A Tryst to Heaven (6th June 2010)

Mumbai - Leh - Mumbai (6th June 2010)

(6 Bikers, 5 Bikes, 6000km, 8 States, 20 days and curves of Himalayas)

Well, we call it Leh - the capital of Ladhak and crown of India.We, a team of 6 people, did 6000 km in 20 days. 6 bikers, 5 bikes, 8 states and all weathers.

We did this head trip during the month of June 2010. It is been quite a while since this blog has been pending so it is now taking time to remember each moments spent during the trip. Here I am writing my version of the experiences during the trip. I am still trying to make this short, as I am unable to spend much time on blogging due to work pressure.

So how did this phrenetic idea come? Well, it was the month of January, as usual I was at the office, one of my colleagues Prafulla sent me a link in Xbhp.com where four guys had done a bike trip to Leh. I read it fully and saw their picasa web album. It was amazing, the beautiful landscapes and snow covered mountains. I was awestruck; I had only seen such beautiful landscapes in Hollywood movies or in my laptop wallpapers. It was difficult to believe that such a beautiful place exists in India. The second triggering thought on riding in the curves of Himalayas was true frantic. The idea of getting into this gigantic trip had slowly started to sink into my head.

The biggest hurdle at this stage was to get leave from work and winning over the family members for this hazardous trip. God was with me, I floated this idea with my better half, she was very appurtenant and in fact she was ready to come with me but I have two small cute daughters so she had to compromise but she ultimately agreed for my dream trip. This was first win. I also blew this idea to my dad (he had done some big trips on bike during his young age), surprisingly he was also very supportive. Sequence of favourable events was making me felicitous. Fortunately my leave also got sanctioned by my boss. Aha! I am thankful.
Now the second biggest task was to find out right riding partners. It took me almost a week to prepare the project plan. Prafulla said he will come as this was his one of the New Year resolutions. His friend Sachin decided to join him from Nagpur as pillion.

I had done a family car trip to Parchmari last year and my Santro broke down in the middle of Chambal’s jungle. Somehow we managed to tow the car till Indore and found a service centre for repair. There, I met a Vinod. A 55 year “young” man with lot of wit in his face and we had become friends. He told me stories of 3.5 lac km on his 30 year old Royale Enfield -this gave huge courage to plan further for this trip. I thought he would be perfect for this trip. At this stage I was still not very sure about Prafulla, so I was building a big squad knowing that there could be some last minutes drop outs.

By now I had a 4-member team (me, prafulla, sachin and Vinod). I I contrived a detailed plan and floated it on the .Internet surprisingly I got good response. I choose Jayant, A business man from Airoli, Mumbai. Meanwhile Prafulla’s two more friends (Shriram and Sashi) also wanted to join us, now we had a big team so we decided to ride in two groups.

Prafulla and Shriram had a ZMR, Jayant, Sashi and I had Pulsar and Vinod had RE. I wanted to drive Bull so I sold my Pulsar and brought an old second hand Bullet. The very next challenge was to prepare the real partners (bikes). I started refurbishing my old bullet and changed almost all the engine parts.. I did some modification in the bullet like changing the clutch housing to 500cc and put Maruti headlight kit etc. Rest of the members also had their bikes serviced and repaired.

We were getting ready, buying the riding gears, bike spare parts, medicines etc. We had a perfect plan including the detailed checklist so nothing was missing. My dad helped me lot in preparing my bike, preparing saddle bags, rain covers etc. I am really thankful to him. We had a few conference calls between members, to work out and help the team members preparing for the trip. In between Vinod came to Bombay we all met him and got more excited to ride under his experienced guidance.

The D’ day was nearing, we all were hallucinating and waiting the day to start. Oh! Our first drop out was Vinod. He had some personal commitment and could not join us. We all were upset yet full of energy to start the trip.

We had three major objectives on this trip, photography, riding to the heights of Himalayas and knowing India a bit more.

Our itinerary was Mumbai-Udaipur-Delhi-Chandigarh/Bilaspur-Manali-Sarachu- Leh. One more upsetting thing that happened was that the Manali – Leh route was closed. We were determined to go so we decided to take the Srinagar route. So we changed the route to Mumbai-Udaipur-Delhi-Chandigarh- Jammu –Srinagar –Daras- Kargil – Leh.

Finally the D-day arrived, as planned we wanted to leave from Mumbai on 6th June 2010. 5th June was my daughter’s birthday so I had a late night party at home. I tied to sleep but excitement won over sleep. I left home around 3:30 in the morning; my dad came down and helped me with the packing of the bags onto the bike. I met Prafulla and Sachin in Koperkhairane(Mumbai) and went to Airoli to pickup Jayant. We all were commoved and happy. Our journey started, the first day we wanted to cover 800 km and reach Udaipur by same night. Jayant was a little slow and Prafulla was quite fast. Jayant and Sachin lost their way near Ahmadabad and we lost almost 2 hrs to find each other. Somehow we managed to reach near Udaipur.
Around 40 km before Udaipur, Prafulla’s ZMR gave us a jounce. One of the gear bearing inside engine broke due to heat and it created a hole in the crank case. It was around 10:00pm and the road was hilly. We had no option but to tie his bike to my Bullet and tow till Udaipur.

With a minimal effort we got a highway side hotel (Name: Matz hotel), we were tired and we had food and slept. Morning, as we were starting around 10:00am, Jayant lost his petrol key, but somehow he managed to open the petrol tap. We took Prafulla’s bike to a repair centre. The master was really good he opened the engine got it welded and fixed the issue and freed us by 8:00pm. Since we had lost lot of time, Prafulla was feeling bad that because of him we all got delayed (so nice of him). We as team took a decision to ride in the night and reach Delhi by early morning. We drove full night with 30 min nap in one Dhaba at some village in Rajasthan. By morning we were exhausted and drowsy. Our first mishap – Jayant got a nap while riding and he fell off the bike. He got hurt in his hand but it was a minor injury. We decided to halt in one hotel and take some sleep. We slept from 9:00am to 1:00pm and again started our journey to Delhi. But we found that oil was leaking from the ZMR - the welding was not fully successful, at Jaipur we again got it repaired in one of the Hero Honda service centres. With lot of breaks in between we reached Delhi  at night 2:00am.

Meanwhile Sriram and Sashi had put their bikes on train from Hyderabad and they reached Delhi. They reached before us as they wanted to do some on the way shopping. We were drained out by the time we reached Delhi. Thanks to Ram, he arranged for some comfortable paying guest room for us. We decide to start around 8:00am next day. It was difficult to get up in the morning; we left Delhi around 12:00pm.

Delhi -Chandigrah daba

Now the team was big and I was worried about the distance we were covering per day. We had covered only 300kms and stayed at Ropad. Meanwhile the team decided to go to Manali and stay there and wait for road to open. I suggested taking the Srinagar route as planned.

We left from Ropad in two groups. We all reached Kud (5 km before Patnitop) and stayed in J&K tourism guesthouse. It was really nice to catch up with sleep after the entire day riding. Next day morning around 9:00pm we started for Drass. Drass is the second coolest place in the word.

Our dream journey began from here. It was cold. The road from Kud to Srinagar was scintillating. We were entering into the “Taj of India” - Kashmir. And as said it is heaven. Extremely Beautiful and Treacherous, this route goes through the Kashmir Valley - via Jammu - Srinagar - Drass - Kargil - Leh over Zoji La. We enjoyed riding in the valley of Kashmir and enjoyed the hilly landscapes. We took some good landscape and satisfy our photography need here. The road was accompanied by Indus River. In this valley we encountered military post every 500 to 1000 mtr. Automatically we were filled with emotion of patriotism. It was really enthralling to be in the valley of Kashmir.

We reached Srinagar, brought some woolen and rainy suits. The magnificent vistas Kashmir is renowned for. Even though there is heavy army presence and there are soldiers posted every few hundred meters, it is relatively safe and security forces are there to help you out. Apart from this the journey was pretty straight forward. We wanted to take a breather here and marvel at the beauty of Sonamarg i.e. meadows of gold but time was less so we kept it for return journey. Before reaching Sonamarg, Ram and Sashi lost their way. I, Prafulla and Jayant were together. Sonamarg was the first heighted place in our journey. It is at 9000ft from sea level. Our cell-phones were still working. As we were riding in groups, We got a call from Ram that he was 30 km away from Sonamarg. We told him to meet at Sonamarg. Someone told us at Srinagar that Sonamarg gate will be open for traffic only from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. We were hurrying up to cross Sonamarg. In all this hurry bury we got split into three groups and lost touch with each other. Prafulla was driving too fast and thus we lost him also.

From Sonamarg the landscape starts changing dramatically all the way till the famous Jozi La pass (11,640ft), roads on the both side of the pass are in bad condition with lots of gravel, during rain the gravel turns to slush, and we had lot of wheel spin fun! We crossed Sonamarg around 5:00 pm.

Traffic to the final summit of the pass is controlled and visitors have to get themselves registered to proceed further but we were lucky and no one asked to register here. This is also the toughest few kms on the entire Srinagar - Leh highway, beyond which tarmac is fantastic.

After sonmarg, we were to cross Jozila Pass to reach Drass. This was the surprise road for us. The first curve was so steep that my bullet got stuck in a big pot hole and it refused to climb. Jayant had to come down and pushed my bull and then it climbed. While my bull got stuck in the pot hole I tried to pull it with clutch power but it resulted in a clutch plate burnout. There was hardly a road, it was muddy, sandy, watery and snowy. It was really dangerous. My bullet’s pickup was reducing because of clutch plate burnout. It was getting dark. Meanwhile I did not know that bullet rectifier generally burns out in long run. There was no light in my bullet. Our bikes were running hot even in the chilled weather due to steep climbing. Suddenly Jayant’s bike went into chilled water in a pot hole and his rear brake shoe broke. We did not have options neither we carried extra brake shoes. We loosen the brake. He was driving without brakes and I was driving without light on such dangerous road. Even we had to stop for few hrs as road was blocked due to heavy snowfall; later a snow clearing motor came and cleared the road.

Prafulla at Zozila pass

 Sachin posing in the night at Zozila pass

 finally we reached in the world second coolest inhabitant

 tiger hill at daras

 Zozila again

Some how we managed to reach Drass. It was really chilled there. Fortunately we got accommodation in J&K tourism hotel. We were searching for a PCO to call back home, meanwhile Prafull a and Sachin came. Ram and Sashi were unreachable and we had no clue where they were. I was worried about Sashi. As he is really young and had no experience of driving on such roads. Drass is the place where tiger hill is situated and the Indian army fought from here during Kargil war.
It was a chilly day in Drass. Next morning, We started for Kargil via Lamayuru (a small village between Kargil and Drass) but Jayant’s Bike refused to spin as the rear break shoe was fully broken. We removed the break shoe and reached kargil. There Prafulla and Jayant did a mini servicing of their bikes.


We continued to get steep roads from Lamayuru to a small village called Mulbek, here we had 11 hairpin bends. Finally we reached Leh on the same night around 11:00pm.


We got a reference of a localities in Leh named Funsung (not wangdoo ) . We asked help to get the accommodation for us. Our next surprise came here. Funsung was very kind; he arranged a room for us for that night and got food for us. Next morning he arranged for a three room hotel for us and arranged a Qualis for site seeing, he paid for our food, he arranged permit etc for us. We were surprised and feeling fishy for this guy. But it turned out that he was doing a social service J


Next day morning was the another exciting day. We planned to visit Pangong TSO. The route was 170 km from Leh (Leh - Shey - Karu - Shakti - Chang La - Durbuk - Tanksey - Lukung - Spangmik (Pangong Tso))


Many travelers do the Leh - Pangong Tso excursion as a day trip and come back to Leh by night, we also thought to do the same. The trip between Leh to Karu (45km) was fantastic and we reached in an hours time. The real adventure started from karu to Changla. Changla, at 17800 ft, is the second highest motorable road in the world.


For most part ascend is steep and initially roads were in good condition. As we approached the final few kms of the ascend to Chang La, road conditions start to deteriorate and steepness increased, making the affair of reaching the summit of Chang La more challenging and memorable.

Of all the passes one encounters in Ladakh (barring Marsimik La), Chang La is the steepest and due to bad roads at the final ascent it is also the toughest, no wonder it is called "The Mighty Chang La".


Once we reached the summit, we were greeted by the Indian Army troops stationed there to get acclimatized to high altitude, before they are posted in world's highest battlefield, Siachen. There is a temple on top of Chang La pass, called Chang La Baba ka Mandir, as well as a cabin built by the army where we warmed up while chatting with the soldiers. The earlier road was too bad and we were feeling the Acute Mountain Sickness and we were planning to return from here without going to Pangong Lake. But one of the army officials, Major Ankur Tanveer suggested that we should not miss the Pangong TSO. We agreed with his views and started for the lake after having some complementary herbal tea. After a few minutes rest, it was a time to begin the descent from Chang La, road was in bad condition for few kilometers, beyond which superbly laid tarmac coupled with beautiful scenery awaited us.


Journey beyond Tanksey (a village after Chang la) for most part is through fantastically laid tarmac and views, there were quite a few water passages built in the middle of the road, which essentially mean 8-10 feet long depression in the middle of the road without any warnings!

As we approached the lake, its sheer size started becoming more apparent as we finally reach its shores. On the banks of the lake is a military camp and also Lukung which is a collection of tents and newly built Eco Huts.


From here onwards, the road turns in to sand and rock filled dirt track. The small settlement visible from here is the village of Spangmik, the last village up to which we are allowed to go on normal inner line permits.

I and Sriram searched for localities and found one. We went to their house to have a look at their culture. He was very kind and shown us the entire house with a warm tea with warmest greet. We came to our hut and slept.


The Panggong was chills and toughest. We all were feeling breathless and it was difficult for us to acclimatize in that environment. We started our return journey. It was even more difficult for our bikes to burn fuel and run. We did little R&D and tried to remove the air filter but it was no help. Finally with lot of effort we reached Chang la. Sachin was in real bad condition due to AMS. We had to seek medical check-up. The Indian Army was very helpful and Sachin got some medicine at the army camp.
In between, J&K chief minister also visited Pangong Lake and we happen to meet him during our return journey.

 prafulla at his best

 Sashidhar photography

 baba jayant in pensive mood

 The Bikers at Leh

 Sachin Shooting

 The Great Funsook (not Wangroo)

 Sense of achievement - Ram

 Nairani Saheb looking at the sky

 The First Snow place is started

 the captain (prafulla) leading from the front

 Jai Maharashtra

 Prafulla in Tipu Sultan pose

 Acharya ji shooting

 prafulla want to put this board in his house :)

 he is getting the snow from top - he will melt and make it drinking water

 Sachin did not read this carefully

 Maggie time

 The hero of Ladhak - he posed for me and sashi

 Aha ! the beautiful Pangong lake

 tent house

 J&K chief minister

 ye dekho photography photographer ki

 lemayeru

This is the place we rode our bikes in snowfall. The road was really dangerous and adventures. We reached back to Leh and decided to start out return journey. Since Leh - Manali road was still closed; we took the same route for return journey. The return journey was little cool for us as we were aware of the roads and climatic conditions but the excitement was not less on riding on Himalayas.

I wanted to write little more on the culture and some of events which we encountered during the tryst but it is going to take time so I am closing the first version of my “see” here. However, you can visually experience some of the events I've described here in the link given below.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ReachSujeet/MumbaiLehMumbai##