Killer Roads of the Himalaya: Keylong - Killar - Kishtwar Part 2 The Breakdown

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The early morning Bus from Keylong to Killar left around 645. Initially it was quite empty and we were travelling at a decent speed, so I couldn't imagine, why the bus should take 10 hours to run the 137km. It gradually got packed till we arrived at Udaipur. Yes, Udaipur, but not the famous one in Rajasthan. There is another rather small town in Himachal Pradesh.

After we left Udaipur the road deteriorated, first to gravel and just after a few kilometers more there was just rock and dust. About half an our drive at 1005 we heard a bang and a pffffffff - it turn out that both twin tires on the left back side were sliced by a rock and flat. Good news, the bus has a spare tire on the roof, YEAH. Bad news, it has only one...

There was no mobile network available, but there was a road construction camp just next to our bus and they had some means of communication and the conductor, who spoke some english, told me the Himachal Road Transportation Cooperation would send new tires. We spent the waiting time with chai, which was nicely offered by the workers of the construction camp and biscuits donated by a local transport lorry. It really touched me seeing, how people helped each other. Old walnut trees not only gave us shelter in the strong sun, but also their nuts, tasty but it was a certain effort to get the seed out of the shell. Luckily there was also a stream 15 minutes down the road, where we could refill our bottles.

So waiting for the tires, was not unpleasant but still long. Finally the late morning bus from Keylong to Killar arrived at 18:10, so 8 hrs after our breakdown, and brought the long awaited tires. Sruprisingly it was neither driver nor conductor, who finally changed the tires. Was glad it worked out :-) A great Thanks for the unknown helper!!!

Only drawback, we came into the night and I couldn't see the valley. At a food stop at a dhabba I opted to stay there in a private room with public toilet for ridiculously 700 IRs and continue next morning, which was a wise decision. The bus continued through the night and the conductor expected to arrive at Killar around 2am, so a travel of around 19 hours for 137km!