Hyperion

I am going to chronicle here experiences on my journey to Ladakh.
I was accompanied on this adventure by my friend Kashif (tourer_kashif).

Here are some details before I begin with the travelogue

Duration of the journey: 5th June to 24th June (Delhi to Delhi)
Motorcycles: Pulsar 180 (Kashif) and RTR 160
Total Distance Covered: : 4235 km (Delhi-Delhi) + 1763 km (Delhi-Pune, for me alone)

Places covered:

- Jammu and Kashmir Valley

- Zanskar Valley

- Leh and Khardung La

- Nubra Valley(Diskit, Hunder, Turtuk)

- Changthang Plateau (Marsimik La,Pangong Tso,Chushul,Hanle,Tso Moriri,Tso Kar)

- Rohtang, Manali


We went through Srinagar-Kargil while going to Leh.
On the return journey, we went through Manali to Delhi.


Index

Prologue

The Journey to Delhi

Day 1 : Delhi - Pathankot - Samba

Day 2 : Samba - Udhampur - Srinagar




And a few teasers to keep you guys happy till I begin with the log.

__________________
Our Saddle Sore Attempt

Ride to the unexplored, season 1 -
Episode 1 : Pilot
Episode 2 : Wrong Turn
Episode 3 : The Longest Yard
Episode 4 : Dead Ends
Episode 5 : Run to the hills
Episode 6 :In the End

Noor

Thread approved

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Join xBhp On

surojit

bring on the pics and would love to hear/read the tale of your journey...

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Riders for a Cause (to be updated)

Ride To The Unexplored Season 2
E01:First Rain Ride 2010
E02: Unforeseen Pathsl
E03: Roadblocks
E04: Crossroads of Uncertainty
E05: Deep Impact
E06: Lost in Space Lost in Time

tourer_kashif

hmmm so finally the log is up.
Hopefully you will be not as lazy as I am with my thread.

3rd pic is really nice.

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Hyperion

Prologue

I'll be honest. Going to Ladakh wasn't a childhood dream for me. Infact, I didnt even know about the place till about 3 years back. About 3 years back, I started reading about Leh travelogues (thanks xBhp). The pictures of the place had me spellbound. The thing that attracted me most about the place were the skies. The deep blue skies that I never get to see here. That and the snow. I had never seen snow , except in movies.BUt these I think were only superficial reasons. There was a deeper calling that had me attracted towards Leh. Something that is ingrained in our minds since the time of our forefathers. The spirit of adventure. The remoteness of the place, the climate and the (somewhat) unexplored nature of the whole region.About a couple of years back , I started casually discussing a Leh ride with my friends. Most plans didnt make it past the planning phase, something or the other kept coming up.

Sometime last year, I am hard pressed to recall the exact time and place, Kashif mentioned that he is heading to Leh and asked me if I would like to join. That took me by surprise. Kashif broke to me almost casually. I made the mistake of thinking, he is probably just casual about it as well.I gave him a tentative "Wow, lets see" response.

The thought slipped out of my mind, when a couple of months later, Kashif pinged me again. He said he is shifting to Delhi. He asked me again about the Leh plan. Now I knew, this guy was serious. Shifting to Delhi was a subtle move to get closer to the place. At that time, I was sure I wanted to go, but work commitments would have made it hard for me to get a long vacation. So again I kept him on the hook by telling him I am tentative.

I also had my bike to consider. The RTR, it had served me well all these years. Held itself very well in the years of hard abuse I subjected her to. But now
its age was starting to show. About 40K on the odo, the bike was struggling on the inclines and creaking and making other such weird noises. I got a bit of work done on it including the clutch plates and the bike block-piston. The bike seemed to feel better.

