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, we said. Zangla → Singge La → Sirsir La → Lamayuru → Leh. A straight-forward north-western arrow people had been taking for centuries first with prayer and rope, now with clutch and throttle. My Enfield thudded in its idle, Cecilia’s single hummed like it trusted her more than I trusted myself. We had new cables after Sani, patched tubes, and just enough fuel to be confident and just enough sense to keep that confidence nervous.

“Two days,” I repeated, as if repetition could make a forecast.

Cecilia laced her fingers around the cup as if warming a small animal. “You know it won’t be two,” she said, that Brazil-in-the-vowels smile that means both mischief and prophecy.

“Then three,” I bargained.

The map on the table did not change shape; the valley did. We set alarms for dawn, knowing full well the mountains set their own clocks. The mechanic with the backward cap waved us out with a spanner like a priest with a bell. Above Padum, clouds rehearsed costumes. Somewhere to the north, Singge La sharpened its teeth. We shouldered the idea of Leh like a pack and stepped toward Zangla, not yet realizing we had just enlisted for five days of being corrected and cared for by a road that refuses summaries.

 

Padum to Zangla: The River Asks for Manners

“Ride like the river is older than your reasons.”

We left under an economy of light: early, the color between silver and resolve. Padum exhaled us through its lane of dogs, dust, and early tea. The first kilometers were flat honesty rolled sand, old asphalt like tired skin, fields not yet green but plotting it. Beyond the Stongde turn-off, the track remembered its job and began to rise.

Zangla is not a distance; it’s a tuning fork. The valley narrows to teach perspective; the Zanskar river, even in summer mildness, keeps that low-throat soundtrack of seniority. We kept left of the herd, right of the drop, and inside our better habits. Whenever gravel gathered like gossip, we stood on the pegs and let the bikes become animals that know their feet.

A boy with a white sling waved us down in a braid of wind. He didn’t need help; he needed to show us a shortcut he had just discovered. He pointed at a goat path that stitched the slope with improbable grammar. “Good for walking, bad for motorcycle,” he concluded happily, the way a librarian enjoys rules. We thanked him with orange toffee and took the longer curve we were always meant to take.

At a bend where a mani wall decided to be taller than its purpose, a nun in grey walked past with the pace of a metronome. She didn’t look at us; blessing doesn’t need the eye to land. On the nunnery’s wall, a yellow poster warned about trash in a font stern enough to correct weather. We tucked our sins bag deeper into the pannier and tried to deserve this valley better.

Zangla Fort kept watch from its hill like a sober elder. In the shadow of its lower chortens, we shared tea with an auntie who has been setting kettles on stoves longer than I’ve been pretending to know maps. She pressed khambir into our hands and refused payment with the look that says your arrival is the coin. Cecilia asked about the Singge La line; the auntie smiled at the pass’ name the way people smile at the memory of hard work done right. “Good if your morning is good,” she said. “Don’t give your afternoon to it.”

We gave the afternoon to lingering instead fiddling with lever angles, tightening a mirror that loves to leave, retying the blue rope around the jerrycan because blue rope deserves reuse. The river ran as if we weren’t there. Dust made the sun visible. Everything ordinary looked appointed.

We slept at a house that never needed to call itself a homestay to behave like one. The room had a window full of river and a floor full of rugs that had slept centuries of feet. Supper was thukpa that saved its best warmth for the last spoon. Cecilia fell asleep mid-sentence. I wrote the day down like you press flowers gently, quickly, knowing fragility is the point.

 

Zangla to Lingshed: The Threading of Two Worlds

“The road is a verb; let it conjugate you.”

Morning made a bright case for careful speed. We traced the right bank past Zangla’s irrigated patchwork, then tipped into the hills toward Cha and the long swing toward Lingshed. The track climbed with a shepherd’s logic: persistent, not hurried. By Murgum La, the air got honest that scrim of thinness you feel first under the ribs. We stopped, the bikes ticking, the world large enough to make our ambitions reasonable.

