woke up the next day on lazy notes and had a leisurely tea at Lama's before moving on towards Keylong at 07.30 hrs. Keylong didnt take much time as we had no stops in between and soon we were at the Chandra Bhaga Resort for breakfast. We decided to log more miles and reach Manali well before the evening by skipping lunch , thereby hoping to shave off a good 90 minutes of our travel time. Breakfast was a medley of toasts and omlettes, followed by Himanshu's order for paranthas. 
for Manali. Amol and Sanjay topped up their fuel tanks at Tandi, wherelse we decided to use the last litres of petrol left in our jerry cans and dump the cans. 
s relatively uneventful, saving a few video shots of us negotiating a stream/road crossing. Before Koksar, the road was particularly pebble and rock strewn, owing to an on-going road construction. Somehow Kenny and I felt like letting go of inhibitons and ripped our bikes on the stretch. For long I had been nurturing my "babe" on rocky terrain and I suspect the suspension had softened up quite a bit after all the play; So I decided to let loose the throttle and I must say, we did ride quite fast. Himanshu later caught up with us and was like "Guys, you ripped on the dirt track"...to which Kenny replied " We are rockstars , man"!! Not bad at all!!!
me kilometres before Rohtang, I stopped to take a few snapshots of the valley below. It was getting windy and hardly had I parked my bike and taken off my gloves, when a gust of wind blew one of my gloves on the edge of the cliff. Kenny was shouting at me to grab my glove, but the helmet prevented me from hearing him prperly. By the time I knew what he meant, the glove had been carried away over the edge. There I was, one glove in hand and the other down below. Kenny sported me on to go do to mountaineering and salvage my glove, to was I replied in negative saying I wasnt nuts!! Kenny insisted...but not before requesting my bike keys before I went ahead, and then Himanshu chimed in requesting my digicam...and then Sanjay requesting my shades!!! One look at the edge and I dropped whatever idea I had in mind!! But the weather looked worse at Rohtang top and clouds had settled in. I searched for my woollen gloves and decided to make the rest of the journey with the woollen gloves. It was hard, my fingers getting bitten by the cold wind, but I managed it somehow to Rohtang. A cup of tea later a Rohtang, we moved on towards Manali. After riding on the treacherous terrains from where we had come from, the metalled road from Rohtang to Manali was like an expressway for us!! I made it to Manali in an hour flat, docking at a service station at 16.00 hrs.My tripmeter read 2226 km when we reached our hotel.
at 07.00 hrs after a very hasty tea and hoped we could gain some time we lost the day before. All was seemingly well and we zipped by the roads. Himanshu was leading and we heaved a sigh of relief as we passed the point where Sanjay's bike had broken down the day before. We hoped to make it to Darcha if we kept the pace as it was and were quite confident we'd make good time since we wouldnt be stopping much for snaps and all. Just one km before Tanglang La, we found Himanshu waiting with his bike parked at the side of the road. We thought it was the usual routine for Himanshu - ripping and leading the way, only to be waiting for us to catch up with him sometime later. But as I approached him, he gave me a "got f****" gesture with his hands! I thought he meant the road, cause we had to pass through some very tricky slush and mud patches and some ice tracks too. But as I stopped near him, he broke to us that his rear tyre had blown a puncture!! It seemed Tanglang La was hell-bent on not letting us go!! Then started the deliberation again!! There was no going back to Leh again knowing it would take the whole 
day and we would be back to square one. Still joshed up from the previous day's "rescue mission", Amol lost no time at all in taking out the rear wheel off Himanshu's bike! Just to be doubly sure it was indeed a puncture, we pumped some air into the tyre with the help of our portable foot pump and took the tyre to a nearby slush to check for leaks, and leak it was! So it was decided that 2 guys would carry the wheel and take it to Pang, some 35 km (presumably) ahead and get it repaired. I suggested Himanshu and I go ahead on my bike and leave the rest of the guys behind with the bike. Some 5 km into the ride, we came across a sign that read " Pang 65 km"!! Horrified we were at the distance to be covered, more so cause we had no means of communicating with the guys waiting for us, we immediately stopped a truck coming from Tanglang La and requested the driver to convey some news from us. We wanted the guys to load Himanshu's bike on a truck, if they found any, and proceed to follow us towards Pang. 
