The Wobble

I woke up in Manikaran to some perfectly blue skies. All off a sudden I questioned my desire to leave the town, I felt myself wanting to know what was beyond where I turned back the previous day. But despite this pang and the protestations of the hotel clerk who put on an oscar worthy performance when he heard that I was going to leave a day earlier than I had informed them when I checked in, I jumped on the first bus out of manikaran. This bus was just going to the town of kullu which was about halfways to manali so I needed another bus from there to complete the journey. All in all it took about 4 hours, a relative blink of an eye.

The first two hours were complete torture though. I decided to take the front seat up beside the driver as the view was unimpeded and there was plenty of room for my two bags. What I didn’t count on though was the position of the speaker which was directly above my head. For two full hours really bad hindi music blasted out of this noise box, for two hours I plotted a way to sever the wire that connected the antiquated cassette deck to the offending speaker. But it wasn’t to be, I swapped buses in the town of kullu and got on the road at last to manali.

The road up to manali goes through the kullu valley, its pretty wide so it doesn’t have the same impact as the other two valleys I have travelled up. The last few kms leading into the town itself is lined up by either big ugly hotels or bigger uglier signs for hotels that are off the main road. As a first impression for a place it really sucked, though I have to admit from what I have heard of the place I wasn’t that surprised. The bus station is right in the middle of the old town, when I arrived the place was swamped, it was friday after all and the place was full of indian couples around for the weekend. Luckily enough there was a tout at the bus stop who was peddling his last free hotel room, reckoned it was worth at least a look. Managed to bargain him down to half the asking price for a really nice room with hot water and a big tv I could catch the weekends soccer on. Sweeeet out!!

After sorting out the room it was off for some grub and then bed, luckily enough I found a place that served some good pizza to almost, almost banish the memory of the previous nights misadventure. Back to bed and some snooze. Woke up early the next morning and made for the old part of the town, creatively titled ‘Old Manali’. It is such a departure from the new part, traditional black slated rooftops dot the landscape under the inevitable set of snow peaks, the most beautiful ones I have seen so far!! I sat in one cafe and devoured a bowl of muesli while I pondered the climability of the pretty large hill that looked tiny between two of the big peaks. I asked the doode who worked in the cafe if I could climb it and he muttered something not even the enigma war machine could decipher but being a generally optomistic kind of person I reckoned it was a positive response, so off I set. The first mile or so leads up to a fairly well visited temple, after that following the path was a solitary exercise with the exception of some mountain ladies (hardly the most flattering adjective) bringing down rather large bundles of sticks on their back. I figured that they were from the village that the sign back in manali pointed to that was 4 miles out of town. So curious to see what the village was like I went in the direction from where they came.

I met a local along the path who had good english, he was struggling with this big sack – I offeredto help him carry the bag as his load was already full, now its a good job that he didn’t say yes as I didn’t for one second consider the slope, the terrain or the sheer dead weight of the bag. I did give him a hand lifting it ontop of the rest of his load, I’m tellin ya these himalayan men are made of stern stuff. Off he went and I figured I would follow him but after about 20 yards or so he turned and pointed up the hill and said ‘Foreigners go that way’. Hmmmm wasn’t sure what to make of that, obviously my tan and tash needs a bit more work before I am completely assimilated here. I took his order and followed the steep path. After around 5 minutes I found what he was pointing at. The Rasta Cafe – it consisted of about 20 plastic chairs in a small field about 1/4 of an acre. There was also some very basic cooking facilities. I ordered a chai and sat and gasped at the view that this little field had. The little village was perched about 200 yards down from the field, over it you could see the full Kullu Valley over to the other side and up to where it starts with some dazzling mountain peaks. There were countless waterfalls on the other side all contributing to the flow of the Beas river that flows through the valley. I stayed there for the guts of 5 hours reading my book, though the distraction that was the view meant that I didn’t get to read that much…

The following day I was wrecked and went for a walk out another road to a small village, the weather was quite poor so the views weren’t as stellar as before. I had intended to go visit a glacier that day that a few local lads recommended called Rothang but when I inquired at the bus stop as to if I could go up there they simply told me that the weather had turned and it wasn’t possible. I found out later that that same day 15 people lost their lives just out that same road when an avalanche hit their bus. This gave me and the town a massive shock – everywhere closed down as a mark of respect and I thought to myself, tis a good job I didn’t try and find another way to get up there as buses were travelling up.

