[Vasuki]

Originally Posted by Ketan

I see Purne is around 4800m and Padum is around 4550m of altitude. We would have spent a night and day at Gemur/Jispa (3250m) the previous night before reaching Purne for acclimatization purpose and we would be crossing Shinku La pass (5100m) before reaching Purne or Padum.
If we can halt at Purney, we (wife and I, parents may not be able to trek) would be visiting Pukhtar Gompa during the stay and I have also heard that Purne to Padum is a good 5 hours travel.
Please let me know your views. Thank you.

Always it is better to attain less height in a day. So my take is Padum would be better. The general thumb rule is to scale a maximum of 1000 meters a day. We covered this route in XUV500 last September, it was pretty tough, needed some help from the army guys after Purne.

Please look at this link by Devil on Wheels, he on the contrary advises Purne : Source

[SJM1214]

Originally Posted by TheVaas

Are there any homestays at Karzok? The plan is to Hanle - Tso Moriri (Karzok) and maybe stay back before proceeding to Leh.

There are plenty of GHs available in Korxak, which are like homestays. Moreover, there are some camp stays are also available.

[TheVaas]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

I looked it up on google and yes, there do seem to be homestays right next to Tso Moriri. What are your dates?

Yeah google says and has been confirmed by SJM1214. Mid July is what we're aiming for Hanle- Umling La - Hanle - Tso Moriri - Leh stretch. Will update you on exact dates once confirmed via PM or WA

[touring_spirit]

Originally Posted by logicalidiot

Oh, I thought it was only the Manali/HP registered rental bikes which are not allowed within Ladakh but the rental bikes from other regions are allowed. Is that not the case? I had been thinking (in bold because this has been in my bucketlist since long but never materialized) of a roadtrip to Ladakh on motorcycle this year, thought of flying down to Delhi/Chandigarh and get a rental. Bringing a motorcycle all the way from South for a 2 week trip doesn't really make sense.

You can take your own bike to Delhi as luggage via train and on the return to ship your bike as parcel(In NCR stations you need to have a confirmed ticket to send your bike as parcel, cheapest ticket will do . Need to write on this ordeal ).

Else like the best solution will be to fly to Leh like Red_Liner said. You will get fairly new to just out of showroom bikes if you are lucky(with less than 1000 kms on the odo). This being season costs will be on the higher side than usual. A piece of advice would be to carry your own safety gear if you want to save some on the rental.

Cheers

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by Ketan

Hello Folks, is there a big difference in terms of staying a night at Purne versus staying a night at Padum, in order to ensure not getting AMS symptoms? I see Purne is around 4800m and Padum is around 4550m of altitude. We would have spent a night and day at Gemur/Jispa (3250m) the previous night before reaching Purne for acclimatization purpose and we would be crossing Shinku La pass (5100m) before reaching Purne or Padum.
I'm asking this question since I'll be travelling with parents (no medical history related to cardio or respiratory issues) so trying to be careful about the places where we halt for night.
If we can halt at Purney, we (wife and I, parents may not be able to trek) would be visiting Pukhtar Gompa during the stay and I have also heard that Purne to Padum is a good 5 hours travel.
Please let me know your views. Thank you.

Hey Ketan, this sounds a bit risky to me from AMS standpoint so try and stay at as low a place as possible. Each person might have a different experience but recently on my trip, Tangste near Pangong was our 8th night stop and the highest point for night stay. Both myself and daughter did get AMS after the night stay and only improved after we got to Leh. I drove through CHang La with the symtoms.

[88_TANK_88]

I am currently at Sonamarg and its raining heavily. The plan is to head towards Kargil tomorrow. I hope the route and traffic remains open in the morning. Hotel tariifs are quite high ad availability quite low. This being a weekend and peak season rolled into one.

To recap:
I left Dehradun on the morning of 2nd June and drove till Udhampur. The roads were fine and we made good time. Stayed there for the night at Hotel Singh Axis.
From Udhampur, traffic was opened at 8 am. citing construction activities ahead by traffic police. Traffic was OK and we crossed Srinagar around 1 pm. Reached Sonamarg around 03:30. Topped up fuel and decided to stay. I will post further reports when at Kargil. I hope this helps anyone following similiar routes.

[Wanderers]

Reached Leh via Jammu and Srinagar. Left Dal lakeside at 5 in the morning and checked in hotel in leh at 5 in the evening. Pretty smooth sailing as traffic was surprisingly less all the way. No rain, sunshine and hot at quite a few place.

[Josh]

Originally Posted by Apratim_Choudhu

Chandigarh to Srinagar on same day may be difficult as Chandigarh to Jakheni, Udhampur checkpost is about 400km and the cutoff for entry is 1pm. Similarly if you take Jammu route the cutoff at Nagrota is 12pm.
i

Are there 2 routes from Chandigarh to Srinagar? Which one is better?

[JohnnyBoss]

Originally Posted by Wanderers

Reached Leh via Jammu and Srinagar. Left Dal lakeside at 5 in the morning and checked in hotel in leh at 5 in the evening. Pretty smooth sailing as traffic was surprisingly less all the way. No rain, sunshine and hot at quite a few place.

Have you got enough time for stops at key points on the route for photography and food/bio breaks? Helpful for the members if you could kindly share the details of the journey from Srinagar to Leh here.

