It was a trip where Murphy's law was in full force. Everything that could go wrong did, and some. I drove around in circles trying to find fuel for my motorbike, got lost in the dark on the shores of the Tsomoriri lake, camped out in the wild, got bike's tires punctured and was rescued by the unlikeliest folks possible.. the Changpa nomads living high up in the mountains around the Tsomoriri lake. Needless to say, this was one of my best trips in Ladakh and i thoroughly enjoyed every minute of i

Read on to hear the story of my Tsomoriri trip..

Every year, during the monsoon months of July and August, the roads and highways of North India will be bathed in saffron by millions of pilgrims undertaking the Kanwar Yatra. This is a story of the Yatra, the Yatris and of me hiking, cycling and walking in their midst.

Traveling along the Manali - Leh highway, one is witness to numerous interesting sights. While most of them are of the stunning, take your breath away variety, there are few quirky man made sights that are equally interesting. The strangest of them all for me was sight of truck drivers squatting underneath their trucks every morning and lighting its fuel tank on fire !!

The Jaisalmer experience started the moment i got on the train in Jodhpur. The insides of the sleeper coach was covered with layers and layers of fine sand, it was as if the train just came through a desert storm, maybe it did i'll never know. Anyway i was looking forward to visiting the desert city. Heard a lot about it from my friends, about its unique architecture, its well preserved 'living' fort city and ofcourse the sand dunes. I had also planned to spend the night at Kuri, a quaint little village some 40km southwest of Jaisalmer, the prospect of spending a quiet evening with a starry sky up above and the desert solitude to keep you company was too inviting to pass by.

If i could do it all over again, i would spend more time in Jodhpur. Two days was just not enough to experience the Blue city, it was definitely the most laid back, immersive, historical Rajasthan experience i had in my whole trip. Read on for more details.

The Pushkar Mela was the reason i decided to go on the Rajasthan trip during my 'extended' Diwali holidays. Once i knew that the camel fair will happen in the first week of November, there was no looking back and i wasn't disappointed. Read on..

The early part of my flight back from Leh, was spent staring out of the window, mesmerized by the snow clad mountain peaks and the valleys beneath them. The best part of it all was that i could take in the mountain landscape as a whole, everything.. all at once. As my sight wandered down from the lofty peaks, I could the beginning of a glacier and at its end the birth of a stream gentle at first and then turning into a raging torrent which cut a valley down the mountain slopes, which inturn gave life and space for a whole village. I could see valleys meet and the rivers merge.. mountains giving way to hills (Manali, i think...) and the hills finally meeting the plains where then i could see the birth of the mighty Ganges. The mother of all Indian rivers...

My Agra trip happened as an afterthought, i didn't even consider it initially. Then someone asked me if i'll be going to Agra and i thought to myself "why not ??... if im going all the way to Delhi i might as well visit Agra and get it off the list". It is like the great wall, i didn't visit it when i went to China the first time and i had to endure the constant "Did you go to the great wall ?? Did you go to the great wall ???" questions for a whole year. I didn't want the same to happen with the Taj Mahal, and anyway i wanted to see what the fuss was all about and i was excited about visiting it..

My general policy with people is to trust until that trust is broken. But as i was sitting in the van, i started wondering what his game could be. "nobody's that nice", i thought. Especially since he was tout for a hotel and has nothing to gain by giving me this free ride. With my suspicions gradually growing, i suddenly jumped out of the van, grabbed my backpack and went back to the pre-paid taxi counter. 
I got a taxi and as i was entering it i realized that i did not have my camera bag with me!!. Calmly, I thought i must've dropped it at the taxi counter but it wasn't there. Then the realization dawned on me that i must've left it in the hotel van that i abruptly jumped out of. PANIC !!, the prospect of losing my camera and lens collection was a little too much for me to digest. I didn't know the name of the guy i was talking to nor the name of the hotel he worked for. As i wandered around, slowly resigning to the fact that i've lost all my photographic equipment, i spotted him by the edge of the parking lot chatting with his buddies.  Hope trickled in. I told him what had happened, and he immediately offered to help...

 

Usually on short ~2 week trips, i never feel the need to take my laptop along. A pen, a pad and a couple of decent sized memory cards should take care of all my computing needs. Which is to keep a record of my travels through words and through pictures.

