Backpacking on the Hindustan Tibet road

Backpacking on the Hindustan Tibet road

Delhi to Leh, via Lahul – Spiti - Manali



It was late evening, and the top part of the sky was a deep azure blue, as the night threatened to take over the sky. In the lower part of the sky, there was a clear and well defined band of red of orange, where the day was still fighting a rear guard action against the night. At the left part of my view, there was a single dark cloud – very dark and ominous, with lightning flashes coming out every few seconds. The whole sky was clear except for that ominous and powerful black cloud. And in the dark azure blue part of the sky, a single star shone out brightly. It was Venus, the evening star – and it was bright and distinct and shone in solitary splendor- there was no other star in the sky at all.



The three elements in the sky – the deep azure blue sky and the red/orange band; the dark thundering cloud spitting out lightning bolts; and the lone bright unwinking star – affected me profoundly. It was as if I was getting a glimpse of the holy trinity – Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. I can’t even begin to describe what I felt. I watched that sight all the way to Delhi.

I was to meet the queen of backpacking there – the great Bharathi. A diminutive chatterbox of a girl, we had met while trekking in the Nepal Himalayas, en route to the Everest Base Camp. We had hit it off, and had kept it touch after the trek. She was then living in Hyderabad, while I was in Mumbai. She had planned out a trip from Delhi to Leh, via the amazingly romantic Lahul – Spiti valley route, which used to be known as the old Hindustan Tibet road, and I was obediently tagging along – a sign of things to come.



Bharathi was supposed to fly down from Hyderabad to Delhi, and the airport was our rendezvous point. Her plane was due in a few minutes after mine, and so I rushed to get a prepaid taxi to the railway station, as she had warned me that we were on a tight schedule to catch the train to Kalka. But, sure enough, Murphy took a hand, and her plane was delayed by more than forty five minutes. Finally she came out, a tiny dark figure, with a backpack as big as her.

“Kya yaar! This stupid flight has screwed all out schedules.” I greeted her.

“Well, let’s rush to the station anyway. We will catch another train to Kalka. We need to reach Kalka in time to catch our connecting train. Or we might need to hire a car.”



We rushed out and took the taxi, who must have been mystified at having to wait for so long while all the others had gone off with their passengers.



“Well, we might still get the train if its delayed.” I said, trying to cheer her up.

“No yaar. Not a chance. The Kalka passenger is never late, because it has to be in time for the Kalka Shimla Shivalik Deluxe.” She replied.



The taxiwalla sped away in response to our urgency, and then did a thing unheard of in Delhi – he actually stopped at a traffic light! The whole of Delhi traffic gasped in surprise at the sight of a taxi actually following traffic rules, and we were nearly rear ended by a cab behind us. As the light turned green, our guy put the car in gear and zoomed off like Ayrton Senna, and nearly shared his fate as another idiot overtook us from the left and took a screaming right, right across our path! It was only by jamming desperately on the brakes that we avoided a crash. Saying unprintable things and thinking unprintable thoughts, we finally reached the station half an hour after the scheduled departure of the train.



And hope wins!



“Its still there!” She screamed, as we entered the station, “Its still there!” she turned around and hugged me and ran over the over bridge, while I tottered after her, huffing and puffing under my own weight and the weight of my backpack. We raced over to the train, fearing that she might play the tease, and steam away right in sight of us. But no such thing occurred, she waited for us to get in – indeed she waited for a couple of hours after that too, just to make sure.



“See how great we are.” Bharathi said to me smugly. “Even the Indian railways wait for us.”



Love in Simla…or Love till Simla



We rolled into Kalka station the next morning, and the Shivalik Deluxe was standing there waiting for us. She was steaming and whistling impatiently, and we ran for it, not even stopping for a kullad of chai.



And what a cute train she was! The Shivalik deluxe was no doubt the cutest train I had ever ridden in. It was a tiny little metre gauge hill train, and it is a Rajdhani. That means that they have reengineered all the compartments, and made them like a European train. Huge picture windows, plush lean back seats- you could even flip them around to have the seat facing forward or backward and over all very clean and neat. It was absolutely fascinating. And as it is a Rajdhani, they pamper you with food and drink every few minutes. I have traveled with the Indian railways across a large part of India, but was no doubt the most pleasant experience.



Soon we steamed out, and there was something new to appreciate. The train ride, track and scenery! The Kalka-Simla route is one of the crowning achievements of the British railway engineers. It was urgently required in those days, because the entire durbar used to shift to Simla in the summers, to escape the scorching heat of the plains, and the train was the most simple and practical way to get people and goods there.

For this, the engineers had to design a railway track across the notoriously steep and notoriously fragile Himalayan foothills. And the way they achieved this was a pleasure to behold. It was a fascinating track, looping and twisting to cross the hills. Where they felt that the hill was too high to get over, they bored a tunnel. I believe that there were 103 tunnels in the route, and this was where the term of ‘one kiss tunnel’ was born. Unfortunately in the plush deep seats of the well lighted Rajdhani, no such thing is possible. Though the railway provides a curtained alcove (a sort of coupe without a door, only a curtain) for couples with such thoughts in mind, as this track is very big on the honeymoon circuit. And indeed there were a lot of honeymooners on the train – happy looking couples, though still a little awkward with each other, and looking really grand in their bright new clothes, jewellery and mehendi. Both of us, in much used and dull backpacker togs, looked really dowdy in comparison.



Anyway, no one was looking at us. The thing to see was outside. The beautiful Himalayan views, the amazing train track and tunnels – and the stations. On most routes, the station is the ugliest part of the route, but here the stations were so cute. Small cute little stations, beautifully maintained and clean. The stationmasters all seemed to be amateur gardeners, as they had all maintained little gardens in and around the stations, and a lot of them had hanging indoor plants on the stations itself. The Shivalik deluxe, being a Rajdhani, does not stop at any of these stations. The only station it stopped at was Badog, and that plays the next role in our story.



Badog is the most important station on the railway. Apparently, it gave the most trouble while the track was being laid. A British engineer named Badog was in charge, and he made a hash of the job. In the enquiry that followed, the railway board pronounced him guilty, but recognizing the difficulty of the task, chose only to award a token punishment of 1 rupee fine on Badog. But this was such a blow to him that he couldn’t bear it, and committed suicide.

Later, a sadhu named Bhalku came forward and offered to guide the railway engineers as to where to dig, based on his spiritual powers. The engineers took him up on it, and started digging where he told them to. And he turned out to be right, and the tunnel was successful! When the track was finally laid, and the station was complete, the authorities decided to name it after the man who chose to commit suicide rather than fail at his job.



“Why didn’t they name it after the sadhu who made the station possible?” I thought to myself for a second. “Why name it after the loser who couldn’t do the job…” But then, I dismissed the idea as unromantic.



Anyway, whatever be the name, the station turned out to be amazingly beautiful. We got off the train to stretch our legs and were entranced by the beauty of the station. The track comes out of a tunnel (tunnel Bhalku?) and after the station, seems to drop into void, as the track dips a bit and goes out of sight. So, on one side you have the towering green Shivaliks, and in front of it, you have a excellent panorama of the hill country.

The station itself was so clean and well maintained; it was a pleasure to see. It was built in original firang style (‘Gothic’ would be the more formal term) –more like a quaint old bungalow than a station as we think about it. There was a lovely garden around the station, and a fountain which came out from a natural spring. The more we saw of the place, the more we liked it. It was a real wrench to leave the station and climb back into the train.



As we sat down, I said “Yaar, Bharathi –did you notice that there were retiring rooms at the station?”



“Yeah?” she said.



The train whistled, indicating that it was ready to move in a moment.



I looked at her. She looked at me.



“We are on a tight time budget, you know.” She reminded me.



“Un huh.”



The train jerked, generating that first initial torque to get that mass moving.



“Let’s do it!”



We grabbed our bags and jumped out of the train, startling everyone else in the compartment. “Oh shit. My shoes!” Bharathi jumped in again picked up my shoes, and jumped out as the train started moving. The amused attendant handed us our breakfast packets through the window, just as the train picked up speed.



We stood there, alone on the platform, as the train left the station.





“You nutcase. We have done it again.” I said to Bharathi. She stuck her tongue out at me.



“You only nutcase! Why I tolerate you I can’t imagine. Anyway, let’s go and find the stationmaster.”



So we went to the stationmasters’ office – a really charming period piece. It was as if time had stopped still and we were still in the 1920’s. He was quite phlegmatic about our jumping off the train on impulse. I suppose it must be quite common, considering the beauty of the place. He gave a lovely retiring room for 100Rs. Looking at the place, I was very pleased. It was really excellent value for money. A lovely large room, double bed, old elegant wooden furniture –apart from an ugly plastic table – and attached bath. I never thought it was possible – a railway station recommendable as a honeymoon destination.



The first thing we did was to tumble into bed and fall asleep. We hadn’t got much sleep last night due to the train delay and some noisy teenaged neighbours. When we woke, I was hungry, so we gobbled down the packed breakfast that kindly attendant had given us, and then went exploring around. The station vista and views were amazing, and my lungs were beginning to tingle in the fresh air. We explored around, and found a holiday cottage which the railways had built. For idiots like us I suppose. But this ‘Shivalik cottage’ turned out to be large and rather ugly structure with a daily tariff of Rs. 750. The retiring room was much better value, I felt.



We returned to the station for lunch, and had a sumptuous meal of Sabji, fresh hot parathas, Dal and Chawal. Being a dedicated carnivore, I ordered a plate of chicken for dinner – Bharathi preferred to stay with the vegetarian option. After lunch we had another snooze and then went for a long walk along the tracks, enjoying the views. We made it back by sundown – and just in time too, as it started raining. We spent the evening quietly sitting around the station and admiring the flowers - the bell-shaped orange tecomagrandiflora (I found out the name later. I was just admiring ‘nice orange flowers’ at the time.); and playing scrabble. Bharathi is a whiz at scrabble but I was starting to win the occasional game nowadays. Had a lovely dinner of chicken, vegetables, fresh tandoori rotis, dal and chawal. (The whole bill for lunch, dinner and chai came to about a hundred rupees) and settled down for the night.

This was a really nice result of an impulsive move.



We woke early next morning, and decided not to wait for the Rajdhani. We will take the ordinary toy train town to Simla. The station master assumed that we were honeymooners and gave us tickets for a first class coupe. We were prepared to go in second class, but seeing the paternal help that the stationmaster was giving us, we didn’t have the heart to refuse. Really, one the joys of traveling in India is the unexpected help and concern of total strangers.



Soon, the train came steaming in, and we clambered into the first class compartment, along with a bottle of original ‘Barog water’ which the stationmaster insisted we take with us. When we got in, he warned us not to open the door, as then all the second class crowd would clamber in.



The coupe was also quite interesting. Ordinarily a coupe is for two seats – for a couple, or four seats – for a family. But this one was for three seats! I wondered whether it was intended for a ménage a troi.



Anyway, on the ride to Simla, we enjoyed the scenery for some time, but then we got down to a more interesting experience, of putting the name of ‘One-kiss’ tunnel to good use. We kissed in all the tunnels, and by jove – there were more than 50 tunnels! My lips were quite sore by the time we finally steamed into Simla!







The road trip starts



After a nice breakfast of red-hot alu parathas at Simla station, we walked over to the bus stand, about half an hour from the station, avoiding the hordes of guides, taxiwalas and hotel touts who swooped down on us. Simla, like all major hill stations today, is quite sad. Ugly, over developed, deforested and overrun with tourists. We had no plans to spend even an hour in Simla. Indeed Simla was only the starting point for us to start our grand journey- overland from Simla to Ladakh. Our plan was to use public transport all the way, as it was more fun, considerably cheaper, and with minimum baggage. If you hire a car, then you have to worry about the car, the driver, the roads, the expense…as the Buddha said – renunciation is the key to happiness in the journey of life. Have no possessions, be happy.



