Run to the hills, run for your life!

---

The past two days have been quite an adventure!

As there is often no easy way to get about the local terraine, due to no trains and dodgy buses, many people hire motorbikes just to potter around the local area. Stoppard and I wanted to do the same but take ourselves off for two days and do an over night stop somewhere enabling us to get into some of the remote villages that tourists don't get to visit. Our initial plan was to head over the Rohtang pass and up to Keylong which is surrounded by a landscape of lunar quality but were put off by several people warning us about the bad roads and steep climbs that we would face, the cold would also have been a major factor and not something either of us were prepared adequately for. After consulting the map we drew up a new plan and rather than head north we would go south and into the valley and up into the hills.

Thursday we spent the day looking around the local bike rental places and garages for something suitable in not too shabby condition that would last the trip. Finally settled on a 350cc Royal Enfield rented from the Enfield club (not as impressive as it sounds was really only a local mechanics with a good name). Stoppard took it out for a test drive only to return 5 minutes later on the back of someone else's bike; the owners had failed to put any petrol in the tank! When he finally got to ride the bike reported back that it was fine and apart from the gears being on the right hand side was A OK. That night we packed up my small day sack with just enough to get us through two days, the weather has been very sunny and warm here although a little chilly in the evenings so we thought we wouldn't need much.

Friday morning we went down as arranged to pick the bike up at 9.30am. Typically the man didn't turn up until 10am and then we were told that the previous evening they had rented our bike to someone else, but not to worry they were bringing another enfield for us in just 5 minutes. Half an hour later, spent worrying about the hunk of junk they might now produce for us, our new bike finally turned up. Another 350cc Royal Enfield, although the E had come away so technically we were riding a "...nfield", with a cream tank and gears that were upside down and on the right hand side. Apart from that it seemed fine; the tyres were in good shape and Stoppard was happy with the test drive.

After filling up the tank we headed into central Manali and down towards Kullu on the main road. We made good time and got down to the turn off for Jari our first hillside village stop for the day in about 2 and a half hours. Stopping for 11'sess in a restaurant we heard thunder and saw several flashes of vicious looking lightning, shortly after this it began to rain hard and we decided to sit it out in the restaurant and have lunch here instead of at Jari. The plan was to see Jari then head back down and go across the other side of the main highway into the hills to a lake that was marked on the map; at this point it was only 12 and we had plenty of time as the road to Jari was only 20 KM. Annoyingly by the time we had eaten lunch, which was amazing and we had the most amazing kidney bean massala come dal mixture, it was still raining although it had eased up slightly. We were certainly not dressed for this type of weather; Stoppard was wearing linen trousers with a t shirt and army jacket, while i was fairing a little better in walking trousers that would at least dry quickly and a t shirt and waterproof jacket. Having no choice but to press on in the rain and hope that it would stop we struck out along the path to Jari which began by heading over a bridge and following a road that curved to the left.


The road very soon left civilisation behind as we headed into the heart of a narrow valley where the road got narrower and narrower. Either side of us steep hills covered in pine trees climbed up and away, in the distance we could see the mountains, and a river crashed beneath us. The road was suprisingly busy as many buses come this way taking indian tourists to towns that lie past Jari where they go for trekking, there were also motorbikes, lorries and tractors to contend with. This was terrifying as the roads were only just wide enough for a motorbike and a lorry to pass each other at slow speed without one of us being forced down the side of the hill; unfortunately we were the ones driving on the side nearest to the drop and i had to stop myself from glancing downwards where at times about a foot of tarmac separated us from a 100ft drop. There are no rules here when it comes to driving and they scoff at the thought of safety, cars would career round corners towards us at breakneck speed honking their horns manically and leaving as little room as possible for us to sneak through. Stoppard was doing exceptionally well and keeping us steady on the roughest of roads.

All this time the rain was continuing to fall at an increasingly steady rate and after about 30 minutes we were wet through. I was protected somewhat by my waterproof and Stoppard was taking the brunt of the weather up front. There were several bridges we had to cross and unsure of which way to go we had to stop and ask who ever happened to be around at the time, inevitably there was always a huddled group of men on the side of the road, there for apparently no good reason other than to supply us with directions. Jumping off and on the bike whenever we were unsure of the way, I also kept asking how much further it was to Jari. We knew it was only 20km from the map but because of the rain, which was making the driving conditions even more dangerous (as it Stoppard didn't have enough to be getting on with) and the slow moving lorries we kept getting stuck behind it had taken us over an hour already and we had no idea how much further we had to go. Every time i asked the distance seemed to change and taken on average it seemed we still had another 10 KM to do before making it to Jari. By this point, with both of us off the bike for a moment, we looked as though we had simply jumped into a bath fully clothed; we were not happy motorcyclists but knew there was nothing for it but to push on.

