Wed
12th October, 2005 Checked out the Drona
Hotel, looked a likely contestant from the description in our
guide book, but when we enquired at reception we were told the
whole hotel had been reserved for government ministers and
employees since 2001! A few hotels further up the street
we found a reasonable room for 400 Rs. Took some time to
convince them that we didn't think it was safe enough to leave
our bikes outside on the roadside, eventually they allowed us to
leave them in the reception area, plenty big enough to hide them
in the corner. Everything worth seeking out
in this town seems to be based on Rajpur road, so we headed up
there to find something for dinner. There were a lot of
pedestrians thronging the streets as we made our way, it was
only when we were at the Kumar Restaurant on Rajpur Road that we
were told it was the festival of Dussehra, which is a celebration of the victory of good over
evil, legend being that on this day Lord Ram & Lakshman defeated the demon king Ravana after a ten day battle to end the scourge of evil from this
earth, or so we were told. They set fire to a big effigy
of Ravana, a bit like Guy Fawkes I guess. We saw a lot of
kids with big smiles on there faces, carrying either a bow and
arrow or a decorated ball on the end of a stick. That
description probably doesn't do it justice, but they were
obviously symbols of the battle. The festival was all over
by the time we had finished our meal, all bar a few fireworks in
the distance as we walked back to our hotel. Back
to Itinerary Thu
13th October, 2005 We had a number of
things to sort out today, in particular, booking accommodation
in Corbett National park for next week. There was a
tourist office in the Drona hotel down the road, presumably it
wont be reserved for the use of government ministers only! It
wasn't, but he had some bad news for us. Corbett NP is
closed until 15th November. What do you mean its
closed. We've been looking forward to going there and
seeing some tigers for weeks, if not months, nay, years! (well,
almost). Our Footprints guide book doesn't say its closed. Yes,
it is closed from June 15 to November 15. B****cks! Okay,
plan B. The only problem is, we don't have a plan B.
We'll have to make one up. In the meantime, there's a nice
little hill town called Mussoorie, 15km as the crow flies from
Dehra Dun, that's awaiting a visit from us, or so we like to
think. A quick pit stop for breakfast of masala dosa (don't you
just love that curry taste for breakfast?) and we negotiated a
300 Rs taxi for the two of us up to Mussoorie. Back
to Itinerary Fri
14th October, 2005 Back
to Itinerary Sat
15th October, 2005 Back
to Itinerary Sat
15th October, 2005 Back
to Itinerary
Mon 17th September, 2005 Wanted to get an
early start to try and beat the heat, its been getting hotter as
the days have worn on, mainly because we've gone down to lower
altitudes, we now about 300 metres above sea level.
Managed to get on the road by 8am, after what we had hoped would
be a quick cup of tea and coffee in the hotel restaurant, but it
took them 10 minutes to make it. Typical. The
streets were not as busy as yesterday, but still took a lot of
dodging of foot traffic, cycle-rickshaws and autos to get down
the Upper Road. Turn left at the second circle is the
direction we were told to take for Najibabad. Calling it a
roundabout I suppose would have been a misnomer, as traffic
tended to treat it as any other road obstacle in India, drive
around it any way you can and if you can't, drive in to it! So
calling it a circle is probably a good idea. The
bridge over the Ganga was fairly busy too, but we managed to
find a place to stop and take some final photos of the town and
the people bathing in the holy waters. I dont think they
minded, they weren't stripping off or anything, so I don't think
we were intruding too much.
On the south side of the bridge we could see acres of tents set
up in uniform rows. This in the location for the 15th
National Scouts and Guides Jamboree, the first time it has been
held in Uttaranchal, a big roadside sign told us. The
Prime Minister had flown in yesterday to see them, pity he
couldn't find time to drop in and see us, we could have made him
a cup of tea. Several bridges later we
were over the many channels of the Ganga at this pint in its
journey. Haridwar is the last place where the Ganga passes
through a gorge of the foothills of the Himalayas and starts its
2000km journey across the planes of Northern India to its final
destination in the Bay of Bengal. A bit like us really,
except we're going to nip up to Darjiling for a cup of tea, I'd
like to see the Ganga do that! Just outside
of town the building disappeared and were replaced with trees,
bushes and grass, what a pleasant change of scenery in such a
short space of time. And so quiet, too. Quiet, that is,
until we were overtaken by 7 combine harvesters, obviously
finished their harvesting and off to work somewhere else.
Each was loaded with people and their luggage, including a few
motorbikes, big spare tyres for the combines and various other
parts. They were only traveling a little faster than us,
so when they got held up a little we caught them up and overtook
them, until they gained on us again, went passed and the whole
process began again. This did become a little tedious, so
we took a longer drinks break to let them get away. We
crossed over several new bridges on the way, some several
hundred metres long. The road surface around them is still sand
and grit, and the bridges have 3 inch high ridges running across
them at 20 metre intervals, obviously waiting for a layer of
tarmac. They'll be nice when they're finished. Before the
bridges were build, it looks like the traffic had to gross the
rivers using a causeway, could have been well dodgy in wet
weather. We were only thinking how lucky we were that the bridges
had been built and it the monsoons had finished, when we came
across a bridge that hadn't been finished and the river flowing
over the middle of the causeway was going racing quite quickly
before it dropped over a 10 foot waterfall. We looked
around for a pedestrian bridge, but of course there wasn't one
in sight, up or down stream. Two young boys on bikes
carrying small loads of firewood overtook us, so we watched to
see how they would cross. They dismounted and waded
through the water, but they had flip-flops on and were used to
it. I could see us having to take our shoes and socks off
and following suit, but some workers high up on the bridge above
us had other ideas, they were using sign language to indicate we
should cycle through it.
Egged on, but slightly worried about my camera and other
valuables getting a drenching, I waited for a suitable gap in
the traffic then set off. The water wasn't too deep at
first, but the concrete surface under the water was a
broken up and after several metres dropped down several inches
and my feet were dragging through the water as I cycled on. I
couldn't see what was coming up under the water, but having
watched a few vehicles go through before me, I was fairly
confident there were no huge holes waiting to swallow me
up. After a few tense moments when I hit several small
ledges of concrete, I made it to the other side, with only my
shoes a bit wet. Come on Rita, its easy.
Rita was not quite so willing to try, and at first tried to
hitch a lift across from a passing truck, but having seen me do
it and with the encouragement of a small disabled kid who was
hopping about beside her on his one crutch, she put the bike in
low gear (to make negotiating the concrete obstacles easier,
more power) and took the plunge. Well, not
literally. Following the boy with the crutch, she was soon
across, and she didn't even get her shoes wet. The boy was
really pleased when Rita gave him 5 rupees for his
efforts. Soon after that great crossing
(in our eyes, anyway, wait 'til you see the pictures, read the
book, watch the film) we reached the border of Uttar
Pradesh. Continued on our Uttar
Pradesh page Back
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