Anuj Talaulikar

My dream of an adventure trip to Ladakh was finally a reality. We were a group of six bikers from Goa. Myself (Anuj), Chaitanya Dalal, Orville Lourenco, Satish Shetye of riders’ club ‘Goan Royal Riders’ and, our other two friends Aldrin Fernandes and Frederick Pereira were part of the Himalayan tour.
We started our journey from Manali, Himachal Pradesh. On 3rd July we started our biking tour from Manali towards the Jispa Valley, we crossed the monstrous and famous Rohtang La, commonly known as Rohtang Pass. On the other side of the Rohtang we could see the new tunnel being constructed from Manali to Sissu which would be a boon, especially for the Indian oil tankers.
We had an overnight halt in the Jispa Valley in the tents. The next day started to one more stopover place called Sarchu – known to be the highest sleeping point in the world. This was hardly 80 kms from Jispa but we had to cross treacherous roads to reach the destination. Sarchu has very scarce oxygen and we being from sea level had to face a difficult time. You will feel breathless if you do any activity or even talk continuously.
We then crossed the world’s second highest motorable road which is at an altitude of 17480 ft. Also, while on this route we crossed many other passes like Baralacha La, Nakeela Pass and Lunglacha Pass.
We then reached Leh in the evening and had a good night’s rest. The next morning, we woke up to the sunrise. Here the sun rises at 4:45 am. LEH is a beautiful place, but now under reconstruction. The place had washed away in 2010 cloud burst.
In the morning we headed to explore Leh. The first stop was Leah palace which was around 400 years and had a nine level design. Since the King was short, the doors of this palace were also short. Next, we went to Shey palace which was featured in the Bollywood movie 3 idiots as Rancho’s school. The School is very beautiful and runs on natural resources like solar energy. The school caters to the poor and orphan children from Ladakh region and provides world-class facilities and Education to these underprivileged children.
We started our return journey from Leh to Jispa early morning as we had to cover 375 kms. At Jispa we survived on Maggi and bread omelette which are in fact delicacies of this region. Our cook at Jispa was very good and cooked mouth-watering Chicken delicacies in the local Ladakhi style.
As a part of Goan Royal Riders, our fellow riders gave us a warm welcome after we reached Goa Airport.