Meet Raj Krishan: India's first person to take a scooter to highest motorable road in the world

While riding to Leh's highest motorable road in the world has become common thse days with capable adventure touring motorcycles, decades ago an Indian man took a Bajaj Chetak scooter to Khardungla.

India has varied terrain with diverse habitation, right from oceans to deserts and mighty mountain ranges. Resultantly, the country also has roads of various kinds and at various elevations, and also houses the world’s highest motorable road in Leh-Ladakh region of Jammy and Kashmir. Riding a two-wheeler to the highest motorabale road in the world has become a kind of challenge for many, with a lot of motorcycles reaching these beautifully laid-out roads. This, however, was not true couple of decades ago when the roads were not so neatly laid and internet was not a thing.  

But this didn't stop Raj Krishan to reach Khardungla, the highest motorable road in the world at the time and that too on a humble Bajaj Chetak scooter. His adventure has been shared by Bajaj Auto on their Linkedin handle, which reveals the hardships of a two-wheeler ride to the world’s highest motorable road. In doing so, he became the first Indian to ride a scooter to Khardungla.

He used the old ICE-powered Bajaj Chetak scooter, instead. As revealed by Raj, he started his journey from Hisar, Haryana, and it took him 16 long hours to reach Leh from Srinagar, making his way through the fatal Zoji-La Pass. While the journey was extremely tough he reveals, the air in Leh city was very thin with very low oxygen saturation.

To ensure that he acclimatised himself before heading to the important stretch of the journey, he stayed in the city for 2 days. Later on, after receiving permission from authorities to climb the mighty Khardungla Pass on his Bajaj Chetak scooter, Krishan started his ride to the summit.

He told a media outlet while sharing his photography, “This picture is from the point in my journey where I successfully touched the highest road in the world during those times. The best part about my journey was my return to Hisar after 42 hours of driving continuously for 734 km. I am almost 60 years old now but this experience continues to bring joy to me even today.”