Riding Ladakh

UNBOUNDED

This is it.

This is my life at its sweetest.

I am in Ladakh, riding a Royal Enfield motorcycle through India towards a Buddhist monastery. White blocks perched on the side of a mountain.

I am alone, looking for stories to tell. Finding this story to tell.

I am often asked by readers if, given my long writing career, I still have things “on my list”. I don’t think about lists — but . . . riding Ladakh. Maybe this has been on it.

ELEVATION

Ladakh is the high-altitude, northernmost part of India, administered as a distinct union territory. It is in the greater Himalayan region and its capital, Leh, is 3500m above Cottesloe.

Flying in to such high altitude is a shock to the body.

For Ladakh is geographically classified as a high-altitude desert, with a much lower oxygen level than at sea level, meaning travellers need to spend the first 24-48 hours resting.

For the first time arriving at altitude, I try Diamox, a prescription drug shown to aid acclimatisation. But I don’t find any difference from previous experiences. I take the arrival day easy, and I’m on the bike the next day.

But I always bring an oximeter to high places. It clips on a finger and monitors oxygen blood levels and heart rate. It shows me how I’m progressing inside.

Physically, that is.

Emotionally, I’m progressing inside just fine.

Ladakh flutters with prayer flags.

My heart flutters with prayers answered.

CONVERGENCES

Sometimes geography has no respect for maps.

Leh is full of Tibetan prayer flags and prayer wheels — tall, inscribed cylinders, which are turned to spin prayers of goodwill into the world.

It is a place of white stupas (both new and so old that they are literally being washed back into the Earth) and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.

For Tibet lies along Ladakh’s eastern border and that line between India and Tibet (an autonomous region of China) is dissolved by Himalayan culture and commonality. There are many Tibetans in Ladakh, and many Tibetan refugee markets selling handicrafts in Leh. Many Tibetans fled after China’s People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1950, defeated Tibetan forces, and imposed Chinese rule.

To the west of Ladakh is Pakistan. It controls more than 30 per cent of the of the north-western region of disputed Kashmir. There have recently been deadly protests there, during local elections.

Ladakh constitutes an eastern, Indian portion, of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947, and between India and China since 1959.

Ladakh even has a bit of border with Afghanistan to the north.

Yes, there’s a lot of tricky politics up here. Even once they have their India eTourist Visa, travellers then need a permit to move outside of Leh. With my journalist visa, there are lots of place I shouldn’t go to. I even visit the DC Office (the authorities’ deputy commissioner) but rules are rules, and though Indians are natural transgressors, they are also sticklers for rules. (India, the land of contrasts).

There is a strong Indian Army presence in Leh, with an increased build-up and “state of preparedness” since 2020.

There is certainly a lot of movement while I am here, with rows of army trucks heading east.

The Fire and Fury Corps (14 Corps), 3 Division and 72 Infantry Division high-altitude force protects what India calls the “Line of Actual Control” — the military border separating Indian-controlled Ladakh from Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin. Then there is the Line of Control, separating Indian and Pakistani parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The 14 Corps was formed after the Kargil War was fought between India and Pakistan in 1999 here in Ladakh.

The Ladakh Scouts are also here. The warriors of this elite infantry regiment, recruited from the region, are known as the “Snow Warriors” for their high-altitude skills.

RIBBONS

The road streams ahead of me like a ribbon, turning into a track, following a clear mountain torrent.

Surely this is motorcycling at its best.

Once you are out of the Indian traffic (a Mahindra’s more likely to kill you than a mountain), narrow roads rise in staccato switchback U-bends, which leave the line of the valley and snake up the mountain face, sheer drops to the side.

No barriers, no safety rails; just you and the bike and your skills and experience.

While motorcyclists come here to tick the Khardung La pass off their list, there’s limitless riding.

And there are plenty of places to hire bikes. I get my Royal Enfield Himalayan from Mototour Ladakh, for $29.86 a day. And when it totally packs up (it wasn’t me, honest) they come and pick me up and give me another bike.

While they offer tours, I ride alone, finding my way round the mountains and outlying towns and villages, and follow the Indus River valley in both directions from the town.

It suits me to do my own thing, visit the places I want, and spend time in them.

The Mototour Ladakh groups that come and go are usually about 10 male Indian riders, with lots of gear, a bit of testosterone, and a torrent of Hindi.

I suggest the best way a group ride for West Australians would work would be to get enough riders together to book a whole tour.

Be warned, some of the rides need good skills and a bit of courage, and you will probably be dealing with Mototour Ladakh, and other ride providers in Leh, via WhatsApp.

I am not suggesting anyone head off into the Himalayas on a motorcycle alone. “Do what I say, not what I do” (I think that was what Mother taught me).

I pay $31.30 a night to stay at the Hotel Capital City Ladakh.

It’s a riders’ focal point — the lobby is full of helmets and jackets, abandoned by groups of riders.

Royal Enfields stand in rows outside.

