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Published: April 15th 2009
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This is the month of April in 2009. It’s been quite a while now that we hadn’t gone on ride to Himalayan states may be six months or so and we really wanted to go for a long one. Summers are not so good to ride motorbikes in North India in fact anywhere in India apart from mountain states for that matter due to extreme heat. Journey to Narkanda from Gurgaon/Delhi starts in planes and until you move to Kalka. After Kalka you start feeling the drop in temperature as you keep moving up the mountains and yes the thrill of twisted roads. Himachal unlike Uttranchal has got broad roads and so you can expect some heavy traffic at times on these roads at least till Shimla which is both good and bad.
Unlike other rides when we started early in the night and drove for the night, we decided to start early in the morning about 4 am on Saturday and drive for the day.
The route is:
Gurgaon Delhi Panipat Jirakpur Kalka Shimla Fagu Theong Narkanda
And so we all met early before the
dawn with tank full and thumping strokes of our Royal Enfields, three in all and four riders (Divakar, Deepankar, Hitesh and me.), this was Saturday.
Divakar& Deepankar on ThunderBird ,350cc,Hitesh - Bullet Standard 350 and Me - Electra 5s 350
Sharp at 4 we started moving.
The road till Kalka is in planes and then from Kalka to Narkanda you start on mountains.
After Gurgaon the first break we took was for tea/breakfast after Ambala at about 8.30 am for about 45 mins and that was refreshing.
The road till Jirakpur is in good condition and is heavily loaded with traffic, Motor bikers better to stay on left lane and move at your own speed - this road have quite a few exits and entry points so keep noting those as you suddenly find local traffic coming in and going out.
We kept steadily moving ahead at the speed of 60 - 70 kmph and that kept us well in game as planned with timings.
The next break was just before Shimla and at about 1 pm, crossed Shimla about 1.45 pm, in Shimla we filled up the tanks again as not many
filling stations after Shimla on the way to Narkanda.
This road is the real pleasure ride for any motorbike rider and would absolutely love it e with those beautiful curves on the road and each curve taking to a different world of Vista which is like a door taking to a different collection of flora & fauna, landscapes. The small villages on the roads of the mountains are the best part of mountain journey as you get a chance to quick glance of the local culture and sometimes interacting with the locals helps you understand the lifestyle they live with, quite down to earth to be honest.
Narkanda is about 65 kms from Shimla and took us about 3 hrs to reach there at about 5.45 pm we stopped the engines, in all it was 14 Hrs way to get there from Gurgaon!
Narkanda is at about 9200 feet above from sea level and so it was cold for us when we reached there even during this time of the year…we had to have three hot cups of tea each to feel a bit warmer before we check-in in to the hotel….!!
The Hatu is
good hotel for its price. You get rooms for 900 and 1500 INRS, you better book the rooms in advance, here is the link,
http://hotelhatu.tripod.com/
Next day - Sunday morning, it started raining and we got a hint there might be even bad at the Hatu peak where we had planned to trek, its at about 11250 feet above sea level and 8 kms from Narkanda. From Narkanda you can drive up to a point and then you will have to walk down for the peak and the temple (Hatu mata temple) It’s a very steep ride towards Hatu and again the pleasure one..!! Soon after we started it started snowing a bit and got thicker and thicker on the road as we moved up, finally we had to stop much before we were supposed to and park the Bikes which was not easy either due to slippery road surface now.
From the temple we a guide taking us to trek further 5 kms thru the jungle.This trek was real fun with the jungle walk with snowing heavily and the wind chill was
-8 (as per the guide) so you can imagine how life would be
for poor fellows from the planes for that trek but it was the real experience indeed. Due to poor visibility we couldn’t have Himalayan range view from here.
The other spot good to visit near narkanda is Tani-Jubbar lake which is about 10 kms from Narkanda, from wilderness lake side resort you have a good view of Himalayan ranges.
So this day ended with stories and chat about the day’s experience.
Monday morning and it was time to travel back, we started at about 7am via same route and with few quick halts for tea and for smoke, one of us need it badly always!
On the way back had lunch at famous ‘Puran Singh ka Dhaba’ at about 3.30 in Ambala.
We reached at home in Gurgaon at about 10.30pm, touched Delhi at 8pm but damn traffic Jams inside took everything out of us.
This was a great trip with thrilling ride and would not be forgotten for long time by any of us. It gave us all the energy back to keep going until next break !
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