A Journey to the Abode of Snows: The Himalayas
It was in the month of April, after a lot of tumultuous discussions, finally, that five of my colleagues signed up for the most adventurous ride we decided to embark on; a ride to the abode of snows; a ride to the greater Himalayas a.k.a “Himadri”. The six of us together registered for the ride with Thrillophilia for a period of 12 days (7th of July and 18th of July, 2017.) The initial preparations were extremely exciting. Finding out the worst possible nightmares that one might encounter! The kind of medication that one might need! The dress, the riding gears, the helmet, the shoes, sunscreens and what not! The very thought of riding a thousand kilometres amidst the sky-kissing white mountains on a Royal Enfield classic was just too much to digest. We spent most of our March and May surfing the net and looking at the unnerving terrains of the Himalayan range. The wait was at last over on the 6th of July. We were all set to take off the next day morning.
On the 7th of July’s early morning, we took off from the Bengaluru International Airport to reach the Indian capital. The scorching sun of Delhi gave us a hard time to roam around. Our Delhi-Manali Volvo was scheduled at 6 p.m. and was expected to reach Manali by 9 a.m the next morning. The entire batch of our trip turned up at around 5:45 p.m for the departure. It was a batch of 20 people from across the country. We got to know each other and so the journey began! We reached Manali at around 8 a.m in the morning. The first look of Manali was ineffable. Humungous lush green mountains stood redoubtable. We were enthralled by the daunting roar of the Beas River bustling right next to the road. We spent the entire day roaming the streets of Manali. We visited the famous Hadimba Devi temple and wore the traditional attire of Manali. At around 5 p.m we were introduced to our bikes along with the tour guide, an expert rider and a mechanic with whom we had to ride for the next 11 days. We were a batch of 20 with 12 bikes (many chose double-ride and a few single-ride) and a tempo-traveller to carry our backpacks and for emergency situations should there be any.
At the crack of the dawn, 12 Royal Enfield engines roared into life. One could see the excitement in everybody’s face and in their costumes. Each one wishing the other for a safe ride, adjusting their helmets, their riding gears and riding gloves, their UV protected sunglasses and adjusting pretty much every accessory! The first destination of the first day was the Rohtang Pass. All the bikes set off towards Rohtang. After riding through the sinuous trails for about an hour and a half we reached the top. The moment we reached the top I got off the bike and stood stock still at the stupendous sight of snow! It was the first time ever in my life that I saw a mountain covered with snow with my naked eyes! I was completely flabbergasted. We all stopped there for quite some time, took a lot of pictures with all kinds of poses and pouts and started the descent. En route, we had to ride through the river that made its way hurtling across the road. This was first of several such crossings that we encountered and the experience of that was nerve-cracking. By the grace of God, everybody reached the other end safe and sound. By the time the sun went down below the horizon, we reached our tents at Jipsa. Had a cup of tea sitting on rocks next to the river. My friend, there, made a very adorable statement – “Bro, we were tapping the keyboards a couple of days ago and here we are, sipping hot tea right in the middle of Himalayan Mountains next to this river. Could it be any better?” None responded to his statement. We were dumbfounded. Later that night we had a sumptuous dinner and rested on our beds recollecting the entire day and just reminding ourselves of where we were!
Every morning was a delight to be woken up, which almost never happens back in our homes. Every morning we woke up to the snowy mountains and the musical murmur of the rivers. We continued our journey savouring the mystical beauty of nature. On the 5th day of our journey, we reached our first milestone, the headquarters of Ladak district, Leh. It was on that day we could contact our parents since the day we left Manali. We were very sad when we got to know about the terrorist attack on the Amarnath pilgrims at Anantnag. Meanwhile, we were scared too! We were destined to reach Srinagar, which is less than 60Kms away from Anantnag. But then again, the excitement of the journey that we were about to venture the next day just transcended the fear. It was the ride to the “Kardung la”; the highest motorable road in the world. We were about to ride the bike to a whopping height of 18000ft from Leh which is at an altitude of 11500ft. An ascent of 6500ft in about 3 hours! Having had our dinner we all rested for the day.
At the break of the dawn, the entire battalion was at the ready, all suited up on their beasts to embark on this journey and so we started our ride towards Kardung la. The ride was quite calm and we all enjoyed the tranquillity of nature. We did not find the ride any arduous as we had expected it to be. But the composure of nature did not last long. We had one of the worst nightmares since then until the end of the day’s ride. We were about 10Kms far from reaching the top and got stuck due to the inundating vehicles in the congested road. Also, Mother Nature did not make it any easy for us. The entire space got covered with thick fog with hardly any visibility. It did not stop there. It started to drizzle and just a few minutes later, there was snowfall. The actual ascent to the top had already begun and one cannot expect any road in those terrains. The path became completely slushy making it very difficult to ride. All the pillions got inside the tempo-traveller to make it easy for the riders. We were halted in the traffic jam for about half an hour with nature giving us a hard time. Finally, we reached the Kardung la top. The moment we reached the top every other guy was ecstatic. Our joy knew no bounds. We were literally on the top of the world. It was snow everywhere. Never have I ever had experienced the sparkling white snow so close to me. Nevertheless, because of the rain and snowfall, we had very less time to spend and also a couple of our friends experienced slight altitude sickness. We took photos next to the milestones and big boards with texts, “Khardong la, World’s Highest Motorable Road” written all over it. The riders who did the ascent got into the tempo-traveller and the ones inside got on the bikes. We started the descent. It was a 35Kms descent with extremely tortuous turns with snow everywhere. It started to rain quite heavily. We were completely drenched. The chilling water had sneaked inside the gloves. Our hands felt numb. The vision was blurred. Nevertheless, we did not stop until we reached the bottom of the mountain. We saw a small shop that served tea and Maggi noodles. Never in our lives had we craved so badly for a bowl of Maggi and a cup of tea. The chattering teeth of the riders had filled the room. We had to ride 80 more kilometres to reach Nubra Valley in the bone-chilling cold. We summoned up all our strength and started towards Nubra. The rustic beauty en route to Nubra was absolutely inexplicable. The battalion finally reached Nubra. The sense of pride, the satisfaction in everyone’s face was too conspicuous. None cribbed over the ordeals we met along the way. We had completed the ride to the top. We were on cloud nine (both literally and figuratively.)
