My First ever road trip to the north began from Chandigarh to reach the world’s most highest and deadliest roads. The land of high passes Ladakh. The most beautiful, humongous and calm avatar of nature attracts every individual, but survival at such extreme location is not easy. With literally less connectivity with rest of the world, the Himalayas need to be very cooperative, humble and strong to survive the fierce condition of nature. And such are the Himachalis’ and the ladhakis’.
Depicting my experience with the Ladhakis, below
Riding bike on the passes of leh I and my friend reached pang on the second day from Manali.
Pang is one of the lowest oxygen regions of the Himalayas & after spending a horrible night we decided to ride of early out of the hell. But we didn’t know it would become more of a wrong turn instead. The temperature at pang was way below 10 degrees and we started our ride towards Leh. we soon reached the Morey Plains a 40km stretch of straight road with no signs of life and bike speeding above 80km the body temp started falling rapidly. No proper riding gloves added to our misery. We applied electric adhesive tape on the vents of gloves.. was really funny but had to do something to prevent air entering the gloves. we stopped after every 10 min ride to keep our feet and arms warm with the help of engine and silencer heat.
But it did not help us and stopping at one place wasn’t a good idea too because the temp was already low and we wanted to reach some place warm. I couldn’t sense my feet and changing gears with those frozen legs and pressing clutch lever with stuck fingers was kind of a severe punishment.After riding almost across the Morey Plains we found 3 4 huts along the road. Stopped our bikes and ran inside for help. They understood I was grudged with cold and in no time they fired their heater and made me comfortable with a chair and tea a pad to keep my foot over so it won’t get in contact with the sand below. Such a VIP treatment and taken care of from the people I was visiting for the first at such crucial situation time was like heaven.
Had an overall great experience with people of the Ladakh and Himachal through out my road trip. I would like to thank them all through this platform.