tradition whilst admiring our first views of the Himalayas .
The bikes were quite easy to ride and perfectly suited for the terrain . They are low revving so had good torque in the lower gears , perfect for the very rough roads we would encounter later in the week . The Bullets were not fast performance bikes but as we later found out , we could rarely engage any higher than third gear .
The next day , having braved the hotel road again , we set off on a wellmaintained two-lane tarmac road heading northwest from Leh .
Ladakh is close to both the Chinese and the Pakistan borders and is a disputed area . There was a huge military presence around Leh , and we were continually tussling with convoys of Army trucks . We passed large Army camps then started to make our way into the countryside . We rode through the first of many checkpoints . Sandy was riding as tail-end Charlie and was stopped by
the soldiers in the checkpoint . The rest of us blithely rode on until I heard Sandy yelling for help through our intercom .
“ Mum ! They are waving guns at me !”
It was a bit frightening , but I quickly rode up to Ravi who returned to the checkpoint and smoothed over the problem then the guards allowed us to continue on our way . I suspect that the soldiers had seen Sandy ’ s Bluetooth helmet intercom and became suspicious .
The many pithy roadside safety notices kept us amused .
“ Drinking whisky , driving risky !” opined one . “ Don ’ t be a gama in the land of the lama ” and “ You are already driving at great height , don ’ t drive higher to reach heaven !”
The notices were hilarious and much more notable than our dull “ don ’ t drink and drive ”.
Leaving the Army camps behind we started to rise into the mountains . Hairpin bends and steep gradients started to challenge us , but I quickly learned to drop a gear and power through the hairpins . We met the first of very many landslips which had swept the road and a bridge away . A Bailey bridge had been thrown over the gorge but the landslip on either side had been merely flattened by passing traffic , dirt , and boulders hard packed into a teeth-rattling track .
“ Stand up on the pegs !” barked Sandy through the intercom . I complied and so learned another skill for bouncing over the rough roads .
We climbed higher up the side of the gorge formed by the Indus River and encountered another landslide . This time , they simply drove a bulldozer over the top to flatten the boulders and along with the colourful TATA trucks , we squeezed around the back of the bulldozer . There is nothing like a 300 metre drop on your left to focus the mind !
We stopped at an ancient
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