Early morning, empty Manali roads, its cloudy and the hills up above are surrounded by mist. Yogesh and Shamik are puttering through the winding road upto Rohtang Pass. Yogesh's been there before, but for Shamik it is his first ride to Rohtang. He's expecting black ice, broken roads, lots of tourist traffic and crowd and what not! He gets his part of broken roads but the tourists, the traffic and the much feared black ice gives them a miss this time. They reach the R-Top which any hiccups and take a photobreak. Shamik is elated, its just them and a lonely cyclist riding from Manali to Leh! After spending a good 30 minutes in Rohtang top, the riders move ahead and now starts the unknown territory, even Yogesh hasnt been this far before. As they ride downhill towards Koksar, the tarmac takes the backseat and dust and stones rule the roost. A few sandy turns here and there, a traffic halt for 5 minutes somewhere and lots of clicking onthe camera, they reach Koksar. Shamik had a study of the road map before thinks 11am at Koksar is okie types, and they should reach Sarchu by the evening, poor human doesnt know future! Just as they appraoch the bridge over Chandrabhaga river they discover cars and buses arent moving, no magic folks the bridge is out of order. A couple of brain devoided truck drivers ignored the "One vehicle at a time" post and decided for a group ride on the smallish bridge. The left arm of the bridge revolted from the punishment and decided to stay bent for life, result, BRO stopping traffic from both ends for indefinite period. The wait begins, time tickles by, rumours fly and Shamik gets frustrated and irritated. He goes to pee behind a huge rock by the river side and some white lady decides to check what a male is doing by holding his dick by one hand and spraying water on the stone, hello lady! Shamik catches up with a bong BRO personell and he hints that they might allow bikes to cross later in the day but again emphasises on the word "might"! As both the riders back track a few hundered metres they decide for lunch! Yogesh jolted by a headache takes a short nap while Shamik takes a walk to stare shamelessly at white girls and ladies :D. The day is clear at this side of Rohtang, meaning more heat and less clothes on white women :D, intelligent chap huh! Here he meets a gang of three bikers who come on two bullets and one CBZ! As they park their bikes, Shamik approaches one for a cig lighter, strikes up a conversation. The guyz Adrian, for the uninitiated he's Leppard from RD Dreams accompanied by Arun on CBZ and another bloke whose name is now forgotten, sorry brother! Shamik introduces himself and also tells them his xBhp id, Darkside_of....... ! Soon they start chatting regarding the bridge and stuff, and no sweethearts not about the differences between RDD and XBHP! After a while a combined effort from the bikers gets a assurance out of the BRO Commanding Officer that they will allow them to cross the bridge one by one after 7pm, finally some joy and a celebration cig for Shamik :D. Its 7:15pm, the bridge has been crossed, Shamik and Yogesh asks the other bikers to move ahead while Shamik pees and Yogesh tries to capture some snaps of God knows what ! Its dark, its chilly and its no roads. Shamik embarks on what is surely his most challenging ride so far in his short biking life. As they ride over huge craters, gravels, sand, dust, stones Shamik slowly starts to enjoy all of this. But I am sure Ivy didnot liked the fact much that she was going up and down on her front shocks non stop for kilometres, poor girl! Every time Shamik crossed a stream, he would come to a dead stop before entering it, putting the head lamp on low beam, gauging the depth and water current and then cross it over, but not without a hundred injections on his feet. If you didnot get what I am refering by those hundred injections, then dumbass thats the damn cold water which wets his socks! After a long, cold, dusty as well as wet and largely enjoyed ride by Shamik, they reach Tandi. Now here's where the only fuel station can be found till Leh, but you dont expect them to be open at night, no kidding folks they close at 5pm! All the 5 riders meet up and Yogesh goes ahead in search of a STD shop but there's no hotel or STD in Tandi, they decide to ride till Keylong which is 8kms ahead. Now the roads are better and Ivy breathes easy resulting in Shamik touching 70kmph for the first time in the day. All of them take shelter in the big HPTDC hotel in Keylong after calling up dear and now far away ones. Yogesh and Shamik decides to give the rooms a skip and stays in a tent, a nice cozy tent but just a little too cold to Shamik's liking, he he! Shamik's verdict for dinner was " bullcrap, pathetic, horrible" , but that was all in the mind, he just said,"Bad", damp squib huh! Shamik was anticipating a mindboggling view from the Hotel's garden of the panorama about to unfold next morning, meanwhile he was also trying to calculate the expenses occurred, and he was still griining inside about how well he rode through the non-existent roads, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............................