Manali to Delhi - The Last Ride in India

I left Manali early on Wednesday morning after spending just under two weeks there having my bike converted into a classic which it now is. I spent two of the most boring and relaxing days of my journey waiting for Bonnie the mechanic to finish and each day I would go to his garage and stand there looking whistfully at the bike and with sorrow at him in the hope that he would speed up the work in order to get rid of me, if not out of pity then just to get rid of the love-sick bull mooning around the place. It didn't work. But then it was ready (except for some minor cosmetics to be done in Delhi) and after a test drive to town and back, a distance of about 4 kms, I too felt that It and I were both ready to hit the road one last time.

So early on Wednesday morning I rose, brushed ny teeth, had a last shower, made coffee, woke up Amit and Maya who though they were not going with wanted to see me off (at the ungodly hour of 6:45). We did this and that, said this and that, smoked this and that and then I was off. For the past week it had rained very heavily every night from about 3 or 4 often till 10 or 11 but this morning promised to be better with few clouds and an open road. And I was off and 20 minutes later it started to rain and went on doing so till 12:30. Sometimes it was light rain but more often it was hard and once I even stopped at the side of the road in a dhabba with a bunch of curious locals (of course!). But after that the rain stopped and I eventually discarded my "SCANIA" on a branch by the side of the road hanging on a branch for the next lucky scavanger - it is big enough to house at least a family of Indians. Good luck scavanger wherever you are!

The route was as usual in the north magnificen, I drove through narrow valleys with raging rivers, I wound up and down the mountains (none of which, incidentally, were snow topped - but I still get to use the term). The road was good and not overcrowded but I am running in the bike and can't ride too fast. So I'm going about 50 - 55 and I pass through Kullu where I once went specially (in a particular fit of miserliness, to print pictures for 6 ruphees instead of the 10 I was beimg charged in Kasol - I must have saved at least 5 ruphees on the 3 hour trip) and then Bhuntar where I spent the night on the way to Paravati and then the temple where Guttes gear gave out and we could only limp on and then Mandi and then Ner Chowk where Houdini hit the car and then through Barmana and Ghaggas and Bilaspur and Swangaht and Kiratpur and Rupnagar and Kharat where I turned right and Morinda where I turned left and Fatehgarh Sahib where I turned left again and then I was on the NH1 to Delhi.

A few kms down the NH1 I pulled into Ambala for the night - for your
information Ambala is one of the places where the Indian Mutiny of 1857 started. Why have I mentioned all these places? Mainly because they are ndestinguishable, they are all dirty and dusty and rundown and set in beautiful surroundings and I drove for kms along the Kullu River and then the Beas River and still the towns were dirty and dusty and rundown.

The next morning I set of to do the last 200 kms to Delhi and it was most frustrating to be on a real highay for the first time since March and I couldn't do more than 55! I was passed by busses and trucks and cars and even rickshas and the ocaisinal bicycle ricksha! The only things I could be sure of passing were the bullock carts.

The nearer I got to Delhi the heavier the traffic got and all of a sudden I
was in the city and in a traffic jam and totally unaware of where I was. I
stopped an autoricksha and told him to lead me to the Main Bazar and he did just that, leading me right to the hotel I had chosen. I am now settled in a room the size of a basketball court with A/C and TV and an overattentive staff who barely allow me to enter or leave without bugging me.

What I have seen of Delhi is not much, the Red Fort and Hanumans statue and the Main Bazar and it is all dirty and unappealing and anyway I dont really have time for touring and the weather sucks and so I don't believe I will see much of the city.

Now I am off to Conaurght Place to find a MacDonald's - I need a fix even though I know the burger will be chicken - but think of the chips (fries) and milkshake.

Leh

Well here I am in Leh. The journey here was not of the easiest - 420 kms, 180 of them road and the rest "no road". When we left Srinigar it started to rain and it didnt stop for 2 days, that is till we were about 2 hours from Leh. On the way we crossed 3 unpaved passes with the highest being 3500 meters more or less, none of them were paved and the few sections that were were covered with muddy water - driving was excrutiatingly slow, mostly in
1st gear both because of the climb and because of the mud (Amit and I were especially careful, or cowardly) because on the return trip from Gulmarg (near Srinigaar) we both slipped, slid and fell at the same spot and do not want a repeat of it.

