The Motorcycle Diaries: The Himalayas

There are two very definite periods to define our travels in India so far: life before the bike, and life after the bike.

Life before the bike was simple and uncomplicated; breezy train rides drinking chai and chatting with the locals; sweaty and perilous overnight bus journeys; wandering aimlessly through vast urban sprawls and narrow labyrinthine alleyways.

And then came the bike. A Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 350. A growly, shiny black beast, designed for exploring the endless and challenging terrain of North India.

Purchased in New Delhi just over a month ago now (on Friday the 13th, of all days!), nothing could have prepared me for the simulataneous feelings of thrill/fear/confusion that driving in India entails. Ok, so technically I’m just the passenger/co-pilot/nervous sat-nav, but the past month has been a wild adventure that I didn’t know I was capable of.

From the day the bike was purchased (for an very reasonable sum, by the way), I was a nervous wreck, dreading the journeys on the notorious and unpredictable Indian roads.  The road system here is renowned for being utterly insane, so I was having visions of endless traffic jams, horrendous accidents, cars honking incessantly, roads deteriorating in to rubble and river….

Having now spent over a month navigating the roads in India - from cities to the countryside and to the mountains - I can confirm that every single stereotype and myth is absolutely true.

Take the maiden voyage, for instance.  Delhi to Rishikesh. 238 kilometers, typically expected to be driven in around 5-6 hours on an apparently simple direct highway.  Sounds totally manageable. In theory.  But before we’ve even set off, I’m practically having palpitations about the complexity of actually getting out of Delhi.  A huge, never ending sprawl of people, traffic and chaos.  It’s agreed that we’ll set off at 5.30 am, to avoid the worst of the morning traffic.  As the co-pilot, i’m tasked with barking out directions to Oscar from our roughly scrawled map (which eventually disintegrates in my sweaty palms over the course of the journey). I have every single left and right turn memorised, every roundabout sussed. I want to escape Delhi as soon as possible! So convinced am I of my impending death at the hands of a crazy Indian truck driver, I have to pop an anti-anxiety pill procured from a thoroughly disreputable pharmacist prior to  setting off.

Thankully this part -  which I had been dreading - actually turned out to be the most smooth and hitch-free part of the journey.  We breezed through early morning Delhi relatively easily, and were on the highway to Rishikesh within 45 minutes. And...this is where the problems started. Our first breakdown (notice I said first) happened in a town called Modinagar, about 1.5 hours outside Delhi.  Serendipitously, we broke down outside a Royal Enfield garage, and in front of the home of the exceptionally kind and hospitable Kansal family.  While the bike had it’s spark plug cleaned, we drank chai, ate breakfast and perused the Kansal’s family albums, promising to call in on them if we are ever planning to drive back to Delhi at any point in the future.  We’re waved off by the family (and several hundred of the extended family) full of hope and optimism. Unfortunately, the next stage of the journey was fairly laborious, and filled with countless breakdowns, for one unknown reason or another. The spark plug again? Or have we run out of petrol? Could be the carburretor. Nope, it’s definitely the spark plug. What’s a spark plug?

Thankfully, India is full of mechanics, so you’re never too far away from a garage, or at the very least a have-a-go man on the street who will tinker about happily for a few minutes, convinced that his skills will fix the problem.  Or, if you’re lucky, you might just breakdown in front of the Royal Enfield Club of New Delhi, returning from a weekend ride to Rishikesh, who assure us the bike is absolutely fine - the breakdown problem, whatever it is, is definitely minor.    Traffic most of the way was hideous too - a few crashes, an overturned lorry of juicy oranges and some extremely tight jams that forced us off road a few times.  By the time we have broken times more than we can count, run out of petrol once and been forced off the road twice by terrible drivers, we admit defeat for the day and decide to stop and spend the night in Haridwar, around 30 kms outside of Rishikesh.  The fatigue has majorly kicked in, I have a sore back and bum from sitting on the bike for almost 10 hours and darkness is setting in.  Who said it was going to be all wind-in-my-hair romance and adventure all the time?  Rishikesh can wait!

Thankfully, the journey to Rishikesh the following day is absolutely fine and completely unremarkable (other than sign posts warning motorists to take care to avoid hitting elephants). The bike goes in to the garage in Rishikesh, and all it’s problems are magically solved a few hundred rupees later. Carburretor issues, apparently.  And with the that, the following few journeys are absolutely fine - actually enjoyable, rather than headache inducing.  We explore Rishikesh and the surrounding villages with ease, we drive to nearby Dehrahdun for a night, and then on to Chandigarh in the Punjab for a night.  It’s exhilarating; the scenery most of the way is stunning, the roads increasingly winding. My initial reservations have been completely allayed - it’s an amazing experience, to travel India by bike, our backpacks strapped to the side wrapped in old rice sacks. I feel extremely free.  Now it’s definitely all wind-in-my-hair romance and adventure!

