Sep 13 2010: Chandigarh to Manali

I'm just going to cut and paste this first line for every entry for this trip and every other one we'll ever take. Our next ride will be a humanitarian trip to drought-stricken areas of Africa. Someone might as well benefit from our rain-making abilities. At breakfast, the waiter asked if we were enjoying the rainy weather? isayspardon? Apparently the Indian people love the rain, it's a respite to the oppressive heat and also brings life to the lush greenery in the area.

We got a late start out of Chandigarh, due to delays with breakfast and me being a bit lazy this morning. Left around 8AM, which was an hour later than we had planned. This would come back to haunt us later on. Chandigarh is a pretty modern North India city, lots of shopping malls and the city is built into grid-like Sections which are numbered and makes it very easy to navigate. A very planned layout.

Shout out to all my 2Ride peeps! Gas station break outside of Chandigarh

We were going against Monday morning rush hour traffic, everyone making their way into the big city for work. Normally in the western world, this means that you end up with a very quick ride with little traffic going your direction. This could not be more different in India. Indian traffic is like water flowing to the path of least resistance. If there is a space, traffic will fill it. Inbound traffic pushed us out to the far left-hand side of the road, as we struggled upstream against a tidal wave of oncoming traffic in both of the two lanes of road heading out of the city. Dodging stray dogs, oxen and pedestrians, our horns became our only defense!

This is a Sikh place of worship called a gurdwara (thanks to singhg5 for this info), just north of Roppar

The scenery is here is heavily forested, and the well-paved roads lull you into a false sense of security because every few hundred meters there are fields of potholes that slow traffic down. I've figured out why there is so much oncoming traffic in our lane, even though the vehicles aren't overtaking. They're all avoiding potholes and shift over into our lane, then duck back at the last minute. Very un-nerving...

View from the cockpit, speedo reads about 60 km/h so we're going a lot faster than our average speed this trip!

We're travelling a little westwards towards Kurali, and then taking the highway north to Ropar. At Ropar, there is a turn-off towards the road to Manali. These roads are not as well-maintained and we have to navigate our way through sections of mud and broken pavement. It's here that I spot a Royal Enfield dealership on the side of the road, and 15 minutes and 100 Rupees ($2 CDN) later, I get my speedo cable replaced and we're back on our way. Try getting that kind of service at your local Canadian motorcycle dealer!

The road to Manali is a very twisty road as it wends it way up the mountain! Normally this means Neda and I would be railing through the curves, clipping apexes, with our bodies hanging off the bike. However with Indian drivers making it a regular habit of passing on blind corners, the wet, muddy and broken road conditions in several areas and our overladen Enfields with the shaky front end, there was no knee dragging to be done here.

The scenery is so lush here and the winding roads remind me of the road to Hana in Maui. There are make-shift villages consisting of road side vendors selling confectionaries and cell phones! A gaggle of school children in blue uniforms gather around our bikes at one of our stops, curious about the foreigners who have invaded their town. So cute!

Neda found the Royal Enfield Bullet quite comfortable

At various spots we could see trucks pulled over the side of road, fixing tires and wheels, and even one was fixing a broken axle. The broken up pavement and potholes the size of Mini Coopers really take their toll on the vehicles here. It's no wonder that vehicles go out of their lane to avoid them. I realized that if we are to make this trip without incurring damage to our Enfields, we would have to tiptoe around these obstacles. Mud and water filled holes were the worst - hiding potentially sharp rocks that could damage our tires and wheels. Last thing I want to do is try to fix a flat in the pouring rain with trucks whizzing inches past you.

OMG, there are monkeys on the road to Manali! There were a dozen or so monkeys
on the side of the road. Not afraid of motorcycle riders too, as you can see.

A few kms before Mandi, we encoutered a long line-up of cars. Being proper Indian motorcyclists, we moved into the empty oncoming lane and headed up to see what the delay was. Turns out the bridge leading to Mandi and Manali was out and there was a construction crew (basically one guy with a mini dump truck) hauling in stones and rocks to fill in a spot on the bridge where erosion had worn away the pavement. No one seemed angry or impatient. And for once, no honking horns from the parked lineup of cars and trucks. They just waited. This seems to be the Indian way, just to take these things in stride.

