A Fortune Yatra from Trivandrum to Ladakh #tvmleh2131

A Fortune Yatra from Trivandrum to Ladakh in 18 Days

How it all started …

It all started with a photograph hanging at the lounge of the hotel we stayed in at Gangtok, it depicted sand-colored textured hills and an ancient antique palace under a dark sky. The word Ladakh was imprinted on the right bottom in strangely shaped letters.  It was no mystery that Ladakh is a cold desert even beyond the Himalayas. For a long time, we were feeling the urge to visit Ladakh region and soak in the mountains and view the remarkable and breathtaking scenery. Sooner from a nice to have picture the mind was brutally demanding to make Leh, Ladakh as a must visit place.

Two and half years and umpteen discussions later, we chose to take the road to Leh, which is in the heart of Ladakh. While planning a trip to Leh which is one of the most popular adventure tourist destinations in India, one option is to delegate everything to a tour operator who will charge a few thousand extra as premium. We however, chose to research and do all bookings on our own.

There are multiple ways to visit Leh. Either reach Leh directly via flight, or travel via the Srinagar-Leh highway (the famous NH1a, for which the Kargil war was fought) or the Manali - Leh highway. Been longing this trip for over 2 years, we 4 persons, got together, and decided to plan the road trip in 2015. We four were Alok Garg, Ramakrishnan Parameswaran, Pret Joseph and Ajayan Pillai (myself). It would be too illogical and a crime if we are not calling out the support from the family on this trip. Alok Garg – Ritu Garg and their only daughter Anagha; Ramakrishnan – Lakshmi Ramakrishnan and their two daughters Parvathy and Nandini; Pret Joseph – Shalini Cyril and Unni their son and daughter Megha; Ajayan Pillai – Jeena Nair and their only son Akhil. While the family was also keen to experience the region and the drive – Practical realities prevented this, they in turn handled chores of taking care of home, schooling for kids, Onam/ first term exams and other tensions of running around. At any point, they were supporting us silently and acted as guardian angels in many places starting from finalizing the dates to the entire journey. Thanks for the personal sacrifices they made and for the amazing support, or for sure it wouldn’t have happened.

We discussed two options: 1) the engineering mind of flying to Delhi and taking a zoom car for rent (self-driven rental car) and do the road trip to Leh and back to Delhi which would have saved a lot time for us. 2) The wandering traveler’s mind of driving from Trivandrum to Leh via Srinagar and return via Manali by sinking in the diversity and culture of India. The selection by elimination was much simpler, thanks to Leh Taxi union against zoom cars and the much valuable advices from HVK (HV Kumar of HiVay King).  We decided to plan the “paryadanam” in Ajayan’s Toyota Fortuner.

After lots of reading from the internet, team bhp. Devil on Wheels, bcmtouring forums and HiVay King forums, we had first planned our date in July 2015. While planning a Leh trip by road, you have to consider the status of couple of passes that you will have to cross namely the Zojilla Pass (Located on the Indian National Highway 1 between Srinagar and Leh, in the western section of the Himalayan mountain ranges. Around 3528 m (11, 649 ft) above the sea level, the pass is 9 kms from Sonamarg and is an important link between Ladakh and Kashmir, most of the times except few months this pass is inaccessible due to heavy snow fall and ice and the Rohtang Pass to Manali (is a high mountain pass on the eatern Pir Panjal Range of Himalayas). Both these passes are typically open from May to October end, it has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous and unexpected closures because of unpredictable snowstorms and blizzards. Considering these, the chaos in Srinagar route due to Amarnath Yatra (July to Aug end), and most importantly the benefit of (slow) Acclimatization if we were to take the Srinagar route - We decided to finalize the date as August 12, 2015, in discussion with HVK.

The preparations….

The first activity for an expedition like this would be the route and drive plan. Obviously, like everyone we were depending on Google maps, and also referred some travelogues in various forums. The biggest challenge was to ascertain the road conditions, traffic timings etc though google gives us a fairly decent view of road work conditions etc. Ajayan and Ram has taken up this work, and more or less a decent route along with drive plan was finalized by April - Along with planned hotels/motels closer to the planned route. The fun part was almost every week we made tweaking changes to the route plan based on the information we receive from various groups and conversations.

While working and reworking on the route plans, Ajayan has taken membership with HiVayKing which is run by HV Kumar, an amazing driving enthusiast and a man-machine to consult for any driving across India especially the Ladakh circuit. This man is the encyclopedia on the road routes of India, and he can help you and answer your queries than delivering the multiplication table of zero. We would not be surprised whether he is the person who approves the google maps of India? The skeleton plan was shared with HVK for his final comments and corrections. The detailed route plans was made available on email by this group.  HVK also had a two hours call prepping us through the route plan and also mentioning the do’s and dont’s of the trip. You can call up H V Kumar 24x7 to discuss & customize your route & drive plans. Based on your route &drive plan, hotels will be identified, but all bookings will be made on the move, based on your actual drive speeds and ETAs. Actual room bookings will be made by HVK Forum HiVayKing Club Central Hotel Book Desk. We can  guarantee one thing – “When you travel, they will travel with you virtually”. Hats off to HVK.

Next on the line item is to prepare the beast, the Toyota Fortuner which had over 70K in odo. Since we did not want to take any chances the SUV got a full service with replacement of Clutch plate, brake pads and new tyres.  A lengthier list for shopping and other things to carry got prepared as part of this preparations. (I will mention the list as appropriately).
What would be minor apprehensions in any other trip acquired a different dimension for the trip planning (which we openly joked about amongst ourselves) - Being boxed in 17-18 hours a day drive for the next 18 days with 3 others, the nagging thought of ‘Have we forgotten anything for the trip’, dictating luggage sizes and numbers and planning for rations in case we get stuck anywhere… to name a few.
On Sunday morning we went to the Ganapathy temple at East Fort, Trivandrum.

Day 0 – August 11, 2015 @ Trivandrum

Emotions and excitement cannot be covered by single words. It is like forest fire, where you can taste it, smell it and see it miles away. While this is someone’s lines on excitement – it was true for all of us. Pret was running around trying to move a “Pharmacy” into a bag; Ram and Ajayan was running around to pack a “bakery” into a bag; Alok was busy instructing his wife how to make besan ladoos and mattri as snacks for the trip. Somehow managed the time in office till 3:30pm, till we put the lengthier out of office email for the next 18 days, never done such a long personal vacation.

We got the last row seat removed from Fortuner to create more space and to reduce that weight, got the battery replaced for the already dead duplicate key as the last minute preparations for the vehicle and filled the bulky tank of 80 litres diesel. By 4:30pm we loaded the car with couple of crates of water, luggage of three people, some common items like tow rope, tyre inflator, puncture and tool kit, jump starter cables etc. Alok Garg is based out of Hyderabad, and his boarding point was Bangalore.

The night progressed with lots of paper work – Copies of identity card, application forms at various check posts and various confirmations on accommodation bookings etc and keeping safely a good amount of cash and original documents. We had a conference call and confirmed to start at 5am in the morning on August 12,2015. Good night.

Day 1 – August 12, 2015 @ Trivandrum to Bangalore

We figured out the meaning of “Sleep is such a luxury, which we can’t afford”. Around 1am, Ajayan got an SMS from Ram – “Are you awake; can we start?” Around 1:30am the impatience of excitement made the first call to Ajayan to check whether we can start asap? Though the plan was to start at 5am from Ajayan’s house, the re-planning happened in the last minute and decided to pick Ram and Pret from their house at 2:30am. Shahanas M who is one of our close friend (initially planned to be part of the trip, but backed out due to constraints) wanted to join the fun with a flag off, picked up Pret and joined at PMG junction Trivandrum. By 3.30 AM, Ajayan and Ram were at PMG to start the dream travel plan. 

The drive continued and after a quick chai, hot vada at 5 am near Bhoothapandi we had the first stop after Dindigul @ 8am for breakfast.

We had a good drive and the first 400kms got covered in good 5 hrs time. ToFo was very familiar with the Bangalore route having done this many times and we reached Bangalore by 1:30pm for lunch. Our accommodation was booked at Bangalore guest house where we joined Alok Garg who reached from Hyderabad. We ordered Pizza for lunch and had a good nap for couple of hours. Dinner was simple at the nearby Darshini. Some amount of repacking was done as Alok was carrying 2 cabin baggage size bags plus a smaller bag (as against 1 cabin bag plus 1 shoulder bag) and excuse given was Besan Ladoos. We were all set to start our next day @ 3am from Bangalore to Mumbai. Good night.

·         Driving Route : Trivandrum, Nagercoil, Madurai, Salem, Hosur, Bangalore

·         Total kms covered : 750 plus

·         Drive start time : 3:30am; Drive End time : 1.30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH47, NH944, NH7

Day 2 – August 13, 2015 @ Bangalore to Mumbai

The Adrenaline was to blame. Getting sleep was almost impossible, and we were discussing the route plans almost till midnight. Once we got to sleep, the culprit came in another avatar of electricity power cut. Net-net, we slept for couple of hours and left Bangalore by 3:15am. Early morning drive was pretty smooth and we stopped at Hubli for chai by 6:30am via Tumkur, Chitradurga. Chitradurga also known as Kallina Kotte (stone fortress) features bold rock hills and picturesque valleys, huge towering boulders in numerous shapes. According to the epic Mahabharatha, a Rakshasa named Hidimba and his sister Hidimbi lived on the hill. With all respect to Pandavas, this is another thing we noticed in the journey across India, where ever there is a large hill or a scenic pond, the story is Pandavas lived here and Draupadi or Kunti Devi used this pond etc. Let’s keep moving, no debates. The road conditions were extremely good and as per HVK’s rating “makkhan”!

This highway doesn’t have much options for food and restaurants. We stopped at Belgaum by around 10am after covering over 550kms from Bangalore finding a small Udupi restaurant, with no ambience but they served piping hot idli vada.

Another 3.5 hrs (225kms) thru the best of best road conditions and crossing Nippani (MH state border check post) we reached Satara Maharashtra. HVK has suggested a good authentic Marathi food restaurant Pranjali for lunch. Good food, tasted many dishes without having any clue on names, some photos with the Marathi style dressed up waiters and moved on.

In another two hours, the road conditions were good, traffic congestion near Pune area, rain and we could hit the famous Pune – Mumbai Express way sooner.

The Mumbai Pune Expressway, (officially known as the Yashwantrao Chavan Mumbai Pune Expressway) is India's first six-lane concrete, high-speed, access controlled tolled expressway. It spans a distance of 95 kms connecting Mumbai to Pune. It has five illuminated, ventilated tunnels totaling close to 6kms, built by the Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd. Good part is the entire length of expressway has a single layer of barbed wire fencing to keep out stray cattle. The Expressway is very tempting and we too got attracted but has witnessed a large number of accidents, attributed to human errors and the large volume of traffic.

We reached Navi Mumbai by 5pm, and HVK has booked a hotel almost at the end of the Expressway. Again we are in love with this arrangement of HVK - On the fly the hotel gets booked just 30mts before we reach a point, and he gives a google map pin to that location. Pretty neat hotel, good services and more than it just for a sleep till 3am next morning.

We had couple of friends visiting us, Ajith working with Hudco Mumbai and importantly HV Kumar along with his friend Rajnish Nair came to meet us. We also arranged a quick shampoo wash for ToFo as he was soaked with a layer of mud. Time was flying with a round of drink or a round of chai, as you wish to call, and we had a quick light dinner with roti, dal and curd rice. We all made couple of calls to our closer one’s at home, updating status, drive, food etc and off to sleep for the next day’s bigger leg. Good night.

