Joshimath (April 2009)

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The cheapest rooms listed in the Lonely Planet were 300 Rs. There was an establishment, right at the very beginning of Joshimath just as the bus enters the town, that charged 200 Rs per room but it was horrendous. They changed the pillow cases but they were still dirty, the bed sheets were dirty and the toilet was so small I had to sit sideways to fit. Internet in town was 60 Rs/hr. Downstairs from the place I was staying was a restaurant but the food was awful. In fact everything was awful, the bus ride, the town, the people, the guesthouse and the food. The only amazing thing was the nature. On the way there, the bus passed by really really deep gorges and we went mostly along the river. There were mountains and peaks all around but when I was there in April, it was the dry season, so it was hazy and dusty everywhere, and I couldn’t see the mountain peaks, just clouds of dust. The best time to go would be right after the rainy season.

I met 2 women, Kiran and Sandhya, who were staying in the room next to mine. They said they were going to Tapovan village and asked if I wanted to go along. We left around 7am. There was a spot in town where jeeps were parked. The jeeps were private taxis that take people to villages in the Niti valley. There were 2 other women at the taxi stand so the 5 of us shared a taxi. Kiran and Sandhya were from Dehra Dun where they work for an organization that helps women in the mountains of Uttarakhand, especially tribals. They were in Joshimath to visit the villages they work with because on May 1 (in 2 days), the temple at Badrinath will open for the year (it’s open for 6 months and closed for 6 months) and there will be tons of people visiting the temple as it is one of the Hindu pilgrimages. They were there to help the women in the villages prepare sweets and other offerings that people usually buy at the temples. However, on that day, they were only on a social visit as Tapovan is a village that they used to help out but no longer do because the women there have become self-sufficient. The organization provided them with looms for weaving carpets and other things.

We got there at 8:30am. The taxi dropped us off on the road and from there, we walked straight up the side of the road to the village. It was very steep and the view was spectacular: deep mountain gorges everywhere even though I couldn’t see any of the peaks. An elderly woman of 60 who looked completely Chinese, showed us carpets, a wool sweater and some throws she made from wool. The wool was obtained from the 50 sheep she owned and they are sheared twice a year. Most of the people in the village were not there as they had gone off to work in the mountains. We visited another very old woman in her house and she also looked very Chinese. Soon, many young women came around as they had heard that Kiran and Sandhya were visiting. None of the young girls looked completely Chinese like the old women. The young looked either mixed or completely Indian. They told me that the border between India and China closed in 1962 and there was no more contact after that. Before 1962, there had always been trade and exchanges between villages of the Niti valley and the villages on the other side of the border (as both sides were of the same Indo-Tibetan ethnic group). A man whose father was a trader told me that each person who traded had a “partner” on the other side of the border. You and your partner carried the same talisman (or matching object) so that whenever and wherever people meet up to trade, you can recognize your partner by matching your talisman to his. He told me this with great nostalgia for the days gone by. All exchanges ceased when the border closed. Perhaps that is why only the older generation looked Chinese. They all have such beautiful faces but everyone of them looked like they were from a different ethnic group. I asked and they said they were all from the same village except for one girl who is from a neighbouring village.

In the past few years, they started to pick the root of a plant in the grasslands up in the mountains above the treeline because there were buyers who were willing to pay 1 million Rs per kilo. Around May 10, they will go up to the grasslands where there may still be snow, and they will stay there till July to pick the roots. Some will come down around May 20 for the harvest and then return to the grasslands. A few of the girls said that they love it up in the grasslands, it’s their favourite place to be. The older Chinese-looking woman asked me, why don’t you join them in the grasslands and help with the picking? *@!#%#!@&*!! I was SOOOO pissed that I already bought my plane ticket for May 6.

From Joshimath, I took the cableway to Auli as I wanted to see Nanda Devi. Of course, I saw nothing as it was all hazy but someone showed me a photo of her. I walked down instead of taking the cableway. On the way down, I saw rock climbing routes that were numbered. The forest was so beautiful with lots of oak, pine and cypress. A guy on a motorbike stopped to tell me that I didn’t have to follow the road for cars down, the footpath is a huge shortcut as it goes straight down while the asphalt road is very winding. He looked like somebody straight out of Bolivia, it was crazy! I found the shortcut and got back down in about an hour and 45 min. It was an awesome hike! A must for anyone visiting Auli.

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