Message body
The state of Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous region of the Himalayas, therefore traveling is mostly up or down. The mountains range from 1km to over 6kms. This means traveling on roads built on mountain slopes, sometimes paved and sometimes not.
It was a new experience to ride in car with a sheer drop of a kilometer about 50 cm next to where I was sitting - for 8 hours. This distance of half a meter can shorten considerably if 2 cars need to pass in opposite directions. A car can also mean a truck. Of the 10 hour drive from Dharamsala to Kinnaur valley in Kalpa I think about 10% of the shoulder was protected by a fence, and another 20% by large stones. The rest of the way leaves no room for error, if you go off the road you don't come back. Exercise relaxing your sphincter.
I experienced 2kinds of 'breathtaking': one where we passed a truck and the front wheel passed inches from the exposed ledge and another kind at the sheer size of my surroundings. It's hard to grasp the scale of the space when traveling on a road but when I look at mountain across from our road and see a thin thin line snaking around the slopes, I understand that this is the road that we came from.
Due to a landslide our original route was blocked so we took the scenic route which extended our trip by several hours and landed us in Rampor (original name: bunghole) at 11pm.
Himachal Pradesh (called HP by the locals) has a lot of water and many large rivers. These are harnessed for electricity by the government. All the large rivers either contain a hydroelectric plant or have one under construction. This requires huge amounts of labor and workers are brought to live by the plants or construction sites which are scattered over many kilometers of the rivers. So in any journey through HP you will see little labor camps where women and men (usually without their families) live and work for months on the local project. This also includes mining and cement production. The amount of dust and mineral particles in the air (when it's not raining) seemed dangerous. Can't blame our driver for not wanting to stop to eat at one the worker towns scattered all along the rivers. They look grim, grimy and smileless. Rampor, which I mentioned earlier is a small town which serves the regional workers as an entertainment center, providing restaurants, shops and alcohol.
After a night drive in the Himalayas, The next morning we passed Mandi, made it over the mountains and arrived at the valley of Kinnaur. And in keeping with contrasts of India, it is a gem in grimebucket. Mountain people herding goats and going god knows where up and down the mountains. The houses are built on narrow slopes so visiting neighbors or bringing home firewood means going up or down and at pretty high angles. These people are fit.
The valley nestled in theae mountains is wide and full of apple orchards, apricot trees, passionfruit and other green stuff. Apricots are wild, free and people sun-dry them on the roofs. When I asked for an apple juice in local restaurant the owner sent his boy to pick apples from his orchard for the juice.
Strangely, there is a stark contrast between the giant mountains and vast spaces to the claustrophobic life on the narrow slopes. Unless you live in a valley, your space is always vast but narrow. Seeing a father and a 4 year old walking quietly in front of him very close to the edge made me think of what a western parent would think and how wrong they would be. Another astonishing sight was seeing a group of people going down a steep road in the mountain with one elder walking with his hands folded behind him. What graceful balance.
We settled in a beautiful guesthouse run by Ram. I later heard him identifying himself to our Indian driver by his full name Tota Ram. When I asked my driver why he introduced himself to me only as Ram, he said he might be embarrassed by the first part of his name Tota, which means Parrot.
Morning. A great fog rolls over the entire valley to the sound of rain shedding it's last morning drops. I'm sitting on the terrace of a guesthouse in the tiny village of Chinni with a Chai and I can hear from the Tibetan monastery across, the Mantra of Avalokitesvara sung by the local women. This side of mount Kailash, the tears won't stop.
Leaving Beautiful Kalpa, we continued into the Kinnaur valley and reached one of it's most eastern points, its last outpost before the Indo-Tibetan border, Chitkul. Here the valley widens and a rough river flows into the valley from Tibet. The town is a development outpost (ayeret pituach) of about forty homes, a monastery and a school. The place feels much rougher than Kalpa, also because of it's elevated position (3400m), no trees and a wide plateau exposed to winds. A narrow path along the roaring river leads out of town towards the border. We walked the kilometer+ hike up to to the military camp, which no one is allowed to cross. Walking back we took a higher trail which led us through fields of green wheat and patches of peas. As we munched on the pods which were incredibly juicy, we met a column of Indian soldiers walking to their border post and I couldn't miss the name tag on one of the men 'Surender'.
