The exciting journeys of two monkeys up in the Himalayas

You may be curious about why I carried two Beanie Babies on my three-week trek and took photographs of them

Every

Day.

I am supposed to be twenty-two, right? I travelled the globe alone for almost two years, I have moved to India to study for a semester. Yet I still carry my two sixteen-year old stuffed toys with me. Over oceans, across deserts and now through the snowy, dusty, wet, dry Himalayas.

In Delhi I ummed and ahhed about whether to bring the monkeys with me; they weigh more, they will take up extra space, I don’t need to bring them. I took them anyway, because I wanted to. I am glad I did because Michael and Bonsai provided endless entertainment, made me new friends and became the protagonists in a number of unforgettable stories. No one is too grown up for stuffed toys.

From the outset I decided to take a daily picture of the monkeys, documenting each new location through their pictures. As time progressed I found myself putting more and more effort into finding new and exciting settings for the pictures. From beautiful snow-capped mountains, hand-woven baskets, horses, to yak patties I got more explorative and began asking people to hold them. I asked hotel owners and a girl named Chuznit, and I asked a nun in the women’s monastery in Pishu. She laughed, and laughed more each time she looked at them. Later on I strapped Michael and Bonsai to my backpack and began carrying them with me so that I could photograph them on passes and along the way. I even found a monk living atop a 5200m pass, waiting to build a mani wheel who agreed to hold them. He stared at them as they hung in his hands, looking very confused.

The monkeys acted like instant icebreakers and along the way people of all ages fell in love with them. A good few became our friends merely because of the monkeys dangling from my pack. Two Tales of Michael and Bonsai stand out, so I shall recall them for you here.

The First Tale: Chuznit and the monkey attachment

On numerous occasions I found it difficult to maintain my resolve and not give Bonsai and Michael away. The most memorable instance of this was in Kangsar, with Chuznit.

Tenzin Chuznit was about six. She was youngest of the seven children who dwelt in the classic Ladakhi house beside our campsite. It was probably my favourite campsite; a garden nestled in the valley leading up to Phuktal Gonpa and maintained by Chuznit’s mother. There was a table and chairs, a view up and down the winding valley and far below, through the gorge to a swollen river. We stayed for a rest day because at that stage (and unknown to me) my sinusitis was at its worst and I was finding it difficult to walk.

Chuznit was shy until I brought out the monkeys. She grabbed them as soon as she saw them and began running in circles round the garden, jumping them from rocks and chatting with them animatedly. Together we made them rock beds and thrones and after I left she made them a house and then recommenced running round the garden with them. She had them in her hands all day and when it was time to help her mum do the afternoon chores she did not put them down.

Late afternoon I was sick and needed to rest. Mum warned that if I left the monkeys with Chuznit overnight it would be too cruel to take them from her in the morning. I called Chuznit over to the tent, made a bed and told her it was time to put the monkeys to sleep. At first she laughed and then she looked at me as if I were telling a half-funny joke. When she realised I was not joking she started shaking her head and backing away from me with Michael and Bonsai squeezed under her arms. I told her it was their bedtime and she could play with them tomorrow. Chuznit started to cry and stamp her feet.

I can’t remember why now but at one stage Chuznit put the monkeys down – to adjust her top or to wipe her eyes? Making the most of the moment I tucked the monkeys into their makeshift bed and zipped up the tent. That may have been a bad move. Seeing what I had done Chuznit flew at me. Tears and snot and dirt covered her face as she hit me and screamed at me in Ladhaki.

I guiltily tried to reassure her with promises of more monkey time tomorrow but it took her two brothers Tenzin and Tenzin, who carried her away writhing in the air, and a couple of hours before Chuznit began to calm down. Mum felted her some juggling balls to play with and I crocheted her a flower, and it took until the next day before Chuznit and I were truly friends again.

