Now I Leh me down to sleep

Greetings from Leh, the little town at the tiptop end of India, capital of Ladakh and desert oasis par excellence. It's our second day of laziness, lassitude and banana lassis, but our bike ride here was unexpectedly tough in terms of effort and acclimatization to high altitude, and Audie, Saakje and I all seem to be even more tired and out of shape than we were when we arrived two days ago. It's all very puzzling.

But I digress. Let me backtrack. I spent three days of touristing in Delhi: Humayun's Tomb, the oldest mosque in India (the Qutb Minar and attached mosque, much of it built from a Hindu temple, which leaves the curious sight of half-clothed Hindu deities on the walls and columns of a mosque, which shouldn't have any depictions of the human body at all), the green and lovely Lodi Gardens full of royal tombs, the vast and stately Government buildings along the Rajpath which are reminiscent of the layout of Washington DC.

After that, it was time for the ultimate horror: the night bus north to Kullu. It was cheap (only 220 rupees, or 5 US dollars) but interminable, uncomfortable and rather like an experiment in sleep deprivation. I was glad to stagger off the bus in Kullu with my bikeat 10 am, assemble it, and bike off to the nearest hotel to sleep away the rest of the day.

I spent the next day on a day trip up one of the more famous Himalayan valleys, the Parvati. It was very pretty and forested and steep, but the incessant rain impaired my appreciation for its beauty. At the end of the paved road, I found a gloomy little hot spring town that looked a bit dismal, and promptly turned around and spun back downhill again towards Kullu.

I rolled along the east bank of the Beas River the next day, along one of the five major rivers of the Punjab. In 326 BC, some distance downstream, Alexander the Great's plan to conquer the world came to an end on the banks of the Beas when his troops mutinied and refused to march any further east. Nowadays the Kullu Valley, through which the Beas flows, promotes itself as the Valley of the Gods, and if it is, then the gods have a good aesthetic sense of where to live. It's a fairly steep-sided valley, with pastures and peaks sloping down to huge waterfalls leading into conifer forests and then vast fruit orchards.

I put up for the night in Naggar, site of a lovely castle situated like an eagle's nest high above the Beas. I was a paying guest in the castle, which at 200 rupees ($4.50) was a steal. I went out to explore the Roerich Gallery, full of the paintings of the anthropologist/artist/mystic Nicholas Roerich, who spent many years in Naggar.

The next day I finished my solo cycling with a ride up into Tel-Aviv-in-the-Himalayas, also known as Vashisht, a little village near Manali with some nice hot springs and full of Israeli hippies. I indulged in the hot springs and watched the Israelis making the scene. After a day and a half, Audie and Saakje arrived in a driving rainstorm and the expedition was complete. A day of fiddling with bicycles and buying supplies and we were ready to roll north to Ladakh.

The first day was spent climbing steadily up the 4000-metre Rohtang Pass, over the Pir Panjal Mountains. The scenery was lovely and green and full of waterfalls and forests, and since the road was partially closed ahead, there was little truck traffic to disturb us. We had a perfect lunch of chapattis and Gruyere cheese overlooking the valley, and then climbed on, past long queues of trucks and jeeps delayed by landslides, to a riverside campsite at about 3000 metres' altitude.

The next day we climbed on, up the endless switchbacks, through cold fog, reaching the crest of the pass in the early afternoon. Another chapatti and Gruyere lunch finished off the cheese, and we bumped downhill on execrable roads into the valley of Lahaul, where we camped beside the Chandra River.

Day 3 began with the arrival of a new member of our crew. Reini, an ex-professional snowboarder and serious mountain biker from Austria, caught up with us as we were about to set off. Despite the obvious mismatch in our cycling speeds, he asked to join us for the company. That day we rode through the settled parts of Lahaul, a very Tibetan-looking and Tibetan-influenced valley, lunched in Keylong, the capital, and then slept beside the river after a long day of good riding.

