Friday 25/9 Jot to Dharamshala

The day started badly, frustrated at the rubbing brakes I decided to adjust my brakes in preparation for the forthcoming downhill. Unfortunately to snap of the end of the spindle that secures the back wheel to the frame. We were stuck or were we. Ancul found a local mechanic who figured out a way to attach a not to the damaged end and the bike was secured. It was a fantastic descent with beautiful views (only marred by the need for a toilet stop - a habitual problem of cycling and camping in the mountains). Chris was nearly hit by a brown coloured stone I had dislodged thundering down the mountain. Towards the bottom we overtook a couple of startled motorcyclists. As the day wore on we started climbing and descending - I’m faster on the climb and Chris is faster on the descent. I made the mistake of suggesting that he should have worked on a faster pedal rate on his ascents, just before my gears started slipping (bad karma). We agreed that Chris should go on until the support vehicle caught us up. It soon caught me up but it took 20 mins to complete the repair - unfortunately most of the best section was downhill and then it took me 45 minutes top catch Chris up (who had a point to prove). I was in such a hurry that I failed to stop for a procession with a monkey god at the lead. After lunch we found the back spindle had come undone and this time couldn't repair it. We limped into the next village where an ingenious mechanic welded it together.
We were then onto a main highway and following lots of discussion about how to spend the rest of the holiday decided that if we continued on our current path we would not achieve our objectives of seeing Dharamshala and visiting Taj Mahal. We decided to head straight for Dharamshala and suddenly it was all over - an anti-climax but the right decision.

We celebrated with a bottle of awful red wine for dinner, wrapped in newspaper drinking out of glasses wrapped in serviettes (hotel had no license).