Tale Number Two: My Ladakhi monkey

 It was the big day, the final day; Mum and I had made it to Lamayeru. We trekked up a hot, frying-pan ravine, over the final pass, through the final rice paddies and into the very. final. village. We set up our tents in a shady campsite that gazed up at the majestic old gonpa and a face carved into the cliff below. We drank cold drinks using the last of our $$ and as Mum strolled off to find water I laid out the yoga mat and happily settled down to read my book.

The glory of a rest was short-lived as, three minutes later, an eight-strong band of boys bulldozed into the campsite. They were all under twelve years old. Most were wearing ripped old football shirts and ragged beanies. One, a little one, was in his monastery robes. They glanced around the camp and made their way straight to my mat.

Arrayed around me, making me feel small and outnumbered despite their notable youth, the boys asked me questions and laughed and put their muddy feet on my yoga mat. The boys swarmed Bonsai and Michael the moment they saw them. Everything about their presence was slightly overwhelming but the magnitude of their excitement at finding the monkeys took me aback. Within seconds they had ripped them from their velcro straps on my backpack and despite my reprimands, began throwing them up into the air. Resistance seemed futile and (prematurely) deciding they were harmless, I got out my camera. That added to their excitement and soon the bigger boys were climbing trees and there was an outright battle to be in every one of my photos.

Where is Bonsai?

Michael disappeared amidst the excitement and when I asked the boys where he was their arms crossed as they all pointed at each other. They proceeded to put their arms in the air and say, It isn’t me, search my pockets mam. Seems as though they are well versed in the good ol’ pat down. It was a false alarm and I found Bonsai five metres away, lying in the grass. The boys strapped them back to my bag and once again piled onto the yoga mat to talk with me, ask for ‘bonbons,’ and pose while Mum took some photos of us. I started writing my diary again and told the boys it was time to go.

                        Michael is gone.

A couple of hours later Mum came up to the mat and asked me where Michael was. I hadn’t looked at my bag again but now realised he was missing. I knew then that as Mum took photographs one of them had skilfully and silently removed the Velcro from around Michael’s waste, slipped him under his shirt and carried him away. Little brats.

                                    The rescue mission begins.

I walked up to the road and happened upon one of the older boys, now meek and concerned and caring for his baby brother and sister. He knew what I wanted straightaway and pointing to the gonpa looming overhead said: It was the monk, he is up there.

Mum and I, mission in mind, grabbed our valuables and asked the mightily concerned Guddu to watch over the camp while we went out to bring Michael home. I was surprised by a rush of sentiment; Michael’s life (he was my first toy, given me by my grandmother) flashed before my eyes and I realised I would be quite sad if I didn’t get him back. Mum was determined; the monkey needed to be found, justice brought and the parents notified. I agreed that the boys should not get away with stealing.

As we began our walk up to the gonpa, past the ladies at the water pump and the shop of young Ladakhis who somehow already knew about the missing monkey, we met two more suspects. They said it was the monk, But he is not at the gonpa - he is at home. They pointed. We said, You are coming with us. Four strong we began the march back in the other direction and down to the monk’s home. When we arrive there were seven of us. Village girls with good English had joined the cause and were not going to miss out on the fun. The boy’s mother said it wasn’t him and at that moment another one of the boys came along. Three smiling mothers interrogated him and soon he was crying and telling the whole story.

It was an older boy. He took him. He has thrown him away. In the rubbish heap. I don’t know. It wasn’t me. Okay I will take them there.

Back in the other direction, we left the crowd behind and the three boys took us to Michael. He was on a rubbish pile, ripped down the back, his beans rolling down the path a few metres away. The boys looked sheepish.

Back to their mums, more had gathered and now the schoolteacher was there too. They all found it relatively humorous but wanted to make sure we were happy. When they heard he had been stuffed with beans the monk’s mother disappeared into her immaculately clean house and returned with a sewing needle, some red thread, cotton wool and some dried peas.

She and another sewed him up with the best invisible stitching I have ever seen. They laughed all the while and finished off stuffing a few inches of yak wool into his bum.

