We’ve had an eventful couple of weeks here – so busy we haven’t had a chance to write about it! Between friends arriving from the US and Argentina, the sudden explosion of ski tourers in the valley, and the local friends we've gotten to know over the last few months, we’ve been surrounded by tons of great people. Newly arrived folks have also given Trevor and me a reason to do more of the “touristy stuff” we hadn’t gotten around to. So bear with me, as I have a lot of sights to describe, and a lot of pictures to go with them (Sightseeing Around Manali - Naggar, Hadimba Temple; April Manali – dinner at Peter’s, ski contest, Thangka painter, etc.; Dharamsala).

The Sights Around Manali

Rob and Tyson arrived by bus on the 19th, and we spent the next two days seeing all the sights around Manali. We took a day and went down to Naggar (16km south of Manali) for the castle, temples, and Roerich Gallery. We started out near the top of the hill at the Gallery, which houses a small collection of works by Russian painter Nikolai Roerich, who lived in the Kullu Valley for most of his life. His slightly surrealist Himalayan mountainscapes were very impressive. Naggar Castle was next on our downhill circuit. The Castle was built about 500 years ago by the ruler of the Kullu Valley, and features lovely woodwork and wrap-around balconies with fantastic views of the lower valley. There is a small and intricately carved temple inside one of the castle courtyards. Three very friendly woodcarvers were working in the courtyard – I think a lot of the woodwork on the temple and castle is original, but there has definitely been some maintenance and restoration work. One of the courtyards served as an open-air café, and we opted for some beverages in the sun. The guys ordered up a few bottles of Golden Eagle, a local beer that turned out to be pretty awful. I got a coffee (instant Nescafe, which with a few rare exceptions is the only coffee to be found around here) which was only marginally better. The sun, breeze, atmospheric surroundings, and views more than made up for the drinks. Before heading back up the valley, I took a few minutes to check out an interesting stone temple across from the Castle. It was a quiet spot that obviously didn’t get as much attention as its more imposing neighbor, but had a nice stone-paved courtyard ringed by some overgrown flowerbeds, and some lovely carvings. There had probably been some kind of ceremony there recently, as there were flowers strewn around, and the foreheads of all the carved figures were marked with orange paste. Back in Manali, we spent some time checking out the Hadimba Temple, close to where Trevor and I stayed when we first got into town. The guidebook says it was built in 1553, and it does have the most impressively ancient feel of any of the places we visited, with its age-darkened woodwork, assortment of animal horns, and forest setting. Tyson got lots of good information and pictures to bring home for his classes, and all of us enjoyed the mix of history and domestic Indian tourism. I don’t think the visitors quite believed us about the gargantuan white bunnies toted by aggressive picture-pushing women until they saw them.

Ski Practice & Competition

Sightseeing accomplished, the guys set out into the mountains for 5 days of turns, and I prepared for some quality time on my own. The planners of the Himalayan Ski Village had a ski contest planned for Gulaba on Sunday, and Khem’s 11-year-old son Rajit (home from boarding school on holiday) was excited to enter. HSV had a practice course set up on Saturday, so Rajit, cousin Sanjay, and I piled into a very crowded sharejeep for a bluebird day of practice turns. The boys didn’t really need much watching, so while they hit the gates under the watchful eye of our HSV friends, I took a lap a bit higher up with our friend Dev, who was camped by the racecourse. HSV provided yummy lunch, and we had time for one more quick lap before heading home. Sunday morning started out sunny, making us worry about snow conditions for the contest. The resident ski crowd at the Iceland all wanted to head up to watch, so Heidi (from NZ), Dave (Canadian BC), Alastair and Marina (England), and I caught a taxi up. We decided on a quick tour before the contest, but as we went up the weather started to turn a bit more ominous. A rumble of thunder helped us decide it was time to head down, just in time to see Luder (Khem’s brother) make his third-place finish. By the time Rajit and Sanjay skied, it was snowing, and we were quite happy to head down soon after seeing Sanjay win his division. All of us looked off in the direction of Rhotang Pass (where the guys were camped) and wondered about conditions up there. Several of us decided to head for Manali for the Ski Village award ceremony and after-party. We ran into our friend Bill, who works for HSV in Delhi, and managed a quick visit before the ceremony finally started. The after-party wasn’t holding our attention, so we headed for Chopsticks for momos and beer.