y tank's fuel only on these rescue missions. Just as we were discussing about Himanshu's lift on a truck, we saw a lone rider on the steep road upwards. We thought it was Kenny, but he was moving too fast and seemed to carry little. So we dismissed the idea that it was Kenny and waited for the tyre to get repaired. Just before the tyre was inflated Kenny came zipping on the road and screeched to a halt near us. We were indeed surprised to find him without his usual load of tent, sleeping bag and mat and only half an hour behind us. To our utter joy, he conveyed us the news that they had found an empty dumpster just after we had left and had somehow managed to load Himanshu's bike onto it. Sanjay was following Kenny on his bike and Amol took a ride in the dumpster along with bags and backpacks. We high-fived each other as hopes of reaching Darcha rose again within us! We waited for quite some time for the dumpster to reach us and as soon as it reached, it took us all to task to get the bike down. I wondered how only 5 people had managed to haul the bike into it in the first place! Some precision tilting and eight people managing the bike and ground support, we got the bike back on the ground!! Amol had become a pro in dismantling and putting a wheel back on by now and within minutes the wheel was back on Himanshu's bike - all set and ready to go! After lunch, that is!!
thas and dal for lunch at one of the tents and at around 14
.00 hrs we decided it was time we moved on. But as we started loading our bags onto our bikes , Kenny found one of his jerry cans missing and Himanshu, his scarf. Search we did, but couldnt locate either Kenny jerry can or the scarf. We suspected the tyre repair guy to be the culprit, but couldnt prove anything and we didnt want to waste time by getting into any sort of argument. Kenny decided it would be better to forgo the 5 litres of petrol and get on our journey. So we started off again on what would be a non-stop ride to Darcha via Lachulunga, Nakeela, Baralachla and Sarchu. Dusk had settled in by the time we had some 40 km yet to cover till Darcha. We rode carefully in the dark on the downhill road and soon , we could make out the familiar dhaba lights below of the tents and hutments. 
s 17th of September; The morning bright and clear; The wind crisp and dry and the early hours very hectic. We got up quite early, packed up our stuffs, had our showers well - cause we werent going to be having bath privileges for the next couple of days!! Since we had to get our bikes checked for any malfunctions in the air filters or any other nut and bolt for that matter, we decided to go one highly recommended mechanic for the job. We started off for Mohan Sharma's(that was the recommended person) garage with our bikes and getting all our bikes checked took us a couple of hours. We headed back to the hotel to vacate our rooms and it was noon when we finally bade goodbyes to the friendly hotel staff.
All was well as we zipped by the now familiar roads and we were making good time when disaster stuck!! For some time , we were noting a slight mis-alignment in the rear wheel of Sanjay's bike. We had asked him to slow down a bit and get the alignment checked at the next mechanic available , which we didnt have any idea of!! 14 km before Tanglang La , at a very particlularly accentuated bump on the road, I heard a definite crack from Sanjay's bike. He stopped immediately, complaining of a terrible wobbling in the rear. Upon examining his rear wheel, Amol discovered 5 broken spokes!!! After deliberating for a while, I suggested we take the wheel out and rush it back to Leh without wasting any more time. It was already 15.00 hrs and dusk settled in soon at those high altitudes and we were 102 km from Leh at that point. Kenny and Amol headed back to Leh with the broken wheel and we were left behind with our bikes minus one wheel on Sanjay's bike. With nothing to do on the road, Himanshu took out the mats and laid them down by the roadside, on the sheer side of the cliff!! We decided to kill time by taking naps in turns and so we did! It was awful! Every time a truck passed by, the ground shook and we had to get up in fear of falling off the edge!! 
We propped the rest of our bags onto our bikes and were ready again for trip 2. Still no sign of Kenny and Amol. We decided to give the guys some more time and if they didnt turn up, we'd scoot downhill. When Kenny and Amol failed to turn up even by 19.30 hrs, we decided it was about time we left the place or it would get unbearably cold. The only respite was that the sky was clear and there was moonshine all over the place.
