Many moons ago, I knew nothing about cycling. For that matter even now I just about balance my bike and life! This story is about how I got into serious cycling after giving it up in my school days.
Previous Episode Recap:
As I tried to close the gap to the motorcycle, I hit a big rock which was sitting in the shade like a ninja assassin. Up in the air, the bike and I went. Separately!
Day 13
Unlucky number 13 was the penultimate day of my ride. It was a bittersweet moment. You appreciate the days you spent travelling and feel terrible that it is all coming to an end. Normal life is not something you look forward to!
With these sad thoughts I got out of my horse shed in Batal early in the morning. It was bitterly cold. All of us stood there with a cup of hot tea in hand waiting for the sun rays to touch our frozen hide! The water on the roads was frozen, as the sun rays touched mother earth, the ice and our collective hearts melted. Sunlight had never looked that good!
Other than my pet phobias of water and heights, the only other thing which scares me is having to toilet in the open. Up until then in the trip, I had managed to find a loo when needed. But this place didn't have human habitation and therefore no toilets.
After much drinking of tea and procrastination, I decided to attend to the pressing matters at hand! For 20 minutes I walked around, far from camp, looking for a big enough rock to hide behind. The moment I dropped my pants, the previous evening's Aussie girl showed up. She took revenge for the dinner's rat meat by whooping out the loudest, heartiest and definitely most embarrassing hello to me. As I was turning red as a tomato with embarrassment she decided to stand around and chat. I was clearly not in the mood for conversation, but she didn't care!
Shitloads (pardon the pun) of embarrassment later I sneaked my way back to camp, picked up my bike and luggage, signaled Ivan and off we went. Thanking my lucky stars I didn't meet the Australians again!
The shop in Batal was run by a Tibetan couple in their 70s. Who lived in Delhi and every summer came there to run their shop for four months. They had been doing that for the past 30 years. They did it for the fun and adventure of it, more than the employment and income.
Ivan and I rode along the river, and sometimes in the river, all the way from Batal to Gramphoo. It was an enjoyable ride, even though my Irish companion for the day was as silent as a tomb. When we stopped for lunch and were offered some more rice and dal, he finally broke.
I said, I am sick and tired of this vegetarian food. His gastronomic dam burst and he went on for five minutes reminiscing about all the lovely meat he ate at home which his mother cooked!
Eating that food was a little more bearable in the company of someone else who hated it! Just for reference, in my 15 days of riding in the Himalayas I lost a whopping 7 kg. I wasn't even overweight at the start of the ride!
We rode together chatting away without a thought to the climb, since the both of us had gotten acclimatised to the altitude. As we were rounding a bend we saw a cloud of dust a couple of 100 metres ahead. For a moment I thought it was a landslide. It turned out to be a motorcyclist. He was doing a recce for the Raid de Himalaya, a car and motorcycle race held in that region. We helped him up and he sped off into the distance, leaving behind another cloud of dust in his wake.
Early in the evening we reached Gramphoo and got another cattle shed to spend the night. Ivan and I decided to share the shed, rather than take separate quarters. Little did we know that we were in for a bigger surprise and party. At 11 pm, a group of four motorcyclists disturbed camp and our sleep as they trundled into OUR shed! Apparently it wasn't ours. And we shared the two man shed amongst six people. It was a little too close for comfort!
The snow coveredpeaks stand guard, protecting the country
Another round of spot the cyclist!
There he is
The irishman
The road climbing into the mountains, as we leave Spiti behind!
Nothing special about this rock face. Look closer. Center left, see two yellow tarpaulin tents. Left bottom see blue tarpaulin tent. Then finally see the crazy zigzag path connecting the two! Who would be nuts to walk up that!
Day 14
The final day. Ivan went north to Leh, while I went south towards home.
The day consisted of climbing the infamous Rohtang Pass before descending to Manali, where I raced every vehicle going down and won!
At Rohtang I accidentally ended up mooning a bunch of tourists on horseback who were going to see snow. I don't believe my backside was something very appealing for them!
I spent a whopping total of 5 minutes at the popular tourist hillstation of Manali. And even that felt excruciatingly long! The tourists and the crowds were depressing after the freedom of the mountains.
I rode straight to the bus stand in Manali and spotted a bus starting up its engine to leave for Delhi. As the bus conductor called out for passengers, I ran to the ticket counter, bought a ticket as the bus started moving, ran back to my bike, unloaded my luggage from the bike, climbed onto the roof of the bus with the bike on my back. Tied it firmly and jumped off the moving bus.
I had left my luggage on the ground where the bus had been parked earlier and sprinted back to pick up my bag which was lying in the middle of nowhere unattended. I stood there with my bag in hand watching the bus drive out of sight. I grabbed my bag and sprinted back to the bus and hopped onto the moving vehicle. All this happened in the blink of an eye.
And like that, I was gone in 60 seconds from Manali! Success...
The cool biker dudes with whom we shared a shed for the night
Climbing Rohtang
Commercial enterprise and excessive civilisation at Rohtang top!
Lessons from the trip
The mountains are dangerous and deserve all the respect that you can give! A mistake can be costly. Even otherwise simple cycling injuries like a broken collarbone or leg can get very complicated there.
Ride safe!
The people are extremely friendly and helpful, especially as you move east from Shimla.
The locals are a religious bunch, since they life greatly depends on the wrath of nature. Respect their religious eccentricities.
Embrace the mountains... don't challenge them!
If you like Bike Travel tales:
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part II
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part III
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part IV
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part V
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part VI
Cycling in the mighty Himalayas Part VII
You can read my previous travel tales from Goa below:
You can read my experience of bicycle racing below:
Road race in Delhi: The ATH KMP 100