After another night of stupidly unintentionally holding my breath, we woke up and packed up all our stuff and set off. The map showed a long flat for around 25km then an uphill of not too big a deal….

The truck traffic was heavy and Lara was starting to get angry at them already, this was way before the normal schedule of anger during the day, she was falling behind and just did not look the least bit interested in being there. I think it was time for a team talk.
We stopped at the next dabha to discuss options. It was obvious that she was not enjoying it. What was the point of doing something you do not enjoy? There was no one forcing us to ride here. We laid all the options out for her, we could pick up a lift to take us to Leh and do other activities in Leh, trekking, climbing, rafting and a whole heap of other activities. Any one who knows Lara, they must know she is the most stubborn living being when she wants to be. She decided she wanted to carry on by bike. Scott and I were both quietly relieved.
So we set off, the temperature was again getting very high and the place was getting dryer and dryer. Thankfully the volume of trucks had reduced and the road surface was good so quick progress was made.Lara with her new positive thinking and mask to aid her fight against the trucks.
The valley soon widened out and the views were fantastic, the road passing under our tyres quickly, a great view and everyone’s moods picked up and the previous conversation was soon forgotten.More dodgy bridges were crossed and we soon got to the bottom of the climb, the ‘Gata Loops’. My internet research had told me theses are 21 hair pin turns that went on for 9km. We stopped at the bottom to eat some food and drink some water, keen to get it inside us rather than carry it on the bike. The 7 litres of water we where carrying each was definitely noticeable when you pedalled. As we were sitting there eating, our friends the Spanish rocked up. Luiz and Pepe from Barcelona. Was great to see friendly faces; we chatted and caught up and exchanged bad words about the trucks. Then we could not procrastinate any longer, and we all started up the Loops.
Pepe on his way up. Now, what the map does not tell you is that after the Gata loops, there is still another 9km and 400 vertical metres of climbing to be done to another false summit called Naleeka Pass at 4980m. We found this out from Luiz who had done this ride before. Now the map had become the enemy. Lara wanted to burn it, Scott wanted to smoke it and I had just enough will power to hide it away to be used again the next day and protect it from the other two. After Lara’s earlier distress she somehow managed to zoom up the loops. Scott and I put it down to her music choice of Metallica and Queens of the Stone Age.

Again it turned into another one of those roads with false summit after false summit.

After 4 hours of riding up hill we finally saw the prayer flags in the distance, a welcome sight.
From here we knew it was downhill to a little bit called Whiskey Nula, no dhabas or settlements, just a valley floor with a name. The relief and happiness of getting to the top of another pass was enough to drown out the pain that we had just gone through. Lara’s bum was getting sore now from long days in the saddle so she tried the old roadie trick of double shorts. To anyone who has worn cycle shorts (I am sure most have) then you can imagine what it must feel like. Scott and I tried to suppress and hide our giggling at her new John Wayne walk.

Setting off on the down hill to our rest stop that night, the picture above shows the next day’s climb up to the Lachalung La pass at 5100m (the second highest of the trip). Our goal was the valley floor only a few hundred metres vertical down.After 10 minutes we were down at where we were to camp for the night. Our highest camping spot of the trip 4815m (higher than the tallest mountain in Western Europe). Again the tour group was there with there chefs and toilets (us jealous? never). Shortly after we arrived the Spanish arrived and we all camped together. We always wondered what they were carrying as they had front and back panniers, we only had rear panniers. So what they hell could they be carrying… We soon found out what, when they whipped out their pressure cooker, all sorts of amazing looking dried meats and spanish cheese. Once again we were jealous.Us being the weight weenies that we are, we only carried freeze dried food, you know the sort astranauts carry in case of emergencies. So we followed the instructions to our powdered Shepherd’s pie. As I glanced into the packet all I could see was powder, how the hell could this turn into a decent meal. I glanced over at the Spanish and their wonderful food. After I had added my 300ml of water, a miracle of modern science and cuisine happened. Can some one please answer me how the f*ck powder turns into fluffy mash potato and meat?!?!!? The meal was not half bad at all and we were all very happily fed.

