Can one just decide to go on a Leh Ladakh motorcycle trip one day from another?
I was surprised to see that what seemed an intangible childhood dream came together in a single phone call from the Dhaka airport at nine in the evening, three days before my schedule could afford to let me disappear. The man on the other end arranged the bike, the hotel, the special Inner Line Permit and even the airport taxi in under ten minutes. The next morning I was on a small Airbus rising through the smog of Delhi towards Leh, watching the Indo-Gangetic plain disappear under clouds and the first glaciers of the Himalayas rise into view.
What follows is the story of those three days. A solo trip across the Ladakh range by motorcycle, following the itinerary: starting from Leh through the Kardung La Pass to Nubra Valley and back through the Wari La Pass. A Himalaya adventure I had not been ready for and yet, in some quiet way, had been preparing for over years. If you are considering your own Leh Ladakh road trip, or simply curious what it is like to ride alone across the roof of the world, this is one honest account of how it actually went.
Table of Contents
Planning a Spontaneous Leh Ladakh Motorcycle Trip
Everything went smoothly. I adjusted my trip to the time constraints of a modern traveler bound by a job in her own country. While waiting in the airport of Dhaka, I searched for a motorcycle rental in Leh, the capital of the north-western region of India. It was 9pm, so I was quite surprised when I received an instantaneous reply. After a short phone call, everything was arranged, including things that I haven’t been expecting to solve through a motorcycle renting business: like the hotel I was going to stay in, the special permit one needed in order to roam around Ladakh, full motorcycle gear and even the taxi from the airport.
Usually I am reticent in accepting services that I haven’t been purposefully asking for, but the whole incursion in Ladakh was last minute arranged and somehow the guy from the bike shop seemed genuinely helpful and trustworthy. Even though it wasn’t a proper expedition, it was going to be a first taste of the Himalayas.
After four hours of flight, a short stay in a cheap-close-to-the-airport-hotel and a chicken masala, next morning at 7 am, I found myself in the small airbus serving the domestic flight to Leh. When we took off, the sun was rising through the smog of Delhi. I was extremely happy with my decision. Maybe Mughal architecture had its enchantments, but for three days, I hoped to take a rest from humankind.
I was lucky to have a seat near the window and soon enough I watched how we rose above the sea of clouds. Everything that was below a certain altitude was covered by a thick layer of white-yellowish foam, so that there was nothing to be seen from the Indo-Gangetic plain. I let my thoughts wander, far in front of me to the mountain ranges that were rising in the north. And soon enough, beneath us, gentle fingers of fog were trying to climb up through the green pine forests of the Shiwalik Range.
First Impressions of Leh: Where the Himalaya Adventure Begins
What did I actually know about Ladakh? That it was neighbouring the infamously beautiful Kashmir and supposedly also sharing its beauties, that it was also sometimes torn by political forces that rise between huge nations, that it was disputed by China, Pakistan and India, and yet it remained Indian territory, that people were proud of their glacier water and that it bordered what once seemed to me intangible dreamy dreams: the Karakoram mountain ranges, whose most famous peaks rise just across the border. Let’s not forget the Indian movie Three Idiots, referred to by everyone in Bangladesh immediately after Ladakh was mentioned.
The flight to Leh was a treat on its own. We were flying above endless rows of mountain ridges and unpopulated valleys. The scenery looked tough, steep, corroded by unfinished ice ages. I had never before seen such massive glaciers: long tongues of ice slithering away toward the lower ends of valleys, endless plains of bluish ice, wrinkled and cracked by time. This was not a sight made for the living, and yet life crawled its way up as high as it could.
The atmosphere was perfectly clear, nothing like the lower Indian plains. One had the impression that one could see all the details of the surface and follow with the gaze each distinct crevice. The broken surface of steep glaciers was slowly flowing down, bordered by rocky moraines and glacial steps.
The anthropic markers were scarce. Every five valleys, one could trace a tiny road; every tenth valley, one could find a small settlement. The mountains seemed somehow loaded with ice, as if the last ice age had never ended. And yet it was the end of summer, and the rocky crests showed just a few traces of new snow. I could imagine myself walking on these endless plains of ice. I had not yet landed in Ladakh, but a desire for more had arisen, a desire to return to a place I had not yet been.
The Ladakh Range and the Zanskar Range frame the broad Indus Valley, while to the north, the Karakoram rises to some of the highest peaks on earth. Across the border in Pakistan-administered Karakoram stands K2, the world’s second highest mountain, alongside Broad Peak, the Gasherbrums and endless unnamed ridges of ice and rock. Karakoram hosts the largest concentration of high-altitude glaciers outside the polar regions, earning it the title of the Third Pole. For the adventure traveler, Ladakh is among the best places to go in Asia: home to some of the highest motorable roads in the world, including the legendary Khardung La Pass at over 5,300 meters. The Nubra Valley, the Shyok Valley and the remote Wari La Pass remain among the last truly off-the-beaten-path destinations in Asia.
Soon, the Zanskar Range decreased in altitude; the glaciers were replaced by turquoise strings of water and occasional mountain lakes. As we were nearing the broad Indus Valley, we were also nearing our destination: Leh. We circled the city one and a half times as the plane was trying to lose altitude and approach the landing line from a suitable angle. Little gray houses with surprisingly flat rooftops were spread across the flat and broad Indus Valley. A huge dune of reddish sand was gathered just outside the town, where the steep heights of Ladakh Range were starting.
The banks of the Indus and the city of Leh didn’t look so barren, as endless spikes of tall poplars alternated with rows of houses. Here we were already at 3,500 m altitude, and it seemed that autumn had already arrived. All the poplars had already lost their foliage and looked like an army holding high spikes. We landed. Near the airport was a military base, one of many in this region. As I would learn from my half day in New Delhi, army personnel were a common sight in this country, and so were military bases in Ladakh.
