So now in Leh, we had 4 days to kill as we had some contingency that we did no use up (come on, I am a planner after all!). After seeing most of the people we knew in Manali pass us on motor bikes, I was keen to give it a go. I cornered Maurice the Peruvian to give me a lesson. So we drove out of town to find a quite road on his old Enfield.

He warned me that the gears and rear brake was on a different side to normal bikes, this made no difference to me as I had never ridden a motor bike before, after a little bit working out the gears I was loving it and roaring up and down the road.
Motor bikes are fun, I am sure I will do a trip somewhere on one at some point in my life. After that we drove back with my camera out.
It was a great way to get pictures easily, better than having to stop on my push bike, open the front bag, click , but it back in the bag and strain to get back to cruising speed.
The only real hazard to road users in India are the cows.

They just randomly wander across the road, they have never read the highway code and I honestly think they have no regard for their own lives.
Driving back into Leh, there were more cows to be aware of. The rest of the time we just relaxed in the hotel, watch films on the tv when possible. Leh suffered from power cuts, the whole town would go dead, usually at the most exciting parts of the film, I swear they knew which channel you were watching and did it for fun!

One day Scott’s flip flops that he bought for a quid in Thailand 10 years ago got a hole in them. Being the true Scots man he is, he did not want to splash out any money on new ones, so we found a shoe repairer.Haggled the price down to half what they wanted
Added a liberal coating of impact adhesive to them

and then added with stitching an old truck inner tube to it. Scott was pleased and reckons he will get another ten years out of them. Typical Scotsman.Most of the time we would go eat and wander the streets buying a few presents for family at home and harassing the local moo cows, this was the cleanest one we found, he was a cute little fella and followed us around, I strictly forbid Scott to feed him a bourbon biscuit in fear of him following us around for days!

Strangely, we all sprung out of our sleeping bags in the morning. I had my first continuous night’s sleep with my breathing function back to normal, we were at 3200m that night, the first time below 4000m for over a week and it felt great to be able to breath almost properly again. We decided that we did not need to carry any of the fuel for the stove any more and it would save weight. So we burnt it.Scott trying to act as nothing is happening behind him. He even whistled. Once we had packed up I unlock all the bikes as normal and turned them the right way up, when I turned Lara’s over, it made a funny noise. So after closer inspection I found that a bolt from her pannier rack had gone missing, must have shaken out on the massive decent yesterday. Never mind, she has two dedicated bike fiddlers with her.
After a few seconds we had botched together a fix using a spare spoke and cable ties that would get her to the final destination no worries.

Whilst we did this, Lara made a ‘uh oh’ noise. when we asked her what was wrong, she sheepishly produced the chain lube from her saddle bag.
Scott and I had turned our bags upside down in Keylong as she swore blind she had not got it, it would have saved our chains from going like thisNever mind, the engine oil had got us this far, no one is dead or pregnant, so all was good. It was our last day, nothing could get us down! So we put everything together and set off.

Even the trucks did not bother Lara this day. She smiled and even waved at them.
We passed through Karu, a huge military base, with some funny rules, Scott and Lara the law breakers, you can never say we are not rock and roll living life on the edge.

And some even funnier ways of empowering women, the sign on the left is not that clear in the photo, is says, ironing, knitting, weaving etc. oh to be a powerful women in India. As we went further down hill the temperature got hotter again, a dry heat that I think we where all getting used to and was pleasant to cycle in.The next 20kms was temple central. It was templeafter templeafter Buddhist monumentafter temple afterTemple. I have another 13 pictures of temples taken down that road, but I am sure you are getting the message.

From here we trundled into Leh, I had been planning the hero arrival picture for 2 days now. But on arrival we were just so happy to arrive we just went straight past all the signs and headed for the hotels to complete our journey. We found a clean hotel no worries as Leh is a hell of a lot more touristy than anywhere we had been and was quite a large town.

Triumphant we got off our bikes wheeled them into our hotel rooms, and had our first shower for over 2 weeks. I thought Lara had someone with her in the shower the noises she was making enjoying cleaning herself so much.

That night we went off and met all our friends from Manali and found beer. The Spanish, two other English girls who we met on the way who were also cycling, Maurice and Ags, the three Germans, 2 Israeli girls, 3 additional spanish who we met cycling and Stevie.Happy, tired and slightly smug that we had ridden there from Manali.

