Day 10: Manali to Zing Zing Bar (3rd. Sept 2014)

The rumbling river woke me up at 5 am.

 It was a very cold morning. Still sleepy, I flung aside the window curtains and the sight made me go weak on my knees. I just stood there staring at the snowcapped mountains for about a minute. For that duration, though I was breathing, my brain was dead. I don’t recall any thoughts running in my mind for that brief period. I don’t think I was admiring the mountains too. I was just staring at the mountains like the lighthouse stares at the sea. The sudden revelation of the mountains had confused my brains.

Pic : View from my room

It was only after a minute that my brain started comprehending what had hit me. My eyeballs started moving from a fixed point to scan the mountain range. A sense of admiration started sinking in. This admiration was soon followed by fear- fear of the challenges that lay ahead. Ironically the beautiful mountains were also the signs of the difficult times heading my way. This set my adrenaline pumping so I quickly changed and started my ride towards Rohtang La @ 6:30 am. 

I could sense that most of the things that I would do from that point onwards would be very special moments in my life. There was a deep sense of pride knowing that I was scripting a story only few could tell. (*All such special moments will be in bold )

 Within half an hour I came across a sign which signalled the start of the testing time. The tag line of Border Roads Organization (BRO) set the mood and the expectations right.

 The narrow winding way was very well maintained. The 100 bucks that I was charged for the tourism development yesterday started making sense now. With every passing minute riding, the slope grew steeper and steeper. At that early hour in the morning, the only shops open were the liquor shops along the highway. It was but obvious that if the liquor shops were open during that hour of the day, they were expecting customers walking in too. I saw some truck drivers stopping by for a quick drink. I knew I had to be extra cautious with the trucks on the way.

The other interesting thing that grabs your attention when you hit the Manali – Leh highway is the one-liners set up by BRO frequently reminding the travellers to be safe and also protect the environment. They may not be grammatically correct, but the one-liners have a powerful punch to it. Some of the one liner that I found very striking were ;

·         Trees too don’t grow on money

·         Safety ensures safe tea at home

·         Are you going to a party? So why hurry

·         Its better to be few minutes late in this world than be few minutes early in the other.

I wondered how these people come up with such beautiful lines. They were some of the best haikus I had read. I soon began to long for it. I guess some of the BRO creative personnel can make a kill in the advertising agency.  

Having been raised in the hills, sadly not born, I stand guilty of stereotyping hill beauty. I used to opt-out of any travelling plans in the hills because I thought I had already seen the best of the hills and besides, I thought most hill stations look similar.

One hour into riding, one blind turn reveals a sight that I had never seen before. For some strange reason, the beautiful sight teared up my eyes. I could hear the hills mocking at me saying, 

“… And you thought you had seen it all …”. 

Remember the scene when you left the tap water running overnight only to find water leaking from every corner of the room in the morning? the sight was somewhat similar. It seemed to me that God had left the tap water running overnight on the hills. Streams of water were leaking from every corner of the hills. Though the roads by now had become very narrow, I had to find a parking place to soak in the moment.

Pic : A shepherd taking rest in a cave  

Many riders had advised me to start the ride towards Rohtang la before 5 am to avoid the traffic jams caused by trucks which starts piling up after 5am. Thank God I didn’t listen to them because I would have missed this beautiful sight if I would have started my ride before dawn. Luckily for me, there were very few vehicles on the way.

25 Kms short of Rohtang la, I came across a check post where I had to pay another Rs 100 for the congestion charge. The officials manning the post also recorded my trip details.    

Chitti (thats what Linda calls my Royal Enfield .Inspired from the movie of one of our favorite actors - RAJNIKANT !!! ) was running really well for that cold temperature but the narrow roads, sharp curves had reduced my speed to about 20 kms per hour. The road to Rohtang la is majorly in a good shape with few patches of gravel road. 

