"There we go again"- drawled my dear pal Ritesh as the tempo traveler where we were cramped in came to a reluctant halt. I had dozed off for a while as sleep had finally fought its way in after being rendered powerless over the last few days. I opened my eyes to find myself blinded by the white all around. I quickly managed to calculate the duration for which I had embraced sleep, for the whites had looked distant when I was last conscious.
We were on our way back to Manali from Leh through one of the most difficult but breathtaking routes (NH-21) on this planet. It had snowed heavily over the past two days and the effect was quite visible. GPS told us that we were near a place called "
Killing Sarai" (quite a name indeed) in northern Himachal Pradesh. We were about to be stuck there for another 4 long hours, courtesy the really long convoy of fuel trucks just released from the other end and also due to the snow-clearing operations on the narrow highway. We didn't complain, even though there was a rapidly increasing possibility of spending the entire night in the miniature bus braving the subzero temperatures, (It was close to freezing in the daytime itself. We got a hang of it after getting down from the vehicle) and this information had been conveyed to us by the driver of the bus quite nonchalantly. I didn't mind though, for the mountains were just too mesmerizing and it felt as if they had full control over my mind and spirit then.
It's not everyday that one gets stranded up at 16,000 feet above sea level and it was then and there I decided that I would be blogging about this trip if and once I returned. It was worth it in every single sense.
My thoughts wandered over to the day when we just decided to take the Leh-Ladakh plunge without any prior planning.
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| Images from the Killing Sarai |
We had finally, "planned' for a 3-day trip to Manali and intended to return to the sultry confines of Delhi thereafter, for our group had been reduced to only two after last-minute unavoidable back outs by the other guys (Had to mention this :P). It was en route to Manali from Delhi that we made friends with Shirish Malhotra, a multi-talented freelance musician (Master in Flute, Saxophone, Guitar, Violin etc/etc :D) who is a prominent part of singer Arijit Singh's band nowadays and more importantly, a wonderful human being as well.
We took refuge in a hotel in Old Manali which was just on the banks of the 24*7 screaming Beas river.
Manali was an amazing stay and we had the opportunity to throng a plethora of excellent cafes and shops, both in Old and New Manali. Special mention for a cafe named Cafe 1947 where the owners are excellent musicians themselves and have formed their own music band. The cafe itself is full of instruments. One can actually go and jam there with other musicians who visit the place from all over the world.
So the next morning in Manali saw us taking a firm decision to venture out for the paradise itself, Ladakh.
We got down straight to the travel agency and got our tickets. Our carrier would be a 12-seater tempo traveler as big vehicles are not allowed for public transport on the unpredictable route, at least in the early summer months. Unfortunately, our prospective team of three would again be restricted to the original two members as Shirish had to return to Mumbai for the next tour rehearsals.
Journey Begins
It was 2 AM in the morning when we left the hotel and began our lookout for the "bus". It was a chilly night and it was all quiet but for the raging Beas which angrily clashed against the mountain rocks that stood in her way. We had embarked on a mad shopping spree for woolens and other stuff after the Ladakh trip was finalized the previous day. After settling in the bus, I strained my neck to check out who my fellow passengers were. There seemed to be a couple of European girls and a European guy (later came to know that all three of them were French, though the girls and the guy were making the journey separately), two locals and a family of four from Delhi, who had the audacity to take the last row for this difficult journey. I smirked to myself while thinking about this. It was going to be one hell of a journey. The distance was around 462 km and it would take approximately around 20 hours of travel (without major halts).
So we began. There were a couple of halts (mountain sickness and consequent pukes for the lady in the back seat) on the way to Rohtang pass, a few kilometers before which we had to stop for nearly half an hour due to traffic. The NH 21 is maintained by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) and only 100 vehicles are allowed to cross the Rohtang Pass due to possibilities of inclement weather up there in the pass.
