May i know for what reason you didn't used Manali-Leh road?
coz the scenary is best than Srinagar-Leh road, also Srinagar-Leh has a lot of army checking? (am i right?)

Thank you Prasad. Will update soon.

Balaji, We rode back to Mumbai via Manali highway.

There's nothing like more beautiful or less beautiful. Both highways have there own plus and minus points and they both are beautiful in their unique style.

Surprisingly, enjoying reading about the pre-Ladakh part of your journey. Keep it coming.

Because it was probably closed at that time. We didnt come across any army checking on the Srinagar highway.

your pics are just wow man.keep rolling

Thanks

Check out this video:

YouTube - ‪Strong evening winds move sand near Pangong Tso‬‏

Watch how sand runs on the road as evening winds build up near Pangong Tso. This is recorded somewhere between Tangtse and Lukung where one can easily find sand covered roads. It was fun riding through small sand dunes. Later in the evening it was extremely extremely windy at Lukung, just beside the lake where we stayed for the night. Cold, bitter cold winds! One of a kind experience! Also enjoy the silence and nothing but howling of wind(and of course camera motor noise to some extent ) in this video.

Loving your log and pics bro... And getting inspired...

@Ketan: Why did you stay at the same hotel in Amritsar?

Thanks

Did you mean, Why 'didn't' we stay at the same hotel in Amritsar?

Ohh sorry that was a typo (I am struggling with my new keyboard ).....yeah thats what I wanted to know

@ ketan . Hi good to come across man u know what i was searching this tread from morning. Am planning a Leh trip from bangalore on my R15 jst give share me tips and what upgrades should be done to my R15 ( its clocked 40500+ kms till now) i haved planned to go by March 2012 so that am collecting information from now to get prepared..

No prob mate. Happens. I don't remember if I have mentioned the reason at the beginning of Day 4 log or not. The particular room where we stayed after reaching Amritsar was previously booked by someone for June 5th, evening onwards. And all the rest of the rooms were already full in the same hotel. So we had no choice but to check out and search another hotel. We consider ourselves lucky that we got such a nice room when it was most needed. Because Day 3 i.e riding from Jaipur to Amritsar was the most tiring day of our journey and we needed good rest and sleep for that night, which we got at the comfy hotel

Oh, March 2012? That's next season! You've started preparing for it already? Whoa! Well, nothing much with the bike. Just get it properly serviced before the ride. Use synthetic oil if possible(Longer drain period). Make sure you change both the disc pads just before the ride. They take a lot of beating and deteriorate fast. Check the condition of clutch plate. Make sure the headlamps are working properly cause you never know when nature forces you for a night ride and a good headlight is must in those terrains. Rest is the usual stuff, carry extra clutch/accelerator cable, break/clutch levers, battery fuse, extra bulbs and extra engine oil can, just in case Good luck and feel free to ask anything anytime, regarding the ride!

EDIT: Forgot to mention bout tires. Use tires suitable for rough terrain.

Ya Ketan ... we are preparing from now in all kinds say from financial also coz the thing which happened to you should not happen to us and postponed our trip . thnx for your info and will be pinging you for more :P don mind ah

Anytime buddy!

Day 5: Amritsar - Pahalgam

When you are really really tired, even a couple of hours good sleep can do wonders. The hotel, as written in the previous day's log, was not good at all, forget comfy. To add to the frustration, the so called water cooler's metal cage started rattling like crazy in the middle of the night. Just imagine after a tiring day, when we needed a good sleep to carry on with our ride the next day, we were fixing the damn metal cage with screw drivers and spanners at 2 o clock in the night. . The rattling sound was loud and irritating and switching the damn thing off was not an option either. It was extremely hot inside and sleeping on those rough blanketed metals beds was unimaginable. So we somehow tried to sleep in that heat and irritating noise. Bad Bad experience!

We woke up early and packed our bags. The distant Golden temple could be seen from the terrace of our hotel.


Carrying those heavy bags downstairs was pain in the a** . We then cleaned our bikes, got them out of the hotel parking and loaded them with the luggage. The narrow crowded Amritsar lanes, full of chaos, hustle and bustle were quite and empty early morning. Some were just waking up, some opening their shops, children waiting for their school pick up. We rode through those lanes observing all this. At times, stopped and asked for directions to get out of the city, towards Pathankot. After a bit of unplanned city sightseeing, all thanks to couple of wrong turns, we finally hit the right road that was NH15 towards Pathankot. This road goes through places like Batala, Gurdaspur and is not in that good condition. We took two breaks before Gurdaspur, one for refueling our bikes and the second was a quick break for tea-biscuits. The stall where we stopped for tea had a TV which showed live telecast from the Golden temple. The Punjabi prayers, their holy songs and quite early morning created a nice atmosphere. I remember feeding a stray dog at the stall. We shared the pack of biscuits in 50-50 When the stall owner realized we've ridden all the way from Mumbai and yet it was just the beginning, we laughed at us thinking we are two crazy blokes.

