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Himalaya: Part 2: Leh to Manali

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:54:08 -0700

During our final goodbye with Sonam, our guest-house host, and now good friend in Leh, he asked where we were heading. ''Upshi'', Radka told him, ''Oh my brother lives there, you can sleep in his house tonight for free. I'll give him a call''. So off we set armed with his family name, ''Just ask for him when you arrive, people know who he is'', we were told.

50km later we arrived at Upshi and eventually found the house of Soman's brother. The day had been pretty easy and quiet apart from a group of cyclists who seemed a tad bit committed and just about managed a wave before dashing past us in the opposite direction.

Padma, the wife of Sonam's brother, gave us a very warm welcome which began with some 'salty tea'. A very kind offer, but you'll know how disgusting this is if you've ever been unfortunate enough to try it. Actually, it's quite easy to replicate. Make a nice cup of milky Tetleys then whack half a teaspoon of salt into it, job done.

I think most people have had an experience like this before. When you're drinking it like, ''Mmmm, mmmm, yes, nice'' but inside you're dreading the swallow. So we drank the tea and Padma snook over and refilled my cup, horror struck my face and Radka quite quickly put her hand over hers saying ''No thank you, i'm full'', before giving me a cheeky side grin that shouted out ''Sucker!!''. She sniggered through my second round of ''Mmmm, mmmm, yes nice''.

I soon got revenge when Padma brought out two small bowls of 'Curd' (Old fermenting milk, a little sloppy, just before yoghurt stage), just as Radka got up and went to the toilet. I quickly scooped half of mine into Radkas bowl as to make out i'd eaten it. Radka returned and, knowing we don't like it said, quite surprisingly, ''Oh! You ate it!'', ''Enjoy'' I replied.

Just to clear up, curd's actually really nice when added to Lassi!!

The family were really hospitable and several of the village kids came round to see the foreigners, although they were so nervous that they watched from the doorway. Radka spent the evening making 'Momo's' (DimSum) with Padma whilst I sat in the living-room with the kids watching Ladakhi music videos, playing with their new kitten and trying on traditional Ladakhi clothing. I had a little fright when one of the kids pointed at a musician and explained that he'd died a month earlier in a bus that had fallen over the edge of the road we were to take, followed by the power cutting out leaving us in complete darkness. I though it may be a sign but chose to ignore it. We left the next morning after Radka has been to the fields with Padma and harvested our vegetables for the day.

The next day was quite tough but we had a goal of reaching a little town around 25km before TangLangLa, the 2nd highest motor-able road in the world, topping out at a staggering 5300m! We arrived at the town to surprisingly find a German guy 'Stefan' who I'd met a few days earlier in Leh. He's a very big and strong looking man but he'd been very sick in Leh with altitude sickness but still chose to attempt the pass. He was pushed for time so he was putting his body through a lot. We stayed together that night and the three of us left for the pass early in the morning.

He shot off like a bullet and I thought ''gees, he's gone! We'll never keep up'', but 20 mins later we found him beetroot resting next to his bike. He explained he was feeling very sick and I was already concerned for him, we hadn't yet started the pass. We arrived at the pass which was outstanding and soon became my favourite pass of the trip! The total distance was 34km from top to bottom and the total accent must have been close to 1000m. The weather held well, although a bit cold, and we made slow but steady progress. Stefan had to push most of the way and several suggestions to go back down and hitch a truck went unnoticed. When we stopped for lunch we found that he didn't really have much food in his bags so we shared our noodles with him. When he'd finished he asked Radka if he could have some more... out of her bowl!!! Her jaw dropped and she quite politely told him 'no chance'.

This was the first and only time I felt sick from the altitude. My head was banging and I felt very nauseous around 10km from the top. I was trying to hurry up but Stefan was very ill at this point so we stayed with him in case anything bad happened.

Radka was great on the pass and played it very well indeed. She stuck to her pace (Radka speed) and avoided and unnecessary exertion, she made all the right decisions. I was even more impressed when just 4Km from the top she initiated a race with me, and I must say she won!

