Day 119. Rishikesh - Rudrapur

Today was a travel day as we make our way towards the Nepal border.  We said goodbye to the lovely hotel The Narayana Palace and the super helpful and friendly staff. 

Naveen works in the restaurant and made sure we were well looked after. 

We set off quite late with no real destination in mind, our journey took us past an amazing gathering of people further down the Ganges river, clearly it was very popular but judging by the unoccupied steps to the river slightly further downstream it gets a whole lot busier. 

The people were gathering to bathe in the sacred waters of the Ganges. 

We then meandered through rural India, very small villages and TomTom played his part by taking us on the “shortest” route which meant narrow lanes and small villages. 

Clearly many people in these areas are living at subsistence level, sobering really. 

TomTom then excelled itself on two occasions, we approached larger towns and TomTom decided we should ride through very narrow markets, amazing really, lanes only just wide enough for the bike and all the fruit sellers calling out trying to sell their produce all the while trying to avoid scooters from all directions and also avoiding killing a pedestrian. 

At one point we needed to do a tight left hand turn and I could just see us knocking over the fruit stand but with skilful riding and and correct pillion weight distribution we avoided that. 

Shortly after we found our way out of this labyrinth we came across a traffic snarl up, the barriers were down across the road as there were multiple railway tracks in front of us. We waited and waited but no sign of a train. Several bike riders laid their bikes on an angle and manoeuvred them underneath the barriers and continued on. The traffic built up on both sides and the tension built, no sign of a train but all of a sudden the barriers were raised, amazing sensation, we were off dodging potholes the size of moon craters, weaving with other bikes and then meeting our polar opposites from the other side! 

What a rush, I did comment to Robyn that experiences like this will sustain me in my rest home years. All she said was “just concentrate will you”. 

Some road scenes from today 

Milk and bread delivered to your door. 

The lady is carrying a TV wrapped in purple cloth - on her head! 

These young boys befriended us when we stopped for a drink. 😀

Once again we have arrived in a town of no real tourist appeal but we have found a nice hotel and for the first time in I don’t know how long there is a bar, so a couple of beers later all is right with the world. 

We also ate there, the food was delicious but boy it was the hottest we have experienced so far. 

We are about 90km from the border so this will be the end of India part 1 as we will cross into Nepal tomorrow.  

I have just realised we survived Friday 13th on Indian roads!