So up with the sun once again, pack our stuff up and off we went for the Tanglang La. We had 18kms and 800m of climbing
This pass was slightly different from the others, as in you could see the top from the bottom, this had its pros and cons. Pros you knew where to aim for, cons it never seemed to get any closer. We soon came across a traffic jam of two buses that were having difficulties getting past each other.Brilliant, clear roads. The road went on and on, half way up we stopped to eat some food. Two more of our friends who we had met in Manali caught up with us, Maurice and Ags. Again, this was a bit boost for us. was great to see them, we chatted for half an hour and then we all set off.

As we got closer to the top the going got really hard, not the road, just our breathing. We were now cycling above 5000m for the first time and you could really feel it. Lara had to stop a few times as she felt dizzy and had to sit down until the dizzy spells stopped. Finally after just under 4 hours of riding uphill we arrived at the Tanglang La Pass.

It is 5328m, and is famed as the worlds second highest motorable pass (although there are a few other claims to this wondrous height of fame for a road in Bolivia and in Nepal).

It was a fantastic feeling to have got here, as from here it was virtually all down hill to the final destination of Leh. The views were stunning, we could see all the way North to the Karakorums and K2.

There were of course the obligatory prayer flags that we now love as they always signify the end of the climbs.

This was the highest any of us had been ever. It certainly made us all think twice about wanting to try anything higher. The sheer effort of pedalling was made so hard just through the air being thin, standing up made you slightly out off breath.

The hero photo of Lara just cresting the top of the pass with a small dust tornado that were a real nuisance.Same one of Scott. After sitting at the top for a good half an hour, talking to other tourists who had driven up there “oh my God, you are mad” etc etc was all they said.So after soaking up everything it was time to do the down hill, it was 62km to get to our place to camp that night, and it was all downhill!!!!!Off we went, the road turned from dust, to rocky to brilliant tarmac, it was amazing to just coast down the hill at 40kph and lean into the tight hair pin corners and accelerate out of them by just letting go of the brakes. The warm wind cooling you off was such a welcome break from the intense heat of the past few days.After 30kms or so, we decided it was time to stop for lunch in a small town called Rumtse. We sat down and a load of Indian men who were sitting near us start asking questions. The normal “did you buy your bikes here?”, ” where you from?”, ” do you like India?” etc. they had a large quantity of wine on the table and kept offering us some. We had to refuse as we still had a way to go and to be honest I was not in the mood to drink wine. As they left they just gave us a bottle, the guy who gave it to us said it was from his vineyard. Another gesture showing how kind the Indians really are. So we stashed the bottle in our panniers for later on.The further down the valley we got the more Buddhist monuments and temples there were. We were in the Chhaba Nala valley. It was stunningly pretty.The further we got into the valley the deeper and more gorge like it became. We flew down it at more than 50kph having way too much fun to try and stop to take pictures. Scott stopped to take a picture of a rock – freak.We finally got down to the bottom to a town called Upshi. Here we sat and had some dinner, waited for the Spanish to catch up and sat and had a drink with them. Suddenly Scott’s face did this:-I thought he was just about to do his now normal sprint for cover with toilet roll. After asking him what was wrong, he said it was the surprise of a fart that didn’t cause him to shit himself. He was definitely getting better.Lara and I in front of a prayer Barrel that went rang a bell every 30 or so seconds. We had chosen bad seats. The Spanish were staying in a hotel tonight, but we had a few more kms to go to try and find a flat spot to camp. As the norm, we left too late and had a rush / panic trying to find some where before it got dark. You would have thought we would have learnt by now.It was brilliant setting up the camp, we knew that we were almost there. Just a 50km day the day after mainly downhill or on the flat. We thought we definitely deserved the bottle of wine that night.The wine was great, after we drank it we all agreed it was not enough and another 3 or 4 bottles would be better! We were in the middle of nowhere and the stars were so bright. Lara and Scott sat there and pointed out all the different star constellations to me, I kind of glazed over. Lara started squealing when she saw a shooting star as it was the first one she had ever seen. We sat there for a further half and hour and saw a further 6. Off to bed we went with excitement of getting to our destination the next day.

