Surviving the World's Most Brutal Road on a Tiny Bike | Full Film
Have you ever seen a landscape that looks like another planet? I hadn't... until today! But as this journey unfolds. you'll see the toll that it takes.
The longer I ride, the colder, more exhausted, and the more on edge I become. It was a challenging day, but one that I'll never forget. And watch to the end. Because I found a scam. Greetings Friends.
Today we are going to the second highest plateau in the world. It's an alpine plateau. It's 4000m up and apparently it's this pristine wilderness that we're going to enter. I think the road's going to be pretty bad as well.
So yeah, it's a very, very remote place. It's called the Dosai National Park. And, yeah, let's get there and see and hope that my Honda CB 150 makes it, because every other day I've had an issue of this bike. Anyway, come., let’s go to Deosai National Park.
This damn bike. Let's do it. Let's get out of here. This is the city of Skardu. I had an amazing time here.
That family at the Himalayan Guesthouse. I found them by totally.... I just stopped there, and it was the best place for me to have stopped because. They show me the most incredible places in Skardu which you'll see in other videos. An organic farm, I got to go and visit and they took me to their Baltistani Community Centre or refugee centre, and I got to see, well, I got to meet people who lost their village in the 1971 India-Pakistan war.
Yeah, they lost their village, so they couldn't and they couldn't go back to the village. So that whole story and that video is online as well, and I got to see all their food at the community centre. They say they were having a cultural day. It was amazing. This is the road to Satpara Lake.
This is heading to Deosai. Deosai National Park. Let's get past this noisy... And I'm told after this, after this beautiful lake we're going to see, the road is just going to turn to rubbish.
So let's check it out. I expect to see something incredible today, because a lot of people here told me you have to ride through Deosai National Park, and this is actually the end of my trip. I am on my way back to Islamabad. This will be the last ride. You know, like the last ride that I film.
So yeah, it's it's a long ride too. It's only 122km, but it's a five hour ride So that tell you all you need to know about the roads. I better put this down because, man, I've had bees fly in here. I've had like just all sorts of insects and bugs hit me in the face. There's tons of bugs and insects on these roads. Scariest one was the bee.
It flew straight into my mouth and I had to like... Ew... It was just... not good. I don't want a bee sting. And now I can feel there's a bug in my hair. It just flew in. So yeah, they're generating power.
From the Satpara Lake that we’re going to now. We're climbing up. We're just climbing. Stunning. Climbing very slowly because this bike sucks.
This Honda CB 150. It's gonna start spluttering and everything soon. So we're going to climb up to, like, 4100m, which, I'm not really a fan of because you get, like, you can easily get altitude sickness up there. I'm on a motorcycle, so I’ll be okay.
But if you walk around too much you’ll start feeling light-headed and the air’s just much thinner. Just so much thinner up there that it's hard to breathe. You kind of have to acclimatise yourself. And my bike was probably only at this height.... Bloody bug in my visor.
My bike at this height will probably only hit gear one, or gear two max because of the lack of oxygen. So this is Satpara Lake which they've also. I mean, it might be. It might just be a dam.
It's pretty beautiful, though. It's pretty beautiful. And a popular tourist point here in the Skardu region. As you can see, it's a selfie point. It's beautiful out here. It’s a beautiful spot.
But let's keep going. I want to hit Deosai. We've got about 20km till we hit Deosai.
Good, good, good. Oh. $20 American. So I don't have enough cash.
I mean, I have cash, but only American dollars. Rs. 6000. Yes. Okay, I do have enough. Man, lucky I had enough cash on me.
So, yeah, this is home to an endangered bear. I think it's called the Himalayan Brown Bear. I think there's only, like, 100 left and about only 80 in this park. If we see one, I'll keep the camera rolling so I will survive. The cameraman always survives. Bye.
Thank you. I thought I was out of rupees back there, but I always carry a little bit of American dollars. So they want you to pay them in American dollars. Like, this is, This is not America, but they want you to pay them in American dollars. The road sucks. It’s pretty slippery.
