Hi people. Here's roughly what we did in our last couple of weeks in India:
We seriously contemplated flying to the Kashmir region to go skiing in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It also happens to be very close to the India/Pakistan border and one of the most heavily fortified places in Asia. Consequently, prices were very cheap and travel agents were very keen to sell us a package trip. In the end there were too many good reasons not to go. Maybe another time...
Anyway we still wanted to try skiing in the Himalayas, so we headed north. First to Haridwar, a very holy spot near the origin of the Ganges river. Then on to Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world. We didn't do any yoga - just didn't feel it. It was kind of a fun place, and quite pretty in it's own way. Nice clean air. And friendly monkeys. We spent a few days there and sent packages and postcards.
We still needed to get way up into the mountains. The prospect of a 12+ hour public bus ride along cliffhanger roads didn't appeal, so we asked around. In the end we bought a ride in the back of a newspaper delivery jeep leaving at 4.30am in the freezing cold! Twas a 250km, 11 hour ride winding our way uphill through river gorges, starting at about 1000ft above sea level and rising up to somewhere around 8,500ft. Notable on the trip:
- white knuckles from bouncing along roads with a sheer, deadly drop inches away; you get used to it after a while!
- watching the dawn and thawing out in the front of the jeep
- stopping at every village to deliver the Times of India
- having to stop for an hour to wait for the army to clear a road blockage (one they had just made themselves with dynamite).
- arriving before sunset at our destination: Joshimath
On arrival we checked into our hotel. The view from our room was across an enormous gorge, taking in panoramic views of enormous mountains. We promptly fell asleep from exhaustion. We woke just after dark, hungry for dinner. We looked out the window, hoping to see snow. Instead we saw was fresh lava coming down the opposite ridge! Looking down at our town, it seemed almost empty. We put on all the clothes we had (it was near zero degrees) and ran down to find a local. It turns out it was the forest department doing a controlled burning of the whole side of a mountain. Check out the photo we uploaded. You would have thought it was lava too!
Anyway, next day we took the Gondola up another 1,000 feet or so to Auli (supposedly the second best ski resort in India). Prior to this, people in Rishikesh had told us there was 'too much snow'. Well we got there and there was mostly grass. Apparently there was 12 metres of snow in 1994. There was even 4 feet of snow this time last year. We still had an option for skiing: pay them lots of money for gear rental, then walk 1km up the hill and ski back. Admittedly there did seem to be plenty of snow higher up, but walking uphill at 10,000 ft is far from easy. We declined. Our other option was to rent a helicopter to take us up to some virgin powder snow. Hmmmm...
We opted for the cheaper and easier walk-down-the-hill and eat a ridiculous lunch with a spectacular view option.
So pretty disappointed we didn't ski, but a nice experience. We had had enough of India, so we got another 11 hour jeep out the next day. We made our way back to Delhi and a couple of days later we were on a plane to Singapore and our Southeast Asian journey.
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