as of the suggestion that Sanjay ride on my bike and that way we could all leave together downhill. But Sanjay felt I couldnt do it, and he was right, neither did I. So he decided to hitch a ride on a truck and let us go solo ahead. We waited for a truck and soon Sanjay got a lift from a tanker heading towards Leh. He told us to ride safe and stop the truck at Rumtse in case he missed the hotel. And so we started off and soon were ahead of the truck , heading towards Rumtse. Somewhere downhill, just before Rumtse, I saw one solitary headlight coming from the opposite direction. Somehow, even before the other bike reached recognisable distance, I knew it had to be Kenny and Amol and I turned on my blinkers. And it WAS Kenny and Amol! I briefed them of the situation as Himanshu caught up with me, and soon Sanjay too in the truck. Amol was of the opinion that two bikes head back and get Sanjay's bike. So we decided I lead the truck and download all the bags at Rumtse, while Kenny, Amol, Himanshu and Sanjay headed back uphill to the stricken bike. I led the truck and offloaded all the stuff at the hotel and then began my patient wait for the rest of the guys. I knew it'd take some time as it was already dark and that meant much longer travel time on the road. So I helped myself to some lemon tea and wafers at the hotel and popped in a "cold and flu" tablet in some hope to ease away my headache.
o Leh, we woke up rela
tively early at 06.00 hrs on the freezing morning of 16.09.07. After a quick "chai" from our hospitable Army hosts, we kickstarted at 07.00 hrs from Parma, bidding goodbyes to our saviours and passing on phone numbers. A ride across incredibly beautiful country scapes and "Scottish" farm lands , myriad of small lakes and rivulets, small and quaint villages took us to our vantage point - Tang Tse. This was where the road forked to Pangong Tso and Chushul. We had taken a roundabout of the complete road and reached the place where the road united and led to Leh. We could see 2 rivers culminating into one at Tang Tse and the river from Pangong Tso was murky and muddy, which was how the people at Tang Tse knew that the bridge had been washed away again.
e entered the town limits, we paid a visit to one of the largest m
onasteries in Leh - Thiksey monastery and spent some half and hour there before we proceeded towards Leh.
s, we embarked on the ride towards yet another directio
n- towards Srinagar. Himamshu was too tired to ride his bike, opting to hitch a ride on Kenny's Bullet instead. The road was amazingly good and soon we came across a Gurudwara - Pathar Sahib Gurudwara. We went in and offered prayers and resumed our ride towards magnetic hill. When we came to it, there was a big board with instructions where to place our vehicle and observe defiance of gravity!! However, what awaited us was a big "kela" as my bike refused to budge and inched downhill. A gentleman in a Qualis insisted that it was indeed uphill and Himanshu was adamant that it wasnt. He suggested using a spirit level to determine who stood corrected. Just then a truck came along and he parked his truck at the spot painted on the road and then proceeded to make complete fools of us and our coveted "Engineering" degrees!!! He just took out his water flask and poured some of its contents on the road!!! Well, Himanshu was right, but we felt we had graduated by sheer fluke!!
ip to Pangong Tso - a grand, high-altitude lake that is shared by India and China. We had to make it back to Leh too , so we decided to leave as early as our sleep permitted! However, just to be on the safer side, we packed our sleeping bags and our tent too. Later on through the day, we would thank ourselves endlessly for making that decision!!
rs and with 1167.3 km on the odo, we started from the hotel towards Pangong lake. The ride was uneventful (the mountain roads had become second home to us by now!!), albeit for the numerous reportings at Army TCPs, where we had to submit copies of our passes.We reached Chang-La : level 6 and an altitude of 17800 ft above MSL and also the third highest pass in the world, at 10.00 hrs. To be frank, after climbing the first and the second highest motorable passes in the world, that feeling of elation was a bit weak at Chang-La! Maybe we didnt see 17800 ft as an awe-inspiring height anymore!!!
was bright as we snaked across the roads to Pangong Tso, occa
sionally passing a few scorpios and innovas on the way. The road was meant for ripping and the views absolute speed-breakers! There were also quite a number of river crossings on the road and a few bridges to boot. After crossing the last bridge, 4 km before the lake, we had the first view of the fabled Pangong Tso. The time was 13.00 hrs and the afternoon sun was shining gloriously on the placid waters of the lake. We sped towards the lake and when we came to it, we just sped across the shoreline in search of a good spot- only to find out that ALL the spots were good spots!! We just parked our bikes at a vantage point, hopped off and took off our helmets to soak in the glorious view that was in front of our eyes. You can make out EVERY shade of blue on the surface of the lake and the sky was a shade of blue that I had never seen before. We just sat down for a while trying to take in as much of the lake's grandeur as possible, knowing that none of our digicams would be able to replicate what we were seeing then. 
