Follow my adventures as they happen or read about past trips using the following tabs. Also check out my Adventure Motorbiking Bloke blog. It contains useful information that I have used and gathered from my journeys.
The start of More Plains where Anand to put me off going since Misty was not best in sand and it was very easy to get lost. Fortunately did not fall off or get lost and it was great fun.
Our well spread out convoy.
At the top Tanglang-La there was snow on the ground and icicles. Karna and Sandy had never seen snow so they stopped just so they could touch it :)
From here I tried a steep uphill shortcut. Misty can handle shortcuts if downhill but if uphill she has less power that a Puch Maxi. Got about 30 metres up ran at of power put on the brakes and slid all the way back down where I dropped misty and ended up puffing like an old man as I tried to right her. At over 4000m everything is hard work.
Thankfully a friendly yak.
The Himalayan that I wish I had been riding
If you go to the 12 minute point on this video you can see where I decided against Rashi's
gesticulating to take an uphill shortcut. I failed.
That night we road into Leh the capital of the Ladakh Region of India. We were in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
One of a number of crashed vehicles we saw throughout the trip. Most were in valley bottoms.
I think this is where I tasted my first Maggi which is a bit like Pot Noodle and made the same way by adding boiling water and tastes just as bad. For some inexplicable reason it seems to be well liked in India. They are such wonderful flavours in the form of freshly cooked curries so why eat something that is bland and full of chemicals?
Looking down into the valley from the plain where we were having donutting and jumping fun
We had a 0700 start today since the word from vehicles travelling in the opposite direction was that mud and water would play a big part in our days' experiences.
The first part of the day had cricket ball sized stones set into hard packed mud. This and the Bullet's non existent suspension meant that the ride can best be compared to being kicked in the derriere by Kevin Keegan at a very high frequency. I deduced that I was not going fast enough so my right hand was rotated downwards at a greater angle.
It had clearly been raining heavily since there were a few baby landslides and quite a bit of mud.
As the day progressed the going got better and we reached Kunzum Pass at 4590m.
Did I say that the going got better? It did until we hit a long continuous patch of mud but like everything a little bit of power will always get you through. It was only when we stopped that we had our only real injury of the hole trip. Bharut on his Tiger slipped on the mud and Neha, his pillion, found herself heading towards the ground and in trying to break (no pun intended) her decent she ended up with a sprained thumb :(
That night we were in these hut like things. Slept very well despite Varun's 'earthquake initiating' snoring.
