Getting Leh'd
Gopal Kulkarni | 15 Apr 2021
Bengaluru Airport
So it begins
Stick it up
Dal Lake
Fountains
The Gang
Kargil Memorial
The Martyrs
The House
The Road
Chang La
Pangyong
Sunrise
Khadrungla
Camel
Apples
Decisions
Sarchu Tent
It was one of those typical days at work, I was struggling with segmentation fault bug, when my cellphone rang. “Guru, wanna go to Leh? On a bike?” I heard Ravi say with a palpable excitement in his voice. “Hell! yeah”, my response was instantaneous. He went on to give me further details on the plan but I wouldn’t remember any of that. It was only two words that I captured from that conversation — ‘Leh’ and ‘Bike’. Rest all was, as Penny says it, jibber-jabber. I believed Ravi would be more thorough than I ever could be in the planning department. All I needed to know was the date and time of departure. Ravi obliged willingly and kept me away from all the mundane yet very important tasks related to logistics while keeping me in the loop on a strictly need-to-know basis. So before we took off, I came to understand more details about the trip, whose summary was something like this: it would be six of us (Kumar, Bala, Ravi, Karthik, Ravi GK and yours truly) who’ll fly into Chandigarh. Four of the bikes, which would have been shipped from Bengaluru, will be waiting for us there. The other two, rented ones, would be handed over to us at Ropar where we would join the other group that had started its journey from Delhi. From there on we would embark upon an odyssey of unbridled ‘bike’thon, at the end of which we’d be back in Chandigarh and then fly back into Bengaluru. The trip would to be managed by the good folks at Devils on Wheels.
I never seriously considered myself to be a tourer on the bike or even a proper biker of any sort, for that my matter. Heck! I didn’t even have a proper motorcycle for this sort of things. Most of my biking conquests have been between the traffic signals, which are aplenty in Bengaluru, on my (t)rusty old RX135, nicknamed The Old Lady! This trip would either bring out the biker in me to the fore or put him out for good, I supposed. I wasn’t even sure if I prepared well for this expedition. Although Ravi and I had gone for some bike riding gears shopping the day before, we had got ourselves a decent pair of gloves, I had missed out on buying a riding jacket. So I had borrowed a couple of jackets and a wind cheater, from different friends, in an effort to compensate for it. With all these thoughts in the background, I could hardly sleep the night before our scheduled departure. The excitement/nervousness that I felt was reminiscent of the night before my first day at work. But when the morning dawned and I reached Airport to join the Fab Five, I was grinning ear to ear. It would stay stuck on my face for most part of the subsequent fortnight.
The flight to Chandigarh was uneventful but very colourful — adding to the Aircraft’s striking livery, were our fellow passengers with their colorful turbans. I spent most of the flight time poring over the newly acquired ‘The Autobiography of a Yogi’. When we landed in Chandigarh, we found it quite hot, contrary to our expectation (as the day went by and as we roamed around in Chandigarh, we were left pondering if the super hot Punjabi broads and their skirts had anything to do with it). Soon we found ourselves in an Innova driven by an elderly, jovial Sardarji, speaking with his infectious Punjabi accent. He took us to our hotel, recommended and drove us to a restaurant for lunch and then dropped us at the courier office to collect our waiting bikes. We spent the rest of the day riding in the city hunting for lassi and generally falling in love with one of India’s superbly planned cities. The roads, the lanes painted on them, the circles (referred as golas by locals), the signals, were all lovely and we adored them all. We called it a day after a light dinner and a healthy dose of lassi at a popular local eatery. The next morning would see us thump towards the Himalayas.
We spent a good hour in the morning to tie our stuff on the bikes. Six guys and their luggage can be quite handful to manage on four bikes. Especially when, erring on the side of caution, the guys have their bags stuffed to the brim with winter wear and what not. However, with the collective efforts of six seasoned engineering minds summoning all of their compressing and packing skills, we managed to find us a satisfactory arrangement. As we made our way out of Chandigarh, people would greet us with a look of appreciation or astonishment or amusement or all of them together. (One chatty Sardar even asked, seeing our trials, if the trip was about passion or punishment!). We would see this at many places through out our trip to fill us with a sense of pride or achievement.
