yes u can do that.. !! even we thought of transporting earlier, but later we realized, if we gonna do Leh, better do a complete source-destination journey to get the total satisfaction..
perhaps, doing leh is important, so can be done from Delhi also if u can transport the bikes through GATTI maybe.!

An update:

We are all set for this Trip now..
I finally got leaves from office after breaking my head a lot.. got permission from my family with lot of emotional attyachar.. but yeah m feelin good about, i didnt lied even 1% in this & i managed to convince them happily
Finally even my gal is supporting me for this trip..

Wht else I want now.. Just the date to arrive of our Big Day..!!

We will be leaving on 6th June.
Riders are :Me(ZMA), Razor(Apache), Prasad (Electra)(Non xBHPian)

I thot u were 4 total...

PLEASE!!!!

Book tatkal tickets in train - north indian plains are HOT. Use your leaves where they matter. Take a train to jammu, and do it in reverse.

You will get OODLES of snow all around, but especially at Thajiwas glacier at Sonamarg - stay a day there - its HEAVEN.

Riding all the way is macho and all that - but in the end its just a bloody waste of time.

Rest itinerary is fine - you can do tso moriri, next day do tso kar and end up near sarchu or darcha if you can manage.

@gopi,rachit : hav fun guyzzzzz!! nd ride safe!!

All the best for the ride Rachit, Gopi and Prasad..!!

yeah v started wid 4, but one dropped off.. now v three gonna get Leh'd

we knw its gonna be a heck of journey for us..! but thts wht we want.. a mere feel of satisfaction of doin ride right here from our house

thnx Shiva, Inder.. we need loads of wishes for this...

Wish you all the best guys...
Have a safe ride.. Enjoy to ur fullest..

@ Rachit..Howz ur health dude? Never heard much from you after ur crash.. You perfectly fit for the mammoth ride..?

Take care dudes..!!

Damn! Office is easy to convince here,

Mom-Dad is difficult, but doable

Girl - Impossible!



Hats off! Do you mind sharing some tips across the PM or in a new thread


Sigh How I wish it would read 2 x RTRs !
BTW Isnt Anup a part of this, I thought he was keen on doing it ...


I will be going to leh sometime late in June, but that would be on 4 wheels..... Might wanna do it again in November... Provided we have the access to go there!

Ride on!


EDIT: Spidey here, more smiley.... (Yuck)

razorblades,

i did a close to month long drive Leh-Ladakh last year. following are my inputs.

