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New Delhi - Chandigarh - Manali - Leh
Entry 17 of 40 | show all | print this entry |
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Itinary : New Delhi - Chandigarh - Manali - Keylong - Pang - Leh
Dates : 28th October to 2nd november 2007
mileage in India : 2000 km
mileage so far : 8850 km
After a good night rest in New Delhi where we shared a room in the intercontinental, we headed north where we stopped first in Chandigarh for a night before reaching Manali. The road from Chandigarh to Manali is superb! I thought that the 108 road in Thailand was as good as it gets if you take road condition, scenery, traffic and turns in consideration but this Chandigarh-Manali road is at least equalling it in my ranking, or even better maybe! On our way to Manali, we stopped on the road when we saw a party going on...on the top of a bus! Had no choice but to join and it reminded me the good old school days...
We arrived in Manali at around 6 pm and it gave me just enough time to visit the town and try to find someone that could give me a few information on this loop that I was planning to do the next day. Kevin stayed back in the room to rest. So I quickly shifted into my "hiker" outfit that I wisely invested in when in Kathmandu...Manali is at 2000 meters in altitude and it was 0 degrees when we arrived at 6 pm...I first went to the lobby to enquire the front desk manager about this road. As we were discussing, he interrupted the conversation when he saw one of the local guides walking trough the lobby and making his way to the hotel cafeteria to meet his customers. Sorry for his customers but we spent about 30 minutes together discussing this "Manali - Leh - Kargil - Srinagar - Jammu - Dharamsala". He spoke very good English and we went into a lot of details about the hotels, petrol, road, weather, food, safety, riding time, altitude,...And I came out of this encounter telling myself that this is far more difficult than I thought...Basically, he told me that the road was closed at this time of the year (it closes on the 15th of September), that the hotels are closed, that we had to sleep in food tents that are on the road for the truck drivers, that the weather is starting to get extremely cold and to turn back if the weather gets bad, that we had to bring some water reserve and dry food in case we don't find anything on the road, that there were 3 passes at 3970, 5100 and 5300 meters that can be difficult to get trough at this time of the year before reaching Leh...He added that it's 20 hours to reach Leh and after that it's 10 hours riding days between two "decent" towns...Or even longer as he was not aware of the state of the road and that it was possible that some roads could be "broken" like he said...The best advice he gave me was to ask the people in the towns where I stopped as I moved on and enquire them on the next leg of the trip...Hmm...A lot of unknowns I thought...Nevertheless I managed to build a handmade road map which will be my guideline for the next week...My life depends on this piece of paper...
After thanking him for his precious information, I went to visit the little town of Manali, where I was thinking of buying a pair of gloves and maybe grab something decent to eat. Well the town is small and the restaurants didn't look too welcoming, so I lingered in town thinking about this road and what the guide had just told me...When I was planning the itinerary in Singapore, this route was suppose to be one of the main highlights of the whole journey...And I told myself that after having managed to make it all the way up to here, there was no way I would turn around...And when I bumped into this signboard at one of the junctions in town, my decision to go was final...
When I went back to the room where Kevin was resting from an exhausting day, I told him exactly what the guide had told me a couple of hours ago, without minimizing anything as it was a serious issue. Kevin was already hesitating to go a few days ago and I managed to convince him a first time, but after hearing what the guide had told me, he started to seriously read the "lonely planet" about this route and it was even more pessimistic! The lonely planet talked about smashed roads, that some roads were one way because it was too narrow with serious drop-offs, some lost shells in Kargil due to the fighting, altitude sickness, the freezing cold at this time of the year, snow...It mentioned as well that the area between Kargil and Srinagar is the 2 second coldest place in the world after a place in Syberia...Kevin had a bit of altitude sickness in Nepal and after gathering all the information, his decision was to start to do a bit of the road with me and that when he started to feel uncomfortable, he would go back down to Dharamsala and we would meet there in a week.