We reached Ropar about two hours later, which I endured as a pillion rider to a very inspired rider. Between the backward pull of my weighty backpack and the thumping forward push of the speeding Thunderbird, I could barely hold my balance and Ropar couldn’t have come sooner. The other half of the group, coming from Delhi, joined us there and importantly they brought me my ride. The introductions lasted for about 10 mins and soon we were about to start again, only this time I got to ride on my own bike. A Black RE Classic 350. It would be the first time ever that I’d ride the Classic. As I took the keys and neared it, two words rushed to my mind again — ‘My Precious’!
As we started our ride again and I began to get familiarized with the bike, it became pretty clear that it was a different beast altogether. I was never really big on Bullets or Royal Enfields. My prior experience of riding a Bullet, let alone Classic, was minimal and mostly in the city, which meant I never had a chance to really ride it. But here I was free to do that and as I went about it the comparison with my RX was inevitable in my mind. It was a revelation. If my RX was Vidya Balan of Dirty Picture then the Classic was Vidya Balan of Parineeta. Or, at least it pretended to be. While the RX was a energetic mustang galloping its way to the next signal, the Classic was a lazy elephant taking its royal stroll without caring a hoot for others. While it was difficult to get into the Uncle-mode from Rossi-mode (purely my coinage) on the RX, it was equally difficult, and dangerous even, as I would find out later, to get into Rossi-mode from Uncle-mode on the Classic. With all this comparison on the mind, I was sure that at the end of the trip, the real Bulleteer in me would either stand up or go into a permanent slumber! By the time we arrived at our destination for the day Hoshiyarpur, after about four hours of fast paced riding, I got well acclimatized to the idiosyncrasies of the Classic by this time. So I thought. We spent the evening gobbling some more of that famous Punjabi energy drink — lassi and socializing with the rest of the gang.
It was a beautiful morning with the Sun putting out tender sunshine and I was enjoying my first of many to come synchronised riding. The winding roads from Hoshiyarpur to Jammu had given us a chance to be in a disciplinary lane while riding hard. It was sheer joy leaning into the not-so-acute corners and watching yourself in sync with the rider ahead of you, who was in sync with the rider ahead and so on. Disciplined, respectful, controlled yet hard riding would remain a hallmark of our trip. Well, for the most part anyways. We had started after breakfast and maintained a good pace. For most part the ride was joyous and uneventful, except for when a couple of riders unwittingly broke away from the group and decided to bypass Udhampur when the plan was to ride through the city. An hour or so later and after a short stretch of moutain riding, we were at our destination for the day — The Varadan Resort, at Patnitop. The breakaway group had joined us en route.
The view from the resort was beautiful and it led to an unrestrained bout of Selfies. I saw a Selfie stick in action for the first time. While, the photography enthusiasts from the group spent their evening capturing the beautiful spectacle of a Sunset behind a not-so distant mountain, the Facebook enthusiasts, having gained access to the resort WiFi network, spent their evening sending updates. As the night arrived bringing with it a slow, cold breeze, we found ourselves sitting beside a bonfire. Funny introductions, wild cheering, jokes and laughter followed, amply aided by the unrestrained flow of Vodka! As I retired into the bed for the night, I couldn’t help but think of Barney’s most famous words — ‘this is going to be legend-wait-for-it-ary’!.
‘My girlfriend has the same problem’, quipped Abid after learning that Karthik was finding it difficult to communicate in Hindi. We were at his friend’s computer store in Srinagar to use, well, the Computer. Apparently, Abid had a girlfriend from Kerala whom he had met while working in, would you believe it, Bengaluru! We had reached Srinagar before evening after another day of joyful riding except for the last stretch of the ride, from Anantnag to Srinagar, where the heavy traffic made us feel like we were riding from Bengaluru to Mysuru on a long weekend.. It was also the day on which we rode through the very long Jawahar Tunnel. The four KMs long, dark tunnel gave us an ample opportunity to shout our lungs out in jubiliation and rev the hell out of our machines, just to make some noise. The ride through the day also gave us a glimpse at what it takes the Indian Army to keep Kashmir safe and secured. You could see the Army soldiers everywhere. At checkpoints, at villages and generally at random spots on highways. If you thought you could stop by a roadside bush to relieve yourself, chances were that you’d find an uniformed soldier holding his initmdiating AK-56(?) staring at you or the road. Well, almost. But, you get the drift. The soldiers however, though stern looking were quite friendly and easily approachable. This would get attested through out the trip.
