Thread: The Road to LEH(2011)

Originally Posted by riazmomin

What a thread to read after long gap on Tourer section.

Awesome trip log and lovely pictures.

Subscribed to this.

Originally Posted by speedyk

Nice lines with awsome pictures...Generally I am A silent reader on xbhp but this time I can not stop myself from writing...I am reading you post till the time I logged in the office today morning and yet to start the work

Kudos to your effort bro !! Glued to this thread.. Keep bringing

Originally Posted by Garry_Menace

Its a shame for us You said it right, such people shouldn't be allowed to do business here, rather I would say, shouldn't be allowed to do ANY public dealing Allowing them to live in the nation which they don't respect is already more than enough.

Anyways, putting the bad incident aside, enjoying the flow of words and pics very much. Keep it coming buddy A separate Tab of my browser allotted to this thread for the time till you complete

Originally Posted by beruoist

Nice set of captures with Some good text and stories

Keep'em coming buddy

Cheers
Biru

Originally Posted by dreamseller

Really nice pics I must say. Please carry on with your log, as once you start reading a Leh log, you feel like finishing off in one go.



OT: Request you not to quote an entire post for replying as this causes trouble for small screen (Tab/Phone) browsers.

Thank you guys for your good words

Originally Posted by dreamseller

Whoopsie daisy! My bad. It was indeed for the post above you, as it seemed never ending in my tiny Safari window.

Haha, yeah its irritating even on laptop(have to make effort and scroll down). I can imagine how annoying it feels on phone

Anyways, let Calibre continue with his story.

We woke up to a sunny Leh morning after a long good night's sleep. After nearly 7 days, this was the day when we were in no hurry to wake up or to reach anywhere. We had decided that it would be a completely laid back day and we would spend the day without any hurry. So after lazing around on the bed for nearly 30 mins we all woke up and started with the daily rituals. Tea and coffee was served by Didi in bed after sometime.

None of us had taken bath for the past 3 days so it was bath time. Hot water was brought up to the room since there was no geyser in the bathroom. We all got ready and headed out for breakfast first. Thukpa had become our favorite dish ever since we had it in Manali in a shop in the old market area. We were having it for all 3 meals of the day where ever we could get it. So I had the veg thukpa while others enjoyed chicken thukpa in a roadside shop. After breakfast it was permit time. Plan was to get the Khardung-la permit from the DC office before lunch and visit the monastery in Leh during the day and the stupa in the evening.

We asked for directions from a cab driver to the DC office but he gave us a shocking news. Little did we know that we were at the dead end of our trip, a rude shock and disappointment was on our way. The DC office was to be closed for the next 4 days. It was a Thursday and a govt holiday for Ganesh Charturati, followed by another govt holiday Ramzan on friday and the weekend which is usually a holiday. The DC office would open now only four days from today on Monday. All our plans and dream of riding to Khardung-la and seeing the Pangong Tso lake were destroyed. There was no way for us to get permits to visit anyplace outside Leh. Only option was to wait for 4 day until Monday morning to get the permits from the DC office or head back.

Waiting for 4 days was out of question. The plan was to visit these place and then me and my bro would ride back to Delhi via Srinagar and the other two would ride back the same route we had come. But after this news Gopal and Abhinav wanted to head back to Delhi in a day. After today's disappointment I was in no mood to part ways. My heart wanted me to wait for 4 days and see what we had come so far for. But we dint have the luxury of wasting 4 days in Leh. So with a heavy heart we decided to roam around in Leh for a day or so and head back to Delhi via Manali together.

A Leh trip without a visit to Khardung-la seemed to be incomplete. We had faced so many difficulties in reaching till here only to face disappointment.
But now we had something left to come back for- Khardung-la and Srinagar; we would ride back again for them next year.
It was difficult to overcome the disappointment but then we had to ride on. The day was now dedicated to LEH.

