The Wobble

Finally finally I can boast about seeing some mountains, not just any mountain range either – the biggest ones in the world. Well the start of them anyways. About 5 hours into our trip we got our first glance of the mountains so far up in the sky you would nearly miss them. We had started late from amritsar so the light was fading fast so the further the road wound up the and around the terrifying bends dodging our view was being diminished. The driver we had was a complete lunatic aswell, one thing the indians do manufacture well is Car or Truck horns. This madman had his obviously pumped up to the last, we were sitting up near the front so anytime we came to a bend which was about every 10 seconds, he would let rip with the horn. I swear my ears are still ringing one week later.

By the time we arrived in Mcleod Ganj it was a long time dark, myself and Robert (from bray) decided that food was a bigger priority than a place to stay so we left the touts at the bus stand and tucked into some quality Tibetan cuisine. They love their dumplings (momos) and their noodle soups (thukpa). The town was busy, mcleod is the residence of the Dali Lama who escaped tibet fearing a chinese assasination attempt back in the 50s, he and this entourage had to trek for months over the himalayas before finally finding asylum in india at the former british hillstation of mcleod ganj. At the start of each tibetan new year (feb 8th onwards) he gives a series of lectures or teachings to devout buddhists. People have come from all over the world to attend these lectures which go on until the first week of march – it was a pure coincidence that I happened to arrive here at the same time which is pretty cool but on the flip side it made finding accomodation a pain in the hole and very expensive.

We did find a place for the first night called the Pink house, it was meant to be 800 rupees but we bargained it down to 300. And that was a bargain. The room was lovely, balcony with a breathtaking view of the mountains, even at night the snowcaps were luminated by full moon. We could only stay there one night but the owner sorted us out with a much less impressive but doable. It was to be my home for the next week.

Robert had to leave the next day so we took it upon ourselves to go on a bit of an impromtu trek up the nearest hill. He had planned on going to nepal for some trekking there but there is a serious fuel crisis there that is closing down hotels and making transport almost impossible there at the moment, so he was eager to get some in here incase he had to alter his plans and go to thailand a little earlier than planned. So after consulting with some dude who was building a new hotel in a nearby village we settled on a trek that would take us about 3 hours – just long enough before it gets to beer o’clock. I enjoyed the walk, it took us up through 2 local villages, we encountered a large group of colourfully dressed women celebrating a recent wedding – we even got to see some snow which robert wanted a picture of as proof to his mates back in bray that he did go trekking, the picture of him standing there in jeans, runners and a hoody with a can of 7-up in his hand standing up to his ankles in snow won’t make any lonely planet trekking guides any time soon though. We made our way back to the town and took into some seriously tasty food and beers. We got some take out and back to the house where we chatted for a good while before hitting the sack.

The following day robert buggered off – I didn’t do a whole lot other than watch some soccer on the tv and catch up on some news back home. I did meet Astrid from south africa who was staying in the same hotel, we agreed to go for dinner the following night. Dinner was off the thai variety, we managed to find a place that was just opened 3 days and so was suffering from some teething problems, service was a little slack and they had no beer to go with the food. The spring roll was lovely but the phad thai was pretty average. We decided to go elsewhere for some desert (drink for me).

Up the road we could hear a bit of commotion, like the curious cat that I am I walked into this darkish hallway, up some steps and right into the middle of an open mike jam session night. The guys were playing a james brown tune, playing it pretty well I thought aswell. We got some drinks and sat down, twas good fun even though some of the singers were fooking awful, twas like the early episodes of american idol (not that I watch that kind of thing!!). I got talking to the tibetan dude who was sitting beside me, his name was dorjee. Seriously nice fella he spoke of how he had escaped chinese troops to cross the border with his younger brother back in 1998, he was 15. He came to mcleod ganj where his mother sold food on the street to make a living. We were chatting away for a good while when the topic of trekking came up, he offered to take me on a full days trek and I would just pay him what I thought I felt it was worth at the end of it. This was some change from the guys who wanted 1000 rupees for just a few hours walking. While we were talking I hear this voice shout ‘Are you from Ireland?’ (pure dub drawl), I looked up and there stood 2 more irish people, brother and sister – Chris and Oonagh. They were in town for a week or so and were mad eager to get in some trekking as they have plans to trek to everest base camp in a couple of weeks. So before I knew it we had a team of 5 to go trekking up to the mountains.

