On top of the world

The Land that Echoes Splendor


After a long time I have something to write about. Ask any biker about his dream ride, the answer would most probably be Ladakh, the land of high passes.
So was our dream, to ride to this mesmerizing region, the mighty Himalayas. I started planning for this ride six months before the actual take off. The dates for the ride were decided five months early.
The plan spanned for a total of 16 days, in which we also needed to travel to and back from Delhi, collect the bikes and set up other miscellaneous things.

As a part of our preparation for this demanding endurance ride, our prime importance for us was to get the bike and ourselves in a road fit condition. As usual I sat with the mechanic and got the work done together, which eventually yielded good results.
Optimus, yes that is what I call my ride; he is a 350cc shining machismo, with a 60W headlamp, RD 350 handle bar, custom made free flow silencer and loads of style.
I never had any apprehension regarding Optimus’ performance during this ride; he was as sound as a whistle.

Putting up brief information about the ride execution:


There were many first things for me, a ride into the Himalayas, such cold, altitude, and also flight. The first thing that got my blood rushing was the plane take off, I was watching out of the window like a child, with awe and appreciation. My joy knew no bounds when the jet engine was opened up for the take off. I had boarded the flight with sleeping mat in one hand and riding gear in the other and of course with gum boots on. Right from the first check in counter, people knew we were set out for biking, many even enquired and wished us a bon voyage.
From 23 deg, 15% humidity to 35 deg 70% humidity, that is the transition in the climate we had to face from Bangalore to Delhi. The crew member announced that the local temperature is 34 deg on our arrival.
Even Jayanti aunty warned us that Delhi is like a cauldron; Jayanti aunty is my close friend’s mother working in Delhi. She is a teacher and also a mother far from home for us. We took a taxi from the chaotic Taxi walas, every one of them wanted to snare an extra buck from us.
We directly went to the railway station to get the bikes out. We were informed that the bikes had arrived at the yard. We had a hard time locating this place, as the local contact did not co operate well enough, and more so did not even receive the calls. We being unable to understand the local Hindi clearly worsened the situation. The heat zapped us, by the time we walked to the bikes with the entire 30 kg luggage; we were totally dehydrated and exasperated.
Somehow, we mustered enough strength to get petrol to the bikes and start off towards Jayanti aunty’s house, which is located in Kalkaji, some 8kms from the place.
With a lot of difficulty we navigated and found her house, we had to pay one guy 100/- just for him to show us this place.

She was like an Angel to us that day; she helped us recover, with lot of fluids and good food. We also freshened up and had a good night sleep.
The plan for the next day was to ride till Manali around 550kms, starting at 4AM. Aunty guided us with route to reach the famous NH1 also called the GTR (grand trunk road).

All three of us were ready to start off by 4AM sharp. Aunty made some tea for us.
We found our way out onto the NH1 quite easily, passing through Raj Ghat and Red Fort.
By the time we hit the NH1 it was already 6AM.
Riding on NH1 early morning without much traffic was fun; we covered good distances, averaging 70km per hour of riding.
We were greeted by heavy rains in Ambala, where all of us got completely drenched; we were riding in the rain like we had no other option, crazy stuff. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road; even four wheelers had parked off on the side.

Once we passed Ambala, the rain subsided, and we regathered our energy through a brunch after Chandigarh. The Ghat sections start 60kms after C’garh, as you start gaining altitude. The Ghat section was infested with a lot of trucks, as Bilaspur the next town is a hub for cement production. Maneuvering through this 50km stretch Ghat section was tiring, as it was also hot. Somewhere in the way, other two guys lost their way and had to comeback 20kms to join the Manali road, by which time I waited for them and decided to stop a little further ahead in some shade.
Three of us caught up very soon, but we had lost time, almost an hour. We reached Manali by 8PM, the police check post guys collected 100/- for each bike to let us enter Manali, mainly intended for maintaining the NH from Manali to Leh.
We rode straight into Old Manali and found a decent three people room for 500/-. The room was well furnished with a sit out and three well cushioned beds. Had a hot shower and got freshened up, went out to do some shopping, the market is series of stalls selling mostly winter clothes and shawls. The streets were pretty crowded, one of us also needed to visit an ATM, which he eventually failed because of the long Q.

