The World As We Know It

Israeli Backpackers in India

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:15:00 +0000

"Hey Tony, have a nice trip in India. Don't waste your time in Kasol, go further up to Spiti or Kinnaur (in Himachal Pradesh) or some more beautiful places. You should make good use of your stay here," explained one of the experienced traveller to a young Israeli boy leaving Dharamkot, which is around 10kms from Dharamsala.

In our articles based on our month-long trip to Himachal Pradesh we have mentioned about the growing number of Israelis visiting certain parts of India. This small advice given by a middle-aged woman to a young traveler speaks a lot about the prevailing condition.

India is a hospitable country and everyone is welcomed. But at quite a few places in Himachal - Manali, Kasol, Dharamkot - we felt like strangers coming from a different country. Shop hoardings inscribed in Hebrew, cafes catering only to Israelis, locals being more friendly to them and not too welcoming to others, were some of the observations we made during our trip.

In Israel military service is mandatory for men for three years and women for a minimum of two years after going through brain washing activities, the younger lot leaves everything behind and heads to India in search of fun, solace and drugs. What they don't leave behind is the arrogant and brash attitude, often associated with them.

Our interactions with some of them were not very memorable. We were seated in a cafe at Dharamkot having our breakfast, when a mother and a kid walked in, giving out chocolates to everyone in the cafe, I guess it was her sons' birthday. She distributed chocolates to every Israeli in the cafe, she never approached us! This is a very small event, its not about the chocolate, but a small act like this can speak a lot.

Watch this video below showing the ignorant behaviour of Israelis at a guest house, and it's made by an Israeli production, so good they recognize that as well. Its a lovely video and a funny way of looking at things.

No wonder at the places I mentioned earlier in Himachal, there was a Rabbi, looking after the runaways, probably guiding them on a better path?

A Glimpse of Udaipur Enroute Mumbai

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:02:00 +0000

We were back in Dharamkot after the failed attempt to trek to Kareri lake. Our trip was coming to an end, unfortunately, I always hate this part. We had to board a bus to Delhi and from there take a train back to Mumbai. We checked out early from Internet guest house for some last minute shopping in the little Tibetan market in McLeod Ganj.

We walked down the main market road of McLeod Ganj, where lots of Tibetan artifacts were sold, like the singing bowls, wool work, hand bags, incense sticks and lots more. We bought some herbal incense, some carry bags and a book cover for the family. Although we wouldn't recommend to buy incense as it doesn't seem to stay lit for long.

A travel companion recommended we tried out Tibetan specialty butter tea at Olga cafe, situated in the heart of the market. It was nice, very different in taste, cost just Rs 15 a cup.

On getting back to Bombay we realized its possible to make that butter tea with the local Amul butter, and it tasted the same.
After that we rushed to board the bus that was leaving from the depot just a couple of minutes away. Our journey was quick, no hang ups this time, we arrived in Delhi around 6.30 am to be surrounded by taxi and rickshaw guys trying to fleece us. After bargaining we managed to hook up a taxi ride to a friend's house in Gurgaon.

The funniest moment of our trip, we realized that another friend had not managed to get tickets for us to get back to Mumbai. We had to bear the scorching heat of Delhi, it was hot, really hot. We were amazed to find people walking about in the 42 degree Celsius temperature.

We had nothing to do in Gurgaon and it would be impossible to get a train ticket at this short notice. So the only option was to cover approximately 1200 km by road in a bus. Sounds a lot, but it turned out to be super fun. We rested the day we arrived and the next day was an unbelievable journey to buy our bus tickets, an adventure in itself.

We set off in the early evening from the house, we had to catch a Tum tum (an oversized rickshaw) that had eleven people already in it to get to Rajeev chowk. Once we were there we caught a normal rickshaw that took us up to the border of Gurgaon and Delhi.

We waited for twenty minutes here before hopping onto a Delhi public transport bus, surprise surprise the conductor of the bus is smoking and making fun of the passengers. It was strange to see something like this, in Mumbai no one is allowed to smoke in buses, this behavior by a bus conductor was odd.

Another comparison, in Delhi the conductor sits on a seat and you have to go to him for a ticket, if the ticket collector steps in and you do not have a ticket, you are charged. We were in Delhi, but the journey was not over a short walk and then a rickshaw to take us to the metro.

From the metro we got off and took a peddling rickshaw and at last we reached the spot where we could get our bus tickets. We got tickets for a bus to Udaipur and then from Udaipur to Mumbai. It was going to be a long long bus ride back, but we thought it would be a good way to end our adventure around Himachal.

The journey was pleasant, we had a nice double sleeper to ourselves that was quite comfortable. The bus left a little later than expected from Delhi, we were in no hurry but just relieved to be in a double sleeper. It stopped on the way for dinner, and then somewhere in Rajasthan early morning for tea.

On the way we spotted a government authorized bhang shop, a drink made out of Marijuana.
The journey through Rajasthan was scenic, the landscape so different, India is really a huge country with so much of variation in nature and cultures in every state and sometimes within the state as well.

We passed by rivers and trees, houses made of mud and some of concrete. By noon we were in Udaipur, it was getting really hot, the dry heat of the desert can really get to you. When we got off the bus we confirmed the timing for the connecting bus to Mumbai, which would depart after four and half hours. This time, not really tired, instead of resting we decided to hire a rickshaw to take us to a hotel, then a site-seeing tour around Udaipur and then head back to the hotel and finally the bus stop. For the entire trip he charged us Rs 400.

We chugged down a couple of beers, freshened up, had a quick meal and were on our way in the rickshaw. To be honest some of the sites in Udaipur are hilarious like the one below, Swaroop Sagar which is a man made lake!

The next stop was a little garden called the Aravali Vatika garden, this too was a funny destination for a tourist, its just a tiny little garden with nothing really fascinating, we were wondering what kind of a site seeing tour this is!

Next was the stretch of Fateh Sagar lake, this place I recollected, I had seen it ages ago with my parents, we had driven around a huge part of India. The stretch of road and the particular spot where the shops were present had not changed.

Far away in the distance we could see a statue of a man on a horse. We were told that it was Maharana Pratap and his trusted horse Chetak. The horse Chetak also has a circle named after it in Udaipur.

On the same stretch our rickshaw driver stopped and asked us if we wanted to ride a horse or camel, I was not keen but Bhavika really wanted to. So she sat on the camel and was as you can clearly see terrified to an extent. Though she still claims she enjoyed it.

We were on the same stretch of Fateh Sagar Lake and came across a sign asking people to keep the place clean, while two dogs napped under it thankful for the shade provided from the scorching sun.
We asked the rickshaw driver to halt in order to capture the paintings on the facade of a toilet. Little ahead we saw another colorful stretch filled with traditional paintings, symbolising the culture of Rajasthan. Its a such treat to have pictures on a space which would other wise be dull and blank. It certainly would be pleasant to spend an evening at the promenade staring into the lake. Pictures speak a thousand words, and the wall enclosing another tourist attraction, Saheliyon ki Bari, was painted with different scenes depicting the lifestyle of people from this vibrant state.
Saheliyon ki Bari meaning Garden of the Maids, is a popular tourist attraction in Udaipur. It has an interesting story as well. The garden was built in the 18th century by Maharana Sangram Singh as a retreat for his queen and 48 maids who accompanied her to Udaipur as part of her dowry. It gives a glimpse of their bygone lifestyle. The long walk ways, lush green lawns, blooming flowers, surrounded by fountains, chiseled kiosks and marble elephants take you on a different journey through time. There were three huge gates before you enter a courtyard with a central tank that had a white marble umbrella-shaped fountain in the center and black marble umbrella-shaped sheds at the corners. I could imagine the royal ladies relaxing by the water body, and enjoying the surroundings. Our rickshaw driver-cum-guide told us that many Hindi films have been shot here, although I am not sure which ones. The majestic garden is worth a visit. Next we moved on to City Palace, which is on the banks of Lake Pichola. The entry was some Rs 50 per person, but to take the camera in they were charging Rs 500, which was way too expensive for a short time, and there was no place we could leave the camera. So we skipped City Palace, and instead had some sweet soda at one of the stalls to cool down from the terrible heat in Udaipur.

Outside such a popular tourist location there had to be souvenir and handicraft shops cluttered on either sides of the road. Jagat Shiromaniji temple outside the entrance to City palace. We had to catch the connecting bus to Mumbai in less than two hours, so there was not time left. We made quick visit to Lake Pichola, an artificial fresh water lake, and the adjacent Bagore ki Haveli. Lake Pichola had dried up due to lack of rain, and it also faces threats due to dumping of solid, liquid waste, disposal of sewage etc.

That's the Lake Palace heritage hotel built in the middle of the dried lake. A shepherd with his herd of sheep that had finished grazing on the grass around the palace. On the banks of Pichola is the 18th century built, Bagore ki Haveli, which has been converted into a museum. While walking out to enter the haveli, the old man starts playing tunes on his Sarinda, he displayed some skills to coax us into buying one of them, we ended up tipping him for his melodious tunes instead. The Palace was built in the 18th century and restored in the 1980s and then a museum was set up in its complex. The entry is very small of Rs 5 to Rs 10, and no extra cost for the camera. While we walked around the huge haveli, an old man played a traditional Rajasthani instrument to add to the experience. In the corridor was this huge chariot, known as Indra viman, constructed 125 years ago by Rajasthan of Jhalawar. Its made of iron, wood, bamboo and leather, and was pulled by two elephants. The local deity was carried in this chariot in a procession during religious festivals. The haveli has 138 rooms, balconies, courtyards, terraces and numerous corridors. That's why it took 5 years to carry out the restoration work in this haveli.
The walk through the corridor was amazing, I couldn't imagine walking through 138 rooms, how did they manage in the olden times? Of course they had servants, maids etc., but how many rooms were actually used? Would they remember the location of each room? Countless questions like these crossed my mind as I tried to make most of the short time we had here.

Right on the first level was the royal dressing room. The colorful glass in the interiors was fascinating, there was a small opening at the bottom of it and a mattress at the side of it. Probably a place to sit and enjoy a cup of tea. Also on display were jewelery boxes and trunks. From there we entered the entertainment room where the Mewar family played some popular indoor games like chess, snakes and ladders, chaupad, to name a few. In this room, women of the royal household played during leisure hours with their friends. One of the rooms showed photos of the restoration work in progress at the haveli, and they looked so different and the haveli was in a dilapidated condition.
A stroll around the haveli you will see the private quarters of the royal ladies, bath rooms, dressing rooms, bed rooms, living rooms, worship rooms and recreation rooms.

Just at the steps leading to the lower level, displayed on the wall was this beautiful peacock work created with small pieces of colored glass, it really captivates your imagination. In another room a giant-sized turban is on display, made in such a way that each side gives you a different style of wearing it in different states. This is the turban of Rajasthan, a different style in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The basement had various wall paintings, frescoes, murals depicting the lifestyle, customs of the royal family. I am not sure as to what this depicts, a bird flying out of a man's mouth, seems very interesting! The haveli is lit up in the evening and it stages traditional dance and cultural performance. So many tourists come to enjoy the cultural event in a perfect ambiance.

We rushed back to the rickshaw which took us to the hotel where our bags were kept, we cleared the bill, the room was for Rs 300 for just 4 hours, and the food too was quite reasonable.

We reached on time for the bus, our tickets to Mumbai were of non-AC sleeper, but for some reason we were lucky to get shifted into AC at no extra cost. Of course the bus company tried to coax us to shift to the AC for a very cheap deal, but we refused and in the end they just shifted us as they had sold our seats to some other passengers.

We thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride, it was so much better than the train journey. We got our own space in the bus, we could chill and enjoy the end of our month-long trip to Himachal. It was a memorable trip that took us to some beautiful places, some untouched, some commercial. we met lovely and heart-warming locals, who were so hospitable that words are difficult to describe. That's the excitement of traveling, we hope we can embark on a new journey real soon!

Lost in The Forests of Kareri

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:11:00 +0000

Just couple of minutes away from Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala is Gyuto monastery, known as home of the Karmapa. It was a hot sunny day, seemingly different climate as compared to the cold desert of Spiti, so we were struggling to get use to the heat again.

Situated against the backdrop of the majestic Dauladhar mountains, Gyuto is a beautiful monastery that specializes in the study of Tantric meditation. Once you enter the main gate, its a long walk to the main temple and on either sides of the path are housing facilities for monks.
The temple was closed, so we asked few monks, drying some kind of cereals in the sun, whether we can enter, and one of them pointed towards the back door.

As we proceeded towards the back entrance, we saw one Tibetan woman meditating and chanting prayers in front of Karmappa's picture. Gyuto was re-established in India as a result of the Chinese invasion in 1959 in Tibet. Now to accommodate the growth of the monastery to over 500 monks it has recently been relocated to Dharamsala.

We entered the prayer hall of the monastery and were greeted by absolute silence, since only one monk was clearing up the place, refilling the bowls of water, etc. There was a big statue of Buddha at the centre surrounded by various Buddhist deities. . The walls were decorated with colorful thangkas and frescoes and also on display was the Kalachakra mandala covered in a glass box. One of the wooden framed shelf displayed the intricately carved butter sculptures. After seeing the way its made at Kee monastery in Spiti, we were in total awe of this wonderful masterpiece and the chanting, that keeps it intact, forms an important part of the entire process. A closer look at the detailed work of this butter sculpture. We had less time on our hands, since we had to trek to Kareri village as well, so we moved out quickly. We noticed there was a prayer session going on in one of the halls adjacent to the temple.
We did manage to distract few of them, but some of the monks were engrossed in reading the holy scriptures.
While the younger ones were taking a breather and admiring the motorbike. As soon they saw us taking a picture, they were quick enough to move out from there. That was funny!
Back in the cab, our last stop was going to be at Ghera village, from where the trek to Kareri begins. It took us around an hour to reach Ghera. We paid off the taxi driver and sat in a shed, as it was too hot to start the trek (besides we also had a strong beer on the way so that made us sluggish).

We were starving for food, so I ran across the road to a tiny stall, hoping he would make us some maggi. We were lucky since he had only two packets left, we gobbled it down and started the trek, which ended up being very steep.

The gushing stream on the way flowing from the melted glaciers, gave us some refreshing energy. The initial climb is steep, as we walked up the steps that led to another village. The path then becomes relatively easier, as we walked through the village, passing the fields and rural houses.

A cute girl on the way with immense joy and excitement in her eyes, she was so happy to be photographed. These two shared the same emotion. We noticed that their features were different than the kids we saw in Parvati, Kinnaur or Spiti, that explains the diversity of this magnificent country. Now they all got together for a group photo, the innocent faces and twinkle in their eyes brought a smile on our faces.
This is my favorite picture, the entire setting just looks complete and vibrant with the mud house, local women and cattle tied to a stone in the backyard. That was the end of our smiling faces, because an uphill climb beckoned us, as you can see in the image below. As we moved higher up the view got even better. The setting sun cast its shadow over the flat and fertile lands of Himachal and Punjab, which seemed to stretch on to infinity.

We took breaks quite often, with an excuse of admiring the view, but we had to catch our breath to continue. A flight of cemented steps towards the end takes you to Kareri village, and that's when you heave a sigh of relief. We had reached Kareri finally, before it got too dark.

We asked one of the local villager for Kareri guest house for us to spend the night, and he said that it was towards the end of the village after all the jowar fields. We trudged along, looking around, and passed this house where a calf was drinking milk. Its a 20-minute walk from the start of Kareri to the guest house. The only question on our mind was whether we will get a room for a night, as we had planned to go to Kareri lake the next morning. We heard noises outside the guest house which meant there were guests staying there, and this is the only guest house in this village, so we approached the manager with our fingers crossed.

