Top of the World - Part 1

The Ladakh trip was always a long term plan. Shiva and I had discussed it to death in the last three years. I came close to going in 2007, and it was finally happening in 2009! Kaushik was also going with us.

Presenting the bikes and riders:

Shiva (R15), Kaushik (Bullet) and Ravi (Karizma):



A big thanks to Yogesh Sarkar of www.bcmtouring.com. Yogesh helped Shiva plan the ride, chart out the route map, and helped us with places to stay. Yogesh is a walking-talking encylopedia for the Ladakh region.

With 10 days left to go before the trip, the ride fever had caught on. We went about making check lists and ticking off items from them as and when we finished them. The bikes were shipped by courrier and we were flying to Delhi.

We landed in Delhi, and here another big thanks to Karan, Arpan, Chirag and Bawa. Who are they? They are the Royal Beasts, the Delhi chapter of the bullet club. Their hospitality was beyond words. After baby sitting us for a full day, Arpan lead us till the Delhi border on the 292th July morning. We were finally on our way. We were riding to Ladakh!

Day one. We were riding through hell. We went from Delhi through Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh and finally to Himachal in close to 52 degrees of heat. Bilaspur was where we managed to hit the ghats and the temperatures started dropping. Look at the gauge, 49.5 and raising!


We stayed in an awesome hotel some 20kms before Kulu that night. The food was excellent.

Day two: We crossed Manali, and were to cross the famous Rhothang pass. Shortly after our very excited stop for photographs (our first sighting of the snow capped mountains), we hit Rhothang, or rather, the mountain hit us. There was no road to speak of, traffic was extremely heavy, and BRO was laying roads at the same time.

A little before Manali.


Shortly after Manali. Deep valleys and scenic mountain roads.



My fav wallpaper; the white helmet adds to the effect.


Non-existent roads at Rhotang.






Ok, now. Have you ever lost a helmet? Yes, it happened to me, and at the highest place in the world no less. We had descended from Rhotang, and parked for a photograph. We wanted to show you folks the flowing river, and the beauty of the terrain around us. Unfortunately, my stand was resting on soft sand, and slipped. My helmet rolled off the bike mirror, and rolled away into the valley to complete freedom. It was a good 150feet down, and even if I did go down to retrieve it, I would have taken a few hours to get back up. Last good photograph of bike and helmet together:



My helmet currently rests somewhere in this valley. And that, ladies and gentleman, was how I lost my helmet. And not because I went for a dip in the river or some crap like that as was discussed in my absence.