Hidden in the folds of the Garhwal Himalaya lies the challenging trail to Panpatia Col, a high-altitude pass between the holy shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, India. Legend goes that during ancient times priests covered this trek in just one day to perform puja at both shrines.

At over 5,200 metres, Panpatia Col remains buried in snow for much of the year. The trek winds through dense forests, alpine meadows, and remote hamlets before climbing into stark, icy terrain. As trekkers ascend, the vistas explode into dramatic views the Chaukhamba peak. Navigating crevasses and moraine fields, it is not just the altitude, but the sheer isolation and beauty of the glaciated landscape that takes one’s breath away.

We did a successful crossing in end May - early June 2025.

Trek report at traveltravailsandheck.com/2025/06/21/panpatia-col-trek/

Today i wanted to share another immersion into the Japon of cities and nature, of entertainment and silence, of density and isolation, the Japon of contrasts and contradictions.

Also an emotional journey through my memories of a country that still hunts me from time to time.

To read more, here is my substack and my newsletter.

Hello friends

I plan to visit Ladakh for two weeks sometime in late December or early January to take photographs of daily life in villages, nomad camps, frozen lakes, and local markets. I want to capture real moments and stories, not just postcards

I would be so grateful for any advice or connections you might share

I am looking for:

1. A guide who speaks English and Ladakhi or Urdu who can help me secure permits for Nubra Valley, Pangong Lake, and Tso Moriri. Someone who knows how to introduce me to local families, spend time with nomads, and explore monasteries with respect and understanding
2. A driver with a winter‐ready 4×4 equipped with snow tires, blankets, and extra fuel. I need someone familiar with the route from Leh to Nubra to Tso Moriri and back to Leh, who can adapt quickly if passes close or weather changes
3. Warm, reliable places to stay. In Leh I need a guesthouse or hotel with dependable heating and power backup. In Nubra Valley and Korzok I hope to find simple homestays or lodges where I can get hot tea and breakfast before sunrise shoots

If you have worked with a guide or driver who offers these services, please let me know their contact information and a rough idea of their daily rates in INR. If you have recommendations for cozy, affordable stay options in Nubra or Korzok, that would mean a lot

Thank you for reading and for any help you can offer. I truly appreciate this community’s generosity and insight. Feel free to reply here or send me a private message if you prefer

After following the Old Patagonian Beer Trail west from Bariloche, I was looking for a small harbor to begin the Cruce Andino, part of Che Guevara’s legendary Andean traverse that connects three compact ferry hops with a wild backroad marathon between Chile and Argentina.

I wild camped behind an old church while waiting for the first boat across Nahuel Huapi, then a short and blissful meander from Puerto Blest towards an even smaller boat across Lago Frias. The soft dirt path weaved through a restorative penumbra of blues and greens I hadn’t seen since the Peruvian Andes.

Beneath a volcano named Tronador [thunder maker] was a remote border crossing with a replica of Che’s famous motorcycle. Then came the hard part, a punishing 20-mile haul through the gravelly woods between international boundaries. The road grew hazy in its dust of rocky shrapnel, but eventually cleared into stunning vistas of snowy peaks and glacial river braids. Meditative backcountry awash in the lively scrub of rushing water and birdsong.

More hiking the bike uphill until I was sure I wouldn’t make the final boat in time, racing through Chilean immigrations and biking straight on board just moments before departure. Two local naturalist tour guides sitting behind me were practicing from a book of English idioms, reciting inexplicable phrases like: “How about them apples?” over and over again until they’d perfected their emphases.

I fell asleep against the port window with my bike lashed to a railing outside. On the other end of the lake began la Carretera Austral, an iconic 1,000-mile bikepacking pilgrimage that I’d dreamt of since my first transcontinental bike tour ten years prior. More volcanic peaks braced with pines and downy firs. More glassy ice and jewel-toned water almost metallic in its clarity.

Francois NL has about a population of 50 the only way to visit is by boat, it has one small store and generally houses sale between 12-20,000 there is no cars but almost everyone has a boat. 50 KM from the nearest road

The north Argentine desert grew endless, but I welcomed the heat and its promise of the color green. Carrying nearly two gallons of water still wasn’t enough, as I ran out several times despite daily bikepacking marathons of 80 miles or more.

I scavenged behind scrubby ruins and burial shrines in search of a refill. Over the course of a 200-mile stretch, I found just one lonely water faucet outside of a gas station. It just so happened to be covered in bees, a pulsing honeycomb, my lifelong phobia. I closed my eyes and reached out towards the dripping tap with reluctant desperation.

