Day 3 - Towards Keylong via the first pass Rohtang Pass

8th July 2008

Got up in the morning at 6.30am and then kicked everyone to get up...the guys were so lazy! Today was an exciting day as we finally get into the mountains via the Rohtang pass to Keylong the halt for the day.

The target of starting at 7am didn't materialise as most of the guys weren't keen on moving fast and then we had a great breakfast of bread / toast / omlette and chai which made it even longer and we then packed our bags and tied it on the bikes then the usual photo sessions with local kids and the scenery and finally we started for Keylong via Manali at 9.20am in the morning with the sun beating down on us mercilessly :)

The 40km route from Kullu to Manali was great just with some events like purvesh rushing into Saurabh's bike with his cage and Saurabh falling down at a signal :) - we reached Manali at 10.30am and then tanked up fuel at an HP outlet. Someone said they want to visit the Hidimba temple in Manali and so off we went to visit the temple. The road to the temple was steep and narrow and Vishal / Abhijeet were constantly stalling their pulsar on the narrow road coz of the steepness. Finally we reached the Hidimba temple and the guys went to have darshan ... I didnt go in and stood out there on my bike , Nikhil who went to have oil filled in the bike came and he too didnt have any interest in the temple so we both chatted away while the others visited the temple.

Finally at around 12pm they came back and we started on the road to Rohtang. Crossed the bridge over the beas river and went left , got some water bottles for the way and zoooooooom. Came across a board saying Leh 474km , Keylong 120km and other distances and finally got into the gruelling ride up hill to Rohtang pass.

After 4-5 km came across Rohalla falls - amazing falls falling from a great height...went further and found Amit tailing me on his Unicorn. We went together upto Gulaba where we found a small hotel - hut where we decided we would stop for lunch and everyone to group before going ahead. Rohtang was now 30km now. The roads were good upto Gulaba.

The view around was amazing and we had a nice timing clicking pics of the green nature and the snow clad mountains. Had an amazing lunch of maggi , tea , omlette and cold drinks. Deepak took fancy for a long winter overcoat and had photographs taken in them , he sure looked funny :)

Finally after stuffing ourselves we started again , the time now reading 1.00pm. Just some distance ahead we found a landslide prone area with a truck stuck and little room for 2 wheelers to squeeze through. Squeeze we did and went ahead to see more of four wheelers and buses stranded and the BRO (border roads organization) guys repairing a part of the road. Being 2 wheelers we were let through ahead. The roads were ok and then the steep twisties began ahead. At one point we encountered water flowing on the road. Nikhil went ahead and got stuck in the stones in the middle of the water. I got down and pushed him ahead and he went ahead, then I crossed the water , this was just the beginning of the water crossings and we anticipated more ahead. The scenery was breathtaking all over and we were just riding enjoying it.

In sometime the road became narrow and steep but it was ok to ride on it and at one point the scenery suddenly changed with a transparent stream flowing and people enjoying on the banks of it. The water seemed green and transparent ... we enjoyed the scenery here and went ahead. Paragliders were having their time here... and we could see their little shapes gliding from the top to the bottom.

At a point some guy stopped us saying that there was a landslide being cleared ahead so we had to stop. We looked up and saw that a slide was being cleared and vehicular traffic was at a standstill both sides. We stopped there for sometime and took photos. We were now around 12km from the pass. Sometime later the slide cleared and we inched ahead , but the road was only a dirt road now with water in it and it was difficult to negotiate through that water and we went ahead. The road 12km to the pass was in pathetic shape with mud and water to go through and the traffic was too much.

Finally we reached Rohtang top at 13561ft and took photos. Here Abhijeet lost his goggles because he had taken them off for a photo and left it there. We went ahead and stopped by a waterfall which was flowing on the road and took photos... we stopped for quite sometime before starting again towards Koksar , it was downhill riding and the road was OK for some parts and bad for the rest. We reached koksar and went ahead , Keylong would be around 50km now but the roads were very bad and we made slow progress. We had to get to the Tandi fuel station which was the last fuel station upto Leh (365 km ahead) so we needed to get there to fill our bikes and go ahead.

The road 15km before Tandi was good and I reached Tandi first at 6.20pm and tanked up my bike and the spare bottles and waited for everyone to come. Everyone finally came in by 7.30pm and then we started for Keylong which was 8km ahead. At a point 3 km before Keylong , there was a diversion for Udaipur and Amit and Nikhil who were speedsters missed the Keylong board and went towards Udaipur and I went after them hoping to catch up with them and stop them - but couldnt find them. I returned back to the rest of them and we thought they will sooner or later realize that they were on the wrong track and come back and so they did. It was dark now and we went to Hotel Chandrabhaga - an HP tourism hotel but it was booked upto the brim and it was costly so we waited at the parking there and Shailesh and Deepak went ahead into the city to book another place.

They called up after sometime and we went to the new place called Hotel Tashi Deleg which was nice. On the way disaster struck Purvesh who lost balance on the muddy road and fell towards the valley side but disaster was averted by the cage which didnt allow him to slide down the valley and he was pulled to safety by a local. We checked-in the hotel put our bags and went to dinner at 10pm.

Had a so-so dinner because the waiter there didnt understand what we wanted! Sigh ! Always happens in a place like this ! After dinner we went back to our rooms and it was chilly all around so we went to bed immediately as we were dead tired. We had to start morning again for Pang which was around 195km ahead and we had to start early because it was a longer distance.

So the day's target achieved the 9 riders went into deep slumber :)