I moved over to the village of Manikaran in the Parvati Valley of the Himachal Pradesh area of the Himalayan Mountains. The bus ride was long and slow, full of dusty, steep grades that give the buses some trouble. Much of the road was very narrow so that each time we passed a vehicle or truck, one of us would have to slowdown and dive into one of the numerous shoulder pull outs. Fortunately, the bus is the biggest thing on the road, so most times we had the right of way and just keep barreling along on some scary little roads and hair-pin turns.
The town, hugged up against the river in a very narrow valley, has about 1500- 2000 residents and is a pretty sleepy little place. The bulk of the village sits across the river from the main road and there are two pedestrian bridges at either end of town. No cars pass through the city, which is essentially one long, narrow bazaar with an open square. This place is famous for its natural hot springs, some hot enough to boil rice. In the main square is a very, public bath full of sadhus and extremely hot water. Also in town is a Sikh Gurdwara or temple with baths that have been diluted to tolerable levels. I plan to sample the therapeutic waters later this evening.
I was out on a little hike this afternoon and I noticed some smoke up above me in the valley. I thought there was probably a small house up above me that I couldn't see for the slope, but when I turned the corner there was a small grass fire burning the hillside. I surveyed the fire for a few minutes and then returned down hill. On my way up I had passed one man who was coming down and he must have flicked a cigarette but into the grass. About 300 meters down the trail from the fire was a large house and the folks there were outside and had noticed the smoke and fire. The man of the house was on the phone and he dialed up some help as about 7-8 men showed up within 20 minutes. Together they gathered up some old blankets and dunked them in buckets of water then swiftly went up the hill to fight the fire. I followed along.
The wet blankets worked good on the grass and weeds and the fire was out within 30 minutes. Fortunately, the area had a fair amount of rocky patches and the wind was blowing it up hill towards a steep summit. When the fire crested the ridge it kinda burned it self out and then we just had to put out the downhill, down wind side with the wet blankets. Exciting, but nothing too dangerous. The locals were quite worried though until they saw it was just a small fire. Afterwards we all shared a chai and tried to communicate with the most basic Hindi and English, but the conversation didn't get very far.
The mountains and the valley are very similar to Central California (reminding me especially of the valley I camped in outside of Yosemite National Park). Most of the hill is covered in dry grass, while the shady sides of mountains and wet areas are full of pines. Supposedly there are a lot of bears in the valley, they are especially pesky when the local corn is being harvested and dried. The bears love to come down and eat up the ears or ripe corn. In the distance you can see the snow-capped, jagged peaks of the true Himalayas, but here in the valley it is pretty warm still during the daytime. No snow here at all.
Tomorrow I will be taking a taxi further up the valley to the town of Tosh. I believe the road stops before you get to this place and you have to walk the remaining 1 km across the river and up a hill (Truly, I don't know how it will be, you get so much bogus information from people around here. Just yesterday I spent 8o rupees and a few extra hours and bus rides to avoid a bridge that was "closed." After going back and forth all I had to do was walk 2 minutes across the bridge, as it was only closed to car traffic. On the other side I caught a bus within 10 minutes going exactly where I wanted to go. The jerks who told me it was closed just wanted to charge me some extra money to take me in their taxi the long way around). I plan to stay in this town of Tosh for a few days, and will be off the grid for a little while. I doubt they have internet. Life is good and the view is amazing. Take care everybody and I hope you have a Happy Halloween!
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