·         Driving Route : Bangalore, Chitradurga, Hubli, Kolhapur, Satara, Pune, Mumbai

·         Total kms covered : 990 plus

·         Drive start time : 3:15am; Drive End time : 5pm

·         National highways crossed : NH7, NH4

Day 3 – August 14, 2015 @ Mumbai to Chittorgarh or Bhilwara or Kishangarh or Bagru (Drive till you can)

We all got good sleep, woke up to the alarm at 2am (in what is becoming a routine for us) and dot at 3am we left Mumbai. All the cats out there was washing behind their ears, heavy rain, foggy climate and psychological pressure of the Mumbai flyovers created enough trauma for driving. Nevertheless we started driving the shampoo washed clean ToFo in heavy rain, flyover by flyover, some above the flyover, some under the flyover, debating and arguing left towards or slight left, right or keep going straight and right, ultimately missing the whole route plan given by HVK, ending up in the situation of neither the google map or the HVK route. A guardian angel in the role of a patrolling police man came from nowhere and helped us to figure out where we are, and then we went on line by line by HVK route plan. Road conditions were good, heavy rain, foggy climate, ghat roads and some truck traffic pulled the speed lower, and by 5:30am we had an early stop for chai near Kasara BP after the Jindal Steel plant. The shop was on the highway, and they were just opening the shop in the morning. We had to wait for almost 45mts for a cup of tea, had couple of Britannia Glucose biscuits to get more energy J

By 6am, we crossed Nashik and stopped for breakfast near Dhule BP by 8:45am, covering 300 odd kms. Our average speed was not keeping up with expected morning standards, but whom to blame? Had Poha, Aloo Paratha and poori for breakfast and charged up to make up the average speed. After Sendhwa we crossed the MH MP Border check post, struggling to increase the average speed. The road conditions were good, but the crossing of wandering cattle was a huge menace to pump the gas.

We picked up speed, on the way somewhere near Manpur we had “Makka bhutta” roasted which was very nice, some bananas and decided to have late lunch.  The western side of MP was green, probably much greener than Kerala. After crossing Ratlam BP, close to Jaora we stopped for lunch at a road side MP style Dhaba at around 2:30pm.  Roti, Dal, some subji and we also allowed them to make us something they prided themselves as their MP specialty dish - After all we were very bold guysJ.

Good lunch and then we proceeded towards Neemuch (Rajasthan border) and entered Chittorgarh by 4:30pm. We had a brief call with HVK, and internally some discussions to continue the journey or stop as planned at Chittorgarh. It was too early for stopping and HVK motivated us into driving further and we had a re-routed plan in front of us taking a different highway, doing another 350kms in Chittogarh-Delhi route to stop at Bagru near Jaipur. Engineering and management mind, proactive and reactive approaches were discussed and debated; all said ‘aye’ proceed to Bagru. Doing this extra stretch would allow us to get more breathing time and buffer in case of any need. Chittorgarh is home to the Chittorgarh Fort, the largest fort in India, constructed by Mauryans in the 7^th century AD.

Drizzling rain, truck traffic, average road conditions, cattle crossing and now in Rajasthan we even had camels crossing.  We managed to hit the smooth slick Delhi highway and in no time we reached Bagru by 10pm. Again the magic wand of HVK, the hotel was booked on the fly, right on the side of the highway, good property, good food and superb service. Quickly arranged a person to give a smart wash to our ToFo after the long drive. Crashed to bed by 11pm, planning to start next day by 6am. Good night.

·         Driving Route : Mumbai, Nashik, Dhule, Manpur, Ratlam, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Bagru

·         Total kms covered : 1170 plus

·         Drive start time : 3:00am; Drive End time : 10.00pm

·         National highways crossed : NH3, NH79, NH79A, NH8

Day 4 – August 15, 2015 @ Bagru to Amritsar

Happy Independence Day!

Got sound sleep in the sense that we woke got up to our own snoring sound. Relaxed and left Bagru by 6am to Amritsar. Fortunately not much confusions on the road map, things were moving as planned. The road conditions slowly started deteriorating, and sooner we were almost doing some good off-roading in Rajasthan.

‘Just Cow It’ was the apt phrase to describe our driving, with Cattle and Camel crossings leading to lower speed. We crossed Ratangarh and stopped at Ashish hotel (more like a bungalow) for breakfast. Great Aloo and Gobi Parathas were served, and for Pret they served Phulka though he was checking the option of getting Aapam and stew curry in remote Rajasthan Village. Jai Pret, as we later figured out his problem which we will explain later.

We got ourselves diverted to two-lane roads owing to construction work, off-roading continued and it started raining heavily. The drive was scenic and landscape was totally different with a mix of sand dunes, greenery and villages on the side of the roads. Ram was on the steering and Pret was the navigator, and we reached Rajvi Palace, Hanumangarh for lunch by 1:30pm covering almost 450kms from Bagru. Rajvi Palace Hotel, was a residence of erstwhile rulers and scion of the Bika Rathore clan of Rajputs. The Traditional Rajput architect, a mixture of Mughal and Indian, a facade with domes and frescoes is a very fine example of Bikaneri frescos and architecture. This would be an awesome place to stay for couple of nights. Very similar to ambience, the authentic Rajasthani food was outstanding. Here too we overheard Pret checking for schezwan chicken fried rice, failing to understand that Rajvi Palace is a fine vegetarian restaurant. Jai Pret, we are climbing and almost there. Same problem.

Ram continued his drive towards Punjab and Ajayan was driving the old ford engine from the rear seat; Pret continued his job what he is good at which he was also figuring out; Alok was persistently on with his poetic gestures and resembling sounds from B –grade movies which we cannot write here, while spotting a crow or a sparrow. Soon we crossed Rajasthan – Punjab border and entered Abohar.

The landscape change was sudden, and was great with green paddy fields and many rivers. For the uninitiated - Punj means five and aab means water, so Punjab means five waters. Punjab literally means "(The Land of) Five Waters" referring to the following rivers: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Chenab being the largest. Seeing all these paddy fields and rivers, Alok’s above mentioned sound reached its peak. Poor us!

The smell of Basmati rice once you open the window, green paddy fields, roaring rivers and for the foodies the Punjabi Samosa and hot jalebi made us stop for Tea. Priceless quote from the chai-wala on the Punjabi way of life – “Hum log khulla khaate hain aur nanga nahaate hain”. While you figure out the meaning, let’s continue. On every journey you take, we face choices. At every fork road, we make the choices. And these choices shape the remaining journey. Our choice on one of the fork after Taran Taran BP shaped the remaining journey and we messed it.  Our accommodation was arranged at the Army cantonment area at Khasa near Amritsar for that night. It was almost 8pm, and while trying to figure out the way towards Khasa, we ended up in front of a Police check post. Seeing the Kerala registration vehicle and hearing the Urdu from Pret, there were many questions from Police where we answered in Malayalam, English and finally in Hindi by Alok. Finally the police-man became our guardian angel helping with the route, in fact he was almost willing to join us in the vehicle to show the way. We drove for another 30 minutes through the inner village roads and by 9pm reached the cantonment station. Murphy’s Law kicked off - Our point contact who arranged the permission and accommodation was not reachable on the phone, and out of sheer tension and heights of responsibility Pret was trying to reach that person using all phones available in the car at the same time. Maybe he implemented many to one principle, but as said earlier Jai Pret; we are still climbing. As they say, Tea is always tastier from the areas where it is grown higher.

Scene: 7 .30 PM, deserted road, Suspicious Policemen interrogating with heavy Punjabi accent.

Conflict brings out the real nature in oneself. Let’s take a minute to reflect their thoughts.

Ram: English, Hindi, Malayalam? But will I get Rice & Dal tonight?

Alok: Chronically Guarded Watchful Hero. Should I? Shouldn’t I? What if? Policeman in disguise? Why me?

Ajayan: How will the Toyota service in Leh be?

Tofu: Let’s these guys figure out

Pret: What is the Altitude of this place?

Managed to get alternate contacts, the accommodation was pretty neat, had quick usual style dinner – Roti, Rice, Daal, one Subji and curd.  We also distributed the banana chips and Sweet Upperi to some of the officials as a courtesy from Kerala, and crashed to bed by 11pm. Good night Amritsar.

·         Driving Route : Bagru, Ratangarh, Hanumangarh, Abohar, Khasa Amritsar

·         Total kms covered : 740 kms plus

·         Drive start time : 6:00am; Drive End time : 9:00pm

·         National highways crossed : NH8, NH10, NH15

Day 5 – August 16, 2015 @ Khasa Amritsar to Chanderkote, Jammu

Yesterday’s sleep was more like a power nap for 3 hours. Got up by 2:30am and left Amritsar by 3:45am to Chanderkote, Jammu. The first 100kms drive towards Pathankot was decent, with good conditions. No experiencing scenic beauty here, being very early in the morning and to add to this we had heavy downpour and extremely poor visibility of roads. Toyota Fortuner’s engine as a vehicle is truthful to the tag line “Art of Power”, but the headlight power could have been improved. By early morning 6am we entered Jammu, and stopped for tea. Jammu junction was busy and lively with many shops offering tea and snacks, may be due to tourist inflow. After Pathankot, we entered the famous lifeline road and the highway which we are going to live for the next few days – the famous NH 1 A. Tourism is the largest industry in Jammu as in the rest of the state. It is also a focal point for pilgrims going to Vaishno Devi, Kashmir valley, Amarnath Yatra and Leh. All the routes leading to Kashmir, Poonch, Doda and Laddakh start from Jammu city. So throughout the year the city remains full of people from all parts of India

The name Jammu is derived from its ruler who founded it. Raja Jambulochan founded this city and named it Jambupur which later changed to Jammu. Many historians and locals believe that Jammu was founded by Raja Jambu Lochan in the 14th century BC. During one of his hunting campaigns, he reached the Tawi River where he saw a goat and a lion drinking water at the same place. Having satisfied their thirst, the animals went their own ways. The Raja was amazed, abandoned the idea of hunting and returned to his companions. Recounting what he had seen, he exclaimed that this place, where a lion and a lamb could drink water side by side, was a place of peace and tranquility. The Raja commanded that a palace be built at this place and a city was founded around it. This city became known as Jambu-Nagar, which then later changed into Jammu. Jammu is the winter capital of state of Jammu and Kashmir and is situated at the banks of Tawi River.

The road conditions were not that great at the border, but improved to extremely “makkhan” condition after Kathua.

Friendly debates and pulling the leg continued and soon we stopped for breakfast at Punjabi Haveli restaurant in the Jammu-Katra road. Ram and Pret took the responsibility of ordering food for the entire day, not just breakfast while Alok was still figuring out how he should have photographed the Jammu Tawi River that he crossed one hour back, Jai Alok – smart phone was a burden for him. As far as he is concerned smart phone was the most complex invention after the invention of the wheel.

The food ordered was good for nine of us with “n” number of Aloo parathas, poori subji and Pret surprisingly ordered Punjabi food for a change. Tip: Some specimens travelling to higher altitudes would potentially experience higher level of intelligence with the altitude above sea level and lower levels of oxygen. There, you’ve figured out Pret’s problem now! This is yet to go to historic heights in coming days.

We crossed Nandini tunnel, and proceeded on NH1A towards Patnitop and Chanderkote. The distance from Jammu to Udhampur and vice versa has been reduced by seven-kilometers with the Nandini Tunnels on the Jammu-Srinagar highway. The traffic chaos is infamous in this highway, and we had the first of the “expect the unexpected” in the form of a landslide and traffic came to a standstill. e didn’t see much lane discipline among the local drivers while the traffic was in standstill mode. After a wait for an hour, BRO gave a quick solution by clearing the landslide temporarily and traffic started moving. We reached Kud, 100 km from Jammu and 34 km from Udhampur city, it is just short of the tourist spot of Patnitop while driving to Patnitop from Udhampur. Kud is famous for its dry fruits and sweets shops which make hot and fresh patisa (Sohan Papadi) that is very popular among the tourists. We had a 30mts stop at Kud for a chai and also packed sweets from Kud.

In the next one hour, we crossed Patnitop. Patnitop is a hilltop tourist location in Udhampur district in Jammu and Kashmir state of India on National Highway 1A. Situated on a plateau in the Shiwalik belt of the Himalayas, Patnitop sits at an altitude of 2,024 m (6,640 ft). The river Chenab flows in close proximity to this location. This beautiful place is well known for its charming locations and landmarks that make it a perfect tourist spot.

