Leh Ladakh, the dream destination...

 

Leh Ladakh, the dream destination...

(Part 1/3)

It’s been 4 years (2016) we had this trip and transcribed my experience. Though I didn’t get an excellent opportunity to share earlier, This COVID crisis gave me a chance to rewind some those memories through pictures and this story I saved, and today I am excited to share with the great travellers of this group

It’s big, or I should say a massive post, but I hope some of you may recollect yours as well…

It was a warm summer day when I got bored of routine life and thought of some adventurous trip. The first place I got in my mind was Leh- Ladakh trip. It was my dream trip and then started searching about the correct time to visit and the journey plan. I asked some of my friends, my regular trip partners, and they waved the green flag. Their names are

Abhishek Parihar

,

Telukunta Vamshidhar

and Choudhary.

The first problem was to arrange the trip dates to minimize the leaves from the office. So I planned it during Ramzan, where we could reduce one leave day.

This trip requires a lot of planned work as there were a lot of riots in Srinagar, Land Slides on the highway. This is the second problem we faced. I started asking each and every tourist/ biker about the route through different social media. We made 5-6 different plans keeping in mind, the various problem we might face during the travel. We also included buffer days in case of sickness.

From the day we booked our flight tickets, the trip was the only work we had, or we did. We switched ourselves from regular Visual Studio/ Eclipse software to google maps, word, different travel blogs etc.,

We received some inputs that we require some permits for the travel. But none of them was reliable.

We googled everything about the trip and got to know the places where we need to get permissions and what all locations requires a permit to go further. We took around 1.5 months in searching for the best bike rental but in vain… It gave us trouble 7 times in 10 days. but life is all about how well and cool you stay when you face challenges...

Our basic plan was :

DAY 1: Delhi to Wagah Border, Stay at Amritsar(Gurudwara)

DAY 2: Delhi to Srinagar

DAY3: Srinagar to Kargil

DAY 4: Kargil to Leh

DAY 5: Leh to Nubra valley, Hunder, Diskit

DAY 6: Nubra to Pangong Lake

DAY 7: Pangong to Leh, Leh to Tsomo riri

DAY 8: Tsomoriri to Jispa

DAY 9: Jispa to Chandratal Lake

DAY 10: Chandratal Lake to Chitkul

DAY 11: Chitkul to Shimla

Day 12: Shimla to Delhi.

But, due to unexpected bike troubles, we didn’t even follow according to the plan from the very first day.

Our Vacation happened to be like this:

We started from my brother’s place and reached Karol bagh at 7.00 as discussed. Though I debated about the tyre. They didn’t change it and asked me to go like that. They were really late in making the proceedings, and they handed the bikes at 9AM. Immediately we started our trip and stopped at famous #amriksukhdev Dhaba on the highway. I insist one must take a break and taste the Parathas there.

Then we continued our journey back on the highway. Though the road is right, It’s better to take frequent breaks so that you don’t get tired on day1 itself. In a middle way, you get a chance to cross the beautiful Bhakra river. We took a long break-even there and swam in the beautiful river. As we were sure that we won’t be able to reach Wagah before 5, we spend time there leisurely. Then the next break we took at Freedom Struggle movement, just near Amritsar. The play was impressive. It was for about 2 hrs. And the central idea was about the role of Sikhs/ Punjab in Freedom movement. After that, we reached Gurudwara at about 9.30 PM. Had dinner and then Slept in the compound itself.

That’s the end of DAY1 ….

DAY 2:

It was not such a good morning… We didn’t have a proper sleep in the Gurudwara and one of us has lost his handy that morning. Though we raised a complaint to the concerned, there was no adequate reach out. Later we visited the temple and Jallian Wala Bagh, the sight arouses the nationality in our veins. Then we started our journey to Srinagar as planned earlier. We brought all the spares from RE service point in Jammu. The trip was well apart from that we didn’t find good Dhaba on the way. The highway bypasses all the villages nearby. For the first time, we started facing problem with the bike… The tyre got punctured, and I was shocked to see 4 punctures were already done on that tube. Though I reached to the rental services, they were least bothered about it. I got that tube and tyre changed. It took 5 hours to repair because of which we couldn’t reach Srinagar. We had dinner at Banihal and camped for the night. The route from Patni top to Banihal was in pathetic condition. Better to avoid night journeys.

We met some Sardars in Jammu who helped us a lot. Right from the time we visited their showroom, their hospitality amazed us every minute. When we were stuck on the road, they came to provide service and suggested the route, they gave some essential contact numbers, offered soft drinks, cracked good jokes. Every minute spent with them was memorable.

DAY 3:

Once when you are out of track in the journey, it is not possible to cope up with it. Something similar happened to us. We reached Srinagar at around 12 and got the bikes serviced.

According to the schedule, we need to reach Kargil by EOD. But by the time our bikes got repaired, it was already 6 in the evening. We didn’t risk to travel till Kargil as we need to pass Zoji La pass, one of the scariest roads in the journey. We visited till Sonamarg.

The beauty of the state is that within 2 km of distance, everything changed drastically. The temperature, the scenic view, Sind river accompanies us the entire way till Kargil. I would suggest the readers spend a day in Sonamarg, visit viewpoints, and you will not forget it. The natives gave us a warm welcome, they briefed us about the location and gave some tips and advises for future journeys. People were relaxed, calm, pleasant and pure as Sind river.

After a long chat with natives, we went back to camps and had a deep sleep.

.... To be Continued in the next part.

(Guys, If you think you have some memories, come forward and tell us, we always want to be a part of it...)