The airport was very small and had the air of a mountain hut decorated with timber structures sculptured with Tibetan geometric patterns. I had to complete a few formalities, nothing taking longer than 15 min, due to the special political status of Ladakh (they are governed by India, but have some degree of local autonomy through the hill development councils). Another particularity is that you require a SIM card from this region, but luckily for me, I found someone nice enough to share some internet with me. I remembered what struck me, as I entered the plane: it was filled mostly by men with darker skin shades and central Asian features.
As I exited the airport, a warm, gentle breeze enveloped me. I was at 3500m in November, but nonetheless this mountain region was warmer than its equivalents in Europe. On the way to the hotel, I was absorbed by the wooden Tibetan houses and by the fact that yet again in a very short interval I was immersing myself in a new environment. I tried to take it all in: the white stupas with tinted gold rooftops, the imposing walls of Namgyal Tsemo Fortress overlooking the city, the desert dust and the mountain air, occasional street fruit and food merchants, smiling people walking in a relaxed manner.
I went straight up the hill, on the Old Leh road, which eventually stopped at the gates of the fortress. Soon I reached the hotel, another wooden structure carved with Tibetan ridges, with broad glass windows. The reception was warm, in the most proper sense of the word: they welcomed me with a classical Ladakhi salty butter tea: Po Cha.
As I drank my tea, two black cows with thorny horns passed down the street and then Thin arrived with the motorcycle. He was all smiles; I could see he had experience with tourists: both communication and understanding were easy with him.
“You know, I have a permit, and I went to a good motorcycling school, but I must be honest with you: in the past 4 years I have ridden the motorcycle only once and I am rusty in my riding skills.”
By the way he reacted to this information, I knew that we were kindred minds. He proposed that he would accompany me on my first day and help me remember how to ride a motorcycle. He showed no sign whatsoever that he wouldn’t entrust me with the beautiful Himalayan Enduro 450cc for the following three days.
After a short practice ride he handed me the motorcycle. I was afraid! I felt like I didn’t know anything anymore about this powerful animal. I started really slowly, easing the clutch into first gear. In a way, I thought to myself, this is the perfect place to relearn how to ride a motorcycle: lightly trafficked, steep and twisted roads. I tested the brakes, front and rear, foot and hand, and tested the clutch a couple of times. I was feeling quite unsure of myself: taking turns, changing gear, braking in time, avoiding potholes.
After a short ride around, I returned to Thin and found him in a state of distress. The thing is that I had left without my phone and he was unsure that I would find my way back on the labyrinthine streets. And yet he very quickly switched to what I came to realise was his normal serene state.
The next hour we spent crossing the town to visit various friends of his in order to gather all the equipment I needed for the trip: helmet, gloves, jacket. On the outskirts the roads were dusty and unpaved. We almost reached the big red dune outside the town, and from there we picked up a big warm jacket for me and two large sacks filled with unprocessed wool for him. At that moment I felt like I was in a proper Himalayan movie.
One needs a special permit to drive around Ladakh. Luckily for me, Thin knew where to get it and how to get it in less than a half of a day.
We went to the local tourism office, filled in the forms, and then roamed around the city center for about one hour, until the permit was ready.
Geared up, and with only half a day left we decided to drive down the Indus valley to the famous Thiksey monastery. I let him drive, since I was not yet comfortable driving on national roads. I tried to relax as the back passenger, and to remember how to minimally shift my center of gravity. We flew along a turquoise strip of the Indus. I was quite anxious. I felt exposed. Only on the two wheels, 50km/h felt too fast, the occasional cars and trucks seemed massive in comparison with us. I was tense, hypervigilant and rigid.
Thiksey Monastery: Buddhist Art, Butter Tea and Motorcycle Driving Lessons
After a sudden and pointy curve of the road, we saw the world-renowned Thiksey monastery. A forest of white 2-3 story buildings climbing up in terraces on the shoulder of a prominent mountain ridge. It was built to dominate the Indus Valley. We left the main road, passed by a row of white stupas with golden towers with lotus leaves on the top. Thin accelerated, the road was empty and took a very broad turn that almost followed the altitude line.
We parked inside the second wall. It was a new area of the monastery, newly painted for the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama. A huge, wooden cylinder, painted and adorned with metal, was constructed right after the second gate. Thin explained that it was a lakhkar, a Buddhist praying wheel. One could turn it around the spindle and it was as if one read all the mantras written on it.
Thiksey Monastery is twelve-story complex houses an extraordinary collection of Buddhist art including stupas, thangkas, statues, and richly detailed wall paintings. The crown jewel is the Maitreya Temple, built to commemorate the 14th Dalai Lama’s visit in 1970, which houses a 15-meter tall statue of Maitreya, the Future Buddha, the largest such statue in Ladakh, spanning two full floors of the building. An active place of worship and learning, the monastery is home to around 60 monks, who can be observed performing daily rituals, chanting prayers, and engaging in philosophical debate. Each year, the Gustor Festival brings the monastery to life with vibrant Cham mask dances performed by the monks, depicting the triumph of good over evil.
Nothing moved, not even the colorful Buddhist flags. Everything was very clean; the red, black, and yellow paint looked no more than a year old. But the monks were nowhere to be seen. We took off our shoes and climbed a set of steep stairs. We entered through a short doorway that forced me to lower my head. Candles were lit, the intense smell of incense enveloped me, and slowly, slowly my eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. Almost all the space in the room was occupied by a gigantic Buddha head. Maitreya Buddha, or the Future Buddha. I understood why it was named like this: its serene gaze, looked somewhere beyond.
On the walls various Buddhist saints and Buddha incarnations were depicted surrounded by their own mythology. I was such an ignorant profane. In that instant, I wanted to know all the stories and mythology behind the Buddhist iconography. And yet, in general, I was so saturated by information. I just wanted to to directly engage with the paintings without any prior knowledge. To ignore my unsatisfied thirst for factual information. To make this visit purely experiential. I left behind the huge buddha head and the numerous instances of painted buddhas.
