UP NORTH : This is what we named our expidition.
LEH - It has been my dream ride since many years and I couldn’t believe that I just did leh . Specially it was a challenge for me as I had lower back issue yet I was keen on making this trip and i pulled in livestrong in as well :) . Though I was a bit worried about AMS and also the fact its our longest trip ever as I haven't been touring on bikes a lot .
This is a bit long but bare with me . its a day by day Log of what we went through this adventurous trip.
rahulzzz
livestong(nagendra aka naggy)
Day 1 - delhi - Mandi : we wokeup at 4 and got ready and finally were excited about our trip to Leh. It took us about half an hour to take the saddlebags down and mount it on our bikes and by 5am everything was set and we clicked final pics before departure and then we fired off our engines at 5:15 am and off we went on and journey of a life time. luckily it was Sunday and delhi border was without traffic and we stopped after border and ate some snaks..
We were kinda feeling cool and amazing just about thinking that finally we have started for leh…
Reached ambala took a break near flyover and then we were welcomed by rains and while entering Chandigarh it was raining like cats and dogs. Luckily we wore our rains suits in time. Took a small stopover at Chandigarh and I kinda entered wrong way where a cop caught me and told me I will be fined..i told him I got confused and didn’t know it wasn’t allowed to enter(there was no sign board). I told him iam on a tour and seeing all the bags on my bike he let me go. Was really nice guy..and I was lucky too.Till then I was really fedup. It was my second experience with Chandigarh cops. The very first time I entered Chandigarh few years back I was fined. And now again while entering I was almost close to being fined.. Anyway I somehow managed to leave Chandigarh by 12pm and headed for mandi.
Naggy(livestrong) wasn’t feeling fine and we took a tea break before mandi and found out he was having fever. Reached mandi at 4 and got a decent hotel . A guy knocks at the door at 7pm and tells us that the room we are in is his and he has his stuff in it.we were like the Heck?.. We sorted it out with manager and came to know that guy was High…
bridge. stopped over for pics
Day2: naggy wokeup with high fever I had to give him wet bandages on forehead and luckily there was a hospital right infront of the hotel we stayed in. doctor gave him medicine and told us to take a break before heading to leh so we planned to take a extra day at manali and then we got our bikes fixed at mandi, karizma was having a pickup issue and pulsar's display wasn’t working. Got them fixed . My bikes filter was changed as told by yogesh suspected it! And then off we moved for manali.
Reached manali (but why do they charge 100 bucks per vehicle to enter manali?? weird) and got a nice room near mall road and spend 2 days there .went to places nearby like hidimba temple and found this very cool place that had water streams and bridges . On old manali road towards the mountaineering museum just keep on moving like5-7 km ahead and you'll come across this scenic place we spend a good time there.
The next day had to leave for leh early morning. we got out of our room at 11:30 pm just to lock the bikes and to our surprise came to know pulsar had a flat tire.. And we said ohh Mannn.. . Till now we had never fixed puncture ourselves . we got all the tools, tire iron and air pump etc.. and started to take the tire out finally managed to get it out of bike But the tube wont come out as we didn’t know how to use tire irons properly .I once saw a tirewala using a soap mixture to make it slippery so that tire tube comes out we tried that and it worked it was 12:30 at night and we were having a nice experience in fixing the tire and then everything was almost done but to make situation worse a nut went missing and we were searching for that nut like crazy till finally found it around 1:15am and everything was done to our surprise :) and off we went to sleep
Day 3: Left for rohtang .Every one told us back here we will see snow at rohtang it passed and we didnt even notice it passed as there was no sign of snow and we reached this place where there's a diversion where roads connects from ghrampoo to dorni were got little confused as where to go..then came a army jeep we asked them even they didn’t know . Then I saw a guy with horses down in valley I yelled and asked him which way koksar and he told us. It was really cold and windy there and we moved on and reached Keylong got the punctured tube fixed and chain tightened and ate lunch. Reached tandi got our bikes tankedup and took 2litre of fuel just in case and moved for out first stop darcha but didn’t find any good accomodation as if was full and backtracked 4 km to jispa and stayed at Himalayan mountaineering institute.there was a group of foreigner who were interested in knowing about our trip and bikes and gear..
