Icicle feet (Shimla and Manali)

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One thing I forgot to mention before is that Indian men are VERY touchy feely with eachother. They walk down the street holding hands and cuddling. We haven't seen the women do this at all and it only seems to be the younger, unmarried men. If anyone knows more about this please let me know!

So, our last night in Rishikesh was Sunday 14th October. As the sun started to set we went and said goodbye to the friends we made whilst we were there - an Indian chap called Nandi who worked in the internet cafe (who told us that you were passed it if you were a woman and unmarried by 30 - charming) and then the Nepali clothesmaking family...the youngest of whom told me that he was missing his home in Nepal - we'd only been in Rishikesh for about 9 days, but we had started to form ties already. It just goes to show how easy it is to settle and become 'part of a place' in a short space of time.

After saying our goodbyes we LEGGED IT to the Shiva Ceremony - the very ceremony we had missed for the last 3 days and the one we were in danger of missing again! We were so lucky not to miss it again as it was probably the best thing we had witnessed in Rishikesh...

The ceremony takes place at one of the ghats on the river nr Ramjhula Bridge. In the water is a huge white statue of Shiva and the temple sits on the bank facing the statue. A few hundred people took part - all dressed in their wonderfully bright colors, women, men and children. At the heart of the ceremony lies music - beautiful traditional music and singing. A large group of children - possibly from one of the local schools and wearing bright yellow robes - also take part (much like the kids at home do in church). The music shifts from being tranquil and lilting one minute to being really urgent and uplifiting. Different vocalists take part on each song and my favorite was sung by a man and a young boy with THE most fantastic voice. It was a great song with drumming on a tabla and the crowd were dancing, stamping their feet and clapping - it was fantastic.

We left Rishikesh the next morning at 5am and headed for Shimla, some 7 hours away. Have you ever tried to eat and drink on a roller coaster? Well, this is what it was like trying to eat our breakfast on the way to Shimla. At first the route took us along flat, easy roads and past agricultural fields, but then the scenery changed. We began to climb the mountains - and it didn't stop for hours! Turn, turn, screeetch, turn, turn, screeetch....this went on and on. We thought it would never end. Jamila and I gorged ourselves on...wait for it...marmite and crisps sandwiches. They are becoming something of an addiction! Anyway, back to the jourmey. As we began our ascent, the scenery changed to look like something out of The Jungle Book - lush and green with vines dangling from the trees. But as the car climbed up higher and it became colder, the landscape changed again and it looked more like switzerland - bonkers.

Eventually we arrived in Shimla - a hill station which was used as the HQ for the Indian Government in the summer months during British rule. We got out of the taxi and made our way to a lift which transports you up to the main part of the town (we just couldn't bear the climb with our rucksacks - which seem to suddenly weigh a tonne when you have to actually carry them anywhere). We found the YMCA (sing it with me now) as it was recommended by the Rough Guide...more on this later... Much to my amusement, the the YMC 'rules' said that you must not leaving your windows open as monkeys have a tendency of swinging in and causiong havoc. So, naturally filled with excitment at the prospect of seeing monkeys (well I was anyway) we climbed up to our room - on the top floor. The first thign we did as we entered our room was open our windows. As we were looking out at the town which sprawls up and along the mountainside, hail began to fall, along with our faces - it was freezing and we were in flip flops. However, my mood brightened as I noticed the monkeys hanging out on our roof - baby ones, adolescent ones, mums and a few REALLY BIG male monkeys that you wouldn't want to mess with. We watched them for a bit as they preened eachother and sheltered from the weather. I loved watching them, but every now and again they would unexpectedly come pounding along the roof, at which point we'd scream (in a very girly, hysterical fashion) and pull the windows shut. I loved the monkeys.

As it was FREEZING, we put on every item of clothing we owned and ventured out into the town. However, as we weren't coping too well with the cold, we found ourselves (accidentally) in a shop selling long johns...and bought two pairs... This was after having eagerly eyed up a really unattractive pair of leggings in a neighboring shop, with frills on the bottom and covered in polkadots! The funniest thing was that the guy in the shop kept repeating 'Madam, they are the latest fashion trend...'

