First Ride to Spiti with Sandeep and Moy

A ride to a place we never heard before. A ride with 2 riders I never rode with before. A ride to Spiti, my first and most random unplanned ride to heaven.

It was a warm afternoon and  Moy and I were sitting in my cubicle at our Infosys Chandigarh office and were still in a process of finalizing the place for a ride starting 2 hours later.
There came Sandeep and suggestion for Spiti valley poured in.

Moy- "We have good 3.5 - 4.5 days and if we cover this, we can do other places en-route some other time."
Sandeep- "Let's go for Kibber", the last place we could see on NH-22 on our map.
I had no option but to nod to them.

With no riding gear, no saddle bags, no preparations,  Moy and I  packed our stuff in one bag and called Sandeep to meet us at Zirakpur crossing.

And my journey to motorcycling started at 5pm on 29th March' 2007.

Motorcycles: Discover 110cc and Enticer125cc
Riders: Sandeep Bharat, ShouryaMoy Das and Puneet Singh

Day1: 29th March'2007 -Chandigarh to Powari

We started from Chandigarh and reached Chail around dinner time. Had a good meal and discussed with the guy at Dhaba about the road, weather ahead. He advised us to stay there for night but we decided to move ahead. Crossed Kufri, Theog, Narkanda, Sainj and reached Rampur. It was 30 minutes past midnight and there was a Paratha wala waiting with his hot parathas for a bus to arrive there. We feasted on Parathas and kept moving. Since it was my first ride, I was a bit excited and stopped a few times on the way, sometimes for listening the sound of hills, sometimes for the whistle of breeze,or the flowing streams and whatever I could see in the moon lit dark hills.

The stretch from Wangtoo to Karchham was terrible, however we managed. Drifted unknowingly many times and reached Powari in the wee hours of 30th March. It was 5 a.m. before we could manage a stinky, small room and somehow slept till 11a.m.

Day2: 30th March'2007, Powari - Puh

We hit the road on day2 at around 11:40 a.m. and clicked the first few pictures with my N-72 2MP camera phone. Now when I am writing all this on 29th Nov'2010, I am smiling at the way and can clearly rewind  that day and next few rides from my journey as a novice rider to close to a professional one.












We planned to reach Tabo that night and halt there but Discover's rear tyre got punctured and we had no repair kit or extra tube so it took us hell lot of time to reach Puh and find a mechanic there. But tube was damaged and the mechanic told us to get it from Spello which we left behind some 25 kms back. While Sandeep was arranging all this, Moy and I got a place to eat and we ordered chicken later to realize that it was some bird which we ate. And with sunset the Puh village turned into total darkness as there was no electricity. People kept visiting us after knowing that 3 engineers were there from chandigarh. They introduced us to others as "They are engineers from chandigarh and are here for checking bridges, electricity status."

I met a lot of people there who had a good image of Chandigarh and they were very polite with us. We settled in a hotel in paar Puh for 200/- a night. Next morning when I got up I saw Moy sleeping next to me and Sandeep was out in search of his tube.

 Moy and I came down and had a walk in the sleepy yet beautiful Puh village. There was one army base there in Puh as well so we could see lot of jawans in the bazaar.







Day3- 31st March 2007: Puh - Tabo - Schichilling:

Sandeep's bike got fixed and we left that small village Puh, and with that a short but memorable date with the place and people came to an end.




As we hiked towards Nako, at Ka loops there was a hail storm. Snow and hail entered into my helmet and there was no place to stop so we kept riding for close to 30 minutes before the climate changed and we could see the sun.


Crossed Ka, Nako, Malling Nalah, Sumdo and entered Spiti valley. It was an eye opening experience, I had  never seen such a beautiful place ever before in my life except in movies and calenders. The altitude was high, less oxygen, kerosene mixed petrol from Spello, and less muscled engines of Enticer and Discover started to breathe out more often.