Down and up on the steep sets of stairs, I found my way to the old side of the monastery. Here the iconography was even richer. Ultramarine gods and humans, surrounded by hollows of clouds and flames, were protecting the entrance in the main praying hall. I was fascinated by the details and richness of symbols unknown to me. This hall was dated back to the 15th century, the paintings were old, the time and smoke left their marks on them.
Part of the experience was that I knew nothing about those creatures: gods, humans and other kinds. Rows of heads, heads flowering from other heads, looking grotesque, evil, comic, threatening or serene. Battling, playing music, practicing yoga, making love in heavenly ways.
These paintings must have had a striking impact on the neofite, who could for the first time see with his own eyes what the heavens and underworlds contained, to whom upon the entrance in the monastery, what was previously hidden from his mundane eyes was suddenly relieved.
This wall painting is located in the Gonkhang, Thiksey’s temple of guardian deities, believed to be among the oldest structures in the complex, dating to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The entrance mural on its south wall depicts protector deities in a visual style that shows a strong Chinese influence, differing from the more traditional Tibetan iconographic conventions found elsewhere in the monastery. The central figure is Dhritarashtra (Yul Khor Srung in Tibetan), Guardian of the Eastern Direction and King of the Gandharvas, celestial musicians. He is recognizable by his broad square face, his moustache and beard, and above all by the lute (vina) he holds and plays. In Buddhist iconography, the lute is not decorative: music is considered a medium capable of teaching the Dharma and subduing negativity. To his left is the darker, fiercer Virudhaka, Guardian of the South. Both figures are traditionally placed at monastery entrances, worldly deities powerful enough to guard the threshold, yet not permitted inside the sacred inner halls. What makes this mural particularly compelling is precisely what art historians note about the Gonkhang’s style: the swirling clouds, the fluid drapery, and the vivid ultramarine ground all reflect Chinese pictorial influence absorbed into a Tibetan iconographic framework, a visual record of the cultural crossroads that Ladakh has always occupied.
On one of the walls, I have recognised some gods performing yoga poses. All of them were couples depicted in some ritualistic entanglement. I made a note to myself: sometime in the future, when I will have time to travel through my memories, I will try to learn more about this foreign pantheon, about the deeds and misdeeds of these creatures, about what is to be strived for inside this system.
This mural belongs to a room reserved for tantric initiation rites within a Tibetan monastery. Flaming halos, skull garlands, bulging eyes, and trampling bodies can strike the uninitiated viewer as jarring, hard to reconcile with the popular notion of Buddhism as a serene religion. Yet these figures are not expressions of uncontrolled rage, but carefully coded embodiments of protection and transformative clarity. Their flames burn away ignorance, their weapons cut through delusion. The dominant central figure, multi-armed, deep blue, wreathed in fire, is almost certainly Mahakala (“the Protector”), the Great Black One, chief among the wrathful dharmapalas, whose temples are traditionally decorated with weapons, animal skins, and murals painted against deep, dark backgrounds. His crown of five skulls symbolizes the transformation of the five poisons (ignorance, anger, desire, pride, and jealousy) into the five wisdoms. The white figure riding a mule in the upper left is Palden Lhamo, the only female among the Eight Great Dharmapalas and Tibet’s principal protector deity, personal guardian of all fourteen Dalai Lamas. Emaciated and fearful, she rides her mule surrounded by flames and retinue. The yellow-green figure below is likely Kubera or a regional yaksha protector, one of several guardian deities represented in Thiksey’s Gonkhang alongside Vajrabhairava and Dharmaraja. Together they form a pantheon of fierce compassion, guardians standing at the precise threshold between the sacred and the profane, between this world and liberation.
This frieze, running along the upper register of one of Thiksey’s inner halls, depicts a row of yidams, tantric meditational deities, shown in the characteristic yab-yum (“father-mother”) embrace. In Vajrayana iconography, this union is never erotic in the mundane sense: the sexual embrace symbolizes the union of wisdom and compassion, the two inseparable pillars of Buddhist enlightenment. The dominant central figure, dark blue, multi-headed, radiating dozens of arms, is almost certainly Vajrabhairava (Dorje Jigje), also known as Yamantaka. Yamantaka, the “Destroyer of Death,” is the paramount yidam of the Gelugpa school, the very tradition that governs Thiksey Monastery. A guardian and destroyer of death, he is represented with thirty-four arms brandishing weapons, his sixteen legs trampling birds, dogs, and deities, holding his consort Vajravetali in sacred union, the couple encircled by a flaming aureole. Each anatomical detail carries precise symbolic meaning: his nine heads represent the nine scriptural categories; his thirty-four arms the thirty-seven limbs of enlightenment; his sixteen legs the sixteen types of emptiness. The golden-yellow figure to the left in a wide dancing stance is likely Chakrasamvara or a related heruka, one of the three principal meditational deities of the Gelug school alongside Vajrabhairava and Guhyasamaja. All figures stand on prostrate bodies, not acts of cruelty, but a standard iconographic statement: the trampling of ego, delusion, and the forces that bind beings to samsara.
On one of the old walls, one could see the famous Wheel of Life, the Samsara, the depiction of the realms of Buddhist cosmogony. How many realms did I know of the world, such as I knew it? The first was the realm of schools and grooming institutions. The second was the realm of the countryside and remote areas. The realm of hospitals and healing institutions. The antechamber of death, where elderly people spend their last years of life. Then there were the sub-realms of different professions and the structures they form in order to organize.
The sub-realm, yet popular realm, of corporations. The virtual, vast and illusory realm of the internet, where all sorts of intellectual productions were dispersed by humankind for humankind. The realms of solitary natural places. The urban-anthropic realms. The underworld, the realm to which all the misfits belonged.
The realm of our minds. The realm of fashion, theater, circus and other performing arts, all glittering sub-worlds of show. The universe, beyond our planet, as we reach it through our scientific instruments and with our model-building, hypothesis-forming minds. The world of decisionmakers and powerful people, overlapping with the realm of capital holders.
