Leh'd - A Ride To The Roof of The World!!!


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"Only best of Friends or worst of Foes would like to visit us..."

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Leh, situated in the Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir, rightly called as the "Crown of India" houses worlds most treacherous passes, most beautiful landscapes, most highest motor-able roads, most highest lake, most highest located Recovery post and can also turn into most inhospitable weather conditions in a blink of an eye..

So much for a place and we not paying it a visit is like a 'What?? Are you kidding me??!!!' affair. So here we were again, 3 impulsive guys (Fyzy, Aamir and Raj), in search of some adventure charting out plans and preparing to take up the most adventurous and exciting ride of our lives..

A Ride plan was set up initially with help from experts and friends who had been to the place before and were courteous enough to share their views and experiences while on the trip along with a lot of cautions and advises to make the ride as safe as possible.

The Ride plan was as follows,

Day 00 - June 08 - Amritsar
Day 01 - June 09 - Udhampur
Day 02 - June 10 - Srinagar
Day 03 - June 11 - Kargil
Day 04 - June 12 - Rangdum, Padum, Panikkar
Day 05 - June 13 - Kargil
Day 06 - June 14 - Lamayuru, Leh
Day 07 - June 15 - Leh
Day 08 - June 16 - Khardung la, Hunder, Diskit
Day 09 - June 17 - Leh
Day 10 - June 18 - Changla, Pangong Tso, Spagnimik
Day 11 - June 19 - Leh
Day 12 - June 20 - Leh
Day 13 - June 21 - Karu, Tso Moriri, Karzok
Day 14 - June 22 - More Plains, Gata Loops, Keylong
Day 15 - June 23 - Rohtang La, Manali
Day 16 - June 24 - Manali
Day 17 - June 25 - Chandighar
Day 18 - June 26 - Delhi
Day 19 - June 27 - Delhi
Day 20 - June 28 - Bangalore

We had Delhi as the starting point of our trip, but since Delhi was burning in the first week of June and as there was nothing exciting between Delhi and Amritsar except the plain NH, we eventually decided that we would start from Amritsar instead.

Plans in place, the other most important task was getting leaves.
My Manager was kind enough to oblige my leave request in the first attempt and I was instantly approved for a leave of 3 weeks. Unlike me, Aamir was also lucky enough to convince his manager and bag the leaves. Raj, however, was not as lucky as us, and had to wait till the D Day for the leaves to get approved..

The days flew by and we were left with only 2 weeks for the D day.

Let me now take the honors of introducing you to my ride mates,

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Aamir Mohammed, rides a Bajaj Pulsar 150cc DTSi, works for a reputed firm in Bangalore. A very charismatic guy with lots of wits and a week nerve for "Non Veg food." Aamir was self proclaimed negotiator and took up the responsibility of arranging food and shelter for us throughout the trip. He did an exceptional job and did justice to his responsibilities.

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Rajesh R Gowda, rides a Bajaj Pulsar 180cc DTSi, a mainframe engineer by profession and a hardcore and passionate lover of bikes and rides. Rajesh had taken up this road trip back in 2011 already and was game enough to hit the roads again with his powerful machine, this time to give us newbies some company all the way to Leh and back.

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Fyzy09, rides a Yamaha Fz16.

After a long hunt for logistics who could offer us a cheap deal to transfer our bikes to and fro , we zeroed in on Gati Logistics Pvt Ltd. Though the pricing was on a higher side, the reputation of the company made us finalize it for the job.

Plans, leaves and logistic in place, now was the time to prepare our rides for the most exciting and bumpy ride a few days ahead. Got all the 3 machines serviced at Dream Machines, Sanjay nagar, Bangalore a week before we were supposed to board the bikes for transport to Amritsar.

The bikes were boarded on the pre decided dates and we were only left out with a little shopping for the trip to be done before Aamir and Raj could take a train to Amritsar, as they had enough leaves to spend 4 days in train for the onward and the toward journey. I, on the other hand had only 3 weeks and did not have the liberty of joining my pals in the train. So had to take a flight to Delhi and back to accommodate my leaves with the plan discussed earlier.

To be Continued...
 
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Re: Leh'd..!! A Ride to the Roof of the World!!!

Hi Fyzy09,

Excellent start buddy[clap]

Expecting more Beautiful pics of Leh.

so many Leh TL, Tempting me to do the trip[:)]
 
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Re: Leh'd..!! A Ride to the Roof of the World!!!

Hi Fyzy09,

Excellent start buddy[clap]

Expecting more Beautiful pics of Leh.

so many Leh TL, Tempting me to do the trip[:)]
Thank you AppU,

Will surely treat you with some pics of Leh, hope you like them.. [;)]
 
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Re: Leh'd..!! A Ride to the Roof of the World!!!

