A biker's dream ride. A trip to Ladakh.Part -1

It is an incredible feeling to ride a bike through the highest motorable road with marvelous scenic beauty around you, yet dangerous. The hair pin bends and sharp escalating  roads will thrill  you at the same time will also  challenge your riding skills and your machine.

I'm glad to share my thrilling experience of riding to Khardungla, the 'peak' of the motorable roads in the world. It is the ultimate experience a biker could ever dream of.

 Khardungla can be approached by three ways, first from Manali a beautiful  hill station at Himachal Pradesh, secondly from Srinagar, Kashmir and also from Leh, Jammu and Kashmir.

Here I will tell you about how I executed my plan. Since I'm  from Calcutta the eastern region of India, so I had to travel to Delhi, reached Delhi in the Morning and in the evening I boarded a bus to Manali. It takes around 12 hours to reach Manali. Let me also tell you the idle time for this ride is between June to end of September. I planned my trip in July, it was very relaxing in Manali as the weather was very pleasant.

 In the bus itself I met few like minded people who had planned similarly  like me. It gave me confidence and was very stimulating  to have a company during the trip. We also had agents to support us with hotel accomodation, hiring bikes, gears, roadside assistance a tour guide and other essentials. 

We were given a briefing about the proceedings in the hotel with do's and don'ts and were handed out the plan of approach. After lunch we were given àn opportunity to get accustomed  to our bikes. We rode to Solang valley which is not very far from Manali. I was overwhelmed to have a brand new Royal Enfield with a sky blue and black combination at my disposal. It was quite a memorable  evening for all of us. After returning from Solang we had a small get together where we got to know each other even better. The next day we had to start in the morning after breakfast. According to the plan we had to cross Rohtang pass and reach Jispa a village in the valley. 

I could not sleep properly out of excitement. I was the first to get ready in the morning while the rest of the crew joined gradually. We were a group of ten, our luggage were packed in a small truck, with our roadside assistance tools and a mechanic. We started after the morning briefing by the tour guide. All we had to  do is follow the trail. Though it was 473 kms journey from Manali to Leh but on the first  day we had to cover only 138 Kms till Jispa our first night halt in the valley. We were all thrilled with excitement as we started. We ran through the valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. As we rode through the mountain roads  we understood how different  it was compared to riding in a city. The sharp and steep hair pin bends were scary initially for sometime, then we were all used to it. We reached Rohtang pass in the afternoon. It was just amazingly  beautiful. The weather  suddenly changed and it became misty, the visibility was not that good but the feeling of riding a bike was just out of the world. As we gradually  started coming downhill  the weather changed and it was sunny again. The weather in the mountain changes very quickly.  We were now not very far from our first camp. Around 5.00 pm we reached our camp,it was beautifully  located near the banks of Jispa river, very neat and each camp had a toilet attached.

 It was time to refresh, change our muddy boots and straighten our backs and have a cup of tea. After resting for a couple of hours we joined a bonfire sung, danced and cracked jokes.  Tonight we had a quick dinner and went to bed. Even in July it was very chilly  here in Jispa we had to cover our head with woollen caps and our body with blankets. 

Second day as we got up from the bed in the morning  we were mesmerised by the view . The snowy  mountains  were glaring as gold with the sun-rays falling on them. Photographs can only capture bit of all, the rest needs to be experienced.

Day two started  with a lovely breakfast and tea. We geared up as per scheduled time and started our journey, our next destination was Sarchu roughly around 85 Kms from the camp at Jispa. The roads were going to be tougher owing to land slides, streams of water flowing downwards from the mountains and also the higher altitude were a matter of concern. The level of oxygen in the atmosphere as known would be lesser which meant we could be exhausted soon, could cause moderate to severe headache along with breathing problems for those who are asthmatic. Also the bikes do not perform to their capacity due to lack of oxygen. We stopped for refilling of fuel at a gas station on the Manali - Leh highway. It was the last station for the rest of our journey till we reached Leh almost 350 kms away from us. Everybody filled their tanks and also carried extra fuel in canisters.