Troubles in Paradise

When Pakistan and India became independent, Kashmir had already some sovereignty. The Maharajah was Hindu, but the majority of the population was Muslim. 1947 the Maharajah had to make a decision in choosing to join either Pakistan or India Before he reached a decision, a Pakistani militia invaded Kashmir and started a small pro-Pakistan rebellion. Indian forces came to the Maharajahs defence and got aided by most Kashmiris, who actually wanted to stay independent from the two giants. When the fight was over and the Kashmiris thanked for the help and wanted the Indians to withdraw, the Indians were like "nhaa.. We think we'll stay for a while." and the Maharaja signed a treaty with India. India controlled now most of Kashmir, except for the north-western parts which Pakistan had taken and a small part which China had taken. Since then, there has been constant problems in this area, with two major wars between Pakistan and India; one between India and China. Terrorist acts from mainly Muslim groups, pushing either for independence or joining Pakistan, usually hitting Hindu people in the southern regions and in India mainland. The Indian military has many times been worse then the militants they look for, accused for abductions, torture and discriminating the Muslim population.

2008: Some places in Kashmir have highly significance to the Hindu faith and many Hindus make pilgrimage every year to these sites, often being targeted by Muslim terrorists. This year the Shrine board, controlling land in holy Hindu sites, bought some land in Kashmir and this caused big reactions amongst the Muslim population. By the treaty with India, a law exists that forbids non-Kashmirirs to buy Kashmir land. So big protest and riots were made in the capital of Srinigar and in the country side. In the end they won their cause and the land purchase was revoked. So now, in the second biggest city, Jammu, with a predominantly Hindu population, big demonstrations and strikes were called. Also Muslim people started to get attacked by Hindu mobs and big religious clashes starting to accure everywhere in Kashmir.

This is when I'm coming from Kargil in Ladhak, crossing pine tree covered mountains down to Srinigar in Kashmir. My first impression is how much this looks like Switzerland, and that's also what Indians call this place, little Switzerland. With it's many flowers and wildlife, this has been called a paradise by people who has been here. It is very beautiful, but there is a massive military presence. Driving down the road, endless military convoys pass by and there are a couple of guards every half kilometre of the road down to Srinigar. When I finally got there, I didn't notice too much tension, even though so many soldiers and police. I managed to search up my recommended house boat between 1500 of them. The Dal Lake is located in the city and thus Srinigar has many canals and waterways. By the big lake you can stay in a house boat which is a nice experience. Most traffic is by gondola type boats and it's pretty good to have most business coming to you this way. As you sit on the porch, the convenience store (in it's true sense) comes floating by, the grilled lamb man, the tailors, etc, etc. Even the garbage collector comes by every second morning. Lot's of birds hang around here, kingfishers, ducks, geese and hundreds of eagles flying high above. Can life be any more easy? I submit that it can not!

The next morning Sharon arrived. Her bike is in a bad condition and it had to be transported to Srinigar where it could be fixed. A strike had been called to day, but some shops where still open. Walking down the city to find the place where the truck driver would drop the bike off, you could feel the tension in the air. At times people told us to go back, and up, further along the road we saw police with shields and bamboo sticks being hailed by rocks. After a while they had some protesters dispersed by tear gas, but the casualty was one police man holding his eye with blood flowing through his fingers. These incidents happened a bit here and there and it felt a bit aqward strolling by and asking the police for directions where to pick up the bike, while they and their colleges had just been into battle. Finally finding the place where the bike would be dropped, we sat down and waited and had a chat with a few military men and civilians. A small truck drove by on the opposite road, it was filled with men carrying sticks, and they threw rock and harassed any still opened shop and drove away. I asked one guy why the police doesn’t do anything, he pointed at the police man sitting next to me 'ask him!. Clearly, the police are a bit scared and/or reluctant to escalate the tension with the extremists. When the bike finally came, it had to be locked up in the shop. No work could be done today.

The next 2 days were similar tension in Kashmir. Protests, shops closed and clashes with police. I couldn't resist taking the camera down and follow a minor clash between police and protesters. I was very comical. The police seemed to adopt the tactic off being as disorganised as the ones they were fighting. Some police would spontaneously charge, but looking back and seeing no one had followed and had to run back. Both sides throwing as many stones at each other, with the line of control moving up and down. It all looked similar to the western front in WW1, lot's of shouting and screaming, teargas canisters being thrown back and forth, but nothing really accomplished. Me and some media in the middle of it all taking pictures. Finally the police retreated up to the intersection to the armed vehicle and secured that area. Victory shouts and dancing on burning tires on the protesters camp.

