UDAIPUR

Photo Albums:
1 http://youtu.be/i2Qi1mo6mvY
2 http://youtu.be/hfvmCWr31B4
3 http://youtu.be/Kp-5LNHeCXw
4  http://youtu.be/q8G-ROeo8Lo

17/9
Arriving very early morning on our night train from Jaipur to Udaipur in southern Rajasthan, we zig-zagged

down a barely-awake narrow street which wound its attractive way down to the lakeside, to find the best hotel option and negotiate the best price.

 We were delighted with a spacious and nicely decorated room at Hotel Udai Niwas, with a big double bed in the middle and arched cavities in the wall, lined with fitted cushions - the perfect little sleeping nests for Fia and Tamsin.
  We had breakfast in the rooftop restaurant, rewarded with our first view of Lake Pichola, with the gleaming white fairy-tale Lake Palace standing in the middle as if it was floating, and the surrounding hills reflected in glassy waters which twinkled with the early morning sun-light. Udaipur must be India's prettiest city.

 With a shortened sleeping night on the train, we retired to bed and then slept until 2:00 before we went out to explore.
 Down by the lake, we stumbled on an informal looking street show. Men were sitting cross legged, or squatting in the centre while the actors were performing around them in a circle, stamping and shaking their bare-feet with jangling bells around their ankles.

 The costumes were an explosion of colour, ranging from Rajasthan traditional to fancy-dress-ridiculous with all manners of head-ware, heavy jewellery and face-paint. With some men dressed as women, the actors put on a performance which looked almost farcical with dancing, mock-fighting and "Punch and Judy" chasing around the circle, though the aggressor beat the victim with a stick rather than the proverbial string of sausages. It was only two days later, when we saw a similar performance in a rural village that we learnt a little more. These performers were Bhils - one of the tribes thought of as "Adivasi" (indigenous to India, as opposed to the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian historic immigrants). Traditionally hunters, they were renowned for their ferocity, and became valued warriors serving Rajput armies. In the Udaipur region they fought in the Mewar (the local ruling Rajput family) army, and became a thorn in the side of the invading Moguls by their skill in guerilla warfare, luring the enemy into a valley before enclosing and slaughtering them. Now formalised as a caste, Bhil men are still recognisable by their bare feet and their ear-rings on both ears.

 Their warrior days were over when the warring between Maharajas and Moguls faded, and they have settled with a life of herding and occasional hunting, mostly at night-time because it's illegal. It seems they never stray from the poverty line. Women are traditionally highly protected, which explains why men take the women's roles in the acting spectacles that they perform as they tour nearby villages, and contrary to the usual Indian custom, it is the women that command a dowry in the arranaged marriages - the going rate being 10 goats (70 euros worth).

We had a late lunch at the nearby Minerva hotel - lured in vain by a satellite TV that we thought had a chance of showing the Rugby world cup - Australia were playing Ireland. Agonisingly, no-one seemed to know about rugby in India - and in the time we stayed in Udaipur, we had several bemused hotel staff switching through channels to find some sign of it before someone managed to put our hope to the grave by confirming that the only channel showing it was not available in Udaipur. We resigned ourselves to seeing the match reports for the time being.  

 Dinner was on the balmy rooftop of one of the many beautiful havelli guest houses, once homes of rajput nobles. Drinking beer out of a teapot, a common disguise used in Udaipur by unlicensed restaurants, we watched "Octupussy" on an antique television. The enchanting billionairess, Octupussy, lived in a palatial mansion on a women-only island in the middle of a lake. Udaipur's Lake Palace was used for many scenes, and the film is celebrated proudly across town, with every guest house adding "Octupussy shown" to their list of selling points advertised at their entrance. Two spaghettis mysteriously appeared on our bill without us having ordered any, and when I questioned it, I was summoned for the second time into the kitchen, where the manager surreptitiously explained to me that they also, were a cover-up for the beer.

18/9
 A torrential downpour drove us from the rooftop of our guest-house where we were eating breakfast. With no sign of stopping, we postponed other plans in favour of a french lesson.
 Later we managed to make the long walk, past dusty antique shops selling giant stone elephants and statues, to the tourist office, stopping for an excellent lunch on the way at the Lotus cafe.

 Our walk turned out to be in vain, as being a Sunday, the tourist office was closed, but in the process, we discovered the real "living" Udaipur town, bursting with commerce, noise and odour, away from the concentrated tourist area surrounding the lake. Despite its central role in India's tourism, Rajasthan is one of Indias poorest states with the lowest levels of life expectancy and literacy.
 We took a rickshaw back, with a driver that had extraordinary amounts of hair coming out of his ears, to go to the city museum, but had to abandon that also when we discovered that we had only 1 hour before it closed (contrary to the indications in the guide book). Our day had slipped unproductively and frustratingly through our fingers - independent travel has its downsides.

Desperate to get some sights under our belt, the opportunity fell on us when we wondered down to the lake side. A small boat was just leaving, so we called it back, bought tickets and hopped on for a trip around the lake.

 We rumbled close up to the exotic Lake Palace (Octupussy's pad) on Jagniwas Island, gleaming white with a myriad of arched windows leading to enough rooms to house a small town. A launch had just moored up to allow clients of the 5 star hotel, that it has now become, to step ashore, welcomed by uniformed staff with well-trained professional smiles. The palace was built in 1754 as a summer residence for the Maharaja - an extravagant get-away from the City Palace just across the water.

Its sister summer-getaway (having only one must have been an awful limitation) was built in 1620 on nearby Jagmandir island.

 It was architecturally more interesting, with cupola roofs at different levels shading small viewing platforms, and a line of carved stone elephants, standing in the water around the front walls. Shah Jahan stayed here in 1623, and was said to have drawn inspiration from this for his construction of the Taj Mahal. Both palaces covered the islands completely, giving the magical effect that they were floating - it was romantic opulence at its most exquisite, and left us with dreams of Rajput magnificence.

 On the mainland, the grandeur of the City Palace is hidden behind tall defensive walls, but the view from the lake shows less modesty. Two more luxury hotels have been created out of part of it, and along with the two island hotels they all remain the property of the descendents of the last Mewar Maharaja.

  Further along from the palace, ruins of once glorious lakeside mansions hosted a group of boys, stripped down to their underpants, who jumped acrobatically from scaffolding into the lake. Further along, the ghat steps were now filling with the evening crowd of locals - washing, praying and just being there to see what was going on.      
 We ate a light dinner up on another rooftoop terrace (there's another living city on top of the roofs) just by the lake while we read up in the guidebook to fill in the gaps left by the boat drivers unintelligibly strong accent.

That evening we went inside the main courtyard of the City Palace to see the sound and light show.