Soon, we decide to head in to Himachal Pradesh, home to the Himalayas. Mountainous terrain, remote villages and very questionable road conditions. It’s going to be a huge challenge, that’s a certainty.

Our first foray is Shimla, a twee Britsh-raj type place that we travel to from Chandigarh (a deeply charmless and soulless Swiss-designed modernist monstrosity).  As soon as we cross from the Punjab and Haryana in to Himachal Pradesh, the change in conditons and scenery is tangible. Suddenly, we are no longer on flat, straight roads. We spend almost the entire journey climbing up mountain roads that have never ending loops and curves. Depsite the sheer windy-ness of the roads, that doesn’t deter Indian drivers from overtaking. At 60. Right on a corner.   And around 13 kms outide of Shimla, we hit upon a colossal traffic jam that snakes all the way in to the city.  Cars, trucks, lorries and buses are nose to tail and wedged in at awkward angles; passengers are our walking to the city, rather than waiting out the jam.  Luckily, the bike helps us weave through narrow passages and we manage to avoid what turned out be several hours worth of jam.

Thankfully,  we arrive to Shimla in good stead - and ready for our next adventure.

This journey - along the Old Hindustand-Tibet Silk Road through east Himachal Pradesh - is one of the most challenging experiences I have ever had, let alone on a motorcycle.  It’s hard to know where to even begin how to explain this road. It’s quite simply, unbelievable.  Don’t get me wrong, not every stretch is a perilous as it looks - there are some segments that are in fairly good condition, tarmacked and with barriers and signs and such like.  But the majority of the Hindistan-Tibet Silk Road is nightmarish in condition - despite being absolutely beautiful, and surrounded my some of the most amazing mountain scenery that I have ever seen.  For the majority of the journey, we are actually driving through the snow-peaked mountains, on precarious roads that have simply been sliced in, following the shape of the mighty Satluj River that flows in to India from Tibet.

Everything is green and lush, the villages are becoming smaller, more rural and more quaint and the snow-capped peaks are getting closer and closer.  And further east we go, the worse the actual road conditions become. As soon as we pass from Shimla district in to tribal Kinnaur district, it’s almost as though the budget for tarmac ends.  

The roads are in horrific condition, mostly composed of dirt or dust, or even in some places sand.  And as if if wasn’t hard enough to drive on tough terrain like this, the H-T Silk Road is subject to frequent landslides and avalanches. Really frequent. And even more frequent when the weather is bad.  Which it has been. Nonetheless, we persevere and decide to push ourselves to complete the stretch of road that we have set ourselves - from Shimla to a very remote Himalayan village called Kalpa, 3000 meters up in the Kinner Kailash mountain range in East Himachal.  We arrive to landslides as they are happening - sometimes a cluster of large boulders that have fallen down and are blocking the road, other times simply dust and rubble sweeping down the mountain - precursors to bigger landslides that are on their way. Optimistic police and army officials wave us on, telling us that it’s all fine fine - while I am having heart failure on the back of the bike. 

Fresh landslide

Mountain village

Rough road

A very big boulder

Bus at the bottom of the gorge

We see a bus a the bottom of a muddy gorge, a few hundred feet below, with a few people sitting on top while the rescue operation to drag it up gets underway.  This bus - so dominant on the road - looks like a tiny ant at the bottom of the gorge; an insignificant speck stuck in the mud.  It definitely deters me, and I am unsure of whether I want to continue the journey forward. What if it’s like this all the way? What if it gets worse?

But by this point, we have reached point of no return. The villages are becoming almost non-existent on this stretch, as are the petrol pumps, so it makes sense to just persevere that little bit more rather than retreat. We also only have a few hours daylight left. And besides - we are both feeling pretty determined that we have to make it to Kalpa now, given just how arduous the journey has been so far.

The road doesn’t improve at all - in fact, it actually gets worse (although I didn’t think it possible). The green lush landscapes all but disappear, making way for rocky, grey, terrain that looks like we are driving on the moon. Boulders the size of small houses block tracts of road, passengers on buses and in jeeps get off to move rubble from fresh landslides, and we encounter several extremely precarious diversions over rickety makeshift bridges that have been put in place to avoid the worst landslide zones.  The road is also occasionally extremely high up, with no barriers to protect motorists from the sheer drops below.  Frequently, you can see where segments of metal barrier have been completely obliterated by the latest landslide, or accident.

