The North Indian Road Trip – Day 8

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Day /Date– Monday, 27th June
Journey – Leh-Khardungla Top-Leh
Distance – 90 kms

Road Condition – Superb considering we were climbing highest motor able pass on planet.

Since all our permits were sorted by the guest house owner at very reasonable commission, hence we had no tension at all. In the morning we had a leisurely breakfast at the Guest house itself. The cook there was actually very good, working 50-50 by splitting time between Goa and Leh. Our typical breakfast @ Guest house included pan cakes, omelets and parathas followed by amazing cuppa of Tea. Farzin wanted to change his Engine oil in the morning since there was lot of leakage and the obvious worry was engine seizing. I also got the air-filter and spark plug changed because my Electra wasn’t giving very optimum performance.
Since our bikes were all fine tuned for Khardung-la we started our ascent for the world highest motor-able pass. I wasn’t keeping very high hopes about the road conditions after my encounter with Zoji-la. Typical climb to Khardung-la top (18380 ft) from leh (11500 ft) takes about 1 hr 30 min to 1 hr 45 min. Farzin and I looked at each other and acknowledged that this is going to give a good kick. Farzin hinted to take it slow and try to take some pauses en-route to acclimatize and drink loads of water during the ascent.
Considering most of passes have bad roads this one turned out to be an expressway. The number of river streams was like 2-3. Mikhil &Pravin led the route and took some stops for clicking pictures. We made it to the top in little less than 2 hrs and the feeling really was top the world. The view on the top were phenomenal from the highest view point of the region 18380ft. We clicked pictures near the milestones. Farzin complained that he isn’t feeling very great after. It was about 1:30 PM we decided to have the Maggie and black tea @ world highest café which had a whole lot of history behind it.
Farzin as usual even though not feeling very well had the most of the Maggie soup.  It was already about 45 mins we spent at such an altitude and before AMS starts kicking in we decided to start out descend. We met few cyclist also (mostly foreigners) who took an interesting push-bike decent  where (Jeeps takes you up, gravity takes you down. Few of these guys were descending @ >60kmph and I was unable to overtake these cyclists on my Motorbike. That’s what I call thrill of life, just scared with the fact that if you miscalculate your breaking, there is only one way ride down for life.
M&P took some shots of these guys and I was going conservative on my fuel as I had already hit reserve mode. I barely had gas left for 25 kms on this low oxygen terrain. The bike started showing signs of missing a thump about 6 kms before Guest house. I slowed down further and farzin tagged along with me to give company. We reached Moon light Guest house @ 4PM and somehow were super tired after just 5 hrs of biking. We all crashed on our beds for a power sleep of 2 hrs.
As always I take too much tension so I got up at about 5:30 and decided to leave for Airport road for getting my bike fixed. I went to Tashi mechanic and he tried to fix the missing problem, this time he totally messed up with the carburetor setting. I was now super pissed with the way bike was performing. I had to give in extra throttle to ascend on simple inclines. I tried to venture out on other mechanic on Airport road and all answers were no since it was dawn and there was no electricity. I decided to meet renowned mechanic Mohan again and expressed that I have urgent need (guess all guys that would come to him will have urgency due to tight time schedules we plan).  He opened up my spark plug and boom it was dead. The bike was still not picking up after putting in new spark plug. He opened up complete carburetor assembly in the light my mobile phone torch. He changed the fuel intake scale and said this is the reason my sparkplugs are blowing up. He also suggested that once I reach Manali get the setting to the original setting as this will reduce the fuel intake to engine which corresponds to the oxygen intake at height above 10k. Finally I had a breath of relief and reached guest-house back with a happy mood.  Farzin wasn’t feeling very great due to throat infection he had fever. I re-assured Farzin if he isn’t well tomorrow I am okay to spend one more day @ Leh. We had Pizzas for dinner at a nice café in the night and super tried we all crashed down @ 11:00 PM.

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The North India Circuit – Day 1

Date/Day – Monday, 20^th June

Journey – Delhi- Amritsar

Distance – 496 kms

Gradiant – Flat lands

We kick started our bikes at 7:30 AM (my Royal Enfield Electra 4S 2006 and Farzin’s Royal Enfield Thunderbird Twin spark 2010). Our bikes were all set and ready for their first cross country trip.

