Mcleod Ganj
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.
Tags: Himachael Pradesh, India
Phil Gill
Avalances eh – sounds cool. 3,000 metres is some treking in fairness to ye.