What a phenomenal lifetime opportunity to ride with GlobeRiders as a participant on the 2018 Himalayas Tour. In a day and age when people are often content with living a life starring at mirrored electronic screens, a journey of this sort ensures that committed motorcycle adventurers can explore the world one continent at a time on their own terms. You see, GlobeRiders mostly opt to ride alone during a day’s ride and locals interact far differently with motorcyclists that are not bound and confined in a hard-shell vehicular box.
I am writing portions of this missive from Lhasa, Tibet and Kathmandu, Nepal. I’ve been fortunate to travel extensively throughout the world due to the following three reasons; maintaining a drive and desire to see the world, retiring from an adventurous 20-year career in the US military, and pursuing my passion of riding motorcycles on austere trips. This motorcycle trip differed in the sense that I already knew four of the GlobeRiders from a previous 2017 GlobeRiders Africa journey from Cape Town to Cairo.
Our motorcycle journey began in Chengdu, China which provided us robust logistical facilities to receive our shipped motorcycles, obtain a Chinese driver’s license, and have our motorcycles validated and tested for road worthiness by Chinese authorities at the DMV. All riders arrived in Chengdu on different flights and rallied for a customary GlobeRiders Welcome Dinner. During the Welcome Dinner, participants take turns explaining their personal motivations and reasons for deciding to embark on a two-month motorcycle journey. Rider’s reasons are always diverse, surprising, and depict an adventurous spirit required by the type of person who is willing to commit to endeavors of this magnitude.
The total trip encompasses approximately 5,000 miles on some of the most scenic and challenging roads in the world. The experiences from the initial 1,300 miles from Chengdu to Lhasa surpassed my expectations. At times, I felt like I was in a modern-day Chinese version of the movie Cannonball Run since we crisscrossed with a number of Chinese characters and their vehicles as they traveled West towards Lhasa. This route which is known historically as the Horse and Tea Trail spans from Chengdu to Lhasa. I did not realize prior to embarking on this trip that so many adventurous Chinese citizens travel this route as a grand adventure. Chinese travelers are traveling on this route via bicycles, 4 X 4s, motorcycles, cars, and by foot. Chinese travelers are always extremely curious of our imported motorcycles with US license plates. I believe that I had more pictures taken with Chinese travelers in the initial 12 days of this trip than any other period of my life. Amazingly, we only encountered four non-Chinese travelers during the initial stage 1,300 miles from Chengdu to Lhasa.
The scenery, environment, riding conditions, and hospitality of Chinese citizens far surpassed my expectations. Many of them appeared astounded to see Westerners riding motorcycles through this region. The riding scenery in Western China, which includes the semi-autonomous region of Tibet, is best described as dramatic and majestic. The riding scenery in the Himalayan Mountains is by far the best I’ve ever experienced in my life. As with all lengthy journeys, riding challenges and hazards do exist; one must always remember that a journey of this magnitude is a marathon, not a sprint.
Endless twists and turns unraveled as we rode towards a Mount Everest base camp to spend the night at an elevation above 16,000 feet. Riding through multiple mountain passes in excess of 17,000 feet are breath taking experiences to say the least.
For experienced motorcycle riders, take heed and prepare to ride the most challenging “roads” upon crossing the international border near Jilong, China into Nepal. The roads in Nepal after the border crossing on the way to Kathmandu are sure to present the best of riders with sporadic adrenaline rushes.
I have no doubt that there will be many more tales to tell as the remaining stages of this journey unfold.
Joe's Gallery
Dispatch from Gary Schmidt
The Himalaya journey has finally arrived. I flew to Chengdu to meet the rest of the riders. We visit the giant Panda preserve and see many full grown and baby pandas. We also see red Pandas. After getting our Chinese drivers license and bike license we were finally on the road and in 3 days we arrived in Tibet. The road for the first day in Tibet had a lot of construction but we started gaining altitude and entered the Himalayas.
Tibet is really beautiful and the roads are good. Five of the 6 riders rode together in Africa and our new rider, Steve, fits right in. We ride together most days as our abilities are very similar.
We keep climbing mountain passes and some are well over 17,000 feet. The Himalaya Mountains are spectacular. We reach Lhasa, the capital of Tibet (which unfortunately is under the thumb of China) and we have 4 nights in this incredible city.
Our guide, Sonam, takes us to various monasteries and temples and explains the Buddhist religion, which seems to also be a philosophy. We see many people both on the road and at the temples prostrating themselves in a very unusual way. We call it the snake dance, but all ages of Tibetans seem to follow this ritual.
