Bullet for sale!

So with the unexpected departure of my partner in crime I was left to fend for myself (and the two bikes) in the Kullu valley. Bad news is never good news and this was the worst kind, but with Holly flying back to reunite the Tribe I had to get the bikes buffed and on the market.

First though long bus ride. Declining a sleeper seat, I boarded the bus in Delhi and regretted my tight-fistedness after about 5 minutes. Head and leg room compromised I sweated it out, thinking that in 12 hours I should be back in Manali. Wrong. In the middle of the night there was one hectic old thunderstorm which brought the traffic to a standstill for what seemed like hours. 12 hours later, my anticipated arrival time, we were told another 6 hours! Bumping and grinding our way through the mountains I eventually saw a Manali road sign - 10kms. At this point another traffic jam forced me out of the bus, I'd had enough of sitting down and decided to walk the rest of the way.



Now safely back in Manali it was time for action. A few days chatting with mechanics and fellow bikers left me their was a shortage of customers. Still too early for most people to be hitting the mountains. However, at Anu's garage a chance encounter with Amir, a friendly Israeli, found me two willing riders and prospective purchasers. What followed was a couple of days good natured negotiations and second opinions on the bikes' health. The whole Bullet Wallas saga had left a fairly nasty taste in my mouth what with the cost of repairs to Bruno, I was not going to pass on bad news and luck to anyone else. So upfront an honest we eventually brokered a deal which left Holls and I slightly out of pocket, but with a clear conscience. I spent a couple of days with Amir and Eal running through the basics and even helping teach Eal to ride the mighty bullet.

It was with a really heavy heart that I handed the keys over to them and watched them ride off into the sun, the thump of Anook and Bruno resounding in my ears. It had been a blast riding up and down this country and knowing that the two Israelis would be going up and over the passes into Leh and Spiti was gutting for me, but it was about remembering the good (and bad) times with no regrets.

The week passed fairly quickly after that, thanks in part to Jamie and Grace who kept me company. Classic British humour from both and a shared love of dirty electronica between Jamie and I were a winning combination.



On a brilliant hike one day up beyond Old Manali we found a lovely old guy who was carrying about 20kgs of fresh chantrelle mushrooms. Happily relieving him of a kilo for our supper, we hiked on to find the disturbing resting place of a few unlucky cows who had become vulture and crow feed. Still it was nice to be up away from the crowds in Manali. It was beer o'clock fairly early most evenings and when eventually Jamie & Grace left for Spiti, I was pretty gutted. Living in London though, it was one of those rare meetings when traveling where you know you'll actually see these people again...someday.


the shroom guy!

Vashist-Delhi-London-Vashist

We made it to Rekong Peo, just. The first petrol station we arrived at was refilling (a process that apparently takes several hours?!) and we had to beg them to let us have some of their stashed supply so we could get up the hill to Kalpa, Rekong Peo's more beautiful and much less populated neighbouring village. It was here that we were able to get reception on the phone for the first time and contact the outside world. It was also here that I heard from Mum and Dad that my Gran had been taken ill back in England. After some discussion with Marty we decided to pack our bags and head to the nearest town with an airport. Since we were near one of the most unpopulated places on the planet (ironically enough in one of the most over-populated countries on earth) it would be a couple of long days riding until we reached somewhere with anything resembling a travel agency.
So 2 days later, about 22 hours on the bikes, and one rear tyre blow-out coming down the side of a mountain in the rain we arrived in Vasisht, Manali. On route I had a further phone call from Mum to let me know that Granny had passed away. I have never been so glad to get back into civilisation again, it meant I could book a flight, get back home and be with my family and within a couple of days I had a flight back to London sorted from Delhi. Despite our efforts to get to an airport all the flights from Manali to Delhi were booked solid due to school holidays until the end of June, so Marty being the gent that he is, accompanied me back to Delhi on the bus where we sweated it out for a day and then I left for London and Marty made his way back up to Vashisht on an 18 hour bus ride - which I will leave him the honour of describing.
I made it back home and despite the circumstances was welcomed back into the Tribe fold with open arms and big smiles, nothing could have replaced being back there in person. So while I concentrated on being back home en famille for a few days, Marty was tasked with finding suitable new owners for the Anook and Bruno, as our Indian Visas were coming to close and it was time to sell our bikes

Episode 4: Mountain Biking

Sangla, Kamru and the end of the line...Chitkul

Within a few hours of reaching Sangla Village the penny dropped that our detour had also detoured the petrol station. Now in the Sangla Valley it became obvious, at snickers and chuckles from the locals, that there was no petrol in the Sangla Valley. Well not for sale anyway. We figured we probably had enough to drive to the road end at Chitkul and back out to the nearest petrol station 40kms away.

In the mean time though we chose to wind down after the traumatic ride and take in lungfuls of fresh, albeit slightly thin, mountain air and stunning mountain scenery. A chance encounter on a walk up to the tiny village of Kamru left me with three new (local) friends and an invitation to join them the next day for a drinking session. Turning up a little late the next day with an Italian friend found one of my guys half-cut and pretty p*ssed off that I was late! No such thing as unconditional hospitality there then. A couple of hours, and several bottles of apple wine, later though all was forgotten and we were having a grand old time - apple wine however being the loosest description possible for the translucent fire water we were forced to drink in half pint glasses.

It was somewhere during this session that I acquired my Kinnauri topi, the green felt hat sported by many in the Kinnaur region.

With little sympathy from Holly the next day, we both saddled up again and braced ourselves to climb higher up the valley. Already at around 2800m we pushed on the 35kms or so to Chitkul to our highest stay yet, 3450m. Fording a couple of streams on the way we arrived to one of the most scenically beautiful spots in the mountains yet. Fortunately just ahead of mass-tourism too as Chitkul only boasts 3 or 4 small guesthouses leaving the village relatively untouched. We found a nice little place which we shared with a local family and for the next 2 days wandered in awe around the valley, rugged up and slightly out of breath! Chitkul was a little like taking a step back in time with folk generally farming or milling flour in the archaeic miniature flour mills propped over the stream that ran through the village. There wasn't anything to do here as such, just walk, watch and take it all in.

A bus load of Israeli's arrived on our second day there, shattering the peace slightly so we set off early the next day, fingers firmly crossed that our remaining fuel would carry us back down to Sangla and beyond to Rekong Peo, the Kinnnauri capital.

Ups and Downs to Sangla Valley

We spent a few days mooching about Pulga running up waterfalls and getting lungfuls of the brilliant alpine air. Next stop - Sangla valley, a two day ride that nearly broke us. The first night, due to an unscheduled downpour, we were forced to stop in the ****hole town of Ranpur, the only hotel we could find was a truckers dive drinking hole. I saught refuge in our room all night sending Marty out for food and drink, paranoid that the local clientele might think I was a lady of the night and both Marty and I slept fully clothed using our backpacks for pillows, it wasn't really the place you wanted to slip between the sheets. The shining beacon of light throughout the night came in the form of a phonecall from Marty's Mum back home, Martyn had become an uncle, congratulations to Wid and Emma who are the very proud parents of a beautiful baby girl Jessica Clark.
Anyway early rise the next morning we saddled up and hit the road. We'd been warned that the 20Km or so before you hit Sangla Valley had been churned up by various hydro-electric plants. It was a monumental disaster zone, glacial streams had been diverted through mountains to harness their power, and whole rivers had been redirected and dams built.

























There was dust everywhere and for 2 hours we rode through mud, over rocks and unsealed roads. With the front suspension on my bike shot, I was suffering from a pretty painful stitch, which had me climbing all over my bike in every conceivable position trying to find a way to sit that didn't make my insides feel like they were about to burst. Sitting on the tank half standing up just about did the trick. While I was concentrating on my bike gymnsatics, Marty came to halt in front of me. I looked back and realised that there were in excess of 50 trucks and buses behind us and in front was this:




Road finished. A landslide had washed about 50 meters of road into the river running below at the bottom of the valley. We were told, incredibly optimistically in my opinion, the road would be open in a few hours. They'd already been going for over 12 hours and it didn't look like they were getting any closer. There was however another road we could take, over the mountain. Jeeps were fine and motorbikes might be able to make it. So, we gave it a go. The road up was Ok, narrow with a million hairpin bends, but beautiful. Coming down the other side was a slightly different matter, tarmac once again disappeared and we were left descending a steep gradient over boulders the size of me, 1000 meter drop to the left.

I don't quite know how to describe this, the photo doesn't really do it justice and was taken just after the worst part was over. We were ecstatic to get down the other side.

A couple of hours later and to Sangla Valley we did arrive:


(In the middle of this photo you can just see Marty winching himself over the river in a metal cage - nutter)

The horror of the last few hours was placated by this beautiful place. 60Km from the Tibetan border, snow peaked surrounds (of course) and grass meadows to roll around in and chase the shadows of birds of prey. It was amazing.

Parvati chillums

A real smack in the face awaited us just three hours down the road from Jihbi, the Parvati valley. Like most places in Himachal Pradesh a relatively short distance usually involves a steep descent to the bottom of one valley and then steeper climb up another as you work your way deeper into the mountains. The drive to Parvati was punctuated by a rather eerie 3km tunnel through a mountain where truck lights and the thump of our engines were the only real stimulus.

