It was almost 3 months since i returned from the Spiti ride, and i had lost interest in all small rides. It was almost as if tar roads didn’t interest me anymore. Luckily the winter chill brought along with it the itch to ride again. I got a call from a friend on Friday night and we planned to hit the road on Saturday morning. This ride was going to be with a pillion, so i had to search for my old helmet and clean it up so that she could use it.
I had returned home pretty late from work, and managed to get 2 hours of sleep before the alarm woke me up. I called up my friend, made sure she was up, and then got ready and left home at 6am to pick her up. We reached the highway at 6:30 and just as we were enjoying the cool morning breeze on ghodbunder road, the traffic slowed down and there was a huge line of trucks backed up. This was not how i planned to start my first winter ride. Being on a bike, i managed to get in front of the traffic and eventually clear it by riding on the dirt on the left of the road, and sometimes between the trucks. Once we reached NH3 we were able to maintain decent speeds. We took a breakfast halt at a hotel by the road and then continued towards bhandardara.
The straight roads continued for a while, and then the fun began when we reached kasara ghat. The ghat was fun, but it had a lot of slow moving trucks and the occasional vehicle driving the wrong way on the one way road. After making our way up to igatpuri, the weather improved a little, and it was much cooler. The turn to ghoti took us off the main highway and onto a pothole ridden road that passes through a crowded market place for a few km, and then clears up. The road was pretty bad, with potholes everywhere and it was so narrow that a passing car would force you go slow down and ride at the edge.
We took one break on this road for a few pictures.
It was getting hot there, so we walked back on that same trail to a rock that we had seen on our way down. we sat there for some more time, and i got a chance to click some flowers and butterflies.
After spending an hour there, we went back to the MTDC resort for lunch. Post lunch, the 2 hours of sleep starting taking it’s toll, so we went back towards the lake to relax for a while. There was a bench there besides it, and we just sat there listening to music staring at the lake. On most of my trips i just visit a place, click pictures of everything around and go back home. This was one of the few times where i was actually relaxing.
We spent around 2 more hours there and then started the return trip. Before returning, we thought we’d check out umbrella falls and the dam, but there was not much to see there, except for the lake.
It was almost 3:30pm now, so we started riding back from here. I had not taken much pics on the road while getting here since the sun was too harsh, but now that it was almost evening, i stopped at a few places on the way.
The ride back on the winding roads was fun, with the setting sun for company. We crossed kasara ghat and stopped for a tea break at one of the hotels there. From here onwwards it was a nonstop ride home, where we reached at 7:30pm thanks to the traffic entering mumbai. Short rides like these are very refreshing, and it fills you up with enough energy to last atleast a couple of weeks.
Nothing eventful happened over the next 2 days, so i am going to keep this log short. We started very early in the morning, at around 6am, since we had a lot of distance to cover today. We had our breakfast at a food court at the HP pump on the way.
After breakfast, we rode for a couple of hours and reached the jaipur-ajmer express way. There was one scary incident on this express way. I was riding at around 120 on the right most lane next to the divider, when out of nowhere a cow jumped across the divider and right in front of my bike. I managed to brake hard and swerve to avoid the cow and luckily i was saved, but after that incident i stuck to the center lane. The problem with the roads here is that the dividers have a lot of grass growing on them, and the villagers let their cattle graze there. There were many other cattle related incidents on this road. I even seen a few dead cows lying on the road side after being hit by trucks. I slowed down a bit after this incident and continued towards ajmer. We took a 30 minute at a CCD outlet near ajmer to let the bikes cool down. After covering some more distance, we stopped for lunch at another petrol pump near rajasthan. The food there was surprisingly good. veg, but good.
From here we rode towards udaipur. There were 5-6 friends of ours who were on a ride from mumbai to udaipur, so we caught up with them in the evening and had a cup of tea while exchanging stories. Some of them were supposed to ride back with us, but they changed their mind and stayed there overnight. It was almost 7pm now, and we could see some really dark clouds in the sky, so we continued riding before the weather got worse. As soon as we left, it started to pour. The headlights were useless on the wet roads, and the rain was making it difficult to see, so i slowed down to 60. Om somehow managed to keep up a decent pace, so i blindly followed his taillight all the way to gujrat. We reached himatnagar at 11 in the night, drenched to the bone. There were a bunch of hotels by the highway, so we stayed in one of them. The first thing i did was have a shower and change into dry clothes. We then gathered in our room and ordered for dinner before calling it a night.
