Take the world's highest road

...and ride over it on a motorbike

Clearing the bend, the next straight came into view. Craggy hulks of Himalaya rose steeply from either side of the road, shutting out the afternoon sun and leaving deep pockets of cold, damp air. The lead rider was already streaking ahead, a thick trail of dust from his tyres swirling above the road. 

Could I catch him? I wriggled into a lower gear and twisted the throttle. The bike surged forward and, for a few seconds, I experienced that magical feeling that you only get on a motorbike in the middle of nowhere: you and the machine perfectly in tune, swooshing across an empty landscape just a little faster than you probably should, cold air rippling over your shoulders, tyres barely touching the ground. 

I hurtled into his cloud of engine wash and suddenly my biker bubble burst. Dust streamed round the edges of my helmet and stung my eyes. I yanked down my visor and exhaled – my breath hit the perspex, condensing into an impenetrable fog. And that was the exact point at which the tarmac beneath me finished and the bike, which seconds earlier had been under my control, bounced mischievously over a coarse bed of rubble, issuing me a series of bum-numbing slaps. 

And this is how, perhaps without the finesse I’d been hoping for, I scrambled my way into Ladakh.
This was a frequent problem in the mountains of northern India. One minute we were gliding along a glorious stretch of tarmac, the next shuddering across scree. But you can’t blame the Indian highway officials – it’s a tough job to build a road through a region affectionately known as ‘The End of the Inhabitable World’. One precarious route exists, climbing from the foothills of the Himalaya right up to the capital of this remote moonscape, Leh, and beyond, reaching an altitude of 5,602m. It’s the world’s highest motorable road. 

As a backpacker I’d made the trip on a rickety old bus, gazing out of the dirty window as green pine forests gradually disappeared and huge, silvery mountains erupted into view. I’d gazed nervously as stones tumbled over the edge of the road and plummeted towards icy riverbeds. I’d marvelled at the rusty trucks that lumbered angrily up the narrow hairpins. I’d crept off the bus as we stopped at the top of each vertiginous pass to scan the terrain for signs of life, gasping for breath from the three short steps I’d taken from my cosy seat.

Now, ten years later, I’d swapped my tie-dye for Teflon-lined motorbike trousers and had joined six fellow riders to tackle the highway myself – on a beautifully battered Enfield Bullet motorcycle.

But before we had a chance to scale such dizzy heights, we had to make it out of the car park in Shimla. Even the most experienced riders winced as the Tata trucks thundered past, Ambassador cars tootled impatiently and smartly-dressed policemen waved their arms frantically to direct the swarming traffic. 

After a couple of practice laps of the car park, riders who had barely touched a bike in 20 years wobbled out like fledgling chicks. Despite our concerns about the rules of the road, though,we all managed the lowland stretch without incident. Our confidence grew as we snaked our bikes through verdant valleys as the warm rain pitter-pattered on our helmets. 

But this was only the warm-up.

The group quickly slipped into a routine. Two riders jostled for a place behind Patrick, our leader, who gradually inched out his throttle to accommodate their testosterone-fuelled tussles. Next came a cavalry of three, who opted for a respectable middle pace with the odd burst of gas to test their nerve against the traffic and the unpredictable bends. I lingered behind, my long, looping lines and snail-steady speed never a concern for Patrick; behind me the support vehicle followed, its job to pick up the pieces if anyone fell. 

And how we fell. I kicked off with a graceful slump on day one. Tickling along at barely 20km/h, I discovered that a mischievous wasp had hitched a lift in my jacket. One yelp later, I made an ill-fated decision to park my bike on a sheet of mud, and ended up with a bent footrest and two swollen stings. Other injuries in those first few days ranged from sprained wrists to frayed nerves as riders experimented with when to overtake a lorry on a bend, and when it was safer to hang back and chew on their sooty exhaust fumes.

Three days later we reached Manali, where the real adventure began. Ahead of us lay the 475km journey from the lower Himalaya up to Leh, high on the Tibetan Plateau. This single-track road – part tarmac, part rubble, part mud bath – is the only route for travellers, trucks and locals. It climbs past perfumed pine forests, skirts hanging glaciers, cuts through the eerie moonscape of the Indus Valley and several high passes before descending to Leh, a remote military outpost surrounded by the most colourful monasteries in India. It’s a two-day journey, landslides notwithstanding; we were aiming to do it in a leisurely four.

“The key is to take it steady,” cautioned Patrick. “You’ll all make it. Just take your time.” 