Day 4 was shorter and harder, with a long climb uphill towards our next pass. We passed beyond the region of cultivation and for the first time started to feel the effects of not being acclimatized to altitude. We camped in a dismal location next to a road construction camp and slept poorly.

We were awoken the next morning by a herd of sheep running amidst our tents. We continued our slow climb up to the Baralacha La (4900 metres), the slowness being emphasized by the fact that the morning's sheep and accompanying shepherds beat us over the pass. Our progress was further slowed by the appalling road conditions, construction and traffic jams, and we ended up pushing our bikes for long stretches. At least we got over the pass and descended to a beautiful riverside meadow to camp.

Day 6 featured some of the best actual cycling of the trip, on roads with real asphalt and no landslides, and we raced through lovely landscape until we suddenly found ourselves confronted by a 700-metre climb up an interminable set of switchbacks. It was while climbing those that I realized that I was not at all acclimatized, and I felt absolutely exhausted. Audie and Saakje weren't feeling at their best either, but at least they got uphill at a respectable rate. We camped on the other side of the 4900-metre Nakee Pass, looking up at the next half of this double pass, the Lachung La.

In the morning, after running into an English cyclist, Pete Jones, who was heading the opposite way, we climbed slowly up the 5000-metre Lachung La and then descended along a lovely desert canyon, on unlovely formerly-paved roads, to the army base of Pang, where we called an early halt. Audie, Saakje and Reini stashed a cache of water ahead of us that afternoon while I dozed in the sunshine, hoping to recover some vestiges of energy and strength.

Scenically, day 8 was a major highlight. We climbed up onto the high-altitude (4700 metre) Morey Plains and then undulated our way across this lovely grassland, watching for wildlife (didn't see any) and nomadic Changpa shepherds driving their flocks across the plains. At the end of the train, we climbed halfway up the final and highest pass, the 5300-metre Taglang La, but my body badly let me down, with my lungs, heart and legs all completely exhausted. We camped beside the road in an old road construction site and settled in for another night of limited sleep and less rest at 5000 metres.

We finally made it over the Taglang La the next morning, with all three Hazenbergs climbing very slowly, out of breath and out of energy. We realized we weren't even close to being acclimatized to this altitude, a feeling emphasized by how disconnected our brains felt from our bodies, a bit like being enormously drunk. This altitude-induced inebriation made the ride downhill more than a bit challenging and dangerous, but we finally hit great pavement, settled Ladakhi villages and food, and absolutely flew downhill. We passed through our first Ladakhi villages, full of Buddhist chortens and gompas and white-washed cubic Tibetan houses, and then through a landscape of eroded vertical rock strata that Audie compared to a stegosaurus graveyard. Before we knew it, we were in the Indus Valley, eating momos and camping in an idyllic riverside spot.

After all the effort involved in the first 9 days, the last day was a bit of a triumphal procession, along level, good roads, with stops to investigate Tikse and Shey monasteries, and even the stiff climb away from the Indus into Leh seemed like a cakewalk. It was a shock to be in Leh: stuffed to bursting with tourists (lots of familiar faces from Vashisht), restaurants everywhere, traffic, noise and (best of all) pizza and beer.

We've realized that now, even after 2 days of sloth in Leh, we're not even acclimatized to the moderate 3600-metre altitude here. I don't know what went wrong with our acclimatization, but we're in worse shape now than when we started in Manali. Maybe our upcoming 5-day ride to Panggong Lake will see us come back to life. Or maybe not. I think it's time for another pizza.

Hope everyone's having a great summer, and hope to have better luck with Internet connectivity in the future.

Jule!!

Graydon

In Delhi

I have arrived safely in Delhi. I flew in last night, collected my bicycle and luggage and sailed out into the scrum of touts and taxi drivers confidently. I had already reserved a hotel room and got a pre-paid taxi to save on later arguments about the fare. Suddenly I was out in the streets, my bike lashed to the roof rack, watching the river of humanity that is India flowing along the roads in intermittent rapids of buses and taxis, with back-eddies of pedestrians, rickshaws and cows lining both sides of the street. It was surprisingly mild (my thermometer read 29 degrees, a far cry from the 44 degrees I saw a month ago on my weather page) and not raining, and soon enough I was in the bustle of Paharganj, the main tourist ghetto of India's capital.

