When you have a motorbike in India, particular an Enfield, it becomes your world and decent mechanics here and there becomes your, want to be, best friends and saviors. There you spend allot of time together with other enthusiasts, fighting for the main mans time and attention, sucking them up with chai. There is always something more to fix, improve and decorate. Also my circle of friends tend to be more bikers now days and more and more conversations about our toys. It was about time that my bike got a name and what could a Cloud better want then the goddess of wind carrying me. So her new name is Vaselia, the goddess of Wind, Stars and Travels. I also invested 4€ on a full face helmet, making my looks change from teenage skater to a Power Ranger wanna be.
After fixing her up and giving her a nice cosmetic makeover, it was time to take her out for a new trip. We were going to Pangong Lake, a huge lake up in the mountains, crossing over from India to Tibet. Sharon, an English girl I met in Leh came on the back of my bike and a french couple I met coming to Ladhak, came on another. The roads in Ladahk are quite good and it was a nice drive past valleys and over the worlds third highest motorable pass. Vaselia was going very well, until the other side of the pass where I had to drive through a small river and she just died coming out on the other side. Luckily the road was down hill and just using the breaks I managed to navigate her down hill on some dodgy road with the horn barely sound able and trucks popping up around corners. The battery seemed to be dieing on me as well and instead of a beep there was a pathetic sheep's baaa. In India, worse then having bad brakes is having a bad horn. Somehow we made it down and the engine came on and off all the time until it just died again outside of a guest house in a village.
Next morning the power of the bike was completely gone and after a bit of panic and running here and there looking for a new mechanical savior, we checked the battery one more time and saw that one of the wires were off. She was OK again after fixing that! Off again, continuing to the Lake through a bit dodgy roads and crossing rivers we finally made it there. The Lake was beautiful, constantly changing color depending on the light, going from dark blue to turquoise with the brown mountains surrounding it. We stayed with a really nice family in their small house over the night. It is amazing in these parts how it can be so extremely hot and when the sun is covered or goes down, how cold it gets. Up here is the only place they say you can get a sunburn and frost bite at the same time! The temperature ranges in the summer between -2 to 40 degrees. The people here are so resistant to the weather the didn't react to the flux's, we kept changing clothes.
Next morning the power of the bike was completely gone and after a bit of panic and running here and there looking for a new mechanical savior, we checked the battery one more time and saw that one of the wires were off. She was OK again after fixing that! Off again, continuing to the Lake through a bit dodgy roads and crossing rivers we finally made it there. The Lake was beautiful, constantly changing color depending on the light, going from dark blue to turquoise with the brown mountains surrounding it. We stayed with a really nice family in their small house over the night. It is amazing in these parts how it can be so extremely hot and when the sun is covered or goes down, how cold it gets. Up here is the only place they say you can get a sunburn and frost bite at the same time! The temperature ranges in the summer between -2 to 40 degrees. The people here are so resistant to the weather the didn't react to the flux's, we kept changing clothes.
When we woke up in the morning, it was snowing! Our hopes for a change didn't come and foolishly we left anyhow to go back to Leh. "Down" at the lake it was snowing, but up at 5000 meters it was a blizzard raging! I couldn't see anything with the helmet visor down, so with it up and having horizontal snow flying in to my eyes, I could see a bit of the snow and icy "road" winding up. Vaselia struggled bravely on upwards, but she was so hot I could smell the engine and hear her sizzling the snow before landing on her. At times the loud roar barely took us up. Crossing the point of no return, it was better to go on forward to the military barrack on top of the pass. I was pushing her like a lunatic, not to unlike Quin in the movie "Jaws", shouting "come on you #&'é" and singing madly, as the machinery was on the brink of collapsing. With Sharon pushing on the worst snowy bits, Vaselia made it to the pass and to the surprise of a Indian gentleman watching two snow men on a snow bike, ecstatically driving passed the tea house, shouting victory slogans and continuing downwards. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore and my boots were covered with ice, but I didn't want to risk getting stuck on the top for a few days. As we came further down, the soldiers of a station rescued us with two gasol stoves to warm our limbs and some hot chai for our dumb heads. To this day I'm still a bit numb on my left finger tops! In the end of the day, another experience and another story for the guys of the Enfield Club. Having the bike and driving it for barely a week I haven't done too bad at all, earning my "Wheels"
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