Into The Wild

Day 4 : Trip 717 km

Manali to Chhatru ; 09.09.08

None of us woke up early the next day. We all had a leisurely breakfast, no rush, and were up and ready by 1100 hrs. We beelined to the filling station to top up our tanks and to fill up our Jerry cans; The next petrol pump was at Kazaa, quite some distance away and we had no idea of the terrain. While the guys were filling up, I scooted some distance ahead towards Prini.......some old memories beckoned me. Took some snaps of a particular hotel......french by the name - DiVivendi. Then I scooted back to the filling station to find the guys still on the job of filling up their Jerry cans. After the fill-up, we all started off towards Rohtang La, one after the other - in a bee line, careful not to leave anyone behind.

We had intially planned that since the distance from Manali to Chandertaal was around 115 km, we'd be able to do it in one day. Were we wrong!!!! The ride to Rohtang was relatively hassle free. Anshu had his first of many falls on the way to Rohtang pass. Not his fault, it was one tricky and steep hairpin. Even Kenny and Vikram had issues negotiating that turn, and I remembered that turn very well. It was on that turn that we had met Sanajy and Amol the previous years and great buddies till date. Many stops later and some tricky negotiations by Anshu, we finally made it to Rohtang after a gruelling 3 and a half hours. Lunch at Rohtang pass was maggi and omelette's on top, topped up by some swigs at the Old Monk from our hip flasks, which by now had started leaking from the caps. All the more reason to swig at the hip flasks!!

Deciding not to linger on much at Rohtang La, we hopped onto our steel horses and spurred them on. Just after Rohtang, we encountered a hailstorm. Out came the rain suits, and after a brief halt for putting them on, we carried on. The steep inclines and the pitting hailstones made the ride a tad uncomfortable. But we knew the stormy weather meant the sky was gonna get dark soon. So we tried to make the best time possible, squeezing out the best speed we were comfortable with. Soon enough we reached Gramphoo, the point where the road forks out -one goes towards Keylong and Leh, and the other one towards the Spiti Valley. Its very easy to miss except for a signboard that shows the way to the Spiti Valley. There's nothing but a milestone saying "Gramphoo 0 km" to distinguish the place from any other fork on the road. We veered to the right and entered Spiti territory, immediately greeted with some fantastic views in spite of the hails. There were eager shouts and waving of hands from Gyan, Kenny and me. From Jill's look on his face, I could make out that he wasn't too comfortable with the ride - perhaps he was too worried about his bike or perhaps he was a bit sick with the altitude. Whatever, he had no option but to keep pushing with the rest or fall behind.

The road was horrible though, and we made slow progress. We had grossly under estimated the roads. Our average speeds came down to just 10 km/hr. It was growing darker by the moment and we decided we had to camp fast. Some 2 km before Chhatru ( we didn't at that point of time that the faint lights ahead were of Chhatru) we came across a nice place to camp...a somewhat high place, with a small stream rushing by, and a large river down below. We hurriedly set up tent - a race against time. Jill and Anshu giving instructions on setting up tent, while Kenny and Gyan went about working on it. I went in search of some driftwood for setting up a fire, but all I could come across were small twigs and branches. Still, I crammed as much as I could find into my bike's saddle bags and raced back towards the campsite. The fellows had still to set up one more tent, and it was dark by that time. It was precisely 1800 hrs. I had to light up my headlights and turn them towards the tent to help the guys with some light.

Finally we were done with the tents!!! We all piled our stuff inside and I and Kenny made an attempt to light up the stove. No luck. After a few tries, we tried looking for help. A forest rangers' camp was nearby and we tried to ask them for assistance. The good samaritan came into our tent and lit up the stove for us. At last we could make something to eat!!!! We put on some water for boiling , while the rest of the guys savoured in the surrounding beauty. Jill was down with AMS and popped in a diamox and rested inside a tent. The water had boiled and we took out our cup noodles. Kenny and Gyan took out some sleeping mats and laid them down just near a cliff sort of thing. I put all the twigs I had gathered in the centre of the sleeping mats and also put a lit candle. Talk about dinner by the candle light!!! A little kerosene on the twigs and they lit up with crackling noises. We tried to enjoy it while the fire lasted, the guys settling into a warm laze on the sleeping mats. Anshu and Jill missed it cause they were busy rolling up a joint inside a tent. It was cup noodles time and we poured in the hot water into the noodles and they were tasty in a jiffy!!!