Distance covered – 783km
Day 18
We wanted to reach home as early as possible, so we woke up at 5 and started riding by 6. It had been raining all night, and it was still raining when we left. The hotel guy was concerned and asked us for our phone numbers just to check if we make it safely. We rode all the way upto anand and took a breakfast break there. From there we rode nonstop upto surat, where we stopped for coldrinks. The next run took us all the way upto vapi where we stopped for a late lunch at mcdonalds. Our first meal of the trip was at vapi mcdonalds, and so was the last. From here we rode all the way upto manor. Wwe were making good progress, but then we got caught in this really bad traffic jam. The traffic lasted for atleast 5km, and it wasn’t moving an inch. Being on bikes, we could make our way through and within an hour we cleared the jam. The reason for the traffic was a bottleneck where 6 lanes of highway converged into 1 at an intersection, and there was a cop who was stopping traffic every now and then to let the locals cross that intersection. Once we cleared this patch, progress was quick again. We took our last break near fountain hotel, where we exchanged luggage. My saddle bags were empty again, and Om and Anahita had to ride back with 4 bags on their bike. By 6pm, i reached home. It felt good being home after spending 18 days on the road.
Distance covered – 600km
Total trip distance ~ 5000km previous day
This was my first trip to the himalayas, and it was everything i dreamed it to be. Getting out of the hustle and bustle of the city and being on the road in a place so beautiful really puts your mind at ease. There were days on the trip where I had forgotten what day or date it was. We didn’t even have to check our watch since there was no hurry at all. The best part of the trip was when we had no cellphone network for 4 consecutive days. Being in the himalayas really does bring you peace from within. It teaches you to look past the things that bother you, and focus on the good side of things. I would say that it definitely changes the way you look at things, and i will try my best to go there once every year.
We had to get the bikes serviced today, and since the service center opened at 9, there was no need to wake up early. We took our own sweet time to get ready, ordered breakfast, and reached the service center just as it opened. As promissed, our bikes were taken in first so that we could leave early. They told us the bikes would be ready by 12pm, so we had a couple of hours to kill. We got in a rick and headed to rock garden. The place was huge with different rock sculptures. I wasn’t carrying the SLR since it was raining, so i had to use my waterproof phone camera to click pictures here.
It was 1pm by now, so we went back to the service center. The ninja just needed a coolant top-up, so it was ready after drinking half a can of coolant, but my bike was still being worked on. I had asked them to replace the chain-sprocket set since it was worn out and it wouldn’t have made it back to mumbai. I also got the carburetor tuned since it was giving me a mileage of 28 after the mumbai service center meddled with it. The bikes were ready by 2pm and we started our return ride. We rode for an hour and took a lunch break somewhere on the highway.
Lunch was done by 4pm, and we continued riding towards jaipur. We took a tea break at panipat at the same place we stopped on day 3 of the trip and then continued towards delhi. We reached delhi by late evening, and luckily there was no traffic. Delhi was crossed within an hour, and we took the next break at manesar mcdonalds for dinner. It was 8:30pm by the time we left mcdonalds, so we rode pretty much non stop from here onwards. Our plan was to ride as much as possible till 11pm and then stop at the next lodge. By 11pm, we reached a place that was 80km before Jaipur, and there was a decent place to stay, so that’s where we crashed for the night. After getting the bike tuned, i got a mileage of 35+ on this road. The chandigarh service center did a really good job, and I highly recommend getting the bikes checked there before starting any trip up north.
