“Live Today, Don’t Rent Them Out To Tomorrow” – Prolougue – Mumbai to Ladakh 2022

“Live today, don’t rent them out to tomorrow

We have ridden 4 lakhs kms length and breadth of our beautiful country. We have often heard many answers like – I feel good, I feel peaceful, I feel happy etc etc…. but what is exactly travelling? “Travelling places on your motorcycle” –

It’s about leaving your beautiful cosy house, leaving your Gym. Leaving your ghar ka khana, leaving your comfort zone, leaving your complete wardrobe full of clothes with just a pair of t-shirt and jeans:-P, leaving your bed, leaving your bread and butter for us leaving our Wroomstore which we have made together with so much love, in fact leaving everything which you never thought will be important just because you want to take that adventure and because you want to meet strangers on road and make friends with them , just because you want to watch the orangish beautiful magical sunset, Your lungs wants to taste the fresh air, your eyes wants to get rewarded with nature’s beauty, tongue wants to taste the local delicacies and mind wants to adopt the beautiful culture.

You know we often say “Live like there’s no tomorrow” and “Ride like there’s no tomorrow but what I think is Ride like you going to wake up tomorrow and you going to ride again tomorrow just to see that beautiful sun going down.

Sometimes we wish we can spend whole our life here on roads – Riding and travelling places, but then never make your life so monotonous. Exactly, when you work 9 to 5 every day 365 days behind those closed doors without taking break. Read it again “NEVER MAKE YOUR LIFE SO MONOTONOUS”

Life isn’t happening to your life is, responding to you

Every area of your life is your Call. You are the creator of your life. You are the Writer of Your Life story. You are the director of your life movie; you decide what your life will be.

We always want to be successful in our life and many of us will be, wherein few won’t. I now understand why people travel are more successful. Whenever we ride, we experience so many new things. All the important and crucial decisions we have ever made are on rides. while riding bikes and sharing our thoughts to each other via intercom and seriously guys when you are 2 different motorcycles you are more connected and you communicate more because when you are on 2 wheels no phones, no social media nothing distracts you. When we quit our IT job and started our own start-up even this decision we made when we were riding from Mumbai to Kanyakumari and we were stuck in OCKHI cyclone in December 2017 and suddenly a tree fell in front of our bikes and then we realised how short our lives are and that it’s ok if we earn less but 10 years being a software engineer working for someone else needs to come to an END.

Many of us go to the same office and work for 8 long hours on the same computer every single day of our life. People are now so used to this that they are more afraid of trying something new in their life do something new which can open up their mind.

Don’t just wait for the correct time to do something, if you like something start doing it right away and you will have no time for regret. There is a voice inside of you that whispers all day long, I feel this is right for me, I know that this is wrong.  No teacher, preacher, parent, friend or wise man can decide What’s right for you–just listen to the voice that speaks inside and you will be the happiest person in this universe

Like I said before, we leave a lot of comfort to take that adventure. Travel impacts our health, but they also give us creativity to think out of the box. Everything we do at Wroomgears is only because we travel and we know as a biker what will make our ride comfortable and accordingly, we try to make it happen. When we 1^st tried to design Wroom Jarvis tank bag our years of experience made it successful and bikers from pan India started loving it.

The world should be explored because it’s worth to see. Traveling help us to learn something new in life. When we meet 50+ and 60+ clients at store who wish to go to Ladakh on bikes, we feel good that all this life they just worked and worked hard to make a good life but finally they now know what they like and what they want to do in life. All life you try to earn money and save it for future and later you spend same money which you earned without looking after your health in hospital – Does this really make sense 😊 don’t wait until its too late. 

Whenever we come back from any ride, we feel like we have learned something new in life. And we get to know how exactly different places works. You can’t really experience that by sitting at your office desk and in your comfort cosy house, you need to go out and experience it. The world is a big place and you can find so many new things that can teach you something which can help you to be a better human being and a better person.

