• Work, Websites and the Thule Behri
• Hemp Helmet
• Thule Bheri
• The Trip To Tibet
• The Dudh Koshi
• Supersize Me
• The Himalayan Rally continued
• Peace in Nepal
• Trekking Certificate Needed in Nepa
• First Descent in Nepal
• Important Notice for Kayakers visit
• Tragical accident in Ladakh
• Ladakh in Floods
• Viagra for Sport.?
• More Kayaking Video

The Himalayan Rally continued

A road trip of roughly 2800km one way in a 35 year old truck is a challenge, doing it through India and over the highest motorable passes in the world puts some icing on the cake for the driver and aiming out for river descents and a possible first descent makes it all worthwhile for the kayakers too.

The Himalayan Rally had the right ingredients to continue.

Night driving in India is a great way to avoid those crazy traffic jams but, unfortunately the traffic doesn`t always avoid you and one truck driver decided to get up close with our truck. While moving fast at around 0100 a.m., I saw the headlights in the distance when they started to swerve onto my lane. Hitting the breaks and trying to pull the truck off the road didn`t help, as the other driver was determined to hit our truck, even while he was deep a sleep. Luckily the build of our blue monster was solid enough to pretty much bounce and wreck the other truck without taking too much damage. Scratches and dents were done anyway and after discussing for hours with the police and the driver, I finally got 200$ to be able to fix the truck back into shape some kind of shape.

Staying in Manali and preparing for the climb through the Himalayas was pleasant with fresh air filling our dusted out lungs from the long drive through the hot plains of India. The switchback approach up to the Rothang pass matches any European Standard and it definitely reminds you of the high passes in Switzerland.

Once past Keylong the scenery changes from trees to bushes, from green to arid and from Hindu to Buddhism. We are about to approach the Tibetan Plateau and broke through and over the Greater Himalayan Range.

The road into Ladakh has plenty of switchbacks and a steady climb. We were passing heights of 4300m, 5080m and then finally Tang Lang La with 5280m the second highest pass in the world.

The truck was doing decent, even while we all could feel the loss of power due to the high altitude and the low oxygen level in the air. From TangLang La it`s a quick rush down to the town of Leh to get some apple pies, Juleys (welcome in Ladakh), and a shower to dust off. Now it was time to get some kayaking in after a week on bouncy roads. First thing we did was to set out for some warm up on the well known Indus river which we kayaked from as high up as Tsomoriri Lake (~5000m) and down all the way to a place called Kalshi. Mostly grade III with a deadly weir in between (It killed an unfortunate kayaker this August) and some big volume grade IV upstream and further downstream. Maybe also the one or other V?

Landslides and washed away bridges as well as flooded rivers challenged us on and off the road or in and out of the rivers. All our plans had to be adjusted and the planed first descent of the Shyok River got halted after the road up and down the river was blocked with landslides.		We roughly kayaked 5kms of easy whitewater on this big and interesting river. On the drive in we instead got along the Durbuk River which looked promising and kayaked roughly 12kms on this very beautiful IV/V creek. Guessing this should`ve been a first descent.
The weather goods still weren`t any pleased with Ladakh and the weather continued to be bad with snow in the high passes and rain on the bottom. It was time to head out for some nice rivers in Nepal to get some kayaking in instead of waiting for Sun. The drive went uneventful in comparison to the drive in, but we might have just gotten hardened to the crazy Indian traffic, the landslides, the washed out bridges, the cows, dogs, bicycles, rikshaws, the masses of people, the fixing of the truck on the roadside with crowds of people staring, the custom and traffic police hassles, the accidents and so many other baffling road happenings. As usual, India is always an experience and tops any other destination in craziness, cultural diversity and with its highest motor able roads in the world also with some engineering feats.

I believe that the blue monster and I will be back for some more of it but, for now it is off into clean and green Nepal to rejuvenate both of us from all the happenings on the way and to finally get some whitewater time.