Bangalore - Leh - Srinagar - Delhi

The mountains are calling

The moment I completed the Bhutan trip, I knew Leh was the next destination. After a failed previous attempt to make it the holy lands of an Indian motorcyclist, I was loosely aware of the destination that I wanted to reach. This time around I knew going in that I am going to be attempting this journey alone, so if it fails it’s all on me. It also meant that I had to pull all the weight of coming up with the entire plan, despite being terrible at planning anything. On the brighter side, since it’s just me, and I am not a person who likes everything to be mapped out to the last detail, I didn’t have anybody to convince. I was not going to attempt Leh during the months of June or July for sure, the months were the traffic of tourists are going to be guarenteed to be the highest. The snow that covered the mountain passes would have started to melt away, the roads would have been just opened. Leh, with no doubt, must be looking at it’s best during these months. Yet, the factor that decided the question of when was quite simply: How do you want to experience it?. Recollections of a few popular attractions rushes to mind; noisy, congested. Cars, taxis and selfies are everywhere, people who are sometimes quite simply there. I see that they reached here, they have seen here, but are they experiencing here?

In contrast, a picture of a motorcycle leaving a trail of dust behind him running along with wild horses, with the backdrop of terribly large mountains, capped with snow, a man on the motorcycle, with a grin that spreads from ear to ear. If it is freedom that you want to experience, then Leh was waiting, you just have to wait as well, just a bit. I decided to pick the last comfortable time to reach Leh, enough lee-way so that the roads stay open and I don’t get snowed in. Late enough so that the roads are empty. The end of August seemed like the right time.

As the days to the end of August got numbered, it was time to come up with the route map. After reading about the routes of travellers before me, I had decided that I’ll be travelling to Leh from Srinagar throught the NH1, and return via the Leh-Manali highway. This route presented itself with multiple benefits. First one being that it is the best road to Leh, The passes between Srinagar and Leh are mostly unintimidating and gradual. This would mean a good stretch to acclimitise to the mountains. Acute Mountain Sickness, resulting from the body unable to function normally because of the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere in the high mountains, is something I would avoid, especially because I would be travelling alone and on a tight schedule. Second one was that the road from Manali to Leh is the road of dreams, yet is not known to be an easy road. It’s treacherously narrow at places, with river crossings, landslides, falling rocks, slushes, sand and other demons that made it their homes. If I did NH1 first and if I found that to be a simple task, then I could step up and take my chance at the Manali - Leh road.

So now what was left was to decide was how to do it, rent a motorcyle from Delhi and take it through the loop and drop it back at Delhi, or take my own motorcycle. Although I was worried about running a DL registered rented vehicle through Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, I think my worries were misplaced as I saw a lot of motorcycles with foreigners running on these routes with DL registered bikes. For reasons that cannot be clearly explained, I favoured riding through it all on my own motorcycle. Now the next step is to get the motorcycle to Delhi. I could either ship it to Delhi through the rail or through some courier service. That would mean that I have more time to spend in the mountains and not much on the highways. But my previous escapade seemed to have tinted the expectation of the curious. Although in no way do I intentionally factor in to cater to the expectations of those who are least involved, the idea did take root to consider the choice. How do you want to experience it? And somehow the same motivations that trigerred the last long ride, presented itself. Wouldn’t I enjoy the destination better if I focus on the journey? If I fly into a place I haven’t ever visited before, could I connect it well to where I came from? And is the experience that I want is to see Ladakh, grab some photographs or to spend some quality time on the motorcycle through moving landscapes, cultures and people. With this oversight, even Ladakh seemed to matter less. This line of thought somehow convinced me again that may be I shouldn’t take the easy route to Leh. If the adventure was on the Manali-Leh road then it made no sense to save it when I was returning back from the tour. It very well should be the main course.

Travelling to Delhi from Bangalore is the first step then. With so many possible routes, I looked at the places that I had never been to and wanted to visit, and just like last time I would be city hopping. Mumbai and Pune was for certain. If I could meet one of my old friends in Pune and visit the Nariman point, the Taj and the Gateway of India, it would be fantastic. From there I would trace the highway to Gujarat where I would possibly like to visit the Rann of Kutch. From where I would move to Rajasthan. The points of interests in Rajasthan being the 3 cities. Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Udaipur and Chittaurgarh. Then I could cross to Chandigarh or move through Amritsar, Punjab to Sringar. I’ve never been this North before, therefore I didn’t want to waste the chance to visit the Taj Mahal. Fitting the Taj into the map was tough and in hindsight was one of the most perilous detours, but one that I do not regret. The first leg of the journey would be 830km to Pune, the second day would get me to Gujarat, hopefull Ahmedabad. I would need to fit Mumbai in there and was wary of fitting touring a metropolitan city and traversing it’s dense traffic and roads into the same day I would be riding to Gujarat. After research I found that it was not the best time of the year to see or ride through the Rann of Kutch, since the rains were persistent and that would bring the muck up from the salt plains. The cities of Rajasthan seem to distributed in a circuit. Jaisalmer to the north west, Udaipur to South, Chittaurgarh to the east and Jaipur to the north east of Rajasthan. This meant that if I wanted to see the whole of Rajasthan I would need to spend at least a week there, which was a luxury I couldn’t afford for this tour atleast. A tour of Rajasthan in the distant horizon then. That either meant I travelled from Ahmedabad to Jaipur and bypass Udaipur or I slow the pace enjoy Udaipur and make for Jaipur the next day. In hindsight, this was also severly welcome experience. Udaipur was an incredibly beautiful city even more than Jaipur, with it’s incredible Lakes and palaces. And who knows the amount of wonder and beauty I must have missed in detours that I din’t take. But there is no point worrying about the forks in the roads of the past, but focus on what is ahead. May be the paths lead back the same way or may be they don’t.

From Jaipur on the fifth day I would be riding to Agra which is around 238kms and then to Chandigarh which was 484kms from Agra. I would bypass Delhi and hopefully not get bogged down by traffic around the city. Best case scenario, it still made for more than 12 hours of riding before I could get some shut eye. From Chandigarh, I would drive to Manali. The rest I knew I could cook up on the spot after talking to the fellows that are on the same route. 3 days to Leh from Manali was the gist of it.

[Post in construction: If you are reading this and want to read more, ping me on one of my online accounts, and I’ll stop being lazy and write it faster]