The Wobble

Before heading to the main tourist attraction in Himachel Pradesh I decided to take a little trip up the Parathi valley which is a tributary of sorts than runs off the main Kullu valley. The town that tweaked my interest up there while I went through the guidebook was a town called Manikaran – the site of several natural hot water springs. Figured it was worth a look seeing as I was in the area, twould’ve been fierce rude of me to not drop in and say hello.

To get here from Mandi was a relatively simple and short 4 hour journey that involved just two changes of bus. The trip up the valley was pretty special. It didn’t have the same edge of your seat tension that the trip up the chamba valley trip had – it was the surrounding scenery that really stood out. The river that runs through the valley was big and full of white rapid waters – even over the sound of the cranky old bus you could hear the roaring gush of the water. On either side of the river bank there were pine forests reach up as far and beyond the snow line – past that again there were the domineering mountain peaks. I arrived into Manikaran at about 4 in the afternoon. Its has a really dramatic setting but with mountains on 3 sides of the town it doesn’t get too much sunshine. Add to this the rising steam from all sorts of places it gives the town a murky almost eirie feeling. After booking into a hotel close enough to the bus stop I went looking for some food.

The town is seperated from the main valley road by the parathi river. Its a noisy body of water which can only be crossed at two points via footbridges. As a result there is no motorised traffic in the town. With the exception of one small bazaare the houses are very close to each other, the streets themselves aren’t the best,  you really have to watch your step especially after a shower as there are murky puddles everywhere. It was while I was trying to avoid one of these puddles that I ended up in the place where I had something to eat. I litterally had to step into the little shack of a building to avoid a sock soaking experience. The woman who ran the place was lovely, never seen someone smile so much. Before long there was a feast of samosas and chai in front of me – definitely what the doctor called for. With my belly full I took another little wander around the town, to be honest it didn’t take long as it is tiny. Twasn’t long before I retired for the evening.

I got up early enough the next morning with trekking on my mind. Before I arrived in the town I assumed that the town itself was the end point of the road in the valley, there was another village 14 km further up the valley. I knew this was never going to be done on foot, starting at 2,000 metres the road rose pretty quickly it would be two days walking at least. My plan though was to go up and explore what I could, walk till about 3 in the afternoon then turn and get back before sunset. The first mile or two was fairly flat, running along the roaring river with pine forests on either side it was pretty exhilarating stuff. As the road climbed up I got better and better views down to the valley and the river below and up to the skyline you just had to stop sometimes to try and take in the majestic nature of the snow peaks. It really did leave you breathless. There is loads of opportunity to get off the road and explore some of the steep terraced fields though you have to watch your step, one slip and you are a gonner.

As 3 o’clock approached I came across this group of young people, they were farmers taking a break from a hard slog. They were all gathered around this nice little campfire. Unusually (for india) it was the women who were the first to say hello, they asked me to sit down and then asked me every english question that came into their head. No matter what I replied with I was met with a barage of giggles. I think they thought my voice was a little funny, come to think of it I get that alot. Even the canadian girls in  mcleod ganj kept asking me to say mother – hilarious apparently. Hmmmm. I asked one of the young lads if he would take a few pictures of me with my camera, to kinda prove to you good folks that I am not making all of this stuff up. What followed was a pretty hilarious scene of him thinking that I wanted to just take photos of him rather than him take a photo of me. I eventually managed to get the message across and got some decent enough pictures. When we finished he asked me to go back to his house for some dinner, they all chimed in asking me to go back. I asked them where their house was and they pointed right up the side of the valley – I have to say that I was tempted and really humbled that they would ask me but spots of rain  had started to fall and I was still 2 hours out of manikaran. I declined their offer ruefully and set off back to the village. Tis a good job I left when I did, the weather turned nasty and those mountain roads are not a good place to be especially when they get slippery not to mention the permenant threat of a landslide.