Road improves immediately after Pathankot and is a proper 4 lane highway towards Jammu. Our next stop was at this check post at Lakhanpur, which welcomed us into the state we were waiting for - Jammu and Kashmir. It was a very short break, not even more than a couple of minutes, just click these two pictures.



Though it was a 4 lane highway, it was not that safe. Taking the eyes off the road for even split second could prove fatal on that section. Crazy local motorists drove in wrong directions at insane speeds, people crossing roads without caring to look for the speeding vehicles and stray animals on the road. People in santros and Wagon Rs were shocked after seeing us on MH registered bikes. There reactions is something I'll never forget.

We got off the main road and on to the service road, just before Samba to have cold drink and buy mineral water. There was a small dhaba next to the cold drink stall and chacha was busy cooking some yummy food. We couldn't resist ourselves from asking him, "chaha, nashte ke liye kya kya milega?"

He thought we were army and treated us like true Jawans , ekdum royal treatment. Man that was some breakfast. Garam garam rotis with dal-pakodas, rajma and cold drinks. Burrp! Our tummies were full!



*Extremely sorry for the wrong water-marking. It was clicked by Mandar.

In just a few minutes, we reached Samba and turned right to a state highway, leaving the national highway behind which goes to Jammu. This state highway helped us skip the boring Jammu city traffic and directly reach Udhampur, instead. It was on this highway we got the first feel of Kashmir and it's huge huge mountains. Wow, and we knew that it was just the beginning. We couldn't resist ourselves from stopping and clicking couple of pics at this place. Just look at the sheer height of that cliff. Look at the size of the cow at the base as compared to the height of the cliff. That'll give you some idea of how big it was. Just amazing!



As we moved on, the road became more interesting as it passed through hilly region. We stopped a few kms before Mansar lake for some photographs.





Moving on with the ride, we reached Mansar lake and almost missed it's entrance and rode a few meters ahead. We thought, why miss a place which is right on our way. We aren't leaving our route. So we rode back and entered into the parking area of lake. It's well maintained with good parking and other facilities like toilet, refreshments etc. It's a lake over a mile in length by half-a-mile in width. There's also a shrine to Sheshnaag on it's eastern bank but we did not visit it due to shortage of time. Also our bags were on bikes, unattended. So we just clicked few pics and got back on the road.

*once again, sorry for the wrong water-marking. It's clicked by Mandar.



Sometime later we rode on the Tawi bridge, crossing the dried our river Tawi.


The bridge is quite tall. This pic will give you some idea idea of the height.


When we reached Udhampur, we stopped at this small waterfall. Got fresh with it's cold water and had cold drink at a stall opposite to it.




The road from this point till Patni top and beyond is absolutely Fantastic! Too good! Beautiful tarmac and some nice sweeping corners. I so regret for not recording this ride using the camera mount. But one has to be careful as well. There'll be a lot of tourist innovas and taveras zipping past and at times the military convoys. We thoroughly enjoyed riding in those twisty roads of Patni top.






There was one more reason why we could not record any on-board videos in this region. Mandar had lost the charging cable of his camera. He still doesn't know where exactly. Therefore the battery was draining fast and we wanted to save at least some of it's power to record some videos in snow covered high altitude passes, as we were not sure if we'll get a new charging cable anywhere except Delhi.

I was riding pretty fast in those beautiful roads while Mandar failed to keep up with me. The reason being some weird squeaking sound from his bike's rear brakes. He also complained that the rear brake has lost it's bite. Therefore in most cases I used to rip ahead and wait for him. After crossing Patni top and reaching the base on the side, we stopped for a tea break. That's when we saw a group of 3 bikers heading towards Srinagar. 2 Apache RTRs and an avenger(am not sure).

After having tea we moved on and some time later we saw this spectacular sight of Baglihar Dam aka Baglihar Hydroelectric Power Project. It's a controversial project and more about it can be read here: Click.