We met up again tuesday morning at 7.30. After some tasty breakfast we took to the road/path. The girls got on seriously well, probably too well because with the amount of talking they were doing it made them trek incredibly slowly. I didn’t mind too much as I had all day but dorjee was anxious for us to get up to the summit as soon as possible. The trek though was amazing, the scenery is just something else. There was one place to stop along the way where we could get some tea and snacks to eat. Past the tea shop the trek became tougher with snow becoming a more common feature. Eventually it got to a stage where the path was completely covered in snow, at this stage the girls had to turn back as astrid needed to get a bus to dehli at 5.30. The rest of us persevered on up. One particular stretch was really tough, I led the way up but slipped down taking dorjee completely out of it before sliding down between chris’ legs before catching some grip of his ankles. Twas a close one!! We made it to the top eventually. I looked it up afterwards – Triund is 2975 metres high. I don’t see any point trying to describe the scene up there, it really has to be witnessed first hand. The sun was strong and I got pretty sunburnt – it was really peculiar to be surrounded by so much snow yet be in a t-shirt with the sweat hopping off me. At one stage we heard this distant thunderous noise – we asked dorjee what it was and he didn’t know. So we looked over the vast mountain range to see if we could see its source – it took us some time but we eventually saw it. Avalanche!!! Tis a good job it was the other side of the valley, we saw 5 of them. Dorjee had never seen any before in his life.

The trek down took about 3 hours, we got back to the village at 6.30 where we devoured some lovely food, washed down with a few beers. I arranged to meet up with dorjee again the next day to do another trek. He insisted that I didn’t pay him any money that he just wanted to show me around the area a wee bit more. So the next day we headed to a nearby lake then further onto a school which had an unobstructed view of several snowcapped mountains. Along the way we came across a football pitch with several kids kicking a ball about. Tis 3 months since I was in goa and played ball with that german dude and the chap from nepal – so I was itching for a game so I organised the lads into two teams, jumpers for goalposts style we had a game of football – we were joined after a while by a pair of italian brothers massimo and marco, twas bloody brilliant fun. We ended up losing the game by a goal. The skill of some of the younger lads was unreal.

That pretty much brings me up to yesterday – again dorjee was eager to show me some museums and temples dedicated to tibetan culture. Their style is alot different from hinduism temples, much like the people themselves, the tibetans are much quieter people, they are humble, they respect a persons space – its kinda funny that it is india where they have settled. I suppose proximity was the biggest factor, I can’t help but think that in allowing the tibetan people to take refuge here was an act not only founded in kindness but also it was an opportunity not to be passed up to piss off the chinese.

Chris and Oonagh left town for amritsar this morning – I will move on myself in the next couple of days. Mcleod Ganj is a really enjoyable place to pass a week or maybe more. I still haven’t decided on my next port of call. I will have to some nice cafe now, grab a cup of tea then think about where I should head for next…

here is a link to some more north indian pictures.

So finally I left for amritsar – delhi was great fun, alot better than what I had expected. Alot of people either hate mumbai or dehli, alot of the time they don’t like the first city which they visit but have become accustomed to india in between and can therefore cope with the touts, the rickshaw drivers, the food…. they cope better with india I suppose. I took the 6 o’clock train from New Dehli train station to Amritsar which is in the state of Punjab, a state where most of the dishes you see in your local indian have originated from. It is also famous for the Golden temple which is the focal point for the sikh religion. One last piece of general knowledge is that punjab straddles the border between pakistan and india – the city of lahore which is in the news alot these days is just across the border, my train actually runs all the way across to that city – a service that is very recent and a sign that relations between the two countries while still quite hostile, has improved over the last couple of years. I even went as far as the border for a look, but more about that little excursion later.

Back to the Train – I alluded previously to the poverty that exists and the sickening industry that drives and profits from peoples misery. Never was it more encapsulated than on this trip up north. Somewhere along the way a group of people boarded the train with their master – their mission was to clean as much money from the passengers either by shame, entertainment or by exploiting peoples good nature. Luckily for me I had a seat away from the aisle so I could keep myself safely out of the way. One by one they came along – People with some awful mutilations – missing arms, legs, eyes. One poor girl had no chin – she tugged at peoples sleeves grunting her begs for money. There were some small kids no more than 4 years old doing tricks and stunts no doubt causing distration while one of their mates reaped the goods in someones pockets. Then there were the ‘uniqs’, who are boys/men who have been castrated as children and go around dressed in saris (traditional indian female dress) causing a major fuss basically trying to embarass people into giving them money. You can be sure the ringleader was there aswell keeping an eye on his slaves. It really makes you feel uneasy, I’m sure reading this will make you feel bad, you can imagine what being there felt like!!