Love, Gratitude, Joy, Passion, Excitement, Enthusiasm, Hope, Satisfaction

Boredom, Irritation, Disappointment, Worry, Criticism, Anger, Hate, Envy, Guilt, Despair, Fear

I just wanted to say to all of you who are still thinking to connect a line between “Should I and Shouldn’t I” Go and take that adventure because life is short really short aur ye jo Umar hai na nikali Jaa rahe hai baadme regret karne ka bi waqt nahe hoga apke pass  😊 just remember NO MATTER WHAT COME BACK HOME SAFELY TO YOUR LOVED ONES 😊

Every journey begins with a single step. Stop waiting for Friday, for summer, for that so called right moment because you are in NOW and now is the right time. Take that leap because we bikers never know which ride is the last ride for us Right? 😊

Sachin – “I think we should leave tonight, waise bi raat mein nind nahe aahti (anyways we don’t get sleep)”
Kiran – I’ll agree, lets finish the packing, have you packed the spare shoes”

Ladakh ride is something which takes days and months of preparations, we were actually preparing our bikes for months and the planning and gathering every little thing that will be essential for our ride since so many days that humanly it’s not possible that you don’t get tired.

We had to finish all our work related to wroomgears before we get disappeared for some 15-20 days. In the last week before we were above to start our ride, we launched our Wroom Jarvis Non-magnetic tank bag and also our Wroom Infinity waterproof saddle bag. We finished all the pending work of our Wroomstore and we were all set to embark on our most awaited ride on our own machines.

Now why am I saying our own machines because last year in 2021 we were all set for taking our beautiful Ninja 650 and vstrom 650 to Arunachal Pradesh we also booked a ticket and we got a call for a project where we had to cancel our tickets and ride couple of Yamahas to Ladakh so this time we were all ready to positively reject any thing coming our way because we wanted to make love with our machines. Sometimes saying NO is the only option left but we were also skeptical because we should never say NO to opportunities. Kabhi kabhi kuch paane ke liye kuch khona padta hai and this time it was saying no to money 😊

We bought a new bike (Triumph Tiger 850 Sport) on 30^th January 2022 since then we were planning to go for a ride but till July, we couldn’t go for any rides because of lots of personal issues. This was the longest when we stayed away from rides otherwise, we keep on going for adventures and fulfilling our passion. We always say Life is uncertain, you never know what will happen next in fact you don’t even know that one day you will be gone without even saying good bye to your loved ones. I lost my father, like it was just another beautiful morning and I got call and everything was …. So live beautifully, wildly.

For Few months everything was shattered, I was in deep depression so I became a workaholic I started working more and kept myself busy. Sachin he always used to ask me lets go for a ride you will feel good and I kept rejecting because when I bought the bike just a month back my dad was so happy with tears in his eyes and unveiling the bike and all smiley and happy. I couldn’t believe that the person I loved the most is never coming back. I couldn’t gather the audacity to go for the ride I thought I would never be able to ride a bike.

Sometimes you have to fight your own demons of depression, anxiety and rise above all and make it happen because the people who surrounds you who stays with you will never like seeing you sad and depressed and Daddy was always so proud of me whenever he used to see me riding bikes.

Finally, after 5 months I asked Sachin to plan for a ride. I was low on confidence, I never rode such a big bike before, I had to understand about the weight and about everything before we embark for this big adventurous ride

Initially we decided to go for a normal 5-6 day ride but I knew unless and until I don’t take my bike in mountains like I did in 2015, when I was just learning how to ride bikes and in 2 months into biking we went to mountains and after coming back I was so confident, similarly we got to do something like that and I knew I could only ride big bikes confidently if we ride it to mountains and again we wanted to repeat the history of riding from Mumbai to Ladakh again on our own machines

From 220 cc to 850cc now

Well, we thought to leave as soon as we finish our packing but after loading it on the bike, going to wroomstore thrice just because we kept forgetting last minutes things like cam straps, zip ties etc etc we ended up getting so tired that we dozed off and woke up at 3.30 a.m. so the tip is get so so sooooo tired that you will get those 2 hours of mandatory sleep before you kick start your most adventurous ride.

We woke, had a cup of green tea and we were so happy and fresh that yeeeehhhh now we won’t get sleepy while riding and we don’t need to search for a restroom to freshnup 😀 in the morning :-p

We finally hugged each other, promised to ride safe and come back home safely aur Ganpati bappa morya bolkar nikal pade.

It was raining the night before but when we started the ride everything was just fine. We kept on riding the bike till we reached charoti road and encountered the heavy rains. It never feels good to start the ride and get all wet and dirty jackets, pants and luggage and bike all dirty at the 1^st day of ride <angry>

We stopped for a breakfast (bun maska, chai) we tried to keep it light since we had more 600 kms to ride and reach Udaipur. Luckily after sometime the rains stopped leaving us draped in mud but now that’s the part and parcel of rains aur barish ke Mausam mein what else should we expect “Do not be angry with the rain; It simple does not know how to fall upwards” 😀 so without any further complains we were again back on roads.

