When traveling by motorcycle in this part of the world you need to be ready for anything the road throws at you. Dodging potholes becomes second nature. Cows crossing a busy highway? No problem. Chickens intent on getting intimate with your front wheel? Been there, done that. But leopards? Well, that is something you just do not expect to come darting out in front of you. But that is exactly what happened a few days ago just outside of Dehra Dun in the north of India. As has been our habit recently we left our hotel at the crack of dawn to avoid the intense heat that was to come later in the day. About one hour into the ride we were rolling along on a fairly busy road when we both simultaneously spotted what I though at first was either a very large dog or a very small cow crossing the road in front of us. Not really caring what it was I proceeded to apply both brakes fairly hard in the hopes of avoiding an accident. Somewhere during this braking maneuver my brain registered what I was looking at (now just a few feet in front of us). It was a leopard crossing the road at a brisk pace. We were stunned! A leopard! We still can’t believe it. “Incredible India” is the Tourism Board slogan and it sure was that morning. Simply incredible.

Brian

There are a few roads in the world that motorcyclist talk about with awe. The kind of road that offers the challenges of things like mud, snow, ice, potholes and river crossings. But these roads also offer great scenery as a reward for the hardships endured. Hence they are popular with the two wheel crowd. They are, in a nutshell, an adrenalin rush. The road from Manali to Leh in northern India is one of these roads.

We had first heard about this road about 6 months ago and thought to ourselves; humm, that sounds nice. Lets do it when we get there.

But “nice” doesn’t really cover it for Ladakh. Something like “wow” would be more like it. Some examples:

“Wow, did you see how deep that river is? A bridge to get across would have been nice” or how about “wow, who would have thought that driving on ice could be so…stimulating” or maybe even “wow, I might need to change my underwear after that last passing maneuver with only inches to spare between us and that 200 foot sheer drop into oblivion”.

For the uninitiated, let me explain the route. Basically, you ride about 475 kilometers on roads of varying quality over 4 passes the lowest of which is at 4000 meters and the highest at 5300 meters. And if you are really a sucker for punishment (like us) you can even attempt the highest motorable pass in the world, just a few kilometers past Leh at 5600 meters.

For this leg of our trip we hooked up with Sander and Jolijn whom we had corresponded with some weeks before. Turns out they are a great couple and we ended up having a great time together. Jolijn usually rides a Yamaha but due to mechanical issues she opted to leave it behind in Manali and put her life in the hands of Sander. I know for a fact that Sander posted an embarrassing picture of our motorcycle taking a well deserved “rest” at the top of the first pass on their website and I also know he will be reading this text so let me state for all the world to know (well, maybe not all the world but our 5 or 6 regular readers at least) that there was an incident involving sand and a certain BMW motorcycle (not ours). Suffice to say that the motorcycle in question somehow ended up with sand in the handlebars. We would have taken a picture but the dust storm generated by the fall would have camouflaged the identity of the victims.

But in all seriousness, Marie and I fell a total of 3 times on this ride. The first fall was perhaps the most embarrassing when I accidently backed into a snow bank at the top of the first pass. The second occurred on an icy stretch of road and the third was on a hairpin turn when we leaned into the curve a bit too much. When we weren’t busy falling, Jolijn wasn’t busy taking pictures of our motorcycle lying down and Sander wasn’t busy helping us lift up the damn thing we were witness to some great scenery. But words cannot do justice so here are a select few pictures of this ride.

Early morning departure and we are nearing the top of the first pass...

Top of the first pass...

I promised Sander I would post this on our website. The most spectacular piss ever...

The roads were not always the best...

But the views were great...

A river crossing on the second day...

Our motorcycle resting after a difficult pass...

Just because they are cute...

We lost the road (but found it a short while later) on the 3rd day of riding...

Typical scenery...

That is only a fraction of the photos we have. For more, click on "photos" on the menu bar.

Brian

Ok, we haven't written on a long time and there is a reason for this: no internet or very slow connexion in the Ladakh region... We will give you more news soon!

Marie