After three tiring days in Suru and zanskar today was the day to get Leh'ied.
We tanked up at Kargil.The roads till Mulbekh was very dusty.It was getting worse when I had to overtake trucks.

We stopped at Mulbekh for breakfast. On the way and then in Mulbekh we saw some cyclists too. I was just wondering how do they manage to ride uphill in such rarefied atmosphere.
Something I want to do apart from motorbiking is to ride to Leh on a cycle.
But I am not sure how many more such cyclists will be needed to motivate to me takeup this escapade.

There was Gompa just beside the road in Mulbekh.They were playing some prayer and it was so soothinhg.

Soon the roads became extremely good.We were climbing Fotula soon.
It was very different from what we had seen so far. These were mud mountains.The twisties were very inviting and we did enjoy it to the fullest.
In no time we reached Lamayaru. It was a beautiful gompa.We were not really intrested in Gompas so we decided to skip Lamayaru.

Next destination was magnetic hills.we tried some tricks and finally Ashutosh understood this fourth law of Newton.however I am still wondering.

The roads were very very beautiful all the way till Leh, we drove through this moonland and soon we reached Leh.

We met some bikes in Leh who guided us to a nice hotel.


Oh I forgot to tell about the meeting the Living Legend
to be continued....


Some Pics:

I came across a person riding a scooter with stickers Ghaziabad To Leh.
I signalled him to stop and immediately pulled over to talk to this man.

To my my surprise the rider was an old man in his 70's.

I told him:
Hello sir, where are you going?
he said: I am coming from GZ and going to Leh, this is my 22nd trip to ladakh.

before I could say anything he said "chalo mai nikalta hoon I have to reach Leh. we'll meet in Leh"

He sounded like a highly confident youth and the moved ahead.

The next morning in we actually met him in a tea shop.

he goes his introduction:

Mr. J. P Bhatnagar from Ghaziabad.
Author of:

1) Adventure in ladakh
2) Sindh Ke tath Pe

Four time Limca book record holder and now attempting a new record of riding solo to the Top of the world at the age of 76

I had a long discussion with him, though he was 76, he sounded so young and was in deep love with the Himalayas.

He started riding to Leh after his retirement at around 54 and he told that he was surprised with the beauty of Leh and took up the job of informing world about this wonderful hidden world.Amazing personality.

He told one very intresting thing:
he asked us: Would you like to live in damaged building which can fall anytime.
I said no.

he said thats why "aatma damaged shareer me nahi rahna chahti"
Stay fit.

He had so much to say and we listened with great excitement.It was like listening stories from grandfather.

When I told that we visited zanskar
He said: "Yaar tumne to Ladakh ka dil dekh liya"

I asked him if we can meet in Delhi he said if you guys can come to GZ and call me beforehand we can meet.

We met him many times more during my brief stay at Leh. And at every place we met it seemed all the shop keepers knew him.

Did I mention he was riding a 30 years old scooter.

In my whole journey, my meeting with Mr. Bhatnagar was the most enlightening.

Some more pics:

To Turtok

In Leh

We spent saturday evening, sunday and monday in Leh.
Personally Leh city was not what I was expecting it to be.It is a big city with
lots and lots of tourists.We relaxed in Chali Villa most of the time and visited the local markets, Shanti Stupa and a ride to Hemis.
Nothing much to write about it except for the lessons we learnt at DC office


I went to DC office at 8.00 to enquire about the permits,I met Ladakh_Maniac(bcmtian) who guided me with the permit rules and docs.He had returned from hanle just a day back so I got some valuable information from him.

We returned to Dc office at around 10.The two mistakes of my trip happeed here

1) Our plan was to return via Wari La. I mentioned all possible places in our routes.Unfortunately the officer incharge striked our aaghm from our application form saying he can't issue permit as Wari La is officially closed, you can try on your own, if you wish.
Later I realised that now we had a permit where Wari La is specifically striked out so there is no way we can cross the aagam check post. We were too lazy to go back for new permit and we dropped Wari La form plan

2) We filled the forms and went to counter, when we were leaving I asked Ashutosh to check in his bag if all our documents are in place.To our surprise the dairy in which I was recording all the details of trip went missing.
Actually while filling the form I was using it as support.Unfortunately we missed to secure it while moving to the counter.We searched many times, the staffs were also very supportive.But no results.

I was really sad as I had written a lot of minute details of the trip in that diary.Also the individual expenses were recorded there.

I even came back to office in evening to see if somebody returned it back if they had taken it by mistake.
Finally I gave up and moved ahead.


