My Photography Blog: June 2013

Thursday, June 20, 2013

The most amazing journey of my life, bike ride in Manali – Jammu – Srinagar – Kargil – Leh – Manali

Bike riding in Kashmir and Laddakh was the most memorable experience of all. Here is my take on bikers life and what I liked most.

Bikers get a lot of attention and admiration from people, day one we were quite surprised at the second look being given by people on roads and people clicking photographs. What I enjoyed most was the village children standing on road side in a queue to touch our hands from while we are on the move as if we were some kind of celebrities.

The best things about being Biker is the opportunity to interact with people, no other mode of transport lets you be connected to people the way a bike ride can, we spoke to lot of villagers and the talks are important part of experience. We met many policemen and army men, a common thing they said after the initial ‘where are you from’, where did you start from’ is ‘it’s risky’ and ‘it’s a courageous thing’ to go on a biking trip like this. We quite enjoyed all this. Bike trip has to be planned for riding at leisure; you have to account for the time spent in enjoying the roads and at times waiting for the road to clear.

Being a biker is not just being able to drive a motorcycle. It takes much more to be a good biker. A biker has to be in love with the road and know his bike like he knows his best friend. A biker has to have a brave heart to start on a journey which is certain to be exigent. Once of the greatest challenge in biking is the co-ordination between team, unless you care for your team the team won’t be able to accept you. In order to be a Biker, one has to be a inherent team player, just like you expect your team to be with you in problem situation, you have to be with your team to face problems, even when the problems belong to someone else.

Here are some of the photographs from journey, hope you like them, do share feedback.

Manali bridge - Manali is a famous tourist destination. River rafting is a must when you visit Manali.

Dal Lake Srinagar at night

We also enjoyed Shikara ride in Srinagar, the Shikaras take you to floating restaurants and floating market where you can buy hand made shawls and leather jackets

Fountains in Dal Lake

Beautiful Sonmarg - on the way to Kargil from Srinagar

On the way NH01

Locals are very friendly and always willing to talk

On the way to Kargil from Gulmarg. This was the most dangerous road. We kept hearing that we ahve to go with Army and a lot other things but we could go on this road without any restrictions.

Khan chacha at Draas. Drass is the second coldest inhabitable place in world.It is also base village for Tiger hills where Kargil war was fough.

Hats off to BRO (Border Roads Organization) for the superb roads. Most of the roads on such high altutude are better than Mumbai roads.

Land slide is very common, we ended up spending lot of time waiting for the road to be cleared.

The desert of Laddakh

Solar cooker being used for cooking rice

Amazing location on the way to Leh from Kargil

War memorial in Leh. Excellent place which makes you feel proud of the Indian Army, they have on display the equipment used during war and lot of information about Kargil war. It also has I-Cards of Pak army soldiers who attacked posing as terrorists

Gear used for war during winter

just look at the quality of road! Border Roads Organization is just awesome

Playing with snow balls at 17000 ft

Running around at 17,000 ft was not such a good idea after all, difficult to get oxygen at such heights

Second highest motor-able road in world at 17,500 ft

What a place, Debring is located between Leh and Manali. Stayed for night in this hotel. Amazing food and people... Staying at such high altitude did really bad for the stomach though ;)