Spiti Valley Astride a Scooter and with a Pillion Rider

LAST SEPTEMBER, MY wife and I set out from Chandigarh to ride to the Spiti circuit on my TVS Jupiter 125.

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We'd had the scooter transported from Shornur in Kerala specifically for this trip. Looking back, we probably weren't as prepared as we should have been—no riding gear, no spare parts, no real safety equipment. Just a lot of confidence, maybe too much of it. But the scooter had been well serviced by Sarathy TVS and Prabhath Automotive in Pollachi, and it never let us down during the whole journey.

The circuit covered around 1,550 kilometres, taking us through Shimla, Chitkul, Spillow, Nako, Tabo, and eventually Kaza. From there, we visited Hikkim, home to the world's highest Post Office, and Komic, the highest motorable village at 4,537 metres. We also stopped over at Key Monastery, Kibber village, and Chicham bridge before heading to Chandrataal lake, which situated at about 4,300 metres. The return leg took us through Manali and back to Chandigarh, from where we sent the scooter back home on the 1st of October.