Page 124 - Motoring World (January 2020)

We all retired with grins

wider than our helmet visors

Home to the Indian Astronomical withdrew the idea of exploring it and
Observatory and the iconic Hanle shot at a relatively safer mining trail
Gompa, everyone eagerly awaited on the other side of the same hill.
for the famed night sky of Hanle to We can be brave sometimes, but
open the curtains and unfold its we never go full monty. Even if the
magic. Soon, it fell dark and the pictures suggest otherwise. With two
town switched off its lights at 11pm fantastic days spent in Hanle riding,
(a regular practice there); everyone filming and exploring the untouched
stepped out with our motorcycles landscape, it was time for us to start
and cameras, and headed to capture the journey back home.
the Milky Way in all its glory.
Most of us shot well into the HANLE TO TSO MORIRI
wee hours, waiting for the perfect This was the fastest dirt stretch on
photo, since the next day was to the entire route and I was pretty
rest in Hanle. But the eager bunch, certain that after the past few days
including me and our shutterbug of abuse, this was where the Jawas
Kaizad, marched away again early would, in all probability, expose
in the morning to explore the their Achilles heels. And especially
terrain and find some unseen trails. my bike because from Merak
We found one such trail which onwards, I was glued to the Bombay
apparently touched one of the last Customs Jawa 42 Scrambler and
checkpoints on the Indo-China tried everything I could to see where
border just about 10 km ahead. or when it would give up. But nah.
We didn’t want to deal with We reached Tso Moriri, filmed
crosshairs and jail time, so we there going over some really nasty

124 MOTORING WORLD | JANUARY 2020