Finally Sharon managed to sort out her bike, which was quite funny because women drivers are unheard of up here. I took some time before they understood that there were no third person driving the second bike, she was driving the bike. One guy turned to me with a surprised look 'She can drive a motorcycle? Like, I mean, a long distance???'. 'Yes my friend' I said, 'She is well trained". With Sharon’s bike fixed, I took mine to another mechanic, Mr Hassan, to fix some minor stuff... I thought... in reality, I opened up a can of worms. Trying to fix the annoying sound I've had, we finally discovered that it came from the crank pin. Opening up the whole engine, we saw that the pin, instead of having a nut, had been welded on. A real blue peter badge! The welding had come undone and metal pieces where floating around in the engine. This would take time and money to fix and Srinigar at the moment was not the best place to do it. Tip nr2: Don't fix your bike in a notorious conflict zone!

The next day the situation had escalated. People in Jammu had blocked the road to Srinigar and stopping all trucks, even killing four Muslim drivers. This road is the life line to Srinigar and now people here started to get really pissed off... and hungry! A curfew was called in all Kashmir and Jammu and the minor incidents that acured in Srinigar, spread all over the city. From our house boat we could hear and see at the distance, fighting with police and tear gas shells exploding. This was not a minor clash as I had seen, but major ones with live rounds occasionally fired. In a big protest, thousands of Kashmiris was going to walk the road to Pakistan as to say that they had enough of India and wanted to join the Pakistanis. They were stopped on the way and shot at, killing 27 people and hundreds wounded. The hospitals in Srinigar were over filled and on local TV they were asking for medicine and any assistance that could be provided. The next 2 weeks was like this. Curfews and strikes, very few shops opened sometimes. Down at the boat house things were very good. I had been recommended a very nice family and they took care of us very well. The lake was like a safe haven and things were calm, the days with curfew I spent playing games with the boys and reading, very relaxing. When there was 'just' a strike, but you could walk the streets, I and Hassan drove around looking for spare parts and a leth man to put the engine back together. Driving through the city was like being in a war zone. On the roads, burnt vehicles were still smoking and masses of people were chanting slogans and stuff. We came in to a street and lot's of people started shouting at us. The thing is that I look very Hindu and if not that, then I look Israeli... both nationalities not very popular here! Two guys on a motorcycle stopped us on the way and Hassan told me 'STop! stop stop!' All of a sudden I was surrounded by 30-40 people with various home-made weapons and shouting at me at an unknown language. I looked back and Hassan had disappeared! I saw him in the crowd looking at me with huge eye's and thought 'F%^K!!!' I could just visualize him telling the crowd 'I didn't know he was Hindu. Let's get him!'. I looked around trying to guess the most leader type I could find, and told them that I didn't understand what they were saying and that I was a tourist. Hassan was saying to the crowd that I was English! The crowd kept on jabbering in some language, but finally a man with big al-Qaeda beard and white robe asked me in English were I was from and I said Sweden. He said 'It's ok, you can go' and started to push away the crowd with some other fellows. Hassan jumped back on the bike and we made distance, fast... I can look like many nationalities and in India I melt in very well, which is good for not being harassed by sellers and getting local prices to places. But here, it is defenatly a disadvantage with Muslim mobs wanting to give me stone showers and police wanting to perform bamboo massages. Usually they catch on pretty quick that I'm not local, but still.

At the end, after two weeks of drama. We managed to sort the bike out and finding a gap when there was a 3 day break from strikes, and we headed off!

Note: At the time of writing, the Hindu protests (which was done all over the country) gave results and the government agreed to give the land back again to the Hindu Shrine board. Happy feelings in Jammu, but in Srinigar, I can just imagine a massive conflict arising.

Bob, Zanskar and Demon Swordsmen!

After driving around the areas close to Leh, Sharon and me decided it was time to leave and head towards Kargil and then Zanskar Valley. The way up was nice and the road good and we spent 2 nights in a small town called Lamayuro. Here lays the oldest monastery in Ladhak, and as usual, nicely situated on a cliff. A big shot Lama was here for 4 days to give teachings and the monastery was packed with people. The teachings were in them selves good, but with a all dead time for translations from Tibetan to English and Ladaki, even a senior monk sitting in the honors podium fell asleep. Me and Sharon had no chance, after I woke her up, we tip toed our way out.

