Ladakh Diaries - Part 1: Hyderabad to Leh

     

     To make your Ladakh trip memorable you have to start dreaming about it at least 3,4 months before the actual trip. I  started dreaming about it 3 years ago but could not execute the plan till now due to many hindrances,sometimes I didn't get the right company and other couples of reasons included money crunches and time shortage. I waited for all the factors to be right because I didn't want to do a Ladakh trip only for the sake of it. I always wanted to make it my lifetime memory. 

     31st December 2016, the New year eve, it is when we all made our first and foremost New Year resolution to  surely go on a Ladakh trip this year. From that day onwards, we started doing our informal researches in our spare time. My First important online research which I have made to schedule the trip is about the right time/month to go Ladakh. As we all know for bike ride to Ladakh, the season starts in late-may and ends in mid-October. So either you should plan your trip in the beginning of the season or at the end of the season.

     See, both options has their own significance. If you want to have thrilling experience, like snowfall, rough routes, waterfalls everywhere, cold weather and beautiful mountains covered with snow. You should plan your trip in June-July. And if you want to enjoy clear views, better road conditions, no snow fall, lesser tough conditions but beautiful sceneries then you should plan it in August-September. You should avoid making plans in May and October because there is probability of slipping off from your schedule because of uncertainties. And we decide to plan our trip in June-July.

     In the end of march, we have came up with the tentative dates for the trip. And finally we lay our first brick of the plan, by creating a WhatsApp group. In the initial days, the group members were judging each other as we always do about who will go to the trip or who will back off. I have a belief, if you create a solid plan to execute anything. it helps people to make there decision more certain. I was not having much work in office, so I started searching for the route, what would be the possible stops and how many days we actually need to execute all these. So after making a overview of the plan we have booked our tickets from Hyderabad to Delhi. Since 3 of us has decided to make this trip on our own bikes, we decided to book train tickets to get our bikes along with us. Here I have one suggestion out of my experience. Please keep 1 or 2 extra days in your trip to strike out all the things you want to do on your trip. Because of extreme weather conditions, there are always chances of uncertainties.

     Now come to the homework phase, If you are going for the first time, it is always better to know everything about the route, about the places and the time/season in which your planning to go. And it is always better to do accommodation bookings for at least for cities where you are going to stop. Like in our case, Delhi, manali and leh. Reason is, if you book hotel rooms 1 or 2 months prior to you trip, you will get  heavy discounts on that. And also if you are planning to take bikes on rent,do pre-booking of bikes as well. Because after starting the trip  if you make a deal , you won't be in condition to ask for negotiation. Also I always try to book hotel rooms which has free cancellation option, because that doesn't bound you to not change your decision later. While booking, google about your hotel which you liked and read the reviews. One important thing, note down the contact person details and address of the hotel. After booking your rooms, do check if the contact number is correct or not. Call that number and confirm with the contact person whether he is aware of the booking or not because people in remote areas of Himachal and Kashmir are not familiar with these online booking portals. I have been asked by almost every hotel representative over there that they do not have any information about the booking. Share your booking details with your friends and ask them to keep these details. Better to locate your hotels on Google maps and save the location for convenience. And make sure you download the saved location before leaving Delhi. Because after leaving Delhi you rarely get good reception in your phone.

     After the booking part, the next important job is to get all the required stuff with you. Stuff to eat, medical kits, puncture kits, bike accessories, tool kit, warm clothes and especially waterproof clothes and shoes. There is another options for feet, that is gum boots. But gum boots are not comfortable for bike riding. So better to get both gum boots and waterproof shoes. And by water proof clothes, I mean full attire, i.e., jacket, tousers, gloves, head wrap, etc. And while packing, pack everything in poly thin bags first before putting them into waterproof bags. Because trust me, waterproof bags won't help you in keeping your things dry. Start working out at least 1 month ago, try to increase your stamina and try to reduce smoking and drinking. Trust me, smokers and drinkers find it more difficult to survive  in the harsh climate and high altitude. Now comes the execution part which starts with packing the necessities. While packing, distribute every items of all categories to different bags. So that, in any case if all of you are not together you have at least some of your required stuff with you.