Now, to make matters even worse, we proceeded to get stuck behind a large herd of goats moving at a snails pace and being encouraged forward by a non too eager shepard. This was quickly followed by a herd of buffalo which blocked the entire road; all this on steep roads requiring the clutch control of a genius. Obviously St Chris thought we had not suffered enough by this stage and now the gears on the bike kept jumping into neutral whenever the bike went over a particularly rough bit of ground; for the last hour we were barely out of first.

Eventually we came upon Jari as we rounded a corner and i don't think either of us could have gone on a moment longer. We dumped the bike at the edge of the village and walked in just pleased to be off it and knowing we were nearing the prospect of taking off our wet clothes and a cup of tea. Desperate as we were, we marched into the first guest house that we saw; a two storey typically Nepali wooden house, with wooden veranda and uneven steps leading us upstairs to a large room with a double bed and a pile of blankets in the corner. The extremely pleasant owner could obviously see we were in need and produced an electric fire and two cups of tea for us, i could have kissed him. Stoppard was soaked through and, as we had packed so lightly and not bought a change of clothes with us, had to peel off his sodden shirt while drying his trousers over the fire sitting in my wool jumper and yak socks; looking at eachother we just burst out laughing and already the ordeal of the past 2 and a half hours, the time it had finally taken us to cover 20 km, did not seem so bad.

I went into the village and bought a cheap pair of luminous orange trousers for Stoppard to wear while his others dried out so that he could go and get the bike from where we had unceremoniously left it on the outskirts of the village and bring it up to the guest house. Thankfully by this time the rain had stopped.

Coming back from moving the bike Stoppard produced a small piece of metal with a wire attached, certain that this should probably be attached to the bike itself in some way i was naturally a little puzzled. As he had parked it up and pulled on the front brake the wire had broken clean in two; now we had a bike on some of the steepest roads where you often get stuck going uphill beind stationary traffic and no front brake! Asking the guesthouse owners where the nearest mechanic was we were pointed in the direction of where we had left the bike and headed off to enquire. We were calmly told that in no way could they possibly replace the front brake lead, we would have to go to Kasol, 10km away! Deciding that this was all too much to deal with in one day we had a brief discussion about what on earth we were going to do before getting something to drink before any final decisions could be made. Walking back through the village we began to appreciate where we were. The village was empty of tourists and was the small secluded spot that we had been hoping to find. The mountains looked very close now and the hills were steep with dramatic cliffs of rock hanging off them. Nearly all the houses were traditionally built with wood and scattered about the hillside, some had lovely green gardens with brightly coloured roses growing in them and along the main road of the village were a few clothes shops and several Dhaba snack bars. We chose one of these places to eat dinner in that looked the cleanest and the busiest (always a good sign) and were invited in by a very friendly Nepali man who worked there and had moved to India for work leaving his whole family behind in the Kathmandu valley 8 months previously. We feasted on two massive servings of Dhal Bhat, which neither of us could finish, and sipped tea. We had decided that the only option we had was to take it very steady early in the morning and crawl to Kasol to get the brake replaced; on the map it was marked as being on the same elevation as Jari so hopefully the roads would be fairly flat.

Feeling like we really did deserve it we purchased a small bottle of rum from the local liquor store to have as a night cap and calm our slightly frayed nerves. On returning to our guesthouse, the only other guests of which were Nepalese people, we stumbled across a rather strange scene. That night there had obviously been a bit of a drinking session as there were several large empty whisky bottles about the place and being lead down the steps towards us by a rather more sober friend was a clearing suffering man staggering about the place while a woman and child stood on the veranda laughing as the pair stumbled down the steps and away into the darkness. On the second landing was another half cut fellow and we began to wonder whether we were staying in some kind of doss house. I went down to the toilet before bed, outside in the cold ofcourse, and the same man was crashing about upsetting empty whisky bottles. Putting his fingers to his lips and shushing he muttered something in hindi and retired to his bedroom.

About 5 in the morning after coming back from the toilet i found Stoppard out of bed and following his line of sight saw the most enormous spider i have ever seen. Its body was the size of a small bouncy ball and it could quite easily have covered your palm with its thick legs. Being the Spartan that he his, Stoppard grabbed an empty rum glass to capture the wee beasty but was out witted as it scurried under the bed and dissapeared down a crack in the wall. Then had to try and get back to sleep without wondering too much whether spiders this size had fangs or not.

