Into The Wild

Day 7 : Trip 932 km

Kazaa - Komik - Rangrik - Kazaa

The seventh day of our trip went in exploring the markets of Kazaa, looking for trinkets to buy , and also in search of the local mechanic. Getting our bikes' transmission chains oiled and tightened took us better half of the day, and we had to still go to Kibber, Kye and Komik. When it was past noon, we all decided we'd go to the most recommended of the three since it was nigh impossible to do all the three places in one day. Komik came as the choice of our hotel receptionist and we were also enthused when we found out that it was the highest village - Kibber lost out by 5 metres!

Bikes ready and stomachs full , we set forth towards Komik well after noon. The initial stretch was good for short rips, but after a while we entered landslides area, where there were some work or the other going on. Not much of a hassle, but we did have to wait at some places where the bulldozer would be clearing rubbles of landmass. Some distance later, we came across a fork and we asked a worker there enquiring about the road to Komik. His reply was both the roads lead to Komik. Taking the road supposedly better than the other, we proceeded on some broken roads, but ones that offered us some fantastic views.

The ride was idyllic and we came across some characters quite aptly handled by Anshu. One being fossil peddler. Yes, fossil. Apparently Komik was under the sea some thousands of years back and now is a treasure trove for fossils; And we did get our hands on quite some of them. Simply beautiful. Don't know how old they are, but being fossils they are, I don't reckon they'll be anything less than a thousand years old. The fossils are beautiful by the way! We came across quite some forks on the road and we made some wrong turns, much to the dismay of Jill. But one thing we found out over there was that all roads lead to all villages!! Simply speaking, all of the villages were interconnected with the same kind of roads - dusty and broken and lonely.

After quite some riding, we finally reached Komik, one of the loneliest villages in the trip with a population of 114 people . Society would be so hassle free here!! We spent some time there, visiting the local monastery - claimed to be 800 years old by the caretaker there. The inside were nice though. Its always a different world when you step inside a monastery/gompa. The silence forces one to revere the sanctity of the place. Some innovative photo shoots later, we decided to head back to Kazaa before the cold caught up with us. I wore only a pair of woollen gloves and at that height the glaring sun brought no respite from the absolute chill of the high altitude winds. With just a pair of woollen gloves to shelter my hands, the cold wind bit into the palm and hands and I felt like some hundred small, pointed icicles were poking into my palm. It was numb enough for me!

We started off from Komik at around 1600 hrs and took the road that lead us quickly down ( suggested by the caretaker) . The road turned out to be only a little better than the Chota Dara stretch and we crawled at snail's pace, careful not to brake too hard or twist the bar too hard. One mistake , and its a lovely ride/fall/dump down 4000 meters. Finally after some really involved riding , we came across tarmac. But with tarmac came the landslides too. We had to wait behind a bulldozer again , but we were granted a passage from the sides after one of the tractors backed up a bit. The downhill ride was uneventful till Kazaa. Some of us went in search of payphones, some went for snacks, and Gyan, Kenny and I went in search of Chang - the local beer. found out it wasn't available at Kazaa, but was to be found at Rangrik some 8 km before Kazaa.

The hotel receptionist offered to take us to one of his relatives there after phoning them beforehand of our requirement of Chang. Off we went with the receptionist guy and after some 15 minutes, we waited at the roadside while he went off into the village in search of Chang. The more we waited the more exotic Chang became for us. We were growing impatient when the receptionist failed to turn up after 20 minutes and we blared our horns into the still evening. Finally, he came huffing and puffing out of some street with 2 and a half litres of our precious Chang!!!

We rushed back to the hotel and showed everyone our trophies, amid cheers and applause. Orders were placed for finger fries and some mutton, which we had ordered beforehand and the place set up for some local wine tasting!! Jill was down the whole day for some reason and he declined all our offers. Fine by us we said and we settled onto the party!!

There were some other guests that had checked in to the hotel that day, some adventurers from Ahmadabad in their Tavera and Scorpio. They met us, called us "Macho Men", congratulated us on making it so far on bikes - all of which inflated our chests no end!! I also went on to the extent of talking about "Dil mein junoon" and stuff!!! These people were looking for camping at Chandertaal too, and we warned about the sub-zero temperatures that awaited them at Chandertaal.

Incidentally, Kenny, Gyan and I had topped up our tanks before ripping off to Rangrik. While Gyan clocked an average of 32 km/litre, my average took a plunge to 28.5 km/litre!!! I was the butt of the jokes from Gyan and Kenny for the whole evening, and also for a couple of days to come till my bike started sipping fuel predictably after Nako.

The evening was just as warm as the previous eve, the local wine flowing like sweet water. Laughter in the room and a warm mellow feeling settling into all of us. Dinner followed after the session that lasted for quite some time. The mutton was out of this world, and so was the mushroom dish. Everything tastes exquisite in this hotel, something made better by the friendly and informative hotel staff. We walked into our respective rooms, with plans of starting off early for Nako the next morning.