Somehow I had forgotten how hideous Delhi can be. I suppose that it being the rainy season, the city isn't looking its best, but compared to Kathmandu, my favourite big city on the subcontinent, it seems squalid. Even the tourist ghetto of Calcutta, Sudder Street, seems less down at heel. On the other hand, it is a lot cheaper to eat and stay here than, say, Japan, and in a few days I'll be on my way to the north, monsoon floods permitting.

Two days ago, on the 6th, I had a quiet last day riding to Narita airport. The night before I had been glad to be staying indoors at my friend Nick's house in Oyama, as torrential rains beat down all night. I left the next morning and soon, to my delight, the rains stopped and the weather stayed dry all the way to Narita. I rode south and then east, cutting through Noda, the home of Kikkoman Soy Sauce, along one of the most unpleasant roads in Japan. I used to think that Route 4, Janan's version of the Trans-Canada Highway, was the worst road in the country to cycle along, but I realize now that I was naive and ignorant of the true horror of prefectural road 17, which has all the snarling truck traffic of Route 4 but only 2 narrow lanes, no shoulder or sidewalk and nothing scenic to recommend it. I stopped in for tea with Satomi, one of my students who's going to be a math teacher in my old stomping ground of Morogoro, Tanzania, where I lived with my family 24 years ago.

Then I continued, past endless factories, warehouses, asphalt and concrete, through woods ankle-deep in garbage thrown out of passing cars, until I found a shortcut to the Tone River embankment. Japan, with its mania for pouring concrete, has devoted billions of dollars to paving the banks of most of its rivers, but the really big ones are spared this fate, being hemmed in at a respectful distance by huge earthen dikes topped with small roads. Along the Tone, these dike-top roads are closed to cars, leaving them the preserve of cyclists and joggers, so I spent a couple of happy hours in peace and quiet, looking out over the rice fields to the south and the bird-filled marshes towards the actual river, zipping along. Eventually I turned off and headed south on the last 15 km leg to the airport. I found a ramen restaurant run by an ex-sumo wrestler and stuffed myself silly on chanko ramen, a protein-rich dish that is used to fatten up sumo wrestlers. It was possibly the most filling meal I've ever had in Japan, and the perfect antidote to the hunger caused by riding 100 km.

I camped in a disused lot close to the airport, got up early and rode the last 10 km to Narita, arriving in plenty of time to disassemble the bike, pack all the luggage into one monstrous backpack (plus some carry-on items), pick up my ticket and check in. The airport police were suspicious and made a note of my Alien Registration Card details; I wonder if my employers will get a call about a dodgy-looking employee of theirs taking his bike apart outside their police station. At check-in, I got a nasty surprise. I'm always over the luggage allowance, but usually I get away with it, or with paying $50 for having outsized luggage, to wit my bike. This time, however, with 38 kilos (24 kg of luggage and 14 kg of bike), they wanted to charge me. They very nicely only charged me for 8 extra kilos, rather than the 18 kg by which I exceeded the limit, but my jaw dropped when I saw the bill: US$ 350! I begged. I pleaded. I protested. I batted my eyelashes at the attractive check-in clerk. I told them that I was a penny-pinching bike tourist on a world tour. Eventually, in the face of my stubbornness, they consulted with management and told me, quietly, that they would make an exception, but JUST THIS ONCE! I thanked them profusely and scuttled off before they changed their minds. In the end, the flight was 80% empty (I had 4 seats to myself to stretch out and sleep), so it wasn't a question of weight, and I was glad that I was able to charm my way through. On the way, the captain pointed out distant Himalayan peaks that may or may not have been the Everest group poking out behind towering monsoon cumulonimbus clouds.

