Road to Gangotri

Up and out early as I know I have a long way of bad roads to go.
Nothing could have prepared me for the condition of the travel. The roads make my last trip look like a stroll in the park. 6 months of the year Gangotri is cut off by snow and ice so when the summer comes and everything thaws the road is washed by landslides and rivulets coming off the mountain leaving nothing but mud and rocks for about 50k of the journey. The going is very hard and it takes all my concentrate and skill to stay on the track and avoid buses and jeeps.
I stop for a rest at one of the tea stalls along the way and with chai I talk to some of the Sadhu (Holy men that you find all over the place) that are making their way to Gangotri, some by foot. One man is nearing the end of his 2000k walk here. As I chat to them they smoke chilums and drink tea giving to them for free by tea stall owner. I refuse the smoke as I need all my focus to get over these roads. I don't know how people travel on them by conventional means but every now and then I pass a Vespa and marvel at how it can make it over this terrain.
As I slowly bounce around one corner I catch my first glimpse of a snow capped mountain and I know I'm in the Himalaya at last and I whoop with joy. The sight is just breath taking and i almost fall off the bike with awe.
The road eventually becomes back to patches of tarmac and then to actual stretches of it but they get steep and the traffic moves faster.
As i snake up higher and higher the views are just spectacular. Valleys a 1000 feet deep drop off the side of the road with snow capped mountains looking down on me.
Eventually the road twists into a traffic jam that is bumper to bumper with buses front bumper to front bumper, just sitting there looking at each other through their windscreens. It is another 2k to Gangotri so I leave bike and walk the rest, will come back when they eventually sort out mess. I walk past some westerns sitting, waiting for traffic to move, they have been here for 4 hours already.
Into town and across to Krishna Ashram (Giving shelter to the world for a 100 years (it says at gate)).
Gangotri is at 3047 meters so the air is cooler here. There is no pollution and it has been raining the day before so the air is so clear that I can see the peaks 40 miles away as if they where right next to me.
Lunch of cold dal and rice and back to retrieve bike and luggage with the hope that the traffic has cleared. Luckily only a few buses and cars from this tetris game are left and I get through after a bit.
As the evening comes so does the rain and cold. In Ramnigar I prayed for this cold but here the novelty wears off quickly. Hot chai is the only comfort for my body but the view and the achievement also warm my sole.