After a rest day in Leh (needed my saddle soreness to ease off) we set off for Khardung-la, the world's highest motorable pass. Unfortunately we lost 3 of the group as they were too Ill with altitude sickness to be allowed to go any higher. Getting out of an Indian town (Leh) is a game of chicken and pure luck given the 'everyone for themselves' traffic, the dogs and cows. However, we were soon heading out of town towards the top of a mountain. We did stop for a chai. It seems every small village along the road has a cafe (I've attached a phot of the outside of one - it's a mudhut) where you can stop and have a chai. It's a really sweet, small tea. I think it has condensed milk, cardamon and other stuff in it. Amazingly refreshing given it's so sickly sweet. I think it took about 4 - 5 hours to reach the summit which was a bit disappointing as there were quite a few people there(a lot of tourists Inc Indians) hire 4x4s to take them there. Still, definitely good to have done it although we had another couple of people go down with acute sickness. We were only allowed to stay up there for about 30 mins and then we continued down the other side to our campsite for the night. A lot of the road is semi washed away with glacial run off and trucks / 4x4s making a mud bath of the track so getting up or down is slow going. We did have somebody try and take a shortcut around a hairpin bend but they didn't get it right and ended up crashing into a v large boulder. He's alright, the bike isn't.