We went to the Srinagar market to buy the rubbery, waterproof shoes as suggested by Abid. We wanted to be prepared for our rides ahead, which would only get arduous and chances of wading through water were high. As we roamed around the market in our search for the shoes, which was fast turning out to be futile, we arrived at the Lal Chowk, infamous for its notorious, allegedly professional, stone throwers. The area was bustling with activity with some shopkeepers busy attending to their last few customers for the days and others busy pulling the shutters down. Ravi GK had a sudden craving for an ice cream and soon we found ourselves licking at a cone of Ice cream. As we strolled around, devouring our ice creams in the cold night, I felt a tender touch on my free hand. It was a beggar boy asking for my ice cream. Little unsettled at his directness, I gave it away. Soon I found that the same had happened to Ravi GK too. A while later we joined Bala who had bought himself a pair of gloves from an elderly shopkeeper. Another elderly person from the adjacent shop joined us. there. Appearing a little fatalistic in his demeanour, he told us about the life in valley during the winters, when shops would close by 5 after their opening for business at 10. He explained how the city would appear deserted since the wealthy ones would take flight to warmer places leaving only their servants to look after their property. I could feel a tinge of sadness in his voice while he was talking about the rich. If the sadness was because of their wealth or the apparent lack of it in his life, I wasn’t sure.
The youthful and enthusiastic Abid, the beggar kid in the market and the sober and ripened by age/life elderly would make Srinagar no different from any other city in India or in the world for that matter. The city itself appeared as dirty and chaotic as any other in our wondrous country. However, sitting in the midst of beautiful mountains, surrounded by the once-beautiful-now-almost-dirty Dal Lake, it is hard to answer why should it erupt into violence from time to time. In its peaceful normalcy it is chaotic yet beautiful; dirty yet delightful. Hope it would remain such. But then I digressed. I hope I haven’t bored you with my pursuit of poetic pondering.
It was another beautiful morning as we rode by the Dal Lake with the boathouses and shikharas floating in abundance. We were heading towards Kargil and the Dal kept us company for the next fourteen or so kilo meters. And then roads began to winding again and we were riding uphill. Soon we arrived at the foothill of the Zoji La, first of the multiple mountain passes we would encounter. The hair-pin turners followed by a straight line followed by race track like corners followed by hair-pin turners again made the ride through this mountain pass enchanting. In fact this feature of the mountains and their passes would accompany us through the rest of our ride. This was of course aided roads that were well maintained by the Border Roads Organization, whose acronym BRO felt quite endearing. The folks at BRO proved to be a creative lot with many funny message boards standing witness their creativity with lines like, ‘Be gentle on my curves’, ‘Better be Mr. Late than Late Mr.’, et al.
The smooth tarmac and the curvy corners let the Rossi poser in me run amok as I found myself try and lean into them. I tackled the first few corners, mostly the left ones (more confident with them than the right ones), with joyous aplomb boosting my confidence. My confidence was soaring high after a few more and I decided to attack a right hander with gusto. Halfway into the corner as I leant more and more, I felt to my horror, a vibration run into my right foot followed by a distinctly screeching sound of metal rubbing on the road surface. It was due to the brake pedal touching the ground. My confidence fell crashing down as I slowed, straightened and regained my composure. I began to be wary of the corners, especially the right ones and developed my first doubts about Bullets in general and the Classic in particular. It would later become clear that the low lying silencer, break pedal and foot pegs were proving to be the Achilles heel for cornering ability of the Classic. This however did not stop me from going through the same cycle several times later!
