.... and you wake up to this.
because you're on top of the world!
Wonderful to wake up and daydream to while waiting for breakfast.
I love marsala omlettes in the morning. Spicy eggy solid things. But today these have to wait for the local porridge which is a solid, slow burning, fuel. I know how tired I get riding and know I need to bulk up ahead of any biking day. So porridge and marsala omlette and a few glasses of the absolutely delicious local apple juice. They are big on apples in this part of the Himalayas. But this years crop is not quite ripe yet. A few slices of toast and local jam, a few buckets of tea and we're ready.
I love marsala omlettes in the morning. Spicy eggy solid things. But today these have to wait for the local porridge which is a solid, slow burning, fuel. I know how tired I get riding and know I need to bulk up ahead of any biking day. So porridge and marsala omlette and a few glasses of the absolutely delicious local apple juice. They are big on apples in this part of the Himalayas. But this years crop is not quite ripe yet. A few slices of toast and local jam, a few buckets of tea and we're ready.
Back down the mountain, starting along the
lovely wooded slopes then steadily descending to the edge of the Styx with a taste of Hades in
the roads.
We were stopped by large
earth moving equipment and flag wavers while they blasted a new section up
ahead. It is definitely a grinding ground war with a violent struggle to
establish lines of communication in a fiercely resisting landscape.
Once through that it was
another half an hour of jackhammering from the road surface. There were times
when it may have been easier to stand on the pegs with bent knees letting the
legs absorb the continual impact, but that would be hard on the pegs and make
it more difficult to keep control and balance.
I continued to grip the
bike too tightly, which was a habit I could not shake, however much it shook
me.

I rolled slowly in.
Michael has improved massively
and had a thrilling afternoon. He asked how I found it and was surprised when i
said tedious!
But it had been, just solid, hard work. Incessant bashing and thumping and bumping and staying on
line and getting ready to change up a gear only to find more scree and a blind
bend and sand and danger. So you change down and grind on through then comes a
straight bit so you accelerate and get ready to change up only to find...its time to change down.
But at the bridge leading from one rocky stony sandy road to another over the roaring waters of the Sutlej the far hills were bathed in afternoon light.


Vidyha then showed me on the
far side of the bridge where the white striations in the rock had formed a man
climbing out of the water. Like a Poseidon figure. The gods were in these hills and they were trying to get out!

Suitably refreshed with the smiles back on, together with a Mad Max approach we were ready for the impending battle with the trail.
A biker group arrived behind us. We ended up with some leapfrogging as we all stopped at various points. They were not happy with Paul.
The mechanic in their group had not let Paul past, then complained that he rode too fast. Paul rides fast because he is a good rider, but it gave them an excuse to be upset.
Apparently they were Aussies and asked Abhi to pass on some suitably anti-pommie message, which Abhi did later.
We climbed and hairpinned and scrambled our way upwards stopping at a checkpoint. It is a lot easier biking uphill. And we came to the police checkpoint. A great advantage of going in an organised group is that Vidyha and Lovely could always talk with the police, not only in their language (unlike us ignoramuses) but presumably with the right cultural and diplomatic mix of respect and insistence. Not a job for tired foreigners!

