13th July

This was the last day of our trip and not an easy one. We had to courier our bikes back to Delhi and catch a train at 7:45 pm. We wanted to reach Jammu latest by 5 pm, so we left Srinagar early by 8 o’clock. As nothing was open at that time, we could’t have breakfast. Despite of the curfew, we didn’t have any trouble in crossing Srinagar. After 1 hour, we stopped at a dhaba for breakfast.

Scenery was green and roads were almost straight for the first 60-70 km after Srinagar.

After that roads were all around the mountains. We crossed Jawahar tunnel, which is ~ 2.5 km long. It was completely dark inside the tunnel. The width was just enough for a truck to pass.

Driving experience till Patnitop wasn’t very exciting because of the heavy incoming tourist traffic and hot weather. Between Patnitop and Udhampur, we took a break of 10 min. By 4 pm we reached Jammu. As soon as we reached Jammu, we called up the courier service. Their office was at the other end of the city. We had to cross the whole jammu city and then come back to railway station. By 6:30 pm we had managed to reach the station. We were happy that we made it before time and didn’t miss the train 🙂

We boarded the train at 7:30. Everyone in our compartment was staring at our dirty clothes. When i opened my bag and people saw petrol pipes, ropes and gear footrest; their face expression was worth looking at :)We didn’t trouble anyone much and went to bed at 9 pm.

The train arrived Delhi, right time at 5 am. While on my way back to Noida, i was watching the sunrise of delhi. Our trip was over. I was in Delhi but the overwhelming experience of the trip was etched forever in my memories. My eyes were still seeing the mountains in the buildings of the city:)

Day summary: Srinagar – Patnitop – Udhampur – Jammu, 8 hrs, 300 km