The longest road trip
of my life (So far):
The day I got my first drivers
license – all I wanted to do was drive, drive and drive some more, don’t know
when, where, how and why this driving bug had bitten me but it had bitten hard
– no doubt on that. As far as my memory goes, it all started way back in late 80s
when one of my distant cousin based out of Delhi gave a surprise visit to us
that too while we lived in Ujjain (MP) in his Fiat (old model) during one of
his road trips (830 Kms). One of the dream destinations or rather test of
someone’s driving skills / guts in India is definitely a drive to Leh – Laddakh
and back (for sure). Time immemorial I have heard so many adventure stories of
my own friends, cousins and even strangers on internet – who’ve been there done
that. Some had done it multiple times and one of my very best friend Nishant
Jha who is / was my inspiration has done it half a dozen times that too on his
bullet which is known as “The Mighty One” – you can read one of his accounts
here (http://themountaintamers.blogspot.in/2008/10/mountain-tamers.html)
Another fantastic inspiration for me was this guy – I don’t even know his name but
mighty impressive because he had done it twice that too on his Matiz with
family in 2003 – you can read about it here http://www.angelfire.com/trek/kumar_hv/LadakhTrip.htm
And then there is this friend of mine who had left his multinational Job and
started doing what he loved – Professional Tours to Himalayas. Dheeraj Sharma
or www.devilonwheels.com his website
is everything that one needs to know while driving / riding to Himalayas – it’s
a freaking one of the awesome guide for someone who wants to do it by road. With
this kind of support and guidance – it had to be a cake walk for me and so I
thought – but what happened in the end was even more interesting, eye opening
experience of a life time for us, no doubt that we swore to attempt it again
pretty soon.
Before this trip the longest that
we had done was something like a 2500 Km that too in about a week’s time –
Mumbai to Bhuj (Rann of Kutch) etc and back. And this trip needed planning
because we were trying to do a Mumbai – Leh and back in one stretch and had
only two weeks to complete. I had the best of the guides and all we needed was
a reliable vehicle – that problem too was solved once we decided to settle for
Ertiga (ample of luggage space, safety and ground clearance too). Dates too
were based on the little research we did with the help of those friends and
online forums – we didn’t want to do it right when the road opens for tourists every
year and not at the very end too when they were about to close but somewhere in
between – so we thought of doing it in the third week of June and I clubbed it
with my long weekend of 4th of July (US Independence Day). Final
plan was to start on 22nd June (Saturday) and be back by 7th
of July (Sunday) to resume work Monday onwards. After much deliberation, advice
and research later the road decided was Mumbai – Delhi – Srinagar – Leh –
Manali – Delhi and back to Mumbai (Roughly 5500 Km). We had done Delhi to
Manali plus Rohtang Pass in the year 2012 as part of our winter vacation that
too by road and were totally smitten by what we saw during those days and that trip
even made the pact stronger of doing this trip sooner. But one thing we learnt
during that trip was that we had reached Rohtang too fast and almost all of us
suffered from AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) – just couldn’t remain there and
had to return back to our hotel in Manali and take rest – the head was spinning
like crazy and the feeling was totally unexplainable but the locals told us
that it happens to people from plains – nothing to worry about. Hence we
decided to do it via Srinagar this time as the climb from this side isn’t that
steep and by the time you reach those heights – your body gets acclimatized.
The preparation and planning (Jan - Feb 2013): After Maruti
confirmed that we will be getting the delivery of our car in April – we started
the rest of the planning starting with applying for a two weeks’ vacation which
was approved by my boss immediately. It won’t be an exaggeration if I say it
took me a couple of years to come to this stage of planning that we were indeed
doing it this year around. We had been dreaming, thinking, contemplating and
what not about this whole trip which will always be unapproved by our
respective parents and even most of the friends were like – “it isn’t doable and no point doing it when
you can take a straight flight to Leh and enjoy without much trouble”. First
hurdle was – which vehicle to take, after reading so much on internet – it
looked like a 4 X 4 was a must to travel in that part of the world but our
Rohtang trip indeed opened my eyes when we saw so many Altos, Santros and Wagon
R’s doing the round trip without any issues that too in those minus 10 degree
days, most of the taxi operators from Manali used those cars as they returned
good fuel economy and easy to maintain. So a brand new Ertiga wasn’t that bad a
vehicle to take it to those heights and most of the vehicles in our part of the
world are front wheel driven so we took a decision of taking our own car for
the journey, which was in the first place bought keeping this and these kind of
trips in mind. When we finally decided the dates, a lot of friends came forward
to join us. The initial team which had to travel was me, my wife and kiddo. One
of my best buddies – Vikram from school with his adventurous wife Sonal and son
Rishi (who is a terrific company on highways) who is almost my daughter’s age.
Another friend from Air Force had to join us from Ahmedabad. Another school
time buddy with his wife and two kids was to join us at Ahmedabad in his Tata
Safari. A bachelor from Bangalore had to travel to Mumbai and start with us
with another single joining us from Delhi, both of these guys decided to take rented
Bullets from Srinagar or Manali. So the total team was 9 adults, 4 kids, 2 cars
and 2 bikes. Since this was a road trip and we were doing such a long journey
first time – the hotel bookings were out of question as it wasn’t sure what
dates we will be reaching where. Hence we took the prints of all the details
required, maps, directions, hotels, where to eat, where to stay etc, I indeed
checked in the availability / rates of the stay(s) and made sure that even if
we reached a day prior or late to any of the locations – we will not have
issues in staying especially after Jammu and Srinagar as before that it was all
easy.
I somehow had a hunch that
initially when I proposed to my friends and they almost instantaneously agreed
to the idea and some of them were pretty excited as well as charged about it
too, still I felt that a lot of them would back out at the last moment. We did
all the research possible as fast as we could, made a map of where all to go,
visit, stay, and eat, sightseeing etc. We even made an excel sheet and divided
into parts, subparts into days we will be reaching where and that helped us in
making approximate calculation of expenditure we will be incurring during the
trip including fuel cost. To our surprise after talking to our contacts who had
done it earlier by road and with their further hotel / stay over contacts – I
was shocked that the total still came less than 25-30K a couple for the whole
trip, to which we further added another 10K each thinking of any contingencies
or some unforeseen expenses we might not be thinking while planning. Total
distance travelled divided between the three drivers and the bikers were on
their own since none of us wanted to ride a bike on that route except that my
wifey offered to ride pillion with one of them if the weather permitted. I
picked up some important equipment like towing equipment, if any of our cars
gets stuck at some point, tyre inflator / deflator, multipoint cell phone
charger, emergency light, memory cards, a laptop, a mini tent, 16 GB USB for
Music, list of medicines for AMS and other scenarios, multiple tyre puncture
kits for emergency just in case if there is no help – I even visited a local
vendor and he was more than happy to teach me how to fix a puncture without
taking the tyre off the rim, it was quite an easy trick and advised me what all
equipment to buy to enable me a quick repair.
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| The Drive |
April 2013: We got our Ertiga’s delivery and same week we did a
quick run from Mumbai to Pune with full load – just to get accustomed to the
vehicle for the long upcoming drive. It proved value for money no doubt and was
way spacious then we presumed earlier. Although we planned to fit an overhead
carrier by June before our travel as it would be nice to fit the long term
luggage on roof top and keep the everyday needs stuff packed in the little boot
space car had with three rows of seats in up position. First service too was
done and dusted in April itself after a very close friend took it for a spin to
Mahabaleshwar and a couple of weekend drives with family and friends in and
around Mumbai.
May 2013 and My Predictions: As predicted two of the singles backed
out first – citing their own reasons – one had got confirmed on a offshore
project and couldn’t help but continue as I wasn’t in a position to neither pre
pone nor postpone out travel dates and second one just became father and his
family warned him to not to take that kind of risk, that too on a two wheeler
so he backed out as well since he wasn’t a car guy anyways. The count still was
– three couples and 4 kids, I was still ok with this set up since the other guy
had a Tata Safari which he recently got serviced and I thought it will be able
to bail us out of any situation we get stuck in during the course of our
journey. Unfortunately he had a theft in his house right on the first week of
June and had no option but to call it off as the enquiry and our formal stuff
would have taken quite a while in our part of the world to settle down.
June 2013: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_India_floods
Almost shattered our hopes of doing the trip this year as we were warned big
time by both of our families to settle for something close by and not to go for
a cross country drive as we planned. And the last couple from our gang too had
to call it off citing the same reasons as one of the top politician from back
home had gone to Leh the same week whose Toyota Innova skidded and landed in a
valley with no trace of victims, unfortunately it was all over the news in bold
letters. Such was the impact of the accident that not only my friend called it
off but he insisted that we too gave up on the trip and settled for may be Goa
or down south somewhere. This all happened in the second week of June as we had
planned to start on 22nd June (Saturday) for our trip – he broke the
news to me on Wednesday with a very heavy heart as he knew that he was the last
support I had to even attempt this one. Now, the question was should we or
should we not? I and wifey sat thinking but somewhere deep down she knew it
that I am going to give it a shot anyways – alone may be if required. My point
was – since we planned everything this far – we shouldn’t give up that easily –
let’s start and see how far we can go? As we were driving our own car hence we
always had an option of taking a U turn and come back – we questioned no one
and were answerable to no one either. We had always loved our highway trips so
far and as long as were together – we never needed or missed anyone during
those long trips and this was our golden opportunity to do something together, totally
depending on each other. Hence we decided that we will do at least a run to
Delhi and back if nothing else – I promised her a nice drive to Agra (Taj
Mahal) too if we called off the rest of
the trip, I saw an opportunity to drive on the newly opened Freeway.
