Month: February 2018

Today we left the clean crisp and cold mountain air of Dalhousie and descended the mountains of northern Himachal Pradesh entering the plains of Punjab and then into the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Our original plan was to spend the night in Udhampur but decided to cut the driving time a little and instead stop for the night in Jammu. There was very little to see of any significance but we did stop into a small temple within the walls of Bahu Fort. There is a long bazaar that runs along a small road leading to fort/temple. The Hindu temple must be popular at times because there were a lot of vendors selling the same things however it wasn’t crowded when we visited. The primary items for sale were flower garlands and other religious nick knacks used as offerings to the Hindi deities.

Okay so finally WordPress has defeated me. I did this below post yesterday from Dalhousie and then didn’t publish it so I thought I lost it. I did another post today from Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir State and then my iPad battery died. Usually when I screw up like this WordPress magically saves all the dribble I’ve written. Not so today but it did save yesterdays draft and today I was on a roll! Damn! So, tomorrow I’ll do a today post and today is yesterdays post which I don’t think was completely saved because I’m sure I wrote a lot more because I was in the restaurant drinking Kingfisher STRONG beer which tends to make me go on and on. Yesterdays post is below which I’ll add to in the next day or so once we have reliable wi-fi;

It’s really freezing here at 1,900 meters, 3 degrees and the thing that boggles the mind is all of the doors to hotels and restaurants are left wide open. This has been the case so far in the mountains and we can’t figure out why. The hotel rooms are freezing but they do supply passive heaters which pretty well do diddly squat to warm a small room.

McLeod Ganj is located about 3 km’s from Dharamsala and is the residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and is also home to a large population of Tibetan refugees. The Tibetan government-in-exile is located just down the hill. In the 1850’s the town began as a civilian settlement outside the British garrison of Dharamsala. McLeod Ganj was devastated by an earthquake in 1905 and after independence it sank into obscurity until the Dalai Lama arrived in 1960 after fleeing persecution in Tibet. Since then the area has grown into a vibrant centre of Tibetan culture and Buddhism.

The primary draw to McLeod Ganj is the Tsuglagkhang Complex which houses the Tsuglakhang, an equivalent of the Jokhang temple in Lhasa, Tibet. The complex also contains a monastery and the Tibet Museum.  As photos are prohibited in most of the temple areas there was little on the outside to photograph. Below is a monument to the martyrs who have given their lives in the struggle to free Tibet. The museum offers an excellent exhibit documenting the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1949 and which continues to this day. Hundreds of photos of monks who immolated themselves in protest of the occupation line the walls. Excellent narratives and photo collages describe the religious, cultural and environmental destruction wrought by the Chinese occupiers. Today, over 60% of the population is Chinese with Tibetans reduced to below 40%. Poverty is rampant among the Tibetan people, job opportunities are scarce and what is available pays almost 50% less than a Chinese worker. The struggle continues and the hope is one day the Chinese will allow the culture and religion of the Tibetan people to once again flourish.

Below is a sign where you remove your shoes to enter the temple. Hmmm.. Me thinks there must be a few bad Buddhists building a budding business bartering Bata made shoes stolen from the Buddha temple and sold straight back to you!

 

Without really realizing it and a bit of a smear on my trip planning abilities we really lucked out so far with our travels in the north.

Little did we (I) know that this time of year there is typically a lot of snow where we are and have been. Lots and lots of snow but this year has been an anomaly. We didn’t experience any snow.

The temperatures dip below zero in the night but warm up nicely during the day. There is only snow in the higher altitudes so we have been lucky to see this area without snow and without tourists.

Come late April and onward the northern areas start to fill up with Indian tourists, first the out of school kids and family crowds and then in June and July the rest of the Indian tourists from Delhi head up to escape the sweltering heat.

The roads and towns become packed and the traffic is supposed to be horrendous so although it would have been nice to be here when it was warmer I think we were able to see the best without the crowds and without freezing our butts off too but best to ask Joyce her opinion about the freezing our butts off part!

We made our way out of the lower Himalayas.

It was another long winding drive through steep mountain terrain, switchbacks, road construction and an average speed of 35 km/hr (if we’re lucky) so rather than driving in the dark, which is not recommended, to our original destination of Dharamsala we stopped in the very picturesque town of Palampur, the tea capital of northwest India in the Kangra Valley surrounded by pine forests and snuggled up to the Dhauladhar mountain ranges.

The town derives its name from the word palum which means lots of water and the surrounding greenery and tea plantations are an obvious result of the numerous streams that flow from the mountains however the snow pack is extremely low this year and if there isn’t any rain or snow within the next couple of months things may be quite different this year. The mountains themselves are very impressive and we have a great view of a massive ridge of snow packed peaks from our hotel room balcony.

Below is a map of our journey thus far starting in Chandagarh. I skipped the Delhi-Chandarh portion. The stars on the map that are present to the West and are not connected by lines or dots are our next destinations with our final destination being Amritsar. I cheated and used Google Maps to plot our course this time.

 

Only about 46 km from Kullu, today the drive to Manali still took several hours. As is common in India, there was massive road work going on and it often seems that they get to a certain point in the project and just stop. You then eventually hit some good pavement then inevitably another section of road rehabilitation or lane widening. It makes for a very slow journey to cover relatively short distances. This is not just the case in the North but everywhere we have travelled through India.

