[MudMover]

A very well-presented travelogue! The re-sized pics with aptly placed comments provide a smooth flow to the story. Great story-telling Laluks!

[laluks]

Originally Posted by MudMover

A very well-presented travelogue! The re-sized pics with aptly placed comments provide a smooth flow to the story. Great story-telling Laluks!

Most of the travelogues with huge pictures always used to distract me in reading the text, hence I decided to present it like this. I am glad it really helps. Thank you for the feedback.

[hrag]

Nicely written Lalu! Congratulations and glad to hear all are back safe & sound :-)

[laluks]

Day 3 Continued.

From Sonamarg after crossing Zojila we headed towards Drass and further on to Kargil. After the pass the terrain totally changed. Greens disappeared. The terrain started to look depressing. It is also allegedly the second coldest inhabited place in the world. From the knowledge treasure of HVK, we came to know that this place once recorded a -70 degrees on a winter day in 1996.











We saw Draupati Kund on the way.


Glenn's Scorpio resting and enjoying the terrains which he is built to drive on. I guess for once in its life the scorpio enjoyed every moment of the drive. Little did he know what was waiting for him on his way to Padhum. Since Glenn used to honk Peep peep at every corner, the Scorpio got a pet name too "Road Runner".




Our team were busy catalouging the terrains as Depressing Terrains (DT), Very depressing terrains (VDT), Pleasant terrains (PT), MDT, LDT,etc.. It was sheer fun how we catalouged, but that by itself is a fun story which will take ages to explain

We drove on the steep roads near river Drass and Suru. The Paks can see this route from the heights and can shell us at will. HVK scared us all by saying our Scorpio convoy will be noticed. But luckily due to Zoji la the convoy was broken and everyone reached at their own pace to Tiger Hills. See every difficulty in life has a meaning.

By 18:15PM we reached Tiger hills, which became infamous during the kargil war due to Pakistan intrusion.



HVK happy to see his convoy joining in. You can see him explaining about Tiger Hills to us.


Glenn making a point to HVK at Tiger Hills


We paid our respects to the War heroes of Kargil at the war memorial in Drass. We reached there by 18:45PM. We felt proud that our country is in safe hands and they go to any extent to protect us. For a moment stepping on that mud, I felt proud to be in my motherland. "Indian Army - Serving God and Country with Pride" was mentioned, and it felt good to read it.






After this we drove to Kargil and reached Kargil by 20:15PM. Kargil is at 2500m above sea level. Kargil is a small town and at Kargil, there is a Petrol pump. This pump is little away from the main centre, but luckily had fuel on that day. We could not find any food, and had to be contented by whatever was possible.

The drive was quite tiring, and hence some of the convoy members decided to go directly to Leh next day and not go to Padhum. Hence on Day 4 it was only HVK's and Glenns scorpio which drove to Padhum (Zanskar Valley).

According to HVK, the holiday begins now

[laluks]

Originally Posted by hrag

Nicely written Lalu! Congratulations and glad to hear all are back safe & sound :-)

Thanks Hrishi. May be I join again with you guys in 2010. The place has a strange attraction.

[mpksuhas]

We have come to know about that pajero pulling incident through the other Ladakh expedition update (travelouge) . Waiting for its video / pictures.

Originally Posted by laluks

Hey Mr. Bina L/P
How can I forget seeing the milky way after climbing up that hill panting and puffing in the night. It was the most amazing stuff ever happened to me. We were really insignificant!



Saji, hold on till I reach that day's account. I guess you'll definitely need more time to process

[StarVegabond]

Dear Laluks and All the team which raided Leh

i felt very humbled to read the travelogue.
All my road trips and vacations appear to be nothing infront of this your trip.

In fact i lost my motivation to type in my trip report to Kemmannugundi and Jog and nearby Shimoga places.

i hope to recover my motivation once your trip report is over

hope to do such a trip in my life time at least once.

Please accept my humble greetings to all of you on your successful trip and sharing the experience with all of us.

[akroy]

Hi Lalu, congrats on the nice trip. I opened this thread when it is already 4 pages long (thanks to my odd timezone). I am yet to read all. My comments are based on first page only. I will go home and read the rest.

I remember few months back when Ramky was in Bangalore, he mentioned about this trip. I guess mjothi was also in the scheme of things. So you and mjothi did this trip from Blr?

Abhi

[tsk1979]

LOL. you also had the what to eat dilemma at Kargil
We found a guy selling kababs on the roadside, and ate like mad. Full day of hardly any food meant we finished almost everything he had.

[sj_koova]

Its my turn now.
Here are the first two panoramas from Srinagar

First view of Kashmir valley from the Titanic view point


Dal lake

[kesri]

@sj_koova: Wow! ... really amazing panoramas!!

[prince_pervez]

Aah! The Dal lake. Brings fond memories. Nice pictures. Waiting for more.

[laluks]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

We have come to know about that pajero pulling incident through the other Ladakh expedition update (travelouge) . Waiting for its video / pictures.

It's nothing much as portrayed . Its that the driver of the Pajero got stuck in a bit of sand and in the panick he dug himselves in a little. Since no one wanted to dig a nallah under the tyres on those high altitudes and push it out we tried the easiest way of pulling it out with tow ropes. That's it, just because the Pajero was a heavy weight, we needed two cars to pull it out. Anyways we will put it up to end the suspense.

Originally Posted by kesri

@sj_koova: Wow! ... really amazing panoramas!!

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

Aah! The Dal lake. Brings fond memories. Nice pictures. Waiting for more.

Hold on. Saji has more. He is just waiting for me to finish the daily log to put up his beautiful pictures, which definitely will be a feast for our eyes..

I'll update the day 4 part today night - most probably.

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

Dear Laluks and All the team which raided Leh

i felt very humbled to read the travelogue.
All my road trips and vacations appear to be nothing infront of this your trip.

In fact i lost my motivation to type in my trip report to Kemmannugundi and Jog and nearby Shimoga places.

i hope to recover my motivation once your trip report is over

hope to do such a trip in my life time at least once.

Please accept my humble greetings to all of you on your successful trip and sharing the experience with all of us.

Every trip to nature is a wonderful feeling. It is that the vastness of the Himalayas takes you by surprise, and you can only feel that you are such an insignificant creature in the world.

You are right, atleast once you must see the beauty of the Himalayas. There are many terrains which are monotonous and depressing, but once you must experience it.

Originally Posted by akroy

Hi Lalu, congrats on the nice trip. I opened this thread when it is already 4 pages long (thanks to my odd timezone). I am yet to read all. My comments are based on first page only. I will go home and read the rest.

I remember few months back when Ramky was in Bangalore, he mentioned about this trip. I guess mjothi was also in the scheme of things. So you and mjothi did this trip from Blr?

Abhi

Ramky and Mjothi was supposed to be a part of this trip. Both of them could not make it due to work related urgencies. But Ramky had made it to Kalpa and Chitkul on a different trip. I guess both of them would be the pillars in 2010 planning

Originally Posted by tsk1979

LOL. you also had the what to eat dilemma at Kargil
We found a guy selling kababs on the roadside, and ate like mad. Full day of hardly any food meant we finished almost everything he had.

Same here, went into a shop and said whatever rice is remaining give it to us

[musicvj]

F5 key on my keyboard is cursing me Nice write up dude

[muralisk]

First of all, congratulation to you all for a wonderful trip. Here comes another great one one Leh. Stunning pictures with some great narration with lot of details. Awesome stuff Laluks.