The three highest motor-able passes in the world rise from a barren moonscape north of the Indian Himalayas in an ancient Buddhist kingdom called Ladakh. Through this land of glacial valleys and high peaks run hundreds of miles of paved, empty roads (built by the military to move equipment more efficiently in the event of a Chinese attack).
Five-hundred-year-old temples stand like castles atop rocky outcrops, turquoise rivers run past apricot orchards, and the local farmers, chanting to the yaks plowing their fields (still using wooden shares), are possibly the nicest people in the world.
Ladakh has been known, since the days of the Silk Road, as The Land Of High Passes. Now three of the highest ones have roads. The Taglang La tops out at 17,582 feet, the Chang La at 17,586, and the Khardung La, claimed as the highest motorable pass in the world (which is debated), rises to a literally breathtaking 18,380 feet (also debated). A motorcycle rider from Montana, I wanted to ride all three.
But it was April, and until late May the high country of Ladakh is frozen shut. The kingdom, surrounded on all sides by high passes, is closed off from the outside world. In April, a motorcyclist can drive for hours without seeing another vehicle. I planned to fly in, then explore every open road I could while waiting for the passes to thaw.
But it was April, and until late May the high country of Ladakh is frozen shut. The kingdom, surrounded on all sides by high passes, is closed off from the outside world. In April, a motorcyclist can drive for hours without seeing another vehicle. I planned to fly in, then explore every open road I could while waiting for the passes to thaw.
In Ladakh’s capital, Leh, a sleepy town of about 25,000, I found most of the shops still shuttered. I called K.T. Phuntsog, owner and operator of Planet Himalaya, the first and oldest motorcycle shop in Ladakh, who was willing to open up early to help me out.
Inside his garage a fleet of Enfields, the classic motorcycles of India, nearly hid a brand new, cherry-red Bajaj DTi Pulsar, a 150cc street bike with a ton of heart. Geared low enough to climb the steepest dirt tracks (and a few bare hillsides), light enough to navigate riverbeds and sand flats, and considerably quieter than an Enfield (a big plus in remote villages unused to motorized traffic and strangers) the Pulsar is the perfect bike for exploring Ladakh. |
As I drove the empty roads farmers waved across their fields. Children giggled when I waved back. Old folks in traditional wool dress and felt boots sat on the ground in the sun and spun ornately carved prayer wheels. People lit up when I offered the traditional greeting - a hand touched to the middle of the forehead - as I slowly drove past. Anyone I spoke to inevitably invited me to tea.
In one high mountain hamlet people poured from their homes at my approach, crowded around me in the dirt street and pressed forth the village monk, who spoke just enough English to welcome me and invite me to tea.
In another remote village an old man sprinted across the terraced fields, calling out over and over “Hello! Welcome! What is your good name?” his only words of English. He breathlessly invited me (with frantic gestures) to tea in a soot-blackened home that was little more than a rock shelter and a hearth with a framed photo of the Dalai Lama on it.
In another remote village an old man sprinted across the terraced fields, calling out over and over “Hello! Welcome! What is your good name?” his only words of English. He breathlessly invited me (with frantic gestures) to tea in a soot-blackened home that was little more than a rock shelter and a hearth with a framed photo of the Dalai Lama on it.
Along the Tibetan border live the nomads of Chang Tang, tending flocks of sheep, goats and yaks. I wanted to meet them, and a student at the international school where a friend taught was from the place and wanted to visit his parents, so we teamed up. But to reach this remote plateau we had to cross the Taglang La, the third highest motorable (non-military) pass in the world. It was still early May and no one knew if the pass was even open yet.
On a clear blue morning, I wound up the Indus River, the little Pulsar 150 barely noticing the added weight of the young nomad on back. We cruised paved highway for several hours without seeing another vehicle. We stopped for lunch at the nomad's aunt's house; years before she and her husband had given up the nomadic life and started a general store. By early afternoon we reached the base of the pass.