We reached the bus stand, and Bharathi kept worrying that we would have missed the bus to Sarahan, but after the Kalka mail episode, I was sanguine…smug, one could say. And sure enough there was a comfortable semi-deluxe bus standing there, waiting for us to come and grab the window seats which they had kept just for us.



“See?” I said. “I told you that there would be no problem.”

“And how did you know that mister?”

“I am fortune’s favorite.”



Our plan was to follow the Hindustan-Tibet road from Simla till Sumdo, then get on to the Spiti valley road till Losar, then cross Rohtang pass and go to Manali for a short break, then cross the Rohtang pass again and go to Leh by the Manali – Leh road. And we were planning to fly back from Leh to Delhi, and go our separate ways from Delhi.



The first leg of the journey was from Simla to Rampur, and from there take another bus to Sarahan.



As I said, the bus was a semi-deluxe one, with push back seats and other comforts, the only problem being the loud music which they felt duty-bound to play. I asked him to shut it off, but he smiled apologetically at me, and said that it was compulsory to play it on a semi-deluxe bus. But with sweet smiles and blandishments, I managed to convince him to play it a little less loudly, and play as old a vintage of music as possible. Thus we listened to Mohd Rafi hits all the way across. One song appealed especially to the chotu next to me – ‘khali dabba, khali bottle’ – a Mehmood song, I think, where he plays a raddi-wala who goes around buying trash and gives a philosophical statement that we should not despise him for picking up empty bottles because the whole world is empty and most people are empty-headed. ‘Aadmi hai khali dabba, aadmi hai khaali bottle.’ No, it wasn’t the philosophy which appealed to her – she just found a new word to insult me with; for the rest of the journey she kept on referring to me as a ‘khali bottle’.



Anyway, the view outside was spectacular. We were following the Sutlej valley, and were literally ‘Himalaya ki god mein’. Amazing green mountains, the Sutlej in full spate below and the views of Himachal all around us.



I have this bad habit of going to sleep in any moving vehicle – carefully inculcated since childhood. I used to go to sleep in the school bus, when I graduated to college I made sleeping in BEST buses into a fine art, and when I started working I used to sleep in the contract bus. My philosophy is that the time you spend in travel is a complete waste – you can’t read, you can’t listen to music, there is generally no one worth talking to, and in Bombay there is certainly nothing worth seeing out of the window. Therefore it is better to go to sleep and use this disregarded part of the day to get refreshed and revitalized. Now it has become a part of me – a signature trait, you might say.



Bharathi was very aware of this from past travels, and this time she threatened to disembowel me if I nodded off even for a moment. The whole point of this journey was to appreciate the views outside.



So here I was, peering out at the gorgeous scenery outside and desperately trying to save my bowels by staying awake under that tiny female’s stern glare.



The road twisted and turned amidst the mountains, past small towns and apple orchards, and past a mega dam project on the Sutlej – the Baspa valley hydro-electricity project. It was a scar on the beautiful landscape, it is true – but it was also very impressive. Seeing that wild river roar past you, and imagining that you can tame it to your bidding…great. The dam project is really vast, stretching several kilometers, and is supposed to be environmentally friendly and all that. Lets just hope that it doesn’t go the way of the other ‘temples of modern india’ and become useless within a few decades.



And soon enough – by four PM, we landed at Rampur. Rampur struck me as being like any other Indian small town –dirty and grimy. We were not planning to stay there, just long enough to catch another bus to Sarahan. And luckily enough there was another bus standing there which was going to Sarahan. We clambered into it, and sat happily at a window seat. But just as we were admiring our good fortune, one family of locals came and demanded that we get up.

‘Eh? Why?’ Apparently they had reservations. (not reservations about us – reserved seats)



Reservations? In an ST bus?



We looked outside and saw people lined up at the booking counter for reservations, and it became clear to us. Bharathi ran to the counter and got reservations for us, and saved us the agony of standing in that foul rush all the way to Sarahan.



It was another couple of hours to Sarahan, and it was even more beautiful, because we were off the main road. The state highways –though not as well maintained as the national highways- are less crowded and more beautiful than the national roads. We passed through mouth-watering apple orchards on both sides, and the villagers had cheeks which were as pink as the apples they grew. The clean air, the verdant orchards, the mountains around us – Ah! The only problem was that the apples were not ripe as yet, so we couldn’t go around hogging on apples.



Soon the bus deposited us at Sarahan. Sarahan turned out to be a tiny little hill station, with a nice temple of Bhima Kali, and excellent views of the ‘Shrikhand Mahadev’ mountain range. There were a lot of private lodges, but we chose to stay in the HPTDC hotel – Hotel Shrikhand. It was right opposite the temple, and we got a room with a balcony and an amazing view of the mountains. It had good food too!



After a shower and some chai, we went to visit the temple. Very nice temple- ancient, but hale and well restored. The thing about hill temples is that they are generally built just beneath a mountain, so that you have an excellent view and can really appreciate and adore the being which made the mountain as well.



After a nice dinner, we sat up in the balcony – watching he brilliant full moon and the snowclad peaks shimmering in the moonlight, with the cool night breeze caressing us.





Sarahan to Kalpa



There was no major screaming hurry to get up early in the morning as we had no early morning bus to catch, so we got up ‘aaram se’ and enjoyed a relaxed morning – good breakfast and bird watching. Bharathi is a real bird brain, so it follows that she is an avid bird watcher. The Shrikhand hotel had a nice garden, and it attracted several birds – including a pair of Hoopoes strutting around and showing off their headdress.



We caught the 11.00 o clock bus to the highway – a village called Jeori, and waited there for a bus to Reckong Peo. Indeed, there was one waiting even as we reached, but it was so crowded that we decided to give it a miss. We sat in a nearby dhaba and had chai until the next bus came along. When it came Bharathi ran into the bus to reserve seats for us – ‘reserve’ being a relative word – you reserve seats by keeping an article of clothing on it. When I entered I saw that she had collared 4 separate seats. Why 4 seats? I asked. I may be fat, but not that fat. It turned out that she was planning to exchange those seats for window seats! I shrugged my shoulders but wisely did not say anything. Sure enough, there was no exchange to be had, and we whiled away our time eating anything and everything that the vendors brought to sell.



After some time though, I managed to wangle a seat near a window, next to a tall dignified-looking old gentleman with the personality of a Nehru. I suspected that he must be a government official or a school-teacher. We started chatting after some time, and he was happy to find someone he could talk to in English. He gave me a lot of interesting information about himachal Pradesh. He saw me gawking at the scenery – the fruit orchards, the Sutlej, the Baspa valley project etc and then gave me a long lecture on the state – the low population, the abundant resources, the growing infrastructure, etc. I like listening to people, and he liked to talk, so we made a good combo. Especially interesting was the story of the Hindustan Tibet road, or NH-22 which is the official name. Earlier it was just a caravan route, but the government (I don’t whether the British or the Indian one) decided to make it into a dependable highway. The problem was the small size of the road, which could not be widened because of the mountainside next to it. Therefore a new technique of road building was developed, which was called ‘half tunnelling’. This involved blasting the mountainside to create a ‘half tunnel’; so as to be able to create a road under the overhang.





This work had been done by the army, and they had lost over a hundred soldiers in creating the road. He pointed out a memorial to those soldiers by the side of the road. It was because of these roads that goods were being sent to the remote villages, and the state was so prosperous.



Another fascinating story of the region is the story of ‘father of the apples’ – Satyanand Stokes. Samuel Evans Stokes was an American missionary from Philadelphia who came to India to heed a spiritual call. But the charm of the country was greater than the calling of religion and he decided to stay on the country. He married a local girl, changed his religion to Hinduism and his name from ‘Samuel Evans’ to ‘Satyanand’. In fact he was an Indian freedom fighter – he became disillusioned with the British (brutish?) treatment of the Indians, and joined the freedom movement. He was a committed member for the cause, was voted a member of the Indian National Congress and worked along with Mahatma Gandhi. He was even jailed by the British government for 6 months (just think! A white man jailed by the British for fighting for the freedom of Indians) and after his conversion to Hinduism, wrote a Hindi book called ‘Satyakam’ which was banned by the British government. He was also moved by the poor condition of the local people who had no major agriculture, no income and were taxed out of their lives by the British. While wondering as to how he could help them, he had a brainwave. He realized that the answer to the problems of the region was fruit cultivation. And since the area had a climate and soil very similar to those of the apple growing areas of the U.S., the choice naturally fell on apple.

Not that the apple was unknown to the region, but the fruit was mostly wild and too tart to be of much use. What Stokes did was to obtain seedlings of improved varieties, among them Delicious, both Golden and Red. He planted these in his own land. Stokes was by then a highly respected man. Even so, he found it difficult to convince the people of Thanedar and Kotgarh to take to apple cultivation as an alternative with a future.

However, Stoke's own orchard, planted in 1919, started to bear fruit in 1925 and the market immediately went crazy over them. Almost overnight farmers took to apple cultivation. From Thanedar and Kotgarh apple culture spread all over the hills and beyond. Slowly the people were raised from the level of poor, marginal farmers to prosperous owners of orchards that yielded bumper harvests. Its really amazing how one determined man can do so much good for so many.



The old gentleman got off midway, and I was free to admire the road in silence. I admired the government for creating such a road, and I admired the drivers for driving on it – it was so steep, it was scary.



But soon we landed at Rekong Peo, which is the administrative centre of the region, and a major transport hub of the area – therefore it was a rather dirty little town. We had no intentions of staying there for the night, but were planning to go to nearby Kalpa. We were wondering how to get there, so we asked the driver of our bus – he was a magnificent figure of a man – tall, handsome and with an imposing handlebar moustache. He scorned to wear the normal shirt-pant attire, and preferred to wear a pathan-suit of the uniform colour.



“Bhaisaa’b, how do we get to Kalpa?”

“Go and stand there, a bus will come soon.”

Bharathi and me conferred. We were already a bit tired from the long drive and didn’t want to wait interminably for a bus.

“Can we get a taxi or something to go there?”

The driver got incensed. “What nonsense! The bus will come in 10 minutes, and will take you to Kalpa for 20 rupees. Why the hell do you want to waste 200 rupees on a taxi? Go and stand there!” he thundered at us.



I was rather taken aback – not at his shouting, but at the fatherly way he gave us advice. It was like an elder figure shouting at his profligate children, and I was rather touched. He had no need to be concerned about us in the least, but he was genuinely interested in seeing that we should not waste money. Such concern for a total stranger…one can find this only in India.



We took his words to heart, and took the bus to Kalpa. The bus was so crowded, that we jumped out as soon as we were out of town limits, and climbed up on the roof and sat there. It was very pleasant on the roof, the only thing being that you had to duck every now and then to avoid being slapped in the face by tree branches.



We got off at Kalpa, and made our way to the hotel with the biggest signage – hotel Shivalik. It turned out to be a Bengali owned hotel, which did not surprise us at all. Bengalis are the most indefatigable travelers, and you will find them en famille all over India, and what better way to attract them than to have a Bengali owned hotel? The room was more in line with our usual prices – double room for Rs. 300. After relaxing for a while, we went for a walk in the village and happened to meet a procession going around the village. It was some local religious festival and the gods of the temple were being taken for a nice walk, accompanied by the sound of drums and cymbals. We went to the temple after that. It was quite a cute temple, though it definitely had seen better days. It must have been about 500-700 years old, and was in a state of disrepair. We stayed there for sometime admiring the architecture, and then went for a cup of tea to a nearby hotel, rather charmingly named ‘The Blue Lotus’.



The main thing about Kalpa is the views of the Kinner Kailash range and the Shrikhand Mahadeo mountain. It is the starting point for the ‘Around Kinner Kailash’ trek, and has some magnificent views. We sat in the terrace and enjoyed a spectacular sunset, and some not-so-spectacular tea and sandwiches.