We had a mandatory stop for the famous Rajma Chawal served with dollops of Desi Ghee and Anaardana Chutney at small old Dhabas: Peeda (near Bagliar Dam), Jammu-Srinagar Highway. For Ram, this was an important destination on our journey before reaching Leh. Though Pret’s intelligence was directly proportional to the height above sea level, he lived upto his reputation of messing up the address for the place of stay at Chanderkote. Yet again. JP industries became JK industries and 140^th milestone became 145^th milestone due to intelligence overflow for Pret. Soon Alok stopped his bird watching and took charge in conversing with the locals and army people to locate the place of stay. We reached the Chanderkote Army camp by 2:30pm, and had a superb lunch.

After couple hours of afternoon siesta, there was arrangement done to visit the Baglihar dam on the Chenab River and internal tunnel of the hydroelectric project. This project was conceived in 1992, approved in 1996 and construction began in 1999. The project is estimated to cost over USD $1 billion. The first phase of the Baglihar Dam was completed in 2004. With the second phase completed on 10 October 2008, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India dedicated the 900-MW Baglihar hydroelectric power project to the nation. The engineer was kind enough in explaining the entire turbane operations of the hydroelectric projects and we had a great time over there. It was frightening to feel the sheer power of Chenab River and the humming sound through the penstock that we could feel through metres of thick concrete walls. Due to security restrictions and importance of location confidentiality no photos were taken inside the hydroelectric project. If you are more interested, you can read the conflicts and controversies about the dam and Indus Water Treaty in the web.

We had our dinner around 8:30pm, did some repacking in ToFo and went to sleep by 10pm. A very relaxed day, and the plan is to start next day by 5am to Sonamarg via Srinagar to avoid the traffic.

·         Driving Route : Amritsar, Pathankot, Udhampur, Patnitop, Chanderkote

·         Total kms covered : 325 kms plus

·         Drive start time : 3:45am; Drive End time : 2:30pm

·         National highways crossed : NH15, NH1A

Day 6 – August 17, 2015 @ Chanderkote, Jammu to Sonamarg, Kashmir

We started from Chanderkote at 5:30am after giving our routine location update to HVK, proceeded towards Srinagar and Sonamarg. Traffic was light and moderate on the NH1A compared to the previous day. Since it was early morning the pollution levels were also lower due to the morning dew and wetness on the road. We could see many set of Army people on both sides of the road, some over the valleys and some roaming across the NH1 in groups. We could maintain an average speed of 45km/hr and before 7 am we crossed Banihal to reach the famous Jawahar Tunnel. The area between Patnitop and Banihal is known for frequent landslides and can create hours or days of havoc in this highway by a traffic block. The mighty Himalayas was very kind enough to us, giving a very smooth drive in this segment not putting us through any test of nerves.

This tunnel named after first Prime Minister of India, is the entrance to Kashmir Valley by road. There are two tunnels one in each direction of vehicle movement. Total length of Jawahar tunnel is 2.5 KM. It will take approximately 5 Minutes to cross the tunnel by drive. The tunnel now has a two-way ventilation system, pollution & temperature sensors, lighting system and with emergency phones for any assistance from Border Roads Organization. Light arrangements are done and there are narrow parking place available to keep one vehicle in case of breakdowns. Both ends of the tunnels are heavily guarded by security personals and photography is prohibited. After crossing the tunnel you will see a big display board welcoming you to Kashmir Valley. Tourist enjoy first glimpse of Kashmir valley from here.

By 8:30am we stopped for breakfast at Qazigund, a good dry fruits bazzar and there are many Kashmiri Willow Cricket bat selling shops too. We had fried Aloo parathas, and pushed off to Srinagar.

Anantnag, Khanbal was referred as some areas of disturbances, but we found quite peaceful and no challenges over there. The morning traffic started picking up as we were getting closer to the capital city Srinagar. In a peak traffic chaos Ram enquired on ‘the switch to fold-in the side mirrors of Tofu’. Ajayan when excited had a large vocabulary and Ram was getting most of it. From Avantipora towards Pampore and Srinagar for the next 40 kms, it was almost bumper to bumper traffic and it took almost over two hours to reach the Dal Lake area. Diamox was doing the job perfectly of being a diuretic and frequent need to empty our bladders. In one such ‘demanding’ instance Ajayan jumped out of the snail-paced car with Alok chasing him. One would think that he was in similar need as Ajayan. However Ajayan was shocked to see him behind his shoulder advising him on nuances to how-to-pee in Kashmir (Mind you, not-standing but sitting as per Alok). What Alok in turn would have heard from Ajayan is no mystery. Back in the car, Pret advised Ajayan on the practice of using a stone after relieving himself, which Pret tried to confirm by googling and asking his limited set of friends in Malabar. Seeing all this perplexed Ram who then decided to continue driving without a leak break.

Pampore town is worldwide famous for its saffron, claimed to produce the world's best saffron. Most people here have land under saffron cultivation, and can be seen picking flowers in the flower picking season. The economy of the town was badly hit by September 2014 floods that devastated almost everything. The town is now coming out of the destruction. Business is booming again in the main town. Pampore is known as one of the Commercial Hub. After all the chaotic traffic we reached the Dal lake area by around 12 noon, and had a brief stop for chai. The beauty of the Dal lake or “Jewel in the crown of Kashmir” doesn’t have to be explained, we took few photographs of Shikkara, house boats and decided to move on to stick to our schedule plan.

After the halla gulla of Srinagar, we proceeded for another 25 kms towards Sonamarg in NH1D, and stopped for lunch at a Dhaba.  A very scenic place right on the bank of Indus River, where he prepared fresh Roti, Rajma and Dal. We can’t think of any five star resorts that can offer a lunch at this cost with this beautiful mountains, valleys and Indus River on side. After a relaxed lavish lunch, we proceeded to Sonamarg enjoying the ravishing beauty of the valleys and Indus River on the side of the road. We had a very relaxed drive, stopping at many places to enjoy the sheet beauty of the valleys, crossing the villages of Kangan, Gund we reached Sonamarg by 4pm.

Sonamarg or Sonmarg, located at an altitude of 9000ft above sea level, literally means 'Meadow of Gold'. The picturesque natural beauty of the region brought this name to Sonamarg. Sonamarg is a town surrounded by breathtaking glaciers and serene lakes, is a snow covered beautiful flower-laden meadow in the majestic Himalayan mountain region. Sonamarg in the Kashmir valley is the gateway to Ladakh and situated just before the Zojii La pass. After giving our location update to HVK, we checked in at the Transit Army camp where our accommodation was arranged. Honestly, this time around Pret did a fantastic job going to right place, talking to the right people and sooner we finished all check in formalities. Note: - We believe it is due to hypobaropathy, is a pathological effect of high altitude on humans, caused by acute exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude. It commonly occurs above 8000 ft (2400mtrs). For Pret his once-rare occurrence of intelligence was increasing by height. Alok was quiet by now, not seeing too many birds and bees.

We spend couple of hours enjoying the valleys, viewing the mighty Zojila to be crossed next day morning and had an early dinner. The night was very cold, probably around 8 – 9 degrees, where we really slept under heavy blankets.

Here, we would like to mention a note on Altitude. AMS – Altitude Mountain Sickness, commonly occurs above 8000ft. Drinking lots of water is one solution to dehydration and increased oxygen for the body. You will not feel thirsty, but your body gets badly dehydrated. The physical activities, brisk walking etc has to be reduced, and perform sub-par in high altitude. AMS can strike any person any time without warning, so do not become over confident if you are feeling good and comfortable. Having medicines like Diamox is advised unless you suffer from Sulfa drug allergies. It is not medically advisable to travel to Ladakh for those people suffering from High BP, Asthma or severe breathlessness trouble. None of us in this group are doctors by profession, but we started having Diamox tablets from Patnitop and made it a point to drink lots of water, whether we were thirsty or not. Usage of Alcohol and smoking could aggravate AMS situations, so it is better to avoid in these higher altitudes. We will cover on this topic of AMS and our symptoms as and when it is appropriate. With all the readings of AMS, 30 mts proactive warning steps of HVK, psychologically we had a feeling of dizziness due to tensions. Pret had a slight symptom of AMS (on a serious note) for couple of hours, but one night sleep at Sonmarg made him fresh and good. 

·         Driving Route : Chanderkote, Banihal, Jawahar Tunnel, Quazigund, Srinagar, Ghanderbal, Sonmarg

·         Total kms covered : 245 kms plus

·         Drive start time : 5:30am; Drive End time : 4:00 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1A, NH1D

Day 7 – August 18, 2015 @ Sonmarg to Kargil

After a very cold night with drizzling rain, we woke up at 6am and got ready for the next leg. A quick cleaning of car was done by Alok and Ajayan, by cleaning the windshield, wiper blades and headlights. We had a solid breakfast of Poori subji from the army camp, and started by 7:30am. In less than hour we passed Baltal valley, and proceeded to climb the mighty Zojila. Baltal is a camping ground for pilgrims, renowned for its scenic beauty 15 km north of Sonamarg on the Sind River at the base of Zojila pass. This little valley is only a day's journey away from and provides a shorter high-altitude alternate route to the sacred cave of Amarnath. May be due to late August, where Amarnath yatra was almost concluding, we didn’t see much crowd at Baltal. Please remember, if you are planning your Leh trip in the month of July, this place will be choked by traffic and people on various check posts.

We have been reading a lot about Zojila pass ever since we planned this trip to Leh. The Zojila is one of the important mountain passes in India at an elevation of 11,575 ft (3,528 meters) above the sea level. This pass is not for a Sunday drive or for practicing off-roading lessons. It’s 9 km long and provides an important link between Ladakh and Kashmir. The pass is often closed during winter (20 feet of snow), though the Border Roads Organization (BRO) is working to extend traffic to most parts of the year. The Beacon Force unit of the BRO is responsible for clearing and maintenance of the road during winter. The Border Roads Organization takes two months to clean the National Highway in the Zojila Pass Area. To drive this trail, you must have supreme confidence in your vehicle and your driving skills. As always, check road conditions before departing. In any case, driving 4WD is recommended due to uneven surface. This pass is considered as one of the riskiest passes to drive in this area. During and after a snow storm or rain the road may be almost impassable, even with a four-wheel-drive vehicle due to slush and muddy driving conditions. The zone experiences high winds and heavy snowfall, which render it impassable for much of the winter. The roads are very narrow, the drops and valleys are steep and with a two way traffic there's no barrier between you and the abyss.  It’s nothing more than a one-lane crumbling dirt trail with lots of slush that hugs some of the tallest mountains in the world, with imminent death waiting for those who show up unprepared. Needless to say, conquering this beast requires relentless driver attention, along with a reliable set of wheels. All said, not to scare, Zojila pass is amazingly beautiful with brutal Rocky Mountains on one side overlooking the snow covered summits and deep valleys on the other side. Traffic was average on both sides, with lots of truck traffic and taxis plying to and from Kargil/Leh side.

As mentioned earlier, the so called path was brutal to ToFo with slush, small water crossings, boulders, lose soil, upward climb, sharp hairpin bend all in 10 to 15ft wide road. ToFo did his job extremely well with absolutely no hesitation, the love and respect to the beast got double fold. With a full time four wheel drive the traction was superb, under the hood the engine was delivering more power and torque than what we wanted. Stopping the vehicle for a photograph was not very easy, but we could capture the beauty and also did some video recording. For some reason, there was lot more silence inside the vehicle, than a usual day of pulling each other.  On a serious note, Pret was solid as a navigator and support to the driver throughout.

