Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Travelogue Approved

Wonderful. Congratulations. Waiting for more

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Pictures are crisp [emoji108]

But did you ride 2 different bikes in the same trip [emoji15] ?

Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Prologue and Something about the Ride.
Ladakh – A dream destination, rather booming destination for travel in our country nowadays. In the season, that is May to September you get only two kinds of notification on your facebook wall, i.e. someone is getting married or someone is heading to Ladakh. Variety of transport options from Manali and Delhi made this adventure destination a family destination and this has made positive and negative impact on Ladakh. Positive is like it has given vast option of employment to locals, which leads to overall development to this area and negative is like Leh city is overcrowded now and all you inhale is cement in the Leh and you suffer massive traffic jams in any hour you visit Leh.
Well, I am not here to say any bad things about this area. Just giving you the heads up about it. If you are expecting some relief from rush, that you can’t get in Ladakh nowadays.

But does that mean Ladakh is easy now??? Hell no, terrain still takes toll on you. Mighty Himalaya’s show you every now and then how puny are humans. Army continues to work awesomely in the unforgiving terrain and make us worship them.
It was June of 2013 when I joined Xbhp but I used to visit this forum many months before that. Varun’s “Scorching Heat to Freezing Cold” blog is still my favorite. Then comes Anirban Banerjee’s “ KTM Duke 200- Ladakh Solo” blog. I was literally drooling on keyboard. Raakesh's "Chronicles of Ladakh" log is like user manual for me and Biggest booster for me is Sachin and Kiran's blog. Somewhere in between I started attending Xbhp’s G2G’s and met up with Parimal Maheshwari. My companion in this ride. A highly skilled rider who rides Thunderbird 350. By watching him ride my perspective about Royal Enfield always changes. I call his Thunderbird ‘Turbocharged Thunderbird’.

What I ride?
I ride 2012 Bajaj Avenger 220 DTS-i. I have ridden this humble motorcycle for 31000 kms now. The TV commercial of this bike was shot in Nubra Vally I think. That makes me fell in love with this machine. And I did not regret my decision about buying this motorcycle.

Riding Gears Used
Helmet - MT Revenge by me and LS2 Lunatic Fringe by Parimal
Jacket - Rjays Swift by me and Spartan Helios by Parimal
Knee Guards – Spartan Perseus by both of us.
Gloves - Cramster TRG – 2 by me and Spartan Centaur by Parimal.
Boots – Industrial Shoes by me and Spartan Chaos by Parimal.

Things to Carry
Actually I believe in light travelling. I took One Saddlebag i.e. Viaterra Leh and Rynox Optimus – M tankbag. And that’s about it. Here’s what I took.
4 – T-Shirts
1 Cargo and 1 Jeans
2- Shorts.
1 – Pullover.
1 - Thermal Wear.
1 – Waterproof Warm Jacket from Quechua.(Highly Recommended)
1 – Loafers (For roaming around)
Extra Visor for Helmet (Clear) I use Iradium.
Extra Goggles and Clear Goggles.
Some personal stuff like face wash, moisturizer, eye drops.

Spares to Carry
Foot pegs, All Cables, Headlamp Bulb, Chain links, Chain Lube and WD 40. Other than Chain lube we haven’t used anything. That is good thing I suppose.

Medicines
Basic medicines like Vomiting, Fever and Loose motions. Same here, haven’t used any of these. I have allergy of sulfur medicines, so no Diamox. Actually haven’t felt need of it.

Note of Thanks
I want to thank Raakesh Chauhan, Sachin Desai, Abhijeet Ranpise for helping me about route planning and many things. I owe you guys big time.

Some Pics and this weird Selfie on Zozzila, before signing out.

From next updates I will write more about actual trip.







Ride Safe,
Aniruddha Shinde.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Thank you for approval.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Well we were two guys on the trips so two bikes.
Avenger and Thunderbird.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Awesome bro, congratulations on the accomplishment.
I remember the buzz in the whatsapp group; good to see this here.

Now, keep'em coming.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Update 1 : (Long Post Warning)
Reaching Srinagar. (Amritsar – Udhampur – Patnitop – Banihal – Srinagar)
Days Taken : 3
Distance Covered. 540 kms (approx.)
Halts Taken : Patnitop, Srinagar.

