The ride from Ranmagar to Haridwar, some 200 kilometers of every terrain and obstacle imaginable, challenged my endurance in chilling and exhilarating fashion. I had planned to make at least one lengthy stop to break up the journey, but once in the flow, I couldn’t stop. Every time my navigation read, “15 miles to turnoff” or “6 miles to right turn,” I’d tell myself, “Ok, man, gotta stop there,” but when the time came I blew by it and pushed for the next, and the next, and the next, until I lost any ability to get out of the laser-like focus on survival through the ever-changing landscape of mountains, jungles, fields. congested villages, sudden speed bumps, potholes the size of lakes, highways suddenly dead-ending into rubble, and harrowing turns.

When I did stop to pee on the side of a highway, I couldn’t peel my hands from the handle grips; they seemed glued to the bike. A layer of frost covered me. Some strange film of mist and dirt from the road had clouded my helmet shield. I dreamed of a lunch at some roadside stop, but the shacks I kept passing looked very unappealing. I feared that if I stopped I wouldn’t be able to get back on the bike. Maybe the next place, I kept telling myself, knowing there would be no next place.

The trip began from Wild River Resort where I stayed the night before, having blown past it on my way in the day before and having to backtrack 45 minutes and then bounce down a gully of a road, across sand, fields, and to a remote spot on the river. That was another exhilarating ride through mountains and with insane bus drivers barreling around sharp bends into villages on one-way roads, the black fumes from their buses mixing with the dust thrown up from the road, and then suddenly into bends and to a crest and a spread of gorgeous mountains stretching to infinity.

But back to this final full day of riding to Haridwar. Not ten miles out of Wild River Resort a bus pinched me off the road and into a dirt gully, the type where you’re hanging onto the handlebars for dear life and hoping to not go down. Not a great start. The ride, however, provided views of utter magnificence, and then suddenly I was in what appeared to be jungle land, with a lot of industry and people cutting stalks or branches and machines moving about and the road straight and narrow, then into a village where buses and trucks blocked traffic and the shriek of horns filled the air. Keep going. Twist through it. Don’t stop, cause stopping was actually the most dangerous thing you could do. Stay in the flow.

A fluorescent green river followed the jungle road until it was no river at all but a massive flowing pile of plastic and trash, then suddenly dumped onto a three-lane highway…are you kidding?! Paradise, except that I was frozen to the bone and had every layer of clothing on me already. I wasn’t going to stop and untie my bag and get into all of that. Keep going!

And then a jam bumping our way into Haridwar, and suddenly the mountains were gone. I didn’t think about that on the highway, but now it hit me. The fresh air, the slow pace of life, the greenery and snow-capped peaks…gone! Back in a seething mass of humanity with no order. I funneled into a traffic jam existing solely because no one planned anything, just threw up barriers and tried funneling five hundred people through a space narrower than what a VW Bug could pass through. But it was fun! I turned to the faces around me and we all had a laugh!

Finally, thankfully, Hotel Le Roi. Christmas Eve. How about a dinner of Aloo Gobi Adraki and garlic naan? What a ride. As I took a spoonful of hot and sour soup I remembered the herd of goats and three shepherds coming at me the opposite way on the three-lane highway. You gotta laugh!