Weeks went by,the work in office began to dwindle and I was finally at a point, where I could safely take a months leave without any hassles (To be honest, leaves are never a problem in my office).I asked Kashif for detained itinerary and dates. He did not have dates at this point, but he did have a detailed itinerary.The itinerary was extensive and covered almost all the nooks and crannies of Ladakh. The plan was for 22 days with 3 buffer days. My status to Kashif was still tentative (for a number of reasons not relevant to this discussion)

About 2 weeks before the ride, Kashif came back with the exact schedule. The plan was to start from Delhi on 14th June. I checked in office, my manager allowed to take a leave but he said he would prefer if I took the first 3 weeks off. Got back to Kashif, but he said, a friend who will be accompanying us has already applied for leave for these dates. I was ready to apply for the same dates, when after a couple of days, Kashif informed me that his friend has to unfortunately drop out from the trip and hence we can start early. So we decided to leave in the first week of June and it was going to be just me and Kashif. So the plan was finally in place.


How things went haywire a week before the start.

Needless to say , because of my late confirmation, I had not booked any train tickets to Delhi.I personally wanted to ride down to Delhi, but Kashif suggested against this. So did my parents. I also looked at the option of air travel. I found the overall cost involved with air travel to be too expensive after factoring in the fact that I would have to transport my bike separately. I also looked at tagging along with Ketan and Mandar from Mumbai for their ride north till Delhi. However, they had some issues which kept their start date tentative. I finally decided to look for a train ticket in Tatkal and if I dont get one, I would ride down.


Other things had to be settled. I had to acquire saddle bags. Satyen offered his saddle bags thinking they were with Ankit. I called up Ankit only to find out that the saddle bags were in Mumbai. I also asked MG, he said he would need the saddle bags for his ride but I could have them if I return before
July first.I finally decided to get my own saddle bags.

Meanwhile, my bike decided to make things interested. One day riding to office, I start smelling something burning. I looked at my exhaust and I see white smoke coming out of it. Now I was completely set back.I couldnt focus in office as I was worried about the future of my Leh plans. The next day, first thing I took the bike to the garage. The mechanic there said he will need to open the bike up to see whats going on. He got back to me in the evening saying, the block is burning oil (as suspected). He will need to see whats exactly causing the block to throw oil.

Now I was in a dilemma, even if the mechanic does get the bike up and running without the smoke problem. Can I rely on it? I started looking for other options. I honestly considered the Ninja for a second. It would be an exciting to take it to Leh. But then I thought about the cons. The fuel quality might not be good enough and I could end up damaging the fueling system. Also, the fact that I would be extra careful riding over bad roads made me realize that I wouldn't enjoy the trip as much. So I dismissed the notion. Thought about asking a few people for their bikes. Finally, a dear friend Sahil, offered to allow me to take his ZMA to Leh he said he will make do with the Ninja meanwhile.

Good, so finally I had a bike. But somewhere within my mind, I still wasnt satisfied. I wanted to take my own bike and not a friends.But I didnt have an option at this point. So I bought extra spares for the ZMA and also got it an NGK Iridium spark plug.I also had the ZMA completely serviced including an oil
change. I rode around on the ZMA to get a hang of its seating and handling characteristics and also determine its range on full tank of fuel.

I read travelogues of people who went to Leh on ZMA. I have heard about high altitude problems for the ZMA. I got in touch the reknowned Dr.Arnob over at motoroids. Thank you for all your help.
I also went for some shopping (accompanied by Surojit) for the trip. Bought a few things. I couldnt find a good visor for my Daijya helmet, so Surojit offered to replace my visor with his which was in a better condition. The shopping was done based on a checklist of things to get provided by Kashif.
I was now all set from my side. The luggage was ready and so was the bike. Still the thought of not being able to take my own bike along was eating me up inside.

