The Mother of All Drives - Part 2. Raskat - Solang - Rohtang Pass

Hanuman Tibba 

12 June 2001. Raskat - Manikaran - Kullu - Manali - Solang.

Chaman Singh's house overlooked the courtyard of the local primary school. The cheerful chatter of excited children filled the air as they prepared for a few hours of learning while we checked that the car tyres had air in them and that there were no oil leaks lurking on their underbellies. Chaman's wife stuffed us graciously with a liberal helping of aloo parathas and chai. Thus fortified, we were ready to face the perils of the road once again.

Ready for school!

The school

Our host Chaman Singh Thakur

The overnight rain ensured that the drive back to Manikaran was less dusty than the afternoon before, but the ensuing mud on the road plastered our vehicles with fresh coats of various shades of brown. Thus decorated, we motored happily onwards till a long and stationary line of vehicles brought us to a grinding halt. As is the custom while driving in India, we got out of the cars, stretched our legs, relieved the hydraulic pressures that inevitably build up in certain sectors of the anatomy as a result of cold air and the constant bumping, then decided to investigate the cause of this massive traffic jam on a very narrow mountain road.

After walking for more than half a kilometer past the parked vehicles, we found the reason for the long line-up. The overnight rain had caused a landslide to block the road. Even as we watched with the throng that had gathered, workers were busy trying to clear the obstruction: mud and stones and a rather large boulder had come crashing down the hillside, creating a mini crater which was filled knee deep with water. One of the workers had carved a narrow channel to let out the water which gushed out in a muddy brown ribbon, gradually exposing an imposing bed of thick, glutinous mud. Other workers jumped into the fray, scooping and hurling out the mud with large tins slung on a pair of ropes attached to each side for two people to work in unison.

Meanwhile an excavating machine was busy clearing the larger stones, its loud throaty growl echoing from the cliffs around while a slim spiral of black diesel smoke wafted upwards into the clean mountain air. There were cars, buses, trucks and vans waiting on the other side as well. People waited patiently and no one seemed to mind the delay that this incident had caused them.

The exception to this arrived suddenly on the scene in the form of a young Israeli with long dreadlocks mounted on a Bullet motorcycle, weaving through the crowd of vehicles and people, till he was at the edge of the crater. Obviously he was in a tearing hurry to go somewhere because he ignored the assembled onlookers and even the workers who tried to prevent him and drove his motorcycle straight into the mud bath where predictably he got stuck, submerged up to his knees in the thick mud, his Bullet puttering out unceremoniously. After everyone had had a good laugh and muttering "Serves him right", some good souls helped this rather immature and reckless youth out of his predicament.

The man operating the excavator nudged the last big boulder with consummate skill into the jaws of the metal bucket and the road was now free of obstruction. We all cheered. Filling up the ditch took another hour or so. Without further ado, the traffic began to move and very soon we drove into Kullu and onwards to Manali. Our destination for the day was Solang, further up the highway, to rendezvous with Franco Linhares, the fourth member of the Drive to Ladakh quartet.

Franco had arrived in Solang a few weeks earlier where he was conducting Outdoor Leadership courses for a company. We drove into Solang just as he had finished work for the day and he helped us settle in for the night.

13 June 2001. A SMALL WALK TO BEAS KUND.

Since this was Cheryl and Rosalyn's very first trip to the Himalaya, it was only fair that they be introduced to the joys of hiking in the hills. With this end in mind, we drove the short distance to Dhundi where we parked. There was a little tea stall under the canopy of an old parachute here. A quick cuppa followed and we were ready to walk.

I soon realized why this small hike to Beas Kund is so popular with most people I had met. It is easy to approach and in the short space of a few kilometers brings you up close to the glaciers below the peak of Hanuman Tibba, traversing flower filled meadows en route. The views back down the valley are also quite splendid. This was a great introduction for Cheryl and Rosalyn who had never experienced anything like this in their lives. They were thrilled and I realized how much I had begun to take things for granted after many trips to the mountains. Looking at everything with their fresh perspective was a good lesson in humility.

Franco lends a chivalrous hand to Sushma

The view down the valley

Deo Tibba rises behind the ridge

That evening we drove to Manali for a dinner of delicious momos, topped up our fuel tanks and bought an extra 30 liters which would come in handy for the long stretch between Udaipur and Leh where there were no fuel pumps.


14 June 2001. Solang - Rohtang Pass.

The plan was that Raj and the girls would accompany us in his little white car up to the Rohtang Pass where we would part company. The girls would have a modest altitude record (13,050 ft) in their resume and could return to Delhi contented while we would get down to the business of descending to Lahul and driving on to Leh.

A cold rain began to fall as we climbed past Marhi towards the pass. The road was pockmarked with potholes, but this did not deter the hundreds of vehicles heading upwards. We soon passed little stalls offering warm hats, jackets and boots for sale and for hire to the thousands of tourists determined to reach the pass. As we neared the top, a section of the road had an impressive snow bank as a white bulwark which stretched for a couple of hundred yards. Some entrepreneural soul had seized the opportunity to carve out a pair of throne-like recesses in the snow and offered these seats briefly for a fee to the hundreds of freshly married couples who regularly make Manali their honeymoon destination every year. He was doing brisk business as the line up of cars along this stretch attested, delaying us further.

Eventually we reached the top of the pass and I was shocked at the transformation I saw from 16 years earlier when I had passed that way. In August 1985, the pass was a desolate place with wind and rain as we crossed it in a public bus (see http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2012/06/lion-peak-seed-is-sown.html), there was no one in sight, and the bus driver had stopped expressly at our request so we could take a few pictures.

Now, it resembled a mini Kumbh Mela, with hundreds of people milling around and a chain of tea shops and small eateries and vendors roasting corn on small portable coal grills and "guides" soliciting the tourists. There were ponies available for hire for those who did not wish to walk to what the guides called "Snow Point". Everyone seemed to be heading for  Snow Point! Though it was highly amusing, I could understand the underlying desire of a tourist from the plains who had never set eyes on snow to want to experience it at first hand and have a tale to tell the folks back home. If you consider that India has a population of over a billion people, and that perhaps more than 98% of that number live in places which will never see snow until the next Ice Age, you can begin to comprehend the mania that we were caught up in! Since Sushma, Cheryl and Rosalyn also belonged to the 98%, we joined the trot to Snow Point!

We walked and we walked and we walked and there was no sign of any snow anywhere. The sleet and the wind stung our faces like little insects while our boots squelched on ground that was a sea of mud. We stopped someone who was on his way back. "How much further is it to Snow Point?" we asked him. He laughed derisively and said,"What a load of bullshit this is! There is a patch of old snow which looks more brown than white and it will take you half an hour to get there! These guides are taking everyone for a ride...."

By this time, Sushma was so cold that she had ceased to talk - this was serious, because under normal circumstances you had to gag her if you wanted her to shut up! Though she lives in Delhi, she has always considered the winters a challenge. More importantly, the futile trek towards Snow Point was eating into the driving time for the Ladakh Quartet. Sensibly, we decided to turn around and headed straight for a tea shop where we warmed up with a farewell round of chai.

L to R : Aloke, Ravi, Franklyn, Franco, Rosalyn, Sushma, Cheryl, Raj

We wished Raj and the girls a safe trip back to Delhi, fastened our after-market seat belts, turned on the cassette player so that Dire Straits belting out Sultans of Swing drowned out the buzz of the multitudes. I pointed the Gypsy in the direction of Lahul, engaged the gears, and cruised down the empty north side of the pass. We descended out from the clouds and into glorious sunshine. I took it as a good omen for The Mother of All Drives.

to be continued....

The Mother of All Drives - Part 1. Delhi - Bilaspur - Raskat

En route to Tso Moriri, Ladakh

PRELUDE

I got my Learner's license at the rather mature age of 35. I bought my first car, a used Maruti Suzuki Gypsy, in November 1990 - it turned out to be a lemon! Thousands of rupees and a month later I convinced Rajan, who was the proud owner of a full fledged License, to accompany me as I took my father-in-law and his friend on a fishing trip to the shores of Mulshi Lake, beyond the village of Ambavane. The road beyond INS Shivaji was a dirt track and 20 km later we were covered liberally in the red dust so typical of these hills. We camped by the shores of the lake, were visited by a leopard in the night, and my father-in-law did not catch a single fish!

On the return journey we had a flat tyre on the dirt road and I was glad that Rajan was around to help jack up the vehicle and put the spare tyre on.

A few years later I was driving back at night with Pradeep Nambiar and Vijay on the Barvi Dam road. I was elated after a day in the hills and took great pleasure in negotiating the innumerable bends on this route as it wound its way through the patch of forest which clothed the slopes above the reservoir. Spotting wildlife on this stretch had always been an added attraction, and I kept my eyes peeled for signs of sudden and surreptitious movement. With adrenalin flowing, I took the next bend at a fairly good clip, battled with the steering as the vehicle spun out of control, balancing on the two wheels on the left hand side like the stunts I had seen in James Bond movies, before landing with a thud on that side. Vijay, who was sitting at the back, shot through like a missile and landed between Pradeep and me. There were hissing sounds and the smell of leaking gasoline permeated the night air.

