On the Asphalt, in the Snow.....

Here is to another himalayan journey, to a trip turned an ordeal of life for some moments ;) . This time, once again, from the holy mind of our one only official trip planner PT, an extra adventurous trip plan popped out. Religiously, we followed and got ready for yet another journey. After some yes-no, yes-no from our Heera and Moti, the plan was carved as a 4-day trip to manali-batal-chandrataal. The 7 guys who volunteered for the journey were PT, me, K2, CB, Moin, Heera and Moti.

Day1: 25^th Sept’09: Delhi-Manali (585 kms)

4 guys:me, K2, CB and Moin started from CB’s home at 4:50 am on Friday on 2 bullets (Electra). The mind-boggling resonance of the heavy metal bullets thump on the empty streets was just enough to make us all excited for this outing. The bikes reached Delhi by-pass by 5:50 am. There, PT, Heera and Moti were already waiting-n-cursing us for last 1 hour for being late J .They were on PT’s santro. Finally we started, with me getting a chance to ride K2’s bullet. This was the first time that I was actually going to ride the bullet for a long distance. At first, it was a bit uncomfortable to settle upon it, but thereafter it was cool. By the way, the nice thing to notice is that this bike really gives the rider a massage as it is always vibrating (The Thump!) throughout, and at high speed its really stable, but a bit wobbly at very low speeds. However, I enjoyed riding it from delhi to ambala where we reached around 9:20 am. After that, K2 took over and after crossing chandigarh and Ropad, I settled in the car with Heera driving it, and PT on the bike with K2. We had our lunch @ bilaspur and after that I started to drive the car. Again, it was a cool experience to drive the car for the first time in the mountains. Moreover, the highway is really good and the natural beauty is amazing. We enjoyed the river vyas flowing all the way along the highway, Pandoh dam, The super amazing 2.68 km long tunnel, the twists and the turns, and Moti’s “Bhai Aram se! Koi jaldi nahi hai!” :D. We wasted around half and hour as we missed the Kullu By-pass and entered the city. The traffic was thick due to upcoming dussera celebrations. Another stunt performed on the higway was the ‘turning-the-light-off’ in the dark suggested by Heera, which was pretty much praised by all of us J. By the time we reached manali, it was 8 pm. We roamed a bit on the mall road, had dinner, settled into the hotel, did some usual bakar, and slept.

Day 2: 26^th Sept’09: Manali-Batal (125 km)

Moin, me, K2, Heera, PT and Moti

Day 2 started a bit late than expected, PT had a plan to move out by 6:00am, but actually we left for Batal in the Hired Tata Sumo by 10:00 am J. There was a traffic jam before Rohtang Pass due to some road construction work that took aroung hald n hour to clear. But finally we crossed Rotang by 1.10 pm and had our Daal-Bhaat and egg lunch at Gramphoo at 2:00 pm, which is around 12-13 km from Rohtang.

The road to Batal was really in bad shape and it took us around 3.5 hours to reach Batal from gramphoo(60 kms from gramphoo). The things to enjoy, in the way were the river flowing really deep in the valley, the sight of the snow laden mountains, the occasional streams sometimes crossing the road, and sometimes flowing on the road with the car, the patches of snow on the road.

After reaching Batal there was only one Dhaba that served us with food and tea, we set up two tents (that we had with us) there near the river bank At night, the view was amazing at the river bank.

"On my left is an iron bridge on the river, a bit right to it is a barren mountain, face-to-face is white untouched snow kissing the river, a bit right to that are the snow laden peaks shining like silver and the river flowing through the valley till eternity. To my rightmost is the moon shining at its brightest and on top is the sky crowded with stars!!"

