I awoke feeling much better today. Did a quick bucket shower/wash then packed up the bags and put on the riding gear. Put everything out on the patio of my tent and then sat down and played with the local resident puppy a bit who was going from tent to tent looking for attention (or food?).
 |
| Puppy wants to say Hi! |
Went over to the main building and had breakfast at 7:30 a.m., then put the camp bag over by the support truck and loaded the rest onto my bike. I then took some photos while others were getting ready so we could depart for the days ride.
 |
| Escape Adventure Camp - Rakchham |
Today I will be helping Milos with some filming. My bike has a GoPro mount still attached to the rear fender from some previous person, so he wants to mount his camera and then ride behind me to get some footage of him riding. So we got the camera mounted and then when most others had made the ride out we started down the rough trail with him riding behind.
Once we reached the bridge over the river we stopped and took the camera off. Then I took some photos and then got back on the bike and up to the main road which will take us back down to the highway.
 |
| Going back down the cliff road. |
Once on the highway it was smooth, high speed running for an hour when we reached the turn off to go up the mountain to Nakla (which is at 3626m or 11,896 feet) where we had to apply for our Inner Line Permits that are required for foreign visitors as we would be getting close to the regions along the Chinese border that are contested between the two countries. I think similar permits are needed for getting close to the Pakistan borders as well, though we will never get within 100 miles of that one. But for China we will come within just a few miles a few times.
The drive up was a steep, narrow road that was very busy with cars and trucks. Nakla is a good sized town. We reached the permit office, parked where we could find a spot along the road and went inside where we were given a blank form to fill out. Then we had to turn in the completed form and our passports to the official on duty.
When he had everyone's paperwork he then copied much of the data by hand into a log book, then he walked us over to another building about a city block away. Took about 30 minutes to get to this point.
At this building we were called in one at a time to get our photo taken, then they returned our passports back to us. The permits would be given to the tour leaders as they would present them at the checkpoints along the way for us. This process took another 30-40 minutes.
As we each finished up, many of us walked back to the first building where we had left much of our gear and was also more shaded as it as quite warm out today. One of the tour team members had stayed there to keep watch over it. We had to remove all gear from the bikes as the bikes were not in a single spot and not easily watched and I guess theft was an issue here. We all just sat and read, or looked at photos or just rested until will were all back together as a group.
Once we all had arrived, we walked up the road about a quarter mile to eat at a local restaurant serving the by now familiar Indian foods. After lunch we came back to the permit office and loaded up the bikes as our permits were now done and in the tour leaders possession. Time to get back down to the highway.
 |
| Panoramic view from Nakla street |
We got back onto the main highway and headed east toward our destination of Nako where we would spend the night. The highway here is amazing. A two lane ribbon winding along the river canyon clinging to the walls in places and slowly switch-backing up the hill sides to ever higher elevations. Other than the 2 checkpoints to verify our permits we also made several stops along the way for photographs as long as we could find room to pull off the road a bit. (Though at times we were just parked along the road edge. Seems partially or fully blocking a highway lane is not a big deal around here).
We arrived in Nako in the mid-afternoon. I was the last rider in since I was making quite a few photo stops and typically am near the back of the pack anyway, though I do ride faster on the paved sections as I trusted the bike more on those surfaces. I ended up getting lost in the village as they were no longer sitting at the turn off in the village to let us know where to go, so I stayed on the main route instead of turning down what was little more than an alleyway that would become a rough trail before reaching the hotel. Thankfully the sweep rider knew where to go and he got my attention a few hundred feet down the road so I could turn around and follow him back to the correct turn and on to the hotel (Lake View Hotel)
 |
| Lakeview Hotel in Nako |
Once at the hotel and assigned my room (I again got my own room) I took the bags off the bike and up to the room (on the 2nd floor). I then got to spend 30 minutes in and out of the bathroom as my stomach was again on the warpath. I ended up using up all the toilet paper I had in my bag (very important to bring with you, they do not supply it in many places unless asked for, or in this case they had not yet stocked the rooms. In many public restrooms you actually have squat toilets and no toilet paper at all, so bring a few rolls along!) So I finally got to experience the non-paper method of cleaning after a bathroom visit, will just leave it at that!
 |
| Room at Nako |
My bag on the support truck had another roll of toilet paper, but was not yet here, so I hoped things would stay calm for awhile now. I sorted stuff in my bags some and got the batteries and charging blocks onto the power outlet in the room.
