Seventh Wonder of the World..........

No................not my command of the English language, my prowess on 1950's technology British motorcycles........The Taj Mahal!  Linked back up with Saved (The crazy Indian riding his mountain bike 1200km from Leh to Dehli) in Dehli and decided to pile in the very style of taxi that attempted to end my life a few days before on a three hour commute to Agra, former capital of India and home to the Taj Mahal.........and Argra (Red) Fort.  Saved happened to be a history major..........so we'll take him for a little background help and always critical translation duties.  100F today and lots of marble, should be thoroughly dehydrating to say the least........let's get started.  

Before you start arguing with me whether the Taj is one of the Seven Wonders of the World........the list changes every couple of years......yaddaa yadda yadda......always remember, everyone's a F'n winner, we all get trophies for merely signing up and Unesco, the designating authority, is up there on the "Most Effective" organizations list with the United Nations, Comcast Cable and AT&T Cellular if you catch my drift.  Let's do this.........

Came in through this monstrosity of an entrance to find a football field or two long shallow pool with fountains.  I think this is the only grass I've seen in the big cities since being here.  Relatively quiet and it was a weekday.  

Boom!  Place ain't small, all white marble in fine Indian fashion and the dome is impressive......all square blocked on the outside and lots of chiseling.  Built by  Emperor Jahan for his second wife......it's massive, marble, and gotta take your shoes off again.

 

Little farther back for some perspective.  Quite a hike from the entrance along the pools.

Miles of marble, no shoes allowed, at 100F, this joint made the Golden Temple feel like wading in the Arctic Ocean.

Entry to the main Mosque, little sophistimication in my photography........anyone saying I lack perspective and depth in my photographs can go outside and play hide go fooz yourself.

Four towers at each corner.

Entrance is huge, small temple inside, no pictures allowed and holds the tombs of the Mr. and Misses.........numero dos.  I think he had 9 or 10 wives............He built it because she was his favorite and died giving birth to their 14th child.  Dang dude!

 

"Small out building to the side."  Huge mosque and building detail was pretty impressive considering they are chiseling this stuff out of solid stone.

 Headed 2 klicks down the road to the Agra Fort.  Just as impressive in my opinion, part of it built in marble and the other in red stone.  

Every fort needs a moat and this one was huge.  Maybe thirty feet deep and snaked around this enormous complex.

Inside the main entrance, sported a drawbridge and tons of grass.

I'm crushing these artistic photos now!

  

Ever see the movie 300?  Yeah.....that hole is a long way down and that is where the riff-raff are kicked down.

 

 
 

Ok......so second story building over in the corner.  That was essentially a prison cell built for the Mr. Jahan, remember him, the guy who built the Taj Mahal for his wife?

 

So...........I don't know the entire or whole story, but one of Jahan's sons confined him to the corner of the Fort and the old man's only request was to have a view of the Taj Mahal, the burial place of his wife.  He resided here and never left until his death.  Don't quote me on that.

 Well.........there ya have it.  Big part of Northern India in a nutshell.  Been quite eventful to say the least .  Hopefully the pictures made it worth taking a few minutes out of the day to forget about ones painful life confined to your cage (cubicle).  This trip wasn't hard to make happen, cost 2600 bucks for the entire thing, most of it coming from the 1200 bones on the Air China cattle car.  Is India the safest place to go on vacation, rent bikes with almost no brakes and zero passing power to get outa the way of oncoming carnage.......probably not?  Thanks for following along, take a trip somewhere before the year ends to a place or doing something you would NEVER picture yourself trying............I'll see you from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Peace out!

 




 

Bottom of the 9th......Score is tied....It's time for the big one!

Follow me up the hill!      Kardung La    

So here is the delio.  Hard core motorcycle dudes, and chics of course, come from all over the universe to ride the infamous Leh-Manali Highway, northern Himalayas, Jammu-Kashmir......whatever you wanna label it....... for ONLY one reason,  to ride a motorcycle up the highest motorable road on the planet. The rest of the scenery and meeting folks is a bonus.  

Dub Ya evidently didn't get the memo and decided to take a Taxi to Nubra Valley to take some pictures of greenery, the pictures better be worth it.  Hey Winston, maybe you can remind those pricks to drive on their side of the road.  I also heard they have cute skirts over there!

So, Bobo mans up and decides to ride his pristine RD350 up the mountain with me.  He's actually pretty pumped and excited, even though this is his backyard, he doesn't get the opportuniuty to do it and the Misses won't let him go alone.  So it's me and the Mayor of Leh.

There is Leh in the background, we're snapping a few photos at just over 12K.  See the white capped peaks way in the distance, make a note Sports Fans.  Twenty minutes out of town on brand new asphalt.....I'm thinking what a F'n joke.  I read all these horror stories about rock slides and D10 dozers every 2KM having to clear the road.  Oh SchlepRock.......your beat down is coming Monkey nutz!

