From Manikaran into Uttar Pradesh
Manikaran is a 4-hour bus ride from Manali, and we spent the most time with noses buried in books to kill some time. The trips by bus are interrupted by stops at local roadside eateries, sometimes that would be just a loose interpretation of some of the places we stopped at. The private buses are worse, I think they get baksheesh from the eateries for stopping there because always a little further down the road is somewhere much nicer with better facilities that seems too busy with independent drivers to give out baksheesh.
Kasol is the small village before Manikaran, another place where travellers go and smoke marijuana all day, every day. There’s nothing there especially, but there is good local fresh bread sold in shops that call themselves “German Bakeries”.
Half an hour on is Manikaran, less populated with Westerners, an area that Indian holidaymakers come, but not on the scale of Mt Abu. The south side is small and basically consists of the Bus Station, bridges cross a thundering torrent of a river with fierce white water frothing over the rocks in the rivers path. The north side has no cars, porters carry or push trolleys around town, and the odd motorbike gets across the bridge too. There are a few temples here but nothing to get excited about, the main attractions are the numerous hot springs that cause plumes of steam rising from all over the small town, they say the water is hot enough to boil rice in, so in the true Indian fashion of making money any how they can, people sell little muslin bags filled with rice on long lengths of string to the holidaying Indians to go boil in the natural waters.
We stayed at the Sharma Sadan Hotel off the main square that looks over the river and the bustling square that becomes buzzing in the evening. The hotel has it’s own private hot water spa set in a square stone bath sunken into the ground. It’s free for residents and since our room was devoid of hot water we went there each morning to scoop the natural water from the bath and bucket it over our heads. The water is continuously renewed and is extremely hot, but wonderfully tingly.
The large Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji Temple at the west end of town also houses huge dark underground communal bathing pools, kind of an eerie atmosphere of dark echoing halls and steaming baths in the shadows. Many Indians come to bathe here for they believe the water has holy cleansing qualities, mostly men but a few women at whom hordes of Indian men sit and letch at, at the hope of seeing something they normally wouldn’t. I found this hugely disrespectful and degrading, as the women who bathe themselves and their children here, come because they have nowhere else to go. Water in houses is rare in the poorer families, up in the hills they live in a single room shared with the whole family without a scrap of furniture, just a thin mattress and a few blankets to sleep with at night.
It’s another of those lazy places, time spent with a beer playing cards on the balcony watching the world go by beneath. On one of these typical days, I think it was a Vodka and orange fanta day if I’m not mistaken, and playing a new game we learnt from an Israeli guy in Vashisht, a commotion erupted in banging drums and symbols. A large procession of locals was following a large and seemingly heavy (for the people carrying it were constantly changing and weaving to try to maintain the balance of the statue) silver image of a god. Women followers were weeping and hanging on to each other, some people seemed in a daze or trance. People paid money to receive flowers from the god’s lap, which they revered with love touching the flowers to their foreheads and then folding them carefully in the folds of their clothes. The bearers seemed to wander aimlessly around the square, rocking and swaying whilst trying to maintain the balance of the heavy image on the long bamboo rails they carried on their shoulders, always returning to the original spot in the square where the crowd waited. Then moments later, the procession disappeared, leaving the square as normal as it was 15 minutes ago, as if nothing had occurred there. Swaying in the fumes of our vodkas we continued to play.
Eddie caught a little belly bug here and was “trotting” for a couple of days until the anti-biotics kicked in. The following day we headed up the valley by bus to the Parbati Dam Project and walked the further couple of kilometres to a small hill top village called Kalga. It was misty with drizzle and further plans to trek up to the hot springs at Khiranga were shelved.
Kalga is a tiny village; which used to maintain its economy with farming orchards and local vegetables. Now it has caught on to housing lost travellers who seem to have seriously lost touch with the outside world. The rooms are very basic; there are no toilets so the business was eau-naturelle. We stayed with a family in a small room at the side of the house sharing their balcony that doubled as the kitchen and sitting area. The “business” was done a little way off which with affection, we named “Pooh Path” (from the Winnie the Pooh stories) which lived up its name faithfully. The main problem was finding an area that wasn’t already desecrated, that involved careful steps and vigilant eyes.
The afternoon we arrived, as we were sitting on our little space of balcony, we were alerted to a small commotion on the main part of the balcony. Looking over we saw the mother and daughter looking frantically at a small crowd of people coming down the nearest field, two of the men were carrying another man, one holding his arms, the other grabbing his ankles. The suspended man was facing down like a limp rag doll, hair covering the down facing features of his sagging head. We immediately thought there had been a terrible accident or this poor guy had fallen, fatigued from working the fields from sun up to sun down.
