Shimla to Rampur to Rekong Peo

Riding in India. Really. Musical horns and painted trucks; sparkle-trimmed saris and golden pocket temples; bright, sunny mangos and purple-red onions. The full fruit-and-vegetable rainbow of colors and sounds. Sure there was dust, and hard to find places to pee. But overall, it was an engaging experience. Especially since each face that met ours would brighten into a big smile with the whole head in side-waddle, a lyrical movement of Hindi hello.
It was a continuously populated ride, which meant we had to sleep indoors. A 17-year old boy who saw us eating at the town Dhaba (café) helped us find our way to the government rest house, just across the road and next to the K-10 school, at the end of our first day’s ride. A half hour of negotiations took place as first the gatekeeper bold-facedly told us that it was all booked (not a car nor guest in sight) and then the watchman/cook considered how to make some under the table money by renting us one of the older and under-maintained rooms off the books. Of course he showed me the book which detailed the price for each class of government worker- from a low of 50 rupees (42 to the dollar these days), to a high of Rs 650 for non-government employed Indian national. And the grand price of Rs 1000 for foreign tourists. I should have bargained harder, but we settled on 200 per person. We also bought a dinner to order from him. We passed the evening with a guided stroll along the road with our 17 year old guide, Sunje, and his excellent English. The youngest of three brothers, he is the only one living at home with his mother. His father died when he was five. He said his family had little money, so he would be unable to go to college- which I heard costs about 20 dollars a year for tuition, plus living expenses. I’m sorry we didn’t think to give him 100 bucks for his education. He plans to go to UAE after high school, expecting to work there and be able to support his mother. Besides our walk, we were entertained by a handful of school kids who climbed through a hole in the barbed wire to visit us on the Rest House lawn. They, and the cook and the gatekeeper and Sunje and his best friend whose head was draped across his lap, enjoyed our photos and Alaska postcards and the inflatable globe. Then Bavo, the solo Belgian cyclist who joined us in Shimla, pulled out some paper and markers and they drew us beautiful pictures of landscapes and flowers. We slept well that night, and returned to the same Dhaba for a breakfast of paratha which is a pan-fried pancake/bread with vegetables folded into the dough. We were rolling around 7:30.


Shimla to RampurA 17 kilometer climb the next morning brought us to a bustling crossroad called Narkanda. It was entertaining watching a local woman try to climb the iron steps to the upper chamber of one of the little outdoor temples. Her success was hampered by an aggressive monkey, perched on the landing ledge above. Regrouping after a hasty retreat, she came back for another try, this time with a stick in her hand. She banged the railing as she tried to go up, but again the monkey chased her back down. Third time’s a charm, especially with a rock in hand. The entertainment over, we headed towards the start of an enchanting ride. Flitting back in forth in my mind, I kept flashing between the present reality, and thoughts of northern California as we wound along on a cheerful ribbon of smooth pavement, through virgin pine forests. The deep, needley fragrance was intoxicating, as were the endless switchbacks down. Luckily, I emerged from the dream descent to consider the rims. Chris had taught me, on our first Kyrgyz descent from Gulcho, to stop and check to see if they were hot. I burned my hand. And so began a painfully slow ride, stopping every kilometer to wipe the rims down with a wet cloth. It didn’t help that the thermometer that day was about 108. Sacramento Valley furnace blasting hot. It was a long time getting down. We managed to find a camp site that night, me, Amy and Bavo., just before the village of Nirath. A beautiful eucalyptus grove sheltered us from view and provided a cozy little home above the raging waters of the Sutlej River. The Sutlej starts high in the Tibetan Himalaya, in fact, at Mount Kailash just over the China border. It is a silty glacial river, meaning a restricted supply of fresh water. We made a simple noodle, onion and tomato dish, enjoyed with sweet herbal milk tea and cookies. The only thing we couldn’t escape was the heat. I imagined my cyclist friends Christine and Marlin teasing me for sweltering in the sauna of a nylon tent instead of resting comfortably under the open sky. When the rains came in the night, I felt exonerated, if not well-rested.

Third day and the heat began in earnest. We had set out cycling at 6 am to try to make some distance before it beset us. We succumbed around 1 and spent 3 hours in an upscale hotel restaurant, complete with ceiling fans and A/C. We finally braved the road and reached the medieval village of Rampur. Had we known how great that place would be, we would have left the restaurant sooner. As it was, we passed several hours roaming the tiny alleys and ancient shops. Afternoon sun sliced through the narrow spaces, highlighting mauve and apricot and lavender painted shops. I ended up visiting two different tailors for pant zipper modifications and we finally got going just before early evening. We soon found a perfectly acceptably hotel, as camping was just not an option and it was close to 6 pm. Too bad we were so late, as the next day we discovered the absolutely ideal camp, just 14 kilometers further along the road.

