We expected Pratap Nagar to be small. But I don’t think we expected it to be quite as small as it was. It was a really quaint and cute town, with literally 1 street, with just the essentials. 1 barber, 1 chai shop, 1 stationery shop, 1 corner store, 2 restaurants and a couple of tailors.

We wandered around the town and into the surrounding villages, mingling with locals, playing cricket with the kids, drinking too many chais… It’s such a peaceful place. The village children are so creative in their fun. They play cricket with sticks and tennis balls, and scale poles to get the ball off the roof if they have to!

The town almost has it’s own economy even! Prices are just crazy. A glass of chai = 5 rupees, a samosa = 6 rupees (a little cheaper than normal), a 40 minute haircut and shave = 50 rupees (that’s 80c!!) etc. It’s not a rich place that’s for sure, but there is a lot of community love there.  Everybody knows each other and looks out for each other.  

We spent a beautiful, peaceful week, doing nothing much apart from drinking chai, doing yoga, playing with the children, hiking and staring at the mountains. 

Roh did a few hikes around the area, until he started seeing fresh tiger poo… The guide at the guesthouse had warned him it was a 50/50 chance to see one, but he hadn’t quite believed him until he saw the poo!! Beautiful walks, with no one else on the trails, lots of flowers and butterflies and peaceful seclusion! But take a stick…

Everyone knows travel in India is slow. You expect things to be delayed. So when we decided to head to the Himalayas to stay at a commune 4-5 hours from Rishikesh, we expected 5-6 hours. We didn't expect 7.5 hours!!! 

And the crazy thing is, we didn't even encounter any delays!! It simply takes 7.5 hours to drive 80 km.. 

It took 3 hours to get to the city of New Tehri. From there we could even see our destination - a tiny village called Pratap Nagar, high up (3300m) on the mountains, on the other side of the dam. 

Awesome! We are nearly there we thought! We just have to drive over the dam we thought....

No... We had to drive AROUND the dam..  

Did I mention how BIG the dam is??

All of the roads are switch-back hairpin turns going up and around and down and around and up again. It took forever...

The scenery was mind-blowingly beautiful though! And so humbling to see farm land carved out of every surface no matter how steep the gradient. Women and children would just appear out of nowhere to jump on the bus, or disembark somewhere with no visible buildings around. It was just amazing. 

And when we finally arrived, 7.5 bum-numbing hours later, we were met with an amazing view. something we were not expecting at all, and suddenly, it was all worth it!

Wow... Maybe we will stay awhile...