T.I.A. July 4 2018

We’ll ride the rough roads down into Banjar Valley, through the pine forests and quaint rural villages. We’ll descend until we meet the Beas River which we’ll then ride alongside all the way to Manali. The traffic gets a bit manic so you’ll need to keep your wits about you as you weave around trucks, rickshaws, dogs and cows! We’ll escape this as best we can by crossing to the other side of the river and riding tiny winding roads through small villages, all the way up to our excellent 5* hotel.

Couple of things to remember while travelling here:

1- There will be no hot water.
1a- If there is hot water there won't be enough cold water to cool it down.
2- There will be no WiFi.
2a- If there is WiFi there will be no internet connection.
3- Things will be late.
3a- If things are on time things will be broken.

Another rainy day riding through the Himalayan foothills.  Good news is that overnight 1 of the missing pieces of luggage was delivered via an overnight taxi ride from New Delhi.  Bad news - there were literally too many bags of misplaced luggage for Air India to process so the 4 riders from Portugal continue on in borrowed gear.

I mentioned that there was tour staff and vehicles trailing the group along the road.  Good thing too as this morning one of the riders took a fall having grabbed too much front brake on a slick muddy downhill section.  After a thorough check over by the medic he exchanged motorcycles with the mechanic and was on his way.  Unfortunately soon after he misjudged a steep downhill switch back and rode off the road.  At that point all decided that continuing in the van would be the wise choice here.  The van ride lasted until lunch when he decided that he would feel safer riding on the motorcycle than in the van...

This Is Asia after all.