My mother flagged off at 7:30 AM, and get set go – the idea was to stay away from Delhi peak hour traffic. We reached Delhi outer ring road in no time and tanked up our bikes to the brim of the tank. We got on to the Grand Trunk Road (NH01) a 8 lane highway. There was a major accident on Delhi Border because of which we were stuck for about 40 mins in a Jam. Once cleared of the jam, we throttled to the top speeds. We reached our first pit stop Panipat for breakfast(with my grandparents) at about 10:15. We had a quick breakfast, I met my grandpa, grandma and my cousin and we resumed our journey. The NH01 is a 6 Lane Motorway/freeway/highway which has speed limits bit rarely followed by anyone. We were cursing consistently at 90kmph. I was humming the song ‘Highway to hell’ while riding flat out on these mega highways. We had a mini pit stop near Ambala, this time to refuel and recharge ourself. We turned left from there towards Amritsar. Suddenly after a small Bump my bike chain started making some noise. On closely checking I realized that the Chain cover had broke because it was rusted. Damn – not on Day 1. First I got it welded from a local highway shop and continued our journey, and the song Highway to hell kept coming back in my ears. After sometime the same noise started irritating me again. (I am kind of a person who will not move with work-around so easily; it has to be a solid one to convince me to move further). I decided to find out nearest Royal Enfield spare shop to get a new chain cover (Android phone came to rescue).
After about an hour, We eventually found one and I got the bike fixed, we also bought some more bike spare like tubes, cables etc. We reached Ludhiana at 5:30, which was already quite late. I have some family roots in Ludhiana(My birth place), I really wanted to meet my cousin Aman who had got married while I was in UK and he also has a kid now. I convinced Farzin to go 7km off route. It was a nice feeling meeting everyone even if it was for an hour. My cousin suggested that we can make it to Amritsar by 11 and we should do it unless we have a free stay in Jalandhar. It’s a good omen to start climb after visiting The Golden Temple. I and Farzin agreed and accelerated towards Amirtsar at 7:15 AM. We had a quick McDonald Dinner on NH01 and reached Amritsar at 11:30 PM. We checked in a guesthouse very near to Golden Temple which was arranged by my cousin. We were sleeping like babies in no time.

The North India Circuit 2 Men – 2 Motorbikes – 2600 kms – Prepration 2

Saturday, 18^th june – We reached Delhi and our stay was planned with my family. I wanted to get my bike fixed today but by the time I reached home it was 12:00 noon. On Saturday the Noida bullet service centre is closed and we ended up pushing bike repairs to Sunday. I got the ladakh carrier fitted on the bike and Farzin picked up a foot pump from karol bagh, the bullet market of delhi. We pretty much chilled out at home in the latter half of the day.

Sunday, 19^th june – First thing in the morning was getting my bike fixed. We reached service center @ 10 AM as i wanted to get lot of things rectified. The estimate started climbing like a mountain, I got all wiring, cables, headlamp and breaks changed. The estimate including service was about 5000INR. We came back home and mom had cooked ‘chole bhature’ today. It was like a mega meal, we ate 6-7 bhature each and slept like a baby.  We got up after 2 hrs of power nap and pulled out the list of items pending for trek. We shopped in Lakshmi Nagar whole sale market for 2 hrs to complete the list. By 6 PM the bike was ready so went to pick it up. I also bought some spare components which were missing. The bike was all ready to start the trek. The idea was to leave very early next day but was a flop considering our packing hadn’t started. We packed till 1 AM. Phew finally we are ready.

The Plan

The North India Circuit 2 Men – 2 Motorbikes – 2600 kms – Prepration

Friday, 17th June – Mumbai

It was D day. The first step towards North India Circuit motorbike ride. I had been waiting for last 2 years for this ride. The day started well with packing my bags and I managed to reach office by 10:30 am. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable since a day before after eating fruit plate in my office cafeteria. I skipped my morning breakfast due to work pressure and it made condition worse. It was about 12:30 – I puked first time and by 1:30 I had to rush to washroom at least five times to throw up. My body was not even ready to accept water. It was defiantly food poisoning from fruit plate I ate. I had to leave immediately for doctor consultation but no luck. I returned home and slept for 2 hrs, this time skipping lunch. It was kind of worst case scenario, so I ended up calling my family doctor in Delhi and she suggested medication. I was feeling lot better within 40 minutes. I boarded the Mumbai local and reached Mumbai Central. Farzin was supposed to transit his bike in luggage but he came in late. In fact he was lucky to board the train himself. His motorbike boarded the next train. We both were very excited and pumped up about this journey.