The guest house was like an old wooden cottage with several rooms, and since the group was occupying most of them, the manager had to convince them to spare one for us. All four of us had to fit in one room, but it was just a matter of one night. What a room it was, it had a fire place, spacious, wooden interiors, tall ceiling for Rs 500. We went for dinner at a separate cottage, couple of steps away from our room, where the manager and his helpers stayed. The food served to us was delicious, khichdi and curry with papad and pickle, village food has a taste and flavour of its own. When its cold outside, this dinner combo was just perfect.

We asked him about Kareri lake and how far it was from here, he explained that it was 13 kms uphill and there was no place to stay near the lake unless you camp it up. We didn't carry any tents, so the only option was to come back down the same day, which means to cover 26 kms the same day. That put us in a fix, because the room wasn't available for next day, so we would have to come down to Kareri village and leave for Ghera on the same day, which translates into over 30 kms in one day.

Our two friends backed out, so myself and Clyde had to decide whether to go on the trek or leave back for Ghera. Personally, I wanted to trek to Kareri lake, after coming so far, and even Clyde was convinced to take up this challenge.

So we decided to leave at 6 am, have breakfast and carry some food as well.

Did we make it to Kareri Lake?

On a cold morning in the mountains, we were up by 5.15 am and out of the room in 20 mins. The manager was kind enough to give us tea and jam toast and he also parcelled some for us to carry on the way. A look at the old guest house in daylight. We geared up to embark on a long journey to Kareri lake, the guest house manager gave us directions - first 2 km is a level walk and then there is steep ascent along Kareri Nallah (stream) which has to be crossed a number of times over improvised wooden bridges. That's all we knew, and there were no signs marked on the way. The trail passed through dense forests of oak, rhododendron and pine trees.
We followed the trail until we reached a point where we could go no further, we saw no bridge around, just a dried up waterfall, which was difficult to cross. So we thought we were on the wrong path, looked around, tried another route but in vain.

It was slippery and a narrow path due to the dried leaves spread all along, so if we slipped we would be history. I almost got cold feet at one point of time during the trek. So after trekking for 3 hours we were lost in the forest of Kareri, with nobody around to ask for directions, or any signboards, we had to give up.

Disappointed with the outcome, we sat in a open spot in the forest wondering where we went wrong. There was no choice but to return to Kareri village and from there move on to Ghera. I really wished we had made it to Kareri lake, but to my dismay a journey back was scripted for us. Next time we will certainly come with a guide, we said to each other. We were back down in Kareri in about 2 hours, it was quite hot so we rested under the shade of these massive trees. A close-up shot of the colorful bark. If not the lake we got a chance to see Kareri village closely. The stepped fields of jowar spread all around the village. We asked this old man the way to Ghera, and the woman carrying water walked with us to show the way. The villagers were hospitable, just like Parvati valley. Here's a look at rural life in Kangra valley. There were lot of mud houses in Kareri. Two women chatting on the steps of a colorful house. The Dauladhar mountains in the background.
The distance from Kareri village to Ghera would be around 4-5 kms. But we had to cover that in a short time to catch the 3.00 pm bus to Dharamsala. The descent is generally easy, but at the start of the trek some of the steps are right on the edge of the mountain, which made me feel a bit giddy. With aching feet we walked at a quick pace, we reached the village that falls on the way. Here's a cute baby looking at me with surprise, while I took a picture.
We spotted the bus from far, waiting for people to board, by now we had already picked up pace even on a dusty, muddy road. But by the time we reached the bus had already left, the next one comes by 4.30 pm. What a day it was, first we lost our way in the forest to Kareri lake, now missed the bus as well. So we headed to a small tea stall, asked for samosas and tea. Samosas for Rs 5 were so delicious, no wonder there were locals, young and old only eating samosas there. We were quite tired and dehydrated, both of us almost dosed off at the stall.

After a long wait the bus arrived to Dharamsala. From Dharamsala we took a cab for Rs 200 up to Dharamkot, back to our guest house. It was going to be our last day in Dharamkot, as we were heading back to Delhi the next evening. A way to get rid of our aching body was to have a nice meal in the cozy environment of Radhakrishna restaurant. We didn't eat as much as our earlier visit to Radhakrishna, but we enjoyed the meal that included Hello to the Queen for desert.

That's not the end of our adventure, more drame unfolds when we reached Delhi and how we ended up at Udaipur for four hours. Hang on...

Treasures of Tibet at Norbulingka

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:36:00 +0000

A day of rest and a short trek to Nadi, which we didn't even complete, we were determined to do something more productive in Dharamsala, the last destination of our Himachal trip.

We found out the possible places we can go, and we decided to head to Kareri lake, which is around 33 kms away from Dharamsala. On the way to Kareri, the plan was to stop by St Johns Church, Norbulingka Institute and Gyuto Monastery, which are in and around Dharamsala.

We didn't have too many days left, so the only option was to cover these places in a taxi. Fortunately close to our guest house in Dharamkot, there was one guy who could do the arrangements for us. He charged Rs 1400 for four people.

Church of St John in the Wilderness

The taxi picked us up from our guest house around 10 am, and we headed to the ancient church of St John in the Wilderness, built during the British rule in 1852. The church is located 7 kms upward from Dharamsala, between Forsyth Ganj and Mcleod Ganj. Situated amidst deodar forest and built in neo-Gothic architecture, the church reminded me of the stone structures in Goa.

The beautiful stained glass windows of the church are well known, they are donated by Lady Elgin, wife of Lord Elgin, who was the Governor-General and Viceroy of India in 1861. We couldn't enter the church since it was closed at that time, so we moved on the memorial. Lord Elgin loved the place so much that he choose to be buried here in 1863. This is his memorial. Inscription on a old bell which was reinstalled in the church compound in 1915. The earlier bell tower was destroyed in the 1905 Kangra earthquake. On our way out, we saw a very interesting sight, a white spider had just caught a bee and was feasting on it. Such sights are pretty rare.

Norbulingka Institute - Little Tibet

Located around 15 kms from McLeod Ganj at Sidhpur, near Dharamsala is Norbulingka Institute. Initially we had no idea what this place was, but after a short walk inside the institute we were transformed into another world.

The institute was founded by the Dalai Lama in 1988 to preserve the Tibetan culture and its artistic traditions. This was basically to fill the gap between Old and New Tibet, after the Tibetan government-in-exile was formed in India. The main gate itself is a fine example of Tibetan's artistic skill. The gateway to Norbulingka is just a start to give you a deep insight into Tibetan culture. On entering you will feel that you are enclosed in tranquil surroundings. The Norbulingka garden bears semblance to a Japanese garden, with the use of rocks, trees, flowers, flowing water all creating a peaceful atmosphere. The complex is surrounded by pretty flowers. In the midst of this setting were artists painting various Buddhist deities. The paintings were as colorful as the buildings in the institute. Norbulingka offers training in Tibetan statue making, wood carving, wood and metal craft, thangka painting, applique, etc.

Wood-carving Workshop

We walked ahead to see more of the place, as the excitement was building up. We took the bridge that connects to another section, each building here was ornately decorated with bright colours. We first entered the wood carving workshop which seemed like serious work. It was unbelievable to witness something so intricately done with absolute precision and craftsmanship. Here you can see young Tibetan boys carving out the lines of the drawing on wooden surface using the traditional bamboo fret saw and a wide range of sharpened chisels. There were several rooms where wood-carving was going on, they create altars, cabinets, religious thrones and a variety of tables with some crazy designs on them. Some of the finished work was suspended on the wall, they are either polished or painted with colour. You can see how elaborate it is, the apprentice begin by learning to draw the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism, Seven Jewelled Pairs, and Four Harmonious Brothers and then they gradually move on to carving wood.
Metal Scluptures

Just adjacent to wood-carving workshop was another skilled art form, creating metal sculptures. Work was on in full swing as they were making statue of a Buddhist deity. The design is first drawn on paper and then transferred to the copper sheet which is then shaped using hammer and shaping tools. Large statues are mounted on a hollow wooden frame to give form and support, before adorning it with garments and jewelry.
Its not as easy as it sounds, because students have to learn various processes to shape the metal into the desired form. The Tibetans certainly possessed lot of talent, skill and ability to create stunning masterpieces, which were symbolic of Buddhism.

Losel Doll Museum

From the interesting workshops we moved on to Losel doll museum, an exhibition of costumed dolls depicting various costumes and activities of the people in various regions of Tibet. There are also enactments of religious events, festivals, lifestyle, and their daily life. This display was of the 47th king of Tibet, King Tri Relbachen. The story goes that he invited many scholars from India to revise the early translations of Buddhist texts. He established more than 30 monasteries and invited artists from Turkestan and Nepal to help decorate them. He also established rules for religious communities and government administration and consolidated relationship with China. In the end he was assassinated at the orders of his brother. Each display told a story about Tibet and its people. We took pictures of every display, but it would be too many to put on the blog, so we selected a few to give you an idea of what the doll museum was all about.

This one is of Milarepa, an 11th century yogi, known for his austerity, high realisation and beautiful poetry. He meditated in caves living only on nettles, rarely disturbed by outsiders. One day, a frightened deer pursued by an angry dog followed by his even angrier master burst into his cave. Milarepa quelled his anger, bringing him peace of mind through his profound and beautiful songs. This display exhibits the costumes and style of dressing of people from Amdo, Golok and Kongpo. Amdo is in the northeast of Tibet, and is known as the land of horses. People in Amdo are known for their literary skills and hard work. Where would be it possible to get such pictorial exhibits of Tibet's enormous diversity. Even their costumes are so artistic and elaborate! Seat of Happiness Temple

Replicas of the dolls and crafts are for sale at the souvenir shop. Right outside the doll museum is the main attraction of Norbulingka, the Deden Tsuglagkhang temple or 'Seat of Happiness Temple'. Its an elegant structure like all the Buddhist temples, at the doorway are colorful paintings of deities. As soon as you enter the main prayer hall, the huge 14 ft gilded copper statue of Buddha catches your eye, crafted by the Norbulingka Sculpture Studio. The hall is surrounded by elaborate paintings and murals created by the institute's thangka painters. There are some 1173 murals of Buddha at this temple. We sat there peacefully to meditate and admire the Buddha statue. The feeling here was very different than Key monastery, I didn't quite feel the calmness and serenity, but it was good nevertheless. An old man cleaning the lamps outside the temple. The temple had two levels, the second one included various rooms, one had the holy Buddhist scriptures and books neatly placed in the shelves. There was a small passageway, probably for people to stand during a prayer meeting. The walls were decorated with frescoes of all the Dalai Lamas and drawings chronicling the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. On this trip we have discovered so much about Buddhism, that it makes us want to know more about it, perhaps a guided tour of the monastery would help a great deal to understand the significance of the structure, paintings, colours etc. Above the two storeys was the rooftop which had another structure. We felt enlightened after witnessing the rich Tibetan culture. There are pictures to remember the moments, but the actual experience leaves an indelible mark in the mind and heart. It was a fruitful visit to Norbulingka, I said to myself. One can easily spend a day in Norbulingka, but since we had a long journey ahead of us to Kareri village, we had to speed up.

Thangka and Mandala Painting

The next stop before we headed back to the car was the thangka and mandala painting workshop. I was really keen to check out the process of painting a mandala, which is ancient sacred art of the Buddhists.

We were lucky enough to meet the artist who had almost completed creating Kalachakra mandala. The painting was done on a canvas stretched over a wooden frame using a cord. The design for the painting is then drawn directly on the surface using charcoal or pencil, then the lines are redrawn in ink and the details are refined. After the painter starts applying colours and embellishes with gold before mounting it on silk brocade. The Tibetan painter tried his best, in broken Engish, to explain to us the importance and meaning of Kalachakra mandala. He did a good job as well, so here you go, there are 722 deities residing in the Kalachakra Mandala, symbolizing various manifestations of consciousness and reality. The Dalai Lama has explained that the Kalachakra deities represented in the Mandala create a favorable atmosphere that can reduce tension and violence in the world.

The Kalachakra deity resides in the center of the Mandala in his palace consisting of four Mandalas, one within the other: the Mandalas of body, speech, and mind, and in the very center, wisdom and great bliss. The colors used in the making of the mandala represent the elements, like black is associated with the element of air and wind, red is for fire, yellow symbolises earth, and white, represents the element of water.

Understanding each symbol in the mandala would be like reading the Kalachakra texts. But whatever he explained was good enough to convey its significance in Buddhism, and the benefits of this intricate work for the body and mind. One of the painter was working on the metal sculpture of Buddha. This was a huge canvas, still under completion, and often seen in monasteries. Another enlightening session at Norbulingka, if you visit Dharamsala make it a point to drop by here and spend a whole day absorbing various aspects of the Tibetan culture. Norbulingka also has a cafe and guest house in its premises and its open from Monday to Saturday - 9 am to 5:30 pm.

The plan was to head to Gyuto Monastery, the home of the Karmappa. Following which the taxi would drop us to a village from where the trek to Kareri begins, and from the village another 13 kms uphill was the eluded lake. More about that in the next post.

Gluttony in Dharamkot

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Every morning was a joy in Dharamkot, not only because of the variety of birds in the area but also due to a reasonably priced restaurant, Gecko, which was just few minutes away from our guest house. Gecko served some wonderful breakfast combinations with juice, eggs, sandwiches, baked beans on toast, salad and more, a mouth-watering start to the day.

Since we were quite active it went down well, though we also ended up relaxing in Dharamkot as compared to our previous destinations. Today was one such day, it was pouring at noon, so after breakfast we ended up going back to the room, sitting in our balcony. Guess what we were greeted by, not one but two rainbows.

One above the other, we were ecstatic, this was the first time we had seen two rainbows placed like that, one was radiating much more than the other. We stood and watched till both of them faded away as the gray clouds slowly descended into the valley spreading a gloomy sensation. Soon there were sporadic showers giving us an excuse to laze around the entire day, sipping wine playing UNO and watching television. In the evening we went for a short walk, well not really a walk, we decided to eat all over again. Except not a Geckos this time we went to a restaurant with a captivating view, Radha Krishna.
Radha Krishna has a huge balcony laid out with mattresses, so people could just sit, stretch their legs and enjoy their meal. It was lit up with lovely lanterns, and perhaps the best view that any restaurant in Dharamkot can offer. The entire valley can be seen from here, flickering spots of light dotting the scenery.

Not only was the place beautiful, but the food was also presented beautifully and that left us licking our lips for more. Of course not everyone was happy with what they ordered but we were delighted. We spent the day lazing around and feasting.
No feast is complete without a dessert and a name so apt, "Hello to the Queen", we were too tempted to order for it. It includes ice cream, banana, cookies, nuts and caramel, if your mouths watering you have company, for the saliva seems to accumulate rapidly as I recollect the moment we said Hello!

After that all we could do is slowly make our way back to the room, our stomachs exploding after committing the sin of gluttony. But thankfully the next day we planned to do a short trek from Dharamkot to a small hamlet called Naddi, which was 4 kms away. From Naddi we planned to visit Dal lake.

We woke up early, had a quick breakfast, asked for directions to Naddi and were soon on our way. The road to Naddi is in the opposite direction to the shortcut that leads to McLeod Ganj, the view is the same as you walk through the road with trees on either sides.

We were surrounded by Fir and Deodar trees, they seem to expel energy, we all ended up taking pictures of ourselves and the tree. Not many people were there on the path, so we were walking peacefully, enjoying the surroundings of the Tibetan land.
Soon the road split up and we were a little confused, there were other tourists but they didn't seem to know the way. We decided to get off the main road and walk on the natural path that laid before us.

