The not so Offbeaten Track (Manali-Leh ride)

I have not written a travelogue before. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever written before. A severe case of scarce creativity has been identified as the reason for this dearth  
in my literary enterprise. This makes my venture at story telling more perilous than the journey that I wish to describe. To call this a travelogue might seem preposterous to those who read it, since I do not remember most of the places that we had passed through and it is too much of a burden for my lethargic brain to read up about the places that I do remember. This is a recollection of the experiences that we had. But travelogues are in vogue these days and I do not intend to make my story any less fashionable.

It is the year 2015 and it has been 3 years since we passed out from college. As attested by our professors it had taken all the will power that our lady luck could muster to get us through college unscathed. And to celebrate the third anniversary of the achievement we decided to have a grand trip. We usually have 2 choice destinations, Goa and Gokarna. But sensing the weariness amongst the general konkan population against our constant presence, we decided that it was time to be innovative. After some very feisty discussion, the language of which was not for the civilised ears or the gentle hearted, we decided upon Manali. Given our penchant for the dramatic, the suggestion was taken a notch higher. A motorcycle ride to Leh from Manali. This was unanimously accepted. To this day I think the acceptance was spurred more due to the intense belief that we would end up going to Goa anyway than the vigour to test our riding skills. Being a novice, the thought of riding through one of the most dangerous routes should have intimidated me. Not thinking helped me with this discomfort. An expedition of such a precarious nature required a process that was considered blasphemous amongst my college peers. Planning. Lots of it. The rigours of this process was so tiring for some of us that what started out as a group of 15 odd people dwindled down to a team of 6 by the execution phase. The roads from Manali to Leh are open from mid-May to mid-October. We agreed upon 10 days in the beginning of August for our journey. The narcissists in us decided that we would be indispensable to our employers for more than 10 days. As the dates for our journey neared, we chalked out the finer details of our strategy. “Finer” is a tricky concept and means different things to different people. For us it meant the following: We would meet up in Delhi, take a bus to Manali and then rent bikes from there. Little did we know that our destination was so many hurdles away.

Delhi Manali Bus Ride

We all reached Delhi as per schedule. Busses are available to Manali from Delhi at the ISBT. There are luxury busses that ply in the night, but must be booked earlier and ordinary busses that ply in the day time. While it is true that we were on a budget for this trip, our lethargy was to be blamed for not taking the luxury route. We had decided to meet at the bus terminal by 8 and the most punctual amongst us had the onus of getting us the tickets. Accordingly, I decided to be late. The idea seemed to have caught on though. When I reached ISBT by 9.30, 2 of my friends had just arrived and the other 3 had not decided if they still wanted to make it to the trip. Next step, finding tickets to Manali. Although there are enough agents who can arrange the tickets, to find a trustworthy one is to hit the jackpot, thrice over. After scanning through a lot of them, we finally decided on a guy who seemed least likely to drug us while we were sleeping. According to him, the bus was a luxury one, with reclining seats at the bottom and sleeper berths on top. It would cost us 600 each for the journey. Our naïve selves believed it to be a fair deal until we realised that he had left out some crucial details. 1) The seats were reclining not by design but because they were broken. 2) The upper berths which were designed to accommodate 1 ½ people and the half person’s luggage had 3 people, their luggage and the luggage of the people who were standing. The bus was a symbol of the greatest hurdle hampering our nation’s progress. Overpopulation. You could sell any junk here and there will be poor souls like us ready to buy it. We started from Delhi at around 11. After 2 hours, the bus stopped at a local Dhaba for lunch. The waiter told us that they only served thali meals and a thali would cost us Rs 40. We were not satisfied. We questioned him further. It was only after learning that the number of rotis were not limited that we decided we had come to the right place indeed. We ordered 6 plates of Thali and 2 plates of curd. It was more out of pity for the waiter who had to be constantly agile to keep up with our appetite that we finally stopped our carnage. It was a unanimous opinion to pay extra for all the services that the staff had provided us. I went to pay the bill, a 500 rupee note in my hand, and a feeling of benevolence in my heart. I was finally going to say “Keep the change” to someone. I paid the guy at the counter. He told me something. I heard “thank you bhai sab”. He insists he said “what about the other 430 bhai sab”. My lack of expertise in hand signalling meant that he misinterpreted my “You can have the balance sign” as “ that is more than enough”. However, there was no misinterpreting his intentions when he caught me by collar and gave me the bill. It read Rs 930. It was time to regroup. 40 multiplied by 6 was 240. That meant 2 plates of curd cost us 690 rupees. When we were confident that we could not arrive at any other figure even after multiple attempts at recalculating, we went back to enquire about the health benefits of the curd they had served us. The chap at the counter gave us a quizzical look. Then he produced his own calculations. 140 multiplied by 6 was 840. The curd cost 45rs and according to him it was good for digestion and was a source of Calcium. We tried to tell him that, while his knowledge of the bovine product was beyond question, the waiter had forgotten to mention the 100 before the 40 when he gave us the price list. He murmured something and caught my head and pointed to a board with the rates clearly displayed. Now here was a piece of Scientific brilliance. It was a mesmerising combination of optical and acoustical techniques that was indeed to be appreciated. The board was placed with such precision that it was visible only when the guy at the counter grabs your neck, turns it to an uncomfortable angle and then say “Dekho” in an ominous fashion. You could not argue with Physical evidence. In any case there were people behind us, waiting for their necks to be grabbed at. We paid the extra 430 , wished the guy the most horrible case of diarrhoea in Malayalam, and got back to our metal junk hoping that that was the last piece of inconvenience we would have on this journey. And how wrong were we. The next mishap was just waiting around the corner.

