Leh-Ladakh 2010 (+ ride back home in one piece)

By Ryz Wrecked

“Attitude differs with Altitude, been there done that at sweet 20”..

This is an inimitable saga of grit, determination, fun and joy experienced by Ryz Wrecked and his biker buddies on the highest motorable roads in the world..

From trying to sleep with deteriorating health in a tent in extremely windy conditions at 16000 ft…to sharing biking experience with a gang of strangers by campfire in the freezing cold near China border ... to experiencing ‘Nirvana’, a rave party with Israeli tourists, spooky ghost tales, a Slumdog Millionaire loo and moments of collective pride on being recognized as Throttle Xtreme stunt team on top of the world... to hating to ride back to human civilization … to Mom welcoming home with the traditional ‘aarti’…

The ride never ends… just read on...

People who know me will tell you that I’m never the writer types and seldom read books except if it’s a bike magazine or a book on racing dynamics. First time in my life I took this initiative to write up something myself. I’d like my friends and everyone out there to read my so called hardwork (mind it, its hardwork indeed). Its all about my life from 24th June to 7th July 2010. If you are tagged that means you mean something and should be proud of your friend.

I knew this was going to be big. Didnt prepare much as it was the 1st time. What I did was just pack my backpack with minimal cold clothing (that’s just one inner wear only for legs), a tent and a sleeping bag to add flavour. Filled up the tank and gunned the throttle. It was the ride of a life time, Although I tried to keep it as short and as informative as possible. This is just a brief and not the whole story, belive me there’s more behind the scene incidents and stories to be told that are excluded fearing the narcotics snopping up my crib :P

Well jokes apart, The journey log was like this...

Ride Destination: Leh-Ladakh 2010 (+ ride back home in one piece)
Gear: 
1. Gloves : Alpinestars Dual’ (for riding in the plains) Leather padded gloves (for the harsh cold terrain).
2. Jacket : Angles Racing. (includes armour for chest, elbows, spine and shoulders).
3. Helmet : Vega.
4. Boots : Puma ferrari edition (all leather).
5. Knees : Forgot the Fox Racing Armour in last minute hustle ! :(

Ride: The Bajaj Pulsar 200dtsi

Day 1 - 24th June:

Mom was worried to see her son leave home and go to a place where no one in the family has ever ventured out, that too on a bike, considering the fact that I’m just 20.

It is not just another 'place' The plan was to ride to the terrains of Leh Ladakh and converse with the world's highest motorable road, and going as far as the roads can take us within the country's border. 

That meant going very close to the hostile border areas and returning back home in one piece(atleast that's what mom was hoping for !). 

I Was waiting to catch up with Anirudh to leave Indore and reach Jhalawar till the night, but as everyone knows, nothing happens on time, even if we try to it never happens ! 
Last moment preparations were to buy clutch cables after having a brief talk with Mr. Vikrant Verma our chief mentor when it comes to our respective machines. 

We start the motor and gun the throttle ripping through the city streets. Its already dark and starts to drizzle. 

Anyone could mistake us for a couple of drunkards riding full out in the dead of the night sweeping corners at 115kmph. Atleast that's what i remember, It was just our efforts to reach Jhalawar as planned 9pm, but with the rains and burning eyes because of the dust, winds and drowsiness at high speeds and a halt for dinner in an unknown dhaba in an unknown zombie village, we reach Jhalawar at 1am approx, couldnt even remember the time.

Somehow we manage to reach the Rajasthan Tourism hotel after some hard riding and no wonder we knew what the next day would be like, considering the fact we didnt even shower up and just splashed cold water on our burning eyes and super cramped wrists and wonderful backache. 

It was a hectic day, and we both knew it'll be one hell of a night !

Day 2 - 25th June:

The alarm rings at 5.30 as set last night, we did have an arguement on setting the alarm time, as we were not in a mood to get up early. But as the plan says we have to get up early. I shut the alarm glance at snoring anirugh and get back in my cozy bed. 