 It was a typically over-dramatised performance with the requisite resonant voices and dramatic music, praising the wisdom , talents, loyalty and courage of the Rajput dynastic legacies, but the night lighting emphasized the stunning beauty of the Rajput architecture, and it gave us a good introduction to our full visit of the palace the following day.

19/9
 The building of the City Palace started in 1559, by Udai Singh, after meeting a wise holy man here on a hunting expedition, who advised, or at least supported, his idea to move his capital from nearby Chittorgarh. As Akbar and his Mughal armies laid seige to Chittorgah, the new city of Mewar was founded, later to be renamed Udaipur after its founder. It proved to be an auspicious decision, as with the help of its natural defense of the surrounding Aravalli hills, it remained one of the few cities in the north that the mighty Mughals never managed to conquer.  

The Mewar dynasty dates back to the 7'th century. Astrologers conveniently traced their roots to the sun, and the sunshine motif appeared regularly in the palace decor. They were Rajputs - of the same caste but with no family connections to the Rajputs in Jaipur, Jodhpur and elsewhere in Rajasthan, and indeed often at battle with them. Even when most of Rajasthan had been finally beaten into submission by the Mughals, the Mewar dynasty found themselves at the battlefield facing the Jaipur Rajputs, who after finally submitting to the Mughals, had been recruited into leading positions in their army.
  Different parts of the palace were built over the years by different Maharans that followed Udai Singh. The family is still present, living in part of the palace between the two excruciatingly luxurious hotels on the lake, though they have now exchanged their ruling executive powers for hotels in london, and other business interests.

  It is a beautiful palace of towers, balconies, intricately carved stone work, latticed windows, and marble. The interior reveals the sumptuous lifestyle that the royal families led, and the amazing collection of paintings told stories of their leisure pursuits - Maharajas, with handlebar moustaches, mounted on decorated elephants in the tiger hunt, elephant wrestling, polo, board games and the tug of war, where prize elephants stood either side of a tall wall over which they linked trunks and pulled, the loser being the first to touch the wall.
  Painting was enormously appreciated amongst the Rajputs, with different royal families patronising armies of artists, and as a result developing unique styles - the Mewar recognisably different from the Jaipur school etc. The miniature art style started in Rajasthan, initially as a necessary improvisation to fit a picture onto the available palm leaves, but continued as an art form even after the limitation was removed with the Chinese invention of paper.  As well as leisure, the paintings told stories of the legendary courage and honour of the Rajput warriors and kings, and there were constant reminders in the palace of the ceaseless pressures of war that they faced - mostly against the Mughals, and later against the Marathas (from Mumbai area). The outer doors were all studded with sharp spikes as a painful deterrent to elephants being urged forwards as battering rams by the enemies. We saw the leather armour with which they dressed their horses - a false elephant's trunk that allegedly prevented enemy elephants from attacking, mistakenly believing that they were facing baby elephants rather than horses. Honour was paramount, and the Rajputs were known for their determination to fight until death, with ritual suicide the last option ahead of capture. When it looked as though the City Palace was about to fall to the invading Mughals, the queen allegedly led the ladies of Udaipur into a mass funeral pyre in an honourable end to avoid falling into the hands of barbarians. The armies arrived back in time to save Udaipur, but too late to save their women.        

The Mewar resisted the Mughals, but the British were a different kettle of fish, and a vow of allegiance was innevitable though there is a feeling that their pride and independence shone through even in this era. When the Maharan of the time did not turn up to the coronation celebrations for George V, it was widely interpreted as a snub, despite the insistence of the Maharaja that it was because of illness. After the British, came independence and the Mewar signed up as part of the state of Rajasthan, to the new government of independent India, with President Nehru making the final signature in this very palace.

The City Palace was a wonderful insight into Mewar Rajput times, made all the more interesting by our guide, Nitin, who was able to answer all of our questions, and bring in lively stories that brought it all alive for the girls.
 It was rare fo us to accept a guide, and even rarer that they turn out to be good.

We walked from the palace through the lakeside streets dripping with Rajasthan charm, diving out of the way of horn-blaring auto-rickshaws or mopeds with fat bottomed wives perched side-saddle on the back. Moustachioed sellers sat at the entrance to their stalls, where handbags and fabric handicrafts hung down, forming a curtain of reds and browns.

 Some sat cross-legged on the ground with their simple wares - saffron, spices, hand-made bracelets - displayed on a sheet laid in front of them. A cow drifted down the street in his monotonous life of oblivious nonchalence, snuffling in the rubbish left between crumbling centuries old buildings, and pausing to eat his way through a discarded cardboard box. Donkeys returning from a delivery, strode down the street that they had trodden many times before, not needing any indications from their accompanying owner.

 We turned a corner to be faced by an elephant with a boy in near rags on his back, bare feet wedged behind the elephant's giant ears. The elephant stretched out his trunk to us, inviting us to place a coin, on the end, at which he deftly arched his trunk over his head, without losing the balanced coin, small as a pimple, and dropped it in the hands of his handler.

We had a fabulous over-our-budget lunch at Ambrai hotel, in a blissfully peaceful setting at the side of the lake, opposite the Jagniwas island.


 There was a ghat (steps down to the lake) in front of us, where two women, one as slender as a super-model, the other plump and wobbly from married years of chapatis and rice, were slamming their clothes mercilessly against rocks to wash them. They later turned with a little more tenderness to washing themselves. They stayed clad in their saris for the most part until suddenly the large one, lowered her sari to wash bouncing breasts, leaving us fumbling to hide our cameras.

 The scene would have passed unnoticed in the South of France, but here in India, it shocked us to our core. Fully clothed again, they finished by submerging themselves completely in the lake, before they loaded their laundry baskets onto their heads, and sauntered off. Further on, a group of boys were swimming, and competing with their acrobatic leaps into the water.



 After lunch we headed down for a belated visit to the tourist office. We found out one or two other things that looked worthwhile to see and decided to stay in Udaipur for another day, but the agent proved to be laughably out of date on many things, and we wandered when he had last stepped out of his tourist office.
 We walked onwards to get to the station, through a painful stretch of busy road lined by one or two sellers, but mostly by decaying rubbish, and submerged in vehicle smoke and fumes. It was refreshingly easy to book our sleeper tickets back to Jaipur, as they had a reserved desk for foreigners - a fair compensation, we reasoned, for us having to pay three times as much as indians for entry into the museums.

That evening we went to a traditional dance performance inside one of the havellis - a mansion of the affluent, all stone pillars, balconies and carvings.

 Though a little touristy, it was highly enjoyable with some energetic music and dancing, a genuinely entertaining puppet show, and adorned with the colourful Rajput clothing that was traditional with peasants and royalty alike - brilliant scarlet turbans and saris shimmering with gold and silver. They finished off with a half-circus half-dance act of a lady, who was no spring chicken, dancing with an increasing number of claypots on her head until she was floating around the dance floor balancing a column of 10 pots.

 Fia and Tamsin edged back from their positions on the floor just in case she mis-judged.

 We discovered that gypsies are thought to have originated from travelling performers from Rajasthan tribes, gaining their name from the years they stopped in Egypt, before moving onto Romania. Their language,
Romani, is closely linked to Rajisthani.



20/9
We were picked up early from our guest house in a Land Rover to head out of town to a farm in a nearby village, where we had arranged to go horse-riding for the day.

 Aside from the pleasure of riding horses, which was a particular thrill for Fia and Tamsin, having sacrificed their weekly riding lessons since we left France, the day was a unique trek through untouched rural life. The owner, an Indian man who had been brought up on the farm, was married to a Dutch lady, and the combination meant that he was able to share the history and culture of the Udaipur countryside and village life with us, with excellent English and knowing exactly what we would find interesting.

  Following small tracks, we passed through trees of mango, banana and guava, and past small landholdings cultivated with coriander, maize and chillis. Water buffalo, the pride of any rural household, were everywhere, often sunken lazily in muddy water holes, nostrils and eyes remaining the only visible tip of the submerged iceberg. The villages were a picture of peaceful rural life - around a simple temple were houses built from stone and plastered with a mixture of mud and cow dung, which was also laid out meticulously on the tops of walls to dry so that it could be used as fuel in the winter.  
  We were shown into a "middle class" farmer's house - typically 2 to 3 rooms, (bedroom, kitchen and animals), but spacious, set around a courtyard with beautiful heavy wooden doors. Middle class meant normally that they had their own source of water and their own modest land-holding. A working class farmer, with a smaller house of only 1 or 2 rooms, may also own a small amount of land, but did not have their own source of water so relied totally on the monsoon rains. In a poor season they would need to work for other farmers to sustain a living.

We asked about schooling, and whether rural education was benefitting from India's rapid economic development. The schools in any case do not charge fees, but the costs that often lead to children being held back from school are the peripherals - lunches, transportation, school uniforms etc.
 In the past, boys were given completely free schooling to a later age than girls - now it seems it is reversed in an apparent effort at positive discrimination in favour of girl's education. Additionally, if someone lives more than certain distance they get a free bike to help them get to school, and if they perform well in exams, can earn a moped. More children it seemed were able to go to school for longer. The villages themselves seem a long way from the glitzy software and call-centre worlds of Bangalore, but it seems that education at least is feeling some benefit from the increased wealth in India. It contrasted with another development effort that was topical in the newspapers - to offer free pharmaceuticals. An excellent initiative that had not yet reached the population as the pharmacists had since been on strike in disagreement with their unfavourable participation in the distribution network.  

  The trail led us to a peaceful lake, where crocodiles, too timid to see, swam.
Fia and Tamsin fell in love with their horses, caressing them all the time, and insisting on taking them to feed after we had returned, They gave them sad farewell kisses when they parted, and afterwards the horses were the subject of the moment, and became the theme of their role play games for weeks. As we left, we were shown a foal, lying lifelessly on the straw next to his mother, with a group of men around, tending. He had been born only that night - and was weak, and his mother had not stopped bleeding since, but two worried faces were calmed when the local vet, who was there, reassured the girls that both the foal and mother had taken medicine and would be alright.

We had lunch at the horse ranch before heading back to Udaipur, stopping briefly in a village where another group of Bhil were performing their spectacle, surrounded by villagers, who, embarrasingly, found us more entertaining than the show.
 Unintentionally, we ended up at "Savage garden" for a wonderful but far too expensive Mediterranean dinner of pasta, bruschetta, humous and baba ganoush.

21/9
For our last day in Udaipur, we had promised Fia and Tamsin a lesson in miniature paintings.  They sat on cushions under the arches of a gorgeous courtyard, while a gentle teacher led them through their very own Rajasthan miniature painting of an elephant decorated in vivid reds and golds. They loved it.
I meanwhile sat in the courtyard, amidst the alluring romance of the historic surroundings - mosaic patterned walls, carved stonework and balconies - whilst the harsh reality of the 21'st century was being injected into my mind through a mobile phone. I was talking to one of the two banks that were charging us repayments for the same mortgage after the transfer between the two had gone wrong and both were refusing to accept blame.

Later we headed up to sunset point, a nearby hill served by a ropey cable-car, to watch the sun playing hide-and-seek behind scant whispy clouds, alighting the world of lakes and palaces in a warm red and pink as its last act, before dipping beautifully behind folds of silhouetted hills. A fitting romantic end to our stay in India's most romantic city.

As we came back into the town, we made a visit to the 17'th century Jagdish temple. Inside the outer gates, guarded by two large stone elephants, is a tall colonnaded tower, totally embellished in intricate stone carvings - not a centimetre left uncarved for as far as you can see. We chatted to two swamis, sitting cross legged in a side-temple, who had taken to Fia and Tamsin, and then wandered inside, where we became part of a puja (prayer). We followed the beckons to sit down with everyone else, and listened to their heartfelt singing. There did not appear to be any Brahman priest leading a series of esoteric rituals, as we would normally have expected - it was more like a sing-along around the camp-fire, led by whoever remembered the tune best. But it was numinous and compelling, and we found ourselves drifting to the mystic sounds, before the reality of our impending night train back to Jaipur stepped into our dream, and we left. 

