This is a long read. I think I have posted it in the most relevant section? Hopefully you'll like it. Maybe put the kettle on and get some biscuits or cake..
Back in September 2012 Hannah and I rode our treadlys through some of the Himalayas. I have been meaning to sort through all the photos I took and post them up because there was some pretty cool things we saw that I would like to share. I have been waiting till at my olds where the internet aint so steam powered and I could load up the photos.
This trip was mind blowing for me. I have never been to any third world countries and had always wanted to visit India. Hannah spent many of her early years growing up in India and has been back since so it wasn’t so new to her. But she had never been this far north and now as a very keen cyclist the prospect of riding in that area was very exciting for both of us. The ride we planned was going to be hard and we made it harder by attempting to complete it in fewer days than most.
So to begin.. we needed bikes. We had flown to England for a month to do family things there, mountain biking in wales and catch up with friends at the Retro rides gathering for our third time. Instead of taking our posher mtbs over and then risk them in India we decided to buy a couple of bikes in the UK. They had to be classics because that’s just what we like. So a few weeks before leaving NZ we started trawling Ebay and retrobike forums. We managed to score sweet 1990s Bontrager steel hard tails each. We settled into them with much mtbing about Oxford and Wales. Then off to India.
Here is New Delhi very early morning landing. Wow. So big. A huge sprawl of lights as far as I could see…
Hands..
Once cleared through customs we thought about how we would get to the city centre. I knew we would get fleeced by any taxi or bus so we decided to build our bikes in the airport, which amused many interested folk and ride the motorway in.
My first Indian truck..
and bike.. straight off from leaving the airport.
Oh.. its busy. And getting hot. Early morning but still hot. The roads in just got crazier and more hectic. But there was a sort of crazy order to it. Well actually no there isn’t. Its really just little gives way to big. We were little. But I think somewhat respected for our obvious craziness in riding on a 5 lane (or more at times!) highway and people gave us some room. The exhaust fumes were pretty terrible combined with the heat off the road. But we both felt sprightly and fast enough to nip in and out of traffic. I loved it! It was a wicked buzz. I tried to take some photos but really it was trick enough not getting squished. Heres some..
We stayed in Paharganj, central Delhi, which is one of the hot spots for back packers to stay and had good access to the main station we needed to get to Shimla from. Riding through central Delhi was wow. Sooo busy. It was all so new to me. The sights, the smells, the sounds. A full on barrage of my senses. We rode through little busy alleyways to try and find our planned nights stay. Riding through streams of poo and wee. Nice. Toilets are often just a brick wall you stand or crouch behind to do you business and move on.
I lost Hannah at one point when going round a huge busy roundabout. I couldn’t spot her. curse word! How would I find her. Seriously so many roads and alleyways and all the traffic hid so much from view. Trying to look across a road filled with buses,cars, auto rickshaws, cows (yes..cows) and bikes is bloody tricky. I found her. Phew.
We stayed a couple of nights here and went for a walk to check out all around us. Pretty damn mad. So many busy little alleyways crammed with all sorts of tiny shops selling or repairing all manor of things. We bought some beers at an upstairs bar and chilled out, swatting away many mossies and watching the busy street below. As the sun went down it got busier because the temperature was much kinder. I figured at about that point that we wouldn’t have a quiet sleep. Dogs. So many dogs. At 2 in the morning. Dogs. Bloody dogs. And horns.
Some photos of the things we saw…
To avoid drinking any dodgy water on the trip and so avoid having poos of the same consistency we bought a decent filter thingee and filtered all our own water. A slow job but worth the hassle.
The next evening we needed to get to our train and we decided to get a taxi. We had packed our bikes along with panniers into the bike bags for the train and they were way too clumbersome to carry the few kilometers to the station. Our taxi driver was pretty blatantly not that sure of his way around New Delhi. He drove the little van all over the show and since we had already walked to the station the day before to check it out we knew he was lost. The roads were getting busier too. Traffic not moving type busy. What should have been a 5 minute drive took one hour of stress and shouting, from him, other drivers, me. But we got there. Just.
Then onto a train. A very long train. Don’t make a mistake and stand at the wrong end of the platform. It may well take 15 minutes of carting all your curse word to the other end. Many people in the way and they all want to get on the train. Or just sit in the way waiting for their train. Or all the porters wanting to carry your stuff and take your money.
This was my first ever overnighter. We paid a little extra and had air conditioning. 2 tier air con is what its called. Wow. Such lush. Ok not lush like you might find in Europe on a posh train but lush for us here in India. They supply fresh clean blankets and bedding. The beds are not made for tall Europeans though but still comfy. Such a choice experience sleeping in a bed on a train.
We woke up in the early morning not far from Kalka where we would swap trains and take the mountain train up to Shimla. It was still early morning when we boarded. The air up here in Northern India was already cooler and fresher. A nice relief.
This train was very cool indeed. Here’s what wiki says about it..
“The Kalka–Shimla Railway is a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway in North-West India travelling along a mostly mountainous route from Kalka to Shimla. It is known for dramatic views of the hills and surrounding villages. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was built in 1898. to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the rest of the Indian rail system. At the time of construction 107 tunnels and 864 bridges, were built throughout the course of the track”
I took this photo..
from this train..
and went for wee wees here..
We got to Shimla, at 2276m up and immediately were bombarded with kind offers from many different taxi drivers to take us to our nights stay for lots of money. When they saw the size of our bags they must have been so excited at the prospect of having us between a rock and a hard place. Ha. No. We turned down the invites into their Hindustan Ambassadors and to quite a crowd of taxi driving on lookers we assembled our steeds…
Shimla was pretty cool. We had decided to stay here a couple of days to acclimatise to the altitude. Our bike ride proper starts here. But first it was time to have a look around this place. Its where all the posh Indians head in the heat of summer and holiday in the cooler mountain climate. We stayed in a very nice little backpackers on the outskirts of town. They let us leave our bike bags there for the next stage of our trip. Here’s some photos from around Shimla..
the famous coffee house. The coffee was terrible.