After we crossed Zoji La, we stopped at a supremely friendly army cafeteria located at an altitude of 11419 feet. We had delicious samosas, delightful momos followed by a cup of tea. Sipping hot tea and filling my eyes with the majestic landscape around while braving the cold breeze will remain one of the best memories of my life for a long time to come. The army staff at the cafeteria couldn’t be complemented enough for their courtesy, politeness and generally high level of professionalism. They answered every silly question of ours without flinching a brow and served us a great lunch.
Shaheedon ki chitaaon par lagenge har baras mele Watan pe mar mitane waalon ka Yahi baaki nisha hoga
I read the couplet written, in Hindi, on a wall in the midst of soldier names. Five hundred and nineteen of them. We had reached Drass and were at the Kargil War Memorial located there. The above mentioned wall at the memorial had the names of all the Indian Army personnel who had laid their lives to protect their motherland during a fateful summer. Located in the foothills of the Tololing and adjacent Tiger Hill mountains, the memorial stands as a visual manifestation of the valor and bravery of the Indian Army. The mood in the gang had suddenly turned from jovial and jokey to sombre and sober. It was Ritesh, a bloke who was fast developing a reputation of having his brain between his legs, who suggested to observe a couple of minutes of silence in respect of the martyrs! We couldn’t be more obliged. A while later a proud officer of the Army wearing black sunglasses, perhaps to prevent his eyes from betraying his emotions, gave us a brief about the battles that was fought on the peak of those mountains behind the memorial in the summer of 1999. A general feeling of being overwhelmed was palpable as he went on narrating the battles that the likes of Manoj Pandey, Vikram Batra and several others had fought and were martyred while chasing the enemy away.
We left the memorial with a heavy heart and a sense of gratitude. As I think about it, I couldn’t but be thankful to those brave men, without whom this trip wouldn’t have been even possible. In fact, even as I write this, there are Indian Army men who are protecting our motherland braving extreme weather condition that you and I would find it hard to even imagine. They stay atop the mountain peaks holding their posts for months at stretch with the temperature hovering more than fifty degrees below zero. The Army men stay put there, twenty four seven, so that people like us take our leisurely trip to any part of our country in free spirit and will. A respectful salute those men of men and all that makes them what they are!
We reached Kargil before nightfall that day, after an enthusiastic ride on the curvy roads in the planes. Soon as we reached the hotel, a spectacle of our group members trying to latch onto the Hotel WiFi and send their updates on the social networks brought amusement and laughter back in the game. Before we called it a day, we spent small changes gambling on the newly learned card game — teen patti. Perhaps, I could be called a gambler yogi since I learned and attempted to perfect the art of gambling in the hearts of Himalayas.
‘Another day. Another magnificent ride. Leh Conquered!’ I excitedly texted my siblings. We were finally in Leh, after an engrossing day of riding. We had started from Kargil after breakfast. The children on their way to the school waved at us cheerfully. Some would even hold their hand stretched out inviting us to do the same reciprocity. And when we did that, they would slap it pretty hard not dissimilar to an high five and erupt in jubilation. The cheering and smiling was infectious. Meanwhile, however, the terrain was getting tougher as we were attaining higher altitudes. The landscape was getting bereft of any plantation. Human habitations were getting few and far in between. However, the landscape itself was majestic. It would change with every turn on the curvy roads. It was a whole different world altogether. But the bikes and some of the riders were having a hard day. It started with Jacky and Ritesh bumping into a stone that left Ritesh with a swollen shin. My own bike gave up soon after refusing to pick up pace, gasping for air, making me fall behind. Same thing repeated with Ravi GK’s bike. The low oxygen levels in the atmosphere had begun to have their first victims. Thankfully, it was the machines and not the men. Not then, at least. It all finally culminated into a tragic accident but the events after which turned it into a farce.