Woke up in the morning, got out of the tent and went to see how Scott was doing, he was still asleep. I thought best to leave him until he awoke naturally. This only took 15 minutes as the sun heats up the tents massively. Thankfully he was feeling a lot better and was wanting to get going. We packed up and set off to get breakfast, were Lara got a soft spot for a local baby girl in the dhaba, I told her it was insulting to offer money for a child and she sulked.Scott was able to eat and once done we bought another vast amount of water as we were to stop in the middle of no where again tonight.

Scott and Lara climbing out of Pang. The views as always were stunning, I had never seen landscape like this, the air was extremely dry and as soon as you drank water, 30 seconds after your mouth felt like Ghandi’s flip flop. We all hoped we had enough water.
Scott was obviously feeling better. We gave him all our power gels to try and get some energy back in him. We climbed up to the ‘More Plains’ a high altitude dessert at 4700m. I am not sure any of us where prepared for just how dry and hot it was going to be.

It was just a huge dust bowel. The road disappeared and appeared leaving you to make your way in between it as you saw fit while trying to avoid deep sand.

There were a few reminders for us to keep going, again another place humans are not suppose to live. The More Plains are 60km long, with a very slight down hill gradient. As the day went on it got hotter and hotter, Scott and I really struggled with the heat.
I think even ‘Lara the lizard’ said she was a bit too hot which was really saying something. Then out of nowhere came Stevie, one of our friends we had met on the bus from Delhi.

It was great to see a friendly face, and it really lifted our spirits to see him. We chatted for about 10 minutes as it was too hot to stand still for too long, made plans for a beer in Leh and off he zoomed. All of us secretly thinking, “motorbikes, now there is a good idea”.

After a few hours of the heat, Scott and I started to overheat. Being a desert it is not the obvious place to find shade, but not put off lightly, we found some and sat there for a while cooling down.

As we looked down the valley there was cloud forming.

With the promise of bigger shade we sped off to find it. It was glorious, and again another lift to the moral. It is amazing how such small simple things like shade and friends that most people take for granted can really boosts ones moral.

By now Scott was starting to really suffer, his sickness over the last two days had really taken it out of him. Thankfully we came across a dhaba, no one ever told us it was up here and it wasn’t on the map (hardly a surprise as it is a useless map). To our great delight the Spanish were there, we had caught up with them.

We decided to ride a few more Kms to get to a quiet place just below the pass that we were to ride up the following day.

We arrived in a seemingly tranquil spot and pitched tents (picture above taken in the morning, that is why the sky is blue). Well we thought it was a quiet spot. Out of no where, around 40 of the local road workers appeared and just started watching us. Lara needed to go to the toilet and there was no where to have privacy with them all around. We thought they would just get bored and leave. After 40 minutes of them just staring at us we had enough. They were not rude, just curious. But I had to ask them to please leave us in peace.

I took this picture when they left, I daren’t take my camera out whilst they where standing there as it might have given them something more to be interested in and we were trying to be as boring as possible! The picture shows about a 1/3 of them walking back to there camp. Lara was relieved.

We spent the night chatting with Luiz and Pepe. Pepe tried to steal my wife off me, he produced three bars of Lara’s favourite chocolate. She had now gone the best part of 2 weeks without dark chocolate. David who? She was gone.

Once again they were so generous with their food, we with our freeze dried magic meals, them with amazing Spanish hams and cheese. Thank you Pepe and Luiz, you two are great.

The sunlight faded and it was time to go to bed, as tomorrow was the biggest pass of the trip – the Tanglang La.

Woke up to a very cold morning, during one of my forgetting to breath episodes I checked my watch and the thermometer said -4. I was wide wake and got out of the tent, the sun was just coming up, our tent had a layer of frost on it.

The sky was incredibly clear up here at this altitude, with such amazing blues.
I did my morning check to make sure if anyone had nicked our bikes (we should be so lucky) and realised I had left my shorts out.
A novel way of killing the bacteria I thought. Just then I remembered the 4am running coming from Scott’s direction. So I went over to see him. I came to find this:
The poor bloke had been to the toilet 6 times since I heard the 4am ghostly run, it was now only 6:10am. he looked awful and he said he felt awful. The day was not to be a long one, just the 8km up over the Lachalung La Pass then freewheel down to the next town called Pang. We could easily have a late start. So we decided that we would rest until Scott felt better and we would leave in the afternoon.