Quietly and innocently going for a pee Martin noticed the roadside vegetation had a distinctive leaf pattern.
There was cannabis everywhere, growing wild.
The other biker group pulled up behind us some time later and threateningly kept their distance.
We pretended we were ready for a biker bust up, but the adrenaline from the ride wore off quite quickly and a quiet cigarillo was far more tempting.
Through the check point we were into the restricted Spiti valley area. This deep into the Himalayas and close to the Chinese border there is a definite military sensitivity. There is also some sense in keeping a reasonable track of wandering tourists, just in case something happens.
As Alex said, its not hard to track a stranger up here, all you have to do is ask the local people and someone will have seen something.
At the checkpoint to come in
to the restricted Spiti Valley were a couple from an advance party of Biker
Stallions, who had come from Mumbai. At Narkanda there was also a group from
Bangalore who had shared the campfire and rudimentary bodily emissions. They
had shipped their bikes to Chandigarh by train and biked from there on up.
So it is more touristy here.
Understandably so.
Getting through the checkpoint
took about half an hour. From there the roads improved as we wended our way
through military towns with schoolchildren and soldiers. But these were not the
frenetic dusty places we'd seen in the south. Far more organised. Cleaner. More
military.
We steadily climbed and the towns were left behind as we entered the more rugged part of the mountains. Sometimes it was hard to guess where the road was going. But all that mattered was the bit you could see.
We reached Nako with no further major incident. This was going to be our first night at altitude, 3660 metres.
It was easy to get out of
breath. I have had altitude sickness. It is horrible and I don't want it again.
So i hydrate steadily, drinking at least three litres of water a day, mostly
from the Camelbak. This is a hydration pack, a rucksack with a bag for water into which we mixed hydration salts. The bag has a 3 foot straw that comes back up and over the shoulder, far enough to drink
while you ride. It is an essential piece of kit.
Michael
and I were also still splitting a tablet of Diamox each morning and night, so we both had a chance to remind
each other.
We had tents. Big enough
to walk around in, with a zipped off loo and washing area. We washed in cold
water before finding out that you could get the solar heated stuff from the various apparatus
dotted around.
But between the tents were
flowers. The views were stunning and the people helpful and gentle. This is the only example of a Tibetan village in India.
We took a walk into town, souvenir hunting.



But it started turning into an Indian half an hour while we hung around taking pictures of each other, local kids and the view.


But dotted through the town new buildings were going up all over the place. Cement and protruding steel rods showed how much more was going to be done.
This part of India is gearing
up for a tourist boom.
We got some souvenirs which
included prayer flags for the bikes. The beauty of prayer flags is that every
time they flap they send a prayer into the ether.
That is just so much less effort than remembering words and getting on your knees and all of that stuff.
That is just so much less effort than remembering words and getting on your knees and all of that stuff.
Back at camp we enjoyed too much food. It just kept coming and despite some eagerness over the first courses the last ones were not finished, which made me feel guilty.
We had a talk from the owner of the campsite, founder of the youth centre and gentle soul.
We had a talk from the owner of the campsite, founder of the youth centre and gentle soul.
He told us about the origins
of the name of the town, which started as 'Nago', start of the pilgrimage, as there are several
holy places in the area people visit. Also a very famous Guru of the 8th century, Padmasambhava, was also here for a while.
Most of the year is spent getting enough food to survive the winter. The government gives a wood allowance for winter fuel, which is useful since there are no trees this high up!
But tourism is becoming more important. There is apparently a helipad nearby. That would be a great way to see the area if you had to do a rush tour. But a major reason most of us like biking is that you get to smell the countryside, feel the air and the sun and the wind. Its a lot more than going 'wow look at that' and buying the t-shirt.
Most of the year is spent getting enough food to survive the winter. The government gives a wood allowance for winter fuel, which is useful since there are no trees this high up!
But tourism is becoming more important. There is apparently a helipad nearby. That would be a great way to see the area if you had to do a rush tour. But a major reason most of us like biking is that you get to smell the countryside, feel the air and the sun and the wind. Its a lot more than going 'wow look at that' and buying the t-shirt.
We had a smoke and a dram and listened to tales of yesteryear. There was a bonfire where the logs were too big and the wind whipped sparks into a dervish dance endangering the audience. When a big log fell on my foot I managed to kick it back onto the fire but decided it was bed time as I'd been asleep when it hit my foot.
At the lux tents in the valley in Sangla Michael and I had opened all the vents, or windows. Here we closed nearly all of them. It was expected to be a cold night. We'd been wearing fleeces for supper and round the bonfire. We even had woolly hats ready beside the bed.
But it turned out to be warm
enough under the covers and the hats went undisturbed.
Around 2 am I was awake enough to think about an old man 'pee'. You get middle aged and often need to get up in the middle of the night for a pee, even without loads of beer during the evening.
I got up as quietly as possible. Instead of going back to bed, trying not to wake Michael, I unzipped the tent door, Ninja style and stepped out to see the stars. They were staggering. A huge panorama, with so many they seemed like wisps of clouds rather than multitudes of stars. A very under-appreciated sight.
The total lack of light pollution showed how much we miss in 'civilisation'.
There was even a shooting star.
But then I thought of the local snow leopards and used that as the excuse to go back to bed.
Invigorated, but it was easy to get back to sleep.
Tomorrow was time for Spiti Valley.
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