The night’s meal was not a complete wash out, Pepe and Luiz are such lovely friendly people they gave us loads of their Serrano ham to share. Truly lovely people seeing as they had been lugging it with them the whole way.

Ed came over for a chat, one of his group had gotten bad altitude sickness and had been but on oxygen and driven to a lower altitude. Not a good sign. This was the last time we were to see Ed, as they planned on covering much greater distances than us. So we wished him fairwell and thanked him for the water he stealthily stole for us from his camp supply.

We chatted for a wee while with Luiz and Pepe and as the sun went down we all retired to bed. I once again suffered from ‘I forgot to breath’ and woke up all through the night. On one occasion I was awoken by a rapid zip noise coming from Scott’s tent and then foot steps running off into the distance. Strange I thought.

By the time the sun had risen in the morning I had had about 3 hours sleep. We are now at 4320m and I must have woken up every 20 minutes gasping for breath. I remember reading about this before I left on the web:

“Periodic breathing (Cheyne Stokes breathing, or PB) is common at high altitude and becomes more frequent with increasing altitude. Periodic breathing involves alternating periods of deep breathing and shallow breathing. Typically, three to five deep breaths will be followed by a couple of very shallow breaths or even a complete pause in breathing. A pause in breathing like this usually lasts around 5 to 15 seconds and is called an apnoea. Apnoeas may end with a gasp that sometimes wakes the individual or their sleeping companions! People may breathe this way for most of the night.”

Scott and Lara were fine and slept no problems, I obviously need to stop holding my breath whilst a sleep. Terrific. So once we got out of bed, we had a leisurely breakfast, did some washing (that is the line between the bikes) and read books. I decided to take a few pictures of the area and the offending trucks for proof.Can you see the black exhaust fumes? Well imagine getting a face full of that each time every one passes you, then you have to contend with the dust it kicks up after that. Trucks are the enemy.We passed the day in a lovely valley, reading, talking to the tour group and watching army trucks go by listening to Lara swearing under her breath at them. We had also found out that the camp chef had gone sick the night before and had to be evacuated straight away. The rest of the workers in the camp decided that they could cook. Needless to say, all three of us had dodgy stomachs that night and all could be seen sprinting across to the toilet bog role in hand and with a face of urgency.Scott enjoying soaking up the sun and having a relaxing day. From here we had to plan the days a bit more carefully as there were no towns for two days of long cycling. The guy who was running the camp was a little surprised when we went and ordered another 18 bottles of water, what we thought would be enough for the two days it should take us to get to the next town…..

We woke up to a beautiful day, I fully expected for it to be miserable as I had been kept awake by a monster of a storm that was hammering the valley below us. Incredible to watch, I was too mesmerised to try and take pictures of it. Thankfully it blew it self out before it could get to us.
After having a big day again the day before we decided have a smaller day again today to get the legs rested as we were fast approaching the big climbs and passes. Once again the day is planned to be 20kms…
The road surface quickly deteriorated and turned extremely dusty and the temperature is high. Still it is only going to be a short day. We got to our destination within an hour and a bit. A town on the map called ZingZingbar turn out to be yet again, nothing. Just one small poorly equipped Dhaba, we had our breakfast there; a Parantha, which consisted of chapati/roti filled with potato and onion and some explosive chillis. We decided our only option was to go up over the next pass to where we knew there was a larger settlement.
The objective was the Baralacha La Pass at 4891m. This for me and Lara was to be the worst climb, the bugger just never seemed to stop. Every time you thought you where near the top, it would be another blind summit, it was unbelievable. The most morally draining climb on a bicycle I have ever done.
It was here that Lara started to get a huge headache due to the altitude. There was not much we could do for her, just try and encourage here to just dig deep and keep going. This was here also that I think Scott should be done for animal cruelty.
This lovely little puppy came and said hello to him whilst he waited for Lara and I (she had really slowed down due to the headache) so he fed it a Bourbon biscuit. This poor wee fella then proceeded to follow us right to the top in the hope of another. Doesn’t sound too bad but the top was over 12km away and Scott never gave him another biscuit, who ever said the Scots are tight are correct!
After a few more blind summits, corners to be turned and more disappointment when the pass eluded to show itself, it finally appeared.
This trip was starting to become a hunt for prayer flags as it always pointed out where the top was. We just stood around a few moments to take a few pictures
But we didn’t want to spend long up there as we wanted to loose altitude to try and alleviate Lara’s headache.
We set off happy that we knew it was all down hill to Sarchu, our aim for the evening. We had 25km of gravity assisted cycling to get there. We were all starving by this point and we all had our fingers crossed for a Dhaba to try and get some food. Thankfully one came pretty quickly and all sorts where bought, mainly crisps as we were all craving something savoury by this point.
The scenery was fast changing, the further north we got the dryer it got. The mountains stop the Monsoon rains from getting this far north and it was a hge difference from the green Kullu valley where sits Manali.