And that is the story of how Michael became a Ladakhi monkey.

Day 1 and 2: To 4800m and the beginning of the the cracking headaches appeared.

My first mani wall

Our Himalayan puppy who walked with us for four days: from Zanskar Sumdo and over the Shingo La. We named her Shinga.

Two Bihari road workers whose job it was to push rocks off the road and down, down into the river below.

Snow bridge number one.

Namaskar Himalayas. Each day we were blessed with sundar visions like this.

Our 'horse tent'. Guddu, our horseman (left) and his horseman friend - the one with the spare stove. 

Ginger chai!

Day 1: Our camp at Chuminakpo.
 We arrived in the rain with painful altitude sickness, set up our tent and collapsed for a few hours. 

Another garewala sending his horses off for a night on the other side of the river

Trekking pics begin

  

Early days: our pre-departure stay in Vashisht where the journey of the Monkeys begins - you'll read more about Monkey Adventures later on in my blogging career.

Driving to Zanskar Sumdo in a Sumo. Our last car trip until Padum.

Passport and satellite phone check in Darcha. The military man spent a good half hour examining our passports and then had us sign a disclaimer: 'I have warned the two lady persons of the danger of foot walking on their own in the Himalayas with only one horseman and the two lady persons insist that they would still like to go foot walking.'

First morning view from our cosy one and a half man tent.

Day 0: Zanskar Sumdo

                                      

Cloudy mountains and our first 'hotel' there in the background. 

Day 1: Ready to roll.

Mum's first crossing of the dreaded Rickety Bridge, of which there were more to come over the course of our hike.

Our horseman: Guddu or Dharm?