I was riding slow as my bike was finding it hard to pick up speed. It was as if I was riding solo through the picturesque mountains. When I finally caught with the group, I found them walking all over the road. I saw our lead rider, Krish, nursing a girl whose shin had a cut with blood gushing out. I suspected the worst. ‘Someone from us has crashed into the poor foreign broad’, I thought to myself. However the real story turned out to be tragically comical: It was Prakul, a brilliant rider always riding just behind the lead, who had crashed when he skidded off the dry cement spilt on the road. Incidentally, at the same time there were two girls riding their scooters were coming in from the opposite direction. Watching Prakul crash they panicked. The first one got past Prakul, screaming. Unfortunately the second one couldn’t recover in time from the shock and crashed into a roadside barrier — a good meter away from our fallen lad. When the rest of the group came around, they saw healthy lad slowly pick himself up and a pretty lass fallen some distance away. Suddenly everybody turned into Knights ,in their black shining motorcycle armor, and were at service to help the damsel from the foreign land in deep distress. First aid was summoned and administered immediately while a lot of encouraging words were thrown around to help the girl recover from the shock. Poor Prakul was left alone telling everybody that he was fine only to find out later, that he had achieved a ligament tear!
Our next stop was the historical Pathar Sahib Gurudwara. Located in the middle of nowhere, this gurudwara, was maintained and managed by the Indian Army. We were given some tea and biscuits after the darshan,. As we came out of the gurudwara, adjusting our gears, the same two girls from the accident before were waiting for us. This time they had run out of fuel in the scooter. Our quasi-knights plunged into work immediately. They summoned our mechanic, fondly called chotu, to take petrol out of one of the bikes and fill into the distressed damsel’s carriage. Ravi, ever the gentleman in the pack, offered his bike for the cause. All this while the girls were kept entertained by our loud and jovial, backup vehicle’s driver, Rana ji.
We rode by the historical Indus as we neared Leh. Before entering the city, however, we stopped at an Army museum aptly named Hall of Fame. It was a nice little place to get familiarized with the local culture, geography and history of the Ladakhi region. We were also shown a movie about the Kargil war. So we entered Leh, little wiser after having read about the local history and little prouder of our armed forces. We made our way into the Hotel that would be our home away from home for the next four days — Himalayan Residency, managed by a bubbling, energetic, short lady named Phonchok. We spent the evening watching Amar Akbar Anthony and listening to crappy Bollywood music on TV. The night was spent practicing gamble-asana knowing that the next day was to be a rest day to help us acclimatize.
We spent the day of rest mostly doing just that, except for the time when ventured out food. We lunched at a Tibetian restaurant and we had the superbly named and wonderfully tasty Thukpa, Timong, Kothiya and Phing Aloo. The sauce that accompanied the delicacies was one of the hottest and it made the Thukpa amazingly appetizing. In the evening we went out to Shanti Stupa, the sunset point, to get a glimpse at, err, the Sunset! But it turned out that the Sun couldn’t give a damn for our lazy bones and he had already left for the day by the time we reached the point. Since we had taken all the effort to reach the place, we put our photographers and their devices to good work.
It was the beautiful Pangong lake on our itinerary the next day and it was decided that we’ll rest our machines for some more time and drive in a van to the lake. So with no added responsibility of being a watchful rider, the gang turned the van into a discotheque on wheels. Ritesh donned the DJ hat and my iPod was finally taken out of the bag for the first time on the trip. Sanity went out of the window as we danced and out screamed Farhan Akthar in singing kabhi khud pe hasa main aur kabhi khud pe roya. There was a brief pause when we stopped at Chang La, world’s second highest motor-able peak at above seventeen thousand feet.
Located at an altitude of over fourteen thousand feet, the lake and the surrounding landscape was a sight for the sore eyes. Quite literally so. The blue, clean, salty water body surrounded by a mixture of dark browny and white snowy mountains is truly breathtaking — quite literally in every sense of the word as the low level of Oxygen in the air taking care of the technical part of the term.It was as if God created this place, fell in love with its beauty and made sure it stayed that lovely, for it was too precious to be spoiled by his other ingenious yet notorious creation, by making it quite impossible for any habitations. It was a perfect place for the photographer in me to come out and put Ravi’s DSLR through its paces since he had stayed back in the Tent indisposed due to a buggy tummy.