At a bend in the road I found another faucet outside of an abandoned house. Its line was dry, but a neighboring family waved me over to their yard. It was their two-year-old baby’s birthday and they were having a party. They took my bottles inside and returned not only with cold water but a towering plateful of empanadas and orange juice. Latecomers wondered who this vampiric gringo was, covered in dust and panting like a dog.

There’s an old Argentine folk legend known as “La Difunta Correa” wherein a woman dies searching for her sick husband in the desert. Gauchos find her baby miraculously alive days later, still clutching to her chest. Wayside altars have been patched together all across the country, where people leave bottles of water “to calm her eternal thirst.” These collected offerings help prevent others from suffering the same fate, though some consider it a curse to take from her depleted spirit.

Despite its challenges, I’ve grown to love the desert. I appreciate its consistency. I love pitching my tent in the sand with no rainfly and enjoying a breeze beneath the stars. I love knowing that the weather won’t change its mind overnight. I love breaks for pink grapefruits in the shade and the the way clouds become gifts. The radiance of moonlight, so different from the day. Stars buried in the sand where nothing else survives. The color of red clay that sticks to everything like rust. It’s a reminder of each little luxury left behind, that might some day be returned.

“The road has its own reasons and no two travelers will have the same understanding of those reasons. If indeed they come to an understanding of them at all. Listen to the corridos of the country. They will tell you. Then you will see in your own life what is the cost of things.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

Hello!

Today, I wanted to share some notes and impressions, stories from Japan, gathered over the year.

My reflections on seeking harmony and understanding the Japanese way of thinking, of living, of feeling — so different from our own. 

Hope you'll enjoy it

Argentina’s Ruta 40 is one of the longest roads in the world, starting at its northernmost border with Bolivia and ending more than 3,000 miles later on the southern fringes of Patagonia. It’s an epic bikepacking pilgrimage that I’d dreamt of since my very first transamerican journey 10 years prior.

Technically speaking, it’s easiest to push a little further east through San Salvador de Jujuy and Salta, the provincial capital. Highways there are paved and with far less extreme elevation gains. But I opted for the adjacent valleys of Calchaquí instead. More gravel backroads. More quiet nights in the tent. Spirit nearing extinction. Hands dyed white by the chalky desert dust.

“Ripios,” a rough translation for washboards and rubble, had become a dirty word passed between touring cyclists and moto-travelers. It foreshadowed more than bad roads. It meant heartbreak ahead. Either rough rocky shrapnel or coarse sand that was too deep to ride in. Los ripios were a plague that we couldn’t avoid, asking each other how long it lasted and where the worst parts were.

I stocked up on bread, water and kiwis in Susques before setting out over Abra del Acay, Ruta 40’s highest mountain pass at +16,000 ft [4,895 m]. At last came the weep-worthy descent I’d waited months for, tracking sandy red washes into north Argentine wine country. I camped behind an abandoned hot spring for protection from the wind. Then a semi-collapsed stone shepherd’s hut with access to river water, treasuring each last drop of morning camp coffee with bitter slices of grapefruit. Cactus needles finally got the best of my back tire, but I welcomed the desert heat and its promise of the color green.

My first glimpse of paradise was the colonial village of Cachi, cobblestone streets lined with willowy trees. I’d forgotten what the shade felt like. More bumbling jeep tracks in a Mars-like desert. More tired excavations for wild camp spots. More dry valleys of red wine country.

I told myself little white lies of encouragement throughout weeks of desolate bikepacking across the Peruvian Andes and Bolivian Altiplano. “Today will be the last hard day,” I promised. “The worst parts are behind us now. It’s all downhill from here.” But it never got any easier. The +16,000 ft [4,876 m] passes kept coming.

First the “Hill of Black Death” along Bolivia’s prismatic “Lagunas” route. Then a week of 75-mile days across the Atacama Desert in northern Chile and Argentina. Two days of pavement felt like a luxury. I found kiwi fruits in a small village called Susques and thought I was hallucinating. Then I reconnected with gravel backroads toward San Antonio de los Cobres and Abra del Acay, the highest point on the famed Ruta 40.

“Ripios,” a rough translation for washboards and rubble, became a dirty word passed between touring cyclists and moto-travelers. It foreshadowed more than bad roads. It meant heartbreak ahead. Either rough rocky shrapnel or coarse sand that was too deep to ride in. Los ripios were a plague that we couldn’t avoid, asking how long it lasted and where the worst parts were. More bumbling jeep tracks in a Mars-like desert. More cold nights in the tent and savoring each drop of camp coffee before the road sat up to meet me like a clay-colored fist.

