rachitkohli

yes man.. keep it comming..!!

even our pix our cooking.!! am sure god stayed there.!

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..»».. I will rather ride my Bike thinking about God, then sitting in a Temple thinking about my Bike.. »»..

Mumbai - Leh - Mumbai, Conquered the Highest Motor-able Road in the world..
On xBHP:
Ride With me to Leh

On Blog : Mumbai - Leh - Mumbai : 21 Days, 6500kms. Journey to Heaven..'09

shailay

…continued from
Day 1
Day 2
Day 03 Part I


Day 03: June 04: Keylong To Sarchu Part II

Just before the pass we had also met Alistair again. The unexpected rendezvous brought with it some interesting talks too. As we talked about bike he told me that he use to ride some 200 cc bike at home. He then told me about a guy asked me if I knew him. “Can’t recall his name but I think he was Bundy,” he said to us. Amit was clueless and so was I. "Bundy??" "Ya Bundy.. do ya know him?” he said. "I don’t think so Al" I called him by this name only, (pronounced as 'el'). "He told me a lot about biking in India. I though you must be knowing him".
“Where did you meet him” asked Amit. By now we had begun digging our brains to find who was HE and why were we supposed to know him.
“He met me in Pune. He works for some auto magazine.”
“Was he Bunny?” I tried. “He works for Bike India??”
“Oh yah yah. I think so. Yah” said he, scratching his head.
“Bunny Punia?? Right?”
“O ya ya ya! Now I gaat it. He was Bunny Punia..ya ya” he replied going down his memory lane.
“Woooo” exclaimed Amit.
“Great! Ya I know him.” I said
“Ok.. ya great.."
We all got on our bikes and were just to leave when Al's helmet spoke. "I also came to know about a pan-India road trip. Some four guys took the road to roam around India recently…” he told us in a please-confirm way.
“Yes they did. 14000 kms for two-and-a-half months.” an excited Amit interrupted
“Boy o’boy. They did it on Superbikes I heard. Was it R1?” sidelining me, his now source of information was Amit.
“Yamaha R1 ..yes! and a R15 also…”.
“Great man great!”
“xBhp guys. Check the site xBhp.com” said Amit.
“Oh ya I’ll. See ya then people”
"Bye Al. Take Care"

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The descent from BarlachaLa began with “phew!-16k-feets-were-easy” feeling in mind. But the affairs to come didn’t take much time to evaporate those feelings. Soon after the pass we saw some trucks standing still at a distance. We had it in our minds how cumbersome could it become sometimes to overtake a truck at such roads….and there we could see many. But thank god, they were still. However that was not because of no reason, we discovered soon. It was another jam…and this time not entirely because of human forces. We managed to get our bike decently ahead of many trucks and some cars (all SUVs to be precise). I asked Amit to remain with the bike as I went ahead to see the matter on foot. There was a small avalanche and not snow had blocked the road! Simple! Our bikes will face no problems I thought, as the drivers there told me the cause of the stand still. Well, what made the matter worse was that a Tata 407 driver, probably with some belief on his X-Men instinct from within, had tried to pass that snow hump in one go with speed. He tried and got his tires buried well deep in snow with the floor of the truck now almost resting on the hump. “O ji paaji main sochhi ki gaddi fast hogi te vadiyaan renga. Ae toh fans gi…” the truck driver told me when I asked how did it all happen. Surprisingly he seemed to be in his mid-twenties (surprisingly because he was quite young as compared to most of the truck drivers on that route). “O yaar tune toh Supper-man bana ditti gaddi. Ab ki hoyenga? Ae gaddi de naal toh assi bhi fans gaye haan..” Amit said to him in his artificial Punjabi accent. “Supper-man! He he! Supper-man!!” the man seemed delighted with the new tag given to his vehicle.

