2 - Leh Diary - Planning

Link to Part 1

The best routes are the ones you haven't ridden. You could pedal the same loops year after year. Many people do, literally or figuratively. But to grow, you need new rides. Risks. Run down lanes you've long seen but never travelled. Get lost once or twice, then double back to where you started and try again..Live like this and you come to see unknown territory not as threatening, but as intriguing.

-Mark Remy

Month passed and then planning started. Lots of Questions
- To take own bikes from Mumbai or hire? 
- To go to Jammu first and then come down to Leh/Manali or vice-versa? 
- What all to carry? 
- To ride one person per bike (ride lighter) or ride two per bike and take turn at the driving?
- Which route to take?


Initial group of 6 grew to 8 to 11 (and finally 10). Lots of unanswered questions and maze of information out there on internet. Amid lots of confusing/conflicting suggestions / views, it was decided to hire a bike. It was not a decision by choice but only feasible option (or so we thought) - railways told that they can not guarantee that bikes will travel on the same train as that of us. Only 5 bikes per train are allowed and it all depended on luck (~ under-the-table dealings) on that day even luggage (bikes) booked in advance ! 


Then, through some friends, got contact of the person (cousin of friend) who deal in renting the bikes from Dharamshala. Lots of negotiations and permutations went on fixing itinerary. Comfort seeking character in me also found a good deal for back-up vehicle and mechanic for the whole trip, which was promptly shot-down by the rest of group. All was  finalized and we were ready to pay the advance when someone came-up with 'I'm too short to drive Enfield (bullet). Let's look at some other smaller options - avenger, pulsar etc.' After going through other options, we felt that it was too risky to book it blindly with other dealers and better to go with the first option. A call to him revealed that 'all bikes are now booked'. So another decision was (automatically) made to test drive few bikes from dealers in Manali on the first reserve day and then select the best possible *.


Lots of check-lists were made and scraped. Lots of views were thrown on a possible items to be bought and equally justifiable how those will be useless on the tour. Lots of emails going back & forth and nothing concrete! We finally met at Puru's house in last week of May and decided on the tentative route to take and also kept lots of optional routes depending on the weather/landslides etc. See below.



Preferred route

	Distance	Arrivval	Dep
Chandigarh		24-Jun	24-Jun
Manali		25-Jun	26-Jun
Rohtang La	54	26-Jun	26-Jun
Jispa	84	26-Jun	26-Jun
Sarchu	80	26-Jun	27-Jun
Pang	77	27-Jun	28-Jun
Leh	184	28-Jun	30-Jun
Kargil	257	30-Jun	30-Jun
Drass	61	30-Jun	1-Jul
Srinagar	141	1-Jul	3-Jul
Jammu	296	3-Jul	5-Jul
Manali	400	6-Jul	6-Jul

Optional Routes included rides via spiti-valley, trip to Tso Moriri, tours to two other lakes which are visible on Google maps but not on the other trip routes and so on. But further search revealed that travelling to/through these routes require additional permits and hence lots of optional venues were dropped. The last line in the plan above was added almost towards the end May as most of the bike rentals in Manali not prefer to collect bikes from Jammu / Leh / even chandigarh or quote insane money say 15k PER BIKE (even all he will do is to hire a truck and load ALL bikes and get back to Manali in less than 15k).

Still to be decided was list of items to buy/carry which could not be finalized till last week and hence we were forced to buy lots of items in Manali on the reserve day for bike hiring & testing. The finalized list of personal gear included obvious items T-Shirt, Jean, first aid kit, jacket and strategically avoiding contentious issues like shoes, riding gloves, saddle bags, rain coat, knee/elbow guards etc (some of which were bought in Manali after further discussion). Somewhere deep down I thought that the planning was not sufficient to take on worlds three highest motor-able road (passes) on yet to be decided bikes ! 





*Hiring the bikes after seeing the actual condition and test drive turned out to be one of the best things

1 - Leh Diary - Three months before.....

"A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter."*

One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us, but still one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy? I don not think so. And then one asks: My God! Is it for long, is it for ever, is it for eternity? Do you know what frees one from this captivity? it is very deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by supreme power, by some magic force -- Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, July 1880

sometime in March 2012....

The phone call was not out-of-blue, but still got me rattled. Its one of those things which we like to talk but not dare to take a plunge, really. Under the mask of confidence & brevity, I used to talk about the desire to take the trip to Leh on a bike, knowing somewhere deep down that one way or the other, it will not happen. So the feelings when he asked me if he can book the tickets were all mixed
- Excitement
- Apprehension
- Thrill
- Anxiety
- And above all Neophobia


We've been talking about taking this trip since last two years, and I had successfully (?) managed to skip two of the earlier trips - not biking excursions but treks in Himalayas because of one or the other reasons. I could not really think of any convincing reason this time around and asked him to book the tickets. 


Even at that time, somewhere in the back of mind there was a assurance that something will come-up (official trip, some one coming from abroad, etc) and I will be able to 'miss' the trip and be safe in my comfort zone. As the days passed by, and the day Zero nearing, I thought of hiding behind family reasons (Sapna-wife), but even she said that its just two weeks and she will be able to manage without me as she has done many times on my official trips in past. 


So there I was, without anything to hide behind. It got me thinking - I was never like this (or at-least that's how I always pictured myself): I was the one who supported the idea of spending a night in the Melghat jungles (Seemadoh), I walked over 60 kms in one night without any second though in the jungles of Chikhaldara, I cycled over 170 kms in a day (in Holland) with prior experience of max 25 km/day... where did it started to go wrong. Am I getting too old to experience adrenalin rush? Is becoming a father making me just too much cautious? Or I'm just getting used to my comfort zone and hiding behind these superficial intellectual reasons (probably true) !


It got me thinking. What will it be like to ride solo on Himalayan roads. How will I cope with the extreme hot & cold conditions at the same time.  What about the bikes. I've not rode more than 150 kms/day in my whole life and that too on good highways. What about the high altitude sickness. Questions, Questions and some more. It all made me nervous.


On the brighter side - I though of thrill the ride will be.I imagines the picturesque terrains**. I hear the sound of air moving through the mountains and water flowing down-hill. I'm quite young (relatively) and it will be  opportunity missed if I don't do it now. And its 'just' two weeks. Lets go for it !



---
* Journey of Magi - TS Eliot
**  To tell you the truth the reality was thousand times better than my imagination