Murgum La(~4,200m) didn’t roar it corrected. Wind pushed its opinion across the saddle; we stood quietly and let it. A truck appeared slow as prayer, brought apples from a pocket we could not see, and stopped because this is a valley where wheels stop for faces. The driver’s name was Stobdan. He had eyes that had measured winters and decided to stay anyway. “Lingshed good tea,” he promised, and gave us two apples like prophylactic blessings.

Down off Murgum the switchbacks twisted into Kiupa La country, that tight grammar of stone, slope, air. The bikes sang between first and second, the clutch hand learned a lullaby: pull, feather, release. On one curve, a goat decided the apex belonged to laughter and proved it. Cecilia eased past with a ‘com licença’ murmured to the world, then shouted ‘okay!’ back to me when the path was clear of comedy.

We reached Lingshed late enough for the sun to overperform. Gompa bells corrugated the afternoon. Children arrived with spinning tops and questions. We parked the bikes where their shadows fell into cabbage it’s difficult to be self-important when your machine politely shades a vegetable.

Inside the monastery, a monk in thick socks explained in patient Ladakhi-Hindi how the new road had changed winter: shorter walks for flour and oil, longer worries for waste. “Good and not-good,” he said, holding both truths as if they were handles on the same pot. We stood before a thangka that had outlived better travelers and outloved faster ones. If you listen carefully in such rooms, you can hear your reasons being edited.

We planned to press over Singge La that evening an act of arrogance the mountain overheard and rearranged. Wind rose. Dust stood like armies on the ridge. “Stay,” said the monk we’d just met, in the tone of a man who owns right timing. We obeyed.

That night Lingshed floated on its own breath. The generator went to bed early. Stars did their unsupervised work. I slept truer than I had in weeks, as if altitude is a mailman who knows where to finally deliver your rest.

 

Lingshed to Yulchung via Murgum La, Kiupa La, Kong La & Chochogori La: The Extra Night We Owed the Road

“Detours are how the valley proofs your character.”

Morning offered blue so clean it shaved. We climbed back over Murgum La and Kiupa La with a concentration that made our jokes better when they finally came. The plan Singge La and beyond met a road crew with a flag and a smile that said you can try; we won’t stop you; the pass might. A machine’s bucket chewed at a drift that had a stubborn season left in it. We looked at each other. Cecilia shrugged: “Let’s make a night we didn’t plan.”

We turned east toward a loop I’d only seen as rumor: Kong La and Chochogori La two syllables per pass, a symmetry that felt like an omen. The climb to Kong La coiled with care. Scree bit at the tyres if we bragged. We did not brag. At the top, prayer flags knitted wind into meaning. The view a whole encyclopedia spread open. In the distance a metaled ribbon pretended to be permanent. Closer, rough tracks wrote in dialects older than asphalt.

The descent was a shuffling grace: rear brake like punctuation, front like reason; engine a low apostrophe between rocks. Cecilia’s voice came through the wind: “Left line, left line!” I moved left and saved an argument with a hidden rut. We laughed. We promise each other things in the mountains and keep them better than in cities.

Chochogori La asked for less technique and more attention. Clouds stacked their geometry to the south; their edges vowed later weather. A shepherd waved, his flock stitched across the slope like white handwriting. He pointed to Yulchung in a parabola of chin and confidence. “Homestay Shalang Pa,” he added. A recommend.

We dropped into Yulchung with grateful wrists. The Shalang Pa homestay was a house first, commerce second: a courtyard spread with apricots, a stove obliged into life, a grandmother whose single glance measured our fatigue better than any altimeter. We washed with bucket-warm, ate khambir and potato, drank salt tea with the humility it demands when earned by air and labor.

Night arrived like something right on time. The family set out blankets with the efficiency of those who have done it through decades. We sat near the window, hearing water in a channel, yak bells far off, a radio murmuring news that had to cross passes to find this room. The grandmother showed a spindle, wool turning into thread, thread dreaming into tassels for Zanskari headgear. She didn’t put on a show; work made the evening gentle.