Ritesh and I got down from the bus to experience the scene along with the French man ( we forgot his name immediately after the introduction) and immediately realized it was a bad idea. Within a few seconds, it felt like we had got frozen. It was around -5 C at that time and was snowing as well a bit.
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| Yes, it's the moon |
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| Images from Rohtang Pass at 4AM |
It was around 5:30 in the morning when we stopped at a place called Koksar for breakfast. Here, the foreign nationals were required to produce their passports for verification.
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Image from Koksar
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We resumed our journey and crossed a series of beautiful towns like Lahul, Keylong with the river Chenab as a faithful companion for a while before halting at Darcha, which was a second checkpost in this journey.
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| Image from Darcha |
The tempo traveler huffed and puffed its way to Sarchu for the next security check and halt. Sarchu is a place at the state border of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu And Kashmir. During this stint, we crossed the Killer Sarai, a place which has been introduced at the beginning.
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| A panaromic view near Killer Sarai |
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| Image from Sarchu |
Thereafter we entered Jammu & Kashmir and continued our journey till
Pang. The greenery had been slowly replaced by a totally barren landscape. Yes, we climbed up and the down the numerous mountains on the way. We also encountered gentle snowfall for a while in between. The scenes were breathtaking and we were so stupefied that we stopped clicking pictures for a while. The mountains near Pang had amazing structures. It was as if nature had employed some top architect to specifically design them and give them a royal feeling.
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| Panoramic View of Pang |
It started getting difficult to breathe at Pang. The air was getting thinner and we started huffing and puffing after walking only a little. We had stopped there for the evening snacks and tea.
The bus driver announced that this should be the last official halt before Leh, which was still 170 kms away. After a while on resuming our journey, we climbed up to the Morey Plains and continued though the vast expanse for a while. Nature was onto its tricks as we also encountered dust storms just before we were about to begin our assent for the Khardungla Pass, which is arguably the highest motorable pass on earth at 18+ thousand feet above sea level.
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| Climbing up the Morey Plains |
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| Morey Plains |
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| Crossing the Khardungla Pass at 18,000 feet |
We began our descent from the Khardungla Pass and eventually reached Leh around 10PM at night.
Our bus stop was in old Leh. The weather seemed less chilly compared to Manali.
Anyways, it was all deserted at that time. We scurried around to get a guest house/hotel. After running around for what seemed like an hour, we finally got a decent guest house a little way up the stand. In our jest to find an accommodation, we had not realized that we were breathing very heavily and when the realization occurred, it felt terrible. It took quite a while and loads of H2O to restore normalcy. Moreover, we had conveniently forgotten that external sim cards don't function in Kashmir. To make matters worse, PCOs closed whenever the owners wished.
In the meantime, we were famished to the core. So, we got down to have a quick bite and returned after a while. And at the end of it all, I couldn't help but exclaim: "Yes! We have finally made to Leh-Ladakh!!"
Leh/Ladakh Diaries : Day 1
It is really amazing how a fantastic journey, which is one of its kind in this world, can energize one. We had not slept the previous night when we had left Manali and even after dozing off for only 5-6 hours on arriving here, we were on our feet the next morning. There is another good aspect about these unplanned trips. There is always this sense of excitement and adrenaline rush. We have no clue as to what we are doing till we are actually doing the thing.
So we set ourselves for a 20-min walk up to the Main Market which is the heart of the Leh city, careful enough not to exert ourselves or walk too fast which would result in breathlessness. Our first priority was to get some breakfast, then grab a bike and rush out. We had idea about only two places. One was the Pangong Lake which featured in the 3-Idiots movie and the Magnetic Hill, about which I came to know from my cousin sister when she had visited Ladakh a few years back with my brother-in-law.
So it was decided to have a good hearty breakfast before we did anything, for panting had begun to engulf us already.
We settled for a Tibetan restaurant and ordered one full Tukpa for both of us. The owner assured us that one full plate would be enough for two people. It was a first time for me.
Tukpa is a quintessential Tibetan dish. You would be given a bowl of soup which would contain clear soup, boiled maggie, steamed momos and chopped lamb pieces. It was delicious and filling at the same time.
