Little Tibet (Part II: motorbikes again, and crazy trekking adventures)

After going to the Dalai Lama teachings in the adjacent Nubra valley, me and the Spanish couple I had met on my way there got back to Leh. They had taken up the plan of renting a motorbike for a few days. Delighted to have found biking partners, I invited myself as proverbial third wheel. The weather was magnificent that day. We covered large distances, traveling along the Indus, exploring villages to the east and to the west of Leh. Once again I marveled at the beauty of the valley. You travel through this rugged land, with no soul in sight, when all of a sudden a bright green patch of life appears. Ladakhis live in big, beautiful houses, made out of white-washed mud bricks, with the roof invariably decorated with Tibetan prayer flags (at least in the Buddhist regions). Almost every village has its own monastery, usually perched on some hilltop. Monasteries are striking in their simplicity; with their straight lines and the combination of white brick and maroon woodwork, they fit perfectly in the barren landscape.

Motorcycle Madness

A palace in the Indus valley

That night, when returning the bikes, I was wondering what to do next. I could afford to stay six more days in Ladakh, and I wanted to do some trekking, but I had no idea with whom or where to. But I was sure that, as always, the answer would come somehow. I used to have dinner at the same place every night. Before going to the Nubra valley, I stayed at a family guest house, where the hostess cooks a delicious Ladakhi dinner. It's at a very reasonable price; the deal is that everybody helps a bit with cutting vegetables and serving plates. It was a delight to do some cooking after so many months. The hostess (commonly called 'didi', or 'older sister') is an adorably lady, who insists that you eat "littil bit more" until you practically explode. The common cooking and happy atmosphere make dinner at that guest house a great occasion to meet people. That's where, on the night of the motorbike trip, some people told me about their trek in the Markha valley. It was beautiful, you didn't need a tent, it took four days, it was not too hard, you could easily go on your own and meet plenty of people on the trail, and the bus left two days later; it was perfect.

That's how, on a sunny Sunday morning, I left for what would turn out to be a bit of an adventure. Taking the bus was, as always, an interesting experience. The bus stand had no booking office or information booth, so I had gone around asking people at what time the bus would leave. In India, when you need some information, you always at least double- or triple-check. To be perfectly sure, I had asked roughly ten people. Out of these ten, seven said the bus was at 7 a.m., two assured me it was at at 8, and one told me it was at "7...err...8...no wait...9, yeah, at 9". Majority rules, I thought, so I got up early and got to the bus stand at 6.30, just to make sure. This was the start of a long day. The bus didn't show up until 9.20. People literally ran to the arriving bus, 'booking' seats by throwing their bags on them through the windows. As a result, even though I had been by far the first to be there, I got the worst spot: standing, and completely at the back. As always, it took quite some time before the bus left, but after 20 minutes, we were finally on our way. At some point, we stopped for 15 minutes because they were busy constructing the road. But the main obstacle came after the bus ride. To start the trek, we had to cross a river with a pulley bridge. Only, some idiots - according to the locals, certainly tourists - had fastened the car at the other side of the river. There was nothing to do but to wait for someone to come from the other side. But who was there going to be? Trekkers normally go in the direction we were going, and villagers going to the city would have come earlier in the day. I had met some other trekkers on the bus: a French couple, two French guys, and four Israeli men. We walked further down the road to see if we could spot someone on the other side, but in vain. We started, half-seriously, to make wild plans: couldn't we swim across, or build a raft? The river looked pretty wild. Or couldn't someone climb the rope? But what if he would run out of strength somewhere in the middle? Luckily, it never had to come to that. After four hours, miraculously, a couple of trekkers appeared. Fortunately, the first day of the trek is a short one, so we got to the village around sunset. Actually, since I wanted to do a five-day trek in four days, I had planned to do two stages that day; the delay ruined my plans. I was going to be in a bit of a hurry for the rest of the trek.

Crossing with the pulley bridge

Surprisingly few people go for the option sleeping in so-called homestays, like I did. People accommodate you in their houses and give you three meals (a pack for lunch) for a fixed price. It's a nice way to come into contact with the local population, and it avoids the burden of a heavy tent and sleeping mat. As I had learned during my trek in Sikkim, early morning is the best part of the day. The others seemed to attach more importance to a good night of sleep, so the next morning, I left on my own. Well-prepared as always, my only guidance was a copy of the more or less detailed description of the itinerary in the Lonely Planet. But the trail was easy to follow, that morning, so I had no trouble finding my way. I was very glad I had made the choice to leave early; nothing compares to the feeling of being all alone, surrounded by nature. The landscape was similar to the other valleys, but for a small yet significant difference: no roads! No cars! I realized more than ever that that's probably the best thing about trekking: being somewhere really, truly remote. Walking also allows one to appreciate better the small religious monuments that dot the valley: not only monasteries, but also numerous small stupas, mani walls (made out of stones with religious carvings) and prayer wheels. The hike was pretty long, that day, so I didn't have the courage to go further. I was still on schedule for the five-day trek, that is, behind schedule for the four-day trek. At least this time we had arrived early enough to enjoy the majestic sunset.

