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| Ladakh 2006 |
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Click here to view my Picture Gallery (Opens in New Window) Click here to view Anukarans Picture Gallery of the Leh Trip |
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Outbound Route: Delhi-Ambala-Ludhiana-Kud-Srinagar-Sonmarg-Zoji
La-Drass-Kargil-Mulbekh-Lamayuru-Leh
Total Circuit: 3600 kms
Co-Riders:
This was one ride that did not go well from the start! First off the ride plan was drastically slashed from the original 32 day, Pune to Pune plan to a 20 day Delhi-Leh-Delhi-Pune plan. And fate was to conspire to ensure that we could not complete the last leg from Delhi to Pune as well as we were forced to ship our crippled bikes back to Pune! All this in sharp contrast to both my earlier 2 long rides: Leh and Kanyakumari with Rohit and Manoj respectively: which were lessons in perfect planning! The original ride plan would have had me and Chotu riding out from Pune on the 1st on the NH8, syncing up with Rahul/Anu at Delhi and doing Srinagar, Zanskar, Nubra and Hanle before turning back onto the Leh-Manali highway and heading home back via the NH8. Work pressures however resulted in a drastic rearrangement of ride plans: Me and chotu decided to ship out our bikes and ride from Delhi on the 14th hoping to sync up with Anu and Rahul in Leh on the 19th from where we could do the rest of the ride together. I ended up working till the last minute leaving for the airport straight from the office to catch the late evening flight to Delhi!! Like last year, getting out of the mess called Delhi proved to be the hardest and a most frustrating exercise! We left Maasis place in Vasant Kunj at around 1230 but by the time we crossed the Delhi border and entered Haryana, it was past 1530!! Once we crossed the Delhi-Haryana border though, we picked up speed quite dramatically: Dougie was regularly hitting the 120kph mark and often on stretches doing a constant 100-110kph for an hour at a stretch!! Nightfall comes in late in this part of the country so we decided to push ahead till as long as we had light! Big mistake as we found out! Hotels are few and far between, atleast close to the highway. And the insects of various kinds descended onto the highway as darkness set in attracted by the lights on the highway. My headlight was soon coated with a goeey, bloody mess of dead insects as was my helmet visor. I raised the visor to improve the view and soon I was half blind!! We pulled into Ludhiana, tired and sore at well past 10pm and checked into the only "good" hotel we could find. Bloody expensive it was too! I have stayed in 3-star type hotels before, but it was always "Value for Money"! But this hotel "Takson" was a bloody ripoff!! The first "discovery" of the ride was the shortcut bypassing Jammu. It basically required us to get off the NH1 just after Samba, turning right after a long bridge, to get onto a narrow country road that took us through a fabulous forest reserve to Udhampur where we joined the NH1 again. The road is pretty rough in places and the whole road is extremely landslide prone (we personally saw a few scary sights), however it saves over 110 kms and it avoids the mess that is Jammu! The real climb started from Udhampur with a steep curvy road taking us to Kud (our night halt for the day). Kud is a great holiday destination in itself and a fabulous base for trekkers and riders who want to explore the north-western part of Himachal. FYI, Kud is the place from where riders can turnoff for Dharmashala. A fabulous mountain road leads from here to Dharmshala and onwards towards Chamba. According to some in the biker network, there is a road that leads further from Chamba Valley into Udaipur (in the Chamba valley, NOT Rajasthan) and from there joins the Manali-Leh Highway at Tandi!! Must do this ride sometime!! The ride from Kud to Banihal (before the Jawahar tunnel) was really pleasant this time as there were none of the traffic jams that this particular stretch is notorious for. Passing through the Jawahar Tunnel bought us into the Kashmir Valley. A very deserted valley if I may add! The Qazigund we rode into resembled a ghost town straight out of some cheesy western movie with shutters downed and eerily deserted streets! You could HEAR the silence! And just once in a while, an army convoy led by a minesweeper followed by 2 or more "Varuna" (armoured trucks fitted out with machine guns). Then there were teams of minesweepers going through the countryside with a fine toothcomb!! The terrorist attacks in Kashmir over the past week had undoubtedly rattled the govt and the army who were clearly not taking any chances!! Needless to say Chotu was pretty whitefaced when we pulled into the first open dhaba we found just after Baramulla. The scene was no different all the way to Srinagar!! We took a route that would bypass Srinagar and would take us directly to Ganderbal. Sonmarg was noticeably less crowded