3km from the top and we had ridden a little further than Stefan but could see him , flagging down three trucks from the other side of the canyon. None of them stopped! I was livid! When they arrived to us I started throwing my arms in the air shouting why they decided not to help a man in need... then suddenly the 3rd one stopped. He was actually really nice and I think he just hadn't noticed. He waited 10 minutes until Stefan arrived then we put his bike in the back and that was the last we saw of him. I tried emailing him a few weeks later but he'd given me the wrong email address. When Stefan arrived at the truck he cheekily asked the guy if he could ''stop at the top for pictures'', the driver pointed at his watch and quite sternly said ''no''.

We reached the top late around 17.30pm leaving little time for pictures before dropping over the other side, into the shade, and smashing down the mountain in the cold darkness. I was freezing actually. This side had been in darkness for a while and the temperature had really dropped! A few hundred metres down, enough to stop and not risk altitude sickness, we saw some white tents in a side valley and hundreds of goats. We realised it was a settlement of shepards and headed over for more inspection. I stepped off my bike and couldn't feel my feet for the cold. A kid (around 17yrs old) ran over smiling and telling us to come with him and that he would help us, he's a man of his word. I trusted him mainly for the fact that he was wearing a red beany with the writing ''L.F.C. You'll never walk alone'' written on it. We pitched our tent next to there's before joining him and his father inside for some tea and to make our dinner. They had a hot stove burning inside to warm our little toes. How they survive here the whole year is beyond me!!

22:00pm rolled round and we'd retired to our tent and the shepards rounded up the goats, who started roaming around as soon as they left. I was pretty nervous by the grunting they were making. Suddenly one started attacking Radka's side of the tent whilst she was asleep. The moonlight gave me only the outline of the hoofs which it was now rolling into Radka's side. I instinctively, still in my sleeping bag, threw my feet over Radka and started wind-milling back! I claim I won because he soon legged it away. Radka was screaming the whole time but was back asleep in seconds! I wondered if she's actually woken up or not.

The next day we pressed on over the Morei Plains (high altitude sand plateau) where we met Francesco. A very warm guy who had made the same decision in 6minutes that had taken us 6 months. He bought a bike in India, had his pannier bags tailor-made and headed into the Himalayas, respect!

Whilst having lunch I made a joke that the wind had turned head-wind for him, but by the time we finished it had turned again in his favour, and left a direct head-wind for us, taking us down between 3-5 kph. The huge dirt-devils we saw whizzing around the plains were vicious proof of the wind. We ended the day in the back of a truck.

That night was spent in a tent in Pang before Radka woke us up at 6am needing the loo. I checked my thermometer which told me it was -5 degrees, in the tent. We headed outside.

We froze for the first few hours before ascending out of the valley and began another high-altitude pass, LachulungLa. I had a massive tantrum and ended throwing down my bike before sitting on the floor, head in hands.

The wind had been against us for around 1 week and now the road surface was again bad and the gradient was horrendous. We'd got up at 6am, frozen for hours to avoid the wind and it had been with us all day. We reached the top of the pass after 6 hours cycling at 5 kph to achieve only 30kms.

Sat at the top of the pass in the freezing cold we looked at each other and agreed that we'd finished with the Himalayas. I actually said I was finished with cycle touring, but I think that was a little far fetched.

Unfortunately our continuing illness had set us back so much that we reached the Leh-Manali road too late. The wind had picked-up and the temperature was dropping. We hitched a truck to the next town where we waited at a police road-block before hitching another truck out of the mountains. Whilst waiting I spoke to the officer who told me that the road-block would normally have been packed up by now and just 1 week earlier they'd been radio'd in with an extension. We sat there with the wind blasting in our faces and I was convinced we'd made the right decision. Many of the tents had been packed away and all the locals were evacuating for the winter. By now (Dec 12th) there will be not one tent left up there.

We hitched another truck and one bus before reaching Manali where we rested for around 10days and planned our next move.

