3 mo ago
Khardung La doesn't care about your Instagram caption. At 5,359 metres - or whatever the actual height is, everyone argues about it - the pass cares about one thing only: whether you and your machine can handle it. I found out the answer to both questions on a Tuesday morning in September, and the answers were "barely" and "somehow yes."
The Himalayan started coughing around 4,800 metres. Not dramatically, not dangerously, just this gentle reminder that internal combustion engines and extremely thin air have a complicated relationship. I was coughing too, so we were even. The road from South Pullu upward is this insane series of switchbacks carved into what looks like the surface of the moon - loose gravel, patches of ice in the shadows even in September, and drops that you absolutely must not look at if you want to keep riding in a straight line. A BRO worker waved at me from behind a pile of rocks. These guys maintain this road at altitude where most people can't walk ten steps without gasping. Absolute legends.
The top was anticlimactic in the best way. A signboard, some prayer flags snapping in the wind, a few other riders taking photos, and a chai stall that charges eighty rupees for a cup and honestly deserves double. I stood there drinking chai, looking at the Karakoram range stretching out in every direction, and had this absurd thought: I rode here. On a motorcycle. From Delhi. Two weeks of bad roads, worse weather, and the best time of my life. The Himalayan's odometer read 2,847 kilometres. Every single one of them earned.