It has been a long awaited trip that I have been planning quite some time now. I had heard from many about the beautiful 'Vadiyan' of Leh. I wanted to do the Bike trip with my school friends, but ended up with group of riders whom I barely knew. Usually, when I make my plans for the year for travel I book the flight first as its cheaper to book well in advance. I got my flight return tickets for around 16k which is cheaper compared to booking at last min which goes up to 14k one way.
Now was task of finding a partner to ride the bike. As bike is best way to enjoy the terrains of Leh, my best friend easily agreed. Now was the planning part that needed to be decided. My friend took this opportunity to get in touch with his biking community.
After doing lot of research we decided to go with the tour company which takes care of everything from stay to bike to food for just 25k. The Apex adventure Tour (apexbiketours.com) owned by Rinchen Olthang manages the entire show. He has a team of experienced bikers and coordinators who are part of the tour. As part of the preparation they form a whatsapp group to let the group know the requirements for the trip. They provide the list of things to carry and to be prepared for the trip.
I prepared myself by going back to Gym. I needed to get fit as the oxygen levels are going to be bad, I needed to know to breathe at that altitude. I guess this helped me extremely as I was feeling light on my feet. As its going to be long hours of drive on bike almost 8 hours non stop on bike its better one makes the strengthen the back. The tour operator also provides the cars for the drive, but bikes are better. One thing the operator says is there is very low connectivity of the mobile services in the terrain. Only operator available in Leh are BSNL and Airtel. Airtel is having bad connectivity. Apart form these two there are no other mobile service operator.
After 1 month of preparation and buying the stuff as required by the tour operator for the trip I was ready as a fly to start my journey. One thing that is important is to carry the Backpack instead of suitcase as its easy to travel with the small and big backpack. My back pack had enough cloths, munchies, medicine, shoes, jackets, sandles, helmet, gloves, chargers, DSLR camera, tissues, plastic covers to get me covered for 9 days. As usual I was ready a week before my trip for the excitement and fun filled trip. My best friend was going to reach 7 days prior to me and start the journey with other bikers from Srinagar. This will give them lead time before me. That is one route I am going to miss. With all the pictures being bombarded of Srinagar to Leh, I was missing the trip as it was something I wanted to do. Better luck next time.
Finally, the day arrived for my trip. I took the taxi to airport and waited for my flight. The wait in the airport is fun as I love to watch at people and start guessing their personality. You will find all kinds, college friends who are going on first trip. With male members being the protective kind and girls being girls. The other kind, married couples with their friends and they shout at top of their voice at their freedom with lot of selfies. The next kind who are family parents and kids, not sure if to take selfie or be on the phone chatting away with whoever it is. The next kind the foreigners who have all kinds of germ fighters around them. But they still want to be here to enjoy every bit of India. Last but not the least, the traveler kind who are looking forward for the trip of their life time. I am one of the traveler kind who wanted this trip to be one of lifetime. As the wait went from hour to 4 hours time had come for me to board. I took the early morning flight from Mumbai and reached Leh by 7 am in morning. It was a 3 hours of travel with food served on board. Again my eyes wondered around observing people. In flight its totally differed, window seat is occupied by people who sleep most of the flight and will wake up just before landing to give shout of excitement or two.
Day 1 in Leh: As flight landed, we were all ready to get out of the plane to take fresh air. Moment I stepped out, fresh breeze blew my hair on my eyes and I could feel the freshness of mountains. I stepped into the bus that took around 10 mins to reach the arrival. Once I was near the baggage area, one thing I understood was that Jio or Vodafone which I had did not work even a inch of signal. Zero connectivity and no ways of communication. I felt I have landed on a foreign land.
But this was a boon as I did not miss contacting anyone. Family and friends were taken care of. Office could not connect with me. As I collected by luggage and stepped out, I was searching for the tour operator to pick me up. I saw my name on a board held by one of the persons. As my luggage was thrown on back seat of Maruti, I realized the heat. I was waiting to remove the jacket as I cannot bear the heat. The cab dropped me to the hotel just out of the Leh town. He took around 500 for the taxi drive. Still wasn't sure if the pick up drop was part of the tour or not. I did not mind as the smile given by the taxi driver was quite welcoming.