Markha valley

The next morning again, I left early, and on my own. The description said I had to walk 2 km in the valley before crossing the river (that is, without a bridge), then walk for a while and cross it again. It warned that crossing could be dangerous in the afternoon, when melting snow increases the flow. But since it was early in the morning, and I had crossed the river elsewhere the day before without any problems, I didn't feel like I had any reason to worry. What I didn't realize, was that unusual rain- and snowfall up in the mountains had caused the level of the water to rise higher that usual.
Walking alongside the river, at some point, I had to choose between going up a ledge or staying on the riverbank; I went for the easy option. Before long, I reached a place where I had no option but to cross the river. I didn't feel like I had been walking for 2 km, but the Lonely Planet description had deceived me before; so I slowly started crossing the river. It wasn't so broad - I estimate between five and ten meters - so I would reach the other side quickly. The water was extremely cold, making my feet and legs go a bit numb, but with the help of the walking stick I had found that morning, I managed to get halfway, where a small sandbank allowed me to rest for a few seconds. I started to realize it wasn't going to be as easy as I had thought; the second half looked deeper, and more violent. Wanting to get it over with, I moved on. The water came higher and higher, reaching my knees, and rising still further...I started talking to myself: "go on, go on, don't stop, go on". And then, in a couple of seconds, it happened. All of a sudden, for some reason, I had to let go of my walking stick. I remember watching it being carried away by the stream, and next thing I know, I had lost my balance and fallen on my side. I was being dragged helplessly over the rocky bottom, gasping for breath because of the cold water; I was really scared. That feeling of being completely at the mercy of the unforgiving nature is something I will never forget. I was just about to throw off my backpack to save myself, when I somehow manged to get up and reach the riverside.
I was soaked from tip to toe, including my backpack, my camera and my cellphone. I was shivering with cold, feeling lonely and miserable. While I took some time to regain my senses, I saw the first guided group appearing on the other side of the river. Instead of staying on the riverbank, as I had done, they were following the ledge. I then understood that not only had the river been swollen because of the rains, but I had also crossed it much too soon. I was now determined to stay on that side of the river until I reached the actual crossing, much too afraid to risk the same misadventure again. That proved to be harder than I thought. Though where I had crossed, the riverside was pretty broad, the strip of land I was walking on was narrowing more and more. I struggled my way through some trees and bushes, went up and down a couple of times, but then the riverbank stopped. There was nothing left between the water and the steep rocks. My dread for crossing the river again was so big that I started climbing the wall, slowly making my way sideways. It was fairly easy to find good grips, but at some point, I got stuck. I was trying not to loose my grip on the rocks, feeling the weight of my wet backpack, and saw the fast-flowing current below. In the meantime, on the opposite side, other trekkers were walking high above, on the ledge I had failed to follow. No-one seemed to notice me; I felt lonely and, once again, scared. I was struggling to stay positive and not to let myself be driven into despair. "Okay, Julien, you're going to climb back, cross the river again, and this will all be over", I told myself out loud; I had no other option. As always, climbing back was harder than getting there, but somehow I managed. I looked for a place where the river looked a bit broader and calmer. I gave myself a pep talk, out loud, counted to three, and started crossing, shouting "come on, keep going, come on!". Interestingly, all this shouting and talking to myself was in French; I don't know if it was my mother tongue coming to the surface on such an acute moment, or the fact that I had spent two days in French company. When I reached the other side, without falling this time, I burst out, not in joy but in anger - anger with the situation and with myself, for having been so stupid.
Relieved to be on the right side of the river again, I walked on and I reached the place where I had been supposed to cross.The valley at that point is broader, allowing the river to split into several calmer streams. So I crossed the river for the third time, this time without too much trouble. As I was making my way through the water, bare-chested and soaked to the bone, I was being eyed curiously by a group of trekkers at the other side. When I reached the riverbank, I found out they were...Belgians. In five months I had met only a handful of compatriots, but just then, in my weakest moment, I had to meet a whole bunch of them. I gratefully told them my story; they must have taken me for some kind of idiot or madman, trekking there on my own and without a guide. I crossed the river with them, for the fourth and last time - some of them, middle-aged, were really struggling -, put on my dry clothes and carried on.
Not to appear as a weakling, I feel the urge to add the following. Further on the trail, I met a German girl, who was trekking with a guide. She had apparently told him she liked crossing rivers, so to challenge her, he had taken him to the same place where I had crossed. She too had fallen; she told me she had been very scared, and was very grateful that her guide had been there to help her, because she didn't know what would have happened otherwise. Maybe even more than a weakling, you may think I was an idiot, trekking on my own like that. I agree to some extent; it was not dangerous to leave on the trek on my own, because I had been told I would meet people, which I did, but it was stupid and dangerous to walk alone, and certainly to cross a river on my own.
That night I slept at 4000 m, in a tent that serves as restaurant during the day. Even though it was raining, I was struck by the beauty of the camping site: barren rocks, grazing yaks and the fast-flowing river. The clouds only occasionally allowed for a glimpse of the huge, snow-topped Kang Yatze (elevation 6400 m) that dominates the valley.

The next day, I had a heavy program. I needed to get to the last village of the trek, where I had to take a bus to Leh the day after, because I had booked the bus back to Manali for that night. I had to walk two stages in one day. The first stage leads up to 4700 m, at the foot of the Kungmaru La pass, and the second stage crosses the pass (at 5150 m) before going all the way down to the village, at an elevation of around 3000 m. To make sure I would make it to the end of the trek I left early and again, on my own
The first part of the trail was exhilarating. I was all alone again, enjoying it more than ever; I even had a pretty close encounter with a marmot. Amazingly, at more than 4000 m altitude, I saw many bright yellow and red flowers. At some point, I got to a viewing point. The vista was awesome: the rocky valley with the river down below; the rugged mountains in the east, with distant white peaks illuminated by the sun; the huge, snow-capped Kang Yatze, partially covered by clouds, in the south; and pitch-black, ominous mountains in the north.
And then, I got lost. Because of my fall in the river, my itinerary had been reduced to shreds. I had the beginning of a description, and what I thought was the end, with a couple of sentences missing in between. As I realized afterwards, the second part was probably the end of a description of a side trip. At some point it said "head south", when the first stage was actually going straight to the east. I tried to follow the traces of hooves of yaks and horses, but then I realized the whole area was covered with traces. To make things worse, and as always in this type of situations, it started raining. I was supposed to reach the camp at 4700 m in 2-3 hours. The water had ruined my faithful waterproof "COSIO" watch, and I had lost all concept of time. All I could to was going from hilltop to hilltop, hoping to see something or someone. The hope I had while climbing to a high point turned into deception time after time when all I saw was more hilltops, and more nothingness. I was just about to go all the way back in the hope to find other trekkers, when I saw them: people! They were walking in an opposite direction, so I started running towards them, whistling and shouting as loud as I could, "stop!wait!help!". But the mountains are treacherous in many ways, and it wasn't until I was at less than 100 m that they finally heard me. When I reached them, exhausted, they told me I had to go back north, and I would find the camp easily. I still had some trouble finding it, so it took much longer than I had hoped for, but in the end, I reached the camp. I was worried. I new the second stage would take at least six hours, and I had no idea what time it was. If it was after 12, it would be too late to try and finish the trek the same day. I found out it was 11 a.m.; it had taken me 5-6 hours to get there, instead of 2-3 hours. I could still try to do the next stage, but I had lost a lot of energy already, and I was through with trekking alone, especially when having to cross a pass at 5150 m. I was slowly starting to accept my defeat; I would miss the bus to Manali. But then arrived the two French guys I had met on the bus. They were even more crazy than me, and they too wanted to end the trek that same day. So, after checking with experienced guides if we could actually make it before sunset ("yes, if you are fit"), we were on our way.

The Kungmaru pass is right above the camping site. The ascend, especially the last bit, is extremely steep. The air above 5000 m gets very thin, and we weren't acclimatized, coming from 4000m that morning. We had to stop every couple of steps to catch our breath. It was the second time I ascended a high pass (the first time was in Sikkim), and I realized how much I like it, in a strange, masochist way. The altitude created a strange pressure in my head, and the lack of oxygen made my heart race. I felt that I was not far from being delirious; it felt like being trapped in some kind of nightmare. It took us one and a half hours to reach the top. The weather gods, who definitely seem to have decided to do their best to spoil my trip (in vain), denied us the superb view my guidebook had promised. We quickly started the steep, muddy, slippery descent, as rain started falling again. The way down was difficult and annoying, but once we reached the bottom of the valley, the weather got better, and the trail led us alongside a beautiful river. The description warned me that we had to cross the river "several times". Call me a whiner, but to me, an estimated 20 to 30 times (no exaggeration!) deserves the appellation 'many times'. Not wanting to wet our feet, we balanced on rocks with increasing difficulty as we went downstream; the fact that all three of us managed to do so so many times without falling once can be considered a miracle. Or fine skill, of course.
We walked at a brisk pace - or rather, they did, and I struggled to follow - and reached the last village after a bit more than six hours, just before sunset. I had walked for about eleven hours that day; I was still sore three days later.