On a clear blue morning, I wound up the Indus River, the little Pulsar 150 barely noticing the added weight of the young nomad on back. We cruised paved highway for several hours without seeing another vehicle. We stopped for lunch at the nomad's aunt's house; years before she and her husband had given up the nomadic life and started a general store. By early afternoon we reached the base of the pass.
The pavement turned to mud and slush and back to pavement; in places it was carved from snow banks over our heads.
Near the summit we waited while a bulldozer cleared the way, mostly. When the dozer made way the little 150cc street bike shone in the chopped up snow, and again when the snow turned to a mud track half a foot deep and several hundred feet long.
By the summit we were soaked to the knees in ice and mud and the wind whipped and the temperature dropped.
But the view was fantastic.
But the view was fantastic.
In a little temple shrouded in brightly colored prayer flags I bowed my head to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, in hopes he’d overlook the little bike in any moments of wrath.
It was a toboggan ride through the mud down the back side, and we had to stop once for another bulldozer to clear rocks from the road, but eventually we reached pavement and spent several hours cruising empty valleys as the sun set, at one point following a galloping herd of wild burros in the last rays of the day’s light. Other than the road crew dump trucks we never encountered another vehicle the whole day. |
I spent nearly a week with the nomads in their winter lodgings (which actually now include several buildings). They live off the products of their animals and from the money they make selling wool. These are the folks responsible for pashmina, the original cashmere. Now new commercial goat farms in the Indus Valley threaten their existence. They were very welcoming and I had a chance to ride their horses.
The next pass I crossed was the big fish: the Khardung La, claimed by India as the highest road in the world. I’d picked up a passenger again, a Canadian aid worker, on break from spreading agricultural reform and dry sarcasm across the Punjab, and the little 150 Pulsar lugged a bit with an extra adult, especially above 16,000 feet. But other than that, and a few high-test minutes racing army trucks through the ice and mud on the downhill side, getting over the Khardung was easy; getting back turned out to be the trick.
As we descended several hours down empty switchbacks into the Nubra valley (across from us the face of the Hindu Kush – a 20,000+ foot wall of rock and ice holding China back) a storm built. On the valley floor we sped across sand flats, the sky turned black, and the wind whipped and threatened to turn the bike over. We took shelter in a copse of trees above a bend in the aquamarine Nubra river and told bad jokes and lunched on yak cheese and cucumbers.
Over the next two days the storm increased. We toured the main and upper Nubra Valleys in mixed rain and dust storms. We drove as close to Pakistan as possible and visited the little village of Tartok, opened to tourists just that year for the first time since 1971. In front of the schoolhouse children swarmed the bike and stared at us with the most open, unsuspicious eyes I’ve ever experienced. I showed them my camera and asked (with gestures) to take their picture, and they answered yes, but when I raised it up they all jumped back. Then they all laughed.
Our inner-line permit about to expire (special permission is needed to visit the Nubra, being so close to both Pakistan and China) we attempted to cross back over the Khardung La but were told at the army check post at 16,000 feet that the pass had closed the day before due to snowfall, though the police in the valley had told us that morning it was open. I assumed the army was being overly cautious. I argued enough to be brought before three officers, in a heated glass gazebo, which was huge and completely empty save two large couches.
Our inner-line permit about to expire (special permission is needed to visit the Nubra, being so close to both Pakistan and China) we attempted to cross back over the Khardung La but were told at the army check post at 16,000 feet that the pass had closed the day before due to snowfall, though the police in the valley had told us that morning it was open. I assumed the army was being overly cautious. I argued enough to be brought before three officers, in a heated glass gazebo, which was huge and completely empty save two large couches.