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| The yummy Tukpa |
Post breakfast, we made some inquiries about Pangong Lake and the Magnetic Hill from the restaurant owner and also if both could be covered on the same day on bikes. We were lumbering under the delusion that the Pangong Lake is just an hour or so from the city and the route is simple and uncomplicated. He just scoffed at our perception and enlightened us that the Pangong Lake is about 160 kms from the city, which would take at least 5 hours to complete as the route is mountainous throughout and it crosses through the
Changla Pass, which is the third highest motorable pass in the world at around 17,600 feet. He suggested us to go for the magnetic hill if we were planning to return on the same day (It was already 10 in the morning by then).
Magnetic Hill (40-45 km from Leh, recently featured in the movie
Fugly) flanks the Leh-Srinagar highway and the road till there is very smooth and straight for most of the part barring a couple of steep climbs. For Pangong, he explained generously that one would have to leave before 6 in the morning if they wished to come back the same day on bike. Even if people are travelling by the SUV taxis belonging to a good number of travel agencies and they wish to come back the same day, they should be out of the city by 7 AM.
We thanked him and started our lookout for a travel agency for vehicles which would generously transport us to the beautiful Pangong Lake and return on the same day. We were looking for the shared taxis as they would be economical. We ambled through the streets slowly in our search for a Travel Agency and consequently we would be hunting for the shops which rent out bikes on a daily basis. We booked our tickets for Pangong and it was decided that the taxi will pick us up from our guest house the next morning at 06:45 hours.
Next task was to go to a bike-renting shop. We scanned a couple of them before zeroing in on a string of 3-4 shops one after the other in a narrow lane. After a series of trials on the available machines, I finally zeroed in on a black Classic 350 while Ritesh rented a Thunderbird 350.
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| Leh Main Market |
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| Image taken in front of the guest house |
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| Leh Airport |
We returned to the guest house after a delicious dose of Mutton Rogan Josh to pick up the camera and other stuff.
So we embarked on our journey to Magnetic Hill on our respective Royal Enfields. Places of public attraction like the war memorial "Hall of Fame", which was built in memories of martyrs from the Kargil War, and Pathar Sahib Gurudwara, would also fall in the way. We would often stop in the tracks to take pictures randomly. The route was awe-inspiring to say the least and finally we had to remind ourselves that we had some distance to cover. Still, the urge to stop our rides every now and then persisted.
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| Panorama en route |
We halted next at
Pathar Sahib Gurudwara which is opposite to the famous Pathar Sahib.
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| The much revered Pathar Sahib |
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| Panoramic View at Pathar Sahib. The Gurudwara is at the left of the image |
After the brief stoppage, we finally reached the zone of the Magnetic Hill after a brief climb and a small series of sharp turns. The view was simply remarkable. The amazing fact about this hill is that if you turn off the ignition of your car/vehicle while moving up the slope as you cross the hill which falls on your left side if you are moving towards Srinagar, it will continue to move up till it reaches the top. The key aspect about observing this phenomenon is that the ignition should be turned off when the vehicle is moving at a much lower speed (less than 10 km/h), else it's plain physics :D. Though we were unable to spot any effect with our bikes, a few cars which had been parked in the vicinity seemed to have somewhat confirmed the phenomenon. We had option of going ahead for another 15-20 kms to see the confluence of rivers Indus and Zanskar, but we dropped the idea as it was getting late and we had to return the bikes by 8 PM. Hence we decided to stay there and enjoy the surreal situation prevailing there. It was all peace and quiet but for the occasional hullabaloo every now and then by the over-excited travelers in their SUVs whose sole aim seemed to be witnessing the magnetic effect for themselves.
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| Images from Magnetic Hill |
So after spending close to an hour over there, we made our way back to Leh. And yes, this time the ride was much more gentle with more stoppages for snaps and to witness the brilliant scenery.
