Day 4 – Haa to the Confluence of …

The driveway from the road to the hotel in Haa would have been familiar to anyone who has ridden over sharp cobbles embedded in a steeply pitched matrix of yak dung. I couldn’t ride down the thing without fear of getting a pinch flat, so I didn’t. Again, I was last from the start.

This is excerpted from a message I sent my wife. “Today was longer, but not so hilly. The weather was absolutely beautiful. Clear, cool, a few clouds. We rode along the walls of a canyon above a river for about 50 miles, dropping down to it at the last moment. I had a flat that I didn’t fix properly, so for the last 15 miles I was stopping to pump it up half a dozen times.” All true. The children greeted us as if we were something very rare and unusual.

And the roads scenic

On the first few days John didn’t want to get too far ahead. That didn’t last. Here he is with Sange and Kinsahn.

They build the roads by hand in this country.

 Switchbacks on the Descent to the Confluence

Traditional Homes in the Valley

Trucks Delivering Water to the Families of Road Builders

After many miles, we finally came to the confluence of two major rivers and more roads.  There was a military checkpoint, too, but they seemed uninterested in us.  The bus was waiting with lunch.  Here’s the confluence.

Three Chortens

Painted Trucks

Gorging at the Rest Stop

And a bit more of my e-mail message to my wife. “The final 20miles into Thimpu was over a very busy road under construction, so we rode our little bus back instead. Roads here are barely wider than a single car, so when you are on a bike and a truck goes by, you get squoosed to one side fo the road. There would have been too much of that. We were all happy with the decision.”

Day 3 – Indian Bazaar

On our way down the mountain, we had spotted some assemblage of buildings or tents, maybe something like a farm fair, so we all decided to do our afternoon’s worth of culture acquisition there, wherever or whatever there turned out to be.

There turned out to be a three day shopping bazaar, sponsored by the Indian Army. The Indian Army is the consulting engineer for the biggest, or what seemed to us the biggest, project underway in this country; the building of roads. As part of their goodwill initiative, they bring merchants and entertainment from India to these relatively remote regions.

It was a smorgasbord. There were tea shops, movie theatres, hardware, furniture, clothing,

gambling, fried food, carnival rides

 

and lots of activity in this tent city, even on this last of three days.

Day 3 – Climbing the Chele La and Descending to Haa

Paro’s elevation is 2235m. On the morning of Day 2 we’d been at Delhi whose elevation is 233m. By the middle of Day 3, we’d have climbed to the Chele La at 3822m; La means a moutain pass. That’s a lot of elevation gain for 36 hours, and the expectation of suffering was warranted.We gathered for 7:30 AM start. It’s only 50 something miles, why are we starting so early? I would learn.

As usual, I started last. And at first, I dropped further behind. The sky was overcast. There was a threat of rain. As the road wound along the river briefly and then began its 4.5% climb for, ummh, let’s see, that’s (3882-2235)m=1647m, 1647m/(4.5%=45m/km)=37km. There was a lot to stop and photograph.

School Children Outside of Paro

 

Terraced Rice Fields

 

Shanties of Itinerant Road Workers

 

Prayer Flags and Clearing Weather

 

A mid-morning tea stop. Hot tea, nuts and dried fruit, biscuits and chocolate.

 

 Film actors from Thimphu with perfect English, about 4km from the pass

You know, for 4.5% grade, this was really a lot of work. Someone amongst us must have a photo of me lying on the ground, contorted and looking half dead. Honestly, I was only stretching my back.

The final marker, and the pass’s prayer flags in the distance

 

By this time I had shed every shred of clothing I could, just to cool me off, and it had begun to drizzle, but I didn’t put on a shell.

Chele La 3988m?

 

David and I rode in together. The benchmark read 3988m, or over 13,000′, quite a bit higher than we’d been expecting. Anyhow, the bus was there so we could easily add some layers, and there was a fire, and it felt like we’d just finished an epic slog. What a relief, for me. David was more affected by the altitude, and it got the better of him, but then he felt better. There was a ridge leading up higher; worth the walk we were told, so we took it.

When we all showed up, it was well past what we’d think of as lunch time, but there was no place to get really warm on the pass, nor on the long descent to Haa, so we bundled up and just did the descent.   I have no pictures of this.  I recall I was wearing everything I owned, including shells over my gloves, and that it was wet.  I also recall that the descent was bumpy and I had to feather my brakes the entire way, so much so that I felt that the mitten shells were preventing me from braking, so I stopped to take them off.  Then I looked behind me and David wasn’t there, so I rode back uphill to make sure he hadn’t gone over the edge somewhere, but sure enough, he had just taken a detour to water the plants.    My back hurt, my arms hurt, my hands hurt.  We had to worry about every blind corner because with the narrow roads, there was no margin in the event of oncoming traffic.  This descent was just the first notice that while I had brought the ideal climbing machine, I would pay for it on the downhills.   Finally, though, we were in Haa, where we were well fed and able to clean up.