By around 3 the conductor started prompting the people who would alight at Ambala to get ready. He gestured to us with his scrawny neck. We thought he was appreciating our continued presence in his rickety contraption and acknowledged him back with our own neck signals. The bus stopped at some obscure point in the highway. I think it was by some divine intervention that one of my friends saw our luggage being thrown on to the road. We got up to question the ridiculous display of violence directed towards our luggage. And the conductor called out to us to hurry up. Now, I have seen people with confidence. But a thin, malnourished guy, asking 6 full grown male human beings to hurry up and confront him was a whole different level of arrogance and almost intimidating. As we reached him, he handed us a note that had something illegible written on it and was signed Pinku. He told us that we had to get down here and that an alternative transportation was arranged for us from the Ambala bus station. All we had to do was show the note to someone there. Before we could protest the bus was already moving and between a fight and our luggage, we chose the latter. In our naivety we thought that the note signed by a guy named Pinku would actually work. Ambala bus station was some 500M away. We presented the note to a guy at the enquiry. I believe that that was probably the high point of the poor chap’s monotonous day. Here was a group of 6 young idiots who got fooled by a guy with a funny name. He informed us that the note was not going to be of any use to us and that we will be better off getting a bus to Chandigarh and then continue from there. With the satisfaction of having brightened up a person’s day at the cost of our own self-respect, we boarded a bus to Chandigarh. We played it safe this time and took a govt bus. Other than the constant bickering of 2 Punjabi ladies quarrelling with each other, the journey was bereft of any major inconveniences. We reached Chandigarh by around 4. The bus to Manali was at 5.30. We were directed to a counter by a gentleman at the information centre. The tickets for the bus to Manali would only be sold half an hour prior to departure, we were told. We did not want any more excitement before Manali and like the good citizens we were, decided to que up before the counter. Half an hour into the wait, when it seemed like no one else was really interested to go to Manali we let our vigil go astray and moved out from the counter just a little bit. It was as if the entire population of the Chandigarh Bus station was waiting for this moment of weakness on our parts and before we knew it there was huge crowd at the counter and the ticket sale had started. The counter was designed in a circular fashion and since our lady luck was in the best of forms (probably from all the hard work she had to do during our college years), the guy selling the tickets decided to start his sale from the opposite side. If my performances in the job interviews are to serve as an indicator, I was not probably not well trained in Chemical engineering. But the 4 years at college had not gone to a waste. When it came to hooliganism we were right there at the top. This quality meant that while we were disadvantaged when it came to our geographical position with regards to the ticket guy, we still managed to get our tickets before most. Chandigarh to Manali was around 11 hours. Although the journey was not comfortable by any means, compared to our previous adventures this bus ride was quite boring and we were thankful for that. Finally, after journeying for almost 18 hours straight, we reached Manali.