A Vauxhall theme bar..
Time to leave Shimla and start climbing. Our first part of the ride was to make our way to Manali. There was an easy way via big roads with less climbing but where’s the fun in that. We took a longer, steeper but much prettier route over the Jalori pass at around 3200m. We had our first night camping in the mountains. We had our little tent, and pitched it way off the road in a cool little spot next to a creek. We thought there was no one around, out here in the middle of the mountains. I was butt naked laying on my front in the creek when I looked up to spot an old lady walking past, seemingly unfazed by it all. Ha. In the middle of the night I got up for a wee and there was heaps of fireflies buzzing about in the pitch black. Wow. Yeah man..this is cool.
The campsite..
The climb up Jalori was long and gradual. Most people we saw coming the other way would stop and tell us the road was closed from slips. We had come too far and just kept going. Eventually we made it to the first slip. Pretty big all right but there was a narrow walking track the locals had made across the slip face so no worries. Lots of cars stuck between the two major slips. After the last slip the road was super quiet. No traffic. Yay. Not that there was much up here. After dressing up warm it was off down the other side. It was a sweet forest lined road without anyone else on it. We were too late to make the next town so camping again. At no point throughout the ride did we want to camp within public view, mainly for safety reasons. So we found a neat wee spot just off the road up a bank under some trees.
Photos of those two days..
That slip..
If you look carefully you can make out some people in the far distance near the trees..
Local AA services consist of you placing some rocks down and then fix it yourself.
Big river didn’t look so big from 1500 m up but was big. Look at them dinky trucks.
Yep that’ll be heaps’o’weed right there on the side of the road. Hmmm….
Then a big tunnel near this dam.
Long, dusty and poorly lit tunnel full of exhaust fumes.
Heading towards Manali. This area of India, in Himachal Pradesh is beautiful. Many beautiful valleys, mountains, rivers. There is a lot of apple orchards etc about and when we rode through towards Manali there were heaps of cool old trucks carting fruit around to the various markets.
We arrived in Manali. We stayed here for a few days to do more acclimatising and get a few bits sorted for the next stage. Cool town. We stayed in Old Manali. Heaps of backpackers about. Lots of hippies. Lots of trustafarians and Israelis. Rude buggers that they are. Very interesting place to walk about and take in all the stuff going on. We met a very nice helpful Nepali cyclist who organises a mtb race in the Himalayas. He helped us out for a couple of hours sorting out some straps for our panniers. He led us about the busy markets and we gathered the various bits needed and found a sewer to make them. Finally we wouldn’t have panniers that would jump off at every pothole.
Manali fire engines..
Nice old coffee machine..
Big mountain river near old Manali
Lunch time on way into Manali with handily placed herbs for sandwichs..
Then just as we were settling into the hippy lifestyle at Manali we left and headed towards Ley…
As if to warn people of the tricky road ahead they leave these here..
There are these great road signs every so often. I kept thinking the ‘BRO’ bit was like “hey..bro”
But actually it stands for border roads authority. Sort of like ministry of works services. Anyway, very cool signs…
It was very hot down in the valley floor as we headed up towards the Rohtang pass.
Now the winter before we arrived there had been some huge monsoon storms that took out many bridges as well as wiping out both sides of the pass we were heading over. This we were not aware of as we headed merrily up the road. Here was a bridge...
The scenery as we headed up looks very much like parts of North America..
On a mission..
Thanks to BRO she’ll be right mate…
We had bumped into this American couple, Dan and Kriket, the night before at the place we were staying at. They had hired brand new Enfields, fuel injected at that, and were doing the same trip. Dan’s bike kept playing up and we would over the next few days bump into them several times, each time we caught up while they sorted out failures.
Remember that storm and damage I mentioned. Well the road started to go yuck spec..
Luckily, because its such a vital road as far as security goes due to it feeding important borders, they were on to it..
Our friends on the motor bikes had taken this shot and emailed it to us a year or two later. It’s the only photo of both of us riding..
We eventually made the pass. It was pretty damn cold and miserable up there but so happy. More much higher passes to come but this was the first.
Now biking for fun in India is something many frown upon. In a country where people are striving to move up the social ladder anyone will do anything to get off a bike and onto something powered. This we found out about when we became good friends with these fellas because we kept meeting them again. They had just reached the pass a little bit before us. It was really nice to know there were more fellow cyclists on the trip.
From the top it was all downhill into the next valley over. You could straight away spot how different the landscape became. It’s a bit like our NZ Southern alps and how they effect the landscape on each side. Much like the West coast stays wet and the East coast stays dry. Here the predominant moisture heads north towards the Himalayas and gets dumped on the south side. As we rode over the Rohtang pass the whole scene changed. Dry, cold, clear and massive mountains came into view. Wow.
We had a long cold downhill to get over before it got dark and the sun was quickly setting behind the mountains. The road surface was so wrecked from that storm. Occasionally we would come across a random bit of brand new tarseal, bathe in all its smoothness and then drop straight back into rocks and washboards. Not much time to take photos but I got a few. We would have pitched the tent higher up the pass but there was simply no where you could. It was either rocks or cliffs.
Looking right down into the valley floor, where we needed to be..
We kept heading down but it was along way and the light was fading. I scanned the sides of the road as we dropped and the fields got grassier. Finally a little spot we could pitch our tent. We hurriedly pitched it the settling darkness and pretty much went straight to sleep, knackered. We woke up early in the morning to a light frost and realised we were in some ones potato field! Ha. All the way up here. Sure enough not much further down and we spotted a little shack.
