Remembrance of Things Past

I'm gonna try to make some sense out of the past month and a half, let's see how it goes.

Lost Horizon

Like an alcoholic waking up from a bender, I've found myself out of Ladakh with quite a hole in my calendar. After swinging around Northern India for more than a month I've reached the Himalaya regions and fell in love. Just shy of six weeks, nearly half the time I've spent in this country.

What is it all about? At first I thought it was the temperature. India is humid. Especially the more southern, flat areas, but the north is not far behind. Ladakh, however, is 3.5Km high, and the mountain air may be arid, but the result, armpit-wise, is blissful. But that can't be the whole deal. Although I try to refrain from generalities, especially when they are nation-related, I couldn't help but feel a deep resentment towards one specific aspect of the Indian people. Whether in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh or in any big city, the people I've met had the tendency of being as selfish as I've seen in my life. When dealing with people working in the tourist industry one might expect that, but meeting solely people of that form for more than a month can be tiring. Apart from social interactions, this trait is evident in the Indian view of nature as well. I guess blaming Ravi-six-pack for pollution isn't logical, since waste management is of course an issue that lies under the responsibility of the government, but the simple fact that all the people I've met here viewed a simple garbage can as a superfluous object is saddening.
In one of his books Bill Bryson mentions the rising international strain on India and China to reduce pollution and upgrade their waste management techniques (I can't say for China, but in India's case "creating" would be a better term than "upgrading"). To date, these attempts have been futile. The two most crowded nations on earth, comprising together nearly half the globe's population demand the opportunity to develop and benefit from the industrial revolution that had allowed Europe and North America to reach their current economical and technological status. And so, India is rushing head on into full blown mass production, with no regards to the near or far future.
Ladakh, however, is different. It's not that there's no mess, this is still India. But everything here is so small. Leh - the biggest city and regional capital (Ladakh is still a region in the state of Kashmir, though lately had been applying for an independent status like that of Delhi, Mumbai and Pundicherry) has a population of merely 25,000. And when you leave Leh you really reach the great unknown. Sparse villages of few houses (one village on the Markah Valley boasts being the smallest village on earth, comprising of a single house), no electricity, or solar-powered batteries at the most, and mostly lots of Yaks.

A peaceful Ladakhi garden

Leh operates as a central tourist hub, like Manali, Daramsalla and Rishikesh, but the crowd that it attracts is somewhat different. Although the popularity of the region had been rising exponentially the past few years, it still mostly attracts the trekkers, which - again, in general - are nicer people than many of the tourists I've met in other places.

I haven't trekked at all, and have actually spent a staggering amount of time in a vicious triangle comprising my guest house, a favorite restaurant and a bookshop. The decision came as a natural result of my physical condition, and although it had been extremely frustrating at first, I eventually came to terms with myself. I don't think I would not have been able to trek, but I don't believe I would have enjoyed it in my state. Plans of trekking in Nepal have been scratched off, but more on that later.

Another major change that definitely had its part in my infatuation with Ladakh is the fact that I haven't been there by myself. Traveling solo is an amazing experience, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But it's also extremely hard, and not for the reasons I feared when I left home. Friends and family that have talked to me in my first weeks here have heard and seen the troubles I had. Days spent barely exchanging words with others, sometimes nothing more than orders in restaurants were challenging. I've learnt that I'm sentimental, and can actually get homesick. I've also come to further my belief in the fact that sometimes talking about something will NOT actually make it better. But only thinking about it by yourself is sure to make it worse. So what is there to do? Sometimes, I think, you just need to get off your ass and start doing. And sometimes you just need to find the right person. And I've met her. Bliss.

In one of my final days in town we (me and my companion) were blessed with another occurrence. I had a slow morning, and was just about to leave the guest house towards town around noon when my friend ran into the room and dragged me outside to the roof.
"It's gone", she said, and I figured that was it, and "it" really is "gone" (whatever "it" is, and wherever it had "gone" to).
Luckily, it came back 5 minutes later. A perfect circular rainbow ring surrounding the sun. Walking into town, both locals and tourists were barely looking where they were going, since everyone was craning their necks upwards.
Our restaurant owner - a somewhat coquettish Nepali referring to himself as Mr. Love, working 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, and operating two more restaurants, in Kathmandu and Hampi in the appropriate seasons - admitted to having seen this phenomena only twice before in his life. According to him, this was a sign of a meeting of gods in the sky. Why not, actually?

