Rampur to Mussourie
With bandaged legs and covered in balm I both look and smell like a granny.
What started as a few aches on the shins ended up as a extremely painful
leg infection. I massaged to shins so much I removed my hairs and broke
the skin in both shins....hence the infection.
A typical restaurant town stop. This one at Sungri. The food is obviously shit
and I order 2 minute noodles to make things easy and to try and avoid infection.
The amazing thing is how many times they cock up something as simple as 2 min
noodles and here the guy tried to fry them instead of making a soup.
It is easy to say that this is uneducated India but the so called educated India
is not too far from this....
Lovely hill towns near Sangla.
Typical Tata truck. Check out the visibility. The window divider is about 25cm wide
and extends about the same distance back into the truck for storage, usually for
a flashing religious gizmo. By the time window transfers are added to drivers
visibility must be down to around 25%....go figure!
Typical kinda overnight town, this one at Tiuni. The road is in a
disgraseful condition and covered with litter and every restaurant
is a filthy disgrace. For the first time on my trip I decided
to cook my own food in my hotel room. Strangely enough the
hotel was a paradise of cleanliness and I would have stayed
longer if it wasn't for the food situation as walking was becoming
impossible from my infected shins.
Heading down through mature 50yr old Pinus forrests and onto the plains
in Uttarkand province. The forrests are well protected from illegal logging by
many forrest checkposts that stop trucks and check their cargo.
Sleeping in a bus stop the night before reaching Musoorie. I came to a junction
in the dark with signposts to places I'd never heard of and with no idea which way
to go I decided to hunker down for the night. Then at midnight I woke to find 3 local
guys stood at my feet (outside the shelter). I was suprised but not as much as they
were. They had been fishing in the river behind me. I introduced myself and wanted
them to stay a while for a chat as I don't get to talk to anyone these days....
very strange indeed!
Then in the morning I asked 3 different people for directions to Musoorie and got
pointed in 3 different directions....
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11/9/08 Bus stop to Mussourie (N30.27.587 E078.03.853) 2001m
28.5Km 5.43Hrs walked. Up 1275m. Down 20m.
Actually managed quite a good sleep considering the circumstances. I thought that I might be paranoid about being mugged or bottom raped but it barely crossed my mind and when it did I did my statistical analysis and came to the conclusion that no foreigner has ever been killed while sleeping in this bus shelter so why should it happen now?
Then just as I was dropping into a deep beauty sleep around midnight I heard the noise of feet scrunching on pebbles and thought that a cow must have wandered into the shelter. I threw back the tee shirt covering my face only to find three male silhouettes stood by my feet outside the shelter.
Obviously, initially I was shocked at not seeing a cow but as I came to my senses I could feel unease in their stance and offered a hand of friendship to the nearest one who was shirtless. He offered me his wrist and I shook it. I noticed that they had no transport nearby and assumed the scrambling noises were from the river directly down from the shelter so gestured if they had come from down by the river. 'Yes, fishing' he replied and showed me the net. I was intrigued and wanted to see their catch, I even wanted them to stay for a chat as I don't get to talk to many people. Why my train of thought was like that I can't explain. Then one of the other two said they should go and that was that. I think they must have gone down to the other side of the river as they disappeared quickly. I think they were more took aback than I when I sat up and began to talk.
Soon after they left a Tata truck past by and stopped at the far side of the bridge and backed up into a passing place and popped on its hazard lights. I had no idea what was happening as the structure of the bridge blocked my view but a few cars passed by without problem so at least they weren't highway robbers (dacoits in India). After an hour they started loading up the truck with rocks which is a little strange being the early hours of the morning.
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