I'LL start out with our horseman and the relationships we formed with him over three weeks of walking together, eating together, and generally being in close proximity.
In Manali we were told his name was Guddu and as we drove into Zanskar Sumdo there waited a lone horseman who responded to the same name. He was young for a horseman - twenty-four where Mum was expecting a weathered old man, who she hoped would hum as he walked the mountains he had been navigating all his life.Very soon it became clear that Guddu did not speak any English, bar the words "my horse" and "my house," - which could mean anything from 'my house,' to someone else's house or a whole village. Communication was not really an issue as my Hindi was enough to get us by most of the time and Mum and Guddu developed an effective system of using hand gestures while talking fluently in their own natural tongue at each other. It usually got the message across. Guddu was humble and very polite and was soon calling Mum 'Aunty' and treating her like an old lady, which she rather liked.
The first palava we had occurred within the first few minutes of communicating with Guddu; he had forgotten to bring a stove, which was of course an essential ingredient for our trek. He said his brother had the stove and he would be in Zanskar Sumdo in the next one to twenty days. There were only two other groups there and the nearest village was 2000 rupees away. The 'hotel' man didn't have one. (Hotels are small tea shops, often made from old parachute tents, that were at some of the campsites along the way. They collect camping and horse grazing fees and are supposed to clean up the copious amounts of rubbish most trekking groups leave behind.) The second group consisted of twenty Indian college students and their teacher, camped cheekily on the other side of the fence to avoid paying the fee (Mum and I were horrified when they told us we'd be trekking all the to Lamayuru together - so much for peaceful Himalayas). Guddu eventually went over to ask them and came back grinning with a rusty stove. A stove that would cause us a fair bit of frustration but eventually see us all the way through to Lamayuru. Turns our he purchased it from their horseman for the price of a brand new one.
We soon had a routine established with Guddu wherein we would eat breakfast and dinner together and walk apart during the day. We'd usually meet around lunchtime as he overtook us and once or twice (the time I almost fell down the mountain and the time Mum rode a mule across the river) he helped us out of a tricky patch. But otherwise Mum and I would leave after breakfast and Guddu would stay back to load up the horses and then set off.
Guddu often made chai in the morning and despite what I said before he did cook us a decent number of delicious meals. He was very particular about his food and more than once he turned down Mum's sabji and our quinoa porridge breakfast. He could cut onions as well as a chef (holding the whole thing together in his hand while he cut it into perfect pieces) and make round chapattis without a rolling pin. My onion cutting was rejected and the two times Mum and I tried to make chapattis he called them Punjab papads, naan bread and other mocking names. Mainly in jest but I soon gave up on trying to wash his pots and pans (he unhappily pointed out a patch of black soot I had left on the underside) and stopped listening to his complaints about our cooking. Twice Guddu made a delicious lassi sabji for our dinner. He gave me the recipe, which I will put up later. He also made great dal and for a couple of breakfasts he made a delicious rice dish. I have to say, simple things like a cup of chai being made for you in the morning, or dinner after a long trek makes a huge difference. Although waiting for Guddu to make dinner often left us eating past nine pm.
Two things Guddu was not good at was punctuality (making dinner before seven, as we had asked for) and calculating distance. When Guddu said the day's walk would take five hours it would take between seven and eight, and we soon learned to estimate the day's walk by adding at least two hours to his quotes. Guddu also worried a fair bit - about his horses, money, potentially running out of kerosene, potentially not finding us when we took a jeep from Reru to Karsha, and so on.
He was good most everything else though. When we arrived in Chuminakpo he and another horseman got out their hammers and nails and proceeded to cold shoe the horses. Pretty impressive. It also became clear he was a much better housewife than Mum and I, judging by the scolding we received and Guddu's cooking and cleaning skills. Finally, observing the relationship he had with his horses was quite humbling. Not all horsemen we saw along the way were the same but a couple stood out; particularly Guddu and another nineteen year old horseman named Karam who we met along the way. They use certain sounds (whistling and a throaty 'oh, oh, oh' being the main ones) that can mean walk on, stop (and they do stop in their tracks), turn around, it is okay, etc. The horses, no matter how flighty or bitey with others, are like angels with their horsemen.They listened to their horsemen, but the opposite was also true; both depend on the other for their livelihood and it is clear when one observes the bond between them. On the Shingo La our horses' legs were going straight through the snow and two of them (to my horror) fell and rolled a few metres down the mountain. They lay still until Guddu had untied all of their bags and had another man help to hoist them up.When our horse Kallu did not want to take a path we went elsewhere, and when Kali poisoned himself on some Ladakhi flowers and we could not find a vet for three days, Guddu became clearly depressed (we eventually found a vet in Hanupatta and left Kali behind for a week of injections).
Mum and Guddu got along well. Like I said, they didn't have spoken language but managed to communicate with each other just fine when it was needed. To Guddu and the other Indians we met along the way Mum was considered quite the old lady. They called her 'aunty' and became very concerned when she was sick. They were all surprised at how 'fast' she could walk. Mum and Guddu had a constant discourse going over the height of our horse cum kitchen tent/tarp. Mum would say it was too low, she couldn't sit up straight, and Guddu needed a new stick. Guddu would half know what she was saying and repeat that the tarp was too low - "chota chota'. The next day nothing would have changed and they would have the same conversation again. It was quite humorous.
Guddu and I got along well and I was happy for the opportunity to polish my Hindi. It definitely improved on our trek, although I still have a way to go. Guddu  fell a bit in love with me but that story is for another time; it goes under my 'multiple love stories' section. Our conversations usually consisted of the necessities and once or twice I braved the attempt to use more complex Hindi. On those occasions I learned he has been a horseman for six years, has three brothers working as either horsemen or salesmen and did have one sister but she died young. He dropped out of school at thirteen and learned horsemanship from his father.
One evening in the final few days of our trek Guddu was looking through his things and pulled out an ID card. We asked to look at it and were surprised to find, 'name Dharm Singh, age 29,' written on the card. Mum and I asked Guddu why it said Dharm, not Guddu and he proceeded to explain it was his brother's name, no it was his name, no it was his nickname. He laughed and looked slightly guilty and we asked again but by then he had fixed his explanation on the latter: Nickname, nickname. He said to keep calling him Guddu so we did. Although with a hint of suspicion.
When we stopped in Hanumila Guddu's brother had left him a bag of horse shoes as he passed. When the woman asked Guddu his name he saw me listening and halted before telling her it was Guddu. I was sure she said (in Hindi) "Oh yes, your brother Guddu was here!" On the last day Guddu gave me his contact details, which had been written on a piece of paper by someone else (Guddu can't write English). When I started copying them down he crossed out the name Guddu and said, "My brother... Send it to Dharm for me." We have worked out that we were assigned Guddu Singh, Guddu's (Dharm's) older brother, who is also a horseman. He was in Mandi when they called him up and couldn't make it in time, so he called his little bro.When we arrived in Zanskar Sumdo and started calling out for Guddu, Dharm decided to roll with it. He will always be Guddu to us though.

