Been There, Done That – Ladakh Diary – I

In the movie ‘Dasvidaniya’, Vinay Pathak makes a list of “Things of do before death” and proceeds to tick off each item on the list en route to certain death. The 2007 Hollywood release ‘Bucket List’, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, echoes similar sentiments. Though the movies are strictly average, I was curious of what my list would look like. "I don’t need to wait till I face certain death to start making my own list" – was my logic (Its amazing how I can justify everything I want to do with crystal clear erroneous logic). I decided to make the list. At the outset, I decided not to restrict myself to ten or any such number and categorize items under sub-headings, such as – ‘Must travel places’, ‘Must eat food’, ‘Must experience thrill’ and there was a random category – simply labeled - 'Must Experience' (included all things that I couldn’t categorize under one sub-heading, for example – switching from Windows to Mac laptop or experience climbing the pyramids in Egypt or even experiencing the Hammam in Turkey).

The Must travel places had two sections – India and abroad (I hate being managerial even in fun activities… it’s sick… but I think it’s too late to change myself now). The India section had some very interesting names – Wayanad in Kerala for instance, where you could climb up a mechanically pulled plank (equivalent of an elevator) to reach a machaan/tree-house almost 60 feet high and overlooking the adjoining forest (wow) or the swampland - Sunderbans on the Eastern border (infested with the man-eating tigers). Leh, Ladakh - like all things associated with region – was perched high and mighty in the list. Somehow, this place has been the bugbear for many. I know so many people who forever want to visit the place and never make it. Almost everybody wants to go there on a motorcycle. So did yours truly (‘yours truly’ is such an outdated phrase with a Dickensian feel to it, it should be banned).

Leh the capital city of Ladakh is something else. For one the altitude is unlike anything you would experience in any part of India. Second, it is accessible only during a narrow window in a year, again unlike most places in India. Third, if you are a motorcycle enthusiast, then the preparation is unlike... well……it's different.

I wanted to do the Delhi-Leh trip on a motorcycle – and what better than Royal Enfield ‘Thunderbird’ to give me company. I checked out the time it would take to reach Leh from Delhi (Both Delhi-Manali-Leh route and Delhi-Srinagar-Leh route) and found out that the 900+ km odd journey would roughly take 2½ days to 3 days. After that, riding the motorcycle from Leh to Khardungla en route to Nubra Valley would take another 2 days (335 – 375 km round trip), to and fro from Pangong Lake (340 km round trip) would take another 2 days, one day spent probably local sightseeing in Leh and 3 days back – so in all it would take a minimum of 11 days of non-stop riding in hilly terrain, along some of the most dangerous but divinely beautiful routes. It was exhilarating, no doubt. This time I didn’t bother to ask my friends to join me. I knew the plan would never take-off with the ‘more the merrier’ paradigm. So I tried to find trip organizers who arrange for motorcycle enthusiasts to travel in groups. Alas, their charge was too much. One such Delhi trip organizer plans a 15 day extravaganza, and the charge without the bike rental is 35000 INR ‘only’ (and with the bike rental it goes up to a cool 50k). The organizers were definitely out. So it meant either shelving the plan altogether or going alone. Now, going on solo trips, is nothing new to me. Ya, been there done that, but this was different. This was not some ordinary trip. I didn’t know the routes, didn’t know what to take with me, didn't even know what problems I might encounter or anything of this sort. It looked like I would have to shelve the plan. But luckily, I met this guy, who had traveled with 5 of his closest buddies to Leh only last year. And like in the mythological serials, he said “thatastu, all your questions will be answered. Just log onto w, w, w bcmtouring.com” and off he went…poof…vanished into thin air (super-exaggeration is good for health, I was told by my doting grandmother).

