India to Nepal Feb 2025

Wild Dad and Wilder Dad

The peace of Rishikesh was no match for the storm inside my head. Africa had opened a can of worms I wasn’t ready to eat from. Suddenly, I had money in my pocket and respect from men I once worshipped—rough, experienced professionals who liked me for what I brought to the table. I could sit in a room, speak their language, understand all the acronymic jargon. I was part of something bigger again.

Back in Rishikesh, stripped of mission and purpose, I floundered. I turned to alcohol. I hadn’t drunk in a long time. Rishikesh is a dry state—it had been easy to stay clean. But freedom weighed heavy, and the bottle was a fast escape hatch.

Nate rejoined me there, along with Ivonika and Greg. Greg, another traveller, was on his way to Auroville—a strange social experiment disguised as a town, buried in the south of India. Founded in the 1960s by a French spiritualist known as “The Mother,” Auroville was designed to be a utopian society—no money, no politics, no religion. Just human unity and spiritual evolution. In practice, it was a mix of idealists, wanderers, and aging hippies trying to live off-grid under the burning Tamil Nadu sun. The place ran on intention and inertia. Greg was drawn to it. He was the yin to Nate’s yang: quiet, reserved, thoughtful. Nate, by contrast, was a walking bonfire—loud, wild, exuberant. Together they were like Laurel and Hardy, a double act forged in hardship and hilarity. I envied the depth of their friendship. But I also enjoyed just watching it.

Ivonika arrived from Delhi, still bearing the scars of a hit-and-run in the U.S. a few years back. Chronic pain, memory loss, difficulty walking—but she still made the journey. She joined us in the ashram, singing on the banks of the Ganges, never complaining. She was pure willpower, pure presence. A joy to be around.

And then there was Guy—giant, mohawked, tattooed skull. An Instagrammer with grit. Motorcycle jeans, ink, anti-hippy rants. He and Nate made a loud, hulking duo—kind-hearted monsters in a city of chanting yogis.

Guy was in India on a sponsored motorcycle tour gig, guiding clients through Rajasthan. Instagram had bought him the ticket, but it hadn't bought him peace. His content was raw, funny, no-bullshit. That’s how I found him—months before, scrolling. We had mutual friends in the UK bike scene. I admired his honesty, his grit. But fame hadn’t insulated him. He lived off-grid in the west of England, scraping by on odd jobs, barely making payments on his own bike. On paper he was living the dream. But he lived it close to the edge.

Nate, by contrast, was a capitalist to the core. Raised rough, worked young, bought property, understood cashflow and risk. No kids. No attachments. Just the road. He’d had the snip and gone all-in on freedom. A former U.S. Army warrant officer and helicopter tech, he was razor-sharp behind the wild exterior. We bonded quickly—military language, dark humour, an appetite for control. He convinced me to read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I sneered at first. But I downloaded the audiobook and gave it a shot.

In some ways, Guy and Nate became father figures on the road—one showed me how to survive without rules, the other how to live without fear of loss. But neither could teach me how to forgive myself. That would be a battle I’d have to face alone.

They were my wild dads, and they propped me up.

We planned to ride from Rishikesh across the lower Himalayas to Gangotri, the sacred source of the Ganges. The route would climb from steaming jungle floors to the snow-dusted spine of Uttarakhand, then east to Nepal. Eventually, we’d split. But first, we’d ride.

As always, group travel meant compromise. Nate, the obsessive planner, hunted obscure waypoints and obscure tracks on Google Maps. If there was a longer way from A to B, via Z, he’d take it. Guy needed altitude—he was scouting roads for future clients and tired of Rajasthan’s heat and dust. I was torn. Rishikesh had become comfortable—maybe too comfortable. I had friends. A dog. A rhythm. I meditated, trained, swam. Leaving scared me. I wasn’t sure I could do it again.

Africa still loomed large. I had stashed a voodoo-blessed amulet under Tara’s seat—some kind of charm for protection. But it hadn’t protected me from doubt.

So I leaned on my two wild dads. Let them carry me out of inertia and back into motion.