The walk back was miserable, I don’t have any wet gear so I arrived back into the village resembling and oversized drowned rat – though if you have seen some of the rats I have seen here I was almost just a normal sized drowned rat. I dropped my wet clothes into the hotel and set off for something to eat. Now I figured that it was about 2 and a half weeks since I had some western style food, so as a bit of a treat for myself I decided I would splash out and go to the nicest restaurant as per the lonely planet and get myself some proper western grub into me. Now let me put this a little into the context, we are talking about a village that is buried right up in the middle of the himalayas, they do their own stuff well but its hardly michellen star territory, but even taking that into consideration it was no excuse for what was put in front of me. I am seriously considering writing to the UN to set up something equivalent to the war crimes tribunal to deal with the atrocity, the manglement the downright bastardisation of tomatoes and flour they had a cheek to call a pizza. All I wanted was some comfort food!!! I consumed what I could before defeated, desolate I took to the rain drenched broken cobblestoned streets of manikaran on my way home I picked up two fake mars bars, 1 bottle of coke and a small bottle of rum. Shakespeare couldn’t come up with such tragedy!!!

Back in the hotel I decided to make my way up to Manali, back to a civilisation of sorts. My passport has finally arrived at the embassey in Dehli so I will go to get it after a couple of days in manali. 

Happy Paddies day to all, and well done to Sean Gaffney on his stage debut. Looking forward to the dvd kido!! Oh and I have no phone anymore, ask no questions I will tell no lies!!!

later,

Phil

Mandi lies at the mouth of the aforementioned Kullu valley. The valley is probably the most visited site in the state. Reckoned it was a good one to leave till last. More about Kullu later. I had to get up at 5.30 in the morning to grab the bus that went in mandis general direction. I say general direction because there is no direct bus and it is a whopper of a journey. My intention was to travel back to Dharshala and get some food there before completing the rest of the journey with a not so empty stomach. This plan fell apart when I was informed by the bus conductor with a bright pink turban and a big white bandage covering most of the rest of his head, that that idea was stupid ‘hey man, I might be stupid but at least I don’t look it….’ ah who am I kidding. The new plan was to stop in a town called Gaggal (I swear I am not making these names up) and then grab a bus straight to mandi from there. So I patiently sat there and counted down the miles to gaggal and food, I figured we were about 2 miles outside of gaggal when I get the poke in the shoulder to get off the bus, twas as if I was been taken out for a random beating – reckon the turbonator would’ve loved that!! The bus to mandi was directly behind us so the conducter let a roar in hindi to the driver who then stuck his foot on the pedal to get a bit of space between us and our pursuer  – then the conductor jumped out of the bus while it is still in motion and while stuggling to retain his feet below the rest of his body he hailed the bus down for me. I take it all back – though maybe the bastard knew I was starving and thought another 6 hours in a rust bucket with nothing in the belly would be ripe justice for me. Back to bastard status for him.

6 hours later and about 6 stone lighter I arrived in Mandi and wouldn’t you know it, the Shivatri festival was in full flow. This the same festival that was in bharmore – reckon those mountain boys are at least a week out of whack – occupational hazard I guess. The town was swamped, not a hotel room to be had anywhere. None at a reasonable price. I found one after an hour in the main square. It wasn’t the best but it will do for 2 nights. 2 loud loud nights. The square in mandi actually contains a well concealed 2 level shopping centre, to the north of the square a concert was in full swing. Indians don’t do quiet concerts, or even appropriately volumed concerts, they do cheap hotel window rattling concerts. Any thoughts of an early night were well and truelly scuppered. I had the tv in my room at full volume and couldn’t hear what the people were saying. This concert went on till 1.30 in the morning….

I went out for some food, I was starving. There was a lovely punjabi open to the street restaurant not too far away.  They operated a plate system in this restaurant, nothing as fancy as a menu – the waiter muttered a few dishes and I picked the one I could actually decipher. Shahi Paneer – mouth watering. I got 2 portions of the sauce it was that good / I was that hungry.

The next day I took a trip to Rewelsar. Its a town about 30 km south of mandi and the site where the st patrick of tibet got up of his lazy meditating behind and went to spread the good word to the people of tibet. It is therefore a place that is held really close to the hearts of the tibetan people and like mcleod ganj is a little piece of tibet far from home. Home for many of these people is just a word, what the Chinese are doing there is no worse than what Hitler attempted to do to the jewish people in the last century. Its truely despicable and I hope that common sense prevails and allows these people autonomy at least. The main site in the town is a small lake, all around the lake people are either meditating or feeding the enormous number of eager fish in the lake – wait for the pictures. There was also a massive amount of monkeys, very often they would go to the lake side and compete with the fish for the bread crumbs thrown in by the people. Its not a faceoff I counted on seeing on this trip, truely bizaare. Its such an attraction that several women ply a trade purely in selling bread crumbs to visitors. It was a nice place to spend a couple of hours, before heading back to the madness of mandi. I got back feeling ready for the festival action. I spent several hours walking around the stalls, sampling the cuisine and dodging pesky touts. Some people asked me if I came especially for the fair, they seemed a little amused by the fact that I didn’t have a clue it was on. Knackered I returned to bed. Tomorrow its all the way to the Paranthi Valley and the town of Manikuram.