We opened up a can of tuna fish and I poured the contents onto a saucepan. Soon we had tuna fish as a supplement! Then we tried a can of pork the same way, which was taken well with the old monk in our hip flasks. I took a stroll, high-fived Kenny for finding us such a beautiful place for a campsite - river rushing below , stream flowing near, the moonlit starry sky and a valley to boot. I drifted onto some memories of promises made , put on some blues on my walkman, hoped one day I could keep those promises.

We all huddled into one tent after a while, sat by the candle light and exchanged stories. The stove was still lit to provide us some warmth inside the tent. The hip flasks were passed around, cashews and almonds being roasted over the flame and us munching on them, till we decided to pop into our sleeping bags. I still wanted to soak in some more. Lit up a smoke (I don't smoke btw), sat down on a stone by the cliff side and got lost on some thoughts and memories. It was sheer heaven that evening, that starry night, those moonlit mountains, the river, and the gurgling stream.........

After some moments with myself, I thought I'd pack up and snuggle inside our tent -shared by Gyan and Kamikaze, the other tent shared by the rest. I did have an attack of AMS some hours into the night. Woke up Gyan for a pill of diamox and went out again for some fresh air. It was only after that I could sleep again.

Into The Wild

Day 3

Manali ; 08.09.08

The next day all of us woke up late and had a lazy breakfast. We had slated the day for shopping for trip essentials like frozen food, cup noodles, stove and kerosene. I had to get myself a backpack, a pair of gloves and some more essentials for the rest of the guys. We also submitted our bikes for service and re-tuning for the high altitudes that we'd be covering.For our shopping Gyan enlisted the help of his friend Gagan, who took us into the alleys and nooks for bargains. We walked down to mall road, gathered the necessities and decided we'd head to "The Lazy Dog",a place that came highly recommended by Anshu. And boy , was it a place!!! I told Anshu I loved him for bringing us into that heavenly place!! I have been to Manali before, but I have never come across such a place as this. Its in old Manali, hard to miss, owned by a South Korean friend of Anshu, Yon, and its atop a rock cliff with the river Beas gushing below - providing a soothing acoustic bliss. We all shared the same views - the place was absolutely stunning.And Yon was the perfect host, checking on the dishes himself, and serving us some of the best tasting dishes I have ever had of normal rice and momos. I urge everyone visiting Manali to just visit this place once, and you'll be hooked. Infact, we all decided we'd book our IOC holiday home for some weekend and just laze in "The Lazy Dog" for the entire weekend. Kenny, you up for a weekend trip in your scorpio?

After a feisty meal, we all hunted for the leftover shopping stuff from the market and collected our bikes from the mechanic. Then we headed for the holiday home and distributed all the food among ourselves. I was nominated the cook for the journey,and I had to learn how to light up the kerosene stove in the process. We had all told Yon that we'd be coming to his place again for dinner and some chit chat by the fireplace. But once inside the holiday home, and the dinner already served, we decided to sit out and have the company of an "Old Monk" there itself. So, we started off another session of rum and coke in the lounge, a warm melee of people looking out to have a good ride the next morning. Perhaps the only person unhappy at this point of time was Jill. He was of the opinion that we should all stay back at Manali for one more day and chill out. But he was outvoted , the rest of the junta's views were like " there's more to see ahead". Oh , and Nawab also got lambasted by Gyan here!! Gyan said that had it not been for the rescheduling, we'd all have left one day earlier and it was dry the previous day, and so he wouldn't have had the fall before Kullu. I second that. Infact, everyone did. Nawab, you turncoat, are you listening?

Well, the session went on into late hours, and I abandoned the guys, citing reasons of sleep deprivation!! I could still hear the guys having a blast long after I had settled into my bed and was onto the second playlist of my walkman.

This might be also a good time to introduce the trippers photographically:

Standing left to right are : Vikram , Me, Kenny, Jill, Gyan and Anshu. And the cottage we stayed in Manali, one of the IOC holiday home huts there.

Vikram was on his Thunderbird, Kenny on his Electra, Jill was on his P200, Gyan on his Karizma, Anshu on his Electra 5 speed and I was on my P200.

