
Kargil. From Kargil onward, the features of the people changed again and now
one hardly spotted people with Tibetian features , now the people were quite
fair, sharp featured and usually with a beard. This nonde-script town of
Kargil became famous with the Kargil war, actually there is nothing special, a
normal small town which will end in about 3 kilometers and lined with shops and
small houses along the straight road which goes to Leh or Drass , depending on
where you are headed. The road ahead from Kargil to Drass was just plain
horrible and there was a lot of traffic, and this was surprising , but later I
discovered that the hundreds of buses packed with tourists were part of the
Sindhu darshan yatra or Indus river trip. There are quite a few Army posts
along the way from Kargil to Drass, and I came across 2 very interesting sign
boards but unfortunately I did not manage pictures of these boards. The first
one said, ‘Careful, you are under enemy observation’, boy, this freaks you out,
the thing is there are huge hills on either side of the road, and some of the
peaks on these hills are still with Pakistan and their soldiers can watch guys
like me riding below with the help of binoculars. For some part, I was alone on
this stretch and random thoughts like, what if the Pakistani soldiers try to
sharpen or test their shooting skills on this lone bike passing below, trust
me, if one thought too much about it, it did send a few shivers down the spine.
The second interesting sign board maintained by an Army brigade on the way had
painted the temperatures of how cold it got during each year for the last 4
years and they were all below -20 or minus twenty with the coldest being close
to minus thirty. My god, it’s killing, no central heating, just snow covered
mountains all around, no people, no shops, no entertainment and on top of that
they have to maintain vigil as this is a sensitive area. I was hoping to reach
Drass before the sun set, despite my slow and steady speed. After a while, I
had the Indus river flowing furiously and roaring on one side for
company, I did stop for the customary photograph. Later on, as I went ahead, to
my right, I saw atleast half a dozen Bofors howitzer guns lined up and am
sure their nozzles were pointing towards enemy territory. Unfortunately I did
not click a snap, here I have an excuse, usually the Army guys do not such
installations being clicked as it was a sensitive location. I remembered how a
few years agao, I had seen unloaded Bofors guns in action at Devlali near Nasik
where the Army has a School of Artillery, boy they can spin 360 degrees in a
matter of seconds. When you come to this part of the world, a must is the
Drass war memorial which is a few kilometers before Drass village if one comes
from Kargil. Here is where the famous Kargil war was fought where Pakistani
infiltration occurred in Indian territory from Kargil to Drass which is around
120-140kms. As per my target, I was at the war memorial at around 7pm and there
was still 40minutes of sunlight left. The war memorial moves you to tears,
there are painted boards which say ‘Stop, Pause , Remember, Reflect- Here lie
the noblest souls’. Right behind the war memorial is the Tololing feature and
if one turns a little left and right, the famous Tiger Hill and Rhino horn can
be spotted. They are truly majestic, but the terrain is extremely treacherous ,
infact it was labeled as the most difficult terrain to fight a war in the
entire world. There was an Sikh battalion posted there and of the jawans was
giving us details about the 1999 Kargil war. He said that in winters this area
is totally uninhabitable with 15-20feet of snow and constant land slides and
hence there was an unwritten rule that during winters, the Armies of both India
and Pakistan will retreat and come summer, both will occupy their posts again.
