7 days in Himachal Pradesh — Part-2
After my first three nights in Zostel, I had kind of became accustomed to the way of things. Such was the Zostel vibe that I lost all inhibition in making introductions with people and I had a firm understanding of what was around and worthy of exploration.
On the fourth morning, I decided to take it easy and spent the morning in front of my Laptop, helping my friend out with some work. Then, in the afternoon I decided to visit the Naddi village. In conversations, I was able to convince 5 other people to abandon their plans and come along. Now we were a bunch of six people from Bombay and Delhi, girls and boys who started hiking to Naddi. For some funny reason they started treating me like a tour guide, but I was as clueless about the way as they were. On the way I got to know Ankit, Nishit, Abhay, Nirali and Prachi who were hiking along.
The hike till Naddi was easy going and beautiful. We crossed the Naddi village which is a typical quiet Indian Himachali village. It amazed me how Dharamkot and Naddi separated by only a few kilometers could be so diametrically opposite culturally. The hike is precious because it affords one unobstructed views of the snow-capped Dauhladhar ranges. But as you reach the Sunset point, it turn into a typical tourist spot with chai, maggi, trash and momos. However, we waited out the sunset and it was an awesome experience. I realized that while the sun sets daily, it is only once in a few years that I take time out to witness and appreciate it.
While hiking back after the sunset, we took a wrong turn and started going down a wrong path. On asking for the right directions, we were told that it would be unsafe to hike on the mountains at this time, due to the presence of “Reech”, or Mountain bears. However, while a few of us wanted to experience the thrill and put ourselves at risk, the girls vetoed our decision. We reached Dharamkot using an Auto-rikshaw from the nearest stand. On reaching Dharamkot, we decided to visit some cafe with live music. On the way, two people asked us the way to “Once in Nature”, but which we heard “One Signature”. As chance would have it we found ourselves in the same place that evening.
Once in Nature is a vegetarian cafe that sits on a quiet side of the mountain and hosts musicians every few days. One has to sit in a dimly lit room on matresses laid on the ground and while the menu says that narcotics not allowed, everyone around had a joint to their lips. We were perhaps the only Indian group that had made it over there. We ordered pizzas and pastas and laid back to enjoy the music. The musicians were extremely talented picking songs from and doing justice to Pink Floyd, Niravana and the likes. They also sang the choicest hindi songs. The later half of their performance was mostly instrumental music. They invited the audience to dance and soon the place transformed into one big party. Everyone, including us got up to dance. And it made for a wonderful evening as we danced madly and let the music grip us.
That night too, we reached Zostel at 11:00. Our gang sat out at the small bench on the hillside in front of Heena cafe and we listened to music and laughed at our stories. Abhay, who was a sailor shared many captivating stories from the sea. We discussed politics and after shifting from the bench to the terrace and back to the cafe, we must have slept around 2:00. We woke up very late the next morning.
Mornings in Zostel were always lazy. While I feasted on my eggplant sandwich and played a game of darts, I had no solid plan of what I would do during the day. But I had my eyes on arranging passes for the teachings of Dalai Lama that were to be held for three consecutive days in the Namgyal Monastery. I went to Mclodeganj with all the others to visit the Namgyal monstery and chill at Illiterati again.
The Namgyal Monastery is the main monastery in Mclodeganj. Here we saw monks in the middle of their prayer session and the post-commentary session after the days teachings by his Holiness the Dalai Lama. We asked at the monastery and were told that we would have to visit the Tibetan Security Office in Bhagsu lane to get id cards for the next day’s teaching. Nishit, Abhay and I decided that it was worth the effort while the others decided to go Bir. We stood in a queue at the Tibetan office. The official was very cordial and we were surprised that we got our hands on these passes so easily. Later we went back to the Illiterate to chill.
That evening in the Salvation cafe, I met a guy from the Canary islands who was a professional surfer. He impressed on me the dangers of surfing and the sudden feeling of being thrown off the board and being under tons of water in matter of seconds. It was captivating as I imagined it all in my head and realized the power of intuition in being able to tell the way to the surface and to recognize the moment of release when tossed in an series of waves. The guy played the Ukele and we tried to jam for a while before I left for dinner.
The next morning, at 7:00 I was on the road to the Namgyal monastery. While I tried to wake up Abhay and Nishit, they had slept late and decided to not attend the event. Dalai Lama was going to speak on the Furthest Everlasting Continuum. I had no idea what it was about. I had to arrange a radio to be able to tune into the translation. It was difficult to find space among the multitude of monks and devouts that had turned up in very large numbers. However, after some trying I found myself a nice spot. The event was organized by the Russians, who were exclusively allowed to sit in the chamber where the Dalai Lama would deliver his lecture below a huge buddha Stupa.
There was great commotion as the Dalai Lama entered the monastery. People craved one glimpse, one touch from him. His Holiness is an old man, and he had to be assisted as he made his way to the lecture chamber. He stopped twice to wipe the sweat off his forehead and it was some time before the lecture actually started. Perhaps I was sitting in a bad place, but the my radio could not tune into the translation. After trying for about fifteen minutes, I got bored and decided that this Continuum stuff was not for me anyway. Like in most morning lectures, I slept through this one too, waking up when everyone stood up in reverence of the Dalai Lama and to see him leave.
Later in Mclodeganj, I had a redbull and a chocolate crossiant for breakfast. With Abhay, Nishit and Ankit, we departed for Bir. After a nice three hour drive where we played hindi and english rap on the stereo, we reached Bir which is a small Himachali town famous for hosting the Paragliding World Cup and offering Asia’s Second Highest Paragliding experience.
Abhay or captain Haddock as we now called him had a fear of heights. To make matters worse, at the take-off site, the wind was not too strong and we witnessed many people fall and hurt themselves during take-off. The only thing to trust was the experience of our pilots who showed us no license and the encouragement that our friends offered us. Abhay was sweating in fear, but by the end, even he took off successfully and had an experience of a lifetime. The take-off was literally running off a cliff, and once airborne, one could see the entire area of Bir below and the Dauladhar ranges in the background. The pilot showed me the Chaddar pass, which is the destination of the ever-so-famous Chaddar trek and also performed some light stunts that made me nauseous. We landed about fifteen minutes later after a thrilling ride in strong winds.
The landing site was a beautiful plain area perfect to see the sun set amid the mountains on one side and the plains of Himachal on the other. We hung out here till we saw the sun go down before heading back to our Zostel accomodation. My dorm at goStops(near Zostel) had a German guy who was touring India since November. He told me he wanted to go back home, he had been on the road too long. I thought he might be leaving in a few days but upon asking, he indicated that he might probably go back in a few months. So much for real backpacking, I thought.
That night, at the Zostel, we played a game of Connect with a new bunch. There was a guy who had come from the CBI, Sakshi who was an Architect, Andy who had come to do the paragliding course and Gayatri who was a volunteer at Zostel from Pune. It again made for a great evening that ended when I went back to my goStops dorm, needing to be escorted by others since the road to goStops in blocked by dogs that are not really friendly.
I had plans to cycle to the Palpung-Sherabling monastery the next day.