I managed to take a 4day Paragliding course and made a website for the ''Eagle guest-house'' which we stayed at in Manali, highly recommended. I really loved Manali. There's lots to do and a very good base for hiking in the surrounding valleys. Buses are easy from here.

I especially enjoyed meeting 'Raj', the owner of the Red House Cafe (check it out here), named after the Jimi Hendrix lyrics ''There's a red house over yonder.''. This suits Raj perfectly due to his musical nature and I enjoyed many hours playing guitar in there garden. Many great spontaneous things happen around Raj and we once even agreed to teach each other a dish, but unfortunately we couldn't make it in the end. Sorry dude. Also highly recommended.

Both Red House and Eagle are situated in Old Manali which is a very calm and relaxing place to stay.

We headed back to Delhi by bus and were ripped off for the price of our bikes, this happens in every country, mostly you pay more for the bikes than your seat!

The bus dropped us 13km outside of Delhi at 6am even though our ticket clearly stated central Delhi, and Radka had a massive go at the driver. We cycled into the centre and stayed just one night before an early morning cycle to the airport.

My legs cycled like never before and the 'Leaving Delhi' grin came back.

We rocked up at the airport, tickets in hand... ''Where are you flying today sir?''... ''Malaysia'' I said, with a great big smile.

Paragliding: Fail + Win

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Himalaya: Part 1: Srinagar to Leh

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 04:00:32 -0700

So finally, the time was now, after weeks of planning and travelling we took to our saddles once more and head along the NH-1 (National Highway) out of Srinagar and into the Himalayas. Both feelings of content and anxiety were now settling in quite nicely. The Delhi belly joined us for the ride, just to add to our challenge.

The daily planning was on my shoulders and I messed it up in the first day. Lesson one – Even if the map looks pretty flat, it's not. Don't underestimate the mountains. I'd looked at the map and thought ''Yeah, these initial mountains don't look so big yet'', although my mistake was comparing them to the even bigger surrounding mountains, making them seem small in comparison.

Off we set...Day 1: Srinagar to Sonamarg, 75km into high-altitude with a total vertical ascent of 2000 metres! The scenery was beautiful with a piercing realisation to the nomadic lifestyle in with we would immerse our lives. Up up up, never relenting climbing was inspiring my imagination of what was to come as I stared across the astounding scenery unfolding throughout the day.

Long valleys, huge mountains and my blown-up packet of crisps were all proof of the height we were gaining.

Just 2Km before Sonamarg and Radka slumped to the roadside bursting into tears seconds before two guys pulled up in their car. To Radka's delight they worked at a hotel just out of sight around the corner. A final slog took us over the last incline and too the hotel doors which we fell through in an exhausted mess. It was a good job we chose the on-suite because we spent the night fighting over it... yep, Delhi belly rearing it's ugly face once more.

Morning rolled round and our massive sense of nausea put brekkie right out of the window. I can't describe exactly how sick I felt but it involved many trips to the toilet, dehydration and a sense that my body was abandoning me on the will to live.

We used our last drops of energy to cycle 2km to the hospital. What an experience to be greeted by the doctor on his wooden veranda engulfed in the mountains. He offered us seats and diagnosed Acute Gastroenteritis whilst staring across the Himalayan backdrop. ''I'm going to have to admit you both to our ward''. It took 4 hours in the ward with 3 intravenous drips and 3 shots, one in the bottom, before we were allowed back into the world. The ward was filthy but luckily we were the only guests, unless you count the sparrows circling our heads. A new friendship bloomed with Dr Nadeem as we chatted away for hours, mostly about his love life and the struggles of the Kashmiris. By nightfall the drips ended but no lighting meant they had to be taken out using the light from their mobile phones, you've just gotta laugh. Dr Nadeem offered us a lift home so our bikes slept outside the hospital for the night.

He left us with the promise that we'd feel better in the morning. He must have meant only Radka because I spent the night vomiting up food from the last three days, It came out as perfectly as it went in, just in reverse order. ''Oh! Look at that! There's the rice from three day ago'' I thought, as it projected at 2am.