Soon we realised we pampered ourselves too much with that extra sleep, we are not in a state to have shower, the back has devloped superultra cramps when we slept. 

We gulped 2 cups of tea and paid 20 bucks to the hotel guys (mind it that was not the payment for the tea, it includes tea and room payment for the night, now's thats one real heck of a deal). 

We fuel up and ride hard, you guessed it right we are in triple digit speeds crossing the desert landscape. 

At some point we did wait half'n hour at a railway crossing for 6 trains to cross at the same time. And no kidding it was 48 degree celcius under the blazing sun with all the riding gear and helmets on and my bike giving smoke from the engine, it was the oil on the engine that came from the front fork oil seals at triple digit speeds (litreally experienced how it feels to be in a microwave oven). 

The sweat entering the eyes and soaking everything from helmet to undies in 48 degrees is pure bliss ! (the sweat in the eye burns like as if salt and chilli flakes are smeared on your eyes, and never lets you sleep in the night !)

Somewhere in the desert Anirudh's bike caught fire, as his saddle bag breaks off and melts on contact with the exhaust pipes, the saddle bags had jerry cans full of unleaded petrol. I see fumes from the exhaust and stop him, If that had not been noticed, I could have witnessed some real hot firework display. That would mean disaster, but luckily we acted on time. 

Later rode through massive sand storms in the desert. And finally we reach gurgaon in the night, Anurag and Siddhant recieve us on the Mall road and we head to DLF city to chill out our sore backs (again dont remember the time, but its almost 11pm approx). 

I hated royally to reach late, as I missed meeting a gang of wellwishers for the real trip next day. Prachi was waiting really long with a swag full of delicious nutri bars for the power ride, oh how badly I was missing all of it (yes the nutri bars !) okay dont kill me, not just the nutri bars but you too :) After all the cribbing and well wishes on the phone it was time to sleep as ride to Manali next day is big, real big !

Day 3 - 26th June:

We leave gurgaon around 7pm, Its Me, Anurag and Anirudh. We were to meet the rest of the gang at a dhabha which is famous for smokin’ hot paratha's on the Chandigarh highway, but those punters hogged parathas and left without us :O 

Finally we catch then up on the way and we eat parathas together in another dhabha :D 
I meet my new friends Vaibhav, Akshat, Ankit and Ankit (there were two creatures of that weird name). 

And then we started to get those curious looks from tourists at the dhabha, we bikers probably looked alien with all the gear and fully loaded bike. 

The roads are good, we reach a nice spot for lunch and realise that Vaibhav's bike is leaking oil(that's
serious). So we mend the bike with a local mechanic and ride on to Manali. 

Me, Anurag and Anirudh sweep corners and get better with each turn (rider skill upgrades)and belive it or not, somewhere later in Leh Anurag comments while he saw a picture of a guy in some magazine leaning his bike in a corner “dude, this guy in the magazine is leaning so hard while its not necessary, we guys were leaning more than him”. Aww, I still miss those twisties, we going back again !

When it got dark, at some point we get seprated and got lost on the way in the mountains and the best part is Vaibhav's kick start lever falls off somewhere in the wilderness. Its me who went back at snail pace to search his kick lever, I finally find it where we last stopped now i ride back hard to reach them quickly (again time wasted, its almost 12am). 

After riding through a road (this is not the regular route to Manali) which is barely enough for one car to pass and no man or vehical in sight we reach the hotel in tattered condition at 2am approx. After 40 minutes Anirudh and the both the Ankit reach hotel with super bugged faces. 

The day ends after a shave and hot shower which lasted unusually long (happens when hot water touches your skin and your body aches like never before, rejuvenation at its best).

Day 4 - 27th June:

Planned to leave Manali early to cross Rohtang Pass in time because if we miss it then our plan lags behind by 3 days as Sonia Gnadhi was in Manali and the pass was to be closed by 4pm for the next 3 days. 

