Chapter 3: Partners in crime, Manali to Sarchu

<< Chapter 2 : Man meets the machine (Pathankot To Manali)

From : Manali To Sarchu
Distance :  85 KM

Day 5, 6 and 7 (19^th May)

Map:

How will you define Partners in crime ? well for me they are :

[su_quote]They are fluent in sarcasm, Adult Language, Smart ass friends from school. Some are new and some are old. Questionable morals and nudity are part of their daily life.[/su_quote]

Well, officially my holiday  just started 🙂

Manali, A beautiful place to spend your weekend.For an entrepreneur like me, even weekdays. You can simply walk and talk with the locals, people are generally talkative and friendly. Depending on your outlook, there is nothing better than sitting by a mighty river thundering past you. Contemplate the sound of the water or simply watch the awesome view of the magnificent Himalayas and the landscape around you.

If you are an adventure lover, then you can go for water rafting in this river.
There are a lot of nice restaurants right on the bank of this river which serve you Indian/Italian/Israeli delicacies, which you can enjoy, while listening to the roar of the river.

If you are with family(kids), a visit to Clubhouse is worthy, to do rope jumping across the river.

Since we had to move to our next destination and with limited time in hand we all, first took our rides to local bullet mechanics to check if everything was fine with our bikes. “after all no one likes a breakdown”

 

[su_note]TIP (Permits for Rohtang Pass) : before you hit Leh – Manali you need to have a permit to enter the highway, this needs to be taken from Manali SDM office before continuing to Rohtang Pass (For bikes you can obtain a permit for free), you need :

• Valid ID Proof
• Valid Pollution Under Check (PUC) Certificate
• Vehicle Registration Date (Age of vehicle not to be more than 10 yrs)

For Cars, people can apply online http://admis.hp.nic.in/ngtkullu/Home/InformatoryScreen

[/su_note]

After we left Manali, the road to Sissu was really bumpy, however, the climate and scenic view were making up for the bad road. Once we completed the Rohtang Tunnel ,the stretch ahead was a cakewalk.

Luckily for us it was not raining. Next, we stopped by for refueling at Tandi and I  strongly recommend that you don’t miss this petrol station.

The image on the right will tell you what exactly I mean to say. There are not many fuel stations on the Manali-Leh highway and that is why motorists have to carry extra fuel in a jerrycan. Some innovative folks also use the 2 litre Coke or Pepsi bottle to carry fuel.and as we were about to move ahead one of riders bike broke down and it

refused to start (There is rule between riders ” Never leave a man, behind” ), So we huddled along and looked for the issue and was able to fix it by cleaning the spark plug. (That was easy peasy)

After Tandi our next stop was at Keylong for some hot gulab jamuns and same quick cash withdrawals from the ATM. This is the last point where you can get ATM access and mobile coverage. From here on, it’s a dark zone for mobile signals.

Along this route, two small lakes, the Deepak Tal and the Suraj Tal are seen, You can take a dip if you want but let me warn you the water is freaking freezing. We were not able to stand for more than 10 seconds in the frigid waters. I mean like literally 1,2,3,4,5,6,7……10 and we were done with our dipping adventure in Deepak Tal.

After a long ride that evening we managed to touch Sarchu before dark and stayed at Army transit camp for the night from here things will going to get tough but then :

[su_quote]when going gets tough, the tough gets going[/su_quote]

---

Chapter 4: Getting our oxygen tanks ready, Sarchu to Pang >>