Cowboys & Indians

After 3 days in Manali we decided that we should probably leave for warmer climes, so we arose early (10am) and went for breakfast. At 12pm we decided it was probably too late to leave and that we should try again tomorrow. We bathed once again in the hot public baths where I caught a cold from a grotty Indian.

The next day we arose early (9am) and went for breakfast. We left at 11am. Our destination was ultimately Rishikesh, but over some roads reccomended by a German on a Bullet Enfield.

2 hours and 80km later, I realised that I had left my wallet containing all my cards back at the hotel. Marc continued onwards to find a hotel whilst I backtracked, nursing a nasty Indian cold.

During my backtrack I was ambushed by a cow who jumped out from behind a parked car whilst I was passing through a small town. I screamed and grabbed the front brake, too much front brake. I fell over. Fortunately I was only travelling at 5 mph. Coincidently, there was also a festival in the town attended by several thousand Indians who happened to be on either side of the road. They all watched whilst I quickly righted my bike, hopped on and buggered off.

I retrieved said wallet and set off back again. At sunset I was back where I originally started. Marc text me the gps coordinates. Only 30km away. Not too far. Marc also text me that the pass I had to traverse was also only 3000km high. 1 hour later and I was only 20km away on what can only be described as a dirt track, going upwards, in the dark, with a runny nose and lots of achy bones. Thankfully there were no other vehicles stupid enough to ride over a mountain that night.

My view as I traversed the mountain.

Upon arriving at the hotel I asked for guy in the restaurant to cook me some sort of curry. He looked at me blankly. 'Omelette?' he said... I agreed, too tired to argue, then went to bed.

The next day we set off over the hills. There were lots of hills. In fact, they were more like mountains. We went up them, over them, round them, under them and eventually arrived at sunset at a town called Rohru, on the banks of a river. Not seeing any hotels and spotting that the river had lots of sandy beaches, we bought supplies and attempted to make our way to a suitable spot. Just as it got dark we negotiated our bikes down a steep path down a cliff face and onto the rocky river shore. That night, we didn't bother with tents and just slept on the sand which interspersed the rocks. I also discovered that the curious Indians appear to be scared by people who speak German... I have a new trick up my sleeve.

Once again, we set off the next day over the hills and again there were lots of them with lots of twisty dirt roads going up, over, round etc. At sunset we had managed to leave the hills behind and make it to the next province and about 70km from our ultimate destination, Rishikesh. We decided to push on. 2 pantwettingly hours later we managed to make it to this touristy place on the side of the Ganges.

Today, after tinkering with the bikes for a bit, we went for a walk. We wandered down to the river and bought a ticket for 10 rupees for the boat to the other side. This was because we couldn't figure out how to get to the bridge 50m away. 10minutes later and 100 people full, the small boat chugged to the other side. Indian families laughed and screamed as they splashed each other with the holy water. I attempted to avoid getting wet, or a disease.

On the other side we found our way to the beachy shore where we were immediately set upon by an old woman selling tubs of flowers. We didn't speak Hindi and she didn't speak English. This didn't stop her managing to sell us two tubs which we were prompted to set on fire and push out into the current as some sort of good luck ritual. We were the only ones. Mine drifted downstream for 10 metres, hit some rocks and sank.

As we were proudly watching our offering to the gods we were slowly set upon by several other old ladies and small children. Not happy that we had begrudgingly bought some boatythings already and contrubuted to water pollution (funny how littering is enforcable by a 500rupee fine but anything holy is exempt) they attempted to sell us more and followed us up the beach. Eventually after 100m they had given up save for an extremely persistent small boy who's only words of English were, 'one hundred rupees please I go'. Marc and I made the best of an annoying situation by passing him from one to the other for 500m until I won the game by shouting 'is that 100 rupees in your hand Marc?' and running out of sight over some rocks.