This is not a lens flare

Up until this point in my (very short) travels, I have always rushed to the next spot, have always felt that I need to move on, not so much to cover ground, but simply because I have had enough of each spot, but leaving Leh was heartbreaking. But my traveling companion's Visa had expired, and Chen (a friend from the service) was waiting in Manali, and I sadly booked my ride to Manali for the night of August 12th.

Big mistake.

Cape Feare

Lonely Planet describes the Leh-Manali ride as "coccyx crunching". Now I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that a coccyx - whatever that may be - is a part of your body that you don't want crunching.

On my last night – the minibus was leaving at midnight – I was sitting with two tourists in a restaurant discussing rides in India. Upon hearing that I'm about to embark on this specific journey, one of them merely said "good luck". Rex, as has name turned to be, is a South African born computer engineer. He has been traveling for the past twenty years between India and South Africa, living off royalties from this computer programming books, and has even lived in India for about a decade. Apparently, this is only the second most terrifying ride in India (the first being somewhere in Spiti Valley), Hurray!

Now I have to admit that this is also somewhat my fault. I was supposed to leave Leh two days earlier, and reach Manali around the same time Chen did, but I kept putting it off because the thought of leaving was simply devastating. When I finally left, I have chosen to do so on the night of the biggest blizzard to hit Ladakh since 1959.

At first it seemed OK. I have been riding around Ladakh, and so wasn't surprised to see fresh snow falling on our car, a mere two hours after leaving Leh. We have reached our first mountain pass (one out of four passes over 4,900m high along the way). I was also delighted to learn that I have the front seat, right next to driver, since this is the only car in the bus with decent legroom and no passengers sitting next to me.

It is kind of impressive. I mean, it's August, but there's snow everywhere. It seems like it hadn't snowed for a while, since there are only fresh white patches on the side of the road, but mostly you can still see the road and the scene around. But as the ride went on, it was getting more and more difficult to figure out where exactly we are, or where we're going. By noon we were into the second pass, and you could no longer see anything but two mud tracks blazed by the car in front of you.

At a specifically terrifying point we were stuck behind a line of cars because a boulder dislodged by the landslides blocked the road ahead. Since this was a serious boulder (about the size of a private car) and there were no heavy tools around, the drivers had to find a creative way to go around it. When crossing mountain passes, usually there's a cliff on one side of the car, and an upwards slope on the other. In this case we were driving on the cliff side, and the boulder naturally blocked the slope side. After realizing that even an Indian driver couldn't cross the block on such a narrow stretch, a group of drivers simply decided to build n extension of the road on the cliff side, basically in mid-air. Thankfully, we all debarked from the car and walked that stretch leaving the driver to risk his life like I've never seen anyone risk anything before. Drivers here are always relaxed – maybe I think so because I'm always stressed out – but you could vividly see the beads of sweat on ours as he was driving on air.

After crossing this lovely obstacle a new problem arose. It appeared that the driver directly in front of us was not as good a driver as the rest of the convoy, and while driving in the snow he constantly got his car stuck. Whenever this happened we had to get out of the car and help push the car back on the road, since people were doing the same for us when we got stuck. I never felt a need to have Israelis with me during rides, but I was grateful for Karni and Amit. After trekking for a year in Central and South America, they have decided to take two relaxing months in India before starting school. Amit was actually so hell bent on relaxation he didn't even bring shoes. Or sandals. So while it was snowing like mad, with a temperature well below zero and puddles of muddy water all around us, Amit was pushing a bus in flip-flops.

Nope, not Alaska in January, this is India in August

Somewhere around 9pm we reached Keylong. When visitors come from Manali to Leh, they are urged to spend the night in Keylong to acclimatize themselves to the height, in order to avoid AMS. Keylong is only 120km from Manali, and approximately 350km from Leh. The ride, which was supposed to last 17 hours had lasted 21 so far, and we were still fairly far from our destination. And yet, none of us (including the locals) complained when the driver pulled into a guest house and informed us that we will be meeting at this spot at 9am, where we'll see if the final pass is open to traffic or not.