But as I mentioned earlier somewhere that even if we try to be on time it never happens (and it holds true for this day too). Both the rented bikes of Vaibhav and Ankit were giving problems so we had to halt and look for mechanic, even my left side spark plug adapter goes kaput and is replaced by a new one in 10 minutes flat. 

Me, Anurag and Anirudh meet an Israeli DJ at the gas station (ahh, reminds me of the Israeli rave party we were to attend). Me and Anurag actually wanted to set up a tent at the fuel station and settle down for the day, Because we finally started towards Rohtang at 2.30pm ! 

Oh boy, climbing rohtang is very easy, if you dont agree according to your experience then I advice you to try the north face Rohtang descent (yeah, that is the hell ride). Its tremendous fun riding downhill especially the 250ft puddle in which cars are bound to get stuck, and if you put your feet down you're in deep trouble, you'll need to do that in a single go ! 

After descending Rohtang, the food at Nepali aunty's hut was so welcoming. And the route till Keylong is fun filled with lots of river stream crossing the road never minding we bikers interrupting it, and some had waterfalls dropping directly overhead on the road! 

On the way Vaibhav Crashes into a 'century' old scooter at 50kmph approx (long story I'll die narrating, we all laughed till we cried on that incident). We reach Keylong in the night, The room at keylong welcomes us with bottles of beer immersed in a bucket of water in the bathroom (natural freezer,we all dig that!) to add icing we open up all the windows to start the natural air conditioner, 

What we did next ? Simple, ordered food, popped the bottles and started the shivering party laughing out like never before on the scooter incident (why laugh ? because we totalled the scooter and paid just 1200 bucks and scooted off, I bet the villagers boozed with that money !) :D

Day 5 - 28th June:

Left Keylong in the morning (never mind the hangover, there was still leftover beer that was gulped with tea in the morning :D). Here after the scenic beauty changes rapidly. 

We rode super surfaced corners and equally bad roads as we started the ascent towards the 'Baralachala pass at 16042ft ASL'. After descent its maggie and omlette feast in a tent in an unknown valley. 

After an hour we start the ascent from the valley towards Sarchu, as we approached Sarchu the topography changes in a blink of the eye. The himalaya's are truly awesome. We make entries at the checkpoint at Sarchu and move ahead. 

Now starts the extremely demanding and dangerous sets of 21 deadly harpin loops named as the 'gataloops' which elevates us to the 'Nakeela Pass at 15547ft ASL' and leads to a steep valley which has one single tent near a river where we had our lunch (no other option out there) 

Somewhere here the nirvana* strikes my head, its mystical and cannot be stated on paper. And again a set of loops after lunch takes us to the elevation of '16616ft ASL at Lachulungla pass'. 

One of the Ankit gives up, he throws up and falls down on the road, he isnt ready to go on further (he is later sent back to Delhi via flight from Leh)!

And after riding up and down thru 3 passes within the last 6 hours we reach Pang is the illest condition ever. 

Health detoriates at 16000ft when you camp up there in a tent in extreme windy conditions(mind the sudden elevation in a day from Keylong 10104ft to Pang 16000ft).

Now dont ask how the night passed, I'm not telling you. Experience taught me, so will to you.

Day 6 - 29th June:

Morning definitely felt better, I'm leaving Pang but will remember it forever. Whenever I'll meet my team, Pang is sure to be on the discussion list ! 

We cross the epic 'Moreh Plains' a vast 21kms stretch of pure sand and moderate grassland plains flanked by mountains on both the side. The ride through these plains are epic wheather you ride it fast or slow. 

Its 'plains' just for namesake, but its demanding and 200% fun to ride. We find turtled trucks on the 'plains full of desert grade sand' imagine what can happen to bikes then (we simply were drifting both the front end and the rear end of the bike). 

Then starts the ascent (Some psychological incidents very personal hits you and the visor get all misty, again these cant be expressed on paper) some real hard inspiration and equally hard riding takes you to 'Tanglangla pass at 17582ft ASL'. 

