Day 12: Leh – Upshi – Tanglang La – More Plains – Pang – Sarchu

With heavy hearts we bid good bye to Leh with a promise to come back again. We started early in the morning around 6 AM. Road from Leh to Upshi was in good condition and we did good speeds at this stretch. Took a halt in Upshi for breakfast and started towards Tanglang La. Tanglang La is at 17,582 ft and is the third highest pass. Road to Tanglang La was in decent condition or may be looked decent to us after doing Khardung La. As expected we got some spectacular views at Tanglang La. We clicked some pics and moved ahead. From Tanglang La the landscape started changing and we were able to spot some rocky mountains along with barren, arid mounts.

After descending from Tanglang La we found ourselves riding on a long plane stretch. We were riding on famous More Planes. There is a 40 kms long plane road on this long plateau and it is hard to believe that you are riding on a relatively straight road at an altitude of 15,400 ft. Road was mostly in good condition but was bumpy. Few stretches were filled with sand and riding there needed a lot of maneuvering. At the end of More Planes we were bit surprised to see a steep descend towards Pang. That is when we realized that we were riding on some real high altitude. We reached Pang around 12.30 and stopped there for lunch.

One surprising observation was that on this Leh – Manali stretch there were no pakka houses / stalls from Upshi to Jispa. You can just find few tents other than army transit camps in all other places enroute.

Pang was no exception. We had a quick lunch at one of the tents in Pang and started forward towards Lachu Lung La (16616 ft). By the time we crossed Lachlung La all of us started to feel a mild headache, which we ignored and kept moving.. It was hard to believe that it to be the symptom of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) as after doing Leh and excursions we thought that we were fairly acclimatized. Later we realized that it was due to riding continuously at high altitude of 14000+ ft for more than 6 hours. And we were certainly not acclimatized to that.

We kept on moving in hope of touching low altitude asap. We crossed Nakee La (15547 ft) to ride on the famous Gata Loops which is a stretch of 21 hair pin bends. Gata loop finally took us down to some comfortable altitude. By this time Jatin was suffering from a severe headache. Myself and Prasoon were in relatively better condition. We did our final stretch of the day to reach Sarchu by 4.30 PM and were happy to reach atleast one destination quite in time. We called it the day and took a halt in cold and windy Sarchu. Jatin was not well and was having severe headache and nausea. We checked with Army Doctor and he recommended him to sleep early. He assured that the next day morning everything would be all right and it happens usually in that area because of low oxygen levels.

Total distance covered: 264 kms

Day 13: Sarchu – Jispa – Darcha – Keylong – Tandi – Rohtang Pass – Manali

We got up around 6 to find that everyone of us was perfectly fit and ready to move ahead. So, we started around 7 AM after having a light breakfast. Road from Sarchu to Baralach La Top (16500 ft) was not in good condition. Infact this day we experienced the worst roads of our complete trip. The only relief was a stretch of fresh tar road of 8 kms starting from BaralachLa towards Jispa. After which roads were mostly bumpy and broken till Tandi barring few occasional stretches. We also encountered few water passes on this stretch. As soon as we crossed Jispa we started getting the feel of Himachal as we were now surrounded with green mountains. We reached Rohtang Pass around 5 in the evening and as notoriously famous for bad weather, it lived upto its expectation. We had a quick cup of coffee there and moved ahead. We finally reached Manali around 6.30.. booked a room and headed straight to see a mechanic as it was evident that my bike’s brake shoe was gone and it was yelling at different pitches whenever I was applying brakes. I got my brake shoe done, and Prasoon and Jatin got their broken carrier fixed. Then we headed straight to take a hot dip in Vashisth hot water spring. Finally we celebrated that evening with a grand meal.

Total distance covered: 234 kms

Day 14: Manali – Mandi – Chandigarh

As we started from Manali around 7 in the morning, it started raining. We waterproofed our luggage and started at a decent speed. After last 2 days bumpy ride, Manali – Chandigarh double lane highway was a treat! We were not able resist and ripped the curves even at 80 sometimes. It was the smoothest ride of our trip despite of the notorious traffic. Finally we reached Chandigarh around 6 PM.

