Conquerors on two wheels of this mighty - high adrenaline
journey pronounce "You'll never be the same again after your first ride”. Well
it has certainly changed mine.
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| Sometimes you see things that just make you wonder ! |
It has been almost a year, the day I set out on the mother
of all motorcycle rides ,biggest motorcycle ride of my life so far
(Manali-Leh-Manali). Memories are still fresh in the mind and every moment of
the day feels like it happened yesterday. I so wanted to share this experience
with other like minded people but lacked the motivation to write it down.
Finally after a long wait of one year I am almost there, thanks to a very
cleverly put up advice by a friend of mine –“If you ever want to live up those
happy moments again in your life, Chronicle your journey!”
Here it goes:
The so called planning for the trip started in mid April
alongside my two month MBA internship in Gurgaon. Making notes of essential things
to carry, travel expenses, going through various blogs, articles and
travelogues for whatever information I can gather. Above all a great trip needs
a partner/buddy and there came my dear friend Sanjeev Singh aka Anna, an
officer in Indian Army (Whose position & Skills were adequately utilized
during the trip) ;)
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| Anna ! |
Day one: Chandigarh to Manali
The journey started with a bus ride from Chandigarh to
Manali. As expected during the month of June, temperatures were at its peak.
And yes we were in an ordinary Himachal Roadways bus. Ropar -Bilaspur passed
by, but no sign of rain or any relief from soaring temperatures. Finally we
reached Mandi which is on the banks of Beas river, 3 hours journey from there
along the river to Manali brought that much needed relief. As we entered Manali
around 8 pm we got stuck in a km long traffic jam, we decided walk all the way
(almost 3km)to our Himachal tourism hotel with our heavy backpacks. As expected
Manali was cold and gave us a glimpse of what's installed for us in coming
days.
Day Two: Manali to Tandi
Our first task for the day was to hire a motorcycle for the trip
.To put things into perspective -The lowest there on the route is somewhere
around 3500m which might be the highest you've ever been to and what better way
to handle one of the strangest and adventurous drive on so called Royal Enfield
- Bullet! For next couple of hours we tried few places and finally got what we needed.
The chosen one was Royal Enfield- Electra 350cc (2011 model). {Generally, the cost of hiring a
bike/motorcycle range about Rs 700 – Rs 1500 per day per bike. Of course the
exact rental price depends upon the modal, make (bullet, Enfield, pulsar etc)
and condition of the bike you choose}. We got ours at a very reasonable
cost of Rs 900/day (Thanks to our bargaining power).They provided us with a fully
fledged tool kit along with some basic instruction on repairs.
All geared up!
Around 12 pm we started our ride from Manali full on high
spirits(full tank) but low on confidence since it was our first time riding a
350cc on such a long trip. But as the Km's passed by it grew (confidence).It is
highly recommended to get started as early in the morning so as to cross the
Rohtang pass with least traffic
movement. We had to pay a price of starting
late.
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| Traffic making Rohtang ascend more difficult! |
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| They never stop coming! |
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| No one can predict weather on a pass! |
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| No Highways only Slushways here! |
All passes enroute are easily above 5000m except for the
famous Rohtang pass at 4000m which is just beyond the Manali valley. But that
too was covered with a blanket of snow. Before you underestimate Rohtang
because of its short height let me tell you that it's the sniffiest of all the
passes en route. Loose gravel washed down from the mountain side often combines
with fresh rains to form such a potpourri of quick sand that everything that
sticks its foot in it - gets stuck easily!And there we got stuck in a heavy traffic
jam for almost 3 hours. It was almost 4 pm when we were across Rohtang pass.
With a sigh of relief we descended from 4000m to 3000 m to reach Khokhaar. This
small village has a check post where all the vehicles passing by have to
register their details.
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| 1st checkpoint at Khokhaar! |
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| School at Sissuu ! |
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| And it rained! |
As it was almost 6 pm and it was getting dark, we needed a
place to stay. We reached
Tandi which has a transit camp (Army).Thanks to my Fauji
partner we managed to get a room in the camp and all the related facilities.
