India 2: Mud glorious mud

The Russell steed: a 500 Bullet

I got going around 7.00 and we had a pleasant enough ride through Keylong and stopped for a cup of tea at Tandi Bridge - me with wet feet again after an unforeseen river event/crossing that went higher than my Sealskinz! Then through the check at Koksar and on to the Rohtang. Most of it was simply awful! Going uphill and with added weight on board, in a couple of places Jane had to get off so I could even move. We slid backwards several times on wet rocks, with the front brake locked up. It's not a natural thing to do on a motorbike - you have no control and just have to hang on until you stop. Or come off.

We came off twice, unrecorded by any camera

And then there was the mud. Not encountered on the way up, this was deep and horrible. There was a tyre-width track of perhaps 30-40m long and axle-deep mud. It was almost impossible to follow. And, as soon as my 'stabiliser' feet went out, the stability got worse! At least twice I got stuck and once the bike started to fall over - to be saved by a cheerful road mender who pushed me out of the immediate trouble. But I was sweating, gasping for breath, lacking confidence and genuinely unable to see how I could get out of this - almost certainly the hardest riding I have ever had to do. 

Again, not me but it could so easily have been...

It seemed to go on for hours! There were at least two areas of deep mud on the ascent, as well as countless puddles, streams and rock pools. I need training in how to handle these conditions. I tried to force myself to hold on to the accelerator and not to touch the front brake. Also not to feather the clutch but to select a gear (usually first) and trust the bike would not stall, however slowly the road forced us to go. Usually this worked ok - especially with lots of muttered swearing, exhortations to 'keep going in a straight line' and fighting the handlebars. 

However it wasn't fun in any sense. And I didn't even feel any sense of achievement in getting to the top; just exhausted, angry and cold footed. The road seemed to improve as we went over the top and into the every-present cloud that was lurking when I went the other way. 

But the Rohtang had one final trick to play on us: the cloud did not thin and the drizzle did not lift because we had come into the aftermath of monsoon rains. Unable to see clearly (poor sunglasses, hopeless visor) and stupidly not having put on my wet weather clothes, down we went, getting wetter and colder, ie precisely the wrong condition to tackle the Rohtang's final challenge: washed away roads. In less than two weeks since I had climbed the Manali side of the pass, the roadscape had been completely transformed. It was more like a battle zone, with rivers of mud carving their way through the tarmac like it was made of sand, great chunks of road having slipped away, oceans of pebbles and rocks spilling out on to the highway - horrendous!

And what does the average Indian car or lorry driver do in such conditions? Switches on his headlights, puts his hand on the horn and roars through puddles regardless of who is coming the other way. I'm sorry to record that my formerly critical opinion of Indian drivers has been reinforced, reached new levels of grumpiness as one after another failed to slow down and pushed us out of the way. I even told a couple of drivers off for lack of consideration but was met with smiling incomprehension and cheerful waves, a combination that is extraordinarily hard to face down!