Total distance covered: 330 kms

Day 15: Chandigarh – Delhi

Alas! Last day of our trip. We started from Chandigarh around 10 AM and were planning to reach Delhi by 3. Ride was going on smooth and the 4 lane highway was inviting. It was on this stretch when we got a ticket for over speeding at 70 kph. Speed limit for two-wheelers on this highway is 50 kph. What a joke! Myself and Jatin paid on the spot fine of Rs. 400 each. Prasoon was the blessed one as we warned him in time. (He still owes a party to us) As we moved farther ahead, my bike got first flat tyre of its life. Some 21,000 odd kms and no flat tyre!! So, it was well due. Got it fixed and then finally reached Delhi, safe and sound, after clocking little over 3000 kms. We greeted and then parted our ways, each of us carrying some immortal memories with us.

Total distance covered: 300 kms

Riding to Leh this Summer...

Hi!
Much awaited moment has come and I'd be riding to Leh this June. Every biker's pilgrimage! Would be riding to the World's highest motorable pass near Leh (Khardung La - official, Marsimek La - actual)
The ride plan is as under - (click to enlarge)


For well formatted copy and details contact me.

Cheers, 'n let the ball roll

Silent Saint

Into the Blues

Sometimes, you feel the need for adrenaline.. You have lot of things to wind up. You work, work and work. You start your day with sunrise and keep winding up what ever comes to you. You give your best. Towards the end of day you look back and feel great 'Yes, it was one efficient day!!' You take a corner to catch a breather, and can actually listen to your pulses which are soothing down to that familiar slow track on your music system. You try to hum that tune along, some thoughts follow, some emotions spur and suddenly you start feeling that emptiness around. That college, those friends, those hangout places, that time. Ooops, you are Nostalgic!!

This happens at times and with almost all of us as we grow along the career ladder and our professional lives. We put efforts to get best out of that one day, that one second even at the cost of moments which we could have lived. We try consciously to avoid that nostalgia. We don’t realize that more hard we try more intense it turns.



Have you ever had similar feeling? Now the point in question is, when this is so common a feeling, a phenomenon, then can we not build some venture around this? Some website, some service, to give that comfortable feeling to all of us when ever we feel nostalgic, whenever we are ‘into the blues’.

Rise from Ashes !!!

You have been running miles into the concrete jungle along with the herd, with a blindfold on your eyes. One day, you realize that you have stopped hearing those voices around you. You open your blindfold just to find yourself standing on a cross-road, tired, all confused, when it looks like you have lost your way, you can not even turn and run back, you have to take a path, and at that cross-road, at that point, you suddenly realize that you are in pain, some deep pain. You look back at old times and think what actually have led you here. You have been into worldly ties, those inconsequential worries, earthly desires and human emotions. You have simply been tied up with urgent & important, and so you have let your life direct you, where in you realize now that it should have been the other way round. You have been simply ‘existing’ and no where actually ‘living’. Life was directing you to ‘exist’. You think hard and try to catch some breath, but you find yourself choking. You realize that you have always wanted someone to direct you. You recognize that you have turned up a slave. A slave to destiny, a slave to luxury, a slave to your job, a slave to your emotions, a slave to relationships, a slave to this world and a slave to existence. You suddenly realize that you have always existed in a fake world of your own, holding up some of the fake beliefs, considering yourself as a self sufficient superior person, full with complacency and that entire bloated ego.



Now, as you find yourself at cross-road, you realize that you can not change the path you have left behind. Then you think why you are here, at this cross-road. You could have kept running and ‘existing’ with that blindfold on, but you chose to stop and think. Why? Just to find that the answer is within you. It is that one last spark of hope left in you and those distant dreams, and that have deliberately forced you to take this breather. That one wish of being self-sufficient and self-reliant has given you this chance. At this point if you feel sad, and find it difficult to come out of the past, take a break. Take a pause, you really need to unwind few things and events of your life. Don’t ever start over with that burden in your heart. Immerse yourself completely in those precedent events of your life, feel the pain, and then feel more pain. Engross that deadly sting deep within and when this pain will reach the brink, and when you will burn to ashes, only then you will be free. You will be free from pain, from fear, from all the apprehensions, leaving behind just the learnings from the past. Treasure that wisdom; gather yourself; collect those ashes and ‘rise from ashes’ again, towards that dreamed of land, rise this time to direct your ‘life’, rise to ‘Fly’, to ‘Live’.



Many people come across such situations in their lifetime, and they should not overlook them, as William Shakespeare rightly said “There is tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries; on such a full sea we are now afloat; and we must take the current the clouds folding and unfolding beyond the horizon. when it serves, or lose our ventures”