The morning view from our lumpy bed…
So with the beautiful morning sun filling up the valley we packed up and headed down into the valley floor. Along the road past the settlement where we had wanted to stay the night and towards the next climb. Pretty soon it started getting hot down here. Seriously hot and very dusty. Parts of the area reminded me so much of around central Otago.
This made me smile. Engine gone done broke and taken away.
Our next stop was Jispa. But not before lunch. We had spicy noodles in Keylong as we sat at a table looking out at the mountain views with a nice cup of tea to wash it down. Nice.
The weather was just perfect too. We were lucky. This road through to Leh has a very small opening time of around 3 or 4 months and then its all snowed in. We had booked our trip in the late part of summer and the weather could well turn and snow at any point.
Council building inspector would have a field day…
Mainly flatish riding with a few little ups towards Jispa. In Jispa we found a randomly placed big Hotel. The sort of thing one might expect to see in Aspen or some other alpine retreat. It looked nice and very inviting better than a tent. We enquired and it was cheap. Oh the hot showers…so good. Nice hot dinner and cold beer. Lovely. Then retreat to our bedroom and watch some classy Bollywood.
Next day it was another big climb. First along the valley floor.
Dozer drivers not having much luck around these parts..
Morning snacks..
Another one of those randomly placed areas of tarseal. They actually melt the tar in drums with wood fires underneath. As we rode along we would often spot old tar stained drums.
The main climb started and we had lunch in this little place. A good helping of vegetable curry with rice and a chapatti. We needed to keep our energy up. Well that was my excuse. Always.
Not far up the climb we found a pretty desolate looking truck stop and a Tony’s tyre service shop…
The climb kept going..
and going..
and going..
It started to get cold and windy.
Seriously cold with a very mean nasty wind. Just near the top we found a little shrine building. So lucky. I seriously struggled to undo my zips to get warmer clothes on. Hannah was worse. Actually quite scary how quickly things got nasty. We piled on the layers, ate chocolate and huddled. This pass was called Baralachala . It was high up here and we had higher passes to come. Hopefully not so cloudy and windy!
Finally we braved it and headed off down the other side. The cloud cleared and the view was amazing. I couldn’t feel my fingers and it was hard to squeeze the brake levers.
Luckily we didn’t have too far to ride before our planned nights stay came up, the Bharatpur tent colony. I rolled up outside the first tent and the Tibetan owner knew exactly what strife we were in. She pulled us inside and got a paraffin heater going where we sat and thawed out our fingers. Man did they hurt.
It makes me shudder to think what would have happened up there if we got a puncture or something. But we made it. Hot tea and food never tasted so good. We thawed out and felt so safe, snug and happy there.
It was a really surreal place to stay the night. She and her daughter, who spoke no English at all, would spend 3 months here feeding and lodging truck drivers or silly folk like us. Even more surprising was when she went out the back, started a generator up and turned on a telly I’d not spotted. She had a satellite dish and we watched the film Hotshots that evening. She just kept piling heavy blankets on us as the cold crept in from outside. Tarp roof not that insulating..
The following morning dawned blue skies and cold. But so beautiful. What a landscape. Dressed up warm..
We thanked our hosts for a cosy night and waved good bye. Off and onwards to the next climb. The road through the next few hours had me stopping constantly to take photos. It was an amazing area. We came to a bridge under repair. Soldiers were in charge of the repairs and the mean buggers wouldn’t let us ride our bikes across. So instead it was through the icy cold river. Yay for cold wet feet.
Today was another long day in the saddle. Sarchu for lunch was a great place to spot trucks. Oh such fantastic trucks here. Then along a stunning valley floor where I had one of the best times of the ride. Everything just clicked. The sun was blazing and I was warm. There was a tailwind up the valley. The views were mind blowing and I was listening to really good trance music on my mp3 player. We sailed along happily towards the next huge climb up the Gataloops.
Sarchu truck stop..
Todays main climb begins right here…
Well said…
On one corner we came across a very interesting sight. We found out later some foggy details, like something it was a driver who rolled his truck off a corner or something. His family couldn’t afford a burial or something odd. So the body was just left and made a shrine to the plastic god…
I found it to be quite an eerie place. So we had a snack. I offered the fella a biscuit.
Onwards and upwards. The Gata loops stopped but the climbing didn’t. Every bloody corner we rode around would offer up a view of another long section of road disappearing into the distance. curse word. Oh well.. keep grinding away..surely it will end soon.
Finally it did and we crested the pass…
Then down the other side to our stay for the night, a Yurt in Biskynala. On the way down I spotted this truck. It must have broken down and every magpie truck driver had nicked bits off it. I really like the style of the cab.
Our Yurt for the night. Very cold up here but so cosy. Instant noodles, Maggi brand no less, were part of our menu for the night. Our host was very friendly.
The next morning while drinking my morning cuppa I watched some truck drivers tend to their steeds. Probably changing the altitude settings on the ecu’s or something….
We had a fairly small climb to the next pass because we had not dropped that far to the Yurts. It wasn’t a bad climb either. Highest altitude reached yet. Pretty mad really, riding bikes at 1300 metres above New Zealand's highest mountain, Mt Cook at 3700m.
Layer up warm and head down the valley towards Pang for lunch.
Hot food in a little shack run by a little old weathered lady. Sweet tea. I seem to remember crisps being involved. Probably Lays. A bit like Walkers. Yum. Then another climb out from Pang up to a big plateau where we then had the most awesome 50km downhill along the smoothest brand new tarmac Ive ever seen. Sitting on about 50 kph for an hour with not a single other vehicle spotted the whole time. Minutes at a time just cruising along, sitting up, my arms stretched out as I soaked up that freedom feeling a long gentle downhill gives. I had to stop and walk up the side of a mountain to get a shot of the road.
