When the world ends these towers of rock, stone and sand will still be standing – their glittering spires tickling the sky in their harsh surroundings. The Himalayas – a place that means so much to the people that inhabit them. It is a place where ancient monasteries are protected by the high cliffs and infinite gorges, unchanged for centuries where the people live in the most difficult of conditions – icy winters and dry summers.
It has always been a dream of mine to see the high mountains of the world. I guess it is that feeling of being dwarfed by something rising 3 kilometers out of the ground that attracts me to it so much. South Africa doesn’t have very high mountains, in fact the highest mountain barely rises above 3600 meters and is probably only 1000 meters from base to peak. Up until this trip, the highest I had ever been was the peak of Mont Aux Souces in the Drakensberg mountains. Then in Lombok, Indonesia we got to 3750 meters on Gunung Rinjani. Margarét had been to the great Andes in South America, but everything we had seen before would be eclipsed by the incredible journey we undertook in the Indian Himalayas.
We had started fairly early in the morning from Shimla, with our guide Hassan – a slight, courteous man who thankfully spoke good English and knew the region we were exploring very well – and our driver Bobby – who made up for his lack of English with his big smile and driving skills. These roads are treacherous and they are trafficked heavily by large apple trucks and maniacal bus drivers. They are twisty, dusty, bumpy and rarely sealed.
The region we started travelling in is called Kinnaur. The first day of our trip saw us bouncing along through beautiful green scenery, dotted with apple farms and small towns all clinging to the cliffs and steep mountains of what I like to call the Green Himalayas. The area is characterised by 3500m high peaks covered in pine and rhododendron trees. The roads, as I mentioned previously, are dusty and rutted from the many trucks transporting apples out of the area. Fortunately, the roads were open the whole way – something which is a rare occurrence as the heavy rains during the monsoon season frequently cause massive landslides which cut off access to villages and towns.
There is a distinctive style of driving you need to get accustomed to in these parts. Due to the roads being very narrow and bendy, whenever approaching a blind curve in the road Bobby would toot loudly on the horn to warn any oncoming traffic that were coming around the corner. Oncoming traffic should/would move over to the side to allow us to pass safely. If we wanted to overtake a truck or car, then the horn is blown until the driver in front moves over. This system works the majority of the time, provided the driver’s concerned use their hooters but on occasion we ended having to swerve madly to avoid a car that failed to hear our horn, ignored it or didn’t hoot themselves. It should be mentioned that on the back of most trucks it says “Blow Horn” in brightly hand-painted capital letters. Nonetheless, we never found ourselves in any particularly dangerous situations and most traffic in front of us pulled over nearly immediately after they heard our horn.
The other part of the driving we needed to get used to was the time it took to cover relatively short distances. Since our top speed was rarely 40km/h, 120 km took more than three and a half hours to cover. We did eventually reach the beautiful Kinnaur Valley and started to slowly zigzag our way down to the brown torrent of the Sutlej River. The fast flowing river and steep gorges makes this area a perfect site for massive hydroelectric projects – one such plant produces 1000 megawatts of electricity – nearly four times the size of a nuclear power station. The ugly side of these projects is the huge destruction of the surrounding river ecosystems and the influx of a huge workforce to staff the projects. The road to Kalpa passes through these construction sites and they are as ugly as they are awe inspiring in their vastness. Small towns have popped up around each site and the area is covered in a layer of dust from the blasting and trucks. The positive side of all of these developments is jobs for the local population and less susceptibility to flooding.
We eventually arrived in Kalpa at night. It had taken us nearly 11 hours to reach the tiny village, some 250 km away from Shimla. Our guesthouse was a few minutes drive above the village. We were exhausted and after a simple dinner of dhal and chapatis (lentils and bread), we headed to our room to shower and sleep.