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| The Team :) |
Day 1 (22nd June 2013): I work in a US based consulting
firm hence I work evening shifts starting from 6.30 PM till early morning 3.30
AM and since we had to start on Saturday morning – I took a half day leave on
Friday. As fate had it – just couldn’t sleep after dinner – just kept shifting
on my bed – even as the AC kept blowing kool air – I had sweat in my palms and
forehead thinking about the ongoing 14 days and fun ahead. Finally, I slept but
don’t know when and for how long – once I opened my eyes it was 2.15 AM – we
still had couple of hours before we started – still I got up, took bath, made a
cup of tea for myself, started loading luggage in the car. With the third row
folded down and head rests removed – I realized Ertiga’s boot was mammoth, it
swallowed our two big suitcases, three hand bags, my kiddos toy bag, a couple
of small poly bags with stuff unknown to me, other car stuff that I picked up
from the list very easily and the moment I closed the boot – almost nothing was
visible from outside as if we didn’t even fill the boot to half capacity. I
realized one more thing after sliding the second row fully backwards that the
leg space was a little too much and since kiddo was the only one on the back
seat – I had my doubts that she is going to sleep a lot during the journey and
may roll down in the space (that would be dangerous fall). Hence, I had to fit
in a Bean Bag in that space and it made a perfect bed for the princess – even
if she will roll down with heavy braking – she will roll right back into her
space with quick pick up, problem solved. I had the tank full done the previous
evening, air pressure checked on all five wheels plus the car was sent for
general check up last weekend with everything topped to the brim, we had
nothing to worry about for next 5-6K km as the service advisor suggested.
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| Starting Odo Meter Reading. |
We started with odometer reading
962 at precise 5.24 AM from our home in Mumbai and the first target by evening
was 785 Km to Udaipur (Rajasthan) via Ahmedabad and Vadodara (Gujarat). The
weather was pretty good – a little drizzle showed us off to an exciting start
and made me realize the value of a rear wash, wiper and defogger that day. We
had done a couple of runs to Ahmedabad and Vadodara previously (Thrice) in the
last 6 months and barring the Bharuch crossing – I was clear we will have no
issues till Udaipur for sure – Gujarat highways are anyways excellent and
almost six lane throughout. My Facebook
post on the very start was “Hell yeah!! Longest drive of our life - finally
starts. Let's see how far we can go. First target now is Mumbai to Udaipur….here
we come”. And by evening it became “750
km done for the day, night halt at Udaipur. Gujarat and Rajasthan highways
simply Rock! Delhi it is tomorrow”. What amazing drive it was – barring one
off turn that we had to take at Bharuch junction which it is famous for but as
the forums advised to take the old golden bridge – we took it and were back on
the highway in no time. The first break was at the outskirts of Vadodara city –
reached around 11.30 AM at wifey’s favorite eatery right where the expressway
ends – she loved the brownies that they serve, French fries for kiddo and my permanent
diet on highways is always an Idli Vada dipped in Sambhar (light and quick to
eat). We decided to have our lunch somewhere in between Ahmedabad (which was
still a good 100 km) and Udaipur as it was too early for lunch. I guess the car
was returning good mileage too as the needle was a little above the quarter mark
and I thought I will pull it up to Ahmedabad for sure. Before I forget to
mention there was no sign of rain after Vadodara – it was all dry and sunny by
the time we reached Ahmedabad.
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| Companions - Ashish n Aarti |
First Fuel Stop: The first
fuel stop was about 100 km before Udaipur, precisely at 677 KM from Mumbai and
I am glad we did it and didn’t try to pull it till the city as right 25 km
before Udaipur we saw one of our life’s worst traffic jams that too on the
highway. A huge lorry carrying overload of plywood swerved towards the divider –
hit it and toppled with plywood strewn across the highway on both sides. It was
around 6.00 PM and a little sunlight was still there – we were glad that we
made it right on time (thanks to the excellent highways) – I pulled over at a
dhaba on the right side of the road and we had a tea break. We also noticed a
good resort right where the jam started – I thought of checking for the room
availability since it was no point going forward from here and call it a day. Right
then wifey got a call from cousin who was following our Facebook posting and we
had a reunion with one of her long lost cousin after I guess a decade or more,
had a great evening with them and stayed over at their place. As expected they
too were a little shocked / impressed / whatever to see that we decided and
went off on this trip but a surprise awaited us the very next day which even we
weren’t expecting. My brother in law (wifey’s younger brother) Ashish called us
following our Facebook post that we had started alone and offered to come along
if that was fine with us – we were more than glad to welcome him and his wife Aarti
as that meant a great company and advised them to take “Bhopal Express” the very
next day and meet us at Delhi the day after.
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| @ Jaipur Restaurant. |
Day 2 (23rd June 2013): After the first days drive of
750+ KM and clear weather with hopes of getting some company from Delhi – we
both were fully charged although wifey was a little down with a little throat
infection, headache and a little body ache etc. Again as it usually happens – I
couldn’t sleep in the night and thoughts keep coming to my mind, it was indeed
an achievement of sorts for me to do a long drive from Mumbai to Delhi itself
and going beyond was something I never imagined earlier and it was indeed a
dream come true sort of thing for me. Woke up before my alarm could go off and
stuffed the car with the bags we had to take off for the night and was ready to
make a move by sharp 6.00 AM. But we had a delayed start as we missed one of
the cell phones at cousins place and realized by the time we had gone off like
a couple of kilometers only – returned back – picked it up – bided final goodbyes
with promises of seeing them again in very near future we moved towards next
target “Jaipur”. Highways in this
part of the journey too were equally good just like Gujarat – superb traffic
sense from the truck, buses and cars – that amazed me. I was surprised while
taking our last fuel stop after Ahmedabad that the Diesel price at this part
was a little cheaper then Maharashtra and the pit stop before Jaipur even
shocked me further – diesel was cheaper here too and as I asked the petrol pump
attendant the same – he asked me – where were we heading to which I said up
north to Jammu and Kashmir to which he shocked me by saying “Be
ready for a shock when you reach Punjab”. Because of the excellent
highways and good average speed we reached Jaipur around 1 O Clock and took a
break of about an hour or so, had our lunch in a recently started restaurant –
food quality here onwards was getting better by the distance travelled. I
totally loved the Aloo Paranthas they served with sweet lassi – since distance
from Jaipur to Delhi wasn’t that big (240 km) and I had done this earlier (a
decade ago) multiple times – I ate well and stuffed myself as much as I could
before making a move to our next stop Delhi which we thought to conquer by 6-7
PM at max. That’s where our calculation went wrong as the highway between
Jaipur and Delhi was totally under construction with at least a million
diversions later and shockingly unbelievable 9 hours later we somehow saw the
outskirts of Guragon. Again I thanked God and my stars for getting that last
full tank done before Jaipur which saved us quite a good time and we reached
our destination without any fuel hiccups. It was almost 10.30 PM that we
finally reached my friends place in Gurgaon (Sector 56).
I stayed in Delhi NCR for almost
a decade after my graduation in 1996 and did my PG as well as got my first
break in the same region. Hence we have a great gang of friends in Noida,
Guragaon, Delhi and nearby areas. On our way back we planned to meet a few of
them or may be stay with them – time permitting but while going up we just
stayed with one of our close friends who recently moved from Mumbai to Gurgaon
and met another of my classmates who stayed quite close to his house, had a
superb evening with old friends over dinner before we called it a day finally. The
next day we were to be joined by Ashish and Aarti, who had started previous
night from Bhopal and their train was to arrive early morning at Hazrat
Nizamuddin Station – I told him to get out from Kale Khan ISBT side so we can
pick them up and hit the highway at the earliest. After two days of constant
travelling my Facebook status read “Driven
1435 km in 2 days from Mumbai to Delhi. Fantastic National Highways! Where
next? Let’s see where this road takes us. Today's halt at Gurgaon. Catching up
with old friends. Tomorrow it’s back to road”. Since their train arrived at
9.30 in the morning we had two options – either to straight head towards Jammu
(610 KM) or a night halt at Amritsar (458 KM). I always prefer driving in the
day and do not usually drive in night especially when the family is with me
hence we decided to reach Amritsar and will move to Jammu after morning Darshan
at The Golden Temple (never been there ever). Wifey already had her course of
Crocin and other stuff to overcome the travel fatigue but she was convinced
them I am going to take her even on a wheel chair when it comes to travelling. But
Golden Temple was one place we always wanted to visit once and overnight
discussion with friends who’d been there earlier warned us of couple of things
to be taken care while at the Temple premise.