;).Physically tired navigating through heavy traffic on the pass, feet deep
muddy waters and snow capped roads, it was time to go to bed early since we
needed a early start next day to cover the lost miles. Thanks to that great CO
(Transit camp), our lunch at Sarchu and night stay at Pang next day were taken care off. We covered
almost 120km on our 1st day on two wheels.
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| Anna & the Ride! |
Day Three: Tandi to Pang
As planned after a hefty breakfast we started early from
Tandi. But before we crossed the Tandi village, a very important task needed to
be carried out - Tank up. Tandi has the only petrol pump on a stretch of almost 460 km's. Fully loaded we moved towards Jispa which is around 40 km from Tandi and
highly recommended for its beauty, the place we were supposed to reach last day.
On the way to Jispa , we crossed Keylong which is one of the largest town on
Manali -Leh highway and has the only ATM on the 400 km stretch. Roads are
superb and one can run the machine at full speed even though you ascending
every moment.
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| You can't afford to miss this! |
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| Taking you along! |
Around 20 km from Jispa is Deepak tal/Patsio .A very
beautiful small water body alongside the road. A perfect place for a small break.
As we moved ahead we reached ZingZing Bar (It’s not the Bar you think) ;) A
nice calm place with few dhabas and small nullahs across the road full of ice
cold water from where the ascend to Baralacha La pass(4890 m) starts. The road
was all black tarmac with the famous views of this tarmac cutting across the
huge snow walls.
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| Time for a back flip! |
Baralacha La is considered as the most beautiful pass among
all these highest passes of the world that comes along Manali–Leh highway. As
we approached the Baralacha La the beauty
got meaner and meaner. Temperature dropped to almost below 3-4 deg Celsius.
Few km's from the pass lies the beautiful Suraj Tal turned into ice. (starts
melting only after July) .It takes a lot of courage to stop at this pass even
to click a picture, all you want to do is get off it as soon as possible. Month
of June is the time when Rohtang pass is opened and most of the route is snow
peaked and snow melting making roads more inaccessible.
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| They ride without an engine! #Respect #Japs |
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| Ice walled roads! |
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| Landed on moon? |
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| Cutting through the ICE! |
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| Yes its a river! #Frozen |
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| Suraj Tal |
The descend from the Baralacha La pass begins and the road
starts to deteriorate in just 3-4 Km's. Along the road is the standing still
(frozen) river coming out of Suraj tal till Killing Sarai (named for obvious
reasons).Our stop for lunch was Sarchu Transit camp. This is from where colors
of ladakh start to unfold. One can see Km long white tents along the straight
road as an arrow and inspires the high speed devil in you to come out and
conquer it. Here Project Himank welcomes you and Project Deepak bids goodbye.
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| Name says it all! |
As we moved towards
our night pit stop at Pang we had to cross the famous 22 back to back hair pin
bends named Gata Loops just before Nakee La (4738 Mtrs) as well as Lachung La
(5079 Mtrs) which was the third highest motor-able pass of the world. The signs
of vegetation were getting dearer and dearer and almost null able as we
continued our climb. After covering almost 60 Km from Sarchu we reached Lachung
La. One more pass conquered :).From here to Pang is almost 26 Km, which turned
out to be the worst stretch of the trip. Road is totally dusted and bumpy. After
travelling almost 200 km from Tandi we reached Pang transit camp (Highest in
the world) for our night stay. We both were all broken physically and mentally
after that day's ride. Thanks to comfortable room and sleep at the camp we were
able to get back that energy and inspiration back to get back on the track to
cover rest of the Leh stretch.
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| Where you headed ,Rider! |
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| Sit in a box and watch paradise passing by or ride a motorcycle and be in paradise! |
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| Hard to choose:Mountains or River! |
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| Here meets the grasslands and the mountains! |
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| Lachulung La - 16616 feet! |
Day Four: Pang to Leh
We left pang early in the morning and started the most difficult
and also easiest part of the trip .That easy part is called as Moore Plains.
