Riding a motorcycle is fun. On mountaneous terrain its even better because of lowered pollution levels, scenic beauty and overall sence of relaxation while one is in the area. It had been a month or so since my last big ride and I was getting kinda bored sitting at home every weekend. The monsoons had shattered all hopes of being able to ride by bringing us the gift of landslides, showers on every weekend and ofcourse disgusting, sticky-ew weather. I had waited for all this to be over..Patiently.

It was mid August when I had formulated the idea of a long-ish ride somewhere in the mountains. The rains had mostly subsided, the monsoons had began their retreat and rain was limited to the occasional shower. I posted a message on our group forum that I was planning a ride in the first week of september and invited proposals from everyone. My good friend Jojo suggested that we go to Chanshal Pass, which connects the remote Dodra-Kwar region to mainland Himachal Pradesh. When I enquired online I was told that the road was “dead”. I called jojo and told him that the road seems to be in a bad shape, lets go somewhere else. He was stubborn. He sent me a link from a newspaper that showed a pretty, lovely jet black new road as the picture for an article about the area. It stated that the road had been comissioned by the chief minister of Himachal.

We decided to give this ride a go-ahead. In a high level meeting attended by all the main biker babas, a unanimous decision to visit Chanshal, Dodra and Kwar regions of Himachal was passed.

Regional/Topographical Background:
The area is designated as the “Sulej Circuit”. Rohru is the largest town in the area ahd has most facilities including excellent pooris made with diesel riddled oil at the side of a busy road. True “Street(read road) food”. Rohru is 115 kms from Shimla. The road(ughh) to Chanshal-Dodra-kwar is via Chrigaon/Larot. Views: Amazing. Nearly devoid of pollutants, the air is crisp and carries with it the smell of Apples, pines and other associated mountainous flora.

This article has been written two months late as it took 1 month for my hands to stop shaking like Dr. A.K.Hangal’s and my back to return to its normal shape, whatever it might have been. I thought I had parkinson’s disease but it was actually the road. Here goes:

We decided to move early and stop at Hatkoti, which was our destination for the day. There is an amazing temple named the Hateshwari Devi temple which has a pot that once held a demon! We reached Theog at 1pm via Chandigarh-Shimla-Kufri and thought nothing of it. The ride was amazing, the roads were fun. The traffic was undaunting. We spoke with a dhaba owner about the possibility of moving ahead to Rohru and he said “Oh sure, Rohru is just 80 from here!! takes 2 hours or 3, max”. We were ecstatic!

We ate some more pakoras and decided to move towards Rohru ASAP as our destination was 15 kms from Rohru, making the total distance just 65-70kms which meant under three hours!! or so we thought. A suspicious looking hoarding made me a little suspicious but the locals told me that it was hogwash! The road is “Fine”. I was still a little suspicious but I decided to go on anyway.

We drove from Theog towards Rohru. The road was small, littred with a few potholes but oh well, this is India. Potholes are everywhere, even on superhighways. We thought nothing of it. Ten kilometers hence we met a dusty patch of an unpaved, half broken road close to a turn that had a small dust caked waterfall flowing under it. Due to our experience with waterfalls and such we thought “Oh well, its just a patch, they might be making a channel for the water to flow under the road, tis OK!”.

I covered my face with my bandana, took a P break and moved on. The dust flew with us for a kilometer and two and the strong-ish wind with the traffic helped a lot(the dust, not us!). I said Oh well! and kept going.

About fifteen kilometers further my butt started complaining and I noticed that there was no road, but a remanant of a road that once existed. We breathed in deeply and moved on, thinking oh well, its just 65kms! how bad can it be? We are experienced bikers! we’ve gone to Zanskar!!-Two days later I would regret making this statement.

The dust followed us like the devil. I told JoJo that this seemed like the continents had shifted along with time and we were now in the 30s in America in the midst of the dust bowl. He shrugged me off and I walked to Umang, who was wiping the dirt off his face(unsuccessfully).