The guesthouse was an odd place and reminded me a little bit of Fawlty Towers. We could have anything on the menu, provided that it was dhal and chapatis, since everything else was out of stock. The manager only allowed us to have our hot water geyser on for roughly an hour – something which was rather annoying as it was only large enough for one of us to shower before going cold again. The busboy-cum-waiter was a Nepali who scampered around under the shouts and curses from the manager, much like Manuel under Basil. He was about as well trained as Manuel and when he came running out from the kitchen carrying our chapatis in a small basket, I could see his brain working overtime trying to stop himself from handling them with his hands. His antics only got more amusing over the course of our stay there. The one time he came to berate me – obviously after he had gotten an earful from the manager – as I had found the main switch for our geyser on the outside wall and had turned it on myself. He knocked on the door, rattled something off in Hindi while gesturing in the direction of the switchbox. I nodded and smiled whereupon he promptly disappeared down the passage frustrated in the knowledge that I didn’t have a clue what kind of trouble I had gotten him into. The next morning, at breakfast, his final stunt put no doubt in my mind that he had been watching Fawlty Towers under the impression it was a training video. Margarét had ordered a slice of toast and butter and when Nepali-Manuel returned with it, he accidentally knocked the carefully balanced knife from the side of the plate onto the table cloth. In most situations, a waiter would just put it back on the plate but unsure as to what to do, Nepali-Manuel cursed under his breath, picked up the knife and promptly walked over to the window whereupon he gave it good shining on the dusty, old curtain. He then walked back over and calmly placed it on the side of the plate. We couldn’t contain ourselves, it has to be one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me in a restaurant. The only thing missing from this picture, would have been the manager noticing what had happened and clipping Nepali-Manuel around the ears while loudly berating him in Hindi on the way out of the room.
The rest of the day was no less memorable. Kalpa is set on the other side of the Kinnaur Valley, overlooking the gigantic mountains of the Kinner Kailash (6005m). The amazing jagged peaks were covered in snow and glaciers. These were the first views I had had of really big mountains and I was stunned at their size and vastness. We headed down to the town of Rekong Peo to get our Inner Line Permits at the local magistrate. The permits are necessary for accessing the Spiti Valley and the area along the Indian/Chinese (Tibetan) border. After a few hours of standing around and waiting we eventually got the permits and headed for our first hike in the Himalayas.
As mentioned previously, our guide Hassan knew the area very well and took us to a tiny village in the valley alongside the Kinnaur Valley, called the Roghi Valley. We started our hike through apple orchards, where the trees were bowing under the weight of their fruit. The people are friendly and sport traditional Kinnauri-style garb – many of whom were very busy harvesting and collecting grass, apples and apricots before the winter. At the top of the main path up the mountain, Hassan turned off and took us to a tiny house, with a well manicured vegetable garden. The house belonged to a Kinnauri woman called Rajni and Hassan had brought us to her house for a cup of masala chai (spicy tea) and to see how the local people live. Rajni was no less curious about us and it was a really unique experience. Her house was very basic and really tiny, consisting of one room. In one corner was a bed, the other, some sort of ancient weaving apparatus and next to it was her cooking area. In the middle of the room was a heating stove. Rajni offered us apples and even lunch – something we couldn’t refuse. Her English was very basic but she was genuinely interested in learning more about us.
The hike up to 3400m was amazing. The views across the valley to the Kinner Kailash were spectacular and we got to see how some of the shepherds live higher up. On our way back down we had our lunch with Rajni and we got to meet her mother and some of her nephews and nieces. Margarét noticed that one of the nieces was rubbing something in her hands, and Rajni told us she was making hashish for her grandfather. It was then that I noticed that the majority of greenery along the pathways and the roads in this area was one giant crop of marijuana. I don’t think it is harvested in any commercial way, but the people definitely do smoke it. High mountains, high people I guess.
We briefly explored the little town of Kalpa and then headed back to our guesthouse. Unfortunately, Nepali-Manuel didn’t have any new entertainment for us to enjoy and the next day we left Fawlty Towers, Indian-Basil and Nepali-Manuel for the Dry Himalayas.