this time: perhaps the terrorist attacks have played their role! However there was still some pilgrim traffic headed for Amarnath and accomodation was hard to find. The road to Leh runs via Kargil and involves 3 pass crossings: Namika-La, Fotu-La and the formidable Zoji La. The road up Zoji La was still broken up. Last year, me and rohit had a tough time negotiating a steep descent down Zoji into Sonmarg, on slushy roads with streams flowing downwards! But thankfully it hadnt rained in this side so far so the road was dry and rock hard all the way up which meant that we were at "India Gate" close to Zoji top in less than an hour of leaving our hotel in Sonmarg. Crossing over Zoji brought us into the incredibly beautiful Matayin Valley. If it werent for the threat of constant shelling from the enemy side (Pakistan is just a few kilometers to the west; at places even lesser!), this place could have been developed into a major tourist attraction! The road from Drass to Kargil ran through some very *ahem* interesting terrain: steep climbs and descents with cliffs falling away dramatically and sharp blind turns often seemingly running into a rock wall! We rode through this section in pitch darkness last year and the nature of the terrain wasnt very clear then. I have a feeling that if we could see more of the terrain we were riding through, it would have taken a lot more time than what it took us! Chotu and me planned to reach Lamayuru by the end of day and then ride across to Leh early next morning. Maybe if we got luckey and reached Lamayuru before 3, then we would push ahead and ride to Leh the same day, reaching Leh 2 days before schedule. But even as we crossed Kargil, we saw Anu coasting past us back towards Kargil, his engine switched off, with Rahul following not too far behind! Turns out they were a day behind schedule and Anus bike had stalled just after they had crossed Kargil. Moving on after fixing his bike, we decided to halt for the night in the little settlement of Mulbekh, approx 50 kms ahead of Kargil towards Leh. Paid just 80 bucks for a room in the PWD guesthouse, which worked out to 20 bucks a head!! Bargain or what? :) And the Mathri with tea at the dhaba across the road was heavenly!!! Mulbekh is also fast becoming the preffered base for Westerners who are switching to Mulbekh as a base for their exploration of Zanskar. The road from Mulbekh to Lamayuru involves 2 pass crossings which took us well over 5 hours last year for the simple reason that there was no road worth the name. But what was a sandy and in some places slushy trail last year was a proper road this time, so BOTH the pass crossings were completed in record time and we managed to reach Lamayuru by 1145. Leaving after a leisurely lunch, we took a twisty, steeply descending road that bought us down to Alchi from where onwards it was a pretty much flat road all the way to Leh. Unlike last time, when we checked into the expensive but very Value for Money Pangong, this time round we checked into the very inexpensive Chos Kor, located on the same lane as the Pangong. Chos Kor was run by a very helpful dude called Parvez: a Kashmiri with a major Emraan Hashmi hangover. :) While Chotu and Anu, the "Leh Virgins", decided to do Nubra and Khardung-La, me and Rahul were not so keen! So while they left on a 2 day roundtrip the 2 of us stayed back in Leh to chill! Checking mails, shopping for essentials and debates over cups of steaming chai at the German Bakery! We also used our time in Leh for a quick checkup of our bikes. Chotus plastic bike was the only one without any major problem. Anus bike had a host of problems: his carrier was hanging by a thread, various electrical problems, and his clutch was most certainly burnt out. Rahuls 500 was also not performing well, attributed again to a worn out clutch. My bike hadnt been peforming well either after crossing Kargil: again I feel because of a worn out clutch. So we virtually camped for the day at the mechanics. Jumma the mechanic is quite the favorite with the touring community and he certainly had the talent to back up his popularity! Jumma and me didnt get off to a good start: I was convinced that the problem was with the clutch plates having worn/burnt out while Jumma was adamant that my clutch was fine. He was convinced that my *ahem* different carburetor and the KN Filter was the reason for the poor performance at higher altitudes. I had rolled back to the smaller jets before the ride, but I was still using the *different* carb thinking it wouldnt matter. I personally thought that he was just trying to save on the labor of opening up the clutch to check but anyways after he had cleaned the KN and retuned the carb, Dougie seemed to have got back a lot of his pep though his trademark *ROAR*, that causes people with the "antique" 500's to crap in their pants, was clearly still missing. I was still having to downshift by one gear: inclines which I knew by instinct could be taken on 4th had to