Tabo - August 2011

20 August

We were all up at 6:00 in order to be ready to catch the bus to take us down the Pin valley, as part of our trip to Tabo. We skipped breakfast for the sake of sleep, but asked the monk to prepare us some chapatis that we ate while we were packing. Having heard that the bus sometimes stops only at Gulley down the valley and doesn't bother making the detour up the hill to Kungri, we head out on a short-cut across the fields straight to Gulley, but half way there, we spotted the bus climbing the hill, earlier than we had been told - we were neither in Kungri nor Gulley, and as there was only one bus per day, we all had to break into a shuffled rucksack type of run through the fields to get back to the road in the hope of catching the bus on its way down the hill. We made it, flagged the bus to a halt, loaded our rucksacks onto the roof and piled in. Our bus surprises were however not over for the day.
We had to get the Kasa headed bus to take us back down the Pin valley to the confluence with the Spiti river, and then up the Spiti river until the bridge, where we could cross over, and wait for a second bus from Kasa to take us down the other side of the Spiti river to Tabo. But while we were rocking and bumping our way up the Spiti river, we saw the Tabo bus, surrounded by a cloud of dust on the other side of the valley heading down river and already past the bridge - we had missed it, and the next one was not until the evening. We got off anyway at the bridge, in the middle of nowhere, piled our rucksacks up and sat down with a pack of digestive biscuits to wait for any potential vehicles going to Tabo that could give us a lift, but prepared if necessary to wait the 8 hours before the next Tabo headed bus was due. We didn't have to wait long. After about half an hour, we saw a small car coming up on the other side of the river. Seeing that he was turning right after coming over the bridge, I flagged it down - it was a tiny Chrysler hatchback with an elderly Kinnaur gentleman driving on his own. He was indeed headed to Tabo, but, shaking his head, pointing at the rucksacks and mumbling about weight, he was clearly lacking faith that we could squeeze four people and four rucksacks into his car, or perhaps the ability of his car to transport them over the mountains. Fia and Tamsin came up to join the car window discussion, and gave him a smile while he was deliberating - after that, the decision was made - it just became a question of "how" we would fit us all in and not "whether". At a squeeze, we managed to get Jacqui's rucksack into the boot, the two girls rucksacks by their feet in the back seat with Jacqui as well, and I, after having tried a few different angles, managed to get in the front passenger seat with my rucksack on my lap. The rucksack stretched across more than half the width of the car, and everytime that he needed to change gears (which was very frequently, given the mountainous and rocky route) I had to lift my right leg to raise my rucksack so that he could have acces to the gear lever. He was a gentle and likeable man, even though we had hardly any common vocabularly between us, and he drove very carefully over this dramatic rough stretch of road, slowing almost to a halt for every pot-hole and winding across the width of the road to find the smoothest path. Jacqui and the girls fell asleep while I stayed wide-eyed for the two and a half hour drive, soaking in every inch of this majestic route, cut through steep valley sides and jagged grey rock lunar-like landscapes.

We arrived at Tabo, and our driver - his reluctance at taking on this voluminous family having long ago been superseded by an eagerness to help us in any way he could - took us up to the door of a guest-house we had mentioned.

It was one that had been recommended to us by a Russian/English couple that we had met in Kasa (and who we were later to meet again). It was a residential house onto which the owners had built a second floor for a few guest rooms. Although it was not endowed with any particular character, it was homely, the family were more than welcoming, and our room was spacious and spotless with a dream of a shower emitting copious amounts of hot water at any time - a luxury that we had not seen in several weeks. The lovely town (village?) of Tabo, though much smaller than Kasa, is better known due to its 1000 year old monastery (a favourite of the Dalai Lama, who regularly stays) that dominates the village. Despite the smattering of tourists, the place remains completely unaffected, and, nestled amongst the Spiti valley Himalayas, retains an atmosphere of total serenity.
Having shed our rucksacks, we wondered through Tabo and had a quick breakfast at a little restaurant before we headed back for a siesta. After a late lunch of momos, spring rolls and parantha (a delicious chapati stuffed with cheese and potatos) we visited the monastery. It was constructed in a beige sand-coloured mud-brick, giving more of a north african feel, in 969 AD by Rinchen Zangpo, not long after the first introduction of Buddhism in the Spiti valley as part of the wave of Gelugpa-sect monasteries he built in the region (along with Dhankar that we had visited earlier). We were shown by one of the monks around the different chambers that each led from a central open courtyard. THe monastery is particularly famed for the astonishingly well preserved artwork inside, mostly dating from the initial construction of the monastery and for which Rinchen Zangpo hired the very best of artists from the different corners of the kingdom. In a dimly-lit monastic slience, we browsed the detailed murals that lined the walls and admired the chamber full of huge mystical stucco sculpted bodhissatvas (Buddha had reached a liberated state of enlightenment, freeing himself from the world although for compassionate reasons had chosen to stay among us, bhodissatvas were others who had reached or were on their way to this state).
Our timing was coincidentally perfect for the puja. We sat cross-legged looking through the doorway while the magical spiritual atmosphere filled the chamber like a vapour, with one lone monk (the main communal puja for the other monks being performed now in the more recent monastery constructed next-door) chanting in repetitive simple melody with occasional scripted accompaniment of a hand drum and clashes of a traditional cymbal.
With a vivid sense of the life of 11'th century Buddhism ringing around our minds, we left the monastery and scrambled directly up the steep valley side on the edge of Tabo (ignorant at that stage of an easy paved path only 200m from where we were climbing), to find the caves that the monks once used as their secluded retreats for meditation and prayer. They completed the picture of intense spirituality, but also offered us an exciting playground where we could hide behind rocks while we launched our attack on the imaginary pirates hiding inside the caves.

Kungri - August 2011

Photo album Kungri
https://picasaweb.google.com/116253494913081133936/KungriAlbum#5668849878923277826

18 August


This was the second day of the Ladarcha festival in Kasa, and the centre was pulsing with trading activity again. Once again, after several previous false starts in our attempts to leave Kasa, we packed our bags. The girls meanwhile were working on some maths exercises. At lunch time, we wondered into town to say our goodbyes to the friends we had made, and by 3:00 were walking down this well-trodden street as we had done many times in the last 10 days, but this time with our rucksacks on our backs and a sad sense of departure from familiarity eclipsing any of the excitement we had from the anticipation of new discoveries. We would take the bus east out of Kasa along the Spiti valley, before branching up the Pin valley to the Kungri monastery, where we would stay the night. Then we would return down the Pin valley to join the Spiti valley, and over the next week to 10 days, continue along the long road that starts east towards Tibet, then gradually loops south parallel to the Tibetan border, and then west through Kinnaur to come back to more populated territories closer to Lahaul, where finally the single life-blood road that had crossed the remote valleys flowers into a network between multiple urban centres through which we could pick our way to Dharamsala. We had some ideas about some places we could stop on the way but much would be determined by the buses - their timings, and the lengths of the journeys. The bus was not due to leave for Kungri until 4:30pm, and we had wanted to be very early to be absolutely sure that we could get a place. There was already a bus standing in the bus park, crammed full with people, and with more trying to get on. We were sure that it was too early to be our bus, already so packed, one and a half hours before it left, but having asked several different people we solemnly accepted this ominous reality - we were going to have to fight our way on and suffer this journey. I climbed up onto the roof to load our rucksacks, while Jacqui and the girls squeezed and pushed to pierce through the crowds and into the aisle in the middle of the bus. I decided to stay out of the bus to be able to keep an eye on our bags for the long wait before it deparated, assuming that alone I would be able to find some way to fight my way on at the last minute. By the time I located the girls looking through the windows and between the mass of bodies, Jacqui was perched on a few inches of space that had been kindly liberated by an already squashed row of passengers, and Fia and Tamsin were on different laps - all a few seats away from each other.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.The crowd intensified and grew, and shortly my carefully attached rucksacks on the roof were buried and serving as seats to a huddled crowd of people who would survive this bumpy journey clinging hold to the top of the bus. I decided that the risk of the bags being stolen was less than the risk of me not being able to get onto the bus if I waited any longer, so I also took the plunge and fought my way, sweaty body by sweaty body, through this compacted sardine-can of determined passengers, with my indications of needing to join my family serving as a sufficent password for people to lean one inch this way, and one inch the other way, opening up enough of a gap that I could ream and limbo my body through. Five backsides were squeezed onto seats designed for three, and 3 onto seats for two. Men were on men's laps, women on women's, and any possible standing space was crammed to the physical limits - every limb having to find and defend its own personal space. There wasn't an inch of space free, and the air was heavy and stagnant, with no relief from the fresh air outside that was fluttering past the open windows but dying in the mass of compacted bodies as it tried to get inside.