The tatkal agent finally confirmed that I had got a place on Karnataka Sampark Kranti which starts from Bangalore and goes to Hazrat Nizamuddin in Old Delhi. Now this was going to be a problem for me. Since the train starts from Bangalore, there was a very good chance that my bike would not get room on the train itself. This completely threw me off. The train would depart on the 3rd June Morning and arrive in Delhi the next morning. The first day of June (two days before departure), I went (again accompanied by Surojit) to the Parcel office to enquire. They were ready to pack and send my bike the same day. But the price they quoted seemed exorbitant. I tried looking at few other options without much luck. Since I was desparate to get this thing done with once and for all, I decided to get the bike shipped immediately. So I went to get the bikes papers (required by the Parcel office) to my friends place. While I was there the agent called me up and told me that if I send the bike today, it will reach Delhi tomorrow.But since I was going to pick it up the day after next, the bike would be kept in the railway godown in the Delhi. This would mean I would have to pay for its storage for one day. I was already worried about the cost of sending the bike. So I told the agent that I will ship the bike the next day. This was a game changing decision,you'll see why.

So I went home without shipping the bike. Around afternoon, I got a call from the mechanic saying that my RTR is ready and I can pick it up whenever I wanted.So off I went, I was just going to pick up the bike. When I reached there, the mechanic told me that the problem is fixed. He also made a few adjustments to take care of the knocking issue in the bike. He asked me to take a test ride. So I did. And I was just blown away. I am not sure what it was, but the bike felt all new and so much fun to ride. I get a wild idea in my head. Maybe I can take the RTR now instead of the ZMA. I dismissed it at the moment. But the thought kept coming back. I finally called up Kashif. I informed him of the situation and the possible danger of taking the bike. He said he is okay with whatever decision I make. He asked me to follow my heart.

I said to myself, I am going do a dry run and see if the bike starts showing any problems. I decided to do a ride the very night. My rear tyre was also pretty used up. I took to a nearby tyre shop and replaced it with a Michelin Sirac Street in a tubeless setup (the tyre is actually tube type).


Unfortunately, I got a little lazy and didnt do the run at night. The next morning , I woke up early. Geared up and filled in the saddle bags amd went out for run to the local hills. The bike performed outstandingly. I decided to bite the bullet. I was now going to take the RTR to Leh.

Now I had to get the extra spares for the RTR.Also, the RTR's insurance had expired. Needed to get that done as well before I can take it to the parcel office. As you can understand , this was going to be a hectic day. Anyway, after a lot of running about, I finally got the insurance done. On the way, I also picked up the RTR spares (minus a Spark plug which wasn't available). I then took the bike to the Parcel office on the railway station and got the bike packed and ready for loading. The bike was going to be sent by Jhelum express and would land up at New Delhi station. (I would arrive at Hazrat Nizamuddin. So I would need to do some running about in Delhi as well.)

After the bike was packed and ready, I finally heaved a sigh of relief. Now I can finally relax and prepare for my train journey tomorrow. Surojit picked me up at the railway station and we searched around for a TVS spare shop for the spark plug. Finally found a lazy old TVS shop that had one in stock. End of a hectic day. Went home to relax for a while.

So now all the preparations for the train journey were done. I was eagerly looking forward to the Leh ride.

__________________
Our Saddle Sore Attempt

Ride to the unexplored, season 1 -
Episode 1 : Pilot
Episode 2 : Wrong Turn
Episode 3 : The Longest Yard
Episode 4 : Dead Ends
Episode 5 : Run to the hills
Episode 6 :In the End

harsha645

Congrats on doing leh!!..and i would say its wise to keep ninja away....waiting for the rest of log

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OUR BUN-BURNER RIDE

R.I.P vinu s v,you will never be forgotten

Hyperion

You will. Dont worry.

You may be lazy here but you have been active elsewhere Thanks.

Thanks Buddy!

__________________
Our Saddle Sore Attempt

Ride to the unexplored, season 1 -
Episode 1 : Pilot
Episode 2 : Wrong Turn
Episode 3 : The Longest Yard
Episode 4 : Dead Ends
Episode 5 : Run to the hills
Episode 6 :In the End

madelikeagun

Very happy to read a Leh trip log again. I admire your spirit to reach Leh. Looking forward to read your complete experience.

