[Part 4] Ride through Nubra Valley

Day 8: Nubra Valley

After relaxing day at Leh it was time to continue our adventurous ride. Since we dumped all our luggage’s in watch room, morning didn’t took more time to get ready and start our ride. We are all set at morning 6.00AM only, but daily one or the other thing was delaying our ride. This time it was bike problem, Bullet got puncher…!!! Since it was early morning it took almost 2 hours to find puncher shop, somehow Deepu & Vagee managed to find puncher shop.  By the time we fixed this it was around 9.00AM. Meanwhile we finished our breakfast in Leh and all set to start our ride to Nubra Valley.

Our first destination for the day was Khardung la Top. Khardungla Top is at an altitude of 5,602 meters (18380 feet) and is around 40 km from Leh. Journey from Leh to Khardungla was a good for first 30 Kms but next 10 Kms was painful; drive up on a winding road, interrupted by minor landslides, but by this time we were used to it…. 😃

Khardung la top is highest motorable road in the world. At that moment we were on top of the world… 😃 Sky was the only limit for us… 😃

Spend some time in photo session and playing with snow and continued our ride. It was not advisable to spend more time at this height. 

Don’t know what happened suddenly after crossing Khardung la top, most of us were feeling some drowsiness and even road was not good again for some 8 Kms. Once we crossed bad roads stopped for one quick break, relaxed for a while.

After crossing this stretch of 8 – 10 Kms roads are superb and it was awesome road with beautiful surrounding. Stopped near Sumur for lunch, by the time we reached Sumur it was around 3.00 PM, Population at this part of world is too less, hardly we will see people on road…!!! Thank god we found one restaurant and ordered for food. He said it will take minimum 1 hour to supply our orders.

It was perfect place for photo session; I thought of going for a ride and click some pics instead of wasting time in restaurant waiting for food. Only Guru joined me for photo session.

Got very good profile pics 😜, by the time we were back food was ready. Finished our lunch and headed towards Panamik Hot Spring.

Panamik is popular for a hot water spring. The village is situated at the final frontier of India, proximal to the Tibetan territory. The hot water spring is located on the outskirts of the village and the water of this spring is said to be curative, due to the presence of sulphur and other chemicals in it.

We headed towards Diskit Gompa which is around 33 Kms from Sumur. While coming back from Panamik village Guru sensed a problem in his bike. Now it was Guru’s bike turn to give problem. In plain road it was running fine but when we entered hair pin curves, pick up was completely dropped and it was not even moving an inch. Again Deepu tried to replace Spark plug, but it didn’t help. Now only option in front of us was to remove air filter and try. Removed air filter from his bike and started, finally it started moving. By the time we reached Diskit town, clock turned to 9.00PM.

Ullas reached before us and he managed to book hotel for us. Somehow we ended day 8 as per plan and reached our destination Diskit town.

Day 9: Diskit Gompa, Hunder

Plan for the day was to visit Hunder and go for Camel ride. But main challenge in front of us was Gurus bike and fuel constrain….!!! Searched for a mechanic shop in Diskit Town but didn’t find any mechanic shop. But for fuel we found petrol bunk (I guess it was built in 1947, by seeing condition of that petrol bunk I thought like that). It was fun & exercise time out in Petrol bunk.

This is how we filled petrol to our bikes… 😀 

It took more than 45 mins to fill petrol for our 5 bikes..!!!

Hunder is around 20Kms from Diskit Gompa, once we reached Hunder, it was again a different experience. Now we were at desert. But it is not like some other deserts, we found Water, greenery around and it was moderate temperature too.  

Some cricket match was going on when we reached and next to that few people were playing Volleyball. After some time we realized they were our Soldiers came out for short vacation. 

Hunder is famous for Camel Safari; we took camel safari for 15 mins. Depending on time duration they will charge for each ride. For 15 mins they will charge 200 per person. It was wonderful experience that was the first time I took camel safari.  

By the time we came back from camel safari, cricket match was over and it’s our turn to join them. Vagee, Guru & Sunil went and joined them in playing cricket. They were very friendly allowed us to join them in playing cricket and once we are done offered some cool drinks and snacks.

The setup for vacation what they did was awesome… 😀

Time spent out with soldiers was one of the memorable times of our life time… 😀

Said good bye to nice place and to awesome people and headed back to Diskit Gompa.  Diskit Gompa is the oldest and largest Buddhist monastery in the Nubra Valley of Ladakh.  Visited Budda statue in Diskit Gompa but didn't get time to visit Monastery. 

Now it’s time to go back to Leh, took the same route to reach back Leh. Till we reach Nubra valley it was flat road and didn’t faced much problem with bike. But when uphill started again tough time for us started….!!!

With all difficulty managed to cross Nubra valley, Deepu became expert of riding broken bikes and I became expert in pushing the bike from behind… :P 😜

By the time we reached Khardung la top again we were totally exhausted. Deepu and Guru visited to Military camp again and relaxed for a while.  Again our team got separated, Ullas and Sunil went ahead of us and we 4 left behind.

Finally somehow managed to reach Leh and directly went to mechanic shop and fixed the problem with bike. Took long time to fix the problem hence again we stayed at Leh only.

Best part of this ride was, ride on world’s highest motorable road and time spent with Soldiers at Hunder…😀