Manali – Ladakh
MANALI – LADAKH – MANALI WITH HIGH LAKES AND HIGH PASSES
16 Days – 15 Nights / Riding – 10 Days
MANALI – LADAKH – MANALI WITH HIGH LAKES AND HIGH PASSES
16 Days – 15 Nights / Riding – 10 Days
US $ 3000 RIDER / US $ 2700 PILLION
PER PERSON ON TWIN SHARING BASIS
Riding Distance : 1560 KMS / 970 MILES
Maximum Altitude : 5360 M / 17580 FT
DELHI – MANALI – ROHTANG LA – JISPA – BARALACHA LA – NAKEE LA – LACHUNG LA – TANGLANG LA – SERCHU – LEH – KHARDUNG LA – NUBRA VALLEY – TURTUK – HUNDER – DISKIT – SHYOK RIVER – TSOKAR – TSOMORIRI – PANGONG TSO – CHANG LA – WARI LA
We welcome you with us to ride on the Highway to Paradise. It’s a test that every biker would like to pass. It is indeed a pilgrimage for bikers. This is the business of taming the mountains of harsh cold desert, dealing with low oxygen levels, and incline lift through extremely bad narrow roads with several hell freezing water crossings. Yet it is motorable, we must negotiate one snow-bound high altitude mountain pass then another, and then the other. It is called the land of passes. Nothing can be more thrilling for a biker than conquering the two highest motor-able passes in the world (Highest Pass Khardung la pass –5570 M / 18,380 Feet) in a single expedition. This tour will lead you into the valley of gods “The Last Shangri La – LEH” where mind and nature unify, the unique blend of greenery and cold barren desert mesmerizes and all the tiredness of ages evaporates. Ladakh is a land of mythical beauty; a land where vividly colored mountains and mighty snow-clad peaks are crisscrossed by gurgling streams originating from milky glaciers. Nubra Valley. Along the eastern ridge of the Karakoram Range in northern Ladakh is the Nubra valley comprising of the upper Shayok and Nubra river valleys. The trekking route to this area is demanding and traverses the Kardung-la pass along the ancient trade route from Leh to Central Asia. It is the highest motorable road in the world! The breathtaking view from the pass surveys an entire length of the Indus valley in the south and a magnificent panorama of snow-clad peaks. No less interesting are the friendly and simple inhabitants of Ladakh, living with scarce resources in an inhospitable region, they always astonish a traveler with their ineffable hospitality. The contagious smile of the rosy-cheeked Mongolian-faced inhabitants shall make us forget our body aches from riding.
Itinerary
Day 1
Arrive in DELHI
We will meet you at Delhi Airport and transfer you to your Hotel. Because fellow group members may be arriving on different flights, we will wait to meet the fellow group members on the next day at the breakfast table and the staff at the dinner table.
Day 2
DELHI – MANALI. (2050 M / 6765 FT)
Post breakfast half-day city tour. Evening transfer to the bus station to board the overnight bus to Manali. It will be a 12 – 14 hours journey by comfortable Volvo semi sleeper bus.
Day 3
AT MANALI. (2050 M / 6765 FT)
Arrive at Manali in the morning. Post breakfast we’ll hold a briefing to cover safety precautions, touring style, road conditions, and check of personal equipment, with time to select our bikes and become familiar with starting procedures, control layouts, and bike handling. We will have a trial riding day exploring nearby places of Manali. Since the beginning of time, Kullu Valley has been known as ‘The Valley of the Gods’. We enjoy one of the most spectacular days of motorcycle touring anywhere in the world today as we run the cliff-hanging highway along almost vertical walls of the jungle and cascading waterfalls of the Beas River Valley.
Day 4
MANALI – ROHTANG LA (3980 M / 13135 FT) – JISPA. (3330 M / 10900 FT) (140 KMS / 5 – 6 HRS)
Think of the Alps and let your imagination expand and go wild, this is the Rohtang-La! After breakfast, we start to climb right outside of town, up the most beautiful alpine road on earth. Though not that high a pass for the Himalayas (3980 m), it is certainly one of the most spectacular. We will descend to the Lahaul Valley to meet the Chandra River and have lunch at Keylong and continue further to Jispa, a small village on the banks of the river. After Crossing the Rohtang Pass we’ve entered a whole new world; Tibetan Buddhist monasteries hang off precipices.
Day 5
JISPA – BARALACHA LA (4892 M / 16150 FT) – SERCHU. (4290 M / 14150 FT) (90 KMS / 4 – 5 HRS)
Post breakfast we ride further stopping for the Passport Control at Darcha Check Post. Darcha was the starting point of the famous 20 days trek to Ladakhvia Zanskar Valley, still, the local people of Zanskar use this route, and very soon we will get a chance to explore this route also by our motorcycle as the road is started from Darcha to Padum. Noticing how dry it’s becoming as we climb toward the Tibetan Plateau, we run the entire length of the Lahaul Valley heading for our next high pass, Baralacha-La. We descend after the pass to our camp at Sarchu.
