Steamy baths and local gods

The highlight of Vashisht is definitely its natural hot springs. The rest of it is, to me, rather disappointing. Every building seems to be perpetually under construction, being made bigger and and wider and better able to block out the views. These new concrete slab buildings are rapidly replacing the old wooden ones that used to line the Vashisht street. There is rubbish in the stream and there are cars and rickshaws forever zooming up and down the narrow road. But the hot springs...mmm, they are still a winner.
Mum and I have woken up early for the past couple of mornings to enjoy the ladies' bathing pool. There are hot springs at the top of the town and a temple has been built around them. The ladies get a more private bathing situation: four walls and an open sky. The men have a few different options but I think they are all public. We go early because Vashisht can be beautiful of an early morning, when the valley is clear and you can look up at the snow capped mountains, and the drivers are still asleep. Early is when you meet few tourists but many locals, going to bathe and start the day's work. It is also when the hot springs are still clean, as they refill overnight but gather dirt and hair (yum) in the day.
Each morning there have been around ten local Vashisht women in the baths. Young girls and ancient old women sit around, catching up on local gossip and scrubbing each others backs. The space is small and steam rises up off the water. Old stone carvings decorate the walls; gods and goddesses stare out at you as you bathe. Next to the bath and slightly below it there are four taps where as many as seven women sit under the flowing water, lathered in soap from head to toe. Yesterday there was an old woman who must have been in her late eighties sitting below a tap and being helped by two younger women. She sat smiling as they poured water over her, scrubbed her hair and rubbed her weathered old skin. They barked commands at her and she'd raise an arm, look down, get up. They were just there when she arrived, I don't think they were relatives but rather it seems the younger women share around the responsibility of looking after the oldies in the bathing pool.
The water was so hot I could barely get in. It was like a bath before you add the cold. It took me about five minutes, submerging one toe at a time, before I could get in. The other women find me amusing, the way my skin is super red when I finally give myself permission to stop the burning ritual and get out. The way I try and converse with them in Hindi - even if I say it right they laugh at me! It is nice though, more like friendly mocking than the 'we are not amused' laugh they give to some of the crazies in the baths. This morning there was a crazy Russian lady in there, talking nonsense to all the Vashisht women and telling me I should go up to Brighu Lake (4300m) and bring her back a bottle of 'death water'. I said it might be difficult because I am starting a trek tomorrow and she said, I live near Delhi - bring it to me there, please, just a little bottle. Crazy.
After our bathe the temple men at the Rama Temple invited Mum and I in for tea and puja. We drank tea while sitting below a five thousand year old stone (no concrete) temple and looking out over the Beas River in the valley far below. The mist had spread all the way up the valley this morning, rendering the mountains on every side invisible. After our tea the puja ceremony started. We stood inside while six men in Manali hats clashed cymbals, rang bells, blew a big conch shell and chanted blessings. The room was thick with incense and candles burned - it felt very holy. When the chanting had finished the puja-leader gave Hanuman an offering of pizza and chapatis and put holy water into each of our hands. He then gave us - the other men conducting the ceremony, Mum and me - a small piece each of sweet chapati and savoury chapati, which we wrapped in a tear of newspaper to eat when when we left the temple. After the ceremony each man picked up his things and carried on with his business. They nodded us goodbye and we went off to have brekkie. I have a great appreciation for those small, special experiences - genuine exchanges.
After breakfast Mum and I walked into manali to do the fruit shop for our trek. We have so much food already but I have to keep remembering that we are shopping for three weeks, three people. Today we bought a few kilos of fresh pears, nectarines, plums, apples and peas. We also found some delicious lime, lemon and ginger pickle and a delicious organic honey from Uttarakhand. Mum and I both seem to have a weakness for dried fruit and nuts, so I think our fruit and nuts store will sustain us and a small Himalayan village for an easy three weeks.
You'll hear from me again in three weeks time.
Phir Milenge!

Northward bound: Planning for our trek

Horse man - Guddu - paid. This morning he departed Manali and is on his way up to the start of our trek with the four horses that will carry our food and equipment for the next twenty days. We decided to keep things simple and avoid a guided trek; it means we don't get the mess tent, English-speaking guide and all that jazz, but we don't need all that! Stainless steel chai cups and other utensils bought in our local market. Muscle rub is a focus in our medical kit; I get the feeling it will do great things. Tomorrow we will do our fresh fruit shopping. In Keylong we buy fresh veg - 5kg of potatoes! Guddu will get the dal, tea, masala, kerosene, ghee and other bulk necessities up in Keylong. He will also provide a stove and pressure cooker. On top of all that there is just snacks to buy; I am thinking honey and tahini for our chapatis, dried Manali apricots, Jammu cashews and lollies for people we meet along the way (apparently 'bon bons' are frequently requested). Mum and I brought some snacks and brekkie food from home: Brookfarm Gluten Free Macadamia Muesli (yum!), quinoa flakes for porridge, chocolate coated macas and some other bits and bobs that are hard to find here.

