August 1 :: Ramban - Sonamarg : ~220KMS
I was woken up by blaring music with stereo effect banging into my head. For a moment I thought my friends were playing a prank. I felt over my ears and over my head and could find no head set or ear phones. Besides, it sounded like devotional music. Surely, these guys would not have that kind of music with them. Just so, these guys just earned themselves their life . Still sleepy, I realised it was only 4:30AM in the morning. Slowly, it dawned on me that the music is coming from the two temples in the town. There one opposite to the room, across the road and another one behind my room down by the banks of Chenab river, hence the stereo effect. As if on sync, they had started playing devotional music that early in the morning. How I hated them for waking me up! Don’t these people have anything better to do at this hour … like sleeping, for example. I am sure even the Gods would not like to be woken up at this hour …
Disclaimer :: I do believe in God, but I believe even more strongly in sleeping well.
The rest of the gang did not fare any better … all of us were lying in the bed trying to catch some much needed sleep and making an effort to ignore the sound in the background .. but were not very successful. So we were up and ready to continue our journey by 7:15AM. I was driving and Chandru was to ride pillion with me.
The Ramban to Srinagar route is amazing. The beauty of the scenery on this route cannot be described in words, period. The meandering road, with deep valley next to it, marks of landslides e and the military personnel, all add to the beauty and show you that beauty and danger could co-exist. After hours of climbing, we came to the Nehru tunnel. This ~2.25KM long tunnel is the gateway to Srinagar. Once out of this tunnel, it is down-hill all the way till we reached Anantnag in the Kashmir valley. At Anantnag, we got caught in a traffic jam and our clutch plates started heating up. So we decided to rest our bikes and have lunch. 50KMS from Anatanag, we reached Srinagar. Just outside the city, Vinod, remembered that lack of appropriate tools was hampering his ability to repair our bikes and decided to rectify the situation. He spotted a hardware store and bought a set of spanners, pliers, a hammer, a good length rope and even a chain link. While Vinod was out shopping, the rest of us took out the map and started discussing what the target for the day should be. Soon, a crowd of military personnel, police and locals had surrounded us. Apparently, back packers are a curios there, Indian bikers are of an even more rarer variety.
Once inside Srinagar, we drove straight to the famed Dal Lake. In the afternoon sun, the rows of colorful house boats was a sight to watch. But the green on the lake surface was a big turn-off. Soon Chandru and Shanthi were arguing it out on whether we should spend the rest of the day in Srinagar or move on. The house boat owners and the tour guides were all surrounding us and trying to swing the argument in their favor -- it was just business for them. But in the end, Shanthi won the duel (as if there was any other possible outcome). The J&K tourism police personnel by the lake was very helpful and told us to press on to Sonamarg, about 100KMs from Srinagar. If we reach in good light, we might get to cross ZojiLa that day itself. So we decided to press ahead to Sonamarg.
The route was not very tough … mostly single lane road with almost no traffic. So we were doing a comfortable 50KMPH. It was me and Jomy driving on a bike now. Enroute, in the middle of nowhere, there is a J&K tourism dept's public convenience building with clean toilets and baths. After a short bio and photo break by the Sind river, we all continue towards Sonamarg. Sonamarg is at an altitude of 8950ft, so that place is cold. We reached Sonamarg by 6:00PM and there was enough daylight to attempt to cross Zoji La. But the beauty of the place just took our breadth away and we wanted camp here for the night.
We did try to get an estimate of distances to Zoji La, Drass and Kargil from Sonamarg, from the army Jawans & locals. To our surprise, we did not get a consistent answer. What I found was that the distance quoted is a loose, random function of the age of the person being asked. In the end, we gave up and just decided to call it a day. We also had time to sit down and review our progess so far and how much distance we needed to cover to reach Leh. After making sure that we are doing good, we had nice hot bath and retired for the day.
Sonamarg is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, I do not have photographs of this place. But, I would definitely visit this place again.
I was woken up by blaring music with stereo effect banging into my head. For a moment I thought my friends were playing a prank. I felt over my ears and over my head and could find no head set or ear phones. Besides, it sounded like devotional music. Surely, these guys would not have that kind of music with them. Just so, these guys just earned themselves their life . Still sleepy, I realised it was only 4:30AM in the morning. Slowly, it dawned on me that the music is coming from the two temples in the town. There one opposite to the room, across the road and another one behind my room down by the banks of Chenab river, hence the stereo effect. As if on sync, they had started playing devotional music that early in the morning. How I hated them for waking me up! Don’t these people have anything better to do at this hour … like sleeping, for example. I am sure even the Gods would not like to be woken up at this hour …
Disclaimer :: I do believe in God, but I believe even more strongly in sleeping well.
The rest of the gang did not fare any better … all of us were lying in the bed trying to catch some much needed sleep and making an effort to ignore the sound in the background .. but were not very successful. So we were up and ready to continue our journey by 7:15AM. I was driving and Chandru was to ride pillion with me.
The Ramban to Srinagar route is amazing. The beauty of the scenery on this route cannot be described in words, period. The meandering road, with deep valley next to it, marks of landslides e and the military personnel, all add to the beauty and show you that beauty and danger could co-exist. After hours of climbing, we came to the Nehru tunnel. This ~2.25KM long tunnel is the gateway to Srinagar. Once out of this tunnel, it is down-hill all the way till we reached Anantnag in the Kashmir valley. At Anantnag, we got caught in a traffic jam and our clutch plates started heating up. So we decided to rest our bikes and have lunch. 50KMS from Anatanag, we reached Srinagar. Just outside the city, Vinod, remembered that lack of appropriate tools was hampering his ability to repair our bikes and decided to rectify the situation. He spotted a hardware store and bought a set of spanners, pliers, a hammer, a good length rope and even a chain link. While Vinod was out shopping, the rest of us took out the map and started discussing what the target for the day should be. Soon, a crowd of military personnel, police and locals had surrounded us. Apparently, back packers are a curios there, Indian bikers are of an even more rarer variety.
Once inside Srinagar, we drove straight to the famed Dal Lake. In the afternoon sun, the rows of colorful house boats was a sight to watch. But the green on the lake surface was a big turn-off. Soon Chandru and Shanthi were arguing it out on whether we should spend the rest of the day in Srinagar or move on. The house boat owners and the tour guides were all surrounding us and trying to swing the argument in their favor -- it was just business for them. But in the end, Shanthi won the duel (as if there was any other possible outcome). The J&K tourism police personnel by the lake was very helpful and told us to press on to Sonamarg, about 100KMs from Srinagar. If we reach in good light, we might get to cross ZojiLa that day itself. So we decided to press ahead to Sonamarg.
The route was not very tough … mostly single lane road with almost no traffic. So we were doing a comfortable 50KMPH. It was me and Jomy driving on a bike now. Enroute, in the middle of nowhere, there is a J&K tourism dept's public convenience building with clean toilets and baths. After a short bio and photo break by the Sind river, we all continue towards Sonamarg. Sonamarg is at an altitude of 8950ft, so that place is cold. We reached Sonamarg by 6:00PM and there was enough daylight to attempt to cross Zoji La. But the beauty of the place just took our breadth away and we wanted camp here for the night.
We did try to get an estimate of distances to Zoji La, Drass and Kargil from Sonamarg, from the army Jawans & locals. To our surprise, we did not get a consistent answer. What I found was that the distance quoted is a loose, random function of the age of the person being asked. In the end, we gave up and just decided to call it a day. We also had time to sit down and review our progess so far and how much distance we needed to cover to reach Leh. After making sure that we are doing good, we had nice hot bath and retired for the day.
Sonamarg is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, I do not have photographs of this place. But, I would definitely visit this place again.
[View of Sind River enroute to Sonamarg]
[Island Resort on Sind (L). Evaluvating progress made so far (R)]
[Our pad for the night at Sonamarg. At 300 bucks for two rooms, it was a good place.]
[Two curios on-lookers got themselves shot]
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