The bike's really struggling and misfiring now because we're getting so high. Basically, I'll be in gear one the whole way, and I don't think 30 kmph is probably the max speed I'll hit. Bloody hell. Oh, the bike's really, really struggling.
It always does at altitude. That's how I know we're getting near near 4000m (13,123 ft). It'll start misfiring. It’ll start backfiring.
But I'm really enjoying this ride. In gear one. See how crystal clear it is. I can feel it when I'm riding.
Can feel that water. Man. And I'm the only one around. It's just amazing. Deosai National Park is coming up. We just got to get up there first.
Oh. See how... Hear how my bike struggling? Oh, this is gear one. I can't find the sweet spot to get it to just go.
There's no sweet spot. I wish I had one of those watches which would tell me the altitude. Oh, man. This would be far more fun on a real motorcycle designed for this. Except by the end of the day, your body's just hammered.
Oh, man. See down here? We can see all this... This kind of grass growing. Some kind of. Oh, gotta be careful up here.
Nearly at the plains. Let’s see what they're looking like. I'm here at the end of summer, so I think we're going into autumn right now. And uphere, we've got some little snack stores where you'll find, like paratha, eggs, tea. Okay. To Astore 100km from here, to Deosai top 15km.
Let's go. We'll stop somewhere else. Let's just keep going while we can.
You can stay the night up here if you want at these types of places. If you're coming here late at night, they'll let you sleep there. Can sleep in the restaurant on the seats, basically. They'll have something called a ‘Khat’ in there, which is, A wood frame with string. Stringed together like a bed.
Let’s keep going, top’s up there. The twister just came in front of me, and I just stopped and waited for it to pass. Thank God it did, but oh my God, you could really see it when it hits the road. The twister comes up, picks up all the, dust. And it looks just like what you see in the movies.
But I couldn't get the GoPros on quick enough to capture the twister. I've never seen one of those before. We don't got them in New Zealand I’ve only ever seen them in the movies. We could go right. Whoa! There is something up there! Oh. There's some kind of settlement on the left and there's some kind of satellite up there.
I'm definitely not going near that. Looks like an Army base. Oh! Oh, that was ball breaking! Oh, yaar, man.
****, now, which way? You’re standing on the second highest plateau in the world. Keep it needing clean. I will, as soon as I check the direction. These road like this ain't much help. Oh. It's...
It just hits you. Smashes your eyes. Your eyes get smashed by a bit of wind. But it doesn't exactly push you over or anything.
So this is. This is the Deosai Plains. The air is definitely much thinner up here.
I can feel it. Ah, look at that! Beautiful, isn’t it? Oh! We've got to go that way and up there. It’s a long way to go on these roads, I’mma try stop for some food in a second, see what's going on. The air is definitely thinner, and I'm definitely struggling to walk just that far. And my body feels like it's got vibrations pulsing through it.
Oye. Oh. Let's keep going. Oh, ****. I’m getting really sick of these bumps, man. Really sick of them.
Wow. The... oye! Might pull in here.
Welcome to Deosai Tent City. Oh, you can camp here. I'm going to stop here for some tea. So you can just come here and, like, kind of camp wherever you want. Oh, this is a very cute spot here, isn’t it? Down by the water here. I'm going to get a tea.
He’s just going to cook it in there. It's pretty um... Kinda... I've just stopped here for a tea.
And let's find out about the brown beers that are here, because you will see them come here. You'll see them come to camps because, they want to take food from the rubbish bin. Basically. And these guys here, they are... They're from...
Yeah, man. What's up? How are you, man? Yeah. - It's beautiful out here, na? Just taking some shots of this place, man.
Like, a month ago, I got here. So you're looking for, What do you say? Poachers. And you're protecting the animals? Even in summer? Not not like me! Wow, so... They looking after the animals. It’s a cute name, marmot. I’m very happy that I stopped at this point and that I got to meet the Forest Department, I thought they were...
