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Six thousand meter peaks with eternal snow, apple trees at an altitude of 3,600 meters, wild cattle and monkeys on the road: anything is possible in Himachal Pradesh. Where others are on the move with escort vehicles and guides, an Indian and a German cruise around on their own.

Doris mouse

01/14/1998

Three weeks in the Himalayas, with a Royal Enfield? Ameeta, formerly a pediatrician, now an advertising copywriter in Bombay and basically ready to have fun, is there right away. We pick up our bullet in Hyderabad. My brother lives there and has been working on the machine for two weeks. This is not about prepping the Enfield 350c so that everything works. I have never heard of such a condition at a bullet. With the long-standing instinct of an Enfield driver, the only thing that is replaced is the parts that are almost certain to break, clog or fall off. We carefully pack the tool box: cables, chain locks, spikes, metric wrenches, customs tools, two Englishmen, a hammer . Such an Enfield is held together by screws of all sizes and origins. Often no key fits at all. There is only one thing left to do: take the next smaller one and tap it onto the screw head. The on-board tool kit is completed by an ammeter, because electrical problems are standard equipment on the Enfield, and of course it is the electrical system that spoils Ameeta and me on the first evening. We chucked 36 hours by train with the bullet in the luggage cart from Hyderabad to Delhi and from there another four hours to the northern city of Chandigarh. This is how we avoid Highway No. 1, the highway with the highest death rate in India. In order to be able to start early the next day, we want to refuel the Bullet. But it doesn’t start – all batteries. The next morning, a skilled mechanic diagnosed: “You have the wrong battery box.” The box – made of metal instead of plastic – was in contact with the poles and drained the power from the battery. At lunchtime we finally started north. If you imagine India as a hot, tropical country, you will be pleasantly disappointed in Himachal Pradesh: Located at the foot of the Himalayan mountains covered with eternal snow, this district is a green hilly country with temperatures of around 20 degrees. Mountain primeval forests, palm trees and orchards determine the vegetation, cows and monkeys dominate the streetscape in more remote regions. Our first destination is Bilaspur, 180 kilometers from Chandigarh. The road is dead straight. In the dense traffic we are pushed into the bushes twice by oncoming buses. According to an unwritten rule, you drive towards each other until one of them gives up and swerves – the one with the smaller vehicle and the quieter horn – or both of them swerve to the side at the last moment. Of course, it sometimes goes wrong. Nevertheless, motorcycling does not have to be dangerous here: cruising is the motto, and that means a top speed of 40 to 50 km / h. I know: cool Enfield freaks smile sympathetically at such information. But I’ve also seen cool Enfield freaks dying on the side of the road covered in blood. Everyone should be aware that there is no rescue system in India. From Bilaspur we continue to Nagar. Located between Kullu and Manali, it should serve as a starting point for us to Leh – a journey that leads 300 kilometers through the mountains, without hotels, villages or petrol stations. The Bilaspur-Kullu route is a dream: good surface, wonderfully gentle curves, hilly landscape. It is the Allgau of the Himalayas: radiant in lush green. Apple trees still grow here at an altitude of 3,600 meters, and most of the residents live on their income. The 27 kilometers from Kullu to Nagar, on the other hand, are wild: the road that snaked up the valley on the eastern bank of the river last year has turned into a mess of mud, stones and rivers crossing. The first course makes it big. If it gets too steep, Ameeta has to descend, on mud the bullet doesn’t have the power to pull us both up the mountain. In Nagar we learn that it rained so much for three days at the end of August, the monsoon season in this area like it hasn’t been for 40 years. The road to Leh no longer exists. We convince ourselves. We need one and a quarter hours for the 17 kilometers from Nagar to Manali. Nothing at all remained of the main road west of the river, the remnants of the path on the east side that we take end just before the city: the bridge was swept away. We walk across the river on a makeshift bridge to Manali – a meeting place for junkies from all over the world. The drug route from China and Pakistan passes here, and none of it helps: we are not getting any further. Leh will be removed from the program and replaced with the Kinnaur Valley in the east, which marks the border with Tibet. So: Back