Lovely write up & pics sachin bhai.. Keep it coming at regular intervals pls

nice pics glued to it

Unedited videos from Day 3

Few videos that were taken in Amritsar & Wagah border.

The holy granth of Golden temple being taken back



Wagah Border Ceremony Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0XDEGvuJk

Wagah Border Ceremony Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_AaMJn7TCE&feature=channel_video_title

Wagah Border Ceremony - Part 2

YouTube - ‪Wagah boder ceremony 30 May part - 02‬‏

Wagah Border Ceremony - Part 3

YouTube - ‪Wagah boder ceremony 30 May part - 03‬‏

superlike....man..
u all r juss rocking guyss...

dude if ur planning any further trip..
in next six months juss let me know..i'll join u...

Day 4 - Amritsar to Patnitop

Day 4 - Amritsar to Patnitop

31st May'11

Route - Amritsar - Batala - Pathankot - Samba - Udhampur - Kud - Patnitop

Distance Covered - 277 kms

After a memorable experience in Amritsar it was time to move on. Today, we were going to ride till Patnitop. For some reason we just never woke early than 7 AM. We were off from Amritsar by around 9AM, by now we could already see the traffic in Amritsar city however finally escaped traffic in around 15-20 minutes.
Deepan wanted to get his bike wobbling issue fixed in HH service centre in Pathankot. Single lane NH15 from Amritsar to Pathankot via Gurdaspur was tempting however we were limited to a moderate speed of 60-70 as a result of Tractors, bullock carts, cyclists & state buses. The ride was very pleasant as it was giving us a glimpses of actual Punjab, Punjab that we all know, see in movies, dream of going in those lush green fields.
We covered good distance before we finally stopped for filling fuel in our bikes. With full tank of fuel and good tarmac ahead it was going to be a wonderful riding day.
I believe we had covered good half distance till Pathankot, I was leading the group followed very closely by Puneet, then Aryan & Deepan. As you can expect and imagine in city roads where there are shops everywhere and garages located close, I lost all 3 riders behind me in fraction of seconds.
I quickly stop and park my bike where I can see people staring at me as if they just saw an alien land on earth. Nevertheless, Puneet came in 5 mins and explained that Deepan had stopped as he saw a decent enough garage to fix his bike problems.
Finally Deepan arrived after 10 mins. and explained even this mechanic could not fix the wobbling issue. This was the 3 rd garage who could not help us in fixing the bike issue. Now we decided to directly fix his bike at Pathankot.



Moving on we reached Pathankot at around 1PM however we were just riding in circles for a long time as we could not locate the HH service centre. After a good 20 minutes of ride in hot sun in city of Pathankot we finally found the service centre.
With Deepan's bike finally getting fixed, I went to the local Xerox shop to remove Photocopy of my documents which I had not removed so far. It took me around half an hour to remove the photocopies, documents were not many but the guy was too slow in his work.
I quickly grab colddrinks and head back to service centre. Here I find that the Deepan's bike issue will take another 30-40 minutes to get resolved. What do we do meantime, Puneet & I get our bikes washed, cleaned. Afterall it feels good to ride a bike that is clean.
Many people waiting in customer lounge for their bikes to be returned had a chat with us and we were happily chatting with them. Some get surprised, some amused when they hear bikes going to Ladakh especially when it is not a bullet.
We finally move out of service centre, Wobbling issue kind of sorted but more importantly Deepan was now able to apply front brake.
Just some time later we stop for quick lunch before we move ahead. I was super hungry to say the least, ate as much as I could it was yet another dhaba style food which was delicious.









The route from Pathankot to the Jammu and Kashmir border was dusty and the road was 2-lane most of the way. The highway was being repaired so there were several diversions.
Truck traffic was heavy and we often had to share the lane with trucks from the opposite lane. We reached Lakhanpur Toll post and here we see the first Board of much awaited J&K it said, "Welcome to Jammu & Kashmir"
There was a lot of traffic just before this check post as there were many trucks lined up to be checked before they cross the border and enter J&K.
After we crossed the Toll naka, the roads were awesome to ride, In some streches I easily managed to cross 120+ on my bike it was fun riding on this highway. Not that you have to do that kind of speeds but when you see open roads its hard to control your emotions and you finally break loose all barriers.
One can not miss to notice the heavy presence of military vehicles on the road. After passing through couple of river bridges, we were approaching Samba sector…very famous war zone of 1965 & 1971.
In Samba sector, we saw hundreds of artillery units kept inside wire fenced highly protected garrison area.
We were supposed to bypass Jammu city and take a diversion towards Udhampur. After reaching Kishenpur, we almost lost our way due to confusing signboards. Both sides of the signboard indicated Patnitop!
To make things worse, the directions and distances were different. We checked with the locals who pointed us in the right direction.
We did some off roading, cornering, took some videos & pictures. Finally it felt like we are riding on our way to heaven now.

