The truck arrived soon after and I was able to get my bag, and then of course about that same time the hotel staff came long and gave me the toilet paper for the room. A bit later as I was doing laundry in the sink they knocked on the door again and offered me a beer (charged to the room of course) which I turned down, but interesting service.
I continued with laundry as I was now out of clean shirts and underwear. I left the shirt on I wore during the day so that I could wear it tomorrow if the others were not yet dry. I knew the underwear would dry fast and still had 1 pair of clean socks to go, so was not worried about them and if need I still had the long underwear if I had too, it was starting to get cooler, so would not hurt to wear them, but still a bit humid.
Once I had everything washed and hung to dry (much of it in the open windows to get some breeze) I went outside to get an altitude reading with the GPS (3620 meters or 11,877 feet). Also got the journal caught up at this time. I then found the hot spot wireless had been setup again since the hotel did not have any available. Spent some time doing online stuff.
Dinner was served in the hotel restaurant area. It consisted of some vegetable soup, rice and I tried the dal as well (mainly black beans and spices). Will see if that bothers my stomach or not, still not sure if it is the food that is getting me or if I picked up something along the way from the tap water I drank in the hotel in Delhi or something in the food at some place. Things really started going badly after having lunch on top of Jalori pass a few days back, but most of us ate the same food at same place, so not sure. If need I will just eat the nuts and berries in my emergency food if I keep having issues. I had already been snacking on the bag of cashews and almonds I had in the tank bag on the bike. Will just keep trying to eat less risky foods and keep taking the Pepto tablets.
Tonight at 9:00 p.m. the hotel had arranged for a local cultural event nearby, so will be sure to check that out when the time comes.
After dinner I went outside and walked around a bit to see where things were and where the event might be, but could not find any indication of anything and it was dark and getting pretty cold out, so just went back to the hotel to grab my balaclava to keep my head warm as I was standing around outside.
As I was back out walking up the nearby road to just look at things and take some night time photos I saw all these women in traditional dress come walking down the roadway followed by a truck with a few more in it. I think this was our cultural event.
They were actually going to use the large patio space on the 3rd floor of the hotel (I was not aware of this space till now) so I went up there while they were gathering and walked around getting views of the village from a higher vantage point. It was here that I saw my only kitty cat in all of India sneaking along the back walk ways and eventually jumped up on a wall behind the hotel.
 |
| Kitty! |
Soon after I heard the locals were going to hold the event in the 2nd floor restaurant space (after moving most the tables against back wall), probably due to the cold.
Quite a few of our group showed up as well as another riding group (all of them from Germany or Austria) that was staying at the same hotel along with much of the hotel staff.
The display was a traditional song/dance thing, though no one gave any background on if there was any special meaning to the song or movements. I did record much of it on the GoPro 360, so will see how that turns out later when I get around to editing the video.
 |
| The local performers. |
Once they were done I talked a bit with a few of the other riders still around, then went back to my room. I checked on the laundry which was still damp as I feared, but it was drying some. I moved it all into the bathroom to hang as I needed to close the windows now due to the cold.
My stomach was again starting to feel unhappy. I checked on the batteries and swapped out charged ones for uncharged ones. I then played around with various ideas for mounting the GoPro 360 to my helmet, but could not find any method that would give good results or be secure enough for me to trust it while riding. So far had not found any good method of using this camera while on the bike.
The internet hot spot was off now, so figured it was a sign that I should just go to bed after I finished up the journal. So good night.
 |
| Ride Route (145km/90 miles) |
No comments:
Post a Comment