It was a slightly sad moment that our trip was coming to an end, but we had the fantastic Leh-Manali route to look forward too, which was promising to say the least. As we passed through the familiar route which we had taken to day back to head up Chang La pass and finally end up in the beautiful Pangong Tso it was just a rush of memories which is something that will not be forgotten in this lifetime. In this trip we didn't enter any of the monasteries and neither did we click them. They simply didn't figure in our area of interest at that point of time. But I really wanted to capture atleast one of them, so along the return route I pulled over at Thiksey Monastery for a quick shot of its imposing facade.


We went on riding at a quick pace to quickly leave as much civilization behind as much as possible. We took our first break after an hour of riding, just to hydrate and quickly make backup plans for they as it was evident we were not going to make it to Sarchu before nightfall. We had been forewarned by many of the experienced people that staying in Pang is inviting trouble for AMS as its at an altitude of 15000+ feet.


Soon enough we found ourselves climbing up Tanglang La, now this might be the third highest pass amongst others, but when it comes to difficulty level it was right there at the top. This was simply because the road surface was really bad, thanks to the construction taking place and the ascent to the top was really quick, it didn't take us much time to reach there. To add to the difficulty in getting there was the fatigue of the last 9 days of the trip, along the "fight" to climb Marismek La the previous day had taken a toll on our bodies and it was showing up right here. By the time it we reached the top it was about 1.45PM. This just meant a quick stop with a few pictures and ride on.


Soon enough we found ourselves on the More Plains, now all along we had seen people running on absolute no road, it was just a desert trail that one decided to make their own road through. Sadly for us when we were done with the More Plain we realized that our route was not the one that almost everyone else takes. We took the "Road" through More Plains . We just kept going on the under construction road on More Plains, it was basically a straight road that was not completely constructed, there were patches where we would have to get off the road into a complete dirt patch. It was fun initially, but the dirt and constant fear of falling down and then having to pick up a heavy bike made this experience almost horrendous. Veda got left behind as he is not comfortable with the riding in the dirt and me & Pranay just wanted to get this section done with as soon as possible. Soon enough we were blasting our way even through the sandy'est of the roads. It took us nearly 45 minutes to cover the entire stretch of More Plains. By the time we were ready to descend into Pang we were pretty unsure of how we wanted to proceed, as nightfall was only a few hours away but Sarchu was a good 60 kms away from us!


It was about 4.15PM by the time we entered Pang, there was just a solitary tent offering some thing to satiate the hunger of our stomachs. Maggi and hot tea for our lunch needs. As we sat there contemplating if we should stay here here of push forward to Sarchu over our cups of tea and a bowl of hot maggi, I decided to walkover to one of the truckers who had just arrived in the direction of Sarchu, I asked him about the road conditions and the approximate amount of time it would take to travel to Sarchu. He confidently told us that we can reach in 2 hours, it made sense, it was just a matter of 60kms. Averaging 30kmph is very much doable in the hills if you push hard... But that was not to be!

The roads beyond Pang were terrible and thanks to the heavy load that I my bike was carrying, coupled with the overall fatigue I was bit low and this reflected in my riding. I just could not keep up with Pranay and Veda, going over this extremely bumpy road beyond Pang I could help feeling a fear creeping in that we will not make it alive that day . The horrible roads just din't end and after a while I decided to push my speeds up a bit that din't help at all. Lachulung La came and went, Nakee La came and just went to, I managed to catch up with the rest at Nakee La, overall I wasn't able to capture many pics due to the lack of time as. Nakee La and Lachulung La as two passes that were passed in quick succession. We were atop Lachulung La at about 5.20PM and we reached Nakee La to at about 5.50PM.



With the sun going down behind the hills the temperatures started hitting south and boy it was getting colder. The famous Gata Loops came up about 20 minutes from Nakee La. We stopped here to admire the beauty of the 21 loops, sadly it was getting too dark to get any proper pictures. Pranay decided to stay back to shoot a video of us descending the loops, which he also later realized it was too dark to capture anything. As it got dark, whilst we were in the middle of descending the loops, an internal switch got activated similar to the time of dusk after Lamayuru . My speed suddenly increased and I was soon blasting away quite ahead of the Veda. Pranay had fallen behind as he was shooting the video.


We reached the base of Gata Loops around 6.30PM, and it was completely dark by that time. What followed in the next 1.5 hours was one of the most scary, adrenaline ridden and dangerous moments of our trip. There were BRO made bridges that we had to cross, which looked pretty much doable during the day time. This was the first time we were tackling it at night. One my first bridge there was a truck ahead of us which went over the bridge and noise it generated was a spine chilling rattling of the plates loosely laid over the top of the bridge. I stopped at one to click a picture.


If you notice the image closely there are gaps between two adjacent plates, going over this was not only risky at night but also bloody scary . Me and Veda decided for Pranay to catch up with us, despite him having his light saber HID's we had to ensure he was riding with us. After a little while he caught up with us and it was the just three of us blasting through the canyons under the cold moonlight.

There came a short patch of road where there were some markings and a tent, I could not catch that and neither were the others able to catch it. Somehow something felt weird as might lights were not lighting up the road ahead at that speed I was not even able to comprehend what it was. A few more seconds later and meters ahead I realized there was NO road ahead. A quick jab to the brakes and my tyres luckily brought me to a stop and the others as well were able to stop. We stopped a few meters short of what was actually a high precipice, there was a bridge that was supposed to be there but it was there. Shining around the light we later realized that there is another path that goes around the existing road to meet the path for the stream below and we had to ride over the river bed. Half shaken and half adrenaline raised we headed back to the markings which I had missed, and two men came out of the tent we had just passed. One of them was hurling abuses at us for not hearing them, it was next to impossible to hear them anyways in all road of all three engines. Apparently they were workers who are supposed to divert traffic to the appropriate route. Finally after a bit of offroading we managed to ride over the river bed and back up to the road on the other side of the ravine.

A few kilometers ahead we finally reached the tents of Sarchu. All three of us heaved a sigh of relief inside our helmets on finally reaching. We settled in had a quick dinner and were off to bed for tomorrow was going to be yet another trying ride.