In mountaineering institute jispa(trees were little spooky)
Day4 : Left for our next pit stop that was pang according to itinerary but livestrong was having effects of AMS as he was still recovering form cold and fever.In between at deepaktal I lost my camera sony cybershot it was in grey hard case(still hoping someone will find it and return). we did search for it around for like 45 minutes but no luck and then we took a stopover at sarchu . Barlacha la was easy and Awesome and the gata loops were great. We stopped in this empty field 10 km before sarchu and just gazing the nature's beauty and a sheaperd comes and sits around us and we had a nice chat. He told us snow leopard ate his sheep yesterday and they roam out here at night.
Gala time Gata loops
anyway iam glad we took the stop over as naggy's condition was getting worse I got little scared. Took him to army medical camp next morning 1 km back and he was given oxygen and the doctor recommended to increase the dosage to 250mg morning evening I was doing fine with 125 morning evening..in evening i was trying to fix my zma's mudguard as it had a crack with feviquick and the feviquick bursted and went in my eye and all over..i got scarred but luckily after washing with water I was able to see. though that sticky stuff was there till next day..
Deepak tal
Barlacha la
Whiskey nullah
Day5: We reached pang and made a call back home from camps STD as every one was scarred and worried where were we. and then we were told a special route just after crossing pang there is a off-road route to more plains and man it was like plain off road stretch till your eyes can see and we had a really great time riding there we were kinda racing up there.. We were so into our riding that we didn’t even took pictures..:lol: we were having fun and then finally reached the climb of tanglang la and everything was going cool it was drizzling at top we took few pics on top and moved ahead and just to know it was raining with snow and got us all drenched and we were not wearing out rains suits and now all fun turned into horror we couldn't see anything through visor our hand and feets were numb from cold no sensation what so ever felt as if we were having frost bite/hypothermia and the nothing in sight and it was raning badly we were shivering we saw this tent of bro workers and they allowed us in and we warmed our hands on their stoves iam really thankful of them being there and we got some heat to get us moving and by then rain had stopped and then what can be worse as we started again to move ahead . There was a landslide after tanglangla top and had to wait for 45 min for it being cleared and it had already started raining heavily . Rumtse was about 35 km away and it had already become the worst nightmare for us each kilometer was like a 1000 miles..and when we finally reached a board that read rumtse 8 km even 8 km were looking like for ever..shivering in cold and got ourselves registered our self at tcp and there naggy dropped his cellphone somewhere near rumtse tcp anyway we took accomodation at this yangdols hotel and believe me it was like heaven for us..we were soo cold and shivering that it was really hard to open shoes laces and remove army boots. We changed our wet cloths and got into quilts till we were fine to get out..wooow what was out first ever chilling experience while we were riding i was thinking if we make out safely i would send the story to " i shouldn't be alive" .lol:
There was a couple from Israel were really nice and funny Adi & mickhiel who told us this cool pace to stay near shanti stupa in leh.
..
Moore plain (had a little photography session)
TanglanLa worlds second highest pass
Tent that literally saved our lives(after T top.. Bro rocks..)
Tanglang la Mandir
Landslide clearing on tanglang la
Day6: left from rumtse and saw these cool purple rocks amazing..reached karu and made the first call from my airtel postpaid back home told them everything was fine and reached leh around 11 took lot of pics in between and we were soo awestruck to see the roads from karu onwards and the scenery was just awesome... We found the hotel told by adi & mikhael in changspa. It was really nice place. And the owner was a nice person too. Though leh was closed due to protest in shrinagar but we tried our luck dc office was open and every one was on break and no 1 to guide about the procedure. We went to Adc's office and we had this letter for permission and he signed it and said its done. We thought its done..Big mistake…anyway we spend the evening just gazing at this natural beauty of leh from shanti stupa. we also went to this place that adjoining shanti stup road shindu sanskriti kendra .