be taken on 3rd! Frustrating! But overall I think Jumma was right in that the clutch, while performing poorly, was clearly not the source of the problem. What it was is still a mystery because Dougies *ROAR* was back once we got into Manali!! While in Manali, Chotu was doing some of his typical gyanchodi (u know: kids!!) about performance of larger venturi carbs at higher altitudes. He may have had a point, for once, because last year I was riding with the puny BS26 carb and stock filter and I got impeccable performance and a truly shocking mileage of 45+! Rahul wasnt too happy with Jumma. So we headed for a mechanic called Mohan (located on the Choglamsar axis, another very good option). Me and Rohit had used Mohans services last year for our oil changes etc and I can vouch for him. Jumma is also excellent!! Both are a little eccentric but more than make up for it with their sheer talent! Not bad eh? Leh residents have 2 very good Royal Enfield mechanics to choose from! And we poor Punekars have....? After 3 days of relaxation, we finally bid goodbye to Leh and headed for Spangmik, on the shores of the Pangong-Tso. We meant to complete the Great Lakes circuit which would take us to the 3 great lakes in Ladakh and hit the Manali highway at Debring, bypassing Tanglang-La. This meant a circuit of almost 750kms without fuel, which would next be available only in Tandi, just after Keylong. So before leaving Leh, we tanked up and also carried almost 50 litres of petrol IN ADDITION to what we had in our tanks! While the 2 fuel thirsty 500's carried 20 litres each in 4 jerry cans, Chotus bike carried 2 5-litre jerry cans, most of it for me. The 500's were returning a mileage of around 18-20 kpl, Dougie was returning around 35-40kpl, while Chotu's Pulsar was giving him an incredible 48-50kpl! The pulsars 18ltr tank meant that he probably wouldnt need anymore fuel! One of the advantages of riding a plastic!! The road to Pangong-Tso took us over the Chang-La, which at 17800 ft was the 3rd highest pass in the world after Khardung and Tanglang-La. Apart from the poser value it has really nothing much to offer in terms of experience. Like with Khardung, the Govt of India ensures that Chang La is kept open throughout the year because of its strategic importance of linking the "Forward Areas" like Chushul and Rhongo with the rest of the country. What this means is roads smoother than Hema Malinis cheeks all the way from Leh to Lukung!! Lukung is where the deep blue of the Pangong first becomes visible over the horizon. The settlement of Spangmik, on the banks of the Pangong, is another 7 kms away on a non-existent road with water crossings every few feet. Thats right, every few feet!! Spangmik has a PWD guesthouse, now leased out to a private entrepeneur (very conveniently an army officer formerly posted in Chushul!!). We pitched our tents in the compound of this guesthouse which also arranged for our food! A group of oldies had made the trip down in their Ford 4wd and me and Anu had a good time in their company later that evening, even as Chotu and Rahul retired to their tent early. We had no idea then just how challenging the next day would prove to be! The next day we started out from Spangmik aiming to reach Rhongo by nightfall, where we were told we would find accomodation. We were also told that the track was poor upto Chushul, but after that there were proper roads all the way to Rhongo. Poor, would be an understatement when describing the road from Spangmik to Chushul. Allegedly a 7.5 tonne road, it was more a dirt track, lined with rocks, at other places with sand, and at other places QUICKSAND! Thats right quicksand that just sucked you in! And to make matters worse: water crossings because of streams that bought snow-melt from the mountains lining the side of the lake into the lake itself. Rahuls bike got bogged down in quicksand in one such crossing and when I went to recce the place for a possible way out, my leg got sucked into the sand at one point! Not funny at all though Anu thought it was!! I think we all agree that this Jat-dimaag is in dire need of a good spanking!! Needless to say our bikes took quite a solid beating that day and the 49 kms from Spangmik to Chushul took well over 4 hours! The track improved after Chushul, but only just! The track from this point on had sand blown over the track which meant we kept slipping and sliding and we required quite a bit of clutch which meant that after a point, they started getting useless! Chotu who was sweeping, slipped and fell atleast twice (that I saw), and we resolved to keep him ahead from that point. By the time we crossed Tsag-La and reached a settlement at its base, we were completely beat as were our bikes. A proper metalled road sprung as if by magic around 10 kms beyond this settlement. We came across an ITBP checkpost at a T junction at a place called Lyoma. A left turn from here would have led us to Rhongo and from there to Hanle which was around 80 kms from