Ride to Spiti..

Ever since I had read somewhere on the internet that Spiti is like a wild child that refuses to be disciplined, I was hooked. And it did not take too long to convince a friend Dr. Alap Mehendale, a mountain lover and an excellent co rider, to take time off to set out on this wondrous ride.

As usual, tapped the information bank, Mr.HV Kumar and subscribed to his plan wherein he and his team would ensure we just concentrate on our ride and leave the logistics to them.

On 28aug2015 we met up at BKC, fuelled up and kicked off at 1030hrs. I know it was rather a late start but there were some last minute things to be  done and what was more important was that we set out! The weather was cloudy and rainy too with the sun peeping out occasionally to dry us. It was a wet and dry ride and we reached Dhule at 1730hrs after riding a brisk 327kms on good roads. A room in Hotel Jhankar Palace was waiting for us in Dhule, booked by the CHD team of HVK, where we

View from our room in Dhule

checked in for the night. The dinner at this hotel was memorable. This was a period when onions in Mumbai were scarce and almost rationed in restaurants. However we were in for a surprise when the ‘Chicken do pyaza’ that we had ordered was overflowing with onions and in addition there also was a plate of onion salad on the side!

Next morning we rode out at 0800hrs and headed towards Chittorgarh, a distance of 539kms and we reached our destination at 1730hrs, again on some good roads but we were startled with camels 

Staple breakfast of aloo parathas

Camels strolling along on the highway

Sev Tamatar for lunch in Jaora, Rajasthan

crossing the highways in a few places. Our night halt in Chittorgarh was in RnB Hotel away from the hustle and bustle of the market place.

Next day we had an uneventful ride of 583kms to Rohtak where we checked in Myna resort of Haryana tourism. The room was big but the airconditioner was a dripper! Seemed like a popular meeting place for the locals. Enjoyed the food there.

The mountains were approaching and so was the excitement as we started our ride towards Chail in 

Delicious Tandoor aloo parathas

Chholey kulchey

Lemon goli soda

In Kurukshetra Pic courtesy Dr.Alap Mehendale

Nearing Chail

View from our room in Chail.

Himachal Pradesh. Had amazing parathas and chhole kulche on the way. The icing on the cake was the view from our room in Jungle Inn resort in Chail.

The dream ride now began as we traversed through the mountains and valleys to Chandratal via 

HPTDC resort 'Srikhand' in Sarahan

Sarahan, Rakcham, Nako and Kaza over a period of six days. I have no words to describe the beauty, thrill and a sense of achievement as I overcame the fear that was brought on by the paths that we rode on. Do check out the images and a video posted below, of that part of the ride to get a sense of how amazing it must have been.

View of Spiti valley from Ke Gompa in Kaza

Enroute Chitkul the last inhabited village near the Indo China border.

Path towards Chandratal

One of the many bridges that we crossed.

Chandratal

The long and winding road.

Rode on the world's most treacherous road

We closed our ride at Solang on the way back, trucked our bikes and flew back home. After the ride in those mountains, riding in the plains would have been so boring.