Somehow 1^st day of ride is always so much filled with anxiety and nervousness because hey you are going to LADAKH I mean THE LADAKH and on 2 wheels there is zero margin for errors plus less sleep and you have to get used to your bike which is like fully loaded with luggage.

You know what I hate the most is the toll nakas which has those ultra-thin lanes for bikers where you have to be so cautious that little bit yaha waha and your luggage will actually kick the briquettes off your way.

So somehow the never-ending day 1 came to an end we stayed right in the corner of highway instead of going inside the city and luckily, we got super cosy stay in 4500/- the name of the hotel was “Season Spa and resort” which was like 15 kms from the city. The good thing was since the hotel was near highway it will be really easy for us to leave early in the morning without struggling in city traffic.

And yes, how I can I forget to tell you guys that we were really down with the heat stroke so we had paracetamol after our dinner, edited day 1 video for you guys and called it a day! 750kms nipta diya gaya!

Bikes ridden – Triumph Tiger 850 Sport and Suzuki Vstrom 650
Route – Mumbai (Airoli) – Gujarat – Udaipur (Via hallol – Godhra) – Udaipur – Gurgaon – Manali

Day 2** We slept at 2.30 and woke up at 4.30 because we wanted to started early and also, we knew that because of heat stroke even if we don’t wish we have to take frequent breaks after 1.00 p.m. for hydration’s sake

It was like i literally closed my eyes and in a blink, I have to wake up. Of course we wanted to sleep more but did not wanted to start late. After riding for 750 kms you get some effing amazing heavenly sleep, I must say.

Today we were bit relaxed since we knew that day 1 of ride is always like phewww and also the weather was super clear and Sun god was all set to burn us with some heat stroke but again we were fine because starting your ride in rains makes you lazy, sleepy, gloomy and slow. Yes, rains make you super slow because of low visibility and also because of early braking and understanding the brakes because in rains you have to be super cautions with the skids and everything so in short, we were happy and all set to burn our a** with some hawt summer ride.

Sachin quickly finished with chain lubing because yesterday it was all pouring and our chains were really dry and dirty. I was always take little bit more time to get fresh n up and Sachin is super fast so we have mutually decided that all the morning work will be done by him and in the evening il work extra as in il compensate..

The best thing ever happened in our life was Wroom Turtuk Waterproof tail bag and Wroom Infinity Saddle bag, We did not unloaded our luggage at all instead we carried the dry bags which comes along with the bags. It was so good guys, all these years we struggled and wasted our time in loading and unloading our luggage since last 2014 and finally we got a break through. We never believed in Panniers or hard luggage because when you are riding in mountains and if you happen to crash the hard luggage will do more damage to your bike unlike soft luggage and also because it changes the ergonomics of your bike. Well, it’s a long debatable topic we have also made a video about soft luggage Vs Hard luggage go watch on our YouTube channel so coming to the topic without wasting any further time we kept the dry bags and resumed our day 2 of ride we planned to ride as far as we can and reach Jammu.

For the 1^st time we rode for 200 kms in the go like in 1 shot without taking breaks and this happened only because of our beautiful machine the 100s are so comfortable on Tiger 850 sport and Vstrom 650 that you can ride all day long without experiencing any fatigue. Also, because it was morning and the weather was pleasant we wanted to munch as much miles as we can.

Always remember 1 thing listen to your body and what it needs, if your body asks for rest give it a rest and take a break, drink some water and resume. We always do this because we have faced major accident in 2015 while riding to Ladakh only because our body was not well rested.

We started our day with some protein bars which we always carry during long rides and we always try to stay light especially when you have to ride long distances and you can’t afford to feel sleepy. We skipped our breakfast and decided to directly stop for a lunch at around 11.30 or 12.00 when the heat starts getting stronger.