They scuttled down the facing bank, crossed the path, and the procession came up the steps to the balcony and into the house (bare room) and deposited the immobile body in what sounded like the far corner with a dull thump on the bare boards. A brief discussion was held with muffled voices and the daughter came out looking worried, scooped up her baby by the arm and rocked her gently in her cradling arms, soon followed by the group of men and the wife of the carried man who in turn manhandled her baby who had started crying by this time, into her arms too. It turned out that the husband was a habitual drunk; the only thing he was suffering from was excess whiskey. He was unconscious, out for the count, stone cold drunk, and I for one was not envious of the hangover he was going to have the next day!
Along with the local crops there were thickets, almost fields, of wild growing marijuana plants. The air hung in the morning of the smell of these plants, a sort of mixture of fresh cut grass (pun) and apple mint. None of these plants are harvested, because, as I understand, wild plants do not give good quality puff, they need to be separated males from females or something, so the marijuana grows thick and un-harvested.
Nevertheless the smoking of chillums is par for the course, and so therefore the area was thick with hippies and Israeli’s. Seriously stoned people wander the dirt paths of the village speaking in slurred non-sensible conversations about rubbish, sometimes to themselves.
We met one of these guys at the nearest restaurant, which was just a long table overlooking the valley by a make shift kitchen. He was an Englishman who had hooked up with a weathered lady from Algeria, they seemed to have a mutual arrangement but I couldn’t see the benefit for her. They had been travelling since meeting up in Goa, and had been in Kalga for the last three months. I wouldn’t be able to stay much more than a couple of days. Not because of the toilet situation but the boredom of nothing to do would hit me first. When I asked why they stayed so long, what was the attraction, they simply answered, “The charas (hash) is [rather jolly good] (my words not theirs) here”.
They were permanently stoned; breakfast consisted of a cup of chai and a couple of chillums, normally taken at this restaurant with anybody else that fancied it. I couldn’t see the attraction, I thought it a waste of life when there is so much to see out there. However, I also don’t feel it is my place to judge upon their choice of lives just as I wouldn’t expect someone to judge ours, but we all have an opinion.
She had been travelling on the road for almost 20 years, he only a year or so. He had a house in Wimbledon on the outskirts of London, not a cheap place to live and very well thought of as a place to own a house. His newly found partner scraped money together by doing massage as she travelled. The pair I guess seemed well suited at that time but I momentarily thought “where do they see themselves going?” I sometimes think that of us, and the truth probably is; neither us, nor them, know; the difference was I don’t think they cared.
The next day was rainy, we didn’t feel like staying in Kalga, and the thought of onward travel to the hot springs for five hours in the mud and drizzle was not an appealing prospect and so we headed back to where the bus dropped us. Back in Manikaran we made ready to leave the next day for Shimla, and (guess what) sat on the balcony after slipping down to Kasol for a bottle of our favourite dizzy juice.
The bus back to Shimla was uneventful and now that we were spoilt to wonderful scenery the views weren’t so captivating. I read and Ed slept, we had been told that the bus was to leave from Bhuntar at 0900, previously visited by us on a 2-hour bus trip. So we were up early and out to catch the 0630 bus from the muddy bus stand at Manikaran to arrive hopefully with half an hour to spare, only to arrive after 1½ hours and be told the bus didn’t leave till 1030. (Silent curses under our breaths on the ticket seller in Manikaran)
We had already once been through Shimla on the way to Mandi, and it didn’t seem a place we would stay for long, however it is an interesting hill station retreat with quite a bit to do and see. The big downside was that it is very hilly, steep hilly, like REALLY steep hilly. I thought I was going to have a heart attack walking around trying to find a hotel to stay at. We had managed to get a porter for Ed, but my pack at coming on 25Kg was making me red in the face and drenched with sweat. (I need some getting fitter to be done for the 2-week trek in Nepal I was planning)
What was even worse was as we tramped up hill in our quest for lodgings, we encountered much smaller, thinner and spindly men humping around huge boxes on their backs, some twice the size of themselves. Wardrobes, full size fridges fully boxed, one guy was carry eight 5 litre cans of cooking oil on his back secured with rope and carried by a strap that was solely supported by his forehead. This is a way of life for some people here, for the upper side of the town known as the upper/lower eastern and western Malls are purely pedestrian, no cars apart from government vehicles. These areas are the life and soul of business and restaurants in Shimla, therefore stock, restaurant ingredients and deliveries in and out of the area all arrive by manual labour, and for only a few rupees I don’t doubt.