 

For anything longer than two weeks, i would really feel the need to carry some sort of computing device. For exactly the same reasons quoted above. The memory cards would eventually run out and your own memories wouldn't fare much better either. And also there is this added burden of pouring through thousands of pictures after your return. Editing, cataloguing, putting a name to the faces & places etc. It all can get quite a bit overwhelming and if you are like me, you'll just put it off for later and later until eventually you sort of give up on it.

 

So for my current trip, i'am looking for the ideal travel gadget to carry with me. What makes it ideal would depend on the following conditions...

Usually people transport their bikes in cardboard boxes, but i felt that having a dedicated bike bag would be better as it is more compact, has more room for accessories and most of all because of the reason that the bag can be stowed away easily at a left luggage counter or in a hotel and can be used for the return trip as well. That last item was the major selling point for me as i didn't want to run around looking for cardboard boxes especially on the return leg of my journeys. The Btwin bike bag being sold in Decathlon looked perfect for my needs so i went ahead and bought it. And here is its review..

 

The question: How to pack everything above (laptop + tent + sleeping bag + sleeping pad + stove + utensils + tripod + camera + 3 lenses + accessories + bike tools + winter clothes + summer clothes + toiletries) into two medium sized camera bags, a stuff sack and a small handlebar bag for my bike.

Its important that i figure out the answer for my question now itself before its too late.

Ladakh was the reason why i decided to take my bicycle with me to the Himalayas. The lure of cycling in the mountains with its crisp blue skies and snow capped peaks was too enticing to ignore. I had traveled Ladakh by motorcycle back in 2008, but this time i decided that a bicycle would be a better option. Going by cycle meant going slowly.. a 200km trip from, say, Leh to Pangong lake which can be done in a single day on a motor cycle would take 3 to 4 days on a bicycle. Which means stops in the smaller villages, seeing more sunrises & sunsets, more photo opportunities and more interaction with the local people. I had the one thing which i did not have in my other trips, the luxury of time.
 

Then i thought that if i was going to be cycling in Ladakh then i might as well cycle TO Ladakh. I knew that i was in no shape to tackle the road but i had a get fit plan. It was brilliant, so i thought. First spend a month in Rishikesh learning yoga, then spend the next month slowly making my way to Manali on my bicycle visiting all the interesting places in Himachal Pradesh. Then by september 1'st i'll be in Manali fit and ready to tackle the road to Leh.

Things did not start smoothly for my Manali Leh ride.

After traveling around Himachal by bus it was finally time for me to start cycling. I went to Palampur to collect my bike (I had left it at the home of a railway employee who had generously offered to store my bike at his place when i was away). My plan was to start riding from Palampur to Manali, spend a few days in Manali and then kick onwards towards Leh. But a sudden burst of laziness prompted me to take a bus from Palampur to Mandi with my bike stashed on the roof. I'am not sure if this qualifies as bad karma but i arrived at Mandi to find out that a couple of chain ring nuts had fallen off my bike. I had already damaged one of my chain rings in Uttarakand and now the loss of the nuts meant that the remaining chain rings were now wobbly and delicately held together by the 3 remaining nuts. Lose one more nut and it was game over.

It was a late October day. Cold cloudy and overcast. A dramatic change from the pleasent sunny weather just a day before.  I was cycling back from the Pangong lake to the Tangste village. It is normally a pleasent ride, mostly flat and downhill (from 4400m to 3950m over the course of 25 odd kms). In the mountains, downhill rides such as these are to be savoured but today i was'nt enjoying the ride all that much. When its cold and nippy i'd rather be riding uphill than down.

Anyway, as i was entering Tangtse i see before me the most incredible sight. A motorcycle stacked with all kinds of camping gear imaginable was pulling in. It was as if one of the nomads of the high altitude plains was breaking camp and moving to a new location on his Enflied. We introduced ourselves and his name was Gaurav Jani.

Gaurav is a filmmaker, a solo one at that. He is a one man army making these amazing documentary films of his motor cycle rides. He just arrived at Tangste and was planning to spend the winter in the Changthang plateau, filming a followup to his earlier documentary 'Riding Solo on the Top of the World". Check out the trailer above., it looks great and covers many of the places which normal tourists dont get to go like Hanle and Nyoma. And his new film 'Motorcycle Changpa' promises to be even better. I wish him all the best.