Somewhere near Roorkee

A quick bike service and back in the saddle. No luck with finding a map, so again navigated out of town by the sun and lot’s of enquiring. With hindsight it would’ve been quicker to just let my shadow show me the way.

At one point I was squeezing through the biggest street market I’ve ever seen. First stalls of bloody carcasses, offered by guys with beards, before cart upon cart of beautiful fruit and veg. The butchered flesh was saddening and revolting compared to the rest of the of the market colourful which was joyful, invigorating, and exploding with colour.

Once clear of Delhi’s sprawl, the craziest thing so far: a bus approaching head on in the fast lane of the dual carriageway, its driver looking completely non-plussed. He was probably one of the majority here who don’t hold a driving license, he was certainly my closest brush with death here.

But from there the road calmed down into a pleasant ride hemmed by trees, bisecting field upon field of sugar cane. By the side of the road, some of the cane was being crushed by little treadle machines, and the syrup sold by glass.

Heading NE, Uttarakhand is so much greener than the planes of Rajasthan, and the one river I saw was fast flowing with the opal hue of melt-water. I was reminded of the bathhouse scene in the film Spirited Away.

I think the “Hotel All Seasons” in Roorkee is about an hour from Haridwar and the Ganges, so tomorrow’s stretch to Rishikesh should be a shorter pummelling of the old A’  bone.