And so to Dalhousie – about a week later than I had planned but surely once you get there thats all that really counts. A quite enthusiastic reception committee welcomed me off the bus – it probably ranks just behind the reception I received in Jaisalmer for sheer frenzied shuffling of feet. About 8 lads with brochures open showing off their rooms at rock bottom prices. It does come as a bit of a shock especially after a fairly substantial bus journey but once you regain your composure it really has to be looked at as a very positiive situation. You have virtually the choice of the accomodation and have a very strong bargaining position. I had a look at what was on offer and went with Hotel Monal. The walk there was tough though, through a pine forest uphill most of the way. While I am not in the worst of shape the backpack on my back certainly made the going harder than normal. Dalhousie being a hill station set up for the british administrators in nearby lahore is a very quiet town perched ontop of 4 hills each over 2000 metres. Altitude!!! Lungs were in bits by the time we rolled up to the hotel…

The price quoted for the room was 200 rupees. The room was worth 10 times that amount, god bless the off season. The balcony alone had the most wonderful view. Perfect for reading a book while warming ones hands with the odd pot of chai. Tired after the journey and the trek up there I ordered some room service and had an early night.

The next day I got up at a reasonable hour and went out to explore. Dalhousie is really nice, really quiet and serene. Two words you would never associate with india. After a lunch with some local folk I explored the region, for 6 hours I walked around the place. On one side of the town you can see the vast expanse of the himalayas while on the other you can see the foothills level off till they eventually hit pakistan and kashmir. As hillstations go you really have to hand it to the brittish planners for picking this place. At one point along the way I was beckoned over to a family having a picnic on their weekend break. They were from the state of punjab and pretty well off it seemed. One of the spent alot of his time globetrotting managing a few restaurants they have set up here there and everywhere. They have one in san francisco, I told them my old man was from there. They liked that fact so paddy joe be sure to drop the name the next time your back in your old stomping ground – might be worth a free naan with your tikka masalla!! They were very nice people, very welcoming and even let me tuck into some of the food which they had ordered.

I did have plans to visit the local wildlife park the following day but a weather front came in from somewhere and covered the place in one massive blanket of cloud. It was impossible to see more than 50 yards. Bit of a bummer, spent the day planning out the rest of my trip. I have a little over two months left in india and I have to decide whether I can dedicate some time to nepal in that time. In order to fit that in I will need to speed things up a little bit. I will give the mountains of Himachel Pradesh another 2 weeks or so then it really is time to move up the gears, grab that ellusive passport and get a little further east. My next destination is Mandi at the mouth of the Kullu valley. 12 hours on a public bus, 6 o’clock start. Can’t wait!!!

I have posted a selection of my photos of the Chamba valley up on Facebook. For those not on facebook you can access them here.

Oh and I finally got my arse in gear and got myself a skype account. So anyone who has one can you look me up and add me on. I might even give you a call sometime 🙂

I’m off to watch liverpool kick inters posterior…. Adios!!!

And so to the chamba valley. Where? Exactly! I didn’t have a scooby doo about the place more than 1 week ago. I needed to get out of mcleod ganj, its not that I didn’t like the place. It was great, too great! If I didn’t scarper when I did I would still be there and could find it hard to leave ever, they don’t check for passports up there hence all the tibetans so I could theoretically have put up shop there, opened my irish bar (still haven’t seen one in india) and be happy out. I read through the guidebook and the most popular place in the state was a place called manali which is meant to be beautiful by all accounts but also overrun by backpackers like myself. I fancied a bit of a challenge so started to look off the beaten track so to speak. So instead of heading east to the kullu valley I headed north to the Chamba Valley, my plan was simple as. I go to the mouth of the valley to a town called Dalhousie and work my way up the valley as far as I could go.

