Christmas with the Sikhs

Wow, a shameful couple of weeks without updating. Apologies - had some bad news from home which kind of shook me a bit, plus various other malarkeys. Anyway, think of this as a belated xmas treat!

So, the love affair with Manali and Himachal as a whole never really ended. The day after I wrote last I went on my government-run tourist trip up the Pavarti Valley, which was excellent, though frankly this was kind of in spite of the organisation not because of it. I was the only non-Indian person on the bus, and the conductor didn't speak English. Which I was quite happy with, except for the fact that he REALLY didn't speak English. To the extent that we'd stop, all pile off the bus, and I'd have no clue where we were, how long we were going to be there, and what we were meant to be seeing. I wasn't even sure if lunch was provided or if we were meant to get it ourselves. Luckily another guy on the bus spoke broken English and gave me a general idea about what was happening, although as our first two stops were a shawl emporium and another in the endless realms of huge, gaudy, modern Hindu temples, I was beginning to be a little apprehensive about what the day entailed. Travellers always complain about foreign tourists and the uncomfortable feeling of acting like one, but I swear we are nothing compared to the domestic Indian tourists! Like the stereotype of the Japanese, they seem to be obsessed with taking photographs and videoing things (often me), and they all pile into the same tourist shops to buy their 'Kullu shawls' or 'Tibetan singing bowls', or whatever is the flavour of the area. They seem to care little for natural scenery or authentic beauty, but rather are happy to visit temple after temple. Now, I can appreciate beautiful temples. But a lot of these seem to be huge money making enterprises, with a jewellery or souvenier shop on each level of the shrine, and hundreds of plastic idols which everyone stops at for 2 seconds, puts down a 10 INR note, and moves onto the next, with little apparent actual devotion. Plus you have to pay for people to look after your shoes, you have to pay for a locker to store your bag in, you have to pay to use the toilets, you're expected to pay to have a bindi put on your forehead. And its not really the cost in itself (its usually about 3-6p), its the fact that everytime they want something I have to take my backpack off, unlock it, hunt around in it for my wallet, then they have to go find change etc etc. Anyways, each to their own, I guess. I was just relieved when the bus started again and we started traversing the Pavarti Valley, a ridiculously beautiful mountain gorge, with the Parvarti River running at the bottom, and little villages all around.

When we arrived at Manikarin, where the hot springs were, I was told simply that I had to be at the bus station in an hour and a half. So instead of traipsing around the temples like everyone else, I headed off to go and bathe in the hot springs, my reason for wanting to visit here in the first place. I cannot describe to you how wonderful it is to immerse yourself in a 20x12ft bath of hot water (the springs emerge at 90 C, but are diluted with river water), when you have the place to yourself and have been staying in a place where it is so cold that the thought of that 30 seconds between getting out of your 5 layers of pjs and reaching the shower in the morning keeps you in bed for another 40 mins. Bliss. Stayed in there 40 mins, then went to find some lunch. Apparently, despite the fact that the conductor had pretty much ignored me all day, and that there was no restrictions on what we were allowed to do, this was an error. He was frantic by the time he found me, and proceeded to frogmarch me around 2 more temples, berating me that I would not have much time to see the third... basically, annoyed because I had not visited what everyone else had visited. Still, mountains and hot springs, a good day for me!

Day 4 in Manali I took a local bus to Naggar, where there is the studio and gallery of Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, who painted these amazing, vaguely-surreal mountain scapes of the surrounding areas, plus some cultural museums and a 'castle' (rather optimistically named), day 5 I just wandered around the town some more, visiting a nature reserve and chilling out, and waiting for my bus to Mcleod Ganj. Its very easy to chill out in Manali, namely due to 3 places - Cafe Amigos, Chopsticks, and Kyber. The first has great masala chai and these huge, fantastic slices of apple crumble, the second is a kind of pan-oriental restaurant selling mouth-watering chinese dishes, the third has numerous varieties of whiskey at a very low price, plus they don't try and make me sit in the 'family restaurant' bit, like they do with most girls in bars in India. I can still taste the apple crumble now... so much for drastic weight loss.

