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It was the Valentine week. The season of love, romance and countless emotions! There were red roses emulating a strong albeit aromatic fragrance filling up the atmosphere and Pink balloons fluttering all over. The market place was flooded with people buying souvenirs and gifts for their loved ones. Sweet couples dressed in red, adorned the streets. Everyone was happy and gay!
Good for them!
Me, well, never had my way with women; have had many valentines, some as a couple and some single, hence was well versed with the concept. A rarity, to find a lady who’d be supportive of my antics of spending the weekend either watching Discovery, eating pizzas and guzzling beer, or, cranking the engine in the abundance of darkness on a Friday! And even if the lady did support, sustaining the support was the hard part! I knew that for a fact and thus, quite frankly, was seldom perturbed by it.
But hey, it was valentines…I had to celebrate, somehow! So on Thursday, I took my beloved for a basic service, a body wash and gifted her a can of sparkling yellow lube, all set to ward off the next afternoon. Destination Harsil BUT the longer way around. This time on, it was Prashant who was going to accompany me on his fastest Indian.
So we left office at precisely 12 Pm towards Rohru. Rohru is nestled deep in the upper Shimla region, some 110 kms ahead of Shimla. A wonderfully quite and scenic hamlet! So there I was, on the road again. We reached Shimla in good time, but just as I crossed the Victory Tunnel, I suffered a puncture. Although I had stuff for tyre removal, I wasn’t too keen on replacing the rubber myself and thus located a mechanic some kilometers ahead and let him do what he was best at.
There was snow all over, in Kufri:
The cloud cover was visible and I was hoping to catch snowfall in sometime. Well the gods did not let me down. As soon as we reached Theog, It started snowing. It snowed in full fury, relentlessly, for an hour, half of which I spent getting drenched. I was a happy man!
In all the commotion, I hardly ever realized that the clock had struck 6, and we had Khadapatthar to cover. And looking at the present scenario, it was certain that we will encounter black ice near Khadapatthar. Moreover, darkness added insult to injury. However, not thinking too deeply about the impending calamity, we moved forward. By the time we reached Chaila, it was already dark, stark dark!
We were ascending quite swiftly. If there were roads, however the condition, I didn’t mind riding after sunset, in fact I enjoyed it! But as soon as we hit a milestone stating “Khadapatthar 6”, we were welcomed by snow!
I was not new to surfing on black ice, but black ice in complete darkness was a first for me. I was perplexed, and it did take some thinking on how to move forward. Put both my feet down and gradually accelerated, the feet doing the support work. Somehow we managed to conquer the steep incline. But our woes were not over, oh no not yet. The most challenging part of the puzzle was the decline!
So there we were swaying to from one bank of the road to the other, saving ourselves from falling, the rear tyre having a gala time, and our boots covered in snow, kilometer after kilometer.
Just heavenly!
Pardon the quality. They were taken at night, and I am no photographer:
We reached Rohru at precisely 9 Pm and walked into the PWD rest house, where I had booked a room. To our astonishment, there was no caretaker there, and the atmosphere was creepy which made us a bit uneasy. We entered the rest house (luckily the door was open), and trudged up the staircase, in a hope for locating homo-sapiens somewhere. The corner room right next to the porch was vacant and open at the same time. So we decided to crash in for the night. Kept our stuff there and went in search dinner. An hour later, I went off to sleep, but not before gulping 2 pegs of the pristine Old Monk!
The day after: Rohru – Tiuni – Mori – Purola – Barkot – Dharasu – Chamba/Tehri
The preconceived plan was to get up at 6 am sharp and begin riding at 7. And we stuck to the schedule; in fact we were ahead of schedule. At 6:30, we were on the road to Tiuni.
Tiuni is in Uttrakhand. 10 kms before Tiuni, you leave Himachal and enter the land of the Char Dham. And we did.
The roads were a combination, neither too good nor too bad.
As soon as we reached Mori, the landscape turned drastically. The roads were surprisingly wonderful roads with huge pine trees adorning the sides. It was a real treat to ride on.
And then the valley opened up to welcome us
By this time we had crossed Purola and were riding towards Barkot. We reached Barkot at around 12 Pm. A couple of truckies were heading towards Uttarkashi, so struck a conversation with us. They were the ones who intimated us about the road condition, and finally confirmed that it would be pointless heading out there as the road has been due to snow. Upon introspecting, we also realized that we would rather get to Tehri, enjoy what the dam has to offer and relax, rather the usual wham bam hello maam ride!!
I called up Rajesh Punia ji (a good friend) and he insisted that we attempt the ascend post Barkot, and he guaranteed we would not regret it.He was right!
And then we descended to Dharasu Bend where we caught up with NH-94 Rishikesh – Uttarkashi road. Took a left and continued towards Chamba.
And then I saw this
Water bodies amidst mountains are always fascinating and I personally have an inclination towards such set-ups, and believe me, they never tend to let me down. Ever!
We reached chamba at around 5 and continued towards old Tehri to witness the Dam up close. Upon reaching Tehri, the sheer size of the dam left us spellbound.
A picture speaks more than a thousand words:
‘Relief’ is the appropriate word to be used to describe my feeling somewhat. Couple it with ‘Relaxed’ and you have the exact emotion!
We tried to locate a rest house near the dam but in vain, primarily because it was a restricted premise and forbid the settlement of hotels and rest houses. In fact we also took the liberty of riding up to the THDC guest house in B’Puram (Bhagirathi Puram) but we were turned down from there as well. Dejected, we rode back to Chamba and got a room in a hotel.
The rest of the night was spent eating and watching TV. Tomorrow is going be relaxing with not much distance to cover, and fairly good roads, or that’s what I thought at least!
The Last Day: Chamba – Dhanaulti – Mussourie – Dehradun – Chandigarh
This day we were in no hurry to rise, and thus leisurely covered up for the loss of sleep and hit the road by 9:45.
En-route Dhanaulti
Some magnificent snow-peaks that caught the eye:
Up Close:
At Dhanaulti
And finally a pic of me
And Prashant
Then for the umpteenth time in our journey, we encountered black ice. We again followed the same technique, just that this time on it was more difficult. You want to know why, see for yourself:
On one incident, my rear wheel got stuck in the snow, going downhill. I turned the handle perpendicular to the axis and stuck both my feet firmly on the ground for support. Gave throttle, but the tyre wouldn’t budge. Gave some more, and the tyre skidded off the surface, rotating both on its own and against the ice. The bike than slightly toppled over me, but I managed to pick it up and regain control, primarily as I had my feet dug under snow. Thankfully by that time, the wheel was out and I could continue further.
Boy was it fun!
We slowly crossed that 5 km patch of black ice and continued towards Mussourie, bypassing it 4 kms before, to Dehradun.
Reached Dehradun in good time owing to the fabulous black top wide road of to Dehradun from Mussourie! Got me nostalgic of the college days, as Mussourie used to be our favorite holiday destination, and I can’t even count the times I have been on this road.
We had called Pankaj, a friend and a colleague who resided in Dehradun, from Dhanaulti and told him to meet up at around 1 Pm. I was practically starving, so when he arrived we rushed up to the nearest restaurant, and to our surprise we were in for fine dining this afternoon!
Paneeer Bhurji, Dal and Butter Naans later, we hit the road after bidding farewell to Pankaj. Pankaj, if you are reading this, thank you for the lovely meal!
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Some hours go by …. And I am back in my room, reminiscent of the snowfall that I encountered, as that was a highlight of this trip. Have seen lots of snow in life, but such heavy snowfall right in front of my eyes, was a first for me.
Hope you enjoyed reading, as much as I enjoyed writing
Adios!
Edit: One important thing that I forgot to mention is that the pics are courtesy both me and Prashant Bhardwaj
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