Time to repack. Pangi Forest Resthouse, Shour.

I wonder how many suspension bridges there are in India; maybe Google knows?

I don’t find the bottom water bottle cage very useful; it just gets too dirty. None of the bottles remains that clean, really. They’re beyond redemption (pretty grungy on the inside too) and probably won’t make it back to Canada.

A bus approaching on a hairpin bend is a valid excuse for me to get off the road and take a breather, I reckon.

The Himachal Pradesh bus drivers are well-practised in racing along these difficult roads. There was, however, a newspaper story a couple of days ago about an HRTC driver backing up in dense fog to allow another vehicle passage. He backed off the road and 22 bodies had been recovered, with more presumed trapped under the bus. The driver jumped out of the bus and escaped injury. An accompanying article described another HRTC accident.

It seemed like there were no buses all day and then they came in quick succession. There is only one route, one road, as far as I can tell, so the logic in the scheduling is beyond me. Maybe if the first breaks down, or if there are survivors from an accident, they don’t have to wait long for the next bus?

Following directions to the Government Resthouse, I pushed up near vertical roads above Killar, struggling, sweating and cursing. This wasn’t exactly what I needed after a short (distance) but wearing day on rough roads. Especially to find that there was no room at the inn, when I finally tracked down the resthouse. At least it was a freewheel back down to a hotel in town.

38.4 km, 6.35 kph, 1047 km to date

Killar is small but the biggest place for a couple of days. I decided to spend an extra day, to get rest up for the two days to Kishtwar.

Their dad just gave me a shave:

Sleep during the day; bark all night.