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| Rider's delight |
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| Panorama near Leh |
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| The mighty Indus with Leh as the backdrop |
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| War Memorial : Hall of Fame |
We reached Leh finally around 7:15 PM but had to spend another 30-35 minutes for the shop from where we had rented our bikes. We ended up making three rounds in our bid to find the place and each time we ended up at the same chowk. So after a bit of heroics and riding through narrow walkways, we made it.
It had been a tiring day and while there was still light (It doesn't get completely dark in Leh till 8:30-8:40 PM in the month of June) we strolled across streets and finally deposited ourselves in a bar. We gorged on Kebabs and Mutton with Mr. Old Monk for company. We finished our evening outing, walked down for about 20-30 minutes and finally crashed onto the bed. It had been an amazing day and more was to come the next day, for we were supposed to leave for Pangong Lake by 6:30 AM as per the time decided by the Travel Agency.
Leh/Ladakh Diaries : Day 2
It was a beautiful Sunday morning and we were jolted out of sleep by the innumerable alarms going off angrily. Hastily getting ready, we rushed to the counter, borrowed our sleepy guest house owner's cell and called up the agency for it was already late. (There was no network for our hapless cell phones). We waited outside patiently for our ride to arrive. It was bitterly cold but the sky was magnificent blue and the peaks glistened gold in the morning sunlight. This had been the hallmark of the entire trip since we had left Manali. You could just stare on and on in the distance. The cab eventually arrived after making us wait for nearly 30-45 minutes and we left at around 07:30 AM in the end. The driver asked for our identities as special permission is required for visiting
Pangong Lake. Going there through a travel agency meant that we didn't have to run here and there for getting the permits. The agency took care of that.
So we set off for Pangong. It was expected to be a 5-hour journey. The Indus river acted as a faithful companion of ours for a while before we parted. Along the journey, we got the chance to see the school '
Druk White Lotus School' which featured in the 3-Idiots movie. Don't know about others, but I got the distinct impression that the school is just nearby the Pangong Lake. But actually, it is about 130 km from the lake. Aah, movies for you. So we moved on and also bypassed the
Thikse Monastery on the way (5-10 km from the highway). It's one of the most famous monasteries in Ladakh. However owing to time constraints, we couldn't get a chance to go and see that.
We halted at
Karu for breakfast, where incidentally, the permits are verified by the Army checkpost. While we were relaxing there, the driver announced that we had to move along. There was a long convoy of Army trucks ( I think they were more than 50 in number) heading for the border area in Pangong. It could spell trouble up in the higher snow-capped mountains where the roads are often reduced to one-lane due to snow.
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| Thikse Monastery |
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| Convoy of military trucks |
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| Picturesque view en route to Changla Pass |
We stopped briefly at
Chang-La Pass, which is the highest motorable pass in the world. It was snow all around over there.
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| Panorama at Changla Pass |
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| Changla Pass in the evening |
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| Changla Baba Mandir |
We continued our journey to Pangong, crossing frozen streams, mini deserts and more mountains on our way. Just about 20-30 km before Pangong, our driver educated us about the presence of certain creatures in a narrow valley flanked by the mountains. These creatures supposedly look like mice but have the size of a big dog. They stay under the ground and use the large number of holes to move here and there. The passengers got excited and requested the driver to stop the car. So we got down and walked towards the center of the valley. And there it was, the strange creature. It jumped into the hole upon seeing us. We had to tip-toe our way near the hole. Our travel companions from Chandigarh had taken biscuits with them to lure the creature out. And it did stick its head out when it was satisfied that we were a minimum distance away.
The driver said that people called these creatures "mermaids" but we were not sure whether that would be the correct way to call them for mermaids are hypothetical water creatures.
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| Valley of "Holes" |
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| The Strange creature: Dog-sized mouse |
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| Beyond the mountains, China |
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| The travelers |
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| How much clearer can it get? |
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| 3 Idiots Cafe |
On the land, the China border is a little over 30 km from the place where we had stopped. There are a few villages ahead and civilians are normally not allowed beyond them.