Despite the really hard ride we did manage to take many, many photos and when I reach Manali I will send them (it's expensive here and I am a well known cheapskate). How can I describe the scenery, its indescribable, but of course I'll give it the old college try. The first leg is through Kashmir and its all lush and green with little glaciers coming right up to the road and streams, tiny ones running across the roads and picturesque little villages and herdsmen and their tents and flocks and many soldiers and army
camps and deep ravines with the fast flowing Indus all along the way and it cuts through solid rock to get where its going and then after Kargil, a passionately Shi'ite town where we tried unsuccessfully to dry out (the second day I put nylon bags over my socks because my shoes were soaked) the whole world turns into a desert with high snow covered mountains and more
rain and two passes and mud and wet and cold and lots of "no road".

But we made it and met our friends from Kasol and got ourselves a lovely guest house which we have completely taken over - 5 rooms of Israelis (9 people) and one of Danes (2) and we run the place.

We decided to take a camping trip in the Nubra Valley and to get there you have to drive the worlds highest motorable road (according to BRO and The Lonely Planet) where the highest pass Khardung La reaches 18380 feet (don't ask me why feet, maybe a leftover from the Raj) which is about 5500 meters and it gets cold and there is not enough oxygen but the road, except for a
very few sections and the very steep climb - about 2000 meters in 40 kms, is quite an easy drive. So we're going camping and we've got everything including the kitchen sink and we reach the top in about 2 hours and we do the obligatory photos with bikes and sign and have the obligatory puff and we're on our way. Oops, no we're not, Gutte's bike won't start. Nachum, who had been miserable till then, suffering like me from the effects of the lack
of oxygen brightens up and in 10 minutes has the engine stripped and has found the problem, but 10 minutes turn into 2 hours and we're all suffering from the height so we stop a Tata and load the bike on and Gutte sets out for Leh again. End of Camping Trip! I had moaned about having to go camping but was now most dissapointed (wew have planned another shorter one for
tomorrow) and I am sure I would have moaned and whinged but I am truely saddened. the remaining 5 bikes turn around to follow Gutte and 10 minutes later Toto's bike dies - another Tata! Maya joined him for the ride and how they managed to roll a joint as the Tata bounced and jounced (is that a word?) down the road is beyond me. I was feeling pretty bad myself on the way down so I stopped and vomited. I also lost everybody else but arrived,
or limped "home" first.

After about 30 minutes during which iI just sat, the others started limping in too and Maya made us all a delicious potato soup which did much towards our recovery. Toto's bike was ready last night but Gutte's may take longer.

I think that the boys enjoy it more when their bikes break down, they seem to thrive on the adversity. Ah well, no Nubra valley this time, maybe next year. Any takers?

Now we are waiting to do the Leh-to-Manali road which is supposed to be the hardest and the next petrol station is 300 kms from here. There are 3 passes, all high and tough. But in the meantime we have met here a group of 70 Indian Enfield riders and if they can do it so can we, even though they were a ralley and rode empty with all their luggage on a truck and mechanics and 3 doctors. But hats off to them anyway.

Want more pics?

For more pictures of Arie and Srinigar, check out the collection on Picasa Web Albums.

Srinigar, Srinigar has captured my heart!

As I said in my last long mail Srinigar is special and I feel obliged to write more about it, even if its just to give a blow by blow description of our activities, and despite the tranquility of the houseboat we have managed to get up off our big fat arses (well mine is big and fat, it just seems [appropriate] to try and drag Amit and Maya down to my level).

The houseboat comes with two meals a day, breakfast is unfailingly eggs (scrambled or omletted), huge amounts of toast and a slalad. (What's a salad?). Dinner is usually fried lamb or liver or chicken and tonight we had an excellent lamb stew (at least I believe it was lamb but mutton can be either lamb or goat - you don't really want to ask) with vegetables, usually carrots, beans and potato. Our host Ayub is not, however, a very good cook and sometimes one has to really struggle to bite and chew the lamb stew was cooked by his father from whom he took over the business. Apparently the old man (probably 50) likes to keep his hand in. We have a fridge, the first time for any of us and that means we can keep milk, cheese, coke, water, fruit, ice cream - god, the posssibilities are endless. We are eating well and living off the fat of this land.