We headed on north to the bigger town of Kargil, a place situated very close to the disputed line between Pakistan and India. This town was artillery shelled a few years ago in the so called 'Kargil war'. As soon as we came near Kargil, the people, architecture and religion changed from Ladhakian Buddhist to Muslim. Nice white and brown monasteries, to turquoise and pink mosques. Signs are mostly in Arabic and it felt a bit like being back in Egypt. In the entrance of town is already posters with old Khomeini, as the population is mainly Shia Muslim here. Inside the town is many similar posters with other old men with turbans and white beard. We stayed here only one night, checking up the bikes. Next morning we started our journey towards Zanskar Valley. If Ladhak, at least until a few years ago, was a isolated part of the world, Zanskar is the essence of it. This Valley can only be reached during the few summer months, as the road can be opened. During the winter it's almost totally isolated, reachable only by foot and Yak. The road was the most horrible I ever been on. I'm sure the Romans must have built better roads! The dreaded Manali - Leh road was a new built auto-bahn in comparison to this! After 5-6 hours drive, we made 70km and got off with the heads still shaking!

We met a climbing expedition team in a small guest house where we spent the night. The nearby mountains of Nun and Kun attracts top climbers, but one group of climbers had been a bit careless and 2 disappeared, one was found frozen. The had been told by the guide to come down from base came because the weather had started to turn bad, but going against his instructions and also ignoring the guidelines, the wanted adventure and stayed. They knew the risks, up to them. Now the expedition was there to collect them but also to train some local youth in proper climbing techniques, to make them future guides.

The next day the trip to Zanskar went on. The landscape here is breathtaking and after being jaded a bit from Leh areas, this was really nice. But the bad road made it hard to concentrate on the surrounding's. You need an eye all the time on the way looking for a way around rocks and holes, crossing big water streams and avoiding trucks and jeeps. Preferably honking a bit just in case, sometimes the drivers fall asleep and can hit you without knowing. Some people Sharon met had been in a jeep were the driver snoozed off and drove off the road, luckily not at a drop off, and they came away only with cuts and bruises. Driving a Royal Enfield can be really great, but it can also be a royal head ache. Apart from some oil on the spark plug in the mornings and a slight knocking noise, Vaselia has been running really great the whole time. Bob has been having some difficulties with the gears that keep slipping off, but still it's manageable and we keep moving forwards. Time to time you have to make an annoying stop at the police check post. It is totaly useless, they just want to fill in anything in the papers because they know it doesn't really matter. One police asked me what registration number the bike had. I couldn't really hear or understand him, so I asked "Registration?" He started filling in 'R-E-G-R-I...' on the papers.

Reaching Karsha, a village with a big monastery near the main town of Padum, we found a really nice family whom we could stay with. There's also a whole bunch of hyper active kids, fingering and looking at everything we did, a big annoying if they weren't so lovable. The house had also a perfect view of the monastery and the surrounding valley, which was specially nice at night time. The only thing was that we had to park the bikes near the main square, which was crowded with small kid with nothing better to do then climbing, pulling, pushing and jumping on every inch of Vasilia! Every time I came within sight of the bike, I had shoo away some kids before they would pull a 180kg Enfield on top of their heads!

We seemed to have come at the right time The next day was a 2 day festival at the monastery with masked dances and night time festivities in the village. We went to to see the festival in the monastery, which had much much less visitors and tourist and no charges for front seats or whatever. The dances were much like the one in Hemis that I had seen before, with impressive costumes and a lot of Buddhist symbolism. But instead of small monks with bamboo sticks, whipping people from coming to close, was a Demon swordsman (with a real sword) with a scarf over his face, drawing lines in on the ground but constantly having to smack people a bit with the steel to move them. I was sitting on the main stairs where the actors/dancers were coming down, and around me sat some other people also trying to squeeze up against the sid to not be in the way. The demon swordsman homed in on us. Spanking away people around me, he surprisingly left me squeezed against the stone wall and didn't touch me. Great! I had a nice spot for taking pictures, almost to close as the dancers almost smacked and stept on me as they danced down the stairs. The demon swordsman walked over to me again. This time he bent forward a said "Claudio, you remember me? Tenzin Lekshey?". "Yeeaaaa!!" I lied, I had no clue... They are all named Tashi, Tenzin, Dolma etc.. But after the dances were over he came up to me again and I saw who it was. One of my athletes from the Tibetan Olympics in McLeod G. I knew he was a monk, but not that he was sword swinging old ladies and not that he was staying here. It turns out that the house we are staying with in is also part of his family! Small world they say...