As I had a breakfast that was prepared in homely style I was waiting for my friend to arrive from the trip. But it will not be until next day I was going to meet. Again clicking the pictures was all I could think of.
After breakfast I decided to take a nap which extended till 3 pm and I woke up hungry. The hotel guys forgot to call me for lunch. And they sent the sandwich to compensate for lunch. The rest of the biking gang was to arrive next day and we will be starting the trip from 3rd day. I slept the entire day and night to make up for the lost sleep during the travel. That helped as they say in Leh body needs to adjust to the altitude and weather. As I was warm bodied, I needed this chilled weather. The weather was warm and not as cold as I wanted. There are no fan or AC due to weather.
Breakfast, lunch and Dinner is served in the hotel. Entire Vegetarian meal and one non vegetarian dish is served.
Day 2 in Leh: My friend arrived next day and joined with rest of the bikers. You can either ride the Royal Enfield (500 CC if double or 300 CC if single rider) or Himalayan if you are adventure rider. As my friend was a adventure rider we choose the Himalayan. Very beautiful bike.
On the second day we checked out the Leh market and met the people around. It was fun to just zip through the lanes and see at the smiling faces. You will find both Buddhist population and the Muslim population. Usually they give day 1 for us to do things on our own and acclimatize to altitude. So we decided to see the palace and the nearby places. The palace is around 15 mins from the main city. We took our bike to the hilltop to visit Leh Palace.
Its beautifully built and well maintained. The entry fee is around Rs 15 per person. There are 8 levels in the Palace, each level having different view of Leh. More you reach the top, the height will give you better picture to shoot. There is a Royal Prayer hall that has peaceful and can be visited by anyone.
When we finished the tour at the Leh Palace we stopped nearby for the tea.
They serve the best Kava and Noodles and give free Wifi. Free Wifi is a boon to the tourists as its where you can upload all your pictures as none of the signals work. We exchanged the musics and than we started back to Leh.
As we drove back to Leh we decided to buy the Airtel local sim. We went to a electronic shop to get the sim, the girl in the shop was very friendly and got us two sims with our Aadhar card. Very important to have you Aadhar number for the activation of the sim. Once we were set with the sim now we were ready to travel. Later we visited Leh Market and saw the Shanti Stupa. We went back to the hotel and were given instruction by the receptionist that we were told by tour coordinator to carry just three days luggage which will go into the pickup vehicle and one small bag with necessities which we need to take on bike. As we were leaving next morning, we both decided to get good night rest as its important before the ride. Tour operator had arranged for a party which we decided to give a miss. We did our packing as per the instructions taking three days luggage and one small bag to fit in oxygen, camera and water bottle.
Day 3 in Leh to Nubra: All the bikers were ready by 8 am as instructed by the tour operator. And waiting started for the tour operator to arrive at the said time of 8 am. No signs of him or the pick up. As I am very particular on the time mentioned, my frustration started building up. To ease my frustration my friend suggested we take a ride out near by to ease self. The ride helped, we arrived after 30 mins. Still no signs of the tour guys. It was 11:30 am when they arrived with the pick up. So the start was not at all good with this wait. To add it up, the bikers did not understand the instruction and had packed entire luggage which upset the tour operator. So with all the tussle and bad start, we were ready with the tour. I guess these things happens as all of us were from different regions of India.
We began the tour with roar of the bike, with each sound raise the feeling of ride was going to be wonderful and exciting. This roar I am surely going to miss, and if I hear the Roar anywhere it will remind me of Leh trip.
