My earlier posts of Leh trip are here
Day 1 : Julley Leh journey begins
Day 2 : Manali, day to wallow in nature
Karu to Leh was an uneventful and quick 45mins journey. We browsed through the roads of the Leh looking for rooms good and economical. We finally found Rainbow home stay little interior on the Lord’s Road. Rooms were Rs700/- per day with 3 people in each rooms. Good for our pockets. Our host made us feel comfortable and left us to relax for the day but we had long to-do list. The permits were not ready and most important task was to look for 4 more bikes. Toufiq, who was to help us get the permits reached us by noon. The team sat around the table to make a list of places we wanted a permit for. Toufiq suggested few modifications in the route map and with several “let-us-see” decisions we agreed to let the time unfold all that was kept in store for us in Leh!
Post lunch we got into the job of bike hunting. Leh, a small city, a couple of main roads from one end of the city to the other and there you are, good to roam by yourself. The city is so laid-back and the evening gets even lovelier decorated with colored lamps outside the restaurants flaunting its hippie customers. We strolled in the markets peering at every shop looking for bikes and our heads would voluntarily turn back to the sound of a bullet passing by. There were good amount of tourist even though the general opinion of Ladakhi’s was there were very less tourists turning up this year due bad weather conditions in Haridwar and also due to the tensions prevailing on the china border. We had to answer umpteen phone calls regarding our safe being in this remote corner of the country while we enjoyed this blissful place. It looked as if it was an endless search for the bikes. We ended up not getting good bikes for the day. We decided to come back tomorrow. Monalisa restaurant seemed cozy with its posh crowd & decent lighting. We enjoyed a feast to celebrate our team reaching Leh.
Next day morning we visited stanzin’s garage. As promised he arranged for us, two bullets and two new desert storm. Without wasting much time we planned to visit places around Leh. We rode towards west of Leh to visit Hall of fame, Magnetic hill, Sangam of followed by Pathar Sahib Gurudwara.
We were riding on top class roads as we reached Magnetic Hill. The board reads “Magnetic Hill The Phenomenon that defies Gravity. Park your vehicle in the box marked with white paint on road”. The bikers enjoyed riding till a distance on hills on both the sides while few parked their bikes in white box to experience an effortless pull in the vehicle. The amazing roads never stopped us as we rode next towards Sangam. Rivers Indus and Zanskar confluence and further flows west into Pakistan to join Arabian Sea. The same Zanskar river when frozen offers us a beautiful chadar trek which I wish to do one day. I take the pride to mention that for the first time in my life I rode a 500cc desert storm from Magnetic hill to Sangam and next to Pathar Sahib. Raja’s just followed his instinct and sat behind me. I enjoyed every bit of it, every curve on the road and especially the one where the vehicle was on full clutch and the monster was left loose & I had least control. For our luck there were no trucks from the other side which could have been fatal if so. Even today when we both recollect that moment we’ll express our shock and thank our lucks for being alive.
Pathar Sahib Gurudwara is regularly visited by the visitors and more importantly the army troops passing by. We met couple of kannada speaking men in uniform. It’s always a proud moment to meet them away from home. For them too it’s a feeling of visiting their home towns just by meeting us. The story of this gurudwara being called pathar sahib is an interesting read. http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Gurdwara_Pathar_Sahib. We had lunch at the gurudwara lungar. Reminded me of my visit to Golden temple couple of years back. The same calm, clean and kind people one can find in these gurudwaras.
We reached post lunch at the Hall of fame. This museum is constructed and maintained by Indian army in the memory of those soldiers who lost their lives in Indo-Pak wars. The museum houses the picture gallery of those vast and diverse cultures found in Ladakh region over long time. A 3D model of Ladakh and the valleys surrounding it is the highlight. Beautiful pictures depicting the lifestyle and glory of this place are hung on the walls. Most interesting part of this monument are those walls on which tragic and few courageous stories of our heroes are displayed.
Tears roll down without your knowledge as you read them. Every hour or two, a documentary on Indo-Pak war both in Hindi & English is played which is worth watching. The equipments and necessary tools used by Indian army at very high altitude terrains like Siachen glaciers are displayed. The images of the training and details like how equipments are moved by choppers at those altitude are really amazing to know. The souvenir shop attracted us to its really unique things they sold. I was way to glad to find a Hip Flask and bought one for myself. Sadly I drink only water from it.
Day ended beautiful in a restaurant which server delicious dinner and we planned to start early the next morning towards a real odyssey.
Nice one.
ReplyDeleteThank you Niranjan!
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