Dr Nadeem was pretty upset with me for lying in bed until I plucked up the courage to venture away from the toilet and take a lift back to the hospital. Another day on drips accumulated 11 injections and around 9hours on the ward. I've never felt so rough and I just wanted to cry and vomit until I was better. Radka the little gem stayed with me the whole time. I called my mum from the hospital bed, probably a bad idea because it set my dad off on a journey across England in search of a passport and Indian visa so he could come rescue us. My first thought when I heard this was ''Shit, he'd have to cycle the 75kms up here from Srinagar. I wonder if he'd do it in one day?''. What a strange initial reaction.

The next day I was right-as-rain (by Indian standards) so we visited Dr Nadeem with many thanks for saving our bacon. We spent some time playing their Harmoniun and left good friends, he even invited us to his wedding.

Already we'd met several Kashmiris who'd each told us about their ever continuing political conflict. Kashmir has been the centre of an age-old territorial dispute between Pakistan and India sparked by the partition of the state during India’s independence from Britain (1947) and the creation of modern day Pakistan over fifty years ago.

Hari Singh, the ruler of Kashmir, was given the option to join either Pakistan, India or remain an independent state. Plans were made for independence but conflict from the Muslim majority (Kashmir is the only state in India with Muslim majority) led to Hari Singh appealing for aid from India who refused unless he acceded. Kashmir acceded to India resulting in three wars between the two states. Pakistan have always claimed that Kashmir should be part of Pakistan due to the majority of the population being of Muslim origin. Pakistan, and the Kashmiris, maintain that the future should be decided by the population. India reject this and always refer to the Instrument of Accession signed in October 1947.

It's considered one of the most dangerous conflicts due to the possession of nuclear weapons by both countries, although the furthest the conflict seems to spread is militant bombings in several of India's largest cities, including New Delhi during our last week in India.

Conflict flares up from time-to-time between the many Pakistani guerrilla and the Indian army who patrol the border and NH-1 on a daily basis, this conflict is quite evidential as you travel in this region. We monitored the news quite closely and heard of such conflict during our first week in Kashmir, luckily this time it remained at the border with very minor outbreaks in Srinagar between students and the army.

The fighting continuously disrupts the lives of the locals who mostly (suggested around 70%) want independence from both India and Pakistan, although both countries reject this option. There's currently a peace negotiation between the two countries but India claims that the many militant attacks are backed by the Pakistani government. There seems to be no end in sight. I wish for peace upon the kind people of Jammu, Kashir and Ladakh.

Ok, back to our trip...

Sonamarg's full of Indian tourists who come for the glacial pony trekking so we joined the action and spent a day hiking (and acclimatising) whilst dodging several offers to pony trek. Turns out the glacier was just a horrible tourist trap, but we still had an interesting time fending off the many nomad kids pestering us for ''biscuit biscuit biscuit'' and finding out that a 'snow car' (which I was pretty excited about) is actually just a clapped-out wooden sleigh.

The next day our Delhi bellies felt a bit better so we left Sonamarg pressing on until realising that Radka was still a victim. Half an hour on the road and we stormed an army base demanding a toilet or we'd have to go in the entrance. This set us back around an hour but we pressed on towards the infamous Zojila pass that we'd heard many fearful stories about. Another set back came from the Army just 5Km before the pass whilst they blasted the road ahead. They kindly made us tea, shared their lunch and explained to me all about their NSAS machine gun... so we weren't too bothered.

Most advice about Zojila came in words of the sort ''Make sure you do it in the morning or you're leaving yourself at risk from the weather, if it turns then you're in trouble''... we started the dreaded pass around midday! Millions of steep, stoney switchbacks forced us to push most of the way taking us to around 4pm, I was pretty stressed about the time but Radka kept pushing really hard to make it. At one point a shepard was guiding his lost sheep by throwing stones from the precipice above us. We were so angry with him and for all the shouting in the world he wouldn't stop. I swore vengeance but our paths never crossed.

