Fiona & Ben's India Travel Blog (25)
Follow us, Ben and Fiona, on our adventure around India in 2010.
We had hoped to take a one day trek through the stark and inhospitable countryside that surrounds Mudh village. The weather though, is ominous, and a bleak fog hangs in the air, threatening rain, or perhaps snow.
Day five: Nako to Dhankar, 92 km.
On this leg we say goodbye to the land of the Kinnauris and ride into the Spiti Valley, crossing over at Khabo, the confluence of the Sutlej and Spiti rivers.
The postcard image of Himachal Pradesh is a pristine pine forest against a backdrop of soaring peaks. But there are no pine forests in Upper Kinnaur.
Disheartened but not deterred by the news that Kunzum Pass could take up to two weeks to reopen, we headed out from Shimla figuring we’d at least ride to Kaza, the district head quarters of Spiti, then turn around and take the same route back to Delhi.
In the days of the Raj, the Grand Trunk Road from Benares to Lahore was one of the most important trade routes of the Subcontinent.
We’ve been surprisingly lucky with trains on this trip. Despite all the horror stories, we’d never waited more than about half an hour past the due time to board a long distance train.
Stepping out of our train at Jaipur marked our arrival in India’s ‘Golden Triangle’.
Six foreign tourists sit in an open topped jeep, completely transfixed. Not ten metres in front of them, a Royal Bengal Tiger, a male, lounges in a shady waterhole.
It’s wedding season in India. Every day around the subcontinent, millions of people are celebrating the marriages of friends and family members close and distant, and millions of people must travel, by train, to reach whatever part of the country they’ve been invited to for their uncle’s-cousin’s-neighbour’s-brother’s wedding. This mass movement of wedding-goers, along with huge Indian families travelling over the summer school holidays, pushes the Indian Railway network to its limit.
Another day, another bus, another town. A bus stand at 6am. The street sweepers are just emerging, the streets are still full of dust and garbage blowing about in the morning breeze. Every time you pull into an Indian bus station you feel a little disheartened. They are always in the ugliest part of town, and terminally filthy.