The Road to the Mighty Himalayas

World is a book and those who do not travel read only a  page.

– St Augustine

[ Pictures at the end of the article ]

[Approx Route Map in sidebar]

Since a long time I had cherished a dream to see my beautiful nation and now that I am being able to earn I make it a point to see some part of it every year. Long time back I made a trip to south India by road. Last year I went to Gangotri, Gaumukh and Tapovan on my bicycle and this year inspired by the last year’s experience I decided to make a trip to Leh again on my bicycle. The purpose of the journey was to explore the place, make relationships with different people, strengthen the will power and to be with the nature.

The journey started with a tough challenge “ 18 hours drive on a local bus from Dehradun to Manali” as it were, nature started preparing me to face a tough challenge which lay ahead.

My arrival at Manali at 12oclock in the night time was not a great thing to happen but still I managed to find a guest house at Nagar ( 20 kms away from Manali ) at a reasonable price and I got a very warm homely welcome at the blue guest house. The couple who owned the guest house were waiting for me as I had informed them beforehand about my arrival and not only that they were ready with dinner!

I was served a delicious and nutritious meal of Rajasthani meat and chapattis. I spent two days at Nagar to remove the tiredness of the bus journey and to acclimatize my body and mind. Thereafter started the most fascinating journey of my life paradoxically filled with thoughts of doubts and self belief .On one side I was thinking whether I will be able to achieve my goal or not and on the other side I was saying to my self that all that I need to do is to believe in my self and keep repeating in my mind the mantra of yes I can, yes I can and I must remember that I have a great power protecting me all the time. I had already realized that God is going to help me under all circumstances and this was made very clear to me by the manner in which I was received at Nagar.

I also had a cycling companion at the inception of my journey. A 57 year old man from Israel. I had a great beginning and succeeded in pedaling continuously for first 22kms, in the meantime I received a call from one of my cycling companion Col Y. Jadon, that really boosted my moral and belief. After doing about 22 kms I looked down towards the valley and ah!

What a feeling it was to look down and then read a sign board “ You are at 10,000 feet” but at this time my cycling companion was nowhere in my sight. I chose to keep moving on. What to say about the place my mind was filled with beautiful adjectives and expressions —–aha!, Wow!, Beauuutiful!, amazing!, …….. at the same time whenever I saw some difficult climbs I was somehow filled with energy and enthusiasm, it was a hard work to go uphill but at the same time it had it’s own fun and thrill.

After 37 kms of the difficult climb comes a small place Marhi which has some dhabas and a place to stay. After having a cup of tea here I chose to move to Rohtang. About 7 kms before Rohtang pass the road is worse than terrible specially for a cyclist, and on top of that you have water melting from glaciers and a huge traffic jam of about 5kms where there are thousands of vehicles.

I did not have a support car behind me as in the case of other cyclists but I had something better – a JCB mover which dropped me at Rohtang where I got a hero’s welcome from some of the tourists, some of them just could not believe that I am attempting to go to Leh on my bicycle. The route ahead of Rohtang pass ( which is at around 13,000 feet ) is very difficult. It is like riding your bike on a brook sometimes the bike was getting stuck and I had to put my feet down in the cold water but at the same time beauty of this place is beyond description the traffic density is very less and I must say that never in my life I had seen anything as beautiful as that.

Those lovely snowcapped mountains, marvelous glaciers a beautiful river flowing in the valley with sun rays shimmering on it. Alas! I could not take too many photographs of this place as I was a bit cautious about the fact that two cyclists from New Zealand had died due to avalanche just a week before my arrival. It took me 3 hours to cover 20 kms on a downhill due to the very bad condition of the road.

After crossing Rohtang pass I stayed at a small village Khoksar thereafter I went to beautiful hill station Keylong which is the capital of Lahaul Spiti province of Himachal Pradesh. Ride till Keylong ( 55kms from Khoksar) was a tough one as most part of the road was broken and the climbs were steep and insensitive drivers added more spice to the flavour by splashing water and blowing mud and diesel smoke on me, how then I remembered words of a great saint “ I asked God for strength and he gave me difficult situations to face ”.

At the same time hard work did not go unacknowledged and I met some good people…… someone gave me a nice warm scarf and suggested me to use it to prevent sun burn, then interestingly I also met a guy by the name of Lobzang who owns a firefox showroom in Kullu. I desperately wanted to get my bike fixed up and finding such a nice professional in a place like Keylong where people hardly ride bicycles was nothing less than a miracle.

The route has five passes Rohtang, Baralacha, Nakeela, Lachalung and Tanglangla, after crossing Baralacha pass( which is at 16000 ft) the next 200kms are above 14000ft. Well I can just go on and on and on in describing the beauty of this place but at the same time I have realized that I have written too much. The most beautiful pass was Baralacha where one can feel the thin air and sharp sun and the next 200 kms were having similar conditions. After crossing this pass one enters a different world altogether a beautiful paved road, nice downhill and splendid beauty. For sometime I could not believe that I was in this place all alone with no body around and that too on my bicycle ah! All this was similar to a fairy tale coming true, the beauty was more than what I expected, and sight of Himalayan Marimots and eagles added more spice to the flavor.

It will not be true to say that everything was easy and beautiful. The route is really challenging and difficult and I did come across some difficult people on the way but majority of them were kind and helpful. Entering Ladakh after completing my journey was a great achievement and prior to that I made a visit to the most famous and the most ancient Hemis Monastery of Leh where I met a Swiss cyclist who has traveled a lot in India and it was for the first time in his life that he came across an Indian cyclist, his name was Christoph and we met each other as if we have been great friend since ages. He gave me some very useful information and guided me to a very lovely guest house at Changspa in Leh.

In the end I will only like to say that the hard work done and the journey I undertook bought me more close to the bigger power, I felt him when I saw those lovely beautiful mountains, amazing landscapes, and more than that when I came across difficulties for whenever I felt anxious helped arrived for me from almost nowhere and these difficulties strengthened me and me realize that there is so much within me waiting to be unfolded ( the gifts given to me by him)……The land of Buddha will remain in my heart forever.

P.S:

Ladakhis are lovely people and they live in very difficult circumstances, their livelihood depends mainly on tourism ( from mid of July till mid October) and recent natural disaster must have added so much to their problems. I would request the reader to do something for them………at least we can pray for their well being. May the spirit of the great Buddha give them the strength to overcome all their adversities with an equanimous mind.

//

TIP : Use the Slideshow & if you are using the CoolIris plugin in FireFox then do use the PicLens

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