Into The Wild

Day 2 : Trip 623 km
Panipat to Manali ; 07.09.08

The day saw us start off from Gyan's place at an "early" 0500 Hrs and into the GT road, only to be greeted by light showers just half an hour into the ride. What was a cool ride turned into a ride in the raging rains for the better half of the day. The sun brought some respite from the rain just a few kms before Kiratpur, where Gyan has the first fall of the trip. Some mishap with a fellow crossing the road. Anshu was behind him, and he promptly helped Gyan and his bruised bike back on, only to be rammed hard into by another biker's fall exactly on the same patch. Poor Anshu had to be administered first aid too!!! We had all waited for the bruised duo at the junction where the road turns towards Manali. Cameras clicked away at the damages of the first fall much to the chagrin of Gyan, who had just spent 350 bucks on his indicator, and which was now dangling limply -broken and tattered!!

A cup of tea later from a roadside dhaba, we were onto the hills!! Fortunately and very much surprisingly , we encountered a lot less trucks than we did the last time. We figured it being a Sunday, the loading operations at the ACC factory at Bilaspur might be off for the day. Whatever be the reason, we were making good time in spite of the extremely bad patches patches of road that leaped out of nowhere in the middle of the ripping road. The roads had definitely taken a turn for the worse, with wild patches of sticky coal tar at one stretch too. Yuck! my poor 120/80 !! I could just about save it from the tar.

We made a stopover at Bilaspur at around 1400 hrs for our lunch at the same Neelam Restaurant where we halted for breakfast last year. A good meal and a couple of beers later, we decided we ought to be hitting the road soon to reach Manali as soon as we could make it.Some way into the ride , Anshu started having problems with his bike. Someone suggested putting the tank on reserve and starting,which worked! Later we found out it was actually the tank running dry. And it was at one of those stops that Anshu had a very very very narrow escape from being hit by a Himachal Road Transport bus. We had stopped at a petrol pump to see what was causing Anshu's bike to stall, and when the bike started thumping normally , I got back on the road and waited for Anshu and Vikram to get behind me. I saw a HP bus zip by me and after seconds I heard was a booming "screech" of brakes and that's all...it was only after Kamikaze told me that the bus had braked so hard for Anshu, that I realized what a harrowing experience it must have been. Damn Anshu! You are one lucky dude!!

Then again, nature had other plans. After Sundernagar, the weather started turning inclement, and started a steady downpour that lasted all the way till Kullu. Frustrating though it was , we decided to brave the rain and move on, eating away miles at a slow pace. Anshu particularly had problems with his "snow goggles", a fact observed by Gyan and we offered to escort Anshu , hoping the tail lights ahead of him would provide some relief. We crawled on and on, the rain drops biting at our faces. It was very very tiring and the glaring headlights of the oncoming vehicles made it so much more difficult. Some distance before Kullu, I was the last in the line , and in front of me was Gyan. As I was negotiating a particularly sharp turn, I saw Gyan's bike's tail lamps, but the horizontal orientation of the tail lamps puzzled me at first. A split second later I realized Gyan had skidded and taken a fall. Sure enough, as my low beams hit the road, I saw Gyan sprawled on the road, rains lashing no end. I helped him onto the bike and after making sure everything was ok with his bike, we trundled on. A few kilometres ahead of us , it was Anshu who had his bike parked at the road side. His bike had run out of petrol. I went scouting up and down for some petrol, only to find either the pumps had closed, or they had run out of petrol. Frustrated , we took a litre of petrol out of Gyan's bike and hoped Anshu's bike would be able to make it to the next pump station and luckily it did! Anshu filled up , so did Gyan and we moved towards Kullu where the rest of us waited for our safe ride.

We found the rest of the guys waiting for us at Kullu, and by that time the rain had subsided somewhat. We decided to stick as close as possible from thereon to be able to help one another if another need arises. It was a hard and long ride from Kullu till Manali - the roads had deteriorated and we had trouble navigating the potholes and pebbles in the dark. After a ride that never seemed to end, we finally reached the "green" check post at Manali, paid bloody 600 bucks for the six bikes and after picking up some coke , we proceeded towards the IOC holiday home near Hadimba Temple. To our relief we found the holiday home guys waiting for us to help us out with the baggage. It was 2245 Hrs when we put our bikes on the stands, and it was 2310 Hrs when we had our pegs of Old Monk in our hands to toast us for making it to Manali in one piece - both bike and body!