I stayed in manali another day or two before booking myself a ticket on the bus 17 hour bus to dehli. The bus ride was a mare!!! Didn’t get a wink of sleep, that coupled with the fact that the lad beside me seemed intent in giving me a broken rib with his stray elbow. Never again on a nighttime bus, just ain’t worth it. I arrived into dehli last wednesday morning at 7 and made my way to the embassey where I collected my replacement passport. The muppets in there – one in particular didn’t exactly do me any favours and spoke to me with little more than contempt which was completely unnecessary. The last time I visited he never said there would be a problem getting a full passport, now he produced an 11 month passport saying that because I didn’t have my birth cert he couldn’t issue a full one!! Surely if I couldn’t prove who I was that he shouldn’t have given me a passport at all, even at that I could have easily gotten diarmo to bring over my birth cert when he came to visit me. He was a fckn dick, expected me to bloodywell kiss his feet. Asshole. I will have to go through the same crap again when I get to australia.

Worse was to come, with no sleep I made my way with my flimsy, little better than a photocopy passport to the foreingers regional registration office to get my passport restamped and a visa issued. Now this place is the reason why people get frustrated with india. I had to queue for 4 bloody hours in the sweltering heat, no food, no water. The queue was unbearably slow and their way of processing people was a pure joke. By the time I got to the top of the queue I was told I had to have a letter from my embassey stating that I was missing my passport and pretty much when I arrived into the country. I was teetering on the brink, for the first time in india I raised my voice a little but figured that it wasn’t worthwhile getting thick at an entire country so I jumped in a rickshaw and went back to the embassey to my new best friend where squirmingly I had to ask for the letter which he knew I needed but didn’t bother his hole to tell me. Oooh what would I give to get that lad out in a game of 5-aside, 50-50 tackle…. screw that a 99-1 tackle, he is getting it!!!

Eventually I got my paperwork in order and went into the main square or circle in dehli known as connaught place. I rang the hotel I stayed in before out in the tibetan colony. With all the trouble in tibet this was a little risky but having watched the news things in dehli seemed quiet enough. As I got out of the rickshaw – what I seen really put my own little travails into perspective. All along the walls were pictures of dead monks, their brutal injuries for all to see. There were countless pictures, certainly more than the 9 the chinese have publically stated. In what was a buzzing little piece of tibet in dehli 1 month previous had the air now of a funeral parlour. Every shop was closed, all the stalls empty. All that was on the streets were the clouds of flies attracted my the oppressive heat. I had to knock on the door of the hotel where the cheerful guy from a month ago was ashened faced and looked on the verge of tears. I learnt later that people from the colony were on hunger strike in dehli prison, they wouldn’t even take water. You can picture a prison cell in india being pretty rough, the temperatures got up to almost 40 degrees – imagine no water??

I stayed in the colony to catch some sleep, I watched tv and ventured out as little as possible. I was heartbroken for the tibetan people there, they just looked lost. I left for rikikesh yesterday morning – I will return to dehli, hopefully for the last time on this trip next week to collect my visa. I am going to curtail my trip in india aswell, take it back by at least a month. I have seen all that I want to see bar one or two small things and I am ready for a new country, thailand by the third week of april I reckon….

Adios,

Phil

And so to dehli – big bad dehli if you believe what alot of people say about the place. I was expecting this massively filthy sprawling mess of a city where it would be hassle hassle hassle from the second I stepped off the bus from jaipur to the moment I take my seat on the train to amritsar. It didn’t get off to the best of starts, the place where the bus dumped me was on the polar opposite side of the city that I had expected to be dropped at. Bear in mind that there are 12 million people in this city. I had to exit the bus quickly, luckily I only had one bag to look after and even I couldn’t lose the big bright red backpack. The first objective when you get to any place is to find a place to stay – I had the added responsibilty this time to find a place that would be acceptable for my brother who was visiting me while I was in dehli. There was one place that seemed to fit the bill and my budget, about 5 kilometres north of Old Dehli is Manju Ka Tilla – a commune set up for tibetan refugees. It claims to be a peaceful escape from the madness of the city so for the week that I will be in dehli I figured it was the perfect fit.

The trouble though was that all the places listed in the guide book were booked out, I must have tried at least 6 or 7 before finding one which had a spare room. Luckily enough it was a twin room, hot water and a tv. All for 300 rupees a night, in other words ‘feck all’. Whether it would live up to diarmuids high expectations time will tell – it does remind me of a conversation we had some weeks ago about him wanting a good hotel and didn’t mind paying 5000 rupees per night for one, I could’ve cut myself a tidy profit there but I am too honest to do such a thing.

I had a couple of days before his arrival – time to check out my passport situation. It was just a case of applying for a new one. After that I just gave myself a few days to arrange our trip to agra to see the taj and spent the rest of the time hanging around the tibetan commune sampling the food (they serve beef and pork here – mad stuff) and trying to haggle with the tibetan stall owners. They couldn’t be more unlike local indians, they refuse to haggle over prices, the price is the price – which is no fun at all. They don’t beg you to look in their shops or even acknowledge you as you walk down the street. Its weird, its almost as if you are at home. I dunno how I am going to cope when I get to a first world country, kinda getting used to the attention.