He said “This is awesome! dust, broken roads and no food!!” Umang is from Himachal, btw. We had some more tea at a dhaba close to Chaila and decided to look for a place to eat. We reached Kotkhai- the apple paradise of Himachal at 3:30 PM. This included chitchat breaks, numerous pit stops and other stops. It was okay, Hatkoti was just a few kilometers ahead. We found two dhabas which had no food.

We moved on towards Khara pathar. Khara Pathar means “Standing Rock” in regular hindi and “Tall rock” in himachali. Same difference, lots of “Pathars” were “Kaharo-ing” on the road too. We drove onwards and saw this little Dhaba called Apple Crown. We were famished so we decided to stop. I talked to the owner in sign language indicating we were hungry and needed food. He was like yeah, we got food, come on in!!

We let out a few bloodcurdling screams and decided to eat. The food was good. Actually it was amazing! The place was dingy, it had a “toilet with a view” but the food was good. We spent an hour to eat this well deserved lunch, have some tea, walk around and stretch our backs n legs n moved onwards to HatKoti.

At 7 we thundered into the quaint city of Hatkoti. Good time, we said. The road was nasty-ish from Theog to Khara pathar but it got Okay close to Hatkoti. We found the government guest house where our friend Umang had “booked some rooms”.

The guy denied any knowledge of this booking. We gave him some glaring looks while he spoke with his uncle and voila! rooms appeared!. We unpacked, went in, Lay down and ordered tea.

The guy came and said “Here is tea, but please look for something to eat. The area closes by 8″. We ran out, a dhaba was open. We asked him about food, he said sure, I will be here until 9:30. We relaxed a bit, some took a bath and we decided to go eat.

I had barely started to dream about pretty mountaneous hamlets and cute women when an infernal din woke me up. I thought that the demon in the pot had managed to escape and was hungry! I ran to the window and saw that it was not the demon, but the “daily pooja” had begun at the temple. This was 6:30 AM. So much for alarms! We decided to bathe n go to the temple. It was extremely pretty.

We came back and decided to have breakfast at the dhaba. We got fat rotis filled with a little amount of potato. The guy had been nagging about this Halwa that he made but never made it for us! That broke Jojo’s heart!

We moved towards Rohru. It was an uneventful ride.

Rohru is a city full of traffic, diesel fumes and lots of people. Kinda disgusting and like any other city. The views enroute Rohru are amazing, BTW.

At rohru we enquired about the route to Chanshal and lots of friendly people guided us.

One guy even decided that he will drop me off to the last village so I can go on from there. I wondered why he called it the “Last Village”?

I would come to know soon enough. We drove on and the views changed from good to excellent to Oh My Gawd.

The road was riddled with potholes but we could easily manage 60kmph without much effort which was good. The road changed from two lane to single lane soon.

Also good. The views were much better, a little rivulet flowed next to the road and made the area so lush and green. I had never seen anything like this. Beautiful little houses, small trees, flowers, apple laden orchards, small farms, the works!

We came to a little bridge over a river. The locals said cross the bridge and turn left.

We did.The road was covered with mud, slush and sand. We thought it was a landslide. No worries, we have driven through dozens of those. We went on. Gravel. No worries. More sand and gravel!

Oh, well. 3 inch high sharp stones! Oh cool, they are making the road wider here.

Seems better up ahead. I saw a little nepali kid and I gave him a candy. I asked his dad how the road was. He smiled. I should have guessed what that was for.

We went ahead. Sand again…Well, better than sharp stones, aint it? Soon the sand gave way to a path covered with 2 inch high stones jutting out of the ground, sand, slush and gravel along with some pine needles so that if you escape the first part, the pine needles will make sure that you fall flat on your butt.

Four kilometers further one of our team members gave up. He said dude, this is the WORST road ever!! I felt better when my cousin accidentally shot me in the bum! I could not say no to that though I have not been shot anywhere, let alone ma keester.

We went on, crossed larot and I reached an unpassable patch. Water, eight inches deep slush and some more water along with a fifty degree steep incline at a turn.

Nasty. I managed to go through. I came back and was trying to tell the others where to cross when I saw that Umang had gotten stuck. His bike was stuck in the mud and it felt as if it were in quicksand. Four of us could not pull it out. We stopped a jeep that was coming our way, and seven people somehow managed to make it move.