We relaxed for an hour or so on a beach whilst I attemped to do handstands and build a castle.. The Indians watched me suspiciously for this whislt they splashed themselves with holy water. I watched them as I attempted to not get wet, or a disease

We set off back across the newly discovered bridge where once again I managed to collect a small child who wanted 100 rupees for some small round diseased looking things that they kept trying to put into my hand. After 5 minutes of random conversation about monkeys and the weather I pointed at a tourist couple passing the other way and announced loudly 'they want some!' I won that game too. The couple weren't very happy on their evening stroll.

Indian people are slowly making me very angry when I'm on the bike. Everytime I stop the first question is usually a polite conversation opener, such as 'how much.' At first I said 'one million rupees' until Marc pointed out that this is $22,000US. I've now decided to start saying 'guess' to all questions. I'm looking forwards to the 'guess' game.

They also have problems avoiding touching things. If I ask for directions, they will come and lean on the bike whilst they talk to you. They look surprised when I physically lift them off. Earlier tonight I was sat next to the bike when a guy came over and asked if it was mine. I said 'no' in order to avoid the inevitable conversation and he promtly went and grabbed the handlebars and shook the bike. I shouted and asked if he had a wife. He looked confused. 'Can I touch her?' I asked. He looked shocked and ran off. I don't know how much of India I will be able to tolerate.

It's Cold In Them Thar Hills!

The road from Leh to Manali is about 450km.

For 350km there are no petrol stations.

For 200km the road is above 4000m.

It's October.

The road is officially closed from 31st October onwards - There's a reason!

It's cold!

The road ascends pretty quickly from Leh to the second highest motorable road in the world. Tanglang La at 5338masl. (The highest Kardung La 5602m, is actually north of Leh. I got confused and thought we would be riding it. Hence why I excitedly bought a T-shirt - bugger it I'm still wearing it! Aparently there are higher passes in Tibet but none are 'motorable roads')

As I may have already pointed out, its cold up there. So cold in fact, the water in my camel pack on my back froze.

The air is also thin. At one point I got off the bike to walk 400m to see where Marc had gotten to. I was physically shattered. You literally have to gasp for air - so does the bike which suffered from a lack of power but kept going none the less.

The thin air makes the landscape appear more vivid though. Either through lack of polution or lack of oxygen to the brain.

We spent the entire day above 4000m. The landscape is incredible. The only people who seem to inhabit this region are those who maintain the road - and they are few and far between. We probably saw no more than 20 other vehicles all day.

Sometimes the road was good, mainly it was bad. An icy pothole got the better of me and both Marc and I had to push and pull the bike out. We were exhausted!

The final pass after 10 hours of riding was very snowy. Ice on the road was dificult to navigate, especially with very numb hands despite having heated grips and thick gortex gloves.

On our way down the sun was setting when we met a couple on a Royal Enfield on their way UP! They said they were going to camp on the other side of the pass, which was colder than the side we met them. Guy's, I hope you've made it!

We trudged onwards into the night in an attempt to get to Keylong, the first place with hotels since Leh. By the time we got there all the hotels refused to open their doors so we pitched our tent in the middle of the village square and settled down for the night. It was still cold, but I managed to sleep despite numb feet.

COLD!

Today we had an easy ride to Manali. Over the final pass of 4000m we found hundreds of Indians on holiday in bright shellsuits being shown what it's like to be cold in the snow.

There were so many of the going up and down a single lane road it was blocked for a couple of km in each direction due to a small avalanche.

The Indian method of dealing with any obstruction in the road is to drive as close to it as possible to prevent it from getting away presumably. Then honk your horn a lot to scare it into submission. It was quite amusing seeing hundreds of 4x4's in stationary traffic just honking, but luckily there was enough room for a bike to squeeze past.

The obstruction meant that we had completely clear roads on our way down to Manali. Here the roads were once again perfect tarmac.

When we got to Manali I had to take some clothes off since I was so warm now. Only 2000m altitude.

We bathed in the hot springs in front of our hotel. When the owner announced that the room is only 150 Rupees a night (about £2.50) we didn't even bother to haggle the price down as we usually do. Most places announce that a room is 1000Rs which we can mostly get down to less than 500.