The most memorable and scary thing that happened on this day was our close calls with cows and let me tell you guys cows are such that they don’t give a FU**K about you I mean no matter you scream, you honk, you apply brakes, you fall, you die whatever god damn thing you do they will stand right there without moving an inch of their fat a**. We have a good friendship with dogs they never come in our way even if the do they listen and act to the loud honks but cows phewwww

We were literally on 120 kmph and suddenly this cow wanted to cross the roads and then change her mind and stand in the middle of road without even thinking that if we would have not applied the technique of progressive braking we would have been in heaven or let say hell. Sachin was behind me and he was like “Kiran…. Kiran…Kirannnnnn” on Bluetooth and because I was concentrating on applying brakes I could just breathe. Somehow Sachin applied brakes too because he was riding behind me and I dodged the cow but she came right in the front of Sachin’s bike and he had no option but to apply hard brakes and come to stand still. Later he said that he could hear the screeching sound of ABS kicking in. We thanked almighty and resumed our ride.

We both knew that today anything could have happened and our ride would have come to an end just in the 2^nd day of the ride but thank you god we are still going strong. Is liye we always tell to live like there’s no tomorrow.

This was not the end there was more thrill for the day We were on our way to Jammu and we stopped in some dabba because of bad heat stroke just to drink some water and also to check out on our Instagram’s because unofficially we keep working 24/7 and also when we are on rides our Wroom store never stops serving bikers and its totally operational. Suddenly I came across 1 dm which was sent by 1 of our delhi subscriber his name was Harshit and he forwarded us a picture saying that some bridge between Jammu to Srinagar has collapsed and that its getting repaired and it will take at least a week. Pehle tho laga kya pakka raha hai fir thunde dimag se socha and Damnnnn now what.

We never reveal our location especially when we are on rides for safety reasons and also because we don’t want unnecessary issue but god knows how this guy knew that we are about to ride via Jammu Srinagar and god knows why he took out his precious time to message us. We are blessed with all the subscribers we have earned. We called few of our friends and they confirmed that the news is not fake.

We took some time to gather ourselves and then we decided to ride from Manali to Leh which was never in the plan and we already knew how dangerous it could be but again we couldn’t afford to waste more days and also, we can’t go back to Mumbai without completing our ride so we decided to go for the plan B.

When we were about to start our ride Sachin always used to motivate me saying “I know it’s your 1^st ride but Mumbai se Srinagar you will be so comfortable with bikes that Ladakh will be a Cake walk (read it cake ride) for you.

This is the main reason why we never ship our bikes because by the time you reach mountains you get so confident with your bikes that riding in mountains feels pleasurable.

Sachin looked at me and he asked “tu kar legi” and I nodded with so much confidence in my eyes that we thought to change our entire route plan and rides towards Manali.

We thought to stay in Gurgaon and start early in the morning and reach directly to Manali on Day 3. We stayed in Radisson for 5000/- which was just on the highway so that again its easy for us to escape and ditch the city traffic the main reason to not stay in Delhi rather stay in Gurgaon.

We thought to wake up by 3.30 and leave by 4.30 because we knew its gonna be a long long day onwards to Manali tomorrow.

Day 3** When the alarm started ringing at 3.30 a.m. initially, I felt like I should smash Sachin’s phone but later realised that it’s the IPHONE so instead I woke up made some coffee and asked Sachin to wake up and get going because

A. I was full of anxiety

And B. because I was nervous and couldn’t sleep the whole night properly.

I wanted to scream but instead I behaved normal, smart and carefree in front of Sachin like everything is just fine and that iam effing all set let’s do this:-D of course he is my husband and that we are married for 10 years he knew that I was nervous and that I was just acting smart in front of him :-p

We had some protein bars; Dry bags went inside the tail bag and saddle bags and we were all set to start our ride. We hugged each other and went on our separate bikes just to make each other proud and to impress each other with our riding skills :-p

One thing was for sure and that was we both were too confident about our decision. We both knew that now there is no looking back and in life also we both always been like this whatever decision we take we make sure to put heart and soul into that and make it a success and anyways we had no option and we wanted to go to Ladakh so badly that we have to make it happen.

As we proceeded with our ride, we got a news that the bridge thing will get sorted in couple of days so we both discussed it on Bluetooth about our next call of action just to check out if anyone amongst us wants to go via Jammu but again no surprises here, we both wanted to try Manali Leh route which we have never done. We have always done Leh – Manali but never started from Manali plus we were about to save some days too..yehhhh!

The worst thing of entering in Manali was it was Saturday – the weekend and traffic was so bad that we were literally riding on 5-10 kmph for almost 3-4 hours we were dead tired because of 42 degrees but had no other options to keep going.

