It felt much colder today. Wore gloves, and even when the sun rose it didn't feel much warmer.
Beautiful scenery again today, full of variety. Sometimes along mountain passes with steep drops to rocky river gorges, sometimes under cliffs with overhangs so complete it was like going through tunnels, sometimes in the green woods by the river's edge, and sometimes through little hamlets and villages.
The road surface kept changing too which made the riding interesting too; good hard tarmac allowing higher speeds, rough tracks like off-road motocross, old potholed road like a slalom track, and a couple of times, freshly metalled road, still steaming, almost as if they had rolled out a black carpet for us.
We planned to spend the night somewhere up the Sangla valley - the main town of Sangla if we were pushed for time, but if not, then the high village at the top called Chitkung.
As we left the highway, I became aware of a regular clanging sound when I accelerated, Although the performance didn't seem compromised, it was both worrying and irritating. We couldn't see anything immediately wrong with it though, but Dan suspected loose chains. This wasn't critical, so we decided to work on it when we parked up for the night.
We made Sangla by one, so stopped there for lunch. Its only a small town, would scarcely be a village in England, but there are a good dozen hotels and the same number of restaurants. Lunch of mutton chow mien, was had in Greasy Spoon establishment.
The final 26km to Chitgung was absolutely delightful. The trees and vegetation had given away to boulder fields - pale rocks tumbling over terraces to the river. We splashed through streams and across bridges adorned with Tibetan prayer flags. At times it was almost like driving through rock gardens.
Made Chitgong in plenty of time, and a good guesthouse with a fantastic view. There was even a space to work on the bikes.
As we were assembling our tools, an elderly Bengali came over really interested. 'I drove one of these for four years. I know everything about them!' he boasted. Dan didn't want his help really but he was quite insistent, so I let him help me. Dan let us to it and tinkered with his own chain.
'Loosen here. Main nut a bit more. Three to undo. Use foot on the spanner. From underneath, from underneath. Hit the wheel with a brick. Tighten chain on both sides'.' And so on. We had to borrow some tools from a nearby truck driver as the ones Rajesh had given us weren't quite up to the job.
When the job was finished and he had gone Dan muttered 'Interfering old buffoon. Didn't know what he was talking about. You only need to loosen two nuts!'
I can now change a spark plug and adjust the chain. I am actually quite proud of myself. Unfortunately though part of the rack has shorn off which will need to be welded asap, which will mean a trip to a workshop somewhere.
We had a walk round the village afterwards - really old and full of character and a temple. Then came back for shower and supper.
For a constitutional we went back to the village for a closer look at the temple. I went into the complex, but the villagers did not seem to happy. I nodded hellos to the 'God' in his Thrown Room, all black hair and intimidation, and then watched a procession outside one of the gates for a while. There were drums and cymbals, and a large Ram - I thought he may be sacrificed. After a while though, the people made it clear I was not welcome, so I left them to it.
Back at the guesthouse, we watched a video for a while, read and talked and then retired. It was very very cold; had to go to bed dressed head to toe in thermals, sleep on one duvet, a soft blanket on top of that and a second duvet on top of that.
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