Lucknow girl Vartika Jain named in Limca Book of Records

Lucknow: A city girl, named Vartika Jain Srivastava, got her name registered in the 'Limca Book of Records' on Friday after she became the first woman biker to drive through to the highest lake in the country, Tsa Lhamo, also known as the Cholamu lake in North Sikkim.

The 27-year-old rider made the 'national record' trip from May 3 to May 13, 2016.

Vartika travelled over 2,616 kilometres from Lucknow to the lake, located at a height of 5,330 metre (17,490 feet), within just 10 days. She was accompanied by her husband Ambar, their common friend Atul Ghosh and her younger brother Pratyaksh.

She was accompanied by same group of men to reach the highest lake on a continuous bike journey, getting their named registered in Asia Book of Records and India Book of Records.

Incidentally, Pratyaksh, who was aged just 20-year-old at the time, also got his name registered as the youngest male rider for the same in the two books.

"I got the permission to travel through to the lake, which is under the Army and cannot be accessed by civilians otherwise, after three months of continuous efforts. After reaching to the point, I witnessed a mesmerising view. The water is in shades of green, blue and even purple with frozen edges, ice-capped mountains on one end and clean sand spread over acres on the other. We needed to be quick as the oxygen levels were very low there," said Vartika.

Telling about the most difficult part of the journey, Vartika said, "Lachen is just 55 kilometre from the lake, but due to bad roads, it took us around five to six hours to reach there. The end, however, made it worth."

Vartika started her career as a rider in 2007 when her husband (then a close friend) encouraged her to learn riding bikes, She also emerged victorious in the women's open motocross category in Lucknow first motorsports contest which was conducted in April, 2016.

She also has her name in the Asia as well as India book of record.