On our way we came across an open spot that was decorated with Tibetan flags, here the road split again with one road leading to the Buddhist temple, we were completely lost by now, all of a sudden we could hear some loud noise as though an entire stadium filled people were cheering.

We could not make out where the sound was coming from, except that it was down hill, so we went off route trying to figure out what was happening until we realized that we needed to get higher as the lower we got the thicker the forest seemed.

We climbed back up and far in the distance through the trees we got to see what looked like a football stadium. People were cheering and the atmosphere created was sending ripples through the valley, even the monks seemed to be having a good time here.

After walking for atleast an hour, we decided to take a short break and have a few sips of water. That's when we came across a couple of women young and old gathering twigs from the forest. It was laden with yellow brown leaves, thanks to the amount of trees.

A group of women who were gathering leaves passed us, we were awe struck, human beings exhibiting the qualities of ants. The ability to carry something much larger than the size of their bodies.
These women were on their way to a village down the same path that we were on. So we were assured that we would reach Naddi village.

The view was spectacular, no matter how many times we stopped to soak up the sights on this holiday we never got tired of doing it all over again with every journey.

We ended up reaching a village that had a concrete road and couple of new houses were being constructed there. Just beyond a house under construction we came across some steps, that led to the top of the hill.

On climbing these steps, there was another path leading to a vast expanse of green fields. As we moved ahead the view got spectacular, we were at the peak. Horse stable, stepped fields, birds chirping all put together with a gorgeous sky left us content with our short trek. Of course at that time we didn't know where Dal lake was located.

We walked through some of the fields, looking for a good spot to relax, there were flowers blooming around us. So we opened up another bottle of wine, we carried these fruit wines with us everywhere on this trip, they were really nice.
After a bit we started walking around yet again through the fields, trying to figure out what vegetables or pulses were growing. We found ourselves in the midst of a Eggplant or Brinjal field. These are the brinjal flowers before the fruit grows.

There were wheat fields as well, quite similar to that of old Manali, some of the fields were already harvested with only the stubs of the stems rooted in the ground.

This village, not sure if its Naddi, had a couple of houses along the stepped fields.

A bare tree stood tall among the fields here, trees don't have to be alive to be fascinating. Their fractular branch structure generally tends to attract attention.
We got back on the path from where we took a detour, and asked a passerby about Dal lake. He pointed down at the bottom of the hill, and we were surprised, because the lake seemed very uninteresting. The water looked polluted and muddy, and lots of cars were parked outside, so it wasn't worth walking down. We decided to head back to our hotel in Dharamkot, in a short while the sun would begin to set and we wanted to be back while the path was still visible. These birds who seemed to be playing a little game, there were a few more in the vicinity darting about. A monk was making his way to the same village we had just departed from, their cloaks add colour to these places. We walked back with the setting sun in view.
If you recollect earlier on in the post we had a picture of the flags, where the road split and led to a monastery. This is the same place where the rocks were piled up. We noticed a similar thing, except that the rocks were well-balanced, in Tabo, Spiti. It must be having some significance in Buddhism. As soon as the sun started to set the grey clouds started coming in, luckily we made it back before it started to pour!

McLeod Ganj, a Taste of Tibet in India

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:57:00 +0000

The next day we slept like logs till noon, we had to regain energy after the trek from Batal to Chota Dara in Lahaul. The plan was to eat lunch in Manali, and leave for Dharamkot, a small village above Dharamsala, close to McLeoad Ganj. Since there were no buses, we thought of taking a taxi straight to Dharamkot, which is at a distance of around 246 kms from Manali.

Fortunately we got a good deal since a taxi coming from Dharamshala to Manali was returning back empty, so a friend who works in Manali sorted us out by arranging the taxi for us for a mere Rs 1300. The taxi was leaving in the evening, so we had enough time to enjoy some fruit wine in the golden wheat fields.

But before that we also had to book our tickets back to Mumbai, the travel agent in Kasol who we had paid to book our train tickets a week ago, couldn't get in touch with us while we were in Spiti, since none of us had network. He missed the earlier date he was uncertain if he should book us for the next day, we had to collect the ticket money back from his main office in New Manali.

We walked through the golden wheat fields, it was harvest time, we noticed a local woman cutting the crops with a sickle. We reached the bridge connecting New and Old Manali, from here we took a rickshaw to the main market.Looks like it was not only harvest season, but nature itself was in its peak around us, plants seemed to be infested with colonies of catterpillars. On reaching the main market in New Manali we were on the look out for the travel agency and noticed this funny sign board. The traffic police seems to have got their spellings mixed up a wee bit, but we owe them one for the laugh. New Manali is a busy place, cluttered with shopping centers, souvenir shops, restaurants, offices etc. This vendor had something interesting, a dried seemingly dead plant that would come back to life if you left it in water overnight, from brown to a lush green plant the next day and he also claimed it would live for a life time. Although we cant seem to recollect what its called. All this for just Rs 10 seemed like a wonderful deal. A call back to the agent in Kasol when we reached the ticketing office was all it took to get our money back and we were all set to waste the remainder of the day until it was time for the taxi to arrive. So we headed back to the fields with some wine to sip on and waited.

Around 6 PM we got a call from our friend Virendra Chauan (Vinny) saying the taxi is here. So we went back to his office in New Manali, we kept our bags there and went to Zing Zing bar where we had a couple of beers before getting into the taxi.

We hit the road by 8.30 pm, it was going to be a long ride. Bhavika's favorite pass-time on this trip was to sleep and thats what she did for most of the journey to Dharamkot.

Our only stop was at a dhaba in Kangra valley at 2 am, we only had a cup of tea. Next to the dhaba there was a huge statue of the Hindu god Shiva. Clyde and Brunel stayed up during the journey, to ensure everything went well and that the driver did not fall asleep.
A couple of kms away from the dhaba was another shrine of a Punjabi and Hindu deity, Baba Balak Nath ji, who is worshiped in north India.
The Bird Show in Dharamkot

At the break of dawn we reached Dharamkot, the narrow lanes made it difficult for the taxi to move about searching for the guest house where another friend had booked a room for us. We loaded off and started looking for a hotel known as the, Internet guest house. It was a beautiful morning as the sun rose in front of us, birds started chirping, gentle mist floated through the Kangra valley and Dauladhar range, which seemed like a warm welcome to Dharamkot!

The room cost Rs 500 at Internet guest house, and had a balcony facing the valley. The amount of birds we saw in a short span of time was more than what we had seen any where else in Himachal. Different species, varied colours, it was a treat. Apart from the birds Dharamkot had a good variety of flora and we even managed to catch a glimpse of a huge Mongoose walk through the pastures that lay before us and climb up a tree. Caught in the act, kissing birds.
Magpie perched on a hanging wire.
See who we got on camera, Woodpecker using his stiffened tail to climb the wall.
The journey was long, though Bhavika had caught up on her sleep she still wanted to hit the sack. Clyde wanted to chill and relax as well. We decided to go for lunch at a cafe opposite to the guest house, Trek-n-Dine, which served decent food at a slightly higher price. It doesn't take too long to realise that lot of Israelis come to Dharamkot in huge numbers, hence many of the guest houses, cafes etc. have things written in Hebrew. In fact there is also a Friendly Planet restaurant catering only to them, which we entered once and couldn't figure out any of the dishes on the menu. Besides, we also felt out of place with the kind of stares we got, so we chose to leave.

Trek-n-Dine also had the facility of watching movies for free, you get to select few movies from a couple of CD cases, there was a lot of choice. We picked up a movie called Borat and watched comfortably at no cost. If you have seen that movie, you sure know we had a very good laugh. Then we headed back to our rooms to relax for a while.

The day just flew by and before we realised it was time for us to rest yet again, hopeful that the next day would be filled with activity!

McLeod Ganj, the Home of Tibetans

We had read about McLeod Ganj, the residence of the Dalai Lama and home of the Tibetan government-in-exile and were very keen to check it out. The plan was to go down to McLeod Ganj after visiting Tushita Meditation Centre, a short walk up from our guest house.

Prior to making our way to Tushita we grabbed a quick breakfast, Dharamkot is the place we actually fattened ourselves. This time we tried the Milkyway cafe across the road, a cheaper option as compared to Trek-n-dine. We sipped on herbal tea as we gobbled up our omlette, sandwich and an unusual Israeli dish called Ziva. Its a snake-shaped bread stuffed with olives, cheese, bulgarian cheese, hard cheese, mushrooms and covered with sesame seeds.

We had to dip it in salsa sauce and green chutney, this experiment was a success, because Ziva turned out to be extremely delicious. It aet us back only by Rs 80, and it was quite filling as well. A funny name for incense sticks lying at the cafe, they were called Google. Just outside the guest house, an electricity pole covered with banners for yoga and meditation courses. Many tourists come to Dharamsala with a purpose of discovering themselves, in fact most classes are conducted by foreigners themselves.
Tushita is basically a centre for the study and practice of Buddhism, they conduct various Buddhism and meditation courses throughout the year. A friend was keen on finding information of the courses and we got to spend some time waiting in their lovely garden. What beautiful flowers were on display, an array of colours blending with the peaceful environment.

There were bunch of these growing around Dharamkot.

A red and black beetle seemed to be lazing around on a leaf. Tushita seems like an ideal place to go on a retreat, its away from inhabitation and faces the valley. Just besides the entrance of Tushita there is a short cut that leads to McLeod Ganj, a pleasant walk through the forest that takes around 20-25 minutes if you walk at a leisurely pace, although the ascent would take longer.:)

There were lot of monkeys on the way, and one was caught doing something strange, looking at himself by using a small mirror piece. This makes us wonder how much have we evovled that we do the same thing that this monkey was doing, virtually every day of our lives. How do I look today, I have a date tonight:) Its a lovely picture.
The history of McLeod Ganj...

People often mistake Dharamsala as the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government-in-exile, the actual Tibetan settlement is in McLeod Ganj. Known as 'Little Lhasa', McLeod Ganj is a historical place, under the British rule it was a hill station, where British officers, their wives and children spent hot summers.

By 1855 there were two important places of civilian settlement, McLeod Ganj and Forsyth Ganj. These places became important centers of trade, commerce and official work of Kangra District. But the 1905 earthquake destroyed a lot of buildings, so the district HQ were shifted to lower parts. Then in 1959 the Indian Government offered refuge to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. He was allowed to make McLeod Ganj his headquarters.

As soon as we stepped out of the forested area we see hordes of shops and restaurants dotting the landscape. Bustling with activity, its home to thousands of Tibetan refugees and several Buddhist monasteries. It was a different feeling, walking down the narrow lanes of McLeod Ganj, absorbing a new culture altogether.

The colourful monastery in the market place, adorned with prayer wheels on the outsides and people passing by would often turn them clockwise to evoke blessings from thousands of mantras. By turning this wheel once one earns merit equal to the recitation of the mantras filled inside this wheel. The Tibetans have built religious, educational and cultural institutions in and around McLeod Ganj, which has helped in preservation of their rich and diverse culture. No wonder tourists from around the world are attracted to McLeod Ganj, they can get a taste of Tibetan culture. Women selling shawls and blankets, most of them know Hindi, so haggling is not a problem. I bought a spiritual CD for Rs 150 that had Buddhist chants to help induce meditation. You can find a lot of spiritual music available here. It seems like a major part of the economy revolves around spirituality. As we walked we noticed a couple of pamphlets stuck on the sidewalk speaking about the struggle of Tibet against China and the historic Tiananmen Square protests. This is the building belonging to the officers of Gu-Chu-Sum, that holds english courses for former political prisoners and their family members, some of who were jailed and tortured for exercising their political rights and were unable to get any educational opportunity in Tibet, a nice cause indeed.
Many young monks were walking around, this one was engrossed in his book, perhaps before a religious class. On a lighter note, on the road Tibetans were cooking black Tibetan sausages, Clyde thought of trying it out. Unaware as to what it was, he just felt like trying them out, hoping its not some private parts of a yak or sheep.
You can gauge the excitement on his face of trying out something new. It turned out to be decent in taste, chewy texture, and the spicy sauce went well with the sausage. Clyde says he wouldn't mind eating it again, but he doesn't mind eating anything again. A huge pretty flower on the way. I haven't seen any place that offers different kinds of massage treatments, from Thai to Tibetan massage, the choices seem plenty to pamper yourself here. We walked quite a bit right from Dharamkot to Tsuglag Khang, the Dalai Lama's temple, which is on the temple road about five minutes walk from the bus station. Opposite the temple was this huge poster screaming out for the unity of Tibetan people. I saw lot of Tibetan Buddhists using prayer beads to keep count as they chanted mantras. They seem to be pious. The Tsuglagkhang Temple complex, or the Dalai Lama Temple, is the most sacred monument in McLeod Ganj. The complex has a long corridor with shops selling religious books, t-shirts, souvenirs, but more than that an important notice caught my eye.

The 11th Panchen Lama, considered to be the second highest-ranking spiritual leader for Tibetans, was kidnapped by the Chinese government in 1995, and till date his whereabouts are unknown to everyone. This notice was an appeal to everyone to join this cause and push for the release of the Panchen Lama. The temple is simple in appearance from outside but it has some huge statues of various Buddhist deities. But first there was a dramatic event unfolding just before we took the steps leading to the temple.

We were wondering what group of young monks were engaged in such an animated fashion. Later on a friend said that they were debating. Its part of a monk's training to gain more clarity, develop sharpness and expand their mind. The debate also involves several hand gestures and clapping.

As you can see in the picture below, there are two parties to the debate, a defender, who is sitting, and a questioner, who is standing. The defender puts forth an answer to the question asked, they then exchange roles and continue. It can get very animated as well to raise doubts in defender's mind. They were debating about, Buddhist metaphysics, which we got to realize much later on our visit to Norbulingka institute.
We entered the first temple where photography wasn't allowed, but we still took a couple of pictures, which have come blurred, but this place wasn't as peaceful as the Kee monastery in Spiti. Probably because there were many more people here than Spiti. From there we moved to the next temple, adjacent to the earlier one, which has a life-size statue of Gautam Buddha. The idol of Padmasambhava, who is said to have transmitted Tantric Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet in the 8th century. He appears in many Buddhist thangkas and paintings as well. And in this temple pictures were allowed to be taken. The deity in the picture below is Avalokiteshvara, is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Bodhisattva means the enlightened being who refrains from entering a state of nirvana so he could help other human beings to become liberated. You can read more about it by clicking on the links above. It is wonderful to learn or to understand a different culture and religion, this Himachal trip certainly gave us a lot of insights into Buddhist rituals and customs. The temple also houses one of the largest collections of sacred Buddhist texts. Its called Kagyur, translations of the actual teachings of Buddha. These 100 volumes, translated from Sankrit, are the authentic teachings of the Buddha himself and contains the entire collection of sutras and tantras. Adjacent to that was another ocllection of texts called Tangyur, that contained works on Buddhist philosophy, grammer, logic, poetry, medicine, astrology and other sciences.

Thangkas are a regular feature in Buddhist temple and are used to convey information in a pictorial manner. If you want to purchase any of these, it would be very expensive. Its sad that such profound art is being sold for commercial value. These are invaluable and need to be preserved. In the next post we will also take you to Norbulingka institute where these pieces are created.
By dusk we were out of the temple, opposite it is the residence of the Dalai Lama, where entry was prohibited. Outside the temple are numerous shops selling Tibetan paintings, thangkas, singing bowls, trinkets with mantra inscribed on it, jewelery, clothes, bags, and much more.