Suddenly the daunting cliffs are separated far away from each other and we were exposed to a flat, plain bed of soil, where we were literally making our own
roads. This flat bed is called Moore Plains and almost spanned for almost
around 25 Km's straight ahead.
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| Dirt track-Make your own way! #MoorePlains |
The arduous part was the climb towards Tangang
La (5328 Mtrs), world’s second highest motor-able pass and highest pass on the
Manali – Leh Highway.It was very cold and windy at the top making us almost breathless.
We stopped there for a while and interacted with a biker's group coming all the
way from Bangalore. They were on bikes ranging from CBZ,Pulsar, Enfields ,Dukes
to even BMW's.
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| world’s second highest motor-able pass ! |
After rolling down from Tanglang La, we started our last leg
of the journey. We were back on black top roads making the ride a bit easier.
The descent was quite steep. The first village on the way towards Leh is
Rumptse. Almost 30 km from there lies another village named
Upshi where one has
to last time register the names at the check post. On our way to Leh we made a
pit stop at Karu army base to meet up with a friend (He's a Fauji too!!).After
having some evening chai at the base we moved to our final destination Leh. Our
stay in Leh was organised by one of our college senior (Rattan Bhandari) posted there in one of
the Engineer's regiment (Army).This turned out to be one of the best stay of
our whole trip,a place situated on top of a hill giving a clear view of Leh
airport and open spaces around Leh. For next two days it was our base camp.It
turned out to be long night eating, drinking and bringing out college stories.
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| Beautiful formation near the gateway of Ladakh! |
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| Connecting us to paradise! #Upshi |
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| Electrifying mountains! |
Day Five: Leh to Pangong Tso
We woke up late as we had plans of going only till Pangong
Tso (3 Idiots lake) and returning the
same day. We rode around 170km from Leh toward China border to reach this lake.
Cruising on barren high mountains we saw lush green valley’s spreading out
beneath us and sometimes suddenly we ended up landing in one. We came across
lush green grass, hordes of sheep, goats, horses, asses and yaks grazing on
them, streams flowing by, guarded by snow top mountains!
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| khoob chang La ahey! #Marathi |
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| Surreal ! |
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| Making a living! |
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| Blue diamond from a distance! |
One can see the lake much before you reach there-A blue
diamond with enormous shades of colour. The moment we reached there we were
more of surprised to see so many people-something similar to Chandni Chowk on
Id day. To escape this madness we rode away towards other end to meet calmness
and that soothing lakeside breeze. We went mad to see the ever changing colours
of the water and the sky in the background. There was so much inspiration
floating around. We so wanted to spend a night there but the time was running
short on us. So we after having our lunch and collecting some souvenirs from a
souvenir shop run by Army moved on to our ride back to Leh. Later in the
evening we went to visit a Gurudwara Pathar Sahib around 20 km from Leh. We
called off the day early and planned to visit places nearby Leh-Ladakh next
day.
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| He sat there for hours! |
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| Down the lane! |
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| Love the birds! |
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| Nadiya ke us paar! |
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| Count the shades..1..2...3..4..5... |
Day Six: In and around Leh
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| Thiskey Monastery! |
As this was our last day in Leh, we decided to explore the
city of Leh. We started off with visiting Thiksey Monastery which is situated
at a distance of 17 Km’s towards south of Leh. This Ladakh Monastery is the
most sacred Buddhist shrine to worship and celebrate Buddhist cultures. The
Thiksey Monastery Ladakh is the largest monastery in Ladakh positioned at the
top of a rocky hill built in the 15th century by Gelukpa monks. Next we visited
Sangam (confluence of Indus & Zanskar Rivers) where the Indus festival was
going on with some local performances. We spent some time there before visiting
other tourist attractions like Leh Palace, Shanti Stupa and Sankar Monastery.
