In vacation of June 2011, tour of LEH was taken up in self driven Hyndai accent some 1.5 year old.
Planning was to reach LEH by Manali-LEH highway and return by LEH-Srinagar highway to enjoy beauty of Great Himalaya on the way.
We reached from Surat to Manali to catch Manali- LEH highway. However, after reaching Manali, we came to know that the highway was not opened due to heavy snowfall on Baralacha La. It was expected to be opened in next couple of days. Instead of waiting in Manali, we decided to take Srinagar-Leh highway first to reach LEH and return by LEh- Manali Highway.
In the tour we travelled all the national highways of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and high altitude Ghats( LA) of Kashmir and LEH . List is -
NH8 - Surat to Delhi
NH1- Delhi to Ambala, Pathankot to Jammu
NH 22- Ambala to Simla
NH20- Manali to Pathankot
NH1A - Jammu to Srinagar
NH1D - Srinagar to LEH
NH21 - LEH to Manali
Statistics of LEH-Ladakh tour( World’s highest motorable road):
Self driven car: Hyundai accent, 1500 CC, 95 BHP, Gj-5-CM-3306
Occupants: self, Varsha and Nitant
Kms driven: approx. 5600 kms
Overall Average: 14.5 kms/litre
Petrol cost: Appox. Rs. 26, 000/-
Start/end date: 29th May/15th June 2011
29th night halt: Jaipur, km driven: 928
30th night halt: Simla , km driven: 600
31th night halt: Kulu , km driven: 266
1st Night halt: Manali, km driven: 65
2nd night halt: Vaishnodevi, km driven: 491
3rd night halt: Vaishnodevi,
4th night halt: Srinagar, km driven: 301 , Mountain pass: Fortu-La
5th night halt: Srinagar, Local site seeing
6th night halt: Kargil, km driven: 211 , Mountain pass: Zo Ji-La
7th night halt: LEH, km driven: 221
8th night halt: LEH, km driven: Mountain pass: Khardung-La,
9th night halt: LEH, Local site seeing
10th night halt: Pongog lake, Upsi( 50 km from LEH), km driven: 163
11th night halt: Sarchu( 200 km from LEH), km driven: 205, Mountain pass: Tangala-La, Lachulung- La, Namika-LA
12th night halt: Manali, km driven: 228 Mountain pass: Baralacha-La, Kelong-La, Rohtang Pass
13th night halt: Panipat, km driven: 465
14th night halt: Beaver( 220 km away from udaipur), km driven: 542
15th night halt: Surat, km driven: 728
By grace of Maa Vaishnodevi, we did not faced any problem with my Accent( Not even a single puncture eventhough roads were bad).
great car. If you was a CNG driven car, please test drive it.
Check the specs. of Toyota Etios. Same with Accent. What is so great about Toyota?