In a time honoured tradition, we once again were fighting with day light to get to our destination before it got dark. We had to get a wriggle on to make it. Thankfully it was downhill so we could really paste out the kms.Lara on one of the bridges we learnt to fear. These were made from steel girders and only have sheet metal layed loosely on them. Some of them we would have to stop and rearrange the sheets before we could pass over them as the gaps where just to big for a bike and we ran the risk of falling through them.

So we got to Sarchu, yup that is it, that collection of tents in the bottom right, quicker than we thought as it was all downhill. Once again a short day had turned into a monstrous climb and 70km in total. As we set up our tents we all agreed that we needed to be more careful of how we plan our days. From here there was less food and water (hard to imagine I know) and we could really stuff ourselves if we were not careful.

We decided on another rest day the following day as we were all tired. The tour group we had seen the night before was also in Sarchu, they were very surprised to see us rock up doing the same as they had that day but with carrying all our stuff. We found Ed and had a good relaxing evening chatting and talking about the day’s ride, happy in the fact that we had nothing to do the next day apart from maybe a bit of washing and sleeping.

Waking up and feeling fresh, we set off with a liberal coating of engine oil and felt good. The day’s aim was only a small ride; again to go up slowly to make sure we acclimatised properly.

The road surface was good and progress was fast, the planned 25km would fly by. As we went by there were all sorts of funny road signs for safety. The Indians roads agency obviously was trying to promote more safety on the roads.
This one was Scott’s favourite. After an hour and a half we reached our destination for the night. It was only 11am. Again, we decided it was too early and we would push on (can you find the reoccurring theme!?!?!?!?!) So we had a leisurely lunch in a dhaba in Jispa and head off again. The owner of the Jispa that we talked to said that after another 4km it got flat and camping was no problem.
above the picture is 10km after, still not flat, and no where to camp but pretty views.

15km, still not flat…..20km and the road is dug out from the rock, still not flat and no where to camp. Getting tired.25km still not flat, the bloke from the Dhaba is getting some serious bad mouthing from the wife, she even made Scott blush.Then came the over grown rivers. These were actually quite fun and I think took Lara’s mind off the things she was planning for the the bloke at the Dhaba’s family….Once again we where fighting with time to find a campsite before it got dark, the idea of camping on the road was really not a favourable one. We arrived at a place on the map called Patseo, we thought it was going to be a village, but no it was a single Dhaba. Again though no flat land. We decided that just a bit further… thank which ever Indian God they have there in that province but we came across a bit of flat land. Our 24km day turned into a 68km one with a lot of climbing.Scott finishing off putting up his tent just as it got dark. Within 20 minutes of arriving it was pitch and the moon was coming up behind a neighbouring peak.As it was the only flat bit for quite a while around there was a supported group of cyclists about 200m away from us, one wondered up and he was English. We spent an hour talking to Ed who was an expat living in Dubai. We compared our days with him and he made us jealous of the food he had eaten, prepared by their chefs as we munched on our boubon biscuits that we had bought for dinner.

The temperature started to plummet as we were at 3800m and we decided it was time to retire to our tents and warm sleeping bags.

We woke up to a very misty morning, at about 6am. We could see that our time clocks were going to change somewhat, bed at sunset and get up at sunrise.