At half past eight in the morning one of our French passengers knocks on our door and informs us (Karni, Amit and myself) that we have 10 minutes to get dressed and ready, as everyone is already packed and have even loaded their luggage on the roof, and simply forgot to tell us to wake up.

Apparently the pass is open, what joy! And it's not even snowing anymore – double joy!

A short ride gets us right till the entrance to Rohtang La (La means pass, remember?). It seems like we'll have to stop for a few minutes, a routine passport check, the final one before leaving Kashmir and getting back into Himachal Pradesh. After 30 minutes of waiting we start wondering what's up. It seems like every minute another car stops at the checkpoint but none of them go across it. Finally one of the local passengers informs us that the police informed him that the pass is closed right now, and there is no telling when it will be open, since it was closed for the past three days.

After five hours of waiting inside the car, finishing my book and reading half of Amit's, eating in several of the Dahbas around, an Israeli from another car tells me that he's looking for people to share a ride back to Keylong for another night, in order to avoid spending a night here in the car, as we know people have done in the week before. Several minutes after I ask him to let me know if he has a spot open for me as well, my driver informs me that going back to Keylong is out of the question since a part of the road actually fell into the river because of landslides. People around me are starting to stock up on blankets and shawls. Amit is still in his flip-flops. The driver is still chewing Tobacco at a rate I've never seen in my life.

And then, at around 6pm, after almost 10 hours of waiting, we see that something is happening. The drivers are running around, the locals are talking excitedly. Apparently the police caved in and allowed us to pass. No one waits for a second invitation. We pile into the car and head on.

Rohtang is by far the worst of the four passes. The northern part is just as snowy and blind as the first three, and the southern part is practically made of mud. Only in Manali did I learn that the pass is closed one day a week for reconstruction, but it'll take several years to construct something worthy of the title "road" over there. Since the pass was closed for three days a staggering pileup of cars, mostly trucks, is waiting on the other side. Truck drivers are notorious here, and beside their impatience and erratic movement many have simply left their car in the middle of the road and climbed down the pass. We are – naturally – still driving on the side of the road closer to the cliff, and our driver has to make sure he doesn't get stuck in the mud, doesn't graze the trucks that are mere microns away from us and oh, doesn't tip over the edge.

When we finally get to Manali it's been 45 hours since leaving Leh, around 32 of which were spent inside the car. As a result of sitting up front I had a front row view of the whole bone shaking experience, probably losing at least ten years of my life. The bond we feel among the passengers and with our driver is that of a group of soldiers that were sent on a suicide mission, but somehow miraculously survived it. Only a day later do I learn that a local bus that was on the same run with us, and that we've seen many times during those two days fell over the edge, killing 15 local folk dancers on their way to a festival in Keylong. May they rest in peace.

An important note in case you happen to be one of my parents – the above anecdote is complete fiction. All my rides so far were on flat 3 lane highways, and all the drivers were non-drinking, responsible adults. In fact, I think they were all Mormons.

The Lost Week(end)

Chen was in Manali for about three days when I finally reached safety. She spent approximately 2.87 of them in her room, since monsoons have decided to hit town. She is anxious to move on, and after two or three more days in town we leave towards Parvati Valley.

Kasol, the central village in Parvati, is described in Lonely Planet as a "Hippie/Israeli hangout", and even Wikipedia mentions the various Hebrew signs across the village, but nothing prepared us for the shock we were about to receive. I wasn't even off the bus before I got extremely impatient and irritated with the place. The locals speak Hebrew, some of them fluently, some of them are even wearing Source Sandals. More signs are in Hebrew than in English and even Hindi. There are tons of tourists all around but they are all Israelis, without exception. And there is absolutely nothing to do there. Unlike the charm and unique location of other tourist hubs, Kasol looks like a regular Hindi village, with scattered shops and houses along a main road, that had simply been invaded and occupied by the IDF.

So why are there so many Israelis here?

Charas.

Charas is a drug made from the resin of Cannabis. It is somewhat similar to Hashish, although it's feel and effects are slightly different. The Charas from Parvati, along with that of Afghanistan, is considered the best in the world. Because of this, thousands of Israelis make a pilgrimage to Kasol each year, some of them staying in the area for months, doing a whole lot of nothing.