After a very comfortable stay and sleep, woke up to find out that my rear tyre was flat.
Thankfully we found a puncture Walla nearby, which saved our pain to do it ourselves, for which we were well prepared. We rode into the Himalayas from here, I was completely mind boggled by the green mountains, and flowing streamlets, it is a paradise in motion, every km, you find something to awe at. We reached a place called Marhi by 11AM, just to watch the drama unfold. The Rohtang pass was closed, the situation so bad, that vehicles were stuck for five days on either side, at least on the Manali side people get to eat something, but the other side is cold and inhospitable for night. Temperatures touch 0 deg. Truck drivers told us that the situation is hopeless on the other side and the pass wouldn’t open for another two days easily.

After a long wait we saw four bullets get through from the other side, as narrated by them, they had to wait for two days and stay in horse stable over the night, and that the land slide is still happening.
At last at around 4PM the police left us go through, but the bull dozer was still at work, as we could see the boulders running down the cliff onto the road. Once the landslide had retarded bikes were allowed to go through, in a flash, we crossed Rohtang, it was already 6PM and it was getting colder. We rode on till a place, where we found a roof. This place where we got the room is called Sissu a small town in Lahaul district of Himachal Pradesh.


The morning brought a fresh list of expectations, more mountains, more passes and beautiful landscape.Rajan a Bed graduate owned this house cum rooms at Sissu, eventually he became our friend, and he wrote out a letter addressing to his elder brother Vijay @ Serchu, which was slated to be our next day's halting place. Serchu means golden drop, Vijay's campsite is named after this, as Goldrop adventure camps.
Before we started for the day, we knew where we would camp. Serchu is 140kms from Sissu. One has to cross Keylong, Jispa, Baralach La to reach Serchu.


We started at around 9AM and rode through some amazing landscape,the best part though was through Baralach La pass,
the mountains were clad with thick snow and the feeling we had is beyond words.the snow was melting because of the Sun and the water was flowing across the road, BRO ( border road organization) has done a wonderful job, by keeping the road in reasonably good condition, given the odd of the altitude and that it is a pass with extreme conditions.Although none of us are shutter bugs, we still couldn't restrain ourselves from clicking away loads of pictures.We reached Goldrop by 1PM, with lot of time to spare, we considered resting for half day.

The tent was placed with three cots and thick quilts to cut the cold. We took a walk across the plane to catch a glimpse of a gorge. the view once again very beautiful, we would have loved to take the bikes there, but unfortunately we did not have spare fuel, so had to be contended with the walk.The temperature started dropping by the hour, by 6PM the winds were heavy and it was cold, all of us packed ourselves with woolens and were treated to some dinner and went off to sleep with a hot water bag tucked inside the quilts.

The night was pretty cold, barely managed to sleep well, the Sun was out 7AM, which was indeed like a booster shot to us. After packing up, we were almost ready to leave and we notice that my rear tyre is once again flat.We had to once again do the drill of removing the wheel and taking it to the puncture wallah for more assistance.luckily the puncture guy was just 7kms from the place we stayed. He charged 80/- for fixing the puncture alone. We got back as fast as it was possible and fixed the wheel and set it to motion.

This day, we had our task cut out, around 260kms of more mountains. With two punctures behind my head, we headed with caution, especially me! First challenge we faced was the Gata loops,
in the 21 loops we climb up like 4600ft in altitude, making it one of the most intimidating ghat sections.The road snakes through, with superb landscape on the backdrop.after climbing the Gata loops the road condition is even more challenging, not a wise challenge to take when your tyre is in vulnerable state, but we had no other option.We had to keep moving, we passed through two high passes, first it was Nakee La and second was the Lachung La.