The the descent leads you to amazingly scenic newly constructed roads that lead you to Leh. We Have lunch at a dhaba where the cute Kashmiri girl serves us equally smokin' parathas ! We guys are all smiles and thank her :D 

We reach Leh by 3pm. And 1st thing we do is to get the permits from the C.E.O of Leh Council. And then scout for rooms. 

We had an amazing stay at leh, Loved the late night gossip under the umbrella tent in the lawn just outside our room (topic was spooky ghost tales) We dig that totally because the sounds of the raging river in the background and flanking snowpeaks added the much needed spine tingling, hair raising goosebump effects. 

The hotel guy gets bugged and requests us to keep quite ! 
Reason ? The hotel guests are getting disturbed ! :D


Day 7 - 30th June:

We fresh up and eat some real nice gesmo breakfast at the german bakery (we spent up almost 5000 bucks at german bakery itself in 2 days- courtesy Anirudh, the common fund holder ‘common fund holder because he cant run fast with his weight and all that money :P). 

After filling up our stomach and the fuel tanks we head up for what we biker species arguably call it as the 'mecca for bikers'...Yes, you guessed it right The Khardungla Pass at 18380ft ASL the highest motorable road in the world. 

We ride up the himalayan terrain in high spirits, on the way we stopped to do some photo session and some crazy moments were captured, some of them include Anirudh's push up and nut cracker video on the cliffs (he did the push ups, i ruined it with nut cracker on him :D)and some amazing corner sliding action (that's to slide the bike sideways on the most dangerous ghats out there). 

Me, Anurag and Anirudh loves tailgating and pissing off those R15 and Apache RTR riders in the ghats, they wanted some racing action and we gave them !

After crossing the gateway of Nubra we reach the K’la top, there was a sense of accomplishment among the team, that's the exact midpoint of our trip. We hug each other for the accomplishment and spend half'n hour taking pictures and talking to foreigners and peeing in the valley. 

One of the tourists recognised us by seeing the bike's resigtration plate. I was startled as he said 'You from Indore ? You guys stuntride ? I saw you folks in the newspapers almost a year ago' 

It’s a moment of pride for the Throttle-XTreme stunt team as people recognised us in the highest motorable road in the world !

As we return back its almost 3pm. And after eating and freshing up I hit the cyber cafe by 6pm and sign off at 10.30pm paying him 450 bucks for this gruelling session (yeah that’s expensive, considering its just 15 bucks an hour back in my city). 

Now you folks are not previlaged to ask what happened in these 4 ½ hours, even if you ask me I’m keeping mum on this !! 
I couldnt sleep this night...for obvious reasons…

Day 8 - 1st July:

I wake up with sore eyes, got used to it by now, we again hog at the german bakery and leave Leh with our eyes set on Pangong Tso, the utterly beautiful river which is 1/3 in India and the rest in China. 
We ride with grace, the beauty that surrounds forced us to ride that way, because generally we folks ride full out- using every drop of juice from the motor. 

On the way my front tyre lost pressure and ran flat, time to use the foot pump, luckily that was not a puncture and we rode on. We reach Pangong at 5pm and I was wondering how the front tyre lost pressure and still wasn’t a puncture, and curse my luck. Heck, I just realised that my ‘rear’ tyre is flat now ! 
Another disappointment, I was still pumping air as my buddies took pictures and we didn’t get vacant tents on the banks of the lake. So we had to move ahead 7kms towards the Chinese side to look for more human settlements, luckily we grabbed the last 2 tents available. 

Another disappointment is that, the bag containing the Permits of Leh Council and Registration Papers of the rented bikes is lost as it fell off somehwere. And Vaibhav’s lost the key too, so rented bike is directed through the battery, so we din’t have the registration and neither the keys. ( if caught it can be termed as a ‘stolen vehical’, big reason to worry) but luckily no one stopped us ! 

