Adventures of Gramphu – Batal Road – DoW Mega Meet 2014

The night was quite cold up there at Chandratal and in fact the thought of just peeing out at night was giving jitters down the spine 😉 😉 … Somehow, with some courage I was able to go out after 3-4 attempts. The morning first rays made us awake and it was time to go to Chandratal (read travel guide here).

Ripples in Chandratal Lake

Day 9 | Chandratal – Gramphu – Batal

Early morning walk to Chandratal

Camping site of Chandratal

Chandratal Lake – First View

Reflecting the nature – Chandratal Lake

Camping at Chandratal

We started for Batal dhabha after bidding adieus to Nawang bhai, Bishan bhai from Parsol Camps and motu bhai. The drive in the morning was does offering some adventure as now we could see the gorge aside but it went un-adventurous 😉 😉 … We reached Batal and then had some tea plus some paranthas to kick off the last leg to Manali.

The road to Chandratal

The valley view on the way to Chandratal

Devils getting ready at Batal

Dorje uncle of Batal Dhabha

Beautiful view at Batal

The hell just broke out on the road as we left Batal and small cars like mine were running painfully slow. One after another the adventurous water crossings were coming and some how we were dodging the big boulders. The heart was pumping and praying with each such water crossings not to enforce a deep hole in car’s underbelly 😀 😀

Dheeraj Sharma

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Finally, came the dorni nalla and the gramphu nalla, WOW !! Water was gushing, heart was pounding, all were screaming — in one GO, in one GO !! And then I saw, XUV was stuck at the end. It cannot get better than this… He He He… Finally, it was my turn and with in seconds of blood rush in veins I accelerated to get stuck in last stage and then a push from devils from behind and car was through… Uff I do not have words to explain it but yes that was it, the adventure of a life time to drive from Batal to Gramphu in a small car 😀 …

Glaciers on Batal – Gramphu road

Devils on Recce

Struggling through it

Views – As heavenly as it can get

And we caused a big traffic jam

Cruising on Batal – Gramphu road

Its all that easy for Thar

Then it was just a smooth drive to the top of Rohtang Pass. At the top, we bid adieus to Tapan da and his friends with a promise to meet for yet another adventure after an year 🙂 🙂 … Then, as we were rolling down I was looking back at my cousin and misjudged a gap between a big rock and tempo standing in the middle of the road. The rock hit the car rail and toppled down beneath the car 😯 😥 … My heart was in the mouth and I was feeling gutted as after crossing the entire hell of a roads, this happened on a well tarred road !! Thankfully, no damage was done though the rock was stuck underneath. We had devils with us so they lifted the car and I removed the stone. We went to Kothi, stopped for lunch there which was not so good along with high cost and pathetic service.

Dheeraj Sharma

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And we bid adieus to Spiti Valley from Gramphu

And we say good by to Tapan da and his friend at Rohtang Pass top

Rohtang Pass Top

We decided then to directly drive home as it was 3.30 PM only instead of resting in Manali. Pawan ji, Vipin and my car was traveling together home. It was just a normal drive on Manali – Delhi Highway and only at 12.30 AM we came to know about a massive traffic jam near Bilaspur and since I was almost feeling sleepy, we decided to crash in some hotel to start afresh in next morning. We stayed at Bilaspur at night and left next morning for Delhi. We reached Delhi in afternoon and ended this LifeMeinBaarBaar MEGA ADVENTURE from Discover with Dheeraj !!!

I hope you enjoyed the tale of Mega Meet 2014 and coming Friday, we will commence our DoW Mega Meet 2015 – Zanskar Valley & Changthang in Ladakh for 11 days of yet another mega adventure…