Chapter -1 -The Adrenaline Rush..

 “The adrenaline rush started when Sumit barged into my cubicle and asked me about the Leh-Ladakh trip”.

A normal day was going on in my office and I was working in spite of the fact that my manager was on leave that day. I was in my manager’s cubicle and I had no idea why Sumit was there. He was not in a very good mood. He said “yaar koi banda he ni mil raha Leh trip k liye”(We need some riders for our Leh Ladakh Trip and we aint getting any) and my spur-of-the-moment reaction was “hello! Mujhse pucha?” (Hello! Why didn’t u ask me ?). That was the moment when i thought that I am going to fulfil my dream of “Leh Ladakh Motorcycle trip”. He asked me twice “Are u sure?” My answers were “pakka” (yes bro!) and “pakka Bhai Done!” (definitely Yeaz!! Done!!).

Sumit told me that vidit is also ready along with his 2 friends. This made the group count = 5, viz. Me , Sumit , Vidit and vidit’s 2 more friends.  We planned to start on the 30^th June ‘12 which was Saturday and we had nearly 3 weeks for preparation of this wonderful expedition. We decided to sit somewhere in the evening and start planning for it. After 2-3 days, we went to 3-C’s(Restaurant) in Lajpat Nagar after office. Vidit emoted a L and said that his 2 friends have backed out of the group coz of personal problems. Now we 3 were left in the group and we didn’t feel good at that time coz “more people, more fun, more safety” was our thought that time.

Meanwhile, I took a rider’s (Rahul) mobile number from royalenfield.com and gave him a call. He was also leaving on 30^th. They were only 2 riders on different bullets. Our group thought to join them as we were first timers but according to Rahul, they were planning to leave very early in the morning (nearly at 2:30) and they will directly ride till manali on the very first day. We thought that riding from Delhi to Manali in a single day will be difficult + tiring for us as Manali is nearly 550 kms from Delhi and the ride includes the hilly region too. So we dropped the idea of joining them and stuck to our group of 3 only. MOM (Minutes of Meeting) was that we will flag off our voyage on 29^th afternoon (nearly at 3:00) and our first pit stop will be a night stay in Chandigarh.

Next day, Sumit and Vidit came to my apartment for further planning of the trip. We started discussing about our pit stops for each night and started noting down the distances between different towns on our way and made different combinations for the night stay. Finally after a 3 hours long discussion over dinner, we will reach LEH on 6^th day of our journey i.e 04^th July ’12 and our night pit stops will be Chandigarh- Manali- Keylong- Darcha- Sarchu- Leh.

The subsequent day, we had another meet up to discuss the route map. After considering the weather and traffic conditions of Delhi afternoons in the month of June, we decided to flag off our journey on 30^th morning rather than 29^th afternoon. We zeroed down our route map to reach Leh and restructured it to Delhi- Sundernagar- Khoksar-Darcha-Sarchu-Leh (our new pit stops).

For us, who were the first timers – it was a necessity to discuss our trip with some experienced person who rode to Leh Ladakh at least once. Luckily, Sumit has a team mate in office, Puneet, who has been riding every year to Leh Ladakh from the past 10 years. We fixed a meeting with Puneet at IN&OUT (next to our office) during office hours. For the first half an hour , Puneet shared his experiences and the difficulties faced by his group during the rides. Puneet suggested a more adventurous route to Leh which connects our planed route after Khoksar.  He asked us to include his route path in our journey to make it more adventurous and thrilling. He also mentioned that his route has limited access to civilization and more prone to problems such as to oneself or the machine, there will be a deeeeelaaaaay in help + you can get a chance to confront with snow leopards on the way. According to him, our route map should be Delhi – Shimla – Kinnaur – Recongpeo – Kaza – Khoksar- Leh.

Keeping in mind the risk+delay involved in the route suggested by Puneet, we considered it and made a Route map-2 for our Journey viz. Delhi- Shimla- Reckongpeo- Kaza- Keylong- Darcha- Sarchu – Leh.

It was 21^st and we had a total of 9 days for preparation and shopping of all the required items and still we were lethargic to go to market. Then suddenly, as Murphy’s law states “If anything can go wrong, it will”, I got the shock of my life when my Manager asked me to go to Odisha on official tour asap. I was out of my senses for some time and called vidit & sumit and asked them to meet me asap. We discussed about the incident and they both were equally shocked. It was decided, that I’ll tell my manager about the money already invested in the trip + the loss we’ll incur if we delay the flag off and I have already communicated about the trip to him one month ago. After saying all the things to my manager, I got a bitter reply “ We cant stop company’s work for your personal endeavours”. Then I realised that I cant be anti-manager right now and I decided to go and booked a ticket in Bhubneshwar Rajdhani for 25^th.