We drove back to Leh the next day after spending a chilling night inside a tent. The stay had taken its toll on one of the group members, Lincon, as he had to be given an oxygen shot in the nearby Army camp. The drive itself was quite sober, devoid of the noise and merry making of the day before. Perhaps, the spell cast by the majestic lake still held sway over group. The cheerful Phonchok welcomed us back into the Himalayan residency late in the after noon. The rest of the daywas spent watching bad dubbed-in-Hindi Tamil movies on TV.
“Staying here for more than twenty minutes may cause you illness”, read a warning written over a stone. We were at the top of the mighty Khadrung La, at an altitude of over six kilo meters. It is the world’s highest motor-able peak but with a severe deficiency in atmospheric oxygen. (Thankfully, the army has a medical unit there that proved to be a blessing for our mechanic, Mr. chhotu, for he was the latest victim of the oxygen-shy atmosphere.) Getting there had been hard work. It had taken usover three hours to cover a distance of about fifty kilo meters. The roads proved to be the worst we had come across so far. And to top it, we were riding doubles today with Ravi and I sharing the ride on his Thunderbird. But the view and landscape made it totally worth it. The ride itself was thrilling to say the least. The steep hair-pin turns or the acute corners with the ever changing landscape never letting us feel tired or exhausted even when the bum went sore or the back hurt so bad as if John Cena has done a DDT on you!
We reached the resort in a place called Hunder by evening, but not before a few of us had a joy ride sandwiched the two humps of the famous two humped camels of Nubra. But, this was all after we had another tryst with a bunch of girls: We had stopped for lunch at a decrepit dhabha in a village on the way, with our bikes parked by the road. Soon a group of girls, dressed like they were holidaying in Goa, descended from an Innova. As it turned out the lure of the bikes they couldn’t resist and the lure of them the boys wouldn’t resist! As they neared our bikes to pose and click, our lead rider, ever the charmer helped them to get the pose and the bike right. Ravi, ever the gentleman with a keen photographic eye offered his service to get the click right as the bikes and babes stood as his muse. The rest of the boys were mostly head over heels and couldn’t wait to get inside the frame with the beauties and the beasts. Lunch be goddamned!
The resort located in the midst of the scenic mountains was full of greenery with a bunch of apple trees taking the proud place. As it turned out it had one of the best kitchen on the trip. We spent the late evening and most of the night devouring on pakoras, bonfiring, joking, shouting, burning holes in track pants and old monking! The ride back to Leh, next day, would remain a calm and mostly uneventful. Perhaps, we had had two days worth of fun in one!
Back in Leh, we decided to go shopping at the army canteen. Army folks had been a constant companions on the trip and we had shared many a conversations. The general conversation would revolve around us asking them about their natives, the time they had spent at that post and them asking us about our rides, jobs and a few curious ones even asking us our salary! But this was until we reached the canteen on that fateful day. As we entered the canteen complex, we bumped into an army guy who was watching over the gates. Looking at us and our bikes he got curious and inquired the usual things. He became little chatty after knowing that we were Southies. He exploded into a verbal diarrhea as he realized that three of us were his homies, well almost. He would constantly switch between Hindi and Tamil while talking and boy was he full of stories! It was joy of the highest order listening to him regale us with his quirky stories narrated in chaste Hindi with typical madrasi accent and interlaced with a liberal dose BCs and MCs! Of all the things he told us, the gem was saved for the last. He went on to suggest Karthik to have his honeymoon at Rohtang Top and the result, according to him, would be, err.. I’ll just leave that to your imagination. Our evening was made, folks!. I don’t remember a thing from the rest of that day.