We came back to Leh the next day via Kardung la again and nature was all compassionate. It was bright and shiny and the ride was pretty smooth with not many hurdles. The following day was a visit to the well-known Pangong Lake (Lake where Priya kisses Phunsukh Wangdu – 3 Idiots). We were quite surprised to learn that it stretches over 150Kms in length and 15kms in width. The first look of the Pangong Lake was alluring. It was serene and looked pious. The dark blue unruffled water was a treat to our eyes. We paid our visit to the lake in two tempo-travellers and not on bikes. We enjoyed dancing for an eclectic genre of music on our way back to Leh. The following day was a rest day for us to roam the streets of Leh. We shopped for our parents, friends, kith and kin back in Bengaluru. We also paid a visit to the deceptively structured Leh palace. At the rise of the sun on the next day morning, we set off towards Kargil on our bikes. After a beautiful ride through the ranges, we reached our camp situated about 30Kms before Kargil. After everybody settled down in their respective tents our tour guide approached all of us and gave us a startling message. The message was that we had to depart from the camp as early as 3 a.m on the next morning towards Srinagar!
We had completely forgotten the news regarding the attack on Amarnath pilgrims. Post this attack the Indian military had put forth a new protocol. No vehicles were allowed beyond Sonamarg check post past 9 a.m. Sonamarg was about five and a half-hour ride from our camp and we had to cross the check post by 9 a.m failing which we had to stay in the freezing streets the entire night! Inevitably we had to pack up everything by 2:45 a.m and depart the camp by 3 a.m. It was not a surprise that every other guy was up and ready by 2:30 a.m. Well before sunrise, we departed from the camp. It was pitch dark. No streets lights! It got worse. No road! Several kilometres of off-roading. Adding to the plight the Zaskar River was bustling right beside the road making the ride more terrifying. Thankfully the weather was in our favour. It was considerably warm. Although it was drizzling a bit it was not really a hurdle. We missed the great Tiger Hill and India’s pride, The Kargil War Memorial. But there was something else that we never expected to see. Nature unwound its beauty at the sunrise. The colossal mountains became visible. We were ascending towards the Zoji la pass. The frozen clouds stood stagnant. The river streams flowing down the hill froze forming milky white columns of ice. We were passing through the village Drass. It was 6 a.m and we could see the sun rays reaching the peaks of the mountains giving the snowy tops a golden shade. The colours of the houses in the village varied largely in colour. Red, lavender, yellow and a couple of them were blue. It was as if we had entered a land of fantasy. We rode our bikes on a thin line of grey road on a big patch of lush green land enclosed by gigantic mountains. We realized that heaven was not too far. We descended the Zoji la pass to reach the Sonamarg check post. It was 8:30 in the morning and every one of us was relieved. To be frank, we were fortunate to have ridden the bike in that stretch at that time of the day. These words do not even explain the half of what we experienced out there! Sonamarg was no less compared to Drass. Early morning dew drops, horses grazing the grass in the green patch, milky-white streams of water plummeting down the mountains. A perfect picturesque wallpaper. One must visit these places before it’s too late. After having had our breakfast we resumed our journey towards Srinagar. And this was altogether a different kind of adventure.
It was very noticeable as we came close to Srinagar. Indian army had positioned the soldiers every 500m along the way. And the more disturbing scene was when we observed the civilian buses. Eight army soldiers had positioned themselves (sleeping posture) on top of every passenger bus with guns at the ready to fire should anything go wrong. They had covered themselves with grass on top of them. We saw tens of military trucks patrolling the outskirts of Srinagar. It was terrifying. When we were about 30kms away from Srinagar we started seeing army soldiers positioned every 100m along the road. That particular road was apparently “red-flagged”. Anything could have happened at any point in time. Soldiers warned us not to stop the bikes anywhere as long as we don’t see soldiers positioned close by. As we entered Srinagar, we could see all kinds of army vehicles patrolling with soldiers ready to fire from bizarre-looking ammunition all over the place. We wanted to enter a particular road to get into our hotel. But police there did not allow us to enter the road. We roamed around the place a couple of times to find a different route. But our efforts went in vain and we came back to the same junction. The CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) stopped us and enquired regarding our itinerary. Then they told us why they refrained us from taking that route. Tourists are not allowed in any route which is not being patrolled by the Indian Army. It was for our own good and they made that quite clear. Finally, the hotel owner, a resident of Srinagar, came to us to take us to the hotel. This was the last day of our ride. We finally paid a visit to the gorgeous Dal Lake of Srinagar and rested for the day. Our flights were scheduled to depart from Srinagar the following day at 3 p.m. Nevertheless, we left to the airport at 8 in the morning. We were that scared. We boarded our flight at Srinagar and landed in Bengaluru at around 10 p.m on the 18th of July. And that’s how we concluded the wondrous trip. The most adventurous, scary, crazy, awe-inspiring trip ever of my life.
I would like to end the article with one of the very famous quotes –
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
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