Now Parvati valley is infamous throughout Himachal, and India generally. It is another stunningly located narrow valley, hemmed in by snow capped mountains and dressed with pine forest. More importantly for many though it is home to a swollen trade in marijuana. Parvati ganga is said to be some of the best in the world, and this was immediately apparent as we rolled into Kasol, Parvati's main traveller hide. Nearly every guesthouse, cafe, restaurant is filled with clouds of intoxicating green smoke. Most of it inhaled/exhaled by the resident Israelis population who once again seemed to have shifted base from Tel Aviv to northern India for the summer. Kasol, put bluntly, was a dump. Rubbish cascaded into the river behind every establishment and Hebrew and English signs replaced any Hindi. The locals have been pushed to the fringes here to make way for more guesthouses and falafel bars.

Holly and I felt, as Britishers, massively out numbered here. And the pace of the non-stop chillum smoking was a little too much, and pretty sad really. There were more than a few washed up characters floating around, and the constant shouts of 'BOOM!' every time a chillum was passed was grating even after a few hours. In the name of investigative journalism however, I can confirm the reputation of said intoxicant.

Convinced this was not the reason we came to India, we headed further up the valley the next day with Chaim and Iris who had followed on form Jihbi. Another, gob smackingly stunning ride brought us to the road end at Burshani where we parked the bikes and hiked uphill for an hour to find the wonderfully refreshing village of Pulga. This place is probably how Kasol started out, a small village, with a guest house or three where life more or less carries on as normal, with the odd interruption of trekkers stocking up on supplies or staying a few days soaking up the atmosphere. And stay we did. We had kept a room in Kasol where all our gear was stored. Tail firmly between legs I had to mission back there after our first night in Pulga realising our passports and cash where still there.

Still, once back up on the hillside there was nothing to do but take long walks in the pine forest, people watch in the village, or play backgammon with the other guests at out guesthouse. Here we found the biggest conglomeration of English people (3) we had found anywhere in India! Despite being extremely chilled out here, news filtered through of a trance party some Israelis where throwing somewhere across the valley in the next village. A two-hour walk in the dark awaited those who were after a dance. Myself, Holly, Jamie & Grace ummed and arred for an hour or two. before leaving two lone Israelis two set off in the twilight. Gutted, however we were not when they returned the next morning with news that the party had been busted by the coppers before the first thud of a bass drum had rung out across the valley.

Episode 3: On a Himalaya

on a Himalaya...

Several days of the 'clapham junctions' wore me and holly out, and the only holiness we saw in Rishikesh was of the porcelain persuasion. Eventually things returned to (relative) normal and we saddled up to head further north still, over the border into Himachal Pradesh. A brutal 11 hour odyssey from the heat of the plains to the cool, hill station of Shimla. To put it bluntly, we had a pretty shitty time pounding out the 250kms, punctuated only with bouts of bike trouble to arrive in a town where inflating hotel prices is the status quo. We reluctantly, treated ourselves to a night of semi-luxury, but made a hasty retreat the next day onward into the mountains.

The roads up here are breathtaking and generally require a strong constitution. Up and down valleys and along ridges 1000s of metres up all to the backdrop of snow capped mountains. This truly is awe inspiringingly, colossal scenery. A stop first at the sleepy, out of season ski-resort(ah-hem) town of Narkanda found us sleeping at over 2500m. Most of the next morning was spent cruising to the bottom of one valley and climbing steeply up another. The Jalori pass was easily the toughest road we've ridden yet. Climbing to over 3200m the bikes, particularly mine, struggles with the steep, unsealed roads. We encountered a pair of worried looking Israelis on a bullet who were performing the ritual of perfunctory checks one carries out every time your bullet skips a beat. Fortunately it was nothing terminal just a lot of weight on a single bike heading up a STEEP road. Once at the top we broke for chai and headed down the other side, spotting snow by the side of the road, riding for twenty minutes or so through pine forest into an Eden of green slopes, waterfalls and terraces. Like a well kept English garden Jihbi appeared to be almost too good to be true. Relatively untouched by mass tourism the 3 or 4 guest houses had but a handful of guests between them. We had no real inclination to leave the next day, or the day after that. Chatting to a local trekking guide and guest house owner we discovered that the valley remains safely omitted from the Lonely Planet at the request of the local community. They have seen only too well how tourism has affected other valleys in Himachal. Similarly the local were at battle with the government, raising an injunction to halt a hydroelectric scheme in the valley. We found genuinely amicable people who really valued their little corner of the earth. And it wasn't hard to see why...