But in winter 1999, the Pakistani Army did not retreat and instead introduced
terrorist also all along the mountain features from Drass to Kargil and thus
they could cut off NH-1 or National highway 1 which connects Leh to Srinagar by
targeting it with different kinds of ammunition. It seems they had very
sophisticated arms and ammunition and food supplies to last months. This
infiltration was discovered by the locals who take their cattle up the mountain
tops for grazing when the snow melts, this was communicated to the Army and
this happened ‘Operation Vijay – a saga of supreme sacrifice’. It soon got dark
and I was wondering where my two companions were, I thought I would catch them
at the war memorial, but this was not the case and I left the war memorial when
it shut down around 8pm and just followed the other bikers to Drass village a
little ahead. Drass viallage is just around 1 or 2 kms long and I hunted for my
fellow riders there, but no sign of them. I thought only two things could have
happened, either they fell down the valley and died or their bikes have broken
down. The next day I discovered that Mr Lele’s bike had broken down in Kargil
and they had to spend the night in Kargil. For me finding accommodation in
Drass also became a problem, there are very limited options of stay in Drass
and these Sindhu yatra darshan tourists had occupied all decent accommodation
available there. I enquired with a few other bikers who were also with me
during my brief visit to Drass war memorial, If I could maybe share
accommodation for the night with them and all of them said, even we are
searching for accommodation buddy, but since you are a single guy, we can
adjust. In the end, they negotiated for me with a guy who ran a small shop and
above it was a kind of empty hall with mattresses and he said, he could adjust
me for the night in 50 bucks. I was relieved and happy, that I atleast
found a place to sleep as nothing was vacant and it was getting cold and I was
growing tired after the tourturos mountain pass biking of the day from Leh- to
Drass. I spoke with the shopkeeper and he told me that he was from Uttar Pradesh
and again he came here with his family as it’s the tourist season Just a few
moments later, I met the same Army officer I met at Sarchoo, he also enquired
for accommodation and I asked the shopowner in whose hall I would be sleeping
if he could adjust one more guy. Initially he was reluctant as he said, already
we got about 8 people, so it’s difficult, but he finally agreed. When I carried
my luggage up into the hall, I discovered that the 8 other people were poor
laborers from Orissa who had come to Jammu and Kashmir for road works and I
would have laborers for company along with an Army Major. So it was an officer
a gentleman and 8 poor, but cheerful hard working laborers in the same hall.
The Major and I got chatty, over some chicken and rotis and some VAT 69 which
he was carrying and we sat drinking the same on an old bed on the edge of the
road. This officer was a huge guy, almost like a bear, he told me he was from
Jammu and he travelled solo on his bullet, he carried almost everything with
him during his rides, the only thing missing he told me was a stove to cook
and something else which I do not recollect now. It was quite a night,
drinking along the edge of the road wondering where my fellow riders were and
cut off from the world as in Drass only Jammu and Kashmir’s postpaid BSNL
network worked. I have realized after a few pegs, you get more and more
articulate and this held true for both of us, the major told me how he loves
his bike, how he talks to her, how he had named her Braveheart , how he got her
second hand and keeps spending on their repairs but does not mind it , what
travel and the mountains meant to him and why did was staying with me and the
laborers and not in the several Army units nearby. He was surprised how a
civilian like drove all the way from Pune till here and was on my way back
riding again, but he also sensed my anxiety about my co-riders and told me to
head for the war memorial again in the morning and wait for them there or then
ride till Jammu and then courier my bike from there to Pune or then just ride
solo like he did. I told him, yes I am a civilian but my grandfather was
in the Army and my dad was in the Indian Navy, so adventure is in the blood and
about the ride back to Pune, I said, I’l see what to do next morning and we
slept off around mid-night. In the morning we woke up and I decided to ride
solo back to Pune if I did not find my co-riders on the way or could not
establish contact with them after I was out of Drass, and he told me he is
leaving for the war memorial and would inform my co-riders if he found them
there .Just before leaving I again took a picture with a board which said
‘J& K tourism Welcomes you to Drass – The second coldest inhabited place in
the world’.
Day13-June27th Drass to
Anantnag(220kms approx)---I carried on my own
this time from Drass and as usual and expected, no roads, just ride on rocks,
but I got a clear view of Tiger hill and Rhino Horn mountain peaks and I love
these shots, both these peaks look so majestic. As you go along, you always
wonder, how can a war be fought in such deadly conditions where before the
enemy, nature will kill you, but that is how life is and that is why the Indian
Army is considered one of the best in the world. I was at my slow and steady
but assured pace, and I was told, the roads would be bad till I cross what
would be the last of high altitude mountain biking is the Zozila pass. I am not
sure how high Zozila pass is, but trust me, the snow was still there in quite a
few patches along the way and it was cold, so definitely more than 13thousand
feet is my guess. For most part of the journey there was no traffic , but then
suddenly after a few hours, there was a heavy rush of vehicles who were going
to Leh from Srinagar. This was just horrible, imagine being stuck in a traffic
jam at nine or ten thousand feet on a narrow mountain path with trucks, jeeps,
buses vying for space and on the other side, the valley waiting to gobble you
up. At times it was so dusty when I was descending, that I was temporarily
blinded for 4-5 seconds and I just held on to the bike with hope and luck that
I do not crash or fall down. Crossing Zozila was again a pain, but once you
finish, you feel it was fine, not so bad, but yes, human nature, one does crib.