To talk some history, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, Zoji La was seized by Pakistani raiders in 1948 in their campaign to capture Ladakh. The pass was captured by Indian forces on 1 November in a daring assault codenamed Operation Bison, which achieved success primarily due to the surprise use of tanks, then the highest altitude at which tanks had operated in combat in the world. Operation Bison is the codename of the assault and capture of Zoji La, Dras and Kargil district in Ladakh by the Indian Army during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. As part of the war strategy, the then Lt-Gen Cariappa moved the M5 Stuart tanks in dismantled conditions through Srinagar and winched across bridges, while two field companies of the Madras Sappers converted the mule track from Baltal up the Zoji La to Gumri into a jeep track.  The surprise attack on 1 November by the brigade with armour supported by two regiments saw the Pakistanis being surprised, and we captured that pass back saving Ladakh. Taking a bow in front of the Indian army for the bravery, commitment and the herculean war strategies of dismantling a tank and taking up in this route.

In an hour, after 25 kms we reached the Gumri for a quick chai at Café Gumri. Over there we also had a chance to visit the army camp and meet various Army personnel. They explained to us about the Bakarwalas (nomads) and the Chaupans (from Jammu) and about their livestock. Believe it or not, every one of these nomads has an identification card and proper census work is done by Indian army to ensure there is no infiltration. In fact, these people helped the Indian Army by giving the first information when infiltration happened across our borders near Kargil and tiger hill on the Kargil War.After paying homage at Zojila War memorial to the brave hearts who sacrificed their lives to keep us safe, we proceeded toward Drass and Kargil. Sometimes we are so blissful under our veil of ignorance, we don’t value the sacrifices that make our existence possible. Landscape, color of sky, mountains, soil and terrain changes almost every 5 kms.

We saw a group of soldiers who were training hard in rock climbing; hats off to their stamina and determination. An hour later, we made another stopover, this time at Draupadi Kund (legend has it that this Draupadi, of the Mahabharata, had her last bath here before she died in the Himalayas). It is believed that the water from this kund helps women who cannot conceive, and for some reason Pret was trying this. (Altitude update 11575ft). Sitting by the waterfront, we enjoyed the crisp mountain air and the beauty that cannot be articulated. The locals explained that the mountain opposite to Draupadi Kund known as Pandu Pahad, through which Pandavas are believed to have passed during their heavenly ascent.

Continuing our journey, we plodded on our rather solitary route with the sole company of military trucks, or grazing horses, mules and guzzling river water lending much-needed cool breeze. There were many non-conclusive debates between Alok and Pret on the difference between mule, donkey and horse on the way. Since for one person intelligence was directly proportional to height and for the other person inversely proportional to altitude, we left the discussion with no conclusion. We met some kid-shepherds on the way, close to their make shift tents with their herd of sheep. Seeing us, these kids came running and could see their happy faces when we offered some biscuits and posing for photos. The mighty Himalayas has made their life really simple out here.

We continued and reached Drass where we could witness lot of military activities and convoys. And soon, we could see the famed Tiger Hills ahead, which had become familiar during the Kargil war from newspapers.  Drass is a small town in the state of Jammu and Kashmir which is located about 60 km from Kargil on the Kargil–Srinagar Highway or NH-1. The town of Drass is located at an altitude of about 10,597 feet above sea-level. Once in Drass the first thing that travelers will notice is the sign board by the state tourism board which indicates that this town is indeed the second coldest inhabited place on earth (after Siberia). The town of Drass is very small and will not take travelers more than about 15 minutes to cover the whole town. The houses and shops in Drass are mostly made of wood and brick, while only the front entrance of the shops are painted in bright colors.

Drass does not have much to offer from the point of view of a tourist but it has plenty to offer for the trekkers and hikers, since this town is the base for several high altitude Himalayan treks that go through the surrounding regions. There are plenty of dhabas and small restaurants that serve really good food at very economical prices. Drass is also the best option for anyone travelling towards Kargil to grab a bite if they are vegetarian because finding a pure vegetarian place to eat in Kargil is near impossible. There are also a couple of bakeries selling biscuits and local sponge cake which is a must have. We entered the Kargil War Memorial, in the foothills of Tololing hill (yes, it is in Drass and not in Kargil), where we had a guided tour.

he atmosphere at the war memorial was really something different. We felt really proud to be standing there among the force who fought valiantly to make sure that we sleep peacefully. The wall had names of all the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for us. This is one place we feel every Indian should visit.

The army person passionately explained the war strategies of the armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district. This is also referred as Operation Vijay. The war is one of the most recent examples of high altitude warfare in mountainous terrain, which posed significant logistical problems for the combating sides. To date, it is also the only instance of direct conventional war are between nuclear states, as they claim. We took our time, paid our respects to the brave souls and then continued our journey towards Kargil. It was getting late, and we stopped for lunch at a small shop on the highway. We had good rotis, dal, aloo jeera fry and Pret also had a plate of chicken curry, after a long wait. They also served us the refreshing hot Kahwah, which is made of green tea leaves with saffron strands, cinnamon bark, cardamom pods served with crushed almonds or walnuts.

The road conditions till Drass after Zojila pass were average in Himalayan standards, but from Drass to Kargil it is a pure bliss to drive. In fact, after Zojila and Drass roads, ToFo had a very relaxing drive till Kargil. Big salute to BRO on maintaining these road conditions at this altitude. The landscape was getting more and more beautiful, where you point your camera anywhere and shoot you get a picture that can make into a calendar picture or canvas in your living room. Sooner the shadows were getting longer, and by 4:30pm we reached Kargil.

Routine location update to HVK was done. Kargil is the second largest town in Ladakh after Leh, at an altitude of 8800ft, situated along the banks of Suru River (tributary of Indus River). In August the day time was very hot, with colder nights, while winters are long and chilly with temperatures dropping to -40 degree. Kargil lies near the line of control facing Pakistan to the west and Kashmir to the south. After passing the Kargil bazzar, and with some confusions (Altitude update: 8800ft) we checked into Kargil Army camp, a cozy comfortable secured place with lots of fresh apricots around. Alok busied himself polishing off a basket of Apricots, while Ram did his laundry, not knowing that couple others had slipped their clothes along. Good night.

·         Driving Route : Sonmarg, Baltal, Zojila, Gumri, Drass, Kargil

·         Total kms covered : 125 kms

·         Drive start time : 7:30am; Drive End time : 4:00 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1D

Day 8 – August 19, 2015 @ Kargil

After a very good night sleep, for a change we got by ourselves around 630 am. Breakfast was not very exciting for Ajayan and Alok, as they were serving only bread and jam. By the way Ram was having we were almost sure bread was a rare commodity in Trivandrum, and Pret’s new found intelligence stopped him from asking for Upma (Altitude update 8800 ft)

By 8am we were very excited to visit Post43 (Picket 43), accompanied by an Army person. ToFo too was very excited to drive thru those tougher terrains to reach the Post43.  We were given permission and fortunate enough to go almost 100 metres from the border. Some of the boards at Picket 43 are very catchy and motivational – “Only the best of the friends and Worst of the enemies visit us”; “If Death strikes before I prove my blood, I swear I’ll kill Death”; “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by killing the other bastard – George S Patton’; “The first duty of a good soldier is to die for his country. This is a mistake. The first duty of a soldier is to make his enemies die.” Respecting the security, we did not take any pictures of this place, and we are restricting the write up compared to what we have seen and experienced.

We also visited the “The Plateau Nath Baba Mandir” in Kargil.  This has a somewhat diverse parable associated with it. Imaginatively named after the topographical feature said baba resided on, story goes that enemy shells refused to explode around him, leading troops to believe that the nameless mad man was indeed a divine being. Presently a Shiva temple, maintained by the Army, stands near his hut with an ante-room dedicated to him.

It was noon time, and we decided to drive towards Suru and Zanskar valley, and planned to have lunch on the way. Zanskar Valley is one of the least visited spots in Ladakh and this is mainly due to the distance and fact that roads here are dirt tracks for most part. HVK advised to have lunch at Kargil and the go to Suru valley, we adventurously checked with locals on hotel options and proceeded towards Suru Valley direction. The road conditions were extremely good, scenic green and snow covered mountains and some distant view of glaciers gave us the tempo to drive forward. By 2:30pm, we reached Sankoo village, where we spotted many small restaurants.

We have to admit, those were little tough to have lunch for reasons like only non-vegetarian food with cleanliness next to zero even by worst standards. We figured out hunger is a terrifying torture to continue and decided to return to Kargil. Not sure whether we can call that as a late lunch, but by the time we finished lunch it was 5pm. The lunch at Zojila Residency was good, but expensive to core. We did some walking around in the bazzar and returned to camp by 6pm. Kargil was relatively warm and dry during the day time. Freshened ourselves in chilled water and dinner was ready at 830 pm. They also packed loads of fresh apricots for us, which Alok counted and tallied for an hour. Went to sleep by 10pm after meeting the Commanding officers at that location. Good night.

·         Driving Route : Kargil, Post 43, Baba temple, Sankoo, Kargil

·         Total kms covered : 125 kms

·         Drive start time : 8:00am; Drive End time : 5:00 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1D

Day 9 – August 20, 2015 @ Kargil to Leh

Beauty meets Might. We left Kargil much energized by 6am.

Initially the roads were not so good, but soon we were driving through the best roads in India. In another hour or so, we reached the village of Mulbeck in the valley of the Wakha River. By the road side is the 9 meter high statue of Maitreya (future Buddha) said to be built in the 8th century. The monastery is atop a rocky cliff. We started hearing those peculiar sounds from Alok once again, and decided to park the car for few minutes. Right opposite to the statue we found a dhaba, and entered for a cup of tea, ended up having breakfast from there. Super-hot Aloo paratha and had butter chai. We also bought a prayer flag for the ToFo from there, and he looked simply awesome with those flags flying on the bonnet. The chanting of mantras in the monastery and the morning sun giving warmth to cold soaked souls, we were in the land of lamas indeed.

A short ride from Mulbek will take you to 12198ft high Namika La, a windy yet scenic pass.  The road conditions were extremely immaculate. We started gaining height, though there were no problems of AMS, everyone could feel the altitude from the way they were breathing. Pret for some reason started questioning the theory of relativity, the way it was derived. (Altitude update: 13479ft). Near Namika La, we met quite a few cyclists from the Youth club nearby who was arranging that. Roughly 40kms from Namika La we reached Fotu La, the highest point on the Srinagar - Leh highway, (13,479ft). As is typical of such passes, Buddhist prayer flags adorn the pass as it is believed that the wind high up will carry the prayers down to the valleys and beyond.

he landscape stood stark in contrast to anything we had seen before in this life. Ladakh teaches you how altitude is related to geography and how geography is related to lives of communities living amidst it. It’s a matter of great irony as to how a land as barren and arid as Ladakh, could be so beautiful and enchanting.

It was so difficult to stop clicking the photos, and we stopped at many places and many while driving. Obeying the BRO board “Be gentle on my curves”, we aka ToFo climbed curve after curve on to the Ladakh plateau, to the Roof of the World. The name Ladakh means a “land of high passes” as it houses some of the highest mountain passes in the world which were once used by traders and travelers from China, Invaders from Mongolia and Central Asia to gain access to Indian sub-continent. There were abundant scenery all around, the world spreads around you and landscape looks like a canvas painting.

Just a few bends up and down the road from the appealing Fotu La pass gets you close to one of the most spectacularly located monasteries in all of Ladakh-Lamayuru. We stopped for a chai near the cliff, to view the massive Gompa that stands like a theatre of rocks and cliffs. This place, also known as lunar landscape for the barren land and shape of the mountains. We will be feeling that we out of the world, and can closely associate with some images of the land of the moon. In the changing shades of sun, the rocks were tinted Orange color on one side, bluish on the other side with ice cladded on some places. On one side these multi colored rocks gives a beautiful view, on your second look it shows the mightiness to make you more humble in the lap of Himalayas.