I fell asleep to the most comforting arithmetic: two bikes, four hands, one ridge behind, one ahead, home becoming the next valley and then the next, until all roads are one long sentence without a period.

 

Yulchung to Photoksar via Singge La & Bumiktse La: The Lion, the Wind, and a Village that Keeps Tomorrow Ready

“When the wind takes your sentence, finish it with your shoulders.”

Dawn over Yulchung pulled ink back from the fields. We thanked the house with rupees, biscuits, and that awkward bow that hopes to convert gratitude into shape. The road to Singge La is a lesson carved in slate. The lion pass Singge earned its name not by roaring but by inducing awe. Switchbacks wrote tight loops in the air; we unstitched them with gears and patience.

At the top, wind became citizenship. Cecilia whooped and the pass wrote her sound into its ledger. I touched the little idol wired to my handlebar Hanuman with dust on his chin and smiled at my own superstition. Clouds were behaved; we celebrated by sitting on the warmest rock and being small.

The descent to Bumiktse La practiced kindness in corners. Marmots executed plump geometry on sun-warmed stones. A BRO board claimed “Hard Work Never Killed Anyone, But Why Take a Chance” and we saluted the humor of those who lace infrastructure to weather with iron and hope.

Past Bumiktse La, the world rearranged into Photoksar a village that always looks like it invented afternoons. The white stupa at its approach glowed with professional confidence. The houses held their shoulders to one another against Januarys not yet here. We reached the tea shop right when steam and hunger agreed. Maggi transformed itself from joke to sacrament. Salt tea reminded me that the first sip is the tuition, the second is understanding.

The sky decided to audition weather. A gust tugged at my jacket as if the pass had forgotten to sign something and wanted me to come back. We took a room above the shop thin wall, thick quilt. The owner’s niece, Rigzin Dolma, practiced tables at the window and corrected my pronunciation of Bumiktse with a kindness I wished all corrections had.

Evening: women moved water, men discussed mortar, kids made a game out of scree. I walked to the edge where Photoksar looks down on its own story and thanked the day for ending here, exactly at the altitude of enough.

 

Photoksar to Phonjila via Sirsir La: A Descent, a Reunion, and the Shelter of a Known Door

“Sometimes the shortcut is a friend’s kitchen.”

We climbed Sirsir La while the valley still wore cool. The pass is a practical gait less ceremonial than Singge, more transactional. Stone, switchback, stone. At the top we didn’t linger; wind said after. The descent toward Phonjila braided light into long strips of track, the mountains switching from sculpture to explanation.

Halfway down, as the road remembers bee-hives and willow shade, a man waved with the unmistakable rhythm of the familiar. Tashi trek guide, friend, winter helper, survivor of a dozen campfires where I learned that tea can be a theory. I braked to a halt so sincere the rear tire took notes. He put his forehead to mine like I was a brother who finally got the joke.

“You come,” he said. No verb tense required.

We followed him to Phonjila along a lane of stone walls that knew how to frame apricots into suns fallen to earth. His home smelled like solid roofs and cooked cumin. Cecilia told the story of Sani’s clutch resurrection and Tashi patted my shoulder the way mechanics and monks do when words are too obvious. He had a room ready because kindness prefers to assume arrival.

Night in Phonjila is a lesson in proportion: one bulb, two stories, many hands. We passed my notebook around; Tashi’s daughter drew a house with flags and two bikes that looked better than ours. I tried to pay for dinner and was scolded with love.

Later, under an awning of stars, Tashi told me the new road had changed porter work, that the Chadar no longer feeds January like it did, that change has never asked anyone’s permission here but always brings apologies and gifts in the same bag. Silence agreed with him the way kin does.

 

Phonjila to Wanla to Lamayuru: The Long Lesson of Old Stones

“Ancient walls don’t make you small; they make you careful.”