Anyways, we were scheduled to leave at about 2:15 PM but we managed to leave the place only after 3:30 PM, thanks to our two fellow passengers and the travel agency guy accompanying us. They had walked their way to one of the villages ahead. About our co-passengers, they were on a company visit to Ladakh (Lucky rascals). One of them was the cluster head of the northern states of J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi for Longman (of Longman Dictionary fame) and the other was his immediate junior. Both of them seemingly above 35, were loud enough and ensured that we had plenty of unintended entertainment for most part of the journey.
The return journey was a comparatively quieter one. I dozed off intermittently in between as it was getting warmer. We could see ice melting as we crossed the snow capped mountains on our way back. In fact, after Changla Pass, there were multiple instances of streams formed by the melting of ice flowing down the slope across the road with considerable force. We also stopped just before the completion of the descent from the Changla Pass to pick a couple of passengers (they had come all the way from Gujarat) from a stranded cab whose diesel supplies had got over. In fact, there were about 6-7 of them in the cab, the rest were being distributed across the other cars. They were with us for another 10 km after which an empty SUV accommodated them all.
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| Images from the return journey |
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| Indus against the twilight |
It is always advisable to carry extra fuel in these parts as you never know what might happen next. Dedicated bikers who go all the way on their bikes always have fuel cans (one fuel can carry at max 4.5 litres of fuel. we came to know this fact after a bit of observation and research) with them.
We stopped at Karu for evening refreshments and then continued upto Leh against the evening twilight. We reached Leh at around 8:30 PM (it was still not completely dark by then) and immediately headed off to the old bus stand for booking our tickets back to Manali for we were running against time.The only other option at that time was flight and fares of 25k for one did little to encourage us to pursue the same.
The tempo traveler would leave at 1 AM in the morning and was expected to reach Manali by 7 in the evening if everything were on course. So we had dinner in a nearby restaurant in main market, walked down to the guest house, paid off the owner and packed our stuff for the return. However, we couldn't sleep a wink. At about 12:45 AM, we left the accommodation for the old bus stand which would be just half-a-kilometer away from the guest house.
We commenced our journey but this time tiredness and fatigue had engulfed us. However, we couldn't sleep properly at all. Pang was our first stoppage at about six in the morning and it was freezing over there, literally. After Pang, we rolled along and finally I could sleep properly.
By the time I woke up, we were in Killing Sarai and it seemed that we were stuck in some sort of jam. We were in Himachal Pradesh and had crossed Sarchu in meantime among other places. We had already stopped on a couple of occasions just before that for 10-15 minutes. The driver suggested we had something to eat as the situation looked ominous over there. It had snowed heavily over the past two days and the ice-cutter was removing ice and snow from NH-21. To add to the woes, the police at the checkpost had released about 150 trucks from the opposite direction, which could spell doom over there. The road is already one-and-a-half lane (which gets narrower upon receiving heavy snowfall); so when trucks and other vehicles approach, the vehicles on the other side just allow them to pass and vice-versa.
We had our brunch and had moved ahead for only 1-2 km when we had to stop, once again and this time it was for good. We were about to be stuck there for 4 more hours over there as the trucks struggled their way past us from the opposite direction. A majority among them were the over-polluting fuel tankers.
Yes, mountain roads at over 16000 feet in freezing conditions too had their share of jams, I made a note to myself. We ventured out once or twice, but scampered back almost immediately owing to the freezing conditions prevailing outside. A little ahead, a group of young people had got down their respective vehicles and had started dancing to the loud Honey Singh and Punjabi songs.We Indians, we always find a way to entertain ourselves in myriad situations.
Finally what seemed like an eternity, we managed to sneak through the traffic somehow, saving almost an hour in the process and resumed our journey. We had lost around five hours, the driver told us grimly. The main concern on his part was the turbulent and the unpredictable Rohtang Pass in the evenings. The rest of the journey was uneventful till the base of the Rohtang Pass mountains where we stopped for the ususal checkpost and evening snacks. In the meantime, we had stopped at almost the same places as on our journey to Leh. It was already 7:30 PM in the evening when we started our ascent for Rohtang Pass.
