trucks, trains, and automobiles + camping
Earlier this month, I went overlanding for the first time. What’s that? It’s defined like this: “Overlanding is self-reliant overland travel to remote destinations where the journey is the principal goal.”
Seven of us got on a modified truck (called Bonnie, a beautiful orange BharatBenz), while her twin (Clyde, of course!) followed us (tricked out with loos, showers, hot water on one side and a kitchen on the other) and went from Jaipur to Gurgaon (where we were stopped by curious cops at every intersection, it seemed), on to Rishikesh, where we stayed in a room by the Ganges, then further up the mountains, following the Alaknanda river past Rudraprayag and Devprayag to Chopta, Uttarakhand. Here we stopped for two nights and camped amidst rhododendron trees, not bushes… trees! Who knows how old they might be! And we hiked up to the highest Shiv temple in the world, at Tungnath! It’s supposedly 5,600 years old, but … I can’t really say, of course. It’s made of stone and did look very old though.
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We were a few weeks early for the rhododendron to be all blooming (I hear it’s just stunning) but it was still so, so lovely. The sky was blue, the air was crisp and chilly, the food was great. Even the feral dogs who decided to mark their territory on my tent eventually chilled with us.
Cheers to Voyages Overland for including me in their very first #overlanding trip.
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Click on any of the thumbnails to enlarge and see a giant photo! 🙂
Oh and the title of this post: We drove from Udaipur to Jaipur, left the car there. Then we said goodbye to the folks at Voyages Overland, stayed a night in Delhi and took the evening train to Jaipur, from where we picked up the car and drove back. So, in the span of a week, I’d done plane, train, automobile and … truck!