Zanskar valley is something else. Off the beaten track, the villages are still quite untouched, but very soon they probably will be bombarded with internet, Kashmiri souvenir shops, restaurants and the usual tourist things. This because a road is being built to link the Valley with Manali. Then it will be easier and faster even to come here, then Leh. This is really good for the people living here in isolation and bring them closer to Buddhist Ladahk instead of the administration from Muslim Kargil.

Having some time on our hands, we thought about finding a mechanic and fix Bob's gearbox problems. In the town of Padum, we found a man some people called a mechanic, but he didn't want to touch the bike. Instead the was a group of other willing men to help, that hallways through the operation said "No, we are not mechanics, but we like to fix things our selves!" As you can understand, the gearbox ended up 10 times worse and as icing on the cake, they gave Bob a very strange and bad sound coming from the engine. We had to change his name from Bob to Crazy Frog because of that.
So tip nr1: Don't give your bike to be fixed by local farm boys!
Bob never made the drive back home to Karcha and had to be left by the side of the road... Big bummer! The only solution was to put him on a truck and send him back to Kargil and, hopefully, fix him there. Sharon took the bus.

She's on fire!!!

No time to rest! The day after passing the blizzard, there was a big festival at a monastery called Hemis, an hour or so from Leh. It is the biggest monastery in Ladhak, quite beautiful but to packed with people for our liking. Tons of tourists and locals were crowding the central area where the masked dances would take place. The battle for the longest camera lens was on. Me and my mate Jose, a professional photographer ran around nuts with the cameras inside the monastery. We managed to elbow our ways to some prime spots "ringside", just by the allowed line, guarded by 8year old munks with bamboo sticks, hitting people like the LAPD shouting"back please, side please!!"The dances were a bit lame, but the feeling, costumes and masks were really breathtaking. It was a shame it started raining towards the end and most people ran away and didn't see the finale.

So, it was time for another Enfield experience. Jumping on the bike to drive home, I tried to kick start her and small signs of life next to nothing. Suddenly Sharon points out some smoke under the seat. Looking down I saw a fire big enough to BBQ hot dogs. Eject! Eject! I jumped off the bike faster then lightning, then got to my senses as Sharon threw water on it. The wires were totally burned away... Again, we had to roll her down as far as possible since we were high up on the mountain side. By the road we tried to fix her by cutting of the back break light wire (U never use that light anyway) and fixing it to the battery. Another start, another fire, stopped by Jose and a bottle of water. We had to stop a vehicle a get a thicker wire to connect. A nervous start again; supervised by Jose 'the fireman' ready with one hand full of sand, one with water, it finally seemed to work. The drive back to Leh was a nervous one though, with Sharon constantly looking down under the seat. During the drive I knew I had to change the whole electric system. I refuse to feel like a mafioso, waiting for the bike to explode every time I start the bike! Next day I changed the whole dodgy 8volt system to a normal Enfield 12volt. It was amazing what difference that made. Most importantly my horn now sounds like a trains and people and vehicles jump to the side as like one was coming! Now, hopefully everything is sorted with the bike. And no more Enfield Club stories!

After all of this, still Sharon has turned a liking for driving Enfields and wants to get her own. After an intense hunt for a bike for sale, we found am older model with a deep booming engine 'Bobob boboobo' So she bought him and named him 'Bob'. Now, Bob and Vaselia is going together for adventures up north, on to Zanskar Valley and further on to Kashmir and Srinigar!

Vaselia vs Blizzard

When you have a motorbike in India, particular an Enfield, it becomes your world and decent mechanics here and there becomes your, want to be, best friends and saviors. There you spend allot of time together with other enthusiasts, fighting for the main mans time and attention, sucking them up with chai. There is always something more to fix, improve and decorate. Also my circle of friends tend to be more bikers now days and more and more conversations about our toys. It was about time that my bike got a name and what could a Cloud better want then the goddess of wind carrying me. So her new name is Vaselia, the goddess of Wind, Stars and Travels. I also invested 4€ on a full face helmet, making my looks change from teenage skater to a Power Ranger wanna be.