Our visit to Lhasa is so far one of the highlights of our journey. After Lhasa we head for Mt Everest. The road over the pass to Everest consisted of at least 50 hairpin turns going over the pass and 50 turns going down. We stay in a very rustic hotel just short of basecamp. Rustic, like in no heat and no water. But Mt. Everest rewards us with a beautiful view of the mountain from our window. The next morning we get up early and the clouds have cleared and Mt. Everest rewards us with a spectacular view of the mountain. It was 27 degrees that morning and the air was crystal clear. My heated jacket liner and gloves came in handy that day.
We ride for 2 days towards the Tibet/Nepal border. The countryside is very barren but spectacular. Nepal awaits with an unpleasant surprise. More in the next journal edition.
Gary's Gallery
Dispatch from Steve Becker
The idea of riding a motorcycle throughout Himalaya was intimidating, but having just recently retired, I decided it’s now or never. So I signed up based on my faith in Helge, knowing of his excellent reputation in the adventure riding industry, and confirmed by the fact that all the other riders in this tour are repeat participants with Globeriders.
I shipped my bike to Seattle from where Helge arranged crating and shipment to Chengdu, China, a place I had not heard of but that turns out to be a city of 16 million, and fourth largest in that country. After arriving in Chengdu, meeting my four new best friends plus Helge, we (or at least I as the only newbie) received a lesson on GPS navigation using tracks and waypoints for the entire tour, which Helge loaded into our Garmins. His idea is that by following the downloaded tracks and ultimately the waypoints, we will be able to ride from starting place to destination for the day independently. It actually works despite that I am directionally handicapped. I teamed up with Gary, a seasoned Globerider with multiple tours under his belt and my age-peer, who watched over me and to whom I am grateful for doing so.
Our first day was spent picking up our bikes from the shipper, and a scary ride from the shipping facility, through the crowded Chengdu roads to the Chinese version of DMV for licensure of our bikes and ourselves for using our bikes in China. This turned into a very long but ultimately successful day, and we were ready to go. And on the next day to the Panda Research Center we went.
This facility is first class, an extensive park-like facility where pandas are given their own villas, and seem to lead a very good life. They are bred, pampered and ultimately released to the wild, as I understand it, although I doubt any would leave willingly. You can see what I mean in the photos below.
I have to start fast forwarding now, as Helge, who is a professional photographer and videographer, has taught that descriptions like this should be kept short and to the point.
On successive days we rode from Chengdu to Kangding, Litang, Batang, Zuogong (where we had a welcomed day of rest), Basu, Bami (we are now in Tibet), Nyingchi and ultimately Lhasa, one of the spiritual capitals of Tibet. I can’t begin to describe how splendid Lhasa is. Along the way we passed pilgrims driving, biking, walking and literally crawling (in a snake-like fashion) along the Himalaya roadways to end in Lhasa where they would satisfy their religious obligation - and apparently the more difficult the journey the greater the compliance. We spent four glorious days in Lhasa, visiting monasteries and learning of Tibetan Buddhist customs. This exotic place made the trip worthwhile in itself. The Tibetans are fascinating people, and very Inviting. We maxed out at about 17,200 feet. See photos.
Now we are checking out of China and entering Nepal. We rode toward Mount Everest, staying overnight at a monastery guesthouse near the Everest Basecamp. The guesthouse was primitive, to say the least, and we doubled up in rooms without plumbing. I learned that Gary snores. But no matter because at nearly 17000 feet, with the altitude sickness that plagued most of us, there was no possibility of sleep. Still, the experience of Everest is one of the highlights of my life experiences.
Steve's Gallery
Dispatch from Tom Botz
Met my amigos in Chengdu, a great little town of 16 million people, which impressed me with its climate, a lovely mix of smog and drizzle, and the unbelievable amount of construction everywhere. Wherever you look you see construction cranes.
We are 6 guys: Helge (leader) from Olympic Peninsula, Joe (Hawaii), Gary (California), Aaron (Oregon), Steve (Virginia), and I. I know Helge, Joe, Aaron and Gary from our incredible Cape Town to Cairo trip last year. Steve is new, a patent attorney with 9 kids who decided finally to do something for himself. I am very happy to be with these guys. They have all somehow managed to take a significant amount of time off from their daily lives to make this trip happen, and they are all 100% committed.
We are in charge of our own bikes and our own rides every day. We are given a list of hotels where reservations have been made for us and a suggested route to follow. Most of us (incl. me) ride solo and we may or may not run into each other during the day. Then we meet up at 1900hrs for dinner.
We’ll be going through China, Tibet, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand.
We have rolled through a couple thousand miles of China & Tibet now. More curves than you can shake a stick at, dodged a thousand or more potholes and a few oncoming cars. Acclimated enough to survive several passes over 17,000’ without issues. Nice people, fantastic scenery, good food & comfortable accommodation. The bikes run great & everyone is getting along well. We are truly the luckiest of the lucky.
