Day 175, India, Himachal Pradesh, Rotang La Pass, Enfield Day 1
An Enfield is the cultural bike of the Indian history and it promises a lot of adventure. I decide to rent the 500cc Classic Royal Enfield for 5 days and to ride towards the remote Spiti Valley. Everyone tells me that the roads are very bad, it seems that I have to cross totally 35 rivers. Spiti Valley is a glacier area in the mountains of the Himalaya. I start the adventure and the bike has already problems. The mechanics fix everything and give me a huge tool kit for the ride. The way towards the first pass is already challenging. A lot of traffic, bad roads and several huge landslides are the reasons that I need a lot of time to get to the top. On the way down it becomes even worser. It is ice cold and the road cuts constantly glaciers. From the glaciers huge rivers cross the road. I have also to drive through some waterholes. One is knee high and is now part of my memories. After crossing this huge waterhole and being very, very wet the bike stops to run after a few hundred meters. I try to fix the problem, but I can't. I stop two Indian bikers and we try to fix it for more than half an hour, which seems an eternity under the extremes weather conditions. Finally we give up. The next mechanical is 70 km far away. It is 16:30 pm and it is getting late. Then a truck comes the way up, we stop him. He is willing to help me and we load the bike on the truck. He drives me back to my mechanical for more than 50 km and even doesn't ask for any money. Incredible India!
An Enfield is the cultural bike of the Indian history and it promises a lot of adventure. I decide to rent the 500cc Classic Royal Enfield for 5 days and to ride towards the remote Spiti Valley. Everyone tells me that the roads are very bad, it seems that I have to cross totally 35 rivers. Spiti Valley is a glacier area in the mountains of the Himalaya. I start the adventure and the bike has already problems. The mechanics fix everything and give me a huge tool kit for the ride. The way towards the first pass is already challenging. A lot of traffic, bad roads and several huge landslides are the reasons that I need a lot of time to get to the top. On the way down it becomes even worser. It is ice cold and the road cuts constantly glaciers. From the glaciers huge rivers cross the road. I have also to drive through some waterholes. One is knee high and is now part of my memories. After crossing this huge waterhole and being very, very wet the bike stops to run after a few hundred meters. I try to fix the problem, but I can't. I stop two Indian bikers and we try to fix it for more than half an hour, which seems an eternity under the extremes weather conditions. Finally we give up. The next mechanical is 70 km far away. It is 16:30 pm and it is getting late. Then a truck comes the way up, we stop him. He is willing to help me and we load the bike on the truck. He drives me back to my mechanical for more than 50 km and even doesn't ask for any money. Incredible India!
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