We had two girls who were on bike, one riding solo and other sitting behind her friend i.e me. Solo rider was from Malaysia and was doing this for first time. Rest were all male riders were age did not matter. We are set off at comfortable pace behind our tour lead and followed by sweep vehicle. We at the beginning were last ones, not sure why we stayed behind. Later we regretted as the bike front of us was going at speed of 10 kms. We decided to zip through and we reached the lead biker. We were going from Leh to Kar Dungla Pass to Numbra. Its very important listen to instruction of the tour operator as they have the experience and know the place. We got two check post before we reached the Kar-dungla Pass. The ride is very rustic and is not terrain for faint hearts. We stopped for pictures when we reached half way through and took pictures with the group.
Group started towards the Kar-Dungla Pass, the cold air started to get colder, and it was just nearing freezing temperature when we reached the pass.
Me and my friend quickly took pictures and decided to start our decent as rest of group was still at taking pictures which is not good sign.
The idea behind starting the decent is the oxygen is very thin in and around pass and it does not take long to feel disoriented. As we passed through, we found wild animals, curves and dry terrains. This left us panting for breath as we pass though the ice clad tip of pass. We reach the bottom of the pass and decided to take break and wait for the rest of the gang. It took them 30 mins to reach the bottom.
We took break and had our lunch, again noodles, kava, ladakh tea, and some bread omelette. While the rest of the bikers hogged the food I decided to take some pictures on my camera.
Beautiful picturesque mountains have a life that calls one to pose or capture it on their lens. After lot of pictures I was back with gang and they were still hogging on the food.
I wanted to get up and get going. We have to again make entry at the check post. We both let our lead do the needful and went ahead. We stopped near the cross road for the rest of the gang to join us.
The cross road takes to either Pangong or to Nubra. We had to take the Nubra route for our first route. It looked like never ending route.
We decided to stop by to visit the Diskit monestry. This is enroute to Numbra valley. We took pictures of the place and than we had to reach the hotel where we were going to stay over.
Both of us started out to sand dune which was between Diskit and Hunder as we wanted to catch the sanddune camel ride before it closes. The sand dune is famous for the camel ride. Timings for the camel ride is from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm. So we tried to come to the sanddune to catch the camel ride but it was closed. We still were able to get the last ride out.
The hotel was arranged by the tour coordinators which was next to a military condo and a sand dune. We settled in the hotel which has more than 15 tents. Food was one of the best that I had in the area. They had arranged for the camp fire. Incase anyone wants to drink alcohol needs to get it from Leh as availability of variety is very rare. Its same with Non Veg, in case you require you need to inform well in advance. In the region you will find vegetarian most of the places. There might be egg cuisine prepared but that's all.
After food we decided to settle and take the nights rest in our respective tents. As next day drive was long and very rough roads we decided to sleep early.
Day 4 in Nubra to Pangong:
We woke up early and had our breakfast. We packed our bags and waited for rest of the bikers. Morning sunshine on the dune is mesmerizing.
We had to travel to Pangong early as the roads were pretty bad with rain water flooding the roads it is going to be a difficult ride. As rest of the riders had missed the came ride previous day we went first to the sand dune. While the riders took the camel ride, I was clicking pictures of the valley surrounding the valley.
It took them almost 1 hour to complete and for us to start the journey to Pangong. As usual we started out without our group as we needed to fill the petrol. While we were filling the petrol it started raining. As I put on the rain coat which is must in the rides, the rest of teh group caught up with us. We proceeded further with the drive and took roads that leads us to Pangong. We were informed by the Hotel owner Jumma that there would be few stone landslides as we go. Accident due to landsliding is quite common in this area. This might be because the bike sound causes vibration and the lose stones start falling on the roads. He informed us not to go in groups and pass one by one in the road that leads us to pangong. This comes after the cross road I had mentioned in Day 3 route. We reached the place and we went ahead of the group as they were following too close. We reached a place where we allowed the group lead to lead us. As we drove along we reached our first water crossing. I understood why everyone was putting the plastic around the legs over their pants. Its going to be a wetty drive. I did manage to jump over few stones and reach the other side, while my partner took the water route. Once we crossed we waited for rest of the bikers to cross. I saw them struggling through the water crossing and I saw the first fall. The girl driver was doing good in the crossing but loose stones in the water made her bike to skid and it fell on her. As all of us rushed towards her, we saw she had held it right as was doing fine.
