them when they spend their nights
on google maps, highlighting routes,
calculating distances, asking ques-
tions on forums, while others just
like to hand over the money and ask,
“who’s the leader and when’s lunch?”
Get enough of the latter in a group
with a few of the former and it is
beautiful fruity frozen yoghurt expe-
rience, one that Fuzzball would be
proud of.
When the idea of the combining
a 15-day motorcycle adventure to
the highest motorable road with the
Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride was
floated, I knew I had to pursue it. I
put the very first DGR together with
Mark Hawwa in 2012 so it was a sim-
ple phone call to get the ok to organise
one from Leh to Khardungla.
DGR is always held on the last
Sunday of September every year so
we changed our tour dates back a
month so that we could ascend the
highest road while dressed in our to-
tally inappropriate dapper tweed …
and Maharaja suits. Around 15 of us
donned our suits on Sunday the 24th
September and made our way to the
16th century Leh Palace that stands
imposingly, overlooking the city.
We’d spent a few days, making our
way from the unbearable heat, noise,
smell and general commotion that
is Delhi towards Manali in Himach-
al Pradesh. Manali is full of Israeli
backpackers fresh from their military
obligations, seeking enlightenment
with the aid of some local herbs that
grow like … um, weeds.
As we were about to head off to-
wards Rohtang Pass which, translates
to “field of corpses”, so named after
all the deaths of people trying to cross
it, we heard there was a tourist bus,
full of backpackers that had gone off
the edge of a mountain road. The iro-
ny of escaping war by travelling such
dangerous roads and public transport
is not lost on our group.
Although the Rohtang pass has
been improved dramatically in the
past few years, you’d be foolish to
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