Rampur to Rekong Peo
I told Amy we’d talk about it later. It was not helping for her to keep pointing out how precarious our road was. It’s was a narrow ledge, a gash, barely chipped out of a massive vertical wall of stone. We traversed this sheer face, hanging 2000 feet above the roaring froth, for several hours. Accurate concentration was required: controlling downhill speed, focusing on a clear path through the broken asphalt, being mindful of the often-times eroded edge, avoiding the random, meandering, horned cows, and most of all, listening for traffic. The road was mostly one-lane so the worst case was being the third wheel when two vehicles- mostly busses and trucks, with a few silent, speeding Suzukis - reached the same constricted place at the same time. More than once there was backing up involved. No place for heroics, I found myself dismounting and waiting, curling my toes closer into my sandals at the oversized vehicle snuck past my tensed body. Certainly a day for a helmet, with occasional descent speeds reaching 40 kph. Were ours on?
We’d chosen a destination on the map for our stopping point, keeping to the 50 km per day average that we were aiming for. But as Gary Snyder writes, the map is not the territory. The village of Wangtu was no more than a giant construction site. Signs everywhere bragged about the world’s largest hydro power underground line. I’ve never seen anything on such a massive scale. Hard hats and ear protection were necessary, but neither we, nor the workers had any such thing. The workers lived in clever hovels right alongside the road. Part cave, part rock, stones and sheet metal were arranged to create private spaces which mostly sheltered from the rains and wind. Bathing was done in the open, with men wrapped in saris on their lower half, reaching under the fabric to wash themselves. I never saw women washing. They were mostly seen sitting on the sides of the roads, breaking large stones into gravel, or filling sacks with sand- one working the shovel handle while another assisted in lifting the full scoop by hauling one end of a rope which was tied to the shovel blade itself, often with infant in tow. I wonder if they deliver their infants right their in the work camps. I’ve read that it is mostly the Nepalese who work on road construction. Their country is so poor, that any job with wages, however low, is an improvement over their native home. As there was no stopping on this stretch, we had to keep riding past our daily distance. It was 13 more kilometers with a day’s climb of 3000 feet before we found a place to stay. So far our first and only inhospitable people who charged us full price for the government rest house room. Familiar with the schedule of tariffs, I tried to bargain, but the cheerless man would not budge. It was the least like Himachal Pradesh that we had seen to date. We agreed to the exorbitant price of Rs 1000, but held payment hostage until he delivered the second and third towels and extra mattress- all that I had managed to bargain for. I half-expected to wake to flat tires, but I guess he was too lazy for even revenge.
Our fifth day was the most trying. Dam construction. Dam noise. Damned heat. It was a tiresome 25 kms before we finally turned away from the roar of the raging torrents and the heavy rumble of dump trucks and military vehicles which passed us in steady stream. But things were not better, as the 6 kms before us were a steep switch-backed climb on a one-lane road with speeding cars and struggling busses going up and down with unpredictable frequency. But the worst part of all was the heat. Lip-tingling, mind-numbing heat. The helpful tailwinds turned to furnace blast headwinds with each reversal of direction. I finally broke down to hitch the last two kilometers, but the gravel hauler that came by refused me. Then the worst was over, the grade lessened, trees appeared and apricots fell from the sky. Ok, from the trees. But as we could watch them fall in the wind, we were not afraid, Amy and I, to devour the sweet, juicy nuggets. We let the cows eat the ones which we hadn’t seen fall. Refreshed, we finished our climb, and found our way to the absolutely perfect Fairyland Hotel. Marble mosaic dining room floor in earth tones, lavender colored door frames, and a giant picture window view from the bed, framing the 6050 meter Kinner Kailash peak. Bavo got the room across from us with the terrace. We had a decadent dinner, cooked to order, and enjoyed a wonderful rest. The only sour note to the day was that upon arrival in the center of this village, Rekong Peo, I, so thirsty, but unwilling to drink from the local spigot, removed my cap to soak my overheated head. Unknowingly I stepped on an unseen piece of wet cardboard which was covering the only missing bar on the iron gutter grate, and managed to slip and fall through the the hars, banging my shin and breaking my LCD screen on my camera. So now I have to take pictures the old-fashioned way; shoot through the viewfinder and wait to see what came out. I fear my next slide show may suffer. But there was no open gash on my leg, and I have already determined that the camera still works, so I am grateful. It could have been a lot worse.

Now we are finishing our lovely rest day. A half-cup of dried river silt has been removed from my bike alone. Tuned and oiled and recovered from my 2 day gut attack, we are ready for tomorrow’s departure. We have 30 kilometers to cover before a river crossing that we are advised to make before 10 am, so it should be an early night. Bananas and cookies for breakfast, and a very early start. Jus tone flight to ferry our gear down to the road, and probably a traffic free descent, as we have to retrace the first 7 kms back down to the roaring Sutlej. After that we have to start paying attention to altitude, as in the next 50 kms, we will be above 11000 feet for the first time as we begin our travels up to 3000, 4000 and more than 5500 meters. With treeless heat, grueling switchbacks, conflicting information about landslides, elevations, hotels and campsites, we are certainly on our way into the unknown.

I have to say that so far, I would not recommend this route to anyone. With the lack of camping, the amount of traffic, and the destruction of nature in service of power, it does not compare to any of the other places I’ve previously traveled. On the other hand, the people are truly lovely. Maybe not as hospitable as in Tajikistan, or as interact-able as in Mongolia, or as welcoming as Pakistan, but still, warm and kind and absolutely trustworthy. “They are all believe in God,” says Subhash Chander Mittal, the green grocer that sold me unforgettable golden mangoes yesterday. I stopped by to tell him how good they were. “Forget those mangoes,” he replied. “”Taste these mangoes, and you will forget about those others.” There are four soft, green mangoes wrapped in newspaper, sitting on this computer desk with me as I type. Tonight’s desert.