The next morning, we had to take the bus to Leh. Of course there was a problem - or what did you expect. The bus was there, but it had a flat tire. Because it was on a slope, transversally, they were worried that lifting one side with the car jack would cause the bus to tilt and fall over. We ended up all hanging at the other side of the bus to ensure the balance - us foreigners with particular enthusiasm. And so I managed to get back to Leh. The rainfall had caused the Road to Manali to be closed in the previous days, but luckily for me, it was open by then. So I took the bus back to Manali that night, for the final chapter of my stay in India...

About two weeks after I left Ladakh, a massive cloudburst caused flash floods in the region, killing dozens of people. Entire villages were swept away. I told you about my experiences with the wonderful people of Ladakh; I was very affected when I heard the news. This, along with other recent catastrophes, like the floods in Pakistan and China, is yet another testimony of the disastrous consequences of our changing climate. If this change is caused at least partially by us humans, as many people believe, this tragically shows how we are destroying our own paradises.

Little Tibet (Part I: Motorbikes and the Dalai Lama)

It's always a bit tricky to arrive in an unknown city and to have to find a hotel at an acceptable price, without being cheated by taxi drivers. But my arrival in Leh was one of the most difficult I've had; luckily, I could share the experience with a Latvian guy had met on the bus. After a sleepless night and 20 hours of torture on bumpy, windy roads, we arrived in sleepy Leh at around 11 p.m. The taxis, of course, charged astronomic prices. So we started walking around looking for a hotel, carrying our heavy bags, and with no sun by which we could orient ourselves. After such a big journey, without having had a proper meal in 24h, all I wanted was to find a bed as soon as possible. We must have walked the wrong way, because we found only few hotels, all closed. The only people we met on the almost deserted streets were fellow travelers, who were just as lost as we were, and drunken locals, who were either incapable or unwilling to show us the way. We went into the one place where there was light, a travel agency where men, again drunk, said they would help us and call a taxi, which eventually, they didn’t. We started walking again, with still no idea of where we were, having spent more than one hour wandering around without any result. As I was about to give up and sleep somewhere on the streets, I saw a shooting star. I wished we could somehow find a place to stay very soon; not even one minute later, a car stopped, and some young men offered us to drive us to their hotel, where we could spend the night for a reasonable price. Hallelujah!

I needed two days to recover from the heavy journey, and probably partly to get used to the altitude. Leh, the capital of the state of Ladakh, lies in the Indus valley, on a plateau at around 3500m altitude. Ladakh is a desert, mostly arid and rocky, but the city itself is very green, with plenty of trees. The wide valley is surrounded by high mountains with white snow-capped peaks. Because of the altitude, the sky is stark blue. It really looks - and, in a way, is, or used to be - like some kind of hidden paradise, cut off from the rest of the world. Ladakhi culture is similar to Tibetan culture, for which the region earns its nickname "Little Tibet". The majority of Ladakhis are Buddhists (although there's a significant number of Muslims). The valley is dotted with Buddhist monuments, like Stupas (mound-like structures containing relics) and Gompas (monasteries). The climate is extremely dry, with around 300 days of sun a year, and an annual rainfall of only 90mm (for comparison, Belgium gets about 800mm a year). The winters get extremely cold, with temperatures that can reach below -20°C, and in summer it can get as hot as 30°C.

Leh

In Leh, I finally wanted to do something I had become mildly obsessed with: driving around on a motorbike. The two-wheelers are probably the main means of private transportation in India - whole families on one bike are more rule than exception - and seeing all these people on their machines had somehow made me eager to try it myself. Renting a motorbike is one of the common activities in Leh. Of course, you need a license, but of course, you really don't. Quite a few people had told me it was fairly easy to learn how to drive, and great fun. Thanks to my experience on the scooter in the South, I felt pretty confident about facing the local traffic, which is much less chaotic there than in the plains. All I needed was partners in crime. These I found easily; after three days, I agreed with three Israeli guys to rent two bikes for the day. After a couple of hours of practicing individually - the others had very little or no experience either - we set out to explore some villages in the valley. I was a bit scared at first; it felt a bit like madness to do my first hours of biking in India, in the mountains, with someone on the back. But as soon as I mastered the gears, my confidence grew quickly, and I was really able to enjoy it. Driving the bike in the Indus valley around Leh is a great way to appreciate the scenery. The roads are broad and good, with little traffic. You can easily explore small villages, and drive up to one of the many temples and monasteries, which usually offer magnificent views of the valley. The others were leaving on a longer trip the next day, and invited me to join them. I regretfully declined their offer, because I had my mind set on something else. The Dalai Lama was giving teachings in the neighboring Nubra valley, starting two days later. A French friend had gone to this kind of teachings before, and he said it was a very special experience. Moreover, the Nubra valley seemed like a pretty interesting place to visit, as it is even more isolated than Leh; you need a permit to get in, which is valid only 7 days. To get to the Nubra valley from Leh by road, one needs to cross the pass of Khardung La, at 5602 m. This is sold as "the highest motorable pass in the world", although there seems to be some controversy about that. Clouds spoiled the view that day, but the altitude could certainly be felt. The bus drive was once again magnificent. Again, like from Manali to Leh, I spent part of the journey on the roof. I call it first class: the luggage makes far more comfortable seats than the ones inside, and the view is beyond comparison. Nubra valley, north from the Indus valley, looks even more barren than the latter. The rocks have a darker color, and there is less (human-grown) vegetation. This makes the bright green patches around villages the more surprising.

Nubra Valley

We arrived in Sumur, the village where the Dalai Lama teachings would start the next day, around noon. Most of the villagers were waiting for His Holiness' arrival, dressed in their fascinating traditional clothing: black robes with purple scarves and belts and very special high hats, with upward bending flaps on the sides. Unfortunately, since people told us how, predictably, all the hotels were packed, we missed the arrival because we decided to look for rooms first. After a lot of hassle, we - your faithful narrator, the French guy, a Latvian girl and a Spanish couple - ended up sleeping on the ground in a tent in some family's garden. We walked into their home quite awkwardly, thinking it was a guest house, but they gave us tea and food right away, and invited us to sleep and eat there. We could pay them how much we wanted; my first encounter with Ladakhi hospitality. They were extremely cheerful, laughing all the time, and all of us felt right at home.

