"15 Days, 3,000+ KMs, 9 Mountain Passes, 6 States and World’s Top 3 Motorable Roads”
Yes, it was the journey to the heaven, it started on 12th June,2010 on the wee hours of the morning. My friends and I covered more than 400 KMs to Jullundher on the first day. Next day we left for Udhampur. The sceneries en route on the first two days weren’t very exciting but we enjoyed the plains. The fun started on Day 3 with us entering into J & K and driving around the mountains. We stayed over in Srinagar and enjoyed the sceneries around the Dal Lake till afternoon of Day 4. The real test of our endurance and biking started as we left Srinagar after lunch. It started pouring as soon as we crossed Sonmarg and continued to do so as we crossed the Zoji La full of mud and slush, it was deadly experience. Somehow by midnight we managed to get to Thasgam Army camp situated in between Drass and Kargil.
We decided to rest a little after the ordeal we had biking through the rain. We spent all of day 5 exploring the area around Drass. It is the second coldest habitat in the world. We also went and paid our homage at the Kargil War Memorial. Next day we crossed Kargil and reached Lamayuru where we halted for the night. The next day on day 7 we headed for Leh where we reached around evening. We had to take few permits from the DC’s office to visit around Leh.
On day 8 we reached Pangong Tso, a high altitude salt water lake, the lake is 1/3rd in India and 2/3rd in China, we pitched our tents near the river for the nght. On the way we crossed Chang La, Worlds Third Highest Motorable Road. Next morning we headed back towards Leh. On Day 10, we headed towards Khardung La World’s Highest Motorable Road; the road connects Leh to Siachen & Nubra valley. Again we spent the rest of the day visiting near by places.
On our return journey we took the Leh-Manali route covering lots of mountain passes. At the close of day 11 we reached Pang and we crossed Tanglang La, Worlds Second Highest Motorable Road on our journey en route. Day 12, actually tested our metal as we crossed 3 mountain passes Nakee La, Lachulung La and Baralacha La in a day.
On Day 13 we started from Zing Zing Bar and by evening reached Rohtang La, we were struck by hailstorm at that time but all the bikers showed great character and somehow we managed to reach Manali by night.
On Day 14 we relaxed shopping around Manali and getting the feel of the local atmosphere, we left that day few hours after lunch and headed to Bilaspur. On day 15 we headed towards our starting and final destination Delhi. We had a few tiny hiccups in terms of flat tiers but managed to get into Delhi by midnight. We’ve managed to get home physically but seem to have lost our souls to the Himalayas, on our Journey to and back from the heaven