My foot was freakishly cold and the wet sock was only making it colder. The cold breeze would make it worse if tried to ride faster. The tiring body and the numbing fingers weren’t helping either. It was dark; we had just entered Sarchu and were a little distance away from the tents where we had decided to rest for (more like brave) the night. The ride during the day had been harsh and eventful. When we started from Leh early in the morning, Keylong was our destination since we feared Sarchu would be unbearably cold. The ride in the morning was super cold and by the time we reached Tanglang La, another majestic mountain pass, we were desperately wishing for some sunlight. As luck would have it, Prakul’s bike went down with a puncture soon after we crossed the peak. As Mr. Chotu, got down to work, the rest us slowly descended. We stopped at a dhabha (with ‘beds available’ advertisement) in the midst of nowhere place known as Depring. It was in the afternoon and some gentle soul from the group had ordered lunch. The food (dal, roti) turned out to be super tasty and invoked the bakasuras in us — The Twelve Hungry Men! Prakul, Mr. Chotu and Rana joined us after a while and helped to finish whatever the food that was left in the dhabha.Meanwhile, Prakul had a feeling that the rear brakes on his bike were not working. It got worse after an hour or so of riding. So we took another short break to fix the bike except only this time the break would stretch into hours! Two hours of persistent work by different men, the brake problem would unfortunately remain unsolved. Unsurprisingly, however, the hours had taken away any chances of us making it to Keylong and we had to chose Sarchu for the night’s stay. During this stop and go pattern of ours we got blessed with an addition to the group.
Over the course of the trip we had bumped into many different blokes. We met a guy from Denmark, who was on a cycling trip for the past five months and had plans to remain so for another five months, an American girl who was on a ten months world trip after college, an Australian couple who were riding their Bullets from Manali to Srinagar via Leh (The woman was furious at the time since one of the bus driver had brushed her bullet while taking a curve! The man was trying his best to calm her down). And of course those Gernan and Australian chicks who crashed in front of us! But as it turned out the best was saved for last. We first met Tony, a English gentleman (perhaps, gentleman wouldn’t be appropriate, for he was, as I later realized, the most foul mouthed Pommy I have ever encountered!), during our break to fix the bike. But he later joined us in what ought to be the funniest moment on the trip. Rana, our backup vehicle driver, was taking a leak by the road side with his vehicle parked a while away. Tony, riding his Classic 500 Desert Storm, came roaring down the hill, lost control and banged into it. Hearing this, Rana came running towards the vehicle with his fly wide open. Arguments ensued but the guys finally saw the funny side of the things and Tony became an unofficial member of the team. Later we would learn that Tony (one time Pink Floyd fan, lifetime Thatcher hater) having sold everything that was his in England would stay in India for another four to five months. Thereafter he would move into Portugal. A free spirit he was!
The tent at Sarchu was freezing cold. We put on at least three layers of winter clothes under another three layers of blanket before we slept hoping that we wouldn’t be frozen by morning. When I came out of the tent in the morning, still chillingly cold, I experienced snowfall (not very intense) for the first time.This was one of the best mornings ever and I felt the morning tea had never tasted better.
The early morning ride towards Manali was turning out to be the coldest of them all. The fingers were almost numb even when they were wrapped with two pairs of gloves and the chilly wind was piercing in through my two heavy jackets. Adding to our agony were the roads(or the lack of them) to Rohtang Pass. But the sheer picturesque landscape with the superbly contrasting snow gingered on the mountains and the thrill of riding through them would put all the pain and tribulations into the background. The descent from Rohtang Top, with significantly improved roads, would prove to be one of best rides of the trip. With oxygen being no more a constraint the Classic also began to the enthusiast mounted on it. However, while the roads were well paved and maintained they were too narrow for any overtaking adventures. This restricted us from overtaking a convoy of Sumos. As the sparkling white Sumos lead us into Manali town, it felt like we were all playing a part in a Telugu movie!
The ride from Manali to Chandigarh was exhilarating. It was to be the last day on the road for the Bengaluru gang and we rode with gusto. We raced against each other to the utter dismay of oncoming truck drivers. The twisties on the road added to our feeling of the proverbial child in the candy store. The potholes filled stretches were glossed over and revved through with gay abandon. And when we hit superbly maintained NH21 we were at the pinnacle of our joyous adventure and couldn’t keep our wrists from wringing the accelerators to the maxima. As we entered the crowded, Friday evening, Chandigarh traffic to its utter amusement, the victorious ear-to-ear grin was stuck firmly on our proud faces. WE HAD DONE IT!