Of course plans are plans and in this country they rarely resemble the eventual outcome. As I sat in some backwater town waiting for the bus to dalhousie I was informed by the one person that had some english that the next bus wasn’t until 4pm. It was currently 10.30. Screw that!! I asked where the bus across the road was going and they told me it was going to Chamba town itself. The guidebook didn’t have a whole load to say about the town other than list a few places to stay, it was halfways up the valley so I decided to give it a lash.

On the bus I witnessed something quite horrific. The way indian buses operate is that they have a bus conductor and a driver. The conductor tells the driver to stop for passengers via one toot of his whistle, two toots indicates that the intended passengers have gotten on the bus safely and the bus takes off. An awful lot of the time the conductor toots twice very early and its up to the person be it a young child, an able bodied man or an old lady to chase the bus and bound their way aboard. This time a man, he looked poor and probably homeless and only partial use of his legs was trying to board the bus. I only know he had this disability as I remember glimpsing out the side as the bus slowed down to pick him up. Sure enough he was only half on board when his hands lost grip and he fell out the door. The noise that emanated from his contact with the wheel of the bus was sickening. I was sickened not only by that but the apparent apathy shown by the people who saw what happened. Not one person called for the bus to stop as the poor creature lay strewn on the roadside. I instinctively let a roar to ‘stop the fckn bus’. It took ages for me to get someone to call for help, I couldn’t alight myself as all my luggage was stored aboard and I knew right well that if I did the driver would just take off. I don’t know if that man is still alive, i’d be sure to say that best case scenario is that both his legs are badly broken. Shocking stuff. I didn’t feel right for hours later.

Somewhere along the way to chamba I saw the another bad sight. A truck and a car meeting head on on the windy mountain roads. The car not standing a chance was sent tumbling into the ravine, it didn’t fall far and it looked like the people inside might have escaped. I read the local papers for the next couple of days to see if there was any report of people dying in the chamba district but nothing was reported. In a country where 70,000 people die annually on the roads that is hardly a surprise.

Apart from those two incidents Chamba has been amazing. Chamba town itself is a lovely little town, perched above the ravi river you have wonderful views to the east of some unnamed snowcapped mountains. My second evening there was dominated by a massive thunderstorm, it was bloody scary and spectacular. Whatever it is about the mountains they attract lots of them. Chamba, in a funny kind of way it reminded me of home and cavan in particular. Somewhere which is beautiful but for one reason or another stays off the tourist trail. I guess that makes places like this that much more attractive to the likes of myself who grows weary quickly off tourist centres. My hotel was lovely and cheap, the town itself shuts down at 8 so unlikely to fall asleep at such an hour the tv in the room was a welcome addition.

The next port of call was a town called Bhalmore, which could easily be an irish town name. Its 50 km from chamba but the bus took 6.5 hours to travel that far. Deep deep into the chamba valley we went. The scenery was stunning, I will post pictures as soon as I can. The road was notorious for landslides, given the steepness of the slopes its no surprise. The top of the valley on both sides was snowcapped while at several junctures you could be up to a mile above the ravi river below. Makes you kinda glad that you have packed extra clean underwear. One of the landslides required us to get off our bus and climb over the debris, and across a wooden bridge (strong wood indie, strong wooooooooo) to a bus that eventually arrived to take us the rest of the way up the valley. The trip was to take just 2 hours, so it was well into the night by the time I got there. The place looked bleak, the streets were dirty and many places were still closed down for the winter. Everybody stared, I found out later that they get about 1 foreigner a week up here and thats at peak season. I eventually found a place. It was cheap but easily amongst the worst of places where I have layed my head for a much needed kip. I had 4 blankets on me and I still woke up several times shivering. No wonder really, the streets still had snow on them and I was after all at 2,500 metres above sea level.