With painful waiting time the D- Day arrived . 18^th June 2016. With all packing done, bike loaded I left home around 1 in the afternoon to start my journey. I was about to meet Parimal at Koparkhairane. But traffic gave me no chance to stop aside and we meet around 2 at Airoli. We reached swiftly at Mumbai Central around 3.30. Too early. Packed the bikes, paid the fees , collected the receipts .( Here make sure you mark your bikes as luggage not parcel), by marking it as luggage you can collect your bike as soon as you reach your destination.

Here comes the twist. Train timing is 9.25 and till 9.15 our bikes were yet to load. I was there with the loading guys, till that time Parimal loaded all our luggage in compartment. We were lucky that in luggage only consignment was paper. Not sure what paper though. I gave hand to those guys to load both the bikes. I witnessed luggage compartment locked and sealed. Rushed back to my compartment. After couple of minutes train moved and we officially kicked off the dream, ‘Ladakh’. Train journey was boring but met couple of interesting people who were drunk and talking like anything, There goes our first night’s sleep. Boring journey was not so boring, thanks to these people and “Game of Thrones”.





21/6/2016 (Amritsar to Patnitop)
Train was on time. We reached Amritsar at 7.30 in the morning. Within an hour we collected our bikes and marched towards our prebooked hotel. Actually that hotel was booked by my father. Hotel was amazing but we were there only for couple of hour. Quickly freshened up and took a rickshaw for Golden Temple. It was nothing sort of adventure ride. With so much traffic and super extreme rush we reached to Golden Temple. I must say it felt so so great to be at Golden Temple. We were there for almost 1.5 hours.

Quickly came back to hotel. Suited up and started marching towards Patnitop around 1.30 pm. But not before chanting ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’.
Took late lunch halt at Pathankot and right towards Udhampur bypass. Ride was fast and eventless. Then comes super bad road all the way to Udhampur. Mud, rocks on the road. Ruthless bus drivers pushing us to sides, somehow we reached Udhampur at 6.30. It was bright and we hope that it will be like this till 8-8.30. Then comes proper hilly ride till Patnitop. Suddenly after 8 o’clock it became dark and roads became narrow. Truck drivers were making overall scenario even worse. 2 times I almost pushed in to roadside ditch by some crazy truck driver.

Parimal was completely comfortable to ride in these situations. He was rather fast and I was trying my best to cope up with him, and failed miserably. So around 9.15 we reached Patnitop. Quickly found the first hotel. But that was worst hotel in whole journey, so not sharing the name of it. After some ‘moon shots’, we had some paneer and dozed off.














22/6/2016 (Patnitop to Srinagar)
Started in the morning around 9. Didn’t ordered breakfast from hotel we stayed. Had some maggi in roadside dhaba, and continued towards Srinagar. Then comes rain. It continued all the way till ‘Titanic View Point’. My quechua worked perfectly in those rains. Advantage of rains was like we got to know how beautiful nature could be and disadvantage was shame we couldn’t clicked pictures of it.

Amazing people of Kashmir
We stopped at Pampora for water break. I was lubing chain. The shop owner couple was watching us. They invited us inside and offered us plateful of dry fruits. We took little, and then they ordered us to finish it off. Amazing people I must say.
















We reached Srinagar in no time thanks to good roads. After little hunt for hotel, we settled which is right on Dal Lake. Had amazing Kashmiri Food. In evening took quick walk around Dal Lake and yes we even took shikara ride in the dark though, and came back to room to prepare for big day. Tomorrow we were going to cross Zojila.
Hotel in Srinagar - Paradise Hotel (INR – 1500, Secured Parking).

Next Update - Reaching Leh (En route - Zojila, Kargil)

Till Then,
Ride Safe,
Aniruddha Shinde

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Thanks brother...
Will try to update on a regular basis.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Thank you for the mention, the pleasure is all mine.
Shoot the next chapter asap, can't wait to see the other side.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Great narration!
Waiting for the next part.

Sent from my Xperia L.

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Nice! waiting for the rest

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Nice write up, feels like I was there on the ride. Oh wait!! I WAS there on the ride. Keep up the good work bro!

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

23/06/2016.
Route - Srinagar – Zojila- Kargil (202 kms)
Initial plan was getting out of Srinagar before traffic and get to Zojila before midday, ofcource to avoid water crossings. But started around 9.30 from Srinagar and after quick fuel stop started riding towards Zojila. I was damn excited, after all this was first Pass of the trip.