He’s asking where I'm going. Yeah, a long way. I'm two hours in, five hours to go. Bye. So.
Yeah, I'm really glad I stopped. I thought they were the Army, from the looks of it, but turns out no, Forest Rangers. And we got to hear about all the animals here.
It's just wonderful to hear. And I guess the animals are surviving quite well here because, very few humans here. This place is, is pristine.
It is being looked after because it's so remote and because the road is so bad. Flocks of tourists won't come here. Thank God. Soon as they fix the road, though, it'll start going to rubbish.
Because the amount of people I've seen here just throwing rubbish out the car window, man. Yeah, makes me really angry when I see that. People just drive around destroying this beautiful landscape. Like they don't care about their environment, man.
Right now, I'm only two hours in and I have no idea what's ahead... Another six hours of relentless bumps rain and unforgiving wind. With every hour the journey gets tougher as you're about to see.
And guys, tell me in the comments, what would you have done differently to make this ride more comfortable? I usually ride alone, but one thing that I noticed was that these harder rides, they're easier to bear and they're just more fun with friends. I mean, because you get that comradery that comes with riding, it makes things easier. The road through Deosai is just like this the whole way. Once you get the Chillum, then the road becomes better and if you take a left from Chillum, you will reach to the LoC, to India. We're not going to go that way because, they won't even let me get close enough to see India.
So there's no point. They’ll stop me five kilometres before the border. Pakistanis can go all the way up to the border. But yeah, not foreigners. Oh my God. What a road! Yeah, this ain’t.
Ah, it's pushed me into neutral. Okay. There's a way up the side here. Yep. This is going to work better.
Oh, it's jumping around a lot. I know you all want to see me splash through that water. But no. I'm not wearing fully waterproof gear, man.
I’ll end up cold and wet. Cold feet for the rest of the ride for the next three hours. No, thanks. We got through in the end. I know I keep saying this in these vlogs, but if I had my Royal Enfield Himalayan here, I would have just rode through the water because it's got such a high clearance such massive wheels, such knobby tires.
It would have ridden like a dream through that, but I don't got it. So... They actually wouldn't let me bring it across the border. They said, “Na, it's an Indian registered bike.
You can only bring foreign- bought bikes across into Pakistan.” And like and likewise across into India when I crossed at Wagah. So I could have taken the exact same bike. Royal Enfield, if I bought a New Zealand and registered it there.
Pretty crazy. So let’s go and cross this bridge. Tourist Police are here. And we've got one of these. Old very old bridges here. Might stop here and take a... Oh.
This is stunning. Hang on. I'm stopping so much on this damn trip. But you can see why, right? This is the Shigar River that we're crossing.
And you just look at this mountain range out here. Stunning, isn’t it? Oh. Okay, there's multiple roads here. I don't know which one is the right one.
Sheez, this guy struggling. Look at all the **** coming out of his exhaust. So many cars have that issue here. Woohoo! Honestly, I can't wait to get off this road This area is stunning and all, but, but there's a big rain cloud there, so I need to pass that because I don't want to get stuck in this.
And the bike will get stuck if all this road turns the mud there. Then I've got a dam problem, man. I got a big problem. Looks like I'm just staying under it. I could stop, but. Let's just keep going.
And yeah push as far as I can and get out of these plains. It's freezing up here now. It's less than ten degrees for sure. And it's getting windy.
Oh, let's see what happens. With this rain cloud, the temperatures just drop like crazy. Let's beat it out of Deosai and then I can take all this off.
Ooh! No fun, no fun. And as you can see, I'm over all alone here. Thank God this motorcycle is up to the job. And the only reason it's up to the job is because I took such good care of it. The amount of things I've done on it.
I had to change the spark plug because it's dirty. Someone left the choke open from the last trip. Had to change the rear tire. I had to change the oil. And...
just a bunch of other... I had to change the the speedo. The speedometer cable. Because the speedo stopped working. The cable got cut somehow.
Just all of these little stupid issues. I had to fix a puncture. A puncture that was already there, mind you.