There was a firang backpacker there, and he was taking photographs with a really nice digital SLR. Then as we watched, he took out his laptop and downloaded the photographs on to it. Some other kids were also watching him, and in response to a question from them he proudly told them that the Digital SLR was worth Rs. 1.5 lakhs, and the laptop was worth Rs. 2 lakhs. Good heavens, I thought, the chap is coolly walking around with Rs. 3.5 lakhs worth of equipment. He must be having real faith and confidence in the law and order system of the country.

The second thought which struck me was jealousy. Oh, what a feeling it would be – grab a laptop, come and stay in a place like this for 2-3months and write a book. Wow! Go on treks – go around Kinner Kailash, and come back with a novel which you can sell to finance your next trip. What a thought!



We got back to our Bengali host before dark, ordered dinner, and went for a long walk in the dark. It was absolutely magical to see the full moon rise above the white peak of Kinner Kailash.





The oasis in the mountain. Kalpa to Nako



We arose early the next morning to catch the bus to our next destination – Nako. Our friendly Bengali hotel owner was also planning to come to Nako, so we had some company. As we were yawning and waiting at the bus stop, the proprietor of the ‘Blue Lotus’ (where we had tea yesterday) came up in his Maruti and offered to drop us to the Rakong Peo bus stop for ten bucks each, an offer which we accepted with pleasure, because it saved us a long wait and an uncomfortable journey.



We were waiting in the queue for tickets, and to our pleasure, whom should we see but our mustachioed driver of yesterday. He also looked pleased to see us and ordered the ticket chap to give us good seats. We got seats 10 and 11, right next to the door and went to the bus. There was a huge crowd of firang backpackers waiting to get into the bus and they all loaded their backpacks on to seats 1,2 and 3 – the ones next to the driver. I watched as they piled bag upon bag there, until it looked like a Mount Everest of bags, and decided that it would be a bad idea to put our bags there. It was just asking for trouble. We put our bags underneath our seats.



And sure it enough, no sooner did our mustachio driver enter the cabin, that he exploded. The heap of bags was so big that he couldn’t even see the road on his left side!



“Saala, cloak room bana ke rakha hai!” he exploded and ordered them to get their bags out of there at once. We had warned those idiots but they didn’t listen to us (poor guys, they must have been ripped off so many times, they had developed a deep distrust of gratuitous advice) and now they had to remove those bags, climb up on the roof and put them there, and then sure enough, it started raining – so they had to spread a tarpaulin sheet over the bags. We watched with glee, and didn’t offer to help, as they had rudely refused our help earlier. Those backpacks were replaced with mail bags, as the bus did the job of the mail delivery as well. I watched with fascination as the conductor tossed out mail bags and even newspapers at various villages en route.



Finally we got a move on, and I was watching the view with fascination. The scenery outside was growing more and more wild. The friendly green forests had been left behind and we were in the Himalayan desert. Cold and brown, the mountains were huge and massive, but dead as compared to the scenery below. The whole picture was a pastel of browns and yellows. Even the Sutlej below us was brown and swollen with the melt-waters of its parent glaciers. Blue skies, brown lands, brown water and the black road stretching before us.



The road was in good condition, being rigorously maintained by the army, but was quite empty. For the most part, the roads were empty with no one visible in front or behind. The only people on the road were some army people and some road maintenance gangs.



At one point we had a puncture, and all of us had to get out of the bus as our stud driver and conductor efficiently changed that huge tire. We followed the example of the firangs and clambered on to the nearby rocks to enjoy the scenery. As I lay on my back and admired the scenery, it struck me as to much this scenery resembled Tibet. Indeed, we were on the Hindustan- Tibet road, and were only a few kilometers from Tibet, as the crow flies.



We stopped for lunch at a one-horse town called Spillo, and I was impressed to see how much some firangs can go native. Lunch was some hot parathas and some indeterminate sabji. There was this fellow who was dressed in cheap clothes and chappals. He ate the parathas with his fingers, and even had that sabji – something that even we did not dare. He drank the local water, had chai with pleasure and once he was through, he took out a bundle of beedis and lit one with a cheap matchbox. I was impressed.



After some time we came to the confluence of the Sutlej and Spiti rivers – two crazy rivers. If we had continued along the Sutlej, then Tibet was just 10 Km away. Naturally, we did not take this road, but turned off and officially entered the Spiti valley region, one of the most scenic routes in the country. The entire country side is in a rain shadow region – the Shivaliks block all the rain bearing clouds, and the Spiti region gets just a few centimeters of rain every year. Therefore it is almost entirely a Himalayan desert, with amazing shades of brown as far as the eye can reach. The scenery is heart stoppingly beautiful – the towering mountains, the sheer rock faces, the utter desolation and the wild Spiti flowing beneath.

But, wherever there was some ground water – a lake, a stream or a river – there was a sudden burst of green which really stood out in the brown expanse. There seemed to be no habitation except for some scattered villages. We were amused when a bread truck overtook us. Who must he be selling bread, buns and pastries to?



The road climbed steeply, and we left the Spiti river far below. The river which had been roaring at our very feet was now only a silver thread far below. There was no sound except for the roar of the bus.



We finally got off at a village called Yangthang and said our good byes to our friendly mustachio driver and portly jean-clad conductor, and got into a jeep for an extremely bumpy and dusty ride to Nako. There had been a land slide, and they were still in the process of clearing the road. The road maintenance gangs were all laborers from Bihar and Andhra, and their dark skins really made them stand put in the countryside. They had possibly the toughest job in the world, but they waved with wide friendly grins to us as we drove by.



When we finally reached Nako, the sight actually took my breath away. Nako has a large lake, possibly the highest altitude fresh water lake around. It is a very beautiful lake with clear blue water, and because of this lake, there is a lot of cultivation around it. The effect is like a concentric circle – a blue centre, concentric circles of various shades of green and surrounded by the vast brown expanse of the desert.



Our Bengali friend took us to his friend’s hotel and got us a small discount. We didn’t have the heart to bargain further, because the rooms were simply amazing. He had really spent a lot of money and effort into making some lovely rooms. Brand new rooms, nice bed, sophisticated tiled bathroom, curtains, dressing table and mirror and bed lamps – all for Rs. 400/- Though we could no doubt have found cheaper rooms, we didn’t have the heart to leave the place.



After freshening up for a bit, we went for a walk to that amazing lake, and spent some time admiring its beauty. It is watered by underground streams and by melt water from the glaciers, and so has very clear and clean water. It is surrounded by beautiful trees and bushes, and every now and then the water is disturbed by the fish jumping around in happiness. We sat there for a while and went back for lunch. When we came back from lunch, there were a couple of firangs having a swim in the lake. I shuddered at the very thought of swimming in that cold water.

We climbed up to a nearby chorten, and had some magnificent views of the lake and the mountains. We sat there admiring the sunset, and then went down to the lake side. We sat there chatting till it was almost dark, and then went back to our hotel.



The sky was so clear, and the stars were so bright – it was like sitting in a planetarium. Only when you go far far away from the cities can one appreciate the true beauty of the dark and the night.







The thousand year old monastery. Nako to Tabo



We had to wake up very early in the morning to catch the bus to Tabo monastery. I had put on the alarm on my mobile, but the timekeeper inside me went mad and kept waking me up from 1.30 in the morning. I used to dream that we are late and the bus has gone and wake up with a jerk. Then take out my mobile (I don’t carry a watch nowdays) and see the time. Shit! Then I would try to go to sleep again. No sooner had I gone to sleep that again I would get that dream and wake up again with a jerk. Because of all this, I peacefully slept off through the alarm, and it was left to a very irritated Bharathi to shake me awake in the morning.



There was a HPRTC bus right outside our door, and there weren’t too many people in it – just a few firangs and a handful of locals. While we waited for the bus to start, I admired the 5-6 Bullets standing outside the hotel. A group of bikers had come to Nako last evening on the bullets, as part of a bike tourism trip. What lovely bikes – Royal Enfield really makes some excellent stuff.



The bus finally roared into life and we were on our way. On our way for barely an hour that is – until we came to Malling nala. Malling nala is a stream which you have to cross, and is sometimes called pagal nala (mad stream). Why is it ‘Pagal’ I asked, and the answer was clear. It had gone crazy a few months back and had destroyed the bridge and a two kilometer stretch of road. The road stopped right there. Absolutely no chance of the bus going further.



Now what?



We followed the locals and came to a rickety looking pulley which was strung up across the valley of the Nala.

“Good heavens! Are we supposed to sit in that?” I asked.

No we weren’t, as it turned out. The pulley was for transporting our baggage, while we had to walk down and up the valley where another bus was waiting for us on the other side.



We put our bags in the trolley, and I put up a prayer that we should see those bags again. Then we (I, that is) huffed down the steep slope, across the rocky and rockfall-prone bottom and huffed and puffed (Again, only I. Bharathi is trim and fit) up the slope to the other side. I, and most of the others, were sweating inspite of the cool air, when we finally reached the other side. Bharathi was sweating, not because of the exertion, but because she was worried about rock falls while we inched our way across.



“Arre bhai, you need to get back into shape! Is this the same man who did the month long Everest base camp trek hardly half an year ago?” she scolded me.



“Arre, the same man, no doubt. But an idiotic man who has stopped exercising and restarted smoking.” I groaned.









She gave me an exasperated look and we collected our bags and marched into the bus. The bus driver was irritated with our slow speed, and started gunning his engine to make the stragglers hurry up. Soon we were on our way, and after admiring the scenery for some time, we landed at Tabo.



Tabo is apparently the oldest monastery in India and the second-oldest, continuously-inhabited Buddhist monastery in the world. And I didn’t even know of its existence until we started on this trip! Such a sea of ignorance I am.



It doesn’t look like much from the outside, just a featureless collection of mud huts – a sensible precaution in the older days – when this area was constantly being attacked by some invader or the other. But it has some brilliant frescoes and images on the inside – it is called the ‘Ajanta of the himalayas’.



When we reached the bus stand, Bharathi couldn’t recognize it, there were so many changes since her trip of a year ago. There was a spanking new bus stand, several new shops, electricity and solar lamps everywhere, a new telephone exchange – I was really impressed by the work of the government in the hills. India shining, I say.



We reached the Monastery guest house and got a nice room – modest, no attached bath – but very adequate. Slept for while to catch up on my shattered sleep of the night before, and woke only when Bharathi poked me and asked whether I had come so far to one of the ancient wonders of the world, just to sleep in a poky room. ‘Oh all right’ I said grumpily and off we went to the temple, only to see a big lock on the door. Temple is closed for lunch. Bah.



We went back to the guest house and spent some time leafing through the library. It was a nice library largely composed on books about Tabo, Buddhism, Tibet, Lahaul-Spiti region, Ladakh and the Himalayas. We went through a nice coffee-table book on Ladakh by photographer Prabudh Dasgupta, a couple of books on Tibet, Tabo and also an interesting book on Spiti valley by Harish Kapadia, who also wrote that bible of Sahyradri trekking ‘Trek the Sahyadris’.



The Dalai lama has done a lot to popularize Tabo, he was the one who brought it to the public eye, celebrated the 1000 year celebration and announced to the world that after he retires, he is going to come and reside at Tabo. The Dalai Lama has played his cards well – the smartest thing he has done is to court the media – give interviews, take photos, give forewords and acknowledgements, etc. Fate has dealt him and his country a very poor hand, but he has played his hand well.