From today onwards we started the return trip, most of which was uneventful and without photo breaks, so the log is going to be shorter and more boring than the previous days. The plan for today was to pick up some apple products from shimla, and then head to chandigarh to get the bikes serviced before the long run to mumbai. We had called up the chandigarh service center and they remembered us as the 2 guys who rode all the way from mumbai. They said their manager was asking about us, and they told us that we can drop by anytime to get the bikes serviced. It was really nice to get that kind of hospitality from them. We started from narkanda at 9am, and rode on towards shimla. This patch was pretty good during the start of our trip, but it had degraded a lot now, probably because of the rain. We also got some spells of heavy rain and light drizzles on this route. On inquiry we were told that there are shops selling apple products even after shimla, so we skipped the city and took the bypass road.
There was a huge apple market on the way, so we stopped to ask the price of the apples. They were selling them at 800rs for 20kg, which was dirt cheap compared to the prices in mumbai, but sending them to mumbai would have been too costly, so we didn’t get any. As we moved ahead, i lost Om and realized that i had accidentally entered solan city instead of taking the bypass. We co-ordinated on phone and decided to meet outside the city. I found him waiting at another store selling apple products. We brought a lot of stuff from here, including apple wine, apple jam, and apple juice. All of that stuff was dumped into my empty saddle bags making them really heavy. It felt almost as if i was also riding with a pillion. I had to constantly keep adjusting the bags, since it was getting too close to the silencer with all that added weight. Luckily chandigarh was less than 100km ahead, so the invoncience wouldn’t last long.
The road from here to chandigarh had a lot of tourist traffic and progress was slow. Somewhere in this traffic while i was waiting behind a car, one idiot on a CT100, while cutting through traffic lost control his bike on the slope and hit my bike from behind. I couldn’t hold the weight of the bike so i had to let it fall. There were no damages to the bike or myself, but i was more worried about the glass bottles in the saddle bags. The other guy had skidded off the road and he fell of the bike. I tried lifting my bike, but it was too heavy. The people around also stopped to help and it took 3 of them to lift it. I inspected the bike once again and left that spot after giving the other guy a piece of my mind.
I reached chandigarh at around 5pm, and rode straight to the service center. They said that the mechanics had left, and requested us to come early morning. We asked them if there was a good place to stay nearby, and they suggested that we stay at himachal bhawan. They were courteous enough to even accompany us to the hotel, since the road was a little confusing. This level of customer service is very hard to find in mumbai, and we really appreciated their help.
We got 2 AC rooms at 800 per head, which was reasonable compared to the rate the other hotels in the area were demanding. The rooms were huge and very clean. After freshening up in the room, we ordered for tea and a lot of snacks since we had skipped lunch. Later that evening we rode to a mall in the city where we spent the rest of the evening. Anahita and Om played a few games, and we had our dinner there as well. We then returned back to the hotel at around 11pm and called it a night.
We woke up at 6am and had breakfast at the same guest house before leaving. My bike chain was making a lot of noise the previous day, so i oiled it and mounted the luggage on the bike. We then started towards jalori top. The top was 6km from where we were staying, and the climb was really steep. Since the ninja’s engine was completely cold, it made it to the top without breaks, just before the needle could reach the H mark. We stopped at one of the shops there to ask about the road ahead.
The shop owner confirmed that the road was blocked, but there was a link road that descended down from the pass. He also told us that this road was in a bad shape, and it was 10km longer. We soon reached the point where the road bifurcates, and took the diversion as he suggested. Calling this road bad was an understatement. It was so bad that it took us 3 hours to cover a 10km patch. Some parts of it were decent, but some patches had huge stones, slush, streams, and a lot more obstacles. I took a lot of pictures on this route, they should give you an idea on how bad the road was.
And these are some of the bad patches where i could stop for pictures. The others were so bad that they needed my full concentration just to keep the bike rubber side down. In the next pic, we had actually stopped to check if the road ahead was motor-able.
There was a house by the side of the road so we stopped to ask for directions. They confirmed that we were on the right track, and that there was a tar road a little ahead. Thankfully they were right, and we reached the tarmac in the next few km. Even though this road was narrow and broken, it felt good to be back on tarmac. The turn to narkanda was still 18km ahead, and there were no good place to stop on this road, so we continued riding. We reached the junction within 45 minutes, and took a break there for lunch. Lunch was done in an hour, and we continued riding towards narkanda. On the way, we witnessed an accident that had just happened. A lady who was sitting pillion probably fell asleep and fell of the moving bike. It looked like she had a slight injury on her head. We stopped there and offered our medical kit and some water. They then put her in a car and took her to the hospital.