At night, we meet a gang of strangers and couples during dinner in the dining hall (read ‘dining tent’). Then we share biking experience and decide to light up a campfire in the freezing cold outside (the cute Nepali boy asked 200 bucks for the firewood, but was definitely worth it) 

The strangers accompany us and share stories (yeah, you guessed it right ghost stories indeed). One of them was kind enough to offer his bottle of rum, and that’s all we need to sleep happily. Nit in the cold with bizzare ghost stories, camp fire, the moon lurking and mountain peaks flanking on both sides works wonders and feels ‘nirvana’. 

Anurag missed it all, he slept without dinner and was JEALOUS the next morning, we slept like dogs and never felt the cold (thanks to the rum) ! :D

Day 9 – 2nd July:

Woke up with a superb hangover and coffee to spice things up, temperature in my thermometer was around 5 degree celcius. 

And I’am proud to say that I experienced the ‘’Slumdog Millionaire Loo’’ (Yeah that same toilet without water or a seat, you know whats down there :D). 

We load our bags and leave Pangong. Not to forget I’m riding the bike with a flat rear tyre(and forgot to mention, there was no road in Pangong Tso, its all rocky) 

The scene is marvellous. But half of the day is wasted mending my bike’s puncture, Anurag’s rear brake switch with the stunt hand brake, Ankit’s bike gave up the wheel sprocket (another big reason to worry). 

So after mending all this we leave towards Leh and stay the night in the same hotel, after hours of gossip and other ‘wordly stuff’ we dive into the night.

Day 10 – 3rd July:

We start in the morning around 8am and plan to reach Sarchu instead of Pang (we did worry on hearing Pang, reprisal is not what we wanted at Pang)

But we ride in awe gazing nature on its raw face, that’s how Ladakh is. We reach Pang and have lunch in that same tent where we stayed while the ascent. The Nepali Aunty greets us once again and her kid is just too cute with his red cheeks, we all play with him.

We big goodbye and reach Sarchu in the evening. We stay in tents with attached bathroom, I was happy to see attached loo and no more Slumdog Millionaire style loo ! :D 

We gossip like never before and have dinner and sleep gossiping, before sleeping my thoughts-hate the ride back just because we were gradually nearing the human civilisation.

Day 11 – 4th July:

By 7am we leave Sarchu camp and head towards the Baralachala Pass to reach Manali. Memories just a week old gush back and it brings back the smile on the face. Reason ? The return ride reminds me of the fun and hardship we faced while the ascent on the same route.

It starts to drizzle, but we get drenched in the drizzle itself, later we put on the rain coats. As we approach Rohtang Pass the rain hits hard, we are drenched from wet backpacks to ice cold undies !

Rain coats make no sense, mine is torn and looks like a designer low waist rugged denim ! The Ascent from north face in the rain is one of a kind experience, Me and Anurag who were trailing the group stop to hold the exhaust pipes with our ‘gloves on’ as our fingers are wet and almost in frostbite conditions. 

But holding the exhaust pipe was such a useless thing. It never made our hands warm, it never did any effect. Riding to the top of Rohtang was a nightmare and will never forget the frostbites and chilled underwears !

We eat at the top and try to warm our hands on the gas stove (even that didn’t help, the Aunty who was cooking suggested that our hands would burn and we wont feel it) we eat our maggie and omlette with ice cold hands and ride down to manali in the rains with the army convoy.

We stay in a super duper duplex room in manali and chill out our already chilled out bum ! Later in the night we eat grub gulp booze and party hard. 

Day 12 – 5th July: 

We get up and start riding (tht’s the routine you see). Just between Manali and Kullu Anirudh’s 440 lbs RE Classic gets punctured. Only we know how we rolled that son of gun at snail pace upto Kullu outskirts and mended it. Let me tell you that it was ‘Bharat Bandh’ this day because of hike in fuel price and the mechanic shop was closed, we requested him to help us.

