Thrill & Dust
Adventures that scar your boots and stir your soul.
Some journeys leave you sunburnt, bruised, breathless and more alive than ever.
From high passes to whitewater rapids, Thrill & Dust is for the ones who crave motion and mess, who find clarity in chaos.
These are stories of grit, risk, wind-in-your-face joy, and the strange calm that follows a storm.
Lace up. Grip tight. This is where comfort ends and something wilder begins.
Lace up something wilder begins
Switchbacks Become Stories: Five Days Between Zangla and Lamayuru
From a “two-day hop” to a pilgrimage of passes fuel, faces, and the long way home The Map That Laughed Back “We drew a clean line to Leh; the mountains answered with paragraphs.” It began at a table in Padum, the enamel chipped, the tea a little smoky, the afternoon bright as a certainty we hadn’t yet earned. Two days,
Switchbacks at Sani: Dust, Drums, and Detours
The monastery festival meets a biker’s misadventure – revs mixing with rituals. A Festival at the End of a Spanner “Some mornings you tune a carburetor and end up tuning your expectations.” Two nights after the long crawl from Kargyak to Padum, I woke to the small arithmetic of a town getting ready: women loosening apricot stones in courtyards; a
Fuel, Faith, and Flat Tyres: Kargyak to Padum the Hard Way
A test of patience, luck, and small kindnesses at every mechanic’s fire Prologue Chance, Maps, and the Smell of Petrol “Some rides begin with a route; the good ones begin with a reunion.” Late June, 2016. I was back in Leh making the sort of lists that don’t end spares, bungee cords, biscuits, tyre irons when the door chime of
Frozen Runway: Riding the Chadar in Its Last Season
Walking (and slipping) across history – the fragile beauty of the frozen river route. After the Finish Line, Before the Freeze “Some journeys start where the applause ends when the body is finally quiet enough to hear a river make ice.” The September sun of 2014 still lived in my legs. I had run the Ladakh Marathon in a city
Pangi to Padum: A Road Still Dreaming Itself
The under-construction frontier road and what it means to ride through uncertainty. The Map That Refused to Sit Still “Some roads are not taken; they are taken apart and re-made under you stone by stone, rumor by rumor.” Manali, early summer 2016: a town of wool caps and soft promises, engines idling under rain-dark eaves, and travelers comparing altitudes the
Gravel to Garkon: A Two-Wheeler Push into Brokpa Country
A mud-and-marble ride along the Indus switchbacks from Khaltse to Bema/Garkon river-crossings, cliffside wind, puncture fixes, and the reward of hot gur-gur cha at a roadside hearth. The road east of Khaltse begins like a promise and continues like a dare. At dawn the bazaar shutters are still half-closed, the petrol pump yawns once and comes to attention, and the