On the surface, I was surrounded by laughter, banter, movement. But inside I was squirming. I drank myself to sleep. Cried myself awake. Put on a brave face. Let their wildness carry me. But I felt like a passenger—watching life through a screen.

I lost discipline. Slept around. Chased short highs. My compass spun without a true north. I was trying to outrun something inside me—and failing.

Money fears. Guilt. Past mistakes. I was in a crisis within a midlife crisis. I told myself I’d ride until the savings ran out, then drive off a cliff. James Dean-style. I didn’t think I deserved anything more. I couldn’t forgive myself. So I kept going. Hoping something would change. Or end.

Eventually, we left. Mid-February. A couple of Indian riders joined us—Ash and G, ex-Special Forces, big bikes, bigger grins. This was their backyard. They led us up into the snowline.

Gangotri’s roads were pristine—military-grade tarmac built for troop movement to the China border. After the 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese troops—clubs, stones, fists, no guns—the army had ensured access remained open. Riding those switchbacks, you could feel the tension under your tyres. Fragile peace, held by steel and stares.

We rode hard. Climbed higher. But the higher we went, the lower I felt. Helmet time returned. Fatigue returned. I kept smiling, but the cracks were there. Guy’s kindness, Nate’s pragmatism—they helped. Slowly, the darkness began to shift.

Two days of vertical ascent and we reached Gangotri—home to the highest Shiva temple in the world. Still too cold for pilgrims, the town was empty. We parked the bikes and padded across ice-slicked streets to the spring that births the Ganges.

We stripped. We plunged.

And there it was—contrast incarnate. I’d seen the Ganges die in Calcutta, bloated and brown. Here, it was born: turquoise, sharp, impossibly alive. The cold bit deep. But I felt awake again.

Alive.

Riding with brothers at the top of India. The black dog stepped back. The idea of death slipped into shadow. I wanted to ride again. Maybe even alone. The road was calling. The world was open again.

Into the Jungle

We were starting to bond as a team. Each of us slid into a role. Nate the navigator, obsessively plotting the most obscure routes he could find—what he proudly called “boondoggles.” Guy the cinematic eye, pausing to frame beauty through his lens—Instagram on the outside, but something much deeper within. And me, the drill sergeant. I dragged them out of bed every morning for push-ups, pull-ups, squats, Tabata circuits. They cursed me every time, but always ended up grinning, sweat-soaked and clear-headed.

We moved like a unit now—three bikes, one rhythm.

We left Gangotri and said goodbye to our Indian escorts. From there, we turned northeast. The landscape changed fast—villages clung to cliffs, fields cut into mountainsides. The region felt more Nepali than Indian. Women in bright shawls worked barefoot at dawn, silhouetted against mist. Children carried loads half their size. Men smiled wide-mouthed greetings as we rumbled past.

Their simplicity undid me. I wasn’t romanticising the hardship—but there was something here. A reason to rise. A sense of place. Of home. I felt like I was on the run. From what, I still couldn’t name.

Burnout had begun to whisper. I didn’t recognise the voice yet, but it was there.

My first puncture came on a trail Nate had scouted. Rough terrain, deep ruts, no margin for error. I fumbled, frustrated. Nate and Guy watched for a beat, then stepped in. They offered help with the kind of charm that still bruises your pride. But I was grateful. Truth was, I was just glad not to be alone.

Later that day, I turned a corner to see Nate standing beside his bike, arms flailing.

“What’s up?”

“Goddamn black panther just jumped out in front of me. Stared me down, then vanished into the trees.”

I was green with envy. One second faster and it would’ve been me. One of those wild, rare moments the road sometimes gifts you.

That night, we stayed in a tiny mountain guesthouse overlooking terraced paddy fields. Snow-capped peaks framed the distance. No light pollution—just stars and blackness. For a moment, the world was still. I forgot everything.

The next day, the skies turned. Clouds dropped fast, smothering the ridgelines in grey. Rain swept in. Guy and I, being Brits, didn’t hesitate—we suited up, ready to ride. Nate dragged his feet.

“I ride for smiles, not miles,” he muttered.