After this incident, we continued riding to narkanda. The road was pretty wide and curvy, and it was on one of these curves that Om realized that his bike was handling weird. On closer inspection, he found that the rear tyre had a puncture and was low on air pressure. I had noticed this a few days back as well and asked him about it, but he said it was fine. This probably explained why the ninja was overheating on inclines. Narkanda was not far away, so we rode upto the hatu and waited there while Om went to get the puncture fixed. Anahita and I had tea and she asked about availablity of rooms. They said that they had only one room, but with her pleading and may be a stroke of luck, one of their bookings got canceled and they now had 2 rooms for us to stay.
Om returned soon, and we checked into our rooms and freshened up. I also washed the past 3 days clothes and kept them to dry. We then sat outside enjoying the fog and the cold with a glass of fresh apple juice. After it started getting too cold for comfort, we came back indoors and sat in the restaurant for an early but long dinner. We had ordered for some starters, and a bottle of apple wine to go with it. The wine was the best i have ever had.
Our plan for today was to visit solang valley in manali and try paragliding. We woke up early, had our breakfast, and rode to the valley by 9am where we inquired about paragliding. There were 3 guys there who coincidentally happen to be in charge of paragliding, so we struck a deal of 1500 per person for paragliding from the highest point. The rope-way that goes to the top hadn’t opened yet, so we had to wait a while.
I have a fear of heights, so i was a little scared of paragliding at first, but watching the others go convinced me that it’s pretty easy. Om was the first to go, and i clicked a few pictures of him taking off.
I was next in line, and as i took the run-up i knew there was no turning back. Pretty soon the glider lifted us and i was flying in the air. We took a few circles around the valley and after around 10 minutes, we reached the bottom. Anahita was next, and i could see her up above.
There were a bunch of guys below who recorded videos of us and asked us if we wanted to buy it. We brought the CDs from them for 300rs and then headed back to the hotel. We had planned to carry some apple juice and apple wine back to bombay, so we had to make space for it in the bags. Since we didn’t need the warm clothes anymore, we packed them into one box and couriered that back to bombay. That freed up one side of my saddle bags. Couriering took time, and could only leave manali at 1pm. Somewhere near kulu, Om spotted a food stall that was set up inside the river beas, so we stopped there for our lunch. Having lunch while dipping our feet in the cold water was very relaxing.
The menu didn’t have much options, we only had egg maggi and omlete, but the location and the setup made the experience worth while. We left from there at 2:30pm and then crossed the 3km long tunnel near kulu. After the tunnel, we took the road that goes to jalori pass. The road was pretty narrow with a lot of blind curves, and we also got some rain along the way.
As we neared jalori top, the road got worse. It was so steep that we had to stay in 1st gear most of the time, and to make matters worse the road surface broken as well. The ninja started heating up again since it was low on coolant, so we had to take a break after every 2km to let the ninja cool down. This delayed us by an hour, but i got a chance to take a couple of pictures along the way.
Om knew of a place to stay near the top, but when we reached there it was closed. We now had 2 options, either ride back to the nearest village downhill, or continue to the highway and find a place to stay there. Since we had a couple of hours of daylight left, we continued uphill. After an hour of riding, we found a guest house near jalori top where we initially intended to only stop for a cup of tea, but on checking the time we knew it would get dark soon, so we stopped for the night at that place.
We had also heard that the other side of the pass was blocked due to a landslide, and there was a diversion that had to be taken. On seeing the condition of that road the next day, we realized that once again we made a good decision by not riding on that patch in the night. As the sun started to set, we were treated to a wonderful display of colours in the sky.