In the morning we brushed our teeth outside while gazing at the mountains and headed off after toast and, what tasted like, homemade jam at the cafe from the night before. The weather was much improved and we were riding under sunny skies with not a cloud in sight. The road to Kasol, thank goodness, was fairly flat with non too many hills or sharp bends and even with out the front brake, and driving very safely, we managed to do the 10 km in about 20 mins. At the first mechanics we came across it took about 5 minutes to replace the brake cable and feeling much better about the day ahead than we had felt the night before we headed back the same way, through Jari and down the hillside to the bottom and the town. The plan for today was to ride into another valley that was about half an hour away, up to a small village called Kandi that was marked on the map and then up to Prasar Lake for lunch before heading back through Mandi to join the main road and do the remaining 3 hour drive back to Manali for about 6.30pm. This plan changed however.

We had no problems finding the smaller road that would lead us into the valley and up into the hills to Kandi but once we started along it became clear these were not going to be the good (ish) roads of yesterday; even if they had been very narrow at least there had, in the most part, been level tarmac to drive on. These roads, if you can call them that, were climbing steeply up the hillside, so much so that at times i had to grab hold of Stoppard to stop myself sliding off the back when we went over pot-holes, and for the majority of the time we were riding on dirt roads covered in gravel and stretches of rock and mud. It was impossible to get out of first, again, and we were making very slow progress, but at least the weather was holding; it was now scorching and around the middle of the day, we were, needless to say, rather hot and bothered. This road was much more secluded than the day before and there was no one and nothing in sight, only pine trees stretching as far as the eye could see and the crease of the valley we were riding into. After getting our hopes up when we finally saw a building ahead of us and thinking we had finally made it to Kandi, we were dissapointed to find it was only two small houses with no one around. The road now began heading down and we stopped to ask some men working on the side of the road how much further we had to go until we reached the village. Pointing straight back from where we had just come from we were informed that the two paltry houses we had passed was in fact Kandi, and that to get to the lake it would involve going up steep hills for 25 km and then a further 30 km to Mandi. Although we probably could have got up the roads to the lake we were now running out of time, as it was impossible to get any kind of speed up, and needed to be heading towards Mandi. Stoppard was also getting most frustrated by this point that the gears kept failing and slipping into neutral and neither of us thought we could take any more cronically bad roads with that happening all the time. We decided to head down to the valley floor and onwards to Mandi, the views here were spectacular any way and we were certainly in the kinds of places that we had wanted to see; lonely villages where tourists don't go and where we would have had real difficulty in getting to ourselves without our own transport.

A further 10 km down was a small village where we stopped for a drink and bought the sugar levels back up by feasting on indian sweets, one of which was like a cross between bakhlava and candy floss. The ususal stares followed us around as we walked through the village but every one, as always, was amazing friendly. After two hours, which led us up some ridiculously steep climbs although this was all on good tarmac, we reached Mandi. By this time i was not a happy pillion; my bottom felt bruised all over and sitting was getting unbearable, made worse by the constant bouncing around on the uneven roads, the back pack i was carrying was now starting to feel rather heavy and my shoulders ached. We stopped in Mandi for some water and an ice cream and drove past the sign that confirmed that it was 108km back to Manali. The drive back i had expected to be easy going as it was all on main roads, in fact we had been better off in the hills where there was no other traffic; we came across a myriad of annoyances. Stoppard hadn't noticed but owing to the burning sun his hands on top had been burnt to a crisp and were now red as beetroot; other road users - i needn;t say more, some of their over taking made me feel sick and the constant horn blasts were deafening; we had to drive through a rough dark tunnel surrounded by massive lorries for a few miles; bottom pain bottom pain bottom pain; and Stoppard was forced to make an emergency stop on a busy highway when a car appeared from behind a lorry on a corner - we skidded to a halt and got onto the side of the road while the car just managed to sneak behind the lorry in time, balding the tyres in the process and scaring the shit out of both of us. We stopped for a break about 50km from Manali and simply sat on the side of the road in the dirt outside a snack joint trying to master the courage to face the next couple of hours. By this point we must have looked quite a sight, we were both covered in dirt with mad matted hair, Stoppard had a large burst blister on his throttle hand, i could barely sit owing to the bruising on my backside, covered in sweat and looking thoroughly done in we still managed to laugh along when the shop owner saw us sitting there and giggled.

We finally made it back to Manali around 6pm, i had taken to sitting on my hands alternately until one fell asleep and then switching. We had been on the bike for 10 hours with very few brakes and were both more than a little travel weary. As we waited for the mechanic to get us the money they owed us for the new brake lead, a couple pulled up on their bike that we had met a few days before. We must have seemed like maniacs, gabbling out our story of the past two days, me with mad Stig-of-the-dump hair and Stoppard covered in black filth with red hands. Although i think we had both had enough by the end it had been an enjoyable two days and we had been to some beautiful places, just think the 10 hours on the bike had proven a little too much for one day!

Climbing the stairs up to Vashisht we collapsed on the counter of the beer and wine shop and demanded two of their coldest, we had defintiely earned them.

---