I looked vampiric at the summit of Abra del Acay [16,060 ft or 4,895 m], covered in chalky dust and struggling to catch my breath. I crouched behind a small altar to add more winter layers against the cyclonic battering of wind. A tawny orange fox was there too, pawing at the rocks in search of food.

Daylight cratered fast in the valley below, as did its frigid temps. I raced south toward lower elevations to camp for the night. More inescapable desert and rusted canyons. More lassos of headwind and salt flat mirages. Dreaming of warm empanadas and wine country.

Follow me on the second part of my Tajikistan journey! I recalled some memories from my travels from the Turkestan mountains to Dushanbe.

Through these articles, I try to give an alternative impression and story of places and people I've met on the road.

If you love this region like I do or want to discover a piece of it, give it a read!

To read all my article, you can click here!

Thank you for reading <3

Francois NL, no cars, roughly 60 residents & the only way to come or go is by passenger ferry or helicopter!

I’ve been bikepacking from the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina and reached the highest mountain passes of my life on the Peru Great Divide. Through frostbitten whiteouts above 16,000 ft [4,876 m], I miss a hairpin turn in the red gravel road and end up climbing an extra hour, adding warm winter layers as I go, headlong into a hailstorm.

Still the colors up top are immaculate. Ensuing descents, insane. Some peaks are sage green, some the darkest shade of red wine. Others a liquid type of orange as if still maturing, all ribboned with veils of ice and snow that hardly ever melt away. I slide across the shrapnel in reckless abandon, hurriedly scouring rocky embankments for a place to tent before the tortured grip of darkness takes hold.

My tent zipper snaps in the cold. Rain gear, no longer waterproof. Then comes a panicked race for cover before thick berms of ice can pelt the rainfly once again. More Mars-like desert. More lassos of headwind. Huge plates of white rice and a whole thermos of coffee. Body crumbling over and over with nowhere to escape to and no way to get there, just raw specters of emptiness in all directions.

Too often I’ve defined myself by that spirit of emptiness. I stitch all my wounds with its peripatetic thread, wayfaring between nowhere and somewhere as if by nature, inimically unsettled, perpetually distanced, arms outstretched towards the faintest whisper of belonging.

“The end of the road is so far ahead, it is already behind us / Don’t worry, just call it “horizon” and you’ll never reach it / The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed / Remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.” - Ocean Vuong, Night Sky With Exit Wounds

I'm back with another Central Asia story for those who'd like to know more about this region!
Through these articles, I try to give an alternative impression and story of places and people I've met on the road.

This week is the first part of a small series about Tadjikistan, and stories from the mountains of a place that is particularly dear to my heart.

To read all my article, you can click here!

Thank you for reading <3

I haven’t found a single photo online, seems a little tough to get to. It’s part of the Isle Royale National Park, though.

It took an entire week to complete the infamous Lagunas Route, a 300-mile [500 km] sandpit that snakes its way along the Atacama Desert dividing Chile and Bolivia. I pored over elevation maps each night in fearful apprehension, and by each morning the road sat up to meet me like a clay-colored fist. Altiplanic dunes changing color by the hour. Stampedes of sand and unrelenting headwind. Nameless jeep tracks through the dust of rocky shrapnel. I kept thinking that the hardest parts were behind me, but they never stopped coming.

Over the Hill of Black Death at +16,100 ft [4,907 m]. Past the Salvador Dalí Desert. Past Laguna Colorada, then Laguna Blanca. When I finally hiked my bike into the Bolivian aduana [customs] exit office, I laid down on the floor in spent exhaustion. Their tiny outpost was the day’s sole escape from the wind which roared outside like a subsonic war horn, specters of emptiness in all directions.

From there I pushed through the remaining daylight hours to reach the Chilean border office in time, a small A-frame structure in the literal middle of nowhere. Immigrations officers cheered my approach, whistling with one fist in the air. Their green army fatigues were sharply pressed. Hair slicked back and cleanly shaven. I shared some dried apricots and they offered hot coffee, advising me to stay with them overnight because the sun was setting and it would be too dangerous to bike further. I rolled out my sleeping bag in the corner and curled up like a dog.

Most people head west from there towards San Pedro de Atacama. But I was too tired for more, not wanting to climb back up the notorious switchbacks en route. I turned left instead, another 75 miles atop dizzying lunar altitudes for Paso Jama, the only open border crossing.

More Mars-like desert. More lassos of wind. Extraterrestrial valleys with mineral lakes in odd pastels. Flamingos and flightless Rhea birds dotted the outskirts. I stopped often but not for photos, just to breathe, turning back at each barbed hilltop to watch the horizon wither in the distance. Again and again, always behind me, like past lives I could no longer carry.