Motorcycle Diaries - Manali to Leh 2015 (Part I)

Suggestions

We sent the pictures of our driving license to the motorcycle

renting place so that he could get the necessary permits for the trip to Leh.  We got this permit on the Independence day, so the permit office never closes, I guess.

New Manali is very crowded and mostly shopping but heard that the old Manali is a better place to hangout.  If you have spare time, go to the Old Manali.

Renting the bike took more than two hours because involved testing the vehicle, getting the necessary paper work, getting the right size helmets, etc.

Since I traveled from Leh to Srinagar and Manali to Leh, I could confidently say that the road from Manali to Leh is more scenic, especially the the Jispa valley area is really awesome.

Rain boots and tarpaulin sheets to cover your luggage are very essential for the trip.  You won’t be able to predict the weather (as any mountain weather is not predictable), so plan to wrap your luggage so that you don’t have 

run out of warm cloths.  If you don’t have waterproof gloves, get a few surgery gloves to wear on top of gloves to make it waterproof.

Pack whatever you need for the next day or two on your ride to Leh in a smaller bag that can be easily accessible.  Unpacking and repacking the whole luggage is a time consuming thing.  Take a kerchief to cover your nose and mouth, the road after Zing Zing

Bar gets more dusty and the trucks generate so much fume, covering your nose/mouth will be a better thing to do.

Unless you are a hardcore bike rider, I would suggest riding one way from Manali to Leh and return back to your home from Leh.  The better option is to ride from Srinagar to Leh and then Leh to Manali, both these options will cost you additional drop off charges.

Appreciation

Big salute Border Road Organization (BRO) for keeping the road as good as it is based on the remoteness and rugged condition of the landscape.  Heard from the driver that they are building a tunnel to avoid the Rohtang pass which will enable year around travel along this route.

My Journey

Five Star Daba with 2000 people

On the way to Manali from Delhi the driver wanted to stop the car for chai in a famous daba in the outskirts of Delhi.  When we stopped at the daba at 2am, I realized that it’s not a regular daba but a special place that could accommodate about 2000 people at the same time.  We had to wait for 10 minutes at Amrik Sukhdev before getting a table.  We decided to have dinner there instead of just having a chai because we wanted to enjoy the party scene.  The crowd was going wild and shouting every time when the electric power went off for a fraction of a section and came back.  Couldn’t believe that the the city was active at 2am.

Leaving Manali

We wanted to leave Manali very early in the morning but the

packing and waterproofing our luggage took more time, and we left the hotel around 7am.  We had to come back to hotel within 5 minutes to collect the oil bottle that we left in the hotel.  As soon as we left Kothi after our leisurely breakfast, the rain showers started and continued until we reached the Rohtang pass, by that we were wet and cold.  It was completely cloudy, rainy and the visibility was bad, but the roads are reasonably good except in a few places before Kothi (where one of us almost fell down).

Passing Rohtang Pass

We noticed a few people taking oil from a rolled over tanker in the Rohtang pass.  After having some hot coffee in Rohtang pass, we started to continue our trip.  We continue to discuss whether to make the trip in two days or take three days.  The roads started to get worse after the Rohtang pass and we had to cross a few water runoff on the road.  One of our friends almost

dropped the bike in the water in one such crossing but managed to save. Coming down from the Rohtang pass was a very bad in a mud road for about 20km.  

Keylong is the only place in the highway that has some concrete hotels/guest houses and in other places on this road, all of the stays are in tented camps.  So don’t assume that Sarchu or Pang will have good hotels, they have only tented accommodations.  Knowing of Sarchu mentioned in a number places, we expected that it’d be bigger town but it is not.  Since we reached Jispa earlier, around 4pm, we thought that we could go still further to stay in a place called Zing Zing Bar without realizing that it’s in a higher elevation than Sarchu.  This place was recommended by one of the taxi driver that we met on the way.  

No Bar in Zing Zing Bar

Zing Zing Bar is located in a nice place with beautiful views but there is no bar only tented campsites.  Since none of us realized that it’s in a higher elevation than Sarchu, we did feel better except one of us who felt little giddy so went to take rest.  We met two guys in the ZZBar who were returning from Leh about the road conditions to Sarchu and they recommended that we don’t continue our ride to Sarchu but to stay in ZZBar because of the bad road conditions and storm conditions at the Baralacha La pass.  Since we were already wet and cold, we didn't want to take the risk of going through the storm late in the evening.  But the next day on our ride to Sarchu, we found out that the roads were not as bad as those guys mentioned and there's no sign of rain either.

We booked three beds for Rs. 150/each for the night and went to

sleep around 9pm after dinner in the tent.  Surprisingly, the weather was not that cold.  After the open air toilet in the morning (that my friends refused to use the toilet paper and decided to wait for the proper restroom) with the beautiful view of the sunrise and waterfalls, we left for Leh around 7am.

Crossing the Passes

Today, we were crossing four passes, Baralacha La Pass (16,500 ft), Nakee La Pass (15,500 ft), Lachulung La Pass (16,600 ft) & Tangland La Pass (17,400 ft), and every time you cross the pass, the roads gets very tricky.  We had more water crossings ’til we reached Pang and the roads after Pang were pretty good.  But until we reached Pang we had tough time overtaking the trucks and navigating in the water runoffs.  After experiencing going down

with the bike that I was pillion a couple of times (luckily no major injuries), I gave up the idea of riding the bike in that road.  The scenery from ZZBar to Pang and beyond is breathtaking, the camera couldn’t capture the true beauty of the scenery.  There’s not much civilization on the Manali highway(!) to Leh.  

Decision Time at Upshi

We stopped at Upshi around 7pm for dinner and discussing whether

to continue to Leh but unfortunately the headlights in one of the bikes was not working so we gave up going to Leh that night (after riding about 10miles with the help of the headlights from the other bike).  The next day morning we left early to Leh and arrived Leh around 9am.  Except the first day rain, we had a perfect weather in the second day.

We parked our bike in Leh and decided to rent a car to go around to save time and energy. Both the riders were tired of riding.