After fixing her up and giving her a nice cosmetic makeover, it was time to take her out for a new trip. We were going to Pangong Lake, a huge lake up in the mountains, crossing over from India to Tibet. Sharon, an English girl I met in Leh came on the back of my bike and a french couple I met coming to Ladhak, came on another. The roads in Ladahk are quite good and it was a nice drive past valleys and over the worlds third highest motorable pass. Vaselia was going very well, until the other side of the pass where I had to drive through a small river and she just died coming out on the other side. Luckily the road was down hill and just using the breaks I managed to navigate her down hill on some dodgy road with the horn barely sound able and trucks popping up around corners. The battery seemed to be dieing on me as well and instead of a beep there was a pathetic sheep's baaa. In India, worse then having bad brakes is having a bad horn. Somehow we made it down and the engine came on and off all the time until it just died again outside of a guest house in a village.

Next morning the power of the bike was completely gone and after a bit of panic and running here and there looking for a new mechanical savior, we checked the battery one more time and saw that one of the wires were off. She was OK again after fixing that! Off again, continuing to the Lake through a bit dodgy roads and crossing rivers we finally made it there. The Lake was beautiful, constantly changing color depending on the light, going from dark blue to turquoise with the brown mountains surrounding it. We stayed with a really nice family in their small house over the night. It is amazing in these parts how it can be so extremely hot and when the sun is covered or goes down, how cold it gets. Up here is the only place they say you can get a sunburn and frost bite at the same time! The temperature ranges in the summer between -2 to 40 degrees. The people here are so resistant to the weather the didn't react to the flux's, we kept changing clothes.

When we woke up in the morning, it was snowing! Our hopes for a change didn't come and foolishly we left anyhow to go back to Leh. "Down" at the lake it was snowing, but up at 5000 meters it was a blizzard raging! I couldn't see anything with the helmet visor down, so with it up and having horizontal snow flying in to my eyes, I could see a bit of the snow and icy "road" winding up. Vaselia struggled bravely on upwards, but she was so hot I could smell the engine and hear her sizzling the snow before landing on her. At times the loud roar barely took us up. Crossing the point of no return, it was better to go on forward to the military barrack on top of the pass. I was pushing her like a lunatic, not to unlike Quin in the movie "Jaws", shouting "come on you #&'é" and singing madly, as the machinery was on the brink of collapsing. With Sharon pushing on the worst snowy bits, Vaselia made it to the pass and to the surprise of a Indian gentleman watching two snow men on a snow bike, ecstatically driving passed the tea house, shouting victory slogans and continuing downwards. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore and my boots were covered with ice, but I didn't want to risk getting stuck on the top for a few days. As we came further down, the soldiers of a station rescued us with two gasol stoves to warm our limbs and some hot chai for our dumb heads. To this day I'm still a bit numb on my left finger tops! In the end of the day, another experience and another story for the guys of the Enfield Club. Having the bike and driving it for barely a week I haven't done too bad at all, earning my "Wheels"

My new Lady

So, there's a new lady in my life... She is 19 years old, weighs 160kg, Indian with English descent, has a loud roar when she gets going and needs lot's of attention and service!! Yes, she is a proper 350cc Enfield Motorcycle!

I remember when I first was going traveling outside of Europe. I went to the doctor to get all kinds of vaccines, mosquito nets and malaria tablets. The doc told me something that I would keep in my mind until now. He said "Claudio, it doesn't matter how many of these shots I give you, as long as you don't drive a motorcycle abroad, chances are you are going to be fine!" Hehe... If he only knew I was going to drive a bike through India, where 300 people a day die in traffic accidents! So, I got a cool half face helmet also for safety, making me look something like a skater. Anyhow, he should have better told me about all the head aches and tantrums this bike could bring.

Straight after I bought her, I had her checked up at Anu's workshop (a well known mechanic apparently) and next day me and Tashi head off on one of the most spectacular road in the world. 500km, it can only be opened during the summer months, it's going over the second highest motor pass in the world before coming down into the Tibetan plains and finally reaching the town of Leh. This is considered one of the most risky roads in India, because many parts of it is not really a road, sometimes it's as wide as a Swedish bicycle lane (and trucks try to pass each other there!) and as the snow and glaciers melt the avalanches keeps destroying it. There is constantly 1000 of workers mending the road, so mainly the military can get through. Many people were trying to talk me off from going, but I guess it's nice conditions to start learning how to drive an Enfield!