to Kullu, where we have the Bullet thoroughly checked again before the high mountain tour. Continue via Mandi to Sundernagar. This is where our newly chosen route branches off, with innumerable curves running through light coniferous forest to Rohandglu 1000 meters higher. Indian vehicles have little horsepower, so gradients have to be kept correspondingly flat. We want to set up our night camp in Karsog. We heard that rooms could be rented in secluded fort houses there. Ten officials sit in the forestry office, none of whom have anything to do. We are the sensation of the month: Nobody has wanted to book a room for over a year, and now there are two women without a man. You don’t see any women up here, they have to run the household and look after the fields. Men are responsible for the apple harvest, which they work two months a year. The rest of the time they sit in the village, smoke hash, drink homemade schnapps and stare at strangers when they come by. The next day we drive on a 2500 meter high ridge to Narkanda in the Kinnaur Valley. There we meet Sanjay Megi. He is a tourist guide. We arrange to meet for dinner. In this area up to Manali, he tells us, almost only Hindus live, no Muslims and hardly any Buddhists. Then he describes a Hindu festival, the Bhunda festival, which takes place every year in Narkanda. A rope is stretched from a mountain peak over craggy rocks to the opposite mountain ridge. A kind of armchair whizzes from top to bottom, and in this armchair sits a man who must be of the “Jilly” caste. This man decided six years ago to make a human sacrifice. In return, the villagers provide his family with food and clothing from now on. On the day of the Bhunda festival, he says goodbye to his wife, who, like a widow, wears a white robe and open hair. Does the husband fall out of his chair and into his death during the descent? and that happens, so Sanjy, almost every time ?? the family will continue to be cared for because the husband sacrificed himself for God. If he survives, however, he can wish for anything: money, gold, saris and all the offerings that have been collected. From Narkanda we follow the Sutlej river towards Recong Peo. The road slowly works its way up to over 4000 meters. We only run into trucks occasionally. Military camps replace the villages, and the river valley becomes so narrow that you can only see walls to the left and right. Instead, the first five and six thousand meter peaks loom up in front of us: a sight that compensates us for all the hardships. In Recong Peo we learn that we cannot go any further: a restricted military area. So we explore the area and land in the Sangla Valley, which is populated by Tibetan hill tribe people. Women run around in the villages, laughing at us and saying “Hello”. Only now do we notice how accustomed we have to seeing women disappearing into houses with their heads turned away at best. This class of people is completely different: Allegedly, inheritance is carried out according to the line of mothers, and men and women have equal rights. We stay two nights, take a day trip to Chitkul, the end of the line in the Sangla Valley, and meet a yak. Yaks are highland cattle, look like long-haired Indian cows, and have the temperament of Spanish bulls. Half wild, half tamed, they are milked, eaten and the wool woven into clothing. They are supposed to be quite dangerous, but this one looks harmless. I am about to stop for a photo when he lowers his horns, snorts and races towards us. “He ?? s coming!” Shouts Ameeta in the back seat, and I give full throttle. Only: At almost three and a half thousand meters above sea level, the Enfield no longer pulls so well. At 30 km / h we rumble out of the danger zone. On our way back to Chandigarh, we stop in Shimla, a city founded by the English: the rich “summer” there to escape the terrible heat in Delhi. After the wild areas that have been our home in the last few days, we feel like in paradise. Toilet paper! Butter! More than one dish to choose from and not rice with sauce in the morning, at noon or in the evening! We stay in the most expensive hotel in the area, the Holiday Home ?? 3,000 rupees (125 marks) a night; that’s how much we otherwise spent in a week. The next day our hotel is called platform 1 again. One of the two rooms at the Chandigarh train station is free – and a friendly train station employee is free. In an “erotic pose” he lies down on the bed and does not want to go again. Only after a scuffle do we manage to throw him out. Before we load the Bullet the next morning, I’ll put a letter of complaint with his name in the “Complaint Box” ?? the suggestion box found in all government institutions in India. I don’t think anyone will ever read it, but we women have our pride too.

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