We had crashed pretty early the previous night, so we were all up by 5:30am. The wind had died down, so the weather was not as cold as it was last night. The most dreaded part was when we had to use the tent loo. It was just a hole in the ground with a pile of mud on one side. It was a one of a kind experience, but in the end it wasn’t so bad. We had our breakfast at the campsite and then started the return journey. The owner of the camp site had warned us about one stream after batal which was difficult to cross, so we were keeping an eye out for it.
Today we realized that we had made a very wise decision by camping at chandratal and not riding on this road the previous night. The road condition was very bad. There was no road at all, just stones and rocks everywhere. Another thing we got in abundance today was streams, there were so many streams on the way, that i was finding it hard to count. I think there were around 7 major ones, and lots of smaller ones. There is not much i can write about the road, so i will let the pictures and videos do the talking.
Om couldn’t cross some of the streams with anahita sitting behind, so he asked her to get off. Lucky for her, there was a tata sumo crossing the stream, and they offered her a lift across the steam. While Om and i struggled to get our bikes across, she cross the streams comfortably in the car. This same sumo was following us and took her across the next 2 streams as well. I was riding faster over the bad roads, and the ninja was a little behind so i took a few breaks along the way waiting for them to catch up.
The road from here started climbing up towards rohtaang, and it was surprisingly empty. On asking some of the people, they said the the road is closed on for maintenance on mondays, but since we came from the spiti side, no one had stopped us. The road to till top was freshly laid, so we had no trouble at all reaching there.
The weather at the top was also not as bad as we expected. It was foggy, windy and cold, but again, no sign of snow. After spending around 10 minutes at the top, we started the long descend towards manali. Somewhere on this road i seen a huge block of ice and stopped for a picture. This was the closest that we got to ice or snow on this trip.
Once the landslide was cleared, we thought our troubles were over, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. The entire road that descended down from rohtang was covered in slush. At some places the slush was so deep that the bike would sink in upto the silencer. The 220 had no trouble riding through the slush, but the ninja had to be maneuvered carefully because it had a low ground clearance.
Once again Anahita had to walk most of the way, while Om and I made our way through the slush. The landslide and the slush ensured that we took 4 hours to cover the distance of 14km to mari. It was 5pm by now, so we took a longe break at mari for evening tea and some aloo parathas. We then started riding towards manali which was 40km ahead. From this point onwards the roads were very good. Smooth tarmac, twisty roads, green hills, and a light drizzle all the way till manali.
We found a decent hotel at manali, and sent Anahita to bargain and get us a good deal. The first thing i did after reaching the hotel was have a shower, which i couldn’t do at chandratal. Once we all freshened up, we walked to the market area for dinner. After dinner we were back to the room again, and the usual routine followed.
We woke up at 6am today, the plan was to head to chandratal. We thought we could start early, but one look out the window ruined our plan. It was raining pretty heavy today as well. We had a nice long breakfast in the hotel waiting for the rain to stop, and we finally left at around 9am. I was exited about today’s ride for 2 reasons. We were going to cross kunzum la, our first mountain pass, and we would be visiting chandratal lake. The sky was covered in clouds and there was no sun light at all so it was a pretty cold morning. My hands were cold even inside the cramster gloves. we rode for 30km and took a break at losar where i had a cup of tea to beat the cold.
There were a group of kids there who were facinated with the bikes, so we took one picture of them as well, and anahita gave them some chocolates and biscuits.
Just when we were starting to enjoy the roads, we came accross this big stream. When i tried crossing it, my rear tyre got stuck between some rocks and the bike wouldn’t budge. Om parked his bike on the other side and came into the stream to help push my bike out. After a lot of struggling and accelerating, i managed to get it out of the stream. I think i may have worn out the clutch plates trying to get the bike out of this stream, because for the rest of the trip, the clutch was not as responsive as it was before this incident.
Our shoes and socks were wet again with icy cold water and the usual routine of drying the socks followed. We found a small shop a little ahead so we stopped there and had 3 bowls of hot maggi. Maggi was just what we needed in that cold weather. From here we continued towards kunzum top. Since the weather was so cold, i was hoping to see snow on the top and i was getting impatient to reach there. I could see some mountain peaks that had snow on them, and wished one of them was kunzum top.
