Going north from Chandrigarh, the land starts rising as this is the start of the Himalayas. I really enjoyed the road as it turned and twisted up to the old hill station of Shimla although the traffic was still pretty bad. After getting myself into another overpriced hotel, I took a walk up to an area called The Mall which is a pedestrianised street with restaurants and shops. Immediately I liked the place because it was cooler, there were no touts around to bother me, the scenery was great and it was vaguely European, reminding me a little of Valpariso in Chile. Shimla was used to be the summer seat of the government during the Raj and you can still see quite a few colonial buildings dotted around.
I only stayed one night in Shimla and headed for Kalpa the following morning. After a while the traffic thankfully thinned out but the road was fairly crappy in places, particulary near the Hydro Electric plants by the river. The scenery was terrific though with very steep sided valleys and equally steep drops by the side of the road and I made it to Kalpa by 6pm. The staff at the hotel were very friendly, one guy was really cool and a bit eccentric, describing the Indians further south as Cro Magnon men and laughing when I told him about the staring people whenever I stop someplace. I knew I needed something called an Inline Permit to allow me to ride close to the Tibet border but hadn't figured that the next day being sunday, I wouldn't get it till monday. Nevermind, the view from the roof of the hotel was fantastic. I was looking at the sun setting on the mountains on the other side of the valley which were around 6400m high and quite something. I realised that this was what I'd been missing in the rest of India. Peace, quiet and great scenery.
I used my day off to good effect, cleaning the chain and finally getting round to marking up my clear plastic tank which involved draining it and filling it litre by litre with water and marking the levels. The permanent marker pen I'd bought turned out to be not so permanent and came off very easily. Not having any clear nail varnish to hand, I had to improvise and found Super Glue did the trick. My hotel was located at the top end of the village so I took a walk down to find some internet but 10 minutes into an email, the power went and that was that. So instead I found myself in a small cafe where there were a few other travellers and met a guy called Joe Sheffer who'd ridden an XT600 from the UK. This was all the more surprising as I'd seen some of his postings on Horizons Unlimited so knew a bit about him already. I didn't realise the bugger was only 19- where do they get the money at that age, thats what I want to know! By the time I eventually left, it was pitch black and I had to negotiate the very steep rocky path back up the hill where I discovered my headtorch batteries were on the way out.
I only stayed one night in Shimla and headed for Kalpa the following morning. After a while the traffic thankfully thinned out but the road was fairly crappy in places, particulary near the Hydro Electric plants by the river. The scenery was terrific though with very steep sided valleys and equally steep drops by the side of the road and I made it to Kalpa by 6pm. The staff at the hotel were very friendly, one guy was really cool and a bit eccentric, describing the Indians further south as Cro Magnon men and laughing when I told him about the staring people whenever I stop someplace. I knew I needed something called an Inline Permit to allow me to ride close to the Tibet border but hadn't figured that the next day being sunday, I wouldn't get it till monday. Nevermind, the view from the roof of the hotel was fantastic. I was looking at the sun setting on the mountains on the other side of the valley which were around 6400m high and quite something. I realised that this was what I'd been missing in the rest of India. Peace, quiet and great scenery.
I used my day off to good effect, cleaning the chain and finally getting round to marking up my clear plastic tank which involved draining it and filling it litre by litre with water and marking the levels. The permanent marker pen I'd bought turned out to be not so permanent and came off very easily. Not having any clear nail varnish to hand, I had to improvise and found Super Glue did the trick. My hotel was located at the top end of the village so I took a walk down to find some internet but 10 minutes into an email, the power went and that was that. So instead I found myself in a small cafe where there were a few other travellers and met a guy called Joe Sheffer who'd ridden an XT600 from the UK. This was all the more surprising as I'd seen some of his postings on Horizons Unlimited so knew a bit about him already. I didn't realise the bugger was only 19- where do they get the money at that age, thats what I want to know! By the time I eventually left, it was pitch black and I had to negotiate the very steep rocky path back up the hill where I discovered my headtorch batteries were on the way out.
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