[rjstyles69]

kp those bikers in no mans land , were they French ? My big boss who is a dutch national was in Leh and said he met 3 dudes on mountain bikes while in Leh.

[NFS]

Awesome... Thanks for the sharing the experience. I read the complete thread in one sitting. Fantastic Pictures, thanks to the team. I envied the team and the individual efforts taken to make this travel and travelogue such a nice experience for all of us. Nice writeup (spelling mistakes did not create problems) and wonderful narration, I was part of your travel I thought many a times.

Liked these comments
1) "Saare Jahan se acha, Hindusithan Hamara"
2) "Which K-Top is better"
3) Shave and Haircut gives energy (ha ha)
etc.

Thanks a million for sharing this.

NFS

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Ramky, any particular reason you did not do Nubra-Pangong direct via the new route. AFAIK, by the time you went to leh, the bridge was made.

We re-jigged the original programme as KP wanted to hit Delhi around 30th if possible and I wanted to be back on 1st at Ahemdabad.

Our booking in Pangong was hanging fire for 26th, Mountain Trail could confirm only on 25th that too at their Leh office, we had to be there physically to take the booking voucher, had to drive Nubra-Leh, we had time and thought getting the booking confirmed was priority.

We were raring to do Wari-la but that was closed, not really sure about new route, did not have concrete information about it. We did check with the taxi guys at Diskit, they were clueless.

I am still confused about this route, where does it start from in Nubra and where does it join in the Pangong Tso road?

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[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

I am still confused about this route, where does it start from in Nubra and where does it join in the Pangong Tso road?

=========

I have detailed this route in my travelogue.
You come to this route by taking left from Agam. Right takes your to Wari La.
25kms of bad roads, and you come to a proper tar road, which takes you to Shyok, and then to durbuk.
From there Pangong is a mere 1.5 hours max.
So it is a 5 hour drive from Diskit to Pangong Lake, with no high mountain passes.
We started at 7am.
Wasted around 15 minutes at a landslide, and almost an hour at the broken bridge, trying to walk through the river to ascertain its depth.
When that plan was shelved(water was too deep, even for 4x4, we used iron girders to cross the broken bridge, with help of BRO workers.
A week later the bridge was made, and people who did this stretch after that did not face any delays like we did.

[KRRaj]

What an awesome trip and some mindblowing photographs. .

When Will I ever get to do Leh? :-(

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

I have detailed this route in my travelogue.
You come to this route by taking left from Agam. Right takes your to Wari La.
25kms of bad roads, and you come to a proper tar road, which takes you to Shyok, and then to durbuk.
From there Pangong is a mere 1.5 hours max.
So it is a 5 hour drive from Diskit to Pangong Lake, with no high mountain passes.
We started at 7am.
Wasted around 15 minutes at a landslide, and almost an hour at the broken bridge, trying to walk through the river to ascertain its depth.
When that plan was shelved(water was too deep, even for 4x4, we used iron girders to cross the broken bridge, with help of BRO workers.
A week later the bridge was made, and people who did this stretch after that did not face any delays like we did.

Thanks for the details, compleately missed it, if we had taken that route, we could have spent more time at Pangong..... well may be next time when I do Padum.

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[Rudra Sen]

Fantastic coverage Ramky and KP. You guys have covered almost every single part there.
Photographs are really super to support this trip.

[ramkya1]

29th June: 0530 AM: An unGodly hour at Sarchu, temp around 2 degrees, the wind was sharpnell filled, ready to hit exposed nerves, cover as much as you can was the name of the game. By the time we were packed and ready, Prajesh had Wolt up and running with the help of taxi drivers, that was good going. About the taxi drivers, more specifically The Taxi Driver, we need to give a little more.

Bipin Sharma drives an Innova Taxi for Global Holiday Advaenture Tour, Manali, Ph: 9418691094; he has been doing Manali-Leh for the past 8 years and claims to have done about 6 Lakh Kms, whatever he said, his experience was visible. He was carrying two retired air force couples from Leh, we saw him in many places the previous day and befriended him at the Sarchu Camp. He said, the Sarchu Leh section was tough and told us to follow on, I thought that was easy, turned out to be pretty difficult.

