7th July

In the morning I was feeling much better. My stomach was also stable by now. After breakfast, i checked the tyre pressure in my bike. Because of the nail, the pressure in front tyre was very low. We carried the tubeless puncture kit with us, but didn’t have the foot pump. Actually, we had arranged a foot pump from our friends, but didn’t carry it because of its size and weight. Anyways, we were lucky that a puncture mechanic was available there. He repaired the front tyre puncture and we were ready to leave Pang by 9.30 am.

First 40 km after Pang is Moore Plains. In Nikhil’s words, it’s like a thousand lanes highway where you make  your own roads 🙂

When we entered the plains there was no sign of roads. We started driving
wherever resistance was least. 40-50 min later we found ourselves in the middle of 7-8 inches high mud and it became impossible to drive in that.

Somehow we managed to cross that and drove towards left and found roads there. After Moore Plains, we reached Tanglang La. Roads were very bad before and after the Tanglang La.

Roads started to improve after descending 15 km from the pass. We reached Rumtse and took rest for 30 min. Both of us had Maggi in our lunch there. After Rumtse to Upshi and till Karu, the scenery was terrific. Every mountain was of different shape and different colour. We enjoyed the ride and took many pictures. 

After Karu, it took only 50 min to reach Leh. We had a feeling of achievement when we reached Leh. The ride for the last 2 days had been very challenging and i was considering myself lucky to reach Leh in a single piece 🙂 We checked in a hotel and took rest for a while. As it was already 4 pm, DC office was closed and we couldn’t take permits for Pangong and Nubra that day.

Leh was looking a very peaceful city to me. We didn’t roam much in Leh that day. I wanted the foot rest of my bike fixed first before anything else. So, we went to a mechanic straightaway. Welding the footrest and replacing the whole part didn’t work out to be good solutions. Finally, a creative idea of the mechanic worked very well. See the picture below 🙂 He drilled a hole and fixed a long nut-bolt in place of the foot rest.

After bike repair we filled our tanks and directly went back to hotel. The day was over and Leh was conquered 🙂
Day summary: Pang – Tanglang La – Upshi – Karu – Leh, 6.5 hrs, 175 km