http://www.bcmtouring.com/travel-guides/ladakh-travel-guide/index.html

BCM stands for bikes, cars, and motorcycles and it is truly an awesome website, especially for planning a trip to Ladakh. Research the above website thoroughly and believe me it will answer all your questions (and I have no stake in the website). It has all the skinny on distances, routes, tips on motorcycle-maintenance, information about high-altitude sickness and medicines to counter the same, and stuff like that. So, I started preparing myself. I have a Pulsar 150, which is gr8 bike but I really wanted to do this on the Enfield Thunderbird.(Inset picture: Royal Enfield "Thunderbird")
I decided to first learn the mechanics of bike maintenance – changing the spare tire (this little maneuver itself requires you to carry so much equipment – a small hand pump, spare tubes etc.), setting the chain, replacing a snapped clutch wire and so on and so forth. While I was deep into this, I happened to chance upon this guy again (reappeared from thin air). And he said in true mythological serial-style “Vatsa, don’t do this alone”. And he vanished again. He is one mythical character, I’ll tell you. Almost everybody I met from thereon echoed the same sentiment - 11 days of traveling alone would be tough – the motorcycle will guaranteed break down and I would have to lug it up and down the slopes to faraway mechanic garages, which doing alone would be an effort.

Anyways, attempts of trying to find a gang to tag along were turning futile - 11 days of nonstop riding was proving to be decisive in the “yes/no” calculations. In the end, I was back to square one. Then somebody suggested that I could go by air from Delhi to Leh and do all the crazy riding in Leh. I pooh-poohed the idea, as it meant I would miss the Rohtang pass and most importantly the incredibly scenic Keylong pass on the Manali highway en route to Leh. But coming to think of it, this would save me 6 days, I could still rent the bike, and an Enfield “Thunderbird” at that, and take it to Khardungla (the highest motorable road in the world) and the images I had seen of the Pangong Lake had told me that enough magical beauty awaited me in Leh. In hindsight, this was the best decision I made. Agreed, I missed the beauty of the Manali highway (I did cover some part of the equally beautiful Srinagar highway….more on this later), but what I saw in Leh and the amount of back-breaking riding I did while in Leh, I think in hindsight it was an awesome decision.

So I went to Leh from Delhi, aboard a Kingfisher flight. It takes barely an hour or something like that to reach there. The Leh Kushok Bakula Rimpochee airport at the altitude of ~11000 feet is one of the highest in the world. As soon as you alight, you can almost feel the stare of the imposing ‘light brown mountain range’ (Inset picture: Mountain range welcomes you to Leh)

The weather was pleasant and I didn’t need a jacket or anything. ‘Welcome to Leh’ screamed a nearby hoarding. Finally, I was here and I could almost feel the goose-bumps. I took a pre-paid taxi to the main market. (Somehow, this is always the best bet when you arrive in a city – pre-paid taxi to the main market). I reached at around 8 in the morning and the city was just waking up to tourists. I had a list of possible accommodation options so I decided to try them one by one. Almost all of them were full. Not a great start. A local suggested that I should try the Changspa area as it has some neat options (cheaper than the rates they charged near the market) and is accessible to the main market by foot. So to Changspa I went. I checked into Larchang Guest House at around 9 where I was generously offered “Nun chai” (I was told that “Nun” is Hindi for salt, and, though I couldn’t imagine tea with salt in it, the taste was surprisingly pleasant and didn’t have any acidic after-taste of its sugary cousin). The room charges were reasonable – Rs. 400 a day.

The room had surprisingly no fans or any cooling facility. The owner ‘Shamin’ smiled back saying you wouldn’t need one here. And boy, the whole day, not once did I miss the fan or the AC. It was the most perfect weather throughout the day. If only God had been kind enough to extend his mercy a little south to extend up to Delhi/Gurgaon or even to Mumbai. (Inset pictures: Room at the Larchang Guest house)

One of my neighbors was an elderly gentleman - ‘Dilip Samuel’ who worked as a lab doctor at Steel Authority of India (SAIL) in Chattisgarh. He too had come alone (sans the wife and the kids). Both Dilip and the Shamin advised me to curb my enthusiasm and plan all activities for the next day, as the body needs to get used to the altitude. In my mind, I was thinking, “Go Captain Go” you didn’t haul up your backside all the way to Leh to sit and rest. I was yearning for the motorcycle and some quality riding time. But better sense prevailed.