And he not only mended it but also gave us a swag full of fresh pears right from the tree in his backyard garden. And he didn’t even charge us even for the puncture, but Anirudh did pay him(very modest man he is, not anirudh but the old mechanic !). I hope anirudh don’t kill me for this statement !

In the whole puncture drama we lost 2 hours and we were just 22 kms away from where we started. And the rest of the gang is miles ahead as they moved on. 

Thereon we ride hard to cover up the lost time. We couldn’t bid goodbye to Akshat as he had a flight to catch and took off from Chandigarh. But we finally meet Vaibhav and Ankit at Mc’D almost 150 kms from Delhi. We all eat together, the whole ride made us look like zombies with all that red bloodshot eyes. That was fatigue, sleep and bugs that hit us in the eye during night at triple digits speed (I hate tinted visors at night for this sole reason).

As we reach Delhi we bid goodbye to Vaibhav and Ankit as they head towards Noida and we folks towards Gurgaon. 

We reach DLF city like zombies invading the city in the dead of the night with bikes. It was 2am approx, don’t remember it properly, but as we reach Anurag’s flat we hog on some nice butter chicken ordered by his room mates and sleep like we guys are high on grass.

Day 13 – 6th July:

We get up around 12pm. I’m surprised to see Anurag sleeping, he was supposed to hit the office, but he says its off office folks just called him in the morning (I knew he was plain lying, he was just as dead as us, and he simply couldn’t move because of the sprains and tiredness :D). 

We order some much needed grub from Dominos, and voila ! 
In no time 3 jaws went to work on them and nothing was left other than the pizza boxes and used pepperoni sachets !

Later in the day Me and Anurag visit the Kaulson Racing Products (KRP) garage in Naraina to get a new exhaust pipe with headers and bend pipe, as my stock exhaust broke up in the himalayas and breathed its last on the Manali-Delhi route. 

Anirudh went off to meet some of his relatives. We ride back with the new performance boosting exhaust, ripping through the freeway, simply loved the loud exhaust note echoing off the vehical that was just overtaken !

Rode back real fast to get back to Gurgaon and meet Garima. She knows the art of disturbing so perfectly. Gary shows up just when I was facebooking outside Park Centra. Boy, she was so confident and the next moment she’s a scared to death creature who gave me scar marks on the torso just because the bike is a fast machine even at 30kmph with me riding and Gurgaon throwing the traffic at us. (I can bully her with a wheelie anyday ! :D). 

Guess what, I did pop some and its obvious, this time bigger scar marks ! We dine at Subway, Gary orders the Salad Platter just because she’s on dieting (belive me she’s already in good shape) and me too the same platter as I was to ride the whole of next day, After dinner the ice cream treat worked wonders. 

And I drop her off and ride back to find out that Anurag is out for a movie, but as its 11.30 he comes back in half’n hour and we enjoy the FIFA World Cup matches and sleep off. 

Day 14 – 7th July:

Me and Anirudh bid goodbye to Anurag, he wishes back and we plan to reach Indore till the evening, but as always there were loads of problem and it delays.

My problems include everything from stuck gearbox on the 5th cog to the bolts of engine mounts falling off from the chassis ! 

And Anirudh’s problems include from the Tyre hugger loosing balance cause of the load and stopping the rear wheel from spinning to leaking tanks.

We ride though Jaipur, Kota and Jhalawar and encounter rains as we approach the state of Madhya Pradesh and a bit of confusion because of the rains and my engine loosing firing at 4000rpm and dying out once stopped, in the process we split up unintentionally near Ujjain. But everything ends well in the night. 

I reach Indore, the city streets are deserted its almost 12am, its still raining, its tranquillity and the feeling is zeal, the final home stretch !

I reach home and kill the engine, the motor stops, A moment of pride, for myself and my trusty machine. A punch line hits my head ‘Behind every successful man there’s a machine’ holds true for this trip. (Okay ladies don’t kill me for this :P). I had friends and family wishing me for this trip, so its not just the machine but also this elite gang that holds credits for the wishes and blessings.