By then, the mountain peaks were lost in thick clouds, giving ominous signs to the tired travelers.
There are uncountable curves from the base of the mountains to the top, where the road goes to the other side to commence descent for Manali.
So as we climbed higher, the temperatures started dropping sharply and visibility became poorer. At the top of the mountain, we couldn't see a thing. We were driving through dense rain/snow clouds. The atmosphere inside the bus had become tense. Apart from a couple of persons sleeping like they were already dead, everybody's gaze was focused at the windshield of the tempo traveler. Even the chirpy driver had become quiet. The trucks and the other vehicles seemed to have stopped in their course some distance back. It was obvious that ours was the only vehicle around. But we couldn't afford to stop as we had to reach the Manali bus stand latest by 10:30 PM in the night. One of the local Tibetan passengers from Leh who was sitting with the driver in the front row of seats took an initiative, and stuck his head out into the icy weather, and began directing the driver by screaming out instructions for possible turns, pits, etc. It had started drizzling a while back, which then turned to mild snowfall with snow flakes brushing against our anxious faces. From what we could decipher, tall walls of snow exceeding 40-50 feet on one side suddenly gave way to thousands of feet deep gorge and this play of nature continued. The driver, however couldn't see one bit and was relying on the instructions of this young man as the windshield didn't seem to allow any visibility. It felt as if death was gliding along with us, arms open, waiting to embrace all of us. And then it appeared from the rear, a truck in a lot of hurry. It seemed to have fog lights installed on its front. So it was allowed to pass us, and we blindly relied on the confident truck to get out of the mess. As we moved our way down the magnificent mountains, things started to improve. We moved down for another 30-40 minutes before we reached
Marhi which is the declared snow point beyond which tourist vehicles from Manali are not allowed normally without permission. There are provisions for skiing during the daytime and small cafes and tiny houses dot the place.
The cellular networks, which had been rendered useless over the last 5 days, finally started making their presence felt on our cellphones which were soon flooded with anxious messages from family members and friends who had been unable to contact us for the past few days.
As we went further down the mountain, we bid adieu to the snow and embraced the company of dense pine forests once again.
We reached the Manali Bus Stand at around 10:30 PM. The Leh-Ladakh trip was over, finally.
We intended to reach Delhi by next evening at the earliest. We opted for a temporary accommodation for 4-5 hours at a place which is about a kilometer from the bus stand. At about 4:30 AM, we got into a bus headed for Chandigarh as there were no buses for Delhi till afternoon. The cool and pleasant wet weather of Manali quickly gave way to hot and sultry weather of the lower Himalayas and the plains. We reached Chandigarh at around 2:30 PM and immediately made our way to Sector-17, from where buses for Delhi ply.
It was back to the usual chaotic world for us again. We reached Delhi at around 8:30 PM amid the snarling traffic and a sea of people, carrying with us a plethora of wonderful memories which would remain etched forever.
Ladakh is definitely the most amazing place in this country if you don't hate mountains. We had been journeying continuously for the past three days, yet we were not exhausted. Given the nature of our desk jobs, the stamina and the energy has been fast depleting over the past three years. But I had pleasantly surprised myself on this trip. After just a few hours of sleep, we were up and about the following day(s) for the next round of adventure. Yes, it was a kind of adventure only. There were many instances when the vehicles carrying us were just one inch away from a mile-deep gorge. We had been stuck in snow, had faced dust-storms and much more.
We had stayed in Ladakh for a mere 50 hours. But we had covered a lot in that time. A couple of places eluded us owing to shortage of time. We missed the
Nubhra Valley which is about 180 km north of Ladakh and requires at least two whole days. Also, had time permitted we could have continued till Srinagar from Ladakh (that route is slightly less magnificent compared to the Manali-Leh route as it is comparatively less mountainous but comparing the two routes would be like using a 19-20 parameter).
