Riding day #17, Sept 14, 2019, Rohru to Purola:  107km, 1,228M up, 1,830M end

We have now dropped out of the mountains into the foothills, hence getting very warm with high humidity.  Also doing serious climbing, I have never sweated like this before.  Probably drank at least 4 litres of fluids.

On the way into Shimla we had a section of wonderful downhill, actually most of it was wonderful - there was one large pothole that had my name on it.  The good news is that it didn't toss me off my bike - the bad news is the it damaged my rear wheel, both dents the rim and made out of round - the rear brakes were effectively impossible to use.  I did manage to flatten the brake surface so the brakes are good, but the wheel has a significant flat spot - thump, thump, thump.  Maybe when I get to Rishikesh we'll be able to find a new rim...

Lots of riders have had troubles, falls ( only minor bone cracks), several scrapes, a couple have succumbed to digestion problems, 3 had altitude problem and general exhaustion.

Again a hard day.  The continuous honking of horns was getting to me today, probably because I’m fairly exhausted.  I (think) I understand the honking conventions, but I found it annoyingly excessive today.  Also, there are tons of cows (and water buffalo, goats, etc.,) always on the road.  That means the road is commonly covered in dung, too much to avoid in many cases.  Cleaning cow dung off ones water bottles adds to the experience! 

There is no common garbage system, that means every little village has the garbage burning spot - the smell of burning plastic and burning everything else is annoying to say the least.

On a more positive note, was hearing Cuckoo birds today, been awhile since I previously heard. 

some pics from the day:

rush hour traffic

the water buffalo gathering spot

The top of hill greeter