After the tiring passes we had a pit stop at a place called Pang.
Pang is a kind of cold desert, which leads into the thrilling Moray plains and the mighty Tanglang La.
Moray Plains was very exciting for many factors, first there is no road, second the whole plain is the road, in between you can find distance indicator stones, if you are lucky, it stretches for 45kms. we could hardly find other vehicles in this stretch. The Moray plains demanded our best efforts to keep going. right after the Moray plains lies the Mighty Tanglang La, @ 17,500 ft it is the second highest motorable road in the world.
the pass spans for almost 60kms, longest for any pass.
Atop Tanglang La i could feel lack of oxygen and my head started to ache, so took few quick snaps and decided to climb down the altitude. I almost zipped down the pass and stopped at Rumtse for a break and regroup. I started getting severe head ache. but some rest and tea made me feel better. more so, Rumtse is at 13500ft, with better oxygen levels. It was already 4PM when we gathered at Rumtse, and we were told that the road till LEH is very good tarmac without any challenges. So was it, a quick breeze of a ride with a lot snaps.We enjoyed every bit of the good tarmac and awesome scenery and considered it as the results of our earlier hard work through tougher terrains.Reached Leh at 6 30PM and found a room in a place called Shanti guest house, on Changspa road.We got room @ 700/-. once again the room had three cots with excellent quality rooms condition. First thing we did was to get fresh and eat good food.

Leh is a small township, with a large tourist base. most of them foreigners. After having checked into the room, i took off to find out more about LEH, i rode straight into the Market. Most of the shops were either winter wear shops or adventure gear/organizers shop. Along with these, there was also a large set up of souvenir outlets, where one can buy exotic paintings, rare stones, metal artifacts and Tibetian handicrafts. Although overly priced, a good session of haggling can get you good deals.

In the evening we just chilled out at a local restaurant, made friends and had loads of fun, there was also a guy performing with fire. The guy was pretty good with his skills. Leh is at its commercial best in three months alone, when the roads to Leh is opened. The food was quite expensive, and adding to that, the quality did not make us drool either.Even water bottle is priced 20/- for one liter.
We had one rest day at LEH,during this day, we had to draw money and get the bike washed and checked for further ride. We also got the inner line permits for Nubra Valley and Pangong Tso through an agent.The other thing we did was to buy few souvenirs for ourselves, all three of us got same type of T shirt done. We selected the design and the tailor embroided that and gave it to us by evening. We once again went to the same restaurant, to celebrate one of fellow rider's birthday.We also rented a three men tent for our next day's probable camping.

The D-day, passing Khardung La, might sound as exciting as it is.Called the K Top, this mountain pass is the highest motorable road in the world, at an altitude of 18,360ft.Khardung La is 38kms from Leh, most of it tarmac, but as we near the pass, the road becomes challenging. We stopped on top for few memorabilia, I picked up a pen stand with clock for my brother and K-Top printed T shirt for myself.
We pushed off after spending few minutes, as the high altitude pass would have very less oxygen content in the air. Climb down was as scenic as it can get, albiet the road is just gravel and flowing water across. After we reached khardung town, the roads are too good, Khardung is at around 14,000ft right about Leh's altitude. We had a break there and pushed off towards Diskit.Every kilometer through this section made me feel high, i kept saying to myself " This is what we came here for". There were a lot Army trucks commuting. Most of them, I guess the BRO people. Diskit is at around 10000ft, and the temperature was quite warm, making us feel better. but the disadvantage with low altitude regions is the deadly water crossings called the pagal nallahs. The water can be upto 2ft high flowing across the road, washing out the tarmac, and left with nothing but boulders.The next stop was at Hunder , to catch a glimpse of the double humped camels. There was a camel breeding center, where the tourists were provided with camel safari facilities. Hunder has Sand dunes like any other desert. Such a stark contrast, sand dunes in between mountains and rivulets flowing just few hundred meters away!!.
The ride thus far had already filled our senses with pleasure and pride.But as if that was not enough, we planned to camp near Panamik, we settled down at a town called Sumur.
We camped inside a home stay kind of place, a parachute had been put up for shade. People here are sometimes in emergency cases provided with food on parachutes by the army, and the lucky guys who get hold of these make use of it by having a makeshift roof.The dinner was nice and cosy. The owner's name is Tsewang Dorgee, even he eventually became our friend. They had Apple and Apricot trees inside their place.
With a beautiful garden, no wonder why Nubra valley is known as "Valley of Flowers".