Each day we wake up around 8:30 (me) or 9:30 (my house-mates) and then breakfast is served half an hour later. During the interim, we drink coffee and have an early morning smoke. (ha). What to do with the day? Whew, that's a toughie. Everything, well almost everything is brought to our deck-step (my word I believe), all the shops you can imagine float up to our HB and
yell till we come out to tell them we don't want to buy anything, but they are nothing if not persistant and now and again we break down and allow them on board and then we are lost, we buy and buy and buy and buy.

There are jewellers, and woodcarvings and pashminas and papermache, mind you, they haven't brought carpets to the HB, for that we had to go to the shop and again I showed total lack of will power. I have bought too much and I want tovomit and I drool over my newest additions to the museum of kitch!

And then there are the fruit and vegetable guys, and the floating supermarket which has everything but at a 20% markup and the shishkebab wallah and the shikara taxis all needing to make a buck (and most of them subsist on that buck - most not all, some of them actually make a whole herd of bucks).

Some days we take a ride to a tourist site; Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh the magnificent Moghul gardens, gulmarg, Indias most popular ski resort and claimant to the worlds highest golf course, a temple here a mosque there and of course a visit to a village about 35kms from here where the locals make imitation cricket bats (I've begun to take an interest in cricket since arriving here - it is almost impossible to ignore India's national sport and national passion).

And then there are drives around the city which are beautiful and going to Nehru park to watch the Indian tourists at play. They are mostly Punjabi (Punjab is just south and very, very hot at this time of year (Amritsar!). They come here in droves, the middle class with their 2.4 children and parents from both sides and two or three brothers or sisters and their kids and all 32 pile into a jeep and never complain but very rarely smile and because the language of Kashmir is Urdu the tourists mostly interact with the locals in English. And we take pictures of them and they of us, all very amicable.

But the best is when we take a day off and just lounge around the HB. The mornings are magnificent with the sun rising and shining on the Fort opposite us and sometimes we can see the mountains behind, snowtopped of course and the reflections in the sometimes mirrors-mooth lake. And the silence in the morning is wonderful and you hear the frogs croaking and the birds singing and in the lake are little ducks which dive and swim under the
water close to the surface so that we can follow their movements and then they pop up with a tiny fish in their tiny beaks. And all around are hawks and pigeons and two kinds of crows, the completely black and those with grey around the neck. And swallows and kingfishers and cuckoos and many others which I can't identify. They soar and swoop and dive and they're always
double, in the sky and in the water. And besides the various salesmen there are Shikara taxis and goods Shikaras going about their business completely oblivious of us.

We went for a lovely Shakira tour of the lakes, Dal and Nageen (we're on Nageen) to see the floating market - one hundred boatman all selling the same three types of vegetable all grown on the floating gardens which really do float and rise and fall with the level of the lake. You can get out and stand on them and they sink with your weight. Wherever you go on the lakes you see houseboats and all those who serve them, kiosks, bakeries, souvenier shops, carpet emporiams, restaurants - all on houseboats moored to the shore.

And when it gets too hot to sit around we jump off the deck into the lake which is unpoluted and just the right temerature for me. Then we get out and eat our icecream and watermelon or pineapple and wonder why we spent all that time in Kasol when we could have been here.

The people are friendly and even when we admit to being Israeli, not always of course, but when it seems okay, this does not change. All you have to say is that Kashmir is the best and they smile hugely. We feel pretty safe. Kashmir is indeed a sort of paradise on earth. If I have, in the past praised other parts of India, they all pale in comparison to the beauty and tranquility here.

I cannot resist sending many more photos, sorry (I don't really mean that).

The Road to Srinagar

In Praise of Indian Roads:



Indian roads suck, they are probably the worst I have ever been on and I hope I shall never drive on roads like these again unless my life depends on it.



Some sort of contrast there, I mean why would anybody want to praise such lousy roads? Because they get you there my friends, these lousy, potholed, avalanche covered, cow-filled, elephant-filled Tata-filled [for the uninitiated Tatas are the huge, colourful, overloaded Indian goods transporters that cross the country every which way and barrel down the roads at speeds upwards of 50 km per hour often reaching speeds of 60 or 70

and occasionally touching 75 or 80 - but they look a lot faster and a lot bigger and scary as hell as they take aim at your rather frail Enfield (Sorry Shlomi, but this is my motorbike tour)]. Roads take you everywhere in

India.



