" The Trail " : Day 12

Manali to Anandpur Sahib : 20.09.07

A good evening in Manali, a brisk walk down mall street and a really cool dinner at Khyber Restaurant made us a tad late for the next day's trip. To make matters a bit more trifling, there was a steady downpour all morning. An hour later, the rain was showing no signs of abating down. Well, we couldnt waste much time sitting inside the hotel rooms and we reckoned that the rain would probably stop after Manali. So , we donned our rain suits and set off on the day's journey. As we had imagined,as soon as we had passed Manali, the rain stopped and we made good time thereon. It was quite a fast ride..and I got a wee bit reckless as I tried to outpace a Maruti Alto in a turn.....only to jam hard on the disc and swerve back to avoid an oncoming Qualis!

Well, I was a bit wiser from then on, but nevertheless making good time. Some time later on the mountain road and sometime behind Sanjay's bike (I like to ride behind and see the bikes ahead of me making the turns) I thought I noticed yet another wobble on Sanjay's rear wheel. Fearing the worst, I asked Kenny for a second opinion. But Sanjay had picked up speed and it was impossible for Kenny to make out whether it was really wobbling or not. However, after a while when he had slowed down, Kenny did confirm that the wheel was indeed out of alignment. I gunned my engine and zipped ahead of Sanjay before he could scoot off again and indicated him to park his bike. On inspecting his bike, it was confirmed that the wheel definitely had to be taken to a mechanic. The nearest town was Mandi, and somehow they limped to a mechanic. Darn! 5 spokes had kicked the bucket and there goes atleast 2-3 hours of travel time! So we did what we had to go - wait patiently while the mechanic does his thing. The skies turned ominous and as Himanshu had predicted some time before, it started pouring cats and dogs. The rain did serve a good purpose of showering our dusty bikes, but made a mess out of my sleeping bag. What the heck, I wasnt going to use it anyway; so I let things be.

A good hour and a half later, Sanjay's bike was ready and we resumed on our journey. We decided to fill up our stomachs before we left Mandi, and so we did...at a roadside dhaba. It hadnt stopped raining entirely, but we decided to move on slowly instead of staying put.

It was an uneventful ride onwards till I had a scuffle in Sundernagar. At a traffic junction, a CBZ extreme leapt out of nowhere cutting me off. I had no option but to jam as hard as possible on the brakes. My bike screeched and wobbled and it was impossible for me to control the bike with all the weight and the backpack on me and finally after depositing rubber on the tarmac, I skidded to a fall. Luckily, I had retarded completely and suffered no injuries and none to the bike whatsoever. I was almost ready to pick a fight with the reckless fools, when Amol and Sanjay just stopped me and got my bike up. I proceeded with a glum mood until after sometime, we caught up with Kenny and Himanshu and narrated the incident.

Tired as we were, we were impatient to reach Anandpur Sahib; But darkness had caught up with us while we were still some distance away. A very horrible ride from Bilaspur onwards, with all the dust and flakes, Himanshu had had enough of it and suggested we make a pit stop at the nearest hotel. But as fate would have it, we didnt find any decent hotel before Anandpur Sahib and we proceeded to the hotel we had logged in on our onward journey. It was well into the night when we had finally got our bags inside the hotel rooms. We had clocked 2475 km till this point.

Wiser from the previous failure of finding a "theka", this time Kenny and I got onto my bike and went in search of a watering hole. Some 4 kilometer outside the city wall, we did find one and loaded my saddle bags with precious "holy water".

A good dinner and "cleansening" with "holy water" later, we plonked on the bed and were sleeping logs in no time.

"The Trail" : Day 11

Darcha to Manali : 19.09.07

We 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.

Breakfast completed, we hopped onto our bikes again and started off quick 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.

The journey was 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!!!

Rohtang came up quite fast, faster than we had anticipated. Just some 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.

We checked into the same hotel at Manali and a somewhat luke-warm bath later, we went out roaming on the streets, got pics of both our digicams burnt onto dvds and went to a Khyber bar and restaurant. A few bottles of beer, one limca for celebrations and dinner later, we went to our hotel rooms and crashed into our beds first thing.

