We got up early at 5 and started the ride around 7 after having a light breakfast. We started with plans of riding till Srinagar so as to make up for the earlier day’s shortfall from the plan. Riding through Punjab gives you a feeling of how rich this state is. The road passes through farms spread over miles and the greenery around you leaves you with a good feeling. After doing some 100 odd kms on plains we started to get the feeling of hills and the curves. Took a by-pass from Samba to avoid entering Jammu and found ourselves on the road through a dry forest towards Udhampur. On this by-pass we had one of our best lunch at a dhaba some 50 kms before Udhampur. It was 3.30 when we reached Udhampur. We enquired about the time it would take to reach Srinagar and people advised us to take a halt at Patnitop or Batote. I was bit upset knowing that this would result in whole one day deviation, but had to surrender to circumstances. People told us that its not advisable to travel late in the evening and so there we all agreed to stop at Patnitop. It was 4 PM and now we were having ample time to reach Patnitop. So, we decided to enjoy rest of the day’s ride. It was then when we saw a river and all of us took our bikes off the road to reach as close to it as possible. Bikes parked, clothes off and phew.. we slipped into the river. After a long break started again towards Patnitop. At 7.45 I asked Prasoon to guess the time and he said ‘6.15’. Yea, sun sets late in this part of country. We reached Patnitop around 8 just to find that it is one over hyped hill station. Rooms were mostly booked and whatsoever was available was too expensive. We decided to move on to next place Batote which is just 13 kms from Patnitop. Finally we reached there and got a decent room and we retired for the day.
Total distance covered: 310 kms
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