Hi all! I am back in the USA, being swept right up in the fast life once again, but I can't let this blog go without speaking about Naggar and the Rohtang.
The next day, we drove up a little south of Manali up to a hill-town called Naggar, which was the old seat of the rulers of the Kullu Valley. The gov't of HP converted the stone and woodcarved castle complete with temple into a hotel...and this is where we stayed. We paid $60 for the first night, which was an astronomical cost to Navjot, but, .....it was a castle, and that price bought us a GREAT view off our balcony, in addition to the high ceilings, stone-walled bathrooms, fireplace, and dinner included.
Luckily, the next night, they put us in another room for half the price....it helped ease the tensions a little..
After taking pics of the castle, we walked up to the Roerich Museum---for Nikolai Roerich, a Russian artist who came to live in Naggar after befriending the ubiquitous, the awesome, R. Tagore. He painted many landscape portraits that reminded me so much of the Canadian Impressionist Art found in the McMichael Gallery near Toronto. Sadly, we missed the museum of the ACTUAL paintings and saw a smaller museum of his PRINTS.....that was a maddening miscommunication, coz they were closed the next day....GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
From the art museum, we wanted to walk a little more among the hills....and there was a rocky footpath leading to the place we wanted to go.....just inches away!!!!...but it was blocked by a very flimsy, unsafe, pokey 5-foot fence. Navjot made it over, but it did not look pretty at all, and since the actual path was about a 6 ft drop on a slant, I was worried about injury. I got myself all riled up in a very American, yet anti-Indian, way, as I tried to figure out a way to go over this fence. Finally, I found a workable way to hold onto a nearby pine tree as a stood on top of the fence....then I lowered myself as gracefully as possible, but tumbled sloppily on the slanted ground, but there were no injuries! YAY! GP! Then we lowered Cailin down.
On this walk we walked through apple orchards, and saw typical Himachali houses: above-ground basements used for storing hay and wood, and then the living area sat above that. The roofs were made of thick, dark blue-gray slate. Across the valley, we saw the sun set behind the tall hills, casting a blue haze over the hills, blurring all edges just a little. The path ended back on the road to the castle, and shortly after we were back on the road, we saw a real volleyball game taking place on a dirt court beneath us, on an area that used to be some kind of bus or train stand?? The players had skills too, playing 6 on 6....I had fun watching them for a few minutes.
We ate dinner at a hippie-restaurant where they played lounge music...that was kinda cool.
The next day we drove up to 13,000 ft to the Rohtang Pass. The "original" plan was to continue beyond the Rohtang and journey to Leh, a Buddhist city in eastern Kashmir.
Navjot's Guruji summed up his take on this plan: "Insanity."
At the time, I had to reassure him that we weren't doing that (though I just said we were, hahahahahahaha). Anyhow, I knew that if the opportunity was there, we would do it.
Sadly, the pass opened late, May 17th--and we needed it opened on the 14th to make it work for our entourage. THEN, the military closed one of the cities, Keylong, that we absolutely HAD to pass through to make it to Leh, so we just took a day trip to the Pass. Hm.
My guidebook stressed how important it was to leave early, because it gets really busy up there. So, off we went at 6:30am.
I think my meter is out of money. DARN..so gotta finish later. BOO!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Drive to Manali and Hike Above Manali
Drive to Manali and Hike Above Manali
I am so wound up with the activities associated with returning home: making final visits to places I frequented, making final purchases, saying goodbyes and snapping photos. Snapping photos (always just the ladies) challenges me to snap the photos while the ladies are smiling. What typically happens is that the ladies will be smiling or giggling as they prepare for the shot, but as I push the button, they close their smile and put on a more solemn expression. Sometimes I can cajole them: "Keep the smile!" but if that doesn't seem to have an effect, and we seem to have time and the ladies haven't begun to feel awkward about posing for the photos, I will take a third, and we'll laugh some more, then I hold the camera up---then snap early---while they are still smiling. At home, people are pretty attuned to the timing of a camera, and will protest, or at least acknowledge that I have snapped early, but the people here have not objected at all. In fact, I think they prefer it to my typical habit of giving a couple of seconds to "make the look."
With this extra energy, which got me up at 5:45 this morning, after about 2 weeks of sleeping in from 7:30 to as late as 9am on a few days, I describe our drive to Manali, in Himachal.
We left around noon. At 11am we looked at the first taxi our hotel secured for us, and it was a tiny car, smaller than a Chevy Aveo. The image of four people crammed in on a long drive on a hot day pinballing around the mountains did not appeal to any of the ladies. Navjot, born Indian, would have taken an old rust-bucket, noisy, smelly, stopping-only-on-schedule, bus (with drivers that live to nauseate, accelerating through curves, slamming on brakes), and considered this tiny vehicle a luxury. The ladies won out (Girl Power!) and we switched the small digs to an SUV.