"The Trail" : Day 10

Rumtse to Darcha : 18.09.07


We left Rumtse 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.

Not knowing how lucky the guys would be in finding an empty truck, we moved on , me riding and Himanshu on the pillion with the wheel. We crossed Tanglang La and encountered some really wild patches of ice laden road, some more slush and then we got onto the road. We reached the More plains next and after a while I suggested we switch riders to avoid exhaustion. Himanshu took over from the More plains and suddenly the plains seemed to take longer than it had on the way to Leh. I guess when you are time bound, distances seem to take longer to traverse. It was very irritating to find we had crossed just 2-3 km in about 10 minutes of riding and the milestones, which were placed every kilometre, seemed far in between. After riding on for what seemed a long long time, we crossed More plains and started our descent to Pang. Some 30 minutes later, we reached an Army camp and were relieved to see a puncture repair tent nearby some tent camps. We immediately handed over the wheel to the repair and asked him to get on with the job. Now as we were making plans to head back after the tyre was repaired, the repair guy suggested that only Himanshu head back in a truck with the wheel and I stay back with my bike, cause that would save precious fuel on my bike. He was right, I would be burning off more than half of my 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!!

We had paranthas 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.

20.00 hrs and we checked into "our" Lama Dhaba, to be greeted by the cheerful Lama dusting off our dust-laden apparel. My tripmeter read 2080 km and my bike was all dust and mud, the red colour hardly visible with the layers of dust on it. We were surprised to find a busload of foreigners making camp at Darcha for the night and staying at the dhabas there. On our onward journey, we found hardly anyone at Darcha and now there was this big "mela" of foreigners and Indians alike!

After the usual "OB/BP" combo, we had some dinner and prepared for sleep, tired as we were from the non stop ride. 22.30 hrs and we were on our beds and had hardly counted a couple of sheep before sleep caught up with us.

"The Trail" : Day 9

Leh - Tanglang La -Rumtse : 17.09.07

The day was 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.

My trip meter read 1672 km as we left the hotel and took the road leading out of Leh. 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!!

I tried to get some shut-eye only to wake up with the terrible headache, the reason to which I had absolutely no idea cause I was doing just fine before the nap. Himanshu said that I might have had a sunstroke, cause the sun was bearing down on us and I had all my warm clothes on. Whatever it was, we waited patiently for Kenny and Amol. The wind had begun to play tricks on us and many a times we could hear the thump of Kenny's bike somewhere down below, only to be disappointed upon finding out it was a false alarm. Many a times when we saw a headlight down the road, we would hope it was Kenny's bike on the "rescue mission", a term aptly coined by Kenny. It was getting dark and the wind chilly. We knew we had little time before we had to make a move. At 17.00 hrs , we decided we would head back to Rumtse and stay there for the night. Now the problem was, what we could do with Sanjay's bike. After much debating and deliberation, Sanjay decided he would leave his bike on the road and come back in the morning with the wheel. We would have to make one trip to Rumtse with whatever we could carry and come back for Sanjay and rest of our stuff. We parked the bike on the side on the road and unloaded all the stuff. Himanshu, our "bungee master" began loading most of the stuff on his bike, knowing I wasnt feeling too well. I propped up one bag from Sanjay bike along with my own bike and that was all. Frankly I wasnt even too sure of my reflexes cause I was really feeling wobbly.We started of with our loads, leaving Sanjay with the bike and rest of our bags. I told Himanshu not to rip, cause I wouldnt be able to keep up with him in my current state. We reached Rumtse "down" below some 90 minutes later to an altitude of around 14000 ft. We found one hotel (actually there were only 3 hotels there!) and unloaded our stuff and told the landlady we were going back uphill to fetch one of our mates. But before that we decided to wait for around 20 minutes hoping that Kenny would be back by then and we could go up to Sanjay together. Half an hour later and no sign of Kenny and Amol, we decided to head back uphill to give Sanjay some respite. Sanjay was anxiously pacing up and down as we reached him, cause it was dark by then and the wind was getting cold!