I got up early the next day and went for a wander, it takes about 0.0000001 seconds to realise why people come here. It is stunning, my gawd the views, the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the forest. It was amazing, like something you would expect to see in a heidi film, Heidis revenge I think is the one I am thinking off. I thought to myself yes this is a nice place to spend some time, to read my book etc etc. I took a short walk up the town, the streets were pretty mucky it has to be said but everyone there was so friendly. Even the women, shouted from their houses, often the rooftop with namaste (hello) to the salmon skinned boy in their midst. Above the town is a place called chausari which litterally translates as 84. 84 hindu temples dedicated to Shiva (one of their gods), and guess what today was??? Shivatri – Shiva Day, nationwide. People from all around had the day off and so converged into chausri. I of course was a massive attraction – every man and his dog came over and welcomed me to the place. The police Sargeant came over and asked me my name, country and wished me a pleasant stay. Offered me any assistance I needed etc etc – You wouldn’t get that in kilnaleck. I wandered around some more having plenty of fun with my camera and took the time to take in the scenery for hours on end, I planned the next 3 weeks or so (which I hope at some point I can get my hands on a passport of some description, at this rate I will need to take up my right to an american one – will have to work on the accent first me thinks). I cannot count the number of people that I had a chat with, each of them offered me a place to stay when I complained that my hotel was cold. Twas funny as I sat on the square you could see people lining up, taking their turn to talk to me. Twas as if I was in a doctors surgery. They all pleaded with me to join them that night at the festival party. I reckoned sure whats the harm.

After some time reading my book and getting something to eat I headed back on up to the square with the 84 temples (funny thing is, its not that big at all – the size of a soccer pitch i.e. the temples are pretty small). What I witnessed was just plain bizarre. About 6 or 7 of the temples had fires in them, controlled camp like fires it has to be said. Inside each of them sat dozens of men and women, kids as young as ten – all of them stoned. Apparently Shiva himself liked a bit of the local produce himself and so in his honor they had this ritual get baked ceremony once a year. I guess whats the difference between us christians drinking wine at mass and them consuming what they had. I didn’t spend long here, twas kinda like walking around in a Romero movie. Bhamore is an amazing little town, if any of you ever find yourself in himachel pradesh I urge you to make the effort to go there, the people are crazy but so friendly. The ride there alone is an attraction. I left there this morning and encountered a few more landslides. I am back in more civilized terrain in dalhousie, the town i left for on monday. It has been quite a trip here so far in the chamba valley…. More to come

I ended up staying a little longer than I planned in mcleod – between one thing and another I think it was just my body telling me to take it easy for a while, recharge the batteries, eat lots of western food and have a few beers – some things which have been missing since I have come here. When you travel around the backwaters of india your diet changes somewhat as a consequence. Alot of the times you are left with no alternative but to eat the parantha and curry for breakfast. This does hav accumulative affect of stuffing your system up so ironically enough I end up suffering more from constipation than any kind of diahorrea or dehli belly as people like to call it. Stocking up on lots of fibre is a sure way of fixing that problem.

Speaking of irony get a load of this. There are two streets in mcleod, one of which leads down to the dali lamas temple and so was thronged twice a day with people going to and fro from his teachings. The crowd tended to be about 80% tibetan with westerners making up the rest of the crowd, so when you stay there for more than a few days you begin to see the same faces. One such face stood out as I sat down to drink some lovely assam tea in the artists gallery cafe close to the temple. She was a moderately pretty girl, she came to my attention while she tried to explain in her north american twang the virtues of a cafe latte with an elderly buddhist monk. Over the course of the week I saw her time and time again. Always tried to give her a smile or an acknowledging nod or whatever but she was pretty cold so I stopped, figured that her head was stuck someway up her posterior. On my second last night in mcleod I had a few beers with some canadian girls I had met through oonagh and chris, we were there listening to a bloody terrible live band when one of them cheaped up that she had seen alanis morrisette earlier that day (followed by the enevitable catty comment about how she has let herself go (now when I say inevitable I dont  mean that that is a typically female thing to say (ah who am I trying to kid, of course its a typically female thing to say 😉 )). Bang thats who the girl was all week, twas no wonder she never said hello back. She must have thought I was some stalker weirdo with a nervous twitch or something. Twould’ve been fierce embarrasing if I had’ve tried to strike up a conversation with the girl…..

The rest of the week was spent going to all the various tibetan government buildings, temples, hospitals etc etc to behonest I didn’t do too much. I finally left the place last monday to head for the chamba valley…. More on that soon

p.s. appologies for the lack of posts etc etc I am currently borrowing a persons laptop and mobile to post this so cannot stay long. Chamba though is jaw droppingly beautiful and I have had an eyeopening couple of days worthy of a report. Tis so hard to pick what to put in, but sure – tis a hard life this one….

all the best,

Phil

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…

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