I have seen Uttarakhand enough to say most of the lower ranges are green and beautiful! But this time we decided to see some white, like Icing on the cake. This log is about the ride to Badrinath & Mana to see the first snow of the season. Hmmm, but it snowed 2 days before we went there, so technically it's the second snow (who cares).
This is not going to be an comprehensive travelogue but a photologue. I was working in Hero MotoCorp in Dharuhera and was staying in Alwar district but my hometown was Chennai. Being a bachelor with the career in middle phase (back then in 2015, not now), we were broke mostly due to financial responsibilities and burdens back at home, we used to travel home only a couple of times in a year. We couldn't afford back and forth flight tickets or spend 4 days of 5 days leaves travelling by train. But what to do when you have long holidays for Diwali but not going hometown? This made us develop a habit of low budget travel to lower ranges of Himalayas. I say low budget because, back then the petrol prices were not so high, we used to camp in a tent or find a low budget accommodation and eat only in dabhas.
So, where should we go this time? We were a simple group of automotive enthusiasts with fingers into anything related to riding bikes, motorsports. So we never had someone who will affect the instant plans that someone in the group comes up with. It was always like, who will join (out of 6) and who is out and when do we start? Usually plans get egged out a couple of days before the leaves start, everyone is tasked to read automotive forums for travelogues or zoom into some random place on google maps within 1500 kms of circuit distance. We all have someone in the group who watches the
weather channel/news, and one such friend came up and said it's going to snow in Badrinath in a couple of days. It was somewhat aligned with our initial thought of going to a place with snow. Based on this trust on the weather channel, we laid the course. Completed our pending work at office and all set to start the trip.
People & Rides - Myself on my CBR250R, Friends (BC & VH) on R15 & Impulse.
Stay options - Camping, Hotels/Guest houses - nothing planned ahead.
Route - Bhiwadi -->Meerut -->Rudraprayag -->Badrinath & Mana -->Kausani --> Ranikhet & Jim Corbett --> Bhiwadi
Luggage - Lightly packed
The original Plan
Entering Ghaziabad
It took an hour and a half to cross Ghaziabad, full of traffic, swarms of bikes trying to crawl into whatever gap was between four/six wheelers. Mostly we were doing off-roading by the side of the road, which cut down little time. Got frustrated though.
Crossed Ganges
and there comes our freedom a bit from Ghaziabad. We stayed the night in Begumpul, Meerut after struggling to find some good parking space for bikes,
The hotel name was Royal palace, charged a decent 1200 rupees for three people and locked our bikes with chains bigger than ship's anchor chains! Concludes the Day 1.
On route to Lansdowne. Beautiful roads and good views, Temperatures were perfect for a ride.
Had food in Lansdowne, good non-veg
Gorgeous curves, I mean the road!
After that, off to Rudraprayag Via Srinagar, the roads were twisty and surface was awesome, Since it was Diwali season the traffic was less and we were on full cornering frenzy, but cautious though.
Used almost full tire profile, this is how we pamper those gorgeous curves. felt awesome. Which reminded me, this is how you learn cornering by feeling the curves and test your limits on racetrack. No speed violations or rash riding done.
Road of bones
At least we could see one without going through Russia/Siberia. We were taking it slow, we had ample amount of time and Excited about GP Valencia(201x year) at 6:30 pm. We reached Rudraprayag and stayed at Shagri La resort just in time ordered veg pakora and chai and were watching GP. Was such an awesome ride by the Doc. Felt bad for him at last, slept off after a good day 2.
The morning was colder a bit, took bath with warm water and shooed off the cold. Started riding towards Karnaprayag and we stopped for getting cash/breakfast. We saw " maggi" board after a very long time and decided to order, but it wasn't there. We ordered chowmein and omelet. The guy took his sweet time 1 hour to make both, but was worth a wait as it was good. This was when maggi was banned due to some complaint.
Waiting for breakfast!
I hope this is Karna Prayag, darn all the pictures of this view of different towns here look the same to me.
Beautiful views everywhere! One needs to take this road slow to enjoy the beauty of these places.
On route to Badrinath, past Joshimat. Am not describing Joshimat as it was horrible with traffic.
Roads were deprived of tarmac and full-on off-road track. Good fun! Had lunch at Pandukeshwar- This time it was real Maggi and some snacks with Chai.