On the road

On may 15th we take off to Srinagar in Kashmir to start our bicycle trip from there. We stayed at Dal lake on one of the House Boats, two days very nice place, but we had moved two times from one of the inside boat rooms to the owners bedroom and then to a small "shack" next to the common bathroom. We said " it's ok, no problem" but the old man wanted to charge us as if we where sleeping in one of the boats, "No Way Jose", so for 700 rupees we stayed two nights and three days, not bad. Plus few more rupees for meals.
On may 17th we started our peddaling journey, for, literally dragging the trailer was a "tough" experience, unstable and heavy, the firts up hill I mean, serious up hill, my legs exploted and I almost had a heart attach, super heavy, the front of my bicycle just lifted up, all the waight was behind. Marijke took the climbing rope and I was lighter. Many more things will come after I learnd the leasson on how load the B. This day by 3pm the rain started to fall very baddly, so we reached a Military Police station on the road, the offered us their small hut and gave us food and one of them talked to the comander in charge of the whole division that if we could stay that night there. guess what, not only , after an interview with some officers about safety, we where accepted, they gave us a big bedroom with bathroom and gave us food, thye commander in charge said that tourist like us where Gods for them, so we where treated like that, we where impressed. Next morning, 630 am coffee and tea. After farewell and thanks protocols, we started our second day on our vehicles.
18th May we got to a small location call Sonamarg, was a climb uphill, we where happy. The town is nice except for the all the noise, and amount of people around offering adventure and the amount of people buyin it!
When we get to the main bazaar, only one street, we where deciding where to eat, etc... logistics for the moment, and a guy approach us very happy, another cyclist, solo cyclist from Switzerland, his name is Joel and it's been on the road for 15 months! he left Sw. with his bycicle! incredible, he has time and has no worries in life, he said. That night we slept inside the shop of a very nice man, Joel slept at the backside of the store
and Marijke and I on the front, on top of thebig table - chair this man used to show his products (T-shirts, Lunghi, etc..) Bathroom? no way, outside where ever you can. We say good by to our nice friend and everybody there and we started cycling for the first time with a thrid person towards the infamous Zoji- La (3529 mts Pass), very steep. Honestly this day was so far the worse for me, every 50 metres I had to stop take breath and started again, I had very bad time doing it. I think was my second day dragging my trailer and my breakfast was only a small portion of rice, I felt extremly weak! marijke and joel where doing ok, they waited for me everytime, I felt very frustrated! Once we got to the summit, a big militar camp recieved us, we had to registerd, the officers and soldiers, etc.. where gattered around us, taking pictures of Marijke with bycicles. They offered tea , Coffee as a big avalanche of questions. We where tired. We asked for a plece where we can pitched the tents. After 1.5 hours the reply , "NO POSSIBLE" so we had to cycled 10 k more until we found a friendly place, that would be our small paradise for that night. Marijke and I didn't carry fuel for cooking so we had cold stuff for food. Joel was cooking his noodles. That night we slept like "rocks". Next morning, we saw at the other side of the river beautiful marmots, we were happy. That road was wet. cold and muddy, with big walls of snow on each side, the militar and civilean trucks crossed us like crazy. This day we reached a small town call Drass, where we had lunch, but camping few kms. after this town.