Then the fun stopped. The tarmac stopped and the road became a choppy corrugated mess again. Joy. It was getting late in the afternoon but we finally made it to our stop for the night. We rolled up and there were our cycling friends from days earlier. They had taken a bus for some of their trip and sneaked past us. We spent the night chatting away about cycling in India and cars. I had previously mentioned how cycling as a sport in India was frowned upon. One of them at least had not told his parents he was going on the ride, to avoid any hassling. But these guys were really keen cyclists and loving the trip!
It was a good night but bloody cold and the altitude was really starting to affect me. Because we had been sleeping above 4000m for so many days my breathing of the thin cold dry air had wrecked my ribcage muscles and it was not nice at all. Hannah was faring better.
I had read that it doesn’t matter how fit you are, we all get affected in different ways. 20 years ago when I was a youngling, I was doing a lot of bike racing and I had some sports testing done with a friend for his studies. Turned out my Vo2 max was really good and I’ve got (or had..) 7.4 litre lungs. Oh such smugface. Ha ha ha - well none of this was helping me now!!! I struggled to sleep that night and my breathing really hurt.
Luckily we only had one more pass to go. Unlucky that it was also the highest.
We crawled out of our sleeping bags that morning to a pretty cold grey day. Onto ours bikes and knew it was going to be a long day. As we rode higher we just kept stopping for little breaks and nibbled on food. The surface was pretty curse word and this made the struggle worse. We came across a road surfacing crew. Lots of layered up workers working away in neat little teams. Rocks were being pulled off the side and smashed smaller by one team. Further along another team was smashing them smaller. Then another team until they had gravel. With hammers. Then laid down and rolled flat. Drums of tar being melted further along and the asphalt spread. Pretty amazing to watch. I think they found it equally interesting to watch us crawl by on bikes.
Road builders camp. Oh it must be so cold up here for them.
Things got tough for us. Luckily I had a wonder tool in my bar bag. Much to Hannah’s mirth I had bought a bar of Kendal mint cake in the UK just before leaving. She said at the time “eww, I wont be eating that ” Ha! Well yes you did dear and it was just what we needed. The wind had picked up and it was cold. We were buggered. That Minty suger was a very nice hit! We made the pass. Yes!!! Snapped some quick pics but it was pretty damn cold up there and we wanted to get down the other side into warmth.
We dropped down the other side and boy the road was amazing. They had sealed pretty much the whole way up. It was a perfect snaking ribbon of lush. It got warmer and we found a nice little sheltered area to have some lunch. Leh was our planned finish for the day but we probably were not going to make it so we settled in to a nice cruise down and along the valley floor. Trees returned, grassy fields and it just felt nice.
Into the valley..
We stopped at a little settlement for afternoon tea (and some some crisps). A dude rolled up in this choice cruiser. He had a puffer jacket, aviators and skinny jeans. Such boss.
Not too far from Leh itself but too far to make it before dark we spotted a nice spot by a river to camp. The ground was covered in salt. So at least no slugs will attack us I figured.
Next morning was a nice cruisy ride to Leh. We had planned to complete the Manali to Leh bit in 6 days but pretty damn happy to finish on the 7th day after all that. My ribs ached and I just wanted to rest.
On the way into Leh I spotted this and it made me giggle…
Get your tuning and hot up gear right here…
We rode into Leh central and rode about a bit to look for a place to stay. Leh was a lovely place. Very interesting to ride around. Very clean and pretty. A very eco friendly place. They have to be because they rely so much on limited water and other resources.
This cow lead us down a dodgy alleyway.
We found the place we were looking for. Stunning little garden and they even included some mice for us.
We spent a couple of days looking about and sorted out transport back to Manali. We didn’t want to take a bus back, not after seeing how they were driven plus after speaking to a driver in Leh who was about to head off that evening with a full load and was already curse word on Whiskey! Yeah nah..screw that. So we booked our own private taxi back. It was expensive compared to the bus but cheap to us considering we wanted to take two days to get back and had our own vehicle.
I was still suffering with sore ribs and even walking was hard. I was looking forward to getting down in altitude. Bring on Manali and its closer to sea level 2200m. Leh was still too high for me in my state at 3500m.
We had to pack up our bikes. We had time to spare so I had a great morning in the huge market walking from stall to stall, beating them at their own game by driving the price down for foam wrap and tape etc. $2 in the end to get what we wanted. It was a giggle- they never knew what hit em.. the power of a tight arsed Kiwi born of Scottish blood and with a moth filled wallet.
Photos before we set off..
Leh central..
Then a couple of days back in our taxi. Our driver was pretty cool but had a bloody high temper when it came to dealing with other road users.. it was both funny and scary at times…
Some people have all the luck..
We made it back safe to Manali. There we found a good café/bar and ate like kings. Pizza was consumed and washed down with good beer.
Then onto another bus back to Shimla. We spent another two days there and found this fella lurking…
He’s pretty big round these parts..
He has a bunch of little helpers..
He’s called Hanuman.. the monkey god. Read about him here..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman
To get up to him we had to walk a curse word load of steps. This sign was at the bottom. We saw it as a challenge and boy with all the ‘altitude training’ we were feeling strong. Needless to say we beat the fastest time easily. Smug.
We re-packed our bikes back into the bike bags and bused to Delhi in a big posh Volvo. It felt like Luxury but it was a long trip. W arrived in the early evening and made a mad rush across town to get to another bus station for a bus to the airport. The roads were mayhem…
Then chilled at the airport and waited for our flight back to NZ. Ahhhh NZ… You are so green, so lush..
The first thing we did after landing in NZ….
Ahhhhhh. That’s our story. I hope you enjoyed it.