Oh, okay. It's raining. It's raining. Not how I hope this day would go. So let's just keep pushing forward, man.
You need to get out of here. If it gets if it gets wet, it’s going to turn into a swamp here. Okay. It's really starting to rain now. Let's hope that I can actually get out of here. I don't want to camp here.
It's freezing here. Ooi. I just can't help but be stuck under that rain cloud up there, man. I just can't help it. I don't know if you can see it, but it's hailing. It's hailing right now.
There’s hail coming down. Small ones. Small pieces of hail. You might be able to hear it hitting my helmet. Yep. We're in a hail storm, Man! Ooh! I can see the hail. It's all over me.
Hail or snow? Yeah, it’s hail. **** Across this mother. Okay, so let's go for it. Whoa! It's deep, man. It's frickin’ deep alright. Weeee! We we made it.
Let's keep going, boys and girls. I did not expect this today. I checked the forecast, did not say hail. I'll be so happy when they get out of here.
Get back to civilisation. And a couple of dudes waiting here for some reason. As you can see, we’ve still a quite a long way to go. You'll probably have to cross the mountain pass as well, and the wind is picking up. Ohhhh this sucks.
This is not fun, guys. I need to hit that sun. I'm getting cold.
Far out. Oh, man. Still hailing a little bit, but I've kind of managed to outrun the cloud. It looks like the exit point’s just up here where you can see the sun.
Just up through that path. I hope! I hope anyway. Honestly, you don't want to get stuck alone out here. I don't want to get sick alone. I mean, I wouldn't be alone, but I'm gonna.
I'd have to camp here and... Yeah, this place is too cold enough for me, guys. Let’s keep going. Let’s push. Let's get through to Astore and chill. A little bit of a headache.
Yeah. Keep goin’, boy. Oh, **** we stopped. My shoes’ soaked now. Mother******. Shoes soaked.
Oh, boy. Now my feet are frickin’ frozen. What a bummer, man. Did not want that to happen. I don’t wanta get cold feet out here under a bloody rain cloud.
Okay, so I have to stop and empty my shoe. Man. Had to happen. It's turned into one of those days. Oh, one of those afternoons. Come, we’ll make it.
Water crossings. Okay. We got a car coming down at the same time. I'm closer, so he's going to have to wait for me. Another big ass frickin’ water crossing.
Just like that, boys. Just keep it going, okay. This bike’s struggling. Hear that? It might be the endpoint for the climb up to the Deosai Plains.
So we're probably going to make out the sent down now and, get to I hope a warmer valley. Yeah, descend into a warm valley so my feet can, warm up a little bit. Ooh, look at this, look at this. Nice lake out here.
It's pretty amazing. Just keep going. Putt putt putt putt putt. This is full tilt. Oh! Can you see that massive mountain up in the distance? Snow capped mountains.
Man. Stunning. I'm a bit happier now, although I'm starving.
I'm hungry man. First thing I'll do is find some way to get a feed. Maybe even before I get to Astore where I'm going to spend the night.
Let's just focus on getting down and warm. The wind's picking up up here as well. I can hear it whistling. It's been a lot of landslides here. All these rocks. They’re all the way down the valley.
Going down’s harder than going up. Especially on this type of road. And you just trying to not wear at your brakes, basically, because they'll get hot and they'll stop being useful.
I don't know what the landscape. Oh, see these guys? Their bike is struggling to get all the way up with two people on Hi. We're going to take this. Doesn't really matter anymore because I'm already soaked. Let’s just ride through it. Have some fun.
Somehow I've managed to escape it, luckily. And I'm riding in the sun. But out there, man. Woo hoo hoo! It looks gnarly. I don't think it's going the way I'm going. I need to take a right and go up the Astore Valley, so I should be fine.
I got to find some food first though, man, and I'm starved. This ride is much longer than Google Maps will tell you. This must be that valley turn. Okay, here we go. We're out of here. We're out of Deosai.