Then we start climbing into the crap........and it is STEEP......and then I see dozers.  They have freaking garages on the switch backs they store these enormous steel tracked behemoths.  Hit the first land slide and theses dudes are trying to push boulders off the road the size of Volkswagens.  To add to the pain.....the dirt that comes crashing down with the rocks is really soft and fluffy.  Zero traction and burning the clutch up on the Battle Wagon like you read about.  Hop off and push while working the clutch.  Oh.......I'm at 15K........can't breathe for shit....I'm thinking plan Bravo.......nude up.......curl up into a ball, and commence with sucking my thumb!

 

Yeah man, that's is a long ass way down into the valley.  Like straight down, I tried holding the camera over the edge to give a better perspective, but when I noticed the road edge crumbling away and these erosion points where all the water was flowing over the road.....I hopped on my bike and was Audi 5000!

 Two hours in and we hit our second land slide.  They were busy with the heavy equipment and I was glad I was on a bike, despite the pain in the ass riding through the soft dirt.  There was a serious back-up going both ways and TATA trucks everywhere.  We managed to get through and kept heading up.  The RD350 was kicking the Enfield's ass up the hill.  I got mine pegged in first with it sounding like it was going to explode and  Bobo was just ripping around on the two-stroke like it was cool.  Oh the traffic......worst part was trying to get the bike moving again.  I basically ran next to the bike and jumped on.

Oh the TATA!

Yo Broseph, have fun backed up at the two nasty landslides 10 Klicks back!

2km From the top.  Bike is sucking air like you read about......ZERO freaking power and I even took the air filter out the day before in hopes a squeezing another quarter of a pony.

VICTORY!

Yep, sore ass neck, bruised ribs and some Vitamin M for the shoulder, I wish they had a drug that kept your lungs inflated.  I was up here about 20 minutes and it was noticeable.  When I kick started my bike to come back down, I was winded and gasping for air. 

That's Fo Damn Sho!

Couple trophy shops and the medical building up in the background.

Main Street!

Bobo, the man himself.  Thanks for coming with me Bro!

The Motrin ain't cutting it so I bust out three KingFisher Strong FO-TEEEEEES and pound them because I heard the record for making it down from the summit is one hour!

After 20 minutes we were feeling the affects of the altitude so we fired up the Hooprides and made our way down.  Pretty tame coming down and took our time back to Leh.  Overall great day and I want to thank Bobo for Sac'n up and riding the monster with me!

So......I rode up the highest road and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!

9 Bucks, dude stitched it with a sewing machine.  Doesn't have the entire route, just the gnarly Manali-Leh portion with all the passes!

Back to the smog and dirt and hopefully one more worthwhile excursion!

Forward Operating Base Leh

Little house cleaning.  Gotta give some props to the town of Leh, the people, the Yak Tail Hotel.  Place is great, no crime, no begging and really nice people.  It is a big tourist town, but mostly for people to fly in and hop on Adventure Touring, Trekking, Rafting.....you name it.........trips around the local area.  Prices are very affordable and we haven't run into anyone who has tried to rip us off.
We have been staying at the same joint in Leh and it is awesome.  Family owned forever, oldest hotel in Leh and run by a dude named Bobo (Baw-Boo) who hangs out with us and arranges everything.  When he walks through town, everyone knows him.  He just lounges all day at the hotel, sipping tea, while his wife is a Gynecologist at the local hospital. Most of his staff have been here for 12 years plus and helped raise him while he was running around the place when his parents were running it.
  
Took a day off to nurse my whip lashed neck, sore ribs and do some bike fixing mostly with a hammer, and I think I even used a wrench twice.  Only have a few days left, so I need the Royal Hoopride to hold together. 

Here is the entrance.  Bobo let us park our Battle Wagons inside the gate.  The Courtyard is all green marble.  It's running us 12 bucks a day for our room and if we eat here, another 6 bucks for so......a day.....three meals.  Check out the old school RD350, Bobo has two of them things, they are very rare and cool as Shi'ite.  People are always stopping by and talking about them.  The rooms would probably gross out most people, but what the hell, I'm only sleeping in the joint.

Better look at the courtyard.  That is one of his dudes, does everything and has a twin brother.  On his way with SchlepRock's 50th cup of Chai milk tea of the day.........stuff is tasty......even when it's 90 out.  OBTW.....I've dropped 17 big ones since getting to India.....Curry and tea is the way to go!

The "Bionic" Enfield, 24 hours after going down around 40.  We rebuilt her, but as far as being stronger and faster like Steve Austin, ferrrrget about it.  Restored to original, no power, zero suspension and the ergonomics of a tricycle. Fires up first kick, these things are pretty tough.  Check out my prayer flowers wrapped around the front.....still in the mix baby! 

