Almost Ladakh - The ride begins

Perfect riding conditions is what we started off in - partly cloudy, a cool breeze, and dry roads. It was too good to last though, with a slight drizzle starting barely 15 kms into the ride. We were at Palchan at that time and thought it prudent to stop for a while just to let the rain pass over. We had a nice tea and the friendly chai-wala assured us that the roads were okay upto Leh. An important thing when travelling in India is to not trust friendly locals entirely, especially when it comes to road conditions and distances. Always get a second opinion where possible. The second opinion in this case was an army road sign indicating that the roads were open all the way upto Leh. Just the day before, local news was that the road was closed due to incessant rain in Ladakh causing flash floods!

The rain though, showed no sign of letting up, so we decided to carry on with the rainwear on. That's when we discovered that Abby and Kavi had got us cheap woollen gloves - not very useful when it's raining!!! We still needed one additional pair which we bought from the chai-wala, again a cheap woollen pair because it was the best she had.
Shortly after, we ran into a minor accident scene. A lone enfield rider coming in the opposite direction had ridden his bike into a ditch. We helped him pull the bike out and gave him a little medical attention (Relispray). I don't know if the scene scared anyone else, but it did put a small apprehension in my head about the dangers of riding bikes on roads such as these! But what the hell ... that's what this whole trip was about ... :-)

Seeing he was doing alright, and a couple of his fellow europeans arrived to keep him company, we continued on our way. The locations were serene, and we were just beginning to enjoy the ride when we hit our first and only puncture. My rear tyre was flat and we had to stop. It might seem very simple on the outside, but when a bunch of novices get around to fixing a puncture, it's often quite a task (especially when you discover that the tools you are carrying are inadequate for the job!). An hour and a half later, we had it fixed, but not without getting ourselves seriously drenched and dirty. There was a certain satisfaction though, out of employing our collective engineering brains and solving the problem with whatever available tools.

Back on the road, it got colder as the rain just refused to stop! Next stop was at Marhi, 35 kms from Manali (Not much progress ... I know ... But in the rain and fog, the road really was a horror!). We got ourselves hot tea, maggi, and pakoras to defrost. Full, and slightly warmer, we left the place the moment the rain cut a bit. Marhi is covered in 10-15 ft of snow at the peak of winter ... that should give you and idea of how cold it was!With the light dimming, there was a thought of staying there for the night, but we decided to carry on atleast upto Koksar - atleast we'd be out of the rain.

Another hour later, we had reached Rohtang, which is nothing but a collection of tea and snack stalls. The guys there make their living from day tourists in season. We were running against time and decided to go straight through without even stopping for a picture, but well, someone must have wanted us there really bad! Metres after crossing the Rohtang pass, I realised that my bike did not have brakes anymore! The brake yoke was in 2 pieces (we found out later that there was a crack in it all along and it was just waiting to break).
Since Marhi, I was just gritting my teeth and riding, hoping for the weather to clear (We were told it should clear soon after the pass). But with the brakes gone and the realisation that we were in a spot, my endurance was over (I've always had a problem standing cold!). Zappy, Kavi, and me took a couple of swigs of Old Monk to beat the cold while we waited for the others to turn around and come back. And they came back with more bad news! Chavan's accelerator was stuck on the higher end of the revs, and he was just riding on the clutch! Now we had 2 bad bikes, bad light, and noone in a shape to do anything about it. Couple of passing trucks refused to stop for us, leaving us with only the choice of going back to Rohtang to spend the night.

Friendly locals gave us one of their tents to spend the night. They also had rugs and blankets (which was good because we did have a couple of wet sleeping bags). They also gave us tea, biscuits, cigarettes, and a stove. It was helpful, but it was beyond doubt the coldest night I have seen. Going out to piss was a task even after being covered in 4 layers of clothes!!! We took our time to thaw, and retired for the night after some Old Monk shots and biscuits.

We were always aware of the danger of AMS (although the philistines in us were laughing at the idea :-D), but a night in Rohtang was first hand experience ...