The next morning, we woke up early to fill-up the tanks and grab some money for the coming week. It was a cold but sunny day with a clear blue sky...What a day to start this loop! As we were setting up our bikes in front of the hotel, we bumped into a german guy who knew this area quite well for coming every year to drive his 4x4 and he said we were nuts to do this road, especially at this time of the year, so Kevin came back on his decision and preferred to not even try starting the road, but rather to head down straight away instead. It's an adventure within the adventure and he thought that it was maybe too much for him, especially that he is now aware of being sensitive to altitude and more likely to suffer from altitude sickness...
He concluded that I was a crazy Frenchman to do this road, even more by myself, and suicidal to do it at this time of the year...
So off I went on my own and my first stop would be in Keylong, which is about 120 km from Manali. The day didn't start too well for me as I straight away dropped the bike twice in the space of 5 mins after riding on ice patches! Lucky for me there was a convoy of jeeps bringing Indian tourist to the first pass which is at 40 km from Manali and they could help me lift up the bike...The road to the first pass is a bumpy one, with gravel, mud, sand, ice, stones,...but the scenery was incredible! I was amazed on how dry this place was. I have to say that it's a good thing that I had a brief experience on dirt bikes because you really need to have some off-road "feel" to do this road...Plus the GS is heavy and running rich because of the altitude, so you have to be somehow "comfortable" with riding bikes...
When I arrived at the first pass at 3970 mtrs called Rohtang, there was a sort of rest area where I could grab a quick milk tea before heading my way to Keylong. This place is like nothing I've seen before...Funny to see a dry flat land at 4000 meters...
When I saw the state of the road I had just done, I decided not to hang out too long in this rest area and to move on as I realized that my pace was really slow...Didn't ride too quickly tough...Especially when I saw this truck in the river...
When I arrived in Keylong which is at 3500 meters in altitude, it was dead! There was one hotel open (or they opened it for me?) along the road for the truck drivers to rest for the night...So I took out my sleeping bag and shared my room with my fellow truck drivers for 50 cents...That's really all it was worth...Was freezing in the room! When in the luxurious dining area, I had a chat with one of the locals on the next leg and he confirmed what the guide in Manali had told me...I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't get any symptoms of altitude sickness as I went from 200 meters to 4000 meters in 2 days. Good...
I left very early the next day and by 6h30 am I was on the road...I knew it was going to be a long day with 3 passes at 5000 meters and if everything goes well, it's a 12 hours ride to Leh. The only problem is that it was minus 6 degrees when I left and there was a lot of ice on the road but I learned my lesson from the previous day and the secret is to...GO SLOW! I would ride on the ice at walking speed or even slower and it did the trick...Didn't drop the bike the whole day!
By 8h30 am it was bright and sunny again, and I could enjoy this fantastic landscape while making my way up to the second pass which is at 5100 meters. The way up was rather "stony" and when I was about to reach the pass, the road was all of a sudden like a billiard table! Although there was snow on the side, it felt good to ride on tarmac again and not jumping all over the place...
I started to feel uncomfortable when making my way up to this first pass of the day...I was starting to have a headache and I was spitting blood so I decided to hurry my way up to the top in order to go back down as fast as possible on the other side. The only way to really cure altitude sickness is to go back down...I continued drinking a lot of water as I knew it could help prevent altitude sickness as well and I was drinking 5 liters of water per day since I left Manali. When I reached the top, I stopped for a quick picture and the blood in my throat had disappeared but my headache was still present, so I hurried my way back on the bike to ride down on the other side of the pass...Unfortunately, there's 2 more passes to do before reaching Leh and by the time I reached the second pass, I was really in bad shape. When I reached the other side of the pass, hoping it would be going down, I only discovered more mountains with a plateau at 4500 meters and the road was not going down at all...
