Day 11. Tough on us, but we made it across the Dzo Zila pass and to Srinagar. Warm weather was welcome too!

TOYOTA Leh Jayenge
Day 11. Tough on us, but we made it across the Dzo Zila pass and to Srinagar. Warm weather was welcome too!
25th May 2010, Monday.
Route : Kargil to Srinagar via Drass and and Sonamarg.

We were up at 1.30 am and departed from Kargil at around 3 am. Barely having slept for 3 hours we were like zombies but raring to negotiate this crucial stretch across the Dzo Zila pass. Which had a been closed for 5 days when we had come up the same way.

It is a pity that the timings for traffic to and from Sonamarg are not part of standard tourist information in Hotels in Leh as it could leave people stranded in Kargil or Drass since hotel availability is limited.

Tip: Must find out about these traffic ‘release’ timings since these keep changing and on a particular day ( Friday as was told to us), the road is closed for maintenance.

I took the Steering wheel to start with. The road from Kargil to Drass was also in pitiable condition towards the approach to Drass in particular and we reached around 5 am, at the crack of dawn, soon after the traffic had been released and had to be content with following some of the trucks and buses. Shekhar was driving and we managed to overtake a few and with cold temperatures of as low as 6 deg C, we climbed and negotiated the Dzo Zila pass and down into the valley en route to Sonamarg.

We entered Sonamarg at around 8 am for a welcome toilet and breakfast break of freshly cooked Masala Omlettes and toasted bread, sitting in the very pleasant outdoors, in the lawns of Snowland Hotel. Everything seemed so familiar around , obviously. But it was a relief that we were headed in the opposite direction. The weather was holding and it was nice, bright and sunny as Vijay took over the wheel at around 9 am. We were now headed for Srinagar via Gund and some small Kashmiri villages along the Sind river. Srinagar was 85 kms away and would take around three hours now.

An hour and a half later Nisheeth took over for the last stretch and just about 30 kms short of Srinagar we had a flat tyre again. Dunlop tyres licked by a sharp pebble again. Point to note for Toyota. Fortunately again, we had a Tyre repair shop close at hand and we spent 20 minutes getting the job done. At 12.30 we were in Srinagar, dying to bathe and sleep. Vijay had organized another guest house and we just crashed out after lunch. Vijay’s brother in law who had been our gracious hosts when we were stuck on our way up, invited us over for drinks in the evening and we all had a wonderful time together. Relaxed and refreshed. Later we invited them for a meal at the famed Arabica restaurant in the Broadway Hotel for some char grilled platters which tasted heavenly. We turned in by 11 pm and had to prepare for the journey ahead, the next day, to Pathankot, a 10 hour 385 km stretch.

What was welcome was the warmer temperatures in Srinagar and the fact that our mobile signals were back! And believe it or not, so were the MISSed calls! Nisheeth logged in half a dozen starting with the first as we approached Srinagar. And the mystery just deepened, and so did our amusement. By now our hosts had also become accustomed to the fun element that followed Nisheeth and were equally amused.

The Fortuner was sent for a clean up job to a local service station after a thorough mud pack treatment received from its journey from Leh. It looked spanking clean and pretty too! So we parked her after refueling and gave her a well deserved rest. The plan to leave the next day at around 10 am and arrive in Pathankot by 9 pm or so. Sleep overcame us as we hit the sack.