Day 9 - Srinagar to Khargil

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Got up at about 4am and got ready and packed everything on the bikes and were ready by 6 am. Left the house boat area by 6:20am and fueled up all the bikes and hit the Sonamarg road.

Had breakfast at a dhaba at 8am. Then started riding and reached sonamarg by about 10am.
Sonmarg was beautiful with lot of greenery and plenty of white snow all over. There were pleanty of ponies everywhere and a little crowded with tourists.

After crossing sonamarg just before entering the zojila pass an army jawan stopped us saying we can’t go further as the pass is blocked and we need to wait. Just then another jawan by name “Thulasi reddy” came and started talking to us recognizing our number plates to be from Karnataka. He told us that he is from Bangalore and he was posted here about 6months ago. He told the other jawan since we were on bikes we could be allowed. It took us almost 2 hours to cross Zojila pass of just 12-15kms. On both sides of zojila pass Lorries there were atleast 200 vehicles most of them trucks parked each side. Some of the truck guys even pulled out gas cylinders and filled their cookers with ice to start cooking as they were not sure how long it would take for them to move from the spot. That’s life on these high ways.

The entire stretch was so beautiful. The snow peaks which we had seen from sonmarg when we were at the foot of the hills were below us after just a couple of hours when we passed zojila pass and reached the top of the hill. We passed zojilla pass at 11800ft. Took a lot of photographs and played with snow. Later passed tiger hill where the kargl war had taken place in 1999. Later reached Drass @ 2pm and had lunch and started and reached Kargil by about 5pm.

We took more than 10 hours to do the stretch of 199kms between Srinagar and Kargil. The road was really gruesome it was quite taxing on our bodies and we freshened up as soon as we checked into Hotel D’ Zojila at kargil. Later we had dinner and slept a little early at 9:45pm.

The total Odo is reading 1259

Photos of Day 9

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=pottumarthi&target=ALBUM&id=5624400667657869681&authkey=Gv1sRgCND69IHSjKTh7wE&feat=email

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