A fundamental cosmological diagram of Vajrayana Buddhism, painted in the Thangka style within a Himalayan monastery. The wheel is gripped by Yama, the fearsome Lord of Death, whose presence reminds that no being escapes impermanence. At the center, three animals (a pig, snake, and rooster) represent the Three Poisons: ignorance, hatred, and desire, the root causes of all suffering. Radiating outward, the wheel’s segments illustrate the Six Realms of Samsara (gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings) into which consciousness is reborn according to karma. The outermost ring depicts the Twelve Nidanas, the chain of dependent origination perpetuating cyclic existence. Crucially, a golden Buddha figure outside the wheel points toward liberation, offering the path beyond Samsara. This image embodies the Buddha’s core teaching: that recognizing the Three Poisons is the first step toward breaking the cycle of rebirth and attaining Nirvana.
I moved on to the other chambers of the monastery. Maybe because I associated the air of reclusiveness with reflection, I let my train of thoughts flow. There was this feeling through which, already for one even two years, I started seeing people. I saw their personality features, or had thoughts with common labels for social cognition. But it was as if all their asperities and rough edges stopped in a thick layer of universal acceptance of the human condition.
I wondered where the point is where acceptance becomes anesthesia or anergia. If you reach the point where you just witness the world and others, you are no longer part of the world. And I do want to participate in the world, in its continuous shaping. I have yet to learn where the point where acceptance turns into detachment. I am not interested in detachment.
The Indus Valley is the spine of Ladakh: the river that carved it, known locally as Singge Chu, the Lion River, rises near Mount Kailash on the Tibetan Plateau at over 5,000 metres and travels some 3,180 kilometres before emptying into the Arabian Sea in Pakistan, making it one of the longest rivers in Asia. In Ladakh, it runs west through a valley unusually broad for a Himalayan river system, wide enough to sustain irrigated fields of barley and wheat, poplar-lined villages, and one of the highest-altitude cities on earth — Leh, at 3,524 metres. The valley’s exceptional fertility, rare at this elevation, made it a natural corridor for the ancient Silk Road, and it was along these banks that Buddhism entered the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia, leaving behind a density of monasteries unmatched in the region: Hemis, founded in the 11th century and home to one of Ladakh’s most important annual festivals; Thiksey, whose tiered white architecture mirrors Tibet’s Potala Palace; and Shey, the former summer capital of the Ladakhi kings. The river itself, impossibly turquoise at altitude, fed by the snowmelt of both the Zanskar and Ladakh ranges, has been shaping this civilisation — architecturally, spiritually, agriculturally — for over a thousand years.
On the rooftop, Thin rejoined me. We took a couple of photos and then, out of the blue, he asked me:
“You live in your own world, don’t you?”
“I live in the world that I have constructed for myself.”
He didn’t say anything, I pondered on my own reply. I wondered if it was as such, or if it was just a fitting answer.
We went down to the kitchen. There were three monks inside, all of them dressed in their red clocks, with rough hands and square features. These were people used to hard manual labour. The monastery, after all, was self-sustaining. The room was darker than the others. Smoked by the great cooking stove placed in the middle. One of them went outside and brought some more firewood. Another moved a big pot from the sides to the center, and then added some ingredients.
Thin conversed with the monks. I asked, and he said it’s just about some local ongoings. Curious as I was, I didn’t pursue it further. Then we drank another butter tea with spices. I smiled, as it was my only means of communication. They smiled back and charged us through some QR-reading wallet app. Secluded, yet not running from the modern world? Courteous and welcoming, yet not charity.
After the Thiksey Monastery, I said to myself, the time to drive the two wheeled vehicle has come. I needed to overcome this mental blockage or drop the idea of crossing the Ladakh range on my own altogether. We had one other stop for the day: Hemis Monastery, that was a little bit further down the Indus. I was very tense, until the point I could start to say that I was fearful. It was even harder to drive with a passenger.
Firstly we went with 15km/h, which worked perfectly fine until the cross with the national road. Even so, I decided to not go faster than 20km/h. Thin calmly gave advice when they were necessary. I tried to relax, but my knuckles were white on the handlebar. I had thoughts of little stones flowing towards my helmet, or cars suddenly breaking in front of me, or trucks not giving me enough space.
The road was low circulated, the asphalt impeccable and clean and visibility perfect. I used to go faster with the bike when I went downhill. My stress increased further when I saw that on the secondary road leading to Hemis, I needed to take sharper turns. Funnily enough, I took the turns and my motor stopped on a straight strip of the road where it turns out, I should have accelerated more. I gave back the wheel to the master and soon enough we reached the monastery, which was of similar esthetics with the first one.
On the way back, we took the road on the other side of the Indus and Thin told me the stories of the land. Many had cattle and lived out of it, some also had gardens and orchards. Apricots, apples and grapes were popular in the region. A good percentage of the male population worked for the army. And then it was tourism, mostly for the people living in the town. The sunset scenery bypassed us peacefully. Kinetic beauty: Reddish barren rocks taking shades of purple in the sunset. What I love about it is the continuous change of scenery, the preserved delight of the unknown.
We didn’t quite eat anything that day, apart from the butter tea and bread in Thiksey. We stopped near what looked like a small local road shop mixed with a very rudimentary tavern. The protocol was like this: you basically shopped for ingredients on the shelves, paid for them and then went to the stove at the back and cooked them.
Nestled in the dramatic mountains of Ladakh, about 45 km southeast of Leh, Hemis Monastery is the largest and wealthiest Buddhist monastery in the region. Founded in the 17th century and belonging to the Drukpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, it is renowned for its stunning architecture, sacred murals, and impressive collection of ancient thangkas, statues, and religious artifacts. Hemis is best known for the annual Hemis Festival, held each summer in honor of Guru Padmasambhava. During the festival, monks perform vibrant masked dances (Cham dances), attracting visitors from around the world. Surrounded by the rugged landscapes of the Himalayas and located near the famous Hemis National Park, the monastery offers both a spiritual and cultural highlight for travelers exploring Ladakh.
