Himalayan hermit

The day of rest is over. A chance to meet the team too. The group is diverse, both in terms of geography as well as age. The day begins after an early breakfast and a hike up to a temple on the top of a hill. At the beginning, when we pass through a thin lane between village houses, a wide-eyed little girl looks over the fence but my camera is too far away and footsteps far too quick. We climb up until the road we begin from becomes a tiny thread winding across the mighty hills. Even the Himalayan foothills have a kind of grandeur, a ruggedness that neither the Western nor Eastern Ghats can match. The hike takes us through villages that are separated from the roads and enjoy a separate pace of life. It's the women who seem to do most of the physical labour, like working in the fields, carrying heavy loads upon their shoulders and so on. Men are hardly to be seen. A couple of us walk back together, lose our way and end up taking a longer route through a village. The villagers are most polite and they even invite us to their home for tea.

I manage to shoot a few people and it quite excites me. They were not only willing subjects, they were most friendly and ready for a conversation. By the time we return to our base camp at Aut, we are famished. The welcome drink is a delight. But by the time lunch is done, it's been more than a day at camp and I am impatient to get a bit of pedaling done. There are some newbies who naturally, carry a bit of apprehension. I have been riding enough to be cautious but not scared. The acclimatization ride isn't easy though. My brakes are too tight and the friction difficult to overcome. I loosen them a bit. (But it's these very same brakes I am indebted to, for saving me when we were to climb down later.) The light too, at that very moment is perfect, the unannounced play of cloud and sun becomes the hills' most beautiful garb. I have no camera, so I watch and race down. The ride is too short and I feel like stretching my legs a bit further. The long pause before the actual trip begins irks me a little.

The evening is spent together around the camp and all the clichéd singing and dancing is perhaps just I thing I would try and avoid doing in the hills. When our voices are so loud, we fail to hear the whispers of nature and to me, all the noise seems like a massacre of peace. But what it does help with, is to identify the group of people who will over the next few days form a more close-knit group.