Contributed By Suman Kannaiahgari
I was watching SSS and movie ki connect avvodhu avvodhu ankuntu vella but once RE Thunderbird screen meedha ragane connect ipoya...!! Bike ride and Interval lo accident scene reminded me of our accident during the trip. Trip 15th day, we met with an accident but continued the trip for next 8 days without rest...!!!
I, ante nenu, Suman Kannaiahgari, and we ante maa friend kuda Sai Krishna.
Here I go, the plan was to go to Trivandrum in train and start from Kanyakumari. We started towards the railway station with 20-25 Kgs bags each there was no carrier to the bike, we tied one bag at the side and other would be carried by pillion but after travelling 6 kms, our backs started aching, so we decided to buy a carrier for bike and canceled the train ticket. Full search chesaam, welding shops lo adiginam but no luck. At last, finally we found a Royal Enfield specialist near Tank Bund. We spent a whole day and night there and it was prepared by 6:40 in the morning next day. We had our dinner there and slept in a car someplace for a while, later in the morning we realized it's a graveyard. Hope, you are aware of the graveyard near tank bund.
Did I mention this trip was a self sponsored one?
We started from Hyderabad and first destination was Nagpur, then to Indore. While heading towards Indore, bike stopped in the forest area due to lack of engine oil. We missed checking the engine oil because the bike place from where we hired, promised us that it was serviced 6 days before we took it. We parked the bike under the tree for 30 minutes and somehow managed to go to Ujjain. We had the oil changed at Ujjain before checking into the hotel room. Here are a few experiences from Ujjain.
Next we started off to Udaipur, I booked a hotel from Go Ibibo. It was around 11 in the night we reached Udaipur and we followed the location on Google Maps to the hotel and ended up in a very scary location, we didn't even find a single light nor a sentient person anywhere. We were at the outskirts of the city. After a while, mobile network was also playing hide and seek with us. We were left blank, somehow managed to find the way back and reached a hotel after asking the locals for the address. We spent an extra day at Udaipur as Udaipur's beauty is best when you watch it at night.
We came across several adventures while heading over to Ajmer, Pushkar. We reached Puskar from Udaipur, the Pushkar is the only place in India where we can find a Bramha Temple. Next day, we went to Ajmer darga, unknowingly, it was first day of Ramzan.
Next, we headed towards Jaipur, beautiful city I can say. Well built city. Deeni gurinchi varninchali ante naku words ravatledhu bhayya..!!!
Next to Delhi from Jaipur, we didn't find a hotel to check in and were left wandering on the roads. Here we met a traveler, Sunil ji, who gave us shelter for that night. We explored a little bit of Delhi and we shopped for our costumes in Himalayas like shoes and all. Also, the bike finally got serviced in Delhi. I've got to say a few lines about Sunil ji.
We continued from Delhi, reached Kurukshetra and then went on to Ludhiana, we stayed in a dhaba and started early in the morning from there...we reached Kasol that night, it was -5°c, the best camping ever in my travel life.... From there we went next to Manali, it was Saturday when we reached manali. We needed permission to cross Rohtang Pass border, the next day being Sunday, we had to stay for an extra day in Manali.
Sunday, all the ATMs were out of cash.... it took 2 and half hours for me to withdraw any cash at all.
I was standing at an ATM and I was 11th person in the queue then the cash ran out. I had to find another ATM and stand again.
It was 23:30 in the night, we had dinner and the next day morning(Monday), I had to wake up at 4 in the morning to stand in the permission queue along with 500 people. It was very cold and snow was falling all over.... Finally Got permission around 11:00 in the morning.
We left Manali around 13:00, crossed Rohtang at 18:00..... it was raining snow. We met a few people from Karnataka, they wanted to halt for the night at Koksar. We had the best Maggie of the whole trip at Koksar, we wanted to travel till Keylong ..
We started our bike and we were heading towards Keylong
We had to stop at Sissu because it's already 10:30 in the night... We were finding a place to pitch our tent, they we met localite Surender ji. He allowed us to pitch the tent at his home, later he offered a bedroom.
The next day morning, before we wake up.... he was at our bed with flask of tea and packet of rusk... He then offered us Maggie as breakfast... He didn't even collect a penny. We began our journey, had to fill the petrol in bike before Keylong because there was not going to be any petrol bunk for next 365 Kms.
It was a complete off road remote area, it's hard to find people there, fuel station toh door ki baat... In this way, we need to cross the water streams with bike...
I mentioned earlier, that we met some people... We exchanged our bike just about 8 Kms before zing zing bar. It was then we met with an accident after just 4 kms of travel after exchanging the bikes.
A J & K taxi fellow rushed onto our bike. My friend was driving, the bike crashed down. I fell off from the bike and suffered minor injuries.
They got scared with the injuries I had and looking at bike. They gave up on the trip. We had to wait for 3-4 hours and finally found a truck. We all got onto the truck and headed back to Manali...
You can see a bandage to my hand, this pic was taken after coming back from the trip. We dropped off the truck at Surender jis place with our bike... I was amazed with Surender jis hospitality again though it was very late in the night... We started back again towards Leh the next day.... I drove the bike for 13 hours continuously without even having lunch that day... We stopped at Pang because of the cold and also our bodies were completely exhausted.. There was a small hotel in Pang and also they provided beds charging about 250/- for each person. We had dinner and halted there for the night.
Next day, we continued our journey and reached Leh by 16:00. We checked into a Guest house named Ree-Yull. We had just removed our bags from bike and by 16:10 we started towards Khardung la top, the Highest Motorable road in the world. We reached there by 18:30. Here we had to survive from altitude sickness(breathing problems) and cold...
Forgot to mention, on the same day we crossed Taglangla while heading to Leh... The second highest pass of the world.
We reached back to the guest house by 20:30 and freshened up... We had a walk to Leh main market for dinner. We planned to visit the world famous Pangong Lake the next day. Do you remember the climax of 3 Idiots and Shah Rukh's entry with Royal Enfield in Jab Tak Hai Jaan were all shot at Pangong Lake....
Trip Schedule:
Also, do SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel to get more awesome video content delivered right into your inbox.