People waiting for the Dalai Lama

We went to bed early to get up on time for the teachings the next morning. A podium was set up on a field next to the local monastery. Foreigners got a reserved area, just left from the podium, where an English translation would be heard through speakers. We got there early enough to be on the second row. There was some uncertainty as to at what time the Dalai Lama would make his appearance; in a typical Indian fashion, different people had told us different things. After roughly two hours, the tension was rising; more and more monks and local people were arriving, and last-minute adjustments (like installing a fan for His Holiness) were made. Then every body stood up, and the moment had come: the Dalai Lama entered the stage. I rejoiced at the sight of him; I was getting my revenge for having missed him at his birthday in Dharamsala. After greeting the crowd, the Dalai Lama sat down cross-legged on his throne-like chair. He started talking in his warm baritone voice. What struck me right away was his matter-of-fact way of talking. I had expected him to be speaking in an "enlightened" way, calmly, and smiling, telling us to be good to each other and all that. Instead, he had the self-assured attitude of a teacher, something like "Okay, guys, listen to me. If you want to be a good person, do this and that...". I must admit I didn't really listen to the content of what he was saying. In fact, I quickly realized, "wait a minute... I never liked going to lectures, and even less to church, and this is kind of a mix between both; what am I doing here?". The boring way of talking of the interpreter didn't make things better. So I started walking around in the crowd. The attitude of the audience, too, was not what I had expected. I had thought they would all be listening with open mouth, not wanting to miss one word of what their spiritual leader was saying. But the atmosphere was much more relaxed than that. A couple of thousand had gathered, of all ages. Most of the people were listening, but many were chattering with each other. I saw more than one monk shamelessly dozing off. There was a constant moving of people leaving, arriving or just walking around. It reminded me a bit of a music festival in Europe (without the beer, drugs and bikinis, that is), where people gather as much to socialize as to listen to the act. Just in front of the Dalai Lama sit the monks. The first rows behind that are mainly occupied by elderly people. These are the most fascinating persons to watch, with their Mongolian features, purplish skin because of the altitude, and their traditional robes and hats. Their weathered and incredibly wrinkled faces tell the stories of years of living in an extreme climate and working on the land. Some of them are holding and spinning a prayer wheel, or shifting the beads of a rosary. Walking around there, between the rows of Ladakhi spectators, was a truly special experience. At some moments, the audience started reciting mantras along with the Dalai Lama, which created a bit more of a religious atmosphere.

(Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the teachings; we only took the camera of my Spanish friends, who will send me the pics when they get back)

The lecture lasted about two hours. Afterwards, we all agreed that we were very glad to have been there, but that we didn't feel the need to go back the next day. We decided to hitch-hike to Diskit, the capital of the district. Diskit houses a large and beautiful white-washed monastery and a huge, newly-built Buddha statue of 100 ft (about 30 m) high, which was to be inaugurated by the Dalai Lama two days later. It represents the Future Buddha; this ascetic is expected to be a modern guy, as he is portrayed as sitting on a chair. We visited both the statue and the monastery that same afternoon, and decided to go back to Leh the next day.

The next morning, after a well-deserved night of sleep in a real bed, we faced a typically Indian situation. Although three independent sources had told us there would be a bus at 7 a.m., there was no bus to be found. Luckily, there was a shared Jeep available at an acceptable price, and we got back to Leh without too much trouble.

Before I close this chapter, I would like to say something more about Ladakh. It's a very special region that has fascinated many people. One of those people is Helena Norberg-Hodge, the author of the book "Ancient Futures". She was one of the first foreigners to visit Ladakh when it was opened in the seventies, and spent a lot of time living there, having learned their language. After 16 years, she wrote a book about the region, and about the negative changes development brings about. Being so isolated, the people of Ladakh have enjoyed a simple lifestyle until very recently. They lived almost entirely of the land, creating no waste at all. The Ladakhi toilet, for instance, is brilliant in its simplicity. It's just a deep hole, usually on the first floor. When one has done his business, he simply covers it up with earth, which masks the odor perfectly; no water is needed. The dung is then used for the fields. The farming is done mainly during the summer months, as the winter is too harsh. A big part of the year, they have plenty of spare time for festivals. Working together on the land in summer and celebrating during winter, Ladakhis have an extremely close-knit community. According to the author, development has brought about many negative things, like pollution and conflicts. A documentary, based on the book, can be found on the internet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPT3ILCYGfk). Many critics say Norberg-Hodge's story is one-sided. I agree with that; she fails to emphasize the downsides of such a "primitive" lifestyle, like low life expectancy and high infant mortality. Nevertheless, I think the core of her message is that - as we all know - development doesn't only bring good things, and more importantly, that there's a number of things we can learn from how things were done in the past. What's more, I have experienced myself the Ladakhi hospitality, kindness and cheerfulness. I have never met people who radiate so much happiness and joy of life. Ladakh, along with Helena Norberg-Hodge's book, has certainly made me think.

The Road

In my previous story, I told you how I wanted to go from Manali to Leh, on one of the highest and most beautiful roads in the world. The Road crosses four high passes, at 3978m, 4950m, 5060m and 5328m; the last one is the second highest motorable pass in the world. Just before I arrived in Manali, heavy rain- and snowfall had caused a huge landslide at the first pass, Rothang-La, a mere 50km from there. A French family had just managed to get back from the other side of the pass, bringing horror stories about the Road. They had been underway for three days instead of one, blocked behind the pass and forced to sleep in the jeep at night. At some point, they had to drive through the snow. The driver, drunk and inexperienced, was trembling with fear. The French father, who luckily had experience in driving in the snow in the Alps, pushed the driver aside and took the wheel. The other passengers thanked him afterwards for having saved their lives.

There are several options for traveling from Manali to Leh. By far the cheapest option is to take two government buses in two days, with one overnight stay in a village in between. To save money, and because of my mistrust for private companies, I initially planned to do it that way. The biggest problem with private companies is that they sell you a ticket and send out their vehicles, hoping that the pass will be unblocked by the time they get there. One guy told me how when he got to the pass, a fuel truck had broken down, blocking the road just at the spot where the landslide had just been cleared. The driver told the passengers they could walk to the other side of the landslide, where another bus would be waiting. So they walked across, in the rain, while big rocks were rolling down the mountain - just to find out there was no-one waiting for them there.

I ended up spending ten days in Manali, waiting for the Road to open. In the meantime, more and more people told me crazy stories about their journeys. Since I was waiting, I didn't plan anything, so I didn't do much. Luckily, I was at the best guest house I have been until now, with some great people with whom I did some small walks to waterfalls and other parts of town. All in all, even though I was waiting, I had a very good time.

Wanting to take the government bus to Leh, every morning I went to the bus stand to inform about the state of the Road. And every morning, the same apathetic clerk told me that it was closed, answering "I don't know" to any other question. At some point, I lost my temper, telling him it was his job to answer my questions. Even though I didn't expect him to be pleased with my comments, I was pretty shocked when all of a sudden a fist appeared through the hole in the booth window, after which he took a stick and started rushing outside, but then he seemed to regain his senses and sat down again. I have no problem to admit that I was out of line, but I have no idea why he reacted with so aggressively. After that, tired of having to face the same man every day and having lost enough time already, I decided I would take a minibus. This is much more expensive than the local bus, but cheaper and less bumpy than a jeep, and it gets you there in one long, twenty hour drive. As soon as the reports about the Road got better, I booked a bus for the next night. I was finally going to Leh. Or was I?