Alex
Back in September 2012 Hannah and I rode our treadlys through some of the Himalayas. I have been meaning to sort through all the photos I took and post them up because there was some pretty cool things we saw that I would like to share. I have been waiting till at my olds where the internet aint so steam powered and I could load up the photos.
This trip was mind blowing for me. I have never been to any third world countries and had always wanted to visit India. Hannah spent many of her early years growing up in India and has been back since so it wasn’t so new to her. But she had never been this far north and now as a very keen cyclist the prospect of riding in that area was very exciting for both of us. The ride we planned was going to be hard and we made it harder by attempting to complete it in fewer days than most.
So to begin.. we needed bikes. We had flown to England for a month to do family things there, mountain biking in wales and catch up with friends at the Retro rides gathering for our third time. Instead of taking our posher mtbs over and then risk them in India we decided to buy a couple of bikes in the UK. They had to be classics because that’s just what we like. So a few weeks before leaving NZ we started trawling Ebay and retrobike forums. We managed to score sweet 1990s Bontrager steel hard tails each. We settled into them with much mtbing about Oxford and Wales. Then off to India.
Here is New Delhi very early morning landing. Wow. So big. A huge sprawl of lights as far as I could see…
Hands..
Once cleared through customs we thought about how we would get to the city centre. I knew we would get fleeced by any taxi or bus so we decided to build our bikes in the airport, which amused many interested folk and ride the motorway in.
My first Indian truck..
and bike.. straight off from leaving the airport.
Oh.. its busy. And getting hot. Early morning but still hot. The roads in just got crazier and more hectic. But there was a sort of crazy order to it. Well actually no there isn’t. Its really just little gives way to big. We were little. But I think somewhat respected for our obvious craziness in riding on a 5 lane (or more at times!) highway and people gave us some room. The exhaust fumes were pretty terrible combined with the heat off the road. But we both felt sprightly and fast enough to nip in and out of traffic. I loved it! It was a wicked buzz. I tried to take some photos but really it was trick enough not getting squished. Heres some..
We stayed in Paharganj, central Delhi, which is one of the hot spots for back packers to stay and had good access to the main station we needed to get to Shimla from. Riding through central Delhi was wow. Sooo busy. It was all so new to me. The sights, the smells, the sounds. A full on barrage of my senses. We rode through little busy alleyways to try and find our planned nights stay. Riding through streams of poo and wee. Nice. Toilets are often just a brick wall you stand or crouch behind to do you business and move on.
I lost Hannah at one point when going round a huge busy roundabout. I couldn’t spot her. curse word! How would I find her. Seriously so many roads and alleyways and all the traffic hid so much from view. Trying to look across a road filled with buses,cars, auto rickshaws, cows (yes..cows) and bikes is bloody tricky. I found her. Phew.
We stayed a couple of nights here and went for a walk to check out all around us. Pretty damn mad. So many busy little alleyways crammed with all sorts of tiny shops selling or repairing all manor of things. We bought some beers at an upstairs bar and chilled out, swatting away many mossies and watching the busy street below. As the sun went down it got busier because the temperature was much kinder. I figured at about that point that we wouldn’t have a quiet sleep. Dogs. So many dogs. At 2 in the morning. Dogs. Bloody dogs. And horns.
Some photos of the things we saw…
To avoid drinking any dodgy water on the trip and so avoid having poos of the same consistency we bought a decent filter thingee and filtered all our own water. A slow job but worth the hassle.
The next evening we needed to get to our train and we decided to get a taxi. We had packed our bikes along with panniers into the bike bags for the train and they were way too clumbersome to carry the few kilometers to the station. Our taxi driver was pretty blatantly not that sure of his way around New Delhi. He drove the little van all over the show and since we had already walked to the station the day before to check it out we knew he was lost. The roads were getting busier too. Traffic not moving type busy. What should have been a 5 minute drive took one hour of stress and shouting, from him, other drivers, me. But we got there. Just.
Then onto a train. A very long train. Don’t make a mistake and stand at the wrong end of the platform. It may well take 15 minutes of carting all your curse word to the other end. Many people in the way and they all want to get on the train. Or just sit in the way waiting for their train. Or all the porters wanting to carry your stuff and take your money.
This was my first ever overnighter. We paid a little extra and had air conditioning. 2 tier air con is what its called. Wow. Such lush. Ok not lush like you might find in Europe on a posh train but lush for us here in India. They supply fresh clean blankets and bedding. The beds are not made for tall Europeans though but still comfy. Such a choice experience sleeping in a bed on a train.
We woke up in the early morning not far from Kalka where we would swap trains and take the mountain train up to Shimla. It was still early morning when we boarded. The air up here in Northern India was already cooler and fresher. A nice relief.
This train was very cool indeed. Here’s what wiki says about it..
“The Kalka–Shimla Railway is a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge railway in North-West India travelling along a mostly mountainous route from Kalka to Shimla. It is known for dramatic views of the hills and surrounding villages. The Kalka–Shimla Railway was built in 1898. to connect Shimla, the summer capital of India during the British Raj, with the rest of the Indian rail system. At the time of construction 107 tunnels and 864 bridges, were built throughout the course of the track”
I took this photo..
from this train..
and went for wee wees here..
We got to Shimla, at 2276m up and immediately were bombarded with kind offers from many different taxi drivers to take us to our nights stay for lots of money. When they saw the size of our bags they must have been so excited at the prospect of having us between a rock and a hard place. Ha. No. We turned down the invites into their Hindustan Ambassadors and to quite a crowd of taxi driving on lookers we assembled our steeds…
Shimla was pretty cool. We had decided to stay here a couple of days to acclimatise to the altitude. Our bike ride proper starts here. But first it was time to have a look around this place. Its where all the posh Indians head in the heat of summer and holiday in the cooler mountain climate. We stayed in a very nice little backpackers on the outskirts of town. They let us leave our bike bags there for the next stage of our trip. Here’s some photos from around Shimla..
the famous coffee house. The coffee was terrible.
