The yak stared at me, unblinking. On my knees, I saw myself reflected in the grey-black, glassy eyes, the size of little globes. I shivered.
Two minutes ago I had visions of shooting him. Now, with his huge head and horns inches from my face, I tried to creep backwards. He watched my every movement. Then suddenly, as though he had enough, he pushed his head, long creamy white hair and wet nose into my camera. I rocked off-balance and my bottom hit mud. The locals – Himachali men – laughed.
“Don’t worry, it won’t do a thing. Do you want to go for a ride?”
“Ride that?” I stepped back a whole metre.
“It won’t hurt you,” they reassured me.
It was a ride that did not have the excitement of a Hindi film in it. No gallop or chase or heart-pumping, wind- in-your-hair experience. It dawdled for about 2 m, then stopped. Then it eyed my short T-shirt that I’d just bought at the Tibetan market below, that had printed on it in black letters “yak yak yak yak.” If Tibetan yaks could guffaw, it would have.
I forgave it. We’d come up here, Jamie and me, to visit the Hadimba temple, and it had put me in a pious frame of mind. Besides that of course, I think the yak and me instinctively knew who would be in hospital if I kicked it.
I turned my attention to the wooden temple of Hadimba, one of the many goddesses of Himachal, with its four-tiered pagoda-shaped roof and a fantastic front doorway carved with figures and symbols. It is old. Older than the many wrinkles on the faces of the mountain people. Older than the pines in the forests of Dhungiri where it stands. They tell me it was built in 1553 A.D., but it has been affectionately maintained, blackened in places by age and weather, but it has achieved character over the years.
Inside its dark, cave-like chamber, lit by a fire, the priest imprinted a vertical red line on my forehead. Nominating me for local presidency I think, but I did not wait to ask. It was turning dark, and the clouds waved signals of rain. We were 1.5 km from town and most importantly, our stomachs were singing false tunes.
All the strenuous activity of the evening had made us ravenous. We’d taken a ride in a giant wheel, flying so high into the sky you could make conversations with the clouds. And watch people turn to little dots in the green valley below. I was starved.
Of course, we’d already eaten fresh apricots for lunch and a few dozen lichees. We’d stopped at three German bakeries and munched cinnamon rolls, apple pie and walnut cake on the benches outside only an hour ago, picked juicy ripe black mulberries from over a wall but, as the saying goes “Man does not live by bread alone. He needs thukpa.”
So we walked down the Manali trail, 6000 feet high in the clouds, and took the route from Circuit House down to the Main Square near the Taxi Stand. We nodded to the Kashmiri hunks asking for us to come and look at their carpets and silver and papier mache. The drizzle ran its fingers down the nape of my neck. I shivered. The apricots , the plums, the pears were still raw in the trees and glistened waxy. I pulled my wind-cheater closer and hobbled down the incline faster.
It was pelting down now, but there was no shelter as we came into the market square. Everybody was caught unawares by the sudden shower, and every shop shelter had been taken by apple-cheeked Himachali school kids and shoppers and honeymooners who, of course, did not mind fitting two bodies in one foot of squeeze space.
We ducked under the roof of a camera repair and under the plastic sheets covering one of the many fruit stalls overflowing with fat lichees, pears and plums, apples, apricots and mountains of shiny red cherries. We hung around by the bus stand watching the far mountains slowly appear from the fog as the rain stopped.
The river roared behind us, just past the bridge, but it couldn’t surpass the sounds in my stomach. This was certainly perfect weather for thukpa. (Pronounce “thup-pa”.) Tibetan soup. We hurried past the numerous STD signs where you could overhear conversations – “Han mein theek hoon. Yes, yes I’m fine.” A young honeymoon couple shouted into the phone making a promise – “Paanch din mein aa jayenge. We’ll be home soon.” What with the weather this blissful, it’s a promise they wouldn’t keep. A 20-year-old student reassured his mother, perhaps, “We’re ok. That’s the rain.” “No I’m not smoking weed.” Two blond women drawled “We’re living in Old Manali. In a wooden house between the mandir and the bakery. Just ask for Aaron Rafael.”
I peeked into a shop window lit up with semiprecious gemstones and was dragged away. We ducked into the lane by the old post office, where you can spend five minutes licking the stamps before the attendant gets to you, and spotted the Tibetan nook.
They’d managed to fit two very blue benches and a table into it. The food bubbled in huge woks by the entrance. “Come, come,” they smiled, wiped the benches, poured water into glasses and handed us a hand-written menu where I proceeded to check for spelling mistakes that made recipes funny. The older man, 40 maybe, had been designated cook. His nephew, he told us as we ate later, had just come down from Tibet.
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