After passing the loops in the Lamayaru, the noon was spent climbing further up the Ladakh plateau and then suddenly we were on plain roads and we could see a vast stretch of road laid out on the desert plateau. On the way, we stopped at Magnetic hill to feel the phenomenon that we read on internet. The “Hill” is located on the Leh-Kargil-Srinagar national highway, about 30 km from Leh, at a height of 11,000 feet above sea level. The magnetic hill has become a popular stop for domestic tourists on car journeys. The alignment of the road with the slope of the background can give the illusion that cars are able to drift uphill. We also tried, but other than the drift due to small slope couldn’t feel anything. No debates, moving on. Our next stop was at the beautiful Pathar Sahib Gurudwara on the side of NH1.  The priest welcomed us, and we had a nice time at the Gurudwara and had the prasad along with tea. According to a local legend, a demon who was terrorizing the local population rolled a large stone towards the guru. The stone on touching the guru became soft wax and the shape of the guru’s body got imprinted on it. The demon in his anger kicked the stone and his foot print also got imprinted on the stone. The demon then repented his deeds and mended his ways. We had a late lunch arranged at the Nimmu Army camp, where we could meet the senior Army officials of that regiment. After a quick lunch, we proceeded to Leh. The road from Nimmu was almost flat, and in another 40kms, by 4:30pm we reached Leh Town. We checked into the Army camp at Leh, and decided to call it a day of achieving a lifetime milestone of driving to Leh.

·         Driving Route : Kargil, Namika La, Fotu La, Lamayaru, Nimmu, Leh

·         Total kms covered : 211 kms

·         Drive start time : 6:00am; Drive End time : 4:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1D

Day 10 – August 21, 2015 @ Leh

Leh, specifically Leh town obviously did not fit well into my imaginary picture. We were not the fans of Monasteries, may be an exception could be Alok. But since he got to live with us for the next few days, he also confirmed that he too is not a fan of monasteries. Another reason could be we got spoiled big time by the fascinating scenery and natural ruggedness and beauty all the way from Sonamarg till Leh, the drive of a life time. The highway from Srinagar to Leh is spellbinding in its beauty and scope and one goes through many magical breaks on the way. Leh district is the second largest district in the country after Kutch, Gujarat in terms of area. Leh is at an altitude of 11652ft, and connects via NH1D to Srinagar and to Manali visa the Leh-Manali highway in the south.

Since ToFo has almost completed 5000kms, and considering the much tougher terrain drive on the coming days to Khardung, Nubra, Pangong and the Leh-Manali highway we planned to take the ToFo to Toyota Service Center – Shree Toyota, Leh, for the periodic checkup. Unlike the service centers in Kerala, this place opened at 10:30am, with 30 odd Innova local Taxi in queue. We had our tensions of having the private vehicle in the midst of local taxi union people hearing some of the things that happened for zoom cars in the recent past. To our surprise, those people had a very friendly talk with us on the service quality, places to eat, some tips while going to Nubra etc. Amazing set of people, and we cursed our foolishness for looking at them with a different eye. All along the trip, HVK Kumar has been mentioning about the friendly janta of Leh Ladakh, and it was true to the core. Now back to service center, the service engineer came and had a quick look at our vehicle and said there is nothing wrong. We wanted to clean the air filter, which he said the machinery got stolen. We checked the option for a wheel alignment, which they don’t have. All in all, a total time waste and we moved on. We went for a walk at the Leh market, where some amount of shopping was done by the intelligent of the intellectuals.

Many shops were selling a pack of saffron of 1gm for Rs.300; where in the intellectual after bargaining bought two 0.5gms packets for Rs.200 each. Pret was running around for something’s which he couldn’t pronounce or articulate. Ajayan was totally off, as the ToFo didn’t get its periodic checkup. Since everyone had their set of activity, Ram was also busy doing some shopping on behalf of Pret.  We had a superb lunch at the Dragon Restaurant, Leh where they served authentic Tibetan food.

Many of you may not agree with us, but for the sake of tick marking, we did a quick drive towards Leh Palace, Shanti Stupa and spent a good amount of time at Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame, located near the Leh Airfield, is a museum constructed as well as maintained by the Indian Army in the memory of the soldiers who had lost their lives during the Indo-Pak wars. It is also termed as a memorial for the war heroes. This building consists of two floors. While on the ground floor, there is information about the brave soldiers as and a souvenir shop but on the first floor, there are artifacts of various wars (mainly Kargil war) such as the weapons used during the war and some important documents, related to the same. There is another section dedicated to the Siachen glacier. The Museum houses information related to Leh culture, way of life, history, vegetation and animals found in this part of the world.

Back to camp by evening 7pm, freshened up and had a light dinner. We cleaned up the ToFo in thirty minutes, especially the windshield, wiper blades etc. There was not much intelligent discussions, as Pret was out to meet one of his friend working in the Air force at Leh airstrip. Good night.   

·         Driving Route : @ Leh

·         Total kms covered :  60 kms

·         Drive start time : 9:00am; Drive End time : 6:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1D

Day 11 – August 22, 2015 @ Leh to Nubra Valley

Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was. We have been reading a lot about Khardung la, and the controversial line highest mountain pass in the world etc. The day has come, and we left Leh after a good repacking of bags in ToFo to climb Khardung la towards Nubra. It was around 6am, and the sun was already bright and clear. We have noticed the sun rise at this place is around 515 – 530am. Since there are no fuel stations at Hunder/Nubra valley, ToFo’s tummy was filled las night itself. Going by HVK’s advice to drink water to avoid AMS, we have been finishing bottle after bottles of water.

An early start should ensure that one reaches Khardung La without encountering lot of traffic. Despite all the hype surrounding Khardung La, drive to the summit was relatively easy compared to Zojilla. Road beyond South Pallu (check post where one needs to submit the permits and write your name details etc) is in a bad condition and gain in altitude is substantial, however we didn’t feel very strenuous. Khardong La is historically important as it lies on the major caravan route from Leh to Kashgar in Central Asia. About 10,000 horses and camels used to take the route annually, and a small population of Bactrian – double humped can still be seen at Hunder, in the area north of the pass. During World War 2 there was an attempt to transfer war material to China through this route. The first 25kms from Leh to South Pullu check post is a paved road. From South Pullu, the roadway is primarily loose rock, dirt, and occasional rivulets of snow melt. However, this pass is in better repair than many of the surrounding passes. The drive was maintaining decent pace for the Himalayan standards, and we could feel the steep altitude increases.

In about 45 minutes you gain more than 7000ft altitude and many a times your berating system poses the question “What the heck is happening?”. After reading more about the high passes in the world, we found Khardung La is widely, but incorrectly, believed to be the highest vehicle accessible pass in the world at 18380feet. Not interested in debate, but we celebrated our success of climbing this high mountain pass. Altitude sickness is a serious health concern for travelers not previously acclimatized to high altitudes. For those people who are planning to do Nubra via Khardung are advised to get properly acclimatized by taking a day break at Leh.

Mountain driving, especially driving in high altitude passes are very different from driving in the plains. The changing weather, strong wind conditions, steep climb, uneven and rocks on the way are very common in this region. Do not forget to check your vehicle prior to a mountain trip: brakes, steering, suspension, cooling systems, tires and the level of fluids. During the trip you should avoid overheating the engine by not using the air conditioner and driving more slowly. When vehicles meet on a steep, narrow road which is not wide enough for two vehicles, the vehicle going downhill must yield the right-of-way by backing up to a wider place or by stopping to leave sufficient space for the vehicle going uphill. We have seen almost all vehicles following this rule of the drive in this pass. Due to lack of oxygen or thin air it can affect your vehicle’s engine and can diminish your acceleration and climbing power. Power loss is a very common phenomenon which you may experience in almost all vehicles. Not a confirmed theory, but the rule of thumb is about a 3% power loss for each 1000 feet of altitude and a small engine can make ascents a struggle at times. We reached Khardung top by 8:30am, spent approximately 20minutes on photographs, and having chai in the small Army camp at the top. For various reasons that was told earlier Pret was found doing some research on the shutter speed of every smart phones during this time. (Altitude update: 18380ft). We met an Army Jawan from Trivandrum happily and peacefully standing at the Khardung Army camp for helping the travelers.  This road is closed annually from approximately October to May due to snow and is often subject to long travel delays due to traffic congestion on narrow one-lane sections, washouts, landslides and road accidents. Sooner we started descend towards North Pullu from Khardung top. The road conditions were same for another 6kms, and it improved extremely well to mountain standards till North Pullu. We met another set of HVKians (Ganesh Balan and his friend) from Gujarat in their VW Polo near this place

As it was sunny and bright, the dust and smoke pollution was extremely bad on the road. Breakfast was pre-arranged at North Pullu Army camp. Alok, meanwhile has developed some symptoms of AMS and luckily could consult an Army doctor and had some medication at the camp. The road conditions deteriorated further down the North Pullu check post towards Khalsar village. At Khalasar there is a road goes to right towards Agham village. While returning our earlier plan was to take this road towards Shyok river route or Wari La route as a short cut for going to Pangong Lake, by avoiding the Khardung La pass. Unfortunately the water level at Shyok was very high and Wari La was closed due to couple of big landslides. Couple of months back, there was a major flooding of Shyok in and around Khalasar village and hence the road conditions were very terrible, almost like uneven river beds and heaps of sand on the road. ToFo was brilliantly performing on this tough terrain, after easily climbing the Khardung, and we were enjoying a totally different landscape of glaciers, snow, dark mountain, green patches and the Shyok river flow.

We rode on enjoying the vistas and the road. Hunder village sits like an oasis in the middle of the cold desert in Nubra valley. Seven km from Diskit which is known for its Buddhist monastery, Nubra has acquired fame for its sand dunes, the cold desert that surrounds it, Bactrian camels and its breath-taking natural beauty. The high altitude desert, with rolling expanse of sand dunes and barren landscape is the beauty of Hunder village. The cold desert and sand dunes seem enigma to scores of tourists who come to visit the spectacle. Because of its remote location, tourist facilities are limited in Hunder. However, the village is popular with campers. The tented accommodations maintained by private operators are not low in comforts. Hunder is also famous for its Buddhist monastery known as Hundur gompa situated close to the Diskit monastery. It is one of the oldest monasteries of Nubra valley. Winter is quite harsh and Ladakh remains snowbound during the season. Visiting is possible only during summer that is in the months from June to August which is the best time to visit Hundur. We had a brief visit to the monastery, and seen the 32 meter statue of Maitreya Buddha, a huge drum and several images of fierce guardian deities.

Since the valley is at lower elevation, it has a mild climate. This climatic condition has created lush vegetation in the valley and the valley is, therefore, called the “Orchard of Ladakh". The valley was part of the caravan route between Tibet and China. We spent some time at the Sand dunes, saw the double hum camel grazing around. It was around 2:30pm, and was drizzling. We had lunch at the Army camp Partapur, Hunder, and took a quick nap for an hour. In the evening by 4:30pm, we went for a drive to see the airstrip at Hunder, believe me some air force flights operate out of this place too.

We continued our drive towards Turtuk enjoying the scenic landscape, and returned by 7pm. While returning we notice a Dosa camp, which was run by an Army regiment, where we had Onion Dosas too. By glimpsing the beauty of sand dunes and valley created by Shyok River, we returned to camp by 7:30pm. Dinner was served by 8:30pm, and crashed by 10pm after going thru some of the coffee table books about Ladakh.

·         Driving Route : Leh, South Pullu, Khardung La, North Pullu, Khalsar, Diskit, Hunder

·         Total kms covered :  160 kms

·         Drive start time : 7:00am; Drive End time : 6:30 pm

Day 12 – August 23, 2015 @ Nubra to Karu

It was tough to get up from the bed at 6am. Chill weather, cozy comforter was pulling us back to sleep. Nubra valley was colder than Leh, as it is surrounded by mountains.  We started from Partapur camp, Hunder by 7am. Morning sunlight was giving different color to the sand dunes. Couple of hasty taxi drivers overtook us, and we were alone on the road for quite some time. Solitude or Isolation, as you wish to call, but we were enjoying that in the morning hours.

As soon as we crossed Diskit, and somewhere towards Khalsar we witnessed a landslide right in front of us for almost two minutes. We first thought that was the dust or some sand storm, but could see boulders of stones rolling and coming from the top. Sooner we too reverse and parked the ToFo little away, and started clearing the stones for making the path, by watching the steep slope. In a situation like this, do watch the area for more landslides that could happen in and around. Two more other tourist groups came and joined to get these boulders out of way. In no time, we could clear the path and continued the drive. 

