BORDERING INSANITY
A Thar and a bike too far. We head to the highest motorable pass on earth and no, it’s not Khardung La
“Don’t go beyond 12pm, China starts patrolling the border.”
What? China? We came looking for adventure but starring in the next episode of “Jailed abroad’ in a high altitude hut wasn’t what we bargained for. And with the growling exhaust and blinding orange paintwork, the Thar I’m driving is as inconspicuous as a rogue elephant at a tea party – a half-blind sniper could easily pick us out and earn himself a medal.
Welcome to the Mana Pass on the Indo-Tibet border in the Garhwal Himalayas. It isn’t clear just how high Mana La is – some websites put it at 18,399 feet while others say it’s just 18,192 feet – what’s clear is that this is now the highest motorable road on earth. A recent GPS survey measured Khardung La near Leh at 17,582 feet, so that mighty pass has had its day. The lure of the unexplored, and the thrill of driving on some of the toughest terrain on earth was what has brought us here; to get a GPS reading at the pass, tick it off our bucket list.
But first the height. Mana village to the pass is just 40km, but in those 40km, the road climbs 8000 feet – from 10,000 to over 18,000 feet. That means no time to acclimatise, for our bodies to get used to the lack of oxygen. I’ve never been hit by Acute Mountain Sickness before, but this time I’m asking for it. In my head, I’ve conjured up a lonely place with narrow roads and terrifying drops and no one to help the traveller in trouble. Sleep doesn’t come easily that night.
I’ve also made a small wager with Abhay. He’s the kind of guy who can make a scooty wheelie simply by staring at it. He says a motorcycle is the better tool for adventure and exploration. I think he’s a tool. To be
OVER JUST 40KM, THE ROAD TO MANA CLIMBS 8000 FEET AND
TAKES FIVE HOURS TO DRIVE
THROUGH
fair I love motorcycles, but on a trip like this with temperatures ranging from a Delhi tandoor to polar bear-freezing and with roads that even optimistically cannot be called roads, I’m happier to be sitting down with a roof over my head and a steering wheel in my hand.
Abhay doesn’t seem to be doing much sitting. Admittedly his choice for this trip does look rather purposeful. The Suzuki V-Strom 1000 has loads of suspension travel, great ground clearance and looks like it has been built for crossing continents. But I notice the tyres look suspiciously road biased and I think that’s where I will have an advantage. If I know anything about high altitude passes it’s that the roads leading up to them are usually terrible and those tyres don’t look the part. In his head I’m sure Abhay is sizing up the Thar and envying its mud-terrain Bighorns. The stage is set, the adventure is on.
Our journey starts in Noida, passing through Meerut and Haridwar and I’d rather not tell you about it because it’s long and boring. The only thing to note is the bike is way, way quicker than the Thar. It’s only after Rishikesh that the road starts climbing and the sky turns that shade of deep blue that makes your heart jump with joy. Abhay’s especially as he demolishes the roads, the V-Strom’s torquey motor demolishing the straights between the curves, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down much for the corners as well. Modern bike tyres, chassis and suspension are things of absolute wonder, I can tell you that much.
Not that the Thar is lacking in this department. Meet the Super Thar. No, it’s not for sale; this was built for Sunny Sidhu to win the Desert Storm (he finished second overall in 2013) after which it was languishing in a garage in Noida waiting for me to give it new purpose. Fully rally prepped,
this Thar has Fox rally suspension that played a big part in Sunny flying over dunes but out here it’s rearranging photographer Vikrant and my spine. The roar from the big-lug tyres and the 100-decibel exhaust note forces us to stop every 100km to give the ears a rest.
The road past Rishikesh is fragile – all the dynamiting to build this road has left the mountainside vulnerable and you can see this in the number of landslides all along the way. Abhay and I have to be very careful – around some corners, half the road has simply fallen into the river below and in some places, landslides have made the road seriously narrow and slippery. A frothy river awaits far below for anyone who puts a wheel wrong. It’s quite tricky negotiating this road and in some places, single lane, landslide affected stretches are so long, it’s likely you’ll meet another car midway forcing a hairraisingly long reverse. Abhay has other problems – he’s got to conserve his tyres, he’s got to preserve the chain (big adventure motorcycles need constant adjustment to keep the chain taut) and he’s got to be careful not to bend a rim. It’s tiring and all three of us are absolutely knackered by the end of the day. And this is just the prologue.
It takes us two days to get to Badrinath. And then the proper adventure begins.
It’s an innocent looking road. There’s a sign that says “last Indian village” which is Mana and it’s there we make a hairpin right onto this dirt road. Early morning, it’s a bit misty, there’s lots of slush and the narrow strip of dirt road climbs steeply. Abhay’s one-wheel drive is slipping and sliding all over the place, especially through tight uphill hairpin bends. Poor chap, four-wheel drive high is easily hauling the Thar up the road.
And then we break through the clouds into what must be one of the most desolate places this side of Antarctica. Ahead of us is all boulders and streams and the stark emptiness of the place is taking whatever breath I have left, away. We’re driving next to receding glaciers, towering slabs of rock and snow capped peaks all offset by that incredibly blue sky. It’s the kind of place that puts you in a trance – where rishis-munis come to meditate.
And then I notice the Thar’s fuel gauge is hovering below half. It’s okay– it’ll normally go 150km on half a tank – and that should be enough to get us to Mana and back to civilisation. Turns out I don’t know the Thar inside out. As the boulders on the road become bigger, I have to use four-wheel-drive low a lot and that’s guzzling gas, the motorsport ECU (mapped for the opposite of fuel efficiency) not helping matters. I don’t think Indian Oil trucks go all the way up here.
I’m kicking myself, and worse, it looks like the bike will make it – Abhay had the sense to top it up before starting off. I push on though, willing the needle to stay where it is.
The road to Mana La is stunning and is all the better for being off the tourist map – it makes Khardung La look like Marine Drive on a weekend. Our progress becomes slower as mother nature has clearly won over man’s attempts to cut a road through here but the plus side is we’re getting to take in the sheer scale of the place. It’s a huge brown space through which a tiny speck of orange and an even smaller spec of maroon are traversing.
THE ROAD AHEAD IS ALL BOULDERS AND STREAMS, AND OUR PROGRESS IS SLOW
THE ROAD TO MANA LA IS STUNNING AND
IS ALL THE BETTER FOR BEING OFF THE TOURIST MAP – IT MAKES KHARDUNG LA LOOK LIKE MARINE DRIVE ON A WEEKEND
Then, disaster! At 16,000 feet the bike sputters and dies. It refuses to move on without lots of revving and clutch slipping and that’s bad, the torque can burn the clutch pack easily. We’re still not sure what happened; maybe the ECU wasn’t tuned to run up there, maybe the air-filter was clogged but it just wouldn’t climb any higher. It needs to take Abhay back to Delhi and so, to save the bike, and with a long face, he decides to leave it and hops into the Thar. Vikrant has an even longer face – he’s now relegated to the back of the Thar, holding on to the spare tyres for dear life.
We bounce and rattle our way up under the harsh Himalayan sun and five hours later we get to an aquamarine blue lake at 17,950 feet. A signboard says ‘ Deo Taal’, the origin of the mythical Saraswati river that used to feed ancient India. The water is said to have magical properties (the whole premise on which Amish Tripathi’s Shiva trilogies are based) and I’m just blown away by the sheer magic of the place.
But it’s past noon. There’s nobody around – either to tell us to carry on or turn back; we are completely on our own out here. I’d liken it to no man’s land. We are just a kilometre and something from the proper International Line of Control. We could carry on, and enjoy the two minutes of fame that causing an international incident would lead to, but you’re reading this so better sense obviously prevailed.
We sip some of the water (no, my throat didn’t turn blue), soak in the sheer otherworldly spectacle, say a silent prayer for the diesel not to run out and turn back. Mana Pass wasn’t scaled but in hindsight I think it’s all the better for it. It remains an enigma. The world’s highest motorable road, cut through the most brutally difficult terrain, in one of the most spectacular regions on earth. It gives us a reason to return, for another adventure bordering on the insane.
THE WATER HAS MAGICAL PROPERTIES, AND I’M JUST BLOWN AWAY BY THE
SHEER MAGIC OF THE PLACE.