cyclingthehimalayas.com : Mission Impassible!
Cycling in Central Asia, Cycling the Himalayas, Cycling in North India, Cycling in Nepal
Clockwise, above - the night before we flew to Uzbek...frame of mind?
Right - Our first pass, the Kipchek pass in in Uzbekistan.
Below right - Music shop, Chorsu Bazaar, Tashkent.
Below bottom right - The most revered man in central asia, the bread maker.
Below - Heading up the Kipchek pass offers a verdant landscape, a welcome break
from the dusty red/orange desert landscape of much of Uzbek. Note the three pockets
of the cycling top come in very handy in Uzbek, some days we were drinking 5/6 litres.
Behind the Scenes
Here's some extras: Some funny pics, some unexplainable, some favourites, and also some tips and mumblings regarding conquering those tough high passes...oh, and below our contact info...
Clockwise, above - Bout of food poisoning temporarily stops Ian's charge up the long meandering Alabel Pass, Kyrgyzstan.
Above right - Where there's a will, there's a way up a high pass - despite a night of vomitting and shitting, sometimes simultaneously, Ian triumphant atop the Alabel Pass.
Below right - The beautiful alpine scenery of Sonamarg, Kashmir, deserved a two day stop to wander amidst the amazing trees and rock formations to nearby glaciers.
Below - Getting better at packing the bikes - in a couple of used bike boxes ready to fly out of central asia to Delhi.
Clockwise, above - About 50km out of Leh the clear river flowed alongside the road that slowly climbs up to the mighty Taglang La, 5300m. A puncture forces an unplanned stop! While Ian was fixing his puncture, much to our surprise, a wonderful family from Bangalore stopped to chat, having conquered the Taglang La on bikes the previous day.
Bottom right - A fellow cyclist with fully loaded bike...that's where our similarity ends...what the fk is he selling?? The picture on the back is priceless.
Bottom left - A day trek gives Toby a wonderful view over Nako, Kinnaur valley, perched amongst a knot of mountains and valleys.
Left - Dry lake (or ice) bed on the Morei Plains, Leh to Manali Highway.
Clockwise, above, top - In the remote mountains from Rampur to Rishikesh - They started off staring at us in shock and disbelief, stoney faced...but we soon learnt that if we fool about and act like jesters, the locals soon warm up.
Above middle - It's rarely 5 star accomodation in the mountains.
Above bottom - Translation? Sign from Thakurdwara village, Bardia Park, Nepal.
Below - Subsistance living by the side of the highway in Nepal's Western Terai.
Below left - Perhaps a media and marketing company could assist these restauranteers?
Left - Entering Bardia National Park as the sun rises, Nepal Western Terai.
Above left - Toilets 'cum' bike parking in Rishikesh.
Top left - Scattered along the mountainside of Kinnaur valley, Pooh was mostly a military base, no more inviting than it's name suggests.
Clockwise, above - The wonderful kids of Chandenee school, our journey's end.
Above right - Foxy graffiti in Kathmandu.
Right - We almost decided to get married, just to watch this kid do his magic in Kathmandu.
Below - By rowing boat is a great way of digesting the stunning beauty of Pokhara's Phewa lake and surrounding peaks.
Battling the high passes:
1. Take plenty of water.
2. Leave early before the sun scorches.
3. Take it slow, plod, consider a 1 or 2 hr food stop half way up.
4. Have goal posts...one stretch of road at a time, stop, drink, seek out the next goal post, that corner there or that big rock there etc - it's as much a mental battle as physical.
If you have any queries regarding our journey please contact us and we'll be happy to reply!
Alternatively, think of it like this...
So, your at the bottom of the pass looking up, way up, you can see what you think is the peak/pass but there could be a bigger one lurking behind which is the real pass, you can't see it but you can hear on the breeze it's deep gutteral laugh as it senses this futile tiny creature having the audacity to try and conquer it. It's man versus mountain, david and goliath. It presents itself as a huge, brutish, unforgiving but majestic entity, like a dark god, but my flicker of divinity sees through this 'mountain' facade (Maya) and i understand we are one and the same in nature and that it is reliant upon my perception and in fact it is nothing more than the external projection of my past: negative experiences and baggage that have welded to me over many years, creating barriers in my present life: mountainous barriers. Recognising this, the opportunity to defeat the mountain pass is is an opportunity to defeat and shake off these past attachments and baggage stretching back as far as childhood, and i recall the words of Marcus Aurelius that i must accept what nature ordains or throws at me and that grumblings or anger creates uneccesary friction with the world...and so with this in mind, with acceptance, i pedal onwards up the pass, the legs feel the pain, the knees ache, occasionally the jaw clenches, the shoulders ache, pins and needles in the hands, but i keep going, i become lighter as the baggage and past negative eperiences begin to fall off me, past demons have been rightly cast aside on this up-hill journey of mind and matter, images and experiences of the past, illusions, merely fairy tales in my head, with no substance, fade away into singularity - singularity because the future too is unspent, uncertain, worthless in this moment - which i am now locked into, the mind passive like a still pond, focused, the head is down, i'm staring at the scrolling road literally just 5 or 6 feet in front, not a moment to look up and take in the view, breathing deeply in the nose and out of the mouth, repeating the mantra 'pedal, pedal, pedal', and if an image or thought flutters by distracting this harmonic moment, a stronger mantra is called upon: 'pedal, pedal, pedal you twat'...as I climb ever higher and the air is thinner i feel total clarity and as i finally hit the top of the pass an overwhelming feeling of joy, the pituitary (or pineal, if you prefer) gland activated and a new petal of higher consciousness opens deep inside where before there was a knot of negative experiences and past baggage blocking any spiritual development. On top of the pass, deep breaths, glowing, finally able to take in the scenery around me...and soon i'm thinking of a higher pass, something even more challenging that will take me even deeper on this spiritual, mental and physical journey.
Well.....it's either that or cycling up a bloody big rock...i guess it's up to us to choose how we see things. For people with too much energy the high passes are an alternative to a meditational retreat.