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| Left or Right ? |
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| He owns the 'Sangam' ! |
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| Sangam of Riders at 'The Sangam' ! |
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| She used the sunscreen! I didn't! |
As it started to turn
dusky, we moved back to Leh market to explore various shopping and eating
places. Leh has one of the biggest Tibetan market where one can cheap
fashionable clothes. Then we moved on to experience the highly recommended
Jewan cafe and World garden cafe. Both these places lived up to their expectation.
One can also try the famous German Bakery and Bon Appetite for their specials.
For local cuisines one has to try La Terresse and The Tibetan kitchen on the
Fort road. So our last day in Leh went by shopping and experiencing the local
food and drinks.
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| Avoid not to miss this place! |
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| Changspa area near Nullah! |
The place is so mesmerizing that one can spend hours hearing
absolutely nothing. The night sky full of stars, astral and shooting stars makes
you freeze that moment. The beauty of this place is such that it makes you to
get up there and explore. Each day you spend there will only surprise you more.
Om Mani Padme Hum, the Buddhist mantra adrift with the flow
of the wind, the aura surrounding everyone all over Leh.
Day Seven: Leh to Darcha
So our days in Leh-Ladakh were over. We needed to head back
to Manali via same route. Sometime this really gets tough -traversing the
daunting route full of bumps, mud, streams, high altitude, windy passes,
freezing channels again after spending just few days in Shangri La. But it has
to be done and to make it more interesting we decided to cover the 480 km odd
stretch in just two days instead of three. Since we were now no less than
experienced RE-Bullet riders ;)
We were supposed to reach Tandi covering almost 350 km by
day end and rest the next day. We started very early in the morning to make it possible.
We managed to reach Pang after crossing Taglang La by afternoon and had our
lunch there. We crossed Lachunglang la by 2 PM and were on course to reach
Tandi on time. As we crossed Killing Sarai and started ascend to Baralacha La,
rear Tyre of our bike got punctured. That was the most horrifying moment of our
trip so far. It was almost 5 in the evening, no one to be seen, getting cold
below freezing point. Though were provided with extra tube and tool kit,it was
getting almost impossible to change the tube with our shivering hands(Doing the tube change first
time in life), moreover it was a new tyre making it more difficult to remove
the tube. Luckily we saw a BRO hut couple of loops below and went there to ask
for help. A BRO truck driver came with us and helped us in changing the tube.
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| Transformers! |
It was almost 7 PM and dark all around. We had a choice to
get on moving or stay at that BRO hut for the night.But we took the risk and
carried on with the journey crossing the Baralacha La late in the night when
the temperatures goes below freezing point. To keep us going and active we started
singing retro songs like Hai apna dil to anwara, Raat kali.etc. And it really helped.
We descended very quickly covering Suraj tal,Patsio and Deepak tal. It was
almost 10 PM and we decided to stopover at Darcha for the night as Tandi was 50
km more which looked impossible considering our condition. These dhabas at
Darcha provide bedding @ 100 Rs/night. We ordered some food and took out very
own reliable drink Old Monk Rum off our bags and celebrated the big day. Yes it
was my birthday the next day. One of the best I have ever celebrated so far.
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| Stuff that dreams are made of! |
Day Eight: Dracha to Manali
We started late as we had to cover only 100 odd Km's to
reach Manali. Slowly and steadily with rush we reached Rohtang pass at about 11
am. But we were all prepared to witness the stupid constant traffic downside
Rohtang pass. We had thought the puncture was what we had to deal related to bike,
there came a new hiccup. Our Bike's exhaust pipe came off. Somehow we managed
to tie it up with some wires lying on the road and holding all the way to
Manali. It took us almost 3 hrs to cover the Marhi-Manali stretch thanks oncoming
traffic .
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| Reaching the skies! |
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| Take me with you! |
Finally we reached the place and returned the bike. We were
all tanned up and sweating in temperature of around 15 deg. Reason for being
that throughout our ride the temperature never went over 6-7 deg.
This is how it came to an end, paving the way for many more
such great journey to come and with a promise to go back to the mystic land of –
LEH/LADAKH !!
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