By the time I got to the girls, both were suffering from the stuffy heat. Jacqui was next to a man who had seemingly come in from the countryside to be part of the festivities in Kasa, He was blind drunk, but couldn't hide his delight at having a foriegn family near him, and was determined to make conversation, brushing aside any constraints of his complete lack of any English language, and compensating with enthusiastic persistence. We did some maneouvering, and managed to persuade him to flop over onto the laps of some of his high spirited but more controlled friends, in exchange for Tamsin, who was looking unwell and could then be close to Jacqui. Fia, who was also not feeling well, was close to me - I remained standing, concentrating on maintaining feeling in all parts of my body. Finally the bus set off, to cheers from the roof, and we pursued our bumpy track. We had an hour and a half journey, most of it in the same cramped and air-less conditions in which we had left, and only with some relief in the last quarter of an hour when a number of people descended at the larger village before Kungri. Fia was sick on the floor and Tamsin felt ill all journey but managed to survive without being sick. Some others were also sick - one from the roof, landing through the window on a sleeping boys head, with the mother looking confused at it until she realised what it was, and hurriedly brushed it off. We stepped off the bus into the very small village of Kungri, and unloaded our packs, which luckily had waterproof covers that had protected them from the baptism that the boy inside the bus had unknowingly endured. Kungri was the end of the road, and the bus manouvered in a three point turn and headed off back down the hill. The puff of black exhaust smoke cleared to leave us standing, with a huge sense of relief in a beautiful village in the most wonderful of settings amongst the mountains and overlooking the Pin river far below at the bottom of the valley. The rumble of the bus died away in the distance, leaving nothing but a serene peace, disturbed only by the occasional chatter of villagers returning from the fields, or children playing. The monastery was unmistakeable at the far end of the settlements, proudly standing out from the homogeneity of the village with its distinctive monastic walled enclosure, stepped construction and manifold yellow pagoda roof tops. We wondered through the village, towards it, causing the villagers to stop and watch, smiling at us and commenting to each other, and through the imposing entrance gates we entered into this ascetic and insular island.

A few cloaked monks were floating around in near silence, fetching water from the manual well-pump near the entrance. We greeted them, and without understanding what we were saying, they understood the meaning of what we were asking and pointed towards one of the buildings. We were welcomed without words or smiles by a further monk who unlocked some double doors, and led us into an unlit coridor to show us a room at the end. It was austere, with nothing but two rock-hard beds, and two mattresses on the floor, but the positioning of this room was providential, at the far end of the monastery on the edge of the precipice falling down to the Pin river, and with windows on two of the sides giving magnificent views up and down the valley. There was a 'shared' bathroom outside the room (though there were no other guests at the monastery for the 2 days we were there) with a hole in the ground toilet, and a tap and bucket for the shower, though uninspiringly close to the toilet hole. We enquired as to whether we could get dinner. "Half past seven" he replied directly. We didn't push for any further details. Jacqui and Tamsin rested in the room, recovering from the arduous journey while Fia and I ventured into the inner courtyard of the monastery. We asked after Namgyal, the french student that we had met in Kasa, but, it was his birthday, and he was out for the day in solitude at a secluded cave in the mountains (as you do).
After we all had a wonder around the village, Namgyal appeared, and enthusiasticaly gave us a run down of the village. He took us to one of the two "shops" - a simple non-marked low doorway under a house, that we squeezed through to find ourselves in a room that wasn't big enough for us all. We shuffled to try to close the door to liberate a little space but it left us in complete darkness after closing out the little dusk light that had lit the room - so we hurriedly shuffled again to reopen it. As our eyes adjusted we could see a few packets of crisps, buckets of lentils and rice, candle wicks cut to length, some shoes, and a water boiler (optimistic, as we never saw any sign of electricity in the village - we certainly never had any electricity in the monastery). Our dinner of rice and lentils was served at 7:30 sharp, with us sitting at a candle-lit table, alone in a large bare room. The food was basic but good, and the flickering candle light in the austere monastic surroundings made the experience special. Back in our room, With no lighting other than our torches and a candle, there wasn't much to do other than go to bed, and early as it was, we weren't complaining.

19 August

We had arranged breakfast at 8:00 - relieved that guests were excused from the monks morning timetable of 4:00am puja (prayer). Simple chapatis and omelette were served for breakfast, outside in warm sunshine, amongst humbling views of the mountains, and the gentle sounds of monastery life around us. The girls did some writing up of their diaries then we Wondered through the village and along a path into a neighbouring village. It was grass cutting time and everyone was engaged in one way or another. - families, children, grannys, donkeys. The fields were full of groups of villagers scything, and the paths dotted with those transporting, their faces sweating with exertion as they hauled huge bundles of grass, held with a strap over their backs, up the hills from the fields to the houses. The grass bundles were heaved up ladders and layed out on the roofs. All Spiti houses have characteristic piles of small logs or stacked bundles of grass on their flat roofs. Wherever the villagers worked they had their flask of chai and if far from home, a little cooker for their rice and dahl lunch.

In the neighbouring village, a 20 minute walk away from Kungri, a large group of children of different ages were running around playing a form of tag. Scruffy looking, dishevelled and with clothes dusty and dirty from their rudimentary rural lives, but with captivating smiles and sparkling eyes, and a timid fascination in us. We stood in the middle of it for a while, with them running around us - Tamsin and Fia wanted to join in, but when we asked the children, they misunderstood and all lined up for a photo. We took some photos, then Fia indicated that she was going to do the chasing and just started chasing - that worked, they understood, and the game took off. They had a lot of fun, but the disparity of fitness eventually showed through, so Fia and Tamsin retired with enthusiastic waves of goodbye as we walked on.