My bike partner suggested I come in the pick up drive along with Dorje and Bhanu. I think that was good decision as the rest of the way my bike partner was able to drive standing which is most comfortable in these roads.
As we cruised along we reached a place just before the major river crossing which was supposedly flooded. We took more pictures and took a break as other individual riders cruised along.
After 30 mins break we went to the second crossing. As sweep vehicle was last one to be in the track, we were last ones to reach and our bike gang had crossed the river crossing.
As we made through the crossing, it wasn't as bad as it was explained. Still I was not going to be sitting in the bike as the roads from now on will be as bad as it can get. When we reached good roads I shifted back to the bike and drove along until we reached the next water crossing.
This was the worst one till now. The water of Shyok river was flowing with full speed and we stopped to watch it.
The first water crossing if had more water it could take the bike along with it if not crossed in right way. They bikers analysed the route and were able to cross to the other side. Dorje who was driving the sweep vehicle was analysing the road to drive through the water.
We waded through the waters and reached the other side. The vehicle that followed us got stuck and blocked the entire way. We were lucky to have crossed before the vehicle. As we reached other side, I saw all bikers had parked the bikes and were resting. Got to know from them it was the worst water flow they had crossed. As they rested, Bhanu got a request from one of the solo biker from Switzerland to look at her bike. As Bhanu looked at the bike our gang decided to drive ahead. While crossing river the bike fell and the water went into the ignition. Due to which the bike was not going to start. What I learned from Bhanu was in these terrains one should not get automatic vehicles as it is difficult to get it started again. Hence, get bikes that are not automatic. The person whom we were trying to help had a partner who was not ready to take help. Hence we left and decided to join our gang. One thing is to leave the ego at home as it will not help during tough times. As people are good the girl got stuck as she was not ready to take our help to fix the bikes.
We were able to join our gang and we drove towards the check post and stop for lunch at 5 pm. We did not have anything to eat other than small munchies. So we stopped for lunch which was again veg noodles for me and omelette for others. The kids and people are very friendly and will speak to you without hesitation.
As we proceeded further to Pangong lake the weather seemed to settle down which was good sign as most of us were wet from rains and the strong cold wind will be cause of discomfort. We reached the moutains of the pangong lake. We could see the blue lake peeking from the mountains. We were told not to take pictures as we arrived at the base which had military base. Our lead stopped the bike at a distance from the military base and we got down to take the pictures. It was almost 7 when we reach the Pangong. Totally exhusted from the drive. We decided to rest the night in the tents. There were dark clouds forming in the sky. My only wish to God was it should not rain and flood the roads. We retired to our tents after the dinner and a long chat with the tour coordinators. We had good time exchanging the stories of our travel with each other.
Day 5 in Pangong to Changla:
With the morning sunrise I could hear the rain drops falling on my tent roof. It had rained the entire night and had dipped the temperature to almost 4*. This was not good if the roads are filled with water. We had our breakfast and left to Changla. Before we left Pangong lake we were given opportunity by the tour coordinator to click beautiful pictures of the lake. He took us to the place where the 3 idiots picture was shot.
There are few props from the movie which are placed for the tourists to click the pictures. I was happy with nature clicks. As roads to Changla were worst, I took the pick up vehicle for return.
On the way to Changla, Dorje explained about the Himalayan Marmot which was found near the the Himalayan range and are endangered species. As they are protected by the region, they are not to be fed or touched. We were lucky to get a glimpse of the beautiful creature. I found they are shy and run away if you approach them. But there was one which was very comfortable with the camera. Or was too lazy to move away.
You will find lot of yaks which are either domesticated or wild. They are long haired and found throughout the Himalayan region.