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Honda Unicorn (09/2007-05/2011) - 55000 Kms
RE Thunderbird TS 05/2011 - 13000Kms
Motorcycle Expedition 2012 - Hyderabad to Leh

Hyperion

Thanks a lot.

__________________
Our Saddle Sore Attempt

Ride to the unexplored, season 1 -
Episode 1 : Pilot
Episode 2 : Wrong Turn
Episode 3 : The Longest Yard
Episode 4 : Dead Ends
Episode 5 : Run to the hills
Episode 6 :In the End

Hyperion

The Journey to Delhi

The next morning got up early and made sure everything was packed and nothing was left behind. Again made use of the checklist for this. My family dropped me off at the railway station and wished me safe travels. Surojit soon turned up followed by Anant in some time to see me off. The departure time for the train was 8 AM but apparently the train was running late. Finally at 8:30 AM the train arrived.Found my place and made sure all the luggage was securely in place. The train finally started moving around 9AM,I was enroute to Delhi.

After a long boring train journey, I reached Hazrat Nizamuddin around 9 AM the next day morning. Kashif was coming to receive me at the station. My cellphone had completely discharged in the train journey, I had no way of letting Kashif know that I have arrived. I was just hoping that Kashif would be there on time.And he was. We had to first pick up my bike from New Delhi station and then head to Kashif'relatives place to stay for the day. We took an auto from the Hazrat Nizamuddin station. Our bout of bad luck for the day had begun. The auto driver seemed like an old guy. He had trouble getting the auto started. Finally, after several attempts he brought rickety old auto to life. Not long after we were on our way to New Delhi station, the auto driver got pulled over by the cops. Finally after paying his dues we moved on towards the New Delhi station. On arriving at the station, we stated looking for the parcel office godown. It was quite a hunt. We finally located the godown and picked up the bike (it wasnt exactly an effortless or fast procedure). The bike was completely dry. We checked with the agents at the railway station for a fuel station. According to them, there was a fuel station nearby. We decided to push the bike there.We proceeded based on the directions provided by the locals.We finally came to the main road and could see a fuel station to our left. Unfortunately, the road there was blocked by Police barricades, also the fuel station was shutdown. Damn. So we moved the bike to the side of the road under a tree. I told Kashif to stay with the bike and the luggage, I would go look for a fuel station down the road.

The Delhi heat was making its presence felt. Thanks to some really poor directions from the locals, I was just going around in circles without any luck with fuel. Came to know that the next nearest fuel station is at Connaught Place (which was about 2-3 kms away). I couldnt even get the auto's to stop. Meanwhile I saw a lot barricades and people in processions. One of the traffic policemen told me that the roads were blocked thanks to Baba Ramdev. Great, what luck!
Finally had to walk all the way to Connaught Place to get petrol. My shirt was now completely soaked as if I had been walking in the rain.Also, I hadn't had water or food since morning. I was afraid I might get completely dehydrated. Thankfully, on the way back found an auto and was able to reunite with Kashif and the bike.

After filling the bike with what little fuel I got, we immediately rode down to the petrol station to fill up the bike. I filled in Rs.500 worth of fuel since that was all the cash I had on me. Kashif had some Rs.400 with him, we kept that for emergency and more importantly food and drink.Getting out of Connaught place was a pain and all the blockades didnt help either. We had to ask for directions to Rohini where Kashif's relative's place was. I was really beginning to feel dehydrated now. Thankfully, we soon saw a nimbu pani stall. We stopped had a couple of glasses of cold nimbu pani. In fact, it was a little too cold. Anyway, after a little fluid in the system, I started feeling much better. We soon hit the Ring Road (or was it the Outer Ring Road) and were on our way to Rohini.

After riding around in all that heat and traffic, it was quite a relief getting indoors. We had lunch and went off to get some much needed sleep. In the evening, me and Kashif went over the whole plan once again. We also divided the luggage and removed any stuff we didnt think was necessary for the trip.
We were also completely out of cash, so we took a walk to the nearby ATM and loaded ourselves with some cash. After dinner, we took the bikes down to a local fuel station and topped up the fuel.