The trip was scheduled to take 8 hours, but 10 miles outside amritsar the train broke down and we had to wait 3 hours till someone fixed us back up. I was starving as I was banking on getting a reasonably early lunch in amritsar (I missed breakfast again) – the thought of the good punjabi food was keeping me going. While I sat in the carriage pretty much everyone else disembarked to catch the last of the days sunshine or just out of pure curiosity as to what was going on with the train. Some were so impatient that they called whoever it was to pick them up from where the train had stopped. I sat there with my bags and started to chew on a bar of chocolate to quell my hunger a little bit. The chocolate is something that will always attract the attention of the nearest indian kid, the little lad who was in my vicinity was unique for an indian cub – he was incredibly shy. I offered him a piece of chocolate but he couldn’t muster up the courage to come over and take it off me, so I placed it on a piece of newspaper beside him and pretended to look away. Slowly he inched his fingers in the direction of the chocolate but not paying enough attention he knocked it off the seat and onto the dirty floor. Poor lad was heart broken, twas my last piece of chocolate so its not like I could offer him anymore. Oh well.

When we got in to the town eventually I made my way to a hotel in the old town close to the golden temple. It was getting close to sunset so I wanted to see it set in the golden temple. You need to remove your shoes and have something on your head to enter the temple – the only thing I had at hand was a big rug. I looked like one complete numptie with that rolled up in a ball and stuck on my head, everyone else (including non sikh people) had nice neat little hankies on their heads, I mean like people here stare at you in this country at the best of times, you can imagine the attention I was getting now. People actually pointed, kids laughed but sure I suppose it gave them a little bit of entertainment. Enough about what I looked like, its the temple itself that takes all the attention. It is fabulous. Surrounded by a lake which inturn is surrounded by a large white fortlike structure the Temple sits right in the middle and is as the name suggests made out of Gold. Seeing it at this time of the day is really recommended. I sat by the side of the lake admiring its beauty until I could no longer fight off the pangs of hunger and off I went to try and find the towns best thali.

I didn’t find the best thali – quite possibly the best in all of india – until the following afternoon. After staying up to watch liverpool kick inters ass in the champions league I wanted a really long sleep in – but this country conspires against all well laid plans. 4 times the considerate bastards rang me up to see if I was okay, if I wanted tea the last one was one pleading with me to go outside as the sun was shining at it was a beautiful day. I just wanted sleep but its impossible to be mad when people are being that annoyingly nice!! I got up eventually and booked a taxi to take me on a trip that evening. The taxi was due to leave at 3 so that gave me enough time to go an search for this legendary thali. I found it after about 20 minutes and ordered the special thali. It was savage, looking at it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was almost afraid to eat it it looked so good. The star of the show was the bread that came with it which was called parantha. It was a layered bread so you had to peel it off bit by bit then dunk it in the lovely currys before lopping the lot into your mouth. I had to be rolled out of the place!!

So back to the trip I booked – all the way to Atari which is a town west of Amritsar right on the border with pakistan. It is the only point where you can cross into pakistan via land from india – I know what you are thinking!! Pakistan, Elections, Explosions – what the hell is he at? Now don’t worry – I wasn’t going over there to check how the elections are going – the lack of a passport being the main deterrent. My Quest was to witness the most bizaare ceremony I have ever come across in my life. Everyday at sunset the pakistani and indian army before a crowd of thousands have what is effectively a dance off. This might seem like ‘phil talking stuff up’, but it totally isn’t. I have video evidence. Both sides try to outdo each other with quick duck marches, throwig their legs up in farcical monty python fashion. On the other side the pakistanis who look alot cooler ad more dangerous in their uiforms don’t let their side down either. Its fantastic theatre and if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods do check it out. You end up walking away scratching your head wondering about what you have just witnessed with a small part of you wishing they did something similar on the road from butlersbridge to eniskillen!!

I decided to leave amritsar the following morning – met another irish dude (we are a rare enough breed out here) in the taxi the previous evening and he was headed up the mountains the following morning so I decided seeing as the prices in the hotels were dear that I would head on another bit. It can be easier to negotiate your way in india when you have someone else there to mind your bags when you go to the bathroom or go to see when your bus is leaving from etc etc. Before I left I took a little trip to see this little court yard in the middle of the old town in amritsar which was the scene of an awful atrocity commited by the british soldiers way back in the day when they opened fire on a group of peaceful protestors killing many hundreds. This bloody event has appeared in both RIchard Attenboroughs ‘Gandhi’ and Salman Rushdies ‘Midnights Children’ so it was a must see thing in amritsar for me. On one level it gives you some sort of connection between Ireland and India – this event bears more than a little resemblance to the first bloody sunday. India has also suffered from religious partition but on a scale so much bigger than at home. Hundreds of thousands of people have died for the flags or gods of either pakistan, bangladesh or india – food for thought.

I left for dharmshala up in the mountains proper after my visit to the park. I will look back fondly at my short visit to amritsar, its definitely a city I will come back to, for the golden temple alone you could spend days just staring at it. It will also act as a good break on the way from Dehli to Kashmir when I make that trip. I will wait until the situation up there has settled down somewhat.

Onwards and Upwards…

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