Soon the sun came out and burnt it all off, we packed up the tents and headed off on our merry way. We only had what we thought was an easy small bit left up to the pass. This quickly turned into the hardest bit of the whole route. There were road works being done all the way up and the road was massively chewed up and very hard to cycle on making it very hard work

Some of the road works completely blocked the road again which was great for us as we had no trucks blowing their exhausts into our faces. As we approached sections like this, we were greeted by many envious faces of car drivers as we picked our bikes up and picked our way through the works, to then merrily continue on our way as they sit there at the mercy of the incompetence of the bulldozer to be delicate and make a right mess.

After 3 hours of riding up difficult roads we finally reached our first major Pass. At 3980 it was only to be a small one, but still at that time the highest any of us had been on a bike.

It was a little underwhelming, no real signs just a lot of Indian tourist wearing badass 80s all-in-ones wondering around with retro skis.It did have the obligatory prayer flags though and a great view into the Chandra Valley where everything all of a sudden seem to get a lot bigger and have white on top. The best bit of getting to the top was the fact that we could at least go down hill! Having spent the last 2 days riding up hill gravity assistance was greatly appreciated.
Above is us going down from the Rohtang, in the picture is one of the offending trucks. They are all highly decorated and are all the same make ‘TATA‘. At night time the drivers have what can only be described as ‘disco lights’ inside the cabins. This is probably do keep them awake as they do monster journeys in them.
The road turned smooth again and progress was fast, until another traffic jam

A convoy of army trucks, one of them had over heated and blocked the path. No worries for us, bikes are small and we could squeeze passed them with more envious looks from others. We got to the bottom of the valley and stopped in Khoksar for some lunch and had to sign in at the police checkpoint for the road. It was around 2pm and we only had 8km more to get to our original planned camping spot. We decided we were good and we should try and push on a bit more.

So off we went, looking at the map it showed it should be fairly flat and not too far. The mountains where getting bigger and bigger and some we had to stop for a while and just look at them
After a few minutes was spent drawing imaginary lines up them on the way in which we would try and climb them (mine were usually the safe route up the sides and Scott’s always seemed to be the more direct steeper routes) we set off again. We did not seem to be making much progress through the villages on the map. I checked the maps scale again my speedo on my bike. I then worked out that Indian maps where not worth the paper they are printed on.

What then ensued is another race to get somewhere before it got dark. We were all completely knackered by the time we finally reached our destination that night, a town called Keylong.

Poor Lara really was having a sense of humour failure at this point, so I promised her the best hotel in town. We found the best hotel, and it can only be described as disappointing. It did however serve good food. We decided that the next day would be a rest day as we had done 90km this day and Keylong was at 3200m so a good altitude to spent more time at to acclimatise as from there on it got higher and higher.

So the next day was spent relaxing and watching dodgy Indian TV. They have even worse adverts than the French which I thought was impressive. It was a this point that I checked over the bikes to see if everything was o.k. e.t.c.. I asked Lara if I could have the chain lube as the chains were so dry from the last two days. She turned her bags upside down and announced she did not have it. Oh shit. The though of trying to ride for another 10 days with dry chains filled us with no confidence. Scott and I went out on mission ‘find chain lube’. Of course there were no Halfords around when you need one, we did however find a guy repairing motorcycles on his dining table and so we gestured (no mutual language was spoken) if he had lube for chains. That came up blank so we decided to go for the next best thing; engine oil.

We came home and found Lara upset, she said she could not get clean. The bathroom was not the most pleasant of places. Lara doesn’t believe the photo does it justice though for just how terrible it was.

(she made me take a picture of it) she was to scared to get in the bath as it was so dirty. She proclaimed through sobs “I don’t think I’m cut out for Indiaaaaaaaaaa ” That night to make it better I promised her that she would be able to find a nice clean mountain water river tomorrow to wash in. As time went on I learnt to stop making promises…

Like released coil springs we fired out of bed ready to go, we then felt the slight hang overs and sat back down for an hour. The previous nights good bye beers had been maybe too plentiful.

We said goodbye to everyone and set off on our way, was great to finally get going. Soon after setting off however, we realised our first problem, how the hell do we get out of Manali?!?!?!?

