XBHP is flooded with LEH rides this year i guess......hats off to you....mate....

Congrats on your LEH 2.0

Nice trip there, btw i liked your himalayan survival kit

Thanks all.
Sorry for being inactive for long time.Was out of riding because of a misjoined right hand thumb which took forever to heal.Add to it Ill give the common excuse which we give to our friends,insane work pressure for not being in touch.

PS:Good news is I wont stretch the triplog Ill finish it before diwali weekend before I bury myself with more work



Day 6:
Keylong-Pang:

Next days ride had plenty of good vistas......















Was dissappointed to find very little water in suraj Tal.



The presence tent camps in sarchu was almost non existant....most of the people had packed up for the season
Had lunch at Sarchu at one of the tents






Reached Gata loops...










Reached one of the loops where there is small temple types where people make offering for some dead boy.
People had made offering of water bottles,empty beer bottle,cigarrates
This time I had got a chocalate bar to make it.I peeked inside it and was shocked to find a human skull
at the little altar made.....Alrighty the story of someone dying from dehydration over there is true then.






Reached Pang.



Surprisingly it was almost empty of tourists.Went into tent camp.
One of the caretakers commented I was very tough to walk around just in a light sweater and riding solo.........kya kare majburi hai,people drop out.....Gee!! I am a social retard and I like it that way For a minute I felt good and I imagined myself pushing my bike to bike to m-la top all by myself

Had almost 12 hours to kill.
Fished out a novel I had brought along with me and kept reading it till it was daylight.

Pang-Leh:
Got up early from my bed early at around 5.I had to get permits fast...
I didnt have much of AMS.I am fast becoming a himalayan mutant
Started the bike but she wont respond.The lady at dhaba suggested I should wait until sun
is shining bright.Waited and kept checking starting my bike at regular intervals.

There were little bonfires lit.There were not many tourists and I thought might need some dhakka start
I befriended a friendly types guy besides a bonfire who I thought was a tent owner and I kept chittchatting with him.
He had khakhi trousers and a sweater later I learnt he was a cop
posted at Pang to note down truck numbers.

Thankfully sun was out at around 7 am and temperature was crawling back to zero.

It was above zero soon but bike wouldnt budge .Had to park it diagonally till sun warmed up the engine and clutch case metal.


Minus 1.8 and steadily rising....



I decided to check starting my bike again.Yipee it started........

Reached Leh in jiffy.................
























Went to DC office and got permits.Checked into a cheap 300 rupee room where I had stayed earlier in 2007.
Slipped on a tshirt and went to take a stroll.
Surfed the internet,had a burger and took a walk in market to get permits photocopied.Photostat is 3 rupee per copy in leh and I initially went to lot of shops to bargain for the prices since I had to make 15 photocopies....I had nothing else to do in life that day
One of the shops had a pretty looking lady and I decided to walk in and finally get my xeroxes ...Meanwhile a guy walked in.He had alpinestar jacket and AGV helmet...bikers are plenty
but someone with good riding gear generally is a serious tourers.I was dressed in casual tee shirt and jeans and my bike was parked at hotel.He broke the Ice first and asked
"This is all you need to get xeroxed".I nodded.I asked him if he was with a riding club.He said XBHP.

I said I was over there too but I wasnt a active tourer these days.I told him my id and gave me his id.He was Darth Veda...
He said," I know you ,You are the other sith lord around "
He took me to introduce me to Praful Tripathy standing outside.
These guys were gonna do nubra,pangong and marsimik la....same as me.What a stroke of luck!!!!!
I had company for most difficult parts of the ride.I later got introduced to Pranay.
For next four days I had fantastic company of good riders.

Gr8 stuff there dude once more.. your 1st trip to Ladakh was the 1st travel-log I've ever read.. and now this.

Hats off!

leh-diskit:

Started early and went to see my new friends.They were painstakingly washing thier bikes.I joined them
and gave my bike a much deserved bath



Started for nubra






Road from south pullu to north pullu was entirely screwed up.



A mandatory poser shot for bikes worlds 'highest' road



Got down at nubra valley and marvelled at beautiful vistas over there.






Reached diskit..........stayed in a house with a beautiful garden

diskit-nubra-panamik-leh

after clicking some macros which were out of focus we proceeded to see nubra desert










Syok river





went to panamik.....i was expecting some gyser types hot water fountain....we saw a water flowing from a small hole.....sulphur deposit made sides look yellow and it looked more or less like dirty sh**h**e.I am sorry for the description........I had never seen hot water springs was expecting something I had seen in discovery channel......couldnt help being dissapointed I clicked photos of it and deleted it coz closeup shots of the same looked like what was described earlier.

Leh-Pangong-Tso:

Started riding towards pangong.Road was awesome spare top five kms on either side of chang-la.Reached pangong in jiffy.Eagarness and excitement of rest of the team on reaching pangong and seeing it for the first time was worth remembering


Pagal nallah now is almost non-existent and there is a bridge construction going there,so it would be gone next year



Checked into barracks at lukang.Was charged at 350 bucks for barracks.Last time I was quoted 1000 bucks and 400 bucks for tent.I guess the price varies according to season.Last time was august or maybe some one made a real 'chaman' of me back then.

Explored the lake.We had skipped lunched and enjoyed some french fries made by the aunty and her husband.















We to Pulsies:Are you ready to take on marsimik-la tommorow morning??
Pulsars (Glowing their pilot lamps):"No fear".
I love this "No fear" pic,wish it was much sharper.
|
V




Went back and we ate more oily french fries.....

After dinner we we went to click some night shots:

Eeirie.........Notice how only leg is visible

The D-Day:Pangong- M-la- Leh:

We had no trouble waking up early.Everyone was charged up to take on toughest pass around...


Did take some early morning shots of pangong-tso:









Were greeting by a frozen mini-nallah.



Not knowing what lied ahead we rode on....
initially it wasnt much and we thought it was just an overrated pass:





















At times the gradient got steep ,we got stuck in loose soil at times some of the bikes had pushed,dragged at time



Finally we made it top.....




BAL P200/P220 lineup with various colors

time for some pojing:
Pranay:











The stylebhai poje









Returned to Leh and all of us had a gr8 dinner.Tommorow Praful,Pranay and Veda would go back from manali route and I would do some time pass in leh and head back via srinagar the day after.

Group pic:

left to right:
Pranoy,Veda,Me and Praful:




A group photo at K-top



My short trip log doesnt give you an idea of gr8 and memorable time I had with these guys for four days.....

Dude... they were husband and wife!!!

Jeez I thought he was 15 year oldMy bad....fixed it


Leh-Kargil:

Did a easy leasure ride to Kargil.Plan was to reach drass and visit the war memorial on the way. But drass had no nice places to stay apart from tourism bungalow many places to eat were shabby looking more of a truckie stop then a proper city.

























I need photostat of my vehicle documents to courier it the next day and I would prefer doing it at a shop inbetween.When I saw decent looking hotel at Kargil I found myself riding inside gates.The cost was exorbitant at 800 bucks a day....hahaha .....this is not delhi u are charging so much I wanted to say..........argued that I had to stop only for night and would be leaving at 5 am.....the owner told me people arrive at night and stay for only two hours but pay the same....i didnt argue....place had decent parking,hot water,clean toilets ,TV with english movie channels to keep me entertained till next day.





Hotel was apparently one of the good ones with lot of gora goris,some desi travellers and plenty desi families on vacation(chitchatting abt kargil war and leh vacation spot)I was happy I didnt alone have to stay in hellish "Hill View" hotel at drass.


Hotels name was "Hotel Siachen" and its on right hand side on the highway near taxi stand at Kargil if you are driving to srinagar.Kargil is a curious town again with plenty of salons and photostudios.Wonder how does economy of place work if most of the people do the same work


There was a restaurant but no room service and I didnt have to step out of hotel.Bought shampoo sachet had a hot water bath,had a early dinner,settled into bed in front of TV bought some haldiram namkeen and cold drinks to finish off my contingeny himalayan survival kit

Kargil-srinagar:

Reached drass and was at the war memorial site:

Names of heros at kargil:

Rode off to Kargil.Zozilla was in bad shape as the praful and company had said.I had two days to spare.Planned to stop at sonmarg,but heck there cellphone want working.I had just 80-90 kms to go to finish off my marathon ride so I carried on till srinagar.
Checked into hotel new Muskhaan next to nathu sweets on boulevard road as my new friends had recommended for 600 bucks.The hotel one floor below was 1500 bucks with the same view and same room types

Spent couple of days packing my bike home,resting and on 4th october caught a flight back to mumbai.

Tololing range in the backdrop ...



Tiger hills(Straight and Pointed mountain on right hand side of the road) where a pitched battle of control was faught by Indian army in 1999







Sonmarg









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