Shimla is a beautiful town, but it doesn't feel like you're in India. The architecture in the high street resembles a hight street in England. It was clear that Shimla is a real haunt for wealthy Indians. It felt very much like a ski resort in Europe. We did like Shimla, but after wandering the streets for a few hours we decided that our time would be better spent in Manali, so we booked two seats on a bus leaving the following morning at 8am.

Quick note and grumble: Don't stay in the YMCA in Shimla! That night we ordered tea and quilts to warm us (as it was freezing and there was no heating), but they guy on the desk totally forgot - but worst of all, he then grumbled when we asked for an alarm call and then the next morning he didn't bother waking us at all!! What a moron...anyway, that's my moan over.

The morning we left Shimla, was beautiful. The sun came out and the views from the bus stop were so wonderful...we just sat there and soaked up the views and the sun. The bus journey took about 10 hours. It was very comfortable, but the roads were quite scary! We traveled on mountain roads the entire way, with drops of hundreds of feet only a few metres away but with no barriers whatsoever. We also had an Indian couple next to us who were constantly sticking their heads out of the window and puking - we think it was motion sickness (I can understand why). We put on our ipods to drown out the wretching sounds and dabbed tea tree oil under our noses to block out the smell. They saw us using the tea tree oil and asked for some as they thought we were using it to stop sickness! Maybe it did help them a little...

The journey also involved a number of passengers speaking to us and asking us where we were from etc. Indian people are very warm and welcoming and are genuinely interested. The general conversation is this: 'Which country are you from?' 'Are you married?' 'how old are you?' 'How long are you in India?' 'What do you do for a job?' The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. We ate butter that tasted like cheese at a roadside dhaba and stuffed our faces with buscuits dipped in Nutella and we got stuck on the road briefly as workers cleared a mini landslide.

The best part of the journey was traveling through this beautiful valley on our way to the Kullu Valley and Manali. As we entered the beginning of this immense valley with towering mountains either side of a river that flowed at the bottom, it began to rain - lovely cool enlivening rain and the views took our breath away... At the bottom of the valley was a big, thick, clay-blue river that looked cool and inviting. Stretching upwards on either side of the river were huge green, lush mountains. The road followed the line of the river for about 10 - 15 minutes and we just gawped out of the window.

The Kullu Valley is a lush, sheltered valley about 40mins by car from Manali. As far as the eye can see there are orchards, and other crops growing or being dried. As we arrived in the Kullu Valley the sun came out and a rainbow appeared.

We arrived in Manali at about 6pm and the sun had gone down and surprise surprise!? It was FREEZING!! We got out of the bus and I had a fantastic shoulder pushing / barging experience with an Indian lady as we both tried to get our bags out of the bus...queuing in turn doesn't seem to be part of the culture here. We then got harassed (as usual) by a group of rickshaw and taxi drivers and hotel scouts, but as we knew where we wanted to go it wasn't too much hassle. We arrived by Rickshaw 10 mins later in Vashisht - a nice quite area of Manali and found a lovely guesthouse and then, we went to (our very cold) beds.

The next morning we woke up to rain, but luckily we were still able to see our surroundings from the windows of the TV / lounge / restaurant area. It rained all day, so we took shelter in the guest house as we didn't want to get our clothes wet becasue we were also having to sleep in them due to the cold! We later discovered just how cold it was at night - a whopping minus 8! No wonder we were cold.

The second day, the sun came out and we went on a hunt for warm clothes and to explore Vashisht. I had to buy a pair of woolly socks to wear under my...yes wait for it...sandles. I looked hot!

Manali and Vashisht are set in a valley between the snow-capped Himilayas. We arrived at a time when all the locals were harvesting their crops for the winter. The valley was looking more grey than green and the river, which I imagine runs very fast and thick in spring, was looking quite small in comparission with the other 'grander' rivers we had seen in Inida. Despite this, the views here were the most wonderful we had seen so far. It was so exciting to be looking at the Himilayas.

