July 15th 2008
We woke up at 6am; we had to cover a distance of around 140km to Srinagar via bad roads and the treacherous Zozila pass and before that we had to go via the border route i.e the highway passed close to the Indo-Pak border at some places. We also decided to visit the Drass War Museum which stands as the only testimony of the kargil war in 1999.
We had our breakfast and packed our bags and checked out of the room and started ahead. The road was very small and treacherous with the river on one side and the cliffs on the other. Purvesh and others tanked up at a petrol pump just 2km ahead of Kargil. Drass was around 40km ahead.
We had to encounter numerous army truck convoys that were coming from the opposite direction so we had to stop at many places to let them pass. We met a couple of soldiers who wished us luck and asked us as to where we were going. We drove ahead and reached Drass and the museum and went inside. The museum is the only testimony of the kargil war and lists the sacrifices of all the soldiers who fought the war. There are interesting photographs too in the museum. We had our photo sessions inside and came out and took photos with Mr.Patil a soldier who was from Maharashtra and another jawan who was guarding the museum there.
We started ahead and we could see Tololing hill and the Tiger hill where the historic battles of Kargil were fought in 1999 and went ahead passing Drass town and ahead. We stopped at a point where there was shade and water and had homemade laddus and chiwada there, here too Nikhil dropped his key when he parked his bike and I took the key again and we had a great time sitting there and having the stuff and drinking water. Srinagar was merely now 80km away.
Now Nikhil started searching for his key again and we let him do the search for sometime before giving it back to him and he promised again that he would be careful…let’s hope he does!
We started ahead and the road started deteriorating. We passed the kargil army school which was a training area for soldiers with huge cliffs on either side. We reached some place ahead where the road worsened and was reduced to rubble and mud and the BRO was working to make it motor able. I was alone and as usual Amit was ahead of me and then we were suddenly into a beautiful valley with a great road. Going ahead we could see we were approaching the Zozila pass and came to a military post where the jawan seeing us smiled talked to us and let us ahead. We started climbing the Zozila pass termed as one of the most harshest and treacherous pass but as the climate was sunny the road was hard but was bumpy so we went along slowly. We were on top of the pass in about 40 mins and were going down when we were stopped by an army convoy again. Huge tanks and bofors guns were being taken by the army guys to somewhere and it was well guarded by machine gun toting soldiers who pointed their gun at the slightest movement of anyone on any side.
Stopping there we saw Baltal, a campsite for Amarnath and Amit started saying that lets visit Amarnath today and then go ahead. It took a lot of time to tell him that it requires a government permit and many hassles and then he agreed to go ahead. We were descending the pass and saw that the road had improved considerably. Once we were below were in the Kashmir valley now and the town was Sonamarg. We stopped at a roadside hotel and had a nice snack of bread/butter and chai and then started ahead for Srinagar. The time reading 4.15pm. The road ahead was amazing and we ripped at 80kmph with Amit leading the way. In the valley we could see a machine gun toting CRPF personnel every 200m. Really it was scary and it reminded of what we keep on reading about Kashmir day in and day out. These guys make the place safe as the safest of the fortresses can be and we owe them our lives all the time.
We made good time and reached around 10km before Srinagar and finally near a chowk where we decided to stop and wait for the others to come in. A traffic policeman came near us and started talking to us there and he was very cordial and friendly and asked us how we felt about the state and all. He and we started discussing topics of interest , politics and stuff like friends and he always used to say that all that we read was nonsense about the place, that place is very peaceful and only the politicians make it bad. Those policemen took a fancy for Amit who chatted away unmindfully of the time and like friends with them!
Finally Purvesh arrived but not before going ahead and tracing his way back again to the spot where we had stopped and he had an accident in the middle when some thelawala dashed him but thankfully it wasn’t fatal. In Srinagar we could see that every car would stop for a walking pedestrian and enquire if they could drop the person somewhere. I never had experienced such a thing anywhere in India where people were so friendly and reassuring.
In Srinagar too there was heavy presence of Army and CRPF personnel reminding us of the tension in the Valley.
Everyone came and Purvesh called up a contact in there who had arranged for our stay in a house boat on Dal Lake. We started and saw the Dal Lake it was very huge and we had to get to Dal Gate so we had to circumvent the lake on the bike around 15km ahead to get to Dal Gate and stopped on the road side waiting for that contact to come and receive us and guide us to the houseboat.
It was a sight with us on bikes fully loaded with luggage and everyone staring at us and asking us questions as to from where we came and where were we going. Finally the contact came and we took out our luggage at the boat post. We had to travel in a boat to get to the houseboat which was in the middle of the lake. So we unloaded our entire luggage and sent them ahead with Deepak and Vishal and we parked our bikes for the day at the parking and came back to board another boat which took us to the houseboat. I am usually wary of water and always fear the worst when travelling in a boat like it may tilt over and push us all in the water. Nothing like that happened and we were on our houseboat which was a posh one.
The owner of the houseboat was very friendly and told us that the house boat rates had reduced owing to the current Amarnath fiasco going on. It was around 12k for a day but now reduced to 3k per day! We asked the owner to prepare simple veg food of dal and rice and asked him to call us as soon as it was done. Our contact bid us goodbye and went away promising to come next day to help us send our bikes in transport back home.
We had a good time in the houseboat and freshened up and went for dinner which was simple but tasty and came back for sleep. Discussing stuff we called it a day at around midnight.
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