Diary

This new airport has a beautiful design and nice open space. The food court and shops are in the same area. There is even Old Market area, but this is more for gifts. As I’m not a shopper, somehow I stumbled into LC Waikiki as the local H&M shop and bought underwear, a shirt and shorts. Basically after shopping I changed the outfit in the toilet and came out as fresh as a daisy with new clothes.

I stopped in the pub and had a dark beer Bomonti and hot dog with fries. I got free wifi and I needed to arrange the upcoming stay in Delhi.

Seems like I’m going to stay in Abhishek’s place. I have met him in Dehradun in 2015 and he was studying in the same university where I took the short course. Danish seems to have difficulties to get to Delhi in time. His bike will be loaded on the 16th of June and it will arrive in Chandigarh on the 19th of June. So, it seems he will catch me up in the mountains. But he hasn’t bought the airplane tickets. So, we might meet in Manali and I will explore McLeod Ganj on my own. Let’s see. I might have a breakfast with Pooja in Old Delhi on Saturday. The public internet requires logging in and it lasts only 15 minutes. It’s painful really to have meaningful IM conversations or calls.

My nose is running due AC and I’m having problems with hearing. My ears are kind of semi locked because of the air pressure on board of the plane.

I’m still waiting for the gate for Delhi flight. I walked to the gate E3, it is a 10 minute walk. There was a bunch of Indians waiting to board the plane to India. So, it has to be the right place.

Well diary form is honest way of describing the events that are happening around me. When I’m describing the events right away and in the evening, then I might feel the peacefulness in one moment and total disarray in another moment, the twist of the tale could be on the next line or on next page.

The calmness was gone when the person in the gate E3 said that yes this flight is going to Delhi, but I have a different Turkish Airline flight. OMG is this really happening to me? I have been sitting in the wrong gate. I have looked at the departure screen like 3 hours and somehow I have missed that there is more than one flight to Dehli and there are different flight numbers. I checked the screen again - final call to Delhi at gate F14. I started to run. It’s a long way and it must have been 10 minutes of running. The gate was closed and the plane was rolling away. What a plunder. I went from one Turkish Airline desk to another and from one person to another. Finally it was clear that there were two separate flights and I missed mine. I managed to change my ticket to Sunday evening and paid 600€ penalty for this thing. I hope insurance will cover it with no questions asked. Then I went to baggage claim to pick up my backpack. I met Michael from Netherlands. He is going to Tanzania and he has missed his plane due to the delay of the Düsseldorf flight. We chatted about traveling and after 20 minutes wait got our bags. We made a plan to go exploring the city tomorrow. First I got a 30 minute ride to the hotel where Turkish Airline is accommodating all the passengers who have missed their flights because of the airline for free. Michael is staying in that hotel. I got a hotel located just 10 minutes taxi drive from it towards the old Atatürk airport. Taxi fee was 25TRY ~ 4€. Wow, the hotel is nice, there are two towers. One part of the hotel is five and other part is four stars. I asked the taxi driver to stop in front of four stars entrance. I paid 80€ for two days. Nice and clean hotel. I updated Danish and Pooja of the new situation and also had a call to my wife. At 11pm I was finally done with waitings and hassling. Stuff like this does happen and I’m happy that I was able to solve the issue in the manner that I will have a nice city break in the lovely Istanbul. I took a shower and went to sleep.

Saturday 15.06.2019

I woke at 8AM, had a shower and went down to the restaurant. The breakfast is luxurious and there were even strawberries, halva and other items that you won’t see in regular hotel breakfast. I started to talk to a Iraqi family in the table next to mine. There was a 10 year old boy, daughters were 4 and 14. They have lived in Istanbul already 10 years. Today they are going to visit their grandparents in Bagdad. They had poor English, but somehow we managed to understand each other. I showed my daughter’s photo too. We cursed the war and hoped for a better days for Iraq. What a lovely family.

Michael got a taxi to pick me up and we drove to old town. Istanbul is a vast city, everything is a 30 minutes drive. We walked to the plaza between Sultan’s mosque and Hagia Sophia. Instead of going to queue to the museum, we bought ice cream and admired both structures from the distance in the shade of a pine tree. Ice cream was 20TRY ~ 3€. There were masses of people waiting to get to the Hagia Sophia. We decided it is not worth the wait, because Michael needs to go back to his hotel at 1PM in order to get back to the airport in time.

