The trip was coming to an end and we were both sad and happy about it. Happy because we’d finally be back to civilisation, to our families and sad because, lets face it, we were having way too much fun.
We got up early and since the plan was to reach srinagar by afternoon, we had to be quick. We tied the luggage to the bikes, made a few quick calls back home to let them know we’re safe. Kargil was the hotbed of activity during the Indo-Pak war in 1999, …

Our journey to Leh was finally coming to an end and none of us were in the mood to go back to civilisation. I wish we could have stayed there for a couple of more months, if not days. We had to get petrol filled in the bikes and so there was no point getting up early and then wait for the gas station to open. We slept well, got up, got ready, tied up our bikes and went to get fuel filled. Pandey and Akhilesh were late as usual …

I’m back from my short trip to Bangkok, Thailand. We stayed at the Abloom serviced apartments and had a wonderful stay. I’ll be posting some tidbits from my trip over the next couple of days.  Hang on.

A trip to the highest motorable road in the world. This is what we had been riding the last 9 days for. Granted Pangong Tso was spectacular and offered a much better view, but you can’t take the brownie points away from a ride like todays.
Apjoo had taken permits for the Nubra valley for all of us and most of the group was actually planning to spend the night at hunder or diksit after crossing over Khardung La. I wasn’t too interested and wanted a rest day for myself. It had been …

We had initially kept this day as a free day to recuperate from the journey till now. None of us wanted to mount the bikes and were all in the mood to actually walk and explore Leh. But, of course, laziness took over and apart from the walk till German bakery for breakfast in the morning , we rode to all the other places we visited, which was good ’cause otherwise we wouldn’t have ventured as far as we did.
After a nice and heavy breakfast, we went for a little …

The accomodation that we stayed in at Tang Tse was easily the most luxurious we’d stayed in ever since the trip started. That showed since none of us wanted to leave our cosy beds in the morning. The guest rooms were next to a small stream and overlooking a garden with ducks and rabbits for company !

Woke up everyone, loaded up our bikes, had a nice breakfast and in between all this called the officer in-charge of the mess to thank him for the accomodation and to ask for a …

This was the day I’d been waiting for. A ride over the mighty Chang La and a glimpse of the Pangong Tso. I was looking forward to this even more than the ride to the highest motorable pass in the world, Khardung la. This was going to be an exciting day :-)
Apjoo, btw, decided to skip this part of the trip since he wanted to acclimatize properly for the ride to Khardung la, and get permits for Nubra, if possible.
Except for Sandhu, Kunal and Akhilesh who got petrol filled from …

Today was going to be a tough day. Our energy levels were already down and two of us, Ashok and Pandey, were suffering from high altitude sickness, and the rest of us weren’t feeling too upbeat ourselves.
Joshi and I somehow managed to drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags and went to wake up the others. Even walking around at that altitude felt like a chore. I was also quite tired and even though I didn’t have a headache or anything, I was in an irritable mood. The nice guys …

We were going to cross three high altitude passes today and stop for the night at a place called Pang. Pang, at a height of approx 15600 ft, has the world’s highest Transit camp, according to the Indian Army. Most people who travel to Leh prefer to stay at one of the campsites at Sarchu which is at a lower altitude and helps people acclimatize better. Ashok wasn’t very happy with this decision as he wasn’t if staying at such a high altitude was a good idea. Well, Ashok was …

It was a cloudy day and the lake, frankly speaking, was not as beautiful as we’d thought it would be. Don’t know about the others, but I was kinda disappointed. All the mirror shots that we’d seen on the web, the snow capped peaks and the awesome scenery just didn’t make sense at the time. I regret that now. I think it was the weather. Cloudy, raining and gloomy. I’d love to go to Chandertal again and see it in all its glory again … on a bright sunny morning.
Joshi …