Traveling through world's most dangerous road -Female Solo Travel Story in India #4

The bus took a cliff-hanging drive under the huge rock mountain in Kinnaur road

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Creepy hotel Manager and having panic attack in the bus station

Before I went to sleep the other night, I called the guest house that I found on TripAdvisor and asked for a room to reserve for me for the following night.. I made sure that I was staying in a place that had reviews from TripAdvisor.

When I woke up the next day , I called the phone number of the driver that the reception gave me and headed my way to outside. And guess what happened? The main door was locked.

The tiny reception room was also locked and there was no sign of people. I tried to called the number I had but it was of no use. The car driver arrived and making noise but I told him the door was locked.

After waiting outside of the reception room for what it felt like forever, but it was around 10 minutes, one guy finally woke up and I was able to leave the guesthouse.

Lesson learnt: Always triple check with the reception if you are going to leave early in the morning . I mean I told them I would be leaving early in the morning around 5am for several times .

So Finally arrived at the bus station and waited for the bus departure at around 5:45am.

Eyes Wide open! lol please don't get scared , just tried to put in a photo of me in case someone accused me that these are not my own photos. :D

The seats were actually very comfortable

Then I chose what it seem like the bus window seat in the bus. I also met with one local girl who was heading the same way, but we didn’t sat together as we both wanted the window seat.

Sunrise view leaving shimala

The bus left on time. I was happy beacause the whole bus was still half empty.. I had the whole seat to myself , that’s what I though. Not long after that, people would hop on and hop off from the bus and it eventually filled up pretty fast.
It was also a way how students commute to their schools.

And then suddenly the bus stopped. There was a long queue of tracks and cars , road had been block. Everyone in the car was calm and didn't seem to bother .But I was curious and so I went out to stretch my legs and took a look of what happened from a distance. I didn’t want to get too near because everyone outside were all guys. So there was apparently huge stone in the middle of one lane road. So the cars from both direction were stuck.It took a while but a crane finally came and cleared it. It took around just over an hour and I thought we were lucky as the place was still not far from the nearest town.

That tiny little white line was the road

So the journey continued.It went through at the edge of mountains , making a turn every 5 minutes , trust me I am not exaggerating. I was glad I prepared myself with the motion sickness pill. The drives passed through really huge mountains , I often felt like i could almost touch them. I mean I somehow imagined it would be beautiful but it was beyond what I had thought . So I opened the window to get some fresh air and suddenly the foul smell came in . It was the smell of urine and trash people threw all over from the bus. It was disappointing because these mountains were in the middle of nowhere.

But the mountains were still so beautiful and mesmerizing.The road was surrounded by extreme high highs and deep deeps. But It was started to feel like forever , with little leg space.The seat that I have to share were tiny and I couldn't move. Also I tried to ignore the annoying fact that the guy in front of me kept throwing his empty plastic waste .I have seen like this in my own country and it make me so angry..

One thing I would have to say is that when I took photos of places that I have been , I thought somehow I made justice of the beauty but this time I couldn’t , I couldn’t fit all the huge mountains , and it somehow felt so small in the photo than the reality..

Lunch stop at the town of Rampur

The bus kept continuing and making occasionally stops to drop off passengers , the seats and the whole bus were full with standing passengers .Since the bus only operates once a day, if you couldn't get a seat, you have no choice but have to stand all the way to your destination. Opps!.. But it never stopped for toilet break.. And at around 2 pm, it finally stopped in front of a place. That was everyone’s lunch stop, almost everyone went of out of the bus.

The girl I talked with this morning , brought me and she ordered food for us. The food was the same for everyone; a plate with rice, curry and a piece of pratha. She also paid for the food and asked me what was I doing in this remote part of india. I told her I am going to spiti.

In india, you don’t really have to go off the beaten path as I have not seen a single foreigner at this point for the past three days. I was kind of expecting a traveler of one or two. Because based on my assumption from facebook group, this place was supposed to be quite famous amongst local travelers at least.

I asked her the update of road condition ahead for my journey but she had no idea. Before I left for India, there was a major landslide and the road was totally blocked with no access .But it had been almost 10 days and I have heard the news that people could pass through the area by walking.. It would have been better by now..

Living life on the edge

I also didn’t know the fact that the kinnaur road is supposedly the most dangerous routes in the world. That’ how it was described in google : Kinnaur Road is a scenic cliff-hanging drive through the seemingly bottomless Baspa river gorge in Sangla Valley in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, India.

After lunch, the drive became more interesting. The road starting from Rampur was bad. It was dusty and Rocky Mountains replacing the previous greeny mountains. It seemed there were some constructions going on so it was impossible to open the window. It was also very beautiful, Again I could not capture the beauty of this place.

This is also one of the most scenic road I have ever been but it also is literally a rocky ride!

Finally after non stop traveling of 10 hours ,we had arrived to Rekong peo, the administrative capital of one of the least populated district in India .

!steemitworldmap 31.104538 lat 77.173805 long Traveling through world's most dangerous road d3scr