But the peaks were still far away and the road was still flat and showed no sign of climbing uphill. We took a couple of breaks on this road for photography.
The road now started to climb upto kunzum top, and the milestones said that it was 8km ahead. It was here that we realized we had a problem. The ninja had overheated the previous day, because of which some coolant had evaporated and the coolant level was low. This was causing problems while riding two up on inclines. The temperature meter was reaching dangerously close to the H mark, so we had to take breaks every 2 km to allow the bike to cool down. I rode ahead while Om and anahita took 2 or 3 halts on the way up. In the next picture you can see them waiting down below.
As i mentioned before, i was getting impatient, so i moved ahead towards the top. I reached the top and i was a little disappointed to not see snow everywhere, but there was snow on the hills just above us. Im sure if i walked for around 15 minutes i could have reached it, but i didn’t try that because it would have been too tiring at that altitude.
Being at 14,800 feet was pretty exiting, even though i didn’t get to touch snow. Om and Anahita soon caught up and we took one more picture and then started descending the pass.
When we were 3km before batal, i reached the diversion where the right road goes to chandratal. I waited here for Om to catch up, and then we proceeded. The signboard said chandratal was 13km ahead, out of which 12km was motoroable by jeep. There was not much of a road here, there were just tyre tracks to follow. Some sections of the road were near the edge of the cliff, and they were very narrow with round stones that could throw you off balance. One slip here and you would fall into the river below. This was one of the most dangerous roads that i have ridden on. I couldn’t stop for pictures on the risky patches, but i did take a few pictures of the better sections of the road.
We then reached the north face campsite, where we inquired about the prices. They quoted 1000 per head inclusive of lunch dinner and breakfast. We decided to move ahead and check if there were any camps that were closer to the lake or cheaper. As we neared the lake, there was one more stream that we had to cross.
A little ahead, the road was blocked abd there was a signboard saying vehicles were not allowed beyond that point. There was a campsite nearby, but that didn’t seem as good as the first one. The tents were small and didn’t have adequate wind protection. We now started debating if it was a good idea to stay in the tents in the first place. Our main concern was the bad weather. There were strong winds and it was so cold that i didn’t even feel like removing my helmet. We started to evaluate our options. It was already 4pm and if we trekked to the lake, it would have been almost 7 and dark by the time we returned. Covering those 13km in the dark would have been next to impossible. moreover, we had no idea how far the next village was. The only way we could reach a decent place to stay was if we skipped chandratal altogether and started back right away. Since i had come so far, i was in no mood of turning back without seeing the lake. We then came to a consensus that going back in the dark would be very risky, and battling the cold in the tents would be a lot better than being stranded in the cold at night in the middle of nowhere. With the decision being made, we now had to choose a campsite. We decided to go back to the northface camp since it had better tents. On our way back, we had to cross that stream again. We soon reached the campsite and dumped our luggage there.
That hot cup of tea and noodles worked like magic, and suddenly i wasn’t feeling cold anymore. After tea we started debating if we should trek to the lake today itself, or do it the next morning. I suggested that we do it in the evening since we still have a few hours of daylight, and that would also give us an early start the next morning. Fueled by the tea and maggi, we started towards chandratal lake. We had decided to take the bikes upto the point where vehicles were allowed, and trek from there onwards. That meant crossing that stream once again, the 3rd time today. I was a little too enthusiastic to see the lake, so i ran ahead while the others followed me. The weather was really cold and windy, so windy that we had to wear gloves and cover our faces while trekking.
The trail was a little hilly at first, so there was a road winding up, and a couple of shortcuts that go straight up. I took the shortcuts and waited at the top. Om and Anahita soon arrived and we stopped there for a while to catch our breath.
We kept trekking for more than an hour, but there was still no sign of the lake. I kept thinking that the lake would be behind the next hill, but we crossed 5 such hills and the lake still wasn’t visible. Anahita had half a mind to turn back, and she used to start yelling everytime i said “i think it’s behind that next hill”.
At one point of time, we were all thinking to ourselves “where the hell is the lake?”. I went up one small hill and found one really tiny lake. I thought to myself, that coldn’t by chandratal, so i went back down.