I basically stayed between 4500 and 4900 meters for another 40 km before reaching a "food tent" where I stopped to assess the situation and view my options. I was really not ok...The blood in my throat was back again, my head was hurting really bad, I started vomiting my guts out and was loosing my balance...I didn't have much options...Turning back was impossible as I was heading straight back up and a 6 hours ride to go back to Keylong, continuing was impossible as well as I had another 6 hours ride to Leh with the second highest motorable road in the world at 5300 meters. So my only option was to stay put, sleep in the food tent and hope for the best...It was a horrible experience and one of the scariest. I really didn't think I would live to see another day to be frank. To the point where I asked the only truck driver there if he could toe my bike and bring me to Leh in the night but he was going in the opposite direction...I really needed to go down as the symptoms were getting worse...I really didn't expect to get altitude sickness as I was fine the previous day at 4000 meters and I slept at 3500 in Keylong without noticing any symptoms...Well I read that one of the symptoms is uncontrollable farting and I couldn't take that as a reliable symptom...So I tried to take some panadol for the headache and some stomach pills to help reduce the vomiting...And hopefully after a good sleep I would feel better the next day to ride the bike down to Leh. That night turned out to be one the most difficult night of my life...Here I was with a massive headache, vomiting all over the place and to top it all up, the tent had no heater, no electricity and of course no fire inside the tent so I almost froze alive...The tent was at 4600 meters in altitude and it was minus 15 inside the tent when I went to bed! I was wearing 1 shirt, 1 polo shirt, 2 sweaters, my bike jacket with the Gore-Tex inner lining, stockings, the bike pants with the Gore-Tex inner lining, 2 socks, a hood and my full body rain suit before jumping in my sleeping bag on which the hosts added 3 thick blankets on me...The blankets were so thick and heavy I couldn't move...I was still cold so they kindly slid 2 hot water bags on my feet and inside my jacket...But then it became a nightmare when I had to go to pee every 2 hours because I drank so much water during the day...Took me an hour to pee! I had to get myself out of the blankets in the dark without waking up the owners that were sleeping just beside me, make my way out of the tent with no torch light, find an area outside not too close from the tent but not too far as well so that I could find my way back, then remove my 6 zippers in order to access my "little brother" which you can imagine was not easy to find being exposed to this freezing temperature...When the wild dogs started growling around me, I knew it was time to interrupt my toilet session and head back to the tent...Couldn't wait to get out of this place!
The next morning, I woke up at 6 am with very little sleep but I was feeling better although my head was still hurting...I have been carrying this headache for 18 hours now and couldn't wait to jump on the bike, to do this pass at 5300 and head down to Leh which is at 3500 meters...And surprise, after taking my bike out of the tent where I parked it for the night, I tried starting it and it couldn't start! The petrol had frozen!
So I pushed the bike under the sun where it would get a bit of heat...And after pouring a couple of buckets of boiling water on the engine, the bike finally started...The clutch was a bit sticky because of the fluid had frozen as well...While I was letting the bike run in order to build up some heat and reach operating temperature, I had a quick picture with one of the tata trucks that just arrived for a break...(before it hits me!)
On my way to the second highest motorable pass in the world, I crossed what looked like Nevada desert but at 4700 meters and minus 12 degrees! After 60 km of this super dry landscape where I could speed (took off with my two wheels in the air! With a 400 kg bike it was not a comfortable experience...), I finally started the 15 km ascent to the Taglangla pass where I did a quick breakfast stop along the road with tata truck drivers. I offered them chocolate biscuit in exchange for some hot tea...Was so happy to have reached it that I almost forgot my headache! I still didn't drag it too much and drove down to 3500 meters where my headache disappeared...Finally...I had been carrying this headache for 24 hours and it was killing me...For those of you that are not aware, altitude causes the brain to swell and fluids to go into your lungs which results in you having the symptoms that I mentioned earlier, and can be fatal if not taken care of. To be honest, I thought that my skull was much bigger than my brain and that I had more than enough space to let my brain swell...I guess my head is full and I'm more intelligent than I thought...
On my way down, I was thinking that I was maybe a very lucky man to have survived this past 2 days...Especially when I saw this truck a few meters down the road...Altitude sickness???