In theory, the buses leave at 2am, but the travel agent warned me that they usually came "a bit later". Roughly 30 people gathered at the pick-up point. Around 2.30, minibuses started to arrive, picking up small groups of passengers. So the group shrunk gradually, until... there was no-one left but me. So there I was, at 3am, sitting on the steps of the town temple, all alone except for half a dozen dogs, who found it desirable to fight their little gang wars right in front of me. Maybe it was just not meant to be, I thought. Maybe something bad would happen if I got on that road. But after another 15 minutes of waiting, the minibus finally showed up. I was on my way to Ladakh, finally!

But first, we had to get over that infamous pass. Just as I got in the minibus, a light rain started falling, tempering my relief. The road that leads up to Rothang-La is pretty good at first, but it gradually gets worse as it approaches the pass. At some point, not far before the landslide, we got stuck in the mud. We got out in the rain to push the bus; the only thing we accomplished is that we ruined a tire. Responding quickly to the situation, the driver got out and smoked a cigarette, while the traffic was piling up behind us. After the driver's well-deserved break, and under gentle pressure of the people behind, we pushed the bus aside (and believe me, pushing a minibus with a flat tire out of the mud is not easy) and replaced the tire. We were finally ready to cross that wretched Rothang pass.

The Rothang pass is by far the worst part of the whole road. Both times I crossed, it was rainy and foggy. There is no vegetation whatsoever; the mountain seems to be made out of mud, sprinkled with rocks. The Road, which doesn't deserve its name at all at that point, is just the same: mud and rocks. The car jolts its way through, tackling pointy rocks, deep mud and potholes with great difficulty. At the point where the landslide occurred, the road was completely swept away, and they just seem to have dug the road on the landslide. The combination of destruction, lack of vegetation, rain and fog makes the place look like a war zone, a nightmare. When I passed on my way back to Manali, the Rothang pass was shrouded in one of the densest fogs I have ever seen. The visibility was reduced to less than ten meters, challenging the driver, who had been behind the wheel for 18 hours. The people in the car, who had been cheerful throughout the journey, had suddenly grown very, very silent - the fear was palpable.

I admit; the Road is a bit of a suicide. There's only one driver for the twenty-hour journey, with very few pauses, in extremely difficult circumstances. The road gets very bad every time you get close to a pass. Very often, rivers cross the road, or even adopt it as riverbed for a couple of meters. Both times I did the journey, we had to wait three or four times because they were clearing a fresh landslide from the road with (sometimes unbelievably old and worn out) bulldozers. The most extreme moment was when, just after we saw a worker dodging an enormous rock rolling of the mountain, we passed at the exact same spot. But in spite of all this, many people take the risk every year, and I haven't heard of any tragedies - although I can't really imagine nothing bad ever happens. In fact, in other parts of Ladakh, I have seen some wrecked Jeeps and buses in the valleys.

But I survived, and it was more than worth it. I was a bit afraid of the possible killer combination of motion and altitude sickness, but thanks to some medication, I didn't feel too bad. The views are absolutely superb. Ladakh is a very arid region, with very rugged landscapes. Only in the valleys, where the melting snow forms broad rivers, bright green patches are visible where people are irrigating the land. So imagine these rough, brown-red mountains, with rivers and greenery in the valley, and white peaks in the distance. At some point, I climbed on the roof of the minibus; being completely surrounded by the landscape is breathtaking.

Yes, the Road...If you're unlucky, it turns into a nightmare. But when the skies are clear and the passes are open, it's an orgy of beauty, a banquet of sights - an amazing twenty-hour torture, which I gladly underwent twice. And it takes you to Ladakh, that region nick-named Little Tibet I knew little about. I was about to discover it, and be pleasantly surprised...


Flat tire on the Rothang pass...




Some of the views on the Road!!

Ancient caves, dried-up lakes and a Golden Temple

On the night of my third day in Mumbai, I had a train to Aurangabad, a city in the same state of Maharastra. I was on my way to Delhi, and wanted to get there as soon as possible to go further north. The initial, crazy plan was this: night train to Aurangabad, one day there, night bus to Ahmedabad, one day there, night train to Udaipur, two days and one night there, night bus to Ajmer, one day there, night train to Delhi. That's three nights in public transport, one night in a hotel, two nights in public transport. A couple of facts altered my initial plan. One: it was darn crazy. Also, the bus between Aurangabad and Ahmedabad turned out to take 15 hours; night buses are so horrible that I preferred to take two night trains, going back to Mumbai first. And last but not least, I had gotten pretty ill in Mumbai. I spent the night in the train to Aurangabad shivering like hell first, despite being in my sleeping bag with all my clothes on, and glowing with heat after, even though I had taken off my sleeping bag and almost all my clothes.

The purpose of my visit to Aurangabad was the Ajanta caves. These Buddhist and Hindu sanctuaries, carved out of the rocks in the 2nd-1st century BC and 5th century AD, are one of the absolute artistic highlights in India. Since I was ill, I decided I would also visit the nearer by Ellora cave, staying one night in Aurangabad. Since I had come all the way to see the caves, I was determined to do so, despite my condition. I had met an Australian guy on the trains who had the same plans, so I would have some company, which is always more enjoyable. Helped by the necessary medication, I visited the Ellora and Ajanta caves on two consecutive days. The Ellora caves were beautiful and impressive - especially the Kailasanatha temple, which is said to be the largest monolithic structure in Asia - but I was much more impressed by Ajanta. The location is amazing: the caves were carved out of the outer side of a horseshoe-shaped valley. They were forgotten for many centuries, until a British hunting party stumbled upon the site in 1819. But the location is far from being the only fascinating aspect of the Ajanta caves. Where at the Ellora caves it's all about the carvings, the walls of the Ajanta caves are decorated with extraordinarily fine paintings, made with a unique technique involving clay and dung, as well as minerals and plants. Walking around there in the dark cavesm exploring the murals with a flashlight, gives a taste of how it must have been for the discoverers to unveil all those forgotten treasures. Thanks to the medication, I was able to enjoy the caves, but both times, by the times I got back to Aurangabad my fever rose again.

A night train took me back to Mumbai, where I spent another day. Since I felt good that day, and it didn't rain, for once, I visited Elephanta island. This island, a couple of km off the coast, houses yet another collection of caves; I had seen enough of those, but the view on the harbor of Mumbai was magnificent. That night, on the train to Ahmedabad, I noticed I started to get a fierce cough, and the fever once again came back in force. A bit worried about my health, I went to the hospital the next day. Diagnosis: a pretty heavy lung infection. The doctor prescribed me antibiotics and three days of bed rest - just when I was in Ahmedabad, that hot and crowded city where I was only passing through. Since I had no more fever after my visit to the hospital, I left Ahmedabad the next night taking the train to Udaipur. [by the way, as I'm writing this, I'm being bugged by a huge flying cockroach. Flying cockroaches? Evolution, you've gone too far!].