They were all three in their twenties, and all wore track suits, sunglasses, and conspicuous jewelry. They assured me the pass was impenetrable. I said I'd just go up the road and have a look. When the snow finally got deep enough I couldn’t keep the bike up we turned back and as we passed the gazebo all three came to the window and waved enthusiastically. For the next eight days avalanches and landslides kept army bulldozers at a stalemate. |
On the second day of the blockade the gas pump in Diskit, the only pump in the valley, ran dry; I arrived to find a line a quarter mile long; people were getting gas pumped into two-liter Pepsi bottles. I ended up with just enough fuel for a final shot at the pass when it opened. But it meant I couldn’t drive anywhere in the meantime.
For the first time in almost two months of continuous touring, I was grounded. It took two days to read everything in English in the house we stayed at - a Raymond Chandler novel, twice, and an Indian student primer on world history, cover to cover, which more than once dodged a difficult topic by assuring the reader: “you’ll learn more about this when you’re older.” I took some hikes. On the third evening I watched the patterns of the wind on the surface of the river for hours.
I began hunting gas. Every day I walked miles through the dunes to Diskit from the village where I was holed up with the Canadian (and explored ancient temples in the side valleys along the way, which was awesome, but I could never shake the feeling of being trapped). I walked to the District Magistrate’s office. I walked to the army post. Along the way I met others, coming from where I was going, also hunting what was quickly becoming liquid gold. Some were offering four times the previous pump price.
Eight days passed before I learned of an uncompleted road, winding for miles up the empty Shyok Valley, a desolate alpine wilderness with only two small villages in a hundred miles to serve as oases. The route would also cross the Chang La, the final pass of the Big Three, on which several people in a jeep had just been killed in an avalanche three days before.
Desperate locals had begun traveling the sketchy route in four-wheel drive jeeps, but only in convoys. The road was rumored to be impassable for a motorcycle. I figured I had just enough gas to make it – provided I killed the engine on every down-slope.
Ten days after arriving in the Nubra Valley I dropped my Canadian companion off at six am in a dirt lot where a jeep convoy was forming. First light was just rising but I’m not sure she noticed, she was fretting so much about me not having any tool kit. I waited for a flock of sheep to cross the road then set off alone up the Shyok.
I began hunting gas. Every day I walked miles through the dunes to Diskit from the village where I was holed up with the Canadian (and explored ancient temples in the side valleys along the way, which was awesome, but I could never shake the feeling of being trapped). I walked to the District Magistrate’s office. I walked to the army post. Along the way I met others, coming from where I was going, also hunting what was quickly becoming liquid gold. Some were offering four times the previous pump price.
Eight days passed before I learned of an uncompleted road, winding for miles up the empty Shyok Valley, a desolate alpine wilderness with only two small villages in a hundred miles to serve as oases. The route would also cross the Chang La, the final pass of the Big Three, on which several people in a jeep had just been killed in an avalanche three days before.
Desperate locals had begun traveling the sketchy route in four-wheel drive jeeps, but only in convoys. The road was rumored to be impassable for a motorcycle. I figured I had just enough gas to make it – provided I killed the engine on every down-slope.
Ten days after arriving in the Nubra Valley I dropped my Canadian companion off at six am in a dirt lot where a jeep convoy was forming. First light was just rising but I’m not sure she noticed, she was fretting so much about me not having any tool kit. I waited for a flock of sheep to cross the road then set off alone up the Shyok.
At seven it began to rain and the disturbance on the river’s surface turned the aquamarine river almost opaque. Soon I was drenched, thinking that in several hours I was to cross the world’s second highest motorable pass. I wondered how long it would be before I hit snow. I thought about a book I read once where a guy ends up dead in the wilderness through a series of progressively poorer choices which, alone were not too serious, except each bad choice led into another that was worse. Beneath my soaking pants my long-johns acted as sluices and water filled up and overflowed my boots.
Then I hit the road construction. Pavement turned to gravel then quickly to dirt and soon to two track. Suddenly I was in what seemed to be the start of a road bed through a wash, or might have just been boulders deposited by the last flood. Every obstacle I had to accelerate over reminded me of my disappearing petrol. The rain turned to sleet.
After an hour of mixed rock and mud the road turned back to pavement. It was easier to ride on but the faster I went the colder I got and the more the rain drove trough my clothing.
