July 17, 2006
This morning I woke up, went outside to the patio of the New Dharma Hotel, and sat down, staring at the snow-tipped mountains in the distance and the deep valley and river below. The mountains here look different each morning and evening. I soon struck up a conversation with Brent, a lifeguard from New Zealand. He was very friendly, and said he had joined up with a couple of Americans who were up here for a month. He himself was soon off to Nepal, where he'd work as a volunteer teacher for a month or so. Gail, from NYC, soon joined us, and after breakfast we decided to go hiking and look for a cave that was on my map. We started walking down the hill in Vashisht, passed the turn-off to Manali, and wound down a flat road along the river. The three of us chatted, Gail dominating the converstaion with how she's never worn hiking boots before, how she needs to buy several more tops here that fit her style, how she's come a long way--- as before, she'd ALWAYS worn platforms and high heels. Ugggh......this is what I had come so far to get away from. I wear high heels at home too. Big Deal. Who Cares? This is not even worth talking about. You're in INDIA!!! I guess I don't have a lot of patience for this kind of stuff when I'm traveling. It just ceases to matter. It was almost as painful to listen to her in this environment of world travelers, hippies, and non-materialistic people as it was to see the heaps of garbage that had been piled down one of the cliffs we passed.
The small houses looked a little like horse stables, but with beautiful doors on the fronts. A bus passed us at the speed of a snail, loaded down with people to the point where I wondered how it even could move with so much weight: people and luggage stacked on the roof, men hanging off the sides, hanging onto the back, feet on the rear bumper. We walked and walked until we finally went over a small bridge, and then turned off the main road alongside a rocky river. As we walked through the rocks, we passed donkeys and cows, grazing and drinking from the river. We gradually climbed upward, reaching a couple of flat plateaus where we sat to take a rest. Eventually, we came to a huge waterfall, which we almost missed as the view of it could only be seen by climbing down and through a small patch of trees. What a powerful waterfall it was! The water was just pounding down through the valley, crashing over the rocks, and we realized that even if there was a cave there, we weren't getting to it by going down toward that waterfall! So we decided to go up, in the end climbing up a metal ladder and onto a road which led to some sort of military-looking construction site. Deciding we'd cross the site and go around it and up through the trees to the next level, we headed to the forest on the other side. When we got there, a security man came and told us to leave, that this was a restricted site and we could not go any further. We said OK, and turned to walk back along the road. Finally we found a shortcut leading back down to the river we initially had walked on, and so we went back out the way we had come. Back out on the road, we crossed the bridge again and hoped someone would pick us up...a taxi, a truck, anything. We had walked more than 5 kilometers, and just wanted to go back to town and get some food. Finally, two men in a small car picked us up. We sat in the back as they discussed something in Hindi in the front seat, eventually dropping us off in Manali and not charging us even one rupee! We spent the rest of the afternoon going through the shops, looking at all of the things for sale, Gail buying her tops. I lost my sunglasses....bummer! The end of the day was spent in a rooftop restaurant, eating one of the worst curries I've had in India. But the walk had been beautiful, and Brent was really cool. (Didn't I know another very cool Brent from New Zealand, back when I lived in Japan? Yes, in fact....we were part of a 4-some that took our first trip to Thailand together in 1993.) I sadly said goodnight, and headed back to my room to prepare for my 6 a.m. 2-day Jeep ride to Leh....
