The Cyclist’s Bucket List

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Leh-Manali Highway, India

Nothing really grows up here in the thin air near the top of the world. High in the Himalayas of northern India, in the Ladakh region, the town of Leh sits on the banks of the Indus River. The bare, windswept mountains rise from the earth in every direction, thrown into the air millions of years ago by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The shifting sun casts these rock-strewn peaks in shades of shining gold. The plates still shift, occasionally making these mountains shake. Thousands of people have forged a living in this remote landscape for thousands of years, despite constant conflict amongst various empires and the disparate interests of the nations we now know as Pakistan, China, and India. Today, the Indian Air Force maintains a military outpost in Leh and a firm grasp on the region.

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