Day 3 (24th June 2013): We started from Gurgaon not so
early in the morning since we had to pick up Ashish and Aarti from Nizamuddin
Station around 8AM as per the scheduled arrival. But Indian railways are
usually late when you want them to be on time and that’s exactly what happened
that day too. Their train which should have arrived by 8.05 AM arrived much
later around 9.50 AM or something, by that time the sun was pretty much up and
it was unusually hot (Dunno what I was expecting in June end in Delhi). I knew
it that it’s going to take us more than an hour or may be more to hit the GT
Karnal highway from ISBT Kale Khan. We were happy to have some company finally
and it was a long drive with usual Delhi traffic towards Murthal (GT Karnal
Highway), decided to take a first break at Sukhdev Dhaba for brunch, it was
almost 12.30 PM by the time we reached, parked the car and landed on a table. Food
was simply superb as expected with almost everything smelling of butter and
ghee – I wanted to stuff as much as I could – but had a long drive ahead of
another 400 km hence kept it under control. Highway was excellent from this
point till Ludhiana (GT) after that another blunder kept waiting for us as most
of the highway was under construction and we had to take another million diversions,
we were not at all able to pick up good average speed on this particular
stretch and bikers (specifically bullet riders) kept racing with us. It was
quite an amazing sight to see so many young sardars sprinting on those rickety
bullets which made amazing sound (typical bullet thump). Our jaws were falling
on the floor seeing them flying past us from all sides as I tried my level best
to match up to their speed they just refused to slow down. They were doing all
kinds of stunts too like not holding the handlebar while bike raced on 100+
KMPH and a dude was actually fixing his sun glasses and positioning his cap as
bike roared past others. Somewhere down the line 6 late highways had become 4 lanes
and finally after Ludhiana or Phagwara it was a single road, indeed shocking. I
always thought Golden Temple was one of the most important monuments we have in
India but the approach road to Amritsar was telling a different story
altogether. But the fuel stop again had put a very wide smile on my face as
expected – WOW! Diesel at this part of India was at least a good 16/- cheaper
than what they were selling in Mumbai.
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| Atari - Wagah Border Parade |
We were racing against time to
hit Atari (India Pakistan Border 30 KMs after Amritsar) before the sun set to
check out the evening parade and were almost losing hope with every passing
minute that we will not be able to watch it. Finally made it right on time and
we were totally shocked to see the turnout on a weekday at the border. But it
was an amazing sight and I am totally at a loss of words as how to explain what
we experienced that evening. Even with thousands and thousands of Indians
shouting together with our Pakistani counterparts doing the same from a visible
distance. It was indeed an amazing feeling – I never thought that I will ever
have this kind of patriotic feeling but was somehow prepared for this as one of
my very close friend said the same to me that “You will have an amazing
unexplainable feeling once you stand on Indian side and see the whole parade as
well as the way they take down the Indian National Flag in the evening amid
thousands of people cheering”. It was simply outstanding to see the last
Indian Railway Station (Atari) up close and personal. I wish we could see the
train passing into to Pakistan from our side but not all our wishes can come
true.
It was almost 10.30 PM that we
finally hit Amritsar and all I wanted to do was to check out Golden Temple once
and crash on bed. As suggested by friends who’d been there earlier we tried to find
an accommodation in Temple vicinity but I didn’t find it such a good idea especially
that late in the night hence settled for a decent looking hotel nearby. There was
a multilevel car park very near the temple and I was shocked to see its size –
I guess it could easily accommodate a good number of cars (in thousands) at any
point of time but it felt a little secluded rather haunted at that point of
time. Initially we parked our car there but as soon as we finalized the hotel –
I took it out and rather have it parked in front of the hotel on road.
Seriously, couldn’t trust the car part with so much of luggage in the car. All
my friends plus anyone you ask in Amritsar as to where to have lunch or dinner
– everyone says “Brother’s Dhaba” unanimously. So we visited the much praised
Dhaba and gorged on whatever was available, it was just superb, or maybe we
were a little tired and hungry too that we ate at break neck speed. The best
part about this part of India is that these guys are fantastic hosts, awesomely
good cook and they don’t even charge you a bomb as it wasn’t at all expensive. I
must mention one more thing that the roads mostly in the night in Amritsar
(Near Golden Temple) are way too confusing – you will not trust me if I tell
you that we passed through the same road almost 5 times before hitting the
hotel as most of the roads are one way in the night and we kept missing one
turn, it was hilarious. Finally, called it a night it was pretty hot and humid
too, checked in the hotel which was again very decently priced and crashed.
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| Golden Temple |
Next day early morning we made
history (in our own books), after living in Delhi for a decade I unfortunately
never visited Golden Temple – always passed from a very near distance while on
official trips but never got an opportunity to see it in person. I guess I was
destined to come here with my wifey and kiddo – god has his own ways of calling
his followers. But I must tell you this – it’s simply stunning whatever time of
day you see it – mind-blowing is the way it looks on a sunny day. As told by
friends and family we kept our heads securely covered as that’s a rule here at
all times - ones head must be covered even for kids. We were fated to
experience this too (multiple warnings by friends) as wifey’s dupatta with
which she covered her head slide down a bit and was almost on her neck when a
young sardar approached her and told her very politely “Behan, sir dhak lein” I
was touched. The queue for darshan that day wasn’t that long fortunately but
walking around the temple was a blessing – the way it is built – automatically
we got our turn of washing hands and feet and were a part of the crowd gathered
around for darshans with Gurbani playing in the background – it was an
experience of its own. Kiddo was proud too to visit the Golden
Temple as she had seen it in her books and was too excited to share it with her
friends as soon as she could. We got our second warning while taking Prasad as
fate had it – as I raised my hands to take the Prasad with my left hand below
my right as we Hindu’s do usually – they have their own way which is even
better that you have to spread both of your hands side by side and they fill it
with Prasad on both (you’ve got to check out the quantity and quality). We
don’t eat that much ghee in a day’s meal as much as they put in one serving. We
sat down a little by the stairs, ate our Prasad, as kiddo dipped her feet in the
pond enjoying company of some real big gold fishes and enjoyed the beautiful
Temple some more, said our prayers and thanked god for the beautiful life
bestowed on us and moved out. Right next, almost adjoining to the temple was
“Jaliyaan Wala
Bagh” where one jackass British made history by killing hundreds of innocent
Indians one fine day. Not much of it is left here now as they have converted it
into a jogging track and renovated it in such a way that it has lost its
originality. That was all we wanted to do in Amritsar and it was time to move
to Jammu as my Facebook page read “Amritsar
2050 km away from home. Finally saw Wagah Border parade. It’s an amazing
feeling standing at the border overlooking the other side. Overcrowded and
messy management though but worth all the effort, a must visit if you come this
far. Time to move ahead to Jammu after Golden Temple visit” Temple as she
had seen it in her books and was too excited to share it with her friends as
soon as she could. We got our second warning while taking Prasad as fate had it
– as I raised my hands to take the Prasad with my left hand below my right as
we Hindu’s do usually – they have their own way which is even better that you
have to spread both of your hands side by side and they fill it with Prasad on
both (you’ve got to check out the quantity and quality). We don’t eat that much
ghee in a day’s meal as much as they put in one serving. We sat down a little
by the stairs, ate our Prasad, as kiddo dipped her feet in the pond enjoying
company of some real big gold fishes and enjoyed the beautiful Temple some
more, said our prayers and thanked god for the beautiful life bestowed on us
and moved out. Right next, almost adjoining to the temple was
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| Naina enjoying with Gold Fish at the pond. |
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| Jaliyaanwala Bagh Check out the crowd in the bagh right in the morning! |
Day 4 (25th June 2013): After having a fundoo morning at
Golden Temple we checked out from hotel and since the distance to our next
target – Jammu was almost 200 odd KM from Amritsar, we were not in a hurry to
push off. It was unbelievable for me to see the fantastic roads at this part of
India – last time when we drove on the same roads to Vaishno Devi (a decade
back) – situation was totally different – roads had drastically improved. Excellent
4 lane highway welcomed us throughout till Jammu but the scenery totally
changed right after we left Amritsar – I guess around 40-50 odd KM – it kept on
becoming secluded and amazingly beautiful. I remember – Aarti asked me a
question right after we picked them up from Nizamuddin station “What
do you like about driving so much?” to which I replied “Let’s
talk about this once you complete 1000 kms with us”. As soon as we
started our journey on this section – she automatically got her own answer “Got
it, now I know how it feels and what exactly you like about driving”. There
were hardly any vehicles on road or people, silence and beauty all over – we
didn’t even speed in this section as distance was less so enjoyed the drive
thoroughly.
 |
| Bhai Saab and Madam with the team :) |
One of our long lost family
friends who we’ve been planning / promising to meet us for decades was fortunately
posted in Jammu. So far we had kept in touch via Facebook / Phone / Email etc
and they were following our route and had strictly instructed us to spend a day
with them before going forward – till the moment we visited them we had no clue
of his title or position with BSF. I assumed he must be a very senior officer
for sure but as we reached where they stayed at the camp and I informed the
guard posted on the entry – who we wanted to visit – he almost gave us a “Salute in Attention” of welcome and
summoned his senior who in place offered to drive us to “Sahib’s” residence. We
were like WOW! Looked like we were in for some VIP treatment after all. That’s
exactly what happens to the civilians when they meet someone from Defense – our
eyes were almost popping out after visiting the campus and the kind of life
they lived there – although in the night this same place becomes very scary
with the sounds of bombs, missiles and bullets being fired at not so far
distance – so we were told. I guess Pakistan border wasn’t that far from this
place and India is always at war is what we were told. It was around lunch time
that we reached their residence since “Sahib” was still busy with his regular
office day time work; madam took us for a quick drive to the real India Pakistan
border. We had no idea as how close a civilian could get to the real border
between the two nations and they even allow civilians to walk across, of course
to an extent and all this while you are at the gun point from both the sides.