Day 1: We were supposed to meet another Belgium couple and a German dude to go together for the tripp early in the morning, but my bike broke down just at the intersection and I couldn't get it started... This was shit, just had it serviced for a full day!! After calling down my sleepy, hangover mechanic to the road and checking the bike for two hours or so, changing this and that, we discovered the fault. I had put in some metal spare parts in a compartment on the bike filled with electric wires... ooops, as we opened the compartment there were electrical fire works sparkling away in there; and also in the mechanics eyes, looking at me sideways! 4 hours later we were on the way again!

The partly muddy road winded slowly up to a high pass were Indian tourists were enjoying 100x10 meters lenght of snow with Yaks pulling them up, and going down on big tires. Some youth were hip hop dancing, fully dressed to their ears like Eskimos. After that first mountain pass, the road was really good and it was a nice travel in the valleys.

Day 2: This is life! Riding an Enfield a bit nonchalant with my feet up on the leg guard, cruising amongst the most amazing scenery I ever seen. Spectacular mountains, deserts, lakes, canyons and sand rock formations. The road gets a bit tricky here though, but my Lady is holding up really well. By the side of the road we pass many groups of workers, hacking big rocks to smaller pieces with sledge hammers, the smaller bits with big hammers and finally knocking those rocks to gravel with small hammers. This is proper medieval work and the workers are black, fully dusty and probably earning shit. In the evening we made it to Pang, an isolated oasis of a few tents for food and sleeping matts. Our heads are a bit spinning from the ascent to this 4000m something altitude.

Day 3: In the morning I put in some engine oil and when I start the bike, she starts spewing out oil in a big leak all over the ground... my poor baby! I can't drive the bike any further, with no oil the engine would crash after a few km. We try to close the leak with some M-Seal (a poxy kind of mass that turns rock hard), but as soon as the engine starts, the leak finds its way out. A big biker gang ride by and a mechanic give me some more M-seal, not to any use, the oil kept leaking out. After a long day of frustration, Anu and his group of customers suddenly appears and comes to stay the night in Pang. Finally I can get some proper help from the famous mechanic. He gives me some M-seal and advice how to put it on... wow, surely this has to work now...

Day4: I try the Anu way and wait a few hours, but big surprise, leakage streams out.. Time for another solution! On the road, a truck had stopped with some problems with the cooling system and we ask the driver if he can help us to take the bike to Leh. For 500 rupiees he agrees and we struggle to load the bike up on the truck which is loaded with cement to take to Leh. After some food and drink, the driver tell us to wait by a main road in Leh at 8 o'clock the next morning. Finally everything sorted, we leave some bags in the truck as well and head off on Tashi's bike! Driving over the worlds second highest motorable road, we finally made it to Ladhak. Ladhak region is a part of Tibet and is more Tibetan then the Chinese counterpart where much of the culture has been destroyed. Here all monasteries and cultural heritage remains untouched. Amazing scenery of green valley and brown coloured mountains as we drive all the way to Leh. This is can not be called a city, it is more a small town with a few main streets. This that used to be a very isolated part of the world, is now getting crowded with tourist shops and Internet.

Day 5: Up in the morning a stand by the road at 8! One hour pass, two, three, four... f^&k!! The truck is not coming. Tashi is saying not to worry, but that's pretty hard for me. At least I have a photo of the truck and the licence plate. Being only one road between Leh and Manali, I start back tracking the check posts for to see if the truck already has passed towards Leh or not. After a whole day checking everywhere, it seemed that it still hadn't passed the mountain pass to Ladhak. But I had to be sure, so I hitchhiked all the way back to Pang on a truck. Finally reaching there at dusk, I saw the truck but no sign of the driver. Not much to do, I'm sleeping in the truck. In the small hours of night, a drunk driver stumbles in to the small driving area. When he finally understood who I was, he started an endless monologue in Hindi for ages before passing out next to me. Before having this wonderful experience of sleeping together with a drunk Indian truck driver, with whiskey breath on my face, I understood the the cooling system was broken and it would take two more days before he would make it to Leh.

Day 6: It's amazing how many people you met that you knew from before somewhere. 3 friends on bikes had been staying the night in Pang as well and were off to Leh, but no space for me with luggage. I hitched a ride on a truck back to Leh after breakfast (after Mr. Drivers morning drink) and after a long day, I finally came to Leh at night and updated my friends about the situation.