More Manali Fun

On Monday morning it looked like things might clear… and then it started raining. And kept raining all day. Peter had arranged for me to see the studio of his friend who does Thangka paintings – incredibly detailed Buddhist devotional paintings. The painter’s home sits perched on a hill just south of town, and I could see how it would be a good inspirational setting for an artist, as his studio window looked out over the trees and valley below. He and Peter explained a bit more to me about some of the different forms involved in the Thangkas, and I got to take a close look at the process, as he had two large commissioned works in progress. Afterward, Peter and I headed for the carpet store. Peter has rented out the apartment next to his, and is busy fixing it up as a little guest house, so we picked out some carpet, and then set out to get some money from his daughter Neha to pay for it. On the way we got a call from Bill, and the three of us went up to Peter’s place for some tea and to show Bill the new room. Peter had already painted the walls and sewn a bunch of bright, Tibetan-style curtains, and the next step was the carpet we had selected. The part of town he lives in has more of a quiet village feel (a cow lives on the courtyard below, and Peter jokes that the cow gives an 8am wakeup call) and the rooms overlook the wooded neighborhood, as well as having views of Manali and some of the bigger mountains up the valley. Bill had to run off for a meeting, so Peter and I went to fetch the carpet, and I was going to buy carpet glue before heading back to his place for dinner. I called up to the Iceland to invite some of the other folks for dinner if they wanted to join, only to find that Trevor and the guys had come down early, due to some very sketchy conditions brought on by the weather. And I had the only key to our room. I delivered the glue to Peter, took a rain check on dinner, and ran for the 4 o’clock bus.

The next afternoon, Rob, Tyson, Pepe, Trevor and I headed into town for some shopping, to be followed by dinner at Peter’s. The guys were all thinking about Kashmiri shawls as presents for their wives/girlfriends, and I was thinking of picking up a few to complement the Kullu shawls I’d already bought for Mom’s store. Kullu shawls are all hand-loomed, either wool or wool/angora blend, and they usually have bands of pattern woven into the material. Kashmiri shawls can be wool, angora, silk or cashmere (or a blend) and the focus is much more on the copious amounts of embroidery applied. As a general rule, Kashmir shawls are more expensive (for good quality – particularly cashmere), but this is partly because the dealers are notoriously hard to get a good price from. They also tend to exaggerate the quality, or all-out falsify the materials used. Luckily, we had an introduction to the dealer, and a significantly higher chance of at least knowing what we were buying. We were all ushered into the tiny shop, seated on a bench in front of the raised area the dealer sat on (the stage for his act?) and plied with lemon tea. “Hello! Good day my friends!” He then pulled out what was obviously his sample bundle, and showed us the various materials, qualities, and styles, as well as several inferior materials (so that we’d know to recognize what others might try to sell us, of course). The shawls were beautiful, and the prices started ludicrously high – always typed out on the calculator, of course, never spoken. I did some quick math on what I thought they could be sold for at home, and quickly concluded there was no way it would pencil out. No harm trying, though…. Pepe, Tyson, and Rob came to satisfactory prices, made their purchases, and fled. I was still trying to talk down the price on the four shawls I’d selected. I’d almost settled, when Trevor (who plays a great bad cop) cut in and told me I’d be unhappy later if I settled. This magically made the price come down another 1000 rupees ($25). I said I’d call my mom and ask, and we left, leaving him looking a little disgruntled. (The next morning, I relayed that Mom had said no, and the price dropped a further 500 rupees. After an actual call to Mom, this was deemed acceptable and the deal done.)