Next morning, as we congregated for a breakfast briefing, I picked up the local paper. ‘Landslide: traffic disrupted for eight hours’, announced the bold, black letters. 

“Isn’t that where we’re headed, Patrick?” Eyes flitted nervously around the table. “We’ll be fine,” he smiled, “just as long as we make it over Rohtang La.” 

At 3,978m, Rohtang La is the first major pass on the road to Ladakh. ‘No hurry, no worry’, read the first road sign. Perhaps Patrick was right. The road twirled up past lumps of rock like a helter-skelter; roadside stalls offered fusty-looking fur coats for hire, waiting to be snapped up by brigades of ill-prepared day-trippers. We climbed steadily through the alpine scenery for a couple of hours, past powdery plumes of white water that tumbled from vertiginous crags.

The cool air was like a bucket of cold water after the stifling heat of the plains. Even the engines seemed to gurgle with anticipation. Or perhaps they were simply making the most of it, knowing that the smooth tarmac would not last.

‘Blind curve ahead – please go slowly, thanks!’ read the next polite notice. Round the corner, the road was blocked by a huge mudslide. There was just enough space to inch the bike past before negotiating a road that was pock-marked with small lakes of brown water. My face contorted with concentration as I tried to assess how deep each puddle was, wobbling out of control as I got it wrong and descended into hidden potholes. 

‘Drive slow, live long!’ chirped the next sign. We didn’t have much choice. After two hours of squelching up the mountain, fluttering prayer flags signalled the top of the pass. We had made it past the first obstacle, and celebrated with a round of steaming chai – India’s sweet, spicy tea.

Patrick took a long draw on his cigarette and grinned his wise, biker grin: “In the Himalaya, it’s like this – sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. There might be landslides, snow or floods, and whether we can get around them or not is the mountains’ decision – not ours.”

It was a bone-crunching ride down the other side, but something had ignited my inner petrolhead and I moved to the front of the group. The adrenalin of leaving civilisation behind and disappearing further into this lonely landscape was exhilarating. I scrabbled after Patrick; soon I was following his neat racing curves, battling the boulders with a gritty determination.

‘Flood situation still grim,’ announced the newspaper the following morning. Patrick had suggested an early start; that way, we should reach the tented camp at Sarchu before dark. It was the only stopping point on the next leg of the journey, so I crossed my (aching) fingers and hoped that the magic would last. Stretching my leg over the seat, I pumped the kick-start and the Enfield purred into life. “These bikes are indestructible,” explained Patrick, “the best machine to get you up these mountains.”

In the fresh morning light I realised that we’d left the vegetation behind. From that point on, the world changed into a silvery hinterland, skewered by flashes of metallic red-and-green strata. The landscape opened out into vast valleys lined with weird pinnacles, and mountains appeared like dwarves on the horizon, disappearing behind a bend and then reappearing in giant proportions as we turned the next corner. 

‘After whisky, driving risky’, the next sign reminded us. I shuddered at the thought.

We passed a team of road workers toiling over vats of smouldering tarmac, their holed jumpers and bobble hats blackened by smoke, faces raw from the fierce mountain sun. Beyond the road, primitive shelters were their only protection at night when temperatures drop well below zero. Half of the route between Manali and Leh had been laid with tarmac, but the task of maintaining those sections from the battering of trucks, landslides and swollen rivers must be the hardest labour in the world. The workers’ white teeth twinkled in the gloom as they waved us on our way.

By the time we pulled into 4,253m-high Sarchu eight hours later, the elated feeling of the previous evening had morphed into a thumping headache. Every bone in my body felt like lead and I could barely summon the energy to breathe. “Altitude sickness,” Patrick concluded. I returned to my tent for a sleepless night.

‘2,000 evacuated by Army’, read the next day’s paper. Not that I was capable of reading, nor focusing on the road. I opted for a seat in the jeep, while one of the mechanics rode my bike. The morning passed in a dizzy blur but by the middle of the afternoon the worst of the sickness had gone and I woke to find the jeep hurtling across the vast red expanse of the Morey Plains. Ahead the tyre tracks of the bikes squirmed from left to right like huge brushstrokes as the riders skirted around sections that had become quagmires – an off-road racetrack of epic proportions.

They were still comparing riding techniques when my jeep crawled into camp – a huddle of tents on the edges of Tso Kar lake, above which a canopy of stars filled the sky. Tucked up under a wedge of cosy blankets I smiled for the first time in 24 hours – the altitude sickness had finally passed and I snuggled back down to sleep beneath the sturdy canvas.

