Derek, the fifty six years old Aussi and Capt. Jean Luc Picard look-alike, had our group's first accident. He flew off his bike on a gravel patch upon being confronted by an truck being driven by an aggresive Indian driver. The fall wasn't all that bad, but his obsession with wearing tanktops and shorts was responsible for a few ugly scars on his arms and thighs. He was thus herded into the support van and Chezare the timid Italian, herded out and asked to ride my motorcycle while I took over Derek's somewhat crippled steed.

Derek wrote off the incident as the Karmic fallout of his being rude to an unpleasant Snake charmer "Baba" earlier in the morning in Chandigarh, India.
The next morning in Bilaspur, just as we were about to leave, my buddies girlfriends distributed small bits of paper to each of us.
Unable to make out a thing of what was written, even though it was in English, I was told that it was a Buddhist prayer for a safe journey. "But in what language" I asked. "Pali" they replied, referring to the language in which Buddha spoke.

"Do any of you know Pali ?" I was curious. No we don't, they retorted, but Ashokananda knows a bit, referring to the absent visionary leader of the international "All India Motorbike Pilgrimage on Royal Enfield Bullets", in which we were participating.
"Well if you don't know Pali, how the hell do you know what's written here, and that it's not a curse instead ?" I insisted pointing at the chit. "Well if you don't want to chant the prayer, at least you can sit with us while we do it" retorted Shanti giving me one of her eye rolling expressions of desperation on her Teutonic face. Not wanting to hurt the group feelings, I joined them as they gathered near the bikes for the (fifteen minute!) prayer for luck which sounded like "Omu, Numu, auu auu", "Omu, Numu, mumble mumble", contemplating whether I was a nut to leave my job and join this setup, or was I the only sane person here.

Within minutes of hitting the road, I learned what it is to be like being the only person in the group who has any idea about motorcycle mechanics. Alvin's head gasket blew. "This is what happens when you concentrate on rayers instead of bike maintenance!!" I growled, knowing fully that no preventive maintenance can prevent such an incidence. Alvin meanwhile kept stroking his beard and muttering in his thick Italian accent, while a few others gave me dark inquisitional looks, the kind reserved for heretics.
An hour of tooling and a couple of beers we were on the road again with no further mishaps sparing one, when the tool box of Teresa and Ami's bike fell off, which the bystanders fixed by tying it back with a string. We crossed Kullu and proceeded straight towards Manali. Surrounded by high fir covered mountains with clouds floating among them, in a very "Taoist" ambience. At the same time, it is also over-commercialised and overcrowded with every conceivable kind of tourists, touts and gawking yockels. The most prominent being the north Indian honeymooners and their fat middle aged counterparts. Among the foreigners the Israelis were most eye-catching, as most of them were attired in weird colourful dresses and rode ratty bikes noisily masquerading as "Hells Angles", when not swinging to reggae or techno in old Manali.

The road to Leh, our next destination, was closed for a couple of weeks due to a broken bridge and a snow drift gone awol. Thus, having nothing to do we aped the Israelis, meditating and holding daily meetings, debating what a pilgrimage is all about. Incidentally, the drivers of the van, which we hired in Delhi to carry our luggage to Leh, got sick of waiting and one day dumped the luggage in our hotel and disappeared along with it.

A week later we left for Ladakh on over-loaded bikes, courtesy the missing van, while a few of the pillion riders along with the previous passengers of the van took the bus. The drive through the fir covered hills was exuberanting and marred only by the slipping clutches, a perennial problem of British bikes and perpetually wet boots, soaked by freezing water sprays when crossing the countless streams cutting across the road.

Right after the Rohtang Pass we descend to the dreaded "Koksar Nula". The stream was knee deep and about thirty meters wide, the water ice cold and fast flowing with the under water boulders kept shifting all the time. Here we also fished out two Israelis and their bikes out of the water. The two-wheelers refused to start after the bath and feeling sorry for their plight I offered to help. The bikes were probably the sorriest examples of the machines which roll out of the Madras "Royal Enfield" factory. The kind favoured most by Israelis; the sorrier the better !! One started after we dried the points, while the other obstinately refused. A little investigation proved the cylinder to be full of water. They had to be showed how to drain it, before a few kicks brought the bike back to life.

We reached Keylong in the afternoon. The road was dusty and dense with a heavy traffic of civilian and Army trucks which had accumulated over the weeks. There we discovered that there was no petrol in town and that there wasn't another gas station for over a hundred kilometres in one way and two hundred the other.
The district headquarters of the Lahul-spiti district, it is a beautiful little Himalayan town situated on the side of a steep valley. The river Beas flows in a gorge below Keylong, while snowy peaks tower over the opposite side.
It was here that we met an exceptionally noisy bunch of Israeli motorcyclists. Finding them more entertaining then my own bunch, I often helped them with their extraordinarily derelict "350's".

