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!