The Great Escape : Day 1 - Ambala - Solang Valley

4th July

We left Ambala at 8 AM and headed for Chandigarh. The road was superb and it didn’t take more than 40 min. to reach there. We were searching for a place to have breakfast. We crossed many sectors of Chandigarh but couldn’t find any market which was open. The irony was that liquor shops were all open in the morning. I don’t know if Mohali was in the route, but we finally had Parathas in Mohali. After a good breakfast, we left for Ropar. The roads were good. A few km after crossing Ropar, roads were never straight. We had entered the mountains. I had never driven on curvy roads before. It was fun to drive up and down the hills. We were also stopping for pics. In the below pic i had difficulty in focusing on Nikhil 🙂

Leh Trip, July 2009

We crossed Bilaspur and stopped at Sundernagar for lunch. The route after Sundernagar was beautiful. All the time a river was flowing with us.
There was also a 5-6 km long tunnel between Kullu and Manali. We reached Manali at 6 PM. I filled my tank there and couldn’t believe that my bike had given a mileage of 45. Manali seemed a very crowded place to me, flooded with tourists. Our plan was to spend night with our colleagues in Solang Valley, which was 10 km away from Manali, on the way to Rohtang Pass. We took some shots before starting the ascent.

Leh Trip, July 2009

The ascent from Manali to Solang valley was very steep. It was around 7 pm and we were the only ones who were going in that direction, whereas everyone else was returning from Rohtang. After ~10 km, there was a left turn to Solang valley. We reached there and enjoyed campfire with our friends. The scenery in night from the valley was spectacular. I captured some good shots in the night.