The weather was nice, the roads were good and the car was behaving beautifully. I had got the clutch redone yesterday and I was a little apprehensive that I had not tested it before leaving. But it was certainly an improvement over what it was. On the way in to Delhi from Hyderabad and Mumbai, sometimes the gears would just not engage. That problem had certainly got sorted out. We sped on towards the mountains. The six lane highway between Delhi and Chandigarh has really speeded up traffic and lessened congestion. And the grid lock that was par for the course at places like Panipat and Ambala were a thing of the past. One could just clip through.
A stop over for a cup of tea and we were on the road
again. I was hoping to hit Manali early morning, latest by about ten. And we
were doing pretty decent time, till we had our second tea break. I wanted to do
some video diaries and before we knew it, it was five in the morning. And we
were yet to reach even Ambala. And Radhey Shyam, the driver of the support
vehicle started getting concerned about a rattling sound coming from the
alternator. We decided to have it checked at the next town.
As dawn was breaking, we headed north. The sky started taking on a crimson hue and the colours were playing with the clouds. Photography commenced of capturing the changing colours of dawn. I am not at all a morning person and I guess the sight of the sunrise got me moved. The cars were parked and the camera aimed at the rising disc of the orange ball of fire.
Looking back we found a huge pool of oil under the bonnet of the support vehicle. Something had gone bust. Hmmm. We had a problem. Fortunately I had a tow rope and my Gypuzu was pressed into service to pull the stranded vehicle into some sort of workshop at six in the morning. A few kilometres laters we were pointed to a person who happened to be home sleeping. He was risen from his slumber and we waited. And then we waited some more. He refused to materialise. Then we went for a recce and found a decent sized workshop. And there we were for the most part of the day. It took almost till four in the evening to get everything fixed and sorted and by the time we hit Mandi it was ten at night.
I often spend the night at Mandi before heading to Kullu and then Manali. It is just about an hour’s drive to Kullu and the drive is spectacular. I did not want to miss out on the filming opportunities on this route. My only concern was that due to the vehicle breakdown, we were already behind by one day. Nevertheless, it was better that the breakdown happened near civilisation and not at the top of the Gata Loops. Like it happened to me in 2008!
Dinner completed, email checked, files transferred, it was time to crash. Which I did. And slept like a baby. And yes, this log is being written the next morning, there was just no way I could keep my eyes open to be able to complete this diary yesterday.
You guys take care. And I’ll see you when I’ll see you. Cheers.
Follow my journey on http://traveltrendztv.com/traveltrendztrilogy.php and http://www.facebook.com/traveltrendztv
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