What is to come and the day-by-day

I have given you what were sort of the concluding comments, the summary or the résumé of our trek; it is time to go into some detail. While we walked I wrote; we'd arrive at camp mid to late afternoon, pop up our two man (that is really a one man) tent and then with a much-needed afternoon chai in hand I would slip off to some rock or grassy patch to begin scribbling away. I have a couple of diaries containing the day-by-day run-down of what we did, but I cannot be asked to put all that up on this blog and you might very well find it rather boring. Instead I will write about the highlights - the characters we met, near-death experiences, special places, etc.
Each day we had our routine: We would wake up at around about six am, stretch and slip out of our smooth silky Kathmandu sleeping bag liners to varying degrees of cool. The first ten days had me going to bed in all my thermals and even my down jackets and piling Mum's warm clothes under my feet (I have a super short thermorest), while Mum snuggled onto her full-length, down-lined, extra-warm Exped mat and woke up each morning saying how hot she'd been. Crawling out of the tent I would, each morning, be blown away by the view - snow-capped mountains, raging rivers, gorges, the Himalayas! We'd get into our trekking gear and pack up the tent before breakfast. Our horseman would sometimes bring us a chai, which would make our morning all the merrier. For breakfast there was usually some variation on sabji and rice - chapattis or muesli if we were lucky and once or twice omelettes (!). Somehow, by the time we had slip-slap-slopped (put on our sunscreen, for all you non-Aussies) and were ready to set out it was usually about half seven. One morning we left before five to cross the Shingo La before the snow had melted and we risked disappearing underneath it, but in general our departure time got later and once we started walking with our French buddies we were doomed to leave at eight or eight thirty.It wasn't really an issue but setting out is usually better because a) it gets hot and b) days were long and it is nice to arrive at camp with a bit of time left to enjoy the afternoon. Our horseman said Mum and I walk fast, which we don't. We walk at a good pace (if you ask me) stopping to take pics, enjoy the view, eat a few fruits and nuts and sometimes we'd even tack on an extra break for lunch (Manali cheese and bread while we had it and then stale-ish chapattis by the end). But our breaks weren't long and we did make good time. Once we'd done the camp set up it was usually time to eat or prepare dinner. We had asked for our horseman to do dinners for us but it didn't often turn out that way. He cooked half the time and was off in the mountains with his horses the rest of it, which meant Mum was often in charge of dinner, reluctant or not. I somehow managed to get out of dinner duty most nights, I think it was a combination of our horseman's reactions to my cooking and cleaning and my being busy writing. By the time we had eaten it was usually late (past nine) and after I watched the sky for a good ten minutes - the stars are spectacularly bright and each night I saw at least one shooting star - it was time to crash.
Within this rather stable routine I have collected countless wonderful memories and photographs that I will share in this blog over the next few weeks or months.The stories won't be in chronological order but it should be clear enough. Now you have the context I can get into meat of it all!

