[laluks]

Day 23
3rd September 2011
Pathankot - Kishangad

More pictures from the two lane NH


Rajasthan was very green!


A camel fair going on








We zoomed on






continued...

[laluks]

Day 23
3rd September 2011
Pathankot - Kishangad

The sun began to set leaving a golden hue.

I was happy to see a Honda after so long. I also found a nice kiddie enjoying the drive.

Kiddie in a Honda


She doesn't like HVK Scorpio coming so close


Sun decided to hide behind the clouds, and I shut down the camera for the day


We reached Kishangarg by 20:00hours. We parked the Scorpio on a strategic incline to avoid the Battery problem. We took a room at Hotel Pangat (I am taking a guess-HVK correct me if I am wrong). The room was for Rs1000. HVK and me then went for hot dinner and retired back to the room. After some phone calls with BolBolero HVK tells me to sleep till 2AM. By then BolBolero will reach, we will give the room to them and leave to Mumbai by 2AM next day. That leaves me with 4 hours - I dozed off faster than I thought!!

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by laluks

Pathankot - Kishangad

Thanks for the detailed pics of the road condition on this section. As a Delhi resident, I don't foresee myself venturing onto this highway (unless I wanted to visit Amritsar and Ajmer on the same pilgrimage trip!), though I heard a lot of nice comments about it. Now you've actually shown how it looks.

[laluks]

Day 24
4rth September 2011
Kishangad - Mumbai

By 02:00AM, Bolobolero had reached the hotel. We gave the room to them and came down to the Scorpio. It refused to start, the battery issue was still not sorted out. The slope was not enough to jump start it. We immediately called BolBolero before he went to sleep. Me and BolBolero push started the Scorpio and off we went to Mumbai.

Some pictures enroute Kishangad Mumbai

There is an 80KM limit in this NH!

We are back into the rains.

How pleased I was to see a Civic after 24 days!! Very much missed mine

I saw a james Bond Driving a Garib Rath

It was almost sure that we were going to reach Mumbai before 5PM. My flights were booked for the next day afternoon in anticipation of any delays. Since we were early I tried preponing my flight to the night today. But there were no seats and the ones available were at a whopping 16K. So decided to cancel that plan.

HVK invited me to stay back at his residence for the night, and to meet his family. I have never met them and I took the invite and considered that as an honour to be with them. By 4:30PM we were near HVK's Residence. HVK stopped at his trusted battery shop and had a check on the scorpio.

By then HVK started getting a lot of SMS congratulating him on him reaching back on schedule. I was made to understand that there were a lot of people tracking HVK on Latittude and on some MMI software.

By 17:30 we enter HVKs residence and was greeted by Jr. HVK and Mrs. HVK. After the introductions, I took out my laptop to check whether it still had the issue with the hard disk at pathankot. To my surprise and happiness, it booted like a charm and we have got an opportunity to see all these pictures.

I kind off bored HVK family with my pictures and stories, while HVK was quickly getting in touch with the world through Facebook and TBHP updates.

We retired by 11:00PM and thus a great, epic travel has been executed to perfection.

[hvkumar]

HVK Scorpio
Aug 12, Bombay-Behror, 1402 kms
Aug 13, Behror-Rampur, 692 kms
Aug 14, Rampur-Chitkul, 144 kms
Aug 15, Chitkul-Pooh, 207 kms
Aug 16, Pooh-Kaza, 178 kms
Aug 17-19, Kaza, 291 kms
Aug 20, Kaza-Jispa, 236 kms
Aug 21, Jispa-Leh, 374 kms
Aug 22, Leh-Kargil, 343 kms
Aug 23, Kargil-Padum, 248 kms
Aug 24, Padum-Kargil, 275 kms
Aug 25, Kargil-Leh, 259 kms
Aug 26, Leh, 148 kms
Aug 27, 2011, Leh-Turtuk, 241 kms
Aug 28, 2011, Leh-Pangong Tso, 445 kms
Aug 29, 2011, Pangong-Hanle, 203 kms
Aug 30, 2011, Hanle-Tso Moriri, 188 kms
Aug 31, 2011, Tso Moriri-Keylong, 375 kms
Sep 1, 2011, Keylong-Chamba, 341 kms
Sep 2, 2011, Chamba-Pathankot, 158 kms

Sep 3, 2011, Pathankot-Kishangarh, 877 kms

NH15 between Pathankot & Amritsar is a lovely road by night but by day it can be quite a drudgery driving through the various small towns & dodging miscellaneous traffic. I was driving on this road after over 7 years! The last time I had driven on this route was when I was returning from Ladakh too, when I decided that I will go direct from the Pakistan border in Dras to the Pakistan border in Wagah, all in one day - and also descend from the cold high-altitude deserts of Ladakh to the hot deserts of Rajasthan (Bikaner & Jaisalmer) on my way back to Bombay.

