Travelouge Part 6

August 2 :: Sonamarg - Mulbek :: ~175KMs

We started out from Sonamarg at about 7:30AM in the morning. Even though we tried our best last evening, we could not get any reliable information about the traffic restrictions on the Zoji la from either the locals or the J&K Tourism guys. One thing everybody including the Indian Army sentry assured us was that bikes would not be subject to the one way traffic restrictions.

I was riding pillion with Jomy for the first part of the day. I was having my camera, Jomy's camera and a video camcorder all strapped around my next and out of their covers ready to shoot and to make up for what ever neglect I had shown over the past few days to this passion of mine. The road for the first few kilometers from Sonamarg deceived us completely and we were all shocked by what we saw once we started our climb onto Zoji la. I will not attempt to describe the road here. Suffice to say that the cameras all went into their bags immediately. Not only me, but no one in our group dared to stop anywhere to take photographs on this stretch of the road. I do not know anything about the scenery on this road, for I was busy making sure that Jomy was able to keep the bike on the road and my legs, which could reach the ground even from the pillion seat was always available to support the bike. The only scenery I did see and I remember vividly, is the steep fall from the edge of the un-embanked road. All you city dwellers, who complain about bad roads, I suggest you take a drive here and your city roads will feel like heaven. Trust me on this one, for I am a city boy myself and I have changed my opinion on Bangalore's roads.

After descending down from the pass, we stopped at the police check post in the valley to get our bike numbers entered in their register. The J&K police were pleasantly surprised to see Indians on bikes. They also cautioned us that some VIP was travelling by road to Drass and Kargil that day and that we should try to Kargil as soon as possible else we might be stopped at Drass itself for security reasons. After thanking him, we proceed towards Drass.

For whatever attrocity was committed to us at Zoiji La, we were more than compensated in the valley on the route to Drass. I will let some photos that I took there talk for itself.

Finally we reached Drass. For me it was a strange feeling. I have heard the name of this place quiet frequently in the evening news … terrorist attack, terrorist this and terrorist that … all associated with the Drass and its surroundings. It was impossible not to be philosophical, when I stood amidst the people who have been through all the tough times. They do live peacefully now. I am confident that the security situation had improved. This was proven by the fact that the VIP who was travelling to Kargil through Drass was some minister from the state cabinet. By straight logic, a minister travelling by road means that the security situation has improved a lot. We made a short stop at Drass for a brunch and continued towards Kargil.

This was exciting part of the journey. I am going to actually see the places where the most recent war that India was involved in was fought, a place of which a billion Indians have heard about, but only very few have seen. Driving through the region, I was a little disappointed. The place was barren … not a blade of grass grew on the slopes of the mountains. Even the color of the mountains was an uninspiring shade of mud-yellow. Save for the lone beautiful view where a muddy yellow river joined with a pristine blue water river there was nothing of significance to write about the scenery. The Indian Army was there … but they left us alone … no stops, no questions, no checking of papers and no registering our bike nos. All along the route to Kargil town, there are small memorials to the soldiers who have lost their life in the region while serving our nation. After a very short time, I lost count of how many such memorials were there. It's either the glum environ of the place or the food that I had eaten at Drass, I still do not know which, but by now I was very sick in the stomach and I wanted to reach Kargil town ASAP for the much needed rest.

Atlast we reached Kargil town. Let me say this, the main road through the market in the town, will put even the best maintained roads in Bangalore to shame. It's clean, well-paved, very wide and traffic is regulated well. Other than that, as with most scenery on the way, the town was not beautiful enough to lift my spirits for the day. We still had day light left, so we just decided to fill up our tanks and leave Kargil. At about 4:00PM in the evening, we left Kargil and decided to drive till daylight permits.

We reached Mulbek, 40KMs from Kargil at about 5:30PM. The strenuous drive through Zoji La and on the way to Kargil has taken its toll on our bodies and all of us decided to stop for the evening at Mulbek. We decided to bunker at restaurant opposite the holy Mitreya temple at Mulbek. There was enough day light left to take some photographs of the place.

An interesting fact about this place :: Electricity is available only for a very short time every day. In the evenings, it is available between 7:00PM and 11:00PM. After that we had to use the candles that our host graciously provided us. It was actually a news to us that there are places in India, that still survives without electricity and running water. The next morning, we discovered another interesting fact. In the toilet, the potty where you do your thing was actually on top of the septic tank. Hmmm…. These guys have optimised the entire system and managed to remove the need for drainage pipes. Good common sense .. But extremely stinky.

I have a bad feeling about the bike I was driving from Kargil to Mulbek. It seemed to have lost it s capability & power to pull up the mountains. At Mulbek, I inisted that Vinod, the resident bike doctor, take a look at this one … Hopefully a night's rest would be sufficient to get it to good shape again. Now that we have gotten grease and oil on our hands, we decided to go all the way and checked all the oils in all the bikes. I still have a bad feeling about this bike …. But that is something to worry about tomorrow … for now, it was a nice dinner and good sleep.

Travelogue Part 5

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.

[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]

Travelogue Part 4

July 31st : Mukerian, Punjab -- Ramban, Doda, Jammu & Kashmir :: ~240KMs.