A couple of nights are due here to recover from our ordeal whislt I plan what to do next...

From The Taliban To Tibetans In Exile

Howdy,

The last few days have been rather exciting.

Last I wrote, I was in Lahore.

A few days ago, we were sat on the roof of our hotel eating breakfast and chatting. Marc, who I had last seen in Istanbul had arrived after his mammoth mission through Syria, Jorden, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Iran and so had John and Bev who I last saw in Erzurum.

Snipers!

Whilst chatting away about nothing in particular we heard 'pop pop pop'. Automatic gunfire. We had heard it before in Quetta so thought nothing of it. Sometimes the Pakistanis get a bit excitied and fire into the air. Suddenly there was a 'whoomph'. That was a shotgun. It was close. More gunfire and explosions followed, only about 50m from our hotel. We clambered to look over the walled rooftop terrace and could see smoke. This was serious. After locking the hotel door and keeping our heads down to avoid the police swat teams moving across the roof we turned on the TV to find out what was going on.

At first, some people had apparently tried to run from the police and had been shot at... this didnt make sense? Why use grenades? Shortly the truth came out... some men had "barged" (term used by the newsreader) into the Police station down the road. Still this was not the truth. Eventually we learnt that several men and women had attacked the police station wearing suicide vests and carrying kaleshnikovs. Lahore was no longer the safe haven it was supposed to be. The worrying thing was that the Taliban had apparently cells in the supposedly safe haven of Punjab. It was time to leave Pakistan and forget about the Karakorum Highway, which is apparently in bad condition anyway thanks to the Chinese, and run to India.
Marc and I had visas but the other guys didn't so we had to go our seperate ways. Hopefully you are all keeping safe and I'll see you in India!

So Marc and I left for the border. We were through rather painlessly and after buying beer and whisky from the duty free - our first allowed alcohol we were in India.

After celebrating with said beer we headed for Amritsar and the Golden Temple, a Sikh Pilgramage site where free accomodation was on offer. When we arrived we were ushered with the bikes into a central courtyard filled with pilgrims trying to settle down for the night. To our surprise the guys in charge forced a lot of these guys to move out of the way, some of whom were crippled, just so that we could have somewhere safe and secure to park our bikes. They didnt seem to mind since a big bright orange KTM causes a lot of interest, especially since orange seems to be a holy colour. They might have thought we were gods.

We wandered around the temple and what a difference it was to the Muslim countries. I could wear shorts and women walked around without headscarfs. Everything was so relaxed and so friendly. It was incredibly relaxing with music playing from a live band in the temple. We went inside with the pilgirms and tried to mimic whatever they were doing, which included touching the doorstep before entering and leaving.

Everything at the temple is free, including food and accomodation especially for backpackers. We ate with several hundred other people on the floor of a large hall. The sweet rice was fantastic, the dahl not so. Stupidly I drank from a bowl of water that had been provided, not thinking since I was thirsty. Big misake. I would pay for that a couple of days later.

The next day we set off early, after being surrounded by another curious crowd of onlookers who just try to get as close as possibly and just stand there staring at you, even if you're just sat on the bike looking back at them. A surreal experience.

Our plan was to make our way north to Jammu and Kashmir to attempt the worlds highest motorable road from Leh to Manali before it closed because of the weather since it passes over 5000m+. Word was that it was already closed, others said it was still possible for private vehicles.

We tried to get to Srinagar in one day. The roads started flat and boring filled with trucks and the usual cows and rickshaws before getting twistier and twister. Suddenly monkeys appeared on the road to add to the chaos with the trucks. The roads were fantastic, it was like the Alps all over again. The KTM handled fantastically now I had fully working suspension again.

It took 2 days to get to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. The road was brand new with almost all the way there and before passing into Kashmir valley we travelled through a tunnel, only one vehicle wide for at least 3 or 4 km. It was like travelling into a mine.