There where no sign posts! Just a mess of small streets. We asked a local and he said aim for the bridge and turn left.

Once on the road we thought was right, we were greeted with confirmation. I think Lara wished she had never seen the sign post as it said ‘Leh 478km’

Our first few days were going to be purely uphill to the Rohtang Pass, this was also to be the busiest part of the road we were to encounter, as many Indian tourist drive up to here from Manali to see snow and even have a go at skiing (no lifts). All the way up the road are little huts renting out 80’s ski suit one-seys and skis from God knows what era.
The ride up the valley was very green and the road surface was very good. We bumped into a couple of Spanish cyclists who were coming down, we stopped and talked to them, they were going to do the same route as us but starting the day after, they were just out for a spin.

The traffic was quite heavy with all the cars going up to Rohtang and Army trucks heading up north with fuel for the military. I am not sure how old these trucks where, but they sure kicked out a big cloud of black exhaust which was horrible to breath in as at even this relatively low altitude one breathes heavily up the hills. These trucks were to become the biggest nightmare of the trip, but also a saviour……

The trucks were not the only smell that we had to contend with:

On the bottom right, that is a dead cow, this thing stank and was rather hard to try and pass it with not taking in lung fulls of rotting flesh smells, Lara is demonstrating the hand over mouth technique that I could have told her does not work!

After a few hours of cycling we stopped at a dhaba, a small road side cafe that serves basic food,
we stopped at this one and interrupted a serious game of cricket, we were invited to join in, so Scott was first up to bat. I say bat, it was a rudimentary bat carved from a bit of four by two. He got a couple of fours but his baseball style soon saw him get out.

Next up was me, I did not let the British down getting a couple of crackers, unfortunately I was a bit to eager and walloped the ball straight into the forest, after about 20 minutes of searching we finally found it and I thought it was time I gave ‘Lara the cricket pro’ a go.The local guy seeing it was a women bowled the ball slowly (how sexiest I though) old cricket pro smacked her own stumps then hit the ball into her face. It was time to make our excuses and get on our way quickly.

Back on the bike the truck traffic was getting heavier, thankfully we came across a truck that had snapped it suspension and had blocked the road.

Nothing could get passed and it caused a huge traffic jam, perfect for us as we had now got clear roads. We passed a small reminder of how dangerous this road is; the remains of a truck that had driven off the road.Time was getting on and we decided that we were not going to get over the Rohtang Pass that day. We aimed for a small food stop called Marhi where we could get some dinner and find a place to camp.
These dhabas had put tables in the stream, was lovely and cool and we had some more curried Dhal. We then set off to try and find a bit of flat land to pitch our tent, this proved a little harder than we anticipated. Eventually a little higher up we found a semi suitable place and as the sun was going down though it better to camp there on a slight hill than go on into the dark.

There was a river next to where we camped so a quick strip off and a wash was in order as it had been a hot day, to my horror I found out half way through that my delightful wife was sitting there taking pictures of me washing in the river, most far to graphic to publicly post, but she insisted I put one up as she thought it was funny. ha ha ha.

On arrival in Manali we got off the bus, collected our bikes form the hold and immediately started getting hassled for “taxi Mr” and “you stay at my guest house, best in town”. Thankfully our new friends are seasoned travellers in India and better rested than us so they piled us into a taxi and we all went to the same guest house.

The guest house was perched on top of a hill in the Old Town. It was lovely to be somewhere with peace and quiet. This was until the local snake charmer turned up and produced a couple of Cobras and a baby Boa for us.

I am well known to be a snake lover, I immediately went and hid in my room! I am not ashamed to say I am scared witless by the demonic little buggers!Scott is braver than me and was holding them, above is the baby Boa. Hats off to him!

Manali is full of hippies. I think mainly due to the vast quantities of dope that grows everywhere.

It just grows by the side of the streets, in the gardens and next to the pavements in huge bushes. I giggled to myself at some of the others who newly arrived with us as there eyes just got bigger and bigger as they saw it all growing everywhere. They obviously had a different agenda to us!