We bought some local spicy noodles, and because I was with a local connoisseur, he asked for the local specialty, Gyuma: sheep intestines filled with blood and spices, boiled and then cooked in a huge pan, over a huge fire in front of us. I told them that we too in Romania have this type of dish, except that ours are intestines filled with rice and blood. My barbarous side liked it quite a lot. Afterwards we raced against the sunset. I was finally feeling comfortable on the motorcycle.
A Solo Adventure Begins: Riding Through Khardung La Pass
The next day, I was supposed to meet Thin at 8 am in front of the hotel to sign some paperwork. He arrived at 9 am with a car, trying to convince me to rent the car for my trip. Initially, I was persuaded. He said that the road is not asphalted all the way up, and given my riding skills, it would be quite challenging. But then he added that they don’t rent cars without a driver. And that was a dealbreaker. I needed solitude. I wanted to have two days alone.
The Leh Ladakh motorcycle trip is one of the most iconic rides in the world, and the road from Leh to Khardung La Pass is its crown jewel. Rising to an altitude of approximately 5,359 meters (17,582 ft), Khardung La is among the highest motorable roads on Earth and serves as the gateway to Nubra Valley. Starting from Leh at around 3,500 meters, riders face a rapid altitude gain on a winding mountain road that climbs nearly 1,800 meters in less than 40 km. The Leh to Nubra Valley distance via Khardung La is approximately 120 km, while the climb from Leh to the pass itself is around 39–40 km.
When he saw that I was headstrong, he offered me the keys. We signed the papers, and he refused any kind of advance, deposit, or insurance. He basically just gave me the motorcycle, hoping that I would bring it back in the same condition, myself included. He also said that if anything happened to me on the road, I should give them a call and they would send someone with a car after me. That was soothing, since there were no emergency services to call in this area.
In the end, he offered to accompany me with the car, just a few km above Leh, to make sure that I could handle the road. And so, my first solo motorcycle adventure through the Himalayas started.
In the first 20km there were indeed a couple of road portions without asphalt. Again, I was driving at 25km/h. But afterwards the asphalt was impeccable and the road was scarcely circulated. Even though I had gloves and the sun was up, after passing 3000m, I had to stop from time to time to warm my hands. The road was a continuous exercise for my driving skills. With every curve, I rose a little bit higher and I had an increasingly broader perspective over Indus valley and Leh. On the other side of the broad valley, the icy crests of the Zanskar Range were rising like a dream.
Soon, I too have reached the realm of ice and snow. The asphalt was clean, but the crests that I was climbing were powdered with snow. Right before completely leaving behind the Indus valley, I had to stop for a mandatory check. The permit that I have obtained, was not after all useless. As I drove deeper and deeper into the mountains, the Indus disappeared, and I was entering the realm of glaciers.
The road to Khardung La Pass was famous for travelers, bikers, adventurers and tourists alike. Yet the season almost ended.
The road surface is generally well maintained. Apart from a short stretch of broken asphalt just above Leh, the road from Leh to Khardung La is in good condition. Up to South Pullu, the asphalt is excellent. The first permit checkpoint is located at South Pullu; if you have not obtained the required permit in Leh, you will not be allowed to proceed beyond this point. After crossing Khardung La, on the northern side of the mountain crest, riders may encounter occasional sections of broken pavement, loose gravel, and, toward the end of autumn, patches of ice. Early morning departures are recommended, as road conditions are typically more stable and traffic is lighter.
To those that are wondering, I must say that the road remained free of ice and snow all the way.
I was hyperattentive to the prospect of encountering either regular ice or black ice. Funnily enough, I did manage to find a strip of ice. It was right at the end of the climb, in the parking lot of the Khardung La Pass. Right when I wanted to stop, I slipped on a small frozen puddle and fell with the motorcycle in front of the tourist crowd that had stopped there for photos.
Beyond the technical challenge, this route delivers one of the most spectacular experiences of any Leh Ladakh road trip. Hairpin bends snake through barren Himalayan landscapes, prayer flags flutter across the road, buddhist gates mark various passages and panoramic views stretch toward the Karakoram Range. It is the perfect combination of extreme riding and unforgettable scenery, making it a bucket-list Himalaya adventure for motorcyclists worldwide.
I did not feel ridiculous. I was actually quite glad that I fell there at 0 km/h, surrounded by people and not somewhere else. At least three people came to my aid, and together we lifted the motorcycle. In theory, I knew how to do it on my own (back against the saddle, using the strength of the quadriceps, pushing it upright with my backside), but I was glad I had help.
Khardung La Pass and the Road from Leh to Nubra Valley
Khardung La Pass, situated at over 5,300 meters above sea level, is known as one of the highest motorable roads in the world. A sign warned the drivers not to stop there for longer than 10 minutes, due to the risk of pulmonary edema.
I looked on the other side, and my gaze got lost in endless rows of rocky mountains. As the yellow board announced to me, I was just looking for the first time in my life towards the Karakoram Mountain Range.
I remembered an old dream of mine as a young adult reading a travelling book: crossing Karakoram by motorcycle. High mountain passes, altitude roads, torrent valleys and slithering, narrow roads.
I thanked all those that helped me put up the motorcycle, and I left. I was breathing deeply and heavily, there was no point in stopping until the lack of oxygen caught up with me.
The Leh to Nubra Valley distance via Khardung La is roughly 150 kilometres, and on a good day this can be ridden in five to six hours of careful pacing.
