A Trek in the Himalaya

Temple Bells at Dhakuri Pass

Dhakuri Camp

Khati

Jen standing in front of Pindary valley

On the way up

Women threshing wheat at Khati

Woman collecting bamboo for baskets

View from our camp at Khati

Zero Point

Before bed at Zero Point

Baba's Temple

Baba, Ganesh and Us

            As most of our friends and family are aware of by now, Jen and I have returned from India and Thailand. In fact, we are now busy preparing for our return trip to Asia, where we will serve for two years in Cambodia with the U.S. Peace Corps. During our preparations, Jen has created a photo journal of our most recent travels. It will feature five hundred of our favorite photos and the blog entries from our trip and will be for sale to anyone interested. Please contact us for more information.

            And so, for her project, we decided to finally write about the last leg of our journey through India: a weeklong trek in the mighty Himalaya…

 

            In our last entry, we had just left behind the sadhu-filled streets along the holy Ganga River in Rishikesh. Taking India’s now infamous public transportation we arrived back in Sonapani wobbly legged after a four-hour drive up winding mountain roads. We stayed for only two nights packing our bags for our trek to the Pindari Glacier, where Ashish had organized a first class expedition through his local connections.

            We left early in the morning on the sixth of May, driving seven hours north to the small town of Saung. Our driver was a short Indian man with a cowboy hat and large aviator sunglasses. We stopped in Bageshwar along the way to pick up our trekking guide, Ganesh. He was about our age and spoke only broken English. We continued up the steep mountain roads, with large gray clouds building above our heads echoing thunder over the tall, still hidden peaks of the Himalaya.

            At Saung we met Naresh, our donkey-wala in charge of hauling all of the food and equipment up the Pindari valley. That night we slept at eight thousand feet amidst terraced mountain slopes, rich green oak forests, and small hamlets that still live in a world where electricity and running water are myths from a distant future. Grasshoppers chirped loudly as we fell asleep and dogs howled all night throughout the valley.

            The next morning began early; up at 5:15 am with a cup of steaming chai, we started the day refreshed and energized. We ate a breakfast of roti, sabzi, and porridge. Ganesh hustled about the camp with the exuberance that comes with youth and loyalty. The donkey was loaded by 7:30 and we embarked with the sun already blazing down on our backs. The first day’s climb was steep and rocky, but an otherwise arduous hike was made pleasant by massive oak trees and sunbathing lizards keeping us company. The infrastructure along the trail was very developed and we had the ability to drink anything from chai to 7-Up. We saw many people at chai shops and on the trail, mostly locals and a few other trekking groups. We reached the one-and-only pass of our trek by mid-day after gaining 4,500 feet in under ten miles, where we ate lunch and meditated at a small temple. Jen was blown away by her first glimpse of the Himalaya up close. That night we slept at Dhakuri, a small camp made up of a couple chai shops and rest houses.

            We woke up the next morning at over ten thousand feet to the sounds of morning bird songs and donkey bells. I climbed out of my sleeping bag with great effort and opened the tent door. Staring at me straight in the eye was a panorama of peaks, standing over twenty thousand feet tall, just beginning to light up from the summit down. I clambered out into the dew-soaked dawn and stumbled to the chai-wala. He prepared two steaming cups of over sweetened tea, which I brought back to Jen still keeping warm in her sleeping bag. We watched the perfect, straight rays of the sun slowly illuminate the ridges of the snow-covered range across the valley.

            Setting out after breakfast we began the longest leg of our trek – twenty-one kilometers up the glacial valley to a small, cold camp perched at the confluence of the Pindari River and a small glacier-fed tributary. We passed through ancient forests filled with the sound of small bells announcing the presence of hidden cows. Two dogs followed us several kilometers, dodging and weaving between our feet and keeping away less friendly canines. At lunch we stopped in Khati. A small, hidden village tucked deep away in the folds of the long valley, Khati was easily the most romantic place Jen and I had ever seen. The whole town was built into a terraced slope and the buildings were made of local stone with flat, rectangular mica slabs used for roofs. Wheat was laid out to dry on almost every roof and several acres of more wheat spread out below the houses, filled with women toiling in the afternoon sun. Children ran through the narrow streets, coming and going from a single room schoolhouse above the village. Men smoked bidis and watched us lazily with little interest.

