Longest and the most toughest day of our journey so far
Distance traveled: 240 kms
Ride time: approximately 8.5 hours, with 4 hours off-roading
Total time (w/ breaks): 11.5 hours
Health check: aching bodies calling for massage; no AMS traversing 3 high-altitude passes
Mental check: Peaceful
Motorcycle check: Extra gas consumption pointing to clutch issues
Kick start at 7:30am was delayed slightly to 8am as we bid our farewells to Leh and Kashmir on our way to Sarchu (in Himachal Pradesh). We commenced with a beautiful scenic ride on a smooth (comparative) tarmac road for about 80 kms riding through twisties. A $5 headphone splitter acted as a wedding-dhaga connecting us via our earphones and re-tuning our compositions in this scenic grandeur landscapes.
We were cruising up and down different mountains expecting to pass 3 high altitude passes – Tanglang La (5,330m), Lanchung La (5,030m), and Naki La (4,738m). We were warned to not spend time at the high altitudes to prevent AMS, so after a quick 15 min photo op at Tanglang La, we rode to a perfect lunch stop at Pang. Since the roads are closed for almost 8-9 months in a year, there are these temporary make-shift restaurants in parachute tents where we were sitting being this mother-daughter duo cooking fresh our delicious Thukpas, Maggi and Roti-Subzi right in front of us, while we were sitting on Khatlas (old style beds with Khatlas). 
One of the best food we’ve had (hoping to remember the Thukpa recipe for next Mother’s Day when I’m expected to cook) followed by a deep 10 min power nap on the Khatla to recharge ourselves for a longer ride ahead.
Barely a km into the post-lunch, the drizzles started causing us to pull-over for our rain gear. It felt like the morning was exactly the calm before the storm. Rough patches on gravel road was about to begin making our riding experience significantly worse with rain droplets on our helmet visors and shifting clay-filled roads. 
As agreed, Gopi hopped onto the backup van to prevent her back from getting worse. After about an hour of continuous off-roading experience, we had truly mastered riding on unpaved roads. Most riders like me who had never done Off-Roading are now ready to test our skills on dirt-bike tracks. Not only that, but this trip has made us experts at all motorcycling experiences – Period. We can navigate twisties at high speed like sport bikers, we can off road through all the terrains like dirt bikers and we’ve already cruised through long stretches like touring bikers.
I was in the zone riding solo with pumping music going through the rough patches like the musical notes. Gopi again hopped back on for the last 40kms of relatively nicer roads to continue our re-tuning via headphone splitter 🙂
The slow, tiring, and extremely long day led us to Sarchu where our adventure camping turned out to be a bigger adventure. The tents expected to be booked for us never confirmed back as they didn’t get the message in this remote plateaued valley with no cell phone or network connectivity. 
Thanks to our road captain Sachin’s negotiation skills at a couple other campsites, we got the “adventure = primitive” tents to stay. With the sunset, this remote area instantly turned into rainy, windy and cold weather. The farthest this place ventured out of non-primitiveness was the installation of commodes on the bare ground with a hole in the ground collecting $h!+ right behind our tent, and on top of that, there was no water. 
After a quick unexpectedly prepared meals, a couple pegs of desi-whiskey was the only remedy that could knock-out our exhausted bodies for early sleep in the shaking tents that almost felt to be blown away with the winds.
At this moment, I was so proud of Gopi that she wasn’t complaining about her severe demotion from staying at one of the finest hotels Leela palace in Bangalore 2 weeks ago to the mostly primitive camping experience in freezing Sarchu. We just couldn’t wait for the morning to head out of Sarchu.
Stay tuned to find out how the night in Sarchu went before we make our ways to the greener Himachal Pradesh.