I told him where to go and two seconds later he was stuck again!! I pushed him off and drove the bike to the side. He was just driving it the wrong way. Slush+mud+sand+gravel+water needs some skill. Skills we learnt in Spiti, Ladakh, Jallori and other associated trips. The bike stopped working 1 second after that.I checked it, it seemed okay. I screamed and kicked it, the damn light turned on. I got an evil tinkle in my eye n announced that the bike needed some “Russian Treatment”

We moved on(why?). Fiften gruelling kilometers later we reached the mighty Chanshal pass.

It was pretty amazing. We took a few photos but the clouds had blocked all the views!  Our butts had given up, we wanted to sleep right there and we were famished. The quintillion bumps on the road had digested, assimilated and well..made short work of the super heavy parantha we ate. We asked a guy about where to eat. He said two kms down this road is a small Dhaba.

When we complained that the jeep guy said Two kms further is a dhaba and that was twelve kms ago, he said it might have closed down. He had never gone beyond this pass. We decided to turn back. Our backs hurt, the butt had announced its resignation and the stomach was churning and nagging at the same time. My arms hurt, my legs felt like jelly and my spine had almost bent into an ungodly shape. He said, go to Larot, there is a dhaba at Larot. We did just that. I drove back trying to savour some of the amazing views offered by this valley.

The area is extremely beautiful!! We reached larot and had Maggi with tea. It was 5PM. We moved back towards Rohru and then Hatkoti(it was my insistence that Hatkoti had better rooms. We would soon find out that I was very wrong). Raj K’s bike died. It took us a hour and two mechanics to fix it. We moved towards Hatkoti. The guest house dude told us that the place was booked to the brim. We took a room in a stinky dharamshala, fortunately found food and decided to call it a night. We discussed the route with the hotel owner and he told us that the route was awesome.

The next morning we woke up, took a bath and saddled up. We were going back home!! We drove to Rohru again giving the Russian treatment to Umang’s bike whenever required and stopped at the Mechanic area in Rohru. The bike was fixed, jojo had diesel riddled pooris with super disgusting alu. I went nextdoor and ate scrambled eggs made in a valvoline auto grease box. Was fun. The food tasted OK though. We moved onwards to Sungri.

The views just went from wow to Oh my God. Amazing. The roads were good, the views were awesome! We thought we were in heaven. The bad part of the road was over…or so we thought. holes, potholes and road-wide craters welcomed us with fine sand and dust that filtered through our helmet visors and bandanas. At sungri we saw a T junction. Rampur-60, Narkanda-40. Narkanda was closer to home.

We turned that way, crossed super horrendous roads via Khardala, Bagi and finally reached Narkanda. It felt as if our butts had found cushions. The road was amazing. We stopped to eat at Narkanda and moved towards Chandigarh.

This was an eventful ride, full of views that make you forget the stressed out and strained muscles, the bruised bones and eyes ready to pop out of their sockets.Momentarily. The route is highly recommended, though you may want to skip the road after Larot. The views are similar. It has been almost two months since we went to chanshal. My butt starts hurting the very moment I think of the route but in 2011 I might go there again!

Link to Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/djm263/ChanshalPass

It had been months since I had been on a ride or on a motorcycle, so my hands, butt and other associated organs of the body were itching to get the rust off of them. I called up everyone I knew in the club to ask if they would wish to accompany me on a 3 to 4 day ride to the Lahaul – Spiti valley in Himachal. None agreed. Finally, after days of nagging, whining and cajoling, I finally managed to rake in three candidates for the ride.

We were the only four members ready to ride to Spiti (I had actually decided to go to the Sach pass, but that was blocked with over 50ft of snow and had not opened yet)

Spiti, a remote region in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh (well… not as remote as most areas of the Lahaul valley which we obviously had to cross enroute Spiti… but oh well), is closed for the better part of the year and that’s remote enough for us!

