I get up this morning and realize that I don't have enough money for Leh. What if there's no ATM in Leh - the Lonely Planet book said it didn't. I couldn't afford the risk so I looked for the SBI ATM at 6AM. The first one didn't work, then I went to another bank's ATM and it didn't accept other bank's cards, then I went to another SBI's ATM - it didn't work either. I tried like five times - this wasn't working out. It was already 7.30AM and I was supposed to start early and here I was still stuck in Manali - what the hell?! I was running multiple ideas in my head - what if none of the ATMs ever worked, how will I go to Himalayas and then I thought I'd use my credit card in exchange for cash with one of the merchants. As I tried that one of them pointed me to PNB bank up the hill that has an ATM - it worked! It was such a relief - I was late but I would still leave for the Himalayas!
And I started up - crossing the Border Roads Organizations banner that says something like - Don't forget BRO that gives its blood for you! I realized that I didn't have a spare fuel can to carry fuel after Tandi (no fuel up to Leh after Tandi). Hell and I started looking for a can - a boy at a truck workshop emptied an engine oil can and gave me - 5 lts but will do. I finally just got out and thought I'll just "figure it out" along the way. Figure it out - that phrase stuck in my head through and through the journey. It's just impossible that you can plan for this trip - anything can go wrong and anything will. I mean just think about it - you can carry clutch cable, accelerator cable, decompressor cable, spare tubes, spare tires, foot pump, puncture kit, brake assembly - this itself is a lot and your damn foot rest can break, your gear thingy can break, your stand can break, your carburetor can have issues, your battery can fail, your lights can go off - it's just impossible to plan it all and one shouldn't either. More importantly, one just needs to have faith!
Before Tandi, I was riding through really rough roads bumping all the way through and I saw a bullet approaching. It said MH02 and instinctively both of us stopped. It was another Bulleteer from Mumbai - Prashant Yadav - gem of a guy and he said, "aapka preparation bohut weak hai" - and he said something else that stuck in my head throughout the trip, he said, "kuch bhi ho, girna nahin" and "you can be mentally very strong but when something goes wrong, it can really break your mental strength because you'll feel helpless." So true, so true. He gave me his accelerator cable, sleeping bag, cables to tie the bags, Parachute hair oil, his gloves, reflector stickers - I mean the guy was amazing. I lost his gloves in Ladakh's deserts and his sleeping bag somewhere in Zoji La - the pass that crosses over from Ladakh to Kashmir.
That night I reached Darcha, a village along the way and stayed in a tent there. I took a lot of pics there and had the time. After Keylong, the road gets bad and you're by yourself most of the time. Keylong is the last major town before Leh but hey, you don't get petrol there. I recall crossing large streams of water cautious about not wetting the Bull too much (what if water gets in where it's not supposed to?). I stayed with a family - a lady from the village of Goram or Goray and lived most of her life in the area. I met some 16-20 motorists who also stopped in the neighboring tent - one of them from Pune rode a Bullet and was very keen to tune his Bullet, change the filter etc. When I wished him luck and he responded, "you need to more than we do." I met different people from this group (I recall one of them was Shamik from Calcutta) at various points along the way.
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