18th August 2010, 00:30
| #61 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 215
Thanked: 326 Times
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18th August 2010, 15:47
| #62 | ||||||||
| BHPian  | :) Quote:
been traveling with work and just not had the chance to put the next couple of days down. will do so asap. Quote:
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you've got a 'cheek' (pun completely intended) Quote:
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thanks for the kind words. and hey... how can you shelve you idea of doing it on an enfield? park it maybe...  and I agree - Rohtang should be only for the idiots who want to remain stuck in traffic jams. Quote:
tc mano, ak Quote:
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i remember you! we had a long and lovely chat at ABS. my safari and linea were both being fingered at the same time if i remember right! good to hear from you and i shall endevour to update asap. thank you for the compliments. take care bud and keep in touch, warm regards, ak. | ||||||||
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20th August 2010, 03:11
| #63 |
| BHPian Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Delhi/Cuttack
Posts: 390
Thanked: 202 Times
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27th August 2010, 08:50
| #64 | |
| BHPian | hey! hey guys, apologies for the protracted silence, i've been down with the scrouge of Delhi - i finally managed to get the Dengue bug! Finally sitting up after a week of struggling with the nonsense, so on my way to posting the return leg of the trip... cheers, ak Quote:
it doesn't matter what you take up bud. as long as the machine is well maintained and looked after. I've seen a cd 100 on these roads on previous trips, merrily puttering away when 'mighty' (and i mean that in jest) Enfields lie sprawled by the wayside. so, rent if you must but try and take your own ride up anywhere - so at-least you are traveling with a known devil!  take care and be safe mano, ak | |
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27th August 2010, 09:57
| #65 |
| BHPian | and some more yet.... Day 8 We were supposed to be riding by 9 am. We were on the road by 8:40 am instead. I was gobsmacked. The first (and only) time that we ever left on (before) time on the entire trip. We had made contact with Ram and Vinuta earlier and now rode upto their guest house to collect one of the twins boots, which they had carried when the twins carrier had disintegrated at More. They had made the wise decision to ship their rental bike back to Manali and fly out to Delhi, giving them some more time to enjoy Leh itself. With exhortations to meet up in Delhi, we set out of Leh towards Kargil. The six intrepid, brave, pioneering, barrel chested bikers from the plains. Bollocks. We were a tired, weary, achy and slightly apprehensive lot of chaps riding headlong into the boiling, seething cauldron, also known as the Kashmir valley. The road out of Leh towards Kargil for about 50 odd kilometers is simply mind-blowing. The typical moonscape that Ladakh is famous for, plays a pivotal role in presenting scene after scene of mind altering landscapes. Added to the already surreal surroundings is the magnificent black top that runs uninterrupted till Nimmu a Leh model village. If I had my way, we’d have been taking pictures till the cows came home – and then some. Thankfully, I was controlled.    There comes a point on most road trips where rider/driver, motorcycle/car and the elements all seem to come together in one huge glorious mélange. For the cynics who refuse to accept that machinery can have a soul and that human and machine soul’s can meet – they need to take a road trip. This stretch of road proved that in spades. With my helmet visor up, the wind rushing against my face and the sun pouring down over baked desert sand, all that I could hear was the muted but steady thump of the large single below me. Rock steady. Dependable. Reassuring. The one time I looked to check that everyone was okay, I could see that everyone was in the same zone. We rode easy, we then gunned the throttle. We coasted downhill and screamed uphill. We leaned into wide sweeping hill bends like we were on a track and then took hairpin bends slow enough to walk them. Angelina remained poised, beautifully balanced and magnificently sure footed. This road is also decidedly less busy, so except for the ubiquitous Army vehicles and the stray civilian people movers, the road is pretty much your own. On the way, we also crossed, ‘Magnetic hill’ which is such a con job! There were a couple of guys in cars who were not amused when we expressed our views on the topic, so we bid them a cheery goodbye and left. We of course knew that it was too good to really last, and so it was. The road finally ended. Just like that. “Pffffft.” We were back to eating dirt, and getting bounced around like a couple of rag dolls in a particularly inspired vuvuzela concert in high definition. And we continued to eat it for another 40 odd kms till we finally pulled upto a deserted resort around 12:30 pm to try and get something edible to eat. All that was on offer was omelets and toast, which we