Heather, Navjot and I took the motion sickness medicine, Avromine. Cailin had the enviable ability to jostle about on road trips, and feel great without medicinal aid. This reminds me of a Mr. Bean skit we saw in Dalhousie: Mr. Bean gets on a roller coaster, and keeps a straight face as the ride coasts over the first hill......everyone else is screaming, yet he feels no sensations---he shushes the howling girls behind him....he even nods off before the ride is over. He probably never experienced motion-sickness either.
Since I am prone to it, I curbed all extra movements in the car, including picture-taking. After lunch at the Hilltop Restaurant, we soon turned north, and drove along mountainsides, with the Beas river flowing south over large rocks and boulders. We were in the Kullu valley, and I captivated by the scenery. Before Kullu, Heather and I talked and chatted and caught up on all kinds of info (since we were roommates back in '97) that we never get to in the States because we do not make time for it within the busyness of USA life. I hope that Navjot and Cailin were forgiving of our girl-chat session, which ended up being exclusive of them....not intentionally at all....we just realized we had a rare opportunity to fill in some gaps that have opened up over time.
Driving along the Kullu Valley, the landscape held my full attention. The mountains still looked like high hills, no snow, but with the river flowing between them, the beauty seemed even more welcoming and exotic because the forested mountains now had a life-sustaining resource: a river with clear water, looking unlike many rivers we see nowadays. I wouldn't take photos, but I thought to myself: "Never forget this.."
Towards dusk, our driver swung the wheel left, and drove right into a mountain--a tunnel! I was so surprised that the government took the time and resources to make a tunnel! It wasn't very well lit, and sheperds also used the tunnel, so we maneuvered around a few goats, and a cow, too. I felt neurotically anxious in the tunnel, it may have been two miles, and it the last thing, after living in India for nearly four months, that I expected to experience. But, India manages to show me just about everything I do not expect, so by the time we left the tunnel, I had reframed the event as inevitable.
We arrived to Manali around 8pm. We found another hotel at Johnsons: they were the only hotel that had any rooms available, but still through the same schtick as before: " we only have one room, maybe two, but only for one night." We ended up staying there for two nights, and we had two rooms, and we could have stayed longer, but the problem with Manali is that it was a massively crowded and noisy city which really put us off.
We hiked to the Hadimba Temple, basically a large, wooden, structure with slanted roofs similar to houses in Michigan. We were caught up with the locals who were attending a festival, so it was fun to be surrounded by people in festive, colorful clothing. The locals walked in loosely separated groups: male and female, with the males stopping every now and then to sing and accompany themselves on small drums, the dhols. Near the temple, we saw a few yaks, and their keepers wanted to charge us money to photograph them; I took a mental picture instead. Some boys asked Heather if they could photograph her, she said ,'No; in a friendly way. They persisted, as they always so and I stepped in and talked to them the way Navjot and I talked to the group of about 10 young men in Khajjiar who also wanted to photo me: "You see, we do not know you, we are just meeting you now. We are not comfortable giving pictures to people that we do not know well." Navjot had added: "How would you like it if we asked to photo your sisters or mothers.....we don't know them? In India, Navjot is quick to invoke the protective, honorable perceptions that men are supposed to have for the women in their families. Wasted energy: not one time did anyone say, "Gee---I never looked at it that way....I am sorry to trouble you." They have stayed right on point: "Oh please, please madam....." In Khajjiar, I asked them about 20 questions about themselves, which they all answered politely and kindly, so at the end of my 'interrogation', we allowed them to photograph Navjot and I.
The boys in Manali were a little more aggressive. Since it was more crowded, their persistence pressured us to find some trail or road away from the crowd. My book said there were trails above the temple, and we found one and exited the throng of temple-goers. A white dog accompanied us. He or she,ended up being our companion for the day. She was a street dog, very thin, and she seemed to have a bladder problem....she peed a lot in little bits here and there. We felt bad for her and encouraged her to drink water whenever she found it, and we fretted as to how we'd provide food, since we also had none for ourselves. We hiked on a rocky trail far above the town, and got great views of snowy mountains, waterfalls, and forests. Eventually we could see and hear the Beas river rushing past, far beneath us. We tried to hike to the river via an apple orchard ( apple trees were introduced to this region from outsiders...they didn't occur naturally, neither did basic veggies such as potatoes, carrots,...people ate ferns called lingeree (hard g) and other roots...) but there was a drop off which we couldn't see due to the trees, and it may have been impassable....but, we still meandered down, and ended up at a beautiful resort, where we ate a light lunch and sat in a large lawn and tried to feed the dog a roti, which it refused.