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.

Himanshu was 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.

It was 21.30 hrs, when the guys returned and settled into the warm comfort of the hotel. We soon had dinner and were ready to hit the sack at 23.00 hrs. Our cell phones had been on a recurrent alarm for 06.00 hrs all these days now , so we didnt set any alarm inorder to get up early and make up for lost time!!

p.s. I had coined the term "bungee master" for Himanshu some days back on the road. He had a knack of packing up things on his bikes with the bungee cords and that dexterity prompted me to credit him the title "bungee master", to the approval of Kenny too!!!

"The Trail" : Day 8

Parma to Leh : 16.09.07

Not wanting to lose time on our onward journey to Leh, we woke up relatively 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.

After catching the main road to Leh, we made good time, crossing the familiar Chang La and making it to Leh at 13.00 hrs. We had lunch at a Punjabi dhaba the sign board of which read "Sher - A Punjabi Dhaba"!!

Before we entered the town limits, we paid a visit to one of the largest monasteries in Leh - Thiksey monastery and spent some half and hour there before we proceeded towards Leh.

The total distance we covered from Leh to Pangong Tso to Chushul to Tang Tse to Leh was 422 km and my odo read 1604 km at the hotel. We were famished and after a shower, we hit the mattresses and sleep came in 3 minutes flat!! Himanshu was fast asleep in no time and that left Kenny and I to figure out what to do for the evening. We decided that after an hour's sleep, we could go for a drive on the Leh - Srinagar highway and see "magnetic hill", a hill that suppsedly defined gravity.

At 16.30 hrs, we embarked on the ride towards yet another direction- 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!!

We returned soon afterwards and spent some more time in the hotel. We decided to go to an authentic Tibetan restaurant for dinner this time and proceeded towards one "Tibetan Restaurant" kitchen, where I ordered traditional cuisine and the guys went for a butter chicken. We had one thing in common though - 2 glasses of Kingfisher Premium Lager!!! We toasted to our successful ride so far and somehow, the mood turned melancholy-mellow as we realised it was last night in Leh. We took a longer walk to the hotel through the streets, looking for souvenirs and I getting a prayer wheel and a couple of lampshades, and making it to the hotel at around 22.00 hrs.

We had to get our bikes serviced in the morning and pack for our journey back home; So we decided to sleep off then and so we did. None of us were in the upbeat mood that prevailed on all the days before and I couldnt help but feel somewhat sad somewhere inside of me that we were leaving this place, a place that was heaven for us for all these days.

"The Trail" : Day 7

Leh to Pangong Tso

Our seventh day started quite early in preparation for our 154 km long trip 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!!

At 06.30hrs 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!!!

The sun was bright as we snaked across the roads to Pangong Tso, occasionally 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.

Then started the flurry of camera shutters going off, as we tried every shot possible. Amol tasted some water from the lake and to our surprise, we found out it was a salt water lake!! I never thought that a lake with its main feed from glaciers would be a brackish lake -and that too at such altitudes.

After quite some time, as we were just discussing our time of leaving, we were informed by some fellow tourists that the bridge that we had crossed just sometime back had been washed away by an avalanche!! Shocked we were, cause we were 154 km from Leh and as the Army put it-the bridge would take atleast a week to be built!! We were, however, informed that there was another way circumventing the lake, passing near the Chinese border and taking a detour that would add another 200 km to our route. Having no option left with us, we decided to follow a couple of scorpios that were also stranded on the lake.....but not before having a look at the raging river of snow and slush!!!! Off we were on the bikes towards the bridge and one kilometer from the bridge we could hear a deafening roar-even with our helmets on! We proceeded to a group of Army jawans standing on a cliff like structure and saw what exactly had washed off- or rather blown off the bridge and the road! A huge river of snow and mud was slushing down the slopes of the hill and there was absolutely not the slighest trace of the bridge that we had crossed just an hour back. The noise was LOUD - in very timid terms! I was witnessing live what we generally get to see only on adventure tv! There's no denying - mother nature IS to be respected!!

