France but operate in many Asian countries . As it turned out , all the other riders on our trip were French but Vintage Rides have clients travelling from all over the world .
A year of planning went into the trip with much paperwork including gaining international driving licences and the Indian bureaucracy of tourist visas , but mid-July saw us boarding a flight to Delhi where we spent a day messing about as the others in our tour group arrived .
On Sunday morning our party of thirteen intrepid travellers boarded a flight to Leh , a small city in Ladakh , situated at 3,350 metres in the Indian Himalayas .
The taxi ride from the airport gave us a glimpse of what was to come . Honking horns and weaving traffic bounced over dirt roads and the odd boulder or two strewn on the road were all perfectly normal . I was expecting the taxi to start shedding our luggage off the roof where it had been thrown , but miraculously we arrived at the hotel , luggage , and bodies intact .
We had a couple of hours to rest then our Indian guide , Ravi , was taking us on our first ride out .
Oh , the excitement ! A neat row of gleaming Royal Enfield Bullets were in the hotel yard . I picked a nice metallic green one with a comfortable seat . Others chose lowered ones and the pillion riders made sure they had two seats on
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