When I arrived in Udaipur, I realized I was pretty glad to be back in Rajasthan, that big and rugged state with colorful people I had visited a couple of times when I was in Delhi. Udaipur is supposed to be a fairy-tale city, with a beautiful palace on a lake. Unfortunately, because of poor monsoons, the lake is almost completely dried out. In fact, the locals had put a couple of hundreds of earthen water jugs there, begging the gods for some rain. Even without water, Udaipur was pretty charming, with people walking around calmly and children playing cricket in the dried-out lake. The next day I went to Ajmer. Once again, the bus drive was great, with the rough Rajasthani landscape populated by people gathered around water pumps, men carrying wood and women bearing several big water pots on their heads, as well as the usual cows, dogs and donkeys. I went to Ajmer mainly to visit nearby Pushkar, a Hindu pilgrimage town, where hundreds of temples are arranged around a lake.A lake that was, surprise surprise, dried out. This time, though, instead of children playing cricket, the lake was replaced by ugly concrete water tanks and bulldozers. I could see that Pushkar must be a really nice place when the water is there, and I enjoyed seeing the people performing their religious rituals (in the water tanks instead of in the lake), but I didn't stay long. I went back to Ajmer, and tired of sight-seeing, I went to a park. To my surprise, I found aesthetic marble pavilions at the side of a beautiful lake...with water! I got into a conversation with some Indian tourists, who were recognizably Sufi's (a type of Muslims). I remembered there was a famous Sufi temple in Ajmer, so a asked them to take me there. I found the same special atmosphere as in the Sufi temple in Delhi; this time without feeling too uncomfortable, thanks to the good company. (Strange coincidence: that same night, there was a big blast at an important Sufi temple in Pakistan)

And then I was on a night train to Delhi! My stay was bound to be different than before, because this time I was going to stay in the backpackers' area. Delhi was hot, rainy, muddy, and as congested as always, but after all these weeks of discovering new places and adjusting to new situations almost daily, it was kind of nice to go back to a vaguely familiar place. The first day was a typical Delhi-day: I had to important things on my to-do list, and I ended stressed out and angry because I managed to do only one. But at night I met up with some old friends, with whom I watched football (the World Cup was on) and went out, which made me forget the bad day. The next day I met my Indian friend Arnav. We went to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the Sikh temple I had somehow overlooked before - an excellent preparation for the Golden Temple I would see the next day.

Indeed, my next destination was Amritsar, home to Sikhism's holiest shrine. Sikhism, founded in the 15th century, began as a reaction against the caste system. Sikhs, who live mainly in North India, specifically in the state of Punjab, are very recognizable by some attributes, like their turband, beard and steel bangle. In their religion, there is a lot of emphasis on the equality of all beings. This is very much reflected in the atmosphere at the Golden Temple. Everybody is welcome, and can stay for free in one of the dormitories inside the complex. As is that wasn't enough, they provide free food for everyone. Eating at the Golden Temple is quite an experience. After getting a tin plate and cup, you stand in line before entering a gigantic dining hall. People sit on the floor in long rows, waiting for volunteers to provide them with food and water. After eating, your plate is washed by one of the dozens of volunteers; anyone can join the mass of people who do the dishes under loud clattering of the plates. The kitchen, serving up to 40,000 pilgrims a day, is equally impressive; the pots are taller than the cooks, who stir them with giant spoons. With all this, I haven't even talked about the shrine itself yet. The Golden Temple stands in the middle of a pond, which is surrounded by a walkway and galleries, all in marble. The atmosphere is pretty relaxed, with people walking around, prostrating themselves in front of the temple, or bathing in the holy pool. After crossing a small bridge, you queue up to get inside the shrine. That's when you notice that while the gold-plated upper part was drawing all your attention at first, the marble lower part is beautifully decorated with fine colored inlays, representing flowers and animals. While beautiful changing is resonating in the whole complex, you procede to the inside of the temple, the very heart of Sikhism. People are praying and bowing, the musicians are playing in the center, the atmosphere is amazing. The interior design is what I would usually call kitsch: golden decoration on a background of green, red and blue - but somehow, it works. You can get up to the roof, where you get a nice view of the people strolling on the walkway.
After my first visit inside the Golden temple, I went to Attari, 30km west of Amritsar, to watch the border closing ceremony at the only crossing between India and Pakistan. Stands are installed on either side of the border, where people from both countries ather every afternoon. An hour before the ceremony, while the Pakistani side is still empty, the Indian stands are filled with colorfully dressed people who start shouting slogans (helped by an animator), giving the whole thing a bit of a football match atmosphere.Yhen at some point women from the crowd are invited to carry an Indian flag, running to the border and back - young and old, slim and fat, and all that under a scorching sun. Then the same women start dancing together to some typical Indian music. In the meantime, people are appearing on the Pakistani side. The constrast between the soberly dressed, quiet Pakistani and the colorful, dancing, cheering Indians is big. While the two sides start shouting slogans at each other, the official part starts. The ceremony, where Indian and Pakistani soldiers walk up to each other and lower their flags before closing the gates, has often quite accurately been described as being similar to Monthy Python's "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch.
That night, as I was strolling around the Golden Temple before going to sleep, I noticed that many people were sleeping right there, on the marble floor. I thought it would be a special experience to go to sleep and wake up in that holy place, between the pilgrims and the chanting, so I took the pillow out of my dormitory bed and lay down under the stars, right next to the pool. Marble doesn't make the most comfortable bed, and I got woken up, quite hard-handedly, twice - once because they were cleaning the floor, and the second time, around 4.30, because for some reason everybody had to wake up - but it was definitely worth it. The chanting goes on all night, and there are people paying a visit to the temple even in the earliest hours. After being woken up the second time, I walked around, watching the new day awakening, accompanied by morning prayers - and it's true what they say: the temple looks the most beautiful in the gentle light of the rising sun.

I would have stayed longer in Amritsar, if I had not come to know just the day before that the Dalai Lama was celebrating his 75th birthday in Dharamsala that same day. Dharamsala, location of His Holiness' residency as well as the Tibetan government in exile, happened to be my next destination. I couldn't believe my luck: I was going to see the Dalai Lama in person, on his own birthday party! Alas, since I lingered a bit too long in Amritsar that morning, and later my bus broke down (of course!), I missed the ceremony by just one hour. Dharamsala is a very nice place with stunning views and charming people - especially the Tibetans - but I stayed there for only one night. Apart from the fact that Dharamsala was very rainy, the main reason for my hurry was that there was one place left in India I didn't want to miss: Leh, in the state of Ladakh. Leh is situated high up in the mountains. One of the ways to get there is by taking a bus from another big tourist destination called Manali. The road from Manali to Leh includes some of the highest motorable passes in the worlds and offers magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The Road is open about three months a year, in the summer, but I new that bad weather conditions could close it down any time. So going to Leh can be quite a waiting game, and the sooner I got to Manali, I thought, the sooner I could start waiting, the sooner I would get to Leh. I could always go back to Dharamsala afterward if I wanted. This idea changed slightly when the ten-hour bus drive between Dharamsala and Manali turned out to be a hell. The winding road and aggressive driver caused my stomach to protest; let's just say I was happy to have a window seat. When I got to Manali, I found out the Road was closed, heavy rainfall having caused a big landslide. The waiting game had begun...