Because we were narrow two-wheelers, we were allowed to squeeze through the little part of the bridge that was still passable. The road conditions meant that we were not making very good time at all. Chandigarh to Manali is 283 kms on the map. North American highways and roads have warped our sense of time and distance. We were about 5 hours into the trip and the signs to Manali still read another 200 kms to go! With stops we were averaging under 20 km/h!

This is the state of the roads in the area. Mud, gravel, stones, broken pavement. Very slow going

Fortunately the scenery is beautiful, and there are some stretches of road that are clean

We broke for lunch at the Tiger Hill Restaurant, one of the nicer establishments on the side of the road different from the shantys with their open air grills and plastic seats. We ordered some great tasting Indian food, which would prove to be Neda's undoing much later on.

After our very late lunch, the rain stopped! And the sun starting smiling down at us. We still had to deal with the mud and the potholes but at least visibility had improved for us to appreciate the amazing vistas from the mountain road we were on. Mandi was the next major town on our route. It was a hustle and bustle of activity, so many people walking around this Sunday evening. Traffic was stop and go as city buses held up an entire lane forcing two-way traffic to squeeze by in one lane.

All smiles on the road!

Just outside of Mandi, we spotted another Royal Enfield dealer. What luck! We pull in to get Neda's bike looked at. The speedo cable was okay, turns out it was the sending unit in the front wheel that was broken and had to be fixed manually using a file, in order for the unit to resume sending wheel rpms to the speedo cable. They also fixed a front brake pad issue that was touching the rotor and pumped up her tires. I asked one of the service guys, "So Manali is 100 kms away. What is that? 2 hours?" He replied, "No, 4 hours. 2 hours to Kullu, 4 hours to Manali". This was at 5:30PM. Being hardcore bikers, I was sure we could cut that time in half. All we had to do was keep an average speed of 40 km/h and minimize our stops.

Royal Enfield shop just outside Mandi. Yes, those are cows in the background...

2 hours later we get to Kullu. Average speed 20 km/h. :( The sky had darkened considerably now and we had been riding in close to near darkness for the last hour. The road conditions are terrible, and it's not like we're riding in the wilderness either, there is broken pavement even in the villages between Mandi and Kullu. There are no street lights between villages and the oncoming traffic blinds us with their high beams. Everyone drives with high beams on in the night. I can't see a thing and have to slow to a crawl in the face of these high beams for fear of hitting a rut or pothole. The temperature is dropping now as we begin our ascent up the mountain and I can see my breath in front of me.

Awesome road and scenery, this part of the road was cut out from the rock face, water was dripping off the cliff wall
onto us like a waterfall and to the left was a steep drop to the Beas River. Getting really dark now.

Just outside of Kullu we stop because our Indian lunch is wishing to make a swift exit from Neda's stomach. After the emergency is over I ask her how she is feeling handling the off-road course we were on. She said she enjoyed dodging all the bumps and everytime she hit a pothole she giggles because the overladen Enfield's suspension keeps on bouncing for a time after. I'm glad she's enjoying the ride. I had considered stopping but knowing that Neda was okay, we decided to forge ahead.

Nightfall in Kullu. Debating whether to camp for the night or forge ahead to Manali.

The next two hours we ride in complete darkness to Manali. My plan was to tailgate one of the large trucks because they could act as a shield to oncoming traffic in our lane. As well, their tail-lights did a better job of illuminating the road ahead of me than the ineffective lights of my Enfield. I sense we are missing out on incredible scenery as I hear the rushing waters of the Beas River that follows the road we're on, the same river that we criss-cross a few times on bridges. My crappy lights just illuminate a tiny section of the rough canyon walls to my left and still, the turns keep on coming. At around 9:30PM, we reach the outskirts of Manali and ride around trying to find a hotel for the evening. Neda tells me she is starting to feel the first effects of the high elevation, her head is getting lighter and her breath is getting shorter. We have now climbed to almost 7,000 feet above sea level in a short time. This is a good time to stop.

Thinking back on the day, despite the foreigness of everything, the people, the roads and sights and sounds, there is something very familiar about being on two wheels that lessens the culture shock of it all. We've travelled so often and to so many different places by bike that I feel if we were riding on a different planet, we would pretty much take it all in stride. We would probably stop more often to take pictures though...