Back to reality and civilisation. And to find me some food, man. Hi. Assalamualaikum.
Oh, tired! New Zealand. - New Zealand?!? You probably can't hear it, but there's thunder and lightning coming. Thank God I made it out of there in time. I'm always lucky like that when I travel. Honestly, we're so lucky. And, I just gave all my details to the these guys and they sent it to the police.
Thank you, Sir. Ok, formalities done. I don't know if I should rush. Or wait for the storm to pass, but either way, the hardest part is over. Now the roads should be okay. I may just have to stay in a smaller town tonight if it's going to bucket down.
When it buckets you’ve also got the problem of avalanches in these valleys. So yeah, something I want to avoid too. The food options look pretty meagre here. I feel okay, actually. I'm just hungry.
Really hoping to get some a good feed. Hoping to spot a restaurant. What's this down here? Let's go see. I don't know if it's that way. Maybe it must be this way.
Yep. New Zealand. Yeah.
Yes. I’m very happy here. Ok. Thank you. Bye.
Let's get on our way to Astore. Looks like there’s food there. If I can find food, that would be nice. Look at this. This is a spot for some frickin’ food alright, isn't it? Look at this place. I don't know what to make of this.
But let's see. Might as well wait for the rain to pass. Let us see what's inside there. Nothing. A little ‘dukan’, a little shop Restaurant? No, I can't eat here. It's just nothing.
Oh, let's brave this weather. Should be able to make it. So the Army is here because we’re kind of close to the LoC. The Line of Control. We're kind of close to that. There’s a turn that I can take, and it would take me straight to the LoC.
But, yeah, we're not going to take that. There's no point, as you just saw. The Army is everywhere and they’re watching. Oh, my butt! It's raining again.
But I think I can beat it. This cloud ends soon. This should be okay.
It's freaking looking pretty depressing out there, isn't it? Woah! My bike is backfiring so much. It started raining again. So I just got the poncho back on. All right, I'm back.
And with the poncho on, so all my gears not going to get soaked and the road is going to get a bit slippery now These guys don’t seem fazed. Let's see if I can find some food here. The weather is getting worse. So I'm going to take shelter here at this dhaba (restaurant) for an hour or so and have some food.
Daal Maash and Parathe. And just wait for the rain to pass. Walekum As Salaam.
And, Yeah, he's just making some Daal Maash and Parathe. I stopped because the weather's just got pretty bad outside, so, I need to eat. It's been, seven hours since I left the hotel, and it's a tiring ride. So, yeah, I'm going to eat. And then I got one more hour until I get to Astore where I can just chill and relax. But, yeah, this is like a, like a roadside kitchen, you can say in in this area.
Thank you. And so here we have, we got my lunch. It's just lentils and two parathas.
Yum. Looks good. Thank you. That was a very unsatisfying, unsatisfying meal. Dal mash. Anyway, it'll get me to where I need to go, which is another 34km down here to a place called Astore. Anyway, I feel better with food on my stomach, to be honest.
I got some more energy here now. And the sun's back out. So, yeah, we're back in action. Look at this. This alpine beauty.
I'm enjoying the ride now with this nice road. The rocks and the trees. It's really different. It’s a different landscape.
I’ll wait for them to come passed. On top of the van I should say. The van is going to struggle, man. Especially on those roads. Look at this.
We’re in Astore. We made it! Finally, man! That was such a long and hard ride. I am just going to relax now. I'm going to chill out, eat some chocolate. Do absolutely nothing.
After eight gruelling hours in the saddle, my body had had enough for the day. Even one of my GoPros had given up too. But the journey was far from over. The Astore Inn.
The next morning marked the start of my ride back to Delhi, but as you'll see, it didn't come without its own share of obstacles too. First, I had to deal with professional beggars blocking the road. Then rocks started falling. Hey? Yeah. Ahead, in my vlogs, I'll be passing through Mirpur, Sahiwal and Lahore before finally crossing the border back to India. So stick around.
There's still a lot more adventure to come.
2024-11-26 12:13