Morning tore bread into steam. Tashi walked us to the edge of the lane and held his palm against my cheek the way uncles certify luck. We rolled to Wanla along sediment shelves that knew oceans once slept here. Wanla’s gompa sits with old rights rooms that keep shadows, paintings that keep weather. We greeted the Avalokiteshvara with the time he deserves and the excess he forgives.

The road to Lamayuru braided river and gorge, poplar and rest. Lunch at a blue-painted shack was dal that understood hunger and rice that knew how to comfort complicated people. We pressed on because Lamayuru is a word that pulls.

Lamayuru arrived like liturgy: moonscapes folded into theory, gompa glued to its cliff with faith, the village a weave of guesthouses and family thresholds. We took a room where the window framed eroded waves of pale stone and the bed framed a sleep debt we willingly paid.

Evening puja rose like smoke up the stairs; we went quiet without being told. Monks folded sound into the bowls of their mouths and released it again; tourists tried to capture something and left with images that won’t explain anything when they get home. After, we sat outside with tea and watched wind edit prayer flags down to threads that still tell the truth.

Cecilia admitted to a tired happiness I didn’t recognize as pride until later. “Five days,” she whispered.

“Five days,” I agreed, as if we had bargained for them well.

 

Lamayuru to Leh: The Ribbon Becomes a Road Again

“Return is not repetition; it is a reading with better light.”

The Srinagar–Leh highway after a week of track feels like an airport floor abundance of grip, arrogance of straight. We rode with manners anyway. Nimmoo’s confluence looked like it always does: tour buses astonished that water can do two colors at once, rafts making joy sound industrial. We waved at the place where last year’s marathon had dissolved me into something oddly better than time.

At Saspul, we stopped for parathas performed by a woman who could be prime minister of breakfast. A dog with elbow calluses sat exactly where spare ghee lands. We gave him a piece. He did not pretend it was enough. We topped up fuel with the same respect one shows elders, then let Basgo’s ruins lecture us on impermanence as we idled past.

Leh woke around us with a clatter only Leh gets away with: prayer bead sellers, fruit carts, hydraulic horns, backpackers wandering in clothes that will be regretted in photos they will nevertheless frame. We parked in the same guesthouse courtyard where the trip had been a line on a napkin. Cecilia bumped my shoulder with her helmet. “Two days, ha?”

I shrugged with theatrical regret, then bowed to the fact: five days that changed nothing and therefore changed everything. We took our buckets of hot water like they were awards.

That night Leh murmured its July: generators complaining about football, prayer wheels doing their silent work, the Zanskar a memory then a plan. We slept with passes still moving behind the eyelids, those old lions pretending they don’t purr when we’re not looking.

 

What the Long Way Saved

“We arrived with less tread and more attention.”

We had aimed at efficiency and landed in grace. Five days stitched from Zangla’s modest threshold, Lingshed’s bells, Kong La’s wide book, Chochogori La’s hum, Yulchung’s Shalang Pa stove, Singge La’s speaking wind, Photoksar’s clean table, Sirsir La’s grin, Phonjila’s known door, Wanla’s old walls, Lamayuru’s moonscapes. Nothing dramatic happened and everything did: the kind of adventure that softens your voice when you tell it because names begin to weigh properly.

If there is a moral (the mountains laugh at morals), it is this: the direct road shortens distance and starves memory. When the bridge is out, take the detour; when the pass is closed, learn a new ridge; when a friend waves you down, make home there for a night; when a grandmother sets a bowl, accept the curriculum of slowness. Carry spares, yes, and cash, and a rope, and that little brass cable nipple that saves afternoons. But carry also the permission to be corrected by weather and people who already know how this valley works.

The line we drew to Leh never happened. The one we rode became a paragraph we can live inside for a while. If you go this way, ride soft, wave first, buy tea later, tilt the tank only when prayer fails, and even then laugh. Passes are old; we are guests. The road remembers manners better than speed.

Two days to Leh? Try five. Or forever.