1. I am from Mumbai too. but we began the drive (we didn't ride. we took an Endeavor) from Chandigarh airport. We had the driver drive and deliver the fully loaded and stocked vehicle to us at Chandigarh airport. From Chandigarh, we proceeded to Manali. The original plan was to drive all the way from Mumbai, but based on a lot of advice, we started from Chandigarh.
2. I see in you itinerary, that you plan to do a lot of sight seeing along the way itself (Rajasthan etc). I would very strongly recommend, you drive as easily and straight as you can to Manali, from where the real trip begins. Point is, you are in for one hell of ride. It will really help if you are not fatigued out in the beginning itself. You can always catch these sights on your way back down to Mumbai.
3. The even better option is to load all of your 4 bikes in a train to Chandigarh and take the same train yourself. You can start your actual ride from Chandigarh. That way you will be in peak physical shape, and the bikes too would have undergone much less wear and tear. plus transporting bikes by train is dirt cheap. i really hope you consider the above advice.
4. in case you do decide to ride all the way from Mumbai, at the bare minimum, drop the sight seeing on the way up. do it on the way back down.
5. Allow for very heavy traffic and congestion on the Surat Baroda stretch, on account of the expressway construction. Last time I drove to Chandigarh, bombay baroda stretch took me 13 hours. yes 13 hours. it will be less for you as it is a bike, but still allow for delays. Also try and make sure you cross Baroda, before sunset, as due to the work in progress, road conditions are awful and there is no lighting. plus if there are drizzles and showers, it will be a real mess.
6. Try and move on till Udaipur instead of Ahmedabad for the night, if you are in good shape. the Baroda-Ahmedabad expressway is an absolute dream and you can make very good time.
7. Also, (in case you are not aware), do not take the Baroda-Ahmedabad expressway all the way to the end. Before the expressway ends, on the expressway itself, you need to take the exit to Kishangad-Jaipur link. this will save you a hell lot of time and connect you in the fastest possible way and better roads, instead of going into Ahmedabad city.
8. Nearing Gujarat - Rajasthan border, there is a small stretch past Himmatnagar, which was bad. dunno if its been repaired now. expect this before hand and ride carefully.
9. Rajasthan, throughout, roads are awesome. but for heaven's sake, i repeat, for heaven's sake, do not ride on the extreme right of the lane(the fast lane). They govt. water tankers are parked along the right lane to water the beautiful plants on the divider, and coming out of a curve it will really catch you by surprise. Similarly cows step off the divider after a feast on the plants right onto the fast lane. i have driven mumbai-delhi a number of times, and there is always something that manages to surprise me. So if you stay in the middle, you will have some more reaction time. also staying in the leftmost lane is not safe, as every tractor and mahindra pick-up will drive wrong side in Rajasthan. so stay in the middle at all times. that apart, road quality is superb.
10. once you clear the kishangad-jaipur expressway, you will take a left heading towards gurgaon/delhi/ncr. this road will throw many surprises at you in terms of very bad patches and pot holes in between, when you least expect it. its a good thing you have planned this stretch in day time. early morning departure from jaipur. i did this at night. truckers are horrible, and this stretch is quite congested. For some reason, along this road, as you keep getting closer and closer to Delhi, the road discipline keeps deteriorating. so beware.

Now, I'll continue from Manali onwards.

1. Leave Manali really early in the morning.The road up to Rohtang pass gets jammed towards the afternoon, and you will lose a lot of time. if you leave really early, you can beat all of this traffic. its really a bad traffic jam by late afternoon.
2. The road climb to Rohtang is really bad. ride slowly. stay of the left edges of the road. exceptionally broken roads, mud and slush.
3. I see that you plan the day's halt at Patsio. I strongly suggest you cross Keylong etc. and put up at Jispa. Jispa is the standard halt for this trip. You will also need to spend at least a day in Jispa to acclimatise.
4. The ride down from the top of Rohtang Pass towards Patsio/Jispa is exceptionally beautiful and scenic and horrible in terms of ride. be very careful. Please do not waste too much time on taking snaps. you will see a lot more beauty in the days to come.
5. once you climb down from Rohtang, the first villages are khoksar and sisu. there are a couple of unmarked mud lanes that you need to take. make sure you do not make a mistake here, or you are screwed, because you will be caught in the middle of nowhere at a wrong time.
6. also, on this stretch (top of rohtang to khoksar / sisu), the melting ice will start flowing across the narrow roads and into the valleys with real good force and it'll be biting cold. also, the stream will be quite deep, at least knee length with horribly broken road underneath, so you cannot see. so here, you need to dismount, throw rocks into the water to gauge the depth. one of you needs to cross across to ascertain the safest and highest path across this, or your engines are in for a world of trouble. such streams according to me, which you will encounter a few places, are the single most complicated hurdle on this trip for bikers. Please be careful in these streams. always check before you cross, as in many cases, the road underneath will be completely washed away.
7. there is a small hotel when you turn and proceed from sisu. the guy here was kind enough to let me use his toilet when i was in absolute misery and would have gladly traded a diamond mine for a hole into which i could poop. Say hi to him for me. also a good place for chai-break, but no wasting much time till jispa.
8. following sisu, apart from the brief stretches where you hit the small villages like keylong etc, the roads are horrible and treacherous. you have ravines and the river flowing right underneath you (the river you crossed when you climbed down from Rohtang pass before entering Khoksar). Ride very very carefully here. there is nothing between the left edge of the road and the ravine and river straight down. To give you an idea, this is like the middle of nowhere with nothing. we did this stretch very late night and the last couple of hours we could only drive first/second gear. there are almost no road directions or markings. just follow the beaten track. you will eventually reach jispa. i very strongly recommend making it to jispa end of the first night from manali.
9. Also once you cross keylong, immediately, you will come to a kind of town square. there is a police station here and a number of trucks carrying fuel for the army will be parked here. you can quietly go behind the trucks and bargain with the drivers to sell you fuel. they will overcharge and fuel quality will not be so good. so carry system g. in any case, this is one of the few places you can stock up.
10. jispa to sarchu is very beautiful and scenic. sarchu is the himachal border. this is the worst place in terms of acclimatisation issues and altitude sickness. now let me give you an idea. its REALLY bad. If you can get past Sarchu, then you are okay for the rest of the trip. sub zero temperatures, high winds and altitude sickness. plus you guys are on bikes. so be very careful when your head starts feeling wobbly, which it mostly will. you will lose a sense of balance and start feeling very heavy headed. it will be difficult to hold your head up. of course all this depends on each particular individual, and most importantly, how much running around and exertion you did on barlacha la and other high points on the way to sarchu. more on that in the next point.
11. before you come down to sarchu, you will be at barlacha and the two glaciers (river origins) deepaktal and surajtal. now these places are divinely beautiful and one tends to run around a lot taking snaps etc. this is what screws you up really bad. when you hit barlacha, try not to exert yourself. don't run around, and do not spend too much time here as oxygen levels are really low. (This is also the standard practice to be followed on every high pass. take some snaps, feast your eyes and quickly move on, if you are sensitive to high altitudes. the moment you start descending, you will start feeling better). however, we spent a lot of time on barlacha and deepaktal and surajtal and running around on the ice and we got totally and absolutely screwed by the time we got to Sarchu. We then had to be taken to the army hospital about an hour away and put under oxygen and medication for a couple of hours. nothing serious, but damn unsettling and uncomfortable feeling, this lack of oxygen. the fact that i am heavy smoker also contributed, i guess.
12. The most important thing, is you have specific medicines for this. make sure you stock up on the tablets when you leave mumbai. what these tablets do is makes your blood a little thinner or something, so that oxygen retention is increased. i can't remember the name of the pill. i'll get back to you with the name of the medicine. you MUST have stock of this medicine.
13. Prepare to spend one complete day at Sarchu to get acclimatised. You MUST do this. If you cannot clear Sarchu, you need to head back. If you are okay by the end of the first day, you will not have problems for the rest of the trip. Maximum people who return half way, return back from Sarchu. When we hit Sarchu, the army had airlifted a fmily back to Manali, because they got really serious altitude sickness and had to be hospitalised. Luckily, the area army commander was making his routine inspections that day and so his helicopter was available.
14. Also, may I mention that please do not f*** around army installations. the army is the most awesome institution, the guys are gods when it comes to helping you out and being courteous, but for heaven's sake do not go poking around in an area they have told you not to. That is a sure way to get very bad things inserted up you rear end in a very painful way. That being said, the whole trip you will have peace of mind because you can see the army trucks thru and thru, and our guys are just great in terms of helping you out. please make sure you are very courteous, at least half as courteous as they are. they are so courteous, you will be embarrassed. at one check point, we were requested to alight and sit comfortably. chairs were brought out. the senior officer instructed the jawan to get water for all of us and all that. we felt very small and humbled.
15. oh...and one more thing. Photography. anywhere near an army location, always ask before you snap. Even if you are taking souvenier photos with army personnel, ask first. many of the jawans will oblige and stand with you for a snap, but the officers won't. so just because they speak courteously with you, don't assume they will be ok with the snap. always take permission first. also along the way, you will see a number of bases tucked away between hills and in the valleys. none of these are allowed to be photographed. so be careful.

Now continuing.

1. i see that you are not going to Tso Moriri. thats a really bad road for biking. anycase, you will be bypassing that as per your itinerary.
2. road to leh is by and large ok.
3. leh to nubra is an awesome ride. this is where you will ride to Khardung la. on the other side of khardung la is the nubra valley. nubra valley and hunder is heaven on earth. hunder is awesome.
4. hunder region, you will see heavy army presence. make sure you do not wander into Thoise air force base area. in any case, you will be prevented.
5. on the way to pangong tso, following a brige (river crossing) you have to take a left, not a right. that is restricted area.
6. the last few kilometres to pangong tso, to the hotel, is one of the worst roads. complete lunar landscape. this bad stretch starts just when you hit the lake after the wonderful tarmac ends. the ride to pangong tso is also exceptionally beautiful. but keep your eyes open for streams. there is a particularly dangerous one. its called "pagli nadi". flash flood prone area. be very careful.

Rest of the intenerary is straightforward. Leh to Kargil to Srinagar is naional highway and pretty decent except for some bad stretches as you approach Kargil.

i don't know if you have managed permits to secure you access to ride through batalik and drass sectors. sometimes they do not provide these permits. we managed to get them. this is the longer route to kargil, but more scenic and closer to the war zone. absolutely awesome. there is also a tribal village here. pre-hindu culture and religion. this is reached by parking your bikes right after the doordarshan outpost before batalik and climbing up the hill. the village is named Dah

at kargil, you will see number of army bunkers etc. at some places you are "in sight of enemy soldiers". you have BSF signboards which inform you of this. don't mess around in these areas and stick to the main roads.

You must visit the Kargil War memorial at Drass. Its beautiful and you can pay your respects too. This must not be missed.

i do not see saspol and alshi in your itenerary. i am pretty sure you will be crossing these. these are the most beautiful villages you will see. try to plan such a way that you reach alchi afternoon and spend the night there. you can leave the next day for kargil. also, if you are hitting alchi, you MUST also ride to Lamayur. There is a monastery there and the ride is out of the world.

thats all i can think of at the moment. if i remember some more stuff, i'll post it here. if you want to speak to me, pm me and i can give you some more info or we can meet up.

one more important thing. while at leh, you do not have to stay in Leh proper. just on the outskirts (less than 30 mins ride) you can stay at Shey. its a small beautiful village, very peaceful. Leh is dirty congested packed town full of tourists, and there is really nothing much to see or do in Leh itself. Use Leh as a base, and keep going to all Nubra, Thiksey etc and return back to Leh at night. Do not waste much time in Leh. there is really nothing at all. its just like lonavla. seriously. the sights are around Leh.

Also, while at Leh dedicate one morning to the river rafting. You raft down the indus to the point where the indus meets the Zanskar river. this is an experience not to be missed. your hotel guy will give you the information as to the pick up point. Later when you drive down to kargil, you will see down the ravine to the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar and find it amazing that you rafted down that.

In any case, I'll tell you this. You are in for the most beautiful journey of your life. I know that you are having certain notions and expectations as to what you will see, based on the fact that you going to ride in a mountainous region. Let me just tell you, that you have no idea as to scale and proportions of the sights you will see. This trip is going to open your eyes to real beauty, stark, raw and haunting. You will feel humbled by your insignificance in the larger scheme of things, and start believing in a god, whichever one he may be, because it will seem inconceivable that such beauty could be created without divine intervention.

godspeed.

ciao

p.s.
regarding the rain, once you cross sarchu, possibility of rain reduces. ladakh is geologically classified as a moutainous desert region and is said to receive less rainfall than the sahara. however, we got lucky and got light showers twice on the way to Tso Moriri. rainbows all over. :-)

hey ketan.. yeah m doing well now..! thnx for askin..
not riding though heavily these days.. saving my energy for the massive journey which i have in coming days..
i get sleepless night man.. whn i close my eyes, i reach mountains, above the clouds..
so just waiting.. counting down days..!


In office, i didnt thought even i could get leaves in office so easily.. btw, its wasnt so easy, i was breaking my head & struggling to get leaves.. coz this was the month which had bunch of tasks & hence it was difficuly to allow me for such a massive leave.. almost a month..!!
but i assured them, nothing will get affected, as i will handover my work to somebody else & in worst scenarious & urgencies i will always available on phone..

Mom-Dad, was the most difficult part for me .. they where shocked when heard about the Leh.. actually this thing which made this more worst was... once a foreign show, translated in hindi was showing up on Discovery Channel.. i was watching it as it was LEH & mom-dad where watching it as was tuned on.. the guy on the show was in a Qualis, & was narrating that "Am now riding on a road which has zero traction, am not able to apply brakes, this mountain may slide anytime, i can fall down as the roads are so narrow & slippery.. my head is wobbling, am not able to breathe."
this was the actual culprit which made the thing worst..
but later i had assure my parents dont worry, i will come back the way am going.. just have a faith in me, will keep calling very frequently..! & yeah this is a lifetime achievement for me.. which i want to. i want to c my dream in real.!
Mom agreed than.. for dad, i have to show him tons of pix of guyz been there.. infact i showed him couple of females been to ladakh on bullet & then i questioned dad.. if a gal can go y not me..!! not trust that bullshit tv guy.. they do it for publicity.. damn that tv anchor.. now its fine.. both hv agreed.. so happy..!!!

Girl, yeah this was also a difficult task for me.. but I told her.. dont worry honey.. plz allow me to go this year we will married next year, & I dont wanna go after we staying together leaving u alone added to this, seeing my parent convinced she too got bit towards it & was shopping along with me for this trip..

@hell_glider

man, thanks a ton for the valuable info on this.. I could literally feel the way you have down the things together so well..!!
am gonna take ur write-ups print & will be using it to help us know the things for the coming roads..
hats off to u buddy for taking such deep efforts to help us.. Appreciated from my heart..!!
We would certainly need your more help in the coming days..!!
thanks man for doing so much..!! the entire guide is just so amazing & more than what we expected..!!

@hell glier -- fantastic write-up!.....looking extremly useful as well....
@rachit $ gopi...u r going to live the dream of most of us.....live it to the fullest!..

Gopi u r the silent acheiver, thats the best quality i like about u mate!...
u do gangtok; u also do a rann of kachch ; now u r doing a ladhak!! + another 500+ rides to that list as well...

I believe leh rides are lik once in a lifetime rides. I had been to manali once & did rohtang pass and had fun in the snow nearby as well.
Let me just tell you, that you have no idea as to scale and proportions of the sights you will see. This trip is going to open your eyes to real beauty, stark, raw and haunting. You will feel humbled by your insignificance in the larger scheme of things, and start believing in a god, whichever one he may be, because it will seem inconceivable that such beauty could be created without divine intervention.

couldnt have desctibed that manali trip in a better way. manali was a trailer, i can imagine the beauty further north!!

Unfortunately such dream comes for a price, which right now i dont belive is the right time for me to put in, thats the only reason cant be a part of it.....

Get leh'd guys...

no problem buddy,

like i said, pm me if you want to meet up before you go for any last minute queries or planning help. will be glad to help.

peace.

thnx vikhram.!! i still cannot believe am getting closer day by day to my dream..! this is going to be more bigger that the dream..!! thnx for ur wishes..!

wht kind of important medicines r v suppose to collect.. we have taken all the basic & essential ones like Soframycin, Naysulf, Glucose-D, Vicks, Bi-Quinol, Diclogem,, Spasmonil, Saidon, Bandaids & Diamox..
r v missing nything & any suggestion on the need of consumption for Diamox will be helpful..