After some time we went again to the temple, and finally got a chance to see inside it. The insides are absolutely amazing – a riot of colours and frescoes. The monastery is primarily devoted to Tantric Buddhism, and hence have a big gallery of characters – the original Buddha, the five avatars of the Buddha, the future Buddha, the two Tara’s, Mara the demon, etc etc. Because of this the temple interiors are far more dynamic and colourful than the Mahayana temples in other Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka or Thailand. There is one major temple of Tsuglakhang, and eight other minor temples. The Tsuglukhang is without doubt the most spectacular one – with three dimensional painted clay structures on the walls, a humungous four armed Vairochana Buddha statue in the centre and walls covered with amazing wall paintings. The paintings represent the full evolution of Tibetan art – with influences from Kashmiri, Nepalese, Chinese, Pala and and Ajanta styles. This has what has earned Tabo the epithet of ‘Ajanta of the himalayas’. The paintings are in so much detail, and have been so lovingly done – its breath taking. There was one wall which showed the thousand incarnations of Buddha –and each tiny painting was individual! There was no exact repetition at all! And the detail – every figure had a perfect expression, and the detail was perfect down to the toes on the feet, the pattern of the clothes, and the ornamentation on the jewellery! Simply superb.



And of course, there was the big pernicious influence as well – the great ASI. I have been commenting derisively on the Archeological Survey of India for some time now, and people took exception at this. ‘Do you realize how many ancient monuments there are in the country?’ they asked me. ‘And the ASI must be having limited budgets. How can they take care of everything?’ So I accepted this and suspended my rant against those overworked people.



But what they are doing at Tabo really irritated me. It is such a ham handed restoration, it is simply disgusting! In their attempt to stop the leakage into the temple, they just broke the walls and cemented them over – ruining the paintings. They whitewashed a couple of walls! And the best part was, some idiot felt that the paintings on one wall were getting a bit dull, so he picked up a brush and started repainting them! A thousand years of beauty completely ruined!



The local people were so outraged at the restoration that they forcibly threw the ASI workers out of the temple, and locked the doors. If you can’t restore, then at least don’t destroy what is remaining. God only knows what will happen there now.



After a lunch, we went for a walk in the fields where we were chased by a group of kids. They had plucked a lot of wild flowers, and they kept throwing the petals over us and shouting ‘Shaadi, shaadi’. They must have recently attended a village wedding I suppose. Managed to get rid of them finally, and went for a long walk across the countryside. The amount of wild flowers by the side of the road was amazing.



Came back after some time and sat on the roof of one temple, watching the sunset. The views – as you must have guessed by now – were incredible.



When we came back for dinner, my attention was drawn to a paper stuck on the wall. Wondering what it was, I went closer to read it; and found that it was the towns’ telephone directory.



I was reminded of the definition of the really small town – where anybody can tear the telephone directory in half.





More monasteries and unexpected kindnesses



The day there was no need to get up early, as there was no morning bus to catch. And sure enough, I was up at dawn! Bloody hell, if there is no need to get up early then I am up at first light, and feel as if another minute in bed will be the death of me. If I need to get up early for some reason, then nothing feels as good as my warm bed. The basic contrariness of nature, I suppose.



Anyway, we lazed around in bed and then went to have breakfast in the monastery hotel. The important thing was to figure out how to get to the next place on our agenda. We wanted to go to another monastery called Dhankar which was about 20 km away, and after that to Kaza, which was the important regional town in the area. From Kaza we were confident of getting some transport to our night halt station which was a place called Kibber.



The question was – how?



While we could have got a bus to Kaza, it was sometime in the evening, so the whole day would have been wasted. And when we asked about hiring a taxi, the cost turned out to be prohibitive – Rs. 700 for a trip to Dhankar and back, or Rs. 1100 for a trip to Dhankar and drop to Kaza. Oof. No wonder the local economy was doing so well.



The manager of the monastery hotel first tried us to go in the taxi, as the taxi operator was a friend of his; but when we told him that this was beyond our means, he took pity on us. Another couple was planning to take the taxi to Dhankar, he suggested, so maybe you can hitch a lift with them. But this involved two problems – the couple had to be willing, and their leaving time would have to match with ours. It turned out that they were planning to leave quite late, so it would not have been suitable anyway.



“What to do now?” Bharathi asked me.

“Oh, don’t worry. Something will turn up.” I replied helpfully. She stuck out her tongue at me.

“Fat lot of help you are. Go and have a bath you dirty fellow.”



That sounded like a good idea, so I went off to have a bath. There was a very impressive looking geyser in the bathroom, but it didn’t seem to work. So I had a refreshing cold water bath and came out feeling like a new man.



And, as I had predicted, something did turn up. Not that I had anything to do with it – it was Bharathi who did the running around. Apparently there was a swiss group who was on a motorcycle expedition around Spiti valley and Ladakh, and they were leaving for Dhankar immediately, and they were willing to give us a lift.



“Such nice people.” I said, and went to get our bags. When I went out to meet them, I was very happy to see that they were traveling on Bullets. To be precise, they were a group of 7 people, and they were traveling on 3 Bullets and one Maruti gypsy. One swiss couple was working in Delhi, and they had invited the rest from Europe to join them for a holiday. They had purchased the Bullets and Gypsy in Delhi, and were planning to drive to Ladakh.



I was envious.



They gave us a choice as to whether I would prefer to ride on a Bullet or in the Gypsy. I naturally opted to ride on a Bullet. The bike turned out to be a dreadful old rattler, whose starter had conked out so it could be started only by putting it in motion and then engaging first gear, but I loved it anyway. The experience of sitting on the pillion of a two wheeler on such a road was intensely scary. I am not much used to sitting on a two wheeler as it is, and to sit behind a continental who is used to driving on the wrong side of the road, that too on a road which is flanked by the yawning chasm of the Spiti river valley on one side…brrr. I was stiff with tension for some time, but then I suddenly realized – why am I taking tension? For once, I am not the driver. Let the driver take the tension. And immediately I relaxed and started enjoying the ride. While I was a committed 4 wheeler man till then, I suddenly realized the pleasure of riding a two wheeler – especially in such a terrain. You get such a feeling of openness and one ness with the surroundings which you can never achieve in a four wheeler – where there is a roof and doors around you.



I happened to ask the driver – I don’t remember his name – “Are you a regular biker back home?”

“No” he replied. “I learnt biking after I came to India.”



That did it. I was consumed in a flame of lust. I promised myself that I would get myself a Bullet and do this ride by myself. If foreigners can come and drive with perfect comfort on these roads and in our traffic, so can I.



And I will someday!



Anyway, we proceeded along the amazingly scenic road (yes, I know I am repeating myself, but what can I do? You have to experience that kind of scenery to see for yourself) until we came to Dhankar monastery.



Dhankar monastery is a crazy place. It is built on top of a cliff, and looks like it is perched there uncertainly, and would fall off anytime. It is built on a hill of what looks like dried mud – in formal terms, it is alkaline deposits – and looks really eerie. It was in various times a king’s palace, a jail, a monastery and now is a ruin. The dilapidation has made it too dangerous (not to mention uncomfortable) to stay in, and the monastery has been shifted to a new location on firmer ground at the base of the hill. We climbed up to the top of the monastery and admired the fine view. To our surprise, though the monastery is not inhabited, the village around it – on equally unstable looking land – is very much inhabited. There is a working temple in the monastery and some very old thangkas and wall paintings. There were some amateur conservationists from a Delhi NGO, who were working to build a folk museum of some sort. A worthy aim, hope they do a good and responsible job.



At Dhankar we bid goodbye to Aurelie and Hynek and the others, as they were off to Pin valley. As for us, we had to get to Kaza somehow. Again the question was – how? No bus, no nothing.



And again, our luck saw us through. There was another family there – an Indian family this time. The first Indian tourists I had seen on the trail so far – mother, son and daughter. The son and daughter had gone for a walk, but the mother had slipped a bit on the slippery slope of Dhankar and was lying down near the new monastery. She must have been feeling lonely out there, and when she saw Bharathi (12 year old or so, at first sight) she called her over. I also joined them, we chatted a bit, and the long and short of it was that she learnt that we wanted to go to Kaza, but didn’t know how. She promptly and generously offered us a lift to Kaza, which we accepted with pleasure. She owned a hotel in Pathankot and invited us there anytime we were in the area.



It was a mystery to me as to how she could be so kindhearted and so negative at the same time. All through the journey she was complaining about something or the other – the poor condition of the roads, the lack of infrastructure, the dry climate – once we saw a bunch of kids in a small village. They were so alive and happy in spite of the arid surroundings – and they had cheeks as red as the himachal apples! Aunty said “Oooh look at those children!” I thought that she is finally going to be positive about something, but then she continued “What dirty noses! I wish I could give all of them a hanky and make them wipe their running noses!” Bharathi and me looked at each other – we hadn’t even noticed the noses, we had been admiring those cheeks – and smiled. Each to his own, I suppose.

I suppose it’s more important to do good, than to talk good – which she was doing.



They dropped us at Kaza (a dirty little town) and there our good luck seemed to evaporate a bit. There was no bus to Kibber for some reason. The bridge to Kibber was down anyway, somebody said. We decided to go by taxi, and the fellow charged 400 bucks. I winced, but agreed. There was no point in staying in Kaza. However, when we reached the bridge, the taxi wala refused to go across and no amount of blandishments could move him. So in a fury, Bharathi paid him Rs. 150 (I was against paying him a paisa) and told him to get lost.



We walked across the rickety bridge, and I looked curiously at the mud which had come down the stream and busted the bridge. It was really weird – being black and viscous, like toxic waste or volcanic sludge. Both the options were highly unlike up in those unindustrialized mountains, I still wonder as to what it might have been. Should have brought back a sample for testing in a lab.



Anyway, as we were standing there wondering what to do now, we noticed a tea stall there. What the hell was a tea stall doing here all alone? We went to investigate, and the tea stall lady said that a jeep would come here in a few minutes to pick up passengers for Kibber. Is that so? How interesting.



We ordered tea, and stood there, watching. As we watched, a HPRTC bus came and stopped at the bridge and disgorged a load of passengers who walked over the bridge. And even as they were crossing over, a Mahindra Trax came up to collect them. Oh, so that’s how it is done! We hurriedly gulped down our tea, nearly burning up my throat in the process, and ran to reserve seats for ourselves. It was extremely crowded, and the whole jeep chuckled as Bharathi sat on my lap. Taking their cue from us, all the minus 50kg girls sat on others laps, and thus enabled others to get a seat. So in retrospect, the jeep driver did us a favour by refusing to cross the bridge – saved us 250 bucks.



Bharathi kept on orgasming about some hotel she had stayed in in Kibber when she had done the trip last year; and when we finally got there the lady did recognize her – ‘Ah! You come here last year, no?’ – and perhaps because of that – regretted that she did not have a room free. Bharathi was devastated! No room? Not even a bed? Not even a corner to lay our head in? Or a place to lay out our sleeping bags? Or…I got irritated and hit her on the head before she could ask for a place in the rubbish-bin or in the coal-scuttle.



“Are you nuts or what? Let’s go to another hotel.”

“But this is Norbu lodge…I had such a nice time here last time…” she started whining

I slapped my forehead. “Arre, it’s just a hotel like any other, yaar. We will find another hotel.” I had to actually drag her away, as she looked longingly at Norbu lodge.



In fact there was no room in any of the nearby lodges as well, and we had to go to another hotel a slight distance away. After we had checked in, Bharathi was still whining about Norbu hotel.

“Lets not eat here, We will go to Norbu for lunch.”

“What’s wrong with you, woman? Why are you so obsessed with that fleabag hotel?”

But no, we had to tramp all the way to Norbu, only to be told that she had closed the lunch service. She could only give us some noodle soup. Ok, said Bharathi, let me have it. And when it came, it turned out to be absolutely pathetic. I turned on my evil eye, and Bharathi shrank before my malevolent glare, and didn’t mention Norbu for the rest of the evening.