Soon the BRO people got a truck from the other side. Tied the rope to the stuck truck and phishumm!!! The rope got snapped. The BRO truck got pushed a few meters ahead and then from a distance I saw two new developments. First there was some roaring sort of noise that came from didn’t know where and simultaneously BRO people began to run as if they have seen some Bofors aimed at them. However the matter got cleared to me with a tenth of next second. Quintals and tons of white matter fell right at the spot. Second avalanche!! Phew… Well most of the snow, due to its momentum, continued on its path to go directly into the frozen river in the valley on the right hand side. But a certain mass of it had hit the truck, which, now, was looking like a public carrier carrying fresh ice to the market. Fortunately two things happened in the BRO’s (and of course our) favor that the driver’s cabin was not hit, and second that the second avalanche did not deposited the snow on the road. They soon cleared the snow from that truck. The rest of the truckers had, by now, managed to get a metal towing rope from one of the SUVs. This time it worked very nicely and effortlessly BRO team had pulled the truck away within seconds. Being the owner of most compact vehicles of the lot, we two were the first ones to move ahead. We thanked the BRO truck driver and set off. It was already 5 in the evening, and thus we didn’t have much sun time left. Well the road still had some more things for us. Barely 10 minutes away from the place, Amit got his left foot merged completely into water while crossing a stream. The temperatures were such than even a drop of water could have created havoc with your body temperature. Well it did what it was supposed to do. Within few minutes Amit’s head began to feel heavy. We stopped there. He was also feeling while breathing by now. He sat on a rock, got his shoes removed and placed his foot over the engine and the muffler of the bike in order to get some heat. It helped a bit. But still he was not in position to ride properly, he told. “BarlachaLa pe kuch nahi hua, yahan neeche utar kar waat lag gayi yaar…..ajeeb hai” he uttered. However taking deep breathes, he managed to get up some how and got on to his bike. Soon we entered the plains of Sarchu. The rays of setting but still warm sun came as a breather. We stopped again there. Amit was feeling better by now, after having some water at the last stop. I asked him go and check for accommodation ahead as I clicked some picture for few minutes. Crossing the tents as I moved ahead, in hope of getting accommodation a little ahead I saw Amit standing at a big nallah with some workers. “Band hai” he screamed from where he was in such a manner that I was just able to understand his words. It was a downward slope so I left my bike hundred meteres before where he was. The stream had a full flow. “Sahab din mein to pahad par baraf pighalta hai garmi se, toh dopehar aur shaam mein toh ee naala pura zor se behta hai” the worker there told me. “Subah aana saahab bhor mein, paani kum hoga.” Well there I noticed another bridge upstream, way to which was nearby. It will be dark soon, I thought. So we decided to stay at those tents only. Got a decent tent. The food that they provided in the dinner was most
amazing food we have had on the ride till then. We had some doubts about the insulation capacity of the tent material but it served the purpose well.

Next day’s target was to get to Upshi. So we decided to go easy tomorrow morning. Just to mention we slept with our water bottles that night in our quilts, for obvious reasons. See you in Upshi/Leh tomorrow!!


Total distance covered in the day: 101 kms
Riding hours: 0830-1845
Cumulative distance: 786 kms


Photos from the incident:




















At Sarchu plains:

















Next Day-
Day 4
Day 5

Rockkyyy

OMG Superb Pics... . Just mindblowing.

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U.S on FZ6

Wayanad- LEH 09 - Coorg - Muthathi - Bye Bye 2008 - First G2G - 07

FLICKr

biker boy

Now you have done justice to the place. Thanks mate. Awesome photographs and log.

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strider

Nice write up and pics Shailay...At 16000ft a cup of hot tea and maggi tastes out of world..isn't it ...

Great ride bro...

suhail_kapoor

WOW shailay all pics just brilliant

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"Be who you are, and be that well"