It was amazing to see a Peepal tree in between the two sides shared by both the
countries – it even had a pillar showing the exact boundary inside its huge
stem – I will see if I have a picture of the same which I can post in here. We
were allowed to go up to the bunker where they had a huge gun permanently
pointed towards the fence between both the nations which was indeed loaded and
we were told to not to touch anywhere near the trigger, bullet marks were
pretty much visible on the bunker wall and the painter had done his job of
making circles over the holes made by bullets. Incredible sight – it sent
shivers down my spine by just looking at them – it’s hard to explain the
feeling in words for me. I will call it an experience of a life time and an
amazing patriotic feeling one gets by just standing near the national flag at
the border overlooking Pakistani gunmen pointing their guns at you. It’s
unbelievable as well as shocking to see from a very powerful binocular to the
other side of the fence when you realize even they are doing the same to you.
 |
| Last Gate and you can exit to Pakistan |
The evening that we spent with
“Sahib” the Commanding Officer was unforgettable; he shared some of his
priceless experiences from border as well as live firing and stuff. Plus some
of his memorable instances while he himself was posted long back in Leh –
Laddakh region. He even shared some of his friends and colleagues contacts from
the area who are right now posted at those heights – offered us a local driver
too from the area which I politely declined as that’s something we wanted to do
it on our own. He had a huge collection of 70’s western music which we enjoyed
thoroughly over a couple of drinks and snacks – the chef on duty was simply
awesome and he kept bombarding us with amazing stuff one after another followed
by a mind-blowing dinner. Finally we called it a night as the next day onwards
the journey was definitely supposed to get more challenging as my Facebook page
read “Reached Jammu - Again excellent
highways. Almost four lanes throughout. Visited Jammu Pakistan border and
briefly visited enemy territory too. Again can't describe the feeling. Time to
start the climb and hit Srinagar Tomorrow”.
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| View from Indian Bunker of Fence between India and Pakistan |
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| Technically we were inside Pakistan at this time. |
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| Thats the Peepal Tree with a Milestone Inside - exactly between India and Pakistan on sharing basis :) |
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| Bullet marks fired by enemy :) |
 |
| Last View of Jammu Valley |
Day 5 (26th June 2013): After staying a day at BSF
quarters and getting pampered with full on service – we woke up to the news
(another advantage) that the Jammu Srinagar highway was closed till 1 O clock
in the afternoon and will only open after that for public. We stayed back for
breakfast and moved around 10.00 AM as we needed to pick up some stuff from
local market and thought of going around town a little bit before hitting the
spot from where the traffic was stopped. We realized fruits were too damn good
at this part and were dirt cheap as well – we picked up a box of cherries as my
kiddo loves them and I must tell you that I haven’t eaten those kindda cherries
ever in my life – ultimate sweet and fresh. Packed some fruits, cakes, snacks,
juices and mineral water for the upcoming journey to Srinagar of around 300 KM
– I thought we will be able to travel that much in 6 hours and will be reaching
maximum by 7.00 or 8.00 PM which as per me was still a safe time to find a
hotel and crash. What I did not realize nor had any idea that out of those 300
KMs – 240KMs were a totally hilly drive and one of the best (read tough) that I
had ever done in the past. Jammu onwards
the 4 lane highways end and there after it’s a single road to Srinagar and it’s
a terrific climb with awesome valleys on both sides (of course one at a time),
I had a tough time keeping my eyes on the road as it wasn’t too wide but didn’t
wanted to miss out on those lush mountains. One thing I noticed that throughout
this way (most of it) the car was going on 3rd gear and just
couldn’t go beyond it – so many times I tried my level best to pick up speed
and put it on 4th but it just won’t budge. After a couple of
kilometers I realized and gave up – this is when I realized that the height was
so much that I guess diesel engine was facing issues in burning hence the
pickup and power loss. None of us had ever seen those tall trees ever – I mean
– it was amazing to see those heights and clouds just parked on the road as we
passed through – as we stopped over to much advised “Rajma Chawal” break at a
road side dhaba – it will be a crime to talk of the quality as well as quantity
– I was overwhelmed by the same and the price – I guess I shouldn’t even
mention it here.
 |
| The 3rd Gear Drive |
 |
| Notice the construction going on |
 |
| Dozens of tunnels under construction |
 |
| Notice the flags on returning bikes :) |
I was totally surprised as well
as impressed by the local drivers as almost everybody was driving on the most
left side of the road as left as they could and it felt as if no one was in a
hurry to reach Srinagar any sooner. Although we were doing it for the first
time and I wasn’t too troubled but not too confident either hence my speed was
actually a little slower than the rest of the people ahead or behind me. At
times I waved to the driver behind me to pass thru as I wasn’t able to achieve
the speed they were driving but never saw anyone honk or give a dipper behind
me asking for side – this is something we the people of plains rarely witness. Another
fantastic thing that we started noticing right after leaving Jammu was that a
lot of bikers were coming back from Srinagar and almost everyone had that
typical Laddakhi flag hosted proudly either on their handle bars or the back
rest – that was some motivating sight – every time one of us noticed a biker coming
head on with the flag – we waved / cheered and got the same cheer back from
them realizing that we were on our way from where they were coming back. I
guess neither I nor they can explain the feeling you get while on road when
something like that happens with you, it’s truly unexplainable and made me
proud of myself being here and actually attempting it. And then we had some
bikers behind us too which we noticed since their average speeds were better
than us – they soared past us but not before we cheered them and made “thumbs
up” sign to each other. Another important thing that my wifey noticed was the
registration numbers of the bikes – some were coming from Delhi, a couple of
them we noticed from Maharashtra and not to forget some were coming as far as
from Karnataka and Kerala too. Isn’t that insane? But we totally love this
insanity and will keep doing it as long as we could and as far as we could go.
 |
| Rajma-Chawal break point. Notice the lengthy trees and fog. |
I kept driving as fast as I could
but realized after a couple of hours that we will not be able to make it on
time to Srinagar – try as hard as I may as all I could do was keep the
accelerator pressed slightly with steering going left once and then right,
again left and again right that’s all I could do the whole time and the valley
never ended it was unending distance. During one of those sharp turns almost
touching the over head mountain – I almost went too close to an oncoming truck
and had to swerve too hard to keep the car on left and BANG! It sounded as if
we hit something as car started going left, to my good fortune there was a
straight stretch with a dhaba and a bus stop on left with good parking space –
I immediately parked to check what happened. We had a flat tyre (front left) as
car over shot due to sharp curve and I hit those stone pillars (a couple of
inches high) they made on the side of the road. To our good luck the dhaba was
operational – quickly we emptied the boot since the spare wheel’s opening is
from inside the boot and there is no way we could take the wheel down without
removing stuff from boot. It took me 15 minutes to take off the front wheel –
put the spare on, pack the luggage back in the boot. We decided to take a short
tea break as the exercise of putting a spare wheel was a little too much on us
lesser mortals. I guess we wasted almost half an hour here and another half
hour in getting the puncture repaired plus wheel mounted back in the place
(Luggage had to be emptied yet again).
 |
| The view kept getting better with every KM |
It started getting dark soon and
we were still a good distance away from Srinagar – it wasn’t such a comforting
feeling as unfortunately our cell phone signals too decided to play hide n seek
with us at this time of need. On top of that – there was no data connectivity
throughout the state of Jammu Kashmir – not on Airtel as well as on Vodafone, unfortunately
the BSNL Sim that we had wasn’t activated yet. My sister in law’s instructions
started ringing a bell in my head – she told us that the last 60 KMs of our
journey to Srinagar will be on the plains and we had almost crossed 200 – that
made it another 50 odd KM before we hit the plains again. As per my calculation
we were about to miss out on another important thing that couple of my friends
told me multiple times that the moment we come out of Jawahar Tunnel – I was
supposed to stop and take the picture of the valley – that was definitely not
happening – first – we hadn’t reached the tunnel yet and it was already dark. On
top of that it was like adding insult to injury to confess that we didn’t even
had a booking anywhere in Srinagar for our stay yet.