Back we went to our lodge, and found that it was full of Bengalis. They were a group of 4 who had come down from Calcutta to do a trek over Parang la to Tso Moriri lake in Ladakh. Good stuff, I thought. Only problem was that they were packing, and being so noisy that we ran out from the lodge for some peace and quiet. The views were – you got it.



Later we came back, and were relaxing on the Veranda, when an old bearded firang came in. He looked as if he was about to participate in the Papa Hemingway look-alike competition. He turned out to be a garrulous fellow and started chatting with us. It turned out that he was originally an American, but was now settled in India. He lived for half the year in Goa, and half the year in Kibber, where he conducted treks across Parang La. Good life.



It was dinner time – Bharathi started, lets go to No…and shrank before my outraged glare, and said OK, Lets eat here – and we had quite a nice dinner. Bharathi suddenly had an attack of shoulder pain and toothache – old age, I told her; but she just glared at me – so she retired to bed early.



I sat outside and stared at the twinkling brilliant stars, feeling quite poetic.



But then it became so cold, that I ran inside and jumped right into bed.





Valley of flowers



The next day again there was no hurry to get up early; so obviously I up at the crack of dawn. Feeling reluctant to disturb the sleep of the elderly lady suffering from toothache and rheumatism, I crept outside the room and enjoyed a cup of tea as I was writing my journal.



There seemed to be a lot of activity in the neighbouring lodges and they were crawling with firangs dressed up to leave. However, they were not leaving but lounging around – talking, drinking tea or coffee etc. This seemed to go on for quite some time.

Bharathi finally got up and came and joined me for another cup of tea, when our Papa Hemingway lookalike yank of yesterday came over to the lodge to have a chat with our hotel owner. We collared him enroute, and though he was not really in a mood to talk, his natural garrulousness overcame his reticence. As he had told us the previous day, he was in the business of talking Americans for a trek across Parang la to Ladakh. He had brought his group of 20-30 people over the previous day (that explained why there was no room in any of the lodges) and was planning to start off today. However, his pack mules – which were used to carry tents, provisions, luggage etc – had not yet arrived, and so he was unable to leave and his customers were getting restive. He had come over to ask the hotel owner whether he knew of any mule driver from whom he could hire mules. The minor hassles in the life of a free lancer.



In due course of time, we had breakfast and checked out of our hotel and went and dumped our bags in – you got it – the Norbu hotel. Bharathi must have had really golden memories of that place. It was no doubt more clean and cheerful than our current place, but I didn’t find it worth the hassle. However, it is always best to humour Bharathi, or she takes out her horns and gores you to death – so I agreed.



Our plan was to go for a short trek, and Bharathi was planning to show me a beautiful spot which she had discovered the last time she was here. (she was the one who was running the whole show – my talents are more of the follower type) So off we went, after wishing Papa Hemingway good bye and the best of luck for finding his mules.



We crossed the village and started our way across the fields, enjoying the great weather. It was an excellent time to trek – the fresh air, the warm sunshine, the blue cloudless sky, the amazing Himalayan views, the cool breeze…we felt energized and refreshed as we walked. Bharathi forgot her aches and pains, and I forgot my huge gut and poor wind as we walked along.



Everywhere there was some thing new to enjoy. The fields in which the locals grew their crops were bounded by strips of wild flowers. I had heard of this concept wherein the farmers intentionally plant wild flowers next to their crops to attract bees and butterflies so as to encourage them to pollinate the crops as well; but this was the first time I had actually seen it. It looked absolutely charming. There were some workers who were slogging away in their fields, and their bright clothes added a touch of colour to the green and brown as they waved to us as we passed.



Soon there was a musical clinking of bells and a huge posse of mules met us, coming in the opposite direction. The bells around their necks tinkled as the mule drivers encouraged them with shouts and whistles to hurry up.

“Ah, Papa Hemingway’s mules have arrived. This will make him happy.”



We walked along and went down a slope to come to the river. It was more of a rivulet or a meltwater stream, but the locals called it a river. It had carved a route deep into the soft mountain, and looked for all in the world like the Colorado in the grand canyon. I had never seen the grand canyon, but this was an acceptable substitute as far as I am concerned. The swiftly flowing river, the towering cliffs on both sides, the pebbly bottom…it was marvelous. We sat there looking at the river and generally soaking in the scene, when the first of Papa’s hiking group began to cross us. Some were trim and fit, while others were not quite so fit and were already huffing and puffing as they climbed the slope. Some of them greeted us in the American style, and after we responded, stayed for a short conversation.



“Beautiful view, aint it?” a lady asked as she looked at the canyon.

“Sure is.” I agreed. “Have you been to the Grand Canyon, by any chance?”

She gave me an amused look. “Yes I have.”

“Is this anything like it?”

“Well…its smaller, that’s for sure…” she looked at me, as if she didn’t want to disappoint me “…but yeah sure, it does look a lot like the Grand canyon.”

I was very happy. Chalo, a desi GC.



At the very end of the group came along Papa H himself. He also stopped for a short conversation with us, and so I asked him the question which had been playing in my mind, but didn’t know how to ask.

“How much do you charge each person for a trip?”

He paused for a while, considering whether he should answer such a question and then finally decided that it wouldn’t do any harm.



“Well, our trip is for 18 days, from Delhi to Delhi. We organize an airport pickup and bring them to Kibber by train and bus, and after the trek is through we fly them back to Delhi, and leave them at the international terminal. The cost is $1800 per person.”



“$1800!”



We gasped at the figure, and he seemed to get extremely embarrassed.



“Actually it’s much cheaper than what other companies charge, you know…and the customer has to spend no other money than this 1800$...we provide food, accommodation, transport, the inner line permit…they just have to walk, carrying their daypack and enjoy the scenery.”



“Yes, of course. Very reasonable…” I agreed, feeling sorry at his embarrassment.



“Yeah…well…nice meeting you folks. You have a nice trip…” and he tipped his hat and went off.



After he left, me and Bharathi had a nice laugh and began calculating his profit.

“Let’s see, $1800 is about Rs. 80000. The whole expense of bringing them to Kibber by train and bus would be not more than a couple of thousand bucks per person. One night in a hotel in Kibber and food wouldn’t be more than Rs. 500. After that there are no hotels on the route, so the costs would be only of hiring the mules, the tents and the manpower to cook, clean etc. This would be a flat rate of maximum Rs5000 per day, which would be about Rs. 75000…lets double the figure for safety’s sake…Rs. 1.5 lakhs. Then a night in Ladakh – say another Rs. 1000 each…and the flight back…Rs. 5000 each.



So total fees collected: Rs. 80000 * 40 = Rs. 32 lakhs



Total expenses

Delhi to Kibber (40 * Rs. 2000) = Rs. 80000

Trip to Ladakh = Rs. 150000

Night in Ladakh (40 * Rs. 1000) = Rs. 40000

Flight to Delhi (40 * Rs. 5000) = Rs. 200000

Other expenses we don’t know = Rs. 500000



Total Expenses = Rs. 970000



Total fees collected = Rs. 3200000



Profit on one single tour = Rs. 2230000



Wow! Twenty lakhs profit in a fortnight! Even if we have miscalculated the costs somewhat, his profit will still be considerable. And as far as the Americans are concerned, $1800 would be a months salary or less. Very reasonable for them.



No wonder Papa H sacks out for half the year in Goa.”



We hung around the canyon for some time, unwilling to tear ourselves away from such beauty, and spent time following the stream for a little distance through the canyon, lying down on that gravelly, pebbly shore, splashing each other with that clear cold water, and generally enjoying ourselves.

It was only after the mule drivers came with their loaded mules and destroyed the silence and solitude of the canyon, did we decide to get up and leave.



But as we climbed out of the canyon, we decided to go by a slightly different route. And boy, were we rewarded! That route looked like the bed of a stream which had dried up. But while the stream was not flowing, the ground was still moist below it, which was clearly visible in the strip of green where the plants grew, feeding on the underground water. And the whole area was a celebration of wild flowers!



It was our own private valley of flowers!



The green hillside was a riot of colour, like a landscape painted by a mad impressionist painter. There were flowers of every colour, shape and scent – from the tiny humble grass flowers to exuberant rhododendrons and orchids. We tried counting the various varieties of flowers, but gave up after we reached 48.



As we lay on the grass, amidst the flowers and bees, and watched white clouds roll across the blue sky, and felt the cool breeze and the warmth of the sunlight – I really felt close to god. With Bharathi at my side and the valley of flowers around me, the world seemed to have little else to offer.



The world did have something else to offer of course, and that was food. Soon our tummies began to grumble, though the soul was content. Alas, the tummy won, and we made our way back across the flower lined fields to the Norbu hotel.



When she was here the last time, Bharathi had met that eponymous Norbu, and discovered that he, like Papa H, divided his time between Kibber and Goa. This time though, the male Norbu was not around – maybe he was still in Goa or something. There was a female running the place – I don’t know whether she was Mrs Norbu or Miss Norbu, or whether she was a Norbu at all. But she was a real goodlooker.



I wasn’t the only one who noticed that – there was a german backpacker there who was trying his best to get into her good graces, and maybe getting into other places if possible. He was flirting away to glory and this aunty was also giving him lots of encouragement. But when we arrived there, happy but half starved, she had to run off to the kitchen to make some food for us. She must not been too happy about it, because the food was flat and the hostess was grumpy.



Bharathi suggested that we go down to see Ki monastery, but I was all templed out after seeing Tabo and Dhankar. Also, after seeing god’s great creation of the Grand Canyon and the valley of flowers, I didn’t feel like seeing man’s idea of god. Bharathi cursed me for being a lazy bum, but accepted the force of my argument, and we sacked out for the rest of the day.





Camping by the lake of the moon



The next morning we had to leave early, and of course, I groaned and complained about getting up. There was no cheap transport available, unfortunately, so we hired the whole jeep for 400 bucks and came down to Kaza. In Kaza we looked around for a ride to Kunzam, and we were lucky enough to find a Qualis who was going back to Manali. The driver was looking for passengers, but could find only us and one another person.



While we were waiting for him to get ready, we went to have breakfast and stocked up on boiled eggs, bread, cheese spread and biscuits. Soon we were on our way.



When Bharathi had written about her earlier trip, she had described it as a trip of ‘heart breaking views and arse breaking roads’ but the roads we had traveled on so far ha been in excellent condition. I had smugly put it down to my being ‘fortune’s favorite’, but now the good fortune ran out. The roads were so terrible as to be non existent! But the Qualis was an excellent vehicle, and the driver was an outstanding driver. He negotiated the roads perfectly, and the suspension of the car was so beautiful that we hardly felt the shocks of that terrible road. We were able to focus on the outstanding views of the mountains and the Spiti. From afar the whole landscape looked full of pillars of dried mud which looked for all in the world like an army of soldiers turned into mud by the curse of an angry sage. Even the Ki monastery looked as if it was supported by anumber of those mud pillars and would collapse any second!



We followed the course of the river and occasionally crossed the bridge so that we came on the other side of the river. The roads were so steep, and the chasm so horrifying, that all the drivers followed all traffic rules – drove on the left side of the road, tootled the horn vigourously on blind turns and did not overtake recklessly – indeed, there were few vehicles on the road to overtake anyway.



We drove on until we came to Kunzum top. This was the start of the ‘ghat’ section, and there was a chorten by the side of the road. As per tradition, every vehicle on the roads made a detour to come to the temple and circumambulated it in reverence to ensure that the gods promised them a safe trip. We had to get off at that point and start our trek, but the driver first drove all around the chorten before dropping us off. We thanked him for the trip and wished him goodbye and then moved off for the trek.



We were planning to trek to Chandra lake (the lake of the moon) which was supposed to be the starting point for the Chandra river. We were planning to stay there for the night, and Bharathi had lugged along her tent and sleeping bag. I had also bought a sleeping bag for Rs. 400 from a street vendor in Delhi’s Palika bazaar, but when I proudly unrolled it and showed it to her, she went ‘he he he’ at the state of the sleeping bag – it was full of tatters and holes. Gah! Tricked again.