The odometer read 7837 kms, it was 3599 kms when I started 14 days ago from this very spot ! Covered 800 kms this single day itself. My meter would be removed and preserved as I stuntride and strip down the bike to minimal clothing. The distance of the Leh-Ladakh 2010 epic ride is etched and will be preserved forever !

Upstairs, Mom welcomes me with the traditional ‘aarti’. I wasn’t expecting it, but could sense the feeling in mum’s hazel eyes, that thank god her son is back home in one piece. I have no words, I drop my backpack and gear and try to sleep off, its not the same now…it’ll never be…

"Attitude differs with Altitude, been there done that at sweet 20’’ 

Leh-Ladakh 2010 Epic Ride- signing off’ 

(Next summer we’ll be back with a big bang, bigger ride and bigger action guranteed– The ride never ends !!)

The (+) points:

1. Bikers and Kashmiri girls raise a salute and wave at you, it raises your spirits. The bikers always stop if you are in trouble even if you are strangers, folks in the car film you and raise a salute in respect. We dig this respect, it cant be earned even if you are riding in a multimillion dollar Maybach ! You just need to shed ‘blood sweat gear power’ and have gasoline in your veins and a rock hard willpower to test your endurance with your thing between your legs, I meant the bike !
2. You evolve as a rider by honing your riding skills in the tarmac- by tackling smooth corners at 70-80 kmph, The Dirt- by tackling the desert grade sand by sliding both the ends of your bike, Total Offroad- by tackling the rocky terrain, grass ,rivers, snow, ice, gravel and what not !
3. If you love adventure and have soft corner for gears and crankshafts, then I’d suggest wherever you go take the bike, the fun factor multiplies tenfold !
4. Whenever I go to Ladakh, its going to be on my bike or else I’m not going except if its base jumping from an aircraft and landing on Ladakh !
5. You always learn a big deal from rides like these !
6. If someone brags about an inter city or inter state bike trip in front of you, you can be the boss out there if you ride Ladakh and back.
7. You get full rights for the exclusivity of experience (means how much ever you say or write about it, you are not doing justice to it !!)
8. You can take your bike where ever you want !

The (-) points

1. You’ll need to get used to not having bath, its not my word, you don’t have bathrooms in remote tents, neither you have the guts to take a bath even if you get water !
2. You’ll need to carry a big load and live with hell lots of cramps and sprains and what not (we, loved all this)
3. Get ready to have sun tan atleast 5 shades below your colour ! (I hate it)
4. You should be ready to ride with sore eyes (I, bet you’ll feel sleepy, I did sleep while driving, luckily I woke up in a throttle blip !!)
5. You’ll hate aunties who flock up the himalaya’s in cars with the heater turned on and their favorite ghazal playing in the deck, who take pictures at Rohtang and elsewhere in Leh that too in their best ‘saree’ and tons of makeup and jewels ! We hate it, that’s how loosers do it !!
6. You’ll need to get aclimatised, which is a pain in the ass, but after that you’ll love it big time !
7. When you do walk the talk, you find out its not as easy as you talked !
8. Bike problems inculde, punctures, brake problems, clutch cables, throttle wires, silencers breaking off and the list goes on…


Visit the album Leh - Ladakh 2k10 (Vol.1) in Facebook for visuals of the trip.

Atlast, I’d heartily thank my family, and special thanks to my friends Prachi, Shrikant, Andy, Verma bro’s, Garima, Reema, Arpit, Anuj, Aman, Parivesh, Shubham, Parag, Ashita, Vartika, Roshi, Sonam, Vikrant Verma and the team Anurag, Anirudh, Vaibhav, Akshat and Ankit. Also the rest of our team who unfortunately couldn’t make it with us- Ravish, Akshay, Harkanwar, Mohit and everyone else out there if I missed any names for their wishes, blessings, nutri bars and everything else. You all guys mean a lot to me !

Love’
Sudharsan.