The night bus to Mcleod Ganj was awful. There is no other way of putting it. First, my designated seat was broken (the reclining bit had no brake, so you just fell into the lap of the person behind you), so I found another seat. About 3 hours into the trip, the people who had reserved my new seat got on, and I had to vacate them. Luckily an Aussie girl at the back had a spare seat next to hers, so I made my way back there. However, the Indian couple in front of me had put their seats into FULL reclining position and refused to move them up even an inch (bastards), so I had to sit with my knees up to my chin in deep discomfort. 2 hours after that, the person who had reserved this final seat rocked up, and I had to move back to my original, broken, seat, which we wedged so that as long as I didn't lean back too hard, it kind of stayed fairly upright. What made all this worse was that everyone had chucked all their bags in the aisles, so that everytime I moved I had to clamber over everything, usually falling into someone's lap every couple of mins, and generally rousing the whole bus. Sigh.

On the other hand, at least I got chatting to this Aussie girl, Jess, who, by the way, is almost exactly like an Austrailan version of Jess WB. Kind of weirdly so, actually. When we finally arrived (3am) we discovered we had been planning on going to the same hotel, so ended up with next door rooms. This was great, as Jess is one of those people who just meets people and makes friends wherever she goes, unlike reserved little English girl me, who wouldn't dream of sitting down at a table of strangers and cheerfully introducing myself. Plus, she'd been in Mcleod for 10 days a couple of weeks back, so knew her way around a bit. Saying that, Mcleod is the easiest place to meet people in India. It is FULL of travellers, and is only a tiny village, so you are always bumping into people. The reason its so popular is that its the home of the Dalai Lama in exile, and the main arrival point of refugees from Tibet. Thus there are loads of opportunities to volunteer, and lots of consciously-minded travellers (*cough*do-gooder hippies*cough*) try and visit.

Following tradition, on the first morning I went and visited the Buddhist temple complex, the spiritual home of Tibet-in-exile, and the Tibet museum, which tells the story of the invasion, oppression and continuing escape. Incredibly moving, and very interesting, though there is of course a tendancy towards bias that I was aware of. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am in full support of an autonomous Tibet, have great sympathy for everyone who has endured such hardship, and am *throughaly* unimpressed to hear that David Milliband has recently stopped recognising Tibet as an independant country in return for Chinese economic aid. On the other hand, I note it is always glossed over that Tibet was in fact feudal until the invasion, and that the aristocracy and clergy were the only landowners. Of course, now the Dalai Lama has set up a democratic constitution, and at least we can be grateful that the issue has such international attention. One of the organisers of an NGO there confided to me that they have so many funds pouring in that they don't really need any more.

Despite this, there are always things you can do to help. Jess and me got involved in raising money to throw a kind of christmas party for the orphaned Tibetan kids at the local school, and whilst VERY, VERY drunk one evening with Jess, another (crazy) Aussie girl called Loula, an Indian guy and a Tibetan, I volunteered to help the Tibetan guy's nephew with some English grammer lessons, a fact I only remembered when I woke up, still drunk yet already monsterously hungover, the next morning, 15 mins before the lesson was due to start. Weep. The nephew was actually very sweet though, 16 yrs old, and I was able to give him two lessons before I left for Amritsar. Have never appreciated just how obtuse and singular the English language was before I tried to teach it, however. This kid was already fairly advanced, so he wanted to do things like tenses and adverb clauses. Ok, I think, English past tense. Play--> played, watch-->watched. Add '-ed', that's easy enough. Oh.... but what about 'took', 'saw', 'ran', 'swam', 'caught', 'went', 'had', and any other infinite variety of verb. Then try explaining when you would use "I had 5 baths yesterday" as compared to "I bathed 5 times yesterday". I only hope I didn't confuse the poor kid. I think we both enjoyed it though.