 

Fixed all the stuff on the right side of the bars.  Mirror was crunched, break lever needed repeated skin graphs and you can see the old school crash bar, the right side was pushed in......2 hours at Clearview Auto Body (Mohans Enfield in Leh) and we're back in the fight.

 

Right Pannier looked like a Coke can that had been smashed by someone.  I think if you click on the image, you get the actual size and can see the tears and ripples in the upper outside corner.  On my G-rides back home, I have used soft bags on hard core trips up dirt roads like the Dempster because of the horror stories of smashed legs when going down in a crash.  Crashing with hard Panniers scares the shit out of me.  10 minutes with a hammer, the lid closed and locked back up.  For the record, those Panniers are about as worthless as a third row of tits on a boar hog.  Dust and everything got inside.  

I sense being light headed in my near future!

Ching-A-Linged at Chang La

Yak Tail Hotel has provided us a nice base camp for a little rest.......now it is time for for a little road trip out to Tso Pangong........That's Lake Pangong for the crowd.  Situated at 14.5K on the Chinese border, I failed.........or maybe I was just in denial, but there is a pass we have to cross to get to this lake revered by most Indians.  Chang La pass.....what a freaking ass kicker!

Here's a little look back around half way.  this was the WORST, I REPEAT WORST road we have seen over the last few weeks.  It was bone rattling, spine crunching and had everything from water running off the snow pack to dust that was suffocating the last 10KM on both sides of the summit.

The road was narrower than hell and had these little monuments sprinkled along the way.  Right above the truck in the background is a white line cut out of the mountain, that's where we had to go.  There were DOZENS of military trucks on the road and when we got on the backside of the pass, the entire valley for the final 60KM were enormous bases with Army dudes everywhere.

So........ we motor out in the morning thinking we are gonna go over a little hill and follow a valley into the Promised Land.  I check the map out of Leh and see that Chang La is at like 17K........WTF?  It was a massive grind, but once again we made it to the top.........first pass we have come to that has medical tents.....Indian Army dudes hanging out with O2 tanks for people who's brains start swelling and talking in tongues, we stayed 15 minutes and got the hell out of dodge since my fingers were tingling and Winston was three deep already into his cigarette pack!

 

Dub Ya in the climb!

 

Living large with a couple of Bro's we met and ended up hanging out with at Pangong.  Good dudes and they would help me out later on during this little escapade.

 

We will come off the pass and end up on the moon.  Just miles and miles of boulders, rocks and just nothingness.  Traffic was light and we made pretty good time.

  

First look at the lake.  We are above 14,000 feet, it's salt water......how the hell did this thing end up here?  That's China about 2 miles down shore.  2/3rds of the lake is in China and the Indians have a little base on the north end of the lake with gun boats docked.

Boootiful!

 

It changed colors about a million times while we were there based on the sun angle and the wind making white caps.

 
 

Our hooch for the night.  Most expensive place we've stayed at 22 bones a night.  Included dinner and breakfast which was freaking tasty.  We met quite a few  people here and played cards into the night.  Mostly early 30's kids who were professionals.....everything from IBM consultant to children's nurses to teachers.......every one of them quit their jobs and are just Schlep'n around the world.  We met a cool Swiss dude who just came from Sri Lanka.  Quite a few Indian motorcycle dudes on a road trip from Dehli, we exchanged email addresses and hopefully will stay in contact.

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 Well I guess it is my time to pay the man.  Coming back from the lake about an hour back home I come around a curve on my 6 inches of pavement to find a F'n taxi on my side of the road hauling ass..........all I see is a big ass Toyota symbol..........God has given me this amazing gift to slow things down around me.....playing sports, getting shot at....... watching Homeboy swing a bat.....coming up with a solution......when things start going bad.  First thought....Take this bitch head on.....Pause.....NOT! Second thought.....I got another six inches of road, I can fix this......so I'm just gonna slide on over......shit....it's sand........as my Hoopride is starting it's one way ticket to low siding........half way down......I say to myself.....this is gonna Fucking Hurt........I look down and see my old school crash bars hit the ground and I actually think......I got 3 grand in the best shit money can buy....solely built to crash in.  Smack.......right shoulder and right side of my head hit the ground in a eruption of flying debris, dirt and sparks that made Winston's 10 mile an hour low side going into Ganj look like  Friday Night Grab Ass at the country bar he hangs at in Calgary.  I slide on my right side about 30 feet......sit up on my knees, bell a little rung.....but I know it's the 18th....I'm coming back from Lake Pangong and some asshole is about to die.  I take my helmet off and stand up.  Taxi dude walks up to me raising his voice and pointing at my tire tracks that are THREE F'n inches from the edge of my side of the road.........remember the two dudes that photo bombed Winston's Chang La Pass photo......they roll up.....I go to the tall dude.......tell that F'n dude in Hindu to shut his F'n mouth or I'm gonna rip his head off.........Bro starts talking.......booo babbba nnayyya hanna.......F'n.....hyttaaa gaaaa nnnyaaa jaaaayy.....F'n.....Taxi idiot shuts up......Guess the translation was good....lmao.....

