Drass Code #1

• 30th of August
• Srinagar - Ganderbal - Sonamarg - Zoji La - Drass - Kargil
• 200km

The road to Sonamarg

Zoji La is open to traffic only after 2PM, so we slept till late in the morning. We left the houseboat at about 10:30, and rode to Sonamarg. We reached Sonamarg at lunch time as the road was good throughout. We still had soldiers every 100m, but had got used to them by now. At Sonamarg, there is a diversion to Amarnath, but the road less travelled was our road, the road to Zoji La. For the first time, at Sonamarg, we felt the chill, the real Himalayan chill. It’s cold in the shade, but the skin burns in the sun.

Zoji La! Those two lines are the roads we rode on. We ride up one, all the way to the end, take a hairpin bend, and then ride up the other. To give you an idea of the scale, there actually is a convoy of trucks on the lower road, on the right side of the picture. You can locate it if you look closely.

We started up Zoji La at about 1:30 PM. The road condition deteriorated. My carburettors were still set rich for the plains, and in the thin air, my engine just couldn’t burn fuel properly. It struggled to pull up Zoji La, and grunted and groaned until Prashi pulled out a screw driver and opened out the air screws three-quarter turns. From then on, it was just Caman the Zoji La.

The river Bheend. The road goes along this river from Ganderbal right up to Kargil.

The incredible RD alongside the incomparable Himalayas. Jokes about the extra fuel on the carrier will NOT be appreciated!