But before Sonmarg we stuck in the traffic. After lot of filtering, we escaped traffic. I was actually talking to mountains. “ Batao, tum me se kon Zojila he?” And then road conditions changed, just gravel on the road. Now it was a test of my one month training. I was educating myself by watching various videos of riding off road and practicing throttle control. With steady pace we started ascending towards Zojila Top. We were going nice and slow. 2^nd gear, 20-30 kmph speed and bies were asceding without giving any problems. We were closing towards top. And there were longish water crossing but not deep. I can see pever blocked road nearing. Bang!! One Tata Aria overtook me quickly and two stones flying towards me. One directly hit my knee. Persues was on the job. That knee guard took this bullet all I felt was a pinch. Second stone was towards my bike did’t know where it hit.(Got to know about it when we reached Leh.

Stopped at top for quite some time had Maggie and continues towards Drass (Our initial target). Till Drass road is in bad shape, But after Drass it is proper race track. We were in Drass around 2.30 p.m., way early and board showing ‘ Kargil War Memorial’ (Another attraction to come all the way here) is just 5 kms away. Zipped towards it. After spending some 1.30 hrs at this amazing place we continues towards Kargil. We reached Kargil around 5 after quick search of hotel we settled in on of them which near to highway.

Hotel Suru View (Biamatang Road) INR 1400. Nice parking.

























































Next day we reached 'Leh'. That will covered in next update this weekend. Till then.

Ride Safe,
Aniruddha Shinde

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Hehe Dhanyawad Mandal Aabhari aahe. and special thanx to your rocket launcher on the helmet. Polaroid.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Thanks you brother.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Thank you sir..

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Thank you brother...

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

nice update

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

24/06/2016
Kargil – Namikla - Fatula – Lamaryu – Saspol – Leh (210 kms)
We started early from Kargil to reach the destination ‘Leh’. We planned to taking it easy today. The distance is comparatively less and the roads are in perfect shape. After breakfast we started our ride. What a climate, breathtaking views, smooth tarmac and nice music of Suru River giving us a company.

Some 10 kms before Mulbek roads became worse, after that race track begins. We missed ‘Maitreya Temple’ in Mulbek. I deeply regret this thing. Actually roads were so bad that we couldn’t concentrate on what is going around. Namikla and Fatula went in fast progression.

While decending Fatula, Parimal signaled me that something is wrong. He told me that rear disk of his Thunderbird has stopped working. I was terrified. Later we came to conclusion that ‘Hot Brakes = No Brakes.’ The disk of Thunderbird is melting hot. So it stopped working. Lamaryu Monastery was just 1-2 kms away. We anyway gonna stop there. After 1 and half hours and Thupka and Momos and Lot of pictures we were ready to go.

Amazing Bikers
One thing I forgot to mention. It is worth mention. We were decending Fatula. I was enjoying corners, putting all the Keith Code’s lesion into practical. There are some corners where you can actually see corners behind you but little bit up. I saw one couple riding. Couldn’t identify the bike. But little bit chrome and the way he was flicking, I came to conclusion it is Bonnie. Within seconds he was closely following me and then I realized it is Royal Enfield Machismo. He was wearing AGV helmet and covered in Dainese touring suit, so was his pillion. Within moments he overtook us and disappear. We couldn’t keep up with him let alone overtake. Later we realize he is foreigner and they were riding in huge group. He was fast yet safe. All I can do is give him thumbs up.

Leh
So after Lamaryu we started riding towards Leh. With amazing Vistas we reached ‘Magnetic Hill’. My bike felt the magnetic thing, it does pull backwards. After some pics we reached Patthar Saheb Gurudwara. Then head straight in to Leh traffic at around 5pm. After some search we settled in the hotel called ‘Zambala Inn’ on Changspa road. After freshening up we head for Shanti stupa. If you are in Leh please visit Hotel K.C. the owner of restaurant in such an interesting person.

On lazy next day we checked bikes, wander around Leh. Get Thunderbird serviced and getting ready for Khardungla and Nubra Vally.

Game of Thrones
It was our schedule that before calling it a day right before sleeping, we used to watch one Game of Thrones episode. One night before going for Khardung La, we watched the episode, ‘The Red Wedding’. Slept with disturbed mind.

Next Update
Khardungla, Nubra Vally and CRASH

Hotel Zambala Inn, Changspa Road, INR 2000 (Secured Parking)





































Ride Safe,

Aniruddha Shinde

Re: Ladakh - Some Dreams Do Come True.

Brilliant Stuff...