The next post we go on a trek around Dharamkot and find two pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.:)

From Spitian Deserts to the Pastures of Lahual

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:58:00 +0000

Most of us were overjoyed with the thought of walking on glaciers in the Himalayas, of course there was the odd nerve as well, but that was negligible. So we got off the jeep few kms after Batal, took our sticks, slipped in the plastic sheet between the socks and shoes, put on our gloves, and off we were on a thrilling adventure.

We were walking at our own pace, there was only fun and snow ball fights on our agenda. Except for the guys from Delhi who were a bit jittery and in a rush to complete the trek, and soon the Delhi guys were out of sight; it was just us, the snow, Chandra river, mountains rocks and Snow White, the closer we got to her, the more gorgeous she seemed.
We took pauses along the way, as we were walking by the river this lovely rock came into view. We wanted to get it back home but the weight was too much. Every time I feel like doing these things, a Buddhist story comes to my mind, in short a monk walking down a river bed comes across a small red rock. It was very beautiful and the monk felt like taking it, but then he thinks to himself who am I to take this rock, if its placed over there it has to have some purpose or reason far beyond my understanding, so he left the rock there and moved on. Thats the two of us, as you can evidently make out both our eyes are half shut, the glare was too much to keep our eyes open, you need glasses to walk on snow. My eyes were bloodshot for a few days after this trek, my right eye had also begun to twitch for some unknown reason, it was quite funny! There was absolutely no one around, the feeling was overwhelming! We reached a barren spot where a truck was parked and bumped into the Delhi guys who were taking a breather. We followed suit, and ate some bread and cheese to regain energy!

We hardly walked for an hour or so when we reached this Bulldozer, shovelling the snow into the river. It takes them hours to do a small patch of the road, cutting and shoving the snow is no easy task, and the little beast definitely smokes too much when you see that there was nothing else around polluting the air. Once we passed the bulldozers, we reached a spot with a few people sitting on a couple of rocks, by this time my toes were nearly numb, my socks were wet and I didn't want them on, so I knocked them off and we were set for our walk on glaciers for couple of kms. The start itself was a task, we had to climb a steep hill covered with snow, with my weight and the bag my feet were just sinking in. My toes were covered with snow were freezing, it was beginning to get painful for me.

Glacier after glacier, and each time Sonam and the other gentleman from Batal told us that it was the last one, or just 5 minutes more. Each glacier had a narrow path to walk on, so we took one step at a time with utmost caution, because one slip and we would be history, flowing in the Chandra river straight to Lahaul. We were told that if we fall in the river, the survival rate is not too high. This was the climax of the trek. Ahead I saw one of the Delhi guys, Anish, slip and fall off the glacier, he was bigger than me, broader built and at least four inches taller.

He had a bad fall, but luckily a guy from Chandigarh, who had biked all the way to Batal, was walking along with him. So he took his bag and pulled Anish up. He had come to check how long it would take for the roads to clear, since he had to get his bike through.

I kept my focus on the path, but at the same spot where Anish fell I slipped as well, the path had turned from snow to ice, making it extremely slippery. I slid down by a couple of feet. My instincts told me to shove the stick into the snow and that held me there. The guy from Chandigarh rushed towards me, I stretched my free hand towards him, but he said no, give me your bag.

I was in a situation, with one hand I was holding the stick and trying to balance, and he wanted me to pass my bag. He said that in such situations one should always give the bag first. I was screaming to my self, take my hand you bastard, I somehow managed to remove my bag and swung it 3 feet above me to the level he was on, Sonam then came down to where I was and helped me out of the spot. After a big sigh of relief and a laugh, we were set to proceed, thanks to Sonam and the guy from Chandigarh who then taught me how to walk on snow. You have to kick your heal in first so you get a good grip even on ice. These guys could run on ice, living around snow for more than 6 months a year its normal terrain for them. Sonam carried Bhavika's bag and she too seemed to be having a blast hopping on snow like a free bird, while I had a tough time on tricky parts but never failed to welcome a helping hand from the guys whenever they offered it.

After crossing a few more glaciers we were nearly at the end, we had had enough of the snow by now, each one of us. For me I was worried that I would get frost bite, I couldn't feel my toes for over an hour or so. It felt dead when I touched them, there was no sensation at all.

The path ahead was clear and we saw the jeep waiting for us. We took a group picture, the guy on the extreme left is from Chandigargh, the one just besides me is Sonam the taxi guy, the two on the extreme right are from Delhi. We thanked Sonam and the guy from Chandigargh, we also paid Sonam a little more money for he was not really suppose to accompany us over this path. But our long trek that took us a few hours over snow would take him just half an hour to get back, they can run on ice. But we were done, we had entered Chandra valley in Lahaul. In view was the road and beyond that was the largest glacier in Himachal Pradesh, Bara Shigri glacier. Bara Shigri glacier is more than 25 kms long and about 3 kms wide and is covered with snow throughout the year. We were happy to be sitting in a vehicle once again, my toes were dead and came to life only after a couple of hours, it was joy to feel them. As we exited Spiti and entered Lahaul, not only did the names change but the landscape change was magical. From the desert to lush green meadows, it was unbelievable. A few kms away after Chota Dara, from where we got into the jeep, we were transported to another world. Horses grazing on the plains, the yellow flowers swaying with the breeze and the rhythm of the river sending out some positive vibrations. Flora and fauna surrounded us, how is this possible, cross few glaciers and its a different scenery altogether. Shepherds sleeping under the shade of rocks, while their sheep graze lazily. After a while we reached Chhatru, a picturesque village that serves as an ideal place for trekking and mountaineering. There is a small dhaba there, where we had maggie and chai. We were pooped, so never managed to take a single picture of the Dhaba and the surroundings.
We came across a bunch of French rock climbers who come to Spiti, Lahaul and Hampi every year to climb boulders. One of them needed to get supplies from Manali and asked us if he could share the ride with us. He was a French chef who was passionate about rock climbing and India, and worked at times in hotels across the country to earn some money.

Conversations happened as we moved towards Manali. Lahaul's landscape was absolutely fascinating, so different than Manali and Parvati. There were melting glaciers forming rivers and an unlimited amount of waterfalls, more than we had seen on our entire trip, and we saw it in Lahaul in 15 minutes of driving.
Waterfalls surrounded by green, that's what I remember of Lahaul and we made mental notes that we have to stay in Lahaul for a while it was gorgeous!
We had to go via Rohtang pass to get to Manali, since it connects the Kullu valley with the Lahaul and Spiti valley. Rohtang pass is famous among Indian tourists and we had not yet been there. As we climbed higher we drew closer to the pass, until we were in the clouds. It was overcast and thus it also hampered our view, we could not see beyond 10 feet from the car, the fog and clouds had obscured the view. But prior to that the glimpses were lovely, until we reached Rohtang, the snow was black with dirt. There was garbage scattered all over the place, as we reached further up there were various stalls like food, clothes, skiing facilities etc., spoiling the landscape. Rohtang is a total touristy spot. We were glad that we managed to see so much of untouched Himachal Pradesh, Rohtang seemed to remind us of Mumbai. We reached Manali by 7.30 pm 8 pm in the evening, it was raining and the cab guy was kind enough to drop us to Old Manali at the same guest house where we stayed on our earlier visit. Prakash was more than happy to see us again, and we rushed to the room and crashed instantly. Next day we planned to move to our next destination Dharamkot in Dharamshala!

The Snowy Mountains of Kunzum Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:57:00 +0000

After our Enlightening experience in Kee Monastery we were back at our hotel in Kaza. It was time to depart for Manali and head to Dharamshala from there. We met two guys from Delhi, they had taken the long route from Recong Peo to Spiti just like us, and didn't want to return to Delhi the same way.

According to their research Kunzum Pass, which is the shorter route to Manali, had opened but moving ahead from there close to Batal the road was blocked. So their plan was to trek from Batal for around 20 minutes or so along the river, and then a jeep would pick us up from Chota Dara, close to Lahual valley and drop us in Manali. They asked us if we wanted to join them, and we weren't keen on going back to Manali from Recong Peo, so we grabbed this opportunity.

This was the route we took: Kaza--Losar--Kunzum Pass--Batal--Chota Dara--Chhatru--Lahual--Rohtang Pass--Manali.

The cost of the taxi from Kaza to Batal was Rs 3500 and Rs 3000 from a point in Lahual to Manali, it was divided among five people so it worked out to be quite reasonable.

The so called 20 minutes trek from Batal crossing glaciers, turned out to be the biggest adventure we had on this entire trip in Himachal! We set off early by 5.30 am and all of us were out ready in the jeep, with our sticks, plastic bags to put between our socks and shoes, some snacks and supplies. The journey was lovely, it started off by passing Kee Monastery from the other side of the Spiti river.
Spiti as you would know has some intricate and fascinating rock formations, the mountains in the picture literally look like they are rooted to the ground! We stopped for a quick breakfast, comprising Aloo Paranthas, Maggie and chai, at a small dhaba in Losar, the first village in Spiti. The morning rays were breaking through the darkness in the little dhaba and also bringing in some warmth! We went for a short walk around Losar and watched the sun light up this village. Just across the dhaba spanned green fields with tiny houses across the valley. Losar seemed like a nice isolated place to come and live in, perhaps on our next visit to the mountains it would be possible. Spiti is generally barren, but does not mean its less beautiful because the landscape is so different. Even if its not green it all has a story to tell. Its been a couple of hours since we've been traveling, the roads don't allow you to do more than 40 km/h but that was not a worry. At one point of our journey we reached a nice open patch that was surprisingly green, the melting snow was the reason the grass survived. We wanted to get out to stretch and also touch the snow, not that we haven't before, we first experienced snow together at the Valley of Flowers. But something new caught our attention, we saw for the first time, thin sheets of ice that was as clear as glass. Applying any kind of pressure made it crack and break to reveal water under it. Like children we started cracking these sheets and putting pieces on each other, we felt free as a bird.
We were close to Kunzum Pass at that time. The driver, Sonam, who was such a nice guy, said we needed to hurry since we had a long journey ahead of us. The snow in the distance was no more far away, it not only surrounded us on either side of the road, but was also under the jeeps tyres. Sonam stopped the car whenever we wanted to take a picture. As we moved closer to Kunzum La, we saw more snow on either sides of the jeep, there were points of time that we were driving through parts where the wall of snow on one side was taller than the vehicle itself. The closer we got, the excitement was building up in the jeep, moreover because we were on an unknown path and did not know what to expect. The thought of walking on snow was fueling our anticipation. We were only a few kms away from Kumzum, we got the news from Sonam that the road had cleared much more after Batal and we would have only 200 meters or so to walk. This made us even happier, we asked Sonam to stop at this Chorten on our way, for the first time on this trip we stepped into snow. Some parts were soft and my feet sunk in more than a foot. On this entire trip in Himachal I was trekking in my floaters, I never carried shoes. Even on our treks in Uttaranchal I had the same trusty floaters and am more comfortable with them on. After rejoicing the moment we soon made our way to Kunzum Devi Mandir, a few kilometers away from the Chorten. The jeep couldn't get to the temple so we got off and walked towards it, the path was surrounded with snow on either sides. Our joy knew no bounds, we were so glad that we took the right decision of taking this route. The snow ball fights began, although we never really got down to it seriously as the temple seemed more interesting. Along the way we admired the ice formations around us. There were few icicles present around the place formed by the dripping water, looking through them gave us a clear vision. The entrance of the Kunzum devi temple was covered with Buddhist prayer flags, to get through the entrance itself was tricky as the snow was really soft and deep. There was no monk or caretaker inside, at least till we were there.
It would be hard for someone to live there due to the extreme conditions, but it seemed a perfect place to meditate. Kunzum temple had three stupas and a bigger one with the picture of the Dalai Lama and the Pancham Lama. The snow around the mandir had strange cube like depressions with mantras on paper embedded in it. Probably to sanctify and protect the place from external forces. After walking three times around Kunzum devi and resting for a bit, we proceeded back to the jeep. On the way we were playing with the snow, this time I started doing a couple of Karate chops on some of the flimsy structures, all was going well until I tried to hit a thick structure and managed to cut my hand and fingers at multiple spots and felt an intense pain for a bit. Blood on snow too seemed to fascinate me as the red and white colours merged together, and I now know that the crystals can really cut even when you fall on snow.

The Kunzum devi mandir is located close to this board in Kunzum pass, which is 4,551 meters above sea level, it is quite high.
The Fun and Arduous Trek Begins
We bid goodbye to Kunzum devi and proceeded towards Batal. The mountain that was completely embellished with fresh snow was christened 'Snow White', by us. It was beautiful and we got glimpses of it throughout the trek. After passing the only Dhaba, well known for its rajma chawal, at Batal where people stay over to head to Chandratal lake. The gentleman there told us that we were in for a good trek, the road was not yet ready and we would have to cover at least a couple of kilometers to get to the other side of the glaciers!

More about the trek in the next post!

Enlightened in Kee Monastery

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:08:00 +0000

After walking through the enchanting village of Kibber we were all set to visit Kee monastery, which is located 12 kms away from Kaza, at an altitude of 13,504 feet. We got a glance of the monastery perched on the hilltop, while on our way to Kibber.

We had seen pictures of Key gompa (monastery) on the net before leaving for the trip, and were so captivated by the magnificent beauty of the place, that we couldn't miss it!

Key left us speechless; it was beyond our expectations. Its history, customs, landscape, environment, the positive energy, all culminated into a spiritually uplifting experience. A trek to Kee Monastery from Kaza would have been the ideal way to experience Spiti, but since we had only a day to spend in Kaza, we were compelled to take a jeep.

There is a tar road leading all the way to Kee monastery. A small bit of information from the history books, Ki monastery has been attacked several times in the past, during the 17th century by the Mongols, in the 17th century some more attacks, first by the Dogra army then the Sikh army. Due to this onslaught, the monastery had to be repaired and reconstructed many times, this resulted in building of many box-like structures in a wayward manner. Hence the monastery looks more like a fort. Just before reaching the main entrance we parked the jeep in the parking lot and had a small climb to get to the top. That was enough to get us breathless as the road was quite steep, but the energy radiating from the monastery was pulling us closer towards it, how an insect is attracted to a light bulb in the dark. The paintings at the entrance of Kee Monastery. The colorful monastery gate welcomed us to a stair case transporting us to another world. On entering the monastery you come across a line of prayer wheels with mantras inscribed on them. Ki monastery, built in the 11th century, consists of many floors, three of these are underground and mostly used for storage. The floor on which you enter has the biggest prayer hall, the surrounding rooms are used by the monks to stay, between the rooms and the prayer hall is a little courtyard where the monks seemed to be sharing their experiences.

Butter Lamps, Dispelling Darkness

The driver knew one of the Monks who happily took us on a tour of the accessible rooms. We first entered a dark room lit only by natural light, where a Monk was preparing butter lamps. We were offered a cup of tea that refreshed us after our long walk in Kibber. The monks were not fluent in English or Hindi, we had to connect the dots as they tried to explain about the lamps made from butter and other sculptures made from butter and flour. He was making this for an important 3-day ritual to be held at the monastery. Butter lamps are an integral part in Tibetan Buddhism, originally these lamps were made out of yak butter. But the monks at Ki used butter bought from the local market. A part of it is removed, immersed and moulded in water by applying pressure with ones fingers. There are some intricate designs made by using only butter and colors that you will come across in future posts.