We finally found a place that suited our needs, not because it was particularly nice, but more so because it was the right price and I don’t think I could have done much more than five steps more. Thank God it had an elevator! Crap food, but at least it had an elevator.
Shimla as I said is hilly, but once you are on the upper level of the malls, life is a lot easier. Getting around is a stroll, going down is easy, coming up is not, so we planned days out with as little up-down-up-down as possible. The markets were lively and colourful but mainly directed at the Indian tourist. However, this doesn’t stop the chance local businessman trying to sell you something that if he/she really thought about it, there would be absolutely no way that any right minded traveller would buy. Big huge balloons in a giant sausage shape standing 12 feet in height, yeah, useful…, how about a photo of you with the famous statue of some famous Indian politician that once lived here in Shimla, they can have it sent to your address in India in only five days!!! Uh-huh, yup, good one, how about I take the photo with my own camera for free? (Would I want to? Who is this man anyway?) Can’t blame them for trying, I think there would be well paid sales jobs waiting for some of these people back in the UK they were so persistent.
Our hotel room had a window that looked out onto a heating oil storage tank, not the best of sights but a bit of fun nonetheless. This was a place for monkeys to hang out, and from the safety of behind bars it became a daily ritual for us to bring home some bananas and feed them through the bars. Soon this became a known place for food, and the word had spread through the monkey grapevine.
Cute babies clinging to their mother’s chest were our favourites, boisterous youngsters that play fought with each other while waiting for the next offering of fruit were the next and the bulls or dominant males came way down the list, barging in and frightening away the others. When they came on the scene we stopped, waiting for them to get bored and disappear before resuming the delight of hand feeding the monkeys. Funny really, it was us in the cage and them free, but the safety was inside the room, for on more than one occasion they frightened us with their teeth and grabbing hands. They knew when the food was gone and no more was to be had, they instinctively left leaving the remnants of skins dripping off the heating oil container. A couple of the younger ones sometimes hung out in the hope of a scrap more, checking the already discarded skins for the chance of an over seen morsel, then they were off.
The Viceregal Lodge and Botanical Gardens is worth a visit, although botanical gardens in India are not what we are used to back at home, nice enough to wander through, but not up to scratch for a botanical enthusiast. But the Viceregal Lodge itself was magnificent, I normally don’t go a bundle on describing tourist attractions in towns but this was a kick back to a fine English country residence, something that might be lived in by a lord or other such like in the beautiful country side of rural England.
The building itself was large and impressive, long windows stretched from floor to ceiling and the doorway was adorned with a large covered porch. Outside it reminded me of a country hotel and restaurant we used to visit at the weekends in the Cotswolds in England, floods of nostalgia of occasional romantic weekends in luxurious surroundings, and the wonderful dinners we had together came over me (when we could afford it). Inside the lodge the reception hall was a vast, wooden panelled wall made from wood imported from Burma that gave the air of power and righteousness the way a courtroom does. The furniture was from the period of the house although recovered, and huge felt plaques hung high on the walls bore the imprints of once hung weaponry like swords and rifles.
This was the residence of the British Viceroys, the first being Lord Dufferin and the last being Lord Mountbatton who handed India back over after independence in 1947. Old pictures of each of the British Viceroys hung in a gallery with others of Indian leaders in meetings with them, the whole air was of a time past that still lingered on in the building. Now the residence is a place where scholars reside and continue their learnedness of Indian advanced study in the tranquil surroundings. What a place to live, eh?
The walk to and from the Viceregal Lodge took us past a Hotel called The Cecil; we chanced a look in on the way back as we had been told by a guy we had met at breakfast it was a decent enough place. Outside was nothing special but inside was indicative of a 5 star hotel in London. Palatial, not quite maybe, but very impressive nonetheless.
You know how when you miss certain things when you can’t have them, and you start having fantasies about them? Well, not long ago we had discussed what we missed from the UK. I had come up with crispy bacon, and Ed with smoked salmon, both were available at this hotel. We sat down in the galleried bar cum lounge and ordered a home favourite whilst examining the menu, (Vodka Martini’s extra dry with a twist and olives, so English don’t you think?) That evening we returned, mouths salivating at the prospect of roast chicken with crispy bacon in a light gravy with roast potatoes and two veg, preceded with crunchy home baked cheese straws swilled with an oh-so-well made Vodka Martini (extra dry etc, etc…) To top the whole evening, it was all complemented with a fine chilled bottle of Italian fresh, crisp, dry wine. I can taste it now, cleanly running down the back of my throat like spring water to a desert parched person (politically correct) ahhhhhh. Good ol’ Shimla, forever you will be remembered.
