Himalayas 15 - Coming Down

It's a daze, getting off the bikes for the last time.

I sort of remember the photos and the need for tea.
You can see from the postures just how tired everyone was.

I seem to remember a long struggle of getting bags sorted. Our room was in the old bit of the hotel, a long way from the bikes, but close to the tea.

We'd made it. A wearily, welcome shower, clean clothes and then wandering around for a while.
I donated my duct tape and reflective yellow waterproofs to Lovely who said his wife was a genius at sowing. If she could repair those she was doing very well.

I left Alex with the high visibility wind cheater top. It will be very interesting to see if there are any photos of him in it, but even if not, he will find it a good home.

I grabbed a welcome whisky in his room, which was as much a gathering spot as anything else. Martin had a massive bag and kindly offered to take back a helmet left by Nick Green, which had mysteriously found its way into the luggage of a mechanic who then left, on our first day. Alex runs a tight ship.

We had an evening of drinking and tired jollity, awards and memories and organising lifts for the next day.
Despite my best efforts on the adventure I was nominated for the Piss & Moan Club,. Cue gales of laughter...

I was going to miss them all

Andy, Keith and Martin were getting a taxi at half past nothing the next morning. For some reason I was the representative for Michael, Paul and I, making sure that our bags got in or on the taxi, to be taken to the Marriott in Chandigarh. Then us three could getup at a civilised hour and take the historic Shimla train down to the Indian plains. Much more appealing than an eight hour taxi ride. 

That was all to come, in the dead of night Paul and Alex were up and had everything organised, once the taxi driver had finally appeared from wherever he was sleeping.

I remember making a nuisance of myself, trying to organise how the taxi was packed. After the second gentle hint from Alex I stopped messing it up for everyone said goodbye to the leavers and went back to bed. Waking Michael in the process.

We had a sensible leisurely breakfast and hung out with Alex and Vidhya while waiting for our taxi to Shimla. We had big goodbyes and loaded ourselves into the team van.

The 'no nonsense' Pawanji was our driver and he set off into the mist and the rain. There was a worry about landslides, since we'd experienced them near Tethys twice so far.

Michael and Paul decided on taking back seats and got me to sit up front with Pawanji.

There followed an adrenaline filled few hours as he overtook on bends and accelerated through trouble, played chicken with oncoming lorries and elbowed his way down the mountain chain. He is a really good driver and understands the roads, the van and the culture. No wonder we never had to wait long for the van to catch up whenever the bikes stopped.

There was not a lot of time when we got to Shimla, the old summer capital of the British Raj. The station was improbably perched on the side of the mountain, in a space where you could fit a couple of tracks side by side and a turntable (remember them) for an ancient locomotive.

The van got stuck in the narrow approach to the station, which was a steep road and we squeezed out of the door abandoning  Pawanji to the interesting task of trying to extricate himself from the snarl-up traffic jam, without a turntable.

I think Alex had already organised tickets and we wandered around the station looking at the monkeys and arming ourselves with tea. When the train pulled out of the station it was not completely full so we could get some seats facing each other, rather than our allotted seats. There was going to be a small technical hitch in that this narrow gauge railway is fine for narrow gauge people, but we are big units, so getting two of us on one bench left one buttock dangling in the aisle. Still that tribulation would come later.

We took lots of photos. The train pulled into one tiny station after another improbably hacked into the mountain. And the train hugged the hillside, doubling back on itself and counted some of the hundred tunnels on the way.

One lady was sick out of the window and I think Paul got some splash back from that. He spent most of the rest of the journey hanging out of an open door with a big smile on his face. 
As the passengers shifted with the scenery we moved seats and belongings to cater for new arrivals. 

The train was full as we pulled in to Kalka, where the vivid semi jungle of the mountain gave way to more typical Indian railside life with rubbish dumps and grazing cows, blazing coloured washing and clusters of squatting onlookers. Poverty was highly visible in the people and the decayed buildings. People squatting with no doors or windows, but they had a roof and a great view of the railway, right outside.

We pulled into a what seemed a typical Indian station, clean but old, with as many strata of paint as a cross-channel ferry covering the rusty iron pillars. There were signs with strange wording, especially in English and open platforms teeming with people in the heat of the plains.

Outside we found the taxi broker, or boss, who allocated a taxi.We agreed a price and squashed into a rust bucket, low on fuel, untroubled by safety features, whose doors didn't seem to close.

Again I was volunteered for the front, where I managed to squash in with my hydration pack rucksack as air-bag and the joy of a front seat view of what was going to be an interesting ride. Coughing and juddering we made our way to Chandigarh where the taxi proceeded to get a bit lost. Michael and Paul spotted the hotel and found a way to get the taxi driver to drop us outside the gate.

The hustle and bustle of the converging roads outside was swiftly left behind as we were efficiently and courteously checked in.

After two weeks of smiley but fairly basic hotels we were now at the higher and more satisfying end of the hotel and food chain. 

As a bonus our bags were waiting for us and we were booked into luxurious rooms on the Executive Floor. Michael had wisely decided we needed a little luxury at the end of the trip.

My foot was swelling badly and I managed to get some ice, but not enough. The showers were glorious and it was easy to spend a long time in there, but I needed cold water on my ankle, not hot. We had arrived too late for a massage and would set off too early the next day. We talked about using the pool, though never got round to it. We got round to little but getting some grub but were too early for the main restaurant, though they had a 24 hour place which worked out well.

Of course the food was delicious with proper cold beer and wine and later ice cream. Back in the enormous room there was enough time to catch up on an icepack, emails and the Economist and fall into a deep sleep.

By the time I was up Paul had already gone.

Michael and I met for a huge breakfast, partially in the knowledge that the airline food would be bad but mainly because it was just so delicious. The restaurant manager and the chef came over to check how we enjoyed it. The fresh fruit, omelettes made to order and multitudes of multicultural dishes got our highest rating. It was very impressive and they were very happy to hear it.

We ended up with a hotel taxi to the airport and enjoyed the scrum like traffic on the way, narrowly missing a multitude of cyclists, motorists, mopeds, bipeds and grazing domesticated beasts.

Struggling through the airport we were whiling away the time when we came across a serene looking Alex and Vidyha. Of course we shattered that peace. That was fun, with the chance to swap opinions and stories. A Nomadic Knights offsite in Chandigarh airport.

The planes were what planes are. Michael tried to get me into Business for a beer, but they wouldn't serve cattle class hoi polloi, so we talked too loudly and kept the pilots-in-transit up. They were the only other occupants. The flat beds were good, though the electrics for the whole aircraft were turned off for the whole flight. There had been a fire somewhere the economy section but that had completely passed me by!

So I went back after a while and settled into my five seats which were almost enough to stretch out on and certainly enough to get some welcome sleep, or serial dozing. It was going to be a long drive back.
In Rome the valet parking answered after 20 minutes of increasingly frantic calling, which had me fearing insurance claims on a scam and hours of administration and getting back after a sleepless night. But the car arrived and we stayed awake somehow for the drive home, dropping Michael off and getting back before midnight. A three hour drive after some 10 hours in flight is never easy.

But home is home. And a mountain of work awaited.

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