Day 22: A Road New

Well, the knee didn’t get better. Even the magic of sleep has its limits. But it was still a great day. I put on the gel and took ibuprofen and the thing was still killing me right out of the gate. Any pressure, any weight I put on my left leg, there’s pain. I know a doctor or any other sensible person would say I need to rest it a few days and put ice on it. But I don’t have ice and there’s no time for rest. I need Adam to know I’m a tough guy who doesn’t complain. Of course I complain quite freely to Adam as I’m bad at the whole masculinity thing and he’s quite understanding of my predicament. Still, we know that there’s no way to go but forward and we can’t afford any more gluttonous rest days with Winter fast on our heels. I push on out of necessity. The pain dulls away after time, and hopefully its one of those goes away on its own deals and not one of those dreaded exercise makes it worse types of affairs. I put my seat up way higher to sort of limit the rotation of my leg and that helped quite a bit. I’m realizing I should’ve had my seat higher this whole time, and perhaps this led to the overexertion. Prostate seems okay for now, but I’m keeping a suspicious eye on it should it choose to be naughty. I’m getting numbness in my fingers from the added weight to the bars but that’s by far the most manageable side effect of them all. I stopped at a chemist, which is what pharmacies are called in India, and got an interesting sort of pain killer made of potassium something or another that the pharmacist recommended. She also happened to have a knee brace for 700 rupees, which I haggled down to 600 because now I haggle, and that is also helping just a bit. On the subject of haggling, last night Adam and I were able to haggle down our hotel room from 1500 rupees to 1200. We discovered that we make a solid good cop bad cop team, I pushed for 1000 and he said Nick be reasonable I’m sure 1200 would be fine. We killed it. We are really playing to our strengths. I’m the bully American who whines and complains and is difficult and he’s the calm reassuring Englishman who seeks compromise. Just now, at our homestay in Wanla, we were able to go from 1000 each to 750 for a homestay with meals included. Not bad, eh? I think this is the beginning of a wonderful partnership. The only real issue is Adam has no camping gear and so we are kind of stuck with the homestays unless he manages to get his hands on a cheap used sleeping bag and pad. He was going to check at an army surplus store but decided not to. He regrets this now that he’s seen the beauty and remoteness of the Zanskar valley. But as there are no restaurants out here the homestay life is probably the most suitable.

We entered the valley towards the end of our cycling today with a feeling of immense triumph. Finally, fresh new road, the reason for our almost 2 day detour and the justification we needed for turning our backs on the much safer and well traveled highway. And what a perfect road it was! As soon as we passed through the buddhist temple archway, nestled in that hauntingly imposing and beautiful canyon that I had reluctantly passed over on the way to Leh, we enjoyed riding side by side on a narrow and surprisingly well paved road with virtually no traffic. We cruised through the canyon, following a stream of immaculate sky blue water. Before long we made it to Wanla, a town built around the base of an austere monastery, and decided it’d be safe to rest there for the night so as to prepare for the massive day of climbing. I was hoping to push on, but Adam said he “was thinking of my knee”, though in truth he just prefers to end earlier. He is used to waking up early and finishing his cycling day in the early afternoon whereas I cycle until the evening and take long breaks and move at a slower average speed. I don’t hate his style but we are sort of meeting in the middle. We will ascend about 2500 meters tomorrow if we reach our goal of Photoksar. That is no small feat even with unloaded bikes and good knees, so this could be a wholly novel brutality. The map shows very few options for places to stay so we almost have to make it over the steep pass to Photoksar. I have no idea how we’ll succeed. And there’s no way to determine what the condition of the roads will be or how our bikes will handle it, everyone says it’s a bad road but how bad is bad? I’m worried about Adam’s sporty aluminum bike with its easily puncturable tires and I’m worried about my invalid knee’s ability to pedal my behemoth of a bike up such a high hill. It’s going to be a hell of a day, the kind of day the bards will sing of evermore. Dinner was delicious, succulent mutton momos with a slapping sauce, and we got to chatting with the patriarch of the homestay, whose English was limited. He got super excited when I said I was American, which isn’t a rare reaction by any means. He kept motioning with his hand going across saying “plain”, “America”, “plain". I said actually America has mountains too, not such a flat place. “No no”, he said, “plane”, flailing out his arms to depict aviation. Oh, yes, I took a plane to get here. “No, no,” he said. “Torr”. Adam and I looked at each other quizzically. The man was super excited to get whatever this was across. Torr, Torr! Torr? Did he mean tower? The man nodded enthusiastically. Plane, tower. He showed with his hands, the plane going into the tower. I said “are you talking about the terrorist attacks on September 11th?” He burst out laughing, guffawing even, slapping his thigh. Yes yes yes! Adam and I started laughing too, how could we not? What a delightful game of charades. 

We had some time to explore and hiked up to the serene monastery on top of the hill in town. A kind buddhist monk greeted us and showed us inside the temple at no cost, my first such experience. He told us it was built in the 11th century, and, with our phone lights because the power was out, we explored the ancient but well preserved and incredibly detailed paintings adorning the stone walls. Three giant buddhas looked down on us. I think I may have actually felt something come through me as I stood there, wrapped in the indecipherable language and countless little buddhas making all sorts of faces at me. It’s rare to actually have these mystical spiritual feelings as a traveler despite hoping for them constantly, so I cherished it for the few seconds it lasted. I took a photo of the monk lighting a candle and Adam told me you aren’t supposed to but it was a pretty nice photo so I hope the Buddha forgives it. Out of respect I won’t post it, it’ll be my little photo. I suppose tomorrow will show me if karma is on my side or has decided to smite me down.