The great Himalayan Odyssey- Part 1

Day 1 of ride: Basically my trip to #Spitivalley started one day ahead of everyone else i.e from 29th sept, as my husband and i had to travel to #Ahemdabad and then had connecting flight to Delhi. At 6am we landed in Delhi and left for Chandigarh. It was a long journey but finally we were in our hotel room and were super excited to meet the whole GANG who will be joining us on our most memorable ride...to Himalyas. There were total 21 people, 18 riders and 3 pillions, who came from Mumbai and Ahmedabad chapter of our biking group.We left from #chandigarh on Himalyan bike at 8 am. All 18 bikes were crossing the city in a formation one after another. Speed was at tops on 6 lane highway connecting Chandigarh to Shimla. For next 20 kms all i could see was hills covered with fog but all of sudden the highway turned into a merry-go-round and houses started to look awkwardly higher. It felt like houses are made on roofs of one another. For the first time i saw the remains of landslides. Now the roads were not so good as they got damaged due to recent landslides.We occasionally stopped for chai breaks after every 2hr ride. We reached our first destination #Narkanda at 5pm after crossing n number of hills and zig zag roads covered with tall and lush green trees at both sides. I wanted to see snow covered mountains and breathtaking sunrise from my room so i got the room on 3rd floor and in no time i realised how big this mistake was. Narkanda is 2760 m above sea level and that was not advisable to do any physical work cz it may be tiring. And here at this hotel we had to carry our luggage to 3rd floor by stairs????. Well my husband and i managed it somehow and got ready to explore the local market and i must mention the place was freezing. It was 7° outside. From 30° to 7° in one day.. hmmm that was fast. By 9pm we were done with sightseeing and were sitting together for dinner with our mates. It was heck of a day and we need to follow the same routine for next 6 days????

Day 2 of ride began with sunrise and while sitting behind as a pillion i noticed both sun and moon were visible in the sky at the same time and that too at 9am.
We continued our journey to Chitkul and in no time we were riding along the river #Satluj. At first i had no idea our next 4 days will be by the side of the river😱
Now we were facing various blast zones as roads were being carved out of rocks which made it look like tunnel. Roads were getting narrower and were being dominated by herds of sheeps and goats🙆 Also the hills were not as green as they were before instead now the texture of mountains was changing every km. At some places it was made of huge stones and at some points it was made up of small pebbles. Some hills resembled with sand dunes also. Some peaks were covered with snow and some were barren. Now the traces of vehicles were roads to us. At some point it felt like we were crossing through river cz there was so much water on the roads.
One could easily notice the influence of #Buddhism in form of #stupas at the entrance and exit of every town and village.
We were about to reach #chitkul which is the last village of India near Tibbet border. Just a few kms before chitkul we saw the beauty of nature at its best. Snow covered mountains, milky waterfalls and greenery was so mesmerizing.
We reached Chitkul by 7 pm and the temperature here was 0° plus it was drizzling outside. The valley was surrounded by snow ladden mountains. It was getting chilly by every passing day. We were now scared about temperature at higher altitudes.🙍

Day 3 of ride: As we got ready to mount up for our next destination we noticed a white layer on our bikes... it was ice😍😍 This incident made us to buy gum boots for higher altitudes, so we stopped after 2 hrs of off roading.
We drove for next 2 hrs and reached reckong peo. We were supposed to take different route but that route got blocked last night due to landslide. After reaching reckong peo we asked locals for a different route to reach spillow. They informed us about a rough stretch of 20 kms which will connect the highway later on. Well now the real off roading began. That stretch i guess linked directly to hell😂😂. To cover those 20 kms it took us 3 hrs. I guess now one can imagine how difficult it was 😬. It was all stones and sand and such steep and blind curves that if one even blinked for a fraction of second then his ticket to hell is booked. We were lucky enough and we didnt fell off the bike even once. My husband is no doubt an awesome rider.
We saw road finally after 3 hours. Oh god we were so happy. The road was also again under construction. The #BRO team was working to make the roads better. There were so many warning signs of shooting stones, those stones again made the situation worst. We finally reached Spillow and had lunch at 4pm.
We were determined to reach Tabo at any cost so we left from Spillow right after lunch. On our way we came across a dam and the colour of water was different from what we see here in plains. Even the water of river was of blue colour. Guys water is not colourless trust me.
At 6pm we stopped on the highway to decide whether we should continue our journey to Tabo or not cz it was getting dark and we had to face blind and steep curves without road lights. Our bike lights would be our saver now.
It got dark and we were still riding and trust me except for red light of the bike ahead of us we were not able to see anything. It was so dark we felt like we have got blind.
We finally reached Tabo at 9pm. The hotel looked beautiful but we were totally unaware of the surroundings.We had dinner and went to bed. No party on this particular night.😞