We walked a little and did another touristic attraction instead. There is a water supply reserve underground building from Roman era called the Basilica Cistern. Entrance cost was exactly the same as ice cream. We went down the stairs and entered to the wonderland of pillars and arches on top of them. This is a huge place and I can imagine the purpose of this crazy undertaking is to have plenty of fresh water in case of a siege and a cut from the water supplies via aquaducts. There was moisture in the air and on the walls and on the floor below, but no actual water. The causeways have been built on top of the floor. I assume in the rainy seasons there might be half a meter of water on the floor too. The magnitude of this water tank is just breathtaking. There are little ornaments on the hundreds of pillars. It was not only functional, it needed to be beautiful as well. But on the other hand I can imagine the misery of the slaves that needed to dig this huge hole and build this megastructure. There was even a pillar, that had different design features than other regular pillars, and it was constantly wet. The crying pillar is symbolizing the hardship of the slave work in the 4th century. It was a nice cool experience and we walked up the stairs back to the street level.

Well, there is absolutely nothing to see. People just live their lives and small companies provide the services. Soon it was clear that these shops are not that I’m looking for. I hired a tuk-tuk or auto as they call it here. I drove almost back to Green Park and went to Airtel telecom shop. It took an hour to register the 3G SIM card. It involved a lot of bureaucracy, but they will do the application and hard work for you. I got a package where I have 1GB per day for 230INR ~ 3€. That is very cheap. From another shop I bought a local adapter for charging my electronics. I walked back to Abhishek’s apartment. This is a nice middle class residential block.

Another interesting thing was the fact that we needed to get a bottle of gasoline and pour it to the tank, because all the motorbike tanks were emptied before boarding the train. I wonder if these people who are working in the train cargo, ever buy fuel to their personal cars? They should offer at least 1 liter of fuel for starting the engine. Anyhow, Rakesh went and bought the fuel. I assembled the mirrors and was ready to go. I gave 300INR ~ 3€ to Rakesh for his effort. He has been helpful and it was a lot of fun to communicate with him. He speaks Hindi and I speak English and collectively we were able get the point. I thanked him and drove to the hotel.

I packed my stuff from back pack into different bags on bike. At noon I checked out and was ready to roll. My destination is McLeod Ganj, the Tibetans community in the mountains. Danish will arrive by train probably tomorrow morning to Chandigarh. He will take his bike from railway station and will start his journey towards Shimla. We will meet somewhere there in few days. I drove through the Chandigarh. I didn’t see much of the city, just intersections and roundabouts. The city traffic is pretty intensive, lot of horning and switching lanes. Intersection traffic lights are with counter and very often you need to stand for a full minute. It feels like an eternity. Around 1PM I reached the outskirts of the city. I made a stop at the gas station and took full tank with 900INR ~ 11.5€. My first meal of the day was at 1PM and I took very simple bread omelet and tea, total 70INR ~ 1€. On the road I usually eat street food and my cost for the food is rather small.

I walk a bit further uphill and ordered Paneer Tikka Masala and it really looked and tasted like tikka chicken. The paneer cheese was marinated and grilled on the ashes. I started to talk to the owner of this restaurant. His name is Karan and he is sikh and he is vegetarian. I showed where Estonia is on the map. We talked about food in general and purity of it. A fascinating guy. I ate the chicken-like paneer tikka while we were talking on the street.

Today I have eaten only street food. I like that. I did a little loop in the area and discovered that most of the shops and restaurants are closing their doors. I walked down to my hotel and had a Facetime video call with my family. Took a shower and discovered there were no towels. It seems the hotel has missed that. My rooms is huge and cozy. I sat on the balcony and saw some lights standing out from the darkness. At 2:30AM I went to bed.

Tourists are wandering around and making selfies in front of the praying monks. It’s a shame of course, but I believe the local community leaders are taking this as an inevitability. The local community’s economy is based on tourism. I did some photos of monks or praying ladies and showed the photos to them and thanked with gesture of putting hands together. I noticed another guy with a more serious camera. He was taking pictures in secret. His name is Omkar and he is from Mumbai. He admired the gear I have and the photos I have taken.

