malcandmarjet in the himalayas: 01/09/2017 Chandra Tal

01/09/2017 Chandra Tal – Khoksar

Garmin Connect

HOW CAN 67 KM BE THIS HARD!

After the monsoon rain in Shimla we had not experienced any more rain but lying in our little tent we could here the rain all through the night.. Luckily it stopped while we were breaking camp. It's never much fun to pack up in the wet. Although the road was not tarmacked it was reasonably good going until Batal. The section after Batal was atrocious. Some of the worse I've ever encountered. What could have been a beautiful gentle downhill ride was instead a bone shaking nightmare. Malcolm insisted on riding through the nallahs. (waterfalls that flood the road completely) and managed to fall off repeatedly. Hurting himself and submerging his panniers and therefore all his spare clothes. Something he came to regret badly later on in the day.!

We stopped for some lunch in Chhatru and made the fatal mistake of pushing on to Gramphoo thinking that there would be better pickings there.

As we climbed out on a rough road it soon started to rain again and I was furious with myself for not having stayed in Chhatru. There were several nallahs (water falls) to cross and one in particular was very deep and scary. If I hadn't been in such a foul temper I would probably not have dared to cross it but I just ploughed on. The water was up to my knees and I was scared of being swept away by the torrent of water down the steep slope. Some motor bikers came along and it was quite something to watch them cross. At least water doesn't really damage a bicycle but the motorbikes where at risk of flooding. We had to form a kind of chain so that we could help push one motorcyclist at a time through the 100 m flooded section. The climb was endless and it was pretty miserable in the rain. ( This is putting it mildly) When we finally got to Gramphoo there was nothing but mud and misery and nowhere whatsoever to stay. Luckily Malc bumped into a British motorbiker who knew there were homestays some 13 km further on. Luckily it was mainly down hill. We arrived cold and wet and it was nearly dark. It had been a long and gruelling day. We went to bed with all our wet clothes tucked around us in attempt to dry them out a bit. The room was so cold and damp that there was no point in hanging anything up to dry.

Maybe one day this day will seem much better and a real adventure but just now it was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad