We were told that the first day of riding to Ladakh would be the toughest, as the road to the pass over Manali (Rotangh - 4100mt) was in a very bad state due to mud and land slides caused by road works undertaken by the military. We decided to do our final testing of the bike by going up to the pass to see if it was at all doable. We went up without luggage and got a lot of rain. By this point I got more accustomed to the controls on the bike but it was still e...

"Some may find hard to believe that a 'primitive' culture like the Himalayan one has something to teach to our industrial society. Actually, our search for a sustainable future constantly points at a solid connection between us and nature-an interconnection that antique cultures have never abandoned." (Helena Norberg-Hodge)

It was the day to finally meet our Royal Enfield, the bike that would take us from Himalachan Pradesh to Ladakh. We rented the bike from a reputable garage in Manali called Anu Autoworks. Anu, the owner, gets raved constantly on travel forums as a trustworthy, good mechanic with incomparable knowledge of the area. We got a lift to the garage from Gudu, the owner of the guest house where we were staying in Old Manali (Orchard House). He insisted to come as he us...

Being in Manali means seeing two strikingly different towns. On one hand New Manali is offering quite tacky entertainment for tourists coming in crowds from the indian cities, on the other Old Manali is a more quiet green area which attracts mainly people who want to chill out and enjoy the mountain views. In Old Manali, higher up on the mountain,people seemed more open and ready to share some of their culture and knowledge with us. We stayed among cherry and ...

...to pick up from where we left off on the previous post, the train ride to Chqndigarh was indeed very smooth in the first class of the Shatabdi. Little did we know that the tough part was yet to come...the bus ride! It takes 10 hours for the bus to go from Chandigarh to Manali. Once in Chandigarh we swum through the multitude of people to reach an "official" taxi rank. On the taxi we bargained 50rupees off the total price for no AC during the journey...not t...