I drove back and did the checkout. It turned out that the breakfast was not included and I needed to pay for this. No problem, just a bit irritating. But the food was good. No worries. The hotel is at 1771m and I started to drive down the steep slope back to Dharamshala. The drop was around 1000 meters. Soon I climbed back to the mountains. I needed to refuel and the cost of one litter of petrol is 69INR ~ that is just under 1€. The mountain side was covered by grey clouds and the heavy rain is inevitable. One biker on the road suggested to go and see the paraglider’s heaven in Bir. He was going there for a tandem jump.

I drove to the landing site which is a huge grassy field where people are having picnics and playing cricket. There was a group of young Buddhist monks and nuns. Monastery has a summer break, but these boys and girls are not going home for the break, because they live so far away in India or in Nepal. They are having a good time and where there is pop-corn there is a proper party. I made some pictures and promised to send them to adult Lhakpa. She is a Tibetan who was born in India and she is arranging this kind of events. I saw some paragliders jump off the mountain top and glide across the valley and land with spiral move to the field just in front of me.

I had another tea and continued my journey. At one point I stopped and made a picture of a father and two daughters who were hanging out with their goats. The goats were like pets and they wanted to be hugged and kissed. Amazing site. I also scratched the head of a goat. I gave some souvenirs to the girls. One got a handicraft flurry lamb. Both girls were very happy.

Thursday 20.06.2019

I woke up at 9AM. It seems the electricity has gone out. I need to charge my batteries of phones and power bank. Soon it came back, but it seems that during the night the power was off. I ate vegetables and mangos. At 11AM I checked out and started my journey to Shimla.

I had basically 3 types of roads. There are 4 lane freeways, narrow bad condition asphalt roads and good curved asphalt roads. The last option is my favorite and it is as good as you get in the Alpine mountains. Riding in the heavy traffic is tough and it takes some courage to past vehicles in front of you, because heavy traffic is coming at you. Nerve enterprise really. But then there is almost empty road ahead. At noon I made a stop in a restaurant and ate a kind of late breakfast. Also I was able to pay all the invoices that were pending. I may not have a better time to do it. I drove further south and soon started to climb again over 1000 meters. Children are walking in their fancy uniforms along the road home. There are hundreds of them walking back home like this.

At 1266 meters I made another stop for a pineapple juice. Big glass cost me 100INR ~ just bit more than 1€. It is demoralizing when the Google lady said that stay on the national road 205 for 59 kilometers. It takes 2 hours in the mountains and my ass will be damaged again. I climbed even more and drove the last part of my trip around 1800 meters. I have entered into a cloud and it is getting chillier. I stopped and put my rain gear on, actually just a jacket. Just before Shimla it started to rain very heavily. I drove through the heavy traffic of Shimla. It’s a big city with a population of over 200 000 people. And the roads are basically as they have been designed in the last century.

also co-yogaing events throughout the day. I was lucky to buy a Canon camera charger. This time I’ve managed to leave behind driving license, international driving license, Canon camera battery charger and my puff. I miss my proper gore-tex motorbike jacket and trousers. I think I took too many clothes and I should consider laundry washing option every other day for the next trip. That way I will have less stuff and more room for special equipment.

I walked back to the elevators and went down to the street and drove back to the place. Danish was still there assembling the bags on the bike. Everything takes a lot of time. At the bus station I took another 15 000INR ~ 189€ for upcoming weeks. Yet again Shimla traffic was a big mess and it took ages to drive out of the city. Around 2:30PM we were pressed through the traffic and reached free asphalt.

Last night me and Danish had a longer chat about his relationships. When I visited Danish in the South India in February 2018 he was in a serious relationship with a Russian lady - Lylian. They broke up because Danish had another brief relationship with his college girl. Eventually he lost both girls. And if this was not enough, his parents started to arrange him future wife options and mounting immense pressure on that matter. He was able to say no to 3 girls, but one girl was too pretty. So, he didn’t say anything and the girl’s parents even paid a visit to Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu to check Danish out.

So, there has to be something else out of the ordinary, because most of the common criterias Danish is going to fail. He doesn’t have a decent education, job as such, no apartment or car. Basically nothing, but still they all are pressing on the marriage. Girl’s parents even started to arrange Danish a proper job in the Kodaikanal’s English college as environment teacher. And it seems that different religion of parents will not be an obstacle. How could the future pair manage the Hinduism and Muslim religious holidays? Because holidays usually mean getting together with relatives. Anyhow if this is the case, I might need to book the flights to Danish’s wedding soon.