Just as i went down that hill, I caught the first glimpse of chandratal lake, nestled between hills on all sides. After all that trekking, the sight of the lake took away the tiredness and it all felt worth while.
I was way ahead of the others, so i went ahead towards the lake and clicked a few pictures and climbed back up so that i could show them the right path to the lake.
Once om and anahita reached the spot, we climbed all way down to the shore of the lake. The tripod was out again, because we really needed a group pic at this lake.
We spent around an hour at the lake, and then started our return trek since it would be dark soon. The return was easier since most of it was downhill. we made it back to our bikes within an hour, and started riding back to the campsite. It was so cold that the ninja had some trouble starting up. After 10 minutes of trying, it was finally idling normally and we then proceeded. We crossed that stream for the 4th time today and reached back to the warmth of our campsite. All the energy we spent trekking to the lake had made us really hungry, so we asked the tent guy to prepare dinner for us. Dinner consisted of dal, rice, some veg food, and rotis. It was steaming hot so we gobbled down all of it in no time. We spent some more time in that dining tent, where we had a little bit of rum to beat the cold.
This was one of the coldest days of the trip. If i were to take a guess, i think the temperature would have been close to 5 degrees. It was soon time to hit the bed. It was so cold that i was wearing my riding jacket with the thermal liner, the leather gloves and i was inside a thick sleeping bag, with a thick blanket on top of it. Luckily for us the strong winds had stopped later in the night and the temperature was more bearable. This was the most fun day of the trip.
As usual we woke up at 6, had breakfast by 7 and got ready by 8. The plan for today was to visit a few places that were around kaza. We inquired about the route from the hotel guy, he told us there was one road that goes to key monastary, and then to kibber village, and one more route which goes to komik village. I suggested that we do the first route after breakfast, come back, have lunch, and then visit komik village in the evening since the afternoon sun is pretty harsh. After much debate, we decided to visit key first and see how much time we have left. The monastary was just 10km away from our hotel, so it didn’t take us long to reach there. Here are a few pictures from the road that goes to the monastary.
There was a school boy who was waiting for a lift to the monastery, so i offered him one. When we reached there, we found out that there was some festival going on because of which the the place was teaming with tourists and cars. There was no place to even park the bikes. Since we were not that keen on seeing the monastary from the inside, we decided to skip it and head to the village of kibber. The road from here climbed further uphill for another 15km to the village of kibber.
We then reached the village of kibber. The village was, well, just another village. But it did have a few modern amenities. This was a sign board which i wasn’t expecting considering the remoteness of the place.
We then started back towards kaza. There was a group of tourists walking to key monastery and one of the girls was not feeling well so she asked me for a lift and i offered one, but the others seem to think that the only reason i offered a lift was because she was a girl. They conveniently ignored the fact that i had offered a lift to a school boy as well. We reached kaza and it was still early, so we decided to ride to komik and then come back for lunch. The road to komik was really steep and full of stones. The bikes were in 1st gear most of the time. We had only covered a few km and we could already see kaza disappearing way down below.
The ninja started heating up on this incline since it had a pillion (and probably low tyre pressure because of a puncture which we found out after a few days). It got so hot that we could hear the coolant boiling, so we had to abandon the ninja half way down. Anahita stayed back with the bike, while Om and I rode further up on my P220. The road got even more steep and more challenging. After quiet a bit of riding, we reached a point where we could see a village.
I checked the GPS and found that this was some other village, and komik was still far ahead. We dropped the idea of going to komik because the roads were bad and Anahita was waiting for us in the sun. We took a few pictures here and then took a u-turn.
From here we headed back to our hotel for lunch. We had asked the hotel guys to prepare an authentic Tibetan lunch for us, and they didn’t disappoint. It was spicy, but it was the most delicious food we had on the trip. They had prepared some kind of Tibetan bread, chicken momos and Shab Tra
After lunch we went back to the rooms to rest for a while, and decided to go to the market again in the evening. Just as we got in our rooms, it started pouring outside. The entire area was covered in mist and dark clouds. The other 2 were glad they didn’t listen to my plan of visiting komik in the evening. Those roads would have been impossible to ride on in the rain. We spent the gloomy afternoon in the room watching TV. It was friendship day today, so they were showing friends reruns all day. The rain had subsided by evening, so we went out to the market. The dark clouds were still present, but at least the rain had stopped.