there. However the dude at the checkpost, incidentally a Maharashtrian from Kolhapur/Belgaum, told us that we wouldnt find any accomodation at Rhongo and we would be better off heading to Nyoma. This would involve backtracking for 22 kms twice, but at that point we were too beat to argue or look for alternates! So after a quick exchange of glances, we were off to Nyoma. Nyoma, and remember this rider brothers, is a proper sub-division HQ, and is the closest thing to a town in this part of the country! Its the only place you can find fuel, sold in black at 1200 bucks for a army can holding 18/19 litres! We found decent accomodation in PWD guest house for 100 bucks a night: again a steal! For food we pulled out 4 of the meal packets I was carrying while Anu got out some Maggi! The road from Nyoma to Hanle was metalled till a point around 6 kms from Lyoma after which the road just vanished into a desert!! We missed the track and wrongly followed a gypsy trail straight into the desert: Big mistake! Getting out of the desert and back on the track took well over 2 hours: for 12 kms!! And again: our bikes took a solid beating! While waiting in the middle of the desert for our bikes to cool, I saw a Maruti Gypsy effortlessly cutting its way across the desert that we had just crossed and my heart skipped a beat!! Man! I am in love guys!! Hanle is a little settlement in the middle of nowhere. Literally! A monastery and buddhist nunnery on the top of a hill and a cluster of houses at its base. Another hill a kilometer or so away, houses a giant telescope, with support infrastructure like a full fledged VSAT satellite station at its base housed in standard Indian Army all-weather igloos. There was also a building with a hostel for the scientists where we hoped to find accomodation. A familiar black Bullet Electra parked outside gave us hope: it was Nikhil of the 60kph group. However all hope was quickly shattered as we were refused accomodation since we did not have prior permission from the babus in Delhi! However the scientist was chatting with his senior in Leh and permission was soon granted over chat windows. God bless MSN!! Once the wall of babudom was bought down, the same scientists who had put up a roadblock opened up not just the facilities but also their hearts! The hostel was an oasis in the middle of the desert! Sparkling clean toilets, running Hot Water and food! Proper food, trucked in all the way from Leh once every 10 days!! Best of all was the broadband speed internet access which we accessed whenever Anu dearest (the guy who needs a spanking) would quit hogging it. It was quite a kick to access the internet at a godforsaken place like this, sitting in an Indian Army igloo 16000 feet up in the Himalayas, with the wind whistling around you: while you reply to mails from friends and Boss dearest!! ;) We started for Korzok after a days rest in Hanle backtracking upto Nyoma where we picked up some more fuel and then took the road to Korzok via Mahe and Chumathang. There were "proper" roads upto a point around 20 kms from Korzok. Korzok had a number of good accomodation options. The one which I liked was however horrendously expensive at 2 Grand for a night for a couple! All meals inclusive but still: 2 Grand!! We opted for a cheaper tented accomodation that still cost us over a grand in all plus extra for food! The next day, Rahul and Anu decided to ride out early as they planned to hit Darcha that evening. Me and chotu decided to make a more leisurely start and hoped to reach Bharatpur at the base of Baralacha by the end of the days ride. So while Anu and Rahul rode out by 0730, we rode out leisurely after a dozen cups of chai at around 0915. However we managed to catch up with the dudes just ahead of Tso-Kar (the salty lake) after which we rode together for the rest of the day. We crossed the campsite at Pang (our nighthalt last year) and pushed ahead for the climb to Lachlung-La. BTW, the river where I had a fall last year has a metal bridge across this year! The first hint of rain came when we had just begun the climb to Lachlung-La. The mild rain soon turned into a raging snowstorm and my fuel tank was was covered in an inch of snow!! We ofcourse rode right through and the skies cleared only as we began the ascent to Namika-La. Needless to say we were completely beat (and frozen) by the time we stopped for a pee-break on Namika-La top. The descent down Ghata-Loops and crossing Sarchu was completed in record time, and I got the feeling that we could easily cross over Baralacha and reach Darcha by end of day. However a nasty water-body, literally a river flowing across the road, just before Bharatpur bought me back to reality! Water flow from snow fed streams peaks between 4pm and 8pm and Baralacha would have quite a few of them. So me and chotu decided to stay back in the tent camp at Bharatpur while Anu and Rahul rode ahead to Darcha. The tent camp in Bharatpur was reasonably comfortable, and perhaps due to the fact