We started from our respective homes/ offices at 6 am to meet up @ a petrol pump on the outskirts of Chandigarh. One of the participants was late due to which hunger pangs struck us about 50km enroute Manali, our destination for the day. Usually, it takes us about 10-15 hours to reach Manali after innuemerable breaks, breakdowns and pit stops but this ride was different. It was so different that I actually saw Manali at DAYTIME! In the Afternoon!! It felt weird. I felt as if I had hyperventilated. I needed to breathe into a bag. I pinched myself twice and I finally snapped back to reality!!!

But well, there was a catch though. The rain gods had decided to welcome us to Manali and we were half wet. So, the real job… Finding a room… We went to the hotel where we usually stay and surprise surprise, no rooms. We went to the one next door and they had a room. So we dried up asap and decided to go eat.
Right before we decided to move from our rooms, we met two motorcyclists from New Zealand. They had been staying in India for quite some time and had issues with their bike. I checked it and told them that it was ‘normal’. They were happy at that prospect and told us that they will catch us up for dinner

We moved to the riverside cafe for dinner and our neighbours joined us shortly. They complained about the exorbitant prices and asked us if we wanted to go to a Mexican-ish restaurant which was much cheaper. We agreed and dragged our tired butts to the other restaurant. We at our fill and decided to retire for the night.
Come dawn, we woke up, got ready, saddled up and listened to one of our co-riders’ rant. We then moved towards a petrol pump, filled up our tanks and moved towards Rohtang-Jot, the first pass on our way. We had gone halfway when we met up with some members of our riding club. They had had the good fortune of being blessed by a nail callously left on the ground. The nail decided to hide inside their tyre as it was too cold outside.

They’d tried to fill air into the tyre using their hi-fi electric pump but no to avail so I gave them my pump (why! wahayyyyy!) and decided to wait for them at a small village called Khoksar.

Khoksar is a small village in Lahaul, actually the first stopover for weary travellers on their way to Ladakh/ Lahaul. We met up with the rest of the club there and decided to wait for the guys who had our pump without realising that we could ask for a pump from the people sitting there and they could use ours. About 3 hours later, this thought struck me and I asked them, they agreed. I took a guys pump and moved onwards. I had gone about 5 kilometers when I saw that the advanced party was nowhere to be seen.

My co-rider insisted that we wait for them because he was sure that they had moved towards Manali ignoring the bright yellow/ blue sign put up by our callous government (the one that points towards Spiti, our destination). Half an hour later, I hear an infernal din emanating from my co-riders’ throat. I thought the Uruk-hai had arrived to cut us into pieces but I was wrong. It was the announcement that he had found the other two. Phew!

We moved on. By this time the clouds had started to roll in from the east. This was not a good sign. From my fogged glasses they looked like the grey fart of the pig in the ‘Jurassic Fart’ flick on Youtube.

Three gruelling kilometers hence the rains began. The clouds could not keep the rain in and decided to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible. My co-rider expressed his displeasure at this and informed us that he did not have a rain suit (At this I thought I should slap him twice across the head and tell him to go home). He said keep my bag with you and I will drive in the rain. So we did. 20 kilometers later, at Chhatru, we decided to stop before our organs shifted like the continental masses did due to the incessant shivers caused by sub-zero temperatures, the insanely cold wind and other inconveniences of nature – namely –  rain.

We found a little café (a couple of dozen stones piled on top of each other to make a wall, a few sticks to make a roof-like frame and a tarpaulin over it to make a roof) called the Chandra Dhaba.

We rejoiced. Our happiness could be comparable to the happiness felt by the Neanderthals who had just found a cave devoid of animals willing to eat them! We asked the owner and he graciously agreed to let us stay. We unpacked, took off our wet-ish clothes and decided to curl up and sleep like a hedgehog.We did just that and like a gift from the heavens, a bowl of soup appeared. We devoured it like hungry savages and waited for the next course. Out of nowhere, we heard the sound of a motorcycle. Two foreign nationals had stumbled upon the same dhaba and were quite wary of us.They wanted the cave for themselves.

We were too many for them to shoo off on their own. A few rounds of chitchat calmed them and somehow my co-rider and the others lured me into fixing their motorcycle for them. I tried the best I could and it somehow worked. They decide to make a move but came back after a few minutes. They were staying over.

