The Beauty of Insignificance

“Because it’s there.” 

Those became the most famous and forever echoing words in the mountaineering universe. That was George Mallory’s response when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. What a kickass reply! 

Mallory’s mortal remains were discovered seventy-five years — in May 1999 — after he passed away in June of 1924. He was last seen only about 245 metres shy of the summit before the inevitable reality consumed him. That tells a lot about the savagery and unpredictability of the tallest mountain in the world. 

Shinji Kazama — his is perhaps not as recognisable a name as George Mallory’s, but he is no less of a rockstar. Kazama is a devotee of motorcycling from Japan who is the only one ever to have attempted to go up Mount Everest on a motorcycle. Yes — on a motorcycle. That’s the crest of being mental! 

He set a record in 1986 for reaching an elevation of 6,005 metres on Mount Everest. For the ease of understanding, it’s a 8,848 metre tall mountain, so going up two-third the elevation is simply ridiculous — in a good way.

Mallory and Kazama are both legends. They are inspirational. With their stories in my head, I landed in Kathmandu. This is where my story begins. 

The world has nearly 8 billion of us. Many have scaled Mount Everest before, many will do it in the future. I won’t. Ever. I know it because I don’t have any intention to. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve had the dream of standing at the base of the mighty mountain, looking up at it and acknowledging my insignificance. I’ve made plenty of ‘editorial’ plans to pass this fantasy off as work, but luck never favoured me, until a few years ago. 

This was in 2019 — an invitation from Royal Enfield popped up in my email inbox and after a few to-and-fro calls and digital letters, it was all done. I’ve done some lovely motorcycle rides over the years but the last time I’d undertaken a long, arduous, yet intoxicatingly wonderful ride was almost six years ago. That was to Ladakh — one of my many trips there, but the only one I’d done on a motorcycle. 

Time has a weird way of tossing things around in your head and messing it up. So much time had passed between my last big ride and the one I was preparing to undertake that I was trying to talk myself out of it. The last time I tried talking myself out of something, I ended up in an engineering college. This time, I was preparing to ride to the roof of the world from the capital city of Nepal. 

Kathmandu is a bustling city — chaotic and lovely. It suffers the worst traffic one could imagine, and also has the most disarming people. It’s a city you’d be desperate to escape, and yet keep coming back to. 

So, the expedition, then. It’s said that a trip is made either insufferable or inspiring by the people that constitute it. I had thirteen absolutely fantastic folks who rode along, and I made some great new friends.

We started the ride in a convoy formation. The sight of eleven motorcycles — each rider kitted out in purpose-made riding gear — is one to behold. The traffic stops, people turn their heads in admiration, children wave and the sheer authority on the road swells up the chest with pride. If you’ve ridden like this, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, do it. The feeling is unparalleled. It’s addictive!

Much of Nepal is still quite rural and the roads — rather lack of them — show it. A large part of our ride from Kathmandu to a sleepy village called Trishuli and then to the border village of Timure was bedecked with slush and rocks. It’s quite like the texture you get when beating coffee and water into a sticky paste. Just, it doesn’t taste as great — I discovered that thanks to a little tumble I had. There were numerous deep water crossings which would soak the feet to wrinkled-wrecks and the surface was so broken that my knees squeaked and the neck had not stopped bobbing for weeks!

The bike — Himalayan (which I’ve always thought is a fantastic name for a machine) — is one seriously tough thing. The robustness was clearly evident in the way the Himalayan dealt with non-existent roads we were belting it on. The suspension had adequate travel to soak things up, the rear went dancing to just the right degree to bring it back in shape with throttle. It’s a fun set of wheels when going off-road.

It’s also very mechanical, doesn’t have many electronic nannies to go wrong and can be fixed with the most basic tools. In fact, it brought out the joy in me of being part of fixing stuff on a motorcycle after many years. We had a faulty fuel pump and a choked fuel-line to thank. Greasy hands, lines of worry on the forehead, loud laughs, animated expressions — it was all very consuming. The men bonded even more strongly over such things. 

Anyway, on with the ride. At the border of Nepal and Tibet is a great daunting structure made by the Chinese which serves as an immigration centre. Few guards were on alert, while a few others were testing the perpendicular flexibility of their necks by working their fingers and glueing their eyes on their mobile phones.

We cleared the immigration swiftly and prepped ourselves to start riding on the other side now. The infrastructure left me gobsmacked. Every inch of the road was engineered and structured perfectly. The surface was smooth, the banking just right. There wasn’t even a blemish to be felt. The adventure of Nepal’s annihilated tracks had led us to the serenity of gorgeous tarmac in Tibet. The influence and relentless work of the Chinese is clearly evident.

I’m a sucker for food. I like trying new things and I’d been told that the food would be a bother — bland and lacking in richness. It couldn’t be more removed from reality. The food — no matter what we tried — was sumptuous and brilliant in every way. For me, food is a very crucial measure of the culture of any place. The vibrance, the colours, the textures, the flavours — Tibetan food had all of us slobbering. I was enchanted, really. The food had a lot to do with it, but also the hospitality and warmth of Tibetan people. 

I was also enchanted by the Peiku Tso. Like it’s a shame if you travel up to Ladakh and don’t go to the famous Pangong Tso, it’s blasphemous to ride all the way to Everest base camp in Tibet and not pay a visit to the breathtaking Peiku Tso. Just sit by this massive water body and admire the natural brilliance of it. You don’t need words in this setting. The huge mountains lingering in the background, the sound of the waves crashing right at your feet — it’s surreal.

This ride was all about Mount Everest — or Qomolangma as it is called in local speak — and the restlessness was getting the better of us. Everyone in the group had ridden in the highlands of India, so we thought we’d be able to hold our own despite the altitude. But when it wants, nature can get quite ruthless. And it did. 

From our time at the border town of Gyirong to Tingri, we had been going steadily and steadfastly. At Tingri, things started to get a bit tough. Two amongst us suffered AMS and had to be left behind as the rest of the group rode on to spend the night in the lap of Everest. 

The road to Mount Everest from Tingri is — no other way of saying it — spectacular. There’s a section of spellbinding hairpin bends that make the Gawu La mountain-pass. Legend has it that it is made of 108 turns — a sacred number in Hinduism and Buddhism. The Gawu La is about 5,200 metres above sea level and is wrapped in the embrace of towering mountains like Mount Shishapangma, Mount Lhotse, Mount Makalu, Mount Cho Oyu, and of course Mount Qomolangma. 

Rongbuk — that’s the base where we’d settled ourselves for the night in a fairly basic lodge. The Rongbuk monastery is claimed to be the highest in the world in terms of elevation. It doesn’t have the grandeur of Diskit Monastery or the mystique of Alchi, but it’s endearing and cosy. It’s from where the prayers flow. 

By now, AMS had fully set in. The head was feeling like a massive rock on the shoulders and the world around me was spinning. The lunch was emptied from my guts on to the nearest land I could find the energy to walk out to. Everyone was pretty knackered; done-in in a bad way. And then the moon lit up on Everest. The layered beauty, the shimmer of the white, the crisp silhouette — all we could do was stare. That was Mount Everest in front of us. So near, yet so far. 

I settled down in my room. The window allowed an unhindered view of Everest. It was freezing cold and I was drained of all the energy. Yet I sat — sat and stared at that massive formation of nature. Sat in awe. I’m not George Mallory. I won’t attempt to scale up Everest and get lost in its arms forever. I’m not Shinji Kazama. I won’t ride up that mountain on the motorcycle that got me this far. But this still feels significant — standing in front of Mount Everest and realising the beauty of your insignificance.