Our Guest House manager was only known as 'Didi' (sister). She is 31 and manages the place most of the time with a baby on her back, and 2 small hyperactive kids running around. Her husband and brother help out and they all live on the premises. Didi runs the place like a 'balaboste', barking orders to the employees and her children. One child, 8 years old, is so severely disabled, that he does not leave the parents' room. Didi also brews alcohol from apples. Didi and everyone here has a harsh life. In the winter the village is disconnected from main roads and snowed in for months.
Sun burned, we left early morning for the 16 hour drive back to Delhi.
I experienced 2kinds of 'breathtaking': one where we passed a truck and the front wheel passed inches from the exposed ledge and another kind at the sheer size of my surroundings. It's hard to grasp the scale of the space when traveling on a road but when I look at mountain across from our road and see a thin thin line snaking around the slopes, I understand that this is the road that we came from.
Due to a landslide our original route was blocked so we took the scenic route which extended our trip by several hours and landed us in Rampor (original name: bunghole) at 11pm.
Himachal Pradesh (called HP by the locals) has a lot of water and many large rivers. These are harnessed for electricity by the government. All the large rivers either contain a hydroelectric plant or have one under construction. This requires huge amounts of labor and workers are brought to live by the plants or construction sites which are scattered over many kilometers of the rivers. So in any journey through HP you will see little labor camps where women and men (usually without their families) live and work for months on the local project. This also includes mining and cement production. The amount of dust and mineral particles in the air (when it's not raining) seemed dangerous. Can't blame our driver for not wanting to stop to eat at one the worker towns scattered all along the rivers. They look grim, grimy and smileless. Rampor, which I mentioned earlier is a small town which serves the regional workers as an entertainment center, providing restaurants, shops and alcohol.
After a night drive in the Himalayas, The next morning we passed Mandi, made it over the mountains and arrived at the valley of Kinnaur. And in keeping with contrasts of India, it is a gem in grimebucket. Mountain people herding goats and going god knows where up and down the mountains. The houses are built on narrow slopes so visiting neighbors or bringing home firewood means going up or down and at pretty high angles. These people are fit.
The valley nestled in theae mountains is wide and full of apple orchards, apricot trees, passionfruit and other green stuff. Apricots are wild, free and people sun-dry them on the roofs. When I asked for an apple juice in local restaurant the owner sent his boy to pick apples from his orchard for the juice.
Strangely, there is a stark contrast between the giant mountains and vast spaces to the claustrophobic life on the narrow slopes. Unless you live in a valley, your space is always vast but narrow. Seeing a father and a 4 year old walking quietly in front of him very close to the edge made me think of what a western parent would think and how wrong they would be. Another astonishing sight was seeing a group of people going down a steep road in the mountain with one elder walking with his hands folded behind him. What graceful balance.
We settled in a beautiful guesthouse run by Ram. I later heard him identifying himself to our Indian driver by his full name Tota Ram. When I asked my driver why he introduced himself to me only as Ram, he said he might be embarrassed by the first part of his name Tota, which means Parrot.
Morning. A great fog rolls over the entire valley to the sound of rain shedding it's last morning drops. I'm sitting on the terrace of a guesthouse in the tiny village of Chinni with a Chai and I can hear from the Tibetan monastery across, the Mantra of Avalokitesvara sung by the local women. This side of mount Kailash, the tears won't stop.
Leaving Beautiful Kalpa, we continued into the Kinnaur valley and reached one of it's most eastern points, its last outpost before the Indo-Tibetan border, Chitkul. Here the valley widens and a rough river flows into the valley from Tibet. The town is a development outpost (ayeret pituach) of about forty homes, a monastery and a school. The place feels much rougher than Kalpa, also because of it's elevated position (3400m), no trees and a wide plateau exposed to winds. A narrow path along the roaring river leads out of town towards the border. We walked the kilometer+ hike up to to the military camp, which no one is allowed to cross. Walking back we took a higher trail which led us through fields of green wheat and patches of peas. As we munched on the pods which were incredibly juicy, we met a column of Indian soldiers walking to their border post and I couldn't miss the name tag on one of the men 'Surender'.
Our Guest House manager was only known as 'Didi' (sister). She is 31 and manages the place most of the time with a baby on her back, and 2 small hyperactive kids running around. Her husband and brother help out and they all live on the premises. Didi runs the place like a 'balaboste', barking orders to the employees and her children. One child, 8 years old, is so severely disabled, that he does not leave the parents' room. Didi also brews alcohol from apples. Didi and everyone here has a harsh life. In the winter the village is disconnected from main roads and snowed in for months.
Sun burned, we left early morning for the 16 hour drive back to Delhi.
August 11th, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment