Day 4: Darcha - Sarchu - Pang - Rumste

Each day teaches you something different. And each day's challenges incrementally change often surpassing the previous day's challenges. When you think, oh this was so difficult - it's easy to assume that you ain't seen anything yet. I started early from Darcha - if there's one advice for future riders - it is this. Everyday is unpredictable on a lot of counts but one thing that is predictable is the sun will set between 6-7PM so you have a set number of hours to ride - everything that you do ride, fall, repair, survive etc. has to happen in the day - so start early as early as possible.

Except for 2 days during the entire ride, I did my Kriya everyday (Art of Living exercises) and I can't stress enough how helpful it is in building and training the mind. It keeps you alert, refreshes you and builds focus and relaxes you. The strength of the mind is what you need the most when something unexpected happens and that is the only thing that sustains you. And unexpected things do happen.

I've written earlier - I fell in the middle of nowhere-land - with raw mountains staring at me on either side of the highway, my face covered in yellow sand, not a shrub of green anywhere, an animal's hoof - the last living part I saw, the world's 2nd highest pass up ahead in 60km, less oxygen and dryness everywhere - you know you are in Leh and this is where I had a royal fall. Broke the left foot rest, side stand and took 10 min to tie the stand. Your mind can't focus either because it doesn't get enough oxygen. But when you survive, it becomes the greatest story of your day! Some 30km later I met a couple - the guy Artur from Poland and his wife from Canada - they lost their fellow riders and seeing me ride alone gave them confidence, they asked if they could ride with me. This was another thing I learnt - of course everybody's worried and there's fear - one has to be dull in the head not to recognize fear in themselves but the real juice is when you cross it - cross the fear, face the fear and go through it. And when you accept the fear, accept the risks - a strength comes, a faith comes from somewhere deep inside and that strength gives confidence not only to you but to people around you - ho jayega, we'll figure it out. So I directed my fellow-riders up the Tanglang La pass (2nd highest motorable pass) and beyond and insisted that we stop in Rumste as it was dusk. By the time, I reached Rumste the Bullet made all kinds of uncomfortable noises and put-putted till the tent where we stayed.

It was a fun night - I spent a lot of time with the locals and also Artur. Artur ran a doors-business in Ireland and decided to switch martial arts fulltime and moved to South Korea with his wife. He's been a motorcycle rider throughout his adult life and has riden all kinds of vehicles and ridden more in India than I ever have. For the first time (during our ride), he hit a rock and bent his brakes while trying to overtake a truck. The locals - one of them with an easy smile - we became good friends, he was sheep husbandry thingy - his job was the match the appropriate sheep so the quality of wool is superior enough to make the Pashmina (?) shawls. He told me about the life in Ladakh (which others repeated as I moved deeper into the region) - we can work only for 4-5 months, the other months it's so cold that it is impossible to work, we only survive, sometimes watch TV whenever there's electricity. It's rare to get vegetables - nothing grows here - wheat does but it's a rarity to get tomatoes, brinjal and other vegetables. But they were happy - when they smiled, it came from inside. I also met an Army officer here (there was a post closeby) - he'd come to enjoy a drink with the locals every night. This is what he said: I've worked 24 years with the army and now I've been posted here for 2 years even though I never wanted to. What I never understand is this, the army gives us a salary of Rs.14,000, puts me in a plane from Chandigarh and safely brings us here and gives us every facility but you guys struggle so hard on your motorcycles to come here to this trecherous place - why, I can never understand. I guess we see this as a duty and you don't.