An interesting part of this process is that the monks meditate and chant so the butter doesn't melt. We saw few butter sculptures in one of the holy rooms that had stayed intact for years. The butter lamps are suppose to help focus the mind and aid meditation. The light of the butter lamp symbolizes the wisdom of the awakened mind, which dispels the darkness of delusion and mental obstacles.
According to Buddha the 10 benefits of offering lights,

One becomes like the light of the world

One achieves clairvoyance of the pure eye as a human

One achieves the Deva's eye

One receives the wisdom to discriminate virtue from non-virtue

One is able to eliminate the concept of inherent existence

One receives the illumination of wisdom

One is reborn as a human or deva

One receives great enjoyment wealth

One quickly becomes liberated

One quickly attains enlightenment

After this illuminating experience the monk took us through a narrow stairway to the upper level where we saw two locked rooms with colorful doors called 'Kutung' and 'Zimshung'. The monk first opened the small door of Kutung, the first thing to catch our eyes were the colorful butter sculptures and bowls filled with water to the brim in front of a silver stupa. The monk explained to us that water symbolises purity, clarity and calmness, and everyday the bowls are refilled with fresh water, that means purifying the mind. Intricate designs covered every part of the room, thangkas, mandalas adorned the walls and paintings showing past masters and their incarnations, gave insights into their lives. As a sign of respect, the monk asked us to walk around the stupa three times, and with every round we noticed something new on the walls. Photographs are not allowed inside both the rooms, so we only managed to a get an outside view.

The monk opened the door to another room called Zimshung, thats where the Dalai Lama stayed during his visit to Ki monastery few years ago. The bed he used was neatly preserved. The colorful room contained ancient Buddhist scriptures, idol of the future Buddha, Maitreya, thangkas and various stucco images. It was amazing, getting to know more about Buddhism, their beliefs, the extremely beautiful artwork made with hands, the detailing which they follow, was truly beautiful.

From there we moved on to the roof of Ki and we were blessed with a picture perfect view of Ki village, the surrounding fields and the brownish mountains with snow caps. Solar panels were a regular feature in Spiti, and seeing religious places resort to solar power, made us extremely happy! The rooftop of the monastery had another intriguing structures, we aren't sure what this symbolise, if you know, do write to us about it! The monk who did the wonderful deed of taking us around and imparting knowledge about Buddhism. Another mystical room in Key monastery. The monk informed us that these fields belonged to them.
Breath-taking view from Kee Monastery. On our way down we were fortunate enough to enter the prayer hall where all the religious ceremonies take place. It was locked, the monk opened it specially for us. Here you can see brightly decorated door of the prayer hall. The camera wasn't allowed inside the hall. When we entered the prayer hall we were taken to another world altogether. It was empty, and inspite of that the vibrations in the room were so positive and energising. The photo of the Dalai Lama was kept on the centre podium, at that moment I could actually feel his presence. There were many more butter sculptures that were preserved for ages, I guess the prayers really worked, the ancient Buddhist manuscripts were stacked in a shelf, exquisitely crafted mandala, and thangkas adorned the walls.

We wanted to absorb the energy around us, so we asked the monk if we could meditate for few mins inside, he agreed. Those few minutes were the most memorable in my life, it was spiritually uplifting like giving food to the soul, and definitely the highlight of this trip.

We opened our eyes gently and walked outside, thanked the monk for his hospitality and warmth. We walked down the path to the jeep and sat down without saying a word. Sometimes silence is golden, and after such a moment it was difficult to talk, but just revel in the joy of having experienced something like this.

On our way back I took another picture of a small village across Spiti river. We were back to the hotel by early evening in the crowded Kaza market to plan our trip back to Manali. But we were starving for food, since we had not eaten anything entire afternoon. We asked for lot of food - Tomato Soup (Rs 30), French Onion Soup (Rs 30), Hot & Sour Chicken Soup (Rs 40), Spaghetti Penne Fungi (Rs 70), Non veg Pizza (Rs 100), Grilled Chicken (Rs 130), Banana Fritters (Rs 35), Cheese Cake (Rs 45), we really pigged out and the bill was Rs 480 among three of us. I guess Kaza since its the main hub is cheaper than Tabo when it comes to food.

After a fulfilling meal, it was time to chalk out the route for Manali. We avoided the long journey via Recong Peo, the route we took was from Kunzum Pass to Batal, then entered Lahual valley, crossed Rohtang Pass and back into Manali. It was the most adventurous part of our journey. Stay tuned!

Kibber, Beauty and Simplicity Personified

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:47:00 +0000

The journey from Tabo to Kaza, which is the main town in Spiti valley, takes around two hours to reach by local bus.

The distance is only 48 kms but the uneven and extremely bumpy road makes the drive longer, and the ticket is affordable too, just Rs 55. The landscape becomes more intriguing as we moved further away from Tabo, the rock formations began to emerge; at some places thick columns of rocks dominated the landscape.

Breathtaking view it was, and what beckoned us was even more enchanting, Kee Monastery, perched on top of a hill at an altitude of 4116 m, and Kibber, which once the highest village with a motorable road in Spiti – however now since all the villages are connected it has lost that status. But before that, we had to reach Kaza, check into hotel Nimling, suggested by the owner of our guest house in Tabo. Since we were in Kaza only for a day, we took that option.

Kaza is at a higher level than Tabo, situated at an altitude of 3,800 metres, so it was more cold and less sunny. But Kaza is a commercial center with haphazard construction and huge number of shops doting the landscape. Hotel Nimling was just a short walk away from the bus depot, we got a decent room for Rs 200 with window facing the snow-covered mountains. The market was buzzing with activity, souvenir shops, general stores, cyber cafes, restaurants, bakeries, almost everything was available in Kaza.

Since the landslide that happened at Malling, on our way to Tabo was cleared, the supplies were flowing in again from around Himachal. In this picture local Spitian women carrying gas cylinders from the market to their homes. Women in Spiti do more work as compared to men, even when it comes to building roads. They leave their kids on the side, and do the work, I was amazed to see that. We had a quick breakfast at the lodge and went out to enquire for a taxi. There are plenty of private taxi operators who can take you around Spiti, and depending on the distance and places to cover they quote a price. The cost is on the higher side though. We decided to go to Kee and Kibber, since those were the only places fitting in our budget, more places to visit means more money. So we got the taxi for Rs 720, no bargaining allowed as the rates are fixed.

We were on our way for a magical ride in the abode of gods. This cute chubby kid was waiting with his father at the taxi stand. A bit away from the crowded market place in Kaza was this colorful monastery, we didn't go in but stopped to take a picture. The view was even better than Tabo, pleasing our senses and opening our minds to see a new dimension in nature's orbit. The Spiti river gently flowing between the mountains, forming tributaries that looked so artistic, and white sand gathered around it looked like snow.

What should I say about the mountains, barren and arid land with spots of green at the foothills and snow at its peak, if this isn't heaven, what is it?
The Incredibly Peaceful Kibber Village

Our first stop was going to be Kibber village, situated atop a mountain 20 kms away. On the way we spotted herd of Ibex, running across the road, they were pretty quick in their steps as well. Ibex belongs to a species of wild mountain goats that are distinguished by the male's large re curved horns, And soaring high in the sky was this huge sized eagle. It would be fantastic to get a bird's eye view of scintillating Spiti! In a short while after that we reached Kibber, which once was the highest village in Asia reachable by a motorable road. Now its Komik village in Spiti which is at a height of 4513m, and falls on the other route. The tarmac road is nice to drive on as well, much better then the road connecting Tabo to Kaza. The jeep driver gave us an hour to take a stroll around Kibber. According to the signboard, the population of Kibber is merely 295 people, so it seemed to be a peaceful and subdued place. It was blessed with a magnificent view of the valley, surrounded by snow-covered peaks, I couldn't even imagine how cold it would get at night. There is a civil dispensary, a high school, a post office and a telegraph office here, so the village is self-sufficient in a way. Like many villages in Spiti, an ancient Chorten greeted us at the start of the village. It was surrounded by prayer flags and as a sign of respect you are suppose to walk from the left of it. On moving ahead we saw Norling guest house, we didn't know about that or else we would have stayed here. There are just 1 or 2 guest houses in Kibber, that gives you an idea how secluded it can get. We hardly saw any locals around either, they would probably be working in the fields while the kids were at school. Life is tough at such high altitudes, as it snows for six months, temperatures can drop to -15 degress in December, so the remaining six months are spent in cultivation of crops, which forms the main source of income. When it snows the locals stay indoors and make handicrafts.

I was enjoying the walk, nobody to stop or disturb you, just absorbing the rustic landscape. This design is actually formed by the finger marks imprinted on the wall of a mud house, how natural does it get. We spotted a little lamb hidden behind the wall, bleating for his mother; we heard his cry but couldn't spot him. So Clyde started to bleat and there the little fellow popped out from behind the wall, responding to his calls. The houses were similar to Tabo, tiny windows and door, white-washed facade with a maroon strip on top, perfect for such cold conditions, and the flat roofs were rimmed with bales of hay neatly stacked, often stuck with prayer flags. Wonder how they would recognise their house if one day a Spitian guy got drunk, that's just a thought! An old house with colorful bales of hay and twigs piled up on its flat roof and the snow-clad mountains in the background, made for a pretty picture! The flat roofs were used for work and storage purpose. As we moved higher up towards the end of the village, we got a better view of Kibber. The green fields spread across the arid land on the top right and the yellow building in the center of the image is Norling guest house. At the far end away from the houses is the small monastery, I assume it is that because of the flags around it. The sun shone through a rift in the clouds, but it was still very pleasant. We kept walking till we reached the end of Kibber. I saw a couple of houses which had yak fur lying outside, the locals might be either selling it or using it to protect themselves from the extreme cold climate at night. On the opposite slope is another village called Chicham, which looked much smaller than Kibber. But the view was stunning, green fields around Chicham added colour to the otherwise brown landscape. Its a 2-3 hours scenic trek from Kibber. We wanted to go closer to the route leading up to Chicham and saw this sight. Horns balanced on a stone structure with twigs placed underneath. I am not sure what this symbolises. The road leading to Chicham village, flanked by tilled fields and scenic mountains. I took a deep breathe totally soaking in the marvellous spectacle that lied in front of me. It looks like a beautiful painting:) but this is reality! There was so much to admire around us, but the driver waved to us from the other end asking us to come back.

The colorful structure is a solar passive house made by Ecosphere. The house absorbs and retains the sun's energy for a longer time and distributes solar energy in the form of heat in winter. This helps communities bring down their winter fuelwood consumption and and also the money spent. The objective being to bring down the amount of fuelwood burnt as well as carbon emissions generated.

Ecosphere is a social enterprise working in the Spiti valley linking lives of locals to conservation and development. They also organise homestays for tourists to experience the unique culture of Spiti. On our way back we saw this cute furry dog looking at us from the door. To sum up our short visit to Kibber, we experienced a sweet moment joy when the school bell rang and the girls came running out from their respective houses to play a game of volleyball. Such was the excitement and simple life of people in Kibber. We went back to the jeep hoping to come back soon to this village, this time with our bags. Our visit would be incomplete without a picture of the two of us in this paradise! The beautiful Kee monastery is a short ride away from Kibber, in fact it comes on the way to Kibber. Due to loads of photos, I have divided the post. But am sure you won't have to wait too long before its up.

The Mesmerising Blue Skies of Tabo

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:58:00 +0000

After the trek to the Buddhist caves in Tabo, we were famished as it was already past 4 pm and we were starving. So we decided to go to a restaurant close by and savour the local delicacies. For the first time we walked on the main road of Tabo village to get a glimpse of rural life.

The mud houses had similar structure, design and colour, very few of them had two or three levels. Some of the houses also had sheds built on the side for the cows to rest. We were trying to figure out why this calf was embellished with colourful ribbons, when a Spitian girl popped out of the window. She looked at us, wondering what we were doing and when she was about to shut the window, Bhavika quickly gestured to her to wait for a picture.

We noticed that most of the houses had twigs stacked just above the door. Just across the road was this young boy filling a glass of water, looking completely dazed. While these Spitian kids were radiating with joy and love, shining like a beacon. Just this short walk brought smiles on our tired face, it didn't serve as nourishment for the body but uplifted the soul. Innocence personified! Cute-looking kids happily posing for the camera with their dolls. We turned behind to look how far we had reached from the caves. Not much distance covered, yet at every step we discovered something different. You can see few of the caves we trekked to, although there is a huge stretch of them that you will see in a picture further down, now its time for your mouth to water. We had a multi-course meal at this restaurant called Zion, the full power cafe. We wanted to try some of the local Spitian dishes like Thantuk, Thukpa and not to forget Momos. Traditionally, momos were only served to important guests when they visited the household. They were a delicacy which were only made on special occasions to celebrate. Since we were starving we ordered for quite a lot of food. We started with shakes (Mango shake Rs 25, Banana Rs 20) then moved on to appetisers that included Veg Momos (Rs 40), Thantuk (Tibetan-style vegetable soup with flat noodles) (Rs 35), Mashed potato with local cheese and fried onions (Rs 50). The food was delicious, especially the Thantuk that had lot of flavours. A meal is incomplete without desserts, so we went on another binge, rice pudding (Rs 40), mango custard (Rs 40 for 1) with fresh mango pieces and banana toffee (Rs 30 for 1). The Mango Custard and banana toffee were scrumptious, so we ordered for one more round, even the guy serving us was amazed with the quantity of food. We were over-nourished now and it was time to walk again. The bill came up to only Rs 395. Zion cafe was more affordable than the restaurant at our guest house.
While we were on top of the mountain our eyes were set on the greenish blue water body. We were not sure of the way, but we started to head towards the fields. Walking through the fields and wide open spaces, with Spiti river flowing on the left and the mountains on the other side, we felt in the lap of nature, who was displaying its immense beauty at every step. We walked on a cemented canal, made to provide water in the fields, along side the river. Bhavika was nervous as there were dog fights taking place in the fields, with huge furry dogs running about barking at other group of dogs, she's scared of dogs by the way. In the picture below you can see some of the dogs standing outside the mud wall of the apple orchard as well as a stretch of caves on the mountain. The wall is made to protect the apples from being stolen, and Spitian apples are well known in India.

As we proceeded on the cemented canal a farmer with a plow approached us from the other side, he was walking faster and as he came closer we realized a trickle of water following him in the canal. As the trickle built up force, he was opening and sometimes closing exits of the water entering the fields. The frog was swept by the water force until he managed to cling on to the sides of the canal for us to take a picture! Picture perfect, shot of Spiti river flowing through the barren mountains like a snake crawling and making its way in the fields.
If you remember the wild orchids we saw during the trek to a village in Parvati, this one is exactly the same except for the colour. Finally we drew up close to the pond, which was quite big; if it was attractive from the top, it was unbelievable when we were besides it. Like an oasis in the desert, the water body was used for irrigation purpose.

The colours were not only green because of the depth in the center, but also brown towards the banks due to plants growing underneath. Air bubbles slowly making their way to the surface as insects came up for a breather and then go back down.