We reached Manali at around 12.30 a.m. and thank you to our hotel guys they served us hot dal, chawal, papad for dinner. We were surprised about 2 things here First, Post 9.00 p.m. the traffic was almost negligible and 2^nd the road to Manali has exceptionally improved. We remember last year the roads were in bad conditions with multiple water crossings but now everything was just awesome otherwise we wouldn’t had reached Manali so early.

No matter how much you try to avoid night ride, it always tends to happen so our extra lights worked as magic on those single lanes. Every pothole, every small tiny stones were clearly visible and still we could ride on 80-90 kmph easily. But let me tell you if you are someone who likes to ride after sun down then install at least 4 lights because if it rains the road becomes more darker and then your extra lights does not perform good.

On day 4 of our ride, we thought to ride to Jispa from Manali the next day for some acclimatization but that never happened – Read out what happened on our 4^th day of ride**

Day 4 ** As we woke up, we thought to leave immediately and stay in Jispa because we did not directly want to go to Leh from Manali and also because Jispa was on 15000 ft above sea level so we will also get a bit acclimatized with the weather.

We got ready and left the property in anticipation that we will go to jispa and spend rest of our evening there and next day we will start the day early and reach Leh early which never happened. In Hindi we call it Khyali Pulav. <eye rolling>

Sometimes you take wrong decisions and end up creating problems for yourself and not riding to Jispa and staying in Manali was 1 such decision (More about it in Manali – Leh ride chapter).

As we sat for breakfast in Manali we started feeling so lazy and hazy that for next 1 hour we became couch potatoes and got stuck to that cosy couch. We both knew that we were riding from last 3 days and reaching from Mumbai to Manali is not at all simple in 3 days so we looked into each other’s eyes and without saying a word called for a beer 😀 We ate a lot of food and lot of beer, went in a room and passed away.

When we woke up it was 6.00 a.m. in the evening so we went out for a tea and with lovely dinner at rideinn called it a day.

Travelling has taught us 1 thing that no matter how good plans you make at some point you fail and its absolutely ok because weather is not in your hand, the bridge that fell was not in your hand, Just think about the people who got stuck because of the bridge and survived there on biscuits  because we later heard haunting stories about how the bridge fell and how 3000 people were stuck there for 3 days hence you should plainly go with the flow without complaining or stressing on why things that you planned did not worked well.

We both are quick decision makers and we are comfortable about what others want – We change plans on the go, we decide to skip something, we decide to stop whenever and wherever we feel like. We don’t complain that we decided to do some XYZ thing so we must do “NO we aint like that we are cool with every change because “Change is only CONSTANT” and destination don’t matter to us it really the journey that we enjoy together.

When we meet clients at our Wroomstore they all are so full of anxiety about the plans they have made and about the preparations that they forget that they are here to enjoy and that they are rising because they are going for a ride is not a mission instead, they are going for a ride for some fun and break and enjoyment. Always remember when you are on 2 wheels don’t forget to enjoy yourself because only if you enjoy the ride, you are going long way and covering more kilometres if you are stressed out with everything you will never like riding motorcycles.

When girls come to me and asks me that they want to start riding the 1^st thing I tell them is start enjoying the process and if you really want to ride then 1 day you will be there where you want to be. When you go on long rides there are many uncomfortable things that happens – You get heat stroke, your hair gets spoiled, you skin suffers a lot, you don’t get proper washroom, you don’t get proper food to eat, sometimes you don’t like those heavy jackets and pants and boots and it irritates you. When you are fine with all these things happening to you then my friend you can become a biker because there is huge huge huge difference between travelling on Bike and travelling in car 😊

Moral of story – Day 4 turned out to be an unplanned rest day and we were happy about it because it was well deserved. After coming to our room, we both had Diamox because we were about to climb the mountains.

That night when we both were lying on bed, we both knew what we were thinking about so I finally broke the silence and asked him “Mein kar lungi na Manali – Leh? “

Sachin said without wasting a single minute and without any doubt “YES”

God knows how come he is so confident about me since 2015!

We both closed our eyes and holding each other’s hand we dozed off😊

Grab some popcorn because Day 5 is gonna be super exciting and lots of Fun!

Route – Manali – Jispa – Zing Zing Bar- Baralacha La – Nakeela Pass – Sarchu – Lachung La- Tanglang La – Leh

“Fear is Temporary. Regret is Forever.”