Negi as Pubender is cool, not too excited of the upcoming wedding. His parents have arranged the bride from another village 25 km from here. He saw her first time 4 months ago and has not even kissed her yet. Well, they do kiss tomorrow then. Soon we had tea and more company. His uncle’s daughters joined us. They were very excited to see two bikers in their village. Soon Negi’s big brother joined us as well. We just relaxed and enjoyed the view. We started to walk even further up the hill. Am I so weak or just in the height of 2718 meters I’m lacking the oxygen? It’s so hard to walk, I can’t imagine to trek to the high peaks or doing alpinism as such. We past a middle school where boys were playing cricket in the yard.

We walked even further and ended up in a house that Danish thinks would suite for his plans to open a motorbike trip base camp or a starting point and accommodation. He has big plans.

We walked back to the bikes, said bye-bye to Negi and his older brother and drove up the hill. Soon we continued on gravel roads and a bit later on just loose stones. The road goes through the massive pine, probably cedar, forest all the way to the next village. I was a bit scared to drive on 3rd gear on gravel - imagine if I somehow lost control over my bike I’d fall over the edge to the 100 meter drop to the bottom of the valley below. It might take a single rock to knock off the front wheel. My first tyre is rugged too and has had better days. So, I was semi cautious.

But then all of a sudden the road turned to big rocks laid on the ground instead of gravel. We decided to turn around and drive back to our place. Big clouds were rolling up the mountain and formed a dark grey cloud. We were on the edge of it and it started to rain, but not very heavily. We stopped near the school and gave high fives to the boys standing at the roadside. We gave them candies and they were running till we stopped in front of the cottage. They were so excited.

I took a shower or in this context operated with a bucket and a mug. We had lunch and were just relaxing on the terrace of the cottage. I made a portrait of the cottage co-host Urmila.

Soon it started to rain heavily and we escaped to the balcony. At 4PM their daughter Jia arrived from school. She did the homework also on the balcony. So, we had 5 people on a tiny balcony. It is raining heavily and we can hear the thunder too. At 6PM the sky was clear again. But we were forced to change the plans and cancel the plan to go hiking on the top of the mountain and camping there. We will skip that plan. Also we will skip the wedding ceremony, because it turned out the ceremony will start tomorrow at 9PM, but this is just a welcome and warm up. The act of getting married only takes place after two days. Wow, we didn’t expect that and were not that familiar with the schedule of local marriage ceremony culture. I also thought that the guests might just party 2-3 days after the ceremony, but it is the other way around and so the excitement grows day by day. So, another change of plans, we will continue our journey tomorrow morning.

Danish, Bhagwan and Jia went for a little ride on motorbike to a nearby village. Urmila did another chai masala that included cardamon. Usually it seems that the tea includes only black tea, milk, sugar and masala powder, maybe chopped ginger too.

I was alone on the balcony and enjoyed the sunshine and working on laptop. At 7PM it got chilly out here, 20’C. Jia is getting used to me and she is all over me. She wants to see images in my iPhone and touch my laptop, it all seems so interesting. So, we did the tutorials of these devices. We had a dinner with the hosting family. It is already dark outside and after dinner we gathered around the campfire. Actually it was a baller that had a flame inside. Two ladies that are staying in the cottage were curious of our trip and we asked them to join the campfire. One lady is an accountant from Jaipur and the second lady is a teacher in New Delhi. At 11PM we walked back to our room where we spent the last night.

This temple is dedicated to Vishnu. The wooden figures were also s piece of art, tigers, birds - all of them have semiotical and religion meaning. I admired the view of the mountains from the temple terrace. I spun the prayer rollers and walked back to the bikes.

We drove back to the main road and towards Tabo. But in a small village called Lari there was a proper traffic jam. Both lines were blocked by standing cars. There was an ongoing wedding in this village and the only street that lead to Tabo was packed with celebrating people. Most men wear the Himachal hats and scarfs. Women had full party outfit. All the people in the cars were treated as guests and the ladies gave puri, chickpeas and tea. The whole stop took about half an hour. Some drivers in the cars were honking, but with no results of progressing anywhere. We were happy to be a part of this event. Finally the cars started to move and we drove to Tabo.