You will also find the wild horses which also roam freely.
The journey in the pickup gave me chance to click away in my DSLR.
As we descended, the mountain we had to give exit entry at the check post which we did. As my journey now continued with Dorje and Bhanu as my friend cruised away in the bike and I was last one in the gang. But it was fun to be in sweep vehicle. We chatted along the way and reached Changla pass. We stopped for 5 mins and took the pictures of the Changla. As it is said not to spend more than 10 mins in the pass we started our decent.
Day 5 Changla to Leh :
As we started our decent, we were stopped by a foreigner who was desperately asking how far is Changla. One of his friend had fallen and was grasping for breath. He explained they did not have even water to drink. As Changla was few kms away we decided to help them. As it has military base in the pass they will get the required help. But for now they needed us. My helping nature kicked in and I jumped out of the pick up with oxygen and bottle of water. Dorje gave few puff of oxygen to the kid and I told them to keep the water. Motherly nature kicked in when I saw the kids, they were not above 18 I think. Looked like it though. I got few chocolates and the energy bar for them and passed it to the kid. Now comes the medicine which I had packed away which is usually taken during altitude sickness. Dimox (is taken orally to prevent and reduce the symptoms of altitude sickness. there are no side affects. Only thing that is felt is tingly feeling after and hour or so on nose and hands which stays for an hour or so). As I was going back to Leh I gave them the medicine and the oxygen bottle as they required it more than me. When the kid asked me how much he needs to pay for the water and the oxygen, I said no money required. Only advice to people who go Solo, unless you know the routes and way to handle such situation better to go in bigger group. Only thing I regretted was not giving my number to check if they were okie. This stayed with me till now as not knowing if they were okie or not is a very scary feeling. As we went further, other two bikers who joined us in the pick up said who helps in this world. I said to that "Help will always find its way to every person in one way or other". Felt good as Dorje, Bhanu and me took the blessings from people whom we helped on the way.
We descended to Leh and still I could not be with my biking partner as roads were worst. I was in the pick up vehicle until I reach the Manali highway.
As we reached the bottom and neared the Manali high way we decided to stop for lunch. We stopped for lunch, and I had Veg thali as others hogged on variety of food available in the restaurant. After lunch, from here on wards I hopped on to the bike and continue to Leh. We went ahead of the group as we wanted to cruise away and not take slow ride. We went through the good roads of Manali-Leh highway. As we cruised away, I witnessed the beautiful "Vadiyan" of Leh. The colors of sky was reflecting on the water which was passing through.
We reached our hotel and went back to our rooms. After 15-20 mins rest of the bikers arrived and all were tired. The rest of bikers were going to continue the drive to Manali next day.
I had to pack my stuff for my flight back to Mumbai. I had not purchased anything other than the happiness flags that are kept in the car for two of my colleagues and my car. Next time I travel to Leh I will be more prepared as half the dresses were of no use.
I had early morning flight, hence took taxi early morning. We were told to be 3 hours earlier than the flight time. We understood the reason as the entire place was crowded. For the first flight out of Leh, there was a big queue in the entrance. There are two departure gates one for Goair and other for Jet airways. So check before you stand in the line. After the bags were tagged and checked in I got my boarding pass and waited for my boarding. As I got into line to board the flight and got seated in my seat, my neighbors were from Switzerland. We chatted away talking about the travel around the world. I shared my experience in Switzerland and he shared his experience in India. It is always good that I always meet different people around the world and it inspires me to travel around the world. It was now time for me to get off at Delhi to catch my flight to Mumbai. Which I missed as flight from Leh to Delhi was delayed. I got into later flight and reached by 3 pm to Mumbai. After Hectic travel it was time to rest and get the pictures ready to be shared.
I was back in traffic and Mumbai roads, even though felt I was back home I am surely going to miss the Roar of bike in silent valley, smiling faces of the valley and the Salutes to Army Men who passed in their army trucks in every curve of the valley.
