Don’t look down, don’t look up either. This day I travelled from Uttarkashi further South along the Bhagirathi river to where it meets with the Alaknanda at Devprayag to form the Ganges.
The previous night before my departure it had started raining and I found it was still raining on the morning I intended to leave. Now I’d spent the last few days seeing how prone the area was to landslides in wet weather and I was understandably nervous. The driver arrived and was also concerned. I asked the guesthouse owner what he thought and he told it was definitely a risk, to drive today could be dangerous where as if I stayed any longer the weather could force road closures and I’d be stuck here unable to leave.
I was getting flashbacks of the day we left Jhala where the weather was posing a similar situation, this one due to snow and not rain as in this case. The guesthouse owner told me that he would say a prayer for me when I left and to be honest I wasn’t sure if this was a comfort or made me even more unsure as to what we were about to embark upon.
The journey was without doubt scary, at many points we edged along nervously looking at the mountainside above us to see if it was in danger of sliding down on top of us. At one point the driver slammed on the brakes as we saw some debris starting to tumble down ahead.
In fact I even noticed that the pedestrians walking along the roadside were even doing the same so I knew the days weather could have serious consequences for road users. We eventually made it into Devprayag thankfully without incident and while the scenery was in no doubt spectacular it was now tipping down with rain, I managed to book into one of the few hotels in town and hoped that the next morning would provide better weather for photographing.