We enjoyed the locales and entered Tabo.
Tabo is known for its oldest monastery in India. Spiti valley, according to locals was always ignored by Indian government before Indo-China war after which some roads were built and accessibility to the region was improved. In 1996 when there was an earthquake in the region and many government establishments like schools, hospitals and municipal office buildings were razed to ground, Tabo monastery and mud houses of the region made of old architecture dating back to 996AD stood tall.


In the caves above, monks meditate for years which helps them attain Nirvana - away from materialistic world.





From Tabo we planned to move to Kaza and halt there for a night or so, but on the way to Kaza from Tabo Sandeep's discover again got a puncture in rear tyre so we had no option but to find a small 2 room guest house in Schichilling on the right side of road. The owner was very cultured and good natured man. We got hot, home made food there and he narrated his incidences about Chandigarh, Israelis and many more. Then he told how he spent his life there in Schichilling and he wants to see his sons study ad become successful like us.

I got carried away by that man, with a promise in my heart I gave him my contact card and invited him to Chandigarh and contact me in case he needed any help with his son's admission or place to stay or anything. We also got to see the architecture of a Spitian house where they kept animals on the ground floor so that floor above  will be warm and there was a 3 sided closed lobby from entrance before the rooms so that cool air passes through it and becomes warm. I really liked how those guys in a small village with a count of 50 odd people or so survive under extreme hostile weather conditions.

We liked that place so thought to stay there for 2 days and visit nearby places keeping our stuff there in Schichilling. And we slept only to find ourself in an extremely cold morning. The toilets were not in a condition to use since in winters they cut supply of water in pipes as they might get burst due to water changing into ice inside pipes. So we got freshen up in open, and the water froze as it touched floor.

Day4- 1st April'2007: Schichilling - Kaza - Kibber - Kaza - Schichilling

We came out and moved towards Kaza.

Kaza has district headquarters of Spiti division of Lahaul-Spiti district. Kaza has a few good hotels, home stays and Ecosphere office. Ecosphere is a NGO run by 3 girls of Dehradun, I met them when I went to Spiti again in year 2009. They help villagers grow more in farms, organic farming, less consumption of wood in constructing houses and much more for welfare of Spitian people.

Kaza is at an altitude of 11800 feet(3600m). Ahead of Kaza is key monastery. You get simple food and bed to sleep @ 150 Rs per night  there, same as that in Tabo monastery complex. People actually stay there to see and experience some of the life of monks. We were offered free tea by monks there. They wondered why we came there in March-April and told us about snow sports organized in Kaza till a week back. There was lot of snow outside the gate of monastery and we did played with it.

 After spending some time in Key monastery we headed straight for Kibber, but the road block due to snow didn't allow us reach there. Instead spent some time on our way back on banks of Spiti river.

We reached back to our Schichilling guest house in chilling cold. Sandeep and Moy went to Dhankad monastery but I was not feeling well so retired in my room.


Day5: 2ndApril'2007 - Schichilling - Tabo - Rampur - Sainjh - Luhri

I liked the place so much that before leaving I promised myself of visiting the valley again with good amount of time, which I did in 2009. We started back for Chandigarh at 7 in morning but could reach upto Rampur before another puncture rocked Discover's rear tyre :), Forgot to mention this was puncture no. 4.
We accidentally discovered PWD guest house in Luhri and stayed there for the night.

Day6: 3rd April'2007 - Luhri- Sainjh - Narkanda - Kufri - Shimla - Chandigarh

Our trip exceeded the planned time by 2 days, started late from Luhri only to reach Chandigarh by night.

And on 3rd April night before I could sleep, a few questions left unanswered in my mind:

> What was there ahead of Luhri?
> What was on the right of Karcham?
> What was 'Recong Peo' and Kalpa?
> I read a board 'Sarahan - 28kms' from Jeori.
> If I reach Kibber one day what is ahead of it and around it?
> What link connects Kaza to Manali?

It took me almost 2 years to find answers of all these questions, when I toured Himachal for full 30 days after leaving my job.

And I slept  that night to wake from the the Spiti dream and to enter into never ending fascination for deadly combo - mountains and motorbikes.