Srinagar-Kargil
Thursday, October 20th, 2005
How I wish you could see what we see! It’s really hard to describe how insanely beautiful this part of the country is.
After we set off from Srinagar, it took us a while to get out of the town, trying to find the way through the narrow gullies.
Once we started to climb, (see photo), it got us all excited. The air was fresh except when the lorries would pass us.
Soon, we were going up fairly narrow road which was, well not really there anymore.( see photo). Due to the heavy snowfalls, the roads take a beating when the snow is being cleared. So the dirt roads are single lane road with rocky cliffs on one side going up hundreds of feet and on the other side, a sheer drop of a couple thousand feet.
So the ride was rather slow and cautious. We got through the zozila pass which is at 11640 feet.(see photo).
That seemed quite high, but that was just the beginning.
We reached a small town called Drass for some chai and some bread which I thought was outstanding. I bought a couple of loafs for 2 kids who were standing outside watching us eat and they left happy. Then I saw an old man standing outside and gave him a loaf as well. He was smiling as was the others working inside. Then the old man walks inside and sits behind the cash desk and it was brought to m y attention that he was the owner. Go figure!
We pushed on to Kargil and got there just as it was getting dark. We then had to wait a while for a guy from the BRO to take us another 30 km to the army camp for us to sleep. It was dark by now and we didn’t want to ride at night. But we didn’t have a choice. Luckily, the roads were good from there and there was no traffic at that hour on those roads. The camp was in the middle of nowhere and it was already very cold at about 6C. We had covered 240 km in about 14 hours. Tomorrow, another 220 km to Leh.
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