 |
| I love those long winding roads. |
 |
| And the sensible traffic. |
 |
| Even our Car got a Companion from State :) |
Anyways, I learned the meaning of “Sense
of Accomplishment” as we entered the Jawahar Tunnel and reached further
close to Srinagar, although it was too dark outside as well inside but the
little lamps kept showing us the way other than the tail lights of a rickety
Tata Indica ahead of us and a goods carrier behind us. The 3 KM long tunnel
looked way too long at this hour and it was scary to see its width, walls
dripping water and they looked almost so close as I could roll down my window
and touch them – made almost 5 decades
ago – it was planned way too well. It almost had enough space to park one vehicle
on side after almost every 200 or 250 mtrs just in case if some vehicle broke
in between the journey. Once out of the tunnel we took a long sigh of relief
but still had a long way to go – as per the map we were almost at a small town
called Qazigund around 9 O clock and it already felt as if it was midnight. We
stopped at one of the sports shop to enquire about further course of action and
another grocery store guy next door came over to help – they suggested either
we stopped right there as I could see two small hotels with a couple of cars
outside. But my detective wifey noticed immediately that the cars parked were
all carrying local numbers and we rather enquired about the condition of the
highway to Srinagar. To my amazement and shock yet again – they told us “it’s pretty much straight with no risk at
all” – they told us to go ahead confidently without thinking of stopping
over at any other place. We further went ahead and I saw “Anantnag 17 KM” but it
was on the opposite direction from Srinagar – we reached a T point from where
Anantnag was very close towards right and Srinagar was further 40+ but on the
left. Right at that spot I saw an Army Vehicle and some gunmen standing behind
a huge pile of gunny bags guarding with one of them pointing a gun on the road
we were coming from. I parked the car on left and went ahead and asked them –
quite a few of them were Punjabi’s and they all unanimously assured us of the
good and safe road ahead – also told us that we may not get any place to stay
at Anantnag and options of getting dinner anywhere were less too. I guess with
so many people assuring us – we went ahead and took our chances – mobile
signals had returned too and wifey made quick calls to our Delhi friends of our
whereabouts and assured them of calling them back as soon as we safely reached
and checked in a hotel in Srinagar.
This was one of the happiest as
well as most scary days of my life – together. By coming this far I achieved
something I was only dreaming of until now but seeing the planning gone haywire
with family on board it was scary. To our rescue came an ambulance out of
nowhere I guess – gladly we started following it as I assumed it would be going
nowhere but to our destination but to my shock – as we started following it
from a 10-15 mtr distance – suddenly the driver swerved the ambulance to left
and killed the engine. We kept going ahead and never saw its headlight again –
another car overtook us and same thing happened – I realized following any
vehicle in this area isn’t considered safe hence they too were stopping over to
let us go thinking something otherwise. Hence we had no option but to keep
going ahead at whatever speed we could – although the road was good but I guess
I wasn’t able to do anything above 50-60 KMPH at that point of time. We
realized one more thing that night that it isn’t that scary as we think it is
when we finally reached Srinagar without any issues and to our delight there
was no dearth of hotels to stay and to dine as well. Hotel Shangrila was right
on the main road but unfortunately they didn’t had any vacancy but the front
desk recommended us to go further ahead and will get to a place with quite a
few new hotels. We found one recently made hotel and it was indeed a relief for
us to see a Honda CBR 250R bike with Mumbai registration parked in front of the
lobby. This was one biker who over took us I guess somewhere in the evening
while we were waving and cheering the oncoming bikers and we took the rooms
instantaneously. As I was doing it throughout the journey – my Facebook page
read “One of the most beautiful yet scary
drives between Jammu and Srinagar with one flat tyre to remember. It's just
simply fantastic to cheer riders on their way back from Riders paradise and
dream destination cheering / motivating us to go further and complete it.
Another day ends with hopes of making it to Kargil tomorrow”.
Day 6 (27th June 2013): Although we planned to keep
today for Srinagar but the day started with the sad news that the highway to
Kargil was closed for the day and no vehicles were allowed to pass through this
morning – as after a bomb blast on the road Army was searching for some hidden
mines. So we planned to stay back and enjoy the day at Srinagar.
 |
| The First View of Dal Lake in the morning |
Srinagar in night looked quit
secluded and scary to us as we reached quite late but in the morning it was no
different than any other city or town of India with full on traffic – jams on
signals and more n more people anywhere you turn your head. But the life is
totally different here and unlike any other tourist destination where you will
be flocked by guides and people trying to sell you anything – that wasn’t the
case here. The very first thing I wanted to do in Srinagar was to check out the
“Dal Lake” and if you haven’t seen it yet – I must tell you – its HUGE –
haven’t seen a bigger lake in my life ever. It looked super special especially
with those beautiful boat houses parked in a long never ending line on the one
side. This was our first trip to this part of India and no doubt – the beauty
was mesmerizing – we realized in no time why it is called “Heaven on earth” it
indeed is one. As it rained the previous night – it was a little chilly day –
this was the first time that we had to take out our Jackets and Shawls during
the entire journey till this moment. The parking lot attendant suggested we
took a Shikara ride and see some points that they take everyone across plus
there was this JKTDC restaurant on the lake where they stopover for breakfast
or lunch. The Shikara ride was a two hour long ride and almost covered a major
part of the lake with some awesome sights that they took us too – there was this
entire market on water (Shikara’s) that we saw and it was truly unbelievable
experience. So far we had seen it only in some old movies and pictures of
friends who had visited Srinagar earlier – it was our first experience and we loved
it. As soon as we got on board our Shikara and we moved inside the lake – I
noticed a huge rather a hugest mountain I could see and hoisted on top of it was
our pride “the Indian National Flag”. As we moved further couple of meters – we
noticed another Shikara coming towards us and we were all in smile, shock and
awe to see a moving Ice Cream shop – imagine the situation – we were all in
jackets and shawls trying to save ourselves from shivering yet no one said “NO”
to ice cream as that was an unbelievable sight on a regular day for us and
enjoyed the not so good ice cream on move followed by a fruit chat vendor. In
another 10 minutes as we kept moving came another Shikara which was actually a “Imitation
Jeweler” on the move – they somehow attached both the Shikara’s in such a way
that they kept moving in the direction of our trip and kept showing us the
stuff too. Our next stop was the mid way JKTDC restaurant where we had our
brunch – food was again – no doubt amazing but a little pricey this time – I guess
JKTDC is making all the money.
 |
| House Boats in a Row. |
 |
| The Shikara Ride. |
 |
| Network kept coming and going :) |
 |
| Ashish n Aarti @ Shikara |
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| Shikara Boarding Point. |
 |
| Tea Stall on Lake |
Shopping on the lake: The next stop was a fixed tea stall – again
being operated from a Shikara but which was fixed on one location – had a tea
break here before moving on to the real market on water as told by our Shikara
rider. The visual all across the ride was simply mind blowing – beauty all over
– never seen sights with huge mountains with clouds hanging on top but it was
amazing to see so many people busy with their routine work – it was us only who
were a little out of place but enjoying the day as it progressed. The whole
market on the lake was an out n out amazing experience for us – the vegetable
market, the fish market, the shopping arcade where we actually took a break but
unfortunately none of us was a great bargainer and somehow the goods on sale
didn’t click either with wifey but we enjoyed the little walk on the market –
it was again everything was on water and felt too good to walk from one huge
boat to another one in search of something good. I guess my kiddo was having a
blast since she was getting anything and everything she wanted – starting from
her favorite snacks, ice cream, cute birdies, beautiful flora n fauna and ducks
swimming in a queue – she even snapped a duck family with Mr and Mrs. Donald Duck
on move with their three ducklings. The day was passing at leisure as we were
in no hurry to go anywhere but just enjoy the nature as it is, no mobile
network, no emails, no office or school to go to – no targets – life simply
rocked and no one wanted to go back from here anyways. Rest of the day was
spent going around the local market buying souvenirs – kiddo picked up a damn
cute looking Shikara.
 |
| Ice Cream Shop on the move |
 |
| Imitation Jeweller on the move |
 |
| Look at those hills, clouds and Notice the Indian National Flag on Top |
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| View from JKTDC Restaurant on Dal Lake |
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| Wifey all happy after brunch at JKTDC Restaurant on Dal Lake |
 |
| House Boats overlooking moving Fruit Chat Shop |
House Boats: One most important thing that one needs to do while in
Srinagar is to stay at a House Boat, unfortunately that wasn’t in our destiny
this time round. We were totally mesmerized by the way almost a 100 of them
were parked in a long never ending line right in front of the main road on Dal
Lake. After we finished our Shikara ride – I straight forward went and enquired
for the house boat stay and a guy who had a small boat took us on a quick ride
to show us the options. We almost checked a dozen of them – right from the most
expensive ones to the budget ones but unfortunately wifey found them to be pretty
claustrophobic to say the least and then they had this typical Kashmiri touch
to all of them – like heavily carpeted, dark too because almost all of them had
a maximum of one to two windows only – and there was this weird thing that
almost everyone did was putting on those thick incense sticks – although they
smelled good but were a little too much for our taste. Even the ones who didn’t
set them on yet were smelling big time of the same – which typical stench
(Which was pleasant for me) was something which bothered her and we decided to
skip the house boat stay for now. If you ask me about the feedback – I will say
– I totally loved some of the options – they were big and the room sizes were
excellent at least to be on a boat it was too good. Some of them even offered a
kind of terrace overlooking unending lake; room service was available with food
and everything else on board the boat as well. We almost finalized one of the
options and bargained the price too – but just because of my wifey’s
expressions we skipped it and called it off – tipped the guy for the whole
exercise and moved on with other options.