Day 3: 27^th Sept, 09: Batal-Chandrataal (Claimed to be 14 kms, ACTUALLY 16-17 kms), Batal-Manali (125 long kms)

Well, this day, was the toughest! Batal to chandrataal is said to be 14 kms (which actually is NOT! Trust me!). Actually the way is like, so that vehicle can go up to a point from where there is only half n hour hiking to chandrataal. But because the road was all closed for vehicle due to snowfall and landslides at place on it, so the only way was to go there on foot from batal. We started at around 07:30 am. The way was really really beautiful. A human will feel so small of himself in front of the nature there. The valley, the river, snow, all made such a scenic view that I felt like capturing a 3D image of it forever (I wish if I could!). By the way, the sub zero temperature of previous night was evident from the water on the way that had turned into ice. At 09:30, Heera and Moti decide to turn back to Batal as it was turning out to be really difficult to go on foot. Around 10:30 am, we were around 12 kms away (its just an approximation). By that time, my and K2’s body gave up and we decided not to go any further (so that we could remain alive!!). CB, PT and Moin moved further up to chandrataal and reached.

Journey back to Batal was probably the most life threatening and horrific experience of my life! Me and K2 only had just more that half the bottle of water left. The harsh sun was making it so difficult to walk, and any steep elevation just took off all our hope to reach everytime. We had to cross the snow that had gone soft due to sun unlike the morning, were out of water, had the stream water to drink.

“Its like a really wrong step taken, With no living being in a large proximity, so far from civilization - a total cut off!”

However , we finally reached Batal at 04:00pm. As me and K2 saw the finishing point from far far away, we, to rekindle our wretched hope, did a “Cheers!” with half of a 5 Star chocolate that was left. PT, CB and Moin returned to base at around 5 pm. We left for Manali then, with many of us with a severe headache and extremely tired body! Reached Manali at 11:00 pm, fought for hotel, food, everything! Because it was late. Finally settled, and crashed on beds like dead elephants :D.

Day 4: 28^th Sept’09 + early morning of 29^th Sept’09:Manali-Delhi (585 kms)

Day 4, was rather, a pleasant morning, with no hurry to run, no plan to execute. All were chilled out, came late out of our hotels, had nice breakfast, me Heera and PT played video games as others were busy with some chores. Left Manali by 1:00 pm.

Reached Kiratpur (which was the end of the hills) at 07:30 pm. I drove K2’s bike from there to Chandigarh. We had the best food of the trip at Chandigarh (were really done with that daal-bhaat stuff!). Took off from chandigarh at 11:30 and knocked Delhi border at 03:30 am. J. Back home with sun-burnt face and limping tired legs .Such a relief to be back after a long long trip! But someone is still not quite, PT is planning another trip....On the asphalt, in the Snow…. ;)

Long Weekend on the Rocks!

Hi Again! Before the details of a long rocky weekend get faded away from my volatile memory, I think I should get it engraved (lolz!), and there is no other better place that I can think of. So, again, all the losers from Dilith (and some losers not from Dilith also) made up a plan to torture ourselves once again, this time on bikes, for a 4-day, 1100-km excursion. The start point decided was FA’s home, so all gathered there on the night of 9^th april, passed many hours of the night with our usual guitaring, teasing FA, cracking-pathetic-jokes and laughing-out-loud activities. Everyone was so enthusiastic to start as early as 4 am. But once all the monsters slept, could only start at around 7 in the morning.

Running behind the schedule by almost 3 hrs, the bikes roared out of FA’s courtyard. Me, K2(AJ), RD, CB and CK were on the bikes. The first rays of sun, slight shiver, and 3 bikes, that’s all. Started out really fast, we reached Roorkee and did some pet-pooja out there at osho dhaba at around 12pm.

Just out of the dhaba, the pulsar that I was riding got punctured, and we wasted another 2 hrs there. By that time, PT, K and S who were coming in the car also catched up with us. Finally we started out again. I was alone on the bike till dehradun, and just when I reached at the start of the hills, I got really excited, and within some moments got extremely nostalgic with many sweet memories of past.