We went to the german bakery for a cup of tea and some snacks. The german bullet gang was there as well. We spoke for a while and found out that even they didn’t reach komik. We were low on cash so we stopped by the ATM after snacks, but there was no power so it wasn’t working. We sat there for around an hour waiting for the power to return, but it didn’t. We had to get cash from here since there were no other ATMs till manali. After waiting for some more time, we decided to go back to the hotel and ride to the ATM when the power returns. We brought another quarter of rum with us, and reached the hotel. Om felt like taking the ninja out for a short ride and anahita decided to join him, but i felt like staying back in the room. There was still no power, so i sat there in the dark listening to music on my phone after 10 days of no music. A couple of songs later, the power returned and i too took my bike and went to the ATM. the SBI guys reached there within a few minutes and started the ATM, he told us to withdraw cash fast as there were still power fluctuations and it could go down anytime. Luckily all of us were able to withdraw cash, and we went back to the rooms relieved. The next item on the agenda was to finish the rum that we had, and then head for dinner. After dinner, we stayed up for a while and then called it a night.
The breakfast here was strictly ok, nothing great about it. We ran into the same bullet group which we had met the other day. We spoke for a while, exchanged our blog addresses and left after finishing breakfast. The road from tabo to pin valley was pretty decent by Himalayan standards. There was mud and stones, but we could maintain a good speed. The sky was clear today and with the harsh sunlight at that altitude, it was getting pretty hot.
Pin valley also had a mix of good and bad roads. There’s not much to write about this patch. We took a lot of photo breaks so i’ll just post the pictures instead.
I really wanted to ride uptill mudh, but the last fuel pump was at kalpa, almost 300km behind, and our bikes were almost in reserve. If we rode to mudh, we wouldn’t have had enough fuel to ride to kaza. I would recommend carrying an extra can of fuel on this patch, especially if you plan on venturing deep into pin valley. As we entered the village, i noticed a sign board to some gompa which was 2km ahead so we decided to atleast visit that place. The road climbed up for a while and we reached the gompa and clicked a couple of pictures.
While descending from the gompa, we noticed a few cars parked by the river side. On a closer look, we found a trail going to the river bed, so that’s where we went too.
From here we rode back 18km to the pin valley junction. The heat and the sun were getting to me, so i didn’t stop at all. The P220 handles these kind of roads pretty well, so i was able to maintain a speed of 40-50 and i was much ahead of the ninja. I reached the main road and waited there for around 15 minutes for the ninja to catch up. The road from here to kaza was pretty good, so we managed to cover the distance pretty fast with just a few photo breaks.
Our itinerary required us to stay in kaza for 2 nights, so we started searching for a decent place. We found a really nice place and struck a deal of 800 for 2 nights courtesy Anahita’s bargaining skill, which was very reasonable. Even though we had only ridden for 82km, we were all feeling very tired today. I guess it was a combination of the harsh sun and the altitude. kaza is at an altitude of 11,700 feet above sealevel. We got into our rooms and just crashed on the bed. Later we realized that the luggage was still on the bikes. None of us had the energy to get the luggage back to the room, but it had to be done so Om and I went downstairs and unmounted the heavy saddle bags. Getting those bags up the flight of stairs left us breathless. This was the first time we felt the altitude getting to us. After resting for a while, we went to the restaurant for lunch. We started feeling much better after lunch. I was feeling energetic again, so i decided to wash the previous 3 days clothes. For once the harsh sun helped us by drying the clothes in a couple of hours.
Later that evening we went for a walk around kaza market. It felt nice walking on those streets. The cool weather, no riding gear, and the camera in hand.
We had no cellphone network since tabo, and anahita wanted to check mail (which i think was an excuse for checking facebook), so she went to a cybercafe.