After collecting the items Peter requested for dinner (rum, beer, and a chicken – mercifully already dead, plucked, and stored in a refrigerated case), we headed up the hill. Bill joined us as well, and Ryan (and HSV employee from CA who I’d just met at the contest) turned up as well. Punam (and Peter and the girls) cooked up several courses of amazing Tibetan food, capped off by this fantastic mango smoothie dessert (I guess Peter used to run a stand selling them – I really should stop being amazed at just how many things he’s done). Great company and great food. Towards 11 folks started looking a little faded (food coma?), so we called up a taxi and headed home.

Dharamsala

Given the continuing bad weather and unsettled snow conditions up high, the group decided to take a ski-hiatus and head for Dharamsala for some more sight-seeing. Dharamsala is the home of the Dalai Lama, and the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. (Quick history background: In the late 1940s the newly-in-power communist government of China invaded Tibet to “liberate” the people. Tibet is an ancient country, with Buddhist roots going back to at least 600AD, and the pre-invasion culture was deeply Buddhist with hundreds of ancient temples and monasteries. Part of the communist “cultural revolution” involved stamping out religion, and therefore the existing culture of Tibet, a territory they insisted was a traditional part of the motherland. Since then, somewhere around 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed, an almost unimaginable assortment of human rights violations committed, and most of the monasteries destroyed along with ancient scriptures and artworks. The Dalai Lama [who is the spiritual leader of the country] fled to India in 1959 [the same year as Peter’s family], and has been followed by about 250,000 other refugees.) We decided to hire Peter to come with as our guide, and he was kind enough to agree despite the nasty cough he’d been trying to shake. The drive to Dharamsala was exhausting, but incredibly beautiful. We went through at least 3 distinct eco-systems, numerous small settlements surrounded by terraced cultivation, and a mind-boggling number of switchbacks. Several types of trees were in spectacular bloom, including 100+ foot tall rhododendrons! We made a rest-stop near some of them, and we turned around to find Peter half-way up one, picking flowers. He brought them down and bit the base off one bloom, explaining that they were good medicine for his cold. We all gave it a try, and they weren’t bad. It turns out the crazy-steep terraces we were passing were all planted in nearly-ripe wheat, which on the sunnier hillsides was already turning a lovely gold. They definitely looked nothing like the wheat fields I grew up around. Arriving in McLeod Ganj (the village above Dharamsala where the DL resides and most tourists stay), we managed to meet up with Al (from Scotland), Alastair, Marina, Dave, and Frank (Canada), who had headed to Dharamsala a day earlier than us with the same idea of killing some down ski days. We all ate some dinner, and team America headed for bed exhausted.

The next day Peter had plenty of activities planned for us. After breakfast and real coffee (!) at a café (where we said goodbye to the other taxi load from the Iceland, who were already headed back), we piled into the taxi to go up to the local high point for a view. Then we went to the village where Punam grew up for tea and yummy, yummy Nepali bread at her brother’s house, stopping at her sister’s house to take a look at all of the beautiful flowers she grows for sale. We stopped in at a Tibetan school, and walked over to Bhagsu to see the pools where the monks go to swim. In Bhagsu we stumbled upon a pretty crazy temple under construction - they were sculpting some fantastic animals and figures out of cement as they went, and didn't seem to mind our crawling around looking at things. Along the way Peter bought us samples of several kinds of Tibetan food available from the street vendors – momos, mutton sausage, and yummy gelatinous cubes (something to do with cauliflower juice?) called lafing. On the way to the monastery to watch the afternoon debates it started raining fairly hard, and by the time we got there it appeared the session had been called off. We walked around through the temples, and went up to the gate of the Dalai Lama’s home. Peter was part of the DL’s personal guard for 6 months, so knew quite a bit about what went on behind the gates. We walked the very nice paved trail that circles the hill with the monastery and residence. All along the trail are stones carved with Tibetan writing, mostly mantras, that people have had made to leave behind, along with a great number of prayer flags. At the end of the walk there is another temple, with a long series of small prayer wheels, and two of the very large ones. Later we hung out on the balcony of the guesthouse Rob, Pepe and Tyson were staying at, which overlooked some trees and had some interesting bird life – we even saw an owl just after dusk.

