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-   -   Rohtang Didn't Let me Pass; Spiti & Chandratal It Was! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/87699-rohtang-didnt-let-me-pass-spiti-chandratal.html)

It was supposed to be a drive from Bombay to Leh. Departure date 4th July'10, probable date of return 22nd July'10. One Bolero Sportz 2004, Three friends (No not Idiots!) Planning for the past 1 year plus! Advice taken from all the gurus on Team BHP. Special thanks to H.V.Kumar.:thumbs up


Arshad Husain and Dr. Dinesh Maskeri


Day 1: 4th July 2010:
Bombay to Chittorgarh. Departure early in the morning at 4.00 am. Driving through very heavy rains, which subsided after crossing over into Gujarat. Very bad roads in Maharashtra state. Gujarat and Rajasthan roads are a dream to drive on. Heavy rains again in Rajasthan. Reached Chittorgarh at 9.00 pm. Distance covered 924 kms.



Day 2: 5th July 2010
Chittorgarh to Chandigarh. Departure 6.00 am in the morning. Day of Bharat Bandh. Not much traffic on the roads, smooth sailing on wonderful roads, part of the Golden Quadrilateral. Heavy rains in some parts of Rajasthan. Grand Trunk road (NH1), few diversions, due to construction of flyovers and road widening. Reached Chandigarh at 11.15 pm. Distance covered 836 kms.







Day 3: 6th July 2010
Chandigarh to Manali. Departure 9.30 am in the morning. NH 21 to Manali. Roads not in the best of conditions, but not a problem for the Bolero. Our first sighting of the Mighty Himalayas. Lovely twisting roads, passing by picturesque locations. Experienced the first major traffic jam after Mandi. River Beas overflowing on the road, before the Aut tunnel. Five and a half hours lost waiting for traffic to move, on the alternate taken. Reach Manali at 12.20 am. Distance covered 402 kms.

That's a really nice start boss. Last night's feast must have charged you up enough.
Now we're all waiting for your updates.

I see you were using ultra wide there. Which one?

Thank you sir.
I've been meaning to post my travelogue for quite some time now, but was busy completing my Blog. Finished it a few days back and was feeling a little lazy after that. :p
Maybe last night's feast and meeting up with you guys, was the push I required! :D

All the photos have been shot on Nikon D70/ Nikon D300/ Fujifilm Finepix S5500.

Excellent start. Another great TL in the making. Bolero is looking very dashing in 1st pic, and so are you - the daring trio, in other pics!. The distance you covered in your 1st 2 days is really appreciable, given the heavy rain conditions, which must have reduced visibility and speeds considerably. And that 5.5 hrs jam on hills must have been a real spoiler! Waiting for more..

Good start. Even I'm interesting to know what wide angle lens you used (especially the photo showing the bolero from close!)

Day 4: 7th July 2010

We spent the whole day in Manali. Rohtang Pass was closed due to landslides, all thanks to the rains that lashed the area yesterday. Spoke to a lot of Taxi Drivers, tourist car operators, etc. Most probably would open tomorrow, if the weather holds. Visited Hidimba Temple, drove to the Solang Valley Exit and generally loitered around Manali town.

Just a request. Can you load bigger photos. This size makes me feel I'm viewing them in iphone.

One request: Can you increase the size of the snaps. That would be real good.
Some times the size does not do justice to the beauty of the snaps!

Great going. Waiting for more.

Looks like a rain-drenched first 3 days out of Bombay!
Any traffic bottlenecks en route?
Any hotels or restaurants you would recommend?
I think you were very lucky that you did not get stuck in the heavy floods that drowned NH1 in the Ambala region!
I remember you telling me that you tried to take an alternative route from Mandi to Manali - can you describe it for us?

Rohtang PASS-did-not-let-you-PASS, that is a nice title!

Guys I'll try to load bigger pics. Only problem it takes a lot of time uploading, besides the 1MB restriction. :Frustrati

Absolutely lucky that we passed Ambala just 1 day before the NH1 was washed away! Heard it on news the next day at Chandigarh.
The alternate route starts from the end of Mandi town and branches off from NH 20. As per Google maps it is MDR 23 (Motor Drivable Road?). Practically a one lane, climbing road. The single lane was the main cause of the traffic jam. HPTC buses, which were diverted from Bajaura, found it difficult to manouvre around the tight turns, causing the first traffic jam. Add to that impatient drivers, wanting to move ahead and causing further jams. Icing on the cake was an Army convoy blocking the road at Kataula village! After waiting for nearly 5 hours, stuck in the jam, we headed back to Mandi on being told that the road to Aut and onwards to Manali, on NH 21 via Pandoh had opened!
Mandi - Kumand - Kataula -Bajaura.

Resize your your pics to 1024 on the longer side, and things should stay below 1MB

The road via Kamand is generaly used for ferrying apple traffic during season. The condition is not that good and is generally not used by regular traffic. What update do you ahve on this road? How far did you travel on it?

Wow!!! Interesting deviation from the spate of Leh travelogues. Glued to the thread.. Looking at the driving destinations available in India itself, don't know whether one can cover all that in one life time.

In a way your pictures seems to be fine. Atleast they load faster and makes reading the travelogue fun.

Nainar

Thanks.

The road was not in too bad a condition when I was there. It is narrow at many places, but overall condition was decent. I went up all the way just 1 km short of Kataula and turned back from there. Sorry have no information on the present condition.

Thanks, will try to load bigger pics. But if it takes too much time, will revert back to the compressed ones!

Day 1: 4th July 2010.
Some more pics.








Day 4: 7th July 2010
The Mall, Manali and boy was it crowded!





The situation at Rohtang Pass had not improved considerably through the day. We tried gleaning information from taxi drivers, etc., but no one could hazard a guess, as to the condition of the pass the next morning. The three of us after a lot of deliberations, and taking advice from HVK, decided not to attempt to cross the Pass the next day. Instead we would stay back in Manali, visit a few places around and hope that the Pass would open the day after tomorrow!

Day 5: 8th July 2010

Not having to cross Rohtang Pass today, we decided to visit the Vashisht Temple and Hot Springs. Post lunch, we drove down to Nagar Castle and the Roerich Museum at Naggar.

Day 5: 8th July 2010







A Glimpse of Roerich Castle.




Apple Orchards





Yay - A Team BHPian! My first and only sighting so far! clap:


At the Hotel parking.