Leh to Manali Highway

 The Leh to Manali highway

                            The Himalayas or Bust

We had done a little research before we left, and arrived in Delhi complete with a return coach ticket to Manali in hand, our motorcycle helmets, gloves and jackets and luggage for the weeks ahead. We had a day to spare before the coach left so we decided to acclimatise ourselves to the explosion on your senses that we call India. we headed for Main Bazar Road in New Delhi to find a room and be close to where we caught the coach (it left from the end of main Bazar Rd next to the old buss stop). Hotel or guest house rooms in the main bazaar are plentiful and vary drastically in quality, prices vary from as little as £5 up to around £25, but of course you can spend £200 and upwards a night in a five star hotel if this takes your fancy, but those hotels are in different parts of town.

When you first arrive in Delhi, or any other major city in India to be fair, the noise, the smell, the hustle and bustle, the horns peeping and people “wanting to help you out” can be a bit too much, you are much better having an area to seek out having done a bit of internet digging and an idea of what you are going to have to spend on accommodation. We headed for Main Bazar knowing that we would get a clean room for under £10 a night as we had been here a few times before and we could blend into the hustle of other travellers and get a good meal that wouldn’t make you ill.

The following day we found our coach. The ride to Manali was an over night journey (good job, so you could not see the terrible driving conditions) and we arrived in Manali the next day needing to find a hotel room. We found a nice clean room in one of the alleyways off the main high street for around £7.50 a night (this room came complete with welcome cake!), and after a few hours to chill I went off to see if I could hire some motorcycles leaving Tracey to get over the coach! After a little trouble and a few miles up and down the east bank of the river I managed to reserve two Enfields, an older 500cc Bullet (kick start only) and a modern 350cc with electronic start, unfortunately they were off two different hire shops, but both came with spare innertube, foot pump and basic set of tools including spark plug ect and the 350 had nice cage panniers on the sides which seemed perfect for extra fuel cans.

It seemed to me as though most of the regular shops were busy and did not have much left, however I got what we needed so went to the market and bought two 10 litre plastic containers to carry spare fuel in (as I had read that the tanks on the Bullets are not big enough to get you over the mountains without the extra top up). After returning to the hotel to get Tracey we returned to pick up the motorcycles, pay our deposits (20,000 Indian rupee), and had a short ride up the road out of town to get used to two wheels again, we then returned to the hotel and turned in for an early night ready for our adventure to come.

The following morning we set off nice and early calling at the fuel station to fill up both tanks but leaving the spare containers until later. Considering we had all our luggage strapped down on the pillion seat, we were pretty much fully loaded. The initial ride out of Manali was very Alpine, a nice tarmac road running alongside the river valley with tall trees overhanging and running into the woodland around, until the road starts to climb up the side of the valley and then way up up towards the summit of the Rhotang pass.

As you start to travel up the winding pass it soon becomes very difficult to ride (this is the first time Tracey fell off!) as the mountain pass at just short of 4000m serves as a barrier for the clouds from the Indian plain below. This has the effect of trapping the clouds and the Rhotang pass seems to be constantly shrouded in mist and damp resulting in the roads become thick with mud, knee deep in places. Some people find it easier to push their bikes or ride precariously on the edge of the road right next to a considerable drop off to the valley below (as this gives a small amount of respite as a thin dry line exists where most traffic keeps away) all other traffic slows to a crawling pace. This part of the Leh Manali highway is busy with day trippers coming out of Manali in tour cars just to get to the top of the “pass of corpses” (as its known). This first stretch is around 35 miles from Manali.

Once over the top of the Rhotang pass you descend into the valley beyond, the weather clears and the sky becomes blue and everything dries out as it is now on the protected side of the mountain. The road however deteriorates into a dry dirt road with the odd patch of tarmac thrown in here and there. This road charges through many tight switchbacks into the valley and then begins to follow the river north, returning once again to tarmac after a few miles. the rest of the 40 or so miles to Keylong is relatively uneventful (in a surrounded by mountain sort of way), passing the odd small village, or following the river or admiring the snow capped mountains surrounding you. The only thing you need to remember here is that just outside Tandi (about 5 miles before Keylong) is the last petrol station, so if you haven’t already, remember to fill up here.

We spent the night in Keylong in the Nordaling guest house that cost us £5 for the room for the night, an upstairs room with double aspect window. The village itself id a typical Indian Hill village, a few shops, a bus station and a few guest houses mixed into residential properties and everyone in town chipping in to help add another floor to a property.

The next day we set off early and followed the road toward Jispa and the Baralacha la pass, your first real high altitude pass at 4890m. This section of the highway takes you through varying sections of road that include full tarmac, dirt road, gravel road and one section that seems to have the river flowing down it. Its not a fast route and the trip to Sarchu takes you the morning but is only around 70 miles. This gives you the afternoon to find your tented village (as there are several) we had pre booked a tent from Manali, this cost us around £30 for the night (on the way back we chanced our luck in a different village and halved the price!) and also time to admire the Sarchu plain. Sarchu sits at 4400m and temperatures drop towards freezing at night so take something to wrap up warm, the beds have lots of covers, but it is still difficult to stay warm, we remained fully clothed and still struggled.

