India 2: Of gluttony and punishment

In June 2017 I went back to India for two weeks' trekking close to the south-west border of Jammu-Kashmir followed by two weeks' motorbiking in the eastern part of the state, up to the area known as Ladakh. Here's a map. 

The short orange line is what we covered in two weeks' walking.
The longer blue one represents three days' of tough biking.
Red splurges are where the road was worst!

The walking bit was great but you petrolheads don't want to know about that. You want to hear about the infamous Leh - Manali highway. Why is it one of the most notorious roads in the world? And what on earth possessed me to try and conquer it? Check out any number of YouTube videos if you want to see some wild riding and OTT commentary in which the words 'awesome' 'bro', 'wicked' and 'om mani padme hum' feature often.

Why? Well it does take you over some of the world's highest road passes. Tanglangla is about 5300m, Baralachala is 4890m and Lachulungla is 4927m. Only Khardungla, near Leh, is said to be higher at 5350m. As you'll see in the two next blogs, the highway also has some very challenging riding. 

To hire a Royal Enflield 500 costs about £15 day in India. It's not pretty but it's rock solid, comes with a big luggage rack, and can be repaired anywhere. You'd be daft to use anything else.

But I wouldn't want to give the impression that it's all like that. Perhaps only 50km of the total 500km is 'rough', by which I mean un-made road, covered with mud or water, stretches that are under repair (a constant task in some areas) or otherwise damaged by the harsh  elements in this remote and high-altitude area, where deep snow regularly makes many roads impassable for months on end. 

Before going to India, I had read that, whenever the Leh-Manali highway was washed away by flood waters, the military would be there to re-open it, since this is one of only two routes into north-eastern Kashmir. And there were certainly plenty of military vehicles about, especially in Leh which has some very large military camps around it.

But the army don't seem to do much in the way of road mending. This is all done on their behalf by the BRO, the  Border Roads Organisation, aka Himank. And they are much in evidence, with hundreds of groups of (mainly women) workers, breaking rocks, filling holes, building culverts and laying tarmac. They are also renowned for the cautionary roadside reminders. 

According to Wikipedia, Himank is responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads and related infrastructure including the world's highest motorable roads across the Khardung La, Tanglang La and Chang La passes. Himank's work ensures access to sensitive military areas including the world's highest battle-ground at the Siachen Glacier and Pangong Tso Lake (at 14500 ft) whose waters span the de facto India-China border. Nicknamed “The Mountain Tamers”, Himank's personnel battle tough terrain and extreme climatic conditions and are constrained in most areas to work within a short working season of four months as roads get blocked by heavy snow and extreme cold temperatures. Most of the manual labourers are from Bihar, not from Ladakh.

It took me three days to ride up to Leh. The first major hurdle is the Rohtang Pass which is being extensively rebuilt and which feels like one long off-road diversion though, in reality, is probably only three hours of first-gear misery. If you want to get a bit of a picture of what it's like, check out the next two posts, Water, water everywhere and Mud glorious mud.