We wanted to spend a night in the monastery and in Tabo monastery there was a dormitory. We paid 120INR ~ 2€ and checked in. Our room contains of 10 beds and by the night all of them were sold out. We were lucky to get 5 beds. I had a quick wash with the cold water and did a loop in the village with Danish. The Buddhist monastery has been founded in 996 and the caves in the cliff further away might be related to the early period of the monastery. Current buildings and stupas seemed to be also at least 400 years old. I saw some yoga students who have ongoing 5 month yoga course and they are living in the same monastery, but in much better conditions than us.

We ended up in the monastery restaurant at the backside of the main building. I ate momos, noodles and drank tea, of course. Danish shared some horror stories of the accident a few days ago in the Kalpa region, where we had been a few days ago. Apparently two bikers on one bike were driving and were hit by a rolling stone from the slope above. The stone ripped off the head of one and fataly injured the other rider. Danish heard these news during one of the tea breaks we had. Creepy and horrifying story. It can happen to anyone basically. You may look at the slopes and rocks above you, but the rolling stones or landslides are just so rapid that there is a little chance to avoid them. We paid the bill and went to bed at 9PM.

We made a breakfast stop about an hour later and drove again at 11:30AM. We have had police checkpoints in every 200 kilometers. They usually check the permission paper and register into their logbooks and add another stamp on the paper. We decided to turn off from the main road and started to climb to Dhankhar at 3929 meters. There is a monastery and Spiti kingdom’s old castle. We parked our bikes and walked up the stairs to the roof of the Buddhist temple.

Monks had a chill out and Danish started to talk to them. I joined soon after and took some portraits. Danish will send the photos and the 360 degree video, that he took with monks, to their email. This monastery belongs to the chain of Tibetan Buddhism monasteries in northern part of India, Nepal and Tibet. I’ve a new knowledge from monks. These colourful flags that I have seen on the top of the hills or attached to the bridges have prayers written on them and wind will transport these prayers all over the valley and over the mountains. I thanked them and we walked up to the castle that used to rule the Spiti area. Castle has been preserved and looked in good nick. We walked down to the bikes. All this walking took a lot of energy and I was out of breath.

We decided to continue on the small mountain road and climbed even higher and my new altitude record is 3969 meters.

We saw in the distance a mountain top village called Demul, but the road leading there was just too crazy.

We stopped at another Buddhist monastery in Lallung. This monastery is even older than the ones we have seen or will see in the north of India. There were no tourists and we were the only people besides the few village people. There was a cute little girl with two ladies and I gave her a candy. Ladies were so nice and opened the gates and doors to the monastery. In this more than 1000 years monastery there are ceramic statues on the wall and big figures on the floor which could be also ancient. We thanked the ladies and went down the hill on another small road.

At 4PM we were back on the main road and down on the Spiti river level. I felt like shit and I have all the symptoms of altitude sickness. I felt dizzy, I could not care about the amazing scenery around me and I felt weak. We stopped and had a Maggie which is basically boiled noodles from package with added spices. Laura and Henrik were obsessed of the baby cow just over the street. It seemed to loved the attention and scratching.

Soon we drove on till we reached Kaza. We parked our bikes to the main street. Danish met his friend UC - everybody in this town seems to recognize him by the acronym - and soon discovered that we can’t sleep in the Kye monastery and meanwhile the sun was going down. So, the camping option also dropped off and we decided to stay in UC’s home B&B. While others were not sure of the price or should they start looking for an alternative, I got my private room for 600INR ~ 8€. Hopefully I can sleep without interrupting noises of other sleepers. Danish will stay at his friends’ place and surely they’ll have topics to catch up.

At 8PM I walked on the small streets of Kaza. Actually this town is tiny. I bought a local warm hat and a sweater for my daughter. It was a tiny shop where husband did the sales and wife meanwhile produced another hat. I hope the sizes are ok. I walked to the crowded The Himalayan café and ordered a ginger tea with honey and butter chicken. I ordered a half of the main course, but I was not able to finished it. It was so good to eat non- vegetarian food for a change. I hope I will get my energy back and be fit by tomorrow morning. The café is so popular that people were waiting in queue until a table became available. I asked for permission to test the recently bought hat from a New Delhi family. They had 6 and 8 years old daughters. The test result was obvious - the hat is too small and it only covered the top of the little girl’s head. I thanked them and walked to the store where I bought the hat in the first place.