We all crashed into the inviting warm sofas in the lounge section, while everyone piled their stuff inside their rooms. We had the whole cottage to ourselves and we made the most of it. Dinner was ready and we went on with our partying till we were famished and hogged away at the sumptuous food. People were still bent on making merry, pulling each other's legs, while I decided to hit the sack. I was droopy eyed and needed some sleep pronto, and after a while, the others too piled onto their beds........a sound sleep awaiting each of us.

Into The wild

Day 1 : Trip 126 km

Delhi to Panipat ; 06.09.08

Yes, its a short ride, but our first pit stop was at Panipat, more precisely at Gyan's place.I was the first to zip to Gyan's place, since I was carrying a precious load of an ice pack of pork, and I had no intention of letting the ice melt!!! I clocked an average of 93 km/hr to Panipat after leaving the guys at Murthal for their lunch. The plan was to pick up Gyan from Panipat, take rest over there , start off early next morning and clock Panipat-Manali in one day. Looked good on paper atleast.

The guys reached Gyan's place in the evening and they took off towards the nearest theka to ration ourselves with Old Monk for the entire trip and the evening that ensued was a leisurely one of whisky and pork and chicken tandoori. We started quite early, even before sunset, so as to be done with dinner by 2200 hrs. Needless to say the evening hours extended by quite a margin and people found themselves on the bed not before midnight. That was followed by a short nap to wake up at 0300 Hrs and get ready with our bags and bikes.

It was probabably the only time we woke up early during the entire trip, and all of us were set to rip at 0500 Hrs. Anshu, with his huge backpack and Jill, with his slippery rucksack, needed help with their bungee cords , but we all managed to get our stuff onto our bikes in about 90 minutes. I was planning on buying a North Face backpack from Manali, so I had to cram all my stuff into an airbag and my saddle bags, but somehow I managed to do it.

Into The Wild

A road trip to Jaipur, a weekend ride to Chail and numerous short trips weren't enough to satiate the need in us to get away from it all, to lose ourselves from the vagaries of our mundane lives. And we patiently waited for our annual getaway, and among the destinations debated, we zeroed in on Lahaul and Spiti Valley....one of the most talked about, and also one of the most torturous, circuits among riders. After fiddling with the dates, and numerous mails later, we decided we'd start off on September 5th : "we" being Kenny, Jawed a.k.a. Jill, Gyan, Himanshu a.k.a. Nawab, Anshuman,Vikram a.k.a. Kamikaze and yours truly as the sure shot trippers. We filed for leaves at our respective offices and most of us confirmed the sanctioned leaves, save one guy - the Royal Ass Nawab!! That guy is one proper screw up this time. Last time he was one of the most enthusiastic and we were left wondering what he was up to this time. Members of the last trip wondered if "Nawab koi galat kaam nahin toh kar raha hai?"!!!

Anyway, Gyan and I started booking our IOCL Holiday Homes in Manali and Shimla and we had confirmed bookings in a few days. We mailed the confirmation intimations on the mailers and had approving nods from the members.

Some days later into the preparations, Nawab suddenly calls me up and says he didn't know we were leaving on the September 5th. Bloody hell I cried, it was almost a month after the bookings and now this fella was asking us to postpone by one day. All of us abused Nawab no end, but being the shameless fellow he was/is , our profanities mattered little to him and requested us to change the booking dates. Mad as hell we were , but for the sake of our compatriot Gyan and I cancelled our bookings and re-booked for different dates simultaneously, wasted 4 precious cheque leaves and got confirmations yet again after a few days. We all asked him if he was ok with the new dates, to which he happily replied yes. He was warned that there would be no more cancellations/rescheduling whatsoever. Anshu and Jill even went to the extent of saying that it was totally unwarranted and that they didnt have any idea of the rescheduling at all. But anyway, Kenny and I calmed Jill down saying it was done for our darling Nawab.