gladly accepted. I have eaten bread in a lot of places around the world including San Francisco, New York, Paris, London, Cannes, Venice, Hong Kong, Dubai, Zurich, Phuket, Rome, Amsterdam, Singapore (I am showing off now… I ought to stop) but by God, this was something else. Freshly baked on the premises and then lightly toasted with wholegrain and sesame seeds on the crust, delicately layered with a thin film of butter, where the crust had the perfect crispness to offset the soft, flavour ridden, moist centre of the beautifully scented slice of God sent bread. The baker deserves a medal. And a million bucks. We tucked in like we hadn’t seen food in… errr 15 hours(?) Then we ordered seconds. We’d have ordered thirds had he not told us that he’d run out of bread!! Sated, we then cleared a sizeable tab before reluctantly setting out again. The road from here on was a curious mix of non-roads and gorgeous black top in equal measure. Where ever the blacktop arrived, all 5 motorcycles would open up their throttles to their full blooded throaty best and we’d go hell for leather as long as it lasted. It was on one of these stretches of tarmac that we crossed 2 motorcycles; a beaten up Thunderbird conversion being ridden by a weedy looking Sikh gentleman and a Hero Honda Splendor with a 6 foot 5 inch man, a 5 foot 11 inch woman and a 3 inch baby sat astride it. A baby. On a bike. At 13000 feet. Some people are born suicidal. Some others inherit it from psycho parents. Shaking our heads in collective disbelief, we shot past these two and started to climb a sharply rising series of loops, not that different from the Gata loops. The only difference being that this time, we were also overtaking an Army convoy on their way up the same route! Remembering that the average convoy was 40 trucks and as bikers we were the smallest (non) entity on the road, we squeezed, scrimmaged, nudged and wheedled our way past the ten tonners after a good 10 kilometer odd climb. I’ve been trying to work out for the longest time why this part of the trip sticks out in my mind as being dark and menacing, when the Manali route was decidedly more rugged and bony. It has just come to me. It’s got to do with the color of the rock that make up the mountains. The other side has a lot of sandstone and the like, which means that there are a lot of light colors around you on the way to Leh. Here the rocks are all a dark shale and a black igneous rock. The mountains look broody and menacing. The drops look more sinister and the rock faces more prickly. You suddenly start to feel very small. Very, very small. We finally stopped at the top of the climb to get some pictures of the insane surroundings (and also to massage some of the fierce saddle sore out of our backsides – we were long past the, “we are men, we can take it” stage by this time!) Barely had we finished re-adjusting luggage and squeezing our gluts, the ruddy army convoy was on us again. We were not interested in a repeat of the overtaking maneuvers’ we had undertaken less than fifteen minutes ago, so we seriously hot-footed it out ahead of the Stallions.   Pretty much all along the way, the mighty Indus thunders along below the road. A boiling seething mass of muddy, molten chocolate, colored water. Every now and again, you climb away from it but it inexorably draws you (and the road) back to it. Places where there are constrictions on bends or because of landslides, make for some insane ‘brown’ water (try as you might, you cannot call it white water!) The thought of running those rapids and tipping into them is not appealing! At all. Crossing through, ‘Fotu la’ which also happens to be the highest point on the Srinagar route (at 13000 something feet? Tch tch tch tch!) the ‘Fotu’ opportunities must not be missed! So off we came from the bikes, trying not to wet ourselves as we piddled in the ferocious breeze. It’s pertinent to mention here, something that caught our eye. A solitary Doordarshan relay tower and control center sat atop the pass. You must need to seriously piss someone off to get posted here methinks. I mean, flirting with your bosses wife in front of the boss kinda stunt. I felt sorry for the poor munchkin holed up here in the winter.  Descending through Fotu la, the roads again disintegrated into nothingness, and coming around a bend on a relatively paved stretch of it, we encountered someone who hung a left instead of a right. To end up distinctly wet behind the ears.  It just brought back very quickly how short and unpredictable life is. Also a wake-up call to stay alert and careful. We finally come up towards Kargil, which sits on the other bank of the Suru river, a tributary of the Indus. Descending past roadwork’s, we cross the bridge into this pre-dominantly military town in search of phone lines to contact Srinagar. We were sure that Army accommodation had been organized, we just didn’t know where. The only problem was that every single phone line and internet connection out of Kargil had been down for over 24 hours and would not be back for atleast another 24. Left with no option but to fiercely negotiate a reasonable rip off price with the caretaker of the inspiringly named Hotel Zojila, we unloaded for the evening after a hard 240 km ride. Whatever we saved on the room negotiations, we got s*****d out of in the dinner! 10 bucks for a tawa roti, 80 bucks for a bowl of Dal and 220 bucks for a bowl of bony meat curry. Oh and 40 bucks for a quarter plate of onions (salad)… But we didn’t complain. We were famished and we were tired. I’m still trying to figure out when I went to sleep that night. to be contd... |
