I woke up facing the wall next to me, after 10 or so minutes of aimlessly staring at it I turned to face Blake, evidently he too was facing the wall closest to him. There's no reason for this to be strange or even funny in a comical sense and yet I had to giggle a little to myself, if only to wake myself up a bit. I've noticed that I've been getting up later and later all the time, which is definitely due to the fact that were not on the 6am bed tea time from Sk 23 anymore, lol. I didn't think much about anything while I laid in bed staring at Blake stare at the wall, I just kind of let my mind drift and drift pointlessly in the conscious void I had created that morning. Sometime after I was spurred awake by a knocking at the door, it was Vinay coming to ask us about breakfast, of course by this time in our journey the little pleasures such as a good meal were savored and cherished whenever they came about, so we all thought really hard about what exactly we wanted to fill our bellies with, this went on for a long time or at least it seemed to, most likely because it was so much fun to do. All we knew or cared to think about was having good food, so we threw on our clothes and headed for town.After walking a fair distance we came upon the Cafe Himalayas, it was a big and fancy looking place so we decided to check it out, but boy oh boy what a huge mistake that turned out to be. The food and service were subhuman at best, basically they chose to make our vegetarian meals with meat, our chocolate shake with powdered plastic and not even bother with the simplest order we gave, which was a vegy sandwhich that could have easily been thrown together in a 40-45 seconds. My Hunan chicken noodles were really the only bright side of the whole ordeal, oh and Blake never got his toast, butter, tea or jam. We paid half the bill and stormed out, screaming behind us they said they would have everything ready in 40 minutes... which would have made the total waiting time of our rediculous breakfast 2 hours, "fuck that" was our unanimous response. We knew Nilma was having her breakfast at some German Bakery so we headed that way in hopes of making our gloomy morning a much brighter one.Sitting down enjoying her coffee and in the utterly relaxing mood of the German Bakery sat Nilma, her hair was wild yet tamed as it always was and her complextion fair and pleasing to the eye, she was so into the tender air of her situation that she barely noticed we were all standing around her, in utter disbelief or childish contempt we starred down at her as she smiled back with her obviously satisfied self. "Good morning" we all said, in low and somewhat hissing tones (the same way the children of the corn kids talk to the people there about to rip apart) obviously we weren't to happy about our morning and Nilma wasn't helping, even so we came to our senses and sat down to enjoy what was left of it. By the time we all left the Bakery that day the bad memories of the Cafe Himalayas were all but behind us, and we walked back to the hotel with the same smile and satisfaction that Nilma had enjoyed so innocently that morning.When we got back to the Hotel we decided to rent some motorcycles and go for a ride, which was really a grand idea because apparently Leh is home to the highest motorway on earth! We rented 2 bikes, one for Vinay and Nilma and the other for Blake and I, unfortunately no matter how much we pleaded and prodded Varsha to come with us she just wouldn't come, which really was a big shame because I mean how often do you get to ride a motorcycle... and then on top of that how often do you get to ride a motorcycle on the highest motorway on Earth? Well obviously the answer to the first is not often and the answer to the second is probably only once in a lifetime, so we were bummed about that but in all honestly totally psyched about going.On our practice runs Blake went first, and after a good 20 minutes he finally came back, apparently he had gotten lost ^.^ Vinay did his practice run and I did mine, Nilma didn't want to drive so she didn't try, after all that we finally set out for the mountain. Everything was great, we were riding through down town Leh with the wind in our hair and smiles on our faces, when the next thing I know were skidding on the ground at 20 miles an hour about to get hit by a truck. I broke the fall as best I could, thankfully both Blake and I weren't seriously injured. What led to Blake laying down the bike was a classic example of all the right coincidences at exactly the right time for an accident, and as we would later discover it didn't help that the motorcycles breaks didn't even work >.< As we were riding the motorcycle a car pulled in front of us, as Blake was trying to stop the bike (without usable breaks) we slid on the gravel that was "coincidentally" only at that small part of the street. The bike tipped we fell and skidded along the gravel with it for a good 16 feet, when we finally got out from under the Bike a bunch of Indian officers rushed over to us to check if we were alright, the whole situation was exasperated by the fact that a conveniently spilled blotch of oil on the ground next to us made it look like one of our heads had been cracked open. The officers were all screaming and yelling at us and everyone around the scene, checking our heads and repeatedly asking if we were alright. As it became clear that we were fine and no critical damage had been done one of the officers took me aside and suggested we leave before the captain arrived. I could sense his concern for us more than for anything else so I took his suggestion, I picked up the bike and even though it didn't run we got on it and drifted onwards down the long and whindy road.Eventually we stopped in the middle of an intersection while traffic continued to poor in from all sides, seeing as how the ground was level at this point we knew we couldn't just coast the bike anymore, so a few attempts to start the bike later it finally came back to life, just seconds after our light had already turned green. We road around