After four hours I reached a village. One street and a dozen houses. I killed the engine and sat in a daze and dripped.
Suddenly the jeep convoy shot by in a rush of metal and headlights and smoke and noise, and then was gone just as fast, and it wasn’t until it passed that I even thought I might have flagged it down. I needed to wake up. I’d biked 3000 miles around Ladakh at that point but in retrospect maybe I’d just gotten by on luck. Maybe this was the day on which a line was finally being crossed.
Several minutes passed then I heard another convoy approach. It might be the one my Canadian friend was in. Couldn’t the little bike somehow fit on a roof? All the jeeps had racks. The bike was so light two men could lift it. Headlights appeared through the rain in the distance. It was undoubtedly so warm inside those cabs. All I had to do was hold my hand out…
And I did. I waved as they passed and I even smiled, just in case my friend was inside (I couldn’t tell, the windows were so fogged up from the all that trapped heat). In case she was, so she wouldn't worry, I tried to convey that look of “yeah, motorcycling is great.”
When the convoy was gone the village was silent. The temperature dropped. The sleet turned to snow. Not a single person could be seen and the shutters of the houses were shut tight. Not even a dog barked.
The view was incredible.
A shutter popped open and an elderly woman looked out. She examined me a moment then spoke. I smiled and shrugged. She shut the window. A minute later it opened and a monk was there, and he invited me in for tea.
In the kitchen a wood stove was burning and while I drank tea beside the fire and talked with the monk the storm broke and the sun came out. I sat on the porch and steamed. All around me peaks gleamed in the sunshine. The river sparkled and dogs barked. I asked the monk if, by any chance, by any long shot, he might possibly know where to get any gas. No problem he said, and sent a kid to fetch it.
I had just dried out when the kid showed up with four liters. It would fetch a small fortune back in Diskit. I only took half, just enough to get me home safe if I stayed conservative with my throttle, but I balked at the price when he tried to charge me the pump rate in the capital city; I insisted it was worth twice that in regular times and was currently up to four times that in Diskit. He just smiled and kept on filling the whiskey bottle he used as a measuring cup.
Then I hit the road construction. Pavement turned to gravel then quickly to dirt and soon to two track. Suddenly I was in what seemed to be the start of a road bed through a wash, or might have just been boulders deposited by the last flood. Every obstacle I had to accelerate over reminded me of my disappearing petrol. The rain turned to sleet.
After an hour of mixed rock and mud the road turned back to pavement. It was easier to ride on but the faster I went the colder I got and the more the rain drove trough my clothing.
After four hours I reached a village. One street and a dozen houses. I killed the engine and sat in a daze and dripped.
Suddenly the jeep convoy shot by in a rush of metal and headlights and smoke and noise, and then was gone just as fast, and it wasn’t until it passed that I even thought I might have flagged it down. I needed to wake up. I’d biked 3000 miles around Ladakh at that point but in retrospect maybe I’d just gotten by on luck. Maybe this was the day on which a line was finally being crossed.
Several minutes passed then I heard another convoy approach. It might be the one my Canadian friend was in. Couldn’t the little bike somehow fit on a roof? All the jeeps had racks. The bike was so light two men could lift it. Headlights appeared through the rain in the distance. It was undoubtedly so warm inside those cabs. All I had to do was hold my hand out…
And I did. I waved as they passed and I even smiled, just in case my friend was inside (I couldn’t tell, the windows were so fogged up from the all that trapped heat). In case she was, so she wouldn't worry, I tried to convey that look of “yeah, motorcycling is great.”
When the convoy was gone the village was silent. The temperature dropped. The sleet turned to snow. Not a single person could be seen and the shutters of the houses were shut tight. Not even a dog barked.
The view was incredible.
A shutter popped open and an elderly woman looked out. She examined me a moment then spoke. I smiled and shrugged. She shut the window. A minute later it opened and a monk was there, and he invited me in for tea.
