Road Trip to Leh (India): July 2009 – Day 4 of 10

Leh

Now I can boast that I drove an Enfield Bullet motorbike for the first time, in Leh.

We had a good night’s sleep and woke up hale and hearty. After grabbing some random breakfast we packed our stuff and shifted to the bigger guest house we had booked yesterday. Soon we were ready for our relaxed day in Leh.

Leh is a small town and motorbikes are a popular means of getting around. I took an Enfield Bullet on rent for Rs. 500 for the day. The bike was not in the best condition but I got used to handling it in a while. I’d never driven a Bullet before – it is 500 cc of pure muscle and is damn heavy. Plus, the brake and the gears are oriented opposite of the regular motorbikes. It is not easy to tame the beast on plains, and here I was trying to reason with it on the slopes at 12 thousand feet.

Of us four friends, only two drive a motorbike. We two went off zipping around the Leh streets while the other two went sightseeing to monasteries in the taxi. We had lunch at the Summer Harvest restaurant – a place recommended by Lonely Planet for its Chinese fare. The food was good indeed and the servings were huge. We could not last half of our main course.

We roamed the markets of Leh the entire afternoon and shopped for some local specialties. In the evening we headed to the Shanti Stupa. This experience was so sublime; we did not feel like coming back from the place. The view of the entire town with the mountains for background was more spiritual than just pleasing to the eyes.

We then saw the Leh Palace, a forsaken building rising above the town which doesn’t exude the grandeur of a palace but does make you feel like a king when you look at the whole town from up there.

After frolicking around a bit on the bike we returned it to the rental shop. After dinner we retired to our guesthouse. On our way back we luckily got some coals from a road-side vendor of bar-be-cued mutton. We plan to use it to cook Maggi noodles at Pangong Lake tomorrow. Amen.