An hour later, a guy on a jeep informed us that there was another rider stuck uphill whose bike had stalled and would be coming to this place too. He did, and we invited him in too, notwithstanding the angry glances from the dhabawallah who was muttering, “Oh! Great!” So there we were, four hungry Indians; two hungry, half-drenched-half-frozen Canadians and an equally-miserable Israeli motorcyclist.

We ate what was offered by the Dhabawalla and tried to sleep. I found a place at the corner and found out that the infernal wind blew in all night and made everyone nothing but uncomfortable.

I suffered the most because my sleeping bag was useless! I woke up at 4am and decided to take a walk. TAKE A WALK?? Yes. I ‘decided’ that. Even a 4-year-old, who is cold, has more brains than I did at that time. Altitude does take its toll on your brain cells.

We decided to move onwards to Batal and then Kaza (our destination for yesterday). We spent hours playing around in the snow, devouring all the good views Mother Nature offered.

It was sunny, warm-ish and just plain beautiful. My senses ran amock and so did my finger (on the camera shutter release button). I took photos like an asian tourist who had gone shutter crazy in Disneyland.

We reached Batal at 11am and decided to have breakfast – Omelettes, some kinda veggie goo and flatbreads. It somehow tasted awesome. I thought the ride was finally coming together but I was grossly mistaken! My co-rider (the one without a raincoat… ok lets call him the Man for now…) had left his bag behind (it was partially my fault, but I will blame him entirely as it’s more convenient to do so).

I nagged at him for a few minutes, he screamed back at me and we all screamed at each other for about 15 minutes, mouthing the foulest obscenities ever conceived and made some new ones while we were at it. It was good fun. The dhabawala thought it was fun too because we soon got tired and ordered more tea.

The Man decided to drive back to Chhatru and get his bag, apparently his treasure chest. It contained his mobile phone, wallet, vehicle registration papers and other assorted useful/useless stuff.
I told him he can go off on his own and I will wait for him here as it was more comfy to do so. He asked me to accompany him and I stubbornly disagreed. The way to Batal was exceedingly difficult, riddled with stones, water, mush, slush, gush and fush (snow, water, cold wind, stones and sand all at the same time in gregantouous quantities). He said, “FINE!” and went off on his own. I turned back to picking my nose and drinking the wonderful peppermint tea.

Five minutes later the dude was back. He said he was scared of going alone. Then we had another fight and I told him I will come behind him slowly. He can pick up his bag and drive back and we can go to Kaza together. He agreed and drove off really fast. I drove along slowly behind him taking pictures and talking to locals walking around thinking that oh, he might be coming back any moment screaming like a banshee. I was mistaken. After about an hour and a half, I realised that he had not come back. I took a deep breath and slapped myself mentally. Then I put the bike into the second gear and drove to Chhatru. I reached the godforsaken place in fifteen minutes to find that the Israeli dude was still sitting around smoking and basking in the sun. His bike had not started yet. I enquired about my dear fiend and was informed that the bastard had driven off with the Canadians towards Manali.

I cursed him twice and looked towards the heavens. It had turned dark just like the past day and was around the same time – it was 2pm. I mumbled, “Oh CRAP!” and started to drive back quickly. “Mother Nature’s beautiful environs can go screw themselves, its time to save my butt from the rain!” I drove rather fast and about eight kilometers from Batal, it started to snow.

Actually, it was not really snowing, it was a very annoying light spray of frozen water. I kept driving and in about three minutes I could not see anything at all. Somehow I reached the dhaba at Batal. “FINALLY!” was what I uttered. The dhabawala looked up and said, “You must go forward. It never rains much in Spiti, this will get worse here in the valley!” I heeded his advice, had some food and decided to push onwards. My head hurt, my butt was cussing at me and my hands had lost all sensation. I drove through the half-frozen road in the semi-blizzard and in about three minutes the blizzard suddenly disappeared. In a minute more, I saw the clouds under me! It was amazing! I was higher than the clouds.

Two kilometers further lay Kunzum-La and a hundred meters or so hence, was the traffic jam. A guy in a car told me that a glacier had slipped onto the road and it was not possible to go on. I decided to ignore his comment and drove on. The snow and mud was nearly knee-deep, I was off the bike, pushing it through while it were running and in gear and somehow managed to cross the muck. I sat on the bike and drove onwards.

By this time the cold and all the pushing-pulling and driving through a blizzard over broken roads had helped digest everything I had eaten and I was hungry again. Not normal-hungry but like I-have-not-eaten-in-a-week kinda hungry.

I thought food was just around the corner as Losar was nearby. I drove off again and found that Losar had nothing to offer in terms of food. All the shops were closed. The nearest restaurant would be in Kaza.

I didn’t even let the dude finish his sentence and drove off again. The road changed from a dusty valley to something like it came right out of the movie Mission Impossible 2.

It was the Grand Canyon, just not that grand. Amazing! The Spiti River had cut through this valley and made excessively beautiful hues and designs, denudation at its artistic best!

I kept driving and reached Kaza. At this point, I was so hungry that I decided to eat some of the grass on the road but then something made me go on thinking that my friends would be waiting in Kaza for me. I was wrong again. Those dudes had gone off to Tabo!

They had left a message with the petrol pump owner in Kaza about it but by the time I reached, he had gone home and forgot to tell his workers. I searched for these guys all over Kaza and finally decided to take a room on my own. I reached this hotel called the Sakya Abode and enquired about a room. They offered me one and told me that I can order dinner. I saw the menu, ordered spaghetti and told them that I had not eaten since the morning. They said rest and we will send some tea.

I have no idea what happened in the hour that passed. In a drunken stupor I had changed, lit a candle, found a quilt, covered myself and was fast asleep. The waiter woke me and said dinner was ready. I said okay and went off to sleep again. The dude didn’t give up. Ten minutes later he came back and asked me to come up for dinner before I have to cut it out of the dog’s stomach. I went up and saw spaghetti waiting for me which was steaming hot and surprisingly tasty. I finished it off, drank some more tea and stumbled back to my room. It usually takes me a while to sleep after I have dinner. This was different. I collapsed I woke up at 6am with no recollection of the dinner episode. I had completely forgotten about the events before dinner and I had forgotten to nag about my friends to myself.

I ordered breakfast and went to fuel up the bike to find that the pump opened at 9am. I cursed the dude and went back to the hotel, packed my bags, bought souvenirs, etc. and got ready for the ride ahead.At 10am I fuelled up and drove onwards to my next destination – Tabo.

In the hurry to catch up with my co-riders (who I learnt had crossed the check post an hour before me), I kept driving nonstop until I reached a small village called Nako, ate lunch and drove on.

Finally at a small village called Tapri I found a signboard titled ‘Airtel’. I screamed YIPPIE and turned on my phone. It worked. I called my parents to tell them I was in phone-able range, I called my friends and they were about 130kms ahead. I decided to drive on. About five gruelling hours of driving through mud, slush and bad roads created in the name of ‘development’, I reached Rampur. I refueled and drove on.

The moment I reached Narkanda, I snapped out of the haze and called my friends. They were 70 kilometers ahead, close to Shimla. I ate some food at a dhaba and realised that I was tired; tired beyond imagination. I had driven close to 140kms in the dark, a couple of hundred through the day and I needed a break. I found a room, told my friends to do the same and went off to sleep.

Woke up the next morning, drove straight to Chandigarh (all this while getting nagged at by my girlfriend), nearly nonstop and found that the others had reached Chandigarh at 4am. They drove on after sleeping at a dhaba for a few hours. They had rested for about three hours waiting for me and had slept for another 5.
As I write this article today, I look at the photos and the area I drove through, the worst part of the ride was being driven through twice – I see that this is an experience I will never forget and would never want to repeat. Spiti is an area which is best experienced in a ride that spans about a week with most of the time spent in Spiti itself, checking out the dozens of monasteries and, of course, the natural beauty that abounds this region.

//All the photos of the ride are available at the following URL:

http://picasaweb.google.com/djm263/SpitiExpress