that we were tired out, we were both knocked out the moment we hit the warm and cozy bed in the tent. Waking up early we made an early start hoping to reach Manali by noon. Baralacha had a proper road this time (again unlike last year!!) and the water bodies were minimal this early in the morning. Baralacha top was a HUGE dissapointment. The 60ft high glacier which is a landmark on Baralacha was nowhere! Instead there was a plain area scattered with rocks and boulders! The lake, Suraj Tal on the descent was also a huge dissapointment! In place of the turqoise blue lake we saw last year, there was a muddy pond! Chotus bike had hit reserve way back in Sarchuthe previous day, and on the descent from Baralacha, his bike sputtered to a stop! We had to transfer 2 litres from my bike to get going again. We picked up some fuel from Darcha and then some more from a village just ahead of Tandi, as the petrol pump at Tandi had no petrol. A light drizzle started immediately as we began the climb to Rohtang and I was fearing a repeat of the snowstorm we rode thru on Lachlung! Fortunately it didnt get any worse! The roads had also been touched up since the last time I was here so the ride up was pretty smooth. Rohtang top was a huge dissapointment. The "snow tunnel" that had greeted us on Rohtang top was nowhere! Infact there was no snow at all! The ROhtang crossing can cause a little bit of misplaced overconfidence. But the sudden and drastic change in weather and the drop in visibility as we crossed over to begin descending into Manali, served as a timely reminder that Rohtang pass, the lowest of the great passes, is still the biggest killer with over 100 deaths every year! Some of the tourist traffic from Manali also makes the trip to Rohtang top and returns to Manali around 4pm. So we caught the worst of this tourist traffic and we were stuck in a traffic jam for well over an hour with the bad weather only making things worse!! I managed to squeeze through the horrid traffic jam and reached the settlement of Marhi around 25 kms from Manali and around halfway down the descent from Rohtang. I waited for over an hour at a tea-stall for Chotu when i realised that something had gone wrong. On calling him I found that he had a puncture on the descent around 8 kms up. Taking my puncture repair kit ad goop cans along, I made my way back up the pass, weaving my way back through the traffic I had left behind! Thankfully the goop-can worked this time, even though we couldnt get all the goop in and though Chotu had to ride REALLY slowly down the pass to Marhi, it held the pressure!! We checked into a decent and cheap hotel on the outskirts of Manali recomended by Ranjit: at 350 bucks it was a steal!! After a days rest we headed out hoping to hit Delhi by the end of the day. Despite the bad roads, we reached the outskirts of Mandi in good time when disaster struck! Totally unexpectedly, Dougie just sputtered to a stop! No amount of coaxing and cajoling would get him going again and being a Sunday there was no mechanic for a 100 kms! Chotu managed to find a GATI office a mere 2 kms from where our ride had been bought to an abrupt halt! Shipping our bikes out, we took an overnight Volvo to Delhi. Chotu took the afternoon Indian Airlines flight to Mumbai while I took the evening Jet Airways to Pune. I was in a bad mood but the invitation to the Club Premiere lounge helped alleviate the blues somewhat!
Sidenotes:
2 The state-owned Indian Airlines has really upgraded its Business Class service and is now easily the best Business class in the country today leaving even snooty Jet far far behind. Service by the "aunties" on Indian lacks the joie-de-vivre and *ahem* other charms that the dumb-belles in Jet flaunt in ample measure; its more "to-the-point" and professional. The food, despite the fact that it was catered by some "Deepak Flight Catering, Pune" instead of the usual TAJ-SATS, was of excellent quality and quantity!! But I think they should go back to TAJ-SATS or atleast Ambassador! The only other thing they need to work on is presentation: that is still old-worldly but still over all: full marks to Indian Airlines for trying hard!! 3 Was on Jet Airways economy on the way back and though they are still world-class, standards have clearly been slipping. One major problem is the glaring difference in service levels on routes like Delhi-Pune and a metro route Mumbai-Chennai: both of identical distance. Atleast Indian delivers consistent service whether it is to Mumbai or Vishakapatnam!! 4 We switched loyalties this time and used GATI instead of ARCO for shipping our bikes both ways. Twice as expensive but good service overall! And unlike ARCO, which was godown to godown, this one was home pickup and drop. Plus we were kept informed via SMS on the progress of the valuable cargo. And our bikes arrived safe and sound without a scratch! No doubt who we are going to use for shipping our bikes to Kolkata for the Thumpers ride to Sikkim and Nepal! |