Day11: Leh- Khadung La - Diskit - Turtok

Today we were to climb the highest motarable road in the world.
The intial plan was to stay in Diskit.The roads to K'la was very nice.The climb was gentle.We had started at around 8.With no traffic we reached South Pullu very soon.From south pullu road turned rough.Also the temparature dipped considerably.
Fighting the cold I reached India gate, and it was like dream come true.i had seen so many times this place in pics and now I met my destiny.After taking some shots finally I reached the famous K'La top.Ashutosh as usual was waiting for me There were no many ppl around.We posed in front of the most photographed sign board of Ladakh
We moved to the army store to get some tea.Inside it was warm and the hot tea just added to the awesome experience.

My stock P180 and Ashu's stock RTR 160 performed well,until now I was apprehensive if it will reach the top.though I felt huge loss in power in last 1000 ft of climb but it was manageable and I was comformably climbing in 1st/2nd gears.

As we moved out of shop to our astonishment the whole place was crowded with tourist taxis and the place was in complete mess.Army was trying to streamline the traffic. We thanked god that we made in time and moved towards North Pullu.The roads till north Pullu was not good.

Soon the snow storm started.It wasn't heavy but drizzle.Being first timer I was very excited.After north Pullu the weather became clear.

From here on all the way till Diskit the roads were excellent and we made full use of it.Twisties,twisties,twistis We reached Diskit in no time.By 2 we were in Diskit. But it didn't really appealed us as a destination.

We had met Ladakh_Maniac once again on K Top and he had informed that roads till turtok is in good state.So the obvious destination was Turtok now.

We had lunch after Hundar and from there started the ride to the most beautiful destination of Nubra valley.It was 4 pm when we started and the locals warned about heavy winds on the way in evening.

The roads to Turtok runs parallel to Shayok river and mostly its in the valley.
Its was really beautiful.On the way we found some villages with lush green farms.I enquired a few locals but there was no accomodation avalable in these villages.

As we were close to dusk and we were not really sure of the accomodations we didn't stopped much and made fast progress.
On the way we met a british biker on enfield with his gf.he told that they are running back to Diskit as they could not find any suitable accomodation and also the last few kms have horrible roads.This definetly surprised me and here on even I stopped taking pics and ran to Turtok

As I was running I was only thinking of how good return journey would be when I'll take break at will and will enjoy all these tomorrow

We reached Turtok.Surprisingly there were many reasonable stay options available.Turtok is an uphill village on India - Pok border along the Shoyok River. The village was reclaimed by India in 1971 war.The rooms were available for 4-6 hurdered in village but for a change. we opted for camping (Turtok holidays). It was the best decision of our vsit to Turtok.the tents were really nice and the hospitality was just amazing.We went for a quick village tour before sunset.We were literally mobbed by the curious village kids.

More on Turtok later...
Till then enjoy some pics.I'll share the real Turtok in next post.

Absolutely super stuff :-)
Also, hats off to Mr Bhatnagar. 22nd time after retirement
What a legend!

EDIT: Paged back to Zanskar. Mindblowing stuff Kashif. Next year, Zanskar is a must see for me.

Its heaven!

I can't imagine what it must feel like to be there! This is amazing!

Kashif, your photography is mind blowing. Are you a professional snapper? Which camera did you use?

Terrific pix kashif..!!!
and a great bow to the 76 year old 'young' chap..!!!

So shashi the mechanic, worked on your bike too

Thanks man
Zanskar is indeed worth a dedicated visit, best time would be July-Aug.This
is the time when flower blossoms all over the place.

I am glad that you liked the pics.I am a beginner, this is my first major trip with Canon 500D.

Thanks bhai,
ya Shashi did work on my machine
Pankaj Trvedi ko bhi jaanta tha...bola last year vo lambe balon wala bhaiya bahoot dino tak yahan tha Baad me uski stories bhi sunaya

Last evening when we chceked-in Tortok Holiday camp resort, we were greeted with snacks and in tents they served us dry apricots.
The Camp owner told us about the history of Turtok, he talked about his Baluch(Baluchistan origin in Pakistan region), he talked about how things improved after India re-captured this village from Pok in 1971.
Later we were assigned a guide who will take us to various spots of Turtok.

We took a quick tour of village and some places around.As it was getting dark so we asked Hismatullah to give us a short tour tomorrow morning.
We planned to spent 1-2 morning hours here and then head to Leh which never happened though

The dinner served at camp was very good and off course the rasp berries we had as desert was just yummy.
Another good thing we found in Turtok is that due to lower altitude compared to Leh and other prominent places,this place has much warmer and comfortable at night.


OK now coming back to Day 11
In the morning we went for the village tour again,the village looked like an ideal village, clean, calm and full of greenary.Later we crossed through some plantations and fields,it was all green dotted with beautiful flowers.They grow all cereals and various kinds of fruits too.The most prominent was apricot.
The place was just amazing.Turtok has of two uphill village connected by a bridge and all over the village you can find streams flowing downhill.It looked like a dream land.