The 3 of us decided to start shopping the same day and left for Okhla in the evening. We managed to reach Carabin Adventures – Okhla on time. There we met their manager, Pankaj, who incidentally has visited Ladakh on his Pulsar 150 in June’10. He shared experience with us and showed us his pics on facebook. The pics were fantabulous and the landscapes in the pics were flabbergasting. I still remember his words, that after reaching Leh the first words we’ll utter sound like “Kahan marne aa gaye hum log”!! (You’ll be damn tired after reaching leh and you’ll say to yourself “why the hell we made this plan!!@#!#”). Pankaj gave a tour of his shop and showed us all the necessary items which we should buy/rent for the tour. We rented 3 sleeping bags and a 4 men tent + we gave our measurements for the jackets( to save our skin from cold).I was looking for options for side carriage for my motorcycle as Vidit & Sumit rented their motorcycles from Tony Bikewala-Karol Bagh and both of the motorcycles had a side carriage, whereas my bullet didn’t have one. I bought a saddle bag from his shop, as I thought it’ll be a better option than carriage. We paid Pankaj an advance of Rs 5000/- and booked all the items and asked him to make them ready by 28^th.

The next day, we went to Tony Bikewala and inquired about our 2 bullets. He said that the bullets will be available on 28^th. While discussing about the trip, tony suggested us to stay in manali for more than 24 hours to get accustomed with the altitude. Tony’s input confused us and we again decided to make a new Route map -3 but we thought to sit some other time for it because of lack of time. Tony gave us the names of the shops in Karol Bagh from which we can buy our riding gears. We went to the first shop – PGS Biking Gears . It was a small shop in the basement, but it had all the necessary items for a motorcycle trip. We thought that the items in the shop were not worth the cost and we decided to go for some other options. Then we went to Mahalaxmi Automobiles, where we bought 3 pairs of elbow guards & knee guards each + 5 bungee ropes for Rs 2200/-. After a struggle of 3 hours in karol bagh and delhi summers, we got many of the things we needed and left for our homes.

The major pending item for the trip now was water proof shoes which we searched in karol bagh and carabin in okhla, but we didn’t taste success. We continued our quest the next day too i.e Saturday , myself and vidit went to Sadar Bazaar – Delhi Cantt as suggested by the guy at Mahalaxmi Automobiles. It took us 3 long hours to buy our shoes which we bought from “Standard Army store” costing us 1000/- per pair. Then we had a plate of “Kulche Chole” each, and i am mentioning it here because it’s worth a try. J.

After a great Saturday evening in Saket , we had a very boring Sunday and luckily I was able to book my Tatkal ticket to Odisha for Monday . All credits to Vidit (Bambosky).  

My train boarding time was 5 o clock in the evening, so I decided to go to Royal Enfield workshop in Tuglaqabad, South Delhi to get my motorcycle ready for the ride. I got my bullet fully checked and serviced which includes:

A.     Engine Oil Change.

B.     Brake oil change.

C.      Clutch plates checked.

D.     Clutch wire change.

E.      Accelerator wire change.

F.      Oil & Air filter change.

G.     Chain Sprocket Checked.

H.    Spark Plugs checked.

I.       Fuse checked.

I also bought an extra:

a.      Clutch Wire

b.      Accelerator Wire

c.       Fuse * 5

d.      Spark Plugs

Just in case.

I got my bullet done by 3, came back home, packed my bags and successfully boarded the train at 5. I’ll skip the Odisha part as it is irrelevant to the topic.

I landed at Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi at 2300 hours on 29^th. I called sumit to pick me up but unfortunately he was in Gurgaon and his motorcycle (which he already rented on 28^th from Tony) was not getting started. We decided to meet at Moolchand paranthe wala and I reached there at 0000. Vidit and Sumit were waiting there on their machines. I tried to kick start Sumit’s bullet and I was successful after 6-7 kicks. We went to Sumit’s place (A- 73 Lajpat Nagar II) and they showed me the shopping they did in my absence. Medical Kits, Sleeping Bags, Tent , Jackets , Saddle Bag and every other minute thing we thought was present at his place that time. We decided that if all the things went right then we will leave the next afternoon.

We woke up late the next morning and to our surprise Sumit’s bullet wont start. All of us wasted one precious hour trying to start the dead machine but was futile. We called a mechanic from Maharaja Bullet wala (lajpat Nagar) and he told us that we need to change its clutch plate. Maharaja Bullet wala is a very reputed Bullet workshop of lajpat nagar so tony told us that he will refund the amount of clutch plate, so we asked the mechanic to change it.

We decided that we’ll test the motorcycles once in the evening and we will flag off the next morning at 5. All the packing was done by 8 in the evening + we had our dinner at 8 30. We check listed everything including the motorcycle working and slept at 0000…………