Camping by the Lohit River

Day 34 of Pedal the Himalaya tour.

Our adventure was taking us closer to the Indo China border, to our final destination, where the road would finally end – at Kaho -30 kms beyond Walong – designated by the govt as the First Indian Village. The gorge was getting narrower. The river faster and the air colder even though our altitude was just 4000 ft. We were beginning to see alpine terrain, pine trees and craggy cliffs. After Chawnginti the road was no longer a ‘highway’ and was mostly gravel and about 10 ft wide. Army vehicles passed us frequently raising a lot of dust.

When we cycled towards Chawnginti we didn’t know that by the afternoon we would be overlooking a gorgeous silver sand bank by the Lohit river and contemplating camping there for the night. So that’s exactly what we did after we had cycled around 35 kms again and were quite tired as the road just rolled up and down increasing our fatigue and pressure on the knees. At the small village of Samdul, we cycled past a path to the right, passing an army unit, which directed us to the gravel trail that would lead us to the river down below. It was steep and rocky and through a thick forest.

When we reached it, we got down to the business of setting up camp – wood, water and cooking was the priority as the sun sets at 4.30 pm and it’s pitch dark by 5 pm. The roar of the magnificent Lohit river made it impossible for us to hear each other talk. Later in the evening, smelling the food, some dogs dropped by and one of them sat by our tent the whole night. The next morning Ashim cooked our breakfast of oats and boiled eggs on the firewood instead of the stove on our Sea to Summit cook-pot. It’s amazingly designed and really ultra light.