The pass faded behind as we headed for Drass, although this was unachievable for Radka's developing altitude sickness (worsened by dehydration) stopped us in a small settlement about 20km before. The only English speaking boy led us to their ''campsite'', followed by all of the village kids helping us pitch our tent and watching in amazement as we climbed inside.

Radka spent the night vomiting and sleeping upright to help with her breathing, her first Diamox helped a little. It was probably a blessing because she could keep her eyes out for the horses as they enjoyed spending most of the night running wildly past our tent. Strategic placement of the bikes avoided any collisions.

The next day we cycled the 20km to Drass, after spending a quality lunch with the army who were training in rock climbing. I declined their offer to join because my body was too sick and weak for it, gutted! We arrived in Drass where we checked into the first guesthouse and Radka slept and slept and slept.

This fashion continued mostly the entire way through the Himalaya. A few days cycling followed by a few days resting and recovering from Delhi-belly induced dehydration. We always cooked our own food in some sort of attempt at surviving, it barely helped. I know it's horrible to say, but it was a special day if our bowl-movements were solid. Cornflakes are pretty easily available, as is powdered milk, so most meals became centred around this magical grain based cereal. Sometimes, breakfast, lunch and dinner. We pretty much survived on them. It became a cute joke between Radka and I that we always looked forward to our morning cornflakes.

Our illness in Drass meant that we couldn't catch up with another cyclist, Julian, who was only a few days ahead, nevermind.

Hippy love marked the end of Ramadan with a huge Opium based street party. Even the guesthouse manager came up and offered us some. All the boys were walking the streets holding hands, very bizarre to see. There was no party for us, but we did hold hands as we spent the day lying sick on our bed.

It took us around 2 weeks to reach Leh doing about 30-50km per day, not such a bad average for the mountains.

The vast landscapes were ever changing but remained mostly barren. We passed lots of road workers and walkers (mostly carrying something and looking like they'd been walking for days on end), we also met lots of very cute kids. I think the kids in the Himalaya were my favourite part, always so happy to see you and always so cute.

Mountain folk all over the world have a very self-content feeling and with this bring a great warmth of which they are very happy to share. Many shouts of 'Jullay!!!' (hello!) and most of the time you just shout back even-though you can't see them. There are lots of army soldiers hiding along the road but they always shout hello... it cracks me up to shout back at the rocks.

Radka was awfully sick when we reached Mulbek (about half way to Leh) so we hit the hospital again with much concern that we'd never be healthy again.

The language changed as much as the scenery and it seemed like every town had it's own language. Another beautiful change was from Islam to Buddhism. What a fantastic feeling to swing around a corner and be greeted by Buddhist monks. It was a clear cut change from one village to the next. You don't really know what to expect with each religion, but Buddists proved as kind as the Muslims and our first night in Buddhist territory was spent camping in the monastery with the monks. Our good friend Jimmy was toying with the idea of sticking with monkhood or following his dream of becoming the next Justin Bieber.

Many exciting things happen on the road here. Evidential landslides, turning corners to huge Yaks, Marmots, huge 'Blowhorn' transport trucks kicking up dust, meeting cute kids, Shepards, Buddists, Muslims, Sikhs, soldiers. In Kashmir you're always aware of the army presence and the possibility that the political situation could erupt at any moment. At one point we passed a sign saying ''Caution. You are under enemy observation''.

We took several high-altitude passes around 4100m (13500ft) which were all very exciting and the good thing about the passes meant that the roads were mostly paved. On a flat you get stoney roads but they mostly always make sure the passes are well-paved, with Zojila being an exception.

Strangely we never sweated in the mountains. I don't know if it's the dryness or the intensity of the sun or something else... but we both agreed we weren't sweating. Its most likely because we were so dehydrated thinking about it, although we were drinking a lot!

One night we arrived in a small village and met three very friendly and laid-back motorbikers from Germany - Christoph, Andrea and Tobias, who we enjoyed much time with and learning about each of their unique qualities.

