In Kim, Rudyard Kipling writes an evocative description of the colourful procession of travellers, traders, dignitaries, royal palanquins, armies and officers that traversed the length of the road from the holy city on the Ganges to the wealthy bazaars of the Punjab. Today, the road known as National Highway One is far less exalted, but it’s still important as the main route from Delhi to the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh. Like the rest of India, it’s also permanently under construction, and the entire 200km stretch from Delhi to where we turned off the highway near Chandigarh was easily the dustiest, ugliest, most polluted and unpleasant road-going experience we’ve had in all of India. Not that it was completely unbearable, but we were extremely grateful to get past the traffic jams and heat and on to the mountain roads on our first day of the motorcycle journey, knowing, and slightly dreading the fact that we’d have to return by the same route in two weeks time. Another traveller had described the experience of riding on the plains in the peak of summer as like “riding into a hairdryer” – a very apt description, except that he forgot to mention the hairdryer is constantly blowing dust, exhaust fumes and powdered concrete into your face.
The Royal Enfield Bullet 500, despite its somewhat dubious reputation, became our faithful steed on this 2000km journey, the constant, reassuring thump of the single cylinder engine not missing a beat on badly dilapidated roads and high mountain passes that took us to well over 4000m altitude. The Bullet engine has remained virtually unchanged since the 1950s, which in fact makes it the oldest motorcycle still in production. This piece of antiquated British technology is now a celebrated symbol of India – a wonderfully quirky metaphor for many elements of modern Indian society. People ride Enfields for the romance of them - not the reliability factor.
The route we’d chosen, from the former British summer capital of Shimla, via the Kinnaur, Spiti and Lahaul valleys is also an old trade route, once known as the Hindustan Tibet Highway, as it provides access to the passes across the Tibetan border, obviously now very off-limits. It also, as we later discovered, is reputed by motorcyclists and mountain bikers to be the single worst road in all of India, in terms of the physical condition of the road, and the hazards associated with weather and the constant threat of landslides.
Our first challenge though, was getting out of Delhi. Naturally we failed to leave at the planned departure time of 4am, and it wasn’t till 5 that we were finally on our way towards what looked like a pretty straightforward route from Paharganj to National Highway One. The directions we’d gleaned from the ever-trusted Google Maps failed us almost instantly, and a remarkable amount of early morning traffic, construction, roadblocks, unexpected intersections and a complete lack of signage ensured we were thrown completely off course. After finally finding Highway One and following it out of Delhi in the complete opposite direction for some time, we eventually realised our error, turned around, rode back through Delhi and were properly on our way by around 8am.
We finally arrived at the start of winding Highway 22 to Shimla about 1pm. At 2200m and 340km from Delhi, Shimla is one of the most popular hill stations in India, especially in the height of summer. With the roads full of carloads of holiday makers, Ben constantly has to be on the alert while riding, as around every corner you can almost guarantee there’s an Indian driver in the process of doing something completely idiotic. In a country where road rules are optional, playing with traffic is a very dangerous game. Below 1500m altitude, the lower part of Himachal Pradesh is not as scenic as we expected. Here, the hot summer weather has ravaged the landscape, the countryside is almost as brown as the plains with bare trees and withered gardens, and everywhere the hills bare the ugly scars of landslides and erosion. As we ascend, the scenery softens and becomes greener, the inclines steepen, and the wiry brush gives way to tall pines and deodars. The grey haze of the plains lifts, the air is crisper, cleaner, cooler.
Shimla, it turns out, is far from a paradise. Although it’s a comparatively clean city with some handsome colonial architecture, it’s steep, confusingly laid out streets are choked with traffic so that getting in and out at any time of day is a miserably frustrating affair. We find the place crawling with commission touts, despite the fact that almost every overpriced hotel in town has been block-booked for the entire summer. After several stressful hours, we finally find a cheap backpackers guesthouse, where one of the staff delivers some bad news. He’s also a trekking guide, and has a group in Spiti at the moment. Kunzum La, the mountain pass between the Spiti and Lahaul valleys, has closed. When we left Delhi, we’d heard that the snow had been cleared from Kunzum and the pass was open for the season. But now Kunzum had been hit with a heavy, unseasonal snow dump, forcing the re-closure of the road. With no pass to cross, the Spiti-Manali circuit we’d planned on would be impossible.
