In to Sonmarg

15th October 2022

The day turned out different from what I had expected. And, am very satisfied.

Early morning view from window. The road you see above the river is NH1.

 

Started with a weird breakfast combination of choice.  Had eggs with some Poha and Rava Upma. Thought it was a good balanced diet of protein and Carbs.

Left the hotel before 0800 for a place called Hunderman. It was not on y agenda till I had a chat with the locals.

Kargil is 15 kilometers from the LOC. And, Hunderman sits on the LOC.

The drive starts on NH1 then branches of to a road on the other side of the River Suru.

Have to be careful taking pictures. Security issues.

 

The drive on NH1 was short. Turned off and started up the side road.

And, met this.

Believe the road had been closed yesterday. As you can see hard at work.

They took a kind view of my early hours and let me thru. With a commitment to be back within 45 minutes, as they would start laying tar in earnest further down. 

No way I wanted to get stuck, so pushed a bit on the way. 

Took me 15 minutes to get to the view point, which is much before the village.

 That is the paki village down in the valley. During the Kargil war, their troops had come deep into this valley and were tossed out.

 The white dots on the mountain side are paki bunkers. Look a lot like toilets.

 There is a museum at the village, but was short of time. Started down.

 Guys had started pouring the tar. Squeezed past the heavy roller and the mountainside to stay away from messing the tyres.

Went down and turned on to NH1, towards Srinagar.

Next stop was the Kargil War Memorial at Dras. 

Great road. Stayed well below the speed limit of 50 kmph. Let all those who wanted to go by, do so with my blessings.

 That is how the road was, all the way to Dras. Will not bore you with similar pictures.

It wound thru mountains, crossed the river a couple of times, weaved thru villages that were green. Else, it was the same beautiful scenic drive. Relaxed listening to some good slokams.

Then came to the War Memorial.

Parked and was jumped by a local tradesman. More about him later. As of that moment, used my superior language skills to politely request him to go away.

The memorial is located in Dras, even though the war is called the Kargil was, as all the major battles were in the Dras sector.

Names of mountains recaptured like Totoling, Tiger Hill, Batra Top are all clearly visible.

Standing in NH1, it is easy to understand the destruction that the paki chuuts could commit on us.

Giving you a few pictures from the memorial, in not order.

They have incorporated a Zojila memorial for the 1948 campaign in the memorial.

Will try and show you the mountains I mentioned earlier.

The peak on the right is Tiger Hill. The peak on the left is Batra Top.

The  Totoling range is behind the parade grounds.

The various names mentioned fall behind these areas.

To visualise what had been done was so easy. Dras gets cold. It is the second coldest inhabited place on earth. The first is Siberia.

The pricks moved in to the heights in winter. Simple. Dominated NH1. Thought we would chicken.

That I had also been to the Siachen Base camp and then Thang made me feel good. That was the least I can do for our braves. Go see.

Now, that will not happen again.

Came out of the memorial to meet the peddler I had mentioned earlier. He was a lot more polite now. Picked up a couple of shawls for the girls. They will scream, but, then...

Drove on. The next was Zojila. Struck me that there should be a Zojila Memorial on the road. And, there was.

But, unfortunately swarmed by aliens.

 Was glad that they had moved the memorial into the Kargil was memorial.

Tourism is good, but disrespect is sad, even when you do not intend it.

The nice part about this place was the  parking. And, the tiny cafe serving momos and samosas. Had a plate of each. Was hungry. The momos were of the steam cooker, the samosas were warm.

Beat the crowd. And, fingered a bong who was complaining about lack of hot samosas at 4 degrees C.

 

The Zoji La which I was looking forward to, which I had read so much about in the pieces on the 1948 war, was a let down.

It was civilised. Maybe because of the roads I had done, no clue. But it was civilised.

Almost drove thru without realising.

Crossed into Kashmir here.

The drive down into Sonmarg was scenic, but traffic was a bitch. The road had been closed half the day yesterday.

 As you can probably see, the road is a bit narrow and curvy.

Drove into Sonmarg. Not what I was expecting.

But it was green. And, have been told if I walk 5 kilometers from here, will reach spot where loads of movies were made.