Naggar, and the sound of silence....

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We got up really early (I can sense a trend developing here..??) cleared our room at the guesthouse and made our way to find a bus to take us to our next stop in the Kullu Valley - Naggar. Within seconds of walking in to the bus stand there was the reassuring sound of the conductor shouting "Naggar, Naggar, Naggar!!" He showed us to the bus, where to stash our rucksacks (practically on the drivers lap!) and we squeezed in to the the seats with the other passengers. The bus departed about five minutes later.. late comers grabbing the bus from the side of the road as it headed off down the valley. It was great being on the local bus, and travelling through the villages on the way to Naggar, people hopping on and off the bus and carrying the strangest of luggage, from huge shopping bags full of provisions, to motor-parts covered in oil! I guess we all have to get there somehow!?

We arrived at Naggar about an hour later straight in to the mainstreet/bizarre (the main road through it). We had read in the 'book' about the village having an interesting history, it was once the capital of the Kullu Valley, has a castle and a German artist and his family lived there at the turn of the century... We were met with a VERY steep 2km road leading up to it, and could see the castle leaning over the ridge at the top - No wanting to lug our rucksacks any further than we had to, quickly found a friendly rickshaw driver to take us to the top, and to our home for the next couple of days!

The (Poonam Lodge) guesthouse owner was very welcoming and showed us to a really lovely room - much like a log cabin inside and with en-suite bathroom, such a luxury since the last couple of weeks had been mostly cold bucket-baths!! There is also a really nice patio-type area with flowers around the edge. It is right next to one of the temples (Shiva) in town, so it gave us a discreet look (Shhh!! ...look through the flowers...) in to what happens when they go to worship. It is frequented mainly by the young girls, who come and sing songs of worship, bang symbals, and bathe the lingum (phalic stone with water around it's base) basically, they cup some water and tip it over the lingum and they also touch their faces/hair with it.. interesting... but bear with me, we are still learning about this stuff!

We has a restful first day. But the following day we walked around the Castle. It is built from brick and wood, apparently the design to prevent earthquake damage. The owner having fallen in to hard times at the turn of the century sold the castle and it now serves as a hotel, cafe, and museum. The view is fantastic, and very different to the ones we had got used to in Vashiste, much more farm land growing crops like rice and some vegetables, the river Bea's that we had seen every day, was now in the distance.. though there is apparently a trout farm near here. The museum at the castle is a downstairs room with scary-looking manequins, though not much more I can say about that!

Then we walked up to the Art Museum, Joe was surprisingly in to it - though I think he was more surprised than I was.. The paintings were mainly of the mountains in lots of different colour palets to capture the mood of them, some of them were fantastic and really striking. The artist was also an archeologist and had some very influential friends, including the prime minister (at the time) and the Gandhi's. The museum was in four parts - the house, the studio, art college and archeological museum. There was some facinating items that were picked up on his many treks; from 6C stone carvings of deities, ancient tools and weapons of all descriptions.

Later, we walked through the sleepy village and decided that although it is very beautiful and peaceful here, there was not much else for us to see... so tomorrow we would head off on the bus again.

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