Entering leh
Purple rocks
"Om Mani Padmne hum "
shanti stup
Leh from Grasses eye on shanti stup
Monstry near sindhu sanskriti kendra
Day7: magnetic hill. Left for magnetic hill .roads were like butter and amazing scenery all over it just took us 30-40 minutes to reach magnetic hill we were all excited bout seeing the gravity defying phenomenon but its only for car and were looking for something to roll on.. And I found this cell in my bag and the video says it all….lol
Bit disappointed about the phenomenon but still enjoyed ride..
Spend quite sometime there alone just enjoying and clicking pics.. And it started to rain so we decided to head back but it was photography time now on .we stopped again and again and did some photography on our way back to leh..
Punch in the wall
There was a Gurudwara shri Phattar sahib so said our prayers from outside..and moved on and back to leh..roamed on the streets of leh..and shopped a bit. At 7pm we checked our bikes and came to know my bikes chain was loose went to see if any mechanic is still open but no and in evening for security reason you have to go through big gate to reach petrolpump and all longway out. Anyway we tried to fix it ourselves got some success.
Day8: Khardung la -wheather wasn’t clear and it was raining and we delayed our climb till 9 and when rain stopped for sometime we started off for khardungla .What could possible go wrong right?? Well we were having fun it started raining again. Anyway reached south pallu and it was snowing up at ktop then came TCP we went inside and showed the permit And…. The guy told us this permit is not valid….??we said what not valid??? We were shell shocked and we told him ADC signed it said your done. He told then tell ADC this is not valid permit . We were damn disappointed, tired, hungry and Cold.so left bikes at tcp and went to army canteen and had a cup of tea and and cursed the dude who signed permits anyway. while we were preparing to head down we saw this huge group of bikers from Italy on bmw 800cc anyway they were looking at our bikes and trying to read pulsar as poooolsarrr..:lol: anyway had a chat with them and we started our decent we stopped at this khardungla frog and clicked some pics and then reached dc office pretty furious and disappointed but cant say anything got the permits done again and in evening got a call from home to get back home right away things arent cool there. Well here's where you are in dilemma what to do??
Khardungla frog
Bmw 800 italian group
Macho nullah
No matter how much you try to convince shrinagar is way far from leh but still leh comes under j&K province . Anyway situation was getting worse and tense saw the news because something happened at border and a leader of some party was down and we also heard people shouting slogans around 7 in evening. we were ordered to comeback asap. So packed our bags and stuff and left our quest for ktop and other places for next year( probably when its not raining up in leh)
Day9: Final day back home : still we had plans of doing tso moriri on our way back. It was raining so we delayed and wheather wasn’t good at all so the owner of hotel told us go to himaks office and ask for road conditions at tanglang la before leaving.. So we went to himaks office and had to wait 30 mins ..before reports comes to then we waited for like 30 min still report was late but we could see sun rising so we decided to move ahead..
Just before reaching mighty tanglang la there was this huge slush crossing we tried going from side no use we were stuck we had to pull our bikes back(get down and two of us trying to pull back our bikes from marshy patches) and walk the bikes across and at that altitude doing that was hell tiring and couldn’t breath for like 10 minutes and you can see me taking a breather in the video..
Anyway it was a experience on its own and reached pang and wanted to call back home and tell them we'll be taking an extra day but to my surprise due to security reason std was closed to civillians though while going to leh I made a call from that std now we were in deep trouble as we had to call back home and std wasn’t working and were told you can call from sarchu.. we stayed at pang for night
Day:10 reached sarchu and took a break at place we stayed for night when we were going to leh. Nice dhaba and had maggie and tea and met this group of boys from mumbai who were pretty amazed by us doing leh on bikes in rains and asking soo many question..Std was down in sarchu too . We were told you can call back from patsio..still no luck… I was damn sure we can call form jispa as it had an private std on reaching there every shop was locked and the mountaineering institute was closed too anyway now I was fed up of doing this cannon ball run but still had to call back home so decided will reach keylong and call from there…
Now everything was going smooth we were on baralacha la and it started snowing and we couldn’t see anything and decided to stop over this small hut on middle of road out of nowhere and miraculously it was lord shivji temple and it started snowing heavy and we were facing snow for the first time . It was 1pm when we took a shelter and stayed there till 3pm till snowing was reduces to minimum as we were wasting time and freezing in cold. Anyway we tried to move ahead A bro truck driver was yelling stones/boulder are falling we thought must be small stone and we can make it through…now we were dodgeing stones and huge stones on road and road was blocked with this huge stone right in the middle of the road..
