July 17th 2008.
Morning we woke up at 4am and packed our stuff, freshened ourselves and took our bags out. We waited for some time for the boat to come and we could see our Sumo also coming on the mainland. We reached the mainland and loaded our bags onto the Sumo and started for Jammu around 4.45am. We made good speed and stopped for breakfast at Qazigund around 60km ahead. Jammu was still around 233km ahead.
Starting ahead we made good speed and reached the famous point of the Jawahar tunnel where we had to stop for the 8am time for the army to let in the vehicles to the tunnel. The road finally opened and we entered the tunnel and came out from the other side. All along the highway army patrols moved and checked everyone.
We reached the ghat area and the road was good via the mountain passes ahead. We stopped at a place near Ramban for some more snacks and went ahead. The road was full of twisties ahead and the driver was merrily driving overtaking slow vehicles and going on at full speed. We reached Patni top in no time but the traffic was heavy with heavy vehicles all over the road to Jammu and ahead. We reached Udhampur around 50km before Jammu and stopped again for some snacks.
The climate in Jammu too was too humid and suffocating. We entered Jammu town at around 1.30pm and the driver instead of dropping us at the station dropped us at the bus stand citing reasons that the RTO authorities do not allow private vehicles at the station. Damn! We took a van to the railway station got down there and waited for Purvesh and Saurabh who went to the retiring room to get beds for us for the remaining time which we had to be at Jammu station. They came a short while later and we took our luggage to the room and freshened ourselves there. Our stomachs were growling with hunger so we went in groups of 3-4 out to have food. Me, Saurabh, Purvesh and Shailesh went to a hotel and had nice Punjabi food and came back visiting a mall on the way. The climate was still sultry and humid. We came back to the retiring room and rested and the others went out to have food.
We had good sleep for sometime before the others returned. The time read 5pm. I went outside the station to buy dry fruits for home and came back. We did sometimepass and it was 8.30pm now. Our train was scheduled at 9.45pm.
We packed our stuff and waited for the train. We came onto the platform at 9.30pm when the train came into the platform.We got into our bogie and found our seats and arranged our heavy bags and sat down in relief.
The train moved sharp at 9.45pm and we animatedly discussed stuff of mutual interest and did timepass before it was time to call it a day and we opened the berths and retired for the day.
A day of adventure on the road from Srinagar to Jammu and then the Jammu city onto the train now! We were going home in about 38-40 hours !!
Our bike trip had ended now!
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