Chandar Tal

We turned off the main road and headed for Chandar Tal at about 7:30. Darkness fell fast as the dirt road narrowed. We had been warned that this side trip to CT was one of the most dangerous roads in Spiti-Lahaul, and the reason, it became clear to me, was the slope of the road, which actually sloped downwards cliff-sides. The surface itself was sandy and rocky, and with the downwards slope, the bike had a tendency to slip sideways towards the open cliff. Because it was night, this was all the more frightening because I couldn't determine how high the cliff was, and assumed that I if we veered too far right we could plunge thousands and thousands of meters into a violent river below. I steered the bike slowly, trying to remain as close to the mountain side of the road as possible, but because of the slope, the bike would keep sliding. I had to keep both feet on the ground, and we continued forwards very slowly, moving carefully around sharp rocks, and crossing some slippery mud zones. What was actually a 10 kilometer road took us at least four hours. Towards the end the road disappeared completely, and when we caught up with Adrien, we spent an hour trying to locate the lake itself. Adrien had a breakdown around this time also but managed to keep on with his bike slowly after adjusting some electrical wires. We were all quite shaken up and exhausted by the precarious journey and were relieved to finally find the lake, a full moon shining brightly upon it.

Adriend stayed in a teastall tent while Anastia and I got a rundown two person tent in which we froze all night long. In the morning we socialized with three Spaniards in their 40's mountainbiking the whole of Spiti and planning on continuing on to Leh via Rhotang Pass with their ultra-high tech $8000 bikes. I was scolded by a trek guide whilst doing some laundry in the stream with simple detergent that could and would apparently harm the local fish population. Anastia and I walked around the magnificent lake surrounded completely by snowcapped peaks of 6000 meters, and Anastia even took a full-bodied dip in the lake, obviously protected by her natural russian body suit. I declined.

We left Chandar Tal at 2pm with Adrien, and continued onto more unstable roadways, crossing some serious landslide areas and mighty rivers. The journey was slow due to the huge boulders and rocks strewn all along the road and the dust flying up everywhere, but suffice it to say that we were in Lahaul Valley now, the most beautiful place on teh Spiti-Kinnaur circuit, comparable even to the vistas of Leh: Huge green fuzzy mountainsides strewn with gigantic boulders, flocks and flocks of sheep and goats, and a very mighty river running through it all. What increased the beauty of this area was the complete lack of cars, people, villages. Even the most nomadic of peoples hadn't settled this area, except of course, for a few shepards. There are no villages between Losar and Rhotang Pass, and our final stop for the night was Chatru, basically a group of tents for passing tourists. Before Chatru we stopped at Chota Daba for a half hour where Adrien ended up staying in a tent with the mountaineer from Kaza and an old Englishman, and Anastia nearly fell down a steep cliff when we went to to check out the impressive Lahaul river.

In Chatru we ate dinner in a Dhaba with one of the Spaniards who continued on alone after an argument with his friends, and he told us about his furniture import/export business between India and Spain and his dysfunctional relationship with his former wife. We couldnt believe this athletic specimen who had just rode the most difficult road in India on a bike in the same amount of time we did on an Enfield was 40 yrs old. he slept with us in a dilapidated wood structure with metal beds without mattresses and tarantulas crawling the walls. It wasn't hard to sleep though after the day's challenging journey. Oh yea at one of the notorious river crossings my leg nearly got caught between the wheel and a rock, so I'm lucky that I'm still walking!

The next day we continued on to Rhotang Pass via more of the most amazing landscape in the world, thankful for the beautiful weather we were having here and for most of the previous two weeks. We finally reached Rhotang after passing this valley and that pass, and I this junction itself was familiar to me as I had reached it from Leh less than a month earlier. We continued to the pass itself, my third time being here (last time from Leh it was immersed in a giant cloud) and started the descent into Manali. Of course we wouldnt make it without a final unlucky incident.

At the same muddy zone where I had nearly fallen off the cliff a few weeks before coming back from Leh and where my bike had slipped a few times, the road was now drier. But again semi's were stuck and Adrien who was riding ahead, tried to pass one on the cliff-side of the road. Now we were behind and sitting in traffic, Anastia went ahead to see what was causing the hold up and came running back shouting that Adrien had fallen off the cliff! I was momentarily shocked, and the bike fell over as I hastened to get off and see what she was talking about. I ran up 100 meters ahead and saw a bunch of Indian drivers looking over off to the side of the road, and there, 20 meters down, was Adrien standing next to his bike which had got caught in a tree!! He was on the cliff-side of the road, and was trying to get back onto the road when the earth crumbled from beneath him! somehow he had managed to jump off the bike and roll away without bumping his head one a jagged rock, and his bike tumbled down and was stopped by the trunk of this tree. I couldn't believe what had happened, and more, that Adrien appeared unhurt, even amused, and his bike also seemed relatively intact. I ran down to him and he was blabbering about needing to get the bike back onto the road while I questioned him about his injuries and about saying how fucking crazy this is! Being the manly and cocky englishman that he is he insisted that he was fine, that this was nothing, and that all we had to do was get the bike 20 meters up onto the road and continue down to Manali where we'd have Chai like nothing had happened at all.

I couldn't argue with a man who had just grazed death, and with the help of 10 indian men and a rope, we pushed the bike up the muddy slope onto the road, me on the back end pushing with every last shaken muscle in my body. I was sure this was impossible to do, but somehow we got the bike onto the road, and after only 15 minutes of thanks and tipping the indians, we were off to Manali. I couldnt believe this whole incident, but was grateful that nobody got hurt. I was slighly upset that Adrien was so non-chalant about the whole thing. Apparently motorcyclists are often overly masculine and unwilling to admit their dumb mistakes, especially the 33 yr old ex-currency trader types who are out to pursue their safari greatness after spending way too much time in a London office.

Back in Manali we had Chai like nothing had happened, and Anastia and I took a guestroom in Vashist after picking up the luggage we had left in Diew Guesthouse in Manali. We made it!!!