If you don't have health issues and wish to visit Ladakh, go by the road route from Manali, at least on the onward trip to Ladakh instead of taking a flight from Delhi.
There are a few negative points about travelling to Leh on a flight. First, sudden increase in altitude (Leh is 13000 feet) causes a host of problems including breathlessness, nausea and vomiting. For this purpose, fliers are given some special tablet which helps in quicker acclimatization (for the higher altitude). Still, it is advisable to lie low in the respective accommodations for at least two days. For road travelers, it is advised for one day. Actually our loud companions en route to Pangong were simply aghast when we told them that we had started hopping around the city after arriving there only late the previous night.
The road journey is more beautiful than anything else. Anyone can take hundreds of beautiful pictures, but what the naked eye sees and what the mind consequently deciphers is something out of this world. The towering mountains seem to own you, you stay there mesmerized. The aftermath of such a trip is that you get closer to yourself. The fear and the constant trepidation about the many things in this world get diminished. You seem to identify the priorities, the right things, the right people and most importantly, you feel ALIVE (especially if life for you has become a monotony and not exciting and cheerful anymore).
I have had the good fortune of visiting many good places in my short life (till now :D) right from childhood. But this one beats all of them by a margin. Yes, the one big thing we missed this time was riding all the way to Leh from Manali on the big burly Royal Enfields. A bike trip to Ladakh from Manali requires at least two night halts on the way. There are dedicated camps on the way specifically for this purpose where bikers in particular, camp and pitch their tents for the night in the freezing cold.
Sarchu, along the Himachal-Jammu & Kashmir border, has a huge number of these. Same is the scenario in
Pangong. And yes, biking would require a lot of patience for this trip. You will also have to negotiate the many streams and waterfalls flowing across the roads in full fury.
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| A bike trying to cross the fierce stream |
We did have a biking experience but that was mostly on better roads and the total distance we covered was less than 150 km in a duration spanning 6-7 hours (halts included).
Also to have a complete trip, one should have at least 15 days in hand. Start over from Manali, go to Ladakh, spend 4-5 days at least over there; and then continue to Srinagar.
The bikes are usually adorned with prayer flags, auspicious to the Tibetans and which are believed to be carriers of good fortune while driving through the mountains.
One would have to salute the indomitable spirit of the people residing in these parts of the country. Life is very tough over there. We were told that temperatures drop as low as -30 degrees in winters. It's very harsh out there. Significantly, these areas are cut off from the rest of the country for 6 long months. So the remaining months are crucial and they fill their stocks for the bitter winters. As for Leh, flight services are intermittent in winters due to poor visibility and wet conditions prevailing over the mountains then.
Last but not the least, a big salute to the Border Roads Organization (BRO) for building and maintaining the roads on one of the most hostile terrains in the planet which also includes the highest motorable passes.
Words alone cannot explain the contribution of the military in these parts. We get to read a lot of different stories in the media about them, but one has to be in these parts to see and appreciate the extremely tough conditions they endure to ensure that we can sleep peacefully at night.
Present Day
I started writing the blog after I returned to Pune but with time, the old habits start clawing back if you are not careful enough. So procrastination said hello to me and I reciprocated. It was not until a pleasant Friday evening in Pune when I kind of subconsciously decided to get the red Pulsar 180 out on the Bangalore highway after exiting early from the office, that I had the memories flooding back angrily, which seemed to be reprimanding me for nearly breaking the promise I had made to myself a few days back.
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| Warje Tunnel, Pune-Bangalore Highway |
I had stopped in front of the 2-km long Warje tunnel which is a formal exit from Pune en route to Bangalore to click a few pictures of the beautiful rocky (mini) mountains of the Western Ghats which stood in the way.
Procrastination turned away from me grumpily, its shoulders drooping.
Ladakh, I will be back someday for sure, I declared inside my head.