Vashist is a small area where locals and tourists mix and live together. There is only one main street and here you can find a variety of shops, cafe's and there's even a cinema - showing a selection of weird and wonderful films. At the centre of Vashisht is Vashisht Temple and at the heart of the temple lies a natural hot spring. The locals use the spring to wash themselves and their clothes. We would often walk past and see groups of men, women and children washing in the open air and women beating clothes and blankets in the water to get them clean. There were a lot of dogs in Vashisht, apparently to keep the monkeys away! I loved the dogs, but especially the puppies. Every time we passed one I had to stop for a cuddle (much to Jamila's amusement).

Vashisht also has two of the best jewelry shops we have ever seen - jewelery from all over India and Tibet. One of the guys who owned the shop looked and acted just like the character in the opening of Aladdin - it was very funny. We both probably spent far too long in these shops, but we really loved looking at everything, we were total magpies. I bought myself a beautiful silver amulet from Tibet, which I absolutely love...

On our second day in Manali, we caught a rickshaw from Vashisht into New Manali to have a look around. Just as the rickshaw was about to pull away a local guy with a smiley face asked if he could share the rickshaw with us. On the drive we got chatting and it turned out that he was infact from London and had been living in Manali for 17 years. He looked just like a local. He told us that he had married a local woman and had children. We said our goodbyes when we arrived in New Manali and Jamila and I went and had a good look around the market, which had a variety of stalls selling anything and everything including vegetables, cricket bats, incense and roller skates. The high street was lovely. Tied overhead and stretching the full length of the street were different colored strips of tinsle, which glistened and russled in the sun. It was here, that we saw our first pot plants growing wild and once we noticed one, we noticed them all! They are everywhere in Manali, it grows like a weed - in the hedges, on the side of the road and in people's garden. It's their equivalent to stinging nettles...

That evening we found The Tibetan Cafe - which quickly became our favourite place to eat in the whole of Vashisht (see picture). It was run by a Tibetan family and the food was DELICIOUS. It was really homely and heartwarming. We had our first taste of a Tibetan pancake here. Wow - the most yummy pankakes ever. They're like giant scotch pancakes - they're so big we had to share (secretly I wished we hadn't). The other nice thing abut the cafe is that they had books, which you could read and a fire - that was the most exciting thing! The other thing that made the cafe stand out was that you always had a group of locals smoking chillums in the low seating area of the cafe. At times, the smoke would fill the whole cafe...

That evening we froze again. Let me just tell you what I was wearing in bed so you can get an idea: 2 pairs of socks, long johns, 1 pair of trousers, 1 dress, 1 vest top, 2 cardigans, 1 coat, 1 hat , 1 scarf. I then came up with a cunning plan - filling our drinking water bottles with hot water from the tap! It was such a god idea and we slept a bit warmer.

The next day we went to Old Manali by rickshaw. The sun was shining again so we didn't feel too odd in our flip flops. Old Manali is on the opposite side of the valley from Vashisht. Like Vashisht, Old Manali is set on a mountainside and the little village and it's houses amble up the steep hill. We spent a few hours here looking at the beautiful old wooden buildings and the traditionally dressed people with their lovely wrinkly faces. We ate lunch in a little cafe with tables in the garden and puppies playing in the grass. We also spotted some more pot plants growing wild and smelling fresh. We then went back to Vashisht and explored it a bit more. We came accross a group of children playing in the street and we stopped for a few minutes and had a few laughs. I asked one of the girls if she went to school and she said no. I was surprised as Manali seems like a reasobnably wealthy part of India. Apparently, a family chooses to send to boys to school over the girls, so it might well be that she had a brother that went. I found and still find this difficult to come to terms with...women being second class citizens.

On our way back to our guest house, I saw another puppy looking hungry and went to buy it some buscuits. When I came out of the shop it had scarpered, and in its place stood a big, healthy, round brown and black dog - which I ignored. Unpeturbed by this, the dog then proceeded to follow us back to our guest house - we had to close the gate to stop him following us into the courtyard. About 30 minutes later, we opened the door of our room to find the same dog, quietly waiting outside our room! Suddenly feeling a well of affection for him, I gave him some busicuits - BAD IDEA!! For the whole night he hung around outside our room - at times scratching the door and whining. At one point I did ask Jamila if we could let him in, to which I got a loud 'NO SABINA'. Quite rightly too. That night was also the first night that we weren't wearing all of our clothes in bed because of the cold, as we'd dsicovered that we could hire a heater - yippeee! (However this did add to my dog guilt). We also hired a TV and watched lots of rubbish movies for good measure.

The next day we went and bought food for our journey to Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj, some 8 hours away - we were planning on leaving the following morning. On our way back to our guest house we bumped in to Paul, who invited us to his house, further up the mountain, for a cup of tea. We were really chuffed to be invited. We carried on walkng up a little dusty path that turned into a steep grass path surrounded by fruit trees. We walked for only about 5 - 10 minutes, but we were so out of breath! We were greeted at his house by a bouncy dog, who Paul assured us was a great guard dog! His house was wooden and had little wooden steps up to an open landing with stunning views above Manali and stretching as far as the Kullu Valley. We sat there and talked with him for some time about life in India and his life in Manali. He told us how the class system was very strong in India and how he couldn't sit and have tea with people of a higher class than him - even though he'd known them for many years. We asked him about his marriage and he explained that he'd only been married for 2 years and that it was an arranged marriage - he seemed very happy. He also told us that this time of year is harvest time and how everyone is busy preparing for winter - gathering hay for the animals and drying fruits etc. Much to my excitment he also told us about the animlas that can be found in the area - bears, big cats and even wolves! He explaned how many of the cows have great scratches down their backs where bears have tried to pull them down. He then went and made us black tea with sugar and ginger - and I swear what looked like crumbled dope in the bottom! Lots of poeple in Manali smoke pot - it's very common. He then took us and showed us the pot plant he was growing and explained to us how they get the charas from it - by rolling the buds in their hands and then scraping off what's left. We said our goodbyes to Paul and went and had lunch in the Tibetan cafe - another delicious meal. We had fried vegetables in garlic, soy and ginger with rice...yum...We then went and grabbed our blankets from our room and watched the sun go down on a swing seat from the roof of our guest house.

Paul had told us that the next day was a day of celebration -and that we should stay and extra day to watch the proceedings. There was a week long ceremony beginning in the Kullu Valley, but we did't want to go as it was going to be really busy and we'd been told that last year, a western girl got her ' neck poked'!? Trust me, if you saw the action the chap did when he explained this, you'd know (as well as we do) that it wasn't her 'neck'... Anyway, during the day we saw a really cool ceremony in Vashisht. The God, called Vashisht was being moved from his temple (the one with the hot springs), to a neighbouring temple about 20 meteres away. The whole process took about an hour. A group of men were drumming and blowing huge horns that only seemed to ring out with one note - they sounded like elephants coming. The god was covered in golden material and what looked like other golden figures and than carried by another group of men. There were lots of traditionally dressed locals watching and at the end, some food was passed around and a fire was lit.

The following morning we left for Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj - the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exhile...

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Photos

YMCA Monkeys
Monkeys were a problem at the YMCA!

Shimla main street
Where are we? England!?

Shimla street
We're not cold!

View from Shimla bus stop
Taken at 8.30am just before we left...thank God for some sunshine.

Bus journey
The ravine / valley en route to Manali

Bus Journey
Still the same valley! It went on and on...beautiful

The view from our guest house
Dharma Guest House, Vashisht

Hot spring - Vashisht, Manali
Washing clothes and themselves

Snake Charming - Manali
For the tourists...

Tibetan Cafe - Vashisht
The best food in all Vashisht...

Growing Everywhere
Pic taken in outdoor cafe in Old Manali