It is nice to be driving on old-fashioned 2-laned highways, with trees lining both sides and simply wading through the towns & villages. In towns like Dinanagar (no bypasses), you can put out your hand & grab a few mangoes & apples from the fruit stall without the vendor noticing. We were definitely lucky that the population was still up and running as we passed these towns before 9 am.

Gurdaspur town - a bypass is indicated in the sign boards, as it did in the year 2004 too - and if you take it, you will end up at a dead end! You have to curve back to town, cross a messy level crossing - so maybe it is a better idea to simply go through the town itself.

I reached the Amritsar bypass at 930 am, not too bad for 120 kms on this road. The bypass is a good one. Take a right and you can go off towards the border at Wagah. Go straight into Amritsar town. Take a left and you are pointed to Jalandhar on NH1 - and this is the road I took, since I had to link up with the other side of NH15 without entering the Amritsar city. You can go on this way and take a small link road that takes you directly to the Taran Taran/ Faridkot road, as the NH15 is called. In under 15 minutes, we are out of Amritsar zone and speeding through the green fields of Punjab.....

[laluks]

Day 25
5th September 2011
Mumbai - Bangalore

I was allowed to sleep all the way till 10:00AM since there wer no targets, and that I required such a rest too to set the clock for the next days. I woke up lazily only to see HVK busy on his phone and internet doing the things we know him for. Guiding the next expedition of some one some where!

I took some time to catch up with the news. It was a Monday, Mrs. HVK had already left for her work, and Jr. HVK for his studies.

By afternoon, HVK organised a cab to drop me at the airport. Said bye to HVK and started to the airport. A few kilometers done, the cab driver gets a call. He grins and tells me I have left my mobile at HVKs place. We return back to collect it.

Reached airport in time and checked in. Varied thoughts filled my memories, most of it was a voidness that there is nothing to look forward to. the trip ended, leaving me back to my mundane work from the next day!!

Reached home by evening. Kiddies were happy to see me. We chatted about the trip for a while. Watched a movie along with them on the TV. And that's it. Life continues...

From then I had this log to look forward to. Now I have finished it from my side too...

Probably I should now be looking out for the next Ladakh expedition - HumbLeh'd III. Will there be one ??

[laluks]

While the log will be continued by the other team members, I wish to thank all the readers for the enormous encouragement you had given us in compiling and completing this log. It was never an easy job to take time out from our busy schedules over the past 1 year to finish this log. Our aim was to complete the log before the ladakh travels of 2012 begins.

Thank you guys for reading.

Thank you IPHE team for the wonderful trip that we had together.

This trip goes down into my memory as another great journey that we had undertaken in the bigger scheme of things called LIFE. Thank you everyone for everything.



THANK YOU


BTW, heard The passes are open and the trips to ladakh has started for this season.


Cheers, and signing off
Lalu

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by laluks

[left]Day 23
3rd September 2011


Attachment 931535

Attachment 931536

continued...

Why do I see peoples pictures hanging from the distance boards? Is it a common sight there? I don't see the trend in this part of India.

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by laluks

Probably I should now be looking out for the next Ladakh expedition - HumbLeh'd III. Will there be one ??

The End

Hello Laluks,

Congrats to You, HVK & entire Team on completing the such a wonderful trip of 24 days.

I was indeed nice to follow this Travelogue since more than six months & I can definitely tell you that each story, each photo is worth seeing. This Travelogue is definitely a bible for anyone planning a Ladakh Road trip.

Regarding next Ladakh expedition - HumbLeh'd III, I am sure you all have inspired many people to join your next trip & whenever it is planned you will have a definitely have a large nomination.

Once again thank you to the entire team for taking us on a virtual tour to Ladakh & we did enjoyed reading your experiences.