            By the third day, waking up cold and sore, we were beginning to feel the strain of our long journey to the Pindari Glacier. But we could afford our bodies little rest because we still faced the most challenging leg of our hike; we had to climb to zero-point by early afternoon, a five thousand foot elevation gain in under 7 miles. Aided by the omnipresent trekker’s chai and jaw-dropping views of the thundering Pindari River below us, however, we persevered all the way to the end of the trail with little trouble. Along the way we saw a Himalayan Monal, a resplendent bird considered an elusive delicacy to the locals.

            Arriving at zero-point, we had hardly set up camp before our donkey-wala, Naresh, urged us to follow him to a large stone temple that seemed to emerge from the boulder-strewn fields above us. He wanted us to pay our respects to the only resident of zero-point – a boisterous baba famous for his hospitality and cooking. We had been told about the “zero-point baba” from our friend Ashish before we embarked on our trek, and so we were very eager to meet him in person. We entered his home through a small doorway built into a chest-high stonewall that surrounded the small temple grounds. Our guides greeted the baba with reverential awe and he quickly offered all of us chai. I was surprised to see a very healthy, not-quite-middle age Indian wearing a tattered pink down jacket smiling at us with a fantastic set of pearl white teeth. That evening we watched him cook sabzi and puri over several small gas stoves inside his dark, cozy kitchen while he discussed everything from politics to astro-physics with anyone willing to lend an ear. We sat in silence mostly, simply observing a holy man hard at work.

            We retired for the night early, as a light snow had begun to fall at dusk. While drifting to sleep, a mighty trumpeting shook the valley as the baba blew forcefully into a conk shell to begin his nighttime puja to Nandadevi, the local mountain deity. In the middle of the night I awoke from a deep slumber, propelled by a dream to climb out of my sleeping bag. My breath billowed before me as I unzipped the ice-covered vestibule and stumbled into the night. Snow crunched under my feet as I stood up and moved away from our tent. As I slowly turned around, looking in every direction, I felt my heart pound quickly; above me, solid snow spires of unimaginable beauty stretched into the starry sky. The cold rushed into my veins alongside an ineffable joy. The bone-like radiance of the full moon cast night shadows thousands of feet long and illuminated the valley in a sharp, unreal glow. The pain of the sub-zero air closed in on me too quickly though, and so I could only remain transfixed for two short moments before I retreated back into the tent. I woke up Jen and she went outside to see the same spectacular views. Soon we were both fast asleep again.

            In the morning we woke up to a flock of noisy choughs piercing the frostbitten dawn. After downing our morning chai, we trudged up the last bit of the glacial valley with Ganesh and photographed the massive peaks that had been hidden the previous afternoon by clouds. The Pindari Glacier was a wrinkled, sky blue field of ice just a quarter of a mile away. We stood on the high lateral moraine deposited by the glacier a hundred years before, reminding us of the battle it is slowly losing against a warming climate. We left the glacier behind and floated back down to the camp to eat breakfast with the baba before starting our descent back to Dwali.

            The return hike back down the Pindary valley took us three more days. We walked slowly and deliberately – taking our time to imbibe the natural beauty of the mountains. We decided to stay in Khati for a night, rather than hike the long leg from Dwali to Dhakuri. Thunderstorms had rolled into the valley and left us drenched to the bone. We decided to rent an old timber cabin for two dollars rather than freeze in our small, damp tent. That evening we sat around a smoky fire with three older Indians from Gujurat and listened to their wizened guide tell tales in loud, rough Hindi. We met several other trekkers heading up to the glacier, eager to learn about the weather. It turns out we had been fated with a stroke of luck, because the thunderstorms had left behind over two feet of snow at zero-point, making the hike nearly impossible for the newcomers.

            By the time our trek ended on the morning of the eighth day, we were both eager to head back to Sonapani. Our bodies were spent. However, the goodbyes to Ganesh and Naresh were bittersweet because we knew that leaving behind the Pindari valley was the beginning of our long trip home. We passed through high hill country filled with wheat and potato terraces, whitewashed homes with blue doors, and small families tilling fields with ancient oxen. The drive down from the Himalaya was like a drive lost in time. Jen and I both felt as though we had entered a dream, shaken by a nostalgia that seemed to come from a past life; every valley and village evoked memories that originated from places we had never been and times we could not recall. We entered a separate reality that drew us in and created an inexplicable loss for loved ones we never knew. It felt as though we had slipped through the cracks of our modern world and shortly lived in a parallel universe immortalized in fairy tales. We had said goodbye to India. 

Tibetan Monks and Hindu Sages

We're currently at the last outpost of tech-savvy civilization before heading back off into the Himalayas. A blog post is therefore warranted, though unfortunately uploading photographs seems to be an impossibility here. A brief update will have to suffice. Hey, that's just more incentive to sit through our slide show when we return to the states, right?

