One Last Weekend

"Bypassing Delhi, Rachel and I made for the Himalayas to soak up the last bits of our time in India. We headed due north and after about twenty hours of bus torture awoke to find ourselves whizzing around hairpin turns with a towering mountain on one side and a raging river on the other. To say our driver was wildly reckless might be the understatement of a lifetime, and we spent the remainder of the ride trying to figure out how to avert death when the bus made its inevitable plunge into the icy water.

The bus miraculously managed to drop us safely at our destination, a little town called Manali that is a favorite for Indians from Delhi to escape the heat. The area is actually stocked with Tibetan refugees, and the Dalai Lama's residence in exile is only two towns over. Thankfully, we had our tent with us and quickly worked out a short, easily-manageable itinerary for a 3 day hike\133or so we thought.

We gathered all the necessary supplies and set out the next day with a basic idea of the route and a 'map' that was less than detailed and had no scale. Up onto a rickety local bus and up the valley, once again staring death in the face. We got to our stop and instead of a trailhead found a dirt road. Assured by the locals it was the way we started off on the six mile or so hike. It was easy going until the road disappeared into a river. Apparently during the spring melt, the gentle stream coming down the mountain grows up a bit, and though not passable for cars it was shallow enough (albeit freezing cold) to wade through. We moved on and after a couple of more miles arrived at a second river. This river was nothing to joke around about, and though it was possible to work your way across, a fall into it was definitely enough to ruin your day. With some help from some locals, we safely made it across.

The excitement was enough for one day, so we decided to set ourselves up in an abandoned camp along the river. The scenery was amazing. Beautiful pine covered mountains on three sides and a terrific view down the valley of snow capped mountain peaks. We spent the rest of the afternoon cooking lunch and dinner on a measly fire (wet, green wood was the only kind around) and by dinner David had gone down with what he self-diagnosed as dehydration-altitude sickness-smoke inhalation-food poisoning. A local ecologist from a nearby weather station then came by and told us that it was snowing on the pass that we were planning to hike up to the next day, and that it would probably rain or snow on us during the night.

As luck would have it, we only got torrential rains throughout the night and when we poked our heads out of our tent the next day it was cold, wet, and cloudy. The decision was made unanimously that we had enough camping for India, and that a hotel would do from here on out. We packed up and on our way back found our first river swollen from the previous night's rain. After standing on the bank for around 15 minutes negotiating how we were going to get across, we went for it. One sandal short and soaked up to our thighs we made it across the freezing cold river. David -- in a typical display of chivalry -- offered me his shoes in replacement, and walked the remainder of the rocky trail barefoot. The second river, that was an ankle-deep stream the day before also swelled up considerably. This time we thought we would be smart and I would get on David's back. So with our backpack on his front and me clinging to his neck we waded across and half-way David fell forward into the water. Only worrying about the bag with our camera, I jumped off into the waist deep water and we got shore.

Good news was the camera was safe, bad news was we missed the only bus back to town by 10 minutes. After twenty minutes of shrewd negotiations with a taxi driver we returned to our hostel, having been gone a whole twenty two hours. For the next two days we decided to stay put and catch up on our reading and relax in the hot thermal baths."