Even more rugged

Hi everybody,
I am back in Bhagsu, Dharamsala.

The story cuts off at the point we depart from Delhi to Vashisht (near Manali),
there, to the settling vision of these views… we relax and breathe the clear mountain air

One More Step Towards Hobithood:

I was right! Going back into the mountains made everybody feel happier.
After a few days of chess, music and bathing in the Temple’s hot springs (Our bathroom didn’t even have a second tap, there was never any intention for hot water) the fellowship needed to part from another member. Matan was going to ladakh and Avner, Shir (a fine lass we picked up in vashisht) and me were going to Spiti and Kinnour Valleys.

Some sights from the way, Manali – Kaza:

I don’t know if everybody knows this, to go inside regions that are close to the chinese border – you have to make a special permit. This is appearently to have information about possible infiltrators into tibet. The tibetan people in china are not allowed to talk to foreigners and run no businesses so that there will be no contact between them and the outside world.
Anyway, these permits are a signed page with your picture on it – in reality it ends up in a pile near the clerks desk in Kaza.
It was saturday and too late, it means the permit can be done only in 2 days (after sunday).
So we decided to spend a few days in a village called “Mudh”…

The family we were staying with was amazing, I literally fell in love with the eldest daughter.
Her name is Rekha and I will come back for her if no other girl forced me to marry her first
On the 2nd day I took over the family kitchen, we made pasta out of dough used for “Thanthuk”,
it’s a tibetan soup with vegetables and these things
So it was Thanthukini A La Pomedoro with garlic and spicy stuff… Together with the whole family we cooked for hours in a small cozy tibetan kitchen.

It was great fun to be there and a great pain to leave…
They gather grass to feed the animals during the winter, there’s almost nothing to do because all is covered by heavy snow… And this makes their winter to a very social season, they say they just sit together and talk and play… moving from one house to another like a roaming party
How good could it be to go and stay there for winter, really take a leave of everything including travelling… just live a simple village life for a few months.
If anybody has a free winter… I want to buy in from you and spend it in Mudh.

We came back to Kaza, made the permit and took the bus to Tabo. There is an 11th century Gompa in Tabo that looks accordingly:

Here the adventure starts, the title of this post “Even more rugged” is taken from the lonely planet, when Spiti is compared to Ladakh… we have seriously discredited the writer of these words
On the day we left Tabo it started raining, but the bus left as scheduled.
After a ride of about 1 hour we came upon a huge pile of stones that blocked the road,
with extreme motivation all got out and started throwing the stones from the road….
There was one stone that was too big and clearing the others wouldn’t help because it was in the middle of the road.
So we decided to put all the other rocks back and fill the gap between the ground and the large stone… then just drive over it.
All of this is happening under rain and an occasional landslide of stones from the slope above us
Driving over it failed, the bus got stuck on top.
Then it was decided to put the bus up on a jack and push stones beneith the wheels to raise it.
After that failed some people arrived with metallic poles and we finally managed to move the large stone… Then all we needed to do it to put the bus back on the jack and remove the stones we put under it

We made it through after a few hours… and there was much rejoycing
But after 20 minutes of driving we came to a final block… it was a huge pile of stones with mud and a small river flowing through it.
All of the locals including the bus driver just went out of the bus and went by foot to the next big village.
We were left behind because nobody was ready to walk 20KM with their backpacks on.
The only usefull thing we could see around was this:

So avner and me went to find a path to this village and find some help.
This village is called Sumra and it has no facilities at all (phone, running water)…
What they do have is poles with solar receptors that provide them the little power they need!
And we are supposed to be the “Developed” ones
We were invited to a house served two different sorts of teas.
Then I had a great idea! I convinced our host to sell us a thermos from his house and fill it with chai for the rest of the guys that we’re stuck on the bus.
He sold us a thermos his family brought with it when they ran from tibet… and gave us cookies!
The chai and cookies kept us warm until finally our saviour has arrived:

And so we went on!
But only to the next village, which is called “Hurling”.
It’s actually a Bull-Dozer base with a small village arround it, there are 2 dhabas and one government stay house – that was never intended for tourists.
It was raining and snowing, we had no shower and no dry cloths… but we kept it happy!
Avner and me created a hybrid between a traditional japanese song he plays on the sunshin with bob marley’s “Redemption Song”
Our conductor from the bus – who’s vocabulary consisted of “Little-Little” and “Nothing”
showed us an amazing number of combinations these two statements can be made in
(Potzka – Remember the guy from Shakhawati?)
On the 4th day we decided we go whatever happens because it didn’t seem the road is going to open anytime soon… and so we decided to walk over the block by foot.
The block was a huge landslide made of rocks and wet ground – it took some courage and a few rounds to get over it and get all of our packs and girls to the other side.
There was only one casualty – The tibetan thermos didn’t make it. May his soul be at peace.
A few clicks away we found a working party clearing the road and they gave us a life to the next village, and from there by jeep to Nako.
Nako is a small village it’s altitute is 3800M and it has a small lake next to it… truly a rare sight.

It was a sudden moment in which all luck changed, we finished the last by-foot passage over a road block and arrived at Nako just in time for a tibetan wedding:

After Nako – the road to Rekong Peo was clear and we settled in Kalpa for a few days, which is Shiva’s winter home according to the Hindu.

Now I am in back to Dharamsala, it seems to have become my base in north India
I am happy to spend the last of my days of the visa in the place I love the most.
More flashbacks and new stories from the 3rd time around in dharamsala are sure to follow…

A piece of buddhist thought:
The principle of impermenance, the world is changing all of the time.
Due to the fact every object we interact with is made of sub-parts and all objects are interdependant – a flower is not the same before and after you blink. Moreover, you are not the same after you blink.
Try to think of a 100 years from now, a time when none of the people that live today on earth will still be alive. All the people you know will not exist, each and every shop will have a new shopkeeper each and every business will have a new owner, each and every nation will have a new leader.
Think how much the world will change… in a hundred years.

Love you all, thank you for reading.
me.