When I first arrived in Mcleod Ganj I met a lovely Scottish girl - Emma at my guest house, later that night we met Gabby and Martine who had arranged to go on a little road trip with a local Thanka shop owner and it was decided we should join them! I love it when random events come together like this!
So the next day the four of us met our host Deepak at his shop and drank lots of chai before setting off for the weekend. We piled into a van, I took the 'special' seat in the back and headed off about 20 minutes out of Mcleod. From there we walked a further 20 mins or so into the hills to a quaint little village where we where to spend the night. Many stops had been made along the way for supplies and it was clear we where in for quite a feast.
The village was beautiful and the family we where staying with, incredibly welcoming. There was sooo much chai I just couldn't drink anymore. We shelled peas and the women cooked chappatis over the open fire, while Deepak the master chef prepared a brilliant Indian feast. The kids are so excited to have you there it makes you even more excited to be there. We sat around on the floor eating dinner traditional style and trying to communicate with our hosts who spoke very little English.
They live in a simple village house, and gave up one of the rooms for us (I think the kids had to sleep in the kitchen). The three girls piled into the large family bed and the boys had to make do with the floor (hehe). The whole place is really beautiful, and it is easy to forget that these people are quite poor and to really understand the struggles they face. Sometimes, I feel a little awkward, a rich westerner just breezing in and out, but they are always smiling and you can't help but feel welcome.
The following day we want for a walk with alot of kids, they came from everywhere, I have never seen such an excited bunch of kids. They wanted to show us there cricket pitch, and did some little hindi dances, and took stacks of photos on my camera. It was very difficult to leave, they just didn't want to let us.
Finally we had to say goodbye, as we where heading off, supposedly for some trout fishing in a more remote part of Himachal. We piled back into the van and drove for like 5 hours.. which was alot longer than I had anticipated, but finally we arrived at small riverside village that apparently has great trout fishing. I say apparently, because after all this it turns out we couldn't get the proper equipment and no fishing actually took place. Which was really fine with me, I'm not much of a fisher anyway. This is also a typically Indian experience, you can't get to attached to what you think is going to happen becuase invariably you always end up doing something else.. but it does generally work out great, and we had a loverly evening relaxing on the balcony to the sound of the rushing river.
Gabby, Martine, Emma, Deepak and the driver where aweseome companions for the weekend. Martine immense enthusiam for everything was rejuvenating, I think we had a pretty good weekend, sans fishing and all.