Thanks,

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by shipnil

Why do I see peoples pictures hanging from the distance boards? Is it a common sight there? I don't see the trend in this part of India.

Started with Vajpayee having his photo look out of every sign board during the GQ project. All successive Governments have replaced with the photos of their own party leaders, CMs, and such like. Common in HR, RJ, HP

[Irish]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Started with Vajpayee having his photo look out of every sign board during the GQ project. All successive Governments have replaced with the photos of their own party leaders, CMs, and such like. Common in HR, RJ, HP

Yes boss, you are right. During NDA regime, 600 boards with his photographs were put up at a cost of Rs.48 crore and later Rs.1.8 crore was spent for their removal.

Source: The Hindu : States / Other States :

By the way, When is HumbLeh'd III scheduled? Apologies for asking this question again form you but can not control.

Originally Posted by laluks

Day 25
5th September 2011
Mumbai - Bangalore
From then I had this log to look forward to. Now I have finished it from my side too...

Probably I should now be looking out for the next Ladakh expedition - HumbLeh'd III. Will there be one ??

The End

Hi Lalu,

Have been following your travelogue and I didn't like reading the words The End. What a journey you guys had. And on the top of it wonderful travelogue with amazing pictures. I have personally seen a lot of change in your photography skills in the last 2 years.

Also I am amazed with the kind of knowledge Mr. HVK has. I think he should open a dedicated call center with all the latest gizmos to support road travelers like us.

And the most important question: When is HumbLeh'd III scheduled?


Cheers!
Irish

[laluks]

Originally Posted by Irish

Hi Lalu,

Have been following your travelogue and I didn't like reading the words The End. What a journey you guys had. And on the top of it wonderful travelogue with amazing pictures. I have personally seen a lot of change in your photography skills in the last 2 years.

Also I am amazed with the kind of knowledge Mr. HVK has. I think he should open a dedicated call center with all the latest gizmos to support road travelers like us.

And the most important question: When is HumbLeh'd III scheduled?


Cheers!
Irish

Noted.
The End is removed


HumbLeh'd III - only HVK knows, and the Navigator seat is already taken

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by laluks

HumbLeh'd III - only HVK knows, and the Navigator seat is already taken

Hello Laluks,

Also as you have already booked Navigator seat in HumbLeh'd III - whenever it happens, hope next time you will also go to Golden Temple & other few attractions that you missed this time & treat us with wonderful photographs.

There are many like me who wish to be part of HumbLeh'd III, lets us see when it happens & hopefully we make it.

Also can some please give some idea on what was the cost of the trip per head?

Thanks,

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by Jignesh

Also can some please give some idea on what was the cost of the trip per head?

2,000 kms more to go for the HVK Scorpio, 3,500 kms more for the Kerala Bolero. The journey has not ended yet.

Don;t worry, every single item of expenditure will be analysed before this thread runs out

[hvkumar]

HVK Scorpio
Aug 12, Bombay-Behror, 1402 kms
Aug 13, Behror-Rampur, 692 kms
Aug 14, Rampur-Chitkul, 144 kms
Aug 15, Chitkul-Pooh, 207 kms
Aug 16, Pooh-Kaza, 178 kms
Aug 17-19, Kaza, 291 kms
Aug 20, Kaza-Jispa, 236 kms
Aug 21, Jispa-Leh, 374 kms
Aug 22, Leh-Kargil, 343 kms
Aug 23, Kargil-Padum, 248 kms
Aug 24, Padum-Kargil, 275 kms
Aug 25, Kargil-Leh, 259 kms
Aug 26, Leh, 148 kms
Aug 27, 2011, Leh-Turtuk, 241 kms
Aug 28, 2011, Leh-Pangong Tso, 445 kms
Aug 29, 2011, Pangong-Hanle, 203 kms
Aug 30, 2011, Hanle-Tso Moriri, 188 kms
Aug 31, 2011, Tso Moriri-Keylong, 375 kms
Sep 1, 2011, Keylong-Chamba, 341 kms
Sep 2, 2011, Chamba-Pathankot, 158 kms

Sep 3, 2011, Pathankot-Kishangarh, 877 kms

As we bypassed Amritsar, I got a call from BolBolero that he had already left Pathankot and was retracing our route, was also halfway through & must have been some 30-45 minutes behind, if not less. If I remember right, the Mumbai Roadsters also left around the time we clocked into Amritsar, but KSM-tec had different plans......

