Like crumpled kraft paper are below us the dry mountains of Ladakh and Zanskar. Warm morning light licks the cold shadows of the valleys and projects bluish outlines on the snowfields and glaciers of the highest peaks. Slowly the plane lowers over the green oasis of the Indus valley, flies a final bend and lands. Exactly to this place we have dreamed ourselves in the last weeks in Canada. And now, after a long flight from Vancouver via Delhi, we are finally here. And something else is finally back. The tingling, the thrill, the passion of discovery - our wanderlust is back. We feel it in our mind, in the heart, in the belly. A broad grin, and then off on the bikes!

"Your first visit to Ladakh?", asks the airfield officer when we are assembling our bikes. No, in the summer of 2012, we rode the Manali-Leh highway and trekked with horse and bike from Tso Moriri lake over 5570 meter high Parang La to Spiti. But this time we will focus solely on the Zanskar valley. In Canada, it had only been possible to obtain a limited 30 days e-Visa for India. But we are determined to make the most out of these thirty days.

The route to Kargil is perfect for training and acclimatization. A narrow tar ribbon runs along the Indus river and climbs a few passes over 4000m, when the valley bottom occasionally get too tight for it. The clouds are hanging low, covering the highest peaks with a black veil. The Monsoon brings rain. Big, cold drops clap on our sun glasses, the prayer flags are hanging limp and wet at the high point of Futu La. But then, unexpectedly the thick cloud cover rips. Warm sunlight fights against the dark, gray, washed-out world and paints lonely islands of light in the monotonous gray. A rainbow in the sky, bright clouds of steam rising from the ground - dramatically, just as the Himalayas must be. We grin: "Blue sky just would be boring."

Kargil is the last supply point for the next three hundred kilometers. The small town is located in Kashmir, the region which is still claimed by Pakistan, and it is strongly influenced by muslims. A vibe like in Central Asia and as we find dates from Iran in the Bazaar, the Déjà Vue feeling gets even stronger. And the next few days through Suru valley we could as well be riding somewhere in Tajikistan. The same square mud houses, small mosques, the women with their colorful headscarves and wide bloomers, the men with small prayer caps on their heads. But then the ascent starts. First gently through a wide high valley, at the end in narrow switchbacks, we climb the 4300m high Penji La, the gateway to the ancient kingdom of Zanskar. A white stupa stands on the pass, colorful prayer flags are crackling in the strong wind, the sun is shining. We are back in the Tibetan world and are standing on a wild, high pass. A grin alone is now no longer sufficient. The echo throws back our cries of joy.

But our efforts are well rewarded. In the upper Zanskar valley time seems to have stood still. Small villages, terrassed fields, mountain people with weathered faces. The Tibetan houses look like small fortresses: Stocky, massive, painted in white. On the flat roofs the winter stocks are piled. Dried and pressed Yak dung as fuel, hay and the threshed ears of barley as a feed stock for the cattle. And above all, fluttering prayer flags, thus ensuring the necessary luck to survive the cold and hard season healthy.

Four days and a tough climb later, we reach Shingo La, 5100m. Here we say goodbye to our horse man and load the luggage back on the bike, because here the gravel road down to the Manali-Leh highway begins. A 2000 meter downhill to Jispa and it ends only under the hot shower. We do not need to look in the mirror, we feel it without. There it is again, this broad grin, and now we are unable to get rid of it anymore.

Huge granite rocks, a tearing current, glacier tongues licking almost at the roadside. And somewhere in the middle of this archaic valley a rough and stony track winds up to Kuzum La. It is our last pass in the Indian Himalaya and still one of the most beautiful, even if we are riding it for the second time. With it, we reach Spiti valley.

But slowly time is running out. In four days, we have to leave India, but we are still about eight hundred kilometers away from the Nepali border. Too far to ride in this time, especially under these road conditions. We hitchhike the last one hundred kilometers from Spiti valley to Shimla with a truck. Riki, the young Indian driver tells: "I know Switzerland", in the movies, the policeman would always ask "where is your money?" and the gangster would then say: "At a Swiss bank." But also otherwise Riki is a clever fellow. When we try to explain him with tea prices, how expensive life in Switzerland is (in India you pay 10 rupees for a tea, in Switzerland 300!) he says after a moment's thought: "Then I go to Switzerland and sell only tea!" Yes, if it were only that simple.

From Shimla we charter a taxi. We don't have time for one of the old buses that seem to fall apart every next second. Even so, the first stage of our monster drive still takes us ten hours. Haridwar is our destination, the holy city on the Ganges. A narrow country road winds its way out of the mountains. Our driver says: "Twenty years ago, when there were no roads and cars here, this region was extremely dangerous," then he switches on the roadside flasher and puts the pedal to the metal. A mischievous grin towards the interior mirror. Unfortunately, there is none...

Haridwar. Here the Ganges reaches the Indian lowlands. Thousands of pilgrims gather on the banks of the wide stream. A colored crowd, bathing, praying, and searching for their salvation in the sacred waters. Boats of flowers are sent on their way, orange-dressed sadhus bless the people, burning torches in the humid and hot evening air. Cliché India: Colorful, noisy, dirty, strange - and yet fascinating.

The next day we face another mad ten hour drive, on overcrowded roads and "highways" on which wrong-way drivers belong to regular traffic. The horn seems somehow to jam, use of brakes? - Only for cows. Piles of garbagge and pools of wastewater are stinking up to the sky and despite the airstream we are hanging in the seat like two cushioned sponges. The grin? It has been somewhere crushed at the battered side door, which our driver dismissed with a typical Indian head wiggling. Regardless, we cross the border river to Nepal on time, at the last day of our India visa. And now we have a ninety days visa period again. A broad grin - just relax...