Journey from Delhi to Manali

Day-2:
8th November, 2011 Tuesday.

At 1am, we stopped at a roadside Dhabha for dinner near Thanesar, Haryana.
We were again in the car at 1.45am.
As always, I was getting directions using Google maps on my Blackberry Bold’s GPS. The GPS unit of BB works excellent. It gets locked with satellites in a minute or two with an accuracy of 3-meters.
We reached Ambala at 3am.
We paid the toll at Shambhu Barrier toll booth.

After paying the toll, when we checked our GPS, we realized that we were on the wrong highway. My attention also got diverted towards the phone and suddenly a big stone came in front of the car. I applied the brakes but couldn't stop it from hitting the stone. I pulled the car roadside to check for damages. It looked perfect until we checked its bottom. The radiator was leaking coolant. The steel plate supporting the radiator had been ruptured. But the car was in driving condition so I drove it back to a Petrol pump and decided to wait there till morning to get it repaired.

Keshav and Manoj were the only guys who were enjoying the few hours we spend there. They started bonfire using some card boards, played some classical songs on their mobile and emptied half bottle of the Royal Stag whisky. I decided to take a quick nap in the car.

While waiting for the dawn, I phoned my college friend Gurpreet Singh (posted at Ambala in Tata Docomo). He came around 8am. It was good to see a close friend in an unknown city.

The mechanic Binder took around 2-hours to repair the car. His workshop was looking like the man-eater’s house in the movie ‘Wrong Turn’.

In the mean time, we had breakfast. We filled up our car’s petrol tank there (cheapest petrol on that route after Delhi) and left at 11.45am.
After that incident, I was driving with my full concentration & asked my friends to co-operate with me. We had lost one full day due to that. The road was flat and wide till Rupnagar or around 350kms from Delhi. After that stretch, I spotted a Truck Chassis going at a fast speed in my direction. I decided to follow that Chassis as it was wide enough to cover me, it was not blocking my view of road and it was travelling at a descent but chase able speed. It was like a video game for my friends. Only a few cars managed to overtake it. He was driving fast not rash. After chasing him for more than 100kms, it stopped at some Panwari’s shop to have some Biri that too only for a minute or two. There I asked him, where he was heading for. He answered me only after I told him that we were following him in our car. He said he would escort us till Mandi, HP. The Truck Chassis he was driving belonged to Himachal Govt. We Chased him for over 150kms with only one stop in between.
At 6pm we were at Mandi, HP. It was dark at that time. There I cleaned the car’s windscreen for better visibility during dark.
8.15pm Kullu, HP.
9pm After paying a green tax of 200Rs, we entered Manali .
By 9.15pm, we were at our camp site, Camp Heaven.

The camp was located on the other side of river Beas. We crossed the river using a suspension bridge. The staff consists of only two persons Mr. Kaushik and Monu, a teenaged boy. The whole campus was looking beautiful and the best thing was that it was very close to nature. The sound of flowing water of the river could be heard very easily even inside our tents.
The dinner was delicious and served well in the reception-cum-dining room.