The dog gave me valuable practice in speaking Punjabi, because it followed my one-word orders enough that I really felt like it understood me. I called it "Dog" (but we also called it Santa's Little Helper), because I needed practice saying kuta correctly. I told it to "Come here (Aja)," "Stop, (Basji)" "Come here" (Ithay Aja) and "There (Othay)" and when it obeyed, which was fairly often, I said, "Very Good (bohut-atcha)" and "Well Done (Shaabash)". I found this unexpected interaction very amusing and fun. The dog let us go when we reached a park-like area near the river back in town.
We had an interesting evening. Heather and I got a massage, where we experienced a little 'reflexology,' The memorable part for me was when the area between my thumb and forefinger was pressed, and this felt painful!! It turned out that this area (according to the masseuse) reflected the state of the shoulders and neck, which usually pain me, because I naturally store tension there, and because I play a lot of volleyball.
Later, I watched a full Hindi movie, Kuch-Kuch Hota Hai (Something is Happening), a comedy-love-story. Although I have spent lots of time with Indians in the past 8 years, this was the first time I watched all the song-and-dance sequences that are found in Bollywood films. Cailin inspired me to watch this movie in its complete form, it is one of her favorites, and I learned why. The movie is over-the-top cheesy, and the dance numbers augment that aspect, leaving us giggling and laughing, while Navjot snoozed. The best part, for me, is when the guy, Shahrukh Khan, is sitting in a classroom, an over-confident college student, wearing a bright blue and orange speedo shirt, unzipped halfway, sporting a gold chain with a pendant of the word 'cool.' This movie out-cheesed every USA movie made in the 1980s, but somehow we still managed to get caught up in the love story, too. Go Bollywood!
The next morning we went to a more peaceful place: Naggar Castle.
I am so wound up with the activities associated with returning home: making final visits to places I frequented, making final purchases, saying goodbyes and snapping photos. Snapping photos (always just the ladies) challenges me to snap the photos while the ladies are smiling. What typically happens is that the ladies will be smiling or giggling as they prepare for the shot, but as I push the button, they close their smile and put on a more solemn expression. Sometimes I can cajole them: "Keep the smile!" but if that doesn't seem to have an effect, and we seem to have time and the ladies haven't begun to feel awkward about posing for the photos, I will take a third, and we'll laugh some more, then I hold the camera up---then snap early---while they are still smiling. At home, people are pretty attuned to the timing of a camera, and will protest, or at least acknowledge that I have snapped early, but the people here have not objected at all. In fact, I think they prefer it to my typical habit of giving a couple of seconds to "make the look."
With this extra energy, which got me up at 5:45 this morning, after about 2 weeks of sleeping in from 7:30 to as late as 9am on a few days, I describe our drive to Manali, in Himachal.
We left around noon. At 11am we looked at the first taxi our hotel secured for us, and it was a tiny car, smaller than a Chevy Aveo. The image of four people crammed in on a long drive on a hot day pinballing around the mountains did not appeal to any of the ladies. Navjot, born Indian, would have taken an old rust-bucket, noisy, smelly, stopping-only-on-schedule, bus (with drivers that live to nauseate, accelerating through curves, slamming on brakes), and considered this tiny vehicle a luxury. The ladies won out (Girl Power!) and we switched the small digs to an SUV.
Heather, Navjot and I took the motion sickness medicine, Avromine. Cailin had the enviable ability to jostle about on road trips, and feel great without medicinal aid. This reminds me of a Mr. Bean skit we saw in Dalhousie: Mr. Bean gets on a roller coaster, and keeps a straight face as the ride coasts over the first hill......everyone else is screaming, yet he feels no sensations---he shushes the howling girls behind him....he even nods off before the ride is over. He probably never experienced motion-sickness either.
Since I am prone to it, I curbed all extra movements in the car, including picture-taking. After lunch at the Hilltop Restaurant, we soon turned north, and drove along mountainsides, with the Beas river flowing south over large rocks and boulders. We were in the Kullu valley, and I captivated by the scenery. Before Kullu, Heather and I talked and chatted and caught up on all kinds of info (since we were roommates back in '97) that we never get to in the States because we do not make time for it within the busyness of USA life. I hope that Navjot and Cailin were forgiving of our girl-chat session, which ended up being exclusive of them....not intentionally at all....we just realized we had a rare opportunity to fill in some gaps that have opened up over time.
Driving along the Kullu Valley, the landscape held my full attention. The mountains still looked like high hills, no snow, but with the river flowing between them, the beauty seemed even more welcoming and exotic because the forested mountains now had a life-sustaining resource: a river with clear water, looking unlike many rivers we see nowadays. I wouldn't take photos, but I thought to myself: "Never forget this.."
