It'll be fine..

Every 'proper' trip has to have a memorable quote, a tagline if you will. On the last serious climbing trip I went on, it was "Don't start anything Trent will finish". This was amended to "Don't start anything Julia will finish" after a particularly suprising off-colour joke from Ms Chen. Trent may be Durban's biggest hooligan, but we breed them filthy in Cape Town.

I'm not sure that this is a good thing, but this trip already has a quote. And the trip hasn't even started yet. Worryingly, the quote is "It'll be fine", accompanied by a dismissive hand gesture. This served us well yesterday when Racist phoned to tell me that "bad news.. road to Leh closed.. 15 foot of snow.. highly unusual.. it'll be fine..". I could almost hear the little hand wave over the phone.

Said road closure does cramp our style somewhat. We really wanted to go to Leh. But, and this may be news to you, India's a big country. There's lots to do and see from the vantage point of a Royal Enfield. Hell, within a thousand kilometers of Manali is the Great Himalayan National Park, the Pin Valley National Park, Nanda Devi Biosphere, Lahaul Spiti, Govind Pashu National Park and Shrinagar (where they poison stray dogs) and loads more..

I'm not going to say it..

Brief update:
(1) Book accommodation for our first night or two in Delhi - Iced like a cake.
(2) Get our visas Ka-pow.
(3) Work out where to rent reliable motorcycles from in the Shimla area Rob done stepped up and seems to have, through some sycophantic comments about the Indian cricket team, gotten us the hookup through some dude called Sanjeev. Go Sanjeev.
(4) Buy the necessary gear Bar the caveat below, shick-a-dink.
(5) Oh, and actually work out what the necessary gear is. We think we know what we need. Hence, this one's toast.
(6) I should probably learn to ride a motorcycle. Oops. Not so much.
(7) Vaccinations. A new addition. I am unkillable by disease. Ish.

Brief update redux: Holy shit, this thing is nine days away. Holy shiiiiit.