Day 97_to_103
Again the views today on the road are incredible! It is obvious that we are in lower mountains now, but it is still impressive!
We end up in a not-super-nice hotel… OK that’s an euphemism. It has no hot water or even running water on the WC, and it has a lots of… BUGS! we start a battle against the cockroaches but we win.
Next day it will be our last day with Chaman! what a pity! We totally recommend him as a guide, he is quiet and a good driver (aplying the Indian driving standarts :) ). It is raining heavily since early in the morning so we’ll don’t visit anything today, we’ll just try to reach Shimla at midday.
When we arrive to Shimla we have a surprise; it is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Small hamlets were recorded prior to 1815 when British forces took control of the area. The climatic conditions attracted the British to establish the city in the dense forests of Himalayas until it became what it is now. A crazy city in the middle of the forest!
Our driver comes a bit early in the morning so he has to wait until we finish our breakfast. An interesting one! While we are having our tee and cake near the window a monkey mom approaches us with its baby on the back. So lovely! But thenm they start trying to enter on the room! oh shit! I’ve opnened the window and there is just a thin screen door for mosquitoes between us! and it can’t be closed! I have to spend some time pushing the screen door while the monkeys are pushig to enter, a bizarre moment in my life!
The way back to Chandigarh is boring, it has been raining for almost 24 hours and it is flooded and covered with mud everywhere. We are lucky to be in a car and not on the Bonnie. That’s impossible!
We cannot even go and take the motorbike. It’s still raining and the city is flooded everywhere. We were really lucky to leave the mountains on time because this rains had been intense and dangerous. Just on the Spiti Valley region (where we were) 22 people died, and lots had been rescued.
Luckily we are in a nice hotel in a nice city out of danger. It’s just that we finally want to move on, we want to go to Nepal and the weather doesn’t allow us!
During last night the rain stopped, so we hope today it will be sunny and everything allright again. In the afternoon we go to the Triumph workshop to take the motorbike. It’s so nice to have her again! We prepare everything for tomorrow, finally we’ll keep moving from Chandigarh!
We are motivated to depart, but we are not ready for what it has to come. We need more than 8 hours to do barely 200 km. It is just insane.
The next day the first kilometers are through a highway, the temperature is nice and we are happy to be again on the road. But then, the road starts to be bad, then worse and finally a total chaos full of dust everywhere. Every time we have to cross a city it’s a nightmare. Other bikes are touching us WHILE DRIVING/MOVING 4 times!!! It’s a really stress full situation, Tià manages to get out of the cities everytime without falling but, it’s something really difficult to do.
Some views on the road:
Finally we reach Haridwar, but as we didn’t want to cross the city the hotel is really far from the center (like 20 km). We ask to the hotel for a car to go there, but it seems they cannot provide one. While we try to find a taxi, two men arrive to the hotel. We try to take their taxi but it seems they have it for the whole day. So they offer us to go with them to see the Ganges a bit later. That’s good luck!
Visiting Haridwar and the Ganges with locals is really nice. They keep us protected from selfies, inquisitive looks and all the beggars; also, they explain us a bit about their rituals regarding this holy river.
We pack everything in the morning and we head to Kashipur, today it has to be similar to yesterday so it’ll be a long hard riding day. At least we have some nice kilometers almost alone through the jungle. We are really happy and excited to be here!
We take some secondary roads without tarmac. But it’s heaven compared with the cities!
Then we are back to the “civilization” and we are screwed again… at least I’ve learned something. If I look and scream like a crazy to the other bikers and rickshaws they try to avoid hitting us while moving. I think they are afraid of this crazy woman dressed like an astronaut!
An inspirational sign on a gas station…
We are exhausted again when we reach Kashipur. It has been again almost 9 hours to ride just 200 km. Due to the Indian roads ad the Indian way of driving!