We were now all set to begin one of the greatest rides of our lives.


Day 1 : Delhi - Samba (580 km)

The alarm rang true and we were up without ever having to hit the snooze. We were really excited. Loaded the bikes up with luggage, put on the gear and we were ready to leave. It was around 7 AM on the clock and we were literally sweating inside our gear. It was going to be a long sweaty day. The intel on the road was that it was good for the most part. However, after Panipat the diversions begin and we may also hit a bit of traffic.
After saying farewell to Kashif's relatives, we started towards Pathankot. It was Sunday and as expected there wasnt a lot of traffic on the road this early in the morning.
I opened up the throttle as soon as we hit the main road and the bike responded with aplomb. I was really pleased with the way the bike was responding. We were out of Delhi and on to the highway. I was feeling quite confident and happy with the bike's performance, I hit about about 115 on the speedo when I looked in the RVM to see that Kashif was not visible. So I slowed down a bit. It wasn't long before Kashif appeared. When he saw me, he came along side me and told me that in the last run, he saw WHITE SMOKE coming out of my exhaust. I was devastated.Here I was , far away in Delhi , on my to possibly the biggest ride of my life and my bike starts giving the same problem again. I had taken a big gamble by bringing this bike along. It wont just ruin my ride but also someone else's. I was really beginning to feel guilty. I considered turning back and dropping the ride altogether. But I dismissed that thought, I decided to continue riding as long as the bike went and then take it from there.
I had slowed down a bit now, since I wasn't confident of revving the bike too much. Nevertheless, we were still making good progress. We crossed Panipat and true as an Oracle's word, the diversions made a guest appearance. To be honest, the roads were not too bad and diversions themselves had good surface but the diversions acted as a funnel for traffic and really slowed our progress.

But after about 30-40 kms, the traffic thinned out remarkably and we were no longer getting stuck in traffic. After a while, I see Kashif disappear again. I slowed down. But since he still didnt turn up for a while, I decided to pull over. After a few minutes, Kashif turned up. Now there was a problem with Kashif's bike. His gear lever fell off while riding.He put it back on but it seemed there was some bolt that was missing which would keep the lever securely in place. We decided to move ahead slowly until we found a mechanic for Kashif's bike.

As we moved forward, Kashif's gear lever kept dropping. Finally, in one of the towns enroute, Kashif found a Bajaj mechanic and was able to get the gear lever bolt. We were about 200 kms from Delhi, when we decided to stop at one of the Vaishno dhabas. We ordered some cold drinks and aloo parathas. The food was great. I was also surprised to the number of "English Wine Shops" that were situated along the highway. Alcohol is big business in Punjab.


We continued on to Pathankot, the mercury was rising and we were losing water at an alarming rate. We stopped 70 kms later again, at a McDonald's drive through on the way just to get some drinks.We soon crossed Ludhiana and reached Jalandhar.

The road forks away from the highway here and heads east towards Pathankot. Just after taking the fork to Pathankot, we stopped for drinks again. Pathankot was another 100 kms away. After refueling ourselves, we moved on towards Pathankot. The road now was really nice. There were the occasional diversions but the scenery around was much better compared to the drab highway we just left behind. It was also much cooler now. The distance to Pathankot was shrinking very fast. Just before Pathankot , the arrow straight highway gave to a small pass section full of curves. The road was beautiful and provided a welcome change. I reached the top of the pass section where a temple was situated, I looked behind and Kashif was nowhere to be seen. So I pulled over to the side and removed the camera for the first time on the trip. Not long after, Kashif turned up. He too enjoyed the road. We could see the town of Pathankot down below now.