Pick bike up, flooded like a mofo, takes about 20 minutes to get started, rest of the ride back was uneventful. 


..........right side pannier is fruit bowled......Butch Sukut special the same day with a hammer at the local Enfield repair joint.....fixed.....right side crash bar a little tweaked....but hardly noticeable..........Head light bezel seems to be a magnet for frontal impacts.......fixed .....right foot peg looked like a soggy mustard soaked pretzel from one of those traveling gypsy amusement parks on wheels.  Hardest part was riding up and down that miserable pass with about 3cm of my boot on the only useable portion of the foot peg.  I'm out 8 bucks and the bike looks brand new!

Casualty.....Ghost HD Cam destroyed on impact.  Camera was mounted on right side of my helmet as you could see in one of the above pictures.  The destruction of the camera just raised the cost of my vacation 25%.........damnit!

KLIM gear with D3O armor......amazing shit.......It's hot.....uncomfortably hot.....but it puts you in the position to get up after a crash and kick the shit out of whoever just tried to ruin your day.  Helmet #5 that I hardly needed and just bought because it's cool looking probably saved my life.  My friend Len I met in Alaska last year was wearing a helmet he decided to impact test the same way I just did, the shit works, if you don't wear one you're a F'n IDIOT!

On a positive note....I landed on my right shoulder they told me last year needs to be replaced anyway.......my ribs are sore and my beloved gear still looks nice!   

I want to personally thank the Indian Government for not caring enough to pave their roads......the combination of gravel, sand, concrete and whatever else there was helped me slide rather than tumble......tumbling on concrete kills the team....ask those dudes racing Moto GP.

Best part about it.....after telling momma what happened, before going out for next ride....only thing said was "Love you, Have a awesome ride".......Peace out Turkeys!




 

No Plan Survives First Contact.............

Or even third or fourth contact with the enemy, India traffic or road conditions.  If you do the math, we cannot make it back to Dehli in the next week or so.  Our plan now is to set up base camp in Leh and ride out from there, returning for a day and then going out again.  We are shipping the bikes back to Dehli at a whopping 90 bucks 'Murrican and then flying back to Dehli for our trip back home.  Let's get to it! 

Find us here.........Where is the Bozo Brigade?

Out of Pang for a leisurely 180km or so jaunt to Leh.  Right out of Pang we had 40km of good tarmac on a plain at over 16, 000 feet.  Kind of like driving through Wyoming on I-80, but in the Moronosphere.  Then the climb to Tanglang La, gnarly.  Peaked at 17.5k and the climb was on a 10 foot wide road with ten foot snow and ice walls on opposite sides of us.  We ran into a small traffic jam and had to dig a path to widen the road.........small delay........some dudes who left about two hours after us were stuck on the pass 10 hours with one of their Australian dudes getting pretty bad AMS and having to ride in the support truck while a mechanic road his bike to Leh........weak sauce!  

Look back at climb up Tanglang La........massively long steep straight away cutting up the valley on either side of the mountain!

The altitude and ZERO suspension on my Royal Kidney Shaker is crushing my program.  Note the small snow capped mole hill in the background laughing at our 17.5k speed bump.  I'm about fed up, I'm climbing Everest so I can finally look down on things!

 le

W after going five rounds UFC style with a 50 pound bag of flour.  This part of the ride was a dust bowl.

Down the back side with ease and any easy stroll into Thicksey.  We stopped at a ginormous Gompa (monastery) for a little photo shoot and I talked a little sports with a few Monks.  As we cross into Ladakh, the military presence is crazy.  The road went through several Army bases the size of Camp Pendelton, I'm talking tens of kilometers long.  

Perspective doesn't do this place justice, it is huge and towering out of a mountain.

Just inside the gate looking up to one of the main temples.

After this dude was done praying, he came over and asked if I was "Murrican.  He asked a lot of questions about sports and was a big baseball fan.  We rapped about Cricket and the World Cup. 

Good shot of the prayer wheels.  Gotta spin them walking "up the stairs" and they must spin clockwise or you'll be in the hurt locker.

 

Good feel for how high I was.  Not even on the top floor and only half way up.  Even though we are now in the "high desert" at 11k, the valley was very green with farmlands and people actually have grass on their property.

 15KM to Leh and we arrive in one piece at the Yak Tail Hotel......oldest joint in Leh!