Manali and the towns we have visited so far in Himalcha Pradesh are cleaner and less frantic than all of the other states we’ve travelled through. All of them have lovely pedestrian only malls, usually in the middle of the town where crowds gather and stroll through a myriad of shops, restaurants, food stalls and independent sellers lining the sidelines selling pretty well anything you can imagine.

The next morning I left Joyce to nurse her cold and or flu and drove to the Rohtang pass. Well, my driver actually dropped me off about 2 km’s below the pass so I walked up the winding road to the end of the line and the entrance to the Rohtang pass where to venture further you need a government pass and a good vehicle.. The Rohtang is a high mountain pass on the eastern Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas around 51 km’s from Manali and connects the Kullu Valley with Lahaul and Split Valleys. At close to 3,978 metres I was a little winded but I exaggerate. I was only at an altitude of about 2,800 metres so wasn’t too bothered by the thinner air. The pictures show, obviously, some of the scenery but the car wreck is something you see throughout India. These wrecks are left intentionally throughout the Indian National Highway system to remind drivers to take it easy and be cautious. They also have a lot of great road signs to remind drivers of the perils they face in their day-to-day get to your destination at any cost mentality. To quote a few signs.. “better to be mister late than late mister”, “love your neighbour but not while driving”, “drive on horsepower, not on rum power”, ” not a rally, enjoy the valley”.

After my high altitude workout I wandered into the village of Vashisht and stopped in to the hot springs temple, Vashisht Mandir, for a sniff of hot sulphur air and a tea with the bunny ladies.

The next morning before heading to Dharamsala we stopped in to see the Hadimba Devi Temple. Constructed with wood and stone in 1553 it stands in a beautiful cedar forest and is built over a huge rock jutting out of the ground. Like many temples in India, photography is not allowed within the temple walls so we could only get exterior pictures.

En route to Dharamsala we made a short pit stop to Naggar Castle. Built by the rajas of Kullu this fort, now a hotel is a great example of the earthquake-resistant alternating stone and timber style of architecture. There is a small museum in the basement of the castle cum hotel and the photo turned out great. Along the way we took a few photos of our journey through the mountains.

The Kullu valley extends along the Beas River which winds north through the Himalaya mountains and the road follows a deep gorge. The road eventually leads 600 km’s later to Ladakh. It would have been nice to go to Ladakh but the roads are only open from July to September. The drive from Shimla to Kullu took 7 hours to cover 250 km’s through mostly very good high altitude roads consisting of switchbacks, amazing scenery and pine forested mountainsides. The air is hazy so we haven’t yet seen the snow-capped peaks that draw the hikers and climbers to this area. River rafting is a big draw here but there aren’t any rapids at the moment so the area is quiet. We’re told that only 10% of tourists that come to this area are foreigners and the rest are Indians  So far it looks like we are the only white people here and I don’t think we have pictures.

Have to check the iPhone for pics. We must have some! Stay tuned

 

 

Nestled in the Himalayan foothills, 7,467 feet above sea level and the capital of Himachal Pradesh, we arrived after a fairly long drive over a short distance travelling through the switched back roads with plunging mountainside cliffs to a city hugging the foothills of the Himalayas. It is much cooler here and the air is crisp and clean. The town boasts a 7 km vehicle free “Mall” which runs along the ridge that the city is built upon both above and below the ridge. Joyce is under the weather today so I headed off and walked my 10,000 + steps and checked out the mall. Clean, wide paved boulevard and vehicle free it reminded me of a Swiss mountain village and is such a difference between the north and south of the India we have seen so far.

Tomorrow we head to the town of Kullu in the Kullu Valley of the Himalayas but we’ll first have a short stop at Viceregal Lodge, the official summer residence of British viceroys. Completed in 1888 the entire Indian subcontinent was ruled from here for just over a half a year every year from April to October, coincidentally the sweltering months on the lower plains.

Yesterday we spent a leisurely day checking out some of the sites this city has to offer and also learning a little history behind the construction of this first planned city in India.

We first visited the Zakir Hussain Rose Garden. Spread over 30 acres it boasts over 50,000 rose bushes comprising 1600 different species and is the largest such garden in Asia. It isn’t the best time of year to visit so there weren’t many blooms but it was easy to imagine how beautiful it would be during the right season. So, no pics of the garden.

Our next stop was something we have never seen before and is a special highlight compared to all of the temples, castles and ruins we’ve seen to date.

The Nek Chand Rock Garden. Wow!

But here is where a little more history comes into play on the building of Chandigarh city.

Nek had a vision to use the stones, debris and other discarded junk that was left over from the destruction of over 50 villages to make way for the new city of Chandigarh.

The destruction of over 50 villages! Not so good.

We’ve seen this elsewhere in the world and people probably don’t realise what may have happened to the local village people to make this “fine example of a planned city”.

Chandigarh is beautiful but beneath there is a story and I’m sure there was much misery and disruption that you do not read or hear about to make it the city that it is today.

The Rock Garden was surreal and as mentioned earlier, something we have never seen before and something very special. The talent of its creator is inspirational. Everything from old electrical plug outlets, broken porcelain squatter toilets, bangles, rocks, glass, and everything under the sun made up this amazing labyrinth of walled pathways, ancient forts, castles, waterfalls, villages, people and animals. How to describe?  (Check Thesaurus for more descriptive words).