ether we would be able to make it to any village on that day it
self, we decided to eat properly and carry some biscuits and chocolates. We hogged well at a lakeside dhaba and without much ado, we started off for uncharted territory. The "alternate" route was hardly a route. There was no road, only a dirt track made by the scorpios scurrying ahead of us. The land was all rocks and sand, cliffs and valleys- nothing more. At times we were riding on cliffs that were dangerously rocky and a fall on the wrong side of the "road" meant a steep dive to the icy lake waters below. It was 16.00 hrs and the temperature had started nose-diving making our cheeks burn as the wind hit our face. After a while , we came to tourist guest house by the lakeside and the "road" ended there - a stark board saying " No Vehicles Permitted Beyond This point. Trespassers will be Prosecuted"!!!! We could do nothing except move on, the terrain offering no respite. There Many a times I wanted to take snaps of awesome places, but my mates advised me not to as we were in a prohibited place and that too near the border!! We had to cross small rivulets and we had to take care so as not to splash water on our clothes - the water was freezing cold!!!! 
kill time by spending some more time in the local markets and I suggested we try some genuine ladakhi cuisine for breakfast. We went to one restaurant run by ALUYA (All Ladakh Unemployed Youth Association) which was bang in the middle of the town. Himanshu tried one " Thenthuk" and Kenny and I went for a "Skyue", while Amol and Sanjay decided on something more mundane- bujia. Breakfast turned out to be more of brunch when we found out the servings were huge!They should've clubbed those items under "main course" instead of putting them under "breakfast"!!
8380 ft!!! The feeling was unbelievable, we had scaled the highest motorable road in the world!!!So far we were looking up at the majestic mountains and now we were overlooking all the adjacent mountain tops....
n the chilly morning of 13th September, only to find a sheet of ice had formed on our bikes overnight. It had been snowing the day before and that had contributed to the extreme cold. I was wondering if my bike would start under battery power in such circumstances. I didnt have a kick-start on my bike (I used to call it "superbike" stuff!) and Amol was like " Nilu, yeh tu kaun sa bike le ke aa gaya?". Indeed, I was really thinking that I would have to jumpstart the bike. Now, to find someone who push give that shove from behind! Well, just to try my luck, I brushed off the ice with cables and tried one go at the self-start. A struggling whine from the engine and I let go off the thumb start. Tried it once again and the battery low warning flashed on my bike's LCD console.
e preparations,mounting our bags again and a hasty breakfast consisting of soup and eggs, we started off at 09
.15 hrs. The initial climb through the snow-soaked mountain road later, we came across to another wonder by the name of "More Plains". It was in this plateau, that we "felt like God" like the dude in the Bajaj ad. From what we knew, the Bajaj ad was indeed shot at the same place. The start of the plains presented us with an awesome view of the mountains that lay ahead of us...and I realised why people talk of places "that had to be seen to be believed".We stopped for some snapshots and proceeded to what we would name as the "infinite lane expresway". It was indeed an out-of-this world experience to make our own road and go our own way! 45 kms into the exhilarating ride on the "More Plains", we came to the climb for Tanglang La- Level 4 and an altitude of 17582 ft above MSL.
d cautious climb later, we scaled Tanglang La at 11.35 hrs. My 
tripmeter read 980.4 km. Fellow riders had told us that if we made it to Tanglang La in fair weather, the rest of the journey would be a piece of cake. But it was at TangLang La that I had the first attack of AMS. I popped in a pill of Diamox, took some glucose spiked water and munched on a bar one. The spell of dizziness was what prevented me from joining Kenny and Himanshu for a roll in the snow. So we decided not to linger around much around in the rarifed atmosphere and move downhill. A few thousand feet descent later, I felt somewhat better and barring a few stops to take some more snapshots, we moved on to Rumtse for lunch.
hearing so much about but only through other people's tales and Nat Geo and Discovery. Leh- the fabled destination, the fruit of our ( and our bikes'!) labour and countless breathtaking paths later, we had made it!!We had made it to Leh in good time, having reached the main chowk at 15.20 hrs. A few enquiries later about the whereabouts of Old Leh Road , we checked into one comfy looking "Hotel Chospa" at 15.30 hrs. We werent too keen on hunting around for more hotels and besides, Amol and Himanshu found the hotel and the rates quite good.Once inside our hotel room, we just hugged and jumped with each other and slapped high five!!Sweet sweet victory!!! We had clocked a total of 1089 kms in five days.