So that is it. 

We are heading north and Winter is not coming.

Our trek is classified as a twenty-one day-er, although apparently we will complete it in sixteen to seventeen days.We will try and draw it out as long as possible; it is not often one gets the opportunity to hang out in the Himalayas with few horses and a tent.

On Wednesday Mum and I depart from Manali on an early bus and will arrive in Keylong around seven hours later. There we do our veggie shopping and we can stay the night, but both of us think it will be ideal to head straight onto Jhankar Sumdo and camp out there. The altitude in Keylong is around 3000 metres, whereas it is around 3800 in Jhankar Sumdo. As we will be reaching 4800m within eight to ten hours on the first day , it seems as though the best option will be to sleep high up. I haven't had altitude sickness on a trek before but I don't think I have inclined this rapidly at such a high altitude. Fingers crossed I will be fine and dandy. 

The first two days will be some of the toughest not only because we will be fresh little trekkers with tender tender thighs, but because we will be adjusting to the altitude without much of a rest in between. This is because we have to cross the Shingo La Pass and then into the Zanskar Valley in order to camp on Night Two. So Day One will get us to 4800m and on Day Two we hit 5200m. Exciting, right?
After the first two days, if I make it out alive, it is rumoured that the going gets easier. That is, until we reach the Singe La Pass. We will stroll (not likely) along, through valleys and over icy cold streams, through slippery snow and over more tall passes, camping out in our teensy tent under the stars. Apparently there is the occasional tea stall, but beside that we will be on our own when it comes to food and water. We have requested that our horse man cooks simple dal, sabji and rice or chapati dinners, which sounds delicious to me. In the morning we will cook our own breakfast and pack some snacks for lunch while our horse man, or Guddu is his name, goes out and finds the horses. Each night he will let them roam free, up into the jungles to find food and a nice place to sleep, and each morning he will leave at dawn and go to find them. Sometimes he will walk the distance Mum and I will walk in a day just to find his horses before we set out. Isn't that just great? Last time Mum did this trek the horse came back one morning with two huge gashes down its flank. Yep, there are mountain lions out there friends. But don't worry - they only like horses and I do know self defense.
Subhash, the guy who works for Himalayan Adventures and helped us organise our horses, said this trek will be closed within three years. They are building a road straight up to Leh, on top of the walking paths. On one side I can see that people living in hard-to-reach areas may benefit from the road, but I find it hard to see the positives in wiping out one of the most beautiful Himalayan treks to accommodate a vast increase in traffic, pollution and more infrastructural 'development'. I knew this trek would end soon, which was the reason we chose it, but it is happening much quicker than expected. Subhash said there are parts that have already been tarmacked, meaning we choose between walking on a boiling hot highway or catching a ride. We'll see what happens.
We will wind up in Leh in about three weeks time. I have booked a flight down to Delhi on the 22nd of July so if we arrive early there are supposed to be many beautiful day hikes around Leh. Mum is also a bit too excited to hire an Enfield...I don't know if I'd trust her motorbiking skills but I suppose they do say to live life dangerously. I also have plans to find some local hand-woven shawls and to fill my belly with many many momos, so that will take some time.
You'll hear from me tomorrow. My last day in civilisation...