Finally after I was done with Zozila, I saw another humongous crowd of people
and tents all around, I discovered that this crowd was one of the batches part
of the Amarnath yatra. Then after riding a few kilometers I
realized I had arrived at Somarg and the place was teeming with tourists and
hotels. No more mountains passes , the land was flat with a good road and
pretty mountains in the distance. This was a big relief, I was looking forward
of riding on good flat roads and highways again. I stooped to refuel and then
later for some refreshments as a small dhaba. I began enquiring about the road
ahead with the dhaba owner and a truck driver and his cleaner assistant who
were also present there. To my astonishment the truck driver and his assistant
gave me directions till Pune. They told me to stick to NH-1 and then instead of
heading for Jammu, take a bypass via Udhampur and carry on to Samba and then
Pathankot and head for Amritsar- Taran Taran, then Delhi, then to Jaipur
followed by Ahemadabad and Nasik then Pune. I may have skipped some places here
in my triplog as this is the best I can recollect, but when they told me , I
immediately made a note of all key places with landmarks. I spent about
an hour at this small dhaba having some tea and eggs and chatting with the
owner. When I decided to leave, everybody told me, now do not worry about the
road, it’s all good and this statement of theirs was music to my ears. It felt
as though am back in civilization with decent amount of traffic and people all
around. My next target was to ask directions for Srinagar and then bypass
Srinagar and ask for Jammu. I did the same and enjoyed the sights of rustic
farmlands all around me through with the road in between. Around 4 o clock in
the evening I again stopped for some tea but now the breaks were more to give
relief to my butt which had suffered the most during the trip so far. I was
enquiring for the next best place to stay for the night, as per our original
plan it was to be Patni top , but now since I was solo, I could make changes to
the plan. Epeople suggested I stop at Ramban instead of Patni top, but not to
halt at Anantnag. I was back on the saddle of my Yamaha and my next stop was at
Anantnag where i saw a lot of phone booths along the road and I thought, lets
try calling the guys and see if I can establish contact with them. if they were
out of Kargil and Drass then they could receive calls as they had
postpaid connections and all postpaid connections worked in J&K except in
Kargil and Drass where only J&K provided BSNL postpaid worked. Well bingo,
I could establish contact with them , they were a good 120 odd kilometers
behind me and in the vicinity of Srinagar. I told them I was at Anantnag and
asked if I should go ahead or wait, and they told me to wait and stay where I
was. Well to me this was a good break for my butt and I again got chatty with
the owner of the phone booth. Soon some other shopkeepers also joined him and
we had long conversations. I asked them about militancy in Anantnag and they
told me that it was notorious for terrorism and now things have improved vastly
else at 5-6pm, everything would be shut. If somebody did not shut shop, the
Army soldiers would make them shut down. There were a lot of other things also
that we spoke about but I will leave that out , we had some tea and samosas and
continued our conversation till it got dark. The shopkeeper said, he would love
to help me but his wife is worried about my origins, and has asked him to
return home immediately. There was no sign of the guys as yet and I was wondering
what to do now, it was around 8pm at night, and the shopkeeper guided me to a
police chowky ahead and asked me enquire for accommodation there. After a few
meters , luckily for me, I the guys honked and found me. We soon found a place
to stay near the police chowky and unloaded our luggage and I enquired about
dinner. Till now, we used to pool in money in a kitty and spent for
tea/snacks/accommodation from it; well this was what my fellow riders had
decided and the fund was with Mr Londe. And till now, I had spent my own money
for food and accommodation on quite a few occations as I was always
behind them, but that was fine with me, I did not care. But now since we
were together, I asked Mr Londe to pay the dinner bill and he said, you are
eating too much man, well the guy did not realize, that there were at least 7-8
instances till now where I did not eat with them and yet not ask them for money
as it was not a big deal at all. Now I decided, I will carry on solo to Pune. I
also told Mr Londe, if you think I eat too much, tell me how much I owe and was
going to throw the money on his face, but then he went quiet when I told him
about the times I was not with them when money was spent on food and
accommodation and he said, we will scrap the pool fund, and I did not give a
dam as it was never my idea. In spite of all this I enjoyed my chicken; it was
authentic and terrific Kashmiri chicken and went to sleep.
