Thread: Top of the motoring world

Originally Posted by Nagesh Patankar

Brilliant pics and a nice TLog Shreeda!
Bring it on...

Thanks a lot Nagesh. More of this coming soon

Originally Posted by itsmevini123

Very good pics, keep them coming....

Thank you

Originally Posted by NiXTriX

Great pics man.. Looking forward to the rest.
Don't you have the Duke as well?

Any reason why you didn't take the Duke?

Thanks man.

Yeah, I do have Duke and I had covered over 5000Km even before I left for Ladakh. Two reasons why I didn't take duke. One, I didn't trust any of the transportation means with my brand new bike. Two, the need to carry extra fuel. Apart from these two, I had absolutely no other reason not to take her

Originally Posted by mansuryayas

Lovely pics guys, really enjoyed it, waiting eagerly for the entire triplog to come up

Thanks a lot. Rest of the log will come in steps. And, so will the details of planning etc.

Expected difficulty: ****
Experienced difficulty: ***
Distance: 235Km
Riding hours: 11

Last night was a very cold night and some of us guys had minor trouble with altitude sickness and even fatigue. Nothing alarming though. But I have to admit that, it was the coldest night I had ever encountered with temperature nudging -5°C. So a 4AM start was out of question even before we went to sleep. We still managed to start at 7AM, which is not bad considering the conditions.

We decided to reach Pang before stopping for breakfast. Sarchu to Pang is about 55Km. The Gata loops were wonderful to ride on and I enjoyed that stretch. I was so involved in riding that I forgot to take pictures of the place There are a few shortcuts in this stretch and are best when avoided. They take more time than the normal road in most of the cases and also can burn the clutch faster.


Rider me, poser me

Anyway, all of us were feeling uneasy as we were riding with empty stomachs. The roads after Gata loops were bad and remained so till Pang. When we reached Pang, I was trying hard to find some enenrgy left in me. But the maggie, Paratha and two cups of tea brought me back to track quickly.

I had high hopes on roads in Moore plains though the general expectation on Tanglang La was, well, obviously bad roads. Moore plains welcomed us with roads that looked like runways. But our joy of riding on brilliant roads was short lived as all we found later was sharp stones, loose gravel, 1-2ft of dust and scorching sun.


Moore plains. This was a short lived joy.


One more from Moore plains


And one more

Next 30 odd Km was not a common man's cup of tea. With all the stupid luggage I had apart from the saddlebags, all I could do was try hard to keep a good pace going without losing balance. But then, this too was part of the package. So I enjoyed it in parts. After all that we saw through Moore plains, the broken roads of Tanglang La looked like national highway. Wait! It actually is a national highway!

In the midst of all these I noticed that my rain coat had turned into rags because of my ignorance. I had stuck it to bungee cords, so that I could access it easily in case of rains. But it had slided out due to crappy road conditions in Moore plains and was being dragged all this while. Time for panic! I was a dead man, had it rained then. Brain kept thinking about the thick clouds above the head and jugaads that might help if I happen to get stuck in rain. Along with all this pressure, BRO had blocked traffic on the way down from Tanglang La, to clear land slides. God! This had to happen exactly when I wanted to reach a shelter before rains!


God's grace, we were let through soon. From here till Rumtse were excellent, perfectly paved curvy roads. I made full use of it and covered those 15Km in well less than as many minutes. It was the only time when I did let go a bit of Rossi in me. I just wanted to reach under a roof before it rained. But at Rumtse, situation was much better. The rain Gods had decided to stay on top of the mountain and not to chase me down. After a cup of nice hot tea, we started the final push towards Leh. The ride from here till Leh was all too nice and sweet. The roads were quite scenic in some places. Finding a stay in Leh also wasn't too difficult. But the effect of altitude was very evident to me. It was not as easy to walk as it would be in Bangalore.

The whole of next day was spent in Leh. We had the hotel guy arrange for our permits so that we could just relax. He charged about 400Rs/head but we were happy that we could concentrate on better things.

Thanks to previous 3 days' climate changes, I had mild fever. So it was more or less a complete rest day for me. Just a few pictures from the day.


Hotel Lamayuru - A great place to eat (There is an even better one, but I will share that later )



The Japanese monastery



As seen from the Japanese Monastery

What comes next is hard core Ladakh valley. Stay tuned

good one brother, keep them coming

Nice write up and brilliant pics especially the first one, loved it ! Waiting for the rest

Wow !! Stunning pictures there. Glad you could make this amazing ride !

Ride On & Ride Safe

Originally Posted by Shivanshu

good one brother, keep them coming

Thank you brother.

Originally Posted by shelton_jh

Nice write up and brilliant pics especially the first one, loved it ! Waiting for the rest

Thanks a lot. More interesting pics will be put up by tonight

Originally Posted by ridermax

Wow !! Stunning pictures there. Glad you could make this amazing ride !

Ride On & Ride Safe

Thank you! Glad you guys like the pictures. That encourages me to share more of them

Wonderful log and pics. Great going adventure. I can see the places are simply mesmerizing to the senses.

Waiting for more

Originally Posted by Haroon

Wonderful log and pics. Great going adventure. I can see the places are simply mesmerizing to the senses.

Waiting for more

Thank you Haroon. I just took a look at your website. All I could say was, wow! It's a pleasure that you even looked at my little T'log

U didnt click a pic at Baralach la....i mean standing at the pass....i dont know if this happened to you, but we missed stopping at Baralach la during our trip (last month), it was completely snowed out....all white...no boards, nothing....we stopped around 500m ahead, then our friend told us that the two small poles with a small mandir (if you remember), that is actually Baralach la ....then we turned our bikes around, went there and took a shot...

Originally Posted by Aniruddha Jasu

U didnt click a pic at Baralach la....i mean standing at the pass....i dont know if this happened to you, but we missed stopping at Baralach la during our trip (last month), it was completely snowed out....all white...no boards, nothing....we stopped around 500m ahead, then our friend told us that the two small poles with a small mandir (if you remember), that is actually Baralach la ....then we turned our bikes around, went there and took a shot...

Hey Aniruddha, welcome to xBhp! Hope you had a great time in Ladakh.

No pictures of the Baralacha top mate. It was about to snow when we passed through. So we just sped past the mandir. However, one of our team mates got stuck in snow and got some pictures of the place I'm yet to see them though.