I am the only white rider here — the rest are Indians. In fact, I chat with three young Israelis in a phone shop and a German couple in a cafe, and don’t recall seeing any other white people or Westerners all the time I’m in Ladakh.

Want an authentic experience? Here it is.

BLESSINGS

Prayersflags stream from the monastery and its stupas, the wind carrying off their blessings. Their five colours represent the fundamental elements that seem to fill me too, here in Ladakh…

Blue for sky and space, white for air and wind, the red of fire, green of water, and yellow earth.

The mantras on them promote peace, compassion and good fortune. All that’s in my head.

The sacred prayer “Om Mani Padme Hum”, told every time one of the prayer wheel turns.

And for me, the motorcycle is part of it.

Virginia had worried about the journey ahead. “Riding a bike is probably the only thing I do well,” I replied.

On a bike, I am in the elements, moving across the planet’s thin skin with a smooth cadence that tunes me in to the world, physically and spiritually.

It’s a Royal Enfield, which also ties up my life. It is the world’s oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production, and it started in 1901 in Redditch, in Worcestershire, England, near where I grew up. Damn. When my dear sister Sally married, she set up her first married home in Redditch. I have been pushing her serious diagnosis deep down in me, for at least this time in Ladakh. Damn. Now here it is, flushed out by childhood memories, welling up in me.

I ride a remote track in the Himalayas, alone, tears streaming down my dusty face, leaving mud streaks. Damn. DAMN.

Get back in the moment, Scourfield.

Then… damn. At a crucial moment on a very tight bend on a track with a drop of many hundreds of metres right beside me, I miss a gear, and frantically kick down to find something (anything) in the bike’s gearbox that has teeth on it.

I don’t love the Royal Enfield Himalayan bike, though it is doing the job, and they are ubiquitous in Ladakh.

But I once rode a Royal Enfield Bullet from Llasa in Tibet to Kathmandu in Nepal, right through the Everest region, and it never missed a beat (and I never missed a gear).

I have one at home. I wish you were here.

SUMMIT

The T-shirts in Leh are misleading. They all say that Khardung La is “18,379 feet” (which is 5602m) and the world’s highest motorable pass.

In fact, its height is mostly correctly catalogued at 5359m (17,582ft), and one of the world’s highest motorable passes. But riding it and getting the T-shirt is the draw.

(And, yes, obviously I succumbed too, and brought home the T-shirt.)

PEARLS

In the middle of the remote riding, in fire-hose rain and mud, then super-UV high-altitude sun and talc-like dust, I treat myself to a Leh day.

First I ride through the traffic to Shanti Stupa, set high on a hill overlooking the town.

But before I get to that, let’s talk about Indian traffic. I’ve ridden in many places in India, and like this way of moving with the locals, at their pace and with their rules. You just have to very quickly work out what those rules are. And some are very different in Ladakh. For example, they go around roundabouts here, rather than just cutting across in a direct line to wherever they are going. But they do park on roundabouts while they are texting, though it’s unusual for them to stop when they are texting. I see one driver with a phone in each hand, presumably (hopefully) steering with his knees.

They sound horns all the time, drive fast, swerve between lanes, and pull out into oncoming traffic expecting it to give way (which it does).

But Shanti Stupa is worth all that, and I buy a tiny bottle of apricot juice for 10¢ from a woman sitting on the ground under an umbrella. Just sit. Be. Taking in the view. Suck the thin air.

Below, the Main Bazaar is a wide, stone-paved pedestrian area with lots of good shops. How many pashminas are there in the world? (Tip: the very best quality will pull through a wedding ring). There are good places to eat, and everything is inexpensive to us. If, by any chance, you do find yourself in Leh, the best coffee I found was in The German Cafe, the best breakfast nearby in Cafe Leh, and best all-round food, by far, in Brown’s Restaurant on Skara Road.

While the city mosque is the end-piece of the Main Bazaar, the city itself is rather dominated by the 17th-century Leh Palace.

Built by the country’s greatest king, Singe Namgyal, it stands on a steep, sandy, rocky hill, with a commanding view over the town.

It costs me $4.45 (300 rupees) to visit.

Architecturally, the nine-storey building is remarkable for the banded texture of its stonework. This is the earliest example that can be dated. But its timber, bamboo and mud brick construction can be seen throughout.

It is written locally that the overall shape of the building is based on the dress of His Holiness Staksang Raspa (his shantap, or santap), which is narrow at the top and broader at the bottom.

The sloping outer wall is 2m thick at the bottom.

By the ninth floor, it is only half a metre thick.

Emperor Singe Namgyal described his palace as “the pearl amongst the fortresses of Ladakh”.

INDUS

The waters of the Indus River run down to the lower, wide part of the valley, where human societies first formed — the early Harappan culture of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation.

The beginning of us, as we know us, in the Indus Valley.

But I’m heading upstream, along the Manali-Leh Highway towards Thiksey Monastery, which looks very like the Potala Palace in Llasa, Tibet.