[Wanderers]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

kindly share the details of the journey from Srinagar to Leh here.

We started from dal lake little after 5 am. Beautiful morning drive. I did not stop but you can if did not had time to do so before.

https://youtu.be/sHlWjjoL6tM

Next you can stop at Sonmarg for tea etc but I did not see anything open at 7:30 AM. Best is to drive to Zozila top (zero point) and have tea. We had 10 min stop only.

https://youtu.be/efqU6AO2nUc

We did 20 min stop at river bed, probably Jhelum river. We had dry breakfast which we carried along with dip tea made in car.

https://youtu.be/AYNdJUzQxGU

Next comes drass (3.5-4 hrs drive from Dal lake) and you have plenty of option for break-fast option but we already had before.

Just after crossing drass town you see Kargil war memorial. We stopped for 30 min here.

The actual kargil town likes 50 km ahead, which has plenty of option. You can refuel either at Drass (a petrolpump just before war memorial) or in Kargil town. The former is prefered as you can bypass kargil town in that case. We did not need to refuel but we missed the bypass but did not encounter any traffic although one-way is enforced by police on duty and you can follow google here.

The scenic drive starts soon after Kargil when you drive from one pass to another. Good road and plenty of photo points. We stopped at 3 places including bio-brakes. 10 mins at each.

We had another photo stop just when we entered leh plain, straight road like runway with hills all around.

We did not stop at any other place but you can stop at Gurudwara just before leh.

Overall expect 12-13 hours drive with all of above stops. There are two of us driving so it was a bit easy otherwise take some more breaks. The route is absolutely safe, good road and easily doable in night. Here sunset only after 7:30 so 9-10 pm is pretty early evening as such. Things could be different if rains but I don’t thing road quality is dependent on rain except in Zojila.

[88_TANK_88]

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

Have you got enough time for stops at key points on the route for photography and food/bio breaks? Helpful for the members if you could kindly share the details of the journey from Srinagar to Leh here.

Navigation by google maps is more or less accurate as far as time is considered. You can plan accordingly.
For eg. Leave Srinagar early, breakfast in Sonamarg, lunch around Kargil and Dinner at Leh. The drive would be long but with enough breaks, it is doable.

[vishrutjai]

Is it useful/helpful to get nitrogen filled in tyres before doing long trips like Delhi - Ladakh? I drive a Kia seltos and generally use regular air

[streetfighter]

Originally Posted by vishrutjai

Is it useful/helpful to get nitrogen filled in tyres before doing long trips like Delhi - Ladakh? I drive a Kia seltos and generally use regular air

Nitrogen is better in terms of sustaining temperature variations (i.e. it will expand and compact less in comparison). Also Nitrogen helps to keep tires run cooler and may prevent blowouts. Most of the claims are just theories though.
Note that normal air contains 78% nitrogen; unless a reliable filling station gets it up to 98%, I don't think there will be any benefit. (Personally I think this nitrogen filling thing is a scam unless you find a reliable filling station).

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by Wanderers

Overall expect 12-13 hours drive with all of above stops. There are two of us driving so it was a bit easy otherwise take some more breaks. The route is absolutely safe, good road and easily doable in night. Here sunset only after 7:30 so 9-10 pm is pretty early evening as such. Things could be different if rains but I don’t thing road quality is dependent on rain except in Zojila.

Originally Posted by JohnnyBoss

Have you got enough time for stops at key points on the route for photography and food/bio breaks? Helpful for the members if you could kindly share the details of the journey from Srinagar to Leh here.

Srinagar to Leh is actually doable in 12 hrs if all the touristy stuff is skipped. Roads are outstanding except for ZojiLa.

However based on my recent experience its best done with a stopover at Kargil in 2 days since it allows for relaxed driving, countless breaks since the views are breath taking. Also from Kargil to Leh there are many beautiful monasteries with rich history which are worth a visit. Mulbekh and Lamayuru are the popular ones, but there are a few lovely ones which are bit off the main road and require some more driving.

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by vishrutjai

Is it useful/helpful to get nitrogen filled in tyres before doing long trips like Delhi - Ladakh? I drive a Kia seltos and generally use regular air

Originally Posted by streetfighter

Nitrogen is better in terms of sustaining temperature variations (i.e. it will expand and compact less in comparison). Also Nitrogen helps to keep tires run cooler and may prevent blowouts. Most of the claims are just theories though.
Note that normal air contains 78% nitrogen; unless a reliable filling station gets it up to 98%, I don't think there will be any benefit. (Personally I think this nitrogen filling thing is a scam unless you find a reliable filling station).

In general you need to worry about temperature if you are doing long high speed highway drives during peak summers. During the recent BLR Leh trip my car's tire temp were much higher on planes hitting 62-63 degrees when outside temp was 45 deg, where as once I hit himalayas it stayed around 50 due to slow speeds and reduced ambient temp.

NOw coming to topic of benefit of nitrogen, I have always used air in my cars but recently before the trip I had put new tires and filled nitrogen completely. I could certainly see a perceptible difference in tire pressure. From cold to hot temp change, tire pressure only went up by 2-3 points, where with normal air they it would go up by upto 5-6 points in the past.