Day 6
SERCHU – NAKEE LA (4750 M / 15675 FT) – LACHUNG LA (5065 M / 16715 FT) – TANGLANG LA (5330 M / 17582 FT) – LEH.(3600 M / 11880 FT) (260 KMS / 7 – 8 HRS)
Like a scene out of ‘Fantasia’ our day begins with a climb up the Gata Loops, 21 dizzy switchbacks on the excellent surface, towards our two passes of today’s ride, Nakee La and Lachung La. Descending through a moonscape gorge we arrive at the military post called Pang which brings us to the Tibetan Plateau and what is called the More Plains, 44 km of the wide valley filled with nomads and yaks, flat as a table, with massive glacial peaks either side.TanglangLa is the world’s second-highest motorable pass and our last pass for the day with views of all creation from the top. Descending countless hairpin turns we enter the beautiful Miru Gorge, razorback ridges of every color rock with tiny villages set among green/goldfields of barley. We’ve entered Ladakh, the last Shangri-La!
Day 7
AT LEH
Day at Leisure to explore the local market.
Day 8
LEH – KHARDUNG LA (5359 M / 17575 FT) – NUBRA VALLEY. (3030 M / 10000 FT) (130 KMS / 5 – 6 HRS)
The day you’ve been waiting for. Conditions permitting, we’ll ride the 26.5 km to the highest motorable pass on Earth, Khardung-La. After the last 14 km of rocky road, we will join an elite handful of motorcyclists that have stood on the top of the world! The views over the mountains of Tibet to the north, the Karakoram Range, K-2, and back down to the Indus Valley and Zanskar are simply indescribable!
Day 9
NUBRA VALLEY – WARI LA (5240 M / 17300 FT) – SAKTI (3650 M / 12000 FT)(120 KMS / 4 – 5 HRS)
Post breakfast today we will ride steep up to the road leading to Wari La and further descend into Sakti Valley.
Day 10
SAKTI – CHANG LA (5360 M / 17580 FT) – PANGONG TSO (4250 M / 14025 FT) – SAKTI (200 KMS / 7 – 8 HRS ROUND TRIP)
Post breakfast we will ride up again steep to Chang La the third highest motorable road in the world. The Changla Pass is the main gateway for the Changthang Plateau, The home for the nomadic tribes collectively known as the Changpa or Chang-pa, which follows a rough mountain road to the luminous blue-green magic of Pangong Tso Lake. We’ll spend a few hours/lunch at the Lake and ride back to Sakti by name route.
Day 11
SAKTI – CHUMATHANG – NAMSHANG LA (4800 M / 15840 FT) – TSOMORIRI (4595 M / 15160 FT) (200 KMS / 6 – 7 HRS)
Post breakfast we ride today to our second Lake, getting our Inner Line Permits checked at Mahe Check Post and further riding up to Namshang La, (Scenically this pass even beats the highest passes Khardung La and Tanglang La) and descending down to Kiagar tso / Thatsang Karu a small salt lake at the height of 4650 M. We ride through the plain roads and the split wide valley in between stopping at the nomad’s tents to have a cup of butter tea seeing the herds of Pashmina Goats to Tsomoriri. We will explore the Nomads of the Korzok Village in the evening.
Day 12
TSOMORIRI – POLOKONKO LA (4900 M / 16170 FT) – TSOKAR (4530 M / 14950 FT) (80 KMS / 3 – 4 HRS)
Today we wake up in front of the Tsomoriri Lake shimmering turquoise after breakfast we ride on bone-dry trails through desert valleys – it’s time to eat some dust! Our ride takes us past sulfur springs and over the windswept, Pologonka Pass. We will reach Tsokar Salt Lake, a nature reserve and home of the shy wild mongoose and rare birds.
Day 13
TSOKAR – NAKEE LA(4750 M / 15675 FT)– LACHUNG LA(5065 M / 16715 FT)– BARALACHA LA (4892 M / 16150 FT) – JISPA (3330 M / 10900 FT) (200 KMS / 7 – 8 HRS)
Post early breakfast we continue our ride to Jispa crossing 03 passes in a line and the 21 Gata Loops. We arrive at Jispa by late afternoon with a lot of photo stops on the way.
Day 14
JISPA – ROHTANG LA (3980 M / 13135 FT) – MANALI (2050 M / 6765 FT) (140 KMS / 5 – 6 Hrs)
We finish our riding tour today by riding back to Manali via Rohtang La.
Day 15
MANALI – DELHI
Half day free in Manali. Evening board the overnight Volvo bus to Delhi.
Day 16
DELHI.
Arrive in Delhi in the morning and transfer to your Hotel. Half-day city tour of Delhi. Post-dinner transfer to the Airport to board the flight back home.
Cost Includes:
- Royal Enfield Standard 500cc / Himalayan 411cc / Himalayan Scram 411cc
- Spare parts for the bikes
- Support Vehicle for luggage.
- Toyota Innova / Small Bus.
- Mechanic
- English Speaking Road captain / Tour guide
- Fuel & Oil
- First Aid Equipment
- Breakfast, Lunch, dinner
- Hotels 3*-4* / Heritage
- Fixed Camp
- Inner Line Permit
- Oxygen in the unlikely event of altitude sickness
- Delhi – Manali – Delhi Volvo Bus Tickets
Cost Does not Include:
- Any part broken while riding will be payable extra
- The expense of personal nature viz laundry, telephone calls, tips, mineral water, beverages, etc.
- Expense arises due to unforeseen circumstances like roadblocks, landslides, flight cancellation, etc.
- Personal Insurance
- Sleeping Bags
- Helmets or any riding gear
- Indian Visa and International Flights
