I have enough free cycles this weekend and have been getting frequent requests from fellow rider brothers on routes and questions on how to ride to Leh. I hope to detail down the basic Leh-Srinagar-Manali-Delhi circuit which is of a 18 day ride and hope to answer most of the questions that will be helpful to the First time rider to Leh.
PS: The FIRST ride to the Leh is the BEST :-) one will never forget it!
Well I did ride to Leh twice (When I say Leh It means Khardung La is the Destination, the Highest Motorable Road in the World) and couple of times in Lahul and Spiti.
What motorcycle is the best for this kind of ride?
Anything with 2 wheels and a motor will do! I prefer the Royal Enfield with the AVL engines! (The one on the Thunderbird and the Machismo)
The itinerary.
One will need 18 days to cover the below mentioned route plan, or can cut short few places and reduce it to 15 days. I did manage with a 10 working day leave that works out with pre pending and appending the weekends and one sick Leave!
The Basic Route.
Delhi - Ludhiyana - Pathankot - Udhampur - Srinagar - Kargil - (Leh)
Leh - Nubra Leh
Leh Pangong Tso Leh
Leh - Sarchu - Manali - Changigarh - Delhi
Now if one is not from Delhi, the biggest hurdle is to get your Motorcycle to Delhi in good shape! There are 3 options.
1. Ride to Delhi
2. Use a Courier service
3. Indian Railways
Of the three I always use the advice to use the second option Use a courier service like Gatti or SpeedAge, I had a good experience with the speedage guys are they are reasonable. The Gatti and the SpeedAge office is at Okhla (Delhi) from where you go and pick up your motorcycle.
TIP: If there are more than 2 motorcycles then you can get a deal on them, you have to bargain a bit.
TIP: Carry fuel when you go to collect your motorcycle.
TIP: Take a Clutch and Brake Yoke In case it gets broken in transit.
TIP: While packing when you remove the rear view mirrors, losen the yoke on both sides a little so you have a better chance of saving it.
Lets get back to the Route now.
Leg1: Start as early as possible from Delhi, before you hit traffic in Delhi. Ride till evening and possibly stop before night, It is not really recommended to ride at night unless you are racing to get there. (Well the best part is the Journey itself, so forget about the destination and enjoy the ride) Get breakfast from some good dhaba near Panipat or Karnal. Well stay at Ludhiyana or ride further it depends on how much more daylight you have. Any ways there is no hurry so there is no real need to rush to Pthankot, but Its your call! Listen to your Butt and back :)
Leg 2: Start Day2 ride early, Its going to be fun as you will hit the mountains and will be riding the mountains for the next 15 days! The Leg2 can be done in 2 days or if you are starting from Pthankot you can do this in one day. At Pthankot you hit the mountains.
You really don't have to go to Jammu unless you really want to, or else you can take a deroute and reach Udhampur. Udhampur is a really nice cheap mountain town, now either you can stay at Udhampur or you can ride to Srinagar.TIP: Do not ride to Srinagar too late, you will be asked so many questions by the cops and the Military.
One can spend a day at Srinagar at Dal (House Boat) it is worth it and don't forget to enjoy the food at Srinagar.
Leg 3: Srinagar - Kargil
Srinagar - Kargil is an awesome ride with two to three mountain passes to cross, the ZojiLa, FotuLa... make sure to start early, ZojiLa crossing is fun sometimes Military don't allow two way traffic, but make sure you cross ZojiLa as early as possible.
Places of interest on the way:Mattayan: Kargil war base camp, lots of memorials. Pay your respect to these brave men.
Drass: Second Coldest Inhabited place in the World
Magnetic Hill: Optical Illusion (check that out yourself)
From Kargil if you have 2 days more then one can explore Zanskar Valley, Zanskar is tough nice offroad and beautiful valley. After Zanskar you have to ride back to Kargil stay down for the night and then start to Leh the next day.
Leg 4: The next ride would be around 280kmts from Kargil to Leh. I bet this would be one of the most enjoyable ride, amazing scenic road green mountains fades away to grey and brown.
Guess if you start early by around 6am one should be easily in Leh by 5pm with enough photo breaks. Enjoy the mountain kingdom, read some books on Leh and its history :)Enjoy the food and hike to places of interest when in Leh, don't forget to try out Mutton Thuppa :)
Leg 5: Leh - Nubra Valley - Leh
On the Leh - Numbra route you will cross the Khargung La, the highest Motor-able road in the World. It is motly snowed all around the year.
TIP: Do not spend a lot of time at the KTop, headache hits soon because of lack of oxygen.
Ride down to Sumur and stay there, there is only one Hotel in Sumur, but mostly you will get a room to sleep there, No phone or cell phone range here till you reach back Leh.
Places to see around
Nubra desert: bactrian camels, high altitude desert sand dunes
Hot water Spring
Leg 6: Leh - Pangon Tso - Leh
Leh Pangon Tso is 150kmts, and no petrol pumps on the way so get your tank filled up to cover 300+kmts. You will cross the Mighty changLa en-route this is the Second highest Motorable Road in the World, a pretty tough challenging ride, get ready to see some snow at ChangLa.
TIP: Take the red route on the map below. Live Search gives you a longer route the blue one
Click to enlarge the map to see the place names. Spangmik does not have hotels, but one can find good cheap accommodation with homely food, in the village (well Spangmik village is just 5 houses ) I am not acting the spoil spot here, Pangong Tso is amazing! I cant explain one has to be there to see the mighty Pangong Tso.Well one really cant go from Kharu to Sarchu directly, because of unavailability of fuel en-route, so you have to head back to Leh.
Leg 7: Leh - Sarchu - Manali This is a two day ride with night stay at Sarchu, ride with crossing most of the mountain passes fun ride, the most tough ones are the BaralachaLa and Rothang Jot. Rothang is the shortest of all but geuss what It is really unpredictable when it rains there and when it fogs up really bad.
TIP: Don't do Rothang at Night, mostly It is fogged up and the Fog is "dense"
TIP: Tent camps at Sarchu is bloody expensive, so you can ride down to Bharathpur 30kmts from Sarchu to find some good cheap Tent camps, check out for 'Kathmandu Cafe' this is the last one that you see in a stretch of tents. (They are good friendly people, When you are there tell them my name 'Jayan' ;) )
Live Search route map, pretty accurate
Leg 9: Manali - Delhi
and back to Delhi! end of trip!
General Tips:
Luggage: Cramser or Panniers
Carry a Took Kit
Learn to Repair/Replace a Flat tire
some help here Flat HOWTO
AMS: carry diamox (Don't worry, Taking this route has a slower ascend rather ascending from Manali, so chances of AMS is minute)
Headache AMS related ( Diamox + Disprin) take twice a day, not more than that. (But I will strongly advice you consult your Doc before the trip)
Some useful Address and Information
SpeedAge Express Cargo Services
Dooravani Nagar, K.R. Puram, Bangalore East
Bangalore - 560 016, Ph: 32934596, 080-28514702
Manali
Hotel Beas (HPMC)
Just near the Bridge across Beas River
The Dove Nest
Hotel & Restaurant
Solang Valley, Solang Bridge
Manali - 175131
Distt. Kullu (HP) India
Srinagar
Lucky Peacock (Houseboat)
Ph: 0194-2459323
Leh
Overland Escape (Adventure Tour - Travel)
Tundip Dorjey
P.O. Box: 25, Fort Road
Leh, 194101, Ladakh, India
Nazer Inexpensive Adventure
Nazer View Guest House
Old Road Leh - 194101 Ladakh (J&K) India
Tel 91-1982-53083