Another person who tied up with us in Keylong was a German named "Bo", short for "Bodo". He too was mounted on a "Enfield" and heading towards Leh and joined us finding virtue in the idea of travelling togather. Finally after four days, we got the fuel and were again on our way, but minus the American-Malaysian couple; Teresa and Ami who dropped out due to constrains of health.

The road from Keylong to Darcha had a mind boggling scenery, specially in Jispa. Running in the middle of a valley beside the Chandra with snowy peaks on the right and a rocky meadow and hillocks covered with a dream coat of wild flowers, to the left.
The trecherous climb for the Baralach La Pass started right after Darcha and the road was again constantly criss-crossed by streams. With the temperature hovering slightly above zero the spray felt like needles. The road surface ceased to be asphalted and comprised of pebbles and Shale chips. Right below the Pass at a place called "Zinzinbar" we got flagged down by the two Israelis whom we had earlier helped out in Koksar. They reached a day earlier and spent the night in a road building crew's shack, as one of their machines broke down. Cursing and freezing, I tried to get the bike running and was rewarded after an hour's struggle, and handed it to the owner with the strict warning not to kill the engine at any cost before the next base.

We continued uphill and right at the top of the Pass I was stopped again, this time by Bodo who was sitting on his stalled "Shit Motorbike, Bloody machine, etc.". The problem was with a faulty wire which was easy to fix, but the consequences of stopping there was borne by the Israelis who forgetting my warning, killed their engines and got off, hoping to be of some help.

The problematic bike refused to start again and finally had to left there, while the two of them followed us on their other bike to our next stop. They later went back and were bailed out by the Army who gave them a lift on one of their trucks.

By the time we reached Sarchu, it was already dark. For a place described by tourist brochures and Guidebooks as "full of camping arrangements" Sarchu proper, the area where milestones say "Sarchu 0 km", proved to be single makeshift tent improvised from a parachute, with a sign saying "Sonam Restaurant".

The place was packed, shared by our bunch with a few other bikers, a couple of truck drivers the owner and his family and a resident holy man.
Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the dreadlock rasta "Bob Marley", the latter had apparently arrived on one of the trucks and was camping there since morning. Throughout the day he was smoking Charas and guzzling the host's and the trucker's firewater, the whole evening he kept bellowing "Hello!! No Problem"!!

We set out early next morning hoping to reach Leh the same day. Five kilometers onwards we met the wacky Israelis again. They got stuck with a puncture the previous day and slept the night in a cave. Lacking proper tools, they were sitting on the road side pondering over their options till my instruments solved their problems.

We continued on our way through the bizarre lunar landscape that comprises the Himalayan Desert. The dry cold and rarefied air making every movement an immense effort.

Several times we crossed groups of mountain cyclists doing the same route. Pedalling away to glory on their tough mountain cycles, at times they made the same progress as we did as the thin air made Enfields asthmatic and coupled with the gradients, our overall speed wasn't anything remarkable.

Besides, whenever we hit an extra rough or muddy patch we had to climb off the motorcycles and push, while the cyclists just lifted their bikes on the shoulders and covered the area on foot.

We crossed the next pass, the Lachung La and stopped in a camp called Pang for lunch. Here Derek's bike started acting up and after twenty kilometers, in the middle of a desert plateau, broke down completely.

All efforts in getting it started failed and seeing no other way we hitched his bike to mine with a rope and towed him back to Pang. Where, tearing apart the cylinder head, we traced the problem to worn valve locks and damaged stems. Nothing could be done there and so it was decided that we would proceed the following day and Derek would try to hitch a lift from a truck or an Army convoy.
That night three of us; Derek, my pillion rider Debi and I again stayed in a makeshift parachute tent. However it was not crowded like the previous occasion.
We released our tensions by getting drunk and philosophising, and enduring the effects of altitude sickness, badly aggravated by the alcohol.

The ride to Leh was uneventful but interesting, a refreshing change from my previous routine as undisturbed I rode at my own speed. We crossed the Tanglang La Pass, the world's second highest vehicular road and entered the Indus valley. At Rumtse we met Alwin who stayed back the night in a peasants house waiting for us and Derek.

One of the most remarkable things about Ladakh are its inhabited valleys, which are Oasis' of greenery in a dry rocky mountainous desert landscape. A lush biosphere created by a traditional system of irrigation where streams are dammed with rocks and split into canals irrigate the entire valley.

Derek reached Leh on a bus, while his bike arrived there on the behest of the Indian Army. Here my fellow Pilgrims organised and participated in a Vipassana meditation retreat for ten days.
Deciding not to participate, Derek and I worked on his bike which proved to as ratty as any of the Israeli vehicles. Finally when everything was fixed, he promptly exchanged it for two worn "Persian Carpets" and announced his decision of dropping out of the tour and catching the first flight home.

My time in Leh was spend ridding around, attending insipid "Techo parties" and in the garage of the long suffering "Mohan mechanic", Leh's only competent motorcycle mechanic and the only source for spare parts. The crazy Israelis were also permanently stationed there, driving the him nuts with countless problems of their wretched bikes, and their insistence upon being served first.

