Your Mind Over Mountains

Five states, 1,800 km, roaring engines, super new friends. The drive to Leh tests you and your machine. It’s as much about character as stamina. by Gitumoni Talukdar

- Gitumoni Talukdar

Let’s be honest: A trip to Leh is on everyone’s Bucket List. Thanks to the plethora of travelogues, rider diaries, ad films and movies, this beautiful place with its surreal landscape and hairpin bends is a magnet for adventure-seekers. For people like me, who spend every day in the city surrounded by people and more people, the Mahindra Monastery Escape 2016 offered a chance to immerse myself in isolation—albeit with a bunch of like-minded folk. The “expedition,” as we’ve begun to call it, wasn’t exciting just because of the place but also it offered me a chance to test my endurance. Plus, it’s not every day when your boss lets you take two weeks off for a “work” holiday.

The Escape began in Delhi and took us through five states over 14 days, finally culminating in Srinagar before returning to the capital. We were to test Mahindra’s range of SUVs—the Scorpio, the Thar and the XUV 500 while putting them through their paces in some pretty extreme conditions and terrains.

The carmaker’s new generation Scorpio, powered by the mHawk 4 cylinder 2179-cc engine, was our first chariot. The route from Delhi to Manali was fairly simple, but it got tougher as we moved from Manali to Jispa—steep bends, oncoming traffic, lower temperatures. One’s driving and digestive skills were tested as we made our way to Jispa via the Rohtang Pass (at 13,060 ft). For the first 15 km (almost till Keylong), the roads were nonexistent. Rain and snow are constant in this region throughout the year. The roads have patches of slush and require serious manoeuvring. You could feel the engine work harder, but it was up to the task. Plus, the Scorpio’s ground clearance ensured we didn’t really need to worry and that we could keep the momentum.