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.
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. |
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.
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.
But the view was fantastic.
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. |
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. |
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.
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.
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 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.
Post Script
My two favorites are: “I like you darling, but not so fast,” and “I am curvaceous, take me slow.”