Originally Posted by Calibre

We woke up to a sunny Leh morning after a long good night's sleep. After nearly 7 days, this was the day when we were in no hurry to wake up or to reach anywhere. We had decided that it would be a completely laid back day and we would spend the day without any hurry. So after lazing around on the bed for nearly 30 mins we all woke up and started with the daily rituals. Tea and coffee was served by Didi in bed after sometime.

None of us had taken bath for the past 3 days so it was bath time. Hot water was brought up to the room since there was no geyser in the bathroom. We all got ready and headed out for breakfast first. Thukpa had become our favorite dish ever since we had it in Manali in a shop in the old market area. We were having it for all 3 meals of the day where ever we could get it. So I had the veg thukpa while others enjoyed chicken thukpa in a roadside shop. After breakfast it was permit time. Plan was to get the Khardung-la permit from the DC office before lunch and visit the monastery in Leh during the day and the stupa in the evening.

We asked for directions from a cab driver to the DC office but he gave us a shocking news. Little did we know that we were at the dead end of our trip, a rude shock and disappointment was on our way. The DC office was to be closed for the next 4 days. It was a Thursday and a govt holiday for Ganesh Charturati, followed by another govt holiday Ramzan on friday and the weekend which is usually a holiday. The DC office would open now only four days from today on Monday. All our plans and dream of riding to Khardung-la and seeing the Pangong Tso lake were destroyed. There was no way for us to get permits to visit anyplace outside Leh. Only option was to wait for 4 day until Monday morning to get the permits from the DC office or head back.

Waiting for 4 days was out of question. The plan was to visit these place and then me and my bro would ride back to Delhi via Srinagar and the other two would ride back the same route we had come. But after this news Gopal and Abhinav wanted to head back to Delhi in a day. After today's disappointment I was in no mood to part ways. My heart wanted me to wait for 4 days and see what we had come so far for. But we dint have the luxury of wasting 4 days in Leh. So with a heavy heart we decided to roam around in Leh for a day or so and head back to Delhi via Manali together.

A Leh trip without a visit to Khardung-la seemed to be incomplete. We had faced so many difficulties in reaching till here only to face disappointment.
But now we had something left to come back for- Khardung-la and Srinagar; we would ride back again for them next year.
It was difficult to overcome the disappointment but then we had to ride on. The day was now dedicated to LEH.

Fantastic blog with awesome pics . just a Question did you guys checked DC office on thursday yourself or just believed on cabbies advice.

Originally Posted by oilburner

Fantastic blog with awesome pics . just a Question did you guys checked DC office on thursday yourself or just believed on cabbies advice.

Thanks buddy...
Yes we did get to the DC office after that. It was really closed. Even after the cabbies told us, we still hoped him to be wrong. But this hope was short lived until we reached the office ourselves.

At the guest house we met a really cute kid, he was the son of the land lady. The boy was really cute and chubby. We also met few other guests there. Everyone except us were from other countries. They were staying in India for the past few months now. One couple had been trekking to places around Leh for the past two month or so. They would usually keep their bags at the guest house and returned there after nearly 10 days of trekking and again headed for the next trek. This was the schedule of most of the people there. Few were trekkers while others were on cycles.

Today was the start of the week long Leh festival. It was supposed to be a week full of events celebrating the spirit of Leh. Most of the shops were closed due to the festival holidays. We wanted to get our bikes checked for little bit tuning but we couldn't find any mechanic. Most of them were either closed or couldn't take any more bikes as their hands were already full. We reached a shop opposite to the airport and requested the Sardarji to have a look at our bikes but he directed us to another mechanic as he had many more bikes to attend. We went to the mechanic were we had been directed to and finally this guy agreed to check our bikes. After little bit adjustments here and there and our bikes were fit again.

We then set out to see Leh. We covered the usual tourist places in Leh, the Thiksay monastery, Shanthi Stupa, fort and the market. Few pics from the places we visited,

Originally Posted by Calibre

WOW pics.... and the one quoted above is the WOWest one...
Please keep up the writing bro, we're waiting...