Hello Himalaya riders out there. It seems I kick in "late" but we were travelling, exactly there, last year. We took 5 weeks up in the North and it was worth all of it and even more.

Light bike can't be the problem - rather the contrary, for some roads are rough. We prepared our carburetors (smaller main jet, lowered the needle, and took of the airfilterlid for the very highest parts).

Manali to Leh is.......... awesome. Can't think of another word. Take your time for it. Stop and look around. And prepare your trip in chewable parts regarding to the height espacially ! Read info on AMS and be very carefull. For some reason we didn't have any problem besides a very mild headache at one stage, but we saw and heard others...
385 km between fuel right before Keylong and Leh. Camps in Darcha, Sarchu and Pang (and 1 or 2 small ones in between). The latter lays high - 4630 m - we choose not to sleep here but rode Sarchu to Leh in one long day. 3 days on the way up and 2 on the way back.
Darcha to Sarchu is the roughest day - we did 83 kms and were knackered. Around all passes: dirt track and a few river fordings. Toughest river crossing was shortly before the Baralacha La.

Nubra is a must (across the Kardung La at 5.600 m but we measured it lower, 5399 m by GPS both ways).

And for me the REAL highlight was our trip to Pangong Tso. A high altitude lake on the border with Tibet. It's just that, but the road to it (ROUGH in a few places !), and the lake's solitude and beauty and surrounding mountains is something we will never never forget. Have a look at our website for some pictures - not all have captions yet, but I'm sure it will give an idea.
(the full stories of our journey are also on our website)

Spiti is amazing too, but from Khoksar to Losar or a bit further even is 100% stony rough track with 3-5 deep river crossings, and more of the ride-through type (+/- 120 kms). We did Keylong to Losar in one day, then a half day to Kaza. On the way back --to our own surprise-- it took us just one day to get all the way from Kaza to Manali. And the weather was even rainy and foggy for half of the day.
Looking back, we think we should've done Spiti before going up to Leh, as we were already SO spoilt we weren't fully enjoying Spiti. But is IS beautiful of course. Absolutely visit Tabo gompa. Together with Alchi the oldest and the most finely decorated of all Northern India.
But do visit many gompa's - all have something special, and the monks are usually very welcoming and friendly.

O yes, another highlight is the road to Lamayuru gompa (and the Fotu La further on), direction Kargil. There's one road which devides in two somewhere before Lamayuru - can't recall exactly where but there's a huge yellow sign all of a sudden pointing in two directions. One is the main (lower and new) road to Lamayuru, the other is the old high road. Difference between them is 560 metres !!! The views from the old, rarely used road over the valleys, the low road and villages is simply AMAZING. We were all alone there and surprised two eagles on the road side. The high road ends (or begins if you come from Leh) with 27 spectacular hairpin bends. The road is slowly crumbling as it's no longer used much, but it's ok.

I'm very sure Tso Kar and Tso Moriri are also extremely beautiful (and Stormseacher's pictures confirm this), but as Iris says "always leave something to come back for" ;-)

Ladakh is unbelievable.
Keep us posted on your trips up there. I suppose we'll read about it in the HorUnl newsletter.

Trui

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Iris and Trui
2 belgian women, often travelling on motorbikes (now on DR650SE's)
2nd overland from home to Northern India and back, April-October 2002

[This message has been edited by iris_trui (edited 21 March 2003).]

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Iris and Trui
2 belgian women, often travelling on motorbikes (now on DR650SE\'s)
2nd overland from home to Northern India and back, April-October 2002