Having a Ball in Bangalore and a Blast in Bombay

[I just spent about a month in the mountains, where the internet is slow and expensive... so I’m running behind a lot! Still, I want to try to tell everything as well as possible, so I hope you don't mind reading about what I was doing almost two months ago...indeed, this story starts around the 15th of July]

Enough time spent in the South. It was time to head back north! Back to Delhi, and then to the mountains. But there ware quite a few places I wanted to see in between.

The first stop was Bangalore, the "silicon city" of India (for older or Marsian readers: this means that Bangalore houses many IT companies. IT means Information Technology. Computers and all). After a night bus, where the guy behind me seemed to be running a call center for hearing-impaired, I arrived in Bangalore around the morning rush hour. I saw well-dressed men and women hurrying to work with their laptop bags, just like I had imagined it. Bangalore is a crowded city, a city of workaholics, a city of entrepreneurs; the city of the Indian dream. It's also renowned for its enjoyable climate; at an altitude of around 900m, the capital of Karnataka enjoys mild temperatures throughout the year.
I was going to stay with a colleague of my father's, but he wouldn't be in town until the evening, so I spent the first day exploring Bangalore on my own. In spite of the occasional rains, I liked what I saw. I went to the very nice Cubbon Park, where people were walking around, reading a newspaper, and, most pleasantly, amorous couples were enjoying their Saturday together – after spending weeks in conservative Tamil Nadu, seeing some love made me feel warm inside. I went walking around in the backpackers' area, but there weren't many tourists, probably because of the rain. I met one Dutch girl in a cyber cafe, who turned out to have pretty much the same traveling plans as I did - one of those pleasant India-coincidences.
Then it was time to meet my father's colleague. I knew virtually nothing about him, so I imagined I would have a pleasant but perhaps slightly boring time with a middle-aged man. It was a nice surprise when he turned out to be in his early thirties; I had a lot of fun with him and his friends. We stayed at his cousin's apartment, in what he claimed was "the most expensive apartment building in Bangalore": a fancy complex called the "Acropolis", in pseudo ancient Greek style with guards at the gates and a swimming pool in the center, and right next to one of the city's swanky shopping centers. We spent a typical Indian-big-city-Sunday-afternoon there: hanging around in the mall sipping coffee and going to watch a Bollywood movie. Although especially the former is not really my cup of tea, I must admit I was glad to be in a cosmopolitan (or globalized, if you will) environment - it felt like home. I was in a big, modern city. Ah, those cities. Pretentious, smelly prostitutes, that's what they really are - with the polluting traffic, and the noise, and the crowdedness, and the perfectly dressed people who walk around as if the equator runs through their backsides (I felt totally un-cool in my backpacker's clothing). But at the same time, you get the feeling that this is where it's all happening, this is where the world gets shaped; you hear talk about business everywhere, almost everybody speaks English, nobody even stares at foreigners...again, what a contrast with Tamil Nadu! Cities are horrible in many ways, and great in some, but that's where I realized I'm a city child, and I can't resist the energy and the vibe of a metropolis. We also went out to a club one night, but unfortunately, clubs have to close at as early as 11.30 pm. By the time we got there, at 10.30, people were already starting to leave. But altogether I had a great time in B'lore - it's always special to spend time with local people. After three entertaining days, I took the night train to my next destination: Hampi.

When you talk to fellow travelers, you get a lot of tips of where to go and what to see (which, by the way, is so much more valuable than any Trotter or Lonely Planet could ever be). Perhaps the destination that is mentioned the most in that type of conversations is Hampi. I didn't really know what to expect; I vaguely knew it was a hilly area, and there were some ancient temples, but that was about it. But the other travelers were right: Hampi was one of the absolute highlights of my trip so far. The surrounding nature is amazing. Huge boulders are scattered all over the place, as if giants had been carelessly playing with giant-sized pebbles. The brownish color matches perfectly with the greenery in between. In the valley, a river makes its way between the rocks, flanked by palm trees that add a tropical touch. The ruins of 15th century temples provide an ultimate touch of magic.
After one day on my own I was joined by the girl I had met in Bangalore, who is an architecture student, so great company to visit ancient temples. We rented bikes to go around the various complexes, which made a nice day trip. Because of the beginning monsoon, there were only few tourists, so that we could enjoy the picturesque town called Hampi in a more authentic way. It rained a couple of times a day, but it’s always cozy to share a shelter with other people, and it kept the temperature at an enjoyable level. Low season is great!
My favorite spot in Hampi is a small temple, perched on a hilltop above one of the biggest temple complexes. I woke op at an ungodly hour twice to see the sunrise there - breathtaking. As if all of this isn’t enough, there is also a waterfall not far from there, which has carved strange holes in the rocks. Add to that some people with whom you get along really well, a cheap guesthouse with a good atmosphere and a nice riverside restaurant, and you’re in paradise!

Hampi...

After 4 magical days in Hampi, it was time to move on again. Next big destination: Mombai! I mean, Bumbay! I mean… anyway, I did a couple of stops in between. I had booked a train to Mumbai from Goa. This former hippie paradise seems to have turned into a touristy hotspot a la Costa Brava in the last couple of years – not exactly what I was looking for, especially since everybody told me it was rainy and empty. So I would just go to Goa to see it briefly and take the train.
A few people had told me about Gokarna, a pilgrimage village at the coast of Karnataka, that appeared to be a more laid-back version of Goa. When I finally got there – an accident had caused the train to be canceled, forcing me to take three buses instead – I found a picturesque town, with far more bare-chested pilgrims in orange clothing than tourists, where cows were leaning against the houses to hide for the almost continuous rain. The beaches looked beautiful but were, of course, abandoned. I only spent one night in Gokarna, but I’m glad I saw it.
That’s more than can be said of Goa, where the room was overpriced and Indian mass tourism once again crossed my path. As I said, I had come to Goa mainly to take the train to Mumbai. The Konkan railway, along the southeast coast of India, is said to be one of the most beautiful journeys in the subcontinent. I had booked a day train, a twelve-hour journey on the 21st of June, the longest day of the year. And I was not disappointed. The track makes its way through the Konkan hills, going from valley, to tunnel, to valley. After every tunnel, a new valley reveals its secrets: farmers in the fluo green rice paddies, working the humid earth with their oxen-driven ploughs, against a background of green hills, frequently decorated with waterfalls.