      If you are taking your bike as luggage in train, do take care of certain things. Pack your bike properly and reach railway station 2 hours before departure of your train to board your bike carefully. If you are booking more than 1 bike over single ticket, you will be probably told by the officer that it is not possible. But ask them politely to give a try. The reason is, usually they book only 1 bike per ticket as luggage so they are not aware of such possibilities. After reaching your destination railway station (in our case it was Delhi), be available near luggage cart to take out your bike carefully. I am sure you don't want any damage to your bikes especially when you are going for such long rides.

     If you are taking bikes on rent, you should more careful. We have a tough experience while renting Royal Enfield bikes from Delhi. So out of my experience, I would suggest you to check certain things. The disc pads, there should be no sound coming out of them. Chain sprocket should not be outworn. Clutch wire, brake oil, light connections, horn, all should be working properly. Check you must get all the required papers with it. For 1 day, try to keep your rented bike within the city from where you are taking the bike so that if you figure out any problem you will be able to get it fixed.

     All set for the trip now, everything packed and intact. We had  proper full meal a night before the journey started and good sleep also. Always start your ride early morning. We did at 4 AM.

      Day 1, Delhi to Manali. Total distance is 560 km. We set our target to reach Manali in 15 hours. As far we were riding on National Highway No. 1 (the Grand Trunk road), it seemed that we will reach before schedule. We took our first stop to have breakfast at the famous Pehalwaan Veg Dhaba which is about 50 km from Delhi.They have some nice choices for breakfast and enough parking space to park your loaded bikes and clean washrooms as well.

 After that apart from 1 or 2 small tea breaks, we took our lunch break at Gurudwara Pataal Puri Sahib in Kiratpur Sahib, Punjab.

 
Kiratpur has many famous Gurudwaras. We had langar in this Gurudwara and resumed our ride at 1 PM. Until now we were on schedule. We had covered around 300 km. As we were going to enter in Himachal Pradesh, roads got elevated and curvy. Now we were riding at lower average speed than before. As per our plan, we were supposed to take break at Sundarnagar which is about 102 km from Kiratpur Sahib. But unfortunately we stopped in the halfway at Bilaspur because there was an issue with 1 of our rented bikes. It's chain sprockets got outwear completely. And because of this we were running late by 2 hours then. Since it was summer vacation period, we have faced heavy traffic while reaching Manali.

And trust me, if you got slipped from your schedule, you will get many reasons to be late after that.Finally we reached Manali around 11 PM. And after that it took us 2 hours to find our hotels and settle there. It was 1 AM already and we have to leave from Manali by 3 AM. Why? because it was Tuesday, and Tuesday is the day for maintenance of Rohtang Pass. And it is suppose to be closed on Tuesday but when we were planning I called HPTDC, Manali to confirm the same. But they said if you plan to leave before sunrise, they will allow you to pass. So we started from Manali before 4 AM. After crossing Manali, it started raining heavily and we were not wearing our waterproof clothes and our luggage was also not covered. So we stopped and did what was required. And we reached the check-post which was 22 km from Manali before sunrise.Everything was going as per our plan.But there we were asked to wait till 6 AM and even after 6 AM they said you are not allowed to go further. Since it was not allowed officially, so we waited for couple of hours to convince them and they allowed us to go, of course unofficially. Never plan to cross Rohtang pass on Tuesday. better to check the status of the route by calling the tourism office few days before. 

     Finally we were crossing Rohtang pass. It was for the first time, most of us were seeing the snow covered mountains so closely. Apart from facing so much of stress in the morning, we were more than happy and fresh because we were getting what we have dreamed for so long. We had our breakfast, took some pictures.

After crossing Rohtang pass, the route conditions were getting worse. Basically there were no roads. But we were enjoying that as well. Because this is what we wanted to experience. Our next stop was khoksar Which was just 20 km from Rohtang pass but it took us 1 and half hours to reach there.