Day7: Finally I have a day to relax. I had a nice walk around this town, seeing the market, the castle and the mosques. This place have some nice restaurants and hanging around the tourist street I met allot of people from Vashisht. A group of western, long timers in India, all experienced biker, had heard what happened to me but the story was way out of proportion. It was like I handed over the my totally crashed bike to Aliens and were told to wait for a week for it, somewhere out in the desert. I don't know who told this story to the Enfield Club, but he sure broadened this out!

Day 8: So today I was finally going to get my precious baby back. I had made arrangement to met the truck by the main post office (where he was going to offload the cement) at 9 o'clock onwards in the evening. Again waiting, waiting, waiting for hours until around 11 the truck pulled up. I climbed and opened the door and three strange men sat inside and wondered who I was... I was certain this was the same truck and asked the guy's for the plate number, it was the same and I started yelling 'This is my truck!!' They guy's had no clue what I was on about and they told me the driver had been drunk half ways and had ran off into the desert somewhere. One of the guy's was the truck owner and wondered if the bags were mine. I told them I didn't give a shit about the bags, I want MY BIKE!! After I told them my story, they looked in the back and found my bike there. I was told they would offload it the next morning at 5, so I could come and get it then.

Day 9: 4.45 I woke up the gang in the truck. 2 hours later my lady was off loaded and finally back in my arms!! First thing was to take my baby to the doctor and have her stitched up. Then off to the beauty parlour and have her washed and cleaned from all the cement dust. A 3 day trip had turned out to a long journey, but finally everything had turned out good!

Babas, Malas and Football

After spending two nights up in Kiriganga, me and the Estonians headed down to Kasol again, packed and took off to Manali in their car. I had made plans with one of the athletes, Dawa Tashi, to come and stay with him in his village, Kalat, near to Manali. The Estonians jumped in to a hotel and I followed Tashi into a very small path for 10min into the forest, jumping over small streams and getting my face whipped by branches. Just as I was wondering where the h#ll we were going, a small house appeared. Tashi is staying with his grand parents, which are 78 and 88 years old and still very active running around doing stuff. They chat away with me as my Tibetan was supposed to be fluent, but I just return them a confused smile. And also staying here is his little niece, a shy girl that gives a smile and runs away, unless I freeze her with a pointed camera. The house is made in a traditional Tibetan style and has several rooms down stairs and two up, one being a small Gumpa (Tibetan temple). The kitchen house is next doors and has a large U shaped dining area, with the usual pictures of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama. I got the TV/guest room for myself and that was great for the late night matches. The next few days the Estonian team continued filming Tashi and his family for their documentary, while I was going for walks in Manali, even managed to see an old student of mine (nice to see you again Patrick) and bathing in hot springs, yet again.

Manali is the largest town in the north Himashal Pradesh region, before you head off on a two day ride up through the 2nd highest road in the world to Leh, which is the capital of Ladahk, a pristine Tibetan region within India. Manali itself is a buzling town, packed with Indian tourists who come here to enjoy the scenery, ski, paragliding, trekk and even go Yak-skiing! If you can find a herder who are willing, you get on the skis, holding on a line to a yak, a bag of nuts are strapped in front of the yak and off you go! Most travellers stay away from the busy town and lay their hats in either Old Manali or Vashisht, two villages nearby. After a few days with Tashi and his family, I moved on to Vashisht. Here is a strange mix of traditional farmers life, Indian tourists, backpackers, Hippies and Babas (holy men). A farmer got hold of me when I came with my back pack and threw me in to one of his rooms. It's harvest time now, so in the yard cows are walking on the wheat in circles and I just hang around watching the farmers life. The narrow streets are a mine field of cow shit and it's ok to get by though. But when it starts raining, the whole alleyways are flooded with smeared out poop, and then it's not so nice splashing around with flip-flops! In the main square of Vashisht, there is two old temples, one of which is walled in and has holy hot springs. These hot springs are very nice, walled in and with small altars with Hindu deities. Unfortunately it's always crowded by noisy Indian tourist, so it's a bit hard to fully enjoy the serenity and beauty of the place in a relaxing way. Rather you have to enjoy the Indian family interactions around the pool. Little kids reluctantly being dragged in by the fathers, people praying at the shrine, splashing, screaming and shouting next to your ear.

