Day 4

Day 4 – June 15:

Srinagar – Drass

Stay: Hotel Hill view (ok)

We started a bit late from Srinagar. Had tea, filled petrol and we were on our way. Photo stops meant slow progress and we were in Sonamarg by 12.30 pm. Verified that Zozila was open, had lunch and started towards Zozila. It had started raining in Sonamarg and we had just started. Initially the feeling was a mixture of discomfort of rain, excitement of seeing snow so close for the first time and the combined coldness of rain and snow. The progress was awfully slow with a foot high mud on the road and a huge line up of trucks and four wheelers ahead. We slowly and gradually crossed them from the hill side where ever possible and from the cliff side on a two feet mud path between trucks and fall of the cliff. Enjoying the views and shivering of cold we crossed Zozila. We stopped at a place down Zozila for a few minutes and warmed our palms on the bike engines. The finger tips were burning due to cold and every time we took off the gloves to warm them they had new colours – red, blue, black……. I rushed towards Drass, found a small restaurant opposite the J&K tourism bungalow (which I didn’t notice till very late), asked the owner to give me a jug of warm water and put both my palms in it. All of us were in no mood of going till Kargil. Another reason was that we had to visit Drass War memorial. It was as important to us as visiting Pangong Tso or Khardungla in Ladakh. After all we could go there only because of those people in whose memory that memorial has been built. Anyways in our anguish we headed to Hotel Hill view got a room and came out, and it was only then that we noticed the J&K tourist bungalow just opposite. We went to a Nepali guy’s hotel and ate one of the tastiest chicken of our trip. Just ask for the Nepali guy’s hotel you will find it. Later we had some dinner and slept off at the second coldest inhabited place in the world (feels good to say it…). Tomorrow we plan to get Leh’ed, but do we????? let’s leave it to tomorrow…….

Please find the pics here.