Riding day #12, Sept 7:  Tabo to Nako  64 km, 1,085M up, end elev 3,659M (12,005ft).

More of riding along the Spiti river - think the FraserCanyon on serious steroids.  Lots of riding where the road is one lane, no guard rail and a long plunge straight down to the boiling river.  Continue to be very rough terrain.  I amazed they manage to keep the road open, there seems to be very continuous mud and rock slides.

We are in a “Inner Permit Area”, essentially the area at the top of India close to Tibet (China), in fact we are within 2km as the crow flies. 

I'mnot sure if I have this right or not, but it appears in India there is no welfare (the family is expected to take care of family), but there does appear to be "workfare".  Rather than bring in some heavy equipment to do road repair/construction, they bring in labourers from a poor area to do the work - same money but now 200 people re employed.  These highway workers are both male and female, one of the female workers:

The main feature of the ride today was a 910M continuous climb.  Just after the summit, Dunnery and I found this place - maybe a new outstation for the club.

There is a wedding going on in the town we are in tonight, concerning, since weddings around here are multi day affairs.  Hopefully I get some sleep tonight.

I’m not sure if I have this right, but for the wedding, things start with a general gathering, band playing, the whole town is out dressed in their finest.  Then there are a couple of processions that go to the Brides parents house, led by a band.  There is food and entertainment at the Bride’s parents house, then the party seems to continuously move.  We have yet to see the Bride or Groom.

The good news was that there were no dogs barking all night (a very rare thing), but the bad news was that the wedding festivities went all night, ending at dawn - i.e. when my alarm clock went off, and I was attempting to sleep in a tent.  The thumping of the background beat in the music was not dampened by earplugs.  A night of essentially no sleep.

We have now moved south enough that we are out of the northern Buddhist area and into the predominately Hindu area.  So the general greeting changes from Julay (sp?) to Namaste.