Re: Project K-Top

Re: Project K-Top

We took our first break just after crossing Karnal. First we wanted to have some tea and secondly, since the rain was over we wanted to get rid of our rain coats. We took a break for almost 45 mins before we resumed the ride. Once back on saddle, we were doing good speeds. The climate was with us, it was dry and nice which helped us to speed up. By 10:30 am we reached Jalandhar, it was time for another break. So we stopped at McDonald's for a bunch. We again had a brief break of almost an hour. Once we started from Jalandhar and passed through Ambala, the weather started creating problems. So to avoid any further unplanned breaks, we stopped and put on our rain coats again. After that rain played hide & seek with us but we covered good distance in good time. We reached the J & K border by 4:30 pm.


Once into J&K border, ride to Udhampur was nice and easy. After we reached Udhampur, we straight away went to the hotel that our friend stayed in during his trip. The room was nice and big. We unpacked our bags and dropped them in the rooms and fell on the bed.

Thus Day-1 of our mega ride came to an end. We had covered 3 states and 740 kms to reach Udhampur. We had dinner and went to bed early. Tommorow's destination being Srinagar. No pics for today as we were riding in the boring planes and were more concerned to cover cover the distance.

We stayed in the hotel (details below). I will be sharing the contact details of our stay so that others could take advantage as well.

Hotel Singh Axis
Ph # +91-9622047476/ 01992-273598
Add : NH-1A, M.H Morh, Udhampur - 182101

We got a deluxe double room for 3400 bucks. The rooms are large and spacious. It also has adequate parking space, so your vehicle ( car or bike) will be safely parked inside the premises

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

Nice update.

Would you mind sharing the address, phone and charges of this hotel.
I'll also be in Udhampur in a few days.

Re: Project K-Top

I already had plans to share the numbers. It's just that I could not find them. Managed to find it. Here it is.

Hotel Singh Axis
Ph # +91-9622047476/ 01992-273598
Add : NH-1A, M.H Morh, Udhampur - 182101

We got a deluxe double room for 3400 bucks. The rooms are large and spacious. It also has adequate parking space, so your vehicle ( car or bike) will be safely parked inside the premises.

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

Thanks buddy

Re: Project K-Top

You are welcome bro.

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

We started a little late from Udhampur thinking that Srinagar is just approximately 200 kms away. We will make it easily by 5 - 6 pm but we were proven wrong. A series of events were awaiting us.

We checked out of the hotel by around 11 am. Loaded the bags on the bikes and started day 2. We got our bikes refueled after a few kms and carried on. It was almost 12 pm by then. The roads were smooth and tempting. We increased our speed. But the beautiful vistas around us compelled us to stop and click a lot. There is no chance one could have missed those views. So we were moving with a lot of photugraphy breaks. Then came a stretch of bad roads with potholes. Somehow Ankush managed to go into a pothole at good speed, we all did at some place or the other. After almost 4 hrs of riding including breaks we managed to reach the jawahar tunnel. There was sudden change in climate on the other side of the tunnel. If warm and nice when we left Udhampur but as soon as we crossed the jawahar tunnel, cold breeze welcomed us into Kashmir. We stopped there for a few selfies. Though its clearly mentioned " Photugraphy prohibited ", we still managed to click some. The army man posted there might not have stopped us due to our attire. Me and Ankush were wearing army combat pants along with army boots. So the armyman might have mistaken us for army people. Anyways we clicked a few photographs and chitchatted with the army guys. We learnt that the tunnel was built in 1965 and now it's nearing its expiry. There was a plan of constructing a 4-lane highway to replace the tunnel.

After a brief break we moved ahead. Srinagar was still almost 100 kms away from the place. The roads ahead were butter smooth and devoid of traffic. So we started enjoying the curves and the smooth tarmac. By around 5:30 pm we entered a town (don't remember the name). Ankush complaint of air leak from his tyre. So we had him get his tyre checked and fixed. It was almost 6 pm by then. Me and Shiwan were waiting eagerly for Ankush to come back as I had to cover another 70kms to Srinagar and it was already getting dark. The other concern was clouds started surrounding the place indicating it would rain soon.

Ankush returned almost after an hour with the news that his alloys are bent due to the high speed impact into the pothole earlier and the guy could not repair it. So he filled air and sent him. By this time it also started raining. We anticipated if the roads are in good shape, we could still make it to Srinagar a little late. So we changed into rain gears and begun riding. But our agonies increased as the rain was complemented by broken, pothole filled roads. We could not even speed up due the air leakage issue that Ankush was facing. It got darker, it was over 7 pm and we were still almost 40kms away from Srinagar. To add to our wooes, we had rain, potholed roads and a damaged bike. It was difficult for Ankush to ride, so we stopped at a place called Marhana( I think ) which was almost 40 kms away from Srinagar. We started looking for a place to stay but that being a small village, we didn't find any options. Then we a found a house stay kind of thing across the road. And here was where happened the first crash of the trip. I rushed to the owner of the building and mis-judged a ditch to be hard surfaced, tyres slipped and bam. I fell down. I am OK, bikes left turn indicator broken. I got up, went to the owner of the house and negotiated the room charge for 1200 bucks. Damn cheap. Shiwan was a little insecure about the place of stay as it was in between of no where, there was no power and all. But we were out of choices anyways. The people were nice, they asked and cooked non-veg food for us. But the downside was there was no power. Anyways, we had dinner and went to bed by 11 pm.