The family was closing the store, but were kind enough to find a bigger hat. I walked back to our place. Eventually Laura and Henrik slept in the bed and Cassie slept on the mattress just next to the bed. I hid my sin that I had chicken for dinner from Laura because I didn’t want to see the look she as a vegetarian would have given me. We chatted in their room and at 10PM went to sleep.

There must be some restaurants in Peru or Bolivia that are also in high altitude. We drove back and turned to even smaller road. On the way we did several stops because the snowy mountain range is just breathtaking.

Danish showed his near future trekking aim from the distance, that is the peak of Kanamo with the height of 5950 meters. We drove down to a remote village post office at 4456 meters. I sent a postcard home and I estimate it will take a few months to arrive. The cost of sending a postcard to Europe was 25INR ~ 0€. There was a man in front of the post office who was selling postcards, stamps and hammered the stamps on the cards and put them to the red mailbox.

We drove around mountains and stopped in Langza at 4427 meters and saw the Buddha statue and continued our voyage to Key monastery.

I’m sitting on a stone at 4032 meters and admiring the ancient Key monastery. It is located on the hill and overlooking the Spiti river valley below. These buildings and how they are on top of another really remind me of the images from Lhasa, Tibet.

Danish, Laura, Henrik and Cassie went to conquer a hill in order to have a better perspective on the monastery, but I decided to walk up to the temple. The stairs took a heavy toll on me. I sat in the temple alone where usually the monks sit in the multiple columns. It was nice and calm. I walked down and saw monk kids playing cricket. I joined the game. Soon Danish and Henrik joined too. These young boys are learning and living here and this is their playground.

At 6:30PM we left the monastery. We drove up to a village named Chicham and asked for drinking water. There was an adorable little baby donkey walking with the mother donkey on the streets of the village. It was almost dark and I started to worry that instead of beautiful camping site we will end up in the school yard again. But Danish got information that in about 20 minutes ride we might find a place to camp. We continued our ride up the hill and found a camping site. Actually this was grassy area between mountains and on the edge of the creek.

We quickly assembled our camp at 4221 meters in complete darkness. Henrik hassled with the camping cooker and was not able to use it. With the combined effort we were able to have a campfire. The lighter is not working properly at this altitude and I was just lucky to discover in bottom of my bag a box of matches. There is not a single tree in sight and therefor we asked 3 logs from the village. We also used cow’s poop to heat up the fire. So, we cooked lenses and vegetables on the fire instead. It was really cold and we were eager to start eating and going to sleep. We ate and admired the clear sky above with thousands of stars and the Milky Way. Our tent housed me, Danish and Cassie. At 10:30PM I fell asleep.

At 11PM we finally started to drive up the hill and through some mountain villages and stopped in Losar at 4188 meters. This was like a bikers gathering and there was at least 20-30 bikes. Danish, who is usually a shy guy, was talking to strangers practically in every opportunity. We had lunch and soon continued towards Kunzum pass that has the altitude of 4618 meters.

Again stunning views. There were shiny blue small rivers rushing through green grassy areas. Also I admired the columns of gravel that were standing like statues in the park. It is just unimaginable to think that these statues have been formed by wind and water that removed the rest of gravel mass and left these more solid ones standing. Just crazy stuff. Bye bye Spiti valley. It’s a special place and I might come back here one day.

After the pass we drove down to 4080 meters and decided to stay in Batal. This is not a town or village and it is more like a camp. We ordered tea in a local tent type café and we got the idea to stay here and not set up our camp in Chandra Taal. We put our luggage to a hut that had stone walls and tent type of roof. It is much better to drive without luggage. The road to the lakes of Chandra Taal is quite demanding and we needed to cross twice deep rivers. Danish drove fast and a bit recklessly like a teenager. So, Cassie was very terrified behind Danish’ back. We parked bikes and walked uphill to the nature reserve at 4400 meters.

So, we hit the road and I was able to see the sunlight on the top of the peaks around me, but the valley where I was driving was still in the shade. That’s good, because we had some freezing temperatures and ponds were covered by ice and it is not muddy. We drove on the bank of fast flowing Chenab river. We started to pass the glacier that has been cleaned up by the width of a road. And then we stopped, because one glacier hasn’t been finished by the JCB. All of the early starters were waiting in the queue. Something interesting happened. Everybody helped everybody to push the bikes over the slushy snow to the road on the other side of the glacier. It was a slippery and breathtaking enterprise. We had 2-3 glaciers to cross in the similar fashion.