There were small fish swimming about and how can I explain the mesmerizing reflection of the sky, mountains and the colours in all their glory on the surface, shattering with ripples created by the breeze only to form again. As the sun set a group of swallows flew over the pond chasing each other, some flying just above the surface as though they were looking at their reflections on the water. While some played games by skipping over water and just about touching it to make us wonder if they were placed there at that point of time, it was the swallow show in the middle of the desert. The words perhaps can't describe the way we felt, we were, "Woooo did you see that!!!" all the time, our head moving, our eyes following the birds they had all our attention. Even the sole duck and a duckling in the pond were trying to catch our attention but in vain, until the sun started another show. The shadow of the mountains where the sun was setting started spanning across the entire valley, slowly eating up hill after hill.
It was time to leave, when we were in the middle of the fields yet again something magical happened. Straight in front of us, the mountains at the horizon were still the same, the sky was light blue, and right behind us where the sun was setting it was dark blue and grey.
The sky had unlimited gradients in the middle all the way from light blue, sky blue, navy blue, dark blue, blue grey, every shade of blue you can imagine possible, this was the magic in Spiti, we had not seen these shades anywhere else in Himachal Pradesh. We were blessed by the Mountain Gods! We walked towards German bakery in Tabo, picked up a cheese cake, our favorite on this trip. You can see the internal structure in this picture, this is the roof of German Bakery from the inside in Tabo. What a contrasting image pops up in the head when you think of German Bakery! We went back to our room after an eventful day, ordered for dinner. It is worth a mention that the food was delicious at Tashi Khangsar, but tad expensive, like Thantuk costed Rs 60, that's too much for a veg soup. A proper meal for three, comprising dal makhani (Rs 40), rice (Rs 40), mixed vegetable (Rs 50), chapatis (Rs 5 each) and sugarless halwa (Rs 40) came up to Rs 195. Back in the room a game of Scrabble beckoned us, and Bhavika turned out to be the lucky winner, on several occassions!:)

The Ancient Tabo Monastery

The next morning our plan was to catch the bus to Kaza, the main city of Spiti, and go further up to Ki and Kibber monastery. But the visit to Tabo is incomplete without seeing the ancient monastery. We had passed it a few times and never ended up going inside. Called the 'Ajanta of the Himalayas', the monastery holds nine temples, 23 chortens or stupas and seperate chambers for monks and nuns. It is enclosed by a boundary wall built with mud bricks, that separates it from the modern monastery buildings and village. The bus to Kaza arrives anytime between 8.30 am to 12.30 pm, so we had 15 minutes to check the Tabo monastery, assuming that the bus arrived by 9, 9.15 am. Unfortunately all the sections were closed, even the temples that house exquisite wall paintings, stucco statues and murals. But whatever we saw was gorgeous enough, especially the central part. This is the assembly hall where the above mentioned treasures were preserved. The entire monastery was built in a way that it makes maximum use of natural light, the roof had green glass at places and solar cells to generate electricity. On our next visit we would definitely visit the monastery, with that thought in mind we rushed to the Tabo bus stand. It was time for us to go to Kaza, our next stop in the mystical Spiti desert!

Tabo, the Mystical Desert

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:16:00 +0000

We reached Tabo early in the evening, as we mentioned in the previous post after the long journey, we did not want to stay close to the bus stand, since the surroundings there were not very interesting.

As we walked, we noticed that Spiti was different, not just the landscape of the cold desert but the enormity of the area stretched the fabric of our mind. We were in the middle of the valley with mountains on both sides. While the other two sides stretched as far as eyes could reach and then at the horizon the beautiful snow-capped peaks put a gorgeous end to the view.

So we needed a room, it was colder here as compared to any other place we had been to. We didn't find anything very interesting around the bus stand, except a board pointing out to a Helipad, yes a helipad in the middle of a desert. Intrigued by that we decided to take a look, as we approached it we realized it was a huge enclosed space with a road leading to it. It was tarred and had the H in a circle where the chopper lands, but what we didn't expect was the howling wind to send a shiver down our spine.
We increased our speed to get the blood flowing, and shortly after that reached the guest house, Tashi Khangsar. We were tired after the journey and just chilled in the room, the reception had a mini library as well as a couple of games, Scrabble it was that helped us pass a couple of hours until we had to literally run from our room to the dining hall, which was a few feet away as we were not yet used to Spiti cold.We woke up to the bluest skies we have ever seen, it seems that cold deserts like Spiti and Ladakh in India are the only places where you get to see azure blue. The guys at the lodge laid breakfast for us in the garden and on the hills in front of us were something which the locals called "Chirus" or Tibetan antelopes. It was a black-horned animal somewhat bigger than a cow and smaller than a yak, we could see around 4-5 of them and were wondering how could they stand on such a steep slope. To get a better view of Tabo I climbed the roof of the restaurant, a couple of cute kids were playing next door. What was even more interesting is the use of solar electricity across Himachal, the landscape makes it difficult or perhaps not feasible to connect and supply electricity to all these places. Nearly everyone in Tabo depends on the sun to get their energy, our room had a solar light that we used all the time instead of the conventional one, even when there was electricity, solar energy fascinates me I guess.We wanted to get a glimpse of Tabo from an altitude, the guest house owner told us about the Buddhist caves that were located on higher grounds, on a neighboring hill. That was the destination for the day, before that we went for a stroll around Tabo.

Tabo is known for its ancient Buddhist monastery that's over a 1000-years old, founded in 996 AD. Buddhism is the main religion here and hence the various Gompas (monasteries) and Buddhist structures can be seen virtually everywhere. His Holiness the Dalai Lama has expressed his desire to retire to Tabo, since he maintains that the Tabo Monastery is one of the holiest. The Buddhist Chorten or Stupa near Tabo Monastery. The basic structure of a Chorten consist of a square foundation symbolizing the earth, a dome symbolizing water, and thirteen tapering steps of enlightenment symbolizing the element of fire. The celestial crown on top is the 'twin symbol' uniting sun and moon. Just outside the Monastery lodge, rooms are also available in the monastery with no attached bathroom, there was a souped up Landcruiser parked, it has a caravan built onto it that even had a bed inside. A perfect vehicle to travel around the Himalayas and we later found out that the owner was a white-bearded old man in his late sixties, who is doing a Himalayan expedition you can take a look at his website Rondje Himalaya. A cute kid smiles at us as we take his picture.
The sun literally burns your skin here in Tabo, you don't realize it because its cool but all three of us had our skin peel off our faces at the end of our stay in Spiti. So most of the eateries had a huge umbrella to provide relief from the scorching sun.The walls of the ancient monastery had this row of prayer wheels or Mani wheels, as called by the Tibetans, which have to be turned clockwise. Unfortunately we didn't count them but, as you can see there are quite a few, all turning, different weights, sounds, vibrations and mantras inscribed on them. According to Buddhist beliefs, spinning the prayer wheel will have much the same effect as orally reciting the prayers. Everyone passing or entering the monastery rotate the prayer wheel. Behind the Monastery are open green fields, speck of green in the middle of a desert!
From there you can also get a glimpse of the caves, thats where we had decided to go. This fascinating tree seems like it has something to say to us, the architecture in Spiti is different. Most of the houses here are similar, flat roofed, white and brown mud/stone houses with bale of hay stacked on the roof.We start our climb on a path that looks quite easy as we make it up to the caves in no time. But we were shattered to see that people have been using the caves as toilets, it seems most of the laborers come from other states and have no proper facilities. At one point of time these caves were used by monks to meditate and go on retreat.

The view from here was good though, Bhavika wanted a picture next to one of the caves, after that was done, we decided to go higher to escape the stink, except there was no path. The shadow of the clouds over the mystifying landscape. So we slowly made our way up the mountain, with the gravel and stones giving way beneath our feet, clutching onto the rocks as if our lives depended on them, and sometimes we were just frozen scared to even take a step because of the loose soil. But the mountains always seem to have the same trick up its sleeve, tempting us with better view as we go higher up. So we trudged on until we found a path, the air definitely seemed thinner here as compared to Parvati, the climb although short was tiring. The ancient Tabo monastery and the helipad at the far end. Its funny even though Spiti is a desert, there is a vast variety of wild flora. The green patches where humans inhabited the area is not what I am talking about, but the wild plants surviving in arid conditions, sometimes with beautiful flowers as well. Take a look at some of the different species of flora growing in Spiti.
The clouds were our only source of respite from the sun, there was no shade anywhere else. Only when the sun was obscured by the clouds it was a fascinating sight, we were able to look straight into the sun, which was beautiful. No wonder our skin was peeling off later on.Even the rocks on the ground were unique, so much glitter, colour, shapes and sizes. This rock looked like it had "Om" engraved on it, a sensation of love rushed through all of us.It may sound a bit strange, but wherever we saw a monastery, there use to be sets of rocks balanced on each other, I don't know the relation between the two. We reached a flat surface where different shapes of rocks were balanced at many spots. We also ended up trying our hand at building a little tower, though it was not much compared to some of the ones around us.While we walked on the hill we caught sight of this water body, we could see different colours in it and thought that it would be fascinating to take a closer look. Foolish people that we are, we started our descent on a pathless route with only the pond in front of us.It was quite steep and slippery, we slowly walked down, balancing ourselves on huge rocks, kicking down the loose ones, holding the plants which we later on realised had thorns on them. Ouch, we would sit down, admire the majestic view and go on again. It took us a while to reach down. With our appetite increasing, we had to get down quickly. Towards the end we reached a stepped channel made by the farmers for water to reach the fields. Those steps helped us descend with ease, we were back in Tabo village, but the pond will have to wait, we were all set for a Spitian feast!

The Long Winding Road to Spiti

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:07:00 +0000

On reaching Kasol we went straight to the travel agent to figure out the route to Spiti. Kunzum Pass, which is the gateway to Spiti, was closed since the road was blocked by snow and it would take another 3-4 days to clear up. It generally opens up by early to mid-June. Due to time constraints we couldn't wait, so we embarked on an adventure to reach Spiti from Kinnaur.

With no booking done, we traveled by local transport, changed several buses, to reach Spiti. Well its a very long distance to cover, but after the trek in Parvati we were up for it. This is the route we took -

Kasol to Bhuntar - 25 kms, around an hour journey.
Bhuntar to Mandi - 57 kms, took us 2 hours to reach
Mandi to Karcham (Kinnaur) - long journey, takes around 13 hours
Karcham to Reckong Peo (by taxi) - 20 to 30 minutes
Are you up for it?

We missed the bus to Bhuntar, but there is one every 30 minutes, so we went to Rainbow Cafe in Kasol to have a quick bite. They serve delicious food, and its facing the river so good location to chill. Don't be surprised if you bump into many Israelis smoking spliffs, a rather common site.

There was a direct bus from Bhuntar to Reckong Peo at around 2.30 pm or 3.30 pm, I am not sure of the timing at present, which is the last bus. Since everything got delayed, we were hoping to get another bus from Bhuntar. The ride to Bhuntar is really bumpy, it will cost you around Rs 45, and lot of locals travel on this route, so the buses are crowded.

Somehow we managed to get a seat, and Clyde was kind enough to hold a child till his stop arrived. One thing that worked for me on this trip was that I could easily doze off in the bus, no matter how hard my head hit the roof, I would still be sleeping, thats how this short journey to Bhuntar passed by. That's the domestic airport at Bhuntar (Kullu-Manali), it has a single runway with handful of flights operating to Delhi, Shimla, Dharamsala, Pathankot and Chandigarh. Guess what, there were no buses to Reckong Peo after 3 pm, so really harrowed we asked the bus drivers, ticket collector for the next option. One guy suggested we go to Mandi, around 57 kms from Bhuntar, to catch the 6 pm bus to Reckong Peo. We had to be quick, we jumped in a bus and crossed our fingers to reach Mandi on time. Mountain roads are uneven and uphill, so you can never predict the exact duration of the journey.

But luck was on our side as we made it to Mandi bus depot on time to book our tickets to Karcham, quite close to Reckong Peo, for Rs 295. It was state transport, so the buses are decent, no reclining seats or anything and less leg room. Mandi is a main hub to Kullu Manali, Lahual and Spiti. Its also a place of religious importance for the Hindus and Sikhs. It was some respite for us, as we made it on time and that very soon we will be in Spiti. There was a huge forest fire on the way, it nearly covered half the mountain. The driver stopped for dinner around 10 pm at a dhaba located in an isolated spot, we freshened up and had a bowl of tomato soup to fill our stomach. The ticket collector told us that the bus would stop at Rampur in Shimla at 2 am for two hours, what would we do in Rampur in the middle of the night? I was sleeping when we reached Rampur Bushar Bus stand, Clyde and his friend got off the bus, so I had no choice but to do the same. We had tea and went for a short walk on the deserted road in Rampur. It didn't look very impressive, its more of a business center and a busy market place. But the empty roads allowed us to entertain ourselves by taking pictures.

This hoarding below was amusing, it read - Influx of monkeys or monkey terror. Monkeys only come when you litter, so to be free from monkey attacks we all should cooperate.:) There was an old Buddhist temple at the side of the bus station, with Pagoda-style roof and colorful entrance, we see much more of these in Spiti. The side view of the Buddhist temple. We were back in the bus now and the journey was going to be another 2-3 hours long, we were just 120 odd kms away from Karcham. At the break of dawn we were in Kinnaur, as I opened my eyes I saw a shepherd guiding his herd of sheep to the side of the road for the bus to move on. I felt a sudden shiver, it was colder than Parvati, so I put on my jacket and was looking around.

The road begins to get dusty as a huge hydro-electric project is underway. The 1000 MW Karcham Wangtoo hydro-electric project started in controversial circumstances. When we got off at Karcham in the middle of no where, we got a taxi to Reckong Peo, the local driver told us the sad situation facing the surrounding villages. He said that the dam was of no use to the locals, since they were not employed for the construction work and neither will the electricity generated be given to the villages. Lot of villagers have lost their land due to this project and are displaced without any compensation. Where ever you go, situations like these are quite prevalent. It seemed like a massive project, because the work was on for several kilometres. We halted at a small village to have a cup of tea. Kinnaur is in the northeast corner of Himachal Pradesh and surrounded by Tibet to the east. The locals have very peculiar features, different then the rest of Himachal. Some have Mongoloid looks and others have Tibetan features.

The driver pointed out at the famous Kinnaur Kailash range, believed to be abode of Lord Shiva and it has a huge rock formation that resembles shivling and changes colour as the day passes. As we moved higher we felt closer to the snow-capped mountains. The view was amazing, the place is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides and is 2,670 metres above sea level. Reckong Peo is the administrative headquarter for Kinnaur district, so there wasn't much we could do. There are limited hotels, since its not a tourist spot. The next option would be Kalpa, around 20 kms odd away but its on a higher side.

There were very few decent ones in the main market area. Most of them were packed, and at one place the hotel owner was quite rude with us too. We paid Rs 50 to the taxi driver and began our search. We were tired after the long journey, so we took few rounds and settled for whatever was available. We got a room at Hotel Fairyland, decent room for Rs 300, although the hotel owner wasn't friendly.

We had breakfast and were off to bed for a while. We soon ventured out to find out the bus timings to Spiti, it was a long, cold walk to the bus depot, but we got the feel of the place. Lot of government offices, military quarters, in fact we witnessed a simulation attack as well while passing by.

There was only one bus to Kaza, the main city of Spiti, at 7 am in the morning, no evening buses because the roads are too risky to drive at night. The guy at the ticket counter asked us to reach at 6 am to book the tickets. For that we would have to wake up at nearly 5 am to check out and walk with our backpacks to the depot. Here's the bus schedule from Reckong Peo. It is worth it, I said to myself, and walked back to the hotel. We sat at the Cafeteria Roof in the Main Bazaar to eat some Tibetan delicacy, Momos and a veg and non-veg soup, the bill came up to only Rs 90, food was cheap in Reckong Peo, the only good thing about the place. It was an early night for us, as something marvelous was going to unfold tomorrow.