We trekked for about 3-4 hours, enjoying the fresh air and the himalyan scenery. The wind had carved the rocks into surreal shapes and the spring weather had caused innumerable wild flowers to spring up, and coat the mountains with gay colours. When we reached the top of the pass and were able to look down onto Chandra lake, the view was awesome - The lake lay like a blue gem in the lap of surrounding mountains – brown with snow caps.



However, seeing the lake and reaching it were two different things. We saw a clear path to the lake, but the macho titch with me said – No! We should go by the more difficult route. I went –Eh! Why? But as usual we went by her recommendation – and boy, was it tough! The route seemed completely composed of rocks which played hell with my feet, and on which you had to focus full attention, or the next thing you know you would be down with a sprained ankle – so you couldn’t even look up and enjoy the scenery. She went hop-hop across the stones like a rabbit, while I groaned my way across.



I was flaming mad after spending more than an hour on those stoney slopes, but the sight of the lake extinguished my anger. That clear blue water, that breeze…Ah. And whats this? There was a tent near the shore – an old fashioned large tarpaulin tent, covered with plastic. Wondering what this could be, we went close to it, and by jove- it turned out to be a hotel! There was a man sitting alone inside it, reading a newspaper, and he welcomed us politely. I disbelievingly asked him whether he could provide us some tea, and he acquiesced. I was stunned – garam chai at 13000 feet. Wow, this is really India shining. My irritation evaporated, and I took off my shoes and bathed my tired feet in the cool water of a stream flowing from the lake.



“What is this stream anyway?” I asked.

“Oh that? That is the beginning of the Chandra river.” Bharathi answered with a grin.

“This piddly stream is a river?”

“This is just the start. We will see the actual river tomorrow.”



The tent man appeared with the hot tea, and Bharathi watched amusedly as I crooned with joy on sipping the hot liquid. Hot spiced tea after a long and cold walk is so much better than under normal circumstances. Encouraged by his tea, we asked him to make Maggi noodles for us – but alas! His culinary skills seemed to be confined to tea. I ate more than half of the soggy mess (I don’t like instant noodles much at the best of times, and this guy had managed to screw it up even more), but Bharathi surrendered after just a quarter of the stuff. But hey, something’s better than nothing, and we were able to conserve our eggs for the night.



Then we went to the lake side, and saw with some disappointment that we would not be enjoying complete solitude, as there were already 4-5 tents at various points around the lake. We pitched our tent by the lake side (Bharathi did the pitching. I merely stood around and did some unskilled work) and lay down to soak up the peace of the place. Ah, the pleasures of camping. Complete peace and quiet, the majestic ‘White sail’ mountain being reflected in the lake, the occasional sounds of birds, the whooshing of the wind as it rattled the tent affectionately….



After some time we went for a circumambulation of the lake, and met some of the campers. There was a group from Delhi, who were tempting fate by swimming in the lake. We met one of them, quite a nice fellow, but he was swaying and stammering as if he was drunk. There were 2-3 sets of firangs who seemed to be determined to get away from it all, for they didn’t even return our smiles, but looked straight through us, and at the far end of the lake there was a group of shepherds (dhangars) who waved at us from afar. But even as we reached the far side, there was a sudden appearance of a biggish camping party – a package tour of firangs. Luckily they were far away, and couldn’t disturb us in the night.



After our long walk, we went back into the hotel-tent for some chai. There were a couple of firangs there, and we chatted with them. They were a real hardy lot – they had come only with tiny backpacks – no tent, not even a sleeping bag! Their philosophy was that if there were sleeping arrangements, then they would stay the night – if not, they would trek back down. Well, that takes guts and fitness. Some of the firang backpackers are really impressive.



While we were sitting there, a couple of females from the Delhi group also came in and filled the tent with chatter. It turned out that they knew nothing about AMS (Altitude mountain sickness) and it seemed that they had a case of AMS on their hands – the seemingly drunk guy we had met. We explained that AMS could be very serious, causing lung or brain problems or even death, and they would be well advised to take that fellow to a lower altitude immediately; but the babes decided to risk it. I don’t know what happened to him, I didn’t hear any wailing or weeping the next morning, so I assume that he survived the night. We spent the rest of the time swapping mountain stories with the firangs – the firangs had a lot of medium altitude climbing experience, Bharathi is an experienced Himalayan mountaineer, and I had also the stories of my trek to Mt Everest base camp to boast about.



We went for another small walk and then retired to our tent. We had some thought of ordering dal and rice from that hotel chappie, but those whacko Delhi-ites had taken his pressure cooker, so there was no chance of that. We had a nice dinner of cold boiled eggs and sandwiches and some fruits.



We had hoped for an amazingly silent night, but we had to tolerate the cacophony of an antakshari and a terribly played dafli from those Delhi idiots. How can anyone come to a place like this and ruin the silence by playing antakshari? Serve us right for pitching our tents next to Delhi-ites.



However, the tent was warm and cosy, and the weather gods were kind – they didn’t trouble us with rain or hail. Our neighbours also quietened down in time, and we had a peaceful night by the shores of the lake of the moon.





A long walk down and a short break



The next morning I woke early – Bharathi was still sleeping off her toothache and shoulder ache and enjoyed the views of the lake. Went for a long walk around the lake and came back and woke her up. After chai and breakfast at our tent wala, we struck camp and started our trek down.



The first half of the walk was really nice, with good weather and excellent scenery. But after some time we came to a really nasty patch of road. They had made this into a motorable road, so it was rather hard and uncomfortable to walk on; and the wind suddenly decided to get unpleasant. It blew with such force, that it was getting continuously slapped by a strong hand. It blew sand into our faces, and we had to walk leaning forward so that it wouldn’t blow us into the Chandra river below. We had hoped to get a lift from some automobile, but the only one which passed us was filled to the gills. Walking downhill is unpleasant at the best of times, but this was the worst walk I ever had. Hard stony ground, gale force freezing winds, no scenery to pep you up and more than six hours of hard slog. Even after we reached the highway, we couldn’t get any transport – all the cars and buses just whizzed past without stopping. We watched enviously as the Bullet mobikers passed by us without a backward glance. There was no help for it, we would have to walk another six kilometers to the small dhaba at Batal.



As we walked, I thought I saw a figure with an ice axe. I first thought that I must be mistaken, then I thought that it might be a stray workman or something – but then there was another and another and another…good heavens, there were scores of them! It turned out that they were a party of mountaineering students from the mountaineering school of Darjeeling, just returning from an expedition. I was impressed.



We finally reached the dhaba, and breathed a sigh of relief. The ordeal was finally over. Physically it was not so bad, I could have gone on a lot more – but it was irritating and unsatisfying to walk on tar roads in that gale. When we reached the dhaba, it was already full of those budding mountaineers and was buzzing with activity. We settled down for some good hot food – dal, chawal, tarkari, and watched those guys relax with tea, Maggi and cigarettes. I was surprised to see mountaineering students puff away, but I suppose they were celebrating the end of an arduous course.



There were the inevitable firangs there, and one of them asked the dhabawala what was there to eat. The dhabawala opened a pot and showed her the rice inside it.



‘Risotto’ he explained.



Wow. ‘Risotto’. An Italian speaking dhabawala. Good. India shining!



After lunch we managed to get seats in a Sumo going to Manali. These transport guys are really well networked I must say – he knew that we had come to Kunzam top in a Qualis, and exactly how much we had paid.



The drive back was really spectacular. The Chandra river – which we had seen as a piddly little stream at Chandratal – was swollen and dangerous from the glacier melt water, and was ravening down her route like a white haired witch gone wild, tearing down the mountains at her sides. The roads were in a terrible condition, and there was the additional danger of rock falls and mountain slides. The wild river at one side, and the scary brittle mountain at the other – it was a scary experience.



But after some time we got out of that patch, and got into a smoother section of the road. Suddenly the mountains became green again, and we saw trees and bushes after a long time. But now there was another danger – fog! We crossed Rohtang pass in a total white-out - and we could make out the thousands of dirty dhabas, the ghoda walas, the hordes of Indian tourists playing in 6 square feet of snow only dimly – so I suppose that even a fog has an important role to play in life.



I had been to Manali for the first time in 1983 when it was just a small and charming hill station compared to the wonder of Kashmir. But then Kashmir had been closed due to the terrorism problem, and Manali had become the main draw for tourists. I had visited again in 1994 and in 1999, and had observed the decay and destruction of a once-beautiful place with great dismay. So I warned Bharathi not to expect anything from Manali, but I was pleasantly surprised. There had been a lot of replantation and the whole place looked much cleaner and greener than what I remembered.



We had no intention of staying in Manali proper, so we decided to stay in Vashist, which was the backpacker ghetto. It was equally crowded, but much better and cheaper than the awful mess which is Manali town.



After some searching, we got a very nice room overlooking the Beas for Rs. 300, and we resolved not to do anything else that day. We sacked out in the evening, and I had beer and non veg food (yum yum) after a long time. Bharathi doesn’t drink, so she decided to have a banana milk shake, but the banana was raw, and it was quite disgusting. I went heh-heh-heh and flaunted my child bear (that’s how they spelt it) in her face.





Hot hot bath



Today was a chill-out day. No long travels in buses, no walking – only relax. We got up lazily, and enjoyed a late breakfast on the spectacular terrace restaurant of our hotel. We had no wish to see the sights of Manali, or to go anywhere and do anything. We merely went for a short walk to the Vashisht temple and checked out the location of the hot-spring. All hot-springs have a religious significance in India, and the Vashisht garam-kund was no exception. The local legend was that this was the place where the great sage Vashisht was residing and doing tapascharya at the time of the Ram-Rajya. When Lord Rama wanted to conduct a special yagnya, he wanted his guru Vashisht to grace the ceremony, but he didn’t know where he was. So he sent his younger brother Laxman to trace out the great guru and request him to attend the ceremony. Laxman searched high and low, and finally found the guru at this place after great pains. Vashisht was very happy to meet Laxman, and perceived that he was tired and weary. So he created the hot spring through his mystical powers and told him to take a bath in it, so that he would revitalized and refreshed. Since that time, it is said that anyone who bathes in it shall have his tiredness removed, his diseases healed and his sins assuaged.



Modern science has since then told us that hot springs are due to subterranean water deposits being heated by lava and forced up by steam, but I still feel a wonder at the thought of it. Just think – we were so high up, on a hill station in the Himalayas, and there is a hot spring bubbling out of the ground! Maybe on a volcanic plateau it wouldn’t be so surprising - but here in the sedimentary mountains…I felt that it was simply magical. I feel so about all hot springs in the Himalayas – Gaurikund near Kedarnath, Yamunotri, Vashisht…



Anyway, the idea of a dip in a hot tub sounded really attractive after so many days of ST bus traveling and the recent trek, so we promised ourselves that we would come for a nice soak later today. We loafed around for a while and had a nice two beer lunch. After lunch, I said- Chalo, its time to hit the springs. Jai baba Vashisht!



We collected clothes and towels and went to the springs where we separated into the zenana – mardana sections. When I went inside and stripped to undies, I saw that most of the people in the bath section were sitting demurely outside.



“Hah, what idiots!” I thought to myself “Coming to a hot spring and then sitting outside”

I confidently stepped into the spring to my ankles, yelped loudly and leaped outside!



“OW!”



The water wasn’t hot, it was bloody boiling!



Every one in the room giggled and gave me a rueful look. I suddenly understood why they had been sitting outside. I felt tempted to do the same myself.