Bye bye Delhi

It has only been a few days since I last blogged but I feel as though there is so much to catch up on! I want to talk about the last couple of days in Delhi, my new camera lens, the plans for our trek and the journey up here to Himachal Pradesh. Delhi feels like the distant past now (should I be worried about my memory?), and I am now sitting high up in the mountains in a little-ish town named Vashisht. It is a relief to be out of the big smoke; yesterday, (only yesterday!?) the temperature shot up past forty and the city felt like an over-sized, fume-filled sauna. I didn't believe our rickshaw-wala when he said it was 46 degrees but standing there waiting for the bus with sweat dripping down my legs, I began to change my mind.
Mum and I went to the bus stop at around quarter to five for our scheduled five o'clock bus. After a lot of running around, transferring bus stops and the like, we departed at about half six. I love it here the way the bus waits for every last passenger and calls people if they haven't showed up.It can mean you end up waiting an extra few hours but hey, this is India!
As we were leaving Delhi Mum started telling me about her cycle tour around India in 1988. It is such a great story and I haven't heard much about her trip before. Mum was about twenty-nine or thirty when she decided to take her bike and her camera and go to India. She turned up in Delhi and met another guy cycling up towards Leh, Ladakh at the Post Restante. They found each other because Mum was walking around with a broken gear piece. I think that is great; Post Restantes are a system I wish still existed. Mum decided to cycle north with the New Zealander and they set out a few days later. They cycled for a month and parted ways in Shrinigar and after that Mum met with a friend named Sally and they cycled up to Leh together. The stories go on for another seven months and she cycled through Malaysia and Indonesia too. There was a chance meeting with the Dalai Lama on the side of the road and two weeks in a tribe in Indonesia, but I haven't got all night! I love hearing about the adventures my mother had as a single female traveller in the late eighties. And it is fascinating to realise the immense changes in places like Vashisht now, compared to twenty-five years back.
The next few hours of our bus journey have blacked out in my mind, as my minor headache turned into a fully fledged migraine. All I can remember is how loud and inescapable the Bollywood film being played was and my desire to shoot Salman Khan, how bright all the lights were and the feeling that my head would explode. A Nurofen and two extra strong panadols later and I was alive again.Ready to sleep like a baby for the next six hours.
We were woken up at five thirty this morning in order to 'take chai'. I am glad they woke us up because it was the most stunning imagery to step out of the bus to. There was a clear view up the valley: the river was bursting its banks, early monsoon has panted the flora every shade of green, the sky was an angry grey and lightning forked across it, between shrouded mountains.The chai was well worth the early wake up as well.
We arrived in Manali at about nine am. We got an auto up into Vashisht. The poor motor on that thing struggled with every incline and in the end we told the guy not to worry and walked the extra few hundred metres.Vashisht is an interesting place. I am sure it would have been significantly more charming in 1988 than it is nowadays; what was a little town with a guesthouse and a row of old wooden village homes is now congested and overflowing with hotels, motels, guesthouses, Israeli cafes, German bakeries and trippers' bars. It still has some of its old charm - the early morning hot springs are great, some of the old houses still stand and if you walk out behind the village you can find a magical waterfall, but in general I think Vashisht is a victim of its own success.
Mum and I have had a busy day filled with lots of walking. But we have now organised our trek! It is super exciting and I will write about our plans tomorrow. A rough outline of what we have organised is this: one horse man (sherpa), four horses, twenty days, leave Thursday, wind up in Leh.
It will mean I don't write on here for around a month from Wednesday, but I will have many exciting stories to tell when we get back. I was worried Mum's flu might have put a stop to our trekking plans, so finalising our booking today was a great feeling. Twenty days sleeping under the stars and walking in the Himalayas!

Photographs from Day One: Roaming around our new neighbourhood and those who caught my eye.

"You see these hands, these are a working man's hands. Look at your hands, see, these are hands for wasting money. Now look at my hands: these are hands for making money." The print maker in Paharganj.

So it begins: Namaste Delhi

Mum and I left Byron at 8:30 am on Wednesday the 19th (yesterday) and after a sleepover in Bangkok - yep, we did eat Pad Thai for dinner - we have finally made it to Delhi. We got here this morning and were greeted by a guy with a sign; travelling with Mum means I get fancy little bonuses like personalised signs, tourist buses and no bed bugs.

We checked out our 'executive suite' at Hotel Aura in Paharganj, which seems satisfactory to me although I don't really know what executives look for in a room. It isn't difficult to impress me when it comes to accommodation.

We were itching to get out and partake of our first dhaba meal so after changing out of our plane clothes Mum and I walked over to Main Bazar. Mum knows Delhi and its quirks much more thoroughly than I, so she took me to this little dhaba she used to come to, popular with the locals and very pleasing to the taste buds. We shared chana masala, matar masala, palak paneer, chapati and rice. Delicious. The room was painted blue, about two metres wide and five metres back and the front of the shop was crowded with men waiting for their takeaway chapatis. There was an upstairs level and about every two minutes a woven basket would be lowered down on a string, laden with fresh tandoori chapatis. Next time we go out I will take my camera and show you some of these beautiful images.The guys would unload the chapati basket and it would shoot back up. I wonder how many kilos of chapati they go through in a day.

Out on the street I am like an enthusiastic kid learning to read. My Hindi reading and writing is a lot better than spoken, so it makes me feel good to walk around reading out every sign as though I know what it means. I do understand some of them (!) and I have listened in on a few conversations so far.

I feel as though I have been preparing to be in India since January and now that I am here I can finally relax. I am loving it so far: the hustle, the noise, the colour and the heat of Delhi is exciting and alive. I do have to keep reminding myself this isn't a stopover and when Mum and I get back from the north Delhi will be my official home until the end of the year. There is so much to explore; I am sure it will be over before I know it! 

Next on my list of things to do is get a lassi at what Mum describes as the best buffalo-milk lassi place in Delhi. I am looking forward to this month of travels with meri mata (my mum); not only do we get valuable mother-daughter time but she has so much of India to show me. I plan on making the most of her thirty years' accumulated knowledge as an Indian traveller.