[Fauji]

Hey Coolcat,

Wonderful TL which will complement the great TL by Lalu on Ladakh expedition with HVK. Excellent pictures as well. Looking forward to hear more from you.

Rated five stars for a great trip indeed!!

[Coooolcat21]

More pictures of the upper mall road.








The Views we had driven across the Country for...






The Apple Blossom ! Something that I had so far seen only pictures of in this Forum




Hey !! That guy is stealing the Sign Post...








Looks like Western Ghats !!


The Golden light of a mountain Sun-set.






The Ride looking good in the natural and rugged surroundings.


The Mandatory ORVM Snap

[C300]

Another lovely thread Coolcat! Rated 5 stars!
Spectacular pictures of those lush green montain range. I guess you used your Canon gear to capture the beauty.

[raghunandanj]

Great travelogue and excellent pictures to accompany the writing ! Can you please add an image of your route plotted on Google maps ? It will be useful for other enthusiasts to pln a similar adventure...

[abhijitvp]

Wow! What a lovely pictures they are! Dynamic range is too good to believe! Most of them look like HDRs to me. Did you capture them RAW and processed it? What Camera/Lenses you used? Rating well deserved five stars.

[thumpingheart]

Amazing travelogue coolcat21! And pictures are simply breath-taking! Gonna follow this thread

[fazalaliadil]

Coooolcat21,

You deserve the best compliments for your narration and photography in making this travelogue jump to life.

The mountain scapes, valleys, sunsets, weather, culture, people.. from the meandering roads cutting through the expansive valleys to the grilled windows of the market place, all which are very well captured ,composed, vivid, rich and crisp.

Thanks for letting us see the beauty and nearly feel what your eyes have seen.

Then there always one that's my personal favorite,"The Golden light of a mountain Sun-set". Looks like a road to heaven through this valley.

Regards,

[Coooolcat21]

Originally Posted by Driving_Nomad

What a prologue!! Awesome pictures!! Even if there's some post processing you have done a laudable job with the pictures, unless you are an expert

Thank You Nomad. No expert and just the minimal tweeking in PP. Regards.

Originally Posted by Jignesh

Hello Coolcat,

Simply amazing. The photographs are great, just like Wall Papers. What is the Camera & Lenses that you use? Just cannot wait to your see the Kashmir / Ladakh photographs.

Also you are narrating the story in very short & crisp manner but without missing an important information.

Thank you & have given 5 star rating.

Regards,

Thank You Jignesh for your kind comments. We have used a Sony Nex 5 and a Canon 50D. the lenses used on the Sony was a 18-55mm with a 3.5-5.6 aperture and a 16 MM fixed focal length with a 2.8 aperture, on the Canon we used the 100-400 prime lens most of the time, for on-the-run pics on the highway we used a simple point and shoot Sony Camera. My son did start his experiments in photgraphy on a old Nokia phone of mine and in between did on occassion knock of his Uncle's I-phone. I shall be putting up these snaps seperately later, I am quiet proud of the results..

Originally Posted by sach.sri

Great pics coooolcat21. Specially liked the Tso Moriri picture with golden sunlit Mountain tops.

Rating - 5*

PS. - Is it a typo of did you guys do this trip for over a month? Your last posts say Sept. 15th?

Thank you Sach Sri for your kind comments and rating and pointing out the typo that I have since corrected. Come to think of it we did take almost a full month to complete the entire trip. Regards.

Originally Posted by scopriobharath

wow excellent travellogue - glued on. HOw did your TFORT handle the rains? Did the tyres provide sufficient grip on the roads during rains?

Thank you Bharat. The TFORT was rock steady and we faced absolutely no problems anywhere except for power-loss in the higher altitudes later in the trip. The Tyres ran well. Regards.

Originally Posted by subs

Hey coolcat

All I can say is you need to blessed to make such a trip possible. The pictures are awesome and the ones especially showing the road is mind blowing. Keep it going mate.

Subs

Thank You Subs, I guess we were blessed and ran the trip without a hitch. Regards.

Originally Posted by Fauji

Hey Coolcat,

Wonderful TL which will complement the great TL by Lalu on Ladakh expedition with HVK. Excellent pictures as well. Looking forward to hear more from you.

Rated five stars for a great trip indeed!!

Thank you Fauji Sir, and thanks for the recent holiday in Valpirai inspired by your T-log! Regards.

Originally Posted by C300

Another lovely thread Coolcat! Rated 5 stars!
Spectacular pictures of those lush green montain range. I guess you used your Canon gear to capture the beauty.

Thank you, you guessed it!! did use the Canon and as mentioned above the Sony Nex 5 too. The Natures bounty was so beautifull we hardly had to do anything but point and click. Regards.

Originally Posted by raghunandanj

Great travelogue and excellent pictures to accompany the writing ! Can you please add an image of your route plotted on Google maps ? It will be useful for other enthusiasts to pln a similar adventure...

Thank You Raghu, we ourselves planned the trip using this forum and the roads travelled on by the great travelling pioneers the names i am afraid to name for the fear of leaving out some. This actually was a trip where the spirit of this forum guided and inspired us. Shall try to post the route soon.
Regards.

