How to do a proper Mountain Road – Indian Style

The other day i woke up in Dharamsala and noticed a strange smell. I did open the curtains and my eyes tried to win against the sun. There at the end of the garden – smoke and fire. A lot! But it did not get closer and it was very black smoke – so at last the garden was not on fire and i could take a shower and get ready to leave the room in search for breakfast.
Later when i went down the hill i took some pix of the action.

The day before you start to work – start to poor tar into a big metal container. Make sure you have enough wood and dig a hole underneath the container. You will need it for the fire the next morning!

Working day: Clean the road with a hard broom and fill big holes with stones. As in every sort of work the attention to detail is very precise! That is why one better use a woman as her hands are smaller so she can work more accurate than a man!

Early in the morning you made a big fire so the tar gets liquid – you need to fill the smaller container on the left and bring it down the road

But before there is more preparation to do – so they did invent the “small can on a long stick” tool. With its help they bring hot tar and put some on the earth and stone mix prepared earlier

In this picture you see very nice how to apply tar before you cover everything with a tar and little stone mix

This is where you mix the little stones with tar – ensure a steady heat underneath so you can stir the mass easy

Than you put and put and put until it is evening. The next day you are very happy if the stuff is hard enough to stick together so you have not to fix too much