They take you across the flat lands and they take you along the long narrow valleys and up the high passes and into the mountains and for long as I have travelled here the roads have never let me down - even, for those of you have done it (or remember my mail on the road to Goa - NH4A or what is popularly known as the Londa road - if you need you may look it up on my site though there will not be a test). And if you do break down because of the shitty road and get stuck it is never for very long, you can always hitch a ride with one of them Tatas if you can't find a mechanic (not necessarily a competent one but we are talking about the Enfield).



I was warned before I came here and then again while driving in the relatively flat south that when I reached the north all that would change and that due to the roads I would probably break down constantly and that

the 350 cc would not be powerful enough to pull me up the hills. BULLSHIT! It's true the roads are bad, often worse than in the south (but not always) yet my bike has stood up to it all and I have managed to reach here with no trouble at all (Okay, okay - Touch wood). It's true that the inclines here are far steeper than you would ever find in the western world but the Enfield has carried me up them all, sometimes with another passenger and other times with extra baggage and it has always made the climb. And it's true that the hairpin bends here are hairier than anywhere else but they are always negociable (?) and so here I am in Srinagar to refute those unjust accusations. Of course the big test will be the road to Leh or should that be The Road To Leh next week - I will have to cross a pass of about 3500 meters and that aint bubbkes!



As I see it the roads will never become better, they will never be westernised, India simply does not have the recources, but as long as the traffic continues to get through, as long as nobody (very, very important) complains or demands or strikes, nothing will be done, as long as the vehicles can get through, and all vehicles in India seem to double as "off-road vehicles", nothing will change. Generations of future travellers will be able to experience the thrill of riding an Enfield through the crazy traffic on the lousy roads of India, how truly fortunate for them.

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Srinagar

I am here in Srinigar, the capital of Kashmir, without a doubt the most beautiful part of India that I have seen to date. I am staying on a houseboat with Maya and Amit who have travelled with me on and off since meeting them in Kashmir in March and why they are prepared to travel around with an old fart like me is beyond my comprehension but be that as it may they are with me and I am very grateful for that because they are wonderful travelling companions.



Our houseboat is huge and delapidated and oh so almost English that it makes you want to puke and laugh and roll around on the carpet. We have 2 huge bedrooms, a dining room, a lounge and a veranda over the water (Nagin Lake). Our host, aptly named Ayub (Iyov, Job) is a dour gentleman who does his best to fulfill our every wish but does not quite make it, ah well. He serves us breakfast - eggs and toast, and dinner, lamb or chicken and rice and some other veg - today was an excellent liver. Each day we wake up. smoke and then at about 1 pm we ride off to do the tourist bit and see the sights and eat a snack (yesterday it was kebabs at a sidewalk BBQ and Amit and I have had the trots since! - But it was worth it, they were delicious).



Tomorrow we are getting up at 4 to take a tour of the lakes, veg market, floating market, floating garden and who knows what else, should be fun.



If there is one place in India that I would wish to bring my loved ones, it is here. The locals are so friendly, even when they know youre an Israeli and despite the huge numbers of heavily armed soldiers and police, you can

believe that you are in a town under occupation, not protection. But you really do feel awfully safe and while there are not a great many foreign tourists (there is no shortage of Indian tourists), there are quite a few

and probably half of them are Israelis (Surprise, surprise)



I wrote a beautiful, long, interesting mail but it got erased in a power out and I'm pissed as hell but I will rewrite it and send it later.

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Here I am

am in Mcleod Gadj, just above Dharamsala which is another pretty, dirty Indian town in the magnificent north.

There is not much to do here except shop and eat in Israeli restaraunts. The Dalai Lama lives here when he is at home which he isnt right now. So there are only 20000 Indians, 10000 Israelis and me.

Tomorrow I am off to Amritsar and the Golden Temple and the changing of the guard at the Pakistani - Indian border.

Nothing special to write but I may elaborate on this.



If anybody is here contact me, I will be on the net later. Ziv and Eitan - I heard a rumor that you may be here.

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