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My destination was Leh (at 11,483 ft above sea level), capital of Ladakh, 994 km from Delhi. I had started out early in the morning from Delhi to escape the city traffic.
It was quite on the familiar, house-packed blue-grey streets, but as I crossed the city border and took to the highways, the world began looking different. It was flat and it was straight, and at the speed I was going, the concept of colour was soon lost and things turned just black and white as they would to a dog.
Although my first stop was reasonably scheduled to be Chandigarh, 259 km from Delhi, I chose to push my luck. The going was good, the road smooth like a silk ribbon, and my body was taking the Bullet well. I revved past Chandigarh to Mandi (343 km from Delhi) up in the hills by evening.
Mandi is a peaceful place compared to Manali, which is crowded round the year with tourists. It is a good place to take a break in a long trip. You feel rested up there in the mountain air and if you take a walk to stretch your bones you will not be jostling for space with tourists.
The ride gets headier as you go up and takes a more dramatic turn from Rohtang La (13,051 ft), the first of the five high mountain passes before you reach Khardung La (18,382 ft), the second highest motorable place in the world. The highest is said to be Marsimik La (around 18, 582) which may not be called motorable.
The road is dangerously slippery with the melting snow, and you need to reign in your heroic instincts. Add to this low visibility which keeps dropping as you climb higher. The road is frequently in a state of disrepair.
The consistent high point is the splendid vistas that surround you no matter where you stop to see. And cutting through the rocks and the rough terrain is the furiously fast Chandra River.
After Sissu, comes Keylong (at 10,354 ft). Once you enter Keylong, you can forget civilisation as you know it. The terrain is among the toughest on earth. Both you and your machine will be tested sorely. To make things truly interesting, high altitude sickness also kicks in. If you are in serious trouble at Keylong, there is a primary health centre. But a doctor may or may not be available depending on your horoscope. If your Bullet has developed a flat tyre, mechanics too are on call. Anything more serious and you just start praying and hoping for a miracle.
Tandi, before Keylong, is crucial to your journey. It is the last place you can get petrol, and Keylong is the last place to get some decent food and shelter, before Leh, 361 km away. So fill up, eat up and stock up.
Once you pass Baralacha La (16,040 ft) which means Big Pass, the mountains and cliffs glitter with ice and snow. Big Pass is home to Suraj Tal from where Bhaga river originates. River Chandra also stems from a glacier in the same region. Both tributaries join to form the Chandrabhaga, or Chenab river.
Before you reach Leh, you will pass through More Plains (at 13,123 ft) after Pang. And by around this time, the road is all but gone. It is just rocks and mountains all round. You will see no trace of water or vegetation or animals. Military trucks carrying supplies for soldiers raise periodic storms of dust. And a fair amount of that goes into your lungs.
More Plains is frighteningly flat and stretches all the way to the horizon. The breadth of this plateau is baffling. There are several instances of people getting lost here, as altitude sickness constricts your ability to think or drive straight. Luckily, there are the Tso Kar tribesmen who live here and they are a great help.
The bad boy of mountain passes, Tanglang La (17,582 feet) awaits those who survive Pang. The 21 hairpin loops that take you up there often make you sick. But you need to negotiate them to reach where you want to go. The road till here is uniformly bad, though.
After Tanglang La the ride is a breeze. A short tea-break at Upshi (at 11,893 ft) and then on, the ride to Leh is absolutely fun. The roads developed by the army are good for you and your machine. And the route is dotted with spell-binding Buddhist Monasteries.
Once in Leh, take a day off to get used to the weather and altitude. You can think about riding up to Khardung La (at 18,382 ft or 5,682 m) which is still some 40 km away from Leh city, if you have recovered from the trip, which is unlikely.
Barren and tree-less, Leh’s is a different kind of beauty. The Leh Palace, and the monasteries dotting the place give it a surreal feel, as if you have come upon an extraterrestrial, alien city.
Riding all the way up from the plains to Khardung La has been my dream all my life. My buying a Bullet was a way of realizing the dream. But I had achieved it. And I had done it against heavy odds. Rough weather, tough terrain and rarefied air. I had spent two nights at high altitudes before I finally made it. My team members had to be admitted to hospital, and could not complete the journey. I was proud to have conquered the Everest of motorcyclists.
After spending five days in Leh, with two days spent in visits to the hospital, the journey back started. We chose to return by the Srinagar-Jammu route, and for two reasons. First, one, Kashmir had been a mystery since childhood, and wanted to visit it even if it was in passing. For another, the roads, we were told, were better.
The descent was like gliding down the road. But you need to be careful as the steep slope can make the wheels touch 60kmph without any throttle.
Our first stop was Kargil (at 9,000 ft). The initial stretch of road from Leh to Kargil is surprisingly smooth. And we sped along. You noticed that the colours of the stone mountains were strange. They appeared purple and violet because of their magnetic properties.
The contrast of the mountains with the pure blue sky and the muddy but fast flowing Indus down the valley was drastic.
We stopped at Khalatse (11,296 ft) on the old main road from Leh. Apart from serving good food, the town boasts of the first castle ever built in the Indian subcontinent by Dard kings. The people of Dard origin claim to have the purest Aryan blood line. After Khalatse the road vanished again.
The greener shades of the earth we are familiar with begin to be visible after the scenic Fotu La (13,480 ft) on the Srinagar-Leh highway in the Himalaya’s Zanskar Range.
On our way to Sonamarg, army convoys and patrolling troops became a common sight. Since the 1999 war, the army is on standby mode. No matter how harsh the weather, they stay there. And at Zoji La the workers of the Border Roads Organisation told us that from now on the road would be smooth till Delhi, which for the most part turned out to be true.
When we finally got back to the chaos and the humdrum life of Delhi on the sixth day, I had that old sinking feeling. Already I was missing the mountains. But I had experienced freedom of the road first hand and that memory was enough to keep me going for a while.
As Paulo Coelho said, when you desperately want something the entire universe conspires to help you. It happened in my case. All I ever wanted was to go to Leh by bike. And then the Bullet had come along and the rest was just a matter of time. I did have to wait long, but it did happen.
So I ask myself the question, am I better for the experience? And the answer is,Yes. It is a great feeling to be free for a while from the clamour of the world. You are not required to respond to the usual, mechanical demands of the world, which measures you in terms of your usefulness to its requirements. You are on your own and you live for yourself. If that is freedom, the days on the Bullet on the road to Leh were the best I ever lived. The road is where freedom is. And the wind in the mountains is cold.
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