Marc makes a friend.

In Srinagar we were hassled by touts trying to get us to stay on a houseboat on the lake. They literally ran down the road after us but we found a hotel out of the way with secure parking.

That night the water from Amritsar caught up with me... it wasn't pretty. I spent the next day in bed. Marc spent the day making some woolen gloves up from wooley hats he bought. They look ridiculous.

Feeling better the next day we set off to Kargil. The scenery got better and better. Words cannot do it justice and pictures cannot show the beaty and majesty of the snow capped mountains.

From Kargil we went to Leh, and suddenly from Muslim Kashmir, we were in the land of Buddhists. Temples adorned the landscapes and faces changed from asian to oriental.

Children held their hands out to us as we passed for us to high five - much better than the stones they apparently throw on the Karakorom Highway.

The road to Leh is possibly one of the best I've ever ridden. At times the surface was aweful, but we flew over it on our rally bikes.

Along the way signs from the road building agency have little slogans like if married, divorce speed' and 'this is a higway not a runway'. Almost as if they had employed Master Yoda to write them. Some were quite spiritual, such as 'If you can dream it, you can do it'. After stopping to take a photo next to this fitting one I noticed I had a flat front tyre. What fun it is to change a tyre at 3000m altitude.

We went over a pass of 4096 meters. Higher than anything the alps have to offer. At one point a brand new road had been built, complete with road markings! Nowhere in India has road markings! It was literally like a racetrack.

We made it to Leh just as the Sun was setting and found a decent hotel with parking. At a restaurant last night I had chicken chowmein and dumplings. A wonderful change from curry.

Anyway, I'm off now to look at the monastry and to get news about the road onwards. Hopefully it's still open but we're really pushing it, it's very late in the year and snow is due any second. Hopefully not for a few more days.

Love Thy Neighbour

Now that most of the nagging little things on the bikes have been sorted, we could spend the day relaxing and decided to take the bus over to the Indian border at Wagah to have a gander at the infamous border closing ceremony. It was worth it.

Every night, about 1 hour before sunset, each side fills a small stadium with devotees to cheer on their countries border guards as they make a rather spectacular show of shutting the gate and saying "Fuck You" to the other side, but politely of course.

It starts with music. As the crowd piles in (men and women separated on the Pakistani side), each country tries to outdo the other by attempting to play tacky patriotic pop music as loud as possible to drown the other out.

Whilst waiting for the ceremony to begin, a car arrived from the Indian side and got the most raucous welcom to Pakistan by a couple of thousand people. I don't think they were expecting that.

Then some flag bearers, one an old man about 90, come and wave their flags about, dressed in Pakistani flag clothes.

Papa Pakistan

The ceremony begins with each side then howling like dogs at each other, I think the objective here was to howl the longest on one breath, which Pakistan seemed to win the most.

During all this the crowd goes wild with chants, applause and shouting.

Then the guards appear to do their stuff. The Pakistanis dressed all in black with a black head dress type thing, and the Indians in Khaki with a red one. They quick march up to the gate then back again and stomp around a lot in preparation.

Then they open the gates.

The guards stomp up to the gate from both sides and begin to engage in what can only be described as the most ridiculously choreographed show of taunting ever.

They kick their legs so high they almost break their own noses.

At one point two Indian guards and two Pakistani guards appear to do bear impressions at each other after a fit of stamping.

More howling ensues.

The crowd goes wild.

Eventually they prepare to take down their respective flags.

After undoing their ropes they appear to throw the slack at each other before lowering their flags in unison in an attempt to show that each side is equal. The Pakistani flag seemed to stay slightly higher than the Indian however...

Once the flag is lowered it is quickly folded and marched back to the guard house for safe keeping.

The captain of the guards from each side then approach to shake hands. It happens so quickly that if you blinked you'd miss it. I'm sure they must mutter something to the other side as well.

After some final kicking and stomping the border gates are closed for the night.

A job well done.

Till tomorrow...