So maybe two weeks and about 450km from Srinagar and we arrived in Leh. Our final day was very tough over two mountain passes that we didn't know existed. The nice thing was that the Germans were staying at the same guest-house in Leh, the bad thing was that it was full... but the kind manager, Sonam, squeezed us into his living room.

Leh was great and we found a really nice restaurant, the Tibetan kitchen, and we spent some amazing days with the Germans and Soman and his wife.

Poor Radka was sick again in Leh and spent a few days in bed, joined by the cat, we think she was sick too.

Christoph offer me pillion on his motorbike for the highest-motorable pass in the world, Khardung La, how could I refuse!? So the 4 of us hit the road until his bike broke down half way. We hitched a lift to the top, made some noodles and hitched back. Christoph coasted his bike all the way back to the garage in Leh, legendary. Andrea and I hitched a lift in the front of an army truck, it was horrendously bumpy and i'd rather have put my head in the washing machine!

We bought some warm cloths then replenished our stocks before hitting the Leh to Manail road, around another 400km of high altitude mountain passes through the Himalaya.

Taking the high road

Welcome to India

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:50:13 -0700

It was 6am on 12th August 2011 when our plane touched down in Delhi. As we were assembling our bikes we attracted quite a few spectators, some of them courageously approached us and hammered our tired minds with astonishing speed and many questions:
'Whatisyourname?', 'WhichCountry?', 'Howmuchisyourcycle?', 'Yourjob?', 'Howmuchsalaryyourcountry?', 'Areyoumarried?'

It was 9am by the time we satisfied everyone’s curiosity, including a nice army officer who welcomed us and told us to enjoy Indian independance day in two days time. Armed with a few snaps of google maps, we set on the 25km journey between the airport and our hotel in Panar Ganj, Delhi's Main Baazar. Thrown into the deep end of morning rush hour, we had to learn the rules of the jungle pretty fast. In a nut shell, there are no rules, don't go off course, overtaking, undertaking and going against the traffic is all allowed. Do not stop or cycle along side of a bus – you can be sure someone will spit out of the window. Watch out for bicycles, cars, scooters, cows, people, beggars, monkeys, filthy puddles, rickshaws and police barriers. Despite all this I would say Delhi is a much safer city to cycle in than Istanbul. There are equal number of cars on the road as bikes, motorbikes and rickshaws and as a cycle tourer you are not the only one at the bottom of the food chain.

A couple of hours later, as well as many enquiries for directions and a rickshaw who skilfully navigated us to the 'tourist information/travel agency' owned by his mate, and we finally dived into the narrow streets of the Main Baazar. It was mayhem. Everyone is trying to get your attention, the street sellers, the hotel owners, the bike rickshaws and tuc tuc drivers, the beggars and the shop owners. You really need to adopt the no eye-contact strategy or you won't last a minute. There are special shops for just about anything you could want. Once we went to some general store looking for plazy bags. Apparently, you can get your plastic bags in the 'Plastic Bag' shop. No kidding!

The cows just randomly browse the streets, poor things just feeding on any old rubbish they can find – so much for being holly. People would rather feed a dog than gave food to a beggar or children – it is considered good luck to feed animals. The streets are full of people with no homes, it is really overwhelming. In fact I find it really difficult to write about Delhi, because all that is coming to my head is so negative - Poverty, filth and death.

Most of the people in Delhi are in a very poor condition, the city is like hell and seems to barely keeping them alive. Jonny almost had a heart attack when he was once walking on a busy road side and realised that he almost stepped on a 9 month old baby playing in a filthy puddle of water. On the other hand there are buisness men walking around in suits. The cleanest and most developed thing in the city is the underground (which puts London to shame), closely followed by Dominos pizza.

I recently managed to break our hard drive and we lost some photos, most of them from our time in Delhi. I actually felt quite ashamed and ignorant taking pictures of the street life and it's just as well that I did not get to keep them.