At an altitude of 5,359 m (17,582 ft), Khardung La is one of the highest motorable mountain passes in the world and the gateway to Nubra Valley. The pass offers breathtaking views of the Ladakh and Karakoram ranges, making it a must-stop destination on any Leh Ladakh road trip. However, due to the extreme altitude and low oxygen levels, visitors who are not fully acclimatized should limit their stay at the summit to no more than 10–15 minutes. Symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), such as headache, dizziness, and shortness of breath, can develop quickly. Enjoy the views, take a few photos, and continue your Himalaya adventure to lower altitudes.
I mounted the motorcycle, eager to continue my journey. I was still driving slow, not confident enough to surpass 30km/h. The first 500m of altitude descent took all my attention span, I was on the northern side of the mountain and the temperature was somewhat lower. I had to make quite frequent stops to warm up my hands, because I started not feeling them on the handlebar. After I re-entered the realm of sun, the slopes decreased and even flattened into a broad glacial step.
A silent village, North Pullu, with 5 houses was nestled there, along with another mobile military base with a couple of rows of tents. There were some soldiers guarding the crossing point, but they didn’t stop me. With the sun above and fewer switchbacks, the degree of comfort increased. The scenery was magnificent and now I had the attentional resources to take it in.
I was euphoric, flowing through endless kinetic beauties. It was like euphoria invented itself in various nuances with every new detail of the scenery that I took in. For the little creature that I am, the broad valleys and the massive, rock-solid ridges that were rising 3000m above them, were generating a feeling of awe inside me.
Somewhere between Khardung La Pass and the descent into Nubra Valley, this truck became an unlikely companion. “Free Tibet” livery rolls as a quiet political statement through one of the most contested landscapes on earth. The Leh to Nubra Valley distance covers roughly 150 kilometres of this: bare mineral mountains, impeccable asphalt curving into the unknown, and a sky so deeply blue it looks painted. This is what a Leh Ladakh road trip actually feels like: not a postcard, but a moving, breathing thing. The Himalaya adventure is not in arriving. It is in following the road as it bends.
I am a veteran searcher for endless, empty, heavenly roads, as they are for me perfect metaphors for freedom. This Leh to Nubra Valley road didn’t disappoint: the sky was blue, the asphalt impeccable, there was no wind, and only a couple of other vehicles passed by me. My desires for freedom, solitude and kinetic beauty were satisfied all at once. I let part of my mind free to wander.
I remembered a conversation that I had with a professor of philosophy of the mind. “Be the woman, Alexandra”, he told me in a rather different context, yet the words stuck with me. I kept them in my mind to ponder upon in such a moment. “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”, are de Beauvoir’s most famous words. I am sometimes a solo female traveler, and yet it is not a purpose in itself but rather a degree of freedom that I have and I quite enjoy.
Exploring the world helps one develop a mind of one’s own, and this is true for any young person. I do think that there are plenty of groups and countries where a feminist discourse still is quite necessary, as for myself I am not a feminist, nor do I seek to prove that I am capable of a certain thing despite the fact that I am a woman. The woman that I am, almost by chance, discovered that it is deliriously beautiful to drive through the Himalayas on a motorcycle.
Even though the asphalt was impeccable, the roads were broken from place to place by torrents during the summer, or by avalanches during the winter. People were brought from different regions of India to repair the damage every year. They worked all day long in harsh conditions, slept in modest tents, and were paid only 800 rupees a day. During one of the conversations that I had with Thin, I found out that they were regarded as outsiders by Ladakhi people, who mostly didn’t interact with them. I was also warned not to interact with these modern Sisyphs, who were removing rocks from the road with their bare hands.
Every summer, from May to mid-October, migrant workers arrive in Ladakh from some of India’s poorest states — Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh — to do the work that makes every road journey in the region possible. They clear rockfall, carry heavy loads of mud and stone at altitudes between 3,350 and 5,490 metres. They work ten hours a day, six days a week, in harsh mountain sunlight, with almost no safety gear. At night, canvas tents by the roadside are their shelter. Despite being indispensable to Ladakh’s connectivity, and to its booming tourism, they remain socially invisible. Ladakh is increasingly worry about demographic change and the erosion of traditional communal labour, and the road workers are caught in this tension: economically necessary, socially marginalised.
Around 5pm, I reached the confluence of Shyok and Nubra River. After a short stop in a modest road restaurant, where I drank the classical spiced milk tea, and I had a delicious local dish, I turned left towards the Diskit Monastery and Shyok Valley.
Hunder Sand Dunes: A Night at the Edge of the Karakoram
On the left side, a huge golden statue of Buddha was overlooking the two valleys and gazing westward across the valley toward the disputed Siachen frontier. This deliberate orientation is deeply symbolic: it represents an eternal prayer for peace, compassion, and reconciliation across one of the world’s most contested borders.
It was already getting late, I didn’t want to drive after sunset. For accommodation, I have decided to follow Thin’s recommendation: a small resort in Hunder. The region of Nubra valley was rich in inedite natural sights. One could find in the same area: a small desert with sand dunes, hotwater springs and glaciers.
Dominating the adjacent hilltop is a 32-metre statue of Maitreya — the Future Buddha — inaugurated by the 14th Dalai Lama in 2010. In Buddhist cosmology, Maitreya is prophesied to reestablish the Dharma when the teachings of Shakyamuni have been entirely forgotten. He is depicted seated with legs pendant, signifying readiness to descend. The statue faces west toward the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield at elevations between 5,400 and 6,400 metres, contested by India and Pakistan since 1984. A future Buddha of loving-kindness, gazing permanently toward one of the planet’s most protracted and meteorologically brutal military standoffs. The symbolism requires no elaboration.
Pacefull dogs and a dromedary
I was glad when I finally entered the village, the last 10 km were covered in patches of black ice. I drove slowly through the narrow streets of Hunder. The local dogs followed me with their gaze bored. Two villagers walked by spinning their portable Mani Wheels, the equivalent of a portable continuous generator of luck. Then I met the most beautiful and fluffy animal: a dromedary, returning home with his master.
I left the motorcycle at the resort. The dinner was at seven, so I had time for a short incursion in the Hunder sand dunes area. How can one have all these natural beauties at the same time? White sand dunes, lakes, mountains over 5000m and glaciers?