There were no guest houses or restaurants in Kungri other than where we were staying - we hadn't informed the monk that we would want lunch, as we were half hoping that we would somehow stumble on some lunch somewhere - be invited into someones house, eat with the nuns (apparently somewhere around the village, but we never really found them). At 12:00 we were back at the monastery without having eaten and not quite knowing what to do, but we were saved when the monk came and knocked on our door and announced that our lunch was ready. Thank goodness we hadn't found lunch anywhere else.

We ate outside again, this time the dahl and rice was supplemented with an additional bowl of curried vegetables. The monk looking after us had no english other than the names of the food, never smiled and had a permanent nervous look on his face. I am sure there was no connection, but Numgyal later informed us that the monks were delighted that we were not Israeli - they had a terrible reputation with the locals for being loud, demanding, rude, and agreesive with money. We came across Israeli travellers all the time, and without exception the ones that we came to know were all charming, interesting and likeable, such as Zohar, the zookeeper, marooned as we were in Kasa, and the couple that we originally met on the bus back from Dhanker monastery and then bumped into several times subsequently - but from a distance, you could see how the initial manner of many Isrealis could cause offence or provoke in different cultures.

In the afternoon we headed down the valley side towards the river. At the village of Gulley, we stopped for a chai in a tiny dark room that we had to stoop to get into and never would have found if a local hadn't guided us there. The chai was prepared on a small kerosene cooker on the ground almost at our feet, by a sombre man with no English at all, and we managed to get by with our limited Hindi.

At the valley floor we crossed the rickety bridge made from steel wires and rough planks of wood, across the churning Pin river and wondered around the dry sections of the river bed before starting to make our way up the steep valley side back to the monastery. The younger monks were all out playing various games when we got back - something that looked like an adapted form of baseball, and others a type of marbles by using stones. We sat and enjoyed this unexpected sight of joyful energy in the midst of such an ascetic community, as they ran around, cussocks hitched up to their wastes. We were in a period of the year when the monks were not allowed outside the walled perimeter of the monastery and each evening we saw them carrying their bowls and spoons, strolling around the limits of their permitted zones for some pre-dinner exercise. It seemed a painfully claustrophobic life to us, but we found that even if some monks are proposed to the monastery at a young age by their family, many go from their own will, and none of them have any constraints to stay there.
Amongst the buildings was a small ghompa, 400 years old - long ago superseded by newer larger prayer halls for the now large community of monks, but still maintained and used by one single monk. Mostly it was locked, but this evening we noticed the door open and cautiously crept inside to find ourselves in the middle of the monks puja. We quietly took a seat and observed. The monk was sat cross legged, with his scriptures in front of him, chanting continuously in a haunting, faintly melodic mantra, evocatively echoing around the ancient spiritual walls, with the mystical atmosphere occasionally punctuated by the ringing of a bell or the pounding on a small hand drum.
Kungri monastery is of the Nyingma sect of Buddhism (as opposed to the Tibetan Gelugpa sect of the Dalai Lama fame) and so we found was less well known amongst the buddhist community in other parts.

We ate that evening with the monks. The food, rice and dahl, was served outside from two large cauldrons and we all queued for our servings before sitting on the ground, leaning against a wall. We had somehow envisaged eating seated at long wooden tables in a large reverberating hall but instead were in the cold of the mountainous evening air in a concreted setting more reminiscent of a prison yard, except for the mass of maroon cussocked monks around us, smiling and interested in these strange incongruities amongst their insular community.

Kaza Part 2

13 August

The confirmation came in the morning from the manager of the guest house. " Yes, rats" he said with an amused grin "come in when gets cold", then, as if suddenly remembering that we were non-indian lightweights, his grin gave way to a look of concern and he added "too much?" " no.... not at all" I said, not wanting to look like a wimp, but wondering where you drew the line between "too much" rats scrabbling over your head and an acceptable level of rats scrabbling over your head. We were now a little trapped in in-activity. There was no word of our trekking team yet, so we had nothing with us but the clothes we were in, and we tried not to think about the smell that they were generating, otherwise we would have been too embarrassed to leave the room.
We drifted gently between the guest house and the village centre, had coffees, talked to a number of other travellers and the locals who now started to seem very familiar. The heavy rains over the last week had caused various problems with the roads - snow on the passes, and landslides meant that no traffic was getting through Rhotang, the junction where the road from Kasa splits into the road north up to Leh in Ladakh and south to Manali. Most travellers were heading in one of these two directions, and were now stuck in Kasa. The information about the roads though was very patchy and sometimes conflicting, relying only on phonecalls coming from people that were trying to get past the blockages. We re-looked at the options in front of us. We knew that there was considerable expense in having purchased supplies, and in getting the trekking team, particularly the pack of mules, up to Kibber, and there would be further expenses in getting them back to Manali. These would certainly be at our cost. I had a few conversations with Inder and by phone with Ravi (Inder's brother and the owner of the agency) on whether there were some alternative treks that we could do that involved less altitude (despite doctor's doubts, Jacqui and I were now sure that Tamsin's illness had been her own unique manifestation of a mild altitude sickness), so that we could still make use of the trekking team and supplies. But you cannot get far in the Spiti valley without facing high altitude passes, and now we didn't want to take any risks on Tamsin's health or of starting another trek from which we would have to turn back from, at even further expense. We decided to cut our losses, absorb whatever costs had already been committed and get a bus up to Leh. So we joined the other stranded travellers, eagerly awaiting news on the roads. Any new information passed from person to person - "Rohtang pass is blocked from snow, but expected to be clear by tomorrow".... "there is a landslide blocking the Kasa to Rohtang road just west of Chatru - not expected to be cleared for 7 days"..."I'd heard it would be clear in 2 days" ..... "the buses say they don't expect to pass for next 15 days".....and so on. This was the topic of Kasa - on the guest-house terrace, in the cafes, in the town centre square.We had a priviliged connection - probably the most informed of all was Lote, the owner of the main trekking agency in Kasa, who had fallen in love with Fia and Tamsin and them with him. His agency office was on a small square, which acted as the town centre, and we had also become familiar with the others based on this square: Amit, who ran the internet cafe next door to Lote, and Bapu, the shop next door. We were able to sit in the german bakery having a coffee without worrying, while the girls would float around this small square, talking to Lote in his agency, or playing a game outside. They were revelling in having a little autonomy, and knowing that this wouldn't come often over the next year, we were too.