On the 22nd we boarded a bus in Amritsar. Eight hours later we'd left India. Though no passports had been stamped, no boarders crossed, by going to Dharamsala we'd certainly entered a different land. Dharamsala, located in the far west of the state of Himachal Pradesh, is known for being the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. Tibetans first started arriving in 1959, after the Chinese invaded their homeland and they were forced to cross the Himalayan rage on foot to find safety from Mao's brutal campaign to crush Tibetan culture. The Dalai Lama himself lives in the nearby village of McLeod Ganj, though His Holiness does not make many public appearances there these days. Our small guest house, a mere 10 minute walk from his residence, clung to the side of a mountain from which there were stunning views out over a lush valley.

I say that McLeod Ganj felt distinctly un-Indian for several reasons: 1) the population appears to be one third Indian, one third Tibetan, and one third Western traveler; 2) there are distinctly fewer cows; 3) it is unnaturally clean and quite 4) there are less people trying to get you to buy something; 5) there are far fewer crazy things happening on the street at any given moment. In many ways, it was a respite from the chaos of this country. But I'll tell you this: it proved to me just how addicted I have become to India's beautiful frenetic energy. There's never a dull moment. And by the time we'd spent five days in McLeod Ganj, I was more than ready to jump back into the fray.

Nathan spent the first two days alternating between exploring the town by himself and taking care of me since I was ridiculously sick. He visited several of McLeod Ganj's colorful Tibetan gompas (temples) and nature trails, and spent an afternoon volunteering at the Tibet Hope Center where he chatted with Tibetan monks and refugees during an English conversation class. Our third day in McLeod Ganj fell on a Saturday, the day which His Holiness the 17th Karmapa holds public audiences. I was feeling better by then (thank god for the efficiency of modern antibiotics) and so Nathan and I made our way down to a large temple complex to hear him speak. The Karmapa is the leader of the Karma Kagyu, or "Black Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism. The current Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, is only 23 years old. Along with 200 or so Tibetans and other Westerners, we sat on the floor of a large hall and listened to him discuss his thoughts on the dharma.

The English conversation class at the Tibetan Hope Center was in session again on our last day in town. This time we were both able to make it. It was amazing to hear each individual discuss their flight from Tibet (everyone we talked to crossed the mountains on foot), their new life in India, and their hopes for the future of their homeland. Though the Tibetan cause has largely gone out of vogue with protesters in the United States, the struggle for an autonomous Tibet is still very much alive for the Tibetan people. In many ways, our time in McLeod Ganj opened our eyes to the relevance and immediacy of this issue.

The evening of the 28th we had a train to catch in Pathankot, a transport hub several hours to the south of McLeod Ganj. It was supposed to be a simple bus down there. But as soon as we left the Tibetan enclave we were thrown into the madness of India in full force. Mid-journey our bus started overheating while going uphill, spewing vile gas everywhere, and broke down. After some milling about on the side of the road, another bus drove by and all the passengers from our bus jumped on, filling it to the brim. Through the chaos of this process we ascertained that this bus was not going to Pathankot, but we'd better get on any way so we could make it to the next town. We climbed the ladders up to the roof of the bus to strap down our backpacks, but before we could get down the driver was frantically screaming at us to sit and hold on - there was no room inside the bus. We had little choice but to cling onto the small railings on the top of the bus and flatten ourselves to the roof as the bus took off. Along with a group of Indian boys who'd ended up on the top as well, we dodged low-hanging branches and watched the sun sink towards the horizon as we careened along the mountain road. We road a good 25km that way. At least we had a good view! Needless to say, we made it to the next town alive and hired a van to take us to the train station.

We arrived the next morning in Haridwar, one of the holiest sights in Hinduism. This is where the mighty Ganga (the Ganjes River) leaves the foothills and enters the plains. The devout come from all over India to bathe in the water here and wash away their bad karma. We spent the whole day and the next morning wandering around the ghats, or stairs, which lead into the water. Sadhus (aesthetics), pilgrims, cotton-candy sellers, and everyone in between crowded by the river. At sunset hundreds of people - perhaps thousands - gathered on the ghats to listen to the music of the evening prayer and place puja (offerings) of little banana leaf boats filled with flowers and candles into the Ganga to be swept downstream with the current...