The landscape is otherworldy; almost apocalyptic in places. So vast, so dramatic - I’m completely overwhelmed by it.  Everything seems to be in a sort of celluloid slow-motion - as though it’s pure fantasy and not really happening at all. There is something almost frightening about remote mountain landscapes, and I am crushingly aware of how insignificant we are, driving along these roads, while mountains thousands of meters high loom over us.  

As we pass through military cantonments, the road improves briefly, only to deteriorate almost immediately again. It’s extremely tough - we can’t drive faster than 15-20 kmps most of the time, and with the bike being a fairly heavy brute it’s difficult to keep balanced.

By the time we reach Kalpa (after what feels like an eternity), we are quite shocked at the sheer beauty of the village - and just how much snow is still lying on the ground. At almost 3000 meters, we’re pretty high up in the Himalayas; snow drifts 6 feet high line the road in to the village, and there are passages of lethal and very slidey black ice - both of which show no signs of melting any time soon.  

The village is eerily quiet, and everything looks worryingly closed, but by a stroke of luck we find a hotel that is open.   It’s a bit Bates Motel in it’s isolation, but friendly enough, and  faces the Kinner Kailash mountains, some of which are over 6000 meters. And they are right there.  So close I can see the patterns on the glacial ice.  I can’t recall ever seeing such clear mountain vistas so close before. In fact, it’s so ridiculously perfect and still that it looks like one of those fake Hollywood backgrounds.

We arrive just in time for sunset - incredible reddish-orange light bathes the highest peaks so briefly that it fades almost as quickly as it arrived.  And then, a resounding, almost audible darkness descends; a huge blanket of black sky peppered by clear, twinkling stars.  It’s all pretty emotional and life-affirming and all that.

landslide zone

amazing sunset on the kinner kailash range

And cold, very, very cold. So cold, in fact, that we are forced to procure a bottle of local apple spirit just to heat us up.

On the road

On the very rough road

Kalpa - a snowy wilderness

The next morning we wake up to a completely different, almost ghostly landscape. Thick mist has fallen over night, shrouding the mountains almost entirely, and even the terraced apple orchards right outside our window are almost completely invisible now. A thin smir of rain begins, which eventually turns in to a steady downpour. I suddenly feel very isolated and completely out of my depth - particularly because I am definitely not properly attired for this climate. Soon, I'm wearing almost every item of clothing I have with me, and my body doesn’t see daylight for a few days.

Nonetheless, we decide to explore the village; a very shanti, beautiful mountain village consisting of a Buddhist monastery ( complete with a lone, chanting Tibetan monk) and some ramshackle wooden houses built awkwardly in to the mountainside.  The locals are shy but friendly, and don’t seem particularly affected by the cold weather at all. The weather gets progressively worse throughout the day, and I’m beginning to wonder if it wasn’t entirely wise to make the journey here. It’s a bit like being shipwrecked, albeit in the mountains. If the road - the only feasible road out - is washed away in the worsening weather - then what?

Misty mountains - a big change in weather

We spend another night in Kalpa, formulating our plan to leave.  Leaving as soon as there is a break in the weather is now the only viable option - otherwise it looks likely that we will be “stranded” indefinitely.  I mean, it’s unlikely that we’ll starve to death or anythng so dramatic, but it’ very difficult to actually do anything at all up here, other than sit shivering and watching the mountains emerge and then disappear in to the mist again.  Watching the mountains is the enjoyable part - it’s the plummeting termperatures and shivering that I can’t quite cope with.

The following day we pack our bags and decide to brave the mist, black ice and intermittent rain. It’s now or never. So we set off, slightly fearful of what challenges and obstacles await us on the ride back. We descend a few hundred meters to Rekong Peo, the biggest settlement in the Kinnaur district. A few hundred meters drop in altitude seems to have made all the difference - the mist is nonexistent, and the rain has cleared - for now at least. After checking with the locals that the road is open, we start our journey back to Shimla. Although returning to Shimla wasn’t part of our initial plan, it seems as though this road is going to be the most passable at the moment - all others are either closed or are just too dangerous.  

So we return the same way we came - along treacherous roads that have taken an even bigger battering after the recent bout of bad weather.  We have to drive through rivers of thick mud that flows from the mountains, across the road and in to the valley below. There are even more landslides than before - every 2- 3 kilometers now, and we have to crawl at an excrutiatingly slow pace, all the while being spattered with dirt.  Traffic is few and far between (for an Indian road), and only fellow nutters are driving.  The car of choice for this Himalayan thrill ride? The humble wee Maruti Suzuki! I am astounded by the sheer resilience of these tiny wee 800 cc cars, that seem of tackle mountainous terrain with relative ease (while packed with families of 10). They are the cockroach of the car world - indestructable, and capable of survival in even the worst of conditions. Nuclear holocaust? No worries for the Maruti!  I’m almost positive you could remove a wheel, or the engine, and they would still scramble over dirt, mud and boulders, giving the road-hog Jeeps a run for their money.

