DAY 5

The day started with breakfast around the camp fire. We had slept in our tent on the side of a hill overlooking the river Ravi.

We had a long cycle ahead of 80kms and as we set off, I was feeling quite apprehensive. I did not know why. I changed my state to something more resourceful.  We were cycling out of the valley today and across into the next one. The route was rocky, dusty and where small tributaries cross the road, it was wet. It wasn’t long before we were both covered head to toe and looked cool. Well we thought we did!

My fitness has improved as I was starting to really motor up some of the hills and in some cases I was in front of Ian. This is the first time whilst going up. The mountain biking was just pure fun. Although the bikes have suspension, our arms were going to fall out of their sockets with the jolts and juddering they were getting.

We stopped for a late lunch after about 75kms. Afterwards my legs had decided not to start again and sitting on the saddle was painful. It was ok, we only had 5km to go….uphill.

Wow did this hurt? I was exhausted and around every bend, I was hoping to see the support car pulled over. When we did find it, Ankur our guide announced our accommodation was a 30 minute trek away. I was filled with excitement that we were staying in a guesthouse in the middle of the mountains and concerned because my legs were like jelly.

The trek to our guesthouse was across a major tributary of the River Ravi. After crossing the bridge, we started to climb up the side of a hill that would eventually take us to a house perched on the side of the mountain. We were welcomed by the head of the family, Prakash and his wife. They welcomed us with a ritual where we were presented a hat and tikka, an orange mark on our forehead. Afterwards we drank tea and then jumped into the plunge pool where the water changed colour! As we swam around, Ian burst into laughter as I still had plasters covering my nipples. I had been wearing them during the bike rides.

Dinner was served on the grass terrace with a new moon providing the evening light. We drank Kingfisher beer for the first time in days. Godfather beer we had decided was too strong. We chatted some more and appreciated the peacefulness. Ian and I both commented that we could come back here. I decided I would look to run an NLP programme here. It would be an amazing place to run such a training programme.

I was in bed by 9pm and was fast asleep 30 seconds later.

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Off the beaten track

This entry was posted on 24/09/2009 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Cycling India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.