A fantastic sleep after a much fantastic 14 hr ride finished after two other of my friends came to join us. Vineesh and Mahesh, the other two bikers planned to come to Manali directly and take bikes on rent for the rest of the trip. After some fun as soon as they came, with some flashbacks, sattires and other expectations about the coming days, we wanted to quickly get out to the market to find bikes and other needed stuff.

Leh Trip, July 2011

With rain hitting us little badly on Day – 1 , we decided to buy Rain Coats as well(which are on the checklist but somehow missed to be a part of the items in the first place).  The other interesting buy that we made, thanks to some window shopping by Chandu and Vineesh, is Gum Boots. Something that is also missing in my previous trip, and which proved to be of utmost use in the coming days !

Leh Trip, July 2011

Leh Trip, July 2011

Reminding of interesting buys, the other finding this time (actually on the Day – 1 itself ) is RedBull, a full 350 ML before heading to the bike. We had at lunch time at Bilaspur on Day 1 which proved very energetic for the next 6 hrs. With the same expectation, we had RedBull soon after we hit Manali town roads.

The bike rent business took more time than expected, with rain playing the spoil sport all through the day, following us wherever we went. Lots of traffic, lots of young couples all around the city, some of them ‘glaring at us’, may be they are glaring at our bikes and the bikes registration (AP 13k .. number plates). One beautiful woman from Gujarat (after you know, information gathering :P) enquired about our plans, where we can came from and all, we too said : ‘ya we are coming from Andhra on bikes! ‘ .

Leh Trip, July 2011

Leh Trip, July 2011

Soon we realized the full day is going to be eaten up for this very task of renting bikes. By late evening , we decided (due to price considerations and also the bad supply of rented bikes in Manali) to go with a single bike, so its three bikes for four people. We got a Black Pulsar for which initial servicing had to be done which went till 3 AM !

The parallel story is that, the rest of the seven people who are going to be with us from Day 3, have all been gathering at Delhi International Airport coming mostly from Bangalore, and started to Manali by 10 PM after some waiting and some shopping @ Delhi Haat and other places, on a black Scorpio booked for rent some days ago. So here is a 12 hr trip where they are to reach Manali by around 12 AM on Day 3 to the same hotel where we stayed , though we have other plans to not to meet there at the hotel, to start Early ! The last person to be mentioned here is our scorpio driver, Mahinder Singh, a character of his own. Thanks to him, 95 % of our journey is beautiful. We will talk on this more and more.

Leh Trip, July 2011

We had late lunch, good dinner, tried our rain coats, got our Gum boots, made ready our bikes, roamed a thousand times back and forth on Manali roads, almost every traffic police personnel and all bike service and tools shop would know us now.

I had a nice sleep, though the rest three of us had to be awake till 3 AM, nevertheless, we wanted to start as soon as the ‘Sun Arrives’, and Vineesh took that responsibility.