Himalayan odyssey V enjoying arak in Lahaul valley

It was very cold in morning opposite to what I had been witnessing in last few days. Arun woke up earlier than me and got ready, I waked up lazily checking out my driving gear which look a wet from the rain yesterday.

The daily ritual started with tieing the saddle bags, having breakfast and tea at Goodricke canopy. The briefing today was a little tough with the number of falls we had yesterday. KD and Sachin breifed us about the day. The traffic would be bad with people going to Rohtang for the snow. We would climb down after Rohtang to Lahaul valley. This was our first high alitude experience Rohtang at about 13,051 ft .

We started up our climb after refueling, and guess what we found long queues of traffic vehicles, we manged to go past we were on bikes after all.

Here we hit our first regroup and time to get some food.

All of a sudden the climate stared changing and we were about to witness a snowfall, wow my first in this life, this made the riding very difficult, not that broken road with heavy traffic was any good.

As soon as we reached Rohtang pass the scene looks pretty bad considering I thought of it as a beautiful one. It looked like a fish market with dirty snow. I didn't even have to think about stopping and I rolled on my wheel. The other side looked very promising and the ride was pretty decent except the roads and water flowing every way possible. The scenery suddenly looked beautiful with so much of emty spaces.

I had a heavy lunch sitting with waterlashed boots and weather moving towards worst. The black tea and conversation kept us awake. I was just feeling too cold, am I going to be sick? looks so. We started off as soon s everybody joined in and we raced to Keylong. . We stopped at Tandi which was the last petrol pump for the next 365 KM. Refueled and went to the campsite. The beauty of which was to be seen the next morning.

Here I met Shaibal, my roomate. He ended up carrying me and most of my nonsense throughout and for the rest of the trip.

We had a campfire and coversation going on in the cold of the weather and warmness of the fire.
The food was excellent. After having Arak and food I dosed off waking at 4:30 in morning realizing Saibal is not in the tent. I went out seraching for him and found a spectaular view of the river and a snowcapped mountain. On the opposite side i saw he wnt for a run. Man... I was fit enough to take the run through the hills and the panoromic scenery.

We had a great cup of tea coutsey Goodricke again, and after breakfast joined the other half who elected to stay in a hotel.

KD's message said "Luggage arrived at hotel. For Keylong Morning service setup )630 including general checkup of all bikes. breakfast @ 0715, we ride @ 0830."