The next morning, we headed down a seemingly never-ending 113km to the more tropical climes of Chamba. Despite a rainy start we enjoyed having gravity on our side and whizzed through at least 5 vegetation zones: high altitude, flower meadows, alpine, deciduous forest and sub-tropical. Although downhill (mostly) it took a good 7hrs30 of surprisingly hard work. I have always found cycling at lower altitudes much tougher as besides the much hotter temperatures, the humidity is so high and feels a lot harder than cycling higher, in 02-thin air at cooler, drier temps.
Lush and bountiful we relished most of the 113km down from 4400m to Chamba some 3000m below!
More magnificent meadows as we descended to the plains
One of my favourites, the light blue poppies.
.
Exquisite and memorizing views.
Once again dwarfed by the landscapes – down into the deciduous with an abundance of himalayan mountain dew.
We descended for about 20ks before seeing the first villages.
Breakfast stop, chilli omelet and ‘Slice’ mango juice.
Our ‘friends’ were already tucking into their purchases from the “English beer & wine shop” – more like pure whiskey!
More fabulous descent.
Himalayan villages shed new light on the meaning of ‘accessible’.
Clothes collage.
Glad to be back on bitumen.
Sweat-drenched another coke stop was in order.
The outskirts of the tropical town of Chamba known for its impressive number of temples.
The final 20 km into Chamba involved a rather sneaky 7km climb, just to ensure we would never get to comfortable at 996m. Here is the cricket oval at Chamba, one of the many relics of the British Raj.
Farewell to the Himalayas, a 14hr bus drive back to Dehli via Pathankot marked the end of another fabulous trip.