shailay

hey thanks

very true...nothing beats them strider

shailay

…continued from

Day 1
Day 2
Day 03 Part I
Day 03 Part II


Day 4: June 05: Sarchu to Upshi

The morning at Sarchu was quite cold as expected. The frozen stream of water was telling us the temperatures of the previous night. We crossed the nallah from the upstream bridge and then with a free mind had our breakfast. We had not seen any tree since Zingzing Bar. And still the absence of trees continued as we headed towards the Ghata Loops. It is beautiful desert, a different experience. Road is quite decent without and breaks on the surface. On the name of wildlife we saw a couple of foxes and some wild deers. The wind owned the place it seemed. It had cut the big rocks very beautifully, as if that was done under a certain plan. All was well till we encountered another traffic standstill. However this time it was due to a deep steam of water and the road was quite broad. We were able to take our bikes directly ahead. Well in an attempt to cross the nallah a missed a spot and got my right foot submerged in the water. The water entered my boot for the very time on the ride and obviously forced me to remove it. Now of the one pair of sandles we were carrying, the left one was with Amit and now I was forced to wear the right one.
Just before Pang we made our entry at the police check post. Reaching Pang coincided with the scheduled time of lunch. A guy at a restaurant served us with daal, sabji and chapattis. It turned out to be simplest of the food we have had on the ride. We met Simon and Lea there. They were riding Avvy too. 200 oil cooled.
“Arey Krishna! Arey Raama!!” was Simon’s reply when I said hi.
He seemed to be nice guy. He told me about some problems with his bike and asked me if I could give the bike a try. I tried the bike and didn’t find any such thing except the power missing issue. I told me that it happens at such heights. They were short of fuel also and asked for help. However we also didn’t have extra fuel. We were filled up to easily reach Karu (16 kms from Upshi towards Leh). So we couldn’t give the fuel to them. However Amit talked to a local and managed somehow to get some fuel for them (though not without a healthy premium over the normal price from the seller).
The road begins to climb up again from Pang. It soon got us onto a vast span of flat land, enough to build a small city. These flats preceded the climb to TaglangLa. A road project was going on there. So the way was in bad condition. The same condition continued till TaglangLa. The rapid fall in the levels of oxygen and temperatures aggravated the adventure of the ride J . The water from the melting snow and mud were making it difficult, at some points, even to keep the bike in ride able position. Suddenly I began to feel some white fluffy in air. I though it was rain and snow. But that soon turned out to be the advent of a not-quite-ordinary snowstorm. Somehow we reached TaglangLa. Felt the real chill when I had to remove gloves to change a memory card. The only thing we feared was a puncture at that time. Where changing the memory card of the camera can be a pain, God!! think what the havoc can repairing a flat tire create at such place, I thought.

“Yuu huuu....!!!!!First persons in the world to reach the second highest motorable road in the world in sandles” Amit screamed.
My right foot, which was still in that sandle, was feeling the real chill as I could feel something weird right at the spot in my ankle where I got a couple of screws fixed last year due to a fracture. However TaglangLa was reached and it was a memorable experience. After the pass the condition of road still didn’t improve. However after 8-10 kms of descent the road improved. It was a newly laid down road and was the one of the broadest roads of the area. The speeds of around ninety to hundred kmph were manageable for kilometers and kilometers. Also, we saw the first of the trees since the day before. The valley became beautiful as we progressed. We reached Upshi ant around 5:30 p.m. The milestone there showed Leh to be just 49 kms ahead. We had almost a couple of hours of daytime but decided to stay there only. Met Simon and Lea again in Upshi only. They had tea with us and left for Leh. We got a decent accommodation to stay just at the entrance of the town. Nice place, nice weather and even nicer people!!

Total distance covered in the day: 204 kms
Riding hours: 0845-1730
Cumulative distance: 990 kms














































Next day-
Day 05
...

nabendubasu

again some excellent shot shailay.great going.you did not tell what happen to the nallah in the next morning and how did you crossed that.
Alister will be scratching his head once again when he will check the pan india roadtrip here in xBhp.

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NABENDU BASU

ken cool

The Bunny Punia incident was funny. You are one of the people who did that pan India trip!

That avalanche incident could have been dangerous. You have seen as much snow at these passes that one gets to see in Iceland!!!

Funny to see you riding with boots in one foot and sandals in the other. I also see one of the bus drivers (probably) wearing sandals and walking on the snow. Must have been pretty cold. I wonder how you managed to ride with sandals on. I would have probably lost my toes.

Honest to goodness recounting of the events and some VERY good photographs. Thanks for sharing.

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