Arrival in Leh: Dusty and full of mountain air

Twenty days since we set off from Zanskar Sumdo we have arrived in Leh. Ten days since my only shower in Padum and the lines in my hands were black with dust. When I rinsed out my hair the shower water was brown and while the rest of my body is still as white as the Melbourne Winter left it, my arms are brown like the colour of the Ladakhi mountains.
Twenty days have passed quickly but at the same time I feel as though I have been living in the mountains and sleeping in a tent for months. It feels odd to be sleeping in a guesthouse under a concrete roof, walking streets packed with cars, tourists and cafes and drinking semi-real coffee (they user those funny capsule things here). It feels good to taste some food outside of the daily sabji and rice but beside that I can already feel a slight yearning for the stars and rivers and glaciers and endless walking creeping back in.
In what I will call a brief overview, the past twenty days have been breathtaking, spectacular, delicious, tough and eye-opening. We walked around fifteen to twenty kilometres each day bar three days in which we acclimatised in Chuminakpo, and did our shopping and Dalai Lama birthday celebrations in Padum. Over eight passes (Las) ranging from 3800m to 5100m made the final eight days of our journey very much either up or down - I have developed some decent mountain leg muscles. I'd say the first ten days were like training - one big pass on day three (the spectacular snow-covered Shingo La at 5100m) and after that long days winding through gorges and up valleys, visiting homes and gonpas (Buddhist monasteries) nestled high up in cliffs and on mountains.
There were a couple of tricky spots where I wondered if I might end my days tumbling down a mountain face into the roaring river or being washed away by an especially deep and ferocious river crossing (Mum was on a mule).Both Mum and I came down with our own ailments; Mum was still recovering from flu and managed to poison herself on either fresh yoghurt or dirty water later on in the trek, and I got sinusitis and some lovely wound up my nose that meant I had a prolonged bloody nose.We managed to run out of money, expecting an ATM in Padum and finding there was none. That made for some serious budgeting and cutting out such luxuries as peanut butter; I am really craving peanut butter on toast right now. We far from starved though and our hardships brought wonderful new people into our lives: a group of Indian college kids and a great Englishwoman, a couple of hilarious French guys and kind Ladakhi families.
Each day I woke and could hardly believe the beauty of it all. Every valley has its own feel, its own colours, its own flowers. Each turn brings a chorten or a mani wall to encourage the tired hiker when it is getting late and each pass a flutter of coulourful prayer flags and a panorama of the days ahead. The views were sensational and I could have sat up there for days watching the valleys and the snow-capped mountains on every side. There were gorges where each side rose over a thousand metres above us and mountains, like the great granite Mount Gambar Ranjang which towered above us for days, that felt like the sacred guardians of the Himalayas. Springs flowed from the sides of the driest mountains, adorned with little rocky shrines made by past travellers and village people, and each time we came across one it was like small miracle.There was wildlife everywhere: fluffy marmots, colourful birds of yellows, reds and more, ibex and lizards. And although I know yaks and goats are hardly classified as wildlife their presence in the middle of nowhere, hours from villages all alone, far above on snowy mountains or close causing mini landslides, made them feel like part of the wildlife. The Ladakhi homes are great inside and out, made from mud brick with door frames that require you to bend right over, with tiny rooms and beautiful generations-old furniture and brass cooking pots. There were fields full of peas and barley and Spring flowers and I was inspired by the way each village subsists, in places cut off from the the rest of the world the whole of Winter.
The roads are coming in and I am glad we did the trek when we did it. It is sad to see them and they change everything. I'd say within three years this trek will be finished.The roads cut through farms and ancient rock walls and are soul-draining to walk on. But of course India 'needs' this road for their army.
There is much more to write about: improving my Hindi with our horseman, the travels of my monkeys, the celebrations in Karsha and Lingshed and more. And of course I have so many photos to put up!
But for now I am starving and need to go and drink some fresh seabuckberry juice and indulge in the many varying cuisines of the Leh cafes.

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!