Miraculously, our limbs were intact, and we managed to crawl out of the vehicle. We stood on the road inspecting the damage: The windscreen had shattered, the bonnet and the two side doors had buckled in to form new contours. Other than that, everything else seemed okay. With a combined heave, we pushed the Gypsy back on to its four wheels. Pradeep noticed that the radiator fan was jammed against the unit. With a little effort he managed to free it. We tied up the doors with our handkerchiefs after wiping the blood off my bruised elbow and I cranked the engine. To our collective surprise, the beast came to life, but with a hesitant purr. I switched on the headlights and they worked, though the angle of illumination had now changed and only the patch of road about 8 feet ahead could be seen! It was pitch dark and very quiet on this road - in the half hour that had elapsed after the crash, not a single vehicle had passed our way. Only the night sounds of the jungle suggested that the world around us was still alive.

It was well past midnight when I reached home, chugging along at a modest 30 km per hour. In those days before the cell phone revolution, my wife Margaret had no clue as to our whereabouts or our fate. My little son, in his innocence, had declared, "I am sure dad is dead!" a few hours earlier when I had not turned up at the promised hour. What he had not reckoned with was that there were still a couple of things on my bucket list which were not complete and it would be in my interest to stick around a little longer....

I had dreamt of driving to Ladakh for years. Suddenly, in the summer of 2001, I had the time and the means. There was one little problem, though - I had no car! I had sold my faithful Gypsy to a friend as I was on the verge of emigrating to Canada. In those fledgling days of the Internet in India, I somehow got on line via a crackling and asthmatic dial-up connection and found a Maruti Gypsy with aftermarket hardtop and airconditioning listed for sale by a marine officer in Delhi.

For a little over ten years I had used my old Gypsy in Mumbai and it had taught me the basics of getting out of some tough spots  in the dirt roads of the Sahyadri. I had learnt how to seal a fuel tank leak with soap and a radiator leak with haldi (turmeric) powder and how to leverage the drive shaft out of a deep rut with a log of wood.

Gopi (left) and Satyabrata Dam (centre) watch as I squeeze my Gypsy between a rock and a hard place on the track from Kulangwadi to Igatpuri, November 1999. Franklyn Silveira (back to camera) supervises operations!

My friends who had shared some of these adventures with me, had also on occasion risked their lives and limbs at my hands. I was therefore a little surprised when three of them agreed to come along on this road trip. The attraction for them of course was the promise of a trek in Ladakh and perhaps a little Himalayan summit. None of them knew how to drive and in the event of mechanical failure were mentally prepared to abandon the vehicle wherever it might come to grief and walk away with their belongings. As a token gesture, Ravi Wadaskar (with whom I had shared a wonderful climbing adventure three years earlier - see http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2014/02/the-chango-chronicles-1998-third-time.html ) offered to take a couple of driving lessons before leaving Mumbai, just in case he had to take over the steering wheel from me!

The ground rules having been set, I enlisted the help of my brother Raj in Delhi to give the Gypsy the once over, fix a roof rack to accommodate all the extra trekking and climbing paraphernalia, and attach a protective shield crafted from chicken wire mesh and HDPE to the exterior of the fuel tank.

With a payload of about 350 kg plus four male adults, the Gypsy would have its work cut out. The rather heavy after market metal body was already a burden on the vehicle and I am sure the the original Japanese designers of the Suzuki Jimny SJ410 (on which the Maruti Gypsy was based) never dreamt to what lengths the Indian market was prepared to stretch their little creations! With the 970 cc engine pumping out a rather modest 45 BHP, I was hoping to nurse the little beast over and across the Rohtang Pass into Lahul and thence over the Tanglang La to Leh and on to the Khardung La.

I needed to do a test drive before the Ladakh adventure. A trek to the Bagini Glacier in Garhwal which I had planned with my friends Kum Kum and Jayant Khadalia and their son Kunal fell fortuitously into place - see http://accidentaltrekker.blogspot.ca/2014/04/bagini-bouquet.html

I picked up the Khadalia family at New Delhi railway station and we drove to Joshimath over two days, stopping at Rishikesh for the night. At Joshimath I discovered that the roof rack I had acquired at Kishangarh in Delhi had partially collapsed. Ignoring this minor inconvenience we drove to Jumma where the Gypsy was left outside the army camp for three weeks while we completed our trek.

I parked the Gypsy near the hot sulphur spring above Tapoban while we enjoyed a refreshing bath on our return from the Bagini Glacier

An attack of Delhi Belly on my return ensured that the roof rack replacement be postponed a couple of days.

