Lo dejo todo world tour: July 2012

We rented a royal enfield, one of the good things that England left in India, for 4 days and we rode through very high and bad roads to reach one of the most amazing lakes in the world, Pangong Lake. We met a few people interested in doing the same trip, so at the end it was Cat and I, another french couple from Paris and an english guy that come in the trip from Manali to Leh in the same bus than us, so it was three motorbikes.

The first 'funny' part was renting the motorbikes. Here in india you do not need any driving licence to rent a motorbike. There is no insurance and in case of any problem you need to bring the motorbike to the shop and see what happens. So after 1 hour we arranged the motorbikes for the day after, and the morning after with some expected delay we left Leh with our motorbikes without any papers, without insurance and without our driving licences that were left at the shop as a guarantie.

We had in front of us 150 kilometers and a pass of 5360 meters. The road at the beginning was good but as soon as we were reaching the top of the pass, the road become a path with stones and water. In some cases there was no concrete, not even a flat area, only stones as big as my fist or bigger. But these motorbikes are amazing, very hard and nothing stops them. We had to cross some rivers that got worse later in the day because of the melted snow. In some river crosses we got the water covering half of the wheels and the ground was again stones, so it was really difficult to control the direccion. In one of the water passes the other two motorbikes felt down and I had to turn around and find another way.

After 8 hours riding, and after the most amazing ride I have done in my life, we arrived to the lake and we found a tent were we could sleep for a reasonable price.

The day after we tried to get further down on the side of the lake. What a day, what a ride, what a road. We had to ride through sand, stones, everything but tarmac. But the amazing landscape forced us to keep going until the no mans land starts. This lake is shared between India and China, and we can say that it is not a land in peace. The chinese government a few years ago during the night moved forward the border a few meters. The day after, the India government decided to move thousands of soldiers to the area which made the chinese government move the border back to its previous point. Since then, Ladakh is full of indian soldiers and some border areas are very sensitive and tourists are not allowed after certain point.

We could not stop looking at the lake and its colors. The day after we came back to Leh. Again the road was very tough bug amazing. My back brake did not work which made the descend much funnier but still though we had an amazing ride through the valleys and the pass. Enjoy the pictures...