I saw the big Tata truck about the same moment I saw Dean swerving to avoid the 10-ton mobile Bollywood display. A head-on collision would have been disastrous, but Dean deftly avoided tragedy with some skilful riding.
I was behind Dean at the time and I did that sharp intake of breath people do when they see disaster unfolding before them but are unable to do anything about it, yet it turned out OK. We hadn’t yet done 100km of riding in India, but I’d seen one of the closest calls in years.
We were in India to ride the roof of the world, some of the highest mountain passes which exist — a bunch of them all well over 5000m — in the Himalayas, riding Himalayans.
Moto Himalaya, which is a part of Royal Enfield, had invited three Aussie bike journos (Dean Mellor, AMCN, Stuart Woodbury, Australian Motorcyclist, and myself, Australian Road Rider) to join a tour which was otherwise filled with a group of Indonesian-paying customers.
Moto Himalaya organises the bikes (it must hire them from local operators — non-employees of Royal Enfield are not allowed to ride company-owned bikes in the region as part of a deal with local hire companies), support vehicles, accommodation, guides, a doctor and the route. All we had to do was get fit, pack wisely and follow the leader.
THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS
The Himalayan Mountains stretch much further than those in Nepal and Tibet, from Afghanistan in the
