Walking into an Indian railway station at a quarter to five in the morning is an evocative way to start a journey. Remarkably quiet for a pubic space in India, sleeping families were scattered around the platform, partway through their journeys and unwilling or unable to pay for a hotel. Having slept under the stars…
With just 36 hours in Amritsar, I was up and out early, GT-bound. After the chilled-out traveller hangouts of Manali and Mcleod Ganj and a bunch of one-goat Himalayan villages in between, the bustle of Amritsar was a shock – almost Delhi-lite. Obviously a busy commercial town rather than just tourist centre, rickshaw journeys in…
It was with some sadness that I part-disassembled my bike on the terrace of our hotel, ready for its journey to Delhi. For the bike geeks amongst you, I rode a 2006 Orange P7 hardtail – the slight chubbiness of which was offset by the comfort only old-school steel delivers. Tyres were Schwalbe Marathon XRs…
The next day we dropped back down to the river and headed South towards our final Himalayan pass, somewhere around 2250m.
In our trip plan, this was an easy day – sliding “down” the foothills of the Himalaya to the regional capital Chamba, except there’s no such thing as “down” around here.
Bagatou – Sach Pass – Tisa Leaving Bagatou the next morning I was a happy person – by this time tomorrow the hardest part of the ride would be over. Looking back, what was unique about the next few hours was we were finally away from people – having got used to being surrounded by…
reakfast was dark and hurried, with a noticeable tension in the group as this was to be a big day in the saddle.
Just like Sach Kas, there was nowhere to camp in Killar, so we parked the jeeps and bikes on the roof of an unfinished building which hung off the side of the valley (as did the rest of the town) and the group was split between two guesthouses. The following day we would start the…
Gondhla – Udaipur – Sach Kas With the challenge of Rohtang behind us, we could chill out a little and enjoy the riding. I still found each day a challenge, but the legs did get stronger, if not any faster. Leaving Gondhla, we flew down for a few kilometres to the bridge at Tandi, which…
Manali – Marhi – Khoksar – Gondhla Friday morning, after a leisurely breakfast idly watching a mouse scurry around the kitchen of our chosen eatery, we finally got on the bikes and started up what was quite a big hill. It was, as expected, stupidly hard riding for me – from 2000m at Manali, up…