....I'd meant to resume writing this blog after a concert we attended this evening. But the concert, of sonorous traditional sitar and tabla, ran long and now we have a train to catch. So in short, we left Haridwar and spent the last few days in Rishikesh, the self-proclaimed "yoga capitol of the world." We've white-water rafted, visited the Beatles old ashram (they wrote most of the White Album here), wandered the streets, and watched the sun set over the Ganga while strolling down the river's white sand beaches.

By tomorrow afternoon we'll be in Sonapani again. From there will depart for the last leg of our journey: a nine day trek through the Himalayas to the Pindari Glacier. We'll try to put up one last blog post in Delhi before we leave, but we may not get the chance. If that's the case, you'll just have to hear about our trek in person when we're back in Seattle on the 19th!

The Golden Temple

We rolled into Amritsar like we have in every other city here in India: dirty, exhausted and ready for more. We had traveled 21 hours north from Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, to spend several days in Punjab, the land of the Sikhs. Known as the breadbasket of India, Punjab supplies over 70% of India's wheat, the staple commodity that makes all the savory Indian rotis possible. It is also famous for another, more sacred, reason - the Golden Temple.

Throughout the world the Sikhs are perhaps the most easily recognizable religious group because of their long, bushy beards and precisely wrapped turbans. Their religion, however, is largely a mystery to most people outside of India, who often mistake them for Muslims because of their dress. It was because of this confusion that many Sikhs suffered intense brutality after 9/11 in America. Sadly, that kind of persecution has long been a fact of life throughout the Sikhs' short history in India. We didn't know this, of course, when we arrived to Amritsar, but as we were soon to find out, the Sikhs are more than happy to share and discuss the ways of their religion and lives with anyone willing to lend an ear.

As Jen mentioned in our last blog, Indian cities are often divided between the "Old" and "New" cities, and it was to the frenetic and dizzying chaos of the old city that we headed when we arrived in Amritsar. Our hotel was sandwiched between dozens of small shops, tucked away in a small alley filled with noise from sun-up to sun-down. Accustomed to the liveliness of Indian cities at this point, we were nonetheless astonished by the sea of bodies pouring down the road outside our hotel. Consulting our spindly, beedie smoking hotel manager, we discovered they were pilgrims and visitors making their way to the Golden Temple.

Not wasting anytime, we unloaded our bags in our room, grabbed a couple of scarfs and handkerchiefs to cover our heads (our LP conveniently reminded us that head coverings are a must in any Sikh temple), and dove into the inexorable tide flowing down the road. Just a hundred yards away, behind a large, simple gateway, sat the massive temple complex bustling with activity. Following the crowd in front of us, we discarded our shoes at a locker room and hurried towards the sound of chanting emanating from within the complex.

We walked gingerly through a long, shallow pool of water at the main entrance, past pilgrims prostrating themselves on the ground and entered into the complex proper. Stretching out before us, in all directions, was a world so dramatically different from the one we had just left behind that we were stunned into paralysis. Several thousand pilgrims moved along a marble walkway in a clockwise direction. Circumscribed by their march stood a massive holy pool, directly in the middle of which was the brilliant reflection of the Darbar Sahib, or Golden Temple. A slow, harmonic chant filled the air, bringing to life a pervasive, other-worldly presence. Sikh men bathed in the pool, splashing water upon their bodies and colorful turbans. Women and children sat in happy conversation watching and waiting. Groups of young men and old men, families and lovers, all strolled quietly along gazing out at the simple, yet radiant temple.

Originally founded in 1577, the Golden Temple is considered the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. Despite being blessed by the enlightened Mughal emperor Akbar, the temple was attacked and destroyed by another Mughal in the mid-18th century. After being rebuilt, the great Sikh leader Maharaja Ranjit Singh added golden roofing to turn it into the present day Golden Temple. The complex itself is a spiritual mecca, attracting upwards of 40,000 pilgrims and visitors a day. Sikhs come here to pay their respects to the original copy of the Sikh Holy Book, the Guru Granth Sahib.

In the 15th century, Guru Nanak founded Sikhism because he was not satisfied with either Hinduism or Islam. He attempted to consolidate the best of both religions and set about creating a faith based less on deities and divinity and more on pragmatism, equality and living a wholesome life. For several centuries, various Sikh Gurus upheld this ideal and wrote their teachings down for later generations to study. Then at the end of his life Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru, declared that everything Sikhs needed had been recorded into the Granth Sahib, and thus anointed the holy book the last, and eternal, Guru.

Today, while the original Guru Granth Sahib is housed within the Golden Temple, copies of the holy book are found within every Sikh household. Many Sikhs treat the book as a real person, covering it when it is cold and protecting it from dust and the like. It provides all of the spiritual direction for the Sikh religion, and is respected as a source of knowledge rather than as a God.