The sun came up and it turned into another really hot day. Lara and I sat outside the tent reading happily in the sun, the only thing we had to interrupt our peace and tranquility was Scott sprinting off into the distance with toilet paper flapping behind him every 20 minutes.

We realised that Scott was not in a good way and this was not a simple case of Diarrhea, he had a fever and frequently went from a sweaty mess to a shivering bundle of down bags piled on top of him in 5 minutes. The problem we were faced with is that where we were, there was no food and water, and it was at 4815m, not a place humans should really be. We weighed up our options, we probably had enough food to last us a day but not enough water. Scott was going to need a lot of water to keep him hydrated due to his frequent running trips. So we made a decision to try and wave down a truck to give us a lift the 24km to Pang were we could get supplies for sicknote. It took nearly two hours to get a suitable truck. A very kind man said with out hesitation that he would happily take us. So we loaded all our bikes and bags on top and climb aboard what was to be my scariest motor journey ever.

Don’t get me wrong, this guy was not a crazy or bad driver. It is just the combination of a 20+ year old knackered truck, very rough roads and a little worry about Scott that added to the mixture to make this a scary ride.

These trucks are old as prementioned. The suspension is shot, so you feel every bump in the road, the drivers are fighting with the truck through each corner as they have no power steering, so are really having to man handle the steering wheel. One corner he went round (they do it in 2nd gear flat out so that they do not have to go down to first as that makes it difficult to change back up to 2nd due to the steepness) heaving at the wheel, when we hit a rock. This totally took him by surprise, the huge jolt sent him flying out of his seat and he landed at our feet completely letting go of the steering wheel. The three of us without hesitation grabbed him and threw him back at his seat. He smiled at us.

Pretty much straight after that Scott turn an exceptional pale colour. You could tell he just wanted to be put down and out of his misery. But being the tough bloke he is he just sat there and slowly rocked back and forth.

we soon passed over the pass

The first time any of us had been above 5000m, and it was in a diesel truck in India. One for the grandchildren (no mum, I have nothing I want to tell you, it is an expression).

The scenery was stunning with big towers of rock sticking out.

Of course all taken from inside of the truck
So finally the ‘death ride’ as it was nicknamed finally came to an end when we reached Pang. We offered the driver some money to say thank you, but he refused. A hero he was to us, a thoroughly genuine nice man of this world.
Shame it was not at night otherwise we might of been able to get the full effects of the in cab disco lighting! So it as now around 6:30pm, we went to a dhaba and ate some dinner, Scott managed about 3 spoonfuls of plain rice and three sips of coke and then receded back into his world of not knowing who or where he was. In time old fashion it was getting dark and we needed to find somewhere to sleep. I had seen a patch of flat grass about 300m before the town. so we headed off there to set up the tents before it got dark.

I had my normal nights sleep waking up panting, but tonight I had the added noises of scott sprinting off into the darkness every half an hour.

The next day it was obvious we were going nowhere. Scott needed to rest and get better. Thankfully we had built spare time into the trip for this, so there was no hassle. We knew there was a military post here in Pang, so we got Scott up and went to see if they had a doctor there. Thankfully they did, and Scott was seen to, he had his oxygen levels checked to make sure it was not the altitude, it was not. Just some bug he had picked up. He was given some medicine and back to bed for him.

Lara and I took advantage of the river we had camped next to do some body hygiene work

First wash I had had for 5 days, cold, refreshing and nice to feel clean again as I was black with dirt.I don’t think Lara has the same resilience against cold water as I do and being in India and female she had to wash in her clothes……
Clothes were washed and more of our books were being read.

Again the weather was kind, a bit warm but lovely to sit outside in and just relax and hope that Scott’s bowels sorted themselves out. We mingled with the locals who seemed curious as to what we where doing on their grass. Their owner came along later and opened our tent while Lara was changing in there. She told him to get lost while I yelled “No No No”.

Into the evening Scott was starting to feel better, his fever had gone and the military drugs had started to work on him. I made him some noodles and tried to coax as much food into him as possible. He had not eaten for nearly 24 hours and must have been running on zero.

Night came and we all went to bed, hoping Scott would be feeling better in the morning.

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…