From Shimla to Nahan, a 6-hour state bus journey cramped on a bench seat with no leg room being jolted around left and right with a stop for food at a roadside eatery with hygiene standards a little better than that of a cess-pit. Nothing new there then, actually they did do a mean potato curry, which was good and spicy enough to kill any germ that resided within it. A surprising amount of Indians who depend on state transport to travel from village to town for the markets etc., get really badly travel sick. Never have we seen so many retching bodies with heads slung out the windows as on Indian buses. Sometimes there is a queue for the window or a window is stacked two high with spewing vomit. Not pleasant to be sitting behind one of these afflicted persons as you must keep your window closed for fear of a back draft of the stuff!
We met a French guy called Chistophe with whom we searched high and low for a reasonable place to stay in Nahan. We settled on the Regency Hotel as the best of a bad bunch, at least it didn’t smell of the local urinal and the proprietor was not swaying on his heels with falling down juice. Christophe practiced his English and we stammered a couple of French words, and in our 40-minute walk we had done Nahan all over (it’s a small place) so we retired to a balcony with bananas and beer and chatted the evening through.
The real reason to visit Nahan was two fold – to break up the trip between Shimla and Dehra Dun, the gateway from Himachal Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh, and secondly to visit nearby Renuka Lake and the wildlife park, where we spent the day walking around a lily padded lake with pink flowers and holy fish any angler would be proud to catch and have a photograph taken of the monster that was landed. We fed a lone giant turtle that was brave enough to get out of the lake to eat from our hands.
Unfortunately the downside to the day was the wildlife park also housed caged animals, not something Eddie or I are fans about. Large Himalayan Black Bears were bored in an inadequately sized pen, faeces had not been cleared by warden for weeks it seemed and the animals looked dirty and unkempt. Asiatic Lions were pacing or lying, dirty and undernourished, cheetahs in such an incredibly small cage that they didn’t even bother to leave their small hut. Peering in you could see them lying beside each other amongst a stench you had to hold your breath against. That was a downer, we didn’t realise the park caged these animals, and it was shocking to see such powerful animals debilitated so much they had lost their pride, and just lived to die.
A four hour bus ride from Nahan is Dehra Dun. We are now in Uttar Pradesh, the state that encompasses Agra in the west and the all holy Varanasi in the east, and a dirty, noisy dump of a place which we felt was worse than Delhi called Dehra Dun. Some people liked Delhi, it held some good times, but all we wanted to do was get on out, and we made the best of our time there till we did. But Dehra Dun we couldn’t get out of soon enough. We did what we had to do, arranged train tickets for later travel, bus tickets for the next day and then took a rickshaw to another botanical garden that disappointed, and to a large Cave temple complex where we were almost made to believe in the Hindu religion forcibly. We were told to do this, have dots painted on our heads, kiss people’s feet and offer money for the pleasure.
This was not our religion, we came to see, watch and learn a bit more of the Hindu way, not to be forced into participation, we had to seem rude to break up the farce, chucked a 10Rs note on the offering dish and made off, to the astonishment of the people we left behind. I’m sure that doesn’t happen too often to them, foreigners feel trapped into following the routine, having to pray to some god they didn’t believe in and repeat words of prayer they don’t understand and feeling obliged to leave money in each offering dish, of which we saw many, as well as being asked to kiss the feet of holy men we didn’t respect! I felt indignant we were put in that position, and it has tainted my view on the Hindu Religion. We now hesitate to go into some larger temples that have crowds of Sadhu’s and so-called holy men within them.
An hour and a half down the road (thank God) is the much nicer and less hectic pilgrim site of Rishikesh, visited largely by Sadhu’s (people who give up their lives and possessions in the quest for spiritual enlightenment) and Indians, as it is close to the source of the holy river the Ganges. Downtown Rishikesh is a hectic and dirty area of the town, the nicer and more atmospheric area is Swarg Ashram, on the east side of the River Ganges. It is the area that the Sadhu’s and Indian tourists head to as it contains many temples and Ashrams where you can come to pray to the many Hindu god figures that dominate the vehicle free streets and alleys.
It is known as the “Yoga capital of the world” as most Ashrams hold courses in Yoga, Meditation and other aspects of Hinduism, even the hotels and guest houses offer these facilities as an other way of making a quick Rupee. There are places that are genuine and offer genuine courses with accommodation for a daily donation only, but as tourism grew, money gleamed the well-meaning visitor of many more rupees than was necessary. We stayed at the Hotel Rajdeep, which was evenly priced for the area and had good rooms with a balcony overlooking green fields.
We did several walks around the north of the town but all in all there is not a whole lot to do here apart from see temple after temple, and after three months now of India we are getting pretty templed out unless it something special. And none of the temples in Rishikesh are that special apart from maybe the Kalilashanand Mission Ashram that boasts a long walk around each of 15 floors of bells and religious icons and rewards you with fantastic views from the top.