Mandar's bike's problem had worsened by then and it needed immediate attention. So we started looking for a road-side mechanic shop and found it a few Kms ahead. Mandar got his bike inspected while I had another cold drink at near by shop


As we moved on, the road kept on going through the never ending hilly regions of Ramban, Ramsu, Banihal etc. Huge cliffs on one side and deep valleys which ended in river on the other side was the picture all the way. We stopped for refueling somewhere on the way.



The next attraction in our mind was the Jawahar Tunnel. It's a 2.5 Km long tunnel between Banihal and Quazigund. But before that, there was an unexpected guest, Rain! Well it didn't exactly rain but it surely scared us and got us all geared up for it. We were somewhere before Banihal and huge drops of rain started hitting our helmet visors. I said, man..this is it. It's time to face the first rains of the ride. We stopped and took out our raincoats from the bag. Wearing rain-coat and rain-pants on top of riding jacket is not exactly an easy task. I hurriedly put all the electronics i.e both the cameras and cell phone inside the bag and sealed it. Wearing rain gear took some effort but finally we were ready for the battle. And guess what, as we moved on, it didn't rain at all. Few clicks ahead we saw the group of 2 RTRs and Avenger. They too were busy gearing up for the rain. We waved at them and carried on.

Sometime later, we all 5 bikers were riding together till we reached Jawahar Tunnel. We were stopped by a man who apparently looked like an army officer or a BRO officer. He asked us who we were and where we came from. Then he briefed us about the tunnel and asked us to ride carefully as the road can be slippery inside.

Our next halt was at Titanic View point. Tourists in cars were awestruck seeing Mumbai registered bikes. It didn't take long before people came to us and started asking questions after questions. A good experience .

View from the Titanic view point






This is where the 3 other bikers and we got introduced to each other. They said even they were heading towards Srinagar. Moving on, we continued our ride towards Srinagar. Well remember, till this point our plan was to stay at Srinagar. Pahalgam was not at all in the picture.

As we reached closer and closer to Srinagar, we saw sign boards for Pahalgam. After crossing Anantnag, we stopped at a road-side tea shop for a quick break. There came a gentleman in his local Kashmiri attire. Upon seeing our bikes and army pants, he asked us where we came from and where we were heading to. At first we hesitated to share our details with a stranger but then he sat there and we had a nice conversation. He shared some interesting facts about the local life. He strongly suggested us to stay at Pahalgam instead of Srinagar. "Sir, aap pura kashmir ghumo aur fir batao. Pahalgam mein jo khubsoorti hai woh pure kashmir mein kahi nahi. Gulmarg mein kya hai? Pahalgam ke saamne kuch bhi nahi."

He gave us some more details like places to be seen in and around Pahalgam and also showed us pics on his cell phone. He also said, do not stay at hotels in main market of Pahalgam. They'll be costly. Keep going upwards towards the village and stay there. It'll be much cheaper there. So we decided to give it a try and thanked him for all the info. We then rode back 5 Kms to Anantnag and turned left for Pahalgam. It was dark and we stopped to clean our helmet visors. It was going to be a 40 odd Km night ride and we had no clue how the roads were. More bike's powerful HIDs proved very helpful there and we could maintain good speed. Mandar as usual followed me and as we reached closer to Pahalgam, we noticed the change in temperature. We could hear raging water flowing on our left hand side but could not see a thing down there. It was totally dark. Upon reaching Pahalgam, we skipped the main market and went into the village, few kms ahead. After a bit of negotiation we got accommodation for Rs. 400. It was a carpeted room with nice view from it's large windows. The hotel was run by two young Kashmiri men and they were very helpful and talkative as well We ordered dinner and got fresh in our room. Temperature was pretty and Mandar was f**** badly He can not withstand even a little bit of cold. He wore clothes over clothes and surprisingly I wasn't bothered by the cold at all Mandar wore thermal pants, track pant, tee, sweater and I was wearing just a half sleeve tee and a bermuda.

Sometime later we went downstairs for dinner. It was ready and waiting for us. The two young boys sat next to us asking us hundreds of questions and we happily answered all of them. It was a nice time pass. They checked our camera, my Ducati cell phone and it's features. We promised them to click a pic with them before leaving



That's Mandar, knocked out by cold and that's me... hiding the cigarette


After dinner we asked them about hot water for next morning, places to see around and then went to room to crash on the bed.

Day 6: Pahalgam sightseeing!
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since we reached pahalgam by mistake in search of shortcut & have advised anyone since than as a Must visit place I thought that you had already planned the same as sachin & gang too went to pahalgam