Originally Posted by abhijitvp

Wow! What a lovely pictures they are! Dynamic range is too good to believe! Most of them look like HDRs to me. Did you capture them RAW and processed it? What Camera/Lenses you used? Rating well deserved five stars.

Thank You Abhi for the kind words and stars. Non of the pictures are HDR, the cameras / lenses used are listed above. Regards.

Originally Posted by thumpingheart

Amazing travelogue coolcat21! And pictures are simply breath-taking! Gonna follow this thread

Thank You Sir.

Originally Posted by fazalaliadil

Coooolcat21,

You deserve the best compliments for your narration and photography in making this travelogue jump to life.

The mountain scapes, valleys, sunsets, weather, culture, people.. from the meandering roads cutting through the expansive valleys to the grilled windows of the market place, all which are very well captured ,composed, vivid, rich and crisp.

Thanks for letting us see the beauty and nearly feel what your eyes have seen.

Then there always one that's my personal favorite,"The Golden light of a mountain Sun-set". Looks like a road to heaven through this valley.

Regards,

Thank you Fazal Sir, your comments like your observations are incisive and detailed. The road to Heaven was pot-holed... However the vistas were as you can see superb. Thank you again.

[supertinu]

Amazing start to what would have been a trip of a life time. Keep it rolling and dont make us wait too long. Been a while since we had a Himalayan roadtrip .

[Irish]

Your pictures are awesome. Nice photolog with crisp information.

BTW, don't you think that you missed a lot by bypassing Delhi?


Cheers!
Irish

[SS-Traveller]

Loved the pics especially, and look forward to the rest of the travelogue unfolding. Subscribed and watching. Do share info about your photographic equipment too.

Rated 5*, just for the photos.

[rahul_sinha]

Lovely photos with apt titles . This surely is one hell of a trip and you guys thoroughly enjoyed.
Rated 5 stars!

[Coooolcat21]

Originally Posted by supertinu

Amazing start to what would have been a trip of a life time. Keep it rolling and dont make us wait too long. Been a while since we had a Himalayan roadtrip .

Thank you supertinu,
Regards

Originally Posted by Irish

Your pictures are awesome. Nice photolog with crisp information.

BTW, don't you think that you missed a lot by bypassing Delhi?


Cheers!
Irish

Well we did not want to get into the madness of the delhi city and were too eager to get to the mountains.
Thanks

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

Loved the pics especially, and look forward to the rest of the travelogue unfolding. Subscribed and watching. Do share info about your photographic equipment too.

Rated 5*, just for the photos.

Thanks a lot,keep watching.The equipment details i have mentioned in my previous post.
Regards

Originally Posted by rahul_sinha

Lovely photos with apt titles . This surely is one hell of a trip and you guys thoroughly enjoyed.
Rated 5 stars!

Thanks Rahul, we had a superb time.

[VindyWheels]

Hi Cooolcat21,

Loved your narration and pics covering the street, market, people, monuments and the beautiful vistas! Felt like I was actually travelling and seeing those places

Photographs are topnotch, some breathtaking. I guess you meant Canon with 100-400mm "zoom" and not "prime". How did the nex fare compared to the DSLR? I presume the wide angle shots are clicked with the nex since you used the zoom lens on the canon.

Eager to experience the rest of the journey.

Cheers

Vindy

[Coooolcat21]

17th August. Narkanda - Hatu Peak - Narkanda.

Our friends got sick overnight and were in a bad shape with congestion. The plan was to sleep late however we were up at the usual time.
My son was also up early and was too happy to know that we were not travelling today. I too was happy spending time with him as I realised that he needed that extra bit of mother's attention and I was more than happy to play with him. The hotel is in a beautiful and safe location and has enough space for children to play.
The Hotel was neat and clean, there were a few other guests and we got the first taste of HPTDC standard fare across all their Hotels. Adequate but uninspiring. After loitering about after Breakfast we decided to visit Hatu Peak. The drive was one of the loveliest in our journey but this was also one of the narrowest roads we travelled on as well as the steepest, but still it was beautifull in all aspects. The Hatu Temple was under Renovation and relocation from the older structure, what we could see of it was beautifull in the traditional himachali style of temples one sees across the state. A little further up was the Hatu PWD Guest House situated in an impossibly lovely location, after cimbing up a small hillock at the rear we had a beautiful view of the ranges around, green verdant mountains with fluffy white dressing of low clouds. After spending some good amount of time watching the landscapes change into various hues we drove back to the Hotel for some cold beer and lunch. We spend the whole day just taking in the vistas, the hotel is simply superbly located. The staff was helpful and courteous they all assured us that we were missing something by not going to Chitkul.
We had a early dinner and hit the sack to go on forward leaving the green mountain sides for a more rugged and stark mountains that awaited us for almost the entire part of the rest of the journey.

The Hatu


Amazing views for the Fortuner too.




Oh what a slug






Started our drive to Hatu Peak










Bit of a steep climb from the parking






My son


The beautiful carvings that were being given finishing touches