So now I hope to cross paths with some friends who are returning from trekking and cycling in the Himalayas; I hope they have some good tips. The newspapers (my favourite part of India: 5 cents for a great English-language daily, full of news, with cryptic crosswords and chess columns) are full of accounts of landslides, floods and washed-out bridges to the north caused by monsoon rains. I hear that the road from Kullu to Manali, along which I hope to cycle to continue getting my flabby legs into shape, is cut by a landslide at the moment. I hope that the papers are right and that the worst of the torrential rains will now sweep to the northeast and inundate Assam and Bangladesh rather than Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir.

So until I leave Delhi in a few days, I will amuse myself eating great Indian food and watching the endless theatres of the streets here. My current favourite sight is that of 10 schoolgirls in uniform crammed into, or hanging onto the sides of, one cycle rickshaw pedalled by a wisp of a man whose every muscle fibre strains from the exertion. It's an image to remember if I ever feel sorry for myself and my 30 kg of luggage in the mountains.

Rainy Day Cyclist, 36

It is an article of faith in Japan that there are four seasons in Japan. It is even a common misconception that Japan is unique in the world in this regard. If you ask a Japanese student to write an English composition on the climate or weather in Japan, I guarantee that some statement about four seasons will occur. And yet this commonplace assertion is, in fact, wrong. There are FIVE seasons in Japan: summer, fall, winter, spring and a month-long rainy season, or tsuyu. Once you point this out to your Japanese friends, they will probably agree with you, which makes you wonder how the misconception survives so vigorously.

I mention this only because the rainy season is here in full force. I have spent two full days cycling south from my temporary home in Fukushima prefecture (the place under the centre ring in the following map: http://map.yahoo.co.jp/pl?nl=37.34.54.595&el=140.26.04.106&la=1&fi=1&sc=10, (the town of Nihonmatsu), towards Narita airport (under the crosshairs of http://map.yahoo.co.jp/pl?nl=35.46.24.848&el=140.19.20.291&la=1&fi=1&sc=10, through almost non-stop rain. It has not been fun in any way. I have been cold, wet and stiff for 2 days, but nothing that another few days in the saddle won't cure. The rain has been amazingly constant; I feel like the Rain God in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, becoming a conoisseur of the dozens of different types of liquid precipitation. I hope the monsoon rains in India don't spill over the Himalayas to drench us every day in Ladakh!

I've ridden through a series of forgettable little towns, with names that translate prosaically to things like Two Pines (Nihonmatsu), White River (Shirakawa), Horse Head (Bato), Little River (Ogawa) and now Little Mountain (Oyama). I'm still essentially an illiterate in Japanese, except for the few hundred simple and common everyday words used in place names and people's last names, driven into my head by constant repetition while driving or cycling. I still haven't sat down to memorize the two thousand others that I would need to be functionally literate, and perhaps this indicates a serious lack of commitment to Japan and its culture. Maybe it's just as well that I only spend short bursts of time here.

To avoid spending all my time cycling damply along, I've lingered under convenience store awnings, consulting maps and reading Bruce Chatwin's superlative travel book The Songlines. It's dangerous literature, as it's an enquiry into the roots of myth, spirituality, religion and human culture, arguing that it all derives from migration and travel on foot. I certainly feel spiritually refreshed and culturally awakened by being back on the road, even if it's been a series of rather unscenic Japanese highways seen through a perpetual downpour. The tiredness and listlessness of the past 3 months have dropped away and I feel fully alive again. Maybe I need to spend even more time connecting to my nomadic roots

Anyway, the first 200 kilometres of the warm-up ride are going fine, my Achilles tendons (always my weak spot at the start of a trip) aren't too painful, and I'm looking forward to sleeping indoors tonight at my friend Nick's dry, warm house. At least it's been useful for making sure my body and bicycle and equipment are in shape for bigger challenges to come. Every time I start a new bike trip, it takes a couple of days to get used to handling such a heavy, awkward beast. It's rather like pedalling a fully-loaded shopping cart.

Until next time, I remain

The Soggy Nomad