Almost Ladakh - Getting ready for the bike ride

Manali is a tourist town on the banks of the Beas river. The main attractions here are the Hadimba temple - a 1553 Hindu temple dedicated to the Goddess Hadimba and built in the style of a Buddhist Gompa; the nature park - a nice park by the banks of the river; the Mall road which allows you some decent shopping (do visit the Tibet Emporium, some really good stuff available there); Vashisht - a very passable place 3 kms from the town, the attraction being hot springs; Solang Nallah - some 15 kms from the town and having an adventure sports institute.
The nearest airport is Bhuntar, the railhead is Kalka/Pathankot. Buses to Manali are plenty from any of these places, but luxury coaches will need to be booked in advance. Being a tourist place, taxis are not difficult to find, and it is possible to get good deals.

First thing we did in Manali was to find a hotel to stay for the night. We chose Hotel Beas View (run by Himachal tourism) because it fit our budget, because Bhatti recommended it from an earlier stay, and because we were too lazy to go check out other places. It's an average hotel for the price, but has a small-but-great balcony overlooking the Beas river. Manali is full of hotels and with a little bit of searching you can find a really good place. The budget places run by Himachal tourism are generally not very well maintained, so look at other places for value for money.

Next in line was lunch. We went to a place called Khyber (End of mall road where the road diverges to Rohtang and Leh). It's a very passable place, but for some reason we just kept going there all the time we spent in Manali! The commonly available beer in Manali is either "Golden Eagle" or "Godfather", both pretty lousy. KF is available, but not everywhere.

After a couple of drinks and lunch, we were ready to get on with business. Our original plan gave us 1 day in Manali to find bikes for our ride to Leh. We enquired around and found a couple of places. Most of them had Enfields to rent out, and we were initially skeptical about these. These bikes are heavier and difficult to handle, and even the gear and brake pedals are interchanged! Not a very good thing to hit one when you need the other ... especially when "off-the-road" could mean 1 km down in the valley! We finally realised that we did need Enfields because of the carriers they come with. With the amount of baggage we had, there was no way we could manage on the puny Yamaha 100cc bikes!

We were looking for Anu Automobiles in Old Manali, but ran into Shankar garage, a place accross the river on the road to Leh. They offered a good deal on the bikes, and assured us about the condition of the bikes. We ended up picking up 2 enfields to try out and see if we were comfortable riding it. It's a great bike once you get the hang of it. Extremely stable and very powerful.
We spent some time testing the bikes, and thought we liked them. So we decided to go ahead and also take 2 yamahas for those who did not want to ride enfields. The plan was to pick up the bikes (freshly serviced) and leave early the next morning.
Other stuff we picked up to prepare for our ride included gloves, plastic bags to put the baggage in, maggi, biscuits and chocolates for food, plastic sheets for raincoats and extra nylon cord to secure the luggage to the bikes.

We spent the rest of the evening walking around town, buying stuff, eating momos in the local market (Zaheer insisting on a particular momo-maker of the fairer sex), having Old Monk in the hotel room, and having dinner at Khyber (again!).

Early (which is around 11:00 AM!!!) the next morning, we checked out of our hotel rooms, made more last minute arrangements, and got down to tying the luggage onto the bikes. We were halfway through this exercise before realising that we still had a problem - There would be 2 pillion riders and again, not enough place to load all the luggage! So we went back to the garage to get another Enfield, which we were told would only be available morning the next day! Off came the luggage again (With all the tying/untying, I did remember Mr.Aldo and Mrs.Ramachandran, my scout teachers in school!), back into the same rooms which we had vacated a couple of hours back.
After a late lunch, we arranged for the plastic cans to carry extra petrol (The last petrol bunk before Leh is at Tandi, which leaves a 365 km stretch with no petrol available ... ) and a small gas burner and vessel for cooking at camp. A visit to the nature park followed. Finally, we got ourselves Old Monk and some sewage-water-packaged-as-apple-wine (for Chavan, the wine-drinking teetotaller), and got down to business. Was a nice evening in the balcony followed up by a good dinner served at the hotel.

Early the next day, we picked up the last bike, got the luggage on, fuelled up, last minute adjustments on the bike, and hit the road to Leh. Adventure was the idea behind this trip, but we had not expected what was to follow ...

