In the second week of june 2008, a group of riders set out to do the Lahual and Spiti circuit. Lahual & Spiti are 2 a remote Himalayan valleys in the north of Himachal Pradesh near the China border. They have very less population and hence is untouched by the "modernization". I was preparing myself for a peaceful getaway in the lap of nature away from the hussle-bustle of the big cities. This circuit is also one of the most technically challenging circuits for a biker. Many parts of the route have no roads and others offer varying terrains for offroading. Some places there is gravel, someplace riverbed stones, other places the sharp stones from landslides. So on the whole it was going to be one difficult (and obviously fun) trip. The route we took was:
The riders:
Sandeep, Nishant,Eric, Vivek, Deepan, Vikram, Sparsh and Manik (from left to right in the pic below)..
Day1: Delhi - Rampur
The journey began at 5 in the morning from Vivek's house. All regrouped at the beginning of NH1
The ride down NH1 was fast and boring. The 3 P220s and the 3 Karizmas and a P180 were racing with my P150 trying hard to keep up. Soon it started raining. It just had to come.. There has been almost no trip in which i have gone without it. But this time i was prepared. All the stuff in saddle bag was already packed in plastic bags, stuff in the pockets like mobile, wallet also in plastic bags. I dint realise that the others had stopped and continued riding along enjoying the drops from heaven hitting me. It rained for a very short time and around Kurukshetra i saw 2 P220s, surprisingly not in front of me but one in each of my rearview mirrors. I realised i was actually ahead of others. Soon others also caught up and again we were racing towards Kalka. Soon the plains ended and came the lovely twisties. Few kms in the mountains we took our breakfast break which was also the first major break since Delhi.
The ride after that was beautiful as always. The route from Kalka to Shimla is green with rain making it even more pretty by adding the clouds in the picture. Some pics..
After having lunch we again started, aim being to reach Sarahan by the end of the day. Each one riding at his own speed with me riding with Sandy and Manik, we continued on. Next break was a few kms before Narkanda. After a quick lunch we started, just to find a landslide around the next corner.
waiting for the way to open..
Thankfully we were on bikes and managed to cross through the mud and stones.
Some more greeanry after that..
Tired..
Although we were going at a pretty good speed, we were getting tired. We reached Rampur Bushahr in the evening and did feel like going further till Sarahan. So we stayed in Rampur on the first day.
Thinking just before Rampur..
As the dusk fell..
Since it was season time, we had a hard timing finding a hotel. After a lot of searching we finally decided to stay in the HPTDC hotel: The Bushehar Regency. A very good hotel with clean rooms and great food.
Distance Travelled: 501kms