By 9am, we reached North Pullu, where breakfast was pre-arranged at the Army camp. Since this is the second time, we knew the formalities and had a quick breakfast. By 9:30am, we were about to start and the unexpected news came saying Khardungla is closed as it is snowing heavily at the top. North Pullu is comparatively at a lower altitude, and we stayed there roaming around and enjoying the landscapes. After 45mts based on some communication the army allowed us to proceed to Khardungla with a warning to drive carefully as it was snowing from last night and black ice would have formed on the road surfaces.

For those people who are new to black ice, it is sometimes called as clear ice that refers to a thin coating of glazed ice like a blade on top of the road. Since this is not very easy to notice and will be very slippery, driving can be very dangerous on this. In another hour, we were almost reaching the Khardungla top, and started seeing snow covered mountains and roads. It was all fun and lots of excitement seeing snow in the month of August. Khardungla was glorious like ever before, it was an amazing landscape covered with snow and ice; and related chaos all over. The vehicles approaching from the other side has already piled up at the top, trucks trying to put the chain to the tyre, some vehicles making the circular movement in an attempt to go forward etc. There was no space and no option to stay at the top for any photograph due to chaotic situation, and we proceeded towards South Pullu descend. Another few hundred metres from the top, the traffic was messy and we came to a complete stop, and parked the ToFo to the leftmost side.  Merciless is the law of nature sometimes, and we could witness that toughness on top of Khardung. The local taxi drivers took control of the road with the help of couple of army people by pushing the vehicles out of snow, helping the bikers etc and they managed to allow a good number of vehicles to come up the mountain by blocking all the people who are going down. In the next few minutes the snow storm became heavy, and it changed to sleet. Sleet is precipitation consisting of small ice pellets formed by the freezing of rain drops. Though the difficulty of high altitude at over 18000ft was hitting all of us, since there were no other options we waited patiently in the vehicle. We drank lots of water and stayed in the switched off vehicle. Switching on the heating is bad, as that can create more trouble with lesser oxygen.

Slowly, pulling each other and smile started coming down low as Alok and Pret developed mild dizziness for a while, Ram had some bleeding from nose due to high pressure and Ajayan had severe headache. We were starting the engine every now and then, and the fuel was not equipped with antifreeze liquid and it could choke the vehicle in this very low temperature at high altitude. ToFo was managing it well, than all of us and was performing well. We had a pretty long grueling wait for more than 2.5hrs, and slowly the vehicles started moving down over the one feet snow, ice and slush. The drive was challenging due to oncoming traffic and poor visibility. ToFo performed well with superb control, good braking, giving enough and more power on slush. By around 3pm, we reached Leh and had our hot lunch from Tibetan Kitchen as suggested by HVK. Well-located in the center of Leh, pleasant atmosphere, fairly priced and attentive service.

After a sumptuous lunch, we proceeded towards Karu. On the way we visited Hemis Monastery, which existed before the 11^th century. The Hemis Manuscripts are said to be a set of ancient documents hidden away in a remote monastery high in the mountains along the Tibet India border. The documents say Jesus of Nazareth visited India between the ages 12 to 30 during his so called missing years of the Bible. No opinions from our side, some people support the theory, others dispute; your call.

We reached the Karu Army camp by evening 5:30pm. A quick cleaning and patting was done for ToFo for taking us safely till here. We offloaded the entire luggage from ToFo as the next day’s drive plan was to go to Pangong and return to Karu. It was a tiring day of drive, and dinner was served by 9pm and we crashed by 10pm. But the way we got stuck at Khardung came as a fairy tale incepted in our dreams and still makes many sleepless... It resides in a part of brain where sometimes we walk secretively and revisit sweet scary memories of Khardungla. .... and every time we enjoy that limbo to the fullest....In the mountain driving, especially in Himalayas one emotion could be fear, but the source is clear : one careless mistake and a fall is death.

·         Driving Route : Hunder, Diskit, Khalsar, North Pullu, Khardungla, South Pullu, Leh, Karu

·         Total kms covered :  172 kms

·         Drive start time : 7:00am; Drive End time : 5:30 pm

Day 13 – August 24, 2015 @ Karu to Pangong and back

After a good night sleep and dreaming about one of the most sought after location in the list –The Pangong lake, we got up by 5am and left Karu by 6am. For a change, the feel of the power of the vehicle was very different as we offloaded almost all the luggage from ToFo. In 30minutes, we were passing Sakti, a village enroute to Tangtse. We could spot lot of greenery here and there, some monasteries and small houses on the valley. For some reason Sakti village was attracting and calling us for couple of days stay over there. Sooner we started the climb towards ChangLa, and could see the snow cladded top of Changla. The road conditions were not that bad, considering the Zojila and Khardung. The roads were isolated at 6am in the morning, and could maintain a decent pace.

he route was passing through beautiful Ladakh countryside, over Chang La, the third highest motorable mountain pass in the world. Traces of snow along the road welcome us. The mountains in the backdrop appeared to be painted in the colors of green, brown and violet. There is a mountaineering school, which imparts training in various degrees of rock climbing. The drive towards Changla is pretty steep and required careful drive due to very less width of the road. In about two hours, we reached the top of Changla, covered with almost half a feet of snow. In ToFo’s dashboard the external temperature was showing -3 degree, and we experienced very heavy wind and wind chill. Pret had a quick visit to Changla Baba temple, Ram and Ajayan did a quick photo session at the Changla top. Alok for some reason was not able to withstand the wind chill and stayed inside the car after getting out for a bi-break.

All in all, we spent about ten minutes at the top of Changla (Altitude 17585ft) falsely claimed to be the third (debate still continues) highest motorable road in the world. Forget about the debates, but everyone will feel the altitude as the breathing rhythm increased over there. Very similar to Khardungla, it was not easy and it is not advisable to spend more time or running around at the top due to lesser Oxygen layer. We continued descend from Changla top towards Darbuk, Tangste and that too was very steep. The drive was good, but cautious due to the slippery back ice and snow. Though the Changla Pass has extreme cold and chilly winds that can blow you away, the breathtaking views from this region leave any visitor speechless and will be a memorable adventure trip.

Once we come down from Changla pass, we reach Tangtse village. Tangtse lies on the valley floor through which the Harong stream flows. Surrounded by mountains, the village lies on flat arid ground with greenery to be seen only along the Harong stream. One road leads down from Chang La pass, another goes south toward Chusrul, and another crosses the stream and goes eastward toward Pangong Tso. Surprisingly for a good length, we had flat surfaces and could see the Tangtse army camp along the side of the roads. Waiving hands to many Army people in trucks, we continued our drive towards Pangong.Though we skipped breakfast, the scenery on both sides has been keeping us pretty energetic. We were badly looking for some options to have a chai, and couldn’t find a place along the side of the roads. The color of the mountains and shapes were breathtaking and sometimes gave a scary look too. For some reason, Pret was commenting and analyzing the age of these mountains by himself, where no one listened or commented. In between Alok made his peculiar sound, and spotted a sea gull. Every one pulled him on the fact that he spotted a sea gull at the remote village of Himalayas, but apparently the internet analysis has proven that he was right. The discussions went for couple of minutes on migratory birds, slat water of Pangong Lake and reasons why Sea Gull can be seen in and around this place. Though Alok was passionately driving the points on these birds, and for all others, it was more like discussing about smart phones to Alok.

We also spotted Himalayan marmot on the way after Lukung. Marmots are of the size of a small rabbit, lives in colonies and excavates deep burrows. It has a dark chocolate brown coat, and seeing us it came running to our vehicle. It was real fun to watch them, and we could see warning boards not to feed them. There were many warning boards as “Marmot crossing” to control the speed and to be watchful. The landscape changed almost very similar to what we experienced need Nubra valley like the sand dunes. All of a sudden, we spotted the board saying the first view of world famous Pangong Lake and could see the bluish water far around the corner.

A drive of another 4kms took us to the Pangong Lake. The beauty and the feel could not be explained in a travelogue. The sheer beauty of the lake is the fact that it displays multiple colors ranging from shades of blue, green and sometimes reddish too. The rugged Trans-Himalayan Mountains in the background make for a stunning panoramic view. We went to the Army camp at Pangong TSO had a quick tea, and silently viewed the lake.  This is a place, where no camera can do justice, though this place is a photographer’s delight. Pangong Lake is the largest lake in the Himalayas, stretches for some 134kms with a width of two to six kms. One-third of the lake lies in India, while the remaining in Tibet, a region controlled by China. The lake is at an altitude of 13900ft above sea level.

We drove by the narrow ramp like road on the side of Pangong for a while, and the beauty still remains etched to the memory. Owing to Pangong’s proximity to the China border, tourists are only allowed to visit the lake upto Spangmik village. We were not having any plans to camp at the lake. Accommodation options near Pangong is very limited and will be very expensive. The weather tends to be very harsh at times, especially after dusk. Pangong TSO is easily the biggest tourist puller in Ladakh and surely worth all the hype. This beautiful lake was featured in the last scene of the movie “3 idiots” and we too visited that spot. After spending about an hour over there, where the beauty cannot be described but it has to be experienced we had a quick breakfast at 11:30am of Aloo paratha that we carried from the Karu camp.

After repeatedly seeing the road sign boards of Delhi, Leh etc near the Pangong Lake, we were very thrilled by the road sign boards towards Shanghai, Tokyo etc. One day, we will. The return drive was peaceful, nothing eventful. By the time we reached Chagla top, it was bright and sunny.  We reached Karu by 4pm, and had our late lunch at a nearby Dhaba, the usual Roti, Dal and Rajma. Night stay was at the same army camp at Karu, and after the extravagant dinner hosted by the Commanding officer of that regiment, we went to bed by 11:30pm. Earlier plan was to leave Karu to Keylong by 3am, we pushed to 5am to get some sleep.

·         Driving Route : Karu, Sakti, Changla, Durbuk, Tangste, Pangong, Karu

·         Total kms covered :  272 kms

·         Drive start time : 6:00am; Drive End time : 4:30 pm

Day 14 – August 25, 2015 @ Karu to Keylong ..Can we do Manali?

Though the sleep was just for couple of hours, we got up ready to face the challenging drive of Karu to Keylong. The accommodation was arranged in the army camp near to Keylong. We started from Karu at 5am, in the Leh – Manali highway. Road conditions were decent to start with from Karu for few kilometers, and then deteriorated badly. 

This is supposed to be one of the toughest highway considering the fact that the average elevation of the highway is more than 13000ft, and its highest elevation at 17480ft at Tanglang La mountain pass. This highway is skirted by mountain ranges on both sides featuring some stunning sand and rock natural formations. This highway is generally a two lane highway wide, but has only one or a half lane wide in many stretches, making the drive very challenging. It has over a dozen of bailey bridges and most of them are in tumbledown condition. The highway has many damaged stretches where absolutely no road is there, where even a little rainfall can trigger landslide. The highway also crosses many small streams of ice-cold water from the snow-capped mountains and glacial melts without a designed bridge and it requires driving skills to negotiate them. From Karu, we need to cross around 450kms to reach Manali.

During the preparation phase, we have read enough about the toughness of this highway crossing Pang, Sarchu, deadly Barlacha pass and the uncertain Rohtang Pass.  In about 90minutes, we reached the top of Tanglang la, where roads were covered with fresh snow flakes and many a places icy road conditions. As a debatic topic, this pass is marked as the second highest motorable road in the world at 1748ft. The road conditions were better compared to the other higher passes that we crossed in the previous days, and drive was smooth to the top of Tanglang La. One thing we missed to update is, either we became over confident on AMS or decided to go for water therapy (drinking lots and lots of water), we stopped taking Diamox tablets from Pangong Lake itself. May be due to last 4 – 5 days of travel in high altitude, our body seems to be acclimatized and same as ToFo the body too was performing decent. Like most of the mountain passes in Leh on Tanglang la also there is a small temple and a marker stone with the altitude of the pass mentioned on it.