After a bit of rest it was time to get the bikes built and make sure they survived the journey, the local guys in the guest house were keen to help.

And curious about the bikes.
Once built we decided to go for a wonder around town, it start to rain heavy (it is monsoon season after all) and was quite refreshing to be cooled down by the rain.

In the evening we went out to a restaurant with our new found friends and had dinner and a few beers.The conversation mostly evolved around “where have you been?” a comparison of temples and how long they have meditated for continuously without even a toilet break. When we told them we were here to ride our bikes to Leh, after their looks of “idiots” had vanished we decided it was time to get out of the restaurant, as all the hippy psychedelic wall murals were starting to freak Scott out. So we decided it was time to go on the hunt for a beer.‘A’ beer turned into quite a few and a great night was had, meeting people from all over the world – Israel, Peru, Germany, Australia and a couple of fellow Brits. A few of them were planning the same trip as us, but on motorcycle.

We woke up in the morning with one of the guys from the guest house mowing the lawn

We had one more day to get the last and final bits ready for the off the next day. We jumped into a Tuk tuk to go to the local ATM.

After queuing for just under an hour, as this was the only ATM in the town and the last one until we got to Leh, we took out the money for the next 2 weeks. Talking to a few other travellers it was advised that we only took small 100 rupee notes (about £1.25) with us as the smaller places would not be able to give change for larger notes. Of course the ATM only spat out 1000 notes. bugger, off we went to try and change them down.Scott, after his successful mission to change the notes down to 100’s. It was rather a large wedge of notes, but still was only about £120 worth!

We were now ready and eager to go!

So with the van packed up and mum having thoroughly checked all our gear, we set off. We flew from Munich, Germany so we could fly directly to Delhi and not give baggage handlers the opportunity to throw our bikes around any more than needed. The trip started brilliantly: The French filth thought that I was driving too fast and decided I owed them £100 for the pleasure.

The lovely french police lady.

Once at the airport we parked in what seemed like the worlds biggest car park, got on the flight and headed to DelhiComing into land at Delhi it looked like a normal city from the air. We picked up our bags and found thankfully the luggage handlers had not been jumping up and down on them and we ventured out to get a taxi. By this point none of us had really slept in a day and a half and we were a bit wired. The idea was to leisurely do a bit of sight seeing and catch the over night bus to Manali that evening. As soon as we got out the airport in the taxis it became evident it was rush hour.

None of us where really expecting what we saw; we all knew India was slightly dirty and busy but we were not quite prepared for just how dirty and busy. The first introduction to Indian life was a bloke having a no.2 on the pavement.

This is his mate doing a No.1 (could not bring myself to taking a picture of the other action!) The roads were covered in litter, and I mean covered!

We went to the tourist travel agency to book our bus, they did not accept plastic, so Lara and Scott set off to the local ATM being shown by a local guy. Lara , again being the hardened traveller, once she had got money from the machine got busy stuffing it in different body locations to be safe. So occupied by this, she forgot to take my cash card back out from the machine… great! 4 hrs here and she has already lost our primary money source!

With a very short ‘team talk’ we decided to scrap all ideas of sight seeing and did the hardened traveller thing and went and hid in a posh hotel until the bus arrived at nightfall.

We found Delhi to be a little too much for us, especially after no sleep for a long time. We got our taxi to the bus rank later on in the after noon, thankfully not one of these:The one we got had air conditioning! A real relief as the heat in Delhi is intense.Cyclist were everywhere. This is definitely one place I would not cycle as these guys are really playing with death, there are no real traffic laws I could see being followed here. If your side of the road was busy, then they just drive on the other and honk their horn at on coming traffic.Wonder if this guy is doing the same trip as us?

Once the bus arrived we argued with the bus driver that we really did not see the need for buying another ticket for our luggage, as it was only going in the luggage compartment and consequently got our first taste of haggling. On the bus we were to meet some friends that we would bump into for the next 3 weeks. The bus was 16 hours long and went through the night to get to Manali. I shudder to think what the bus driver was on to keep him going, but the bloke had speeding issues, so we resolved it was best to try and get some sleep and not think about it!