Day 14 June 28th Anant nag ---
Amritsar(Approx 405kms) Our next
destination was to be Amritsar and it was a long way from Anant nag. I decided
just to share accommodation with them for the remainder of the journey and
stick to myself and enjoy riding totally solo now. Anant nag to Amritsar was
around close to 600kms and we were going to spend a day at Amritsar visiting
the Wagah border, Golden temple and Jalianwala bagh. We again stated early in
the morning, the road was good but the traffic kept on increasing as I
progressed. Again I discovered, it was all the Amarnath yatra traffic which had
choked the narrow road along the small hills though which it was carved.
People were stuck in traffic jam for close to 2 hours. Since I was on a bike, I
could somehow squeeze through the maze of the stuck bumper to bumper
traffic. But except the traffic, riding conditions were fine, road was
good and weather pleasant. Later I approached Jawahar tunnel, this it seems is
the longest tunnel in India and probably the world if am not wrong and if my
guess is correct, it is around 4 kms in length. Well, when I rode inside
Jawahar tunnel, there were no lights inside the tunnel and it was pitch
dark,and the bike’s headlights were not have any effect inside the tunnel and
lastly the road inside the tunnel was a little uneven and if I went too fast,
the bike wobbled a bit. To add to this a bus was behind me and the bus driver
was honking as he wanted me to go faster as there was no way he could overtake
me due to the narrow road, but thankfully he saw that the bike wobbled on the
uneven road if I went fast and in the dark as hell darkness of the tunnel, if I
lost control and fell, it would have been a disaster, and then he stopped
honking and I proceeded slowly at around 40kmph and was out of the tunnel in
what seemed a long time inside. It was told to me by many locals that the
Government shuts down this tunnel which links Srinagar with Jammu as a security
measure quite often and this practice was quite rampant during the era of
militancy in J&K. As instructed by the truck driver at Sonmarg, I entered
Udhampur which has a permanent Army presence and later Samba, and
Pathankot and was soon out of J& K with my prepaid connection now
working. If I had doubts anywhere along the road, I would stop and ask the
locals if I was in the right direction. Amritsar was still a long way away,
finally after a while, I realized I had entered Punjab and I kept riding and
riding. It got dark and I figured out, I would reach Amritsar by 11pm if I do
not halt for dinner. It had just rained and the road was wet and full of
potholes, plus night driving on the highway is again not pleasant at all, and
finally I ran out of patience and spotted a nice tempting road side dhaba and
ate and drank lassi to my heart’s content. I called my fiancée and mother to
tell them that now my phone is working again and I should be accessible now. I
finally reached the hotel the guys had checked into at probably past mid-night.
It was hot and humid in Amritsar , but thankfully this time they picked a
decent hotel where the a.c was effective.
Day15 29th June Amritsar (rest day)---- Being a rest day, I woke
up at leisure , went out from the hotel around noon time and got myself
something to eat and a beer. Oh yes at the marketplace I had a few bananas and
the vendor served me the same after slicing them with his knife and inserting
some masala in the cut he made and trust me, it tasted quite good .After the
beer bottle was emptied I decided, I’ll head for the Wagah border around 30kms
or less from Amritsar city, but to my amazement I reached pretty early, the
road leading to the Wagah border is just fantastic and in about no time I
was there greeted by a huge board which said ‘India-Pakistan border 1km ,
Lahore- 23kms’. The beating of the retreat ceremony starts at 5.30 and I landed
up there at 4pm. The beating of the retreat ceremony is an excellent
synchronized affair carried out by the BSF (Border Security Force) from India
and the Pakistani Rangers from Pakistan. The way the guards from both sides
stomp their heels, it literally feels like a bullet is being fired each time
their legs hit the ground, and all this despite the noise from the crowd.
Visiting the Wagah or Attari border is a excellent experience, but I wish the
crowd management was done in a better manner. The seating arrangement was jam
packed with people at least on the Indian side, on the Pakistani side however
more than 50% of the seats were vacant. After the retreat ceremony, ended
I left for the hotel and after dinner, went to the famous Golden temple in
Amritsar at 11.30pm. The temple was looking resplendent and the gold plated
exterior walls and dome of the temple shone with the light which fell on them.
There were a lot of people at that late hour also in the temple , some sleeping
some doing their kar seva and some admiring the temple like me. I spent close
to an hour in the Golden temple premises and then left for the hotel as the
rest day was over and next morning again had to travel a long way.
