2012 RE Himalayan Odyssey - Return to the Land of Lama

The last time I rode a bike through the Himalayas, was a few years back, as part of the 2009 Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey. I remember one of the more philosophical (or so I’d like to believe) stories I had written about my experience ended with ‘I made a promise to myself, like the hundreds of riders before me that I shall return on this pilgrimage soon.’

The opportunity to return came three years later, to someone who is a little more seasoned (and potentially hardened) rider, someone who has ridden to other exotic locales around the country, who is now comfortable talking about himself in the third person. So this time, I wondered, would it be the same, would it still feel like a ‘pilgrimage’, or have I become so jaded over the years to think of this as just another ride?

While these are questions that would eventually answer themselves, my immediate concern on the flight from Pune to Delhi was whether the experience would be different considering that this time around, I’d be starting directly from Leh and would be doing only half the journey. And then, in the flight to Leh itself, a little bit of apprehension began to creep in with the thought of not being able to acclimatise to the high altitude after having made the ascent from about 700 feet to 11,500 feet above mean sea level in just over an hour.

Touchdown, hotel check-in, service park, find Santhosh (RE’s ride leader), get the bike I’m going to ride. Suddenly, there’s tension in the air, and it's coming from fellow riders, who are looking at the three journos (including me) as outsiders, interlopers out to relieve three other journos who had spent the last eight days going through hell and high water with all of them on the arduous route to Leh, forming strong bonds of friendship in the process.

My mind is already swimming in trepidation and I’m not even on a bike yet. But a motorcycle, they say, is the best doctor, able to cure all your ailments, be they physical or mental, and in that regard, the Royal Enfield Classic Desert Storm I’ve been handed is a Harvard Medical summa cum laude graduate and a shaman all rolled into one.

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The route is almost the same one I rode back in 2009, with the exception of a hop to Hunder in the Nubra Valley, across the renowned Khardung La pass – the world’s highest motorable road and all that jazz. So, my first day of the ride, on the winding, at times gravelly, at times non-existent road to K-Top, begins pretty much the way I had anticipated.

Most of the 60-plus participants are immediately wary of the three new, fast moving riders who have joined the fray. But by the time we reach Hunder, tensions have subsided, the gloves are off (the riding gloves I mean), alcohol starts flowing and new friends are made. Now I’m not going to sit and recount the exact details of the ride.

It’s been done a million times before and it suffices to say that the ride from Hunder back to Leh and then back to Delhi is nothing short of awesome, filled with some insane off-road sections, butter smooth tarmac and high-altitude low-oxygen passes with panoramic views, the scale of which no camera on earth can capture. At the end of the week-long journey, I’m left a little drained physically, emotionally high and with a surplus of new friends who made the expedition all the more unforgettable.

Sure, the Leh pioneers would scoff at the current crop of riders taking their bikes over the mountain passes of Ladakh. They’ll say that the roads have become much better, the bikes are far more reliable and with thousands of people doing the route, there is no adventure left in the ride any more. They’ll say that if you don’t get your hands greasy miles from nowhere, fixing your broken down bike with the sort of desperation that comes from knowing that if you don’t get it started, you’ll freeze your unmentionables off, you’ll never be able to bond with your bike.

And this is true... to a certain extent at least. I’ll always have immense respect for the guys (and girls) who took their motorcycles on this journey when there was absolutely no system of support and the risks were significantly higher than today. But so what if it’s less of an adventure today? With every other Royal Enfield rider as well as riders on every other motorcycle doing the trip with a fair amount of ease, sure, the ride has lost a bit of its elitist status.

That being said, none of this can take away from the fact that it probably still is one of the most magical journeys you can ever embark on, on a motorcycle. It doesn’t matter if you’re gunning it all the way, sliding, weaving, jumping on the broken terrain, or you’re taking it easy, pausing to admire every vista (and there are an infinite number of those), and trying to take some back with you digitally.

In fact, it’s a good thing that the journey is easier now, because more of us can experience the mystical allure of this road through the Himalayas the way it was meant to be experienced – on a motorcycle. You don’t need the riding skills of a Ricky Carmichael or the mechanical skills of a Jeremy Burgees or even the aptitude for adventure of a Sir Ranulph Fiennes to get on a motorcycle and ride to Leh any more, and that’s the way it should be.

With organised rides like the Royal Enfield Himalayan Odyssey, things are that much easier, thanks to a support crew, a luggage truck and the works. And this lets you get on with things that matter more – the mountains, the road, your motorcycle and making friends with a bunch of people who, though as varied as the individual grains of sand on a beach, share your love for the ride with equal fervour. And that, I think, is the whole point of a journey like this.