I've tried writing this several times.
Whatever words end up on the page only catch some of the fleeting moments, the highlights, the stuff that's easier to describe, but they rarely catch the full force of the experience.
Epilogue
We drank less and kept forgetting to smoke for days at a time. I slept more than I had in years.
Even looking in the mirror was strange. The bags under my eyes had gone. Those constant companions of the last few years, reminders of age and mortality, had been massaged away by a head-bashing barber in Manali.
The duties that were waiting patiently when I got back were steadily sorted through, but in a daze. It was a hot early August and reality was not there to be dealt with but to be observed. In a rather casual manner. My ankle was really bad and my hip repaired slowly.
It took three months to write about the trip, despite the initial flurry of Facebook photos. And we remain friends, swapping bike stories and bad humour.
It took three months to write about the trip, despite the initial flurry of Facebook photos. And we remain friends, swapping bike stories and bad humour.
Returning soldiers have very few people to talk openly to. It's not as that people don't want to listen. it's not that they don't care, it's just that they weren't there. They cannot understand.
The memories bring back a flood of feelings. Not so much emotions but sensations.
Of the peace and the fear, the joy and the jumbled bundle of experiences of life on Himalayan roads. Big, big views, and holes and rocks and gravel bends. All with a biker's breeze brushing the cheeks. The chai and chat, superb food, beers and jossing. Tiredness and the satisfaction of a job done, each day.
Of the peace and the fear, the joy and the jumbled bundle of experiences of life on Himalayan roads. Big, big views, and holes and rocks and gravel bends. All with a biker's breeze brushing the cheeks. The chai and chat, superb food, beers and jossing. Tiredness and the satisfaction of a job done, each day.
3 Miles High is big. Big like one continent smashing into another, big like the Himalayas. Big like the sky at night filled with galaxies. Big like places you haven't seen.
There is no simple way to do joined up writing and fully describe the experience. It was a quest with no grail, where the journey is the destination.
I am not religious and only spiritual by mistake and this was a full on hard core adventure. It was probably the altitude, with its lack of oxygen and sabotaged roads, but there was an undercurrent of out-of-body experience. It doesn't all seem real.
It was mental, and physical, it was spiritual and blasphemous. It was fun and frightening, wondrous and wearying. Sometimes, looking back, I suffer Post Himalayan Reality Disorder.
I'd auctioned an old bottle of whisky which I was never going to drink and had cashed in a half-forgotten pension plan to ride some of the toughest roads in the world. 3 Miles High. Elation at elevation.
I may be too old to ever accomplish anything this big again. And if I'd tried it ten years ago it would be the same. But its there. A must. Something you never knew you had to do, till you've done it.
To do it on your own would be hard if not impossible. The sense of incredible achievement could easily be drowned by any mishap. The huge advantage of going with Nomadic Knights was not only the visible fun and knowledge shared and support team, including Doc, it was the stuff you don't see. The bike repairs, the bookings and passes, the routes tested, the paths smoothed. Just having such a friendly support team left the opportunity to see more and do more.
No bike spares or repairs, no waiting for interviews with officials, no bargaining over rooms and food. No worries about medical attention. Just a team of people rightly proud of the land, the culture, the people and happy to share it all.
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