Finally, I was back in a reasonable altitude on my way to Leh where I would enter the kashmir state. When I entered the state I immediately felt the military presence where I crossed a lot of camps which I suppose are here to guard the fragile borders with Pakistan and China. The landscape is like a high altitude desert and this region is apparently the most remote and sparsely populated region of India. The landscape is fantastic where you can see the Himalaya range. The main purpose of my visit to Leh is to ride the highest motorable road in the world which is 40 km north-east of Leh and you need a special permit from the local authorities to do this road. I understood that the military wants to monitor who is going trough those roads. So I'm thinking of staying one extra day so that I can apply for the permit and get to ride this road which brings you to a pass at 5370 meters! Kevin is putting pressure for me to hurry up and meet him so that we can head to Pakistan but I told myself that I'm 40 km away from this road and I can't just leave without having done it...So I will be 2 days late from our scheduled meeting at Dharamsala...
The owner of the hotel has applied it for me and will let me know tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed! Nevertheless if I can't get the permit, Leh is a beautiful town with a few things to see around, and I wouldn't mind staying a day here to rest from the difficult past 2 days. Leh and Ladhak are the main areas where refugees from Tibet come to escape from China's pressure, and you can really feel it straight away when you arrive in this state where you start seeing a lot of monasteries, Tibetan restaurants, Buddhist schools, meditation centers and you can't help noticing the Tibetan people roaming around with their particular outfit.
The next day, the hotel owner rang my hotel room at 9 am to inform me that the permit was issued and that I could go! Yes! He still let me know that it was not an easy task, that he had to use a friend because normally you have to be a minimum of 4 people and you have to take a jeep organized by the travel agency...So when he handed me the permit, there were 3 other names on the list. So he just told me to tell the militaries at the checkpoints that my 3 other German friends are sick...
The road up to Khardungla pass is really nice...The road is good until the last 14 km of the 40 km long ascent and there are shit loads of army trucks doing this road to bring goods to the different camps along the china borders. I must have overtaken maybe 30 trucks in 40 km! The only checkpoint on my way up was a trouble free one and I could have probably gone trough without stopping...Once I reached the pass, I managed to take a couple of picture and headed down quickly as my head was aching again...Spent the rest of the day, riding around Leh and I shifted hotel as the one I stayed in was overpriced...Oh and bought a proper minus 20 degrees sleeping bag as I heard that there were no 5 star hotels in Kargil, Srinagar and Jammu...
Tomorrow, heading for Kargil...Where the war over Kashmir between India and Pakistan was held in 2002. Apparently it's calm at the moment and it should be safe to go...
I have normally done the hardest in term of road, temperature and altitude...Will Skip Dharamsala and go straight to Amritsar to meet Kevin. He's been waiting for me to cross the pakistan border...So the Dalai Lama will be for another time...Anyway I didn't take any appointment and he's a busy man...
Latest Comments (5)
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advertising on my blog (reply)
Nov 29, 2007 11:33 EST by caprile
Dear all, I have been having a few problems with this travel agent that keeps posting advertisements on my travelpod. I keep deleting the posts but they seem to be very persistent and putting it back each time I erase them. I have not been contacted by this organization nor consulted prior to their posts and I find it rather rude. I update this travelpod as often and as accurately as possible so t... show all
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meriyatra.in (reply)
Nov 27, 2007 05:21 EST by tmushtaq
You can book your hotel online for many places like Jammu, Kashmir, Katra, Patnitop, Leh, Manali and may more places for more details and booking please visit
http://www.meriyatra.in
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bravo!!!! (reply)
Nov 5, 2007 07:11 EST by michelrobco
Bonne route a toi Chris
content d'avoir eu de tes nouvelles au telephone
bises/ le Chef
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Crazy Brother! (reply)
Nov 3, 2007 10:52 EST by saprile
Hey Chris! Just want to say that I am really proud of you and happy that you were able to do this road because I know it was your dream and it came true! But in the same time happy it is over because it was stressful not to have any news from you! Felicitation Chris et continu ton magnifique voyage en moto! Take care and I can't wait to see you in France so you can tell me all about it!! Je t'embr... show all
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1150GSPeter (reply)
Nov 3, 2007 08:36 EST by 1150gspete
Yeez, if you survive all this I really want to meet you one day in Singpore
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| 17. | New Delhi - Chandigarh - Manali - Leh - Leh, India Nov 02, 2007 (  43 ) (  5 ) |
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