First Time in The Mountains - Part 1 - Delhi to Mandi & Rishi Parashar Lake

I had been desperately searching for a Guru in those days. It was such a time. Finally, I bought RE Thunderbird 350, the first bike I rode as a test. Not like I haven't been on a bike before, but it was mostly the Bajaj scooter at home. And the handling of this bike just blew my mind.

Finally, I had a Guru. Although I did not know then that Guru is going to ask for a heavy Dakshina (toll/fee) for all the life lessons. It didn't matter then, it matters less now.

Somewhere after Una

Life Happened

It had been just about six months since I laid my hands on Royal Enfield Thunderbird 350 and experienced love at the first drive. I got to know that one of my previous acquaintances Varun Singh Deval was also an avid bullet rider and stayed in the vicinity.

We got in touch, and a different kind of friendship developed. The kind only experienced by RE owners. Our offices were also nearby. So we did many test rides to the famed 'Murthal' after office hours. Mostly impromptu, no plan, coincidental destination, and we both discovered that this is the kind of plan we loved.

Push came to shove and KMs started rising. One fine day, probably on Jan 21, we discovered that if we could each take just 1 day off we'll have about three full days to ride around Jan 26. Well! Technically I had to take 2 days off, but what the hell.

Day 1: 23th Jan 2016

Start New Multan Nagar West Metro Station

So on the evening of Jan 22, I packed everything I thought I'll need, pulled out the armour, bungee cord, and the sleeping bag, and went to sleep. I don't think I could, as we had to leave at around 3:30 in the morning, and the moment I fell asleep I heard the alarm ring.

Luggage was tied up, and damn it was cold in the January morning, and the bike just froze. Anyway, I tried hard, kicked many times, and started to feel sweaty under all that winter clothing. I got late by about half an hour.

Almost Bumped into a Truck

As soon as we hit the outer ring road we realised the dense fog that lay on our path. With a lot of truck traffic moving, the fog was dense enough for everything to move at 20-30Kmph on a usual butter-smooth road. Anyways, we kept moving and Dewal Ji warned me about broken trucks lying totally dark on the side of the road. 

I almost bumped into one, or at least in the warning brick lying behind the truck. Thankfully I was running only at 30Kmph, and dual disks broke in time to avoid a face smacking hit.

Murthal - Gulshan Dhaba

At last, after driving about 2-3 hours in dense fog and traffic, we reached the familiar sight of Murthal dhabas. After two and half hours of blind driving, Murthal felt like heaven in disguise, and of course, shrouded in mist.

We stopped at our usual Gulshan Dhaba and checked the travel plans further. I recall I was shivering badly until the hot coffee and food finally went inside.

Ambala - Bike Repair for Speed

My bike was new and all had been vibrating a lot. Or maybe it was vibrating as it would and I, not being used to it, would not push the accelerator any further than 90. Varun had had enough of it and took a detour at Ambala to fix it. 

The mechanic cleaned up the oil cap and filters and went for a test ride. He came back to announce that the bike was doing 105 in the city and should do better on the highway. Well, not very comforting but anyway, I'll give it a try.

We left Ambala at about 1 PM and only after Chandigarh did the scenes and weather start to get transcendent. Probably more so for me, being so far away on the road for the first time in my life.

Anandpur Sahib & Una

We took the unconventional but certainly more scenic route through the hydro town Nangal. The roads were unexpectedly smooth, especially in the mountains, and I was having a time of my life running through the curves.

I don't recall having to tilt my bike as much anytime before this. This being the first time in the mountains for me, Varun gave me a few lessons before we started the climb - always stay in gear and on your half of the road.

I must say, I didn't think I cared about my life as much as I realised that day. I kept following the two gospels and avoided jumping off the curves and bumping into the incoming traffic of trucks.

A Night Without Civilisation

We started climbing from Una at about 5 PM and had stopped for a paratha break within half an hour after. We encountered another scenic place before Riwar. The road climbs down from the first wall of mountains and enters a plain valley full of farms and a small stream of a river. The bridge across this river bed is about 2-3 km long and is perfectly straight.

There was still some daylight left, fortunately. So, I could observe the grandeur of the valley on both sides of the bridge. Too bad we didn't stop there for a pic as we were already late. As per Mr Dewal, we were taking a lot more breaks than we should have. I couldn't disagree more. I thought we should've been stopping every half an hour. But I chose to keep my opinion to myself.

Anyway, after crossing the valley we started driving in the mountains again and took another scenic break near Bhota (most likely after crossing Bhota). It was about 9 'O clock, and a clear night couldn't have been more beautiful.

It was almost full moon night (just a day before the full moon). In better words, the next day would be the first full moon night of the year. The sky was clear. There was no artificial light anywhere in the vicinity. On the other side of the road was an opening which probably was a flat plateau created to store things or park vehicles. A leafless tree stood there on one side peering over the side.

A large moon shone in its glory almost from behind that tree, like the imagination of a nature artist. As if to complete the picture a small torn cloud appeared near the moon, its edges shining with the moonlight.

No artificial light nearby, only the moon, the mountains, the flora and us. Occasional bird noises reminded us that we are still alive and haven't reached heaven yet, even though it certainly felt like one. 

Drunk Himachali Engineer & Tata Nano

After this, we took a less travelled local village road to continue towards Mandi. It was narrow and there was drainage construction going on on the side of the road for the most part. So, while driving through the pitch dark road we'd encounter tools, construction material, pickup trucks, JCBs and engineers.

One such engineer was returning (or going, no one could tell) in his Tata Nano car after a fun evening with friends (this everyone could tell). He had managed to get the small car into the ditch somehow, and that led to a traffic jam.

Even though there were just about 5-6 vehicles plus the two of us on bikes, the seemingly empty road reminded us of the highways in Delhi, at least for a moment. On the other side was about 30-50 feet drop, and in the dark it looked like an endless pit. Anyway, we drove our bikes to the edge to get ahead of the traffic and reached the engineer in distress.

The car had a tyre hanging in the drainage pit and three wheels out. Engineer Saab was down a few pints and couldn't understand more than that he's in his car and the car's in a ditch. Mr Deval and all the others tried to make him understand that if he just accelerates his car would be out of the trouble. He kept repeating, 'chassis is hit, I'm an engineer I know it's bent.'

Finally, they all gathered up around the car and lifted it out of the ditch and onto the road. Now, the engineer was thanking everyone, while everyone got in their vehicles ready to rumble. So did we, before these 4 wheelers could get ahead of us we bailed.

Day 2: 24th Jan, Mandi to Parashar Lake

Camped for the night at Parashar, a tonne of drinks (God knows where it went), and some food. Another biker group arrived with numbers and turned my plans of meditating at the place to dust.

Parashar Lake

I became a witness to the famed Sunrise at Parashar. I was sitting at a nearby peak overlooking the valley with the Beas river flowing underneath. Valley was covered with a thin layer of floating clouds and the yellow-orange sun came up from underneath this layer.

This entire time I thought I had left my camera in the tent below about 500 meters away. So, I just sat there and fixed my eyes on the scene unfolding before me.