Manali

We had the contact number of a guy in Manali. One of us knew someone who knew someone who knew this guy. I do not remember his name, but his peculiar nature was unforgettable. For all his faults, he did manage to find us a wonderful little place to spend the night for the meagre amount we were ready to dole out and we are forever grateful to him for that. There was a lot of work to be accomplished and we did what we always do in such circumstances. Start off with a nap. After sleeping satisfactorily and then a bit we made up the list of the arrangements to be done. At the very top were the motorcycles. You could ask for anything under the sun to Mr M, as he weill be known henceforth, from a motorcycle for rent to a one horned unicorn and he would reply in the affirmative. “Full power” he would say to any of our requests. We had to come to New Manali for all our purchases. While the old and New versions of the city are only a few kilometres apart, in terms of their culture they were 2 different worlds. Old Manali was a slow, relaxed town with its inhabitants, mostly foreign tourists, not really having anywhere to go anytime soon. The town slept late and woke up late. On the contrary, New Manali was like any other busy Indian town, street hawkers competing as to who can be more of a nuisance, two wheelers zipping past you as if on a free way and vehicles parked in the most ridiculous fashion possible. Our list for purchase included everything from inner wear to spoons and knives. We bought raincoats, plastic sheets to cover our bags, bungee cords (we bought a couple of spare ones and those proved to be vital) some first aid medicines and gum boots. On our entire journey from Manali to Leh and back, we met only 2 other riders using gum boots and incidentally they too turned out to be from Kerala. But, in hindsight, we realised that the water does not differentiate between the humble and the extravagant. You were going to get wet either way.

The morning turned into afternoon and almost into evening and we still did not have our bikes. M revealed himself to be more of an inconvenience than a help. He was on a mission to get us to somehow stay in Manali. He was one among the many youngsters in Manali who make a buck here and one there and keep surviving each day. The not so romantic version what people call “Living in the present”. He lost interest and was almost offended when he realised that our primary aim in life was not to smoke weed with him. I was under the impression that our route was one that very few would have traversed. But the constant “Already booked” reply that we were getting in our quest for motorcycles was a revelation. It was a deserted route once, with only some authentic travel enthusiasts, most of them foreigners, willing to go through all the strains to complete the trip. It all changed since the release of some Bollywood movies shot in the pristine locations of Leh. As one of the Jawans we talked to told us, Every Tom, Dick and Harry now comes here to disturb the sanctity of the place. At this point of time, please note that I consider myself more of a Tom than the other two. It was almost night when we finally managed to find success. The rent was a little higher than expected, but the machines were new and serviced. We rented 2 500CC motorcycles and 2 350 cc ones. We made a huge mistake by asking for just 4 helmets. If at all any route merited the use of helmet by the pillion it was this one. We reached back to our accommodation by 8 or 9 and then did something stupid. Stayed up till late night discussing things that were of no significance.