 |
| The Donald Duck and family. |
As we settled back in the room –
I spoke to the manager about the guy we saw last night with Mumbai registered
CRB 250R – as I wanted to really meet and talk to him. He quickly obliged
seeing our car from Mumbai too and we met over a cup of tea – spoke for almost
a couple of hours and what an amazing guy he turned out to be. You can read or
know more about him here at: http://www.hornokplz.tv/
He is actually a one man army when it comes to riding and is a documentary film
maker – chooses his own subjects and goes cross country riding his bikes and
makes documentaries for various channels and programs. He had even done a
record breaking run from Kanyakumari to Khardungla via Leh – Laddakh on his
bike, his blog has all the details of the ride too. On this particular trip
where we met – he did Mumbai to Srinagar run on his bike in just three days (No
comparisons but we took close to 5 days by Car). As I asked him if it was safe
for us to travel to Leh from here and get out from Rohtang Pass and Manali side
– all he responded was in a ear to ear smile pointing at my car that if he
could do it a dozen times on his bike – we definitely can in a car like that. That
was quite motivating, as we hadn’t even decided to come this far let alone
completing the whole journey on our own and we have this guy who charged us
fully as he too was starting the very next morning for the same route but
planned to stay there for a couple of months completing his latest documentary
on “Laddakhi Widows”. After a sumptuous
dinner at a Punjabi Restaurant very near our hotel – we retired to our rooms
with eyes full of dreams for the next day and the oncoming journey ahead as my
Facebook page read “After spending a day
in Srinagar at leisure now we know why they say "Jammu Kashmir is heaven
on earth". Its unbelievably awesome beauty at its best. Never seen
something as beautiful as this and will never forget what wifey said "If
this is Srinagar, imagine how Switzerland would be? Sad news was - Road to
Kargil was closed for the day. Hope it opens tomorrow”.
 |
| Look at the background |
Day 7 (28th June
2013): Second day in a row right in the morning as we raced towards the road
to Kargil, it was heartbreaking to know that the Indian Army had put barricades
to keep it closed for civilians. We started early just to take chance and
thought that we will be the first ones to cross the point and will be let go
but I guess that wasn’t to happen. Still as we kept waiting for some time for
the road to open in no time there were more than 200+ tourist vehicles piled up
on the road – all waiting for the barricades to be lifted. In an hour or so
they declared that the road will remain closed as the news of our Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit the to the region on the same day spread –
we realized it was futile to keep waiting hence we headed back to Srinagar to
spend the day locally but our calculation was going wrong now and looked like
we will be short of a couple of days to complete the trip.
 |
| Chashmeshahi |
We decided to spend the day in
Srinagar before we could come to a conclusion as to how to proceed from here
and headed to The Mughal Garden - “Chashmeshahi”. As history lesson said it
was built around a spring by Ali Mardan, a governor of Mughal emperor Shah
Jahan, in the year 1632. The garden is located in the Zabarwan Range, near
Rajbhawan (Governor‘s house) overlooking Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir. The
location and scenery was simply “WOW” – one heck of a site with superb hills
all around and in the centre was this “Royal Spring” and the locals
claimed that the water coming out of those stones (Naturally) was way better in
quality than the mineral water bottles we were carrying. Tourists were actually
going crazy to fill up their own bottles from the spring and drinking it –
almost everyone confirmed that indeed it was amazing. Even I tried too and it
was really difficult to tell if there was any difference in both the waters. The
garden was huge in size – almost spread across at least an acre of land with
superb stairs leading to the spring and beauty spread all across. Although
parking was very chaotic with so many cars and vehicles looking for space but
otherwise it was a superb place to spend some time, they had a lot of
restaurants as well as hotels for lodging n boarding nearby with so many small
eateries serving pepping hot food items throughout the day. The next place we
visited from here was very near and it was famous “Jawaharlal Nehru Botanical
Garden”. Another superb garden with scenery which resembled a “Windows
Screensaver” image with Dal Lake in background and huge cloud covered
mountains overlooking it. This place really made up for some real good photo
session – I guess the whole of Srinagar was a photographers paradise anyways –
I was going crazy to take snaps and regretted not having a DSLR at this stage
but was shooting with a Point and Shoot Digital Camera – whatever images I
could. This garden had a huge and an amazing collection of trees, some too big
to be captured in a single shot and some as small – that they were a compliment
to my kiddo’s size who in place obliged us by posing with them.
 |
| Time to pose :) |
After sightseeing – we settled
for a little lunch – I had no count how many Pakoda’s I had at Botanical Garden
as the dude was making them right in front of me and we just kept eating till
our tummy gave up followed by hot Kashmiri tea as kiddo enjoyed her noodles and
snacks. I kept checking about the highway status but there was no hope of
hearing good news – later we came to know that they even closed the highways
going towards Sonmarg and Gulmarg as well because lots of tourists who were not
able to make it to Kargil and further were actually moving to those locations
but with limited options – later they too were closed. Finally we decided to
hit back if the road doesn’t opens the next day and spent the rest of the
evening relaxing, going around the Dal Lake and market nearby.
 |
| Naina loved the Botanical Garden |
 |
| And with the bigger ones :) |
 |
| So did Aarti and Ashish too :) |
 |
| @ Vaishno Devi |
Day 8 (29th June 2013): Unfortunately with no hope of
road opening to Kargil straight on the third day, with a heavy heart we started
back to Jammu but since we were anyways going back – decided to take a detour via
Katra (Vaishno Devi) as after an extra nights stay in Srinagar we didn’t have that
many back up days to reach back home on time. One thing I realized on the way
back that coming downhill from Srinagar was way too easy in comparison to going
up (of course) and the scary piece of route (The last 60 KMs) that we travelled
in the dead of the night with no clue was actually not that scary in the day –
it was almost a straight stretch with a couple of small villages on the way and
looked nice in the sunny afternoon as we passed. We even passed that military
make shift camp that we stopped to ask for directions as well as the sports
shop and his neighboring grocery store on the way – how life and places look
different in a day in comparison to the night is simply amazing. We weren’t
happy to come back but had no option instead we were glad and actually kind of
proud that we did it till this point and I had no regrets whatsoever. While
coming back we came to that point right before Jawahar Tunnel and as I said
earlier the scene was mind-blowing – the very first view of the valley is
seriously outstanding, they even had a point where you could stop by and look
over the valley. A lot of construction is going on this route though but
nothing that will jam up the traffic – they are actually making almost two
dozen tunnels all across and I am sure in coming couple of years these journeys
will become faster, safer as well as simpler too once they complete and open
all these tunnels for public.
 |
| A Cloud came charging @ us. |
Katra (Vaishno Devi): if I remember correctly – last time when we
drove to Jammu (Katra) from Delhi the drive was scary and the road was in awful
state at least from Jammu to Katra but this time around with so much progress
all around the road condition was excellent – it was too good to be true. Right
after taking the turn from the highway – we were in Katra almost in no time –
effortless driving, we straight went to the same hotel we stayed more than
three times earlier, checked in the room and started the climb right after
dinner. The very last time when we came to Vaishno Devi, my kiddo was 8 months
and now she was almost 7 years – that time we got stuck in “Adhkunwari” for a night
because of sudden heavy rainfall and drop in temperature that too in the month
of March. This time barring one off incident of a cloud coming too close to the
Main Bhawan followed by superb rain – nothing untoward happen and we had a
quick Darshan before we headed back to Jammu after breakfast. Although this was the first time in my life that
I indeed took advantage of my situation and got VIP entry done for Darshan. And
actually we were in and out of Bhavan in flat 20 minutes as we started the
climb on foot @ 10.30 pm and were back in hotel @ 10.30 am, some sort of a
family record we created by doing it that fast. Although the season was not in
full swing yet still we saw around 5-6k people in waiting since early hours of
morning near Bhavan. The whole thing has changed big time and have become
pretty convenient now unlike a decade back. Still the temple management is very
poor, starting from the locker room to facility to take bath – almost
everything is hap hazard unless you have good connections – it is indeed very
inconvenient especially if you are travelling with young kids. We had no such
issues as my kiddo this time was in full mood to walk as much as she could and
we too needed to do our quota of yearly exercise in one solid walk. After
reaching half way up, wifey decided to take a horse as she wasn’t able to walk
much and so did Aarti but I and Ashish with kiddo kept walking – it was
fantastic to walk after midnight with quite a few people and nice clear
weather. I was glad to notice that they even have battery operated vehicles
especially for senior citizens and physically disabled people at a very nominal
price to and from Bhavan. It was time to say good bye to Katra but not before
we picked up a couple of kilos of Rajma as tradition had it – never came to
Katra (Jammu) and not bought a few kilos of Rajma – one kg for a special friend
in Gurgaon too.
