Team-BHP - Leh-docked

"To go or not to go" has been gonging in the bell-fry every waking day throughout last year. The pain of watching so many close people and many others drive-by was eating away all exposed neurons, the gong has become a toll, the dull pain has ripped loose firing all 6, this can't wait for more. Decision time, let everything else freeze for now, I need to drive to Leh, come what may and ASAP.

Been planning for 2 years, stydying the blogs, books and what have you, almost made it with HVK convoy last year but it was not meant to be. So started quietly with few know people, there were 8 people in the prospective list in my Scorp for a June Drive. Slowly, as is the ususal practice, people dropped out and I was left with Jignesh Patel from Rajkot, a medical student. He was ever enthusiastic, keeping in touch constantly, so that makes two of us. Sometime around April, Prajesh from Faridabad, a very old friend also said he's keen thought we had some scheduling problems. At last, around June first week, everything fell into place, the D-Day was 16th June, return around 3rd July, so things looked set.

The exhaustive check list was being ticked off between 3 of us, I was preparing the scorp (I call it WOLT, aka Wide Bold) paprallely. ICE was upgraded with a FLY amp and BP components in the front, a custom made bull-guard to mount the Hella Comet 500's, a general check up of the beast and we were ready. The Hellas and bull-guard turned out to be a project by itself but after a burned out fuse console and adjusting the focus many times, we got a beam of 300 mtrs which made a huge difference in ease of driving in the dark, flip it on and you would have most cars in front giving way in a hurry.

Me and Jignesh met at Ahmedabad around 11th to run the check-list, the difficult items turned out to be a small shovel, toe-rope and planks. After lots of hunting, got a toe-strap from a crane operator, found a decent shovel from a hardware store and hijacked some left over planks form the basement of my apartment and we were ready to the gill on 15th.

The broad plan was to go thro. Srinagar in order to acclamatize and also cover Padum form there and if Manali opens up then to come back on that route. The bookings were done well in advance, only a couple of places were open. The Plan;
16th-Ahmedabad-Behroor
17th-Udhampur
18th-Srinagar
19th-Kargil
20th-Kargil-Padum
21st-Buffer
22nd-Padum-Kargil
23rd-Kargil-Leh
24th-Leh
25th-Leh
26th-Leh-K-Top-Nubra
27th-Nubra-Pangong
28th-Buffer
29th-Pangong - Tso Moriri
30th-Tso Moriri - Sarchu
01st-Sarchu-Manali
02st-Manali Buffer
03rd-Manali-Delhi
04th-Delhi-A'hmedabad.

We changed this as the situation evolved, more of that as we go on..........

On 15th night, sleep was difficult, I could nod-off only around 12 midnight, we shifted the 3AM start to a 5 AM start, managed to get up @ 5, pick up Jignesh at 545 and we are onto the first mile of the 5K kms adventure. The run was a regulation one, having done Delhi many times. The Scorp was singing a tune, we zipped past Himmatnagar, Udaipur, Bhilwara and were on time at Hotel Panghat @ 610 @ 110 PM; good timingins considering the stops for diesels, b'kfast and toll gates. We did not spare the fuel and whipped the WOLT till Behroor for the day, Jaipur flashed past, we were in Behroor bang on plan and target at 6 PM, covered an impressive 842 kms. Someone asked, "Can a CRDe Scorpio move", we would like to say a resounding "yes" and exhibit the metrics. RTDC Behr.oor is a nice place for a break and the restaurant is pretty good.

17th July: An early start, Jignesh is pretty good with the alarm :), got up at 3AM (even Count Dracula would not be afoot around this time if he was thirsty)!!!! Jignes (can we cally him Jiggy from here on) was unrelenting and cracked the whip, move or else!!!! Once I was behing the wheels, I am more or less like being possessed by Black Bear's Ghost and let rip, we were at Ashram, 143 kms in 100 mts, DND flyover pick up point of Prajesh, our 3rd partner in the adventure from Faridabad.

Got loaded and were again off in 10mts towards distant Udhampur, nor really knowing what waits us on the roads. We had the best Parathas ever at Gulshan Dhaba, before Paniput; I should record here I am a poor eater. My quota ends with 1-2 Parathas and a chai for breakfast while my younger partners were competing with each other, before my googling eyes I saw about 8-9 Parathas disappear with 2 generous tall glasses of Lassies, don't know what happened while I went to the wash room, there was time enough for a couple of more. Throughout the trip, Jiggy never spared the calories at all times, while Prajesh gave him hot chase, it was a treat treat to watch !!!

Pathankoat, Dayal Chak and Manwal we were at Udhampur at 0630 after 800kms, 2593 feets as per our chines GPS box. Through the trip, we recorded the heights with this Chinese Box, the roads and places were accurate, though the Alt readings were sometimes way off beam even when locked to 10 sattelites!!!!! Don't know why, maybe some of the Gurus here would throw
protons on the issue????

Repacking the Wolt every day morning was a chore, I had removed the last row and put in a fabricated frame in its place to hold the luggage and to secure it with hooks, worked wonderfully well for us. With a full load luggage, spares and foodies, Wolt was full, soon we got into the rhytm of packing and unpacking from 2 large ruck-sacks at every stop.

18th July: 0630 AM, check out, Diesel, Air and we were off. Got the first tase of what the roads can do at Batote, a tempo has run off the road, the salvage by BRO was on, the lone young driver was cut out from the cabin and taken out in full view of all 100's of people. The pall of sorrow was palpable, the incident screamed, "beware on curves, be alert, respect gravity and limits of the machine"!!! 40 minutes block and a resolve to be relentless in caution, saw us start off. In the next few curves, we saw a dhaba with a river and a dam, had to stop for breakfast anyway. Didn't know which river it was, but was beautiful.

We were slowly but steadily climbing thro. Ramban and stopped about 2 KM before the Jawahar tunner, lots of tea / shack shops around here and ideal to stretch the leg. Cleared the 2.7 KM tunnel, lower Munda Toll gate, small jam here (we were lucky, heard of big ones here), the road was bad one and off till Quazigund dry fruit market where we added to the food stock. We were at Srinagar, in front of Hotel Shangri La at 240 PM waiting for my colleague Irshad Ahmed, a local. Called him and he soon took us to Hotel Relax Inn, which was pretty good for 1200 for 3 beds, reportedly there was a huge influx of tourists in town and the rates have gone up around Dal Lake. Irshad, ever the good hoast, took us out to lunch and we were back by 4 for a siesta.

He came promptly back at 0530 PM and picked us in his Santro to the Dal Lake. Negotiated for a Rs.350/- ride on a boat arund the lake, we could have been had for much higher price. A beautuful 1 hour ride and a walk on the lake side and photos later we were dropped back around 9 PM. special thanks to Irshad, he know the language, people and setting so well, we have to mention his dirving skills too. Srinagar traffic is unlike any othere, you need to know the lanes and by-lanes well or get mired in serpentine blocks aroudn the lake. Irshad threw his Santro like an auto, he could come to a dead stop in the middle of traffic, take a full turn, show his hand and stop all incoming traffic and wriggle in and out any way he wants.... phew.. that was one piece of dare-devil driving, if ever I have seen one. Prajesh and Jiggey both had a jaw-dropping
experience from what I saw, I can bet they have never seen anything like this before :)

KP (short for Kevin Prajesh) & Jiggy, what say you?

KP, time to let loose with your photos hereon!!!

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