Muddy road - national highway!!

another fresh landslide

Driving through a cave

very precarious road conditions

We eventually reach Rampur, a fairly large town in the Shimla district at the end of the the Satluj river,  where we had expected to spend the night. But spurred on by our success at getting through the wost of ride, we decide to continue on to Shimla.  

In theory, it should take us another 4-5 hours from Rampur.  This, in hindsight, turned out to be an extremely foolish decision.  Halfway through the ride, the rain begins again, and then turns to a fairly relentless hail, thunder and lightning storm which drenches us to the bones.  It’s bizarre, how fast the weather changes up in the mountains, and how it varies from valley to valley.  In one valley we are subjected to torrential rain, in the next sunshine. And if it couldn’t get any more challenging, darkness falls pretty quickly, plunging the mountains in to relative black. Definitely not the best time to dicover that the front light of the Enfield needs a new bulb!  

By the time we get to Shimla, I am soaked through and almost completely paralyzed by the cold. As soon as I climb off the bike, I can barely stand up, and it takes me days to feel something close to warm again.  My body is in agony, I am choked with the cold, and because of the relatively exorbitant prices in Shimla, we are forced to stay in what is essentially a shit hole...waiting until we both feel human again, and of course, until the weather improves.  Which isn’t looking likely any time soon…

Our bodies might be weak, but we are both feeling secretly a bit proud that we managed the journey.  For the scenery, it was absolutely worth it.  It was a privelige to get off the beaten track and in to the wild; to see a little piece of the Himalayas that is so isolated, so remote and so extreme.  The people here are remarkable and incredibly resilient.  It’s a hard, hard life up there!

The practical info bit:

Buying an motorcycle in India is actually easier than you might imagine. Although Oscar pretty much did this part alone, it certainly wasn’t as much of a headache as we had anticipated.  Karol Bagh Market is Delhi has plenty of Enfield dealers who are trustworthy, reputable and used to selling or renting to foreigners.  Our Enfield was bought from Tony Motors, who indulged our many questions and queries and made the buying process pretty stress-free.   A decent second-hand model, complete with all the trimmings (luggage carrier, all necessary certificates and insurance, back rest for the co-pilot, up-to-date service) will cost around 70,000 rupees.

There does seem to be a bit of “grey area” when it comes to driving licenses in India, though. No-one actually ever checked that either of us had a motorcycle license before we bought the bike (neither of us do). This doesn’t seem to have been a problem at all.  Instead, it’s a good idea to get an international driving license, just in case the police stop you.  Or at least something that proves that you can actually drive something - a car at the very least.

Petrol prices are (as of April 2015) around 65 rupees per litre, which equates to about 70 pence per litre.  This is the official gas station price - the more remote you go, the less petrol pumps, which means that shrewd locals sell 1 litre in old water bottles for anything between 80-100 rupees.  We kept a spare 2 litres on us at all times, just in case.  The bike manages around 25 - 30 kilometers per litre.  So a journey of 200 kilometers will cost you around 500 rupees - which is actually a bit cheaper than taking public transport, which is at a premium in the mountain regions (there are no trains up here).

Bike repairs is a biiiig business in India, and there are garages absolutely everywhere. Labour should cost 50-60 rupees per hour, while the cost of new parts is largely dependent on whether your mechanic is honest or not. Of course, the price is negotiable too. A 2 minute soldering job cost us 20 rupees, while a spark plug cleaning cost 10 rupees. It’s probably a good idea to familiarise yourself with the rough costs of spare parts, just to make sure some opportunist mechanic doesn’t rip you off.

Check the road conditions before you go.  Of course, the locals will tell you that the roads are “yes, quite ok” - you may want to reconsider this in remote areas. The chances are that the roads are not ok at all. The Old Hindustan-Tibet Silk Road is technically a National Highway (NH22), which would suggest that it is cared for/maintained/given any kind of shit about.  This is not always the case. Had I known the conditions of the road before we set off, and that they weather would change so suddenly, I probably would have urged the fool-hardy Spaniard against it.

But hey - WE DID IT. My draft copy Last Will and Testament remains (mummy you get everything, debts as well), and I am imminently considering taking up prayer and/or hard drugs.

Until the next ride!