A Vauxhall theme bar..
Time to leave Shimla and start climbing. Our first part of the ride was to make our way to Manali. There was an easy way via big roads with less climbing but where’s the fun in that. We took a longer, steeper but much prettier route over the Jalori pass at around 3200m. We had our first night camping in the mountains. We had our little tent, and pitched it way off the road in a cool little spot next to a creek. We thought there was no one around, out here in the middle of the mountains. I was butt naked laying on my front in the creek when I looked up to spot an old lady walking past, seemingly unfazed by it all. Ha. In the middle of the night I got up for a wee and there was heaps of fireflies buzzing about in the pitch black. Wow. Yeah man..this is cool.
The campsite..
The climb up Jalori was long and gradual. Most people we saw coming the other way would stop and tell us the road was closed from slips. We had come too far and just kept going. Eventually we made it to the first slip. Pretty big all right but there was a narrow walking track the locals had made across the slip face so no worries. Lots of cars stuck between the two major slips. After the last slip the road was super quiet. No traffic. Yay. Not that there was much up here. After dressing up warm it was off down the other side. It was a sweet forest lined road without anyone else on it. We were too late to make the next town so camping again. At no point throughout the ride did we want to camp within public view, mainly for safety reasons. So we found a neat wee spot just off the road up a bank under some trees.
Photos of those two days..
That slip..
If you look carefully you can make out some people in the far distance near the trees..
Local AA services consist of you placing some rocks down and then fix it yourself.
Big river didn’t look so big from 1500 m up but was big. Look at them dinky trucks.
Yep that’ll be heaps’o’weed right there on the side of the road. Hmmm….
Then a big tunnel near this dam.
Long, dusty and poorly lit tunnel full of exhaust fumes.
Heading towards Manali. This area of India, in Himachal Pradesh is beautiful. Many beautiful valleys, mountains, rivers. There is a lot of apple orchards etc about and when we rode through towards Manali there were heaps of cool old trucks carting fruit around to the various markets.
We arrived in Manali. We stayed here for a few days to do more acclimatising and get a few bits sorted for the next stage. Cool town. We stayed in Old Manali. Heaps of backpackers about. Lots of hippies. Lots of trustafarians and Israelis. Rude buggers that they are. Very interesting place to walk about and take in all the stuff going on. We met a very nice helpful Nepali cyclist who organises a mtb race in the Himalayas. He helped us out for a couple of hours sorting out some straps for our panniers. He led us about the busy markets and we gathered the various bits needed and found a sewer to make them. Finally we wouldn’t have panniers that would jump off at every pothole.
Manali fire engines..
Nice old coffee machine..
Big mountain river near old Manali
Lunch time on way into Manali with handily placed herbs for sandwichs..
Then just as we were settling into the hippy lifestyle at Manali we left and headed towards Ley…
As if to warn people of the tricky road ahead they leave these here..
There are these great road signs every so often. I kept thinking the ‘BRO’ bit was like “hey..bro”
But actually it stands for border roads authority. Sort of like ministry of works services. Anyway, very cool signs…
It was very hot down in the valley floor as we headed up towards the Rohtang pass.
Now the winter before we arrived there had been some huge monsoon storms that took out many bridges as well as wiping out both sides of the pass we were heading over. This we were not aware of as we headed merrily up the road. Here was a bridge...
The scenery as we headed up looks very much like parts of North America..
On a mission..
Thanks to BRO she’ll be right mate…
We had bumped into this American couple, Dan and Kriket, the night before at the place we were staying at. They had hired brand new Enfields, fuel injected at that, and were doing the same trip. Dan’s bike kept playing up and we would over the next few days bump into them several times, each time we caught up while they sorted out failures.
Remember that storm and damage I mentioned. Well the road started to go yuck spec..
Luckily, because its such a vital road as far as security goes due to it feeding important borders, they were on to it..
Our friends on the motor bikes had taken this shot and emailed it to us a year or two later. It’s the only photo of both of us riding..
We eventually made the pass. It was pretty damn cold and miserable up there but so happy. More much higher passes to come but this was the first.
Now biking for fun in India is something many frown upon. In a country where people are striving to move up the social ladder anyone will do anything to get off a bike and onto something powered. This we found out about when we became good friends with these fellas because we kept meeting them again. They had just reached the pass a little bit before us. It was really nice to know there were more fellow cyclists on the trip.
From the top it was all downhill into the next valley over. You could straight away spot how different the landscape became. It’s a bit like our NZ Southern alps and how they effect the landscape on each side. Much like the West coast stays wet and the East coast stays dry. Here the predominant moisture heads north towards the Himalayas and gets dumped on the south side. As we rode over the Rohtang pass the whole scene changed. Dry, cold, clear and massive mountains came into view. Wow.
We had a long cold downhill to get over before it got dark and the sun was quickly setting behind the mountains. The road surface was so wrecked from that storm. Occasionally we would come across a random bit of brand new tarseal, bathe in all its smoothness and then drop straight back into rocks and washboards. Not much time to take photos but I got a few. We would have pitched the tent higher up the pass but there was simply no where you could. It was either rocks or cliffs.
Looking right down into the valley floor, where we needed to be..
We kept heading down but it was along way and the light was fading. I scanned the sides of the road as we dropped and the fields got grassier. Finally a little spot we could pitch our tent. We hurriedly pitched it the settling darkness and pretty much went straight to sleep, knackered. We woke up early in the morning to a light frost and realised we were in some ones potato field! Ha. All the way up here. Sure enough not much further down and we spotted a little shack.