The Ride Begins

One advise you hear whenever you go on rides is to always start early. This was especially true in the mountains. I have sometimes felt that mountains are like living creatures. They exhibit different characteristics at different times. They tend to be at their tranquil best during the early hours of the day. It is said that the best time to meditate is during the Brahma muhurta. Maybe all those monks meditating has a calming effect on these gigantic Geographical wonders. These thoughts, however, were beyond the scope of the feeble minds of us, 6 lesser mortals who found it essential not to sleep early so that we would not have to wake up early. We were late by more than 3 hours on the first day, although this included the act of tying up our luggage on to the bikes which took up around an hour of our time. After filling up the tanks and taking two extra cans of petrol in each of our bikes, we finally started from Manali at around 2. Our first camp was to be at Keylong, a good 115km away. The famous Rohthang pass fall on route. The moment you get on the Manali-Leh highway, you realise why this ride was not for the week at heart. The roads were more of a mud track and was just wide enough for a truck. An even bigger challenge was the beauty of the place. The scenery was so mesmerising that we were wasting more time photographing than riding. Taking a photograph was a process in itself. First step was to find the perfect position to park our vehicles. Every photo had to have a bullet in it. Next, we had to get ready. After the first photography session we realised that when you buy cheap raincoats and boots, they stand out as eye sours. We looked like a bunch of labourers going to work. Getting good photos was imperative to the success of the journey and each time we stopped for photos we had to remove our rain coats and gum boots, put on our normal shoes and the jackets that we had borrowed from others. This would not have been criminal had we not been late in the first place. We met a newly married couple during one of these pitstops. While the size of their luggage suggested that they had planned for a long journey, the anxiety on their faces suggested that they were not really prepared for such a tough one. They asked us to take a couple of pictures for them. Their disappearance after Keylong gave us ample reason to suspect that we had helped them in achieving their goal with those photographs and they had returned to Manali. It was past the decent hours when we reached Keylong. Keylong is a small town and is probably the last camp in this route that has proper hotels. Thankfully, though we were probably the last visitors to that town on that day, we were able to find cheap accommodation. Riding was the romantic part of this journey. After reaching your destination the less appreciated, yet very important works started. From storing the fuel cans safely to spreading out our clothes and the sheets used to cover our luggage for drying this would take almost an hour. I learned 2 very important sock facts during this exercise. 1) Always carry a lot of socks with you 2) Wear socks that have bold colours like purple or red so that your friends would think twice before claiming the ownership. By the second day we devised an ingenious technique to segregate our socks and to dry them at the same time. Each would tie his wet socks to the motorcycle he was travelling in. By the time we returned from Manali, while people had the Tibetan flag on their motorcycles, we had wet socks hanging even from our rear-view mirrors. Our motorcycles had practically become moving clotheslines. All our chores done, a sumptuous dinner inside our bellies and a day of pretty tough riding behind us we finally had our rest. The next day was supposed to be our big day. We had several water crossings to conquer.

