Bye Bye Enzo!

It was with heavy hearts that Kim and I said goodbye to our beloved friend, trusted steed and traveling companion Enzo. But, as with all good things, they must come to an end sooner or later. For us it was just a lot sooner than we had originally expected.

As I wrote in the post below, Leh, which was to be our premiere destination for the trip was hit hard by rain earlier in the month. We were hoping beyond hope that the road would open again this year but it has become clear to us now that the damage is so significant and so devastating that the roads will not open again until next year. With that in mind Kim and I had resigned ourselves to riding around the Northern state of Himichal Pradesh (translated into the land of snow capped mountains) but even there we ran out of road to ride on due to floods and landslides. So, with our options being to stay and ride in a very limited part of the North or head South to the flatter, hotter, even wetter plains, we decided to sell Enzo early, leave India behind and head to Thailand for what will be our third time on this trip alone.

Enzo had been a better bike than either of us could have hoped for and because we bought a newer bike at a good price we had no problem selling him. We bought him for 70,000 rupees and sold him almost one year later for 60,000 rupees which means that it only cost us $250 (plus what we put into him for maintenance and repairs) to have our own wheels and all the freedom that comes with it. We reckon we could have sold him for even more if we’d taken our time and advertised to other travelers but we wanted a quick and easy sale so we sold him to a dealer/mechanic who will, undoubtedly, find a great home for him in no time. We had the adventure of a lifetime and you just can’t put a price tag on that.

We covered 8,660 kms on Enzo and loved every single minute. We rode through two countries and zig-zagged our through eight states. We rode in all kinds of weather, on all kinds of roads, through all kinds of landscapes. We went from the hot, palm tree lined, paved roads of the densely populated South, crossed into Nepal where we survived the crazy traffic of Kathmandu and crossed back into India to ride through the less populated, un-paved, pine tree lined roads of the North. We ran over one baby chicken, clipped the side of one car with our luggage rack, collided very slowly with another motorbike in extremely crowded and chaotic traffic, rode through angry mobs of Maoists wielding sticks in Nepal, lost control of Enzo while going up a super slippery steep slope and fell over nearly going off an embankment, dropped Enzo and slid across the pavement while trying to avoid a puppy (I can tell you these things now that we’re no longer riding him!), escaped from two men who were chasing us out of a restricted national park, got stuck and had to get help to get him out of a particularly muddy stretch of road, got lost and drove miles in the wrong direction and were run off the road repeatedly by cars and trucks that were bigger than us . On the flip side however, Enzo never left us stranded on the side of the road, he was always there in the morning right where we'd left him, his gas was never stolen, we never had a serious accident, never burnt ourselves on the exhaust, never ran out of gas and never lost the keys. All things considered, it was a very successful mission!

In our opinion traveling by motorbike is the best way to see this incredible country and we can't wait until the day we come back to complete our journey to the far North! Farewell Enzo. May you bring as much joy and adventure to your next owners as you did to us! In the words of Kip "Peace out man"!

Nature Can Be Cruel

Kim and i are sitting here in a place called Kasol located in the beautiful Parvati Valley. The pine forests are lush and green and the Parvati river is raging right outside our room. It's so full of water from the monsoon that we have to yell at each other when we're sitting outside. We'd planned on exploring this part of India but not until late September or early October. Plans change though and here we are in early August.

We'd hoped to be up in the Himalayan town of Leh in the Ladakh region by this time but that region has been hit hard by flooding and landslides in the past week, blocking roads and devastating entire communities. 165 people have died, over 400 are injured and 400 are missing. It's an extremely sad situation. This is a region that sees an average of 300 days of sunshine a year and only 90mm of rain per year. I think that close to 50mm of rain fell in one night alone so this tragedy isn't something that anyone could have predicted. Nature can be very cruel.

So far 81 foreigners have been rescued and Kim are i are glad that the number isn't 83 as it easily could have been had we decided to head up a few days earlier. Now that the weather has cleared somewhat the Indian army is working hard to restore essential services in the area and clear the landslides that have blocked the roads. We're still hoping to get up there but the reports we're hearing from people who were on their way up and had to turn around is that kilometer long sections of road have been destroyed and entire bridges have been washed away. So, it sounds as if the damage is significant enough that the road may not even open again until next year. If that's the case Kim and i will just have to come back one day to complete our journey and do the one ride we've been looking forward to since we bought Enzo way down south!

If we do end up getting to go, finger's crossed, we want to be prepared so we've been doing some research and came across this website. I've included some of what this guy has to say below so you can get a sense of what our ride will be like if and when we get to do it. If you're interested in reading more about the ride or checking out some of his photos the website is http://www.60kph.com/.

"Every year bikers from across the globe plan to ride on what is termed as one of the best routes to ride in the world, the 475 kms long Manali-Leh Highway. The road from Manali is open from the month of June to mid October. For almost half of its length, it is over 13,000 feet. The route passes through five high altitude passes. The terrain is so high and so barren as to have no settled habitation. Infrastructural support is at a bare minimum. No repair or service stations after Keylong, no petrol pumps either. But this scenario on the Manali-Leh Highway gives the excitement of planning, adventure and bliss while riding and lifetime memories after the ride.

The Manali-Leh highway is a roller-coaster ride of high-altitude passes, bad roads, landslides, glacial melts, broken bridges and what not. So don't mistake it for 475 kms on a normal highway and a single day's ride. Manali-Leh according to me should be done in three days if not more. Remember, one also has to deal with Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS)."

Sounds incredible doesn't it?!