Our trip preparations started with shopping for bike items at Karol Bagh, tent bookings, bike servicing et all, while Nawab remained in bliss in his favourite Gujjuland. Neither was he communicating with us, nor was he giving us any details of his leave status. Then, one week before the trip - BETRAYAL!! Nawab announced he wasn't joining us for the trip, citing reason as "Dil se awaaz nahin aa rahi hai"!!!!! We corrected him saying that the real reason he wasn't joining us cause he had grown too greedy marketing his ass over there. All vent up angst of our hassles of re-scheduling and taking care of Nawab's shopping needs went in hurling the choicest of "gaali"s on Nawab and we went on a silent mode with him from thereon. Kenny immediately removed his name from the mailing list and everyone complied, happily.

With Nawab out of the picture, we now concentrated on our final preps and I decided I'd quit office on 5th Sept itself and move on towards Delhi. Anshu and Jill got done with the final shopping , including toileteries worth 500 bucks by Anshu!! Essentially, my trip started on the 5th itself. The guys gathered at Jill's place on the 5th eve, barring Kamikaze who joined us early next morning, all geared up and raring to go. Incidently, 5th happened to be Jill's birthday and we had b'day celebrations over a bottle of Haig and chicken . Not a bad way to start off the trip!!

"On the beaten track"

A call to comrades

Heres an open invite for suggestions from our brothers in arms for our next escapade, hopefully sometime early next year.

Himanshu is of the opinion that we do a west coast trip, start from Rajasthan (Thats his current work place, the ass!!), along Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa. Basically down the Arabian coastline; distance being the farthest time allows us!

Amol and Sanjay's opinion are invited.

"The Trail" : Day 13

Anandpur Sahib to Delhi 21.09.07

A well deserved sleep later, on a beautiful misty morning of 21.09.07, we woke up to the alarms ringing off on our cellphones. The usual routine of packing our stuff onto the bikes and getting fresh thereafter ensued and we were off at 0800 hrs. We were'nt expecting anything much on this ride except for the blitz down NH1!

Breakfast was at one of the numerous punjabi dhabas that dotted the entire highway. Thereafter, we moved at a quite racy pace on the highway, making it to Chandigarh at around 1100 hrs. After filling up our tanks and gazing around the well planned( and fashionably well-inhabited!) sector 17 , we caught up with NH1 and gunned our bikes.

The uneventful ride, lazy roads and the warm sun was beginning to take its toll on Sanjay, who was complaining of a hungry stomach now and then. We had intended to stop for lunch at Murthal and it took quite some coaxing on our part to keep him going! Much to our relief ( I wouldn't prefer a bashing from a hungry Sanjay!!), we reached Murthal at 1530 hrs and had the usual delectable paranthas and dal makhanis.

Then followed a non-stop ride to the outskirts of Delhi and the burgeoning concrete jungle. We lost Sanjay and Amol somewhere along the way. As we merged with the busy Delhi traffic, this realisation dropped on us - our vacation was over. I was feeling particularly gloom, one for the fact that we had just left paradise and found mundane mortality; and the other for the fact that Amol and Sanjay were nowhere to be seen. Its kinda difficult to find words for these feelings. Amol and Sanjay had been aquainted with us just some days back...and now they were comrades - brothers in arms. Kenny also dropped the fact that it'd be impossible to find them in the traffic, and I kinda muttered to them that we couldnt even bid them goodbye. After a while, we just stopped at the side of the road and tried calling the guys. Kenny got through after a while and asked them to meet us at the Gurgaon exit at Dhaula Kuan. Its funny when you meet people you have known just a little while and the pleasure you get when you find them again. It was none but relief and jubilation when we caught up with the guys sitting at the side walk, waiting for us. What followed were hugs and mutual congratulations on making it back to Delhi, on making it back from a pilgrimage of sorts.....and being blessed by the heavens up above,literally.

I checked my tripmeter when we reached Kenny's place : 2868 km

We planned to meet them for a celebration at The Supper Factory after we had freshened up and they had checked into a hotel; and so we did. What a night it was!The mood was mellow, the beer was flowing, and our bodies bearing the signs of 13 days on the road.

Well into the late hours, a stroll through AIIMS and goodbyes later, we headed back for Gurgaon leaving Sanjay and Amol at AIIMS with their friend. I was already half asleep and half lit by the time we reached Kenny's place and it didnt take long before I just dropped on the mattress and dozed off.......dreaming about the next road trip!!!