It was getting dark and black clouds covering the sky. There was thunder and lighting, the climb was getting steeper & steeper. We stopped for a cup of tea and find a women fighting with Army guys over a incident on the hill road.
While enjoying the hot tea it suddenly started pouring down. Firstly, we thought it was normal rain but it was not no ordinary rainfall. It was hailstones falling from heaven. OMG!!! This was the first time in my life I was experiencing hailstones. Cement sheet roof making loud noise as if someone is throwing stones on the roof trying to break the ceiling.
I could see hailstones falling on the ground. There was no electricity & we could not see each others faces while talking nor could we see the tea which we were drinking. What an Experience!!!
It was time to move on, we quickly wore our duckback raincoats and got on the bike. It was pitch dark now with not a soul in sight.
Riding at night in the hills can be very tricky and risky so we decided to take the final steps to Patnitop in a relaxed manner. We rode slowly between 35-40 kmph and finally made it to Patnitop at around 10:15PM.
Unfortunately, after we reached I fell ill I dont know how, why this happened all I had was cold so far. I removed my riding gears and directly went inside the blanket as it was very cold. I ordered Chicken Chilly which I could not eat as I was not able to do anything apart from being queit & trying to recover for the ride tomorrow morning.

One more day complete full of riding, enjoyment and new experiences on the way, we go to sleep in wait for tomorrow when we finally enter Kashmir!!!

Day 5 - Patnitop to Pahalgam > Part I

Day 5 - Patnitop to Pahalgam > Part I

1st June'11

Distance - 180 kms Approx.

Nice log man!

Wow, how far were you from Patnitop at this point? Didnt you try going back to retrieve the phones?

@ Ashutosh - We had come around 50 to 60 Kms downhill. But the main thing was it was raining like hell and there was traffic jam till a long way up which we had managed to dodge and come ahead. And I had decided to skip the phones as I did not want the group to again bear the suffering of again dodging the traffic and going all the way up. This would also have taken much time. Phir sabko dialogue maara " Apne paas bahut paisa hai, chalta hai naya lelenge" and moved on. But felt extremely bad for my loss then.

Also note that I was the most careless person on the trip and I lost many other things on the trip. In Leh even my MP3 player got damaged due to fluctuation in electrical power. So in the end I ended up coming back home with less load or say damaged objects.

Regards,
Deepan

Deepan.. Next time make a list of important things that you are carrying so that you dont lose them

Even we lost a few things, I lost my canvas shoes on the trip which I had carried as spare shoes while not on ride, I think Puneet lost his Ear phones for which he made us all check our bags twice

awesome pics. mind blowing......
sorry for deepan's phone(s).

A Visit to Shepherd's Village - Pahalgam

Day 5 - Patnitop to Pahalgam > Part II > Visit to Shepherd's Village

With bright sunshine and rain no where in sight we removed our rainwear and it was time to say bye to Titanic view point and continue the wonderful ride ahead awaiting us.
Our journey continued with riding conditions getting much better with clean tarmac, butter smooth roads tempting us to rev our bikes and ride at high speeds. Beautiful corners where you can lean and enjoy the ride. Can't ask anything more!!!
Riding speed increased and distance getting shorter very quickly we reached at point where we saw BRO [Border Roads Organistion] board where Srinagar was 68 kms. From this point Leh was 502 kms away.
Moving on we find a board for going to Pahalgam 52 kms away. But Pahalgam was not on the same route, it was 50 kms away which meant we have to go extra 100 kms to reach Srinagar.
All I knew about Pahalgam was that it is a beautiful village and I have seen a couple of pics in FB of Pahalgam when DK & MG toured the Himalayas. The plan was to go to Srinagar but then the idea of going to Pahalgam struck like a lightining!
We decided to call DK and check what are our options? Quick chat with DK on phone where we enquired about Pahalgam as a whole. DK explained us about how beautiful the place is and the detour from Pahalgam which will take us to Srinagar.
Since we had planned a extra day for Srinagar we still had an option to go to Pahalgam, Puneet who has already been there once also added to visit Pahalgam. These trips do not happen everyday who knows if we would ever get a chance to go to Pahalgam again.
What if it is really beautiful what if I see more pics and then regret what I missed when I had a chance. We decided we should visit this place and thank you DK once again for suggesting us to go to Pahalgam.





