Tripping in the mountains (part 1)

Namaste,

Just arrived back in Rishkesh after a epic 10 day adventure with a crew from the Ashram. Was a excellent trip that involved relaxing in hot springs, freezing glacier lake swimming, enjoying stunning mountain views, hiking to poppy villages, soaking up ashram vibes in a non-tourist chilled out town, climbing 4600m to a shangra-la paradise with ashrams and mystical wholy men and not to mention breath-stopping 360 deg views of peaks, glaciers and himalyan valleys.



First, it is damn hot and humid here in Rishikesh! The monsoon is fast approaching and the tourists have fled! Well the western ones anyway as this is full power Indian tourist season. Eg crossing the foot bridge over the ganga can take a very long time as u need to make your way through the crowds getting their photos taken on a bridge that is only 5 ft wide and also takes cows and motorcyles! Madness.. The ashram where we're staying was full last week but is now only a handful of us hardy souls staying there. Actually it's not so bad as usually storms every day now so cools things down nicely.

Can't believe how quickly my time in India is going! Anyway the trip...

Ashram life was going pretty well with regular evening star gazing and sessions on the roof known as 'Cesars Palace'. Cesar is a deambay playing night club tycoon from Spain who is semi-retired so is able to spend 6 months or so at a time in India...Nice one eh? Joining Cesar is Doralla the redhead events organiser from Holland, Avivit the chef from Israel, Tasha with magic hands (ie massage therapist) from the USA, Jan (Yan) the budding photographer from France who 'swapped' his french passport for a Colombian one and of course moir....Anyway we all decided that after 2 weeks it was time to leave the ashram life to escape the building heat and do some mountain tripping.

After a little deliberation the date was set and destination was agreed on. Sweet. We chartered our own jeep taxi to pick us up and take us to Uttakachi which is only 200ks but takes 6 hours! Chartering our own jeep was the bestest option as not only could we travel in relative comfort but included photo stops and chai stops at places in the middle of nowhere overlooking mountain valleys and rivers.


Uttakachi turned out to be a little gem of a place rather than the dusty hole that we had been told to expect. Actually its a little like a mini varanasi, is on the banks of the ganga and has ghats with pujas happening every nights and also has car free streets with. But unlike varanasi the throngs of western tourists were delightfully absent and so were the touts. It is also home to the impressive Nehru mountaineering institute that has a great museum and cafe that serves chicken! Hopefully without birdflu. Uttakashi also has the best lassi and sweet shops! Go the sugar fix! But don't touch the Indian imitation rum...blaaa...

We stayed there on the way up and on the way down. On the up we all stayed in the hotel amba in one room with 8 beds Indian dorm style. Way fun...Except for the 5am Indian wake up. All the tour buses stop there on the way to the pilgrim site of Gangtori and at 5am everyone gets up and starts yelling at each other (think Indians are slightly deaf from all the horn blowing traffic)and clearing their throats like...uuurrrrrgggggghhhhhh....huuuuccckkk...spit. Lucky thing i can't put sound on this site.

Being a holy city, Dorella was doing a little jig in public and promptly told by a old local wearing BIG glasses that she shouldn't dance and upon asking why she shouldn't dance she was told 'dancing leads to sex'..You have been warned people! Classic...That one ran for a long time and i think is still going...

Cesar and I also experienced an interesting situation in a local cafe. We were doing the digital camera gig - taking pictures of our fellow Indian patrons and showing them to the subjects. When we almost started a riot. An inquisitive family complete with super photogenic kids had come into the cafe when one of the boys got a little too excited and was reprimanded by the owner but mum wasn't too happy about this so she pushed a big pot sitting on the bench (that was luckily empty) sending it and a dozen cups crashing to the ground right in front of us. Shit...We were sitting between the two groups and our peaceful lunch was no more...It was getting very tense with verbal insults and shirts flying between the two groups. We both jumped up (actually Cesar first, maybe something to do with his years in nightclubs) and were able to cool the tensions a little so that no more flying missiles were launched. I've always felt uncomfortable prancing around with technology that would cost these people a years salary. Continued....