Fyzy09, Buddy i was waiting for your Travelogue. Treat us with lots of pics, but dont take a long pauses. As you see, people like me who have an itch to do this trip, but cant do so due to time/any other constraints.
 
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Re: Leh'd..!! A Ride to the Roof of the World!!!

Fyzy09, Buddy i was waiting for your Travelogue. Treat us with lots of pics, but dont take a long pauses. As you see, people like me who have an itch to do this trip, but cant do so due to time/any other constraints.
Akash, I will try not to disappoint you with the Pics.. [:)]
Will complete the log as soon as possible..
 
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Was waiting for this travelogue. I even thought of pm-ing and asking. congratulations for completing the trip successfully. As Akash said, dont take long pauses.

Thanks for the travelogue again.
Waiting for it.

:cool:
 
Thread Starter #9
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Was waiting for this travelogue. I even thought of pm-ing and asking. congratulations for completing the trip successfully. As Akash said, dont take long pauses.

Thanks for the travelogue again.
Waiting for it.

:cool:
appus, thanks for the compliments [:D]
I assure you will not have to wait for it too long [;)]
 
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Woh!!!Fyzy09

At last the end of a meaningful wait....your TL.
Let it come on the overdrive without any braking or BREAK
The most awaited story blended with wonderful pictures.
 
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Thread Starter #11
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Woh!!!Fyzy09

At last the end of a meaningful wait....your TL.
Let it come on the overdrive without any braking or BREAK
The most awaited story blended with wonderful pictures.
Thank you Ram sir [:D]
I will try my best to portray what I witnessed there.. Though any words or pics will only do injustice to the original beauty of the place.. [:)]
 
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Continued

Wednesday, 05th June 2013, Aamir and Raj boarded the train to Amritsar which meant that their trip had already begun. I had a flight to Delhi on 7th June 2013 after office hours from were I had booked a bus to Amritsar which was my destination for the day. The next two days seemed like ages to me and I was desperately waiting for me to rendezvous with my friends.

Friday afternoon, 07th June 2013, I get a call from Aamir "We are in Amritsar bob..!!! Where are you??" I was a little over 2500 kms away from Amritsar, at my desk, working.. After a quick discussion on the stay and the weather of Amritsar, we hung up. I took a last peek into the list we had prepared for all the things we needed while on the trip. All was well.. I was ready to be airlifted from the chillness of the Garden city to the Ovens of Delhi and Amritsar in a couple of hours.

Bid my loved ones good bye for a month and was dropped to the BIA by a good friend. Inside the airport, check in was done, and a boarding pass was issued. I was asked to proceed towards gate no. 7 where my flight was boarding passengers. I took the stairs and headed towards the security check area and my phone rings. It was a call from the Indigo airlines. They told me that my luggage was "vibrating" and requested me to come back down and take a physical security check. I was flabbergasted [surprise] by what I heard and reconfirmed the word 'vibrating' a couple of times before I went back to the physical security check area. My saddle bag was brought and I was asked to open it. When I touched it, it was actually vibrating.. I quickly opened the bag and found the trimmer switch turned on by mistake and was causing the vibrations. The flight attendants, Security personnels and the luggage boys all had a hearty laugh and let me go not before I secured back the luggage I had removed from the bags to look for the trimmer. After that I was let free just when the schedule screen showed final call against the flight I was taking. I boarded the flight eventually and just before I could notice the challenges had already started..

Reached Delhi Indira Gandhi Internation Airport T1 in time and took a local bus from outside of the T1 terminal to reach T3 in order to board the bus for Amritsar. Reached the T3 in 20 minutes and located the bus I had booked. The bus itself was a Mercedes Benz Tri Axle, Indo Canadian Transport vehicle which ply's from the T3 terminal of IGA to various parts of Punjab. Met a jolly and friendly civil engineer from Indore, Navjot Singh. He worked for a construction company and was placed in Amritsar, in-charge of an upcoming mall in the city. We instantly became friends and shared a lot of things till the bus finally started to roll. Tired and exhausted as we were, quickly slipped into a sound slumber subjected to the cool AC atmosphere within the bus. Reached Ambala at around 7 in the morning where bus halted for breakfast. It was Haveli of Ambala and it wore a traditional look. Navjot ordered for breakfast and we chatted over a hot cuppa tea.

Started rolling in another 30 mins. I was told that Amritsar is only 10 hours from Delhi, but ended reaching Amritsar in 13 hours from when I started from Delhi. The bus abruptly halted in Ludhiana and the passengers going to Amritsar were stuffed into another bus of the same kind which was over crowded with people sitting on plastic stools in the aisle.

After another couple of hours of journey amidst the green fields of Punjab, I finally reached Amritsar. One step out of the bus and I am exposed to 40+ degrees of heat. Navjot had already hired an auto rickshaw by the time I was cursing the hot and humid weather and yet was kind enough to wait for my friends to arrive to pick me up.

To be Continued
 
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