As I said, we didn't know most of this when we arrived to the Golden Temple. Perhaps judging by the look of bewilderment on our foreign faces, a Sikh man with a bright blue turban and an easy smile approached us as we walked around the holy pool. After inquiring about where we were from, he swiftly adopted the role of impromptu tour guide and set about informing us of everything that had seemed so bizarre moments before.

Upon hearing that we had yet to visit the kitchens at the complex, he beckoned us to follow. In every Sikh temple throughout the world food is offered to any visitor, regardless of race, religion, or creed. Known as Guru-ka-Langer, this practice represents Sikhisms' inherent generosity and tolerance. Further, Langer provides Sikhs with an opportunity to help serve their community and strangers as they work together with their fellow followers regardless of class or gender.

Now, I know what you're thinking: if there are over 40,000 visitors to the Golden Temple everyday, how is it possible to provide this traditional service to everyone who wants food? At least, that was on my mind as our Sikh friend led us through the dining halls towards the kitchens redolent with all the sweet, pungent aromas of India.

The first room we entered in felt like a furnace. Three enormous machines stood in the middle of the room, one vigorously humming with activity. Small balls of dough were being pumped out onto a conveyor belt where they sped along to be flattened and finally hurled into a massive gas oven. Gliding to the end of the belt, they popped into a large wicker basket. Several women swiftly buttered these chapati and sent them on their way to the hungry crowds outside. From there we toured the hand-made chapati station where a dozen more men and women swiftly rolled chapati with wooden spools on marble blocks. Two pairs of Sikh men flipped dozens of chapati atop metal sheets resting above burning coals. Apparently all the food is prepared both traditionally and with modern efficiency.

Moving deeper into the kitchens we saw several massive vats of dhal and sabzi simmering above gas flames. A Sikh garbed only in a Kurta stood stirring the giant metal pot with a ladle over seven feet long. With some urging, I tried my hand at the task and found it exhilarating and difficult. What a treat. Everywhere were the normal staples of an Indian meal busily being prepared, but on a psychedelically large scale. We saw pots of chay the size of a baby swimming pool steaming above wood fires.

Obviously, we had to try the food that we had just "helped" prepare. We trailed behind our guide into the massive dining halls along with several other hundreds of hungry bellies. Grabbing a plate and spoon we sat down in a long row of fifty people, ogling the dozens of other rows of hungry people slurping and gulping down the tasty, vat-prepared lentils. The food was good. No, excellent. Volunteers slopped ladles of dhal and vegetables onto our plates at dizzying speeds. Just as quickly, the diners ate their food in record times, and before we knew what was happening, people were getting up with empty plates in less than five minutes. We hurried to catch up and left the hall with deliciously painful guts. We had just watched about a thousand people be fed in minutes; the Langer kitchen at the Golden Temple has been operating like this 24/7 for over four hundred years.

We spent the rest of the day digesting our food and taking in the whole experience. Our Sikh friend left us and we watched as the white marble slowly changed colors as the sun began to set. The Golden Temple itself took on a life of its own, shimmering with an aura of mystical light. The chanting turned to song as the sun set and we sat lost in a trance as the singing of the holy scriptures bathed us in sweet melancholy. I pondered nothing and everything at once, while the temple seemed to breathe slow, even breaths.

We stayed for the closing ceremony in an exhausted way. At 10:15 a group of holy Sikhs began to prepare a massive golden palanquin to carry the Granth Sahib from the Darbar Mandir to its resting place in the Akal Takhat. They adorned it with marigolds strung into beautiful garlands and placed several pillows inside the palanquin to make the short trip comfortable for the holy book. All the while the men chanted in perfect unison. Then, with eight men, they carried the palanquin on their shoulders down the marble walkway to pick up the book. Dozens of pilgrims bustled around them, lending a hand with the weight and watching in awe at the spiritual procession. We waited at the resting place for several minutes. Then, still to the sound of chanting, the large group came back with the holy book and with swift agility placed it onto the head of a Sikh who carried it up the steps and inside the main hall. There, behind thick glass doors and with hundreds of squirming bodies trying to watch, the Sikh put the book to rest with surprising gentleness. We watched as wooden doors closed and the Guru was left to slumber.

We left the temple that night much as we had that morning we arrived in Amritsar. This time though, there was a little more magic moving our feet as we stumbled back to our hotel, exhausted and ready for more.