Slowly, slowly the sun went down. I set down on a dune, the sand had a minute granularity and was very smooth to the touch. Further away, also among the sand dunes, a group of nomads were camping in their yurts. I could see them because they had already made a big fire and the sparking ashes were confounding with the stars settling on the darkening sky.
Hunder Sand Dunes
Reluctantly, I had to return for dinner. The architecture of the resort respected the principles of local Ladakh houses: a big stove in the center of the dining room, little wooden tables distributed with cushions around them. Those that came for dinner were either Indian tourists or local Ladakh people. I timidly tried to insert myself in the conversation, but I met a clear linguistic barrier. At some point I could make out the fact that they were talking about local politics and Tibet. Sometimes I feel that I stepped into a narrative in which the others were frozen for a while.
Next morning, I woke up before the sunrise, drank lots of tea and saddled for my last day of adventures. As the sun rose up over the mountain ridges, I reached Diskit monastery again. I have only shortly interacted with the monks. An old one with very cool sunglasses let me take some photos with him. Another one, upon my return to the parking lot, helped me raise the motorcycle after it fell. He was kind and his English was impeccable.
The road down was quite steep, and I was unsure that my skills were adequate for it. His voice was calm, he told me to put the clutch on neutral and to move really slow down on the steep and narrow road. He also accompanied me for the first two turns. I expressed my gratitude along with my awe for the way some people in this region were: kind and knowing naturally when and with what to bring in the interactions with the others.
I had no time for the hot water springs of Panamik, but enough for a stop in the Sumoor Sand Dunes. There I found the most beautiful spot from my trip. I was literally in heaven, or anyhow my own personal version of it. There was everything at once to be grasped by my gaze: white sand dunes, the turquoise-blue waters of Nubra and high altitude mountains with glaciers in the background. There was no other soul to be seen as far as I could see.
I sat there on the little warm sand, trying to stop the normal race of my thoughts. I wanted to take the serenity in, to breathe it through my lungs, so that whenever I would need it I would have it in a room of my mind. Peace. I need to remember this feeling and keep it with me. Keep it at the roots of all of my endeavours. How does one make peace part of oneself? I am nowhere close to solving my own interior conflicts, I am getting into the habit of letting go of those that overpass me in complexity.
I dug my fingers into the white sand. I am just one human being. With plenty of faults and limited resources. Not to think of anything is a privilege. I attempted to switch from thoughts to sensations. I am part of the world and the world is part of me. And yet what shall I keep with me from my passage through the world. Emptying one’s mind requires practice. To empty it in order to gain control over the content of one’s mind. I am at the level of random associations of random mental garbage.
Sumoor Sand Dunes
“What type of human being are you?” Asked the philosophy of the mind teacher.
“There are no types of human beings.”
I stayed irritated. We typecast people for certain working models and yet, behind all these, at a fundamental level, I can’t see our nature anything but fluid.
Shyok Valley and the Wari La Pass: The Hardest Stretch of the Leh Ladakh Road Trip
I reluctantly left the white sand dunes, feeling that I didn’t have enough time for beauty and serenity. I was a little bit worried that I had left too late. With the experience gained from one full day of riding the motorcycle, I felt more confident in my driving skills, so I sped up to 50, 60 even 80km/h on straight parts of the road.
This time, after reaching the confluence of Nubra with Shyok, I followed downstream the broad Shyok valley, along the turquoise-blue interwoven arms of water.
Confluence of Nubra and Shyok
I have passed by two other sleepy military bases and a couple of villages. In between settlements, from time to time, one sees two or three yurts or a group of yaks grazing. I took a rest near such a group
These huge animals looked at me with kind but fearful eyes. I wondered: did they not realise how huge they were? I was amazed at how agile they were, given their massive, bulky bodies, going up and down on steep slopes with boulders.
At one point, the road was completely broken, taken by an avalanche during the last winter or by a torrent of water. The bridge was under construction and there was no other way to pass except through the river.
It was a river with boulders and water, from what I could appreciate from the shores, 2 or 3 palms deep. I took into consideration turning back and crossing the Ladakh Range through Khardung La Pass, but there was not enough daylight for that. The worst that could have happened would have been to slip in the middle of the river.
The solution for that would have been to ask the road workers for help to take out the motorcycle from the river. I hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. This was an adventure after all. I put it in second gear, made sure that I had enough speed, but not too much, and then without hesitation I ventured into the river. The adrenaline filled me, my hands were tightly clasped on the handlebar, trying to keep it straight despite the boulders underneath. My feet became soaking wet, but I didn’t dare to raise them like they do in adventure movies.
I resisted the need to give thanks to a silent god when I reached the asphalt again. For a while I continued my drive through the broad glacial valley, the road being completely empty and straight before me. I took the next road to the right. The path was less circulated and less known. The road was just a narrow, one lane for both directions, strip of asphalt. The first 2000m in altitude were quite enjoyable. Most of the turns weren’t that steep.
There were even some trees, a string of rapid waters, even more yaks. The road was rarely circulated, and I didn’t have access to the telecommunication network. In a couple of hours, only two or three cars passed in either direction.
When I reached the last stretch of the climb, the conditions became unsettling. The road was paved with cobblestones and from time to time it was covered by patches of 10 or 20 metres of ice, some of them covering steep and narrow turns. I was above 5000m on the northern side, and the temperature had decreased significantly. Luckily there were some car tracks that I could follow.
I could see Wari La Pass in a notch of the mountain ridge, all I had to do was to focus until I reached that place. I felt the potential danger that I was in. I tried to steer my mind to stay focused, but I had a number of self blaming thoughts: why didn’t I inform myself better about the road, why did I end up in a potentially dangerous situation again, do I really need the adrenaline, how will I tell this to my psychologist? And other irrelevant questions for the situation.