Day 9 (30th June 2013): After spending another fantastic
evening with friends and family in Jammu – It was time to hit back Delhi and
catch up with some old friends to brag about our longest trip. On the way to
Delhi from Jammu we decided to catch up with a long lost friend who we've been
connected online for decades and it was a fantastic meeting totally rocking. There
was this one time almost a decade back that I got an offer from a company
called Quark Express based in Panchkula – I had almost decided to make a move
and join them – that’s when I promised my friend Ava that I am going to take
her to “Kapil’s” for lunch. Unfortunately that offer I never signed
and my promise never materialized so I thought of compensating for the same
this time around. I just made a quick call to Avaji and we decided to catch up
in a restaurant on the way, it was an amazing meeting over lunch and coffee
that we had. We talked so much about our old gang we used to have on www.mouthshut.com and that’s where we met –
all the review writers – I seriously got a lot of great friends through that
forum and we always remained in touch. This was the first time I met her and
not for one moment that we felt we were meeting for the first time – even wifey
was totally comfortable with her as she had heard so much from me about
her. Chandigarh is again one of those beautiful
cities that by just passing through it makes your day, vague memories of my
previous visits to the city kept coming back. And before even we realized – we
were back in harrowing traffic and attitude of Delhi people where every tom,
dick and harry wanted to teach me driving. Please pardon my language but fuckers
don't even get by seeing my registration number that I've driven from Mumbai -
A rickshaw puller even told me that I needed to learn driving. I was actually
thinking to of putting a sticker on my rear windshield saying "Forgive
me for Driving in Delhi" for as many days we had to spend here but
a friend rather suggested to put “You do not know who I am?” he said this
will be more effective. Anyways, we were catching up with some solid old
friends and this was a too less a price to pay for those priceless moments.
Day 10 (1st July 2013): The land of the Jaat's (Gurgaon)
felt like home to me since I worked here for a couple of years before making a
move to Hyderabad. Fortunately the friend that we were visiting on our way back
stayed at Sector 56, we actually got an opportunity to check out the society
where we lived right after our marriage and had some real great memories too. Met
with another Pilot friend (Sarfaraz Ansari) of mine was a classmate in Bhopal
KV, he became a dad just couple of days back while we were driving in valley –
met his just born cute daughter Sara and delivered One KG Rajma as desired by
his wife Shalini. This was such a funny moment – neither she nor we were serious
when just like that she said on our way up that “Get me a kg of Rajma when you
come back” and we indeed got it. We stayed in Gurgaon for quite a while
after marriage in year 2005 and as I remember correctly it felt secluded then
in the nights especially as there was hardly any public transport then. Even
now – I was a little taken aback when my friends daughter who was my daughters
classmate in Mumbai asked me for a short drive around the area in our car –
even 9.30 PM it felt like a little scary as I could hardly see any soul on the
road and with a couple of street lights not working it didn’t feel safe at all.
So much for the development and societies cropping up in the area – I couldn’t
believe that the situation wasn’t that rosy as it looks on paper. To my shock
another incidence shocked me to the core that too at a premium location in
Gurgaon as we went to pick up meet another friend who worked with HSBC – he
directed me to his office and as I parked my car right outside the HSBC Campus
– we saw a drunk guy walking towards our direction from the opposite side of
the road. Since it was night but the weather wasn’t that good – I kept the
engine as well as AC running in the car – hence the doors were locked. Suddenly
I saw this guy trying to open the passenger door – where my wife was sitting –
we were shell shocked – initially I thought he is holding the car door and
trying to clean his shoe with footpath or something but in a flash I realized
he actually wanted to open the door. As the car’s engine was running, I
released the handbrake immediately and put it on first gear trying to roll it
on the road to see if he lets go of the car – to my shock and amazement he
almost skidded but wasn’t letting the handle go – I speed up a little and he finally
fell on the road – immediately after 10 odd mtrs I took a U turn and this time
parked on the other side of the road in front of the HSBC entry gate manned by
two security guards to see if he comes back to my car. But the dude was
clueless of what he did and what happened with him – somehow he got up, and
started walking - banging on the pillars and whatever came on his way to
wherever he was going. And we took a big sigh of relief. Imagine what would
have happened if door wasn’t unlocked? And this all happened around 10.00 –
10.15 PM.
 |
| The BenchMates :) |
Time feels like flying when you
meet an old friend after ages, especially when that guy happens to be
Raghavendra Chinchore, this was the guy who I used to share my class bench with
for almost two years during our 10+2 commerce class. And now we were meeting
after so many years that neither his son nor my daughter believed (looking at
his size now) that we actually shared a bench in school. There was not a day
that we didn't meet for years. Now we don't meet for years yet whenever we do -
we laugh and talk like crazy with the memories. Nothing has changed but just
our looks differ a bit now. It’s damn good to see our families gelling so well
- especially when kids hang out together. We so much wish we could freeze the
time but all we did was eat, talk, eat, talk and then eat some more and talk
some more, laughed like crazy on our silly old jokes, named so many friends and
what not – it was so much fun but we had to move ahead with promises to meet
again and with plans of some vacation together.
 |
| Adi and Naina :) |
Day 11 (2nd July): Next day morning we had to meet one
of my colleagues from my earlier job in Delhi – I had a rocking time working in
Connaught Place – I still remember those days not so long ago when we used to
have so much fun at 11th floor of Tolstoy House. In life I have
learned one thing that you make so many friends and meet so many people but
there are so few of them who touch your heart big time and remain there. Again,
it doesn’t matter if we speak or don’t meet each other often but whenever that
happens – time just flies – since we had a couple of days spare during this
time – we almost met all of our friends and it was just fantastic. As we met my
ex colleague Sangeeta Arora in her newly built Gurgaon residence – it was fun
to see her mother’s shocking expressions when she actually realized that we had
come that far driving on our own. This happens with me at times when people
look at my size and the kind of trips we take – she saw the car in her parking
and wouldn’t believe why we did these crazy trips out of nowhere when we could
have done the same by Air, Bus or Train but I find it hard to explain to
everyone that the kind of freedom your own vehicle gives you whenever you visit
a city is simply outstanding. Spent almost half a day with her and as Punjabis
are famous for over stuffing their guests – I tell you Punjabis are worlds best
hosts I guess second to no one but Gujarati’s (I’m Sure). In our books no trip
to Delhi is complete unless you visit Noida as that’s where I did my PG from
and kick started my career. How could I miss out on my car freak friend Rajiv
Chhabra who actually owns a Car Spares business and my best friend Amit Mishra
who stays at a stone’s throw away from this guys shop? Rajiv actually had a
shop very next to my office from where I started my first job and we became
friends in 1996 just like that as I used to come down for a smoke and found him
smiling always at his business counter. He too is a road freak like me but his
responsibilities keep him tied down to his office and home as of now, otherwise
he could go on a cross country drive at a drop of a hat – I can never forget
one trip that we took in 1998 from Noida to Agra (Taj Mahal) that too in his
Maruti 800 with 7 guys on board – just imagine what kind of a wild fun we had
during that trip.
Noida: Amit Mishra and Kiran Mishra with their darling super
intelligent son Arnav are a very important part of our life – I guess not a day
goes by that we do not talk – one way or the other. He too works with a US
based consulting firm – hence our office timings are almost same and we are
always online to pass each other’s time in between some serious business. If
you remember I mentioned earlier that I had stuffed our bean bag behind first
row of seats so my kiddo won’t slide down and fall while braking? We forgot
that at his place J
- now we’ve got to pick up our bean bag in our next trip to Delhi and I am sure
they must be taking good care of our much loved bean bag. I believe just
because the Kargil road was closed and we couldn’t wait any longer for it to
open and had to start back our journey – we had so much spare time to spend
with our friends – it actually became a blessing of sorts – as we had never
ever met so many friends during any of our visits anytime in the past. Met
another darling friend Gurpreet Kaur at Amit’s place but for a very short while
over a cup of tea n snacks but this meeting was much awaited as well. As I said
earlier – the world has become so small (all thanks to social media) that one doesn’t
realize unless you meet people in real that we haven’t met a lot of people who
have become a very important part of our daily life. She was so much fun to
talk and to be with that I just can’t sum up in a para, looking forward to meet
her soon during one of her Mumbai trips soon.
Noida to Ghaziabad: Once in Delhi do as the Delhites do. Alok
Ranjan is one heck of a friend – a terrific businessman but has always been a
part of my permanent advisory team when it comes to seeking serious advice on
taking a home loan – which car to buy etc. He and his darling wife Namrata were
a superb host – I loved the Johny Walker he served with fantastic snacks and
the best part was to take a peek at his newly married life in a brand new
apartment in Ghaziabad. Some people I tell you know exactly how to live life
and keep their homes spick and span – they are one of the best in those
departments and we need to learn a lot from them. A perfect proverb to describe
my friend Alok will be – “Live Life King Size”. And then we
had to meet my dear friend Akhil Sharma – who worked with me in Mumbai for over
a year and a half – more than him I guess we wanted to meet his wife and cute
son “Setu” – oh my god! I just can’t put it in words how cute he is and what
amazing time pass guy he turned out to be, super intelligent at under one year
age and a total entertainment. We the people of India can definitely teach the
world “How to kill people by serving them awesome food and by making them eat
all that” - Period. This refers to all of the friends we visited during
this trip and who made me help gain a couple of kilos which I guess is big need
of the hour for me.