Livestrong just escaped a big stone by approx 2 feet that rolled down from back and I yelled watch it… and we instantely decided to head back .we turned around and headed back for bharatpur as moving ahead was impossible and to top it all it was 13 I try to avoid travelling on 13 though. anyway we safely reached back to bharatpur and stayed overnight .a bit shaken what if the huge rock would have hit the bike anyway after we came back no traffic came from that route and it was all coved in snow talked to some driver around.
Day:11 waited for any vehicle to come from baralacha la and tent owner asked around and told us its clear now we started off and saw stone on road but bikes crossed easily and reached keylong and made call back home just to know every one was scarred as where we were coz its been 3 days since my last call.
loops
Darcha
Anyway we kept on moving and stopped for tea break at rohtang and It was a slushy and there was a family from delhi enjoying on rohtang in slush ( my bad but rohtang is not the place to go in august..just slush and manure smell and no snow.) just about to reach marhi my bikes chain came off the sprocket after much trying to tighten it we could not do it as we didn’t had the big spanner and it started getting foggy and cold. I thought we are stuck here but after all trying and no solution livestrong suggested to just put the loose chain back on and started rolling down livestrong moving at back of me just in case chain comes down again.. And it did like 3-4 times and then a big jam as trucks axel broke on a curve and waited for almost 2 hours it was like 6pm and getting dark finally we started rolling down again and reached manali safely at 8 and took the same room we took last time . Iam quite thankful to livestrong for tying to be a mechanic and helping me out there and came to this genius idea of rolling down bike with chain extremely loose..
Day12: went to mechanic inder near mall road close to where we stayed he looked at the bike and asked us who tried to tighten the chain as the main bolt that connects through wheel was loose and told us you are lucky you came down safely as wheel could have fallen apart.. later that day we tried to call on the livestrong lost cellphone and miracilaously it rang and some one picked up and we asked his where about and the guy who answer in manali too and told us come and get it.i mean what are the odds cellphone lost in rumtse ( we never though we will get it back) this guy Vikas also a biker picked up the phone. found a charger for it and charged it just to know whose the owner and the same day we were in manali he was too.. isnt it a miracle??..anyway we took the phone and thanked him.anyway we got the bikes washed as they were really looking as if they had mud pack on :lol:
Heard there was a big landslide after swarnghat that connects chandigarh manali route. we were asking for alternative route and then talked to yogesh though he was in dalhousie..we moved on manali chandigarh route as people told bikes would easily cross though but our bikes were no smaller than cars as we has lot of bags around.
Anyway there was a huge lineup of trucks and cars and bikes just zipped zapped in and around landslides and then my bikes chain came off again..anyway we some how made it to chandigarh and at 7:30pm . Took us whole days just to get to chandigarh from manali and then search for a room began as chandigarh is pretty confusing.. Took a room at sec 35 c and luckily found a mechanic and 2 chain locks were removed from zma.
And next day we left for delhi.
Just going to leh was so magical , the places that we experienced and we got to know the true meaning of peace,serinity and spirituality.
This is how we lived our days in heaven and had a Experience of a lifetime. and i wish to go again next year.
thankyou all once again for reading our travelogue
Conclusion : Who says it never rains in Leh?? well rains can be really painfull at that altitude better be prepared.
its rightly said " The world is a book and those who do not travel read only the pages"
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