Day 16 30th June Amritsar- 100kms
short of Jaipur (550kms approx) we again
left early in the morning and as usual I was behind our pack of 3 and
soon was again going solo. I knew what to do, ask directions for Delhi highway
and then ask directions for Jaipur highway. This was again a 500-550 kms
highway ride. Nothing much to describe here, do your regular thing, check for
fuel, stop whenever the butt pain increased and have a beer. Around 4pm
in the evening I was at Delhi and I asked directions for Jaipur highway, people
told me to take the Gurgava or Gurgaon road , but I had no clue how to reach Gurgava
road as I have never lived in Delhi. So I kept asking and confirming, and
the infrastructure in Delhi is just terrific, I was cruising on the 4 lane
flyovers at 60-70kmph in the evening and in around 20minutes I was out of Delhi
and on the Gugaon road. The roads, flyovers, bridges are huge and spacious , I
was impressed thoroughly. On the Gurgaon road, I went past the NSG training
school at Manesar and was soon on the Jaipur highway. I then stopped for
a beer at around 6pm and made a phone call to Mr Lele to enquire about their
whereabouts, I was told that he had a stomach upset and they were staying back
at Delhi. So I proceeded on my own and stopped 100kms short of Jaipur in a nice
decent highway touching hotel , watched some TV and slept late into the night
which was not the right thing to do as according to plan I was 100kms short of
my destination and next day had to reach Ahemedabad.
Day17 1st July Jaipur
Highway-Bicchiwara(Rahasthan-500kms approx)
Next day I was lazy and woke up late and
finally it was around 10am by the time I left, I should have left by 7am max as
I had to make up time. Anyway these things happen, soon I was inside Jaipur
city and again I asked around for directions which would take me to Ahemedabad
in Gujarat. I was told to take the road which went to Ajmer sharriff and
Udaipur and then again ask around. Soon I recollected the sign boards and some
landmarks on my way as I had seen the same while I rode from Gujarat till
I was out of Rajasthan during the initial days of the trip. Thankfully
Rajasthan was not so hot as it was when the roadtrip commenced. It was mostly
cloudy but again I was glad it did not rain. I kept going, on an on, and wished
I had started a little early, somewhere on the highway, my two fellow riders
whith whom I had begun this trip overtook me and this was the last I saw of
them as I decided to go totally solo now. I think I missed some good bypass
road for Ahemadabad and instead lost my way a little and tokk a longer route
which I discovered while speaking to the petrol pump attendant where I
re-fuelled, but that’s part of the adventure. In the end I drove till 10pm at
night, I think I covered more than 450kms and less than 500kms during that day
and parked my bike in front of small road side dhaba and had a delicious simple
meal of daal, sabji and roti. I asked the dhaba owner , a frail guy if there
was a hotel ahead where I could spend the night , and he told me that he is not
sure of the same but instead asked me sleep on one of the wodden cots with
strings ( charpai ) in local lingo and proceed next morning. Well I too
decided, though a little risky ,I’ll sleep on the cots as there was heavy
trucks traffic on the highway and I was tired and my butt needed rest as well.
I parked my bike in a corner and took out all cash and my camera and kept in my
waist pouch and pocket. I struck up a conversation with some truck drivers who
had arrived after me for directions ahead , they told the same, but I do not
recollect specific names now, however one can proceed safely by asking the way
to ‘Shalmalji’ which is a famous temple on the Gujarat-Rajasthan border inside
Rajasthan. Unfortunately, I could not sleep for the whole night as trucks kept
passing and their lights kept flashing and to add to the misery, it grew really
cold at night.