for a bit and somehow met back up with Vinay, Nilma and our guide, whom had rather mysteriously disappeared long before the accident. This is the point in which we discovered that the breaks didn't work, we made a good show of it and told the story to Vinay, nilma and most importantly our guide, if he didn't get the point of the story we might actually have to pay for the damage, thankfully he got the picture and a little while later a new bike was there to replace the old one. This time I thought it was best for me to drive, so once again we set off into the wild streets of Leh. One of the craziest intersections I've ever seen let alone driven a motorcycle through was the one we passed on the way to the mountains, it was a huge 8 street intersection with 2 lanes coming in from each direction around a large circle at the center all converging at impossibly dangerous 30 second intervals. Once we stopped for gas and a quick fix (and otherwise mechanical inspection) of our bikes, we road off into the frosty mountains of Leh.It took as a good 20 minutes before we had cleared the city and outer city limits of Leh, at that point our guide explained what we should do in case of this or that and left us to enjoy the ride on our own. We drove for was seemed like hours through the whindy road up those mighty ridges and valleys that had stood unchanged for millenia. As we finally got to the point in where the "road" was more dirt than anything else, Blake and I switched places and he took control of the motorcycle, of course I teased him "not gunna crash this one too are you?" "I hope not" he replied, inside my mind I really hoped he wouldn't either, because at the edge of this road there was nothing but death waiting for anyone unlucky enough to make a single if not minuscule mistake. On the way up we stopped and waited for Vinay and Nilma, during which time an army officer got out of his car and asked if we would take pictures of him and his sons with us, of course we were happy to do so, and by the time we were finished it was time once again to set off.The air was getting very thin now, and the temperature seemed to drop every corner we turned, even shifting your weight at this altitude seemed to drain you of energy, it was a good thing we had our glasses on, otherwise even our eyeballs would have frozen over from the cold and lack of oxygen. As time went on we weren't even driving on dirt anymore, just ice mixed with gravel and soon after it came to ice with water flowing above and beneath it, needless to say it had us all on the edge of our seats... literally. At long last we came to the top of the mountain and the end of our journey towards the heavens. We were at 18,380 feet, the highest road that any motor vehicle can go, without special and outlandishly expensive means anyways ^.^ We took pictures and talked about the trip up, all the while gasping for any air that we could get. When it was time to go we let Nilma and Vinay go ahead, I took out my fathers ashes gave an impromptu but beautiful speech, dedicating my trip and whatever adventures lay ahead to him and his memory, then spread his ashes to the wind. I had done this before, in my travels abroad, and as long as there is his ash to spread I will travel the world and carry him with me always. We got on the bike, and I drove us down the mountain in careful fashion, but with an all knowing and yet carefree look on my face, just the same as my dad always had wherever and whatever he did.RIP. Dad, we all love and miss you...As we rode down and when we finally got to civilization again, Blake took over and let me navigate our course home. The first thing I did as navigator was get us hopelessly lost in some backwater little town with streets only wide enough for children to walk through comfortably. At one point I had us stuck in just one of those little narrow streets, it took us a good 20 minutes to back up and walk the bike back up the hill, we only managed to escape with the help of the little local kids and their grandfather who pulled us out of the rut we were in, we gave our humble thanks and waved goodbye as we drove away back into the mountains. This time I was driving and Blake was navigating, which worked out a little better, only this time as we entered the city and got into traffic I was riding to close to the truck infront of us and crashed the bike... once again neither of us were badly injured but Blake was quick to get back at me with an endless barage of "oh guess who crashed the bike this time" and "at least I didn't crash a bike that actually had breaks" even so I was just happy to get back on the bike and get us home, which due to our clever if not totally wrong sense of direction took us all the way around Leh until finally we got back to the hotel. I was worried they would make us pay for the damage to the bike, which although not very bad was still going to cost something to repair. Of course we weren't going to point anything of that nature out to them so we merely thanked them for their service and quickly returned to our rooms. Thankfully they never asked us about the damage and we were Scott free once again.That night we went back to the Leh View Resturant and had 5 pizzas, a satisfying meal to say the least, Yum =D. Then we went for a little walk around Leh in the moonlight, which was nice after a long day of nearly getting killed. When everyone went to bed I stayed out, checked my mail and updated my blog. It was such a funny feeling, being there in that tiny little internet cafe, typing on those barbaric if not totally useless computers, even so I was content with myself and my situation, nothing was more pure and real than being alive and living free the way we had that day. I walked home after finishing the blog, slowly and purposely I went, taking each step in both mentally and physically, the air was icy and the mood a solem one, as I finally came to the little alley that led to our hotel I stopped and shook the magic and mystery from my head and walked facing forward into the darkness of yet another unknown.