One thing I always hated since school times is “Alarm”. When I was a kid, I still remember when from 1^st to 4^th standard you have to afternoon school and from thereon you have to wake up at 5.30 a.m. and be at school sharp at 7.00 a.m. I hated it so much that I used to sleep in bathroom and Mum used to scream on top of her lungs because then il used to miss my school bus and end up reaching late at school. Teachers used to punish me almost every day and my calendar used to be full of late remarks. Pheww why iam telling you all this is because I hated being a morning person right from childhood and even now after 34 years, I hate being a morning person, thank God I married a person is just like me not a morning person at all. Till date we have never been on time for any morning meetings on time, I was never on time in all 10 years of my IT career, I always loved to choose afternoon shift.

I don’t know what this biking has done to us but whenever we are on rides we wake up before the alarm goes wild. I mean seriously everytime we are on rides we wake up before time no matter if its 3.30 in the morning we get ready on time and leave on time minus those days when we mutually see into each other’s eye and understand the unsaid words that yes, its absolutely ok to wake up late tomorrow.

Well today was one such day when we both were more than punctual for our ride and we knew that its gonna be the toughest Manali to Leh ride and we knew the importance of leaving early because then in mountains reaching late would be disastrous, remember 1 thing in mountains “Leave early, Reach Early” because ones the sun goes down and if you get stuck or stranded in middle of mountains you will get no help and many bad things could happen.

We both were on time – Gabbar and Jugni were waiting for us because they were more excited to ride on some extremely rough patches and flaunt their skills. Oh by the way if you don’t know whose Gabbar and Jugni . Below are their pictures 😉

All our rides starts with him – “Ganpati Bappa Morya” he has always blessed us and helped us whenever we needed him from deleting bad people from our life to making great decisions in life he has always been there. Remember 1 thing in life always trust your instincts and always no matter what listen to your instincts because 99 percent of time they are never wrong.

When we started our ride, we were all fresh and enjoying our ride from Manali to Jispa its butter smooth road. We came across a south Indian restaurant and he served us the best idli and Medu wada sambhar in middle of nowhere and we were so so happy that the person who was running that restaurant happened to be our subscriber. He bought riding jacket, gloves from our Wroomstore. I would like to say guys we are blessed to have you all in our life, you guys have always motivated us and loved us and inspired us to do better and only because of you we work hard and try to give our best<hugs>

With big smile and lots of happiness we left for our journey ahead we now knew that it’s the time when the roads and terrains are surely gonna turn harsh on us.

Before leaving Sachin asked me whether ill have “Diamox” <Those who don’t know what Diamox is – it’s a blood thinner which helps you in low oxygen land> I denied because I had Diamox the night before and also because my menstrual dates were nearer and I did not wish to play with my body. I have always respected this thing in my life, I never had any complains about my periods since we started riding, I absolutely hate the sympathy and I am proud to be a women. In fact we always plan our rides before or after my dates but this time because of our wroomgears launches we had to continue with our rides.

Well, we encountered our 1^st water crossing and BINGO Sachin was about to fall! Yes, you read it right, 1^st water crossing of this ride and he was about to fall. He jammed the brake because the truck ahead of us stopped suddenly for God knows what reason.

We saw a bunch of Royal Enfield’s passing us from left from right and from wherever they could find space. Whenever you see big vehicles always try to give them a way. It’s very difficult to drive huge vehicles on such terrains anyways coming to the topic It was a scary sight for me to see in the rear-view mirror how Sachin managed to save the fall, I saw it in rear view mirror because when we are on mountains iam the one who is in the lead and Sachin likes to ride behind me and watch my back because I have this bad habit of falling 😀 in every ride.

Manali to Leh is a busy highway and the terrain is not that difficult what makes it difficult is the traffic because if you are bike is moving nobody can make you fall. The roads are so narrow that its impossible for 2 trucks to pass by one has to stop for other truck and vice versa. We bikers suffer a lot because you never know when these truck guys will stop forcing you to jam your brakes.

We both were moving slowly and steadily towards our destination Leh. We crossed Baralacha La very smoothly and then the biggest water crossing before reaching Sarchu. Initially I thought that iam gonna fall but Gabbar surprised me how effortlessly and smoothly we both did the water crossing. As usual these truck guys made us stop in the corner because 2 persons cannot cross it simultaneously. The biggest problem I had with Gabbar (Tiger 850 Sport) was taking it behind and i so wish I had the reverse gear. I was dead sure that on this ride iam going to fall at least ones just because my legs doesn’t reach the ground and taking this huge bike behind is not simple. I asked few locals to help me and they were extremely sweet.