Day18—2nd July Rajasthan—Talasari
(Maharashtra 550kms approx)
I could not get any sleep at night but
still decided to start early and cover as much distance as possible and I did a
good job. I kept going non-stop, soon was at Shalmalji and then before I
knew it inside Gujarat. I again asked for directions and I was told to take the
Ahemedabad – Mumbai road, but later on some locals told me another route which
by passed Ahmadabad totally and was shorter also. The best thing is, you tell
them your destination and the locals help you to figure out the best route to
take. The butt pain was increasing, basically the skin of the butt was
almost ripped off due to sitting on the bike’s saddle for more than 12 hours
daily and over long distances averaging about 600kms even though they were
mostly highways now. I remember I was told to ask for Gogdra and Surat and then
Mumbai road and I did the same , I was now riding not for pleasure, but to
reach Pune on time . I made good progress and was at Wapi which is an
industrial area in Gujarat and in close proximity from Mumbai. I stopped here
for refueling my stomach and was considering that if I keep going non-stop
at slow pace, I would reach Pune slightly after mid-night. But man
proposes and god disposes, as I entered the Maharashtra border, and stopped at
a petrol pump for some re-fuelling it started to rain heavily, probably the
rain gods were welcoming me back , now that I was back at sea-level. I put on
my rain coat and progressed slowly and finally again decided to stop at a hotel
or dhaba whichever came first by 10pm as was up and riding since 5am, more than
17 hours on the road. A small bigger than a dhaba restaurant highway restaurant
came first at 10am, so I stopped and had my dinner there. I enquired if there
was a hotel closeby ahead for a night stay and the restaurant owner guy said
that the next hotel is 20kms away. Hence I had no choice to hang in this
restaurant for the night. I was told, I could sit down in a chair in the
restaurant premises or a small room inside but I was advised against it , as
this was basically a trucker’s rest room with a TV . So I decided to fall
asleep on a chair , and this seemed the best option as it began to rain heavily
again and grew very windy and chilly. Now for the second day in a row, I could
not get proper sleep, but the comforting fact was that I was bang on schedule
to reach Pune. This highway restaurant was situated in Talsari which was inside
Mharashtra’s Thane district, which bordered Gujarat. So I had roughly another
22o odd kilometers to cover which seemed like a cakewalk after a daily dose of
riding around 600kms daily.
Day19 3rd July
Talasari(Thane)—Pune(270 kms approx)
I made a few phone calls to my friends and
relatives and also spoke to my future father in law seeking directions from
Mumbai to Pune and next morning again decided to start by 5 or 5.30am, so that
in 4-5 hours I would be home. But there was one last twist in the fag end of my
journey. Next morning, my bike would not start, I drove around 5700 kilometers
till now in the rain, heat, snow, cold, and on good ,bad, and no
roads but it’s the rains which give the most trouble. I kicked and kicked , but
the engine would not let out the famous Yamaha 2 stroke roar, instead there was
a cat’s sqeek and silence. I had no choice but to finally drag my loaded bike
for a good 4 kms before I found a mechanic. He again took a good 2 hours to
diagnose and fix the problem. It seems a small pin which is present inside a
magnet in the engine compartment had conked off. Once this was fixed, I heard
the familiar roar of my Yamaha and was about to leave, when I figured, I had
left my helmet at the roadside restaurant. So went back 3 kilometers, picked it
up and was on my way , when it started to rain again and my bike stopped after
I had progressed for 10kms. This was getting annoying now; I had no problems
with the bike while ascending 17and 18housand feet, but at sea-level in the
rains, the bike was giving some starting problems. Finally after dragging
it a little and then applying choke and twisting the knob which increases the
bike’s idling, it started and I prayed that the rains stop and I reach Pune the
same day itself. As I went along, I asked people for directions to Pune, a
gentleman told me to take a particular road which went to Bhiwandi and then
from Bhiwandi, I asked further for directions and via Taloja reached Panvel and
then took the old Mumbai-Pune highway or NH-4 and was in familiar territory
again. I stopped short of Lonavala for another beer on the highway and finally
reached Pune around 5 pm in the evening exactly as per schedule.
I had done around 6000kms in 18 days of
which around 12 days were heavy riding days and the remaining rest days. All
this riding in all kinds of harshest possible terrains and weather conditions
for which I treated myself to another beer!
This was a road trip where anything could
have gone wrong, but with god’s grace and luck on my side, I was back in one
piece and immediately began to wonder as to when will I this again! I am glad
that I did not have to abandon the road at any point of time during the ride as
I knew; I would then surely receive verbal brickbats from a lot of people but
now all my near and dear ones were happy.
I’ll end by posting some hilarious BRO road
signs which appear from the Lahaul and Spiti valley onwards all the way in
Ladakh and Kargil and Drass Till Zozilla ends. They kept me in good humor on
tourturous roads
‘ Do not be rash and end in Crash’ , ‘This
is a highway and not a runway’ , ‘ Drive like hell and you wil be there’ , ‘ It
is better to Mr Late than Late Mr’ , ‘Mind your brakes or brake your mind’ , ‘
Make love not war-but nothing while driving’ , ‘hospital celings are boring to
look at –avoid accidents’, ‘Be gentle on my curves’
At the
end of this journey, I was a satisfied man, in our limited lives we often go to
make unlimited money and end up losing sometimes your health or wealth or at
times both , instead one should go for the unlimited road which always has a
surprise at the end of its bend and where you can get lost but never lose!