‘Go easy on my curves’, read the first road sign the next morning. Gentle loops spreading 30km to the Taglang La Pass (5,328m) felt mercifully short, but we didn’t loiter on the barren, oxygen-starved highpoint. From here Ladakh, the land of the sky pass, unravelled under our wheels.

For the first time in two days, we began to see signs of life – dome-like gompas (Buddhist temples) appeared and lonely monasteries clung to the sides of mountains – refuges of calm and composure in this wild place; the monks’ rumbling chants sometimes drifted down as far as the road. Further down we passed through a little village of whitewashed cube-shaped dwellings where two children loitered shyly beside the teashop, playing with an old cardboard box. Their noses streamed and their cheeks were as red as poppies. 

The corners of my mouth turned up as I glimpsed the last sign before Leh. ‘This is not rally or race. Drive with grace’, it read, and I realised that even I was pulling off those Easy Rider moves with a little more panache. As we stopped for a final tea break, I pulled off my helmet, sank contentedly into a seat and considered chewing a toothpick like a hardened biker. Instead, I reached down to attend to an itch beneath my boot and discovered a mouse gazing boldly back at me, nestled in my trousers as if bagging his seat for the next leg of the journey. And that was the end of being graceful.

I’m not sure the hitchhiking rodent would have wanted to come where I was heading anyway. After a day’s rest in Lehour goal was creeping ever closer – the 5,602m pass of Khardung La was just a morning’s ride away. 

We left Leh and looped upward in the early morning light, tyres biting on the loose surface and stomachs fluttering as we brushed the edges of the road. I’d like to say it was a beautiful ride, but it wasn’t. It was three hours of gravel and potholes – and even those friendly sign-makers hadn’t made it this far. In fact, the whole world seemed to fall away behind us as we pushed upwards into a cold, silent place. Even the engine of the indestructible Bullet was starting to choke and splutter as we picked our path, slowly, up the mountain.

Finally the road began to flatten. All morning, my view had been a wall of grey, splintered rock that stretched upwards to block the horizon, and my eyes were rooted to the uneven surface below the tyres. As I glanced up from the road, I saw a sheet of shimmering white snow creeping upwards beyond the scree to a fluffy, meringue-topped peak. And then another giant white whip appeared. 

As I reached the rocky plateau, the other side of the pass came into full view – a world of twinkling, snow-capped peaks stretching into the distance under the clearest blue sky I’d ever seen. Patrick pulled up next to me and lit a cigarette. He nodded ahead; prayer flags fluttered around a single sign that simply read: ‘Welcome to Khardung La, the highest motorable road in the world’. A wise biker smile crept across my face. It looked like the magic was working after all.

 

 

Footnote

When to go

The high mountain road from Manali to Leh is only open from June to September (passes lie under thick snow at all other times). During this period, Delhi and the lower plains are hot and oppressive, and rain is likely. North of Manali, the weather is clearer and much cooler. Nighttime temperatures can drop to zero, but during the day the sun can be fierce.

Getting there

The author travelled with H-C Travel (01256 770775, www.hctravel.com), which runs motorbike adventures across the globe.

Getting around

It is possible to hire, or even buy, Royal Enfield motorbikes in India. The route is remote and sparsely populated, so consider travelling with a specialist company and taking out specific motorcycle insurance in the UK.

What to take

Helmet Take a UK-approved helmet. An open-face helmet is ideal for keeping you cooler at low altitudes.
Protective jacket An armoured jacket with a detachable thermal inner allows you to layer up as the temperature drops.
Trousers Opt for comfortable, breathable protective trousers. The author recommends Draggin Jeans , which have a Kevlar layer where you need protection and denim to grip the seat, and don’t show the dirt after a day in the saddle.
Boots Take specialist motorbike boots or comfortable hiking boots to protect both toes and ankles.
Gloves Consider a thin, ventilated base layer that allows you to use your camera, with
a second warmer mitt for the higher altitudes.
Camera Take a digital so you can compose your shot on screen – that way you don’t need to take your helmet off.

Health and safety

The main concern is altitude sickness – drink plenty of fluids and descend immediately if symptoms (headaches, insomnia, nausea) persist. Travellers should be up-to-date on vaccinations; you should also take antimalarials and consider rabies jabs as you’ll be travelling through remote areas. Take high-factor sunscreen.

Further reading

The Adventure Motorcycling Handbook (Trailblazer, 2005) by Chris Scott. Almost everything you could possibly need to know about biking the world.

Further information

www.royalenfield.com All you need to know about the classic bike, including how to buy one.