I admit that riding a small motorcycle solo across the Himalayan deserts of Ladakh is an unintelligent pursuit for an octogenarian who has suffered two heart attacks. My only explanation: that I had been in Manali three weeks and that riding on to Leh seemed the natural thing to do...
This is a harsh yet magnificent land of snowy peaks, distant glaciers, towering cliffs, deep ravines and a few beggarly terraces of skimpy grass. The road is mostly hard dirt with potholes. It is an easy ride once clear of Rohtang Pass – easy as in dry, yet demanding continual concentration and with a top speed of 10mph on many stretches.
On a light bike like mine you feel the bumps. The first two passes are standard zigzags: first gear on the steep turns, second and third on the straights. Tanglang La is the final pass; at 5,328m the second-highest motorable pass in the world. The ascent is gradual with long straight runs, though interspersed with innumerable roadworks where the surface is little better than a freshly ploughed field.
To counter altitude sickness, the better tour companies carry oxygen tanks. I make do with deep breathing. The bike is noticeably slower on the final climb. So am I.
Tourists travelling in a six-seater 4X4 take my picture at the crest. I don't dismount. I need to descend to a more sensible altitude. Wearing a medical mask would have been an intelligent precaution: I've been deep-breathing dust and exhaust fumes for three days and can feel my lungs tightening up. And I am in desperate need of a hot shower, clean lavatory and 24 hours' recovery time in a soft bed …
I have slept badly or not at all for the three nights on the road from Manali: the first, in Keylong, at a £12 hotel; the second in an en suite tent in a tourist camp (£8 including meals, cold water and a leaking lavatory); the third, a £1-a-night mattress in a communal tent for truckers, where I watched an adult daughter delouse her mother's hair with a pair of tweezers.
And I met, at the head of the second pass, a biker from the US, though resident these past 30 years in Dharamsala, where he has a repair shop for Enfields. He was riding south from Leh. I was riding north. We greeted each other, as biker-travellers do, as old acquaintances, members of an international community of like-minded friends.
Such are the small memories of a three-day ride. Was it fun? No, not really – though the views were great. As to being the oldest biker to have made the ride and to have ridden without companions or back-up, who cares?