We started the descent from Tanglang la and crossed Debring sooner. At Debring, we stopped at a small tea shop and had some bread that we were carrying. (Going by Alok it is braaad). Ram was eating and stocking couple of pieces of bread on his back and side pockets ensuring he get a good pie of it. After Debring, we almost got a feeling that we are in a runway of an airport, at More Plains. The straight stretches of plain road along the side of Lungpa River for around 30 kms was a bliss to drive. After the smooth drive, again the road conditions got worsened, and we crossed Pang.

We could see lots of army transit camps and some tented accommodations at Pang. Pang, at a height of approximately 15600 ft, has the world’s highest Transit camp, according to the Indian Army. Some people plan their accommodation at Pang, on the way from Leh or Manali. Pang, to us was a dry high altitude valley and we don’t recommend the accommodation at this place. From Pang, ToFo did the next climb to Lachung La pass (16600ft) and Nakeela pass (15547ft) and then took the famous Gata Loops, at an elevation closer to 17000ft. It is a series of twenty-one hairpin bends that takes you to the bottom of Nakeela.

There seems to be a myth associated with Gata Loops. The legend associated with this place is that a small house situated atop a hill is dwelling to a surreptitious ghost. The people passing by, make it a point to shower gifts such as cigarettes and mineral water at this site. Probably it is due to take care of you from the treacherous pathway. A google search of the Ghost of Ghata loops can give more details.

After a treacherous drive crossing Tanglang La, Pang, Lachung La, Nakee La and Ghata loops we came across two funny bridge names Whisky Nallah and Brandy Nallah.  In 10 kms from this place we crossed the HP border and reached Sarchu by 10:30am.  From a drive and average perspective we have been doing good and reached Sarchu before time. At Sarchu, we stopped at a small shop, and in no time we could spot Ajayan having an Aloo parath sitting inside the kitchen next to the person making Paratha.

The irony and the irritating part was by the time Ajayan finished his paratha, Pret and Ram came checking what is there for eating and ordered Paratha, double omlette and Pret was checking for Chowmeen too. After a friendly fight and a debate, we had couple of photographs with the shopkeeper and started for the next leg. Sarchu (Altitude 14070ft) is a good halt point (more of a midway in the Leh-Manali highway) with tented accommodation run by various travel agencies and locals. This place seems to be a decent place to stay for the night and the facilities though basic are good enough. Sarchu is also a start point for the difficult trek to the Zanskar region. After Sarchu, we never know what is lying ahead of us in Baralacha Pass.

Baralacha La is at an altitude of over 16000ft, is in the Zansakar range. It is a very high plateau where three different mountain ranges – the Pir Panjal, Zanskar and the Great Himalayas meet. It is a deadly steady climb, and the 75 odd kms till Darcha was killing, and was a torture to all including ToFo. Both the Bhaga River and Chadra River originate from melting snow at opposite side of Baralacha la. The roads were in horrendously bad shape, with lot of sharp stones apart from bumpy round stones and almost half lane roads in many places. We have seen some work going on along the side for laying optic fiber cable work. You could imagine the plight of width, on a half lane road with a good portion digged for cable laying. It was a little scary drive all along this path, where we could witness match box size trucks and other vehicles that got fallen down the valley. Anytime if there was an oncoming truck from other side, our driving skills were tested to the max. Many places there were occasions where we backed up more than hundred meters to give way for the oncoming traffic. In between we crossed many smaller water streams where absolutely there was no sign of existence of road. We spotted a small lake Suraj Tal, the bluish water on the side of the road, but tiredness and hunger didn’t allow us for a photo stop. We took almost 4 hrs to cross 75 kms in this stretch, to reach Keylong, one of the most toughest and challenging drive on these days. In many travelogues in internet, this is rated as one of the most deadly passes to drive. What is exactly the thrill in this drive?

In a trip like this, you will have to spend couple of days in various altitudes allowing the body to acclimatize, driving up the mountain carefully step by step, total uncertainty on the route, using sheer will power, patience, dedication with unrelenting discomfort and exhaustion – but all these explanations and challenges makes less sense who can appreciate the mighty Himalayas landscape. . To demonstrate that we have influence over our life, we might need to go an environment that is incredibly difficult to control – like these drives. It surely is not like playing poker where the worst that could happen is to lose some money, here the stakes of a careless driving could be ultimate.

We had lunch at Keylong, the usual roti, dal and rajma. Everyone was tired due to this high altitude and treacherous long drive for the last 8 hrs and was just looking for “food”. For some reason, thinking “meen” (Malayalam word for fish) Pret ordered some customized version of Chowmeen, and apparently ended up eating the left over cold rotis.  The lunch was pathetic, but managed for the hunger levels. Alok and Ram had some discomfort of having headache, but again managed it themselves with no other option. After leaving Karu, almost all the mobiles including the BSNL was dead for most of the time, and we got the first sign of signals in BSNL after Keylong. As per the drive plan we were supposed to stay at Keylong / Tandi, and updated HVK on the location. He encouraged us to proceed to Manali, as were doing well on time and also mentioned about the bright and sunny weather at Rohtang pass, which is a good window for us to utilize.

Continuing our drive, we passed Keylong, Tandi and saw a long queue on the road, almost like a traffic jam. The traffic jam was due to queue of the vehicles near the Tandi IOC petrol pump (the last one if you are going towards Leh from Manali), we didn’t stop as our fuel capacity was good to reach Manali. There were some questions from Alok on Why we didn’t stop, why not fueling from Tandi, what happens if there is no fuel at Manali etc, were not answered though Ram attempted to. The road conditions were extremely pathetic, and we continued eating almost all the dust on the way. Due to hilly roads and altitude, we were still having the A/C off and windows open. By 4:30pm we reached near Gramphoo and stopped for tea. The chai-wala encouraged us saying Rohtang is having wonderful climate, bright and sunny. Typically Rohtang pass can be very uncertain with snow and to challenge more it can be foggy too.

Rohtang pass at an altitude of 13050ft (meaning pile of corpses, due to people dying in bad weather) is a high mountain pass on the eastern Pir Panjal range of Himalayas. The pass is open from May to November, which is not particularly high or difficult to cross by Himalayan standards, but it has a well-deserved reputation for being dangerous because of unpredictable snowstorms and blizzards. At the start of the climb for Rohtang pass, we could see vehicles lined up mostly trucks in a long queue for kilometers zig zagging above us.

We called up HVK to give an update and he pacified us saying this is very common, and it will move. We waited in the que for about 20minutes and sooner the whole queue started moving. Thick smoke, dust, zig zag roads and uneven surfaces with large potholes was making the drive tougher, and we continued the drive eating dust. By 6:30pm, we reached the top of Rohtang pass and started descending towards Kothi and Manali. There were many trucks in front of us, who were cruising and negotiating the descend extremely well, stayed right behind them and by 8pm we reached Manali. The drive downwards from Rohtang was very scenic but very narrow roads and mixed quality of road conditions. 

HVK has booked our stay at Manali, and due to fatigue and night time we messed up the route couple of times. In between, Alok went to enquire the route at a dark isolated area, Pret got a call where he assumed that Alok is getting mugged. Apparently we figured out, Alok got chased by couple of stray dogs and these assumptions were made. Seeing Pret’s response we then realized the altitude of Manali is just 6400ft, and he started showing his inborn natural intelligence. There seems to be a nose dive of altitude and the intelligence in the last two hours. The night stay was at an awesome place inside an Apple orchard. By this long drive, we almost saved one day of our trip, as the earlier plan was to stay at Keylong. Good dinner and crashed by 11:30pm. This day’s drive was physically exhausted, but like a dream we were mentally relaxed.

·         Driving Route : Karu, TanglangLa, Pang, Sarchu, Baralacha, Keylong, Gramphoo, Rohtang, Manali

·         Total kms covered :  445 kms

·         Drive start time : 5:00am; Drive End time : 8:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : Leh-Manali hwy, NH21

Day 15 – August 26, 2015 @ Manali to Sonaipat

We had a sleep of achievement of reaching Manali. We got up at 4am and left the hotel by 5am, after plucking and eating couple of apples from the orchard next to where ToFo was parked. Compared to last night’s traffic at Manali, the roads were almost empty at the early morning hours except the apple loading vehicles. We stopped near a truck loading apple from an orchard, and bought a 25kg box from them. The cost and quality was superb compared to what we get in Kerala. The road conditions were average, and we kept moving.

We crossed Kullu, honestly we didn’t even notice these valleys after experiencing the taller Himalayan valleys for the last few days. The road towards Mandi was worse, due to the flood and cloud burst that happened in July 2015. It was good driving on the side of Beas River and we crossed a small dam. We checked with HVK on the nearby places after giving a location update. Some of the nearby places are a drive towards Kasol from Manali, visit to Bhakra Nangal dam etc, but considering our drive and day plan we ditched all those. He updated us about the road conditions and pathetic traffic conditions at Bilaspur. We stopped for breakfast after Mandi, a superb place where they served good Punjabi food. With the cement industry and factories of ACC, Ambuja, Jaypee etc the truck traffic in Bilaspur road was very heavy and it was almost killing our average speed to some where 40km/hr.

We crossed Chandigarh by 1pm, took HVK’s suggestion of finding Puran Singh Dhaba right opposite to Ambala railway station. Once you take a turn towards this place from the main highway, you will be amazed to see how many Puran Dingh ka dhabas are out there. Now where is the original one?? Every dhabas were staring at us, inviting us in, all claiming to be the original one. We took our chance and went into one of them and order food. From the quality and taste of food, it was almost evident that was the original Puran Singh ka dhaba.

After lunch, we had a relatively slow drive as were planning to stop at Sonipat, Haryana. We crossed Kurukshetra, the place attributed to Kurukshetra war of the Mahabharatha; and then Karnal and Panipat (where the first, second and third battle of Panipat is famous). Nearing Sonipat, we crossed a place by name Murthal, a village in Sonipat district and very famous for its high way Dhabas. There were huge number of Dhabas on the side of the highway and was very attractive, but had no scope for another lunch. We reached Sonipat around 5pm, and stopped at a huge outlet of Haldiram right on the side of the highway for tea. Everyone was hogging on variety of sweets, chats and ordered couple of things which we don’t know the names. Our stay was booked by HVK at the HR tourism resort on the side of the highway. We called it a day, with an early dinner and crashed by 9:30pm.

·         Driving Route : Manali, Kullu, Mandi, Bilaspur, Chandigarh, Karnal, Sonipat

·         Total kms covered :  515 kms

·         Drive start time : 5:00am; Drive End time :5:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH21, NH1

Day 16 – August 27, 2015 @ Sonaipat to Seoni

Since we had a very early sleep at 9:30pm, we left Sonipat at 3:30am to escape the Delhi traffic and to hit Agra early morning. It was surprising to see the early morning truck traffic at Sonipat, almost bumper to bumper traffic was hurting us badly. Though there were some confusions on Delhi DND flyover, we managed to hit the Greater Noida Expressway before 5am.

Many of the sign boards were confusing, but again in 30minutes we could hit the famous Yamuna Express Way. Yamuna Express Way is a 6 lane 165km long expressway connecting Greater Noida to Agra. The Expressway is expected to be used by over 100,000 vehicles every day, and reduce travel times between Greater Noida and Agra from 4 hours to 100 minutes. It was a bliss to drive on this expressway and we maintained an average speed of over 110km/hr. There were farmlands on both sides, green with paddy, grass by the roadside and very picturesque. The weather was simply awesome, after a chai break in one of the exits of the expressway, by 7am, well ahead of what we planned, we reached Agra city limits.