When I ask a neighbor in my guest house if he would like to join me for a joint he informs me that he will take a puff, although usually he doesn't go for that. "Then what are you doing here in Kasol?" I ask him, and he informs me that mostly Chillums and Bhangs. Lovely.

Since we arrived on Friday we decided to go to dinner at the Chabad house. After an evening of heavy drinking, and a whole day during which I apparently didn't drink enough water, we wound up in one of the Israeli restaurants (it's called "Sami Burekas", seriously). After smoking too much I decided to head down to the bathroom which were on the ground floor (we were up on the terrace). When I started climbing down the stairs I was feeling heavy, but decided to grab the railing and finish the flight. And I did. I guess it was ten seconds later when I woke up and found myself lying on the floor with five guys crowded around me. It seems that I have momentarily fainted, at a very unsuitable location. The end result was much better than anyone could have hoped, though. Only grazing along my hand, a cut on the nose, and apparently a broken piece of cartilage in my nose, since it now clearly leans a little to the right. I can only hope a scar remains on my nose to make sure I remember not to act like such an idiot again.

After this lovely incident I was more than anxious to leave, and after a day resting (and making sure I don't have any brain damageamageamage) we left Kasol towards Tosh, a small village not far, accompanied by Chen's cousin, Ben. One of the attractions of Parvati for the tourist crowd is the big amount of small villages around Kasol that have pleasant views and accommodation (this attraction is of course second to the Charas in most cases).

Tosh is nice, and after choosing a cozy looking guesthouse we go down to the village to have dinner. When we come back several hours later we see a crowd of about 15 people, all of them Israelis of course – gathered in an opening by our guesthouse. It doesn't take long before someone puts on Psychedelic Trance and people start chugging MDMA laced water. The music lasts till five in the morning, and the tired looking Nepali owner goes around the tables offering "Bhang cleaning service".

Tosh (also, Ben and Chen)

Since I've meddled (unsuccessfully) a bit in pro-Israeli PR, I know in what a shoddy state we stand. I know how hard it is to make people listen. I know how important it is to market ourselves as we truly are to the world, and not as the foreign media portrays us. But it is much easier to destroy than to build. I have never once denied being Israeli, neither for shame nor for security reasons, but I have never been more ashamed to admit to being Israeli as I was during these days. A physical feeling of ill attacked me when I met some of the people that have created the Parvati ex-pat community that is sickeningly flourishing.

When we leave Tosh we had back to Kasol for another night, and a day in Kullu (the district town, with a grubby, dime-a-dozen market) after which we had back into the mountains towards Khiriganga. Khiriganga isn't even a village. Located at the height of 3Km – reached after a tiring 3 hour climb from the final point in the road, 2Km high – it is a hot spring with three restaurants that also serve as guesthouses. This is a sacred spot for Hindus, because of I-have-absolutely-no-idea-but-it-has-to-do-with-Parvati. Parvati is the supreme goddess, and wife of Shiva (thank god for Wikipedia). The hot springs are divided in the middle, with one half for men and the other for women. The men have an open bath, with incredible views of the valley and mountains around, and the women are blocked behind three walls made of wood. The only positive result being that they can go in naked, whereas men are asked to wear bathing suits.

Khiriganga is heaven. We've spent four days at the springs (by this point Ben had left and we were again traveling just the two of us), sleeping at night in the restaurant on mattresses by Tandoori ovens – since rooms cost 100Rs. each and don't really have anything to offer and it turned out that sleeping at the restaurant is free of charge as long as you eat there during the day. At a certain point I was deliberating staying in Khiriganga, missing my flight, and basically becoming a local, but at the end logic (damn him!) prevailed, and we came down the mountain and back to Kasol. A French girl in another restaurant – thankfully this place is known to a small group of non-Israelis so we had some continentality – has been in Khiriganga for the last ten months, and is apparently not going anywhere. Usually meeting these people I have always looked at them as if something was off, but here I could totally relate. It is heaven.

The gospel according to Noam

Since we were sick of Kasol, and since my time was running short, we decided to move on the next day to Rishikesh, and instead of taking a tourist bus directly, do the ride by local busses. Driving local is always an experience, but I think it's a much more pleasant one when you're not alone. It took us 19 hours, 4 busses and a cab to get to Rishikesh. Happily, one of the four busses was a state of the art, air conditioned, spacey one. This is, of course, the one we took for 12 minutes. The rest of them were 3-9 hours long. But we did finally get to Rishikesh at 1am, and realized that the city has a staggering amount of people sleeping on the street, even in Indian standards.