Pic : Gravel road with truck stuck in the background

After I nervously managed to tackle few slippery muddy patches, I reached Rohtang la (3979 meters) at 8:50 am*. I wanted to call Linda and update her about my triumph, but I was beyond the cellular network coverage.

Pic : View from the Rohtang la

Had breakfast at Rohtang la * and this was exactly the reason why I had skipped my breakfast on the way. I ordered egg sandwiches and a cup of tea which was good enough to warm me up at that freezing height.  

 Three more riders reached the top while I was there. They were riding from Delhi. While I got along really well with two of them, one of them qualified for my “ignore list”. He was riding Electra (AVL). When he saw that I was riding the new model of Enfield, he commented, “These new models have a Yamaha engine put in an Enfield body”. I don’t know what he meant. I asked him if he was carrying any spares. He said he was carrying everything but when I asked him about spark plugs,

 “No I am not carrying that “, said he.  End of conversation.

 After spending about 30 minutes at Rohtang top, I started descending. 

The road descending from the Rohtang la is in really bad shape. There was no road to be precise. The melting snow made it very slippery to balance Chitti. After a few minutes of riding on that very slippery gravel road, I mastered the art of riding through the slippery slush where even some of the trucks were being trapped. The approach was to ride slow but not stop, and balance the bike with both the legs. So, the moment I saw slush, my two feet would eject automatically like the wheels of an aeroplane before landing. It took me one and a half hours to cover the distance of about 20 kms and reach the bottom of the valley.

Pic : The gravel road begins 

Once at the bottom of the valley, the ascend to Tandi was majorly a smooth one with few patches of gravel road. Stopping frequently to observe the beautiful scenery was but obvious.

Pic : "Look Chitti, the story we have scripted so far "

Pic : Bee farming

I always wanted to see the origin of a stream 

Had to ride through some rock falling areas as well. Riding through such areas demands extra caution. I was on a constant lookout for the loose falling stones to steer away from them. 

 I was held up for about 15 minutes as the BRO personnel were clearing the fresh rubbles. It was the first sign of real danger.  

Pic : The BRO heros clearing the way 

The next filling station from Tandi was reported to be approximately 300 kms away so I bought a 10 litre plastic jerrycan so that I don’t run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. I also got myself 4 meters of a sturdy rope which would come handy to tow my bike when the need arises.    

 I reached Tandi at 1 pm. When I read that the next filling is 365 kms away it made me little uncomfortable. I filled Chitti tankful and also carried an extra 8 lts of petrol in the jerrycan to be on a safer side.

With the tank full of confidence, I headed to Keylong next. After 10 minutes of riding from Tandi, I realized that I had dropped my riding gloves, again. All that jerking had not only loosened Chittis nuts and bolts but mine too. I had dropped my gloves exactly in the same manner as I had dropped my gloves in Delhi. I had kept in on my lap while I was paying the petrol station guy and forgot to put it back on after the payment (read 8^th Day). Once bitten, twice shy? – Well, that's not me.

So, like in Delhi, I again went back looking for my gloves, and then, I didn’t find it. Fortune favours only the brave, not the stupid.  

As it was quite a cold day it was not possible to ride without the gloves, so I bought a Chinese glove to shield my hand from the wind chills. This trip of mine was proving to be a good booster to Chinese GDP - first, it was a Chinese phone, now Chinese gloves.     

     

It started drizzling on the way, so I changed into my rain cover. Once I reached Keylong at about 2 pm, I withdrew some cash as that was the last ATM point till I reach Leh. I also learned that Vodafone would not be operational as they didn’t have any signal tower in that corner of the country. Only Airtel and BSNL was operational there. It was troublesome news for me as I had to let Linda know that I had reached a particular destination. It would be inhumane not to inform Linda as she would be very worried otherwise.   