Started after him at 0645AM, 3 kms after the camp, came to the first water crossing, Mother of all crossings!!!! Already 2 lorries and a Sumo were stuck deep, the other side, vehicles were waiting. There was a deep stream, the whole place was soggy with pebbles and sand on the stream bed. Bipin stopped the car 300 mtrs away, got out and did a recce, evened out the edges with his leg and reduced the depth of the stream and found where he could drive through, told two of his hefty male passengers to get out, engaged gear and just buldozed through the path he had carefully chosen, he was on to the other side!!! I was watching with heart-in-mouth, Bipin gestured from the other side for me to follow suit, Jiggy and Prajesh got out out in a hurry, I though what the heck, engaged 1st and let rip. The Wolt dipped into the stream, the back wheel spun a lot, too much pedal, bounced twice, something hit the underchasis and I was growling through to the other side.

After the crossing, I sat gripping the wheel tightly, breathing hard. Meybe 5 minutes later, stepped out to inspect the damage. The differential was surely hit, i could find scratch marks, no other visible problems, stone hits on many places, the front fibre-glass shield was cracked, thank God it was only the shield !!!!
Bipin was hard at work, he organized for another lorry to tie a ripe on the stuck Sumo and managed to pull it out. Such was his leadership and drive that he helped a swift, wagon R and another lorry to cross, they were all waiting throughout the night and Bipin was the Knight of the day, they would have waiting for a long long time, had this guy not come along.

Next 27 KMs, we were on dreaded Baralacha La, Bipins experience was priceless. He had told me clearly to avoid spots on the road with ice, not to stop on ice, not to brake on ice and not to accerate on ice and be on low gear; though we know the rules, doing it actually under stress is different. Where the roads were narrow, Bipin tucked in early to allow oncoming cars to pass. There was a very narrow section, a convoy of lorrries were climbing up, there was a stale mate, we could not reverse, road was filled with frozen ice, rolling back was not an option, we would slither back dangerously. Bipin got out, removed stones and snow to allow the lorries to pass through, the block was unblocked with simple common sense. Another time, due to a huge flock of sheep, we were stuck for 10 minutes, I engaged reverse, ice on the raod, the back wheels spun madly, I could smell rubber burning, thakfully we moved back and we tucked into the shoulder of snow for the sheep to pass. Another bad water-crossing followed with a bridge, Bipin again got out again, scouted it carefully, walked around it for 5 minutes and took a careful path through boulders and on to the bridge, we followed him through safely.

This guy was really something and knew the lay of the land and every curve of the road like the back of his hand. After Zing Zing Bar, about 16 kms after Baralacha La, the road improved, Bipin started ripping, to keep up with him was difficult, he was like a bat out of hell, decided ripping after him was a dangerous game and let go at Koksar. Darcha, Jispa and Keylong went by, 62 kms in 200 minutes, with lots of photos stops. Stoped at Tandi for Diesel fill, after Sisu stopped at Koksar for a lunch stop opp the Police staion, lovely spot with a big waterfull right opposite, the food was decent too.

The scenary after Zing Zing bar is like any other HP place, hills, snow, river, greens and mountain country.

Uploading photos till the lunch stop....... gotta run for a meeting.
=========

[ramkya1]

Rudraji: Thanks, I heard you were in the same area with AN, it would have been nice to meet, may be some other time.

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Some more pictures from Jiggys camera... all his photos....











Love this one.. somewhere after Solang Junction, some ambulance that

[hotstuff]

Ok, completed today's Leh-dock installment :-) Having read elsewhere about the difficult driving conditions encountered in Leh, I had some vague idea about water crossings, gravel traps etc. Your pictures are real eye openers ! I could also see a Black swift crossing the river... So a Santro should be able to do it with some assistance and lots of luck!.

Carry on Ramkya Sir

[TaureanBull]

ramky sir : late to reply but pleasure is mine. It was nice to see my name there. I have to be thankful to you all for showing us the beauty of the place and sharing your experiences. Great work indeed.

I loved reading the Baralacha La driving experience. Seems like a place to test the driving skills!

[sami316]

Awesome stuff Ramkya and team...The others have already beautifully put the feelings that we all are feeling after going through this TL. Thanks again!!

[rkbharat]

incredible. Leh-Manali must have given you guys the adventure of life time .

[TaureanBull]

Once I closely look at Tandi Petrol station board I see there written "LPG". Is there an LPG station too? or Is it "LPS"? In that case what is LPS?

[motomaverick]

Wow! amazing just finished reading the entire leh docked and my dream of touring this places has renewed again. ....thanks ramky