Almost Ladakh - Getting to Manali

Plans started early in May. The target was Ladakh. The usual gang was conferred, and everyone was excited about the prospect of going to Ladakh. To add to the thrill, we added the motorcycle element. We would hire motorcycles from the plains and ride upto Leh - the ride of a lifetime!

Last minute adjustments, additions, dropouts, and the final list ...

1. Abby (Abhijeet)
2. Chavan (Abhijit)
3. Kavi (Kavita)
4. Me (Ajay)
5. Zappy (Zaheer)
6. Bhatti (Vikram)

(Clockwise from top left)

After a month of planning, we came up with the final list of what we needed to accomplish our mission. By the weekend before we were scheduled to leave, we finished all procurements, some must-haves, some nice-to-haves, and some fun-to-haves.

1. New tents
2. New sleeping bags
3. New radios
4. GPS unit
5. Medicines

The NRIs had arrived earlier in the week, and everyone was raring to go. Rendezvous was scheduled for the afternoon of 03-Aug at the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT), Kashmete Gate in Delhi. This was where we board the bus to Manali. Tickets for the bus were already procured through Ammy in Jaipur, who managed to pull some strings in Delhi and keep the tickets ready for us. Thanks buddy!!!

What would you know ... with all the excitement, people actually reached Delhi earlier than scheduled, and we were all at Delhi airport by 1600 hrs! Old friends meet, and it's the good ol' days again ...

We took a bus which went straight to ISBT and conveniently left my binoculars behind in the bus (A sort of premonition, considering the amount of stuff that we misplaced on the whole trip)! Well, it's the beginning of an exciting holiday, and such minor losses do not bother you at this point.

We decided to pick up the bus tickets first from an extremely helpful and courteous Mr. Ratan Lal who was waiting for us at the Rajasthan Roadways office. Bus tickets procured, we decided to take a ride on the shiny new Delhi Metro. Tickets taken to Connaught Place, a beautiful part of Delhi which blends British charm with new-age India.

We can't stop marveling at Delhi Metro, unanimously voted as a perfect use for citizen's tax-money. Just hope they can keep it maintained in it's current state! Extreme high security though, and a few grumpy cops in the generally cheerful lot. Had to open up all our bags and explain some contents, but that's not a big price to pay for your own safety! Got to Connaught Place, had a few beers in TGIF, picked up cash to last the trip, and rode the Metro back to the ISBT.

Mr. Ratan Lal was there waiting to show us to the bus we were to board. The volvo we were supposed to be traveling in had apparently crashed and not made it back from the previous trip, leaving us with a 'Tata-AC' bus to travel in. We did get a refund for travelling in the lesser-but-not-at-all-bad bus, and soon we were on our way.

First stop, dinner at Karnal - halfway to Chandigarh - where we had aloo parathas with makhan 'tikiyas' (slabs of butter - have all you can). No wonder people north of the Vindhyas grow so much larger than the people from the south! A pretty comfortable night ride with the AC switched off most of the while and the windows left open. So much for Tata-'AC'!!!

The video was functional though, and we watched 'Kudrat Ka Ajooba', a thoroughly entertaining movie involving the Yeti, his 10-year old girl human friend, local goondas, evil international scientists, all stitched together with Dada Kondke-esque dialogues like 'Tum mere upar kya kar rahi ho ...'!!! There was also a song that went 'Yeti I love you ... ' apparently a favorite with Kavi in her school going days!

Early morning breakfast stop at a place close to Bilaspur. Passable aloo parathas once again, one sooper cramped loo (still wonder how Zappy managed that one!), and lots of beautiful views. Next stop, scenic stop in the middle of nowhere, because our bus-driver - distracted by starring Bhatti and Chavan's home videos - kissed the side of a local gentleman's Maruti Alto. Everyone took the time to take pictures, while the local gentleman, the bus driver, and half a dozen mediators came to a settlement. That's Zappy at the crash site.

Onward again ... and an uneventful journey till Manali.

What is Waypoint0?

Waypoint0 is my addition to the already crowded world of holiday makers. Waypoint0 aims to go places that not everyone goes to. We ensure that every holiday we conceive is unique - in the places that we visit, or in the activities which we do. Waypoint0 aims to ...

1. Explore the world around us
2. Open a window for those who are willing to explore the world and don't know where to start.