Now you can imagine the conditions of the route. We didn't get chance to refill our petrol tanks in Manali, and the next petrol station is in Tandi which is 110 km from Manali. Couple of our bikes were running on low fuel, so we transferred fuel from 1 bike to another to balance out and manage to reach Tandi. Please get your tanks full whenever you get chance to do so. Yes, this is how you need to manage every thing. Don't worry, it will all be fun and you won't find it much difficult after reading our experience. On that day, we were a little lazy and were taking many long breaks and no one was bothered much because we were enjoying the route and we didn't have much distance to cover.

Next petrol station after Tandi is at Karu which is 345 km away, So take extra petrol with you from Tandi. After resuming our ride from Tandi, we have experienced something which we had read only in blogs until now. Waterfalls crossing over the roads, we all were very excited to cross our bikes through running cold water of Himalayas. But when we actually did it for the first time, we all got stuck in the middle to falls and got all wet in icy water.

After crossing 2,3 waterfalls, our shoes were all wet and we were shivering badly because it was dark already and we haven't reached our destination for that night.  At around 7-8 PM we managed to reach Bharatpur Tent Colony, where we planned to stay for a night .When we removed our shoes there, our feet had gone blue and frozen. We sat near stove for an hour to warm our self. We could have avoided that if we had gum boots. Even then we didn't get warm all night. It was not a good decision to spent all night over there. In the morning, all of us were having severe headache and we were vomiting and shivering. These all are the symptoms of High-altitude sickness. You can reduce the chances of falling ill with High-altitude sickness. How? After facing such problems, we have figured that we did some mistakes in our journey. I tell you what should you take care of, keep your self hydrated, drink glucose, Have medicine named Diamox to avoid high altitude sickness and avoid consumption of alcohol during your trip.

     It took us 3 hours to make our self ready to resume our ride. We were not feeling well at all but we had to ride and reach Leh at the end of the day. Our first stop on this 3rd day of our ride was Pang which is 76 km from Bharatpur tent colony. Some of our riders reached Pang but others encountered a broken bridge just before Pang. So we waited for half n hour over there but the work was still going on . We got worried that we won't be able to make it, so we decided to cross the river since the water level was not much. One by one we  successfully crossed 3 bikes from that river. It was not easy but after doing it we felt that this is what we will not forget our entire life. After resting in Pang for an hour. We started for Tanglang La (The world's second highest motorable road) which was 66 km from Pang.

It was getting colder when we reaching Tanglang la. It was 6 degree celcious at Tanglang La. We hardly stayed there for 5-10 mins, the chilling wind was unbearable.

32 km ahead of Tanglang La is Rumtse village, where we thought of taking shelter in a homestay named Rumtse homestay for sometime because we were shivering very badly in cold. We thought it will be difficult to convince them to let us stay for such short time but they agreed so easily by seeing our conditions. The hosts were so helpful that they gave us blankets, started the heater for us, prepared  soup  to help us get  warmth. After doing all these they were not asking for any money for letting us stay there for half an hour. But we requested them to take some money. It really helped us to complete our remaining journey. Leh is 80 km from Rumtse. After starting from there I realised after 10 km that I have forgoten my phone at the homestay. So I asked my friends to keep moving and I will get my phone and  meet them in Leh.

     After taking my phone back from there I started my ride alone to Leh. It was already dark, I could hear the stream of river clearly running along the road. It is not safe to ride in dark on unknown hilly routes especially when you are riding in Himalayas. But apart from all these things running in my mind, I was very happy because I was sure about 1 thing, with every minute passing I am registering a lifetime moment. The route after rumtse is good and I got bit excited and in excitement I started riding fast and my bike got skid on a curvy turn. I was rolling on road with my bike over me for approx 3,4 meters. Thanks to ladakh carrier and my bike's leg guard, I didn't get hurt and my armours saved me from getting any scraches. After getting up, it took lot of efforts for me to pick up my heavily loaded bike. There was no one in the dark to help me. Fortunately I didn't get hurt. But it is advised to be more careful especially when you are riding alone. Finally around 10 PM we all reached our hotel in leh.

Day 3 of our ride completed. We reached leh on the scheduled date. Until then we had added bunch of memories, some of them were delightful and other were tough but all of them were memorable. Every night we had so much to share, much more to laugh about and we slept with pain in our bodies  but smiles on our faces and a thought in  mind that we will have  lot more experiences like these tomorrow as well.