“One pen, two chiclets…..” the children continued. “Where are you going?” “To the Rusi La!” we cried. Although we’d enjoyed the challenge of pushing over the Shingo La we weren’t quite ready to repeat the experience, so in Tikat began the hunt for pack animals to assist us over the pass. But a search yielded nothing. Horses?: Ney. Yaks?: grazing in high pastures 2 days’ walk away. Donkeys (delightfully: ‘bunbu‘)?: all midgets. This left us reluctantly reliant on porters.

With it being Ramazan each porter claimed they could only carry 15kgs, and so we required three men just for our luggage. But having not seen an ATM for a month we were unable to afford more, so were left to carry the bikes ourselves. We rigged straps to lug these on our backs and foresaw no problems, until an hour into the trek Neil spectacularly deposited the morning’s breakfast of halva onto the trail. A Maggi ‘lake’ was to follow. We don’t know if it was the sight of so much food, or the realistaion that they would have to carry more to help out, but the porters promptly decided to break their fast and tucked into some cheese, black tea and tsampa.

The second morning we crossed the Rusi La in dreich weather with Neil staggering up with his little yellow front bag, the ever-attentive porters having taken on the duty of pushing the Surly. Arrival in Sapi mid afternoon brought a welcome end to one of the more upsetting days of our trekking lives and a traumatic night’s camping followed before we reaped the rewards of the trek with a great day of cycling over the Sapi La. The road was devoid of traffic and the local villagers, after recovering their initial open-mouthed shock at seeing us, wished us friendly ‘Salaam‘s and ‘Julley‘s as we sped down to the main Kargil-Leh road at Shergol.

Three days of trucks belching black exhaust fumes in our faces was about as much as we could take of the busy Kargil-Leh road, as we put our heads down and sped towards Leh’s bakeries.

Please click here for our full Rusi La photo set on Flickr

Carrying the bici up to the Rusi La.

Our porters from Tikat admiring a photo of themselves.

Nearing the Rusi La.

Descending from the Sapi La to Shergol.

Still descending…