Day 2 is when our journey really begins! This day was a long day with a journey of almost 300kms from Jammu to Srinagar via Udhampur, Patnitop, Anantnag to Srinagar.
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| Jammu to Srinagar 294 km |
The truck carrying our bikes was waiting for us when our train reached Jammu Tawi. We had coordinated with the driver to meet us at a petrol pump, so that we could fill up the tanks and get going fast. However by the time we unloaded the bikes, checked them, arranged our luggage and got ready, it was almost 12:30 pm! Actually it took a lot of time packing our luggage and loading it on the bikes since it was our first experience. We had to secure the bags on the bike using the bungee cords and also cover with the rain covers we had arranged. Believe me, its no easy task if you haven't done it before!
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| Reached Jammu Tawi |
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| Our Bullets on the truck |
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| Unloading the bikes was a challenge |
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| Luggage loaded on the bikes, secured with bungee cords and rain cover |
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| Nitrojains all ready for the epic journey ahead |
Dark clouds loomed in the distance and we were expecting rain sometime later that day. Also there were some riots near Anantnag so we had to be careful not to enter any city limit. The route from Jammu to Srinagar is initially highway till we leave Jammu and enter the ghats. After that the ghat roads are not in good condition and you can expect to take 12 hours to cover the 300km distance. We stopped at a restaurant on the highway for lunch and then proceeded almost non stop for Srinagar.
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| Lunch at a restaurant on the highway |
Once the ghats began, so did the gorges and valleys. It was initially unnerving view the 1000 foot drops to the sides, with hardly any barricades or fences, and the army convoys and other trucks plying down upon us from the other side. Even then we were spellbound by the natural beauty of the Himalayan mountains. It was fairly hot in Jammu and started becoming pleasant once we ascended the ghats.
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| On the Jammu highway |
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| The majestic ghats |
Since we had just begun our journey we frequently stopped for photo and rest breaks (to give our rears a little rest). Patnitop is really beautiful with pine trees lining the roads, which kept us going on in anticipation of whats to come. The road till Banihal is really bad and we encountered a bit of rain drizzle as well which made matters worse. It was almost 7pm and fairly dark by then. An incident to recall is that two of our friends (Amit & Gaurav) were riding along the ghats when supposedly a leopard or some kind of mountain cat jumped on them! Luckily none of the two were hurt or injured in any way, though it did scare the hell out of them!
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| Tea break |
Soon we came upon the majestic "Nehru or Jawahar Tunnel"! Its a 2.5km tunnel built way back in 1956 connecting Kashmir valley with the rest of the world. One of the tunnels was under renovation and luckily our side of the road was moving on so we didn't have to wait for our passage. We have heard that sometimes you have to wait for an hour or two till the one side traffic clears! Guess the gods were with us from the beginning itself! Riding in the Nehru tunnel is an experience in itself, just 2.5km of straight narrow tunnel in eerie silence broken by the sounds of engines only!
It was late night, almost 1am by the time we reached Srinagar. The ride along the empty Dal lake was really beautiful, even tough we were dead tired and just waiting to crash for the night. We checked into the hotel and everyone fell asleep almost instantly.
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| Moon view from Dal lake |