In the evening we happened to be back in our room at the guest house when there was a knock at the door. It was Dalma, the lady from the hospital, with her two sons, Tenzin (7) and Thinlay (9). We welcomed them in, and they came and sat on the bed. We felt a little uncomfortable about hosting guests in our bedroom, and without a drinks cupboard to serve them a gin and tonic, but we shared out an orange juice that we had, and some biscuits that she brought, took endless photos and managed to have a very warm and friendly conversation, even-though Thinlay, with the best English of them all, had only a few key words. They must have enjoyed it, as they left informing us that they would come back again tomorrow. It wasn't the conventional flow for neighbourly invitations that we were used to, but we were delighted, as we enjoyed being in their company and it felt a privilege to get to know a family so culturally remote from ours. Dalma had a friendly, smiling face, that, as we found with many Spiti women, radiated an aura of warmth and calmness.

14 August

Lakpa and Karam arrived back in Kasa, with all the equipment and supplies, and with our rucksacks. Clean clothes, Kindles, sandals, toothbrushes, torches.....it felt like Christmas. The girls wanted to do a televised interview with Lakpa. They prepared some questions, then I invited him down to our room, where they interrogated him, Jeremy Paxman style, and I followed with the video camera. The focus was his mountaineering exploits, though his life was interesting in many other ways. Lakpa was married at a relatively young age to (by all accounts) an eccentric English woman, Linda, whom he met on one of his treks. He lived in England for some time, which explains his incongruous northern england accent, doing various jobs from farming to garden landscaping. They now live separate lives though remain married, and Linda lives in Kathmandu in a large house together with an unbelievable menagerie of animals (we are dying to meet her, if we get the chance when we go there), while Lakpa married his second wife with whom he had a child. The girls asked about the different mountains he had climbed, what a mounataineering expedition involved and whether he was ever frightened.

We caught up with some maths and french school work but otherwise, we were still floating in our state of suspension while awaiting news of the roads up to Leh. The situation was not looking positive, and the possibility of us being stuck in Kasa for up to 2 weeks was starting to become a real risk. By late afternoon, Jacqui had I had taken the decision that we would cut the loop through Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir out of our trip and head straight for Dharamsala before starting to head down south to Amritsar and then Rajasthan. This was a difficult decision because our hearts had been set on seeing Leh, but the journey there was long and even when the current roads were clear, left us with much more risk of getting stuck, and as our time in India was passing by before our eyes, we were starting to worry about spending too much time up in the north and not having enough for the rest. As a small financial bonus of the decision, we could join up with Inder, Lakpa and Karam in a shared jeep to Manali, which we had already paid for as part of our trek.

Our Spiti friends, Dalma, Thinlay and Tenzin came to visit us in the afternoon, and we settled down again around the bed with orange juice and bisuits. We had been talking for 20 minutes when Dalma asked us if her husband could join. "Where is he?" Jacqui asked, wondering if we had mis-understood. "Outside" she replied - and we raced to the door, found Dorje waiting patiently, and hurriedly ushered him in. He was disarmingly humble and polite but yet friendly and confident, and his English vocabularly, ever-so slightly wider than Thinlay's, gave a little boost to our conversational depth. Time came for them to leave, and imitating the customs that We had learnt from our guests, we boldy invited ourselves to their house for the following day.

Meanwhile, some information had flowed through which generated some optimism that the road to Manali could be clear by the following day, and Inder informed us that we would all leave between 6 and 8 in the morning. It was unfortunate as we had just arranged to meet our Spiti friends, but we were also glad to have some hope of moving, and we packed our bags in the evening to be ready.

Out and about in Kaza downtown!

15 August

I was up at 6:00, but there was no sign of life out of the room where Inder, Lakpa and Karam were sleeping, so I let Jacqui, Fia and Tamsin sleep on. Around 9:00, Inder was up, and there were vague plans of leaving for Manali in the jeep at around 10:00 - we were ready to go, but that was exactly the time that we were expecting Thinlay to come and pick us up to show us the way to their house in New Kasa. When the boys arrived, we went with them, leaving our bags completely packed and ready, and telling Inder to call us if everyone was ready to leave. The call never came though, as further news came through in the morning that the road had not cleared, and was not likely to for a few days more at least. A 4 wheel drive vehicle had indeed arrived in Kasa succesfully from Manali the previous evening which had raised hopes, but the jeep had had great difficulties crossing some areas where there had been landslides, and in addition, further rainfall during the night had caused additional blockages.

We were welcomed by Dorje into the Chhering family residence - a relatively comfortable 4 room single floored concrete house with 2 square rooms either side of a corridor. There were two bedooms, a kitchen and a living area - all immaculately kept, and the four of them lived together with a brother, his wife and their child. On arrival, we we were ushered into the lounge, draped with silk scarves (a Buddhist sign of hospitality and respect that we saw many times subsequently), sat on the cushions against the wall, and given the remote control for the television. We would have been very happy to turn the television off, but not knowing whether the presentation of the remote control to us was a 20'th century sign of respect for guests, and also under great pressure from our children, we played along and chose a Bollywood classic. Dalma was out at work, so we were entertained by the boys and Dorje, and a cute little cousin of about 2 years old. Dorje brought in chai and biscuits and then followed it up with Tibetan chai - a mixture of hot water, butter and salt. We made a respectable effort, but none of us managed to finish our cups!
Dorje was an artist - painting Thangkas (the buddhist silk paintings that hang in many monasteries), and monastery murals, as well as some canvasses. We saw many of these kinds of art in the monasteries, and it always seemed like an art-form lost in history, so it was fascinating to learn that it was a vocation alive in the present. We encouraged Dorje to talk about his work and he brought out various thangkas to show to us - some half done, to illustrate the steps that he went through.There were only 3 or 4 such artists in the Spiti valley - they worked entirely to commissions by the monasteries (who survived mostly on donations), and only during the winter. One thangka could take the whole winter. All the paintings depict Buddhist sriptures in assiduous detail, mostly with established imagery. Murals may be worked on by more than one artist. The house itself was built by a brother of Dalma's, but both he and his wife died in the process when one of the walls collapsed on them. we showed our sympathy as Dorje explained this to us, and sub-consciously shuffled slightly away from the wall which we were sitting against. We left - Fia and Tamsin sacrificing one of the little cuddly key rings that they had attached to their rucksacks, to be able to give something to Tenzin and Thinlay who were absolutely delighted with their gifts, and who had previously presented Raki (not sure of spelling) - whereby bracelets are placed on the arms of girls as a loyal sign of brotherhood.

Our rucksacks were un-packed again when we heard the news about the roads - we had mixed feelings as we felt a little trapped and were eager to move on, but Kaza was growing on us with familiarity and Fia and Tamsin in particular felt completely at home. As Jacqui and I were working on uploading the blog in the internet cafe, I popped next doors to check on the girls who were in with Lote. I saw both Fia and a middle-aged gentleman both standing on one leg, with one arm in the air and their heads pointing down to the ground, with Tamsin in front of them. They had got Rod, a semi-retired Australian teacher, playing "Simon says".