I ride through villages with handmade stone walls and cattle standing in the road, tiny bakeries, butchers which sell every part of one animal, and healthy looking dogs sizing up their next benefactor.

I stop in Shey, an historic village with hundreds of white stupas (also called chortens here). They dot the landscape below its 17th-century palace and monastery, which was once the region’s summer capital. Shey Palace and Monastery was built in 1645 by King Deldan Namgyal.

When I arrive at Thiksey, I’m rather bemused by the sight of its monastery. I finally turn the Royal Enfield off, and slip off the helmet that Casey, my faithful suitcase, has so helpfully conveyed to India without a scratch.

(It’s amazing what you can fit in one medium-sized and slightly begrudging suitcase. “So I’m just a freight crate now?” he murmurs.)

The sight of Thiksey, and my flashback to Lhasa’s Potala Palace, are dramatic.

Sometimes it’s good to pause. Regroup. Settle. Be in the moment. And I do just that in The Village Cafe in Thiksey with my good old travel fall-back — omelette, toast and black coffee. And another black coffee.

The boys running the place come up with the goods, then go back to their phones.

It seems to me that everyone, everywhere, is hunched over a phone. Monks. A shepherd out on a lush hillside. Groups of dusty men waiting on the roadside at a “daily labour pick-up spot”.

No wonder those data centres are buzzing.

ROAMING

My Telstra Roaming Pack works in India — but not in Ladakh, India.

Riding alone does mean I should sort my phone out. All the locals use Airtel and, when I arrive, I make a mental note of an Airtel office near the hotel and walk round there.

“Do you have your passport?” asks the man at the desk. I hand it to him. “No, I won’t sell you a SIM card. Go to the office down the road.” He flutters his hand in dismissal.

But the same is repeated at the Airtel shop down the road. “No, I won’t sell you a SIM card.” The same fluttering hand gesture sends me to another Airtel office.

The same is repeated, but at least this time I’m given a reason: “Because you have a journalist visa. No, I won’t sell you a SIM card. I’m sorry.”

The last two words are delivered with such finality that I feel flung through swinging saloon doors and into the dusty street.

Well, that’s that.

Back at the hotel, the internet won’t work for me. I ask the manager.

“Yes, it is down,” he agrees with a smile.

“And being fixed?”

“Yes sir, and being fixed.”

Why do I feel this conversation is going nowhere?

For the first few days, I’m disconnected, running wild in the mountains and the dust, eating hot bread from the little hamlet bakeries, and checking that the drink bottle caps are sealed before I open them.

But eventually I find a woman in a dusty little office who will sell me an Airtel SIM, and a massive 5G data plan, and set it up and get it working, all for $11 (750 rupees).

“Journalist visa?” I ask.

“No problem,” she says.

Welcome to India.

DHAK

Ladakh is considered one of the safest areas in India for solo and female travellers. It has a low crime rate and strong police presence.

And the inspirational story of four Indian women riding Royal Enfields to Ladakh is told in the 2023 movie Dhak Dhak, available on Netflix. It is based on their real adventure.

VICTORY

My son calls this my “victory lap”.

As I celebrate my 40th year of writing for The West Australian, and approach my 25th year as travel editor and my 50th year in journalism, I’d like to think that the victory is in remaining wide-eyed and enthusiastic. It feels victorious to absorb, and be absorbed by, a new part of the world. And then to share it with you, like this.

That victory is, indeed, sweet.

HOPE

The 4th-century Indian writer Kalidasa is widely regarded as the greatest poet in the Sanskrit language.

He wrote:

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

fact file

+ I booked flights through Flight Centre, combining Singapore Airlines and Air India in economy for a total of $3923.67. This included a Captain’s Pack, for added protection for the booking. I did the seat allocation myself and it was an extra $36.20 for all six flights. Joanna Welburn on joanna.welburn@flightcentre.com.au.

+ Insurance was with Fast Cover, and included a Motorcycle Pack and an Adventure Pack (as the trip was over 3000m of altitude). fastcover.com.au

+ I rented the Royal Enfield Himalayan from Mototour Ladakh for $29.86 (INR2000) a day. They also do tours, which would be best booked as a group. mototourladakh.com

+ Capital City Hotel Ladakh was $31.30 (INR2100) a night. hotelcapitalcityladakh.in

+ Diamox is acetazolamide, which acts as a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. That forces the kidneys to excrete bicarbonate, making the blood slightly more acidic. This chemical shift then tricks the brain into increasing the breathing rate, and that increases oxygen intake and is shown to reduce acute mountain sickness symptoms.

+ Apply for an eTourist visa for India at Indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html (beware other scam sites). A 30-day eVisa for entry from April to June is $US10 ($14). From July to March it is $US25 ($35). There is a full guide to applying for an eVisa here: thewest.com.au/travel/the-exercise-that-is-the-india-evisa--c-21772373.

+ A story on Thiksey Monastery, and other stories from the trip, will be published in future editions.