On top of the world

no woman no cry...thanks mr. marley...i am surrounded by a bunch of local ladakhians...we are sitting around a fire...one that was started with diesel fuel and i love the Vietnam bon fire smell...nothing like napalm in the morning i used to say...it's a dam nice smell almost as nice as wet close cramped into my ruck sac for three days...hmmm good...i'm in Leh the capital city of Ladakh in the region of Kasmir and Jammu...Ladakh means surrounded by mountains which of course it is and again i find it hard to explain the beauty...i'm sure it's the same feeling the german tourists get when they visit canada...actually i am inspired to travel across canada now that i have done this trip as i know that there are many beauty place which i have forgotten about in my own country...i rode over the 2nd highest motorable pass in the world today...17,553' and it was an awesome feeling...and a very light headed one...the moment i was waiting for...i have been thinking about this for nearly three months...i have been riding amongst 3,4, 5,6, 7000 meter giants for weeks now and finally i made it the top of the world...i felt like i was walking on the surface of the moon...not that i have done this yet...no really i haven't...ok maybe once but i was really high at the time and i think i was walking on my mattress at the time...no idea how my mattress got to the moon though...actually i don't feel very funny right now...i just ate a pizza though and that might have something to do with it...the sun is setting and i feel sad for it even though the sky and the mountain peaks glow with a brilliant soon to come darkness...of course it can be argued that all this is in my head and part of my imagination which i know to be true...who the fuck cares...the pizza too was part of the illusion and it tasted dam good so there...actually anything that isn't dal and rice and chipatti tastes frick'n remarkable to me these days...ya i know that there are friends at home who are saying i told you so...you will get so tired of indian food you will crave canadian food...well i am here to say that you are all wrong...this is not indian food...this is poor villagers food...i can assure you that at Viji's restaraunt you will not find dal malcana on the menu...and i swear to you that i am not on crack at the moment...i just karoke James Blunt's Your Beautiful with an indian guy...i wonder if crack is an ingredient in Ladakh made pizza...i was an awesome feeling being at that altitude...an insignificant feeling too...this thought comes to me often as i ride along alone only to look off into the mountain air to see a bird flying along side of me like a dolphin swimming along with a ship...see you are not alone says the bird to me...you here to play with me...and i laugh...this pizza is good...there are perfect little flowers at the top of this pass...blue and yellow...tiny little flowers...quivering in the howling winds...everything works like perfection here and it makes my think about my perfection or imperfection...let's not get started on this topic though after all it's an easy trip to insane if one continues to wonder what god actually has in store for them...after all none of this actually exists and this is all a glitch in a main frame computer somewhere...just kidding...really i am made in the image of god and that alone is all the perfection i need...god doesn't make seconds...over my pizza dinner i was talking with this lady from spain...she's here in ladakh to check out some manuscripts that provide evidence that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross like many of us have been told...after all he could heel people by just looking at them so what's a few metal spikes going to do...perhaps there's some sense to this...i mean half the world believes he's the son of god and really cruxifiction is a kind of Hollywood way to go don't you think...anyways supposedly he came to live in india in ladakh where he studied previously in his life time...i wonder if he liked dal rice and chipatties...
shall i take you back a week to fill in the gaps...can you hear the me...as if anyone but me is reading this...well then i will take me back...i had a very nice shabbat dinner in Kaza which kind of came out of the blue...the next day i rode up to Ky Monastery and spent the night there which really was a bit of disappointment as the place is a but run down...those monks are kind of messy...i woke up early sunday morning thinking that i would cross Kunzum pass and have plenty of time to get to key long...a quick trip to the local petrol station which was closed on sunday introduced me to Collin, certified enfield mechanic and his girlfriend Gemme...they too had the idea of crossing the pass early and riding to key long...well a close petrol station in india only means that one has to go wake up the petrol station attendant which a few of the locals did for us gladly...actually a quick mention here...the local are only too helpful...what