Then I reproached myself. This was bloody ridiculous. I must enter that tub. I steeled myself and entered the water till my ankles. OUCH….oof oof…it was hot…must do it, but…oh boy, its hot. I counted to thirty and then entered till my knees. AARGHH….oh boy, just hold on….I counted to thirty again and entered till my hips…OW OW OW…my testicles…hope my fertility is not affected…The thought was too horrible, I jumped out of the bath. My legs had turned red.



But not bad, I felt. At least I had gone half way. I waited for a while and mustered up my courage and went in again. Ankles…ouch…Knees…ouch…Hips…ouch…tummy…ouch…Chest…ouch ouch ouch, my nipples, arghhh…shoulders…ah, did it! Now to count to thirty. One…two…three…



I counted to thirty, then to sixty, then to ninety, and then I couldn’t bear it anymore and jumped out, gasping. But by now, my example had emboldened some of the others and they also started moving cautiously into the pool. I was particularly impressed with one tiny little kid who seemed to be totally at ease and was diving into the pool and swimming in it in perfect comfort. Maybe he was a local and used to the temperature.



I cooled off for some time, and then again attacked the pool. This time I was able to enter till my shoulders with less discomfort and stayed for some time in the water. The boiling hot water was amazingly relaxing, and I could feel every knot in my muscles relaxing in the intense heat. Again I counted till hundred, and then had to come out. I was as red as a tomato by now…a dark brown kind of tomato, though.



I did this in and out several times, each time increasing the period I was able to stay in the pool. The hot water was like an addiction, every time I got out, I just wanted to go in again. I knew that I would never have an experience like this again…you just can’t get such hot water in a private bath tub. By the time I finally finished and came out, it was nearly forty minutes, and Bharathi was waiting curiously for me.



“What on earth were you doing for so long in there mister?” she asked, putting her hand on mine “Good heavens! Why are you so hot? Do you have a fever? You are positively burning!”



“No, no…no fever. It’s just the heat from the hot spring.” I explained.



We sat there for some time, as I waited to cool down. I was as hot as a baked potato, and seemed to retain heat for as long. It took nearly another 45 minutes for my body temperature to return to normal. I just hoped that my testicles weren’t parboiled in the process!



Bharathi related a hilarious story from the women’s section. Apparently some firang woman had come into the bath, and tried to take photographs of the women there. (These women apparently bathe in the buff. Good show – the men are more modest and bathe in undies) Unfortunately for her, the women noticed that she was taking photos and caught hold of her, confiscated her camera and exposed her roll (her film roll, I mean). This dumb firang woman was complaining ‘But why were they so mad? They look beautiful!’ She would probably have been lynched if Bharathi wasn’t around to get her out of there.



Finally after I cooled down we went back to the hotel room and had a cold shower with soap (Not that I disbelieve in the healing powers of the spring, I just felt like playing safe to avoid skin diseases) and then both of us fell asleep.



Fell asleep, as in Rip Van Winkle kind of asleep!



The extremely hot water had relaxed each and every muscle in our bodies I think, and both of us were as limp and relaxed as rag dolls! We slept from about 4 in the afternoon, till 10.45 in the night. We would have slept even more, but I remembered that the hotel last order is at 11 PM, so we ran up to order some grub. Even so, most of the grub was over, and we had to eat fried rice, which was the only thing left. We somehow ate that rice and tumbled right back into bed to sleep off the effects of that hot soak.



Ah! What bliss it was!





Back on the road – On to Ladakh!



Now our break was over and it was time to hit the road again. We checked out of our nice hotel and took an auto down to the bus stand. Manali is a big town in the area and the place was a chaotic hive of activity. We found ourselves a bus going to Leh, and plonked ourselves in it. We were just congratulating ourselves on having got good seats, when we were jerked out of that seat by a dread-locked german waving a reservation in our face. Oh Shit, reservations again! We ran to the counter and managed to get a couple of seats. We came back victorious and had the pleasant experience of jerking a couple of locals out of their seats. Hah! Its always better to be the oppressor than to be oppressed.



Soon the bus started, almost leaving Bharathi behind, because she had got down to buy some eats, and we were on our way. Apart from us reserved seats people, the bus also picked up people en route. One of them was a family of 4 – Daddy, mummy and 2 kids. The father outraged the conductor by asking for a child ticket for his younger son.

“Child ticket only for children under 5 years.” He growled.

“But this child is only 4 years old.” The father argued.

“What?” the conductor looked at the kid in disbelief. “This kid is 4 years old? What are you talking, man? I also have kids, you can’t tell me that this boy is 4 years old. Ask anybody on the bus.”

The fellow didn’t reply, and the conductor looked uncomfortable. Apart from stopping the bus and forcibly making the family get off, he had no way of getting the money out from the fellow, and the conductor was too soft hearted to put them on the road in the middle of nowhere.

“Ok…I’ll tell you what…I will give you tickets only till Keylong, after that it’s another conductor and not my responsibility. 4 years old…bah!”



The bus went on its merry way, and after we crossed Rohtang pass and its ugly collection of tourist traps, we had left the filth of civilization far behind. We were on one of the most incredible roads of India – The Manali –Leh highway. This 480 km road is snowed in for 8 months of the year and crosses 4 high altitude passes- Rohtang pass, Baralacha pass, Lachulung pass and Tanglang pass and takes you over a journey over the incredible moon-scape of the region and deposits you from the Hindu, comparatively low-lying areas of Himachal to the Tibetan-influenced Buddhist, high altitude region of Ladakh. It would take us two days of continous traveling – nearly 30 hours driving – to reach Leh.



No standing passengers are allowed in the bus to Leh, and so there is a good view (comparatively) for all passengers. The scenery outside is unlike anything you will ever see anywhere else. The huge expanses, the sere brown mountains, the wild Chandra river flowing in the valley below, the colours of the sand and rock, the blue sky…its incredible. All the views I had seen since we started this trip were absolutely incredible. And it goes on for hours and hours…just to illustrate the difficulty of the terrain – the Bombay-Goa distance is similar to the Manali-Leh distance, but takes only 12 hours as compared to 25-30 hours for Manali-Leh.



We passed a few villages at first, and I was impressed by the presence of State Bank of India in most of them. However much we crib in the cities about the inefficiency of the public-sector banks, the rural and far flung areas would never have had access to banking facilities if not for them. The villages were also very nice and scenic to see – completely isolated from the rest of the world, but happy and content. One interesting sight was a ‘castle’ of some local king – which looked more like a stack of match boxes kept on each other than a fortification. Well, if it was sufficient to make him a king, then I suppose it was good enough. We even came across a group of long distance cylcists cycling across the Manali-Leh highway. Man, that really takes some strength and guts. Just sitting in that rattling bus was enough exercise for me.



The bus was almost half-full of firangs, as this trip is highly recommended in the Lonely Planet. Most of them were nice, inoffensive people but there was one guy who irritated me extremely. I think he was French, and was traveling with his girl friend. Maybe he had a bad experience with locals ripping him off at every opportunity, or maybe he was still living in the times of the Raj; but he had a sneering and haughty look on his face at all times. And he was sitting right in front of us, and irritated us by kissing his girl every five minutes or so. Once or twice is OK, but continuously going on like this for hours was very irritating. Once Bharathi coughed, and he looked around with a furious expression, and imitated covering mouth with hand while coughing. You could read his mind – bloody filthy Indians. I was outraged and was going to tap him on the shoulder and show him the middle finger and imitate it going up his ass, but Bharathi stopped me. What an asshole he was.



Anyway, I dismissed him from my mind as being beneath contempt and concentrated on the scenery. Bharathi said that the greatest tribute to the scenery outside was that I didn’t fall asleep. Well, I suppose every person gives tribute in his or her individual fashion.



We stopped at a place called Keylong for the night, and Bharathi again insisted on going to some particular hotel she had stayed in, the last time she had done this trip. I sighed, evidently the Norbu hotel lesson hadn’t sunk in. Sure enough, she had an argument with that fellow over the fare – first he agreed for something, and then suddenly hiked up the fare – and lost another good memory. I have no hang ups on staying in the same particular place I stayed in earlier, I generally prefer to go to a new place every time, unless you are on company money and are staying in a company hotel.



The bus depot was as dirty as such places usually are, and we were keen to leave it and go for a walk in the mountains before it was dark. But before we did this, we had to go and get reservations for the bus for the Keylong - Leh trip. Idiots, I felt, if they are issuing tickets for the entire Manali-Leh trip, then the reservation should be valid for the entire trip. But No, you have to stand in line in that dirty office and get fresh seat numbers for the second leg of the journey. That was soon through, and we were off for a walk.



There was a gompa on the top of a hill, and we made for that. It was absolutely amazing – just a few minutes from the depot, and the scenery suddenly became beautiful and charming. Lovely fields, mountain views, wild flowers, fresh breeze…wow! We never did make it to the Gompa on the top of the hill, but got distracted by fields of wildflowers and lovely mountain views. We sat there and watched the sunset, and then ran down to our hotel for a bite of dinner and a snatch of sleep.



We had to sleep early, we had a bus to catch at 3.30 AM the next day.





Reaching Leh



The next day we had to get up very early indeed, and both of us kept on waking up at odd hours in the night to ensure that we don’t over sleep. Bharathi had overslept the last time, and had missed the bus, and had to waste the day. We got up in time, though, and went to the bus-stand rubbing our eyes. The bus eventually came, and we piled in. The family with the allegedly 4-yeal old kid seemed to have overslept, and they missed the bus.



Well, we were on our way again, over some of the craziest scenery you could ever see. The trip went on and on, and one particularly interesting place was a 45 km absolutely flat area after Luchulung-pass, called the Moray plains. This was flat –flat –flat. One giant prairie with nothing but a few faraway sheep and shepherds to be seen. There was a lake of some sort in the distance, but apart from that, there were no physical landscape features at all. It was so flat, that the bus driver left the road, and drove straight across the prairie to avoid a bend in the road. Amazing.



We stopped for lunch in a tented settlement in the middle of nowhere. There were a bunch of tents there which acted as hotels. You could eat and drink out there, and there were beds available if you want to sleep. It’s a strange thing to see that Coca-cola is available in the middle of nowhere in the Ladakh plateau.



By early evening we finally reached Leh. This was the end of our bus journey from Simla to Leh – It had been a really tremendous trip of last 10 days, and now that we had finally reached, I felt a bit disappointed. The thrill of the journey is better than reaching your destination.



We shouldered our bags and walked out. Like in all hill towns, there is no public transport and the taxis are out to loot you blind. So we didn’t take a taxi, but walked up to Leh town. It wasn’t all that far anyway, the only issue was that we should not overtax ourselves in the thin air until our lungs were used to it. We (I) huffed and puffed a bit at the start, but soon got used to it.



Leh (and Ladakh as a whole) is very big on the backpacker circuit, perhaps the second largest one in the country after Goa. There are considerable more firang holidaymakers there than Indian ones, in fact on our days on the road so far, we had come across only one or two Indians. The meaning of this was two fold – one that the accommodation would be clean, cheap and good and infrastructure would be pretty good over all – these firangs like to get value for money. The second implication would be that the hotel owners might be more inclined to rent out rooms to foreigners rather than Indians – the kind of reverse discrimination, where the locals are held inferior to foreigners – which the journalist Pankaj Mishra has complained volubly about in his book –‘Butter chicken in Ludhiana’.

But, to be perfectly honest, I have traveled quite a bit all over India, and have never been subject to this experience, it more imagined than real. Also, I can think of many reasons apart from racism as to why hoteliers prefer to have foreigners rather than Indians – most of them are well behaved, polite, honest, and much quieter than the average Indian family tourist. However, just the thought of getting discriminated against in your own country is enough to get you fuming, so perhaps one sees insult where none is intended.