The morning view from our lumpy bed…
So with the beautiful morning sun filling up the valley we packed up and headed down into the valley floor. Along the road past the settlement where we had wanted to stay the night and towards the next climb. Pretty soon it started getting hot down here. Seriously hot and very dusty. Parts of the area reminded me so much of around central Otago.
This made me smile. Engine gone done broke and taken away.
Our next stop was Jispa. But not before lunch. We had spicy noodles in Keylong as we sat at a table looking out at the mountain views with a nice cup of tea to wash it down. Nice.
The weather was just perfect too. We were lucky. This road through to Leh has a very small opening time of around 3 or 4 months and then its all snowed in. We had booked our trip in the late part of summer and the weather could well turn and snow at any point.
Council building inspector would have a field day…
Mainly flatish riding with a few little ups towards Jispa. In Jispa we found a randomly placed big Hotel. The sort of thing one might expect to see in Aspen or some other alpine retreat. It looked nice and very inviting better than a tent. We enquired and it was cheap. Oh the hot showers…so good. Nice hot dinner and cold beer. Lovely. Then retreat to our bedroom and watch some classy Bollywood.
Next day it was another big climb. First along the valley floor.
Dozer drivers not having much luck around these parts..
Morning snacks..
Another one of those randomly placed areas of tarseal. They actually melt the tar in drums with wood fires underneath. As we rode along we would often spot old tar stained drums.
The main climb started and we had lunch in this little place. A good helping of vegetable curry with rice and a chapatti. We needed to keep our energy up. Well that was my excuse. Always.
Not far up the climb we found a pretty desolate looking truck stop and a Tony’s tyre service shop…
The climb kept going..
and going..
and going..
It started to get cold and windy.
Seriously cold with a very mean nasty wind. Just near the top we found a little shrine building. So lucky. I seriously struggled to undo my zips to get warmer clothes on. Hannah was worse. Actually quite scary how quickly things got nasty. We piled on the layers, ate chocolate and huddled. This pass was called Baralachala . It was high up here and we had higher passes to come. Hopefully not so cloudy and windy!
Finally we braved it and headed off down the other side. The cloud cleared and the view was amazing. I couldn’t feel my fingers and it was hard to squeeze the brake levers.
Luckily we didn’t have too far to ride before our planned nights stay came up, the Bharatpur tent colony. I rolled up outside the first tent and the Tibetan owner knew exactly what strife we were in. She pulled us inside and got a paraffin heater going where we sat and thawed out our fingers. Man did they hurt.
It makes me shudder to think what would have happened up there if we got a puncture or something. But we made it. Hot tea and food never tasted so good. We thawed out and felt so safe, snug and happy there.
It was a really surreal place to stay the night. She and her daughter, who spoke no English at all, would spend 3 months here feeding and lodging truck drivers or silly folk like us. Even more surprising was when she went out the back, started a generator up and turned on a telly I’d not spotted. She had a satellite dish and we watched the film Hotshots that evening. She just kept piling heavy blankets on us as the cold crept in from outside. Tarp roof not that insulating..
The following morning dawned blue skies and cold. But so beautiful. What a landscape. Dressed up warm..
We thanked our hosts for a cosy night and waved good bye. Off and onwards to the next climb. The road through the next few hours had me stopping constantly to take photos. It was an amazing area. We came to a bridge under repair. Soldiers were in charge of the repairs and the mean buggers wouldn’t let us ride our bikes across. So instead it was through the icy cold river. Yay for cold wet feet.
Today was another long day in the saddle. Sarchu for lunch was a great place to spot trucks. Oh such fantastic trucks here. Then along a stunning valley floor where I had one of the best times of the ride. Everything just clicked. The sun was blazing and I was warm. There was a tailwind up the valley. The views were mind blowing and I was listening to really good trance music on my mp3 player. We sailed along happily towards the next huge climb up the Gataloops.
Sarchu truck stop..
Todays main climb begins right here…
Well said…
On one corner we came across a very interesting sight. We found out later some foggy details, like something it was a driver who rolled his truck off a corner or something. His family couldn’t afford a burial or something odd. So the body was just left and made a shrine to the plastic god…
I found it to be quite an eerie place. So we had a snack. I offered the fella a biscuit.
Onwards and upwards. The Gata loops stopped but the climbing didn’t. Every bloody corner we rode around would offer up a view of another long section of road disappearing into the distance. curse word. Oh well.. keep grinding away..surely it will end soon.
Finally it did and we crested the pass…
Then down the other side to our stay for the night, a Yurt in Biskynala. On the way down I spotted this truck. It must have broken down and every magpie truck driver had nicked bits off it. I really like the style of the cab.
Our Yurt for the night. Very cold up here but so cosy. Instant noodles, Maggi brand no less, were part of our menu for the night. Our host was very friendly.
The next morning while drinking my morning cuppa I watched some truck drivers tend to their steeds. Probably changing the altitude settings on the ecu’s or something….
We had a fairly small climb to the next pass because we had not dropped that far to the Yurts. It wasn’t a bad climb either. Highest altitude reached yet. Pretty mad really, riding bikes at 1300 metres above New Zealand's highest mountain, Mt Cook at 3700m.
Layer up warm and head down the valley towards Pang for lunch.
Hot food in a little shack run by a little old weathered lady. Sweet tea. I seem to remember crisps being involved. Probably Lays. A bit like Walkers. Yum. Then another climb out from Pang up to a big plateau where we then had the most awesome 50km downhill along the smoothest brand new tarmac Ive ever seen. Sitting on about 50 kph for an hour with not a single other vehicle spotted the whole time. Minutes at a time just cruising along, sitting up, my arms stretched out as I soaked up that freedom feeling a long gentle downhill gives. I had to stop and walk up the side of a mountain to get a shot of the road.