The third day was the hardest for us as we planned to complete the rest of the trip to Leh in one go. The final 160 miles takes you again through all the road surfaces you could possibly imagine and all the scenery you would wish to see. Soon after leaving Sarchu you pass an Indian army base and then rise up the valley side literally straight up on whats known as the Gata Loops, a series of hairpin bends (22) that scythe their way up the side of the mountain switching between dirt and tarmac, rising approximately 450m from bottom to top.

The road then continues on over the next mountain pass Nakee La and descends down to another tented settlement at Pang. Here you need to stop and register at the military check point, you can use the stop to take a rest and buy a cup of chai from a makeshift cafe. From Pang you get to stretch out your wheels a little as you reach the More Plains, an impressive high altitude flat plain again up at around 4400m with high mountains surrounding this large flat plateau, but you will find it quite hard to believe as the road extends for miles covered in perfect tarmac, a little bumpy in places but a thankful bit of respite from the broken track up to this point.

Unfortunately this does not last and suddenly switches to a dirt road that has become ribbed over time with the movement of traffic. If you keep your speed up you will almost undoubtedly shake out your false teeth if you keep your mouth open! what ideally you need to do here is get right to the edge of the dirt where the ribbing has not formed so well. From here and with the road continuing to deteriorate you start to climb up to the top of the Taglang La pass, this pass claims to be the second highest mountain pass in the world at 5328m, and is definitely worth a stop for a photo and a bit of a rest before you descend towards Leh.

The hotels in Leh are a little more expensive at around £20 a night, but I’m sure if you shopped around you could get cheaper lol. Whilst at Leh we visited some of the local sites, the monastery on the hill is a great one (which, when it was built it was the highest monastery in the world) Leh Palace with again is fantastic and some of the markets and shops around the town. Its also worth a mention that if you want to order a beer in a cafe in Leh its probably going to be served in a tea pot, apparently no one applies for a licence to serve beer, so they hide the beer by serving it this way!

We also took a couple of day trips out of Leh whilst we were there, we rode out 25 miles north of the town to the top of the Khardung La pass, this destination was the original purpose of the whole road trip. To ride over what is claimed to be the highest motorable road in the world (the sign and India’s boarder roads service says its altitude is 5600m, but wikipedia says lower) either way its that high you cant stop up here for more than an hour without getting ill through extreme altitude sickness!

The final 70 or so miles you get treated to good tarmac virtually all the way and you can manage to pick up your speed as some of the stretches are decent road. You will also start to feel better about the long days ride, as form Taglang La the ride is down hill all the way to Upshi and the you can feel the air begin to thicken again. Once you get to Upshi You have to stop again and go through another Indian army check point, but this and the rest of the journey its pretty much easy going.

To be fair, who ever you are, or whatever you have done, it feels like an incredible achievement riding from Manali to this point, as we were now standing higher than the cruising altitude of our flight from Manchester to London!

We also used a day to visit Pangong Tsu, a high altitude salt lake that is around 200 miles round trip from Leh, which might sound like a long way to go for a day trip over mountain passes, but this trip we opted to share the journey with another couple of travellers out of our hotel and hired a car and driver to take us. You also need a restricted area permit to visit the lake as it forms part of the international border with China which our hotel manager sorted for us whilst we were there. This lake is simply stunning, I had seen pictures before we went on the internet with its incredible blue water, but they do not do it justice (much like my photos don’t), it really is a jaw dropping place, a place to waste a few photos, and admire the view and bizarrely being so close to the boarder with China, it even has its own mine field! This trip also takes you over Chang La Baba, the third highest motorable mountain pass in the world, Just think 1st, 2nd and 3rd highest roads in the world!

After three days in Leh, we headed off back the way we came to do it all again to get back to Manali. We repeated the return trip exactly as we had come, just getting drenched the once with heavy rain back along the More Plains, but other than that, it was uneventful.

The highlights were the mountains, Pangong Tsu, the remoteness of the route and the fact that we did it on our own carrying all that we needed ourselves and standing on top of Khardung La. We met some wonderful, generous people that just want to help you out and the cheapness of the whole trip, the most expensive thing being the flights to get us there

The negatives if any were the fact that if anything had have happened you were literally in the middle of no where, the 350cc electronic timing bike struggled with the altitude and lost a lot of power above 4000m (the 500 bullet was fine all the way through) and it was cold at night in Sarchu. The altitude could have been an issue if you were susceptible to suffering from it (some people are, but there is no way to tell) so we took the Diamox, a drug that reportedly helps your body acclimatise to extreme altitude.

However Indians are friendly people that want to help and even though this route is remote there is a constant flow of traffic, mainly trucks that we are sure would have stopped and helped (for a few rupees) or thrown your bike in the back and taken you to the next town if necessary. Its only 300 miles one way, but its 300 miles over the highest motorable roads in the world, straight over the top of the great Himalayan range.

If you get the chance go! don’t worry too much, just do it, and don’t give a travel company the chance to rip you off as they charge around €1700pp when our trip came in at under £500 all in for both of us!

Take a look at our Youtube video link, this is a compilation of video on the way back, so the mud comes at the end!