Eye To Eye With Death

The second day had an ominous beginning. Three of us had slight tummy troubles, my humble self being one of them and we decided to skip breakfast. This meant that we had an uncustomary early start and this proved to be quite crucial by the end of the day. After riding for about an hour we reached a check post and like any check post it was surrounded by small shops. It seemed to be a quite popular rest spot amongst the travellers. We met with 3 other Keralites here. They worked in some bank and were travelling with a group that they had just met in Manali. Considering the already embattled states of our stomach we should have stayed away from the bread omelettes. Mistake 1. 10 minutes after we resumed our ride, we reached the first water crossing of our journey. It was a long section. There were a variety of vehicles at different stages of crossing and a lot of people to guide the vehicles. The site of a Toyota fortuner stuck in the water was an intimidating one. The abundant confidence that I had in my abilities made me decide that I’d rather walk this one and let the better riders take care of the rather inconvenient water. It was almost knee deep at certain points. We, as well as many others were able to complete this journey only due to the help of some good Samaritans. Hari was one such person. He was an employee of the agent from whom we had rented our motorcycles. He was accompanying another group as an extra rider. Here was a pillar of support if ever there was one. He was there in the middle of the water giving out the very precious tip of “clutch math pakado” and to push a vehicle if necessary. As we encountered more and more of these water crossing, we started getting proficient at handling them and by the end of the journey even I could confidently guide my vehicle through one of those straits. We went on a marathon ride after that and I think it was only when we reached Sarchu that we finally stopped for lunch. It was only about noon and we decided that we had to treat ourselves for the commendable performance. The hill people have a flaw in their character. They allow any tired traveller to take rest in their shacks and don’t charge for it. An absolute crime in my opinion! It was an offer no one could refuse. We also had the excuse of having arrived early. We slumbered till somewhere around 3 and with that simple act we had committed mistake 2. Whatever advantage we had garnered by starting early was floundered. We decided not to take a break for another 2 hours or till we reach Pang, which was our next destination, whichever was earlier. En-route we crossed the famous Gata loops. To be honest we had no idea that we crossed the loops or even that they existed. It was only while reading about it later that I came to know about the loops and that it had an interesting history behind it. At around 5 we stopped at the next pitstop. The place had a solitary shack that served eggs and maggi. One of my friends was suffering from a really bad case of digestive distress and it was imperative to get him some medicine and a toilet. Since neither of these were available at the shack, we decided that 2 motorcycles would go ahead to Pang while the rest of us relaxed for a little while longer there. Mistake 3. You never split up the group in journeys like this. The three of us who stayed back started at around 6 from the shack. There was a water crossing immediately after the shack and just after the crossing, the clutch cables of one of the bikes got cut. There was only one repair kit available for the 4 bikes and contrary to how such bleak probabilities worked for us till now, it was with one of us. It was dark, drizzling and extremely cold and even with the knowledge that one of my friends had from working in a garage for a couple of months, it took us nearly 2 hours to change the cable. It was 8.30 once we were done with the fine tuning. There was no means of communicating with our fellow riders. We had to make a choice between staying the night at the shack or continuing to Pang. We decided to take the risk despite the unfriendly climate and the unholy time. Mistake 4. Probably the one that could have turned out to be fatal. It was only 30km to Pang and it turned out to be the longest 30km that ever existed in any map. The river which was a constant companion till now, suddenly appeared to be surging and felt like a swirling mass that existed for the sole purpose of exterminating us arrogant brats. The sound of my chattering teeth trounced even the sound of our bikes. It was the cold, I kept telling myself, and not the fear. After all I had 2 valiant souls with me who had once escaped from a violent mob in Gokarna. As to why the Gokarnans felt so hostile towards these angelic beings is still a mystery. But when I did manage to control my mouth for a few moments, I could clearly hear 2 distinct sets of chattering teeth. There seemed to be no other living being around at that time and even the sight of an abandoned earth mover was comforting. We were afraid to honk, lest it upset the mountain. After 2 hours of nerve-wracking ride, we finally arrived at Pang, yet again the last visitors to the camp. Our friends were waiting at the first shack in the camp and the owner of the place was kind enough to leave a fire out for us when he retired for sleep. Anything could have gone wrong that day. There were rumours that someone died along that route on that same day. The 4 mistakes could have culminated into an abrupt end to our journey. But thankfully, here I am writing about it 3 years later.

Stranded

We awoke the next day to bright sunshine and the news that a truck was stuck in a landslide some distance ahead. While the news would have indeed been disturbing to the owner of the truck, we had a punctured tire to take care of and the delay was welcome. In our hour of need there appeared the omniscient Hari again, this time to share his knowledge of puncture repair shops in and around Pang. Our next stop was supposed to be Leh and we started by around 10 from Pang. An hour into the journey, the road was blocked due to some repair work in one of the bridges. The bridges are a piece of master engineering. They are made of strips of metal that are placed and maintained easily. The riders too joined in the repair work. We could not provide our services for long though, due to the intense desire to punch the nose of a very loud guy who was giving instructions to everyone else while he himself stood there and watched. A fist fight would not have been a pleasant experience and we withdrew to continue our photography endeavours. After we crossed the thangla la pass, which is claimed, albeit falsely, to be the second highest motorable pass in the world, we observed that there was a much greater flow of traffic in our opposite direction. We were initially gladdened by this development since that would mean cheaper accommodation at Leh. But soon enough we found out that the roads ahead of Upshi which was 80 Km from Leh were blocked since the river had overflown onto the roads. We were in a precarious predicament. If we decide to continue, we would not have enough petrol to return in case we got stranded. On the other hand we were so close to our destination and it was a heart break to go back now. Divine intervention helped us with this dilemma. The loud guy we met earlier who had a dire need of a nose punching was returning and asking everyone else to do the same. If he was going to Manali we had only one option. Going to Leh.