Not sure whether we would be able to make it to any village on that day itself, 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!!!!

We rode on ; the terrain was impossible; the huge rocks throwing us off-balance every now and then. Umpteen times we had to struggle with our bikes to go steady;umpteen times we got stuck in the sand and had to mercilessly revv our bikes to free ourselves; umpteen times we almost fell down after running into patches of soft sand suddenly; umpteen times our bikes bottom scraped jutting rocks and after what seemed an eternity, we came across a barren stretch of land-sandy and chilling. I called it a "mexican desert" - nobody to be seen for miles and extremely cold. To make matters worse, we were making terrible time. We were able to cover around 30 km only in about 2 hours!!!

It was dark now and we had to turn on our headlights. It was really eerie riding in that cold desert. The mountains casting a deep blue on the edges and the sky dark after that. Himanshu was like " Just hope that no Chinese check post picks up our headlights and start shooting at us"!!! Our ride seemed endless, not a soul to be seen around, until we encountered a police patrol van. Upon enquiring, we were told that the next village, Chushul, was around 30 km away. We groaned, knowing that those 30 km would take us another couple of hours. After taking some water, we started off again on the rocky/sandy/muddy track. There were quite a number of times when we lost the road and came to dead ends, and Amol would search for the right track with his torch and guide us. And once Himanshu ran right into a herd of black yaks!!! He had to honk his horn for quite a while until the road cleared!

Continuing our adventure, we rode in the pitch blackness of the cold desert/lost world until we saw some faint lights ahead. I pointed out towards the lights and Himanshu shouted back "I see, I see!" Nevertheless, it took us a good 45 minutes to reach those lights . We had arrived at Chushul at 19.30 hrs and after a "julay" to a villager, we asked about our whereabouts!! There was no accomodation facility in the village and we were told we should proceed towards Tang Tse, which was an Army camp, for accomodation. Most villagers had come out of their homes to have a look at us - riders in the night, on bikes and battling the freezing cold and just saved from getting hopelessly lost!! We were told that the next couple of hours ride would take us to Tang Tse and that the road was good.

Without further ado, we rode on and soon started the climb uphill. It was something I really had never tried before - riding in the dead of the night, on steep and dangerous mountain terrain, the night freezing cold, hairpin bends every now and then and with only our headlights for navigational aid. I was made the "navigator" and Himanshu herded the bullets! One pulsar was leading the pack and the other trailing, leaving the heavy bullets in between. The cold was biting and my jaws ached, my fingers were numb and the heavy layered clothing was what provided us with some respite. It was so cold that the engine shut off at idling and we had to keep the revs above 2k rpm just to avoid a engine shut-off.

The nocturnal ride was an experience in itself. We came across wild rabbits, deer and fortunately, no snow leopards!! I was so cold and hungry, I literally saw sumptuous meat as the rabbits scurried ahead of me!!! We took extreme care to ride slowly and I turned on the blinkers every time I came across a blind or a hairpin turn, so that the heavily laden bullets could be prepared for the turns.

An hour or so later, we came across an Army barrack at Parma. The altitude was 15262 ft and the I reckoned the temperature was around 1-2 degree celsius. Kenny suggested that we shouldn't push our luck any further and stay at Parma itself. It was 21.00 hrs and Tang Tse was another 90 minutes away. We had already been riding vitually blind on merciless roads and had been fortunate enough to be alive!!

We informed the jawans of the situation back at Pangong Tso and requested for stay overnight at their barracks. Initially they hesitated citing lack of beds ( which was indeed true) as a reason, but we insisted that we could adjust anyhow. They contacted their CO and after the requisite approval, they told us we could stay. Once inside, we were immediately provided with stoves to warm up our hands- which was so very much welcome!! The Army people were really swell guys and very very hospitable. We were treated to what not - from pista badam to cheeselets to tea to biscuits to gulab jamuns to warmed up mango juice!! We told that dinner was over for us , but still a couple of them went to the kitchen and got onto making some rice and dal. That rice and dal felt a feast fit for kings. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was the warmth with which we were treated, that the simple meal tasted so exquisite; but I will never forget that humble meal in my entire life.