In the kitchen a wood stove was burning and while I drank tea beside the fire and talked with the monk the storm broke and the sun came out. I sat on the porch and steamed. All around me peaks gleamed in the sunshine. The river sparkled and dogs barked. I asked the monk if, by any chance, by any long shot, he might possibly know where to get any gas. No problem he said, and sent a kid to fetch it.
I had just dried out when the kid showed up with four liters. It would fetch a small fortune back in Diskit. I only took half, just enough to get me home safe if I stayed conservative with my throttle, but I balked at the price when he tried to charge me the pump rate in the capital city; I insisted it was worth twice that in regular times and was currently up to four times that in Diskit. He just smiled and kept on filling the whiskey bottle he used as a measuring cup.
I left the Shyok Valley and entered a high alpine transition zone, a topographical wasteland, like something from Frank Herbert’s Dune, a kind of giant cataract in the earth I climbed through to reach the region of the high plateaus, the edge of greater Tibet.
Around 10,000 feet I encountered sheep herds, then scattered houses, and finally the second village, the last outpost before the Chang La, the world’s (supposedly) second highest motorable pass. The sun was starting to drop.
The view was indescribable.
I climbed for an hour, past a herd of wild blue sheep, through a sleet storm, and then again into the sun. The temperature plummeted. Puddles turned to ice. The road turned to dirt, then to switchbacks. All around me was snow and as I climbed the snow deepened. Clouds massed and the sky grew dark. The storm was coming back. The road was carved from the snow banks and as the banks rose the road turned to packed snow and ice. The little bike struggled to keep traction.
The view was indescribable.
I climbed for an hour, past a herd of wild blue sheep, through a sleet storm, and then again into the sun. The temperature plummeted. Puddles turned to ice. The road turned to dirt, then to switchbacks. All around me was snow and as I climbed the snow deepened. Clouds massed and the sky grew dark. The storm was coming back. The road was carved from the snow banks and as the banks rose the road turned to packed snow and ice. The little bike struggled to keep traction.
At the final bend a bulldozer had churned up the snow, then pulled aside to turn about, and as I approached the dozer crew jumped out and cheered me on as I gunned the bike and ran my feet like Fred Flintstone through the worst of the packed and frozen chunks, the road workers running alongside and pumping their fists like fans at the Grand Prix.
At the summit I stopped the bike. It was getting dark. I changed my socks. I looked back north, towards the Shyok, and beyond that, to where I imagined the Nubra to be, and the sky there was black. Then I looked to the South, to the Indus valley, where lay the capital city, and all the gas you could ever want, only several hours of coasting away. I gunned the bike through the slush, being liberal with the throttle.
At the summit I stopped the bike. It was getting dark. I changed my socks. I looked back north, towards the Shyok, and beyond that, to where I imagined the Nubra to be, and the sky there was black. Then I looked to the South, to the Indus valley, where lay the capital city, and all the gas you could ever want, only several hours of coasting away. I gunned the bike through the slush, being liberal with the throttle.
In the end I rode 3,600 miles of highways, dirt roads, two tracks and sand flats; I met farmers and beggars and soldiers and monks; I rode horses with nomads and herded yaks; I was run off the road twice by military convoys, but only went over the handlebars once. Crossing the high passes, visiting amazing mountains, and riding through remote villages barely touched by the modern world to meet some of the nicest people on earth made motorcycling in Ladakh a real treat.
Post Script
In Ladakh few traffic laws are practiced, and speed limits are seldom respected or enforced; instead authorities rely on a program of catchy slogans. These signs range from the basic: “It’s a highway, not a runway,” to the culturally significant: “Hurry burry spoils the curry,” to the downright morbid: “Drive like hell – you’ll go there.”
My two favorites are: “I like you darling, but not so fast,” and “I am curvaceous, take me slow.”
My two favorites are: “I like you darling, but not so fast,” and “I am curvaceous, take me slow.”
all photos by Nathan Whitmont