Fahrenheit 451

When I talk to a friend on the phone he asks how's Rishikesh. It's so hot here. He laughs and says I'm the only person in the world that answers a question about a new place only with a weather report. But it is. It's so hot. Actually it isn't. It's only about 32 Celsius, which isn't even bad in Israel standards. But it's so humid. I take three showers a day, and I still can't take the grime off. Clothes that are washed and hang to dry take ages, because the air is simply soaking. Thank god for the Ganges. This is the same body-burning-Ganges we've all seen in pictures, and it's big and brown (kind of like me, actually), but we're way upstream from where the body burning actually takes place. In fact, this is what makes the area so sacred. Rishikesh itself is famous mostly because this is where The Beatles stayed for two months in 1968, but nearby Haridwar is the most sacred city in the state of Uttarakhand because it is relatively close to where the Gangotri glacier melts and forms the river. Why is all this important? Because we bathe there. I did shut my eyes tight, pursed my lips and held my nose while praying for no body parts to float on by, but I bathed. And it's freezing.

SOP picture from the Ganges

At dusk we head on to the big temple right by the river for the daily Puja – the Hindu ceremony performed twice daily, which is one of the famous marks of Rishikseh. It's boring. Really. Several hundred Indians flock by the river, lifting candles and waiting idly while tourists gawk at them. Apparently at some point offerings of flowers to the river are supposed to be made, but we didn't stick around for that – we left after what felt like six days. Apart from the Pujas, Rishikesh is also jam-packed with Ashrams, some offering deluxe standards for picky European chicks on a soul-searching journey, and some offering ascetic conditions suitable only for the hardcore local Sadhus (Hindus on a spiritual quest). There are also dozens of Sadhus along the road and up the river bank, offering the tourists to join them for Chai, and in some cases a Chillum puff as well. We had the Chai, thank you.

Friendly Sadhus with a local Indian girl

After three days in the grubbier side of the river we move up to what is known as the Swiss Cottage area. The "area" is basically a bunch of run-of-the-mill tourist guesthouses, neatly located on a hilltop overlooking the river and town, and offering a bit more air and wind then the places downtown. Since it's a tiring sweaty 20 minutes walk to town many tourists stick around the guesthouses enclave all day long, but I'm proud to say that we manage a different tour each day. Sweating like hogs. Dirty, dirty hogs.

Stuck Inside of Delhi With The Oslo Blues Again

I wasn't looking forward to coming back to Delhi. I wanted to come here straight for my flight. But it seemed risky, especially considering the very relaxed Indian concept of timetables. I gave myself two days of leeway, getting here on Monday morning when my flight leaves at Tuesday night.

By an incredible stroke of luck, a friend who is working in Delhi was delayed because of his project, and I was able to smuggle myself for two days into his deluxe 7-stars hotel in town. The area I'm staying in houses most of the embassies, and is therefore much more upscale. The hotel itself is spectacular, and I have spent my first hour in the room simply admiring the various facilities – a toilet you can actually sit on and read a book, carpeting that doesn't support mold, a TV that was made after the Russia-Japan war and various others – and realizing that for one day I'll be the single most privileged backpacker in India.

I had two days to unwind, set myself for different standards and get ready for the next leg in my trip. In 8 hours I'll be flying to Copenhagen, where I'll stay for three days and leave on board a cruise ship towards the US, stopping over in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and ten days around the Caribbean Islands, finally landing in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

My ridiculously awesome cruise plan

When I left home I only took the name of a guesthouse to Delhi for the first night, and decided to wing the rest of it. I did have a general plan that consisted of Nepal and China as well as India, and now it's gone. In a day I'll be joining my friend from Leh, and together we'll go as far away from The East as possible (because what's less east than west?). It's spontaneous, it's weird, mostly exciting, decadent (hell yeah!) and I hope that allot more.

I still need to find a way and sum up my time here. I've been writing for too long now. It's been hard, it's been easy, it's been fun, it's been annoying, it's been hot, it's been cold (but mostly hot). It's been allot more, but I can't really say right now. Come back? Maybe, one day. There's allot more world to see right now.

Adios!