The strangest thing we noticed whenever we ride to Ladakh and especially when we are about to reach Sarchu is that people are struggling with the water crossing and I swear they will have no fu**ing mood for any tranquillizers but still you will see this “Angrezi Sharab ka theka” which is the only shop seen there. May be they wanted to say “Come and celebrate with us after completing your watercrossing nicely :-p” Well when you are on 2 wheels you ignore such shops just like you ignore the ad between videos …hahahah

We reached Sarchu safely and we stopped for some water, after hugging each other and celebrating our ride so far, we quickly left the spot because we wanted to reach Leh before sun down and we were not even the half way down.

I don’t know but suddenly the traffic and military vans increased and we had no other options to slow down and give them the way. We were literally crawling and it made us so tired that we had to take another halt in Pang after Nakeela and LachungLa. We thought to have some light snack because Sachin was not feeling well and he complained about light headache. We were about to order some eggs when we met this lovely Rajasthani boys with whom we started the conversation and they were really happy to know that I was also riding and later they were dumbfounded when they realized that we are “The Husband Wife”

I still don’t understand why it’s a taboo? Why wife has to always travel as a pillion? Why she cant have her own passion of riding bikes? Well, I think we should skip these questions like we skip ads.

It was really very sweet of these boys to serve us some delicious and garma garam Panner gravy.

Whenever you are riding to Ladakh or sending your parents to Ladakh for a trip always make sure to tell them all the basic tips they need to follow while traveling to Ladakh. First thing Ladakh is not a holiday destination, it can be fun if you respect the Ladakh terrains, because of less oxygen Ladakh will always be adventurous especially when you are doing Manali to Leh its dangerous and risky, Always try to send your parents from Jammu- Srinagar so that they acclimatise by the time they reach Leh. We met a very elderly couple in 50s and they were hit by AMS so we offered them basic tablets like Paracetamol and left from the place.

We were way behind our schedule time because Sachin was not feeling well and he continuously complained of slight headache, vomit, and that he was feeling very very sleepy. We later on realised that taking Diamox makes you feel dizzy and the way we took Diamox was not correct. When you are about to start your ride never take Diamox on the ride day, you should take Diamox from 3 days prior to your ride day. Paneer and rice made Sachin feel more and more sick because when you are on bike and especially when you are continuously on off roads you should always have light snacks like chai biscuit etc and I was saved big time because when Sachin had his Paneer rice and eggs, I just had chai biscuit and I was sorted.

We took frequent breaks at Morrie plains and then somehow, we finished Tanglang la pass. The temperature dropped drastically making us weaker. It was almost 11.30 in the night when we stopped at dabba for some water and Sachin finally puked all the paneer out. I was badly scared because it was just we 2 and I somehow started feeling that what if he starts feeling more sick, he was shivering with his eyes red. It was the scariest night for me I ws not able to understand and I was feeling so helpless. It was proud moment for both of us because we were finally about to conquer the toughest route of our life (Manali – Leh) in one shot was not less than an achievement but after seeing Sachin wanted to cry so bad but then I thought to be strong because he needed me. I gave him some water tried to cool him down and asked him to sleep for some time. He woke after half an hour and he said those golden words that he is feeling fine after vomit. I thanked Ganpati bappa and asked Sachin to take a halt at the same dabba till morning but surprisingly he said he is fine and he can ride for more 100 kms.

We rode to Leh nonstop and checked in our cosy hotel. Thanks to the hotel staff they kept delicious food just for us in our room which also had my favourite Sewai. We both ate little and hugged for making it till Leh without a single fall.

First mistake we did was having dimox on the day of ride which made us dizzy and sleepy, Second mistake eat light when you are on bikes and especially when you are gonna do 300 kms of off roads, Third mistake we shouldn’t have rode directly from Manali to Leh we could have done Manali To Jispa and then to Leh because Jispa is at 15000ft above sea level and we could have seriously got acclimatised and also we could have reached Leh on time instead of reaching at 1.00 in the morning.

Make sure whenever you ride to Ladakh do not make these mistakes and he will really enjoy your ride because always remember “Fear is Temporary” 😊

That night we slept like a donkey like literally. If you ever think you are insomniac, go for ride and then tell me if you still can’t sleep 😊

Next day was a rest day so we had no plans waking up early in the morning because hey it was well deserved rest for us 😊