Part 8 — International Affairs
This post is a part of a series of blog posts about our bike trip to Kashmir from Kerala. I’ve split the travelogue into several blogs; you can find the intro and the link to all blogs here.
Day 19 (03/05/2017)
Mandi — Kasol
Distance: 108km
ODO: 5257km
It was a lazy morning; we woke up late. Thankfully, Sree was feeling better. Unfortunately, there was still no good news from the mountains. The snow was still pouring hard on the Zojila Pass and on Sree’s hopes of being able to appear for the exam. Nevertheless, we were in no hurry now. After brunch, we left by noon. Our next destination was Kasol.
Kasol was about 107km from Mandi. We needed to go in the same direction as Manali for about 78km and then divert from Bhuntar. After some 50+ km, we reached the Aut tunnel. When we stopped to take some photos, we met a group travelling to Kasol. From the conversation, we understood that it was not their first time to Kasol. So we asked if they knew any place in Kasol where we could pitch our tent, and he suggested Kasol Camps (10 points for keeping the name simple). After deviating at Bhuntar, the road follows the Parbati river, with the view of snow-capped mountains at a distance. After about 3 hours of total ride-time, we reached a Kasol. With beautiful mountains on all sides, it has a tranquil vibe to it. The slight rainfall that day only added to the beauty of the place.
After asking a few people for suggestions, we reached Kasol Camps. The place had already pitched tents ready to be rented out. In addition, they have an option where you could rent out a space to pitch your tent for just 200rs a night. We were planning to stay there for two days. So it made sense to take it so that we could use their facilities. After pitching our tents, we decided to take a walk and get some food.
The small town of Kasol was only walking distance from our tent. Kasol is full of foreigners, Israelis in particular. Israelis have a compulsory military programme after school, and they get a handful of pay after that. Many of them use this money to travel the world or relax at places like Kasol for months. So we could see a lot of foreigners at Kasol, and there were also some Israeli restaurants functioning to cater to them. We decided to check out one of the most famous ones, Mama Cafe. We ate Majadra and sat there for a while. People were in their hippie outfits. Wearing t-shirts and jeans, we felt a bit out of place. There weren’t many things to do in Kasol. It was a place to relax and lose yourself in nature.
When we left the restaurant, it started raining, so we went back to the tent. The camp was beside the river, so we spent the rest of the day by the river talking about anything and everything. We were thinking about how to spend the next two days there. We didn’t have any plans prepared. Some people we met at the tent suggested the trek to Kheerganga. We were not sure about it as we had just completed a trek two days before.
As it got dark, the rain started becoming heavier. We got into the tent. It was freezing. After our daily phone calls, we sat there talking till midnight, and we started feeling hungry. Luckily the restaurant at the camp was still open. So we ordered some Maggi. When we returned to the tent, water was dripping through the tent. We discovered that the tent wasn’t waterproof the hard way. The top of the tent was fine, but the zipper was leaking. We were too tired to do anything about it, so, in the hope that a flooded tent wouldn’t wake us up, we went to sleep.
Day 20 (04/05/2017)
Kasol
Distance: 20km
ODO: 5277km
We woke up the next day feeling sick. Our stomachs were giving us a hard time, It could have been some food, or it could also be because we were dehydrated. In the last couple of days, we were drinking very little water. As the weather became colder, our water intake slowly decreased. During the initial days of the trip, we drank 2–4 litres of water each day. But recently, due to the weather, we were not feeling thirsty and this could have affected our health adversely and led to this diarrhoea.
Along with this, half of the tent was flooded by the rain. Anyway, between the frequent trip to the toilet, and the arduous task of cleaning the tent, we decided to cancel the already doubtful Kheerganga trek. Instead, we would spend the day recovering our health and preparing ourselves for the even more demanding terrains and more arduous conditions to come.
We went to the town to get some medicine and took it after a light meal from the Israeli restaurant. We had the whole day left for us, so we went to Manikaran. Manikaran is a Gurdwara, the place of worship of the Sikhs. It was about 5 km up along the Parbati river. The ride was equally good as the ride till Kasol. The road is cut into the rock at some places, and the rock extends above the road. The river was flowing some 50m down on the other side.
After taking a steep descent from the road, we reached Manikaran. The place was decently crowded with devotees. There were a few tourists too, but the majority were devotees. There was a hot spring and also a hot cave. We followed the custom and covered our heads with the small kerchiefs available, and went inside the Darbar Sahib, the main hall of a Gurdwara. We joined the prayers for some time.
After the prayers, we went to the hot cave above the hot spring. Since we were not feeling well, we decided to skip the hot spring. As we were walking towards the chamber, we could feel the heat. Finally, we reached the cave, and when we first entered, it was burning hot. It was hard to spend a second there, but we pushed ourselves to give it a try. But after some time, we got used to the heat and sat there for some time. The Langar at the Gurdwara was over by then, so we headed back to the tent.
I had some work to complete, so I got started with that, and Sree took some rest. Later we returned to Manikaran for food as we thought it might be better for our already upset stomach. We thought we’d give it a break from the junk that we’ve been feeding it for some time now. The Langar included Roti, Rice and Dal.
