Day 11: Kalpa to Nako

Morning.

Rob looking through the Lonely Planet - quote: "Most dangerous and nervewracking road in India". That's what we're doing today.

Psyche-out.

Just push through and don't give in to fear.



Dirt roads and rocks and river crossings at 1000m above the river. Fuck, this is scary. Just push through. Hug the inside and pretend there's no looming precipice to your left or your right.

It's still there. Your eye catches it and you edge away. Just go.

Rockfall. Rob caught in the middle of it this time. Basketball-sized rocks on either side of him. He ditches the bike and runs. No damage to Rob or bike. A closer call than we realise.



We meet Jerry. Retired fishing boat captain from outside Seattle. Doing the same thing as us, just for longer. One of the nicest people I've ever met.

Then perfect ribbons of tar, bookshelved by u-turns. Jesus, this is amazing. This feels like freedom.



More looming precipices. Scary again. Nako. Shitty, but shitty with history. Jerry confesses that it was the scariest thing he's done, and he's been riding bikes most of his life. Expresses disbelief at this being my 6th day on a bike, ever.



Fellow travellers dine on kiwi wine and experiences. Much laughter.

Day 10: Sarahan to Kalpa

Broken clutch cable just outside Rechong Peo. Left Sarahan early this morning. Huck left today. Back to Manali, to Delhi, to Taipei, then back again to Delhi, to Dubai, to Cape Town. Long rides alone.

Go well, friend.

Made good time then bad time today. Scary moments. Bad roads. Traffic. No good time on these roads. Dirt and mud and sand and water, nearly no tar. Roads carved out of the mountain. Roads capped with rock overhangs. Impossible to conceive the effort and the risk.




Rockfalls.

Wait.

Wait more while the the master of the backhoe goes about his business. Boulders the size of small cars, tossed off the the cliff into the river below. A man in total control of his ho(e). More sand and mud and trucks and broken tar. Hard on the body and the bike. tired now and don't relish more riding. 6 more days - there and back again. Spectacular vistas.

Spectacular country. Rivers and valleys and snow caps looming above us. Continually. The mind becomes dumb to these things. We become stupid machines - the road, the road, the road. Fuck, there's a whole world out there, just out of your eyeline.

Visa in hand...

.. and trip #2 for the year starts in t-minus 15 days. It involves a beautiful woman who I cannot wait to see, climbing in Magic Wood and Fontainebleau and much wandering through Europe for two and a half months.

I am truly a very lucky man.

Day 9: Chindi to Sarahan

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Better time today but still not good.



Twisting, 30 degree downhill dirtroads with 100 meter dropoffs and a bad back brake. The ubiquitous trucks and busses. More than nervous moments. Then better roads and time made up. 200km a day was an overestimation. The body aches after 120kms on dirt roads and the mind needs more rest than 20 minutes on the side of the road with a naan and a coke.


Sarahan, temple town. High up, beautiful. Crappy hotel with amazing views. Temple to Shiva. Wander around until they bang drums and cymbals and bells and the headache kicks in and we need to drink.

Day 8: Pandoh to Chindi

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Note: Not the route we took. The route above has actual roads.

Pandoh to Chindi. An almost infinitesimally small distance on a map turns into 7 hours of riding over backroads. Endless switchbacks and bad roads. Metronomic blind corners and trucks. Tiring and nervewracking, the riding is about having faith into a corner and signalling your intentions with your hooter, loud and often. Processions of small towns and smiling schoolkids.



Average 15 or 20km/h.



Didn't fall off the bike today, but riding too carefully, too slowly at first. Frustration, mine and the others'. Confidence low and feeling guilty at slowing the procession. First gasps of confidence as we roar into Chindi and the Bates motel with more shitty food and the same shitty beer.

Day 7: Manali to Pandoh

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Start slowly. Rob still sick and I'm not high on confidence. Get the bikes ready and the bags strapped down and some coffee and banana pancakes at Chopsticks. Ready to move in a southerly direction. No idea how quickly we'll go, but 200km in a day is more than optimistic.



We go. We lose Huck. Find Huck. Moving again.

Sand on a corner outside another one horse town. Look back for Huck and bang, off the bike again. Bruised but not damaged. Not happy to be here. Low motivation and lower confidence. Inched into Pandoh over scary passes full of trucks and buses and cars. 200km in a day feels completely unattainable.



Shitty roadside hotel, shitty food, shitty beer. Everything seems shitty when you feel like this, so not a charitable assessment. Get some sleep and get the hell out, aiming for, well, we don't know yet.

Day 5 and 6: Manali

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Banana pancakes. Bike touts. First real introduction to our soon-to-be-anthropomorphised modes of transport, and feel the excitement growing. We really are doing this. Find Anu Autoworks at the top of the hill, right next to a climbing shop. Svetlana gives us coffee and we talk bikes and routes and origins and destinies. More coffee and friendly bullshit.


The chilled out eponymous arrives. More friendly bullshit about bikes and routes and suddenly we're coming back 3 hours later to watch them service our bikes.




Bikes get serviced. Rob gets sick. We get bikes.

Collect in the morning.


It's on.

Morning. Rob sick. Rob siiiick. Huck and I get bikes and aim them in the direction of the still-closed Rhotung. Try to get bearings on big bikes that we haven't ridden.


Snow and vistas and tourists and tight tight tight corners. Bikes are good, as is confidence. Get to the snow line, still 30kms to the top and it's almost may. No Rhotung for us.

Descent. Hairpin. Car. Ice and water, a streak through the midpoint. HUck goes, water. I go, ice. I go over, onto my shoulder, leg under the bike. Accident. Bam. Carry on like nothing happened. Just a few more scrapes and scratches. Broken footpeg, bent crashbar, wounded pride and fractured confidence.

Later. more shaken than I think. Sore shoulder, leg, hip, elbow.

Later. Rob better. We roll out tomorrow. Nerves not helped by accident. Fuck it. Just go.