The small village of Rhumtse was the last camp before the road block at Upshi and people had already filled up the limited space available within the village. By the time we arrived here, there was no more accommodation available. We knocked on every door that was visible even those of some of the trucks that were parked there. After a couple of hours of search, we finally had luck although we had to split up. We were in Rhumtse for a one and a half days. Rhumtse had only one small telephone booth, where you had to stand in line for hours to finally have a connection with the outside world. And it was here, within the line outside the phonebooth that the rumours of the most bizarre nature had their roots. From stories of fast depleting drinking water availability at Rhumtse to the permanent closure of the route through Upshi to even the secret love life of Mr Trump, you could hear anything here. Other than the fact that toilets at Rhumtse consisted of an elevated platform with a hole that provided a glimpse into the history of all those who used the toilet before you, stay here was quite pleasant. We met a group of Malayalee riders while in Rhumtse. They had brought their own tents and informed us that to stay at Pangong lake we had to bring our own tents. Another one of the rumours and we fell for this one. We dropped the idea of going to Pangong due to this wonderful service provided by them and I do not intend to forgive them anytime soon. The roads were cleared within a couple of days and we finally reached Leh 5 days after we started from Manali.

The Highest Motorable Road In The World (Or so we thought)

There are a lot of places to visit in and around Leh, from monasteries to the magnetic valley. But most of our time, though, was spent in a dimly lit garage, filled with graffiti and weed smoke. Our machines were battered and bruised and needed some attention if we were to make it back to Manali. We could allot only one day for Leh and had to choose our visits wisely. We chose to visit Khardung La. I had expected a feeling of pride and abundant joy as I stood in front of the sign that read “Khardung La – The highest motorable road in the world”. But all I could feel, instead, was the glares from the crowd waiting for their turn to get photographed. You could see people posing in the weirdest manner. If our ape ancestors knew this was what we would end up being, they would have probably decided to not evolve at all.

The Return

6 days of our trip was already over. We had to get back to Manali within 2 days if we had to catch our return flights from Delhi. This meant that we had to cover the distance that we covered in 3 days while coming had to be covered in 2 days while going back. The amount of time we had spent clicking photographs of the bikes in our onward journey can be gauged from the fact that we made it back in time quite easily. I have more photographs of myself on a bullet than a human being should ever be allowed to have in his life.

The return journey was all about some interesting characters that we met. We met an English tourist at Sarchu, the army Jawan could rightly have called him Harry, who intrigued me. He works as a painter in Uk for 6 months and then spends whatever he earned, on his journeys in India with his wife for the rest of the 6 months. At Jispa we met a lady, who claimed she was a writer who wanted to chronicle the life in the mountains and planned to hitch hike her way to Leh. At present she was earning her living making alu parattas at a shack. Whether she was an actual writer, or a smoked-up cook remains a mystery. And finally, at a restaurant just before manali, which was our final pit stop in the return journey, we met a group of Punjabi college students. They came up to us and asked how long it would take them to reach Leh if they continuously drive through the night and day. We were not prepared for such levels of stupidity and failed to give them a reply. I hope they were able to reach their destination without any untoward incidents.

It was only after we reached back to Delhi that we finally became aware of the outside world. As we left Delhi we promised each other that we would come back here again next year. 2 days later as I was reminiscing the experiences that we had gone through during the journey, I realised that it would be stupid of me to test my lady luck again soon. Even she needs a rest.