Mcleod was awesome, in fact. The first two days it rained solidly, which, although it was my first real rain since I had arrived in India, was a novelty for about.... oh, 15 seconds. After that though, the days were sunny and the place beautiful. Even with the rain, Mcleod is the place to be, because it is FULL of little cafes and bookshops. On the whole I've found this "oh, every backpacker hotel/person you meet has books that you can swap with" to be sadly unfounded, but Mcleod was more like Oxford, where you can walk in and read a second hand book off the shelf when you come in, then put it back again when you've finished. Plus, they have the most amazing restaurants and bakery/cafes. Mmmmm. Basically, one could spend the whole day reading and eating cake, wrapped up warm with a cup of tea, and as that is basically my favourite thing to do anyway, I was in heaven (especially as I had/have picked up a bad cold from Jess, which was encouraging me to snuggle places)

On the other hand, it made me feel very lazy. I had wondered whether I was doing the right thing, travelling from place to place so frequently, and spending only a couple of days in each, having spoken to so many travellers everywhere I've been in India who stay in one place for a month and then move on somewhere else. However, I've realised that, to all intents and purposes, I'm an observer, not someone who gets involved. I love going and watching the call to prayer in a mosque, hidden in the back and soaking up the atmosphere, but I would be totally mortified if I had to partake. Thus, moving on from place to place suits me better, I think. I loved Mcleod, and I could have stayed there longer, but gradually I found that each day I was doing less and less: a long leisurely breakfast with friends, a brief walk or sight-see, journal writing in a cafe, a long leisurely dinner and drinks. Wonderful, but not forever. After 4 days I began to get restless.

Speaking of observing religious rituals, I finally got to achieve my ambition of seeing a hallejulah rave! Well, kind of. Although I'm an atheist, I was brought up Catholic, and I still occasionally enjoy the music and the candles and the ceremonies of Christian mass. So, when I saw there was still a Sunday service at the little church outside of town, I decided to go. As I'm sitting outside waiting to be let in, a group of American teenagers come down the hill - baggy jeans, carrying skateboards, carefully rumpled hair: the sort of kids you might find on a magazine cover. After them, bounds a black guy in a beanie: "Yo, so who's doing the worship and who's doing the testimonials today? Jesse, dawg, I wanna see you up there testifying man! Let me tell you, if I do not hear the spirit of the Lord coming from you this morning, I will be up there, grabbing that microphone, exhorting you!" [I know you think I'm exaggering, but I swear on my momma's life, those were the words he used...] Then they all gather in a huddle and sing a little prayer to Jesus. I stood a little to one side, mouth hanging open, trepidation filling me. I edge away from the group and over to a wholesome (normal) looking Norwegian group of girls and ask one of them quietly: "Er... have you been to this service before? Do the Americans, y'know... lead it?" "Oh, yeah! This week they do it, last week we led it, its great, y'know? Hey.. wanna come sit with us this week?" I'm surrounded! I make the excuse that I might have to leave half way through, then slink in and sit at the back.

My God. They played the acoustic guitar, eyes closed and an expression of esctasy on their faces. They swayed and lifted up their arms to recieve the holy spirit. Two of them gave readings and then spoke about what they meant to them personally ("And God spoke to me! He spoke to me and he said 'What kind of worshipper are you Carina?', and I felt his love filling me....."). Then another three gave their testimonials for that week: Jesse spoke about how when he saw the poverty in the slums and he saw that its inhabitants didn't want their Christian message, he got really depressed and "Satan starting attacking my belief in God's love", Mary spoke about in her past life before she had discovered God, when she had been VERY BAD, and had drunk and gone to parties. I almost cracked a rib from trying not to laugh. The breaking point came with the third guy, who was describing how he had been in Heathrow airport and had seen a pretty girl, and had suddenly heard God's voice telling him to go and give the Christian message to the girl. Although he was really embarassed, because there were lots of people around, he did it anyway, and "felt God's grace pouring into him". At this point I just had to leave before the second rib gave way. Gotta say it, evangelical American Christians just aint my bag.

Anyways, on Tuesday I decided that it was time to leave Mcleod and resume my restless wanderings, although if I have time at the end of my trip, or if I ever come back to India, I'm definitely gonna come back. I said goodbye to everyone, caught my bus down to Dharamsala (the transport hub that serves Mcleod) and spent almost two hours wandering around trying to find an ATM. The (only) one in Mcleod wasn't working, and when I got down to Dharamsala, not only were a couple more not working, but the others didn't accept my card. I was pretty frantic by this time, as I had about 20p on me, not enough to stay in a hotel or find a restaurant, and I was lugging my huge rucksack up and down this hill. After I had eventually found one, I got to the bus station only to find (from a horrible enquiry guy at the station) that the 5pm bus to Amritsar that they had told me about in Mcleod did not in fact exist, and the only bus was at 5AM. Cursing Dharamsala, and India in general, I stayed in the biggest shithole of a hotel that I had ever seen, and gratefully caught my bus the following morning. I look forward to returning to trains.

