Advertisement
Yo
Sorry again for taking too long to tell, but life is happening all around, its been while since I felt so alive. But here I’m again, and starting from where I stopped last time.
So we left Nako and headed to Tabo, the road was as I said “again” mind blowing, and we hit Tabo in the Afternoon, found a place and went to see the Temple. I guess Buddhists are a bit socialist and the temple closes at 4 pm. So Ik and the Austrian girl from the Jeep, spent the afternoon chatting in the room. That night we had a small “what did we buy” party organized by the girls, and those girls like to buy. Don’t get it.
I woke up really early and went for a walk on the cliffs overlooking the river which is just at the edge of town. There was a cool morning light, kind of blue purple, really nice. We went to see the temple which is one of the oldest Buddhist temples outside Tibet. We got a tour from a monk and he explained the main motives and the stories behind the painting that cover the temple walls. It was quite
impressive the amount of time and the energy put into the paintings about a thousand years ago. But the problem is that in order to preserve them the place in very dark, so you can’t really see them. Still its beautiful. Sorry no pictures, “zis is not allowed”
We hit the road again for about 2 hours ride to the village and temple of Dankhr, the Lonely does say something about the place, and I did hear that it’s a beautiful place. But nothing prepared me for this experience. The temple is situated on the side of the mountain (at about 3800 meter) and is overlooking the Spiti valley. Its for sure hard to describe so see the pic, but the emotion that the place evokes are incredible. The mountains, the turquoise colored river, the blue sky, all combine to a great sensation of happiness, and joy. I was blown away, shocked, it was such a great moument. You all should go there one day. Please . The road to Kaza was quit, no one in the jeep had much to say. We reach Kaza which is a small town with not much to do, and I decided to catch
the bus the following afternoon the Pin Valley, which is actually going back and east.
The bus was suppose to leave at 4, but when I got to the bus station the word was spread that “today no bus” apparently some local guy won some election and booked the bus. Ok. Since by now I know that in India “sub khuch milega” meaning that everything is possible, and this was my first time with bus problems I started to ask around about other means of transport and I found a jeep going there. The ride was horrible with 6 local guys that started drinking rum coke as soon as we left town (5:30 pm). I got to Sagnham my destination around 7 in poring rain. I was escorted to the guest house by a local guy that explained me that tonight there’s a party in the village organized by the same guy that booked the bus. I check in a guest house which is a local house form stone and mud (see the pic), and has what’s called local toilet. A room in the house with a hole in the floor and I leave the smell to your imagination. Soon
after I heard some noise outside since and went to check it out, the bus has come and with an escort of jeeps and the entire village came to greet them. They seem so happy to have won the election. “India is democracy”, was often said to me with pride. Still I was not sure I should go to the party, I asked the guest-house owner about it and he took me there. I was introduced to some cosine of the election winner, and he took under his custody. He could speak ok English and I was sitted in a room offered chi, in the room already there was a crowd of men sitting and drinking. I was offered a kind of drinking greasy sneaks and soon after I finished my chi was given a glass of local wine, which is not really wine but more like single malt whiskey, made from Barley. Its not bad but apparently if you drink much you go a bit crazy. So the locals warned me not to drink much ( I guess they should fallow they own advice, since by 10 o’clock some of them were pretty crazy) . After that we went
to the second floor for some dancing, and more drinking. In the dancing room I was the attraction, every 30 second a local guy would come to me and asked me to dance, after the 5th I gave up and went dancing. It goes like this, you dance in a circle, small repetitive movements (Yemani steps) and you hold 10 Rupee notes in both you hands, which you then give to the band as you leave the dance floor. For sure one of those situations that doesn’t happen everyday, even for a clubber like me.
Then we were rushed back to the first floor for dinner, the standard Rice subbgi and dal was served. When dinner was over we shifted to a different house (all by the same owner, rich guys always makes it to politics), where after a small episode of the joke “how many Indians you need to change a light bulb” for which I counted 6, we went back to dancing. This time I speared myself the humiliation and found a dark corner where I can sit and drink (by this time I was drunk). I stayed for full two hours and watch the local guys and
this time the girls too performing the local dance to the sound of music (a flout, drum and singing), talked to drunk people and enjoyed myself very much. I woke up around 11 with a slim headache, and went outside to the amazing valley, again its hard to describe so see the pics. I walk for some hours and found a water spring, but soon it got really cold, and I decided to head for the next village with the bus leaving at 6. of course the bus took till 7:30 to arrived, and when I got off in Mud it was snowing. Found a place with a local family with a nice balcony overlooking the valley, and woke up at 6 for another one of those great beauty morning views. I went for a really nice walk that nice but around 3 it became too cold to stay outside and I went back to the house I was staying got myself under the blanket and stayed there all evening.
I woke up all night since it was that cold it was hard to sleep, and when I finally woke up, I put on all my cloths on and went
for the 6 am bus.
I got to back to Kaza at 10am and it was still cold and snowing.
That’s it for today, I still have one more part to tell. The birthday part.
Thanks for reading.
B
Advertisement
Tot: 0.151s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0668s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Joeri Witteveen
non-member comment
Speechless
Great pics! (I like the Jeori one, it's very close... can't be coincidence: you had to come by.) Good to read all those great stories. Keep on enjoying!