After my Feb 2013 Ride to Kanyakumari, i was very eager to visit the Top of the world or i say once in a life time journey to LEH and Ladhak Vally. its just not only a place but its more to do with my desire to visit both Top and Bottom places of India in one stretch. Although i could not able to do it in single ride due to issues with office leaves and other things [technically speaking one needs at-least 25+ days to do it]. but i was happy that at least i was able to do this ride, not to forget the fact that i was planning for this from couple of years and ended every-time missing it by miles.
Now, Visiting LEH and Ladhak valleys is not just reaching a marked place to say i have been there done that, its more than just a ride or journey. its THE place which tests one's Physical and Mental strengths , its a test of one's WILL to do things which others hesitate. and yes this is true at least for me and add to it, the time constraints. well that's makes a recipe for my greatest once in a life time adventure. and friends let me take you along with me to this adventure, which i will cherish for the rest of my life.
One should also give due respect to all those boys and girls , men and women who done this and who are planning to do it and will do this wonderful journey.
Planning : Planning is not Execution
well planning word doesn't do justice here, its a fact that these rides will take pretty long time to plan and execute for most of us and for me planning started from past 4 years and every time i was backtracked due to many reasons. so last year i made all the arrangements and more than arrangements i made up my mind to do this ride. but again due to my job change, i have to abandon the plan.
This year [2013] i have done Kanyakumari ride of almost 2000km in 4 days and some how i was very sure that this year its gonna happen. from that time onwards i was planning alone mutely and the big problem was the number of days needed. As i had only 10 days in my hand and i had to plan for that only. i tried to ask many of my friends who were riding to LEH and all of them are with 2 full weeks of time.
Time passed and the Manali-Leh roads opened and i was keeping a close watch on these developments. And one day i was delighted to see one mail from my old trekking group and these wonderful people have great taste for adventure and they are also planning for LEH ride and it's there first ride from the BASC [Bangalore Ascenders ] . It given me great opportunity and as many who are interested to ride are OK with only 10 days time frame. and quickly plan developed and everything put in place.
Finally Me,Deepak,Vijay,Rishad,Mahendran,Raghavendra,Kiran,Jatin,Prashanth and Adarsh became Riding group
we decided to start the journey from Chandigarh instead of Delhi to save time and we made plan exactly for 10 days with only 1 day buffer in case any problems arise. and Dates are fixed from July 13 to July 23 and we booked the flights.
It was decided that 5 of us will take our own bike after convincing that taking our own bikes will give us more freedom and confidence. five of us took our own bikes and the rest who were unable to take there bike decided to rent the bikes in Manali.
Day 1 : "All iz well" not really!!
Our Flight was around 8:45AM and we didn't had any problems reaching airport, i took ride with Vijay on the way to airport and that time i didn't had any idea that we both gonna do more riding than others in coming days.
Once reached airport we met rest of the ppl and in total 10 members Eight of us will be taking the same flight. the rest 2 guys will be flying from Delhi to Manali directly via Chandigarh town.
Flight took almost 4 hours with one stop in Mumbai [Yeah, that's what cheap flight tickets will get you]
Once we reached Chandigarh, we decided to collect our Bikes from the warehouse of MMLogistics from who we sent our bikes to Chandigarh, after searching for the warehouse we took lunch break and when we came back, our bikes were standing out of warehouse and at the first look everything seemed ok but after inspecting further we were having shock of our life.
all the bikes were damaged with varying degrees. sadly my R15 took big beating and the Tank on Left hand side was severely dented. and Deepak who brought his pulsar 150 was having even bigger issue that his handle bar is totally bent.
