The Touring Diary

Pangong Tso to Chushul to Leh Disclaimer: All the photos posted for this day have been captured by Sunil sir. I had many pictures for the day but I lost it somehow. Big thanks to Sunil for clicking such nice snaps even though going through the hardships of the M-Top More pics clicked by Sunil: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/hianusunil/SunilHim# I have watermarked the pictures just to save piracy and not to take away credits from him for the pictures. Next morning we woke and again our aim was to start early and cross that stream on the way which made us stay overnight at Pangong only. I and sunil sir decided to change the engine oil and the oil filter mainly because of the treacherous ride the previous day when the bike was almost running above 6k RPM. I drained the oil and tried opening the oil filter, to my surprise the oil filter was totally broken in pieces. First the metal strips enclosing the sides of the filter came then the filter net and then the other things came out. Th...

Day 8 the D-day why? Because this was day we had planned to visit the most beautiful, The Pangong Tso Lake , and the toughest of all terrains where a bike can go, The mighty Marsmikla/ Marsimik la (unofficially the highest motorable pass of the world, situated at the altitude: 18634ft ). One of the best links on the net related to Marsmik la: http://www.60kph.com/interact/marsimekla_tips.htm Pangong Tso links: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangong_Tso - Leh – Pangong Tso Travel Guide Disclaimer: All the photos posted for this day have been captured by Sunil sir. I had many pictures for the day but I lost it somehow. Big thanks to Sunil for clicking such nice snaps even though going thro ugh the hardships of the M-Top More pics clicked by Sunil: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/hianusunil/SunilHim# I have watermarked the pictures just to save piracy and not take away credits from him for the pictures. We woke up at 6 and started packing things. By 6:30 we had reached Paagal Naala. There ...

So again back to the road. Today we had planned for reaching Pangong Tso which was around 102Kms from Leh. The biggest hurdle for reaching there was the dreaded stream called "Pagal Naala". this stream, in fact all the streams in Himalayas, would be going through the rideable roads and its characteristics will be, you can cross the stream with ease in the mornings till noon around 2 o clock after which the it would be impossible to cross it. The reason being the snow in the mountain peaks would have melted by noon which will inundate even a small stream. Hence we had to cross the Pagal Nala before 12 o clock. Keeping this in mind we wanted to start early. Even if the 100kms sounds very easy to do but it is not easy in the mountains to cover even this small distance. The bikes won't go fast, the rider also is not at ease if he isn't acclimatized well with the high altitude and to add to that pathetic roads and sometimes no roads itself. We asked our scorpio driver to ...