The River Ganges here is still very wide and at this time of year the waters are flowing fast and high. Looking toward the opposite bank it almost looks as if the land is sinking into the mucky waters. But people here believe in the Ganges water, its holiness, they bathe relentlessly in the soul cleansing waters, washing and ducking their heads under water.
Further downriver you have Varanasi, the Ganges there is heavily polluted to a point of being pretty dangerous. In Rishikesh we are much nearer the source so the water is cleaner. Still, on our walk up river to the next town we encountered two raw sewage cesspits that ran directly into the river not 2km up river from where the bathing ghats were. Dangers of conjunctivitis and meningitis spring to mind, but to the Indians this is not a factor, this is the great River Ganges and holds great religious power to them (Hindus that is).
India, as a country, I don’t think would function without the stability of religion to hold it together, so many people here rely on religion to make it through their lives. Sadhu’s that line the paths and streets here are in part I feel doing the “road to enlightenment” bit because the life they had come from was poor and destitute, and being a Sadhu allows you to take charity from people as an excuse for helping a so called “holy man” on his pilgrimage. Lots of Indians that I have spoken to say they are in doubt of the genuineness of all the visiting Sadhu’s they feel obliged to give money to, but they do it anyway.
We feel that it is not our religion, and it is their choice to choose this life so it is not up to us as travellers to support these people, although they are that little bit more persistent and pestering when they spot a Western traveller. We have been prodded, held back by the arm and verbally abused by these people in their quest to get us to give baksheesh which in fact makes us more determined not to. I have been pushed to punching point on more than one occasion, but have resisted the temptation as it doesn’t do me any favours, instead I have just barged by knocking one person off balance, and on another occasion stepped on some toes with my hiking boots (they don’t wear shoes, and this one was being particularly aggressive to Eddie).
People in the low castes have miserable lives, some really that aren’t worth living maybe. No money, no clothes, nowhere to live, no sanitation and no pride. But these people still go on, they do their best and don’t give up, for they believe that the next life will bring a better life if they have good karma and believe in their religion. Muslims pray five times a day, everyday. Their day’s structure is built around the mosque and is a great place of social activity and gathering. The building blocks of India stand on the country’s belief in religion and without it India would be a completely different country. Strict followers of the Hindu religion are supposed to further their mind and bodily state in the arts of meditation and Yoga to enable them to reach closer to their ultimate being, to reach enlightenment, blah, blah… and Rishikesh can offer it all, from book shops specialising from astrology and palmistry, meditation and the different schools of Yoga, to boarding courses lasting months.
I had a session of yoga in our hotel, in the specially kitted out “Yoga Room”, a large room with a large mat. My teacher or Guru as they are called, (although they only become your guru if you choose to follow their teaching and look to them for advice for a period of time) was a young chap, very agile in figure that called himself a “Doctor” of Yoga. He started the session by providing letters of reference from Westerners (two actually) that had and still were studying under him albeit by snail mail.
In fact he was a very proficient teacher and by the end of the two hours I had learnt a 12 pose sequence which was to do three times every day and which managed to stretch and work every muscle in my body and made me feel like I had done one serious work out after just 15 minutes. Together with that we had Om-ed a bit, and relaxed and meditated a while. All was very invigorating and by the end I did feel good about myself. I then vowed that this Yoga lark was a pucker idea and would make a serious attempt to follow the routine once a day and become calmed, subtle and at one with myself.
I thanked him for the enlightening session and paid him my “as you like” donation and to this day I have managed to not do any yoga, meditation or Om’s. Not that that will surprise our friends back at home that know me, the only thing we have managed to maintain religiously, even in the dry area of Rishikesh is our alcohol intake, and something that has come with us from the UK and will probably stay with us wherever we go. (We are not alcoholics understand, we just like to drink)… (Isn’t that what alcoholics say?) (No seriously we’re not) (Are we?) (Noooooo…)
One day I will try this yoga thing again, I did it once before, the last time I was in India, in fact whilst in Goa. I did it religiously every day at 6am for a month, but it is one of those things that I find difficult to continue to do without guidance. Anyway I will keep you up to date with that one if and when it happens.
We are now in Nanital, and in the next instalment I will write of our 8 hour trip here that turned to 16 hours. Suffice it to say it rained VERY hard the night before we left.
As another long travelogue closes, I want to say thank you to the people who E-mail us with encouragement and compliments on our travelogues, thank you it means a lot. You can email us on: [email protected] and we will always answer you back, eventually.