Anyway, we reached a nice area, but after we knocked at 3-4 hotels and were told in succession that there was no room, we began to suspect that we were being discriminated against, and my pressure began to rise. However, before I could blow a gasket, we found rooms in a hotel. It was a fairly nice room, and quite reasonable, only it didn’t have much of a view. Also, the service was a bit slow – I thought that it is slow for Indians, then slapped myself on the head for being paranoiac. Only an insecure idiot will see himself as being insulted everywhere.

But we didn’t care. We were finally in Ladakh, a place I had dreamt of visiting for years and years. More importantly, we were out of that bus finally, and what we wanted was hot tea and a hot bath, and to lie down for some time. In due course of time, we got both – the tea and the water, though unfortunately they were both a bit tepid. But that was OK. After a bath and a chai, I felt like a new man!



We went for a walk around town in the evening, and it was quite charming. The ancient hill city nature of the place was evident in the old architecture, the Leh fort dominating the view, and the huge masjid in the middle of the town. And the rise in tourism over the years had prompted the rise of several nice hotels and other tourist services like bicycle rentals, laundry, book shops, travel agents, etc; which made it a nice and warm place to roam around.



There were a lot more tourists – both foreign and Indian – in Leh rather than the Manali – Leh road, as a lot of them had flown directly to Leh from Delhi. They were still in fashionable city clothing, and some of them were clutching their foreheads as the high altitude and thinner air hit them.



We had dinner and retired for the night. We could see the silhouette of the Leh palace on the hill, standing out against the moon.





Monastery, Palace and royal treatment



There are a lot of things you can do from Leh. There are some excellent treks, there is an abundance of monasteries to visit, a visit to the Tsomoriri lake is said to be a must, other places like Nubra valley, Panging Tso, Dha hanu valley, etc are very highly rated.



Unfortunately we had no time for any of this. Due to our delicious dawdling around in beautiful places during the trip to Leh, we had hardly any time to spend in Leh. Oh well, I thought, its all for the best. I don’t regret even a moment of the trip, and there is so much left to see in the next trip to Leh.



The first thing to do was to change our hotel. While there was nothing drastically wrong with the current place, it was a little too far from the town, the service was a little too laid back, and the rates were a little too high. All the littles mounted up to enough motivation for us to look for a new hotel. Bharathi wanted to check out immediately, but I had no taste for walking around loaded with a backpack looking for acco. Much better to first find a hotel, and then move. And this had to be done fast, because check out was at 12 noon, and if we overstayed, then we would end up paying for both rooms.



We went around and looked and looked. First I would reject one, then she would reject one, and so on. Finally, following a sign, we went into a nice shady lane, and found a hotel. Strangely enough, it was not the hotel whose sign we had seen, but a smaller one behind it. It was actually a proper house, and the owner had converted two rooms on the top into guest rooms. The owner was such a sweet fellow, it was a pleasure to look at him. Most hill people are polite and gracious, but in this fellow it was refined to a much higher degree. He looked so sweet and smiling, that we almost decided there and then to stay, but decided to see the room as well.



And what a room it was! I have seen works of several prominent interior designers, but none of them matched up to what had been created by this simple amateur. It was absolutely lovely! There was a tasteful double bed, a writing table and stool, a large window to see the stream and forest outside and an Indian baithak just by the window. It was just great. And the price? We asked him and he hesitantly quoted Rs. 250, and we closed at Rs. 200. His good taste extended to some very nice tea service as well. Our earlier hotel wala was not too happy with our leaving, but hey – he brought it on himself.



After dumping our bags in that cute hotel, we decided to venture out to see the surrounding monasteries. Traveling by taxi in that place is mighty expensive, so we decided to go by bus. Our first plan was to go to Alchi monastery, but we discovered that the bus to Alchi had already left – it leaves early in the morning.



Oh well! Let’s go somewhere else then. While we were looking around for other buses, my eye fell on a signboard of a restaurant, and the dishes which were there to eat.



“Wow!” I clutched Bharathi’s hand “Look at that.”



‘Tandoori nun.’



Well! I had heard that Buddhists were largely vegetarian, but here it looked as if they were not only carnivorous, but also cannibalistic! And talk about an anti-Christian sentiment.



We had a hearty chuckle over this, and got into a bus going to Hemis monastery – so off we went, leaving that unfortunate nun behind.



Hemis was a very nice monastery, with lots of murals and carvings. Tibetan tantric Buddhism really lends itself to arresting and colorful murals. The monk who was showing us around was happy to meet someone from the exotic city of Bombay – it was as exciting to him as Hemis was to us. The monastery was in the old fortress-cum-monastery mould and was strategically situated up on a hill, so we had a nice view of the scenery around from the highest point. The contrast between the brown country-side and the occasional green of the cultivated fields was really nice to see. We had lunch in the monastery hotel, started enviously at the motorcycle tourists and went back. A bike would have been very convenient to explore the place, rather than depending on the buses.



We got back to our nice room and lazed out the afternoon, watching the rivulet and forest from our window. I was amused to the see the determined efforts of a firang girl to sack out in the garden below. First she rigged up a hammock very precariously on a tree and a drainpipe. Our courteous host did nothing to stop her from rigging it on the drain pipe, in spite of the very real danger of the pipe falling loose under the weight. Then she took out a walkman, attached two external speakers and put on some music. Then she picked up her sketchbook and lay down carefully in the hammock and started to put the finishing touches on a nice drawing of a Buddha face which she had done. At her request the hotel owner brought her a cold drink, so she lay for a while in the hammock, listening to music and sipping her drink. But in spite of all this, she still got bored within a few minutes and left. Well, it was a good try anyway.



Later in the evening, we climbed up the hill to see the Leh fort and palace. The original Leh fort was right at the top of the hill, where the original rulers believed safety and security to be more important than comfort. The later generations believed more in comfort so they built a bigger and more comfortable palace lower down the hill, but they were chucked out in 1940 due to political reasons. In the best traditions of India, the palace has been ransacked and vandalized mercilessly in 50 years of freedom – the fatal urge to write ones name and love affiliations on the walls of the palace overcoming good taste and decency. This is a common scene across the country – across the world for all I know, but till about 9 years back the government took not the slightest notice. Since then the ASI has taken over the place, and ASI being ASI, one wonders whether the cure will not be worse than the disease itself.



But both the structures were impressive structures from the outside, and looked nice and imposing up on the hill. The insides were not that nice, in part the vandalisation, and in part the ASI restoration. But the walk up, and the scenery from the top were nice. I was impressed by a huge kite a kid was flying – one of those sophisticated ones with multiple strings, by which you can make it flap and do aeronautical stunts. We also had a chat with a friendly looking chap with a fake American accent – he turned out to be a representative of an adventure sports company from Nepal, checking out whether it would be practical for them to open a branch in India.



He had come on a nice mountain bike, and Bharathi watched wistfully as he sailed down the hill. She is a keen cyclist and has done cycling trips from Bombay to Pune (terrible ghats) and Madgaon to Mangalore; so she was keen to do more cycling here – I just shuddered at the thought itself. I had done some mountain biking in Nepal and had found out that rather than fitness, it is padding which makes cycling enjoyable. The hard seat hammering away at the sensitive region between your legs as you bounce from rock to rock, can make you very very sore.



I hadn’t been able to walk properly for a week! Ouch!





More monasteries!



Since we knew that the bus to Alchi left early in the morning, we were there bright and bushy tailed to catch that bus. And it was a good thing that we were early, because that bus was really crowded! They use only the small mini-buses out here, so it doesn’t take up to fill up the bus.

We had a nice scenic drive to Alchi, and I was all the more convinced that riding a twp wheeler was the right way to get around out here. The only problem with that would be that you would be obliged to drive right back to Simla, to get back to your house! For us, there was nothing more to do than to take the flight back.



The bus deposited us to Alchi village, and I was a bit downcast to see a lot of private buses and cars parked outside it, showing that there would a hell of a lot of people in the place. However, the monastery was big enough for all of us to get around without falling over each other. But first things first, we went to a nearby hotel and had a hearty breakfast! The hotel had a nice shady garden where the tables were kept, but I was most impressed by their idea of a fridge. They had kept all the soft drink bottles in the bed of a stream, and that was all the cooling it needed! Talk about eco-friendly refrigeration – no CFCs at all.



The monastery had some nice temples, though most of them were locked, and we could only peer in through the windows. The ASI chaps were at it again – restoring our magnificent heritage by painting right over them. God help us. ‘Jo kaam dushmanon ne nahin kiya, woh ghaav ghar waalon ne de diya’.



This area was really big on apricots. Dried apricots (Jardaloo) are a very big dry fruit in India, commanding hefty prices in Bombay. But here, the fruit was so common that it had dropped all over the place, and was nothing but litter – to be swept up by a broom and piled up in a corner. You could take as much as you pleased; even the birds were not too interested. All the tourists, included ourselves, hogged on Apricots and filled their pockets with them.



We spent some time at the temple, and then went for a walk in the fields. The views were incredible - a big tributary of the Indus flowed in the valley below, and towering Himalayan peaks rose regally next to it. This must be a fearsome place in winter – but in the summer, it was verdant and fertile.



After we were sated with the temple, the views and the apricots, we had some lunch and caught a bus back to Leh. Bharathi suggested seeing some more temples, but I was all templed out.



‘One monastery is very much like the other’ I said, and she wrinkled her nose at me. ‘Lazy bugger’.



We got back to Leh and spent some time going over the city. We visited the Ledeg museum (Ladakh economic developmental group) which promotes eco friendly development and farming in the region, and sampled ‘Leh berry’ juice for the first time. It is supposed to be a very hip thing, but to tell the truth, I was not too impressed. What was impressive was their library, but it was closed for the day. We could see the books only through the locked panels.



In the evening we did a last shopping trip – but most of the stuff was wildly overpriced I thought. I ended up buying only some saffron, some dried apricots and some unremarkable T shirts. I just can’t resist T shirts.



The better thing to do was to eat and drink, and we did just that. Momos, Thukpa, steak, beer, the works. After 12 days of rather Spartan living on the road, the pull of exotic cuisine and cold beer was irresistible.



I think I am an epicurean at heart.





Back home!



Oh no! Trip is over!



We got up in the morning with the sad realization that the trip was really over. We had settled our bills last night, and that sweet fellow had refused to take money for hot water and tea. When we pressed him to take it, he folded his hands and said ‘You are my guests. How can I charge guests for bath water and tea?’ Really, such a nice man – tears welled up in my eyes. We went out and bought some chocolates for his children, it was the least we could do.



We took a taxi to the airport, and cleared the security. When the time came to check in, there was another pleasant surprise – a sort of ‘good bye’ present from Ladakh. Jet airways upgraded us to Business class! It was the first (and only time till date) time that I had flown in business class. Felt very happy.



The views unfortunately were obscured by clouds, and the airhostesses must have breathed a sigh of relief, as they didn’t have to prevent people from taking photographs. (The government, in its limitless wisdom has banned the taking of photographs from the air as a security precaution. They recently reviewed the rules and said that – Ok, you can take photos inside the airport, but not from the plane itself. We must be the only country in the world with this rule)



The trip by road and rail from Delhi to Leh had taken us 12 days, and we returned by flight in half an hour.



Having some time to kill in Delhi, we went to see the National rail museum (we had thought about seeing the Red fort, but it was entirely too humid and hot to walk around outside. As Bharathi described it – From Siberia to Sahara) and enjoyed the display. Run down and ill maintained, but nice nevertheless.



Then it was back to the airport, and time to go our separate ways. Sigh.



But all in all, it was an excellent trip, and I can’t do better to sum it up than to quote Jerome K Jerome, my favorite travel writer.



"It has been a pleasant Bummel, on the whole," said Harris; "I shall be glad to get back, and yet I am sorry it is over, if youunderstand me."



"What is a 'Bummel'?" said George. "How would you translate it?"



"A 'Bummel'," I explained, "I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for a few days. But long or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry when 'tis over."