The Touring Diary

24 July - Day 6: This day was a relax day for us and also reserved for getting the permits done for the other places around Leh. Before going to bed on the previous day, Sunil sir asked me if he is interested in Bird Photography (No not that kind of bird photography, you dirty mind :D) I had Sunil Sir's camera and I thought why not. Hence I Sunil sir and Chetan woke up and went to a nearby garden and have a fun time capturing some nice shots of the birds in Leh.Sunil sir was after a Woodpecker for a long time but couldn't capture it in his camera. Fortunately I did and that was my personal best picture of all times here is the photo. Some other snaps that I clicked. After the photography session we reached back home and started preparing to go for the permits and when the unthinkable happened. Prabhu noticed that his bike key is slightly broken and he can't use the key any more. To matter worse he only had one key with him in this trip. Then I checked my key and I also foun...

22 July 2008: After last days eventful ride I woke up next morning. I felt better but still heaviness was there in my head. Quickly we had breakfast and started preparing for Leh which was 171kms away. Paid the tent ladies for the night stay, lubricated bike's chains.  We would be crossing the "Moore Plains" and Tanglangla (Alt: 17582 feet) for that day.  We climbed uphill road and there we could see the Moore Plains. Moore plains are the endless plains at the altitude of 15k feet without any trees or shade. One can see the several kms of road ahead just like that and far away the big mountains were visible. Some of the pics: Prabhu taking a break in the plains Moore Plains The road was mostly good but there were some patches under construction where we had to take a detour and again join the main road. The detours were horrible, there was dust everywhere that too the piles of dust were very deep. At some places it was of height till our thighs. We had take the path made ...

21 July 2008: So the fourth day morning we woke up by 6 and started packing things and still no signs of AMS? I asked other guys if they are getting any symptoms of AMS after all we were climbing altitude very fast. Keylong is at the altitude of approx 12000 feet. No one complained till now. We were hydrating ourselves frequently as suggested by sources to cope up with it. We checked-out of the hotel and lubricated bike's chains and cleaned it (it was too dirty due to last day's ride). Finally we started towards Pang. We had some breakfast at a roadside hotel "The Llama Hotel". We headed towards the Baralachala (the fourth highest motor-able road in the world, Alt:16002feet). En route we were greeted by some breathtaking views and also some of the baddest roads :(. BRO (Border Road Organization/Himank project), guys were laying out new roads and had dug up all the existing roads. One of the sign...

20 July 2008: So the D-Day had come when we actually start our riding towards the Himalayas. We were so excited. We got up late as we slept very late in the night (around 4 or may be late) at about 9 or 10 o clock. We had heavy breakfast and decided to push off as we had to cover a lot of distance on that day. Actually the distance wasn't too much (115kms) but the terrain was pretty bad. So we booked a Bolero camper so that our luggage and our friend can come on hat and we'll start with bikes. We checked out from the hotel and filled petrol in the three cans that we bought enroute to Manali from Chandigarh. So by 12.30 we were good to go and started our journey. Picture outside the hotel: Photographer: Prabhu We filled 60 liters of petrol for all four bikes. Sunil sir's bike's side stand had broken during transportation and he suggested we go ahead while he will get that fixed and catch up later so I and Prabhu went ahead and caught up with the bolero which started earl...

Chandigarh, 19th May: We woke up and started calling again and asking for the bikes. The Aakash guy (forgot his name) told that the bikes are in the Chandigarh somewhere and he gave the address. We hired a taxi and went to the place for collecting the bikes. The reached the place and saw the bikes were in a small truck whose number didn't match with the one given to us earlier. We unloaded the bikes from the truck using a ramp which we all forced them to use otherwise they would have unloaded the truck in their usual way (brute force method: throwing things out of the truck just like that) :( We found there were damages in almost all of the bikes. But nothing major that would hinder our trip. We blasted the transport guy, called up his boss and told him the scenario. The boss asked us to note down the damages and hand it over to the local guy and assured us that the company will pay up for the damages. We unpacked our bikes and trying starting it and thankfully every bike was up an...