Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Approved!

Would look forward to this one Sai.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Great start! Waiting for the full story.

Sent from my Xperia L.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Looks promising.
Start posting.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana



The original Plan



Entering Ghaziabad

It took an hour and a half to cross Ghaziabad, full of traffic, swarms of bikes trying to crawl into whatever gap was between four/six wheelers. Mostly we were doing off roading by the side of the road, which cut down little time. Got frustrated though.



Crossed Ganges and there comes our freedom a bit from Ghaziabad. We stayed the night in Begumpul, Meerut after struggling to find some good parking space for bikes,
The hotel name was Royal palace, charged a decent 1200 rupees for 3 people and locked our bikes with chains bigger than Ship's anchor chains!

Day 2:




On route to Lansdowne. Beautiful roads and good views, Temperatures were perfect for a ride.



Had food in Lansdowne, Good non-veg.





After that, off to Rudraprayag Via Srinagar, The roads were twisty and surface was awesome, Since it was Diwali season the traffic was less and we were on full cornering frenzy, but cautious though.



Used almost full tyre profile, felt awesome. Which reminded me, this is how you learn cornering by feeling the curves and test your limits on race track.



Road of bones. Atleast we could see one without going through Russia. We were taking it slow, we had ample amount of time and Excited about GP valencia at 6: 30 pm.
We reached Rudraprayag and stayed at Shagri La resort, Just in time ordered veg pakora and chai and were watching GP. Was such a awesome ride by the Doc. Felt bad for him at last.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Nice - Nothing beats the mountains; looking forward to it.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Day 3:

The morning was colder a bit, took bath with warm water and shoo'ed off the cold. Started riding towards Karnaprayag and we stopped for getting cash/breakfast. We saw " maggi" board after a very long time and decided to order, but it wasn't there. We ordered Chowmein and omelette. The guy took his sweet time 1 hr to make both, but was worth a wait. It was good.



Waiting for BF...

BTW so excited to see maggi back in shelves in near future!



The maggi Shop?





I hope this is Karna prayag, Damn all the pics this view of different towns here look the same to me.



Beautiful views everywhere! one needs to take this road slow to enjoy the beaut of these places.





On route to Badrinath, past Joshimat. Am not describing Joshimat as it was horrible with traffic.

Roads were deprived of tarmac and full on off-road track. Good fun! Had lunch at Pandukeshwar- This time it was real Maggi and some snacks with Chai..Mmwaah!


Reached Badrinath by late noon. 1st things first, went to temple. Was a different experience, and temple was so different from what I had seen till now.





Colorful Shops! Down the line.



Then to Mana, Brilliant place!



Small water crossing on route.We planned to camp there and we found a nice spot near the river bed, down the village. No one around and the temperatures dropping crazy, we then asked for some firewood and the women over there were so kind to help us out with some firewood, cow dung cake.

We set up a our tent and had dinner in Mana - Of course maggi, chai & Eggs. Started the camp fire, kept ourselves warm till 11 in the night.



Camping -River Bed.



Friend's Photography tirals.



Camp Fire!



Nice one BC, VH.

"BTW all these pics are from My Nokia Lumia 730, NEX 5" Thanks for my friends for few pics.

And back to the story, the night was cold inside tent even with sleeping bag for me. Got migraine and had to leave the tent and go to a guest house in Badrinath. Thankfully My friend BC accompanied me in mid of the cold night till the guest house. The guest house was booked by my another friend KST, who came along with us in car with his family and with slightly different itinerary. The room was cozy but i suffered heavy headache and it ruined the night, my other two friends stayed back in Mana in tent.

Morning they joined me in the room and planned the activity for day 4.

Day 4:



The Guest house.



Bikes parked inside with Snow on top.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

We were trying out some photography to capture the snowing moment and enjoying ourselves the same time. We went in for a small nap and in two hours this was the Badrinath, So different in just 1 day.



Snow covered everything.



Temple with snowy BG.



Hot springs near the temple. This is where we used to get hot water from to bath.



We were so happy to see our bikes covered with snow, but worrying about the seat as it became solid Ice and hard to remove the Ice. We used hot water to clear it of and it works miracles.
We spent the night there and got ready for the return trip.

Day 5:

We woke up and were feeling bad about leaving this place. My friend then said lets go again to Mana and see how it is now, so we went again. And it was like this!



The Last village.



Icy roads!



That's where we camped, in the river bed off the bridge.

We thanked the women there and others for their kindness and headed back to Badrinath.



We took the same route till karna prayag and from there to Kausani.



I hope that would be a glacier up front.

It was getting late and the road to Kausani was sooo beautiful that it was through a jungle and small towns in between, we decided to stop somewhere and enjoy the roads and scenery in fresh day light. So we stopped at a town called Tharali for the night, I got a surprise when we were crossing the bridge to the town. Some Idiot lighted up a loud firecracker on the bridge wall and vanished, It blew off right beside my ear. We then spoke to the owner of the hotel Nanda Devi and stopped there, It was 400 rs per night for 3 people and they gave us a lot of home made food without charging for it. We were amazed by their hospitality.



Colorful night in Tharali. Crazy people though, they use rockets as missile and and launch them sideways onto roads, river so on..



Town in the morning.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Amazing!

Sent from my Xperia L.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Day 6:

Woke up early, payed the bills and started with a wonderful feeling of beautiful roads. We were not dissapointed! The only problem was we had to stop again and again to get some pics, we thought to just enjoy the moment rather capturing everything.



Near to Gwaldam.





Best local cricket pitch I have ever seen. What a location!



AWE-some Blossom!







Some Pics on route. Everywhere I saw some women, they were carrying heavy loads on their back - Respect!



Just Before reaching Ranikhet.It was full of plains with vast fields, I guess they harvested just before we reached there.



Woah.. What a Road!



NH 121. After Ranikhet it was 90 km ride towards Ramnagar, Jim corbett. The only place in the upcoming ride which was pleasing us was Jim corbett.





Jim Corbett.We were so excited that we would see some animals, least some elephant crossing. But we sighted only few water buffaloes. Nonetheless, the ride was beautiful.
We stayed in Kashipur for the evening and relaxed ourselves with good non-veg food, which was just 25 kms from Ramnagar.



Next Day - Last day of the trip. Plain boring highways and othing really to say about the day.
May be I may have to use some harsh/foul words to describe it, so I opt to not do that. Reached Delhi and it took an hour and half to cross it. Sigh!!!!



Waited for my friend for few minutes as we were seperated in traffic, then Normal stupid ride on NH8 till my place. That time I again thought [like every last day of the trip], NEVER RIDE ON NH8, JUST TRANSPORT THE BIKE SOMEHOW!

But it was a really really nice trip and I would miss north now, since I may relocate to Chennai or West. Anyway there is lot of touring left to do in west & south. Happy & Excited for that. I would post soon on western & southern trips.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Thank you guys.
I posted pics and some lines to briefly explain the story. But will edit soon with full story.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

very nice and beautiful pics and log. Did you guys trekked till Bhim Pul at Mana?

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

I didn't.. But my friend did, myself and another friend were busy trying to ask permission from army guys to go further on army road..
But it didn't happen either.

Re: First snow in Badrinath Mana

Superb start. The overnight snowfall on bikes pics are awesome.