adventure bike replaces the classic
Himalayan experience. Part of what
makes this adventure special is doing
it on the quintessential Indian bike.
It’ll be a shame if that happens.
We leave the dirt roads behind us
and cruise up to and over the second
highest motorable road in the world.
Let me say that again. The second
highest road in the world….out of
the millions of roads on the planet,
we’ve just ridden to the top of the sec-
ond highest like it was a commute to
work. At this point we realise we’re
2000m higher than the altitude that
crazy people jump out of moving,
avgas filled aluminium tubes. The
point is driven home as we throw a
stone off the edge and count until it
hits our resting place if we don’t con-
centrate on the way down.
As we head into Leh, we drop the
pace. For the first time in days, there
are other vehicles on the road they’re
all bigger than us. The anticipation
amongst the crew is high as we pre-
pare for the reason we’re all here – to
ride our trusty steeds to the highest
motorable road in the world. I’d like
to tell you we got busy ironing our
neck scarfs, steaming our suits and
polishing our boots but I can’t. We got
busy drowning the Himalayan dust
that was stuck in our throats with
cold Kingfishers and playing cards
until dinner. If the only food in the
world was dahl and lentils, I’d be a
happy man but after a few days of it,
you start thinking that Gordon Ram-
sey got his interesting vocabulary
when he was asked to come up with
more than 10 ways to cook them. The
pizza joint we found that night did a
roaring trade.
The next day we are awoken not by
the thump of our engines but by the
Muslim call to prayer interspersed
with the barking of dogs, we thought
Nicky Minaj had come to serenade us
off. A breakfast of baked beans, eggs
and turkey bacon which we called
fakon was followed up with our 78th
TRAVERSE 29
cup of chai and some spreadable flu-
orescent stuff on toast. After that
gentleman’s breakfast, we posed for
a photo with our sunglasses on, not
because the sun was in our eyes but
because some of us might have had
a little too much fun the previous
night. Our bikes had been expertly
fiddled with and were ready to tack-
le Kardungla. We followed the leader
to the start point where the adrenalin
started to build and there might have
been a touch of trepidation with a few
of the guys as the clouds were dark ei-
ther side of where we were headed.
On the way up the mountain, we
were passed by a group of Europeans
dressed in full adventure attire, rid-
ing monstrous machines that must’ve
weighed as much as the mountains
we were ascending. Further up the
road, we came across one of these
behemoths lying on the ground at a
hairpin. A few of our group got off
our bikes and struggled to right the
bike before dusting off our tweed