The guy we met the previous day at the Aut tunnel was also at the camps. When we talked, we said that we were out of places on our list, and there was still some time before Zojila pass opened. Then he suggested McLeod Ganj. Since we didn’t have any other plans of our own, we decided to go for it. Another option we had was Malani, but both of us had already been there, and also it would take us further away from our route. So we decided to head to McLeod Ganj.
McLeod Gunj was 204 km from Kasol. It was only a day’s ride at max from Kasol, but we didn’t want to take chances and decided to start early the next day. The day ended with a movie and the usual phone calls.
Day 21 (05/05/2017)
Kasol — Mandi
Distance: 115km
ODO: 5392km
We woke up the next day to find out that Sree’s tyre was flat again. The only puncture shop at Kasol was near Manikaran. So since we were going there anyway, we decided to have Langar from the Gurdwara. So we packed our stuff, folded the tent and headed to Manikaran. We could not get the puncture fixed, but luckily the air was not draining out that fast, so we filled it up and decided to get on our way and get it fixed at the next available shop.
Meanwhile, my bike silencer’s clamp had also broken. When we asked some shops in Kasol, they told us that the only hope for fixing it would be at Bhantur. So we decided to stop to get both of our bikes fixed at Bhantur.
By the time we left Kasol, it was already around 2:30 pm. We stopped mid-way to fill up Sree’s tyres once more. We reached Bhantur by 5 pm and found shops to get them fixed. It was a lovely shop, and the staff was amiable. They offered us tea and took complete care of our bikes.
It was already 7.30 when we were ready to leave. We knew we couldn’t make it to McLeod Gunj, so we decided to stop at Mandi. We reached Mandi by 9.30 and, after dinner, pitched our tent in a Petrol pump. Just when we were about to sleep, we heard some people talking; in Malayalam, we got out to check and saw four people. They were travelling from Thrissur. They had started the day’s journey from Delhi and was planning to ride till Manali. Mandi was already about 430 km away from Delhi, and Manali was further 110 km away, and this was not the best road to ride on. That was way beyond us! Even when we were on the best of the highways, we only managed around 550 km a day, and these guys were doing 550 on these mountainous roads. The mere thought of it was exhausting for us. After talking with them for some time and seeing them off, we went back to the tent. Right before we were about to sleep, we saw an article that the snowfall in Zojila pass had stopped, and the Army had started clearing the snow off the road. It was bound to open in a couple of days. We could feel a sense of excitement building up! After a fortnight of confusion and uncertainties, the doors were finally open!
Day 22 (06/05/2017)
Mandi — McLeod Gunj — Dramman
Distance: 184km
ODO: 5576km
After brunch, we started at 11 am. With the last night’s news about the opening of the Zojila pass, we had a brief moment of confusion if we should still visit McLeod Gunj, but when we checked, it was only a few kilometres of a detour from our original path. So we decided to take a quick stopover there. After a short nap after lunch and a ride through beautiful mountain roads, we reached Dharamshala by 5 pm.
The small road that leads to McLeod Gunj is plastered with thick concrete. If you skid off the edge of the road, it’ll be pretty tricky to get back on the road. Add to that some sharp and steep curves, it can easily qualify as one of the most dangerous roads we had ridden on. McLeod Gunj is a suburb of Dharamshala. The Tibetan government in exile from Tibet (due to the issues with China) is headquartered in McLeod Gunj.
The Buddhist temple in McLeod Gunj is where Dalai Lama resides with his followers and the other Tibetan refugees. The temple complex is a modest building. The main shrine building is surrounded by big prayer wheels that the Buddhist use for chanting. You can find these prayer wheels in various types and sizes. The ones here are about 1 foot in diameter and 2 feet high. They are fixed around the shrine on its outer side. Buddhist mantras are embossed onto these prayer wheels. Rotating it once clockwise is equivalent to reciting the mantra once. You can see Monks carrying these prayer wheels in their hand and turning it, kind of like fidgeting. We went around the temple rotating the wheels and offering prayers. After we got out of the temple, we felt hungry and decided to eat an early dinner. We had some delicious momos from a street food stall.
Our next destination was Ladakh via Kashmir. The excitement was starting to build up slowly. We were gearing up to enter the Paradise on Earth. After all the turmoil of plans, we were finally ready to open Google maps and set the destination as Srinagar. We bought some Tibetan prayer flags like any other rider visiting Ladakh and tied them on our bikes between the mirrors.
We decided to move out of the town and find a place to camp to start the following day without much hassle and traffic.
We left McLeod Gunj by about 8.30 pm, and after riding for about an hour, we decided to stop. After getting rejected at a petrol pump, the people at the next one was super friendly. In addition to permitting us to stay, pointing at some buses parked there, they suggested that we can sleep on top of those buses if we want. The only catch was that the buses left at 6.30 in the morning, so we had to get off before that. We didn’t even have to let them finish before we decided what we wanted. We took our sleeping bags and climbed on top of the bus.
