Feb 7
Yogesh (left) and Shrenik sorting through our luggage.
The gloves that be bought in Kargil that saved our skins in rain.
Who does this pair of socks belong to? (Shrenik, wondering about the big problems)
The guesthouse.
Finally in the mood to take a ride, well… hunger got us moving ;-)
Wading through construction junk…
Yogesh (who had been engaged and would get married soon)… getting familiar with what is to come :-P
Of course, the kids were a cute and quiet bunch… :-)
Bye bye!
Time to ride around Leh!
Caught up with the mystery man… Navendu Singh ( http://navendus.net ) [ photo credit: Shrenik]
Monks walking by the road (and in contrast, guy wearing skull and bones bandana riding past them ;-) [ that's me, photo credit: Shrenik] Note the closed shops, there was a protest going on that day, so most of the places were closed.
The weather did not look promising.
Clouds were gathering, and within minutes, it started to rain! We barely escaped the rain as we got into an open restaurant.
[from left] Shrenik, Yogesh, Sumedh, Navendu Had a good meal, talked about experiences - I knew Navendu since a few years, but he was meeting rest of the gang for first time, so the excitement to hear his stories of bike rides was high!
Quick mention: He was on this trip to celebrate 10 years with his Suzuki Fireo motorcycle (he owns more than one ;-) Finally, we asked him if we should go to Khardung La, he took his time and responded with "I've been here before, but I've never seen such bad weather any time. You've probably endured more than what most bikers do." Going to Khardung when Leh itself was so cold was foolish. Also, Navendu was feeling unwell and he was planning on riding back, if possible with us. We decided to leave for homeward journey the next day. Manali route was still blocked, so we'd have to ride all the way to Srinagar and then down to Jammu. Route plans were forming in our heads already… but we had to get back to our guest house and pack the scattered luggage!
Some hotel, on the way back to our guest house. We had to wait for half an hour after our lunch for the skies to stop pouring, and this part of the city was relatively dry!
Of course, what we did after that oh-so-tiring-lunch-ride… [yogesh]
Yours truly, dreaming of… well, let's just say something nice ;-) [ photo credit: Shrenik or Sumedh, kaun tha be?]
A lot of our mess needed to be sorted still.
Shrenik did a good job ;-) And that was about it. We went out at night, had more momos and thukpa soup and came back and slept :-P
Experience: Lazy Boys in Leh
After getting back at Leh on 2nd June, we were wondering when to head to Khardung La, the highest motorable road in the world. Reports of snow were making us uncomfortable, we had already endured enough snow - to the point of hands starting to turn blue, so at least I was not going to take the risk of heading to the most desolate roads when everyone else was refraining. We had a huge argument over what to do. We had split into two groups with two members each, half of us wanted to go to Khardung no matter what, half of us wanted to back out. Surprisingly, I was on the 'back out' side. I don't know why, but I did not want to take that risk, even if it meant I might never go there again… and miss Khardung by less than 100 kilometers. Also, I had talked to a few friends on 2nd and got heads-up on this interesting piece of information: a common friend, an avid biker was in Leh too! So our plan was to chill (literally and figuratively) in Leh and meet up with the friend. Also, we decided to talk to him about our differences in opinion - since he had been to Leh and Khardung a few times before.
Yogesh (left) and Shrenik sorting through our luggage.
The gloves that be bought in Kargil that saved our skins in rain.
Who does this pair of socks belong to? (Shrenik, wondering about the big problems)
The guesthouse.
Finally in the mood to take a ride, well… hunger got us moving ;-)
Wading through construction junk…
Yogesh (who had been engaged and would get married soon)… getting familiar with what is to come :-P
Of course, the kids were a cute and quiet bunch… :-)
Bye bye!
Time to ride around Leh!
Caught up with the mystery man… Navendu Singh ( http://navendus.net ) [ photo credit: Shrenik]
Monks walking by the road (and in contrast, guy wearing skull and bones bandana riding past them ;-) [ that's me, photo credit: Shrenik] Note the closed shops, there was a protest going on that day, so most of the places were closed.
The weather did not look promising.
Clouds were gathering, and within minutes, it started to rain! We barely escaped the rain as we got into an open restaurant.
[from left] Shrenik, Yogesh, Sumedh, Navendu Had a good meal, talked about experiences - I knew Navendu since a few years, but he was meeting rest of the gang for first time, so the excitement to hear his stories of bike rides was high!
Quick mention: He was on this trip to celebrate 10 years with his Suzuki Fireo motorcycle (he owns more than one ;-) Finally, we asked him if we should go to Khardung La, he took his time and responded with "I've been here before, but I've never seen such bad weather any time. You've probably endured more than what most bikers do." Going to Khardung when Leh itself was so cold was foolish. Also, Navendu was feeling unwell and he was planning on riding back, if possible with us. We decided to leave for homeward journey the next day. Manali route was still blocked, so we'd have to ride all the way to Srinagar and then down to Jammu. Route plans were forming in our heads already… but we had to get back to our guest house and pack the scattered luggage!
Some hotel, on the way back to our guest house. We had to wait for half an hour after our lunch for the skies to stop pouring, and this part of the city was relatively dry!
Of course, what we did after that oh-so-tiring-lunch-ride… [yogesh]
Yours truly, dreaming of… well, let's just say something nice ;-) [ photo credit: Shrenik or Sumedh, kaun tha be?]
A lot of our mess needed to be sorted still.
Shrenik did a good job ;-) And that was about it. We went out at night, had more momos and thukpa soup and came back and slept :-P
Sitting in comforts of home/offices and looking at these pictures, don't you guys feel that you should have ridden into all those cloud and snow covered mountains? :D