I met diarmuid in dehli airport friday afternoon. Its completely surreal meeting someone you know so well in such strange surroundings. We jumped in the cab and made our way back to the commune. Luckily enough he didn’t object to the room so we were sorted for the weekend. Now for some sightseeing. We grabbed a rickshaw into the red fort in the middle of the old part of dehli. Its this massive fort with huge thick red walls, it was nice to walk around there for an hour or so and catch up on all the latest goings on back home. After that we took a rather long walk in search of connaught place which I guess you could describe as the grafton street of dehli. To get there though we took a pretty dodgy route, the sun was going down and the street lights weren’t the may west after a brief stop for some food and some consultation with both diarmos fancy new gps phone and the more reliable dude that worked behind the counter in the pharmacy across the road we were on our way. Connaught Place is Massive, because this part of Dehli is just about 50 years old it is all planned out and very tidy, the Place itself is circular and takes about 25 minutes to walk around the circumfurence. We were more interested in sampling the local tipple so we ducked into a bar and selflessly propped it up for the remainder of the night.

We fell out of that place at about 11.30 and jumped into a rickshaw out to manju ka tilla. The rickshaw driver was a complete nutter, he insisted on giving us a disco version of a rickshaw by pumping up the volume to the last and swerving the vehicle violently to and fro – he even offered us a spin at one stage – I was half tempted if I was honest but before we knew it we were gone again. We made it back in one piece somehow – there waiting for me was a packet of Tayto – oh lord how good was that packet of tayto, it didn’t stand a chance.

Our train the next morning was at 7.00, this required us to be up at 5.45 as the train station was the other side of the city. I was dying, shocking hangover, my only consolation was that diarmo was as bad as me so couldn’t rididule me. We took a taxi to nizamuddin train station and jumped onto the train which took about 3 hours to get to agra. Agra not surprisingly was pretty busy though we didn’t get that much hassle from the touts. We managed to get a dude to bring us around for the day for a pretty good price, it involved us stopping into some shops so he could get some commission which to me is a pain in the hole but diarmo was interested enough to see what was in the shops, tis good for a bit of shopping aswell. Lazy fecker left all the bargaining up to me though.
The driver we got was a decent skin aswell, a muslim whos name sounded like hashish but was something else spoke about how he planned to marry off his daughters in the next year or two. I offered to take one of his hands for nothing but he wouldn’t budge, had something against catholic boys from ireland, not good enough for his little girl! oh well..

After that it was the taj – its an expensive site (relatively) and the queue was a pain in the ass but the Taj – Its just incredible. Its massive, its beautiful at one stage we were sat beside it talking about some random crap – probably about how woeful liverpool are this season – when I had to litterally thump diarmo and say, dude we’re sitting right beside the Taj Mahal. Its hard to get your head around it, its impossible to take it all in. After the taj we took in agra fort which I intended to take in first as I knew the taj would still be in our heads. On its own its still a very attractive sight but it and the taj on the one day makes it a little tough on it. After a beautiful feed we headed back on the train to dehli where an early night was called for and was got!!

The next day we didn’t do much, though I am sure some of you have already seen the footage of my negotiation with this tiny kashmiri shopkeeper. Some of you have even berated me over the amount I was arguing over with him. The thing you have to understand is that it is fun negotiating with the likes of him, I would’ve given him the money if I knew I would be that entertained but as diarmo found out that day once they agree a price they won’t accept anything lower or higher than that price. It becomes a matter of principle to them. We walked around the shops some more and picked up random bits and bobs all the time negotiating the best price. We had a bloody delicious feed in the Chicken Inn (this place is sounding more and more like kilnaleck every bloody day) before going for yet more beers in connaught place.

Diarmo caught his flight just about that night. He made it back to dublin in one piece I have been told. It was great seeing him, in a way it was a kind of a test for me to arrange the weekend and make sure everything went off okay. Its not often that I end up having to look after him in some situations it was always the other way around when I was growing up but because I have spent this little amount of time in india I had a better idea of how to engage the indian lads. It can be intimidating when you are fresh off the plane and you can easily fall into the trap of seeing them as the enemy but I can be so rewarding when you don’t fall into the trap as you can see from the clip below of my haggling session with Ahkmed.

Phil Vs The Fearsome Ahkmed

The following day I took in some parks around dehli, called into the embassey to check up on my passport application before finally buying a ticket out of dehli to go to amritsar and the golden temple… Dehli was great which surprised me no end, I will definitely return…

Later,
Phil