We turn towards Pahalgam now and hope to reach there by 4PM so as to enjoy the beautiful views it has to offers. There is no point going there when it is dark.
Thankfully the roads were in superb condition just as we were advised and we managed to reach Pahalgam in time. Our search for a quick hotel began as we needed to explore what Pahalgam had to offer.
One guy with his family came towards us and started talking to us indirectly. He was explaining to his family this bike is from Thane, this is from Navi Mumbai, etc, etc.
He had a discussion with us and we explained him about our trip so far. He was more than happy to hear what we said and also commented to his family, "hey bag maharahtra che sher aahe hey" As if we are some celebrity who have conquered Mt.Everest.
We get inside a hotel close by and dump all our stuff inside the room and quickly get ready to explore Pahalgam. 2 rooms in Pahalgam costed us Rs.800 in total.

Pahalgam also known as Sheperd's Village is arguably one of the most beautiful places we visited, it offered breath taking views.
One can just enjoy the town of Pahalgam or trek to some of the most beautiful places on earth or even do water rafting in Lidder river. Pick your adrenaline and enjoy.
We chose to do a horse ride ( Pony Ride ) which is also one of the amusements for the toursits. There is a large open area which is most beautiful with natural scenery. We paid around Rs.500/person for this horse ride which will include 3 view points.
The climb on the hill sitting on saddle was not easy at all it was scary as it was very muddy in the jungle through which we were passing. The shepherd climbing on the other side making sounds which hopefully the horse was understanding.
Unfortunately the horse on which Deepan sat had a fall. The horse slipped while climbing and poor Deepan could not do much. He was all in mud and it could have proved fatal also
All Deepan could say after the fall was, "Bhai crash ho gaya" We moved on again got split in group of 2 Soon after Puneet had a fall from the horseNow I m really scared as I m still to face such a situation.
I m constantly speaking to the horse and the shepherd to ensure I dont fall. The shepherd gave me some vital tips like keep the body weight in front while the horse is climbing and body weight behind as if you are inclined while horse comes down the slope.
I think that helped a lot. I managed to go till the top at the last point without any fall.The scene at the top was beautiful, Shepherd along with us called this place as 'Mini Switzerland'
It was indeed very beautiful scenic spot, very serene, peaceful and there was a huge landscape followed by countless pines tress which were at the boundaries of the place far away behind that was ice capped mountains.
Looking at this scene I thought I would have really regretted if I would not have come here. We clicked a lot of photos here and finally Deepan & Aryan arrived. Deepan said he had a fall twice and also actually trekked from one view point to 2nd view point as he was not at all confident sitting on the horse again
Here we found people running in the landscapes, rolling down the landscape as we see in Bollywood movies not that I did not feel like doing that but just avoided all this jazzy stuff. Too filmy for my liking.
Lot of local people come here carrying their SLR and photo albums asking tourists if we want to click photos even if u say "No Thanks" they will not leave which is very annoying.
Enjoyed maggi at this point which was the first time we ate maggi on the trip and spend quality time before we made a move back to ur hotel.
Back once we reached hotel Puneet became ill, he was shivering and could not get off the bed not even to eat food in a nearby restaurant. I had re fuel before we made a move to Srinagar tomorrow.
Aryan & I went to re fuel and also picked up woolen gloves, extra thermal wear and woolen socks. We came back to the hotel and checked on Puneet who was not in any condition to go out again, Along with me, Aryan & Deepan we went to a nearby hotel ate Dal rice and took parcel for Puneet.
We all back in our room had a quick discussion with DK about our ride tomorrow to Srinagar. We had to take a different route which goes through jungles & villages as suggested by DK Bhau rather than going back to the highway.
DK said, He just got delivery of CBR and it was raining very heavily in Mumbai. DK got surprised when I said that none of us have carried BSNL phones. How do we still remain in contact? Only by STD.







































Today's ride was different than the rides we have done so far, it was all about riding in hills, we enjoyed in Kashmir valley & Pahalgam to the core. I would also recommend everyone to go to Pahalgam if u have time. It's a memorable experience

nice trip guys...........

Road might be slippery and look where all parked their bikes.
@Deepan--- he looked scared.

@Sachin --- nice and long writeup....how do you manage your time to complete this.