Thus our day 2 finished but we fell short of Srinagar by 40 kms. Partly due to the bike breakdown and partly because of excess of photography breaks on the way

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

One more question...
Did you go via Jammu or take the bypass which goes via Mansar Lake?
If you took the bypass, how's the road condition on that?

Re: Project K-Top

Day 3(June 16) - Reached Srinagar

We woke up early in the morning, by 6 am. Our initial plan was to reach Drass by end of day so that our schedule is not affected by the unplanned halt before Srinagar. We got ready and were on the saddle by 7:30 am. Srinagar was just 40kms away and the weather was good, sunny. If the roads were good, we could cover this distance in no time. Air was still leaking from Ankush's bike's rear tyre. We decided to get it fixed where ever we found a tyre repair shop. May be 10 - 15 kms down the road we found a tyre repair shop. So we stopped there to get Ankush's bike fixed. It was found that the alloy was bent and the only jugad was to insert an tube into the tyre. We got it done and we were back to our flying speeds.

Some pics enroute Srinagar :




We reached Srinagar by 10:30 am. There was some problem with the water supply at the place where we stayed previous night. So we didn't freshened up in the morning and decided to do so in Srinagar. We all agreed in renting a room for a couple of hours so that we could get fresh and then start for Drass. We spoke to the owner of the hotel and booked a room for 3 hrs. But as we settled in the room, the thought came to us that we are not in a race but we are out to enjoy. So we dumped the idea of reaching Drass the same day and decided to spend the day in Srinagar and roam about the town.

The views from Shikara
[ATTACH]186549[/ATShikara


$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

I am not sure if we passed by Mansar lake but the road leading to Srinagar is in good shape.

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

Thanks again.

Re: Project K-Top

My pleasure bro.

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

Day 4 :

As mentioned earlier, we took a day off at Srinagar to relax and admire the beauty of the place. Srinagar is a place where you can't just stop by, you need 3-4 days to explore it. I will surely come back some day.

We started early from Srinagar around 6:30 am. People were still in bed that time, many were out for morning walk, a few kids were waiting for the school bus and 3 of us riding alongside the Dal lake to get out of the city. The weather was cool and nice. It was refreshing to ride early morning on such good roads.

Sonamarg




The roads leading to Drass are in good shape. We were constantly doing good speeds. It took us just more than an hour to reach Kargil war memorial. We took a break at Kargil. Went in to see the various remnants of the Kargil war that happened in 1999. The various captures from the Pakistani army were put on a show there. Some examples would be the bunkers they took shelters in during the war, their guns , ammo etc. Also there were the various maps of how our Indian army planned and captured back the lost ground. Going around the memorial, it felt like we have gone back in time to the warzone. I realised that I was freely roaming around in the country and all was because of the brave soldiers who happily laid down there lives. Besides the main memorial there is a sort of cremetory where the dead bodies of the soldiers were buried.



We almost spent an hour going around the memorial. And then it was time for us to move on. The great Zozilla was waiting for us. We started the ascend to Zozilla. As we moved ahead, the path started getting difficult. The good part was we had started early from Srinagar to avoid any kind of slush or streams formed by the melting of ice from the mountains. This plan was working fine for us till now as we didn't find any water body on our way. The pass through Zozilla was a tough terrain with no roads, soil and gravel spread all over and on top of that the steep climb.

At Zozilla








I had heard a lot of stories of slushy Zozilla so I was a little careful but to my joy we didn't find any slush. We crossed the Zozilla very easily. The view around was enough to de-stress us of whatever stress we went through while crossing Zozilla. Ice on the top of every mountain. The top of the mountain covered with ice and the below is dry land reminding us the we were in a desert.

We kept on moving and finally the bad roads or " no roads" ended. Again we were riding on smooth open tarmac. I must say the BRO guys did a wonderful job making such roads in the middle of nothing. Why can't we have such people and such quality of work back where we come from. The roads were smooth and wide, inviting us to put our knee down which was normal for us in such situations. We rode on and on until we reached a board which says Leh is 120 kms away and Lamayuru is 20kms. Also by this time we were falling short of fuel. We asked around and found the nearest petrol pump was almost 40kms away at Khaltse. I suggested the boys to spend the night at Lamayuru, fuel up in morning and move ahead. Any which ways our plan was to spend the whole day in Leh acclimatising to the high altitude. So we decided to check in into hotel Moonland. Lamayuru is a small town/city or village whatever you want to call it with not much population. It was surrounded by ice capped mountains( which had become a normal view for us by this time) on all sides. There were a couple of other families in the hotel. As was our custom, we dumped our stuff in the room and then relaxed a little. Had dinner at dinner time and went to bed early (9 pm) as we had to wake up early the next day to continue our journey.

Some pics from the day :




$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Project K-Top

Nice clicks!

Re: Project K-Top

Thanks buddy.

$id
ride hard, ride safe