Sunday, March 20, 2016

The Rustic Ride

The alarms were set for 6 am yesterday night in order to start early for the Sunday ride. It had been raining cats and dogs the whole night and I was not sure the if the weather would be conducive for riding the next morning but surprisingly the rain Gods relented and it was all clear in the morning.

The target was another 50 kilometer ride to be completed in 2 hours. We started on time and maintained a speed of about 25 kilometers /hr.

On completing half of the distance, just before we were ready to make a pit stop for breakfast and tea, we met with a massive road block. Not a vehicular roadblock but a sheep herd road block! The sheep had been herded all the way from Jodhpur,  Rajasthan to Gurgaon. Here are some of the clicks.

The road block by herd of sheep.



We reached the camp site where the shepherds were camping with these herds. On interacting with them we realised that they had herded the sheep over 500 kms by road from their desert land to the fertile lands of haryana so that the sheep could feed on the freshly cut mustard plants thrown off by farmers here.

With a baby goat..as I held it close to me I admired it's soft shiny coat. The shepherd was ready to sell it to me for a 1000 bucks. I didn't have the heart to seperate it from its mother St such a tender age!

 The shepherd with his visibly loud coloured turban! Admire his traditional attire of pristine white dhoti (pants) and Kurta (shirt) and the bright red turban.
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With the whole shepherd family. This was really the high point of the ride today! Meeting the shepherd family, listening to their sob stories on life struggles and poor money, offering them money for a few clicks, admiring their attire and petting their sheep! Fun!!

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