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Day 11, Sunset at Sarahan, H.P., India	ŠBill Holter

11) 8/28/99
Start ride: 7:40 AM Sangla to Sarahan
Ride: 7 hours total
Miles Ridden: 45.5
Start Altitude: 11,545 ft.
End Altitude: 6,297 ft.
Up at 5:30 am, leave at 7:40 am. Twelve miles of steep downhill and blind corners. As I approach one corner, there is an eerie silence and I decide to go wide and to the outside. It is a sheer drop-off of more than a thousand feet, without any guardrails. I get right on the edge. Suddenly a bus comes barreling around the corner! It misses me by about a foot. I nearly became a hood ornament! I pause at a shiva temple to give thanks. At the bottom, we are back on the main road to Shimla. The road is very rough and has too much construction and bus traffic. Diesel and dust fill the air. Swollen with recent rain, the Sujlet river is raging out of the mountains. The road is cut from the side of the mountain like a tunnel and the spray from the rapids below reaches us there. Soon we are back up, high above the river. At the turn-off to Sarahan there is a bus waiting for us. Tomorrow it will take us the rest of the way to Shimla due to the amount of traffic. It is almost eleven miles up to Sarahan from the turn-off. Having already ridden more than forty five miles, I decide to ride the bus up to the village. Mr. Ugs and Sylvia join me and the rest ride up. The bus picks up a passenger who sits next to the driver. On a tight corner, we face off with another bus. It honks its horn and our passenger leans out the window and points his finger at the other driver. Suddenly the other bus backs up and gets out of the way. Our passenger turns out to be the local bus inspector! We stop in the town and visit a festival that is taking place there. The villagers have brought the statues of the local deities from the temple and placed them on the top of the hill overlooking the festivities. We continue up to the stadium grounds where our campsite will be. It is the only large flat area for us to camp in. As the others arrive, I head for a waterfall at the edge of the stadium grounds to bathe. It's time to pack up bikes for trip to Delhi. The ride is over! After dinner, we send Mr.Ugs out to find some beer. As the sun begins to set there comes the sound of a Sadhu (a holy man) blowing a conch shell trumpet. Two of them live at a small Shiva temple behind the stadium grounds. They begin chanting the names of God while one plays a damaru (a small double drum). I walk over to the temple and they invite me to sit by their fire. They continue to chant and I listen for almost an hour. I speak to them in my limited Hindi, and upon leaving, give them some rupies as a donation. Upon my return to the dinner tent, the others with beers in hand, want to know where I've been. I tell them of my visit to the temple and offer to take any of them back with me to visit the Babas, but nobody takes me up on it! As I listened to the Babas chant, a nearly full moon rises over the top of the mountain behind the temple. This was the perfect way to end the ride: I couldn't have asked for a better conclusion! As the others go to bed, I sit on the wall looking overlooking the valley. In the moonlight, I can see the mountains beyond the far side. In the distance a chorus of dogs greets the moon. At about 1:00 am, a nearly human shrieking begins, and wakes us all. A jackal, sensing his space invaded by our camp, lets everyone know we're on his turf.

12) 8/29/99
Leave by bus: 5:00 AM Sarahan to Shimla
Drive: 9 hours total
Miles Traveled: 92
Start Altitude: 6,297 ft.
End Altitude: 7,235 ft.
Up at 4:00 am, leave at 5:00 am. Wind through the mountains and then stop for lunch at a dhaba. Then on to Shimla, arriving in the afternoon. Suddenly we are back in a busy Indian city. And with it, lots of noise and vehicle-generated smog. "Civilization!" After being in the mountains on a bike for eleven days, it is a shock. I was going to spend an extra night here but decide to continue my journey the next morning. I go to the taxi stand and book a minivan to take me to Rishikesh at 6:30 am. In the morning, I get a ride from Dawa into town to the taxi stand and say my goodbyes to the rest of the group. They are returning to Delhi and home, and I am off to the high mountains of Garhwal to visit Badrianath, Kedernath, and Gaumulk the glacial source of the Ganges.
Om Ju Saha …Jai Bolenath!