Chitral

The previous day I decided to speed up my progress to the end of the trip. Coincidentally I got an email from Freddie saying that she'd found a reasonably priced place in Geneva that we could both live in. Concern about where to live while job hunting had been significant. It was a load off my mind & it became clear that I should get to Lahore as soon as could reasonably be done while getting as much cycling as possible.

The plan is to cycle to Peshawar, a distance of about 350km & arrange a flight from there. Most likely the cheapest will be to fly out of Delhi, which seems to be a couple of hundred dollars less than out of Lahore. However flying from Lahore will save me a trip to Islamabad & the hassle of getting an Indian visa there. In spite of the higher cost I'm leaning towards flying out of Lahore.

My decision to speed up coincided with Nick coming down with a stomach bug. He'll be staying put in Chitral & not be continuing on his bike for a couple of day. This means that our cycling partnership that began a little over a month ago will come to a close. I've enjoyed traveling with him but also have missed the peace of traveling alone.

Chitral is a cool little place, much more compact than Gilgit. It straddles the Chitral river. An old fort of the local royal family sits by the river in a state of decay. The town mosque is quite handsome. Unfortunately the weather has been pretty bad most of the time & not good for taking photos. The main street, on which my hotel is situated, is lined with simple shops. In the hills above nice looking houses peer down to the town below. I found some delicious snacks to keep me happy; wonderful deep fried battered potatoes, fried bread dough served with what I think is semolina & sweet dough balls dripping in sugar syrup - yum!

I cycled 0 km