Taj Mahal and Agra Fort are what Agra is famous for, other than the Agra Peda. Touts, narrow streets and poos signboards can be a horror for any driver in Agra city. We were so lucky to hit this place early morning, still things were not very smooth. We looked for the Gwalior sign boards, and negotiating some busy market areas we managed to come out of the Agra city limits by 8am. A good one hour to cover probably 30 kms. The roads towards Gwalior side was very good, having some amount of traffic near the market areas of some villages. By 8:30am, we passed Gwalior and stopped for breakfast at a roadside Dhaba shop at Dabra. Gobi paratha, phulka, cake like curd that can be sliced and good potato curry was served by the friendly dhaba people.

A peculiar thing of the drive route was, in around 5 hours we crossed 5 states, Sonipat, Haryana;  Delhi;  Agra, UP ; Dholpur, Rajasthan; Chambal, MP and proceeded towards Jhansi and Sagar. Driving across the highway in Chambal Bridge gives the view of Chambal ravines, where we have heard in many stories and films. The drive was very peaceful, and we stopped for lunch just after Lalitpur before Sagar at a BPCL outlet. Decent Thali meals lunch was served, apparently was our Onam Sadhya (for all from Kerala knows this). After a good lunch, we had a smooth drive maintaining good average speeds of over 80km/hr and Alok was sitting curiously to find out the area where Tropic of Cancer passes near Sagar. The curiosity still remains with him, but we couldn’t located the place of TOC. After couple of stops for chai, butter fruit and fresh corn we reached Seoni at the outskirts of Pench National Park by 5:30pm. The hotel was booked by help desk of HVK on the side of the highway. Dinner was done by 9pm, and went to bed by 10pm for a good night tired sleep.

·         Driving Route : Sonipat, Delhi, Noida Expwy, Yamuna Expwy, Agra, Gwalior, Sagar, Seoini

·         Total kms covered :  975 kms

·         Drive start time : 3:30am; Drive End time :5:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH1, NH 7

 Day 17 – August 27, 2015 @ Seoni to Hyderabad

We woke up by 4am, and started the trip by 5am. It was a two lane road crossing Mansar, almost till Nagpur. There were lot of diversions and construction in this area, and we could pick speed after Nagpur. We had breakfast near Hinganghat, where surprisingly a dhaba was serving us Onion Dosa, Sambhar and chutney. The road conditions from there were absolutely great, and could move like a low flying object. By 12 noon, we reached Hyderabad. We did a quick shopping to buy some sweets, did a wheel alignment for ToFo and reached Alok’s house by 2:30pm. 

The trip was almost ending, and had a good dinner served of Aloo paratha etc served by Ritu. After some chit chatting for a while, we went to sleep by 10pm

·         Driving Route : Seoini, Nagpur, Hyderabad

·         Total kms covered :  655 kms

·         Drive start time : 5:00am; Drive End time :2:00 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH7

Day 18 – August 27, 2015 @ Hyderabad to Trivandrum

Not sure what the mood was. Sense achievement, disappointment or sadness of a drive that is about to finish – whatever, three of us, we started from Hyderabad at 5am. There was no curiosity on the route or drive plan, since we had done this route couple of times. The highway from Hyderabad, especially after the Shamsabad airport is absolutely fabulous.

We stopped for a very quick breakfast after Kurnool, and entered Devanahalli outskirts by 11am. We took a diversion from Devanahalli, avoiding the Bangalore traffic chaos and drove thru some inner Karnataka village roads, that joined before Krishnagiri. We had a sumptuous south Indian thali meals from a hotel at Dharmapuri and the drive continued. Some sort of silence was always felt inside the vehicle, the jokes were less and for some reason Pret was found tensed. We were not sure on the reason, whether it was a low altitude problem or because of reaching home. The average speed was not picking to the level we expected, due to surprisingly heavy traffic conditions mostly truck. We reached Nagercoil by 9pm, and the traffic was a spoil sport, came to a standstill. After a very irritating drive we reached Trivandrum by 10:30pm. Dropped Ram and Pret, at Ram’s place where Shalini came to pick him, and Ajayan finished the lap 1 km lap to his home.

Call it a trip? Call it a drive? Call it a life time achievement? The sense of achievement, pride and camaraderie was simply awesome, and none of us will be hesitant to say this one as the best ever trip made in our life. Is Himalayas calling again? Of course, till today there was not even a single day would have passed without a glimpse of this drip either in a day dream or otherwise.

·         Driving Route : Hyderabad, Bangalore, Salem, Madurai, Trivandrum

·         Total kms covered :  1442 kms

·         Drive start time : 5:00am; Drive End time :10:30 pm

·         National highways crossed : NH7, NH47

Concluding the trip

Drove across 15 states in 18 days  over 9000kms  - across the trip, we passed through Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, then the ranges of Ajanta, Satpura, Vindhya & Aravali ranges;  the desert of Thar and three ranges in J&K (Pir Panjal, Zanskar and Ladakh). We also crossed 80 rivers! Can you believe? In all the 9 passes, we drove, five of them were higher than 5000metrs.

 

Place	State	Altitude (ft)	Highways	Mountains/Ranges	Rivers
Trivandrum	Kerala	30	NH 47
Madurai	Tamilnadu	333	NH 944, NH 7		Karmana river, Neyyar river, Thamiraparani river, Pazhayar, Vaippar river, Amaravathi river, Vagai river
Salem	Tamilnadu	912	NH 7		Kaveri river
Bangalore	Karnataka	3000	NH 7	Ascended Eastern Ghats and reached Deccan Plateau	Then Pennai river
Tumkur	Karnataka	2696	NH 4	Deccan Plateau
Hiriyur	Karnataka	2066	NH 4	Deccan Plateau	Vedavathi river (a tributary to the Tungabhadra river)
Chitradurga	Karnataka	2401	NH 4	Deccan Plateau
Devangere	Karnataka	1977	NH 4	Deccan Plateau
Harihar	Karnataka	1771	NH 4	Deccan Plateau	Tungabhadra river; formed by the confluence of the Tunga river and the Bhadra river which flow down the eastern slope of the Western Ghats in the state of Karnataka.
Haveri	Karnataka	1876	NH 4	Deccan Plateau
Hubli	Karnataka	2201	NH 4	Deccan Plateau
Belgaum	Karnataka	2463	NH 4	Deccan Plateau; close to Western Ghats	Markandeya river
Kolhapur	Maharashtra	1867	NH 4	Deccan Plateau; close to Western Ghats	Panchganga river (meets Krishna river later)
Satara	Maharashtra	2434	NH 4	Deccan Plateau; close to Western Ghats	Crossed five major rivers on the way to Satara - Koyna river, Mand river, Tarati river (Kali Ganga), Urmodi river and Venna river. They all meet Krishna river later.
Pune	Maharashtra	1837	NH 4	Deccan Plateau; close to Western Ghats	Crossed Krishna river and river Nira on the way to Pune Mutha river, Ramnadi river and Mula river
Mumbai	Maharashtra	46	NH 4	Descended Western Ghats
Nashik	Maharashtra	2000	NH 3	Ascended Ajanta Range of Western Ghats and reached Nashik; the western edge of Deccan Plateau.	Crossed Vasai Creek on the way. Crossed Godavari river just after Nashik in addition to other important rivers like Vaitarana, Bhima, Girana, Kashyapi and Darana.
Dhule	Maharashtra	787	NH 3	Descended Western Ghats; this ended Deccan Plateau	Banganga river, Kadwa river, Girna river, Bori river, Panzara river, Tapi river
Ratlam	Madhya Pradesh	1575	NH 79	Ascended Satpura Range, descended.  Climbed up Vindhya Range and reached Malwa Plateau	Crossed Narmada river on the way
Mandsaur	Madhya Pradesh	1453	NH 79	Malwa region
Neemuch	Madhya Pradesh	1483	NH 79
Chittorgarh	Rajasthan	1293	NH 79	Mewar region	Berach river
Bhilwara	Rajasthan	1381	NH 79	Mewar region	Kothari river and Banas river
Kishangarh	Rajasthan	1416	NH 79/ NH 79A
Bagru	Rajasthan	1125	NH 8	Aravali Range
Didwana	Rajasthan	1102		Thar Desert
Sujangarh	Rajasthan	1023		Thar Desert
Ratangarh	Rajasthan	1023		Thar Desert
Hanumangarh	Rajasthan	581		This region was part of Indus Valley Civilization.	Ghaggar river, also identified as Ancient Sarasvati river
Abohar	Punjab	590	NH 10/NH 15	India Pakistan border
Amritsar	Punjab	768	NH 15		Sutlej river, Beas river
Gurdaspur	Punjab	791	NH 15
Pathankot	Punjab	1089	NH 15		Ravi river
Jammu	J & K	1073	NH 1A		Tawi river
Udhampur	J & K	2477	NH 1A
Patnitop	J & K	6640	NH 1A	Situated on a plateau in the Shiwalik belt of the Himalayas
Anantnag	J & K	5300	NH 1A	Crossed Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas and entered Valley of Kashmir	Chenab river
Srinagar	J & K	5200	NH 1A		Jhelum river
Sonamarg	J & K	9200	NH 1D	gateway on ancient Silk Road	Sind river
Zoji La	J & K	11575	NH 1D	Pangi Range of the Himalayas
Drass	J & K	10760	NH 1D	Crossed Pangi Range and reached Drass. It is the coldest place in India	Drass river
Kargil	J & K	8780	NH 1D		Suru (Indus) river, Chuwar river, Wakha river
Namika La	J & K	12139	NH 1D	Zanskar Range of the Himalayas
Fotu La	J & K	13478	NH 1D	Zanskar Range of the Himalayas
Lamayuru	J & K	11520	NH 1D
Leh	J & K	11562	NH 1D	Ladakh Range of the Himalayas	Indus river, Zanskar river
Leh	J & K	11562	Local
Khardung La	J & K	17685
Partapur	J & K	9900		Karakoram Range is on the other side of the valley of Shyok river	Shyok river and Nubra (Siachan) river; Shyok meets Indus later.
Khardung La	J & K	17685
Karu	J & K	11299			Indus river (2nd time)
Chang La	J & K	17585
Pangong Lake	J & K	14355		India China border
Karu	J & K	11299
Tanglang La	J & K	17480		Zanskar Range of the Himalayas
Debring	J & K	15634
Lachulung La	J & K	16616		Zanskar Range of the Himalayas
Baralacha La	J & K	16500		Zanskar Range of the Himalayas
Keylong	Himachal Pradesh	10100			Tsarap river, Bhag river and Chenab river (2nd time)
Rohtang La	Himachal Pradesh	13060		Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas
Marhi	Himachal Pradesh	10800
Manali	Himachal Pradesh	6400	NH 21		Beas river (2nd time)
Kullu	Himachal Pradesh	4221	NH 21		Parbati river, Tirthan river
Mandi	Himachal Pradesh	3445	NH 21		Uhl river, Suketi Khad river
Chandigarh	Chandigarh	1155	NH 21		Sutlej river (2nd time)
Sonipat	Haryana	739	NH 1		Ghaggar river (2nd time), Markanda river
Delhi	Delhi	713	NH 1		Yamuna river
Agra	Uttar Pradesh	564	NH 7		Yamuna river (2nd time)
Gwalior	Madhya Pradesh	647	NH 7		Utangan river, Chambal river, Asan river
Jhansi	Uttar Pradesh	792	NH 7		Sindh river, Pahuj river, Betwa river, Shahjad river
Narsinghpur	Madhya Pradesh	1145	NH 7	Crossed Vindhya Range again at Sagar.	Dhasan river, Narmada river (2nd time)
Mansar	Maharashtra	1545	NH 7	Crossed Mahadeo Hills	Kanhan river
Nagpur	Maharashtra	1023	NH 7
Hyderabad	Telangana	1667	NH 7	Crossed Saimala Range and Nirmal Range	Nand river, Wena river, Wardha river, Godavari (2nd time), Haridra river, Musi river
Anantpur	Andhra Pradesh	2396	NH 7		Krishna (2nd time), Tungabhadra river (2nd time), Handri river, Penna river
Bangalore	Karnataka	3000	NH 7		Chitravathi river
Trivandrum	Kerala	30	NH 7/ NH 47