My hands were painful from the frost. And yet it was a small inconvenience. I should travel with others. This was an old conclusion that I meant to implement, yet not succeeded. I kept reminding myself to pay attention to the road, to the frost and the ice under my wheels. I felt like praying that everything would go on well, yet I was stubborn enough not to do it.
What a hypocrisy, to ask God’s help only when you are endangered. What a stereotypically cultural thought. Why wouldn’t I ask the help of a god that I don’t believe in, if this is the thought that comes to my mind when I am in danger. After all who says the relationship with God should respect the same norms as a friendship. “One does not get to disrespect the mountain twice.” The words of my father. One thing is sure, I do understand why people are closer to God or Gods in places like this.
Dining with the locals in Leh: discovering a glimpse of the mundane life of Ladakh
Thin was sincerely and tremendously happy to see me and his Himalayan Enduro intact. He lived somewhere in the outskirts of Leh in a house along with his family. In order to respect the local customs, we stopped on our way there at a fruit street merchant to buy a gift for the hosts. We bought a kilo of bananas and some eggs. I told him that in my culture this kind of gift for a dinner invitation would have been considered strange, and that we usually bring dessert or a bottle of wine. Here one could bring any kind of ingredients for cooking.
He lived in a classical Tibetan house, with a central room and a central wooden pillar. I met his sister, his cousin, the wife of the cousin and their child. His sister used to work in a big international corporation, she had studied computer science, and now was doing a local governmental job related to accounting. His cousin was an ex-military man, like many in the region, and now he was trying to get into local real estate, while his wife was teaching Hindi in the local school for first and second cycle children. They were all warm towards me and as curious about me as I was about them.
At first, they didn’t know what it was that I was doing as a job back in my country. And that made me weirdly happy. There was a corner in this world where my job did not exist. I find it quite healthy for one’s ego, to become aware of such alternatives from time to time. When I explained that I am a kind of doctor for the mind, Thin’s sister, the one that had been the most exposed to the big, diverse world, recognised the job. The others started to ask me for medical advice for their current troubles.
Ladakhi houses are traditionally built from sun-dried mud brick and stone, with flat rooftops designed to collect firewood, fodder, and dry apricots during summer. The roof functions as a working platform, not merely shelter. Walls are thick to insulate against the brutal winters. A prayer room (chokhang) occupies the highest, most sacred floor, often marked by juniper incense and small butter lamps. The wooden furniture is characteristic: warm pine, carved and lacquered in golden tones. The tiered cabinet (kongtse) displaying copper kettles and brass vessels is nearly universal in Ladakhi homes, a marker of household wealth and pride. Hospitality is near-sacred. A guest is immediately offered butter tea (gur gur cha): salted, churned with yak butter, and refusing is considered rude. Meals are often served sitting cross-legged on the floor on rugs or namda felt mats: cooking and serving from floor level, pots arranged directly on cloth, the family gathered around without a table as intermediary. This flattens hierarchy beautifully.
The grandmother had leg and back pain, the cousin suffered from pyrosis, his wife had occasional headaches. I happily provided advice, along with the recommendation to also see a local doctor. I was more happy to be treated as a travelling healer than I ever was being an employed doctor. It made me happy that I could use my skills to give something in return for their warm invitation. Maybe travelling and getting into a different context does help in resolving inner conflicts. With them, something melted inside me and I felt, for one evening, that I had actually enjoyed that part of me that was a doctor.
Thin drove me back to the hotel. The black Himalayan sky was punctured by countless stars. We parted as friends. I promised to return to Ladakh with more of my friends. I looked one more time at the perfect skies. No wonder this region also hosted one of the highest astronomical observatories in the world.
Why is Ladakh One of the Best Places to Go in Asia
Ladakh defies easy categorization. In a single journey, you move between glacier lakes and high-altitude sand dunes, between motorable roads that rank among the most scenic on earth and monastery walls where Buddhist mythology unfolds in pigment and silence across centuries-old frescoes.
The air is thin, the light extraordinary, and for those so inclined, the altitude itself becomes a kind of theology — a feeling of proximity to something beyond the ordinary world. The region sits at the gateway to the Karakoram, one of the most formidable mountain ranges on the planet, home to peaks of near-mythical stature.
Yet Ladakh is not merely wilderness: Leh offers comfortable lodging ( you could also try Thin recommendation), and villages like Hunder place you steps from the surreal: Bactrian camels drifting across cold dunes beneath snowfields. In the high pastures, Changpa nomads still move with the seasons, their black yak-hair tents anchored against winds that seem to come from the edge of the world. Ancient monasteries climb the hillsides as if reaching for the sky they’ve always belonged to. Ladakh is, in the end, a place that gives everything at once – and takes your breath away, quite literally.
If this journey has sparked something in you and you are wondering where to go next, The Verse Voyager offers personality-based travel planning: destinations matched to who you are, custom day-by-day itineraries, and guidebooks designed to take you deeper than any algorithm would. Travel planned around you and towards the future you.
TLDR
TLDR: A solo female traveler recounts a spontaneous, Leh Ladakh solo bike trip, three-day Himalayan road trip through Ladakh, India, arranged in a single phone call from Dhaka airport. Riding a 450cc Himalayan Enduro with minimal prior recent riding experience, she travels from Leh over Khardung La Pass (5,300m) to Nubra Valley, camps near the Hunder sand dunes, crosses the challenging Wari La Pass on icy cobblestone roads, and returns to Leh. The account weaves visceral road narrative with Buddhist monastery visits (Thiksey, Hemis, Diskit), reflections on solitude and freedom, and a dinner with a local Ladakhi family. Covers practical realities — Inner Line Permits, road conditions, altitude risks, seasonal timing — alongside the philosophical texture of solo travel at high altitude. Suitable for readers researching solo motorcycle trips in Ladakh, female solo travel in India, Nubra Valley itineraries, Khardung La Pass road conditions, and off-the-beaten-path destinations in the Indian Himalayas.