Day 12 (3rd July 2013): This was a rest day which was to
be spent at the company of Mr. Amit Mishra in Noida. Now Amit is such a
fabulous singer that if he would have ever participated in “India’s Got Talent” or “Indian
Idol”, we would have proudly declared almost a million times by now
that we know that guy. Or I would rather not be blogging about my road trips
but I guess would have been busy managing his business. But alas! He is such a
laid back and easy going guy that he actually never takes any of his talents
seriously. May it be singing or debating a topic from any side – I guess he is
one of those guys who can successfully debate on a topic like “Social
Media – A Boon or A Curse” from both the sides and trust me – the judge
will be confused to decide which one deserved the award in the end. I still
have a couple of his and my favorite songs recorded on my machine in his
terrific voice. But as they say – nobody is perfect – our Mishraji too has a
flaw – he doesn’t drink ;) – you see if someone drinks – they become a better company
nevertheless he had always been a terrific friend and always will be, so is his
wife a furious cook and host – I’ve got to add. A lot of our common friends
refer to her with that name – she talks like a bullet train going on full
speed, cooks as if god has given her half a dozen hands but cares for everyone
in such a way that’s simply incomparable with anyone. But as every good thing
comes to an end sooner – our time had come to an end too as we had to hit back
the highway and reach home by Saturday evening to relax for a day before going
back to our regular lives on Monday morning. It was time to bid good bye to
Delhi and a set of superb friends.
Day 13 (4th July 2013): As we had learned from our
experience while coming from Jaipur to Delhi that the highway was really in bad
condition with so many diversions – we took a precaution by starting from Delhi
a day prior and thought of rather taking a day’s break in Jaipur than trying to
do a straight Delhi to Udaipur trip like the way we did while coming. Although
the distance was only 240 odd kms hence we started easy after breakfast – on
the way back for some reasons I felt diversions were less in comparison to the
other side of the same road still the average speed wasn’t that much still we
reached Jaipur around 4.30 PM and as my wifey’s cousin bought a new flat at the
outskirts of the city we decided to take a look at the property. I had visited Jaipur
earlier on couple of my official trips from Delhi hence I wasn’t very keen on
going around the town sightseeing but all I wanted to do was to eat some real
good “Pyaaz
Ki Kachori’s” and the stuff that’s Jaipur is famous for. I guess an
Indian Airlines Pilot (Lady of course) lost her job for those Kachori’s have
made them more famous now, which was all over the news not so long ago.
Fortunately her cousin too is a big time foodie and she took us to the right
place where we almost got everything under one roof – it was a superb open air
restaurant with ample of space for kids to play around while we gorged on some
of the fantastic dishes. We started with Hot Kachoris, followed by Pakoda’s and
then I picked up like 3 plates of Jalebi’s to which everyone gave me looks as
if I was doing a crime and – the plates were emptied by the same people in no
time at all. So much for the calories – you see. Spending a night with
relatives and cousins is like a perfect time to do the data transfer that we
all keep adding up in memory bank for years. Once a year if you just meet one
of them – is good enough to keep you posted about the ongoing news and updates
for the whole clan I guess – that’s how it works in India for sure. Time
permitting I would have loved to catch a movie at “Raj Mandir” the iconic movie
theater of the city, but I guess I wasn’t destined to do that this time. But
before we bid good bye to Jaipur – wifey did another wonderful thing that I
love her for – she picked up two packs of Kachori’s with 10 in each pack.
 |
| @ Udaipur Resort |
Day 14 (5th July 2013): On the way back we decided to
skip Udaipur and thought of staying over at Ahmedabad instead which was 650+
KMs from Jaipur and we would have covered half the distance or more to Mumbai
by then. We stopped over at the same exact place for lunch where we got stuck
in Jam right before Udaipur and decided to try the same resort we called a week
back for our stay over in case the jam lasted too long. It was a huge resort inside
out but with bad service and very average food – thank god we didn’t stay there
for a night. The only good thing about the resort was that they had a huge
collection of ducks – which my kiddo liked and played with them for a while
before we hit back the road to our last stop – Ahmedabad. Now, we’ve been to
Ahmedabad multiple times as one of my best buddies from school time stays and are
settled in the city. On our couple of road trips to Gujarat too we stayed with
them and had a ball of a time. The city has so much to do for someone who is
visiting for the first time – but since we’d been there and done that multiple
times – we decided to spend the time with friends and family – indoors. Kids
caught up with the movie on a TV channel while we enjoyed the discussion about
the trip.
 |
| The Closing OdoMeter Reading :) |
Day 15 (6th July 2013): Home Sweet Home! It’s always an
amazing feeling to come back home – no two things about it. And especially
after a long long trip – it’s always a pleasure to hit back home. Since this
was the last leg of our trip – we were in no hurry to hit back home – started
from Ahmedabad in a relaxing manner around 8.00 AM – had our brunch at Sugar n
Spice – one of our favorite outlet right before Kamrej. The weather after
leaving Ahmedabad was again wet all the way to Mumbai – faced a lot of rains
and it was a pleasant feeling. The usual traffic on the six lanes – didn’t get
stuck anywhere fortunately – even at Bharuch junction it was pretty moving
traffic and reached Mumbai exactly at 5.22 PM. This was a sheer coincidence
that we started this trip on the Sunday morning two weeks back at 5.24 AM and
ended it on a Sunday evening at 5.22 PM – Exact 5456 KMs driven.
Summary (My last Facebook update at the closing of the trip): “Driven
Total 5456 km in 15 days. Travelled across 7 states and stayed in a dozen
cities, saw and experienced so much from 6 lane expressways to fantastic single
road and dangerous drive between Jammu and Srinagar. Tried all the tricks in
the trade to get across Kargil and Leh - guess it wasn't destined this time
around, Had a hell of a great time with wifey and kiddo - they have finally
experienced how to live by the car , sleepover and move by early morning. Guess
we will be planning another long drive but to the south this time around, may
be "Kanyakumari" so we can claim that we've driven the "length
of India"? This was one of the longest drives of our life with just a
minor scratch and one flat tyre to remember other than heavenly memories and
fantastic time spent with some kool old friends”.
Distance covered and daily drives:
Day 1: Mumbai to Udaipur (789
KM).
Day 2: Udaipur to Gurgaon (650 KM).
Day 3: Gurgaon to Amritsar (458 KM).
Day 4: Amritsar to Jammu (206 KM).
Day 5: Jammu to Srinagar (295 KM).
Day 6: Local Srinagar.
Day 7: Local Srinagar.
Day 8: Srinagar to Katra to Jammu (265 + 47 KM).
Day 9: Jammu to Gurgaon (616 KM).
Day 10: Gurgaon.
Day 11: Gurgaon.
Day 12: Noida and Ghaziabad.
Day 13: Noida to Jaipur (281 KM).
Day 14: Jaipur to Ahmedabad (669 KM).
Day 15: Ahmedabad to Mumbai (509 KM).
Day 2: Udaipur to Gurgaon (650 KM).
Day 3: Gurgaon to Amritsar (458 KM).
Day 4: Amritsar to Jammu (206 KM).
Day 5: Jammu to Srinagar (295 KM).
Day 6: Local Srinagar.
Day 7: Local Srinagar.
Day 8: Srinagar to Katra to Jammu (265 + 47 KM).
Day 9: Jammu to Gurgaon (616 KM).
Day 10: Gurgaon.
Day 11: Gurgaon.
Day 12: Noida and Ghaziabad.
Day 13: Noida to Jaipur (281 KM).
Day 14: Jaipur to Ahmedabad (669 KM).
Day 15: Ahmedabad to Mumbai (509 KM).
Total Distance Travelled: 5456 KM which includes close to 650+ Km
of local drives in all of those cities – that’s one of the advantages of going
anywhere in your own car.
Best and worst Mileage: The best
mileage that we got was during the drive between Mumbai to Jaipur (Around 19.26
KMPL) and the worst that we got was during the drive between Jammu and Srinagar
(Around 15.29 KMPL) – checked the mileage by Full Tank to Full Tank method. Total
fuel burnt during the entire trip was worth INR 16041/- (Only) that’s slightly lesser
than the cost of three return air tickets to Delhi from Mumbai.
Points to ponder: A road trip is a
fantastic way to spend some real good quality time with your own family – I
just can’t put it in any better way than those 21 pages you have seen up above
– what all we talked, joked, laughed, argued, fought, dissected, sanged and not
is something we will talk or laugh lifelong now. Amazing food right from
Gujarat to Rajasthan to the best in Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir. 16 GB of
music in a pen drive was a blessing – as soon as kiddo and wifey will doze over
– I will hit back on Guns N Roses and other hardcore rock stuff – totally amazing
driving with those guys singing in your ears. A DSLR is what we missed during
this trip. This was The best trip we ever had and hope to do it again in May
2015 (As planned again) and finish it off this time by hitting Leh – If we do –
you will read about it in two years from now.
PS: Right after we came back - I got myself (my third) Tattoo on my left forearm saying "Amour De Conduire", I guess I earned it after this drive :)
PS: Right after we came back - I got myself (my third) Tattoo on my left forearm saying "Amour De Conduire", I guess I earned it after this drive :)
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