Then the fun stopped. The tarmac stopped and the road became a choppy corrugated mess again. Joy. It was getting late in the afternoon but we finally made it to our stop for the night. We rolled up and there were our cycling friends from days earlier. They had taken a bus for some of their trip and sneaked past us. We spent the night chatting away about cycling in India and cars. I had previously mentioned how cycling as a sport in India was frowned upon. One of them at least had not told his parents he was going on the ride, to avoid any hassling. But these guys were really keen cyclists and loving the trip!
It was a good night but bloody cold and the altitude was really starting to affect me. Because we had been sleeping above 4000m for so many days my breathing of the thin cold dry air had wrecked my ribcage muscles and it was not nice at all. Hannah was faring better.
I had read that it doesn’t matter how fit you are, we all get affected in different ways. 20 years ago when I was a youngling, I was doing a lot of bike racing and I had some sports testing done with a friend for his studies. Turned out my Vo2 max was really good and I’ve got (or had..) 7.4 litre lungs. Oh such smugface. Ha ha ha - well none of this was helping me now!!! I struggled to sleep that night and my breathing really hurt.
Luckily we only had one more pass to go. Unlucky that it was also the highest.
We crawled out of our sleeping bags that morning to a pretty cold grey day. Onto ours bikes and knew it was going to be a long day. As we rode higher we just kept stopping for little breaks and nibbled on food. The surface was pretty curse word and this made the struggle worse. We came across a road surfacing crew. Lots of layered up workers working away in neat little teams. Rocks were being pulled off the side and smashed smaller by one team. Further along another team was smashing them smaller. Then another team until they had gravel. With hammers. Then laid down and rolled flat. Drums of tar being melted further along and the asphalt spread. Pretty amazing to watch. I think they found it equally interesting to watch us crawl by on bikes.
Road builders camp. Oh it must be so cold up here for them.
Things got tough for us. Luckily I had a wonder tool in my bar bag. Much to Hannah’s mirth I had bought a bar of Kendal mint cake in the UK just before leaving. She said at the time “eww, I wont be eating that ” Ha! Well yes you did dear and it was just what we needed. The wind had picked up and it was cold. We were buggered. That Minty suger was a very nice hit! We made the pass. Yes!!! Snapped some quick pics but it was pretty damn cold up there and we wanted to get down the other side into warmth.
We dropped down the other side and boy the road was amazing. They had sealed pretty much the whole way up. It was a perfect snaking ribbon of lush. It got warmer and we found a nice little sheltered area to have some lunch. Leh was our planned finish for the day but we probably were not going to make it so we settled in to a nice cruise down and along the valley floor. Trees returned, grassy fields and it just felt nice.
Into the valley..
We stopped at a little settlement for afternoon tea (and some some crisps). A dude rolled up in this choice cruiser. He had a puffer jacket, aviators and skinny jeans. Such boss.
Not too far from Leh itself but too far to make it before dark we spotted a nice spot by a river to camp. The ground was covered in salt. So at least no slugs will attack us I figured.
Next morning was a nice cruisy ride to Leh. We had planned to complete the Manali to Leh bit in 6 days but pretty damn happy to finish on the 7th day after all that. My ribs ached and I just wanted to rest.
On the way into Leh I spotted this and it made me giggle…
Get your tuning and hot up gear right here…
We rode into Leh central and rode about a bit to look for a place to stay. Leh was a lovely place. Very interesting to ride around. Very clean and pretty. A very eco friendly place. They have to be because they rely so much on limited water and other resources.
This cow lead us down a dodgy alleyway.
We found the place we were looking for. Stunning little garden and they even included some mice for us.
We spent a couple of days looking about and sorted out transport back to Manali. We didn’t want to take a bus back, not after seeing how they were driven plus after speaking to a driver in Leh who was about to head off that evening with a full load and was already curse word on Whiskey! Yeah nah..screw that. So we booked our own private taxi back. It was expensive compared to the bus but cheap to us considering we wanted to take two days to get back and had our own vehicle.
I was still suffering with sore ribs and even walking was hard. I was looking forward to getting down in altitude. Bring on Manali and its closer to sea level 2200m. Leh was still too high for me in my state at 3500m.
We had to pack up our bikes. We had time to spare so I had a great morning in the huge market walking from stall to stall, beating them at their own game by driving the price down for foam wrap and tape etc. $2 in the end to get what we wanted. It was a giggle- they never knew what hit em.. the power of a tight arsed Kiwi born of Scottish blood and with a moth filled wallet.
Photos before we set off..
Leh central..
Then a couple of days back in our taxi. Our driver was pretty cool but had a bloody high temper when it came to dealing with other road users.. it was both funny and scary at times…
Some people have all the luck..
We made it back safe to Manali. There we found a good café/bar and ate like kings. Pizza was consumed and washed down with good beer.
Then onto another bus back to Shimla. We spent another two days there and found this fella lurking…
He’s pretty big round these parts..
He has a bunch of little helpers..
He’s called Hanuman.. the monkey god. Read about him here..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman
To get up to him we had to walk a curse word load of steps. This sign was at the bottom. We saw it as a challenge and boy with all the ‘altitude training’ we were feeling strong. Needless to say we beat the fastest time easily. Smug.
We re-packed our bikes back into the bike bags and bused to Delhi in a big posh Volvo. It felt like Luxury but it was a long trip. W arrived in the early evening and made a mad rush across town to get to another bus station for a bus to the airport. The roads were mayhem…
Then chilled at the airport and waited for our flight back to NZ. Ahhhh NZ… You are so green, so lush..
The first thing we did after landing in NZ….
Ahhhhhh. That’s our story. I hope you enjoyed it.
Alex