“I am getting married soon dude, I wanna ride from Pondi to Kodai once” said Francois.
Deb, his soon to be wife nudged him and pointing at me whispered ‘Mr. Blow it out of proportions. Francois did not seem to care much of her comment. He was itching for an adventure.
He could see, I was not interested in a Pondi to Kodai ride. So he encouraged me “What can you make out of an idea for a bike ride?”. He realized why my nickname came to be as he saw a smile creep onto my face. I bet he could see all the gears shifting in my head as a plan formulated and the smile transmogrified into a grin and a single word was uttered. “LEH”.
A million minutes of research, a flurry of calls to ‘the experienced’ and emails from travel agents confirmed the pass leading to the Leh-manali highway may remain closed for over a month after the proposed date. Since a very angry Deb very sternly threatened to chop off something very important to me if I so much as uttered wedding and date in the same sentence. We sat down to discuss other options.
Two days of brain wrecking research and a helpful tip from an ‘ex-colleague and bike rental agency owner friend’, the Spiti Valley trip was coming together slowly. The next month was spent looking up possible routes, fuel stations, food stops, sights and viewpoints. The dates were chosen 8th to 20th May. A drunken slip of the tongue at a party meant that the 2 man pre-wedding adventure soon became 9 man bachelor party on wheels. I can always try something different while planning for a group of guys cause everybody pulls each other through just to prove that his cajones are bigger.
The return tickets from Bangalore to Delhi (11k per head) and bus
tickets from Delhi to Manali were booked by the end of March (1200 one
way per head). The advance payment for 4 bikes for 10days was sent to
our Manali ‘ex-colleague bike rental agency owner friend ‘by April. All
set to leave we were. Large group trips are amazing fun but the
uncertainty attached to it is amazingly high. By the end of April we
were down to 6. First week of May Francois and his brother dropped out
as his fiancee had visa issues and he had to help her with it. Well, We
were now a group of 4 guys ready to ride the Himalayas .
Deb, his soon to be wife nudged him and pointing at me whispered ‘Mr. Blow it out of proportions. Francois did not seem to care much of her comment. He was itching for an adventure.
He could see, I was not interested in a Pondi to Kodai ride. So he encouraged me “What can you make out of an idea for a bike ride?”. He realized why my nickname came to be as he saw a smile creep onto my face. I bet he could see all the gears shifting in my head as a plan formulated and the smile transmogrified into a grin and a single word was uttered. “LEH”.
A million minutes of research, a flurry of calls to ‘the experienced’ and emails from travel agents confirmed the pass leading to the Leh-manali highway may remain closed for over a month after the proposed date. Since a very angry Deb very sternly threatened to chop off something very important to me if I so much as uttered wedding and date in the same sentence. We sat down to discuss other options.
Two days of brain wrecking research and a helpful tip from an ‘ex-colleague and bike rental agency owner friend’, the Spiti Valley trip was coming together slowly. The next month was spent looking up possible routes, fuel stations, food stops, sights and viewpoints. The dates were chosen 8th to 20th May. A drunken slip of the tongue at a party meant that the 2 man pre-wedding adventure soon became 9 man bachelor party on wheels. I can always try something different while planning for a group of guys cause everybody pulls each other through just to prove that his cajones are bigger.
Manali to kaza (Spiti Valley) Route