Another thing I noticed, the girls and for that matter even guys(dont get me wrong guys ) there were really beautiful.Though the girls were shy but one beautiful lady posed for my cam

We came across some destroyed army post which were actually the Pakistani Army post captured during war. After arond 2 hours of walk we reached the top of village.There is a small Gompa at the top.From this point we could actually see the Pok mountains.From the top we got a very beautiful view of river Shayok. At this point I insisted Hishmat to take us to river side.Another 20 mins of trek and were at the banks of river,we had a great time there.

By the time we were back to camp it was already 12. So we decided to keep things easy and we moved to Hundar instead of Leh.
Ride to Hundar was nice,we reached there very quickly and we settled in a hotel.

Now it was the time to see Bacterian(dual hump) camels. Unfortunately by the time we reached there the camel rides had ended and all the camels were going away in group.
I ran after them for almost 1/3 km into the sand to take a few shots of the herd.By the time I reached I was out breath.
We spent the evening there.

The day ended with the laughs we had at dinner at the story of our cook. He is from Goa and came to Ladakh first time this year, he told how he and his friends hired a cab and took Manali Leh route with no woolen cloth.


He said atleast 100 times in conversation>>>> Shiiiiiiit kitna thada tha shiiit

Pics Pics Pics:

Some more pics from hundar

Some more from Hundar

Wow Kashif ! Truly amazing ride and the pictures are really out of this world !
Great Going !!

This is super awesome.Hats off to Bhatnagar Sahib.

Cheers
Biru

Simply awesome..wondering when can i do such a trip in my life????

and hats off to that legend-Mr:Bhattnagar .He is truely an inspiration...

kashif really superb pics and superb log....
and yes Mr.Bhattnagar is truely an inspiration... hats off to him

Thanks man

Thanks Sahib

If there is a will you'll find your way


Thanks Sandy

Day 12: Hundar - K'Top - Leh - Chang La - Tangste

Today we had to cross both Khardung La and Chang La, with huge excitement we started our journey towards K'Top.
At good speeds without any hurdle soon we reached K'Top, this time again it was over crowded with tourists so we
moved ahead quickly.Ride till Leh was quick. We had already done this section so we didn't really stopped much.

At noon we were in Leh, this was the time to start the journey of Changtang.We were carrying four 5lts jerry cans in all.
All of them filled and with tank full we were ready to start the longest and wildest leg of our trip.
We topped up yet again at Karu with is 40 kms from Leh,this gave us extra 40 km range.We also took a good 1 hour break
at Karu for Lunch and our ride resumed at 3 pm.

I found the climb to Chang La(pass) much steeper than K'Top climb.Good thing was that the roads were good.
Unfortunately Ashutosh's jerry cans fell off and we lost some petrol.But with extra fuel we had, this wasnt the point of worry.
The only worry was that it was getting late and we didn't wanted to ride in dark in this terrain.

A km before Chag La we came across a big water crossing.In the evening the flow was very fast and water was knee deep and there were
lots of round stones.We decided to go one by one with one guy holding the bike from behind.
The mistake we did was that we choose the narrowest part which turned out to be deepest.

Man o man, I got the real feel of what cold water and water in rush can do.At one point while pushing my friend's bike
I lost my balance due to a awkward stone, I tell you, my heart was in mouth.Fortunately gained the balance back.
I was the only point in the whole trip where I really panicked
Now this was my turn to ride the bike across. I preffered the two step process, I walked across with my electronics items first,
and then with the bike.
Our feets we numb and it took us another 10-20 mins to start from there.
The whole experience was just amazing.

Soon we reached Changla Top where Army welcomed us with much needed tea.By this time the weather has deteriorated, with lots of clouds around and sun going down fast we ran towards Spangmik.Downhill we came across many small water crossings and the melting ice all over created a lot of hurdles
to slow us down.From Chagla Top to Dubruk the view was just midblowing but we were already blown by cold so we were just running for shelter.

Through the beautiful mountain roads we crossed Tangaste before Sunset and the decided to settle here for the day.
In the hotel lobby we met another BCmtian/Xbhpian Rahul.He was riding solo.Next few hours were spent chatting about our experiences so far.
In night Rahul and Ashu had some beer befoer we slept.

By midnight Ashu developed vomiting symptoms(maybe due to the beer as per Ashu), with a Dimox and some sincere prayers in my heart, we went to sleep again.

Next morning our plan was to get a little more closer to the sky,
yes we were planning to ride to the highest (barely) motarable road of the world,Marsimik La