Road Trip To The Forbidden Lan…

78mm had a dream… to live in some of the most challenging conditions of life for a duration of 10 days…exploring a terrain that none of us ever imagined… together with like minded enthusiasts from various walks of life… who believed in their capability of living a dream. The content and purpose of the trip was not fully understood, neither was intended to, though there have been topics of speculation and interest …throughout recorded in the history of dreams.

The fact, that you are tied (pillion) to your partner, means that you put an immense amount of trust in someone else’s skill and ability – Touching the Void

28th May 2009 was when every one gets to meet their partners of the ride for the next 10 days …people with whom they will have breathe for the next 8,64,000 seconds…. almost every single of it. First day was planned to be an acclimatization and warm-up day for the thrill going to start from the next day. I guess every one had expectations and anticipations, but what was about to come… was beyond random and uncertain. An exhaustive day ended with activities like river crossing and hiking …last minute shopping and campfire dinner … but still maintaining the suspense & thrill of coming days.

We were soaked in rain within the first 30 minutes of the ride and by the end of the day, the smarter ones got an idea of the uncertainty they are moving towards… The nitty gritties of high altitude motoring, cold, damp and frosted weather, the absence of cell phone coverage…hmm good food, great people and an able crew. The deal doesn’t sound that bad and especially when…not every thing is planned!!!

The camera became the recluse over the next many hours of waking time activities. Many cameras, many more perspectives. A trek here, a cave there, a small lake named for the serpent goddess in rain, a challenging ride across the centre of HP into kinnaur, a camp in the base of sangla valley, nestled between snow covered ranges of kinner kailash along a raging river on the borders of Tibet, and us … we were checking out maggi at ‘Hindustan ka Akhiri dhaba’.
Then in one day’s ride, the lush green valleys of middle Himalayas transformed into a brown and barren landscape of the cold deserts. Water and food are sacred in these regions. Snow and cold weather make life extremely difficult for more than six months in any year. Even a casual observation of their reality is thought provoking enough for city dwelling professionals like us. What would it be like to have our life’s fabric woven around nature’s furiously changing colors? Could we be content with whatever the mountains bestow on us? … all we could do is to look around for answers.

 
After a night at the Tibetan monastery’s rest house in Tabo, and a morning spent exploring the unique cultural evolution of those remote parts of India, the ride took us to Kaza and Kibber, the world’s highest motorable village. A game of gilli danda with kids …a small chat with locals …observations …and awestruck faces … we came back to the camp site with mixed feeling of nostalgia, anger and bliss. NoMads shouldn’t get attached to destinations …thr love of life is the journey.

The ride next day was across spiti to Kunzum pass, which was open for traffic just a day earlier, and still had a lot of glacial snow, melt waters from which made a river on the road. A few participants who had never seen snow in their life trekked through knee deep slush and enjoyed it, while we were just amazed at the ability of border roads organization to make it possible for us to witness such a fierce terrain.

The ride of that day had the beauty, altitude and power to make us dread them mountains. But we kept going in-spite of freezing cold, very dangerous roads and fatigue. The temperature that night at camp was 5 degrees below zero. We all have a sense of fear in us, just like we all have our own definition of danger and thrill. But the essence of being alive is in facing the fear that tries to overcome us. It is the feeling of victory on one’s inhibitions. Or to put it in dew’s words …”Darr kea agge Jeet hai…” and literally this time.
The final day’s ride was more of the tough terrain for over 100 km, when a delay caused by a puncture in one of the bikes caused us to witness a sudden snowstorm towards the evening, , across Rohtang pass where our return to civilization happened earlier than expected: ‘business only’ attitudes, weekend tourist rush, traffic congestion on precarious roads. The roads became much smoother, the evening was spent relaxing and enjoying the Himachali folk dance. We celebrated a successful completion of our foray into the Forbidden lands. We all were dead tired … but the sense of the fact that it was the last night together … we made deliberate attempts to stay closer …I guess hardly anyone slept that night…. we just wanted to enjoy every bit of it … we just wanted to be tripped forever!!

This rollercoaster of a 10 day break just opened a few new dimensions to our mind’s own eyes… it has now became an inseparable part of our memories. We challenged our physical strength with will, hope and invincibility … only to bring the best out of ourselves.

Neither planning nor execution was flawless, there were problems …there were differences …not all was planned … nothing was routine …we followed our impulse and we faced the implications as a team.

We sincerely thank all the participants for trusting 78mm for 10 days of their life. I hope we did justice to your belief. We also pay our gratitude to Mountain Dew for supporting our concept and sponsoring merchandise to all the participants. We really lived …darr ke aage jeet hai!!!