DELHI - BILASPUR - 10 June 2001

Delhi in summer is as close as you can get to Dante's Inferno without shuffling off your mortal coil. Franklyn Silveira and Ravi Wadaskar shuffled off the August Kranti Rajdhani Express at Delhi's Nizamuddin Railway station where I waited for them. We added their humongous backpacks and a couple of kit bags full of ropes, tents and climbing gear to the cargo space behind the Gypsy's rear seats and some on to the roof rack. Raj led the way out of the chaos in his little Maruti 800 super compact car. His wife Sushma and her school friends from Patna - Cheryl and Rosalyn - managed to squeeze themselves and their luggage in the little car. Heading for Ring Road, we were soon motoring out of Delhi by afternoon, with the airconditioning insulating us from the oppressive heat that baked the asphalt outside.

Cooling off with coconut water near Ambala. Left to right : Me, Cheryl, Rosalyn, Raj, Franklyn, Ravi.

A rather long detour due to road construction after Ambala found us jostling for space in dusty small town roads with pedestrians, animals, motorcycles and scooters, cars and vans and buses full of hardy peasants. Finally with a sigh of relief we cruised into Mohali and then raced towards the Siwaliks just after the sun had set. Stopping briefly for dinner at a dhaba, we arrived at Bilaspur late in the night. We checked into the Hotel Kwality where a bunch of male revellers, in a room next to where the girls were sleeping, shattered the peace of  the night with their loud guffaws generated by their lewd male banter. The still waters of the Gobind Sagar lake nearby rippled with a tremor of embarrassment.


BILASPUR - RASKAT - 11 JUNE 2001

Glad to be leaving Bilaspur behind, we took to the road early and when the increasingly cool breeze of the hills had whetted our appetites we stopped for breakfast at a little dhaba overlooking a river. Taking the turnoff for Manikaran at Bhuntar, we soon left the broad waters of the Beas and exchanged it for the narrow gorge whence flowed the turbulent Parvati, carrying the combined runoff from the glaciers at its head as well as the Dibibokri, Tos and Tichu valley systems.

View from the breakfast dhaba

For me personally, this was my fourth trip up this road since I first crossed the Sara Umga Pass way back in 1985 (see http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2012/07/sara-umga-la-follow-sheep.html ) and I noticed how the little villages had changed with the influx of mainly young Israelis and Italians. The cafes, especially at Kasol, now boasted signs and menu attractions in Hebrew, and a couple of up-market resort-type hotels had also materialised catering to the prosperous and increasingly mobile Indian tourist. A sumptuous lunch at one of the latter establishments put us in a good mood for the rest of the drive to Manikaran. Crossing the suspension bridge over the river, we continued up the gravel road to the village of Raskat where I was hoping to meet up with Chaman Singh Thakur, an old acquaintance of mine. A little crowd gathered as we parked outside his modest dwelling.

The road between Bhuntar and Manikaran

After a few enquiries, we were told that Chaman now worked in a government school at Burshaini, further up the road and that his wife was out tending their fields. Some of his children helped us unload our luggage and carried it up to the wooden veranda that ran along the side and back of the house. While the rest settled down, Ravi and I jumped into the Gypsy and drove to Burshaini and located the school. We met the principal of this small local school and waited in his little office while he dispatched someone to summon Chaman.

A few minutes later, Chaman came in, smiling from ear to ear. We shook hands and hugged, his homespun sheepskin coat as warm as his welcome. The principal was very touched that we had come such a long way to meet one of his employees (Chaman worked as a general help around the school) and immediately told him that his duties for the day was over and he could go home. A triumphant Chaman rode in the Gypsy beside me as we caught up with each other's news. He asked me about the members of the Indo-American Parvati 1996 expedition during which he was the porter sirdar. ( See http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2014/02/mantalai-magic-part-i-getting-there.html and http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2014/02/mantalai-magic-part-ii-climbs.html).

When we reached Raskat, his wife had already returned from the fields and was busy preparing a meal, the children gathered excitedly around us, and Sushma was grinning with the glow of satisfaction as a result of her very first bathe in a Himalayan waterfall down the slope from Chaman's house.

We chatted late into the night after dinner and finally snuggled into our sleeping bags on the veranda. My snores were thankfully drowned by the soothing and muted roar of the Parvati far below.

Later in the night thunder rumbled across the heavens and sheets of rain came cascading down the verdant slopes of the valley. This event would have an interesting consequence the next day. In the meantime, I retreated further down my sleeping bag and wallowed in the blissful warmth.

(to be continued)

My Gypsy being towed by a friendly farmer's tractor near Chandwad when the carburettor seized while returning from a hiking trip to Rajdher and Indrai Killa