The flat tyre(LL4)
“Brbrbrbrbrbrbooo, itititititissss fffrreeaaakkkkkkiiinnnggg ccccooollllddd!!”
“Yayyaaa maaannn,leeettttssss fififirrrssstt hhahahahvvee sososommmee hohohottt wwaaatter, gggettt inssside that cafe.”
We literally ran into the only available cafeteria, drank hot water, ate hot maggie,burned our tongue,didn't care, then coffee and finally came to our senses to figure out what exactly was happening around us.
Two of us weighing around 140kgs were riding on a 350cc rented Royal Enfield excited with the 460km journey that we were about to complete in that terrain. We continued with our unpreparedness swag (that became a major part of our entire trip) and began the ride at around 12pm from Leh to Pangong lake. The roads were, well they were more like stones rather than cemented path.
Almost halfway up, the bike cried to pull us along and it was surprising to see a Bullet giving that kind of pickup for a small inclined turn. However, we enjoyed the little journey clicking pics while moving...
Until we reached the second highest motorable pass in the world...Changla pass....
We didn't expect the wind to be so cold and the temperature was hovering around -5 deg C and we super humans had put on only sweat shirts. I could feel the wind piercing through my ribs giving me shivers about a possible pneumonia.
But in the midst of all this, we were happy to see snow, touch and feel it.After warming ourselves up at the cafe, we went back to our bike and just as we were settling on it, the bike cried to move and we discovered a flat tyre.
Oh Damn!!the wind increased, temperature was dropping and it was almost around 4.30pm. We were on a pass where there was a small army camp, the world’s highest research centre by DRDO, a small cafeteria and a hospital but.....no puncture repair shop...
In desperation, we requested many tourist vehicles but they were helpless as they did not have the necessary tools and we knew that as the time races ahead, we could be frozen on that tourist spot. Luckily, the cafe owner came to our rescue and called the only available Mahindra Tepper. This was a perfect situation for the driver to mint some money....Desperate Customers, No other benchmark services,therefore hike the prices to over 3 times the normal rate...need based business services.
We used our negotiation skills rather poorly and finalised on a price for transport...we just wanted to get away from that place....Therefore the three of us heaved,sighed,pushed and lifted that bike onto the van...after which, both of us were gasping for breath at least for the next 2 minutes.
After the bike was tied up, we were a bit relieved and happy to see the hope of getting away from that place.
The journey wasn't smooth and very slow as the driver had to ensure that a proper balance was maintained for the bike to be stuck onto the van.
We finally reached Tangtse at around 7pm and checked into Hotel Pangong Residency, whose staff also followed the concept of need based business services by charging us quite a high amount. A special thanks to the driver Unchuk who put in a lot of effort to help us.That hotel had around 30 rooms and only 5 guests (including us). Ate dinner and cozied ourselves into our beds, just as we were about to sleep, the adventure continued with some eerie sounds outside the window of our room.
We felt that we were being spied upon from the darkness outside but were too tired to investigate...left it on fate and slept like logs. The next morning, checked out and went immediately to the nearby puncture shop..got the puncture repaired and went on our way to Pangong lake..
P.S:- The sounds were made by wind and the shape was created by a moving stem of a small plant.