As we thought, everything was going fine, I again woke up to find out that the rear tyre is flat!! One more drill of removing the tyre and getting the puncture fixed, Tsewang and I went to nearby village and got it fixed, it was already 10AM by the time we were ready to push off to the hot spring. The rivulets flow vigorously in the valleys.We had to tackle water crossing as deep as 2feet with water gushing across. Because of threat of increase in the water levels, we decided to rush to the hot spring have a look and get back as soon as possible.
So we did, the hot spring is a spot in Panamik just 20kms from the Siachen border.Hot water emerges out of the ground, hot enough to boil an egg in ten minutes.On a serious note, we found egg shell skinned out after boiling them in the spring.
The Sun was out, and it was hot, a bad sign, given the fact that ice melts faster.
We left the hot spring and headed back to Leh. The ride was all about reminiscing our stay and ride through K Top. Every turn reminded us about the nature's beauty.
We reached Khardung in good time, by 1PM. We had stopped for Lunch, but none of us were hungry to eat Maggi once more, Few chocolates was our lunch.
The bike started smoking when I tried to start. There was no power in the first gear. I got terribly anxious, but sensitivity prevailed, we checked for engine oil, and it was short. Fortunately we had two liters of spare engine oil. It consumed more than half a liter of oil. Now started the actual climb, from 12000 ft to 18000 ft in 40kms.We were stopped at North Pullu by the Army, as the road was blocked in the Khardung Top because of heavy gushing water across the road. The Army let us go only after making us wait for two hours. We just rushed to get across the K Top once more. We had one tough water crossing, where the water was too furious to be taken easily. Since it was already evening, the K Pass was full of water crossings, my front brake disk pad got completely worn out, front brake was making noise along the way. We reached back to our hotel room at seven.This day marked the half way through for us in the ride, exceeded our imagination and happiness.
The next destination was Pangong Tso. We once again laboriously managed to pack the luggage and set off for yet another adventure. This time it was the world's third highest motorable road, through the mighty Chang La pass. Chang la is the toughest of the passes, bearing no respite to man and the machine. It was cold, low oxygen levels,washed out tarmac,plenty of water crossings and adding to that cliff edges on the side of the narrow roads.

We stopped as soon as we scaled the Chang la on its foothill at a place called Durbuk.We once again had to settle with noodles for lunch.The region is the Changthang plateau, there are plenty of army bases in this region, felt like a theatrical warzone.
With landscape so beautiful, it was hard on us to keep our eyes on the road, they would often wander around the scenery!! We reached Pangong Lake by 2PM, i had only dreamt of riding there, but then it had happened, i pinched myself to realize the reality.The feeling was awesome, a feeling of having achieved something, having undertook the hardships to reach this serene place made complete sense.We were quick to get to the lake bed and spend some everlasting minutes. I was listening to "nothing else matters" from metallica, the image will be ever etched in my mind!!

With heave hearts we decided to cover some ground towards Leh, we rode back to Durbuk, crossing many pagal nallahs on the way, as it was already 4PM, we also helped two other bulleteers fix their front tyre puncture. We needed a place to crash, and what we got was a home stay called the Chang La Queen, The owners were extremely mindful of our tiredness and made sure that we had a comfortable stay by providing great food (prepared from freshly picked vegetables and Spinach). Happy we went to sleep.
Yet another morning in the land of mountains, i woke up first at around 6AM, weary about the rear tyre puncture. And yes my rear tyre had once again given up. Arranged for the puncture tools and started the work myself, removed the wheel then the tube,
but could not find any puncture in the tube, but playing it safe, I put a new tube ( of course with two punctures!) and sealed the wheel, we were set to ride out to leh by 8AM, even the breakfast was good, and all this at a take away price. I pushed on ahead, just to make sure that I crossed Chang La before there is one more puncture.
But my worst nightmares came true, when the tyre went flat at half way through Chang La climb. I pulled the bike to the side in desperation. I had run out of my spare tubes, So i had to borrow a new tube from fellow riders, upon removing the tube, we realized that the tube was put in twisted!! So this time we made sure that the tube went in properly. The pressure wouldn't increase with the foot pump, all three of us took turns to bloat the tube. So with whatever we did, we pushed off towards Leh, Thankfully I managed to reach Leh without another puncture.but that was not the end of it, the moment i reached the mech shop, it went flat again!!
The mech asked me for the old tube, of which we had thought of discarding somewhere in Leh. The mech cut the tube axially and put a full sleeve arrangement on another tube, and promised that I will reach Delhi without another puncture, he also asked me to keep the pressure no less than 40!!.
So there we were, lodging into the same hotel, walking around the town and marveling about the ride.
With the rides and the riders all set to the return journey, it was a heartfelt experience to leave Leh.We bid goodbye to Leh in the morning and set off to Serchu. Needless to say this 260km stretch was as exciting as when it was when we came through for the first time, but this time we rode with a bit more of confidence. But the mighty Tanglang La and the treacherous morea plains gave a shiver in the bone with never ending pass, cold and dust and roads. All three of us were exhausted when we reached Pang, so we took almost half an hour break at pang. The bikes and us, were completed coated with thick layer of dust, courtesy of the Morea plains. Me the "brave" guy, thought of taking off roads through the morea plains and ventured into the tracks less taken, and after riding for some 25kms, i see that there are no other people around, not even army guys. I did not even have spare fuel." Mera tho gaand phat gayi thi" was the kind of situation i was in. But fortunately, after riding for 5 more kms, i could see two truck, i cut across the plain and chased them and ultimately found the road, which had a milestone pointing to Pang . with ten more kms to go, i was clueless as where the other two guys were, but i found Appanna waiting at one of the tents, Prashanth arrived some minutes later. Happy to have survived the deadly morea plains, we encouraged ourselves to reach Serchu by dusk.So we did with much effort, passing countless water crossings and passes and Gata Loops.
Unfortunately we did not get the tent at the place where we had camped will on our journey to Leh, as the whole set up as booked. We took our chance and went looking for an alternate camp site and luckily found one, but at the same cost as we had paid for our earlier stay. The facilities was not good and even the hospitality could have been far more better.
Any which way, nothing was going to deter us, we beat the cold for the night and were all set to ride to Sissu, with meager 140kms to do, we took it easy, reached Sissu by 1Pm, and Rajan the home stay owner and our friend by this time, took us to a local hotel where we got fresh lamb curry and rice, we were much obliged to take the offer and hogged until we could fill any more.This day we had crossed Ladakh and were back in Himachal, Sissu is in Lahaul valley, and yes it is beautiful.