We coaxed him into the saddle. But the storm wasn’t just in the sky. Something cracked open in him that day. He rode dark, quiet, withdrawn. Seven hours in the rain, shivering through hairpin bends, and he barely spoke. We arrived in a bland, overpriced town. Nate shut down completely. I got it. I wore my pain differently. But I recognised the spiral.

I’d been there.

I was forged on Dartmoor—months of rain, mud, and punishing weight. Commando training taught us to smile through storms. “If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training.” That mindset helped with external hardship—rain, punctures, landslides. But it didn’t touch the internal battles. Those, I still lost.

That night, we found shelter in a soggy guesthouse on the edge of town. Nate went straight to bed without a word.

The following day, we found a better rhythm. Nate rode deliberately, slower. I stayed close behind, doing my best to keep morale afloat.

We passed through a small village near Srinagar, where a local Brahmin priest named Ramesh waved us down. He invited us for tea. His terrace overlooked neon-green rice paddies, bursting with life. Budding flowers spilled over the edge of the railings. His presence was a balm—warm, curious, open. He’d just returned from the Kumbh Mela, his joy still radiating from him.

Something about Ramesh reset us. The tension between us loosened. We drank chai, smiled. The silence began to lift.

That evening, we carried on to Gwar, a forested village with a quiet guesthouse. We sipped more chai on the balcony as the Himalayas lit up in gold, magenta, and indigo. Guy told stories from his drug-fuelled youth. Nate laughed again. The weight began to shift.

Guy was a walking contradiction—punk rock exterior, soft-spoken soul, almost aristocratic voice. He lived off-grid, barely scraping by, trying to make this life of freedom work. His stories were wild—booze, drugs, burnout. I admired his refusal to compromise. But a voice in me whispered: one day, you might not have a choice either.

The next morning, with spirits aligned again, Nate led us on a “boondoggle”—his idea of fun: 250 kilometres of brutal switchbacks, blind corners, landslide-prone tracks. One of our toughest rides yet. Our destination: the jungle floor of Jim Corbett National Park, one of India’s oldest tiger reserves.

We made it. And waiting there was Haren—a Singaporean round-the-world rider now managing his family’s jungle resort. He and his girlfriend had ridden from Singapore to Europe: through Mongolia, Central Asia, all of it. By pure coincidence, he’d met the same Afghan bikers I’d stayed with—Brave, Habib, the nouveau-Taliban host I’d shared so many fires with.

Small world.

Haren’s place was no campsite—it was a jungle oasis. 165 rooms carved into the forest. His family had owned it for over three decades. He had the ease of a man with a safety net. I envied him that. We’d ridden the same roads—but our journeys had different rules, different margins of error.

Still, I respected him. He was kind, sharp, funny. Ex-military, with that same dark humour all soldiers carry. His mother had just returned from a Vipassana retreat—ten days of silence, no talking, no phones, just meditation.

Something stirred in me. A seed planted. I knew I needed that. Something quieter than all this motion.

But before I could act on it, everything collapsed.

That night, I got sick—vomiting, shivering, wrecked. Guy too. We were flattened. And as I lay there, scrolling through reels of the rich pretending to have it all, the algorithm fed my insecurity.

Then Emily messaged me.

No warning, no softness—just a final message. She was blocking me. No grace. Just silence.

One more thread snapped.

So there I was. Hugging a toilet in a luxury lodge, cut off from a woman I once loved, spiralling into self-pity.

Everything broke.

After days of dehydration, illness, and mental fog, I knew I needed to go. Not just from the lodge. From everything. From India. From the noise. From the people I cared about. I needed to ride alone. I needed silence. So I headed to Nepal, towards the mountains, to my safe place.

I booked a spot at a Vipassana retreat in Nepal—ten days of total silence. No contact. No distractions. Just me and my mind. Ten hours of meditation a day.

I wasn’t running anymore. I was pausing. Choosing.

There was still snow on the roads to China. I had time. Time to heal. Time to recalibrate. Time to remember who I was when I rode alone.

So I told Guy and Nate: I’d be heading east. Alone. Into the mountains. Toward the silence.

Toward whatever came next, still chasing stillness on a motorcycle.