And so I got to Mumbai, that crazy harbor city, with the magnificent Taj hotel and colonial buildings on the one hand, and the biggest slum in Asia on the other. I spent three pretty crazy days there. The first morning I met some British people, with whom I spent the day walking around in the city, and the night watching football, English style (my headache the next morning testifies of what I mean by that). We got picked up by a Bollywood scout, who asked us if we wanted to be in a commercial the next day. The goal in Mumbai is usually to be an extra in an actual movie, but a commercial sounded better than nothing. We would get INR 500 (EUR 8,5) and, more importantly, would be put on the guest list of a famous club – we had just been talking about how we wanted to go dancing the next day. I had been warned that being an extra was a bit boring, though a fun experience – and that’s exactly what it turned out to be. After a short night, a taxi dropped me and an English guy at a stadium somewhere in the north of Mumbai. When we arrived, the first thing they asked us was if we knew how to play cricket; luckily, the English guy did, and the fact that I barely knew the rules didn’t seem to matter. We were both to play Australian cricket players. He was a wicket keeper, and I a fielder. Apparently, an Australian wicket keeper is not supposed to have a beard. My colleague had one, so some serious shaving had to be done first. But not before some equally serious negotiations; my friend, in a brilliant moment of Indian style business flair, said he didn’t want his beard shaven, unless they would give him some financial compensation – which, they did. Instead of sending a barber, as we expected, they just gave him the cheapest type of razor, and needed more than half an hour to get him shaving foam to do the job. Another forty-five minutes later – my friend’s beard was tenacious, the razor blunt – we got our yellow Australian cricketer outfits. So far the funny and amusing part. It was an extremely rainy day, and since we had to shoot our scene on the cricket field, we needed to wait for a dry moment. Nine hours we spent waiting, in a cold, air-conditioned trailer. It wasn’t so bad at first; we chatted and joked with some crew members and fellow extras, and every once in a while we went to take a look at the set, where a crowd of a couple of hundred was made to cheer, clap and sing. But after a couple of hours, the fun was fading and we just wanted to get it over with. Luckily, when the moment finally came, however short, it was pretty rewarding. Although we were paid and treated like extras, we had a pretty big role, especially my friend, who had to catch a ball and throw it back. I was standing behind him – “just act like a fielder”, they told me, and although I had only a vague idea of what those fellows usually do, my standing around trying to look as if I knew what I was doing seemed to be satisfactory. Behind me, the crowd was still clapping and cheering, although I suspect it was not for my two-man team, nor for our world class acting performances. The commercial is supposed to air soon on the major Indian TV channels, but I haven’t seen it until now (roughly six weeks later). When we finally got back, well-deserved INR 500 (and a bit more for my freshly shaved business minded buddy) in our pockets, I felt a bit feverish. Not wanting to miss the party, the reward for a full day of waiting around, I had a powernap before following the others to the nightclub.

C'mon Australia!

After yet another extremely short night, I decided that it was time to leave. There was only one more thing I wanted to do in Mumbai: to visit the slums. Most people react skeptically to this, and so did I, at first; isn’t it a strange form of tourism? But someone convinced me, saying that, since 55% of Mumbai lives in slums, it’s just like visiting an important part of the city. What’s more, part of the money that you pay to the guide goes to a local NGO. It turned out to be quite different than I had imagined; if you think Slumdog-Millionaire-type misery, you’re mistaken (although a lots of scenes of the film were shot there). Contrary to other areas, the Dharavi slum, the biggest in Asia (almost 1 million inhabitants!), is an “official slum”. Indian government gave up the land and legalized it; people there pay rent and have water and electricity, and many houses are made of concrete. The name “slum” is almost a merely theoretical one; almost, because many people live in one room with their whole family, and there is one toilet per 1500 inhabitants. During 3 very rainy hours, we were guided through the slum. A big part is a business area. You can find tanners, smiths, potters, etc. It’s also a recycling paradise: plastic, tin cans, oil jars, everything is re-used or processed in new products. It’s big business; for instance, one of the tanners’ leather is exported to Italy, where it’s used in luxury products – the owner’s BMW is parked right around the corner. It’s one of those places where our cheap clothes and other products are made. The workers come from villages, where the wages are even lower than in the slum. They live above the workplace, and send money back to their families. They don’t have to work on Sundays, but a lot of them do. Of course, safety rules are virtually inexistent. Just something to think about when you buy cheap products back home… The residential area is quite different. Some people live in proper houses – that’s where it’s really hard to believe that you really are in a slum. People just live there because it’s situated pretty much in the center of the city, and the prices are lower than in regular areas. There are plenty of schools (both public and private), shops, and they even have their own bank. So Dharavi is really a sort of microcosm where thing’s aren’t as bad as one could imagine. In the last decade, the government has started a controversial “rehabilitation program”, where inhabitants of the slums are being relocated in apartment blocks. Not everybody is happy with that; it’s threatening the small businesses, and the people don’t want to pay property taxes.
At the end of the humid and tiring tour, my fever came back in force. Three days of walking around in the rain and little sleep seemed to be taking its toll. That same night I had to take a train to Aurangabad, my next destination. I was just at the start of a very intensive week, where I would from go from Mumbai towards Delhi, stopping only shortly in between and spending most nights in trains and buses; bad timing for illness…

I'm the SCAD-man

I wrote about the organization SCAD (Social Change and Development) in my previous story. I told you it’s a big and rich organization, which does a lot for all kinds of underprivileged people. I ended up staying with them for two weeks. I worked in a centre where physically and mentally challenged children are given care and education. One man, by the fantastic name of Stalin (a pretty common name in Tamil Nadu), forms the “orthotic unit”. He has a workshop where he makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the children: crutches, braces, splints, even wheelchairs. He makes all these things, which can be pretty expensive when you buy them from big manufacturers, in his own creative and low-cost way. The idea was that I would see if I could help him improve the design of some devices; if it didn’t work out, I would just leave. Quite frankly, I didn’t expect much of it – but I thought, why not give it a go? And in the end, I must say, even though my stay was relatively short, I think both of us (me and Stalin, yes) were satisfied. Of course, I didn’t have much to contribute to this man, who has been doing this job for more than ten years. And of course, for me as an engineer, it was too basic and low-level to really allow me to apply or improve my skills. But on the other hand, we get so much theory and so little practice in our education, that it’s always interesting to have some hands-on experience. And to keep it as simple as possible is a challenge in any design. It was really fun to design something and see the result in a matter of hours. So, I’m satisfied, and I hope Stalin was too; he did say I gave him a couple of good ideas.

Like last time I was at SCAD, I stayed at the fancy guesthouse on the campus. I was all alone in this building that can accommodate a dozen people, and so I even had my own private cook, who always made me delicious food in ridiculous amounts. Since I wasn’t sure about the value of my contribution to SCAD, I paid them the amount my stay would cost them. Apparently, some people pay 30-50EUR a day, which is a pretty high amount in India, even considering the comfort. I think this is a good time to talk about volunteering, as I promised before. Actually, before even talking about volunteering, I have a lot to say about NGO’s; but I decided not to get into that now, as it would lead me too far.

Both the times I worked as a volunteer, not only did I work for free, but I paid money to the organization. As I said, in the case of SCAD I supposedly paid only to cover my cost – even though the amount still seemed a bit high, especially considering the salaries; