Getting Leh’d 2010

Its that time of the year again! when the Himalaya’s call out to our restless souls, beckoning us to ride into her open arms! With the false start last year, I will be taking extra care to ensure that this year to ensure that the plan goes through.

Rough ride plan for this year:

departure date: May 22 or May 29: will finalize next week after talking to various clients. With Amit’s departure, i am left without a network resource so I will also have to write a number of backup and maintenance utilities to ensure that those tasks get done automatically without manual intervention. Will also have to write out those end of day managers for end of day credit card charging. The home fires have to kept burning while I am away right? Hope to finish both these by 16 May max. by that time, I also hope to get Dougie in shape for the long ride.

On this ride, i will be making my very first set of short films:3 films of 15 min duration each. Since I have only done this once before (on the Uttaranchal ride), I decided i will need some professional tutoring. So signed up for a crash course in editing and filmmaking which I hope will be over by the 21st of May. ofcourse, friends and phamily in the business have vowed to help with the post-production and marketing, right guys?

Tentative plan:
Day 1 – Leaving Pune for North via NH8. end of day in Himmatnagar or Shyamalaji if lucky.
Day 2 – Himmatnagar to Rewari or Rohtak.

Hope to reach Leh on Day 7.

Two 4-day and 1 3-day circuits both returning to Leh covering 2 “special” routes. Will take a call on riding back via Kashmir based on the security situation. I am hoping the Kashmir plan works out because atleast one of the documentaries I want to shoot is in that area.

If not doing Kashmir, then will be in Amritsar in 3 days with night halts in Bharatpur and Dharamshala. If going to Zanskar-Kashmir, will be reaching Amritsar in 10/11 days after covering Zanskar and Kashmir.

From Amritsar plan to take a routing via Ganganagar-Bikaner-Barmer-Pokhran-Munabao-Ahmedabad to explore Rajasthan while getting back to Pune: – ~6 days.

Total: 23/30 days ex-Pune. Original plan to ship bikes to Chandigarh cancelled because I figure it will cheaper and more fun to ride down!

Slightly modified riding style as compared to previous years in an attempt to get better lighting conditions for photography as well as the film. After Mandi and upto Kud on the return, will be riding in 2 “slots” everyday: morning 6 to 11 and then again from 3 to 7 with the intervening period spent at a suitable location. This is based on my experience with harsh lighting in the region around noon. Also this ensures that I will get more time in places like Udepur and Keylong which otherwise just get bypassed.

Overall Avg speed has been kept down to ensure sufficient time for photography.

Equipment:

SLR’s – Canon 40D and 5Ds – thinking of carrying just the 40D since my bag is anyway too bulky
Lenses – 18-55 and 10-22 (First time for the 10-22!!). Thinking of NOT taking the 70-200. Last time in Leh, i took just ONE snap out of 125 using the zoom lens and carrying it is just a pain in the ass.

Film camera: PD170. basic i know, but thats all i have! will do for now.