A Tough Ride On Day One

When the going gets tough, the tough get going..

Anurag and his biker friends could start a bit late - around 6.45 a.m. - yesterday morning and had a princely breakfast on the outskirts of Panipat. They faced scorching sun till Chandigarh and halted for lunch some 50 kms beyond Chandigarh around twoish, still having more than 300 kms to go on a hilly track.

As they entered Himachal, it was a bit cooler. They crossed Mandi enjoying the beauty of nature. Then, the bikes started lodging their protest. Mechanical failures on the route were difficult to handle, with mechanics, like our good old Appu Bhaiyya in Indore, nowhere in sight for miles.

As they stopped for evening tea around dusk, a realization began to dawn upon them that they had miles to go and it would be tough once darkness sets in. The blue-green sparkling river by the road had started turning darker and darker by the time they reached a dhaba just before Kullu and stopped for dinner.

They felt a bit tired but still in great spirits to proceed. Usually, bikers break this long 550kms plus stretch from Delhi to Manali into two days. They wanted to have a hard ride on the first day which  gave them a lot of tough time as bonus. Around midnight, there was some confusion regarding the location of resort they had to check into - was it in Kullu or Manali? 

They carried on with their journey well beyond midnight facing the challenge of giant mountains silently and reached their accomodation in Manali after 1.30 in the shorter hours of the morning. Must be having a deep sleep right now after more than a day's of adventourous ride. They have to get a bike repaired in the morning before they start off on a 150 km mountaineous ride to Sarchu where it all begins..