The following pics are of Kibber, supposedly the highest village in the world at 4126meters.
The stop at Lossar revealed a different morning. It had snowed last night in the mountains. It had become COLD. The Safari initially didnt start even after 2 cranks. Then it started with a thud and there was thick black smoke at the back and then in 2 mins the whole vehicle was normal. I let it warmup for 15 minutes and then put the heater on too. We sat inside for another 15 minutes to heat ourselves up too. My hands were frozen since we didnt have gloves and no other woolens. Just 1 jacket each. The heater helped and 30 mins later we were on our way.
The road from Lossar to Gramphoo can be described in only 2 words - TRECHEROUS & TERRIBLE.
It had snowed last night and the already bad stretch had gotten worse.
There were loose pebbles and rocks falling from the mountain onto the roads- i shall cease calling it a road till Gramphoo-. The TRAIL was slippery and dangerous. Getting out of the vehicle would mean geting hit by a rock or pebble. Driving through was equally dangerous since it could be a huge rock instead of a pebble. The only thing to do was to get out of there as soon as possible. There were sharp rocks of various sizes scattered all around. At one point I had to stop, quickly jump out to move a big stone right in the middle of the trail and then jump in and proceed. The biggest concern was the falling rocks and debris from the mountain. In the process we missed a side road heading to Chandertaal. By the time we realised, the path was too small for even a Maruti to turn. So we skipped the idea of visiting Chandertaal this time. We reached down the mountains to the only dhaba in the whole area.
The semi frozen water enroute to Gramphoo.
The prize for making it through was sumptous parathas and pickle followed with excellent chai. A short while later(20 minutes) a Sumo pulled over at the dhaba with a huge dent on his bonnet. He came from the same route behind us and a rock bounced off his Sumo and into the valley below. That was enough proof for us.
The meal was little consolation once we hit the road. After escaping rocks and stones and narrow winding hairpin bends, the road then became part of a riverbed. And what we find on riverbeds is stones of various sizes. Big enough to break suspensions and bad enough to break backs and hearts. The 100kms till Gramphoo are the worst roads I have ever driven on. It was like driving through landmine territory, watching closely where you put each tyre. You canNOT go fast. 1st and 2nd gear with a rare 3rd gear for 5 seconds. We could hear all kinds of suspension noises, from loud thuds to clanks. And if you are unfortunate enough, like I was on one section of narrow hairpin bends, then you will have to drive in reverse for a few 100 meters on that narrow slippery trail, till you find enough space for the truck to pass by. Even if you honk before the turn it does not help, because the truck will not reverse whether he sees you first you you see him.
Anyways we made it through this ardous stretch in one piece - man and machine - and head towards Rohtang.
I did not visit Chandertaal this time.
The roads at Rohtang were in a completely broken state, due to the landslides and the repair work.
Spotted this poor yak huffing and puffing its way uphill towards Rohtang.
We then headed straight for Manali since we were low on fuel. Once we hit good roads , all those suspension noises we had heard stopped completely. I purposefully jumped a few big speed breakers and a few big potholes to try and hear them again, but none. No noises to this day. Im happy the suspension held up well and I now know what it is truly capable of.
Its passed the LG - Lossar Gramphoo - test.
Most of the pictures i shot on the Lossar Mumbai stretch stretch have somehow become corrupted on my hard drive and are unusable. Worst part is that those were the originals. These include the few I managed to shoot at Kunzum La.
On the return we stopped at a hotel after Mandi enroute to Ambala.
Next day as we drove towards Delhi on the 4 lane, dad honked at a train of 6 school busses near Ambala. They were moving in a convoy with sufficient space seperating each bus. After we passes 2 buses, the third bus suddenly cut to the right to overtake the bus ahead. He didnt hear the continuous honking of our vehicle and neither did he see his mirror. Dad braked hard and came to a standstill at the extreme right and even hit right the divider. The bus continued on its right trajectory and phoughed hard into the same dent on my left mudguard and bumper, this time even smashing it harder and even the left headlight cracked and semi popped out. The bus driver suddenly realised that he hit someone after hearing the collision noise. He quickly pulled in left and a short distance later the bus train came to a halt.
All the drivers came out to inspect the damage and defend the driver. I Spoke to old sardaji and asked if he had a hearing deficiency for not responding to continuous honking. He made vague excuses in his defence. We knew there was no point in ensuing furthur discussion since the damage was already done. So I told Sardarji to go on. Sardarji and his team were surprised at the lack of a heated argument and no fight either. But as he left I asked him to consider that since he was ferrying kids, what would have happened if I too was ferrying kids and there would have been human damage. I also asked him to consider what would have happebned if he had hit a big truck and injured some kids in the bus. As his team left, Sardarji thanked us for not escalating the issue.
Then I opened the bonnet and pushed the headlight back in a little bit. It was still a little tilted towards the bottom, but the light was working.
We already had a NC for the damage on our way up so it did not matter how much the damage.
2 days later we were back in Mumbai, via Ahmedabad, ending our epic trip.
I will follow with some more details of the trip that I did not cover in the travelogue.