I arrived in Amritsar at about noon on Christmas Eve, and checked in at the pilgrims' accomodation at the Golden Temple. Amritsar, on the Pakistan border, is the Sikh holy city, and the Golden Temple its holy of holies. Because of the inclusive nature of the religion, however, anyone, no matter what creed or race, can stay in the dorms and eat in the huuuge communal kitchens for free (though of course, donations are rightfully appreciated). The Golden Temple itself is pretty damn cool. Just google image it to see what I mean. The temple itself is in the middle of a lake reached by a causeway, and is golden plated on top, and has marble inlay on the bottom. Inside it is ridiculously ornamented in gold, and holds the Sikh holy book, which is read out from 5am -9pm continuously by four Sikh chanters/singers, their voices broadcast around the complex. Its really really nice - so many people come on pilgrimage here that it has a genuinely spiritual feel, like Haridwar ghats did.

I like Amritsar itself less, though I daresay this is my fault, and not that of the city. Being my first real city since Agra however many weeks ago, I'd forgotten the endless horns and awful traffic and hassle about any place you want to go. Also, I'm reaching a certain point now where my toleration for Indian people is actually waning rather than growing. Every Indian asks me "So what do you think of the Indian people? Aren't they warm and friendly? Isn't it nice that they want to know everything about you, and want to show you around?", and obviously I answer "yes, its very nice, and very different to England, where people are much quieter...". But you know what? IT ISN'T NICER. I would like, for one hour in my life, to be left alone. To not have to answer 50 million questions about my life, to not to be beseiged for photographs everywhere I go. I've started saying no, otherwise I'd never GO anywhere, but even then people don't appreciate that you don't just exist for them to practice their English upon, and as a photographic model to pose by, and that, actually, you might not want to be hit on. Indian men are the worst. Not only do they want to talk to you all the time, and take you places and show you things (as an INEVITABLE run-up to attempting to sleep with you), but they also can't, or refuse to take, hints. Even when I'm quite happy (or at least resigned) to having an Indian bloke accompany me somewhere or show me something, its never ok for us to just part ways again at the end of 2 hours. It always ends up with me having to actively get rid of them, which makes me feel like a bitch. Arrgh.

Ok, ok, I'm being horrible. I know a white person can be a novelty, and that curiousity springs from a friendly impulse, and that they don't mean any harm. Its just that 10 weeks in an I feel I'm entitled to a rant now.

On the other hand, sometimes it definitely has its advantages. Christmas Eve I was wandering around the Temple when I met a middle-aged NRI (non-resident Indian) guy from Leicester. He asked if I had seen the border closing ceremony yet, and said that if I wanted I could go with his son and two nephews, whom his driver was taking to see it that afternoon. Now the border closing ceremony is a must-see for anyone at Amritsar, and going via air conditioned car was definitely preferable to a bus. And I had a great time! The three boys were 9-11 yrs old, so it was lots of whoppee cushions and knife-fights in the car, which I throughally enjoyed. Plus, the ceremony was awesome. Its at the Indian-Pakistan border, about an hour from Amritsar, and its almost like a football match. Indian and Pakistan tourists sit in the stands whilst a compere whips them up, then the soldiers from each side goosesteps in a ridiculously Monty-Pythoneque fashion to the gate, where they high-kick at each other. Utterly hilarious show of bravado. I've found a Michael Palin vid of it on youtube for you if you want to get a taster: http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=YeSX6AZ5xEI
So, anyway, I shouldn't be so horrible about Indians when someone does something so ungenerous as this for me. I have an abiding suspicion however, that the reason why this case was different was because the guy was married and had no designs on me!

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Part of trip: Backpacking around India and Nepal

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