As I had only a few hours of daylight left, I hurried towards my final destination for the day – Zing Zing Bar (Yes, that’s the name of the place). With every hour passing by, the road started getting rougher and my speed was reduced to about 20 km/hr. I rode nonstop and by the time I reached Zing Zing Bar (4270 meter), it was already 6 pm. It was really cold, and I was the only soul on the road. I thought Zing Zing Bar was kind of a market place, but I could only see few makeshift tents there. The rough roads had really tired me, and I had no energy to ride, so I decided to stay in the place called Zing Zing Bar Camp (and now that I think over it, it was the best decision I had made in that entire trip). The camp was more of a dormitory with about 15 beds laid one beside the other. It was owned by a gentleman named Sonam. He was a very polite man to speak to. Tashi, his nephew was a college student in Shimla and had come over to help Sonam during his vacations. The first thing about Tashi that struck me was his warm smile. Tashi helped me to unload my luggage. I noticed that I had dropped my camera tripod too on the way. The saddest part is that I had a hunch that I would drop my tripod and was also checking it regularly, but as Murphy’s Law states, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”.  

Pic: Sonam and me

Pic : The ever smiling Tashi

Once I got a place to rest, my next concern was to inform Linda. I had not spoken to her throughout the day and I knew that she was very worried by now. I explained my concern to Sonam and asked if he could arrange for something so that I could inform Linda. Sonam told me that no one in that area had a mobile phone as there was no cellular signal till the next 150 kms. Further, Sonam talked about one spot somewhere down the valley where people had reported getting BSNL mobile signal sometimes. It was more of an urban legend. I was dejected hearing that. Seeing me low, Tashi offered to help me.

“Aapko ghar may bolna hai toh chalo, try kartay hai” (If you want to inform people back home then let's go and try it). As Tashi was coming from Shimla, he was carrying his cellphone, and adding to my hope, he had a BSNL connection. It was already 6:15 pm and we hardly had about 20 minutes of daylight. Worse still was the fact that the “signal spot” was some 15kms downhill and no one exactly knew where that spot was. Nevertheless, I had to give one shot at it and so Tashi and I dashed towards that spot on Chitti. After covering about 10 kms, we came across one small pond which had a camp nearby. Tashi got down and asked the guys there about the sweet spot. They gave much precise location about the spot. We were very close. We had to stop by one army signboard and then hunt for the signal. We reached there soon. Tashi got down and checked the signal but there was none. He started to run up the hill in quest of the signal. He was on a mission. I could just stand and watch Tashi trying his best to help me. My eyes were fixed on him. Tashi tried his best for about 10 minutes but in vain. There was no point trying any more as it was already dark, and it was getting really cold. I started my bike head back then suddenly Tashi shouted, “ Mil gaya!” (Got it!). I ran towards him and saw that there was only one bar of signal. That too was disappearing frequently. God bless Tashi. I tried calling Linda, but the call was not going through. After a few attempts the call finally went through but once Linda received the call, I couldn’t hear anything. Nevertheless, I shouted my story to her not knowing if she could hear me. As the signal was very weak it was not possible to speak to her but there was a good chance of text message reaching her, so I texted her explaining the network issue and also that I was safe. “Message Delivered” read the delivery report. Tashi flashed his signature smile after reading the report. Mission accomplished, we headed back to the warm camp.

Pic : Tashi the saviour 

 By the time we reached the camp, it was 7:30 pm. I saw there was plenty of running water, so I decided to wash Chitti as he had become very dirty. 

After the wash, I started chatting with Sonam and Tashi. Sonam gave me some advice on dos and dont's in the mountains.  

We had rajma rice for dinner and just when it was time to hit the bed, it started raining. The rains tapping on the camp roof, the company of the friendly host, and Akashwani radio playing in the background was a good way to end the day, never mind the loss of tripod and gloves.        

            

At the end of the 10^th Day, I had covered 237 kms

*All the special moments which I would not get a chance to do otherwise are in bold

(Do read the other days chronicle listed in the same page)

#Royalenfield  #trip #leh #bikeride #adventure #ladakh #travel