ever the task...well the lad finally arrived and then that's when we discovered that there was a second challenge...there were two petrol pumps that are each connected to a separate underground tank...well the one pump that was broken tank was empty...the full tank was connected to the pump that was broken...makes perfect sense...so what will we do...simple we will pump manually from one tank to the other...we finally received our petrol around 11am...only to ride into a terrible storm that closed the pass with snow fall and land slides...i was so cold...i have never been that cold before in my life...i could barely move my hands from the handle bars...i was so unprepared for this weather...we were lucky enough to find a little village and a family that took us in...feed us chai and food...we spent 3 hours there warming up...kind of...the house was a traditional house where the animals lived in the bottom and the family up stairs...and they used shit as fuel to cook and keep the house warm...ya it smelled something awful...we were going to complain...we might have stayed the night there but there was a village just about 13km away and we suited back up for the painful ride...we were stuck in losser for two days...finally the sun broke and the pass was open...it was stunning...fresh snow and sunshine...what a reward for a two day delay...i learned just how at the mercy of these mountains i am...especially riding on a bike...i also learned again that stupidity can cost one there life in these hills...so bought rain gear from the guest house keeper where we stayed in losser...that poor lady didn't want to give up her yellow rubber dish gloves...
i met up with a group of riders in key long and decided that it would be a good idea to ride with them to pang...the halfway point to Leh...except that about 30kms out shanti stoped and wouldn't move...a bit of messing around...checking the clutch on the side of a mountain etc and i decided that it would be best to put my steed on a truck and head back to key long to have a mechanic check it out...800Rps later and five hours shanti was running better than ever and i headed out the next morning with three riders from the UK...i was feeling pretty low being truck backed to key long...sitting in the back of a big blue truck...it took 6 guys to lift shanti into and out of the bed of this truck...it's a heavy bike and the this truck was big...turns out the there was a landslide about another 40kms out from where i was left stranded...maybe that's the reason why i was turned around...it could also have been the fact that shanti had no engine oil...gear oil...clutch oil and gear grease in her...ya all things that i guess need to be checked more often...all things that should have been checked by the mechanic that worked on my bike two weeks prior...well i made it to pang the next day...an epic day...two large passes...sun...rain for which i was now prepared for...i had to wait for the trucks to clear the pass...that took four hours...the scenery was amazing...i know i sound like a broken record but it's true...just beautiful...about 10km before pang there was a 300 meter river crossing...that was huge...and it sucked as i arrive at sun down with wet boots...luckily i met the riders that i started with the day before and james Lent me his flip flops...Pang is basically a temporary town of about 20 tents at 14,000'...i froze my ass off once again...and i wonder why i am choosing to do this...because it's epic dad...
well that about brings me up to date...with the exception of my health and ladies it gets a bit gross here...it's not great...i don't think that i have been neglecting myself...it's just that this area is harsh...i live in the same clothes for days...it's cold and bathing with freezing water isn't that inspiring...i have three festering blisters on my left foot...oozing white puss...one on my right foot just under my big toe in the crack where the toe meets the foot...some where i think in Kaza or at the Ky monastery i got bitten by something i think while i was a sleep...well that festered into a puss oozing golf ball size grossness...my throat has been sore for over a week which i think is due to all the dust and fumes i inhale being on the bike...my back is sore...i am walking as bow legged as a bull rider...i am a mess...and so i have decided to chill here in leh for a bit and fix myself up...i went to see a Dr and the good news is nothing need to be amputated...some cream and some herbs and in a week i will be all better...and so i relax for the next few days...i went to a second shabbat dinner which was great and i even made it to the lunch and service the following day...
i have decided that i will head south through manali into the Kullu valley and on to Delhi...i have about two weeks to get there which is plenty of time...well i am tired now...so it's time to sign off...i guess the pizza crack has worn off...it was pretty good while it lasted...

rest in peace...

mag