Electricity was almost non-existant in Kaza.

16 August

With the roads going west out of Kasa blocked and with no certitude as to when they would be cleared, we had been considering heading east, and taking the long circular route which curves back south westwards towards Shimla, from where we could get to Dharamsala. It would be a long route, but it was also an adventure in itself - the road was notoriously difficult, dangerous and subject to problems (though ironically was the only road still unblocked at the moment) and the area was only recently opened up to foriegn visitors, and even now requires a special permit owing to the political sensitivity of its proximity to the Tibetan border.

We knew that it would take us more than a week, with stops at villages on the way to avoid 10 hour and more bus journeys. We were also interested in the idea of staying at Kungri monastery - a possible first stopping point on this route - after having had discussions with a French buddhist that we had met in Kasa, and who was staying there, studying the history of Buddhism. Inder was also starting to think that this route represented their only feasible way back to Manali, so in any case, we decided we should apply for our "in-line" permits to allow us the option of this route. The application for our permit took me most of the day - finding the stationery store where you can buy the forms to fill out for the application, finding the Assistant District Commisioners Office to make the application, having to return for a signature from each of the member's of the family, deposing the application at the office, then a later trip to pick up the completed pemits - but by 5:00 I had 4 in-line permits in my hand.
On each route to and from the ADC office, I passed a large concreted recreational area, and stopped to watch a few overs of a hotly contested game of cricket. The game was being played with a tennis ball and some self-supported wickets, and an enthusiastic commentator with a loudspeaker animated the gathering, completely in Hindi except the scores. Despite the rudimentary infrastructure and equipment, the level was truly impressive, with the tennis ball being launched at an immense speed, and I found out in discussion with some of the supporters that it was an official 1 day knock-out tournament between villages. The subject of the test-match innevitably came up (India, from their nbr 1 world ranking, were being humiliated by England at the time) and I didn't linger too long in case they proposed me to bat as a representative outlet for their revenge. Jacqui and the girls spent the morning in a French lesson, and we all met for lunch at our favourite little Tibetan restaurant for momo's (little steamed pastry parcels of potato, cheese or mutton) dipped into soy or chilli sauce.

By the evening 2 other pieces of news had reached us - 1) Inder had changed his mind about taking the longer route to Manali - another closed mountain pass meant that it was even longer than he had thought and 2) the Ladarcha festival was starting in Kasa. This confirmed our plans - we would wait one more day to see some of the festival, then leave Kasa the following day heading east, stopping initialy at Kungri monastery, and then onwards by bus on the long route towards Dharamsala, finding the appropriate places to stop en route.
Lote, from the travel agency, had previously invited us to dinner with him, so we headed off with him and Rod the Australian, at around 7:00 in his jeep. We had understood we were heading for his house, but in fact he took us to a hotel out of Kasa (which we later found out was his) and had a fabulous evening of excellent, seemingly endless, food - rice, dahl, chicken marsala, muttar paneer (curried and cheese and local peas), curried vegetables and chapatis ad infinitum - with very enjoyable and interesting company, and all lubricated by numerous bottles of Kingfisher beer. Rod was a character, and we found that his talent at entertaining Fia and Tamsin at their level was matched by his talent at entertaining us with the amazing stories of his life, told always with a comically laid-back australian tone. At 50 something (can't remember exactly what), he now spends some of his time doing supply teaching in the countryside of australia and his summer on challenging Himalayan treks with only his tent for company. Lote hosted us like royal visitors - he couldn't do enough for us, and ended the night offering us a room in his plush hotel. The girls were begging us to, but as we had nothing with us, we decided to head back.

17 August

This was our last day in Kasa before an extended period on the move, focused us, and we intensively worked on some school work and the blog. Kaza was buzzing though - there were many more street sellers in the main street, that came in from neighbouring areas, and the street was now busy way beyond the bus station where the village normally ended. People were everywhere, and somehow we could tell they were not from Kasa - they found us novel and stared at us even more than the locals would. The Kasa locals crowded around sellers that were bringing something new to them - a shoe seller and a seller of plastic domestic items, washing bowls, jugs etc were getting particular attention.
In between our "work" we wondered down the street and ended up sitting in the warehouse-like concrete buldings of the bus station where an animated game of bingo was in progress. We stepped up, bought some cards and joined in. We needed some special attention from the organisers to fully understand the rules, but the calls were in english - "two fat ladies, eighty-eight", "unlucky for some, number 13", and the occasonal "big shake", and in no time at all we were there yelling our remaining numbers as fervently as the rest, willing the appropriate balls to be selected from the bag. We won nothing, but felt, as everyone does, that we were close, and had a lot of fun.
Our last lunch was in our favourite (at least Jacqui and my favourite) Hindi restaurant - there are only ever two options on offer: a thali (with Dahl, vegetables, rice and chapatis), and the other samosa with channa (curried chickpeas) doused in a chilli sauce and curd. Both were asbolutely delicious (even Tamsin loved the thali), and the chaotic indian atmosphere was special with all sorts of people eating at the little tables, and a charismatic server rushing around shouting orders through to the kitchen, slamming plates onto the tables, and plonking ever more chapatis onto your table. No matter how much we ate at this restaurant, we never payed more than 3 euros, with a large part being the bottles of mineral water.
In the evening we went to the school where we had heard the Ladarcha festivities would be taking place. There was a large playing field with a fixed concrete stage at one end, in front of which had been assembled rows of chairs. We had clearly arrived early as the seats were completely empty and having chatted away to a couple of Italians, it was not long before we were ushered into seats, before we sat through a painfully long series of what seemed like congratulatary speeches of which we understood absolutely nothing. Finally, after everyone had been praised, thanked or informed, the entertainments began: a haunting flutist sitting cross legged in the middle of the stage, a group of traditional dancers and then a number of different children groups, with colourful traditional costumes abounding throughout. Our naivety was clear - we had been more or less alone to listen to the long droning speeches, but by the time the more interesting entertainments started, the place was heaving - the seats were all taken, the floor in front of us packed with seated ladies, and the sides of the stadium crowded. Unfortunately, we had not eaten before coming (we were expecting something much less formal, a bit more rock-concert-like, with stalls to eat food, and music and entertainments in the background) and apart from a little sip of Mountain Dew when they felt guilty handing out to the officials just in front of us - there had been nothing - so we made our subtle exit, and headed to the Mahabuddha restaurant. Lakpa and Karim were there and Inder joined us shortly afterwards.