The worst rat belonging to an Israeli chap called 'Yanil", who turned up at the mechanic's one afternoon demanding that it be repaired. Warily, Mohan asked him his problems, knowing from experience that there were bound to be many.
"Well, tha baatari not charge" he replied in his guttural Hebrew accent."Any other problems?" inquired the mechanic again.
"Well, tha carburatorr go Puff, Puff, tha timing not gut and vaan baak Sok-absorver brokan" was the response.
Fatalistically Mohan bobbed his head and told him to park his bike.
"But I cannot do it !", said Yanil, "the stand is also broken!". "I vill riite parodi on my motorbike" he told me, as I helped him hold the bike while he fitted a sizeable rock under it.

Once the retreat was over the participants who voluntarily kept silent, meditated and ate muck for ten days, declared they needed a few days to recharge. So the days were capitalised in exploring the monasteries, many of which were either ill-maintained or grossly commercialised.

However, the prize for being the eeriest goes to Spitok, a monastery near the airport. The main shrine which belongs to an esoteric wing of Tibetan Buddhism is supposed to be over a thousand years old and is pitch dark inside, with the statues of the deities kept veiled and the walls covered with weird masks.

The ride back to Manali was relatively uneventful till the Tanglang-La Pass where it snowed, hailed and rained at the same time, and lightning flashed by our sides into the valley below. Visibility was up to a few meters, the road muddy and very slippery.
Having no options we rode on as there was no shelter and being stationary makes one more vulnerable to a lightning strike. Fortunately the storm was concentrated around the summit and we could dry off a bit after reaching the base of the mountain.

We however got drenched again in a cloudburst in the middle of the fifty eight kilometre desert stretch between the Tanglang-La and Pang.

Later, we crossed a group of bikers heading towards Leh and after a few kilometers onwards saw a tall lanky man trying to start a very scrappy Enfield. Stopping and inquiring about his problem, I was apprised that "the bloody bike starts and goes Phooof' and stops". Unable to comprehend what that meant, I tried my luck with it, and true to his words, it did start, go "Phoof" and stopped.

I checked the fuel flow and asked him to remove the spark plug. He didn't know what a plug was and I had to show him how to remove it. It was totally corroded and he didn't have a spare one.

"How can you be so irresponsible as to embark on such a trip without such elementary spares ?"I demanded. He replied sulkily that there was a strike in Delhi when he started, and all the shops were closed. He didn't explain where he bought his extensive set of tools and the other spares. The bike started after I fitted one of my spare plugs, but revealed symptoms of a very badly tuned system. By this time his companions whom we saw earlier, turned back joined us.

Warning them about the weather conditions at the mountain pass, we advised them to return to Pang and start the next day. Thankfully they heeded.

In Pang my new acquaintance whose name was "Kurt" insisted that I give him a crash course in motorcycle maintenance as his bike, a 1968 model had virtually everything wrong. The carburettor for one was filled with black muck, to which he offered "not cleaned since 1968!!"
At the end of an hour's repairing session he was quite startled when his bike started at one kick. When I asked him why he bought such a junk, he replied that he wanted to learn how to repair a bike !!

We reached Manali after a short stay in Keylong, with our progress delayed by the constant breakdowns of the Ford Camper van, belonging to an unsavoury Italian character, who joined up with us in Leh. The wretched van limped to Sarchu and refused to move any further.

In the end, a very eccentric and tourist hating Commanding Officer of an Army base across the Baralach La Pass helped out. But, an hour of imploring was needed before the "Dale Carnagi" addict gave in and agreed to think about the case. An Army recovery truck later towed it up the Baralach la from where they coasted down to Keylong.

Summer rains had already started in Manali making it wet, chilly and unpleasant. The only recreation was the "Techno Baba". A young Bihari ( from the Indian state of Bihar) "holy man" living off a fairly attractive, but perpetually high Israeli woman staying in our hotel in old Manali. An obedient egoless chap, ceaselessly gibed at by the hotel owner and his only employee (a lazy Nepali lad addicted to chess), who among themselves had an identity crisis about their respective roles. They taunted the Baba mercilessly, who retorted by grumbling about the bad times which have befallen when holy men are not respected anymore.

Financed by his girlfriend, the Baba carried on a business of peddling Charas (thats Hassish Indian version). His usual sales tactic was to join the group of guests sitting on the hotel balcony and light his '"Chilim" pass it around, before asking  "anybody want good Hash, tell me. I got good Hash.!!"
Along with the dope, the Baba and his girlfriend were equally addicted to a out-worldly strain of techno sounds, which they played very loudly. Whereon he would shake his body and his long hair to the beats and leap up into the air to the cresendo or whatever you call a peak in techno.

Our stay in Manali was a short one and we continued to Manikaran and Mandi, and then to Dharamsala the current home to the "Dalai Lama". From there we hit the steamy plains of Northern India and proceeded towards Amristar in Punjab...

To be continued?

Ravi J. Deka is a freelance journalist and can be contacted at [email protected]