The calm hills, curvy roads, and riding alone there, is just superb. Finally we reached chakrata at around 6:45 pm. Enjoyed tea and omlette-buns in the chilly winds of chakrata. It’s a small town and snow-laden hills can be seen at a distance from there. After PT and S hunting for the hotel, we settled down, watched some mithun chakravarty movie, we named K2 as “shankar”, it actually suits him ;).

We started off from chakrata at around 1030 am on day 2. All agreed to drop tiger fall and take off straight for rohru instead. The distance was around 100 kms(not sure about the exact number). Now this was the most challenging path of the whole trip. The mountains were really dry, with rocks and rocks, very slightly visible vegetation for kilometers, and then suddenly lots of tress all around!

The road was really unsuitable for biking. With stones of all kinds and sizes accumulated all over, it was really difficult to maintain the balance, I could hardly cross 30 kmph till we reached tyuni at around 2:45 p.m. After having lunch there, all the tired devils took a jump in the river out there, enjoyed our thass session there in the freezing water (the best one was CK’s “I don’t know how to swim!”).

Then we started off from there, after me waving bye bye to some cute town girls and they all replying back (lolz!). The road was really smooth, and after going through that chakrata-tyuni road, it seemed as smooth as butter. We reached rohru very early at around 6 pm, pretty decent! Then again hunted for the hotel, had some glimpses of splitsvilla, then watched the movie laadla with “Gadraai hui” sridevi (according to K and CB)! After having delicious chicken in the dinner, we went out for a walk and returned within an hour as PT was not at all interested for any walk! On the roof of the hotel, under the open sky, we had our next baker session with laughter and laughter. I distinctly remember when everyone was seriously deciding upon the next day’s plan and CK came up with his flurry of questions about distance of random unachievable destinations (Our sweet Q Monk! J ) RD was really tired so he slept early and missed the bakar.

All got up early and got ready for chansal valley early in the morning. With wasting very little time at chedgaon, we hired a 4x4 and went ahead. The ride was really bumpy as there was literally no road as such! The bikers strayed off the route a bit and there we wasted some 30-40 minutes. After some distance the bikes gave up, with CB’s bullet slipping and making an artistic pattern on my jeans :D . Then we really reached the most beautiful spot of journey, with fresh untouched white sheet of snow all around on the mountains. The van also gave up early, and we all went ahead on foot, with snow all around and inside our shoes, making it really difficult to walk as our feet got numb with chilled snow-turned-water. Well this was first time in my life when I saw so much of snow all around me, walked in it, played with the snow-balls!

After taking lots of pictures, with S and K’s gasolina pics also ;), we came down back to chedgaon at around 5 p.m. As everone had to reach delhi by the night of day4, and delhi was around 500 kms from there which was not at all possible to cover in a day on bike, we decided to go up to shimla by riding in the night! That was scary(Nobody drives on bikes in the hills at night)! The cavalcade of 3 bikes and a car started at night at around 8 pm from rohru, with all very close to each other and careful for the next 120 kms. I was again riding alone, carefully, but had a skid once when RD’s bike came really close. On the curved and bumpy roads, with nothing visible , it was really scary. The wrists had started to pain really a lot. By the time we reached kufri, I really gave up with zero energy left. Landed on the back of RD’s bike and reached shimla. PT again had a challenging hunt for hotels and got us a shade by 2:30 am. All landed on beds and slept within moments.

Day4 started really late, all of us were really relaxed. We got off the hotel at around 1130, but me and K2 got our bikes into no entry mall road area of shimla, and got ourselves hefty tickets of 1500 bucks. Anyways, we had a nice lunch, and after that cakes, checked out the beautiful girls of shimla. Me and K played that silly position-&-rating game on the mall road. Finally we got off at 3 pm for the final destination delhi. We had a dinner break at haveli, a restaurant near karnal. It’s a really nice spot to hang out, or for night outs. Finally I rode the bike with CK on my back upto Delhi, and we reached delhi border at around 11p.m., pretty decently on time.

All over it was a great trip, it took us some days afterwards to gather back the energy, but every moment of it had a worth! An adventurous weekend on the Rocks! J