The IPHE -B team from Leh-Srinagar was still in deep slumber at 930 am.

We were in NH15 heading south of Amritsar. After the initial clutter of Amritsar suburbs, the road is a nice 2-laned highway lined with green fields on either side. Taran Taran is the first town you cross - and right at the beginning of the bypass, a cop saw that I was from out of the State and stopped me just for the heck of it - and asked for my car documents and such like, and I don't remember, but I guess some "entry" charges also. Needless to say, I had committed no offence, it was just his "courtesy" to an Indian from another part of India.

Luckily, this is not the harvest season, so the roads were mostly empty. During harvest, there are tractors everywhere and in each town, there are trucks crowding around warehouses to load/unload grain. The morning went by swiftly as we drove past iconic Punjab towns like Harike, Zira, Talwandi, Faridkot to Bhatinda. Towns like Taran Taran, Faridkot are bypassed, but you have to crawl through the smaller towns. Nonetheless, we were in Bhatinda by 1245 pm.

Bhatinda town does not have a true bypass, you have to follow some clear signages through some broad city roads as we turned now towards Hanumangarh. As usual, lunch halt was not in the agenda, but luckily (??), we were stopped at a level crossing for a train to pass by - and there was this corn seller who supplied us some garama-garam toasted corn! I had no clear destination that day and we had decided to pace it as it came. Earlier, the vague plan was that the others would catch up with us after we finished the G temple darshan, but now that was skipped, we were on our own, going at my usual highway pace on some fantastic roads.

I had several route options from Amritsar to get south - I could have turned off at Zira and gone via Fazilka & Ferozpur to Abohar, or even from Kotakapura (after Faridkot) via Muktasar Sahib to Abohar. But I had chosen to go via Bhatinda, just because that was the starting point of the new Bhatinda-Kishangarh super highway!!! I guess that is why they keep calling me a highway roadie! I am keen to discover as many roads as possible, not necessarily the shortest or the best. Actually, the routes via Abohar could have been a better choice. And there was also another route that the Mumbai Roadsters took to Bhatinda....

The road out of Bhatinda was fine enough, and Doomwali town at the border wasthe place to tank up to take advantage of the lower diesel prices there compared to what it was across the State border. But, when I tried to restart the car at 150 pm after refuelling, it refused to start, the battery acting funny again! So some push-starting and we were on our way again!

Mandi Dabwali - this was the first Haryana town which BolBolero had asked us to look out for - he says that this place is the biggest dumpyard of condemned/scrapped army jeeps and as he put it, "as far as eye can see" jeeps, jeeps and jeeps. We were bemused, our eyes could not sight a single jeep!

I stopped there at Mandi Dabwali looking for the odd car lectrician to put that "tukkada" in the battery terminal, but a couple of sorties in that town did not yield any results.

The next town on the route is Chautala - famous as being the town from where ex-Haryana CM Chauthala hails from - but the present Govt in HR apparently does not want the ex-CM to travel in style, so the road leading to Chautala - all 25 kms of it - turned out to be the biggest spring-breaker outside of Ladakh!! We crawled at second-gear speeds for the next 40 minutes, even as we could trucks doing strange acrobats as they tried to balance themselves against toppling lurching on the deep pot holes & breakages in the "road". Good to be reminded of Ladakh again? My biggest fear was that one of those trucks would fall atop my car, so I was careful to steer a respectable distance away from any truck on the road, and all of us were in case going all over the place, never mind that in India only right-side driving is allowed!!

The acrobatics ended just after we crossed Chauthala, and reached Chorthal at 240 pm. We entered Rajasthan and from there on the roads were simply too good.

We looked with regret at the signboards at the next crossroads which pointed to the road coming from Abohar. Had we come that way, maybe we could have saved some tome and also spared the Scorpio some extra metal fatigue.

Everyone is strongly advised to avoid the Faridkot-Kotkapura-Bhatinda-Hanumangarh route & instead take the Faridkot-Kotkapura-Muktasar-Abohar-Hanumangarh. Unless of course you wish to explore more of Indian highways like I do!

3 pm. Hanumangarh. Fort. Good hotels.
And the toll road to Kishangarh.
A State Highway.
Consolidated toll, Rs 195, to cross 5 toll gates.
What a road.........