Like how
I always end it, a biker never dies; he just fades away on the road.
For a
visual tour of my journey please visit the link below
Regards
,
Parikshit
Vaidya
9822474756
p.s- wont mind doing this ride again as got a new bike- Harley Davidson Iron 883= perfect for such risky but rewarding rides!
42 comments:
This is just amazing dude! very inspiring!!! Good job with writing the blog too, can somewhat experience the thrill u had :)
yes man, a truly once in a lifetime ride!
man......it is just awesome experience....and what a courage....!!!!!
My name is Harshit and we some friend also planning a bike trip to ladakh...but your;s is just Wow...if you can help us with your valuable experience that really helpful for us...
I am also based from pune,
Please write me on hrmahajan@hotmail.com or give me a ring 9004017799...
Please need your help and motivation.....
Regards,
Harshit Mahajan
Truly awesome buddy!!
My name is Kiran and I am also planning a bike trip to ladakh, however I need some information on what should be carried and what can be avoided?
Regards,
Kiran
buddi really impressed with photo quality.. can you tell me the exact model number of camera or phone you used to click these photographs?
buddi really impressed with photo quality.. can you tell me the exact model number of camera or phone you used to click these photographs?
Only one word 'AWESOME'! Congratulations for your new Harley and 'wish you all the best' for all your future trips. I am planning for a road trip by car, hence will definitely need your help to understand the pro n cons of bike v/s car.
Thanks for the wonderful write up, keep riding, writing and inspiring for those who wish to take a road trip.
Cheers!
Kamlesh Raje
Pune
Hi there...
I would like to put ad on your blog and pay you for it.
Kindly let me know if you are interested.
Mail me at: puni.dhupar@gmail.com
Thanks
Wow.....Such an amazing ride you have done...I Salute Your Biker Spirit...what a memorable journey you did to such High Altitudes. I also want to do that ride, but this year not possible. I will be on road of Manali-Leh in 2015. It will be a great pleasure if you also go there with me. What A Brave Heart you have. Best of Luck...
Would you like to come again m planning for 21june to 6july...will come on duke 390
hi i am also planning a bike trip to leh ladakh can you pls help me with a travel plan from pune & back in brief
thanks nitin gandhi
njg1974@gmail.com
Bike riding is my passion , i really love royal ienfield , powerful bike for all types of area ,awesome post . Kashmir Tour Packages
Hii I came across your blog while searching for information on biking trip. Thanks for the public information you have provided. And Bike tours to leh ladakh is ever awesome and lifetime best experience by viktorianz team.
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HI AM ALSO PLANNING ROADTRIP TO SRINAGAR-KARGIL-LEH-MANALI.CAN U PLEASE SUGGEST ABOUT STAYS AND ALL THE DETAILS
THANKS
IWASESA@hOTMAIL.COM
I am also planning to have a trip to leh-ladakh.
I am from Pune and I am looking forward to start this journey in this month or max by July.
If anybody is already planning the same, please let me know . We can form a small group and start our journey to this awesome land.
My cell.no - 09765365000
Hi,
I have read your blog really nice information you have shared.
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Hi,
I have read this blog. Really nice information you have shared.
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rally nice post but pics are even better about ladakh tour I have seen first time high resolution images .
Bhava.... Naad khulaaa.parat kadhi jaychy.i m ready to join you for this adventure. Me punekar.
Ravi
M- 9960832775
Reading it word by word is inspiring bro.
Really nice... You did an amazing trip.
We will also start our journey in this July first week from Pune. If you have any suggestion please send me on somnathxds@gmail.com.
Great Experience man... Plz let me knw that is there any registration process or any pre approvals required to go on bike from concerned authority or you can go directly.
Amazing post and Journey :).
I too have a plan for next year. Your blog is really helpful :)
--Rakmoddin
picnic spot near delhi Good post shard i like man......
botanix nature resort Good post you're provided i like man.....
corporate day outing near delhi Nice post shared i like it man....
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nice post bro and very helpful also but why you have choose yamaha because i know ladakh road very well
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This is a beautiful blog. Great Experience man. You have uploaded some of the nicest photos of your trip. Really attraction and a must read blog and is really well written . Travelling with car rental services or taxi services is good efficent and affordable.
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