Towards dusk, our driver swung the wheel left, and drove right into a mountain--a tunnel! I was so surprised that the government took the time and resources to make a tunnel! It wasn't very well lit, and sheperds also used the tunnel, so we maneuvered around a few goats, and a cow, too. I felt neurotically anxious in the tunnel, it may have been two miles, and it the last thing, after living in India for nearly four months, that I expected to experience. But, India manages to show me just about everything I do not expect, so by the time we left the tunnel, I had reframed the event as inevitable.
We arrived to Manali around 8pm. We found another hotel at Johnsons: they were the only hotel that had any rooms available, but still through the same schtick as before: " we only have one room, maybe two, but only for one night." We ended up staying there for two nights, and we had two rooms, and we could have stayed longer, but the problem with Manali is that it was a massively crowded and noisy city which really put us off.
We hiked to the Hadimba Temple, basically a large, wooden, structure with slanted roofs similar to houses in Michigan. We were caught up with the locals who were attending a festival, so it was fun to be surrounded by people in festive, colorful clothing. The locals walked in loosely separated groups: male and female, with the males stopping every now and then to sing and accompany themselves on small drums, the dhols. Near the temple, we saw a few yaks, and their keepers wanted to charge us money to photograph them; I took a mental picture instead. Some boys asked Heather if they could photograph her, she said ,'No; in a friendly way. They persisted, as they always so and I stepped in and talked to them the way Navjot and I talked to the group of about 10 young men in Khajjiar who also wanted to photo me: "You see, we do not know you, we are just meeting you now. We are not comfortable giving pictures to people that we do not know well." Navjot had added: "How would you like it if we asked to photo your sisters or mothers.....we don't know them? In India, Navjot is quick to invoke the protective, honorable perceptions that men are supposed to have for the women in their families. Wasted energy: not one time did anyone say, "Gee---I never looked at it that way....I am sorry to trouble you." They have stayed right on point: "Oh please, please madam....." In Khajjiar, I asked them about 20 questions about themselves, which they all answered politely and kindly, so at the end of my 'interrogation', we allowed them to photograph Navjot and I.
The boys in Manali were a little more aggressive. Since it was more crowded, their persistence pressured us to find some trail or road away from the crowd. My book said there were trails above the temple, and we found one and exited the throng of temple-goers. A white dog accompanied us. He or she,ended up being our companion for the day. She was a street dog, very thin, and she seemed to have a bladder problem....she peed a lot in little bits here and there. We felt bad for her and encouraged her to drink water whenever she found it, and we fretted as to how we'd provide food, since we also had none for ourselves. We hiked on a rocky trail far above the town, and got great views of snowy mountains, waterfalls, and forests. Eventually we could see and hear the Beas river rushing past, far beneath us. We tried to hike to the river via an apple orchard ( apple trees were introduced to this region from outsiders...they didn't occur naturally, neither did basic veggies such as potatoes, carrots,...people ate ferns called lingeree (hard g) and other roots...) but there was a drop off which we couldn't see due to the trees, and it may have been impassable....but, we still meandered down, and ended up at a beautiful resort, where we ate a light lunch and sat in a large lawn and tried to feed the dog a roti, which it refused.
The dog gave me valuable practice in speaking Punjabi, because it followed my one-word orders enough that I really felt like it understood me. I called it "Dog" (but we also called it Santa's Little Helper), because I needed practice saying kuta correctly. I told it to "Come here (Aja)," "Stop, (Basji)" "Come here" (Ithay Aja) and "There (Othay)" and when it obeyed, which was fairly often, I said, "Very Good (bohut-atcha)" and "Well Done (Shaabash)". I found this unexpected interaction very amusing and fun. The dog let us go when we reached a park-like area near the river back in town.
We had an interesting evening. Heather and I got a massage, where we experienced a little 'reflexology,' The memorable part for me was when the area between my thumb and forefinger was pressed, and this felt painful!! It turned out that this area (according to the masseuse) reflected the state of the shoulders and neck, which usually pain me, because I naturally store tension there, and because I play a lot of volleyball.
Later, I watched a full Hindi movie, Kuch-Kuch Hota Hai (Something is Happening), a comedy-love-story. Although I have spent lots of time with Indians in the past 8 years, this was the first time I watched all the song-and-dance sequences that are found in Bollywood films. Cailin inspired me to watch this movie in its complete form, it is one of her favorites, and I learned why. The movie is over-the-top cheesy, and the dance numbers augment that aspect, leaving us giggling and laughing, while Navjot snoozed. The best part, for me, is when the guy, Shahrukh Khan, is sitting in a classroom, an over-confident college student, wearing a bright blue and orange speedo shirt, unzipped halfway, sporting a gold chain with a pendant of the word 'cool.' This movie out-cheesed every USA movie made in the 1980s, but somehow we still managed to get caught up in the love story, too. Go Bollywood!
The next morning we went to a more peaceful place: Naggar Castle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