We surprised ourselves today by leaving our hotel at Mukerian on time, at 7:00AM. We were driving at good speed as this early in the morning there were not many trucks or other vehicles on the road. Before we realised, we crossed over in to Jammu and Kashmir. We drove on till about 10:00AM when we stopped for breakfast at a Dhaba. Our plan was to take a diversion from Samba on NH1A, avoid Jammu and go to Udhampur, where we would join NH1A again and continue our journey to Srinagar.





[We take a break for breakfast (L), On NH1A, 15KMs from Samba(R)]


Once we diverted from NH1A at Samba, the road till Udhampur was a nightmare. There is tarmac on the road but there are also pot-holes, mud and water. There is equal amounts of all this every inch of the road and I was confused whether to slow down or go over these high at speed. But in the end all of us decided to just put the 200 odd Kgs of our bike and its reputation as a very stable bike to test and just went over the holes on the road at a good speed.




I was driving with a pillion on my bike. Just about 20 odd kilometers before Udhampur, the bike suddenly stopped; the engine was running, the revs sounded right, it responded to the throttle, but the wheels were just not moving. It turned out that my pillion had used a brand new Nike jacket to cushion his seat and this jacket has fallen down and found its way into the rear wheel of my bike. Lucky there was no other vehicle comming behind us. There was no way the jacket would come out from where it was entwined between the chain and sporket. The only option was to cut the jacket into small pieces. This was the first jinx for the day.

After a short tea break, we continued on this nasty road and reached Udhampur. Here we joined NH1A and continued to Srinagar. The serious mountain roads start from Udhampur. But just outside Udhampur, I started hearing strange sound from the bike whenever I opened the throttle at low speeds. After quiet some thought, I was convinced that there was something happening in the front wheel assembly. I was not sure if it was a serious enough problem to stop everybody and take a look at this. So I decided to press on atleast until we stopped for a very late luch. But because I was on a mountain road, I was at low speeds and low gear most of the time and opening, closing throttle happened a lot. Whatever the problem was, it was only getting more serious and the noise louder. My bike has started wobbling too.


At about 3:00PM in the evening, we stopped by the roadside to take a break and look at the bike. First, we removed the front wheel, checked everything, added oil to the break shoe assembly to smoothen it and happily put things back together thinking we have solved the problem. A test drive later, we found that the problem was still there. Then all of a sudden we realised that whenever the throttle is opened, the two wheels and the chasis stayed where there were but the bulky 350cc engine alone jerked ahead by a couple of inches. We tipped the bike on its side and discovered that the bolt and nut assembly that kept engine connected to the chasis was missing both the nuts. As the magnitude of problem became apparent, we realised that we could not dirve to Srinagar without fixing this problem.


[After discovering the problem, we discuss what to with the bike]. Luckily, there was a rudimentary lorry spare parts shop nearby. We were told that we could find a mechanic at Batote, some 28KMs away. So we decided to drive the faulty bike at very low speed and reach Batote. At Batote, we did find a mechanic, but he faltly refused to even look at the bike, let alone fix it. So we filled our tanks at a petrol station and decided to reach Ramban to find a mechanic. By the time we reached Ramban, it was about 7:00PM in the evening and shops were closing. Two guys went in search of a mechanic, while the rest of us waited in front of the temple square. As it got late and the sun went down, we started getting a little jittery, all around us, shops were shutting down, people were retiring for the night. Soon it was just us, our bikes on the middle of the road and the army sentry. We discovered that the only mechanic in the village was one Shaukat Aziz. Jomy and Vinod reached his workshop when he was about to shut shop. Initially he refused to help us. So, we just got a few nuts and bolts from him hoping to repair it on our own. But, on his way home, he saw us all in the middle of the road, standing with our bikes and luggages like fish out of water, not knowing what to do. He changed his mind and decided to fix the bike for us. We took the bike to his workshop, which he opened for us again and for the next hour and half, he personally machined a nut-bolt assembly and fixed the problem.

While jomy and Vinod were at the workshop getting the bike fixed, I had the opportunity to talk to an army Major and Seargent. They offered to help us find a mechanic to fix our bike. So myself and Roop walked with them for about a half a kilometer to the town market to talk to locals. All along the way, the army sentry was in full swing. These guys were on one of their night patrol of that stretch of highway. It was quiet scary, walking with the Major, in the middle of the patrol formation, all jawans in battle gear. It was a very strange feeling, seeing the people living in the midst of so much secuirty and uncertainty. It also made me realise, how we take basic things like security, for granted while in the same country, some body else has to constantly worry about it.

Back at the town square, with the bike fixed and in good shape to ride, it was time to find a place to stay. There was the temple, that had a large hall with mat on the floor and common toilets and bath. For Rs. 20/- per head, it came highly recommended by the army Major who vouched for the place's security. The second was a hotel just outside the town, but it charged about 250 - 300/- per room. The thrid was Mr. Sharma, the shop owner's house, just opposite to the temple. Sweet talking, mild-mannered Mr. Sharma has a general store with a few spacious rooms behind his shop that he rents out for travellers. He offered us 3 rooms for 400/-, a good deal.

After bathing in cold water and having a very late dinner, we slept, with the Jhelum in spate roaring in the background.

As for the scenary, there was noting remarkable to write about. I did not see anything different from what I had seen at Ooty or Coorg. May be it is the altitude; As we go higher and deeper into Kashmir, I think the scenary would improve. Also, the Indian Army presence is a permanent fixture in the scenary. I saw more convoys, more army sentry and more security forces partolling the highway. But we (or any other vehicle for that matter), were not stopped, there was no checking of any kind.