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27th August 2010, 10:19
| #66 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Mumbai
Posts: 138
Thanked: 66 Times
| Good to see you back........ @Bite the bullet. The heavy rains in Delhi seem to have cured you I guess  .Welcome back. |
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27th August 2010, 14:05
| #67 | |
| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Delhi
Posts: 1,631
Thanked: 2,388 Times
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Glad to have you back and wish you a speedy recovery. | |
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27th August 2010, 19:12
| #68 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 2,774
Thanked: 1,272 Times
| Glad to know you have recovered from Dengue!! Amazing write up of Day 7 & 8. Glued to the thread for updates PS: Liked the snaps of you guys with the black mountains in the back ground. |
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28th August 2010, 07:33
| #69 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: London
Posts: 250
Thanked: 13 Times
| What a ride..What a godd damn amazing ride!!! And the words just kind of played the whole scene in front of my eyes, like I was riding thro' with you guys .Waiting for your next update. A 5 star thread!! |
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28th August 2010, 09:11
| #70 |
| Senior - BHPian  | |
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28th August 2010, 23:42
| #71 |
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31st August 2010, 18:12
| #72 |
| BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Gurgaon
Posts: 162
Thanked: 23 Times
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2nd September 2010, 09:11
| #73 | |||||||
| BHPian | thank you Quote:
the heavy rains in delhi are getting to be a royal pain in the *** but yes, i am now well on the way to recovering. thank you! Quote:
hey cheers mano, i tell you! zindagi mein hamari status pata lag jaati hai...a true case of david vs goliath! the bug is on it's way out but still about 10 days away from getting back to normal. thanks for the wishes though! Quote:
thank you bud. i'm trying to get day 8 and 9 done, so that i can post those together. should be up in a day or so. thank you for the kind words. take care. Quote:
i appreciate you taking the time to read through! shall update quickly. take care bud. Quote:
Thank you. Yes RE also plans jaunts to leh etc but they are huge affairs and don't really allow you very much flexibility in how you might want to amend a road trip (if at all) as you are riding through. it works for some people. it doesn't for me. but if you're looking for a ride where everything is pretty much taken care of (albeit at a price) thats the way to go mano. take care and ride safe, cheers. Quote:
i shall be updating within the next couple of days. thanks for hanging around!Quote:
OMG! thanks ushuaia!! yup, my crew was a cracker; i wanted to 'crack' open most of their skulls by the 12th day  the bugs 'laid' me after i got back from leh so the little sods missed out! thanks for the kind words and i shall update asap. cheers guys and stay safe. ak Last edited by bIte tHe bulLet : 2nd September 2010 at 09:15. Reason: typo | |||||||
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2nd September 2010, 21:25
| #74 | |
| BHPian  | Quote:
Hey BTB, Nice to have you back on the scene, hope you have a speedy recovery.  RE does organise trips i guess somewhere in the region of 22k-25k per head ex-delhi that takes care of food, shelter and service back up. If it is not too much to ask, can you give a ball park figure of how much did you guys spend over the trip per head over fuel, stay and food. It would be helpful. cheers!!! | |
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5th September 2010, 10:16
| #75 | |
| BHPian | costs Quote:
thanks schitre05, recovery is almost over and i'm heading back to the gym tomorrow, which is always a good sign!!  we spent about 6k per bike on fuel, about 3.5k a head on acco (where we weren't in our own tents) and about another 2k on food/water/softs etc. the 2 guys with the busted bikes spent extra on spares/repairs/carrying etc. so on the whole we ended up spending in the region of 12k per person for the entire 12 day run. this is not including the bits and bobs that were spent pre-trip on stuff like boots, saddle bags, gloves, rainproof gear, spares, jerry cans, rain-covers for baggage, bungees and general maintenance. so there are considerable savings to be made if you chose to do it as a smaller group of friends, rather than the nonsense RE organises! (my two cents, so try not to flame me )hope that helps. ride safe and stay sane bud. ak | |
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