Post dinner, we had to manage with 5 people on 2 beds and mind you, Sanjay was a huge guy!! It was here that our sleeping bags saved us - or we would have frozen stiff by midnight!! After much squeezing and adjusting, we all finally got onto the beds and at around 23.00 hrs, we turned off the LED lamp ...hoping that the cold dont get the better of us!! And probably, for the first time in our lives, we were sleeping so high up in the world........

The pic below may help to know what exactly I meant by a cold, dark "mexican desert". Thats a mountain top casting a luminiscent blue along the edges only......

"The Trail" : Day 6

Leh to Khardung-La and back

After some walking down the streets of Leh the previous eve, and dinner at the hotel, we decided to apply for administrative pass for Khadung-la and Pangong Lake first thing early morning. We did so the next morning and were told that the passes would be available around 11.00 hrs.

We decided to 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"!!

The hotel attendant came looking for us at ALUYA(since he was the one who suggested us the restaurant for some local cuisine) and informed us that the passes were ready and also suggested that we leave early. We rushed through our brunch and headed back to our hotel. After preparing ourselves well (we had put on thermal inners, shirts, sweaters, jackets and then a windcheater on top of all that), we got onto our bikes and headed for Khardung-la : level 5 AND the highest motorable road in the WORLD!!

We were beginning to feel at home in the twisty and high mountain roads till the previous day, but the road to Khardung-la was an altogether different journey. The road was smooth and metalled in the beginning, but the metal patches started disappearing after we reached a certain level. The heights were dizzying and the road narrow, the climb torturous and the winds chilling. Nevertheless we were content with the fact that we were riding on one of the toughest roads of the world!!

At 15.30 hours, we made it!!!! We had reached Khardung-la, at an altitude of 18380 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....

We had a small victory toast( Yes, the "old monk" was still with us!!!) and congratulated ourselves. I felt like I had something worthwhile in my life. I hadnt scaled Mt. Everest, but I had done something my calibre allowed me to. Pushing ourselves and our bikes to the extreme limits on that road is a feeling I'll harbour for quite some time to come....

Himanshu said he felt a little sad cause the toughest was over!! Little did we know that the hardest adventure was to beckon us the very next day!!!

After hanging around for some time and taking a few shots, we decided to head back to Leh. There was this Ladakh Festival going on and a cultural music show was scheduled at 18.00 hrs. We started our bikes again at 16.00 hrs and started downhill. We reached the familiar roads of Leh at 17.30 hrs and freshened up at the hotel. A quick snack at a north Indian fast food corner later, we headed towards the Polo grounds for the music festival. An hour later, we were back to our hotel for a victory celebration!

We made plans for getting up early next morning for our visit to the fabled Pangong tso- a high-altitude lake that was shared by India and China.

At the end of the 6th day , my tripmeter read 1167 km, and we slept off at 23.00 hrs in anticipation for the next day's trip.

"The Trail" : Day 5

Pang to Leh 13.09.07

We woke up around 06.30 hrs on 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.

Kenny urged me to have one more go at it. I wasnt too keen on making my "superbike" suffer..so I asked Kenny to do the honours. He simply put the choke on and tabbed the thumb start- the engine came to life at a single go and my baby purred on without a note of protest!

After all the 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.

A steep and 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.

We reached Rumtse at 13.00 hrs and stopped at a local restaurant by the road. The lemon tea at this hotel was awesome and we ordered maggi for lunch. Amol fell sick immediately after lunch and we thought it'd be a good idea to just hang around a bit and let Amol rest for a while. Anyway, Leh wasnt too far and the road was supposedly good.

The road after Rumtse was an unforgettable one- with unbelievable scenic views splashed across all around us. We ripped on the road that snaked through the valleys, my speedo touching 96 kmph at times, but not more than that. I suspect the altitude playing the major role in the bikes' under-performance.

An hour and half later, we had reached LEH!!!- the place that we have been 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.