Finally, some pics. Not many during this part of the journey (Understandably)

The temple near Pathankot


The road that leads to Pathankot


As soon as we descended , my bike started hiccuping. It was time to switch to reserve. We found a fuel station just after Pathankot and topped up the fuel again. We were also surprised to see that fuel was really really costly in Punjab, more so since we were coming from Delhi, where its really cheap.
Our destination for the day was another 70 odd kms away. It was almost evening and we had skipped lunch. So we were really hungry. We stopped at another Vaishno dhaba for lunch. We ordered some lunch and cold drinks.

The food was decent and much to our happiness we were offered a nicely decorated salad along with the food. After we were done eating, we went over to the counter to pay the bill. In the itemized list, we saw that we were charged an extra item , green salad. To be honest, it wasnt too expensive but we were miffed with the fact that we were given an item which we hadnt asked for. We thought the green salad was complimentary. We tried to bring this to the owners attention.

The conversation went like this,

Me : Bhaisaab, ye bill me green salad humne order nahi kiya tha.
Owner : Par kha to liya na? Phir paise to dene hi padenge.


The way he said it was way too funny. Anyway, the amount wasnt much so we didnt waste too much time arguing.

Some distance from there we came to a toll gate which was also the Punjab and J&K border. There was a huge signboard welcoming us to Jammu and Kashmir. The toll gate crowded with trucks. We somehow made our way through the line of trucks. The road opened up after to a beautiful 4 lane road. About 50 kms from Samba, we saw a nice looking resort but decided not to add another 50 kms to our next days journey unnecessarily since it was still quite bright and we could easily cover the distance to Samba. Also we were told that we would get lots of places to stay in Samba.

We reached Samba around 5:30 PM in the evening.However, Samba turned out to be a smallish town. We could hardly see any decent hotels around. We asked around for a good place to stay but we didnt have much luck. Finally, Kashif decided to check out a guest house near the highway. The place looked a little rundown and shady but we were out of options. Kashif returned after seeing the place. They had an AC room available for Rs.500. The room was pretty spartan but spacious. It also had a TV with DTH and a clean looking bathroom. He was surprisingly happy with the room. So we decided to check in immediately. The hotel had a fully compounded parking and a team of commandos had made the bottom floor their base of operations. No need to worry about the bikes safety tonight

I was also happy when I saw the room. Everything was working and in order. The room also had a gallery that provided a great view of the hills. After getting fresh, we went down for some tea. There was a tea shop right next to the guest house. We had a nice little conversation with the tea stall owner also accompanied by the usual questions most motorcyclists have to face. It was a lovely evening and we could see thunderstorms on the horizon (towards Punjab).


The Place where we stayed at Samba - Shivam Guest House



The wind was blowing up a lot of sand. It was dark around 7 PM and all of a sudden the power went out. It turns out the guest house also had a generator
So we had all the lights running but the TV and AC were turned off. We decided to go look for a place for dinner. It was dark inside the town. But a lot of houses and business places had generators running. We found a line of Vaishno dhabas but no proper restaurants. We finally found a decent looking dhaba and stopped there for dinner. The food was pretty good. After we finished the dinner, we headed over to the owner's desk to pay the bill. When I asked him the amount he said Rs. 80. The amount so small I let out an exclaimation saying "Rs.80!". This owner was totally opposite of the previous dhaba owner. He thought I thought the amount was too high. So he asked us to pay only Rs.75. Even when I clarified that I thought the original amount was too high , he insisted that I still pay Rs.75. I tried to run away without taking the change but he insisted on returning the change. We had a nice little chat with the owner, he was very friendly. He told us that there is a forced power cut between 7:30PM to 9:30 PM everyday. This was probably the cheapest dinner for two I ever had Rs.70 only.

While walking back to the hotel , the electricity of the town returned.We went up to the room, turned on the AC and were soon in the sweet embrace of sleep.Thus ends day 1 of the ride.

__________________
Our Saddle Sore Attempt

Ride to the unexplored, season 1 -
Episode 1 : Pilot
Episode 2 : Wrong Turn
Episode 3 : The Longest Yard
Episode 4 : Dead Ends
Episode 5 : Run to the hills
Episode 6 :In the End