Since the football is on, most of my nights I hang out with the usual crowd (many Brazilians naturally supporting Portugal) in front of the big screen TV at the World peace cafe. During the days, usually spend my time in a shop learning how to do Malas, necklaces with semi-precious stones. My teacher, Zoohar, a Kashmiri fellow, is really nice to have conversations with and he keeps me coming back for playing chess, drinking more gallons of chai and selling stuff of course... So, after a week, I'm packed with 6 malas, 2 silver medallions, a big statue of Krishna, a Kashmir carpet and chai coming out my ears! But he is nice to chat with and he told me allot about the Kashmir history and the situation now. In Vashisht you have also many Babas, most of the time smoking chillums, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. Zohar usually give the Babas some rupees when they come to the shop and I asked him how he knows if they are really holy men. He laughed and said "yes.. cause then sometimes I see them in a restaurant, with gold rings on their hands, eating spaghetti.. Is this really a Baba I ask my self?"

Apart from hanging out with Zohar and at different restaurants and cafes, there's plenty of treks and walks around this area. Specially there is a huge waterfall with 2-3 drops all in all falling from about 300meters. After a looong climb, at the second drop there's a big cave and we went in and saw the waterfall from the inside out. Very nice indeed and I wish specially one friend of mine was here to see that! Now, DawaTashi and me are looking around for a cheap bike to rent, so in a few days we'll be taking off across the mountains to Leh! Now that will be a story to tell I'm sure!

Respect

Every day now I'm getting up early, around 6-7 o'clock and do my Yoga routine (yes, it's true Dixie). By Indian standards, at least up in Kasol, it's too early. When I come for breakfast at 8.30 to the only place that is opened, they are cleaning the restaurant and making it ready. All shops in the village are closed and I don't see any other travelers up. After, I go down for Internet and the guy tells me that I'm very early, the time is now 9.30.. This is very odd for me, I'm usually the late sleeper! Life in India goes slowly, no stress.

The Estonian team has decided to come and visit me in Kasol on their way to Manali. The day after their arrival, we head off to some trekking up the mountains. Driving the car to the end of the road, we walk for 4 hours up through a small, winding, hill side path. As we walk through a pine tree forest, I felt very much the resemblance to the forests I know in Sweden, but here there are the many small tea huts that are very welcoming on the way. The scenery is amazing with a river passing the narrow mountains, we pass several waterfalls and as you look up you see the clouds covering the snowy mountain tops. We started the day late, so when we finally came up to Kiriganga village, we collapsed for a few minuets and then made a bee line to the natural hotspring baths that is there.

The baths are as usual separated for the sexes, probably to protect the men from the women's peeks. While the women has theirs in a wooden shack, the male pool is outdoors and laying rather steep, so you have an amazing view over the green fields and mountains surrounding you. As we came up, light was quickly getting less and we could still read, or rather, make out some of the random text graffitied on the sides and a little here and there. It said things like no sandals in bath, take shower before bath, no bath at night and no bath between 5am and 7pm (?) and stuff like that. A middle aged, skinny Italian was the self appointed pool guardian as we came and he told us to shower before going in. A group of 6 Israelis came a while after us, when already it's turned dark. They showered and jumped in. As they were siting there, an Indian guy saw that two of them had their flip-flops on inside, and told them off with words like bastards and such. It was a bit thought less and disrespectful maybe, but it was dark and they said they didn't see the signs. It was a rather big deal, because in India, your footwear is considered very dirty, both mentally and physically. This was comparable to walking in with muddy boots into someones bathtub. The Italian pool police, with his funny colorful hippie hat, rang his sirens and blew off some steam, 'You bloody people have no f*cking respect!'. As he grew more and more psychotic, he started to jump up and down and yelling 'va fan culo' this and 'you f*ckers' that! As the small crowed was sitting still with our mouths open due to the over reaction (and this was even before the Italians got whooped by the dutch in football!), he started to run around, a dog got kicked, he grabbed 3 pairs of Israeli sandals and threw them up in the air, down the hill side into the dark. Now, the mad Italian must have been around 170 tall with half my weight and the 6 Israeli's were big boy's and everybody was waiting for an Israeli lynch mob retaliation. But everyone was shell shocked, and one of them even started yelling he was sorry for everything, with a tone like his birth was included! Soon after, as me and the Estonians silently made our way down, we saw some shoe less people stumbling around the hillside with lighters looking for their sandals.
So, this is how it can go if you don't learn to respect the culture you are in! You get thorns in your feet!

Being out in the bush, I was afraid I was going to miss the opening of the Euro 08. But no! A satellite dish and Tv had been brought up and powered by generator, all people cuddled up together in a restaurant and enjoyed the games... Forca Portugal and Sweden!!!