Preparation
We were concerned with 3 things - detailed itinerary, items to carry and bike repair. We had 10 days and wanted to make most out of it. It was decided that we will transport our bikes back to Delhi from Jammu by courier. To save more time we were thinking to start our journey from Manali and transport the bikes till there. But the idea didn't workout because the courier service didn't have an office in Manali and it would take a long time for them to arrange through a 3rd party.
In this 10 days of period we wanted to include all possible places such as Sonmarg, Srinagar and Gulmarg. When we started planning the itinerary, we realized soon that everything is not possible in 10 days, especially when i hadn't driven bike continuously for more than 2 hours and the number of unknown factors were many - bad roads, bad weather, mountain sickness and bike breakdown. Moreover, we won't be able to enjoy much if we keep on driving. So, we dropped the idea of visiting places in Jammu and Kashmir regions, although we would be crossing them. Including J&K might have also diluted the Ladakh experience.
We made a long list of items to carry and started collecting them 3-4 days before the trip. I bought Adidas shoes thinking that i would be able to use them for jogging after the trip. It was a very bad idea to buy those shoes for a trip like this. We also bought saddle bags to carry all the stuff. I got my bike serviced and essential parts replaced. Nikhil had converted his Apache's tyres to tubeless. We were ready for the trip in all sense.
We were concerned with 3 things - detailed itinerary, items to carry and bike repair. We had 10 days and wanted to make most out of it. It was decided that we will transport our bikes back to Delhi from Jammu by courier. To save more time we were thinking to start our journey from Manali and transport the bikes till there. But the idea didn't workout because the courier service didn't have an office in Manali and it would take a long time for them to arrange through a 3rd party.
In this 10 days of period we wanted to include all possible places such as Sonmarg, Srinagar and Gulmarg. When we started planning the itinerary, we realized soon that everything is not possible in 10 days, especially when i hadn't driven bike continuously for more than 2 hours and the number of unknown factors were many - bad roads, bad weather, mountain sickness and bike breakdown. Moreover, we won't be able to enjoy much if we keep on driving. So, we dropped the idea of visiting places in Jammu and Kashmir regions, although we would be crossing them. Including J&K might have also diluted the Ladakh experience.
We made a long list of items to carry and started collecting them 3-4 days before the trip. I bought Adidas shoes thinking that i would be able to use them for jogging after the trip. It was a very bad idea to buy those shoes for a trip like this. We also bought saddle bags to carry all the stuff. I got my bike serviced and essential parts replaced. Nikhil had converted his Apache's tyres to tubeless. We were ready for the trip in all sense.
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