August 2008, Somewhere between Delhi and Haridwar.

I returned yesterday after 20 days of traveling in the north of India, mostly in the state of Uttaranchal. Although the trip was something of a disappointment as I fell sick halfway through and had to cancel onward travel to amazing places such as Manali and Ladakh (something I had been looking forward to for a long time) I still got to see some beautiful and interesting places. So starting from today I’ll present a selected (visual) travelogue of the places and people I saw.

Today’s photo was taken halfway through a long, dusty and tiring bus journey to Haridwar from Delhi. The bus had stopped to fill up on diesel. As I look back now it feels as if the whole trip was a series of endless bus journeys. But that is something that could not be helped as the state is home to the mighty Himalayas and therefore mostly mountainous terrain abounds. More on that later as we were still on the hot and dusty plains at this point.