Trevor and I opted to get up early the next morning to go hang out at the monastery. We had some nice peaceful time in the courtyard after listening to the monks chanting in a lower room, then walked the prayer circuit again to watch the sun come up over the mountains. At the prayer wheels there was a kind of prayer service going on, with monks leading lay people in chanting. We listening for a while before meeting up with the rest of the guys at their guesthouse for some very good breakfast – I had a fruit pancake that was fantastic. Peter took us to the Norbulingka Institute, half an hour’s taxi ride away. The Institute is set in beautiful gardens, and has a very peaceful feel. Here artisans are trained in traditional Tibetan crafts, and you can watch the artists at work (though we didn’t have time to watch much). There is an impressive museum of dolls dressed to show Tibetan dress from different regions, for different occasions, and during different eras. We spent some time sitting in the temple, an inviting place with padded mats to encourage visitors to sit for a while. Our afternoon was given over to shopping and coffee-drinking, before we met up with Peter again. Trevor, Peter and I had to shift our rooms to another guesthouse (they had too many reservations), and Pepe, Tyson, and Rob moved to a fancier place that had been unavailable the previous two nights. Peter was trying to find his Auntie’s house in the tangle of homes and guesthouses on the hillside, and Trevor wanted to go play cards with the guys, so I opted to follow Peter on the search. After a few dead-end attempts, we finally came across the right place after following a monkey down the hillside, and spent an hour or so visiting with his family. Well, Peter visited in Tibetan. I mostly entertained the kids by letting them take pictures with my digital camera. They were totally indifferent to the end result (picture) – they just liked the flash. His Auntie had actually been very sick, and there was a monk at the house doing a healing ceremony that involved molding little vessels out of flour paste, then adding various grains, rice beer, and lamp oil. Then he went into the prayer room and chanted for a while, occasionally using a bell. Peter’s cousin’s son was apparently working at the family business, so we were sent with an escort to go say hello to him. Down the hill, back through the maze, and down a street we hadn’t been on, we walked up some stairs to what looked like a nightclub. Inside an entirely Tibetan bunch of young guys were playing snooker on three tables and drinking beer. The kitchen brought out an unexpected treat – beef momos. It was a very hush-hush thing. We met up with the gents for dinner, then they went back to their cards and Peter and I made an early night of it.

Our final morning in Dharamsala, we all met up for breakfast and wished Tyson well on his journey home, then hit the road. While waiting for everyone to finish checking out, I wandered into a little stationary store that had an excellent selection of the hand-made paper books and stationary that are made in the area to help support incoming Tibetan refugees. The prices were reasonable and the woman was really helpful, so I walked off with quite a full bag of stuff to send home for the store. The drive home was long, but again beautiful. The route was slightly different, taking us along the Sainj River and more stunning scenery. We were extremely happy to finally get out of the car.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

Pepe, Trevor, and Rob headed back up toward Beas Kund a few days ago. The walk in was extremely wet, and Pepe came straight back, figuring that he and all his gear were soaked and he wouldn’t have had a pleasant night. He was going to come out the next day after skiing anyway, so he didn’t miss much. After the initial bad weather, it’s been beautiful the last 2 days, so hopefully they’re getting good turns. Frank went up to join them yesterday. The rest of the crew here has been reading and sunning, with trips into town for variation. Yesterday the whole lot of us went down and met up with Drew and Steph from Stevens Pass (WA) for Korean food at the place Peter took us to a while back. Memory did not deceive – the sushi was just as good as remembered, and they whipped up some kind of spicey Korean iced tea that was fantastic. Today Pepe got on the bus back to Delhi, after a nice month-long visit. The weather didn’t always cooperate for him, but he’s a man who appreciates the mountains as they are, and seems to have had a really great time here.

Many apologies again for the extra-long post… now that everyone’s going home, our sightseeing pace should slow again!

Labels: Dharamsala, India, Kullu Valley, Manali, ski touring, Solang