Our hotel room in the Smiley Inn was very simple – we named it a prison cell. The staff there and the manager especially did not live up to the name. It was still ramadan, I guess it would make me grumpy too if I was not eating all day.

The day we arrived we made friends with Tracy and Alex from USA. They already knew their way around and took us under their wing. Guys, thanks for everything and massive hug to Tray for giving me amazing blue jacket that kept me warm through out the Himalayas. You can spot it on some of the pictures.

We planned to stay in Delhi for maximum 3 days, doing a side trip to Agra to see the famous Taj Mahal, and use the rest of the time to plan our route through India and move on. It was only the second day in India and the infamous Delhi belly paid us a visit. We were so sick we did not leave the hotel room for 3 days. I will spare you the details,but the doctor diagnosed acute gastroenteritis.

Day 6 in Delhi – we were finally well enough to move on. Jonny was so fed up with Delhi at this point, he was itching to just go and not bother with Taj, but I put my foot down and he agreed to visit. Even such a trivial thing like buying a train tickets to Agra was a major hassle. Soon as we stepped on the ground of the train station, we were surrounded by touts pretending they work for the railways. They went all out to steer us away from the ticket office. Some of them quite aggressively. They said tourists can not buy train tickets at the station and that we must go to a travel agency instead. Conveniently they all had a tuc tuc waiting which would get us there for only 10 rupees. We gave up.

Our trip to Taj Mahal was super extra special, because we bumped into 2 scousers – Claire and John. We spent the whole day together and had loads of fun. Taj Mahal and the gardens around it are magical. Needless to say – just look at the pictures. Outside of Taj is a park full of monkeys and people offering you to take a ride on either camel, horse or a donkey. We felt really sorry for the animals standing there in a scorching hot without any food or water – some of them looked really neglected.

Another phenomena is for local tourist to take a picture with Caucasian tourists. Random people approach you and just say 'Picture, picture'. Sometimes you get unlucky and you get a group of 10 people, each of them wanting an individual picture with you. It is ridiculous! I started to call this a 'picture rape' and these days I politely ask people to leave me alone.

On our second day we made friends with an owner of a carpet store. His name was Mac and he was from Kashmir, a troubled region on the disputed border of Pakistan. At this point we were still unsure if we wanted to take on Kashmir due to several safety concerns. After speaking to Mac we had no doubts we wanted to visit this troubled region and see for ourselves. Mac spent an hour with us looking over maps, recommending the route and describing the beauty of his homeland.

That evening we took a tuc-tuc to an outdoor shop in south Delhi where we bought warm fleece jackets and extra fleece liners for our sleeping bags, we later found these invaluable. On our way home we met a very pessimistic guy who told Jonny that he was an irresponsible husband, questioned if Jonny had any idea what he was doing, and told him that he was going to get us killed. He explained he'd only go to Kashmir if he could stay in a 7 star hotel and he would not leave after dark. Jonny confirmed, to the man, that we WILL successfully traverse the Himalayas by bike and sleep in our tent as much as possible, then wished him fair-well.

The journey began with an overnight bus from Delhi to Jammu. (I've never smiled so much as when I realised we were leaving Delhi). Infact our final experience in Delhi was the bus manager, who we'd befriended, asking us for 200 ruppees (3.50 euros) for our bikes, then the guy loading them requesting a very different price of 1000rupees. We told him to stop being ridiculous and called the manager over who gave him a grilling. Jonny forgot his Ukelele when leaving the bus, it was probably sold-on the same day.

Jammu to Srinagar was accomplished by a very picturesque 12hour mini bus ride through the mountains finally arriving at 8pm at night to be greeted by many touts dragging us to their houseboats (a famous attraction at Srinagar).

Srinagar is surrounded by barbed wire, placed by the army, and the only way into the city is through armed checkpoints. The army are very present in Srinagar and at one point they even stopped us cycling over a bridge (don't know why) and forced us to take a 10km detour.

We spent the next day cycling the city getting supplies and preparing for the Himalayas.

Tomorrow would be our first ascent into high altitude.

A Tuc-Tuc trip through Agra