The gravel road changed to road of loose stones and rocks. There were many diversion roads because the original road was still under heavy ice shield and snow. We drove through countless rivers and very often the melting snow created a river that was as wide as the road itself and I needed to drive in flowing water uphill or downhill. There was not much traffic besides our crazy biker group. Only a few cars and bikes came towards us. This road was highway for flocks of sheep. We needed to drive through them. We saw also horses that were carrying goods for the remote villages.

Sometimes the landscape was just rocks spilled all over the valley. The fresh water of melting snow poured down the cliffs and created countless small waterfalls and creeks. It is just mind blowing experience to see it all happening around me. This miracle is happening once a year in the beginning of July. This road will be used till October and next July road construction need to start all over again, because ice, water and landslides destroy much of it.

We drove down to 3439 meters and stopped in Chatru village. Again there was only two temporary cafés and nothing else. They just recently have opened their season. We ate lunch and knew that the hardest part is over. We thanked the bikers who drove with us and helped to push us through the snow.

I drove to a heavy traffic jam. Endless queue of cars just going down the serpentine like a snake. I passed them all and squeezed through. They valley below is amazing. Beautiful landscapes with pine tree forest, rivers and huge cliffs. On the top of a narrow cliff I saw cows eating. And just 50 meters away I saw dead cow laying aside of the road. Did it drop down the cliff or was just hit by a truck...that I will never know. There was a third biker cruising with us.

We drove down to 2188 meters to Bashisht just before Manali and checked in to hotel Hollywood. Danish didn’t confirm it with me and it came to me as a surprise that Dhruv from Jaipur will stay in the same room. Luckily we had three beds in our room. Danish and Dhruv went uphill to the hot springs and I drove to old Manali and found a massage place. It was expensive, but relatively ok massage after bone breaking hardship in the mountains.

After the massage I washed myself and drove to find a mechanic to clean the chain from the dirt and sand. The chain was making horrible sound. It took 10 minutes of brushing the chain with petrol and tighting up the chain. The cost was only 50INR ~ less than 1€. Danish caught up with me and we drove to see the town. We walked in the promenade and narrow streets of Manali. The main street is very crowded, because it is the peak of the vacations and most of the local mega city tourists prefer colder mountain resorts. We ate chicken and bought some gifts for my family.

We drove back to the hotel and I shared some Old Tallinn liqueur with Druv. He was drinking a local rum named Old Monk. He is a good lad. He is on a longer tour and not going home so soon.

The road is mainly nice, but there are plenty on road constructions and obstacles like landslides and rock falls that have partly blocked the road. Danish stopped in Kullu, but I continued. I made a breakfast stop in Bhuntar. Driving on the highway is generally boring and kilometers are not reducing much. From time to time there was a traffic jam where cars were standing still in the queue and I was able to pass them with relative ease. I passed Mandi where I stayed the night in the first part of my trip. I stopped in Sundernagar in front of a small juice bar where there were three kids playing with a cell phone and there were no adults around. They went to ask for their father from neighbouring shops. I ordered fresh pineapple and coconut juice with the straw.

People are very careless in traffic, it seems that they transform into something else when the start driving. It is very common to start overtaking on a blind corner. And many times I saw very tense situations. Cars or bikes almost crashing into a big truck or bus behind a corner. Just crazy. I have seen during my current trip only two accidents. Both were with motorcycles. When I reached through the traffic jam near Chandigarh the accident site was following. One older Sikh man was sitting in the middle of the road rewrapping his turban. Motorbike was laying on the ground of the road by his side. And somebody had collected his flip flops and plastic bags and handed over to the victim. I was able to see blood coming from the forehead. One white Suzuki Alto was on the side of the road as well and it had a dent on one side. Sikhs are not wearing a helmet, because they wear a turban instead and it seems ok in the region.

Another accident was on an u-turn in the mountains where the biker obviously had turned too soon and rolled over to asphalt. Nothing serious. We were that close that we were able to help him.

So, the traffic is tough and not for the weak. It takes some courage to drive in India.