The Road to Spiti

On a chilly morning we were up and ready to start our beautiful journey. We reached Reckong Peo bus depot by 6.15 am and bought our tickets to Tabo for Rs 145. Tabo is around 46 kms before Kaza, and it suppose to be surreal. Waiting for the journey to begin. Unfortunately there was double booking for one of our seats, so we had only two seats to be shared among three people. The bus was overpacked, people were seated everywhere, on cartons, in the alley, next to the driver, behind the driver, it was a wake up call for all of us. But no complains, because they all were friendly and cooperative people. We took turns to share the seat, as the bus wriggled its way on the narrow road. No wonder there are no evening buses, the path is too narrow and uneven, a slight miss and you would be in the Sutlej river. But I was enjoying every moment of it, looking out of the window with eager eyes to see the landscape transform from greenery to aridness. We were still in Kinnaur, said the talkative man next to us. He narrated instances from his life when he was in Maharashtra, and how he was so fluent in Marathi, which he had not spoken for a long time until he met us. He gave us an interesting piece of information as well, few villages in Kinnaur follow the practice of having one wife for a family of brothers. Why do brothers marry the same woman, was our next question. He replied in order to avoid land disputes in the family. I noticed that the tribes and locals of Himachal adapt to the social environment they are living in, its like what works for them they practice.

The rocky terrain took its toll on the bus and the back tyre got punctured. Luckily a service station was close by in a small town called, Pooh. We burst out laughing when we read the sign board. Passengers waiting for the bus to get fixed. The topography had certainly changed, barren mountains with snow at its peak and patches of green fields and Satluj river flowing by, made a lovely picture. In a short while we were back in the packed bus only to be stopped by a natural calamity, landslide few kms from Nako. The landslide had completely blocked the way, it would take a day or two to clear that up. The deal was that we empty the bus, cross the landslide and another bus coming from Kaza would pick us up. It took some time for the bus to arrive, so we sat on top of the rock awestruck by the magnificence unfolding in front of our eyes.
The cold desert, I had never seen something like this before. We sat patiently there at peace with ourselves, the time had come to a standstill. Suddenly we see people shouting that the bus had arrived, the moment of solidarity came to an end, but just for a short time. A Kinnauri woman holding her cute kid on the back. It was almost 1 - 1.30 pm, so the driver made a stop at a village called Hurling for lunch. It was small dhaba serving basic rice, dal and vegetable. We ate little bit, and waited outside to board the bus. A furry and cute donkey was waiting outside in the cold, he had so much fur we couldn't even see his eyes. Spiti starts from a village called Samdho, close to the Indo-Tibetan border, we were just few mountain ranges away from the border. The terrain gets even more treacherous, narrow road passing below the overhanging cliffs, it looked like a landslide prone area.

Just under an hour away from there was Tabo, at an altitude of 3,050 metres. The place appeared so quiet and isolated. The cold wave that hit us after that was crazy, shivering and throbbing we moved around looking for a guest house. Another guy who got off at Tabo runs two hotels, and he asked us to check those out. We didn't like the first one close to the bus stop, so we moved ahead to the second one walking through a helipad. An open area, cold desert, snow-covered peaks, you can imagine our state. His second hotel called Tashi Khangser was quite decent and in a secluded spot. The tariff was Rs 200 a night, we happily took the room and didn't step out until dinner.

A Magical Trek in Parvati

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:15:00 +0000

The next day we planned to trek over 6 kms uphill from the village where we were staying to a tiny village on top of the same mountain. Though not visible from our location, we heard it to be a very serene place with only a couple of houses perched on the top of the mountain and then nothing but a spectacular view to greet the eyes.

So we set on our journey early in the morning, Brunel dropped out and stayed in bed as we began our journey. We crossed over several small bridges running over the streams, as we climbed higher the view just seemed to get better.

The ascent was tough we had not done a trek of this size until now, our bodies were not yet acclimatized and we were frequently running out of breath, especially me. Ramu who accompanied us was understanding enough, and he waited for us to move on, as he walked behind. We pushed on slowly and steadily with the frequency of stops increasing.

We climbed up one mountain, then walked to another and then a steep climb awaited us, but just at the start we took a slight detour to see this lovely waterfall. We also got a glimpse of one of the houses from there and we heaved a huge sigh of relief, we were closer to our destination. Since we had completed over 70% of the distance by now, we also made it in good time in spite of taking numerous stops, we decided to relax by the waterfall. The huge waterfall had a good amount of force but it was too cold for comfort, we decided to step in anyway. It felt good, water coming from a melted glacier flowed around our feet, as we shouted out in joy and also because the water was icy cold. All of us took turns to get our picture taken with the waterfall in the background. Just 15 minutes away from the waterfall we reached the only school in the village. A school situated high up in the mountains, has only one classroom, four students and the government inspectors or education authorities don't even bother coming up. But the teacher, Ranvir Thakur, walks from Manikaran to up here every day to teach his four students. He was such a nice, sweet and determined person, we spent some time talking to him, education was not a priority amongst the local people of this region and he was hoping to change that. The distance he covered everyday, apart from being strenuous, would possibly take us around 3-4 hours, and he walked up in an hour's time. The school also had a ferocious dog to guard the place.

The route from the school to the village takes good 30 minutes, not for people from the mountains of course, because its steep and a tricky path. We managed to reach the top of this hamlet, and were greeted by an old woman, Ramu's aunt, who was peacefully sitting outside her house, the first one of the few on the mountain. The village was virtually empty since people go to work during the day to neighbouring villages. The houses had the lovely Himachal look, the structure, the doors were similar to what we have seen on this trip. It was time for us to take some rest and enjoy the scenery and the majestic mountains around us. We thought of taking a walk around the village and soak up everything it had to offer. The view from this height was spectacular as the whole valley and mountain ranges lay ahead of us, like a painting. So beautiful that it all hardly looked real, it was like standing in a movie set. Buzzzzz, the sound suddenly appeared from nowhere, we looked around and saw a swarm of bees all making their way in and out of the little hole in the wall, we found two spots like these, perhaps the owner of this house managed to collect the honey. Bhavika is highly energetic, I think all the amount of sweets that she eats directly converts into globules of energy, she wanted to go further and further. Another friend who came along with us, found a spot and sat down, I proceeded a little further and then she was on her own. She walked on the path to get to Rasol and found a spot to take some lovely pictures of the entire village, comprising barely 13 houses. We found a Gharat lying abandoned by the stream, I had not seen one as yet and was thrilled to find one. A Gharat has an aqueduct with a wheel and fins that turns round as the water pushes against the fins. Its used to grind grain into flour, there are some projects in Uttaranchal where Gharats are used to generate electricity as well. Walking down is always faster and most of the times its easier, we were racing down until again a different muscle began to hurt or got strained. It was a good day, with a lot of walking, something that we do not generally do in Bombay, the scenic view was admired the most on the way down, because you are not trying to catch your breath.
A group of monkeys scattered off when we were quite close to them, they ran up the mountain with incredible speed, mothers with babies holding onto them, it was a lovely sight, into the wild. A macro shot of moss growing on the bark of a tree. Feeling drained and hungry Ramu took us to one dhaba, run by a Punjabi guy who had married a local woman. She made Aloo Paranthas and tea for us, we had the paranthas with cauliflower pickle, that was absolutely delicious. We went back to our rooms, and just waited for dinner to be prepared. This is the view of the room we stayed for 5 days for Rs 100 per day. The following day we had to drop one of our friends to Kasol since he was flying back to Bombay as he had to return to London soon. So we went to Kasol to drop him and canceled our train tickets to Mumbai, since our tickets never got confirmed. While waiting for the bus to Bhuntar, we saw a funny sight. The chicken walking on top of a sleepy dog, and the dog never woke up either, I guess they shared a good rapport. It was also our last day in Parvati valley, which had been so good to us, we enjoyed our stay here, made some nice friends and spent the last day absorbing this magical valley. Bhavika went out for a walk with the camera, capturing the essence of the place, while a friend and myself chilled with the farmer's two kids who were quite fond of us. Especially the little boy, who was naughty and playful, he even started dancing with me.
The village life is simple and wholesome, and a tough one too. You would see this often, a woman assorting grass and weed to feed her cattle. They loved to photographed and to view their pictures as well. It was difficult to get them still. We sat on top of the bathroom roof, watching the river flow by and in the distance we saw a distillation process, the villagers were brewing their own alcohol. We watched the moon rise and set behind the valley in the shortest time, it was just evening. We had our last dinner with the family who had hosted us, spoke to them for a while. We were tempted to ask Ramu to get us some of the local brew, which he willingly did and also set us a bon fire on a cold night to enjoy the drink. We spent a good amount of time keeping the fire going with all the wood shavings around the place. The fire flames also managed to burn me close to the eye. After an hour or so we crashed only for Bhavika to be dressed up once again before we made our exit from Parvati Valley. Ramu's wife was very excited to dress up Bhavika in her shawl, that she wears on special occasions. This time I was not left behind, as I wore Ramu's cap, to pose like a married couple. We bid goodbye to Ramu and his family, and thanked them for showering us with so much kindness. We walked back to Kasol to start our long journey to the cold desert of Spiti!

Parvati Valley, Setting our Minds Free

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:50:00 +0000

When you have a stunning view like this every morning when you open your eyes, who would feel like going back to the concrete jungles of Mumbai?

Well, we were destined to spend time in the lap of nature, because the train tickets we had booked prior to leaving for Parvati never got confirmed.

Woohoo, the voice in my head went, when a friend of ours checked the ticket status online. In the end it turned out that all of us were happy to spend more time in Himachal.

Walking on Green Pastures

The local guy, Ramu, whose rooms we were staying in, took us for a walk around the village. Early morning it was good to stretch our muscles as we got a glimpse of the rustic landscape - the fields, houses, orchards and everything around.

The wooden houses had a striking resemblance to the houses of Manali, the structure and the way it was built. Its partially made on stilts, small windows and doors and the lower section is generally meant for their cattle.
The pretty purple flowers we saw on the way and the insect caught on camera, which I realised only on seeing the picture on the laptop. Ramu showed us his apple orchards, unfortunately this year he said the produce hasn't been too good due to the lack of rain. Generally by this time of the year the apples are fully grown, alas, climate change is slowly altering things in the Himalayas. Himachal Pradesh, known as the 'apple state' of the country supplies nearly 30% of the total apple produce. But this year the production of apples is likely to drop by nearly 50%. We were disheartened, the village depends on fruits and vegetables to make a living, but if that falls, wonder how they would survive? Moving on to greener pastures, colorful flowers of different varieties were growing around his fields, with bees hovering above them. It is sights like this that make us wonder, what are we doing in Mumbai, when there is so much to absorb and learn from.
He also showed us fields of rajma, garlic and wheat. It was easy to walk around as the farmers start to work only by late afternoon, nobody works in the morning here. This is called life, they are living it, we yearn for it. So the visual treat was soon followed by treat for the taste buds, as Ramu's wife had cooked Aloo Paranthas for breakfast to be eaten with home made ghee. Believe me when I say, I have never tasted such delicious ghee before, even if you are calorie conscious you have to try it out. Kasol, The Hebrew Heaven

We had to go to Kasol to book the air tickets for Clyde's friend, so he bid farewell to Ramu's family and we were on our way. The weather had turned out to be quite pleasant, other wise it gets hot during the day, and the beautiful view around us added to the immense joy! While the three stooges stood in the middle of the bridge to strike a pose. Kasol is synonymous with Israelis, its one of the many villages in Parvati that has more Israelis then any other tourists. They have literally taken hold of the village, which is easy to say when you move around in the streets of Kasol and find numerous shops displaying boards in Hebrew.
So we went to a travel agent, booked the ticket and went looking out for a wine shop. If you have read our Manali post, we in awe of the apple and plum flavoured wine. So we bought 2 bottles of Waterfall wine for Rs 220 each. We made a brief stop at the shop next door selling psychedelic t-shirts and wall pieces. Such shops hike up their prices because of the high demand, so we soon walked out and decided to head back to our lodge. On this trip we have always been on the move, constantly traveling somewhere or the other. This time we thought of chilling at one place for few more days. Ramu told us he would take us fishing in the Parvati river after the sun sets. What a brilliant idea it was, I had never been fishing, nor do I eat fish, but still I was excited!

To warm up for the evening adventure, Clyde suggested that we head to the stream, that we passed while going to Manikaran. Find a spot next to the flowing water, drink some wine and play few games of UNO, told you that was our favorite past time on this trip.:) After a bottle of wine comes naturally made toupee for Clyde, don't worry all of us were in this state. The serene surroundings, clear water gushing through the streams and nobody to bother you, I was overwhelmed by the occasion. The Fishin' Expedition

We made it before time to accompany Ramu on his fishing expedition. He had gone to finish off some work, so his wife asked me if I would like to wear her traditional outfit. I couldn't refuse, and I was ready to don the outfit for the second time.:) There you go, I was wrapped up in a shawl neatly pinned up together. The shawl was actually weaved by her and she had a glow in her eyes when she finished dressing me. Totally embracing the culture, I thought of going one step further and pretending to weave yarn on the complex machine. While we waited for Ramu to get back, we just took some pictures around his house. The sweet little girl who we met on the day of arriving, is seen playing with the plants. Some more pretty flowers here growing in his backyard. He returned with supplies for dinner. There was going to be something special for dinner, Ramu's wife explained in her Pahadi Hindi accent, we couldn't wait! The hospitality we received here was heart-warming, they were always so open and straight-forward. I like people from the mountains!

Soon Ramu's friend and brother came to help him get the fishing net ready, tie few knots and we were set to go. The fish we going to catch is English Trout, majorly found in Himachal. Ramu goes often to fish, but last couple of days he was tad unlucky, so lets find out if we can change his luck.

We began our walk towards the river, and came across farmers working in their fields. As mentioned earlier, they only start by late afternoon. Here a local woman was digging out garlic, harvested and ready to eat! There is enough light at least till 7.30 pm to walk around without a torch, so the only problem we faced was to keep up with Ramu and his friend, who were racing ahead full speed. They are so use to the terrain, unlike us who lead an inactive urban life. Ramu carried the net, while his friend did the strenuous work of throwing it in the gushing water. The net had weights attached to it at various spots, which it made it really heavy, almost 3-4 kgs. This thin-looking guy gathered all the ends, tied one end around his wrist and flung the net with full force in the water.

He repeated the same step countless times, that left us awestruck in amazement, he sure is a strong fella! He kept trying, throwing the net in water from various spots as we walked ahead on rocks next to the river. We almost reached Manikaran, and just then I saw the happy look on Ramu's face. His friend successfully managed to catch a female English Trout and a another small one. The thin boy's effort had finally paid off, as all of them got super excited with the prospect of eating fresh Trout for dinner, to be prepared by Ramu himself.:) He pushed his thumb through the gills to hold the black and red-spotted trout. We put our torches on to climb the rocks and the slippery path to come back on the route. As soon as we reached, Ramu got to work instantly. His wife doesn't eat or cook non-veg so Ramu did the cleaning, cutting, and cooking.:) They shared a good rapport in the sense that both of them divided the house work and performed the daily chores together. I was really happy to see that, because in some of the villages in Himachal only women do the work while men sit and relax!

The bigger fish had roe as well, and that made Clyde, in particular, very happy. He loves Fish roe, nay, who am I kidding, he just loves to eat. Ramu cooked the trout in turmeric, salt and a variety of other powdered spices, making it sligtly yellow in colour. He then deep fried it for while, until it was ready to eat. I was hoping in the meantime that my food is tasty as well.:)
The trout turned out to be delicious, the fins had turned crispy like masala chips, the flesh was tender and according to Clyde it was the freshest fish he has ever eaten. It was only prepared using simple, home spices, no exotic ingredients but yet mouth-watering. That's the beauty about such places, it lies in its simplicity! For me Ramu's wife had cooked huge Momos stuffed with chutney made from some plants. It was delicious, and to dip it in the sweet-tasting ghee, simply made my day! One was enough to fill my stomach, then we watched some TV and played with his kids. The next day we planned on going for a trek to another village around the place, and Ramu agreed to accompany us. We were glad about that, but how will we match up to his speed, is something we pondered over!

The Serene Mountains of Parvati Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Clyde) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:35:00 +0000

Our long stay in Old Manali came to an end as we decided to proceed to Parvati Valley, stay in Kasol perhaps and take a look around. To reach Kasol we had to go from Manali to Bhuntar and then board another bus from Bhuntar to Kasol.

Manali to Kasol, a Bumpy Ride

A scenic bumpy ride in the local buses of Himachal Pradesh awaited us, the cost from Manali to Bhuntar was Rs 45 and from Bhuntar to Kasol was Rs 55. Not too much since the journey was approximately five to six hours long. The bus schedule at Bhuntar, you can go almost any where in Himachal from here.
A school bus passing by on the way to Kasol. We arrived in Kasol to be welcomed to some beats playing at the Indrasan Music festival, excited with the thought of an all night party next to the river we scouted for a room. Nothing seemed to fit our budget as people quoted around Rs 600 at the hotel we first asked and as we walked further away from the market we reached Lucky Dhaba.

Run by a group of Punjabi women, she gave us one room for Rs 300, that was reasonable but it wasn't hygienic. However we wanted a place to crash just for one day as we planned to move further in to Parvati, so we adjusted in a messy room.

We refreshed ourselves with Dal, Chawal, Chapati, Salad, Papad and Subzi (vegetable) for Rs 40, made by the Punjabi women, and later on we spent some time on the terrace absorbing the view of the Parvati river flowing just a few meters away. As evening drew by we went towards the party, we were stunned to know that it was Rs 600 to enter and it would last only till 10 pm, that was just two hours from the current time. We were delayed as Bhavika had left our room keys in and locked us out, but with someone called XNoise playing at the party we didn't regret our late entry.

Paying Rs 600 was definitely not worth it, so we just walked around and jumped in from the river side, thankfully we entered free of cost because the music was terrible. There was no flow, the music did not match my taste and I was dissatisfied, anyway we were happy that we got to go for a free party and went back to our room that was now uninviting with a lot of creepy crawlies on every wall.

Into the Wild

We were eager to get out of Lucky Dhaba, it was our priority for the next day. So we began our backpacking journey, on the way we picked up some supplies to have our breakfast while trekking to the interiors of Parvati. The higher altitude comes with thinner oxygen and since we had our backpacks with us, the frequency of our stops was increasing, although the view itself was something that we needed to ponder about. We walked through the forest with birds chirping, the rivers flow varying as per the terrain, speeding up at times and mellowing down at broader spaces. It was beautiful, the trees delightful, the formations that the barks created as they grew in age were vivid.
We experienced the joy of being one with nature, since the possibility of bumping into someone here was rather slim, except the locals who frequent this route to go back to Kasol for their supplies.

We walked for a good two hours to reach a small village in Parvati, which was suppose to be a stop over for our trek to a village beyond that, as the sky was clearing up and it was beginning to get hot. Luckily for us a woman came running up asking if we were looking for rooms to stay, Yes, we replied and followed her. As we walked towards the house we hoped it would be that gorgeous wooden house with a hammock hanging on the porch of the first level.

To our surprise it was, as compared to Lucky Dhaba this was something different, a refreshing change, the spotless carpet, the well made beds, the colour, the sheets, the wooden planks on the floor and ceiling, a lovely room it was. The cost she said, we would have to wait for her husband to come, and as we anxiously waited we thought we would pay about Rs 300 and not more. But we were shocked when he asked us to pay Rs 100, an awesome price that worked out to Rs 50 a day for each of us in this home-like accommodation.

The village was quiet with around 100 people living in 20 odd houses, which were well spaced out.

All the houses seem to be equipped with a shawl weaving machine and the women spend at least an hour everyday to make the shawl, it seemed to be a complex process to us. The good thing is that it gets the family an additional source of income.

We were told that this village too has a hot water stream like Vashisht, so after resting for a while we decided to go for a stroll to the stream. It was early evening when we set off, the temperature had fallen quite a bit. We passed by a statue of the local deity in the picture decorated with colourful garments. The view as you can see is quite interesting, but the walk itself is good fun.

We had to walk for a good 20-25 minutes before we could reach the hot water spring and prior to that, we ended up going down towards the river assuming that the hot water would be there. But with the help of few locals who were passing by, we managed to find the spot where the hot water emerges.

We got to see some lovely patterns formed on the banks of the river.

Unlike the hot water springs in Vashisht, this one was lukewarm a pleasant temperature to the cold outside, the only problem was that it was merely 6 inches deep so you had to pour the water on yourself. I just sat down in it, splashing some water in myself. Unfortunately it started to drizzle, we could feel the cold drops of rain hit our wet bodies, it was time to run for cover.

As we walked back to the village the weather started to clear up, we reached in time for dinner. Rajma chawal and subzi, it was home-cooked food that was simple yet satisfying and definitely tasty. After eating our fill, we crashed and had a good nights rest. The next day we decided to go to Manikaran, pilgrim place for Hindus and Sikhs, and also known for its hot water springs.

Mellow in Manikaran

On the way we went to a restaurant and tanked up on something known as Shiva Lassi or bhang. The walk to Manikaran is two kms from Kasol, once again this is a beautiful, scenic trek.

With the Bhang beginning to take effect in some time, the colours seemed to get nice and bright, the sound of the river forming tunes in the head and by the time we were in Manikaran it had fully kicked in.

Manikaran was bustling with activity, not just human, but there was steam oozing out from many places in every area, though the streets were wet and quite mucky nearly everyone was walking barefooted. We stopped to refresh ourselves with a chai and Aloo Parantha, I took a walk around capturing glimpses of the place.

There are quite a few temples, some old some modern, but you will actually see the similarities in the old architecture in these places, the temple in the picture is similar to the one at Vashisht. There are temples of Lord Ram, Krishna, and Vishnu in Manikaran.

We were quite disappointed with our visit to Manikaran, it was overcrowded and well not peaceful like the surroundings, so we decided to walk back. But before that we were asked to buy a couple of vegetables for our evening dinner from the market place. The vegetable seller was a friendly man with a well-arranged display of the vegetables.

We noticed that the river gets quite dirty as you approach Manikaran, a lot of their trash is dumped into the river. Its really sad, in fact most places where there are too many tourists coming in like Hemkund Sahib in Uttaranchal as well, the surroundings tend to face an upcoming environmental hazard. Although we passed by a raddi walla who fished out plastic and other recyclables from the river.
The scenic route embraced us as we walked back home.

Back to the house to eat some delicious home food before calling it a night.
We still have so much more to display, it seems never-ending but it just keeps getting better!

Vashisht Hot Springs & Manali's Wheat Fields

noreply@blogger.com (Bhavika) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:40:00 +0000

We woke up to the sound of the drum beats coming from the street and we rushed to the balcony to see what was happening. It was a religious procession with the villagers carrying the local deity on a palkhi, beating drums, holding flags and a long trumpet-like musical instrument, I guess they were heading to Hadimba temple. Another day of drinking and celebrating for them, I assumed.

The Crowded Hot Water Springs of Vashisht

I had not visited natural hot water springs before, neither of us had, so we decided to head to Vashisht, which is known for its natural sulphur springs and is situated 6 kms away from Manali. We had a quick bite at German Bakery and walked all the way to the market place in New Manali to catch a rickshaw to Vashisht. Its a pleasant walk but at the same time the amount of the vehicles constantly moving about can drive you crazy. We weren't in a city but it felt like we were.

These beautiful flowers caught our eye as we were passing a hotel, they were growing in the garden, so we just sneaked in to take some photos. The big roses adorning the lawn with some unusual flowers too.

After some 30 minutes of walking we reached the rickshaw stand. Its best to haggle before settling for a fare with the rickshaw guys, he charged us Rs 80 for the 4 of us, which was a decent deal.

A lovely view of River Beas and the snow-covered mountains greeted us as we took the road going up to Vashisht. The peaks were far away but we got to spent good amount of time on snow in Spiti, photos of that will come in the next few posts. The settlement at Vashisht is at the foot of the mountain, you can feel the buzz as lot of Indian tourists come to visit the temple. The rickshaw dropped us in the parking lot and just few steps away was the temple. We walked through the busy market that had concrete structures on either side of the road. One of our friend who had been to Vashisht 2-3 years ago said that it changed drastically, the green fields and meadows have been replaced by cafes, guest houses, shops etc. A sleepy village has been transformed into a place hustling with activity.

This is the temple outside the main Vashisht temple, with the wooden carvings and the phirang (foreigner) sadhu sitting at the entrance distributing prasad. You will find many such foreign tourists who stay permanently in the mountains or spend long time here, learn about Indian culture, or start their own cafes or lodging facilities.
A local Himachal woman sitting outside the temple with a huge rabbit, she charged Rs 10 to hold the rabbit and take a picture. Everything seems to be big in Himachal, the flowers, monkeys, dogs, who are nice and furry, cattle, etc. That's what fresh air does to you, even the locals are so strong and fit, without any modern gym or health club. The entrance to the main temple of Vashisht, the intricate wooden carvings on the door forms a distinct feature of the temples in Himachal. Various deities have been etched on the wooden surface, that appears to be quite complex. The main temple is dedicated to Vashist Muni, his idol remains unchanged for centuries but the things around continue to change rapidly. Next to it are two separate water tanks for men and women to bathe in natural spring water. The ladies section was empty when I entered so I happily put my leg in the hot water tank. Ooops, the water was too hot to leave my foot in even for a minute. The water is suppose to have curative properties, so I splashed it on my face and hands and I was out. Few of them also dived in the steaming water, wonder how that was possible. Several taps were placed next to the tank for people interested in taking a shower. Apparently for the convenience of visitors modern bathhouses with Turkish-style showers also have been made.
Even outside the temple people can have bath under the hot water tap. You can see the steam oozing out at so many locations.

Opposite to Vashisht temple is the ancient Ram temple, made of stones, where idols of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana have been installed. It was closed when we reached, but on walking around the temple we could see that the front part was just an extension, probably to support the old structure.
This picture gives you a closer look of the stone architecture of Ram temple. It was closed at the time of our visit so we went further up to get away from the concrete walls in order to get a better view of the valley. We walked past lodges and went through houses to find an isolated and peaceful spot.

There were so many pretty flowers on the way, am sure if you have read our previous travel articles you would know that we are fond of floral delights. A bumble bee feeding on nectar from the flowers.
We reached high enough not to spot any houses and that's when we soaked in the beauty around us. Dark clouds began to gather above the mountains and it was soon followed by a shower. We ran for cover, because if we get wet the cold would be unbearable. I didn't even carry my jacket, so we took shelter under a rock, a natural protection from the mountain rain. It was big enough to accommodate all 4 of us, comfortably. It was already 4 pm, so we started our descent and caught a rickshaw straight to Old Manali. We thought of skipping lunch and going for dinner to our favorite restaurant Green Valley View, for an Olive Pizza.

Stroll Through the Wheat Fields, Apple Orchards and More

It was a late start to the day, almost noon when we woke up. A lovely day in the offing, the sun and clouds were playing hide and seek in the skies. Before enjoying the weather, it was time to fill my growling stomach. Besides, in such beautiful weather you just feel like eating all the time.

The guest house we stayed at served delicious food from the next door Simpy restaurant. The food was reasonably priced and well-presented as evident from the picture below. Going from left to right - Fruit Salad with Curd, Potato Egg Salad, Paneer Mutter, Dal Makhani, Chapatties, Mango, Banana and Chocolate Shake. My mouth is watering profusely as I write. Simpy restaurant serve moutn-watering food, so if you visit Old Manali and want to affordable food, then Simpy and Green Valley View are the places to eat.:)

The story of Manali is similar to Vashisht, rather worse, as I have spoken about it in my earlier post. But today we explored a different side of Old Manali, which was always the real side. A short walk from our guest house took us to vast expanse of wheat fields, vegetable farms and apple orchards. There are just handful of guest houses, but on walking further inside, there is nothing but fields.
You are totally cut off from the developed side of Manali, with no one but farmers doing their work. Fields of Green peas were spread far and wide, that was the first time I saw the plant and I love Green peas :). We plucked some of them and started to eat, so sweet and juicy, you can eat them raw.
I was overjoyed with the feeling of being one with nature, with all her beauty as far as I could see. On the periphery of these fields marijuana grows in the wild, it grows everywhere, outside the temple or school, its perhaps what draws some of the local and mostly foriegn tourists to Manali.
There are small narrow paths between fields, so its easy to walk through them, you can find a spot to relax in the afternoon under an apple tree. What a life would this be, if you are harrowed or sad come to the fields or the apple orchards and absorb the positive energy around you. It felt so good walking through the green patch. There were couple of houses on the way, and this cute boy had just woken up from his sleep, you can see the dazed look on his face. While this little girl came chasing me asking for money, then I gave her a Rs 10 note and clicked this photo. We reached a spot where the view was fabulous, we had a view of the entire place with the mountain range at the end.

Flying high in the blue skies,
over the forests and snow-capped mountains,
that's where my heart lies! ~ Bhavika Jhaveri

I am not too good at rhyming words, but at that moment I wished I could fly!
This cute dog sure was lucky to be staying here. Many houses in Himachal had a dog to protect the house and their fields, but robbery is not at all rampant here, so I guess they just love dogs.
The path was running parallel to the Club House road, so we looked down on the road and said how lucky we were to find this route instead of walking among annoying cars. In the distance a hot air balloon is getting ready to take off! We walked on the path parallel to the road and then reached the other side of Beas river facing Vashisht, wandering in the mountains, didn't know where the path was leading, it was great fun! The view kept getting better with every step we took. We waited for some time enjoying the scenery. The sun was setting and it was time to reach the guest house before dark. We slowly started the walk back, looking at the mountains and the reflection of the sun rays on the snow-capped peaks. We got back on the path to walk through the golden wheat fields, which were gleaming under the setting sun. We lost our way as well for a while, but were right back in no time. On reaching the guest house we ordered for some simple Indian food from Simpy's, played UNO, a favorite past time on this trip and went off to sleep. The next day the plan was to catch a bus to Kasol in Parvati valley.

Last Day in Manali

We had to postpone our plan to Kasol by a day since one of our friends was unwell and unable to travel. One more day to roam around in the fields of Manali for us.:) While he rested we thought of going to Naggar, a small town around 15 kms away from Manali, but the cost of a rickshaw ride was working out to be too expensive for 3 people. So we cancelled the plan and started to walk towards Old Manali village.

We see this really funny sight of group of Indians clicking photographs with a foreigner, I think she either owned one of the souvenir shops or was a tourist. Each one would go up to her, give her a hug and pose for a picture, it was hilarious. Some of them also started to clap while the photo was being taken. A brown bird hopping close to the bridge that separates New and Old Manali.
With nothing to do we went to German bakery, bought bread rolls and Yak cheese, went straight to the fields and made ourselves sandwiches. It was different in taste, less salty and went perfectly well with bread and butter. You have to try it the next time you come to Himachal.
The last day in Manali was just spent lazing around, doing some shopping and chilling in the room. We had spent way too much time in Old Manali, Prakash at the guest house was sad that we were leaving. We on the other hand were extremly happy to be making some progress with our travel plans.