Our final frontier was the dreadful Rohtang Pass, it had already started raining in the morning, and we knew pretty much, that this day's ride would be the end of the adventure for three of us.

The plan was to reach Kullu by afternoon and get the bikes checked, but heavy rains at Rohtang pass almost strangled us, we took like four hours to cross Rohtang. almost rode through in first gear only. By the time we crossed Rohtang it was already 2PM, we stopped for light lunch at Marhi and find our feet in the wet conditions.The rain was incessant, no respite, hence we had to push off in the rain, it was hard on us to ride in the rain and cold, all of us were completely drenched.Somehow managed to reach Kullu by 6PM. My disk brakes had once again given up. We took a room in a three start hotel for just 1500 for one room, in which three of us adjusted. had hot shower, got fresh, and wore anything that i could find dry and reasonably clean. Then we went out the Kullu town for dinner and to buy some gifts for our families, i bought two Kullu jackets for my parents and we bought a Kullu shawl for Jayanti aunty.
At the end of the day, we knew our adventure was pretty much over. and moreover we were no more in the high altitude region.
The next day we went to the local RE dealer for fixing our disk brakes, and the guy did not know how to fix it, and made it only by 2PM. we had a lost a lot of time. So rode almost non stop to Chandigarh. One thing i can never forget is the lunch that we had here, it was awesome at a very good price, i would recommend this dhaba to Rocky and Mayur, they are anchors of a serial called "Highway on my Plate".

Final day's ride was from Chandigarh to Delhi, the temperature shift was quite a margin from 10 deg to 30 deg!! Prashanth's bike broke down just after C'garh. Me and Appanna decided to carry on and complete the ride, and he would put his bike on a transport in Chandigarh itself. We reached Delhi by 10 AM, and retraced our way to Jayanti aunty's house by 12PM. Without even getting freshened up, we went to the railway station to handover the bikes for shipping.
Hence there it was the official end of our ride!!

These 16 days defined a lot about biking, nature and man himself, where he stands between them. For the young readers, who get inspired to go to Leh, please take a note, all three of us had a fair amount of riding experience before venturing into this, along with some knowledge about the bike's mechanicals. We also carried spares, medical kit, vehicle documents and wore protective riding gear.
Ladakh is a connoisuer of my thus far rides.
And not to forget, without my Parent's support, excellent job from my mechanic and wonderful co riders, this ride would not have been successful.
Will see you on roads again,
Till Then Happy Thumping
Signing off with a message for young riders