Chamba - 2 days

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Chamba is a chilled out town, a mixture of old colonial and concrete buildings, perched on the side of the valley above the Ravi River, snaked by roads weaving there way up the mountain side. It has a pleasant mountain air but a slightly shabby smelly run down feel, and on first sight doesn't offer much but if you poke around it's amazing what you discover.

During the day I spent time wandering through the back streets and got a good slice of town life, school children buzzing about, people shopping (there are whole shops dedicated to sequins and baubles) washing, praying. I did freak myself out slightly when I took the odd turn down a road that turned into an alley but I normally found a pleasant surprise at the end - evidence of Chamba’s historical past such as 11th Century temples or a pug dog dressed up in a leopard skin woolen knit.

I also spent some time sketching in the Museum; I'm turning into quite a Ross! Chamba is famous for its Indian Miniatures - watercolours of traditional scenes and religious icons, they are not necessarily to the westerners taste, but are skillfully executed and it's Rumal (which means hanky) Embroidery - right up my street - borders of flowers and fauna with both the both sides of the material equally impressive, in fact it's almost impossible to tell the front from the back. Most of the colours are drawn from vegetable dyes and have soft edge but there are some garish colours about with the modern threads.

I’ve moved on from eating dhal/ rice/ chapattis, cheese sandwiches and bananas (oh they taste good though) and I’m finally venturing to the dhaba’s (street stalls) and sampling some amazing food - freshly cooked samosas for only 3Rs - delicious. One afternoon while searching amongst the vegetable market, I found Nitin at Mani Manish travels - a local Indian who had worked as a tour leader for Intrepid, an Aussie based company that also has an office at Angel; the very place that I had first investigated travel in India. It made such a change not having a conversation in pigeon English, and considering that earlier in the day I had found out that it would take 8/10 hours by bus to travel to McLeod Gang/ Dharmasala - where the Tibetan Government are in exile; I decided that whilst in the Himalayas, I really out to see some of the mountains, so I signed up for a three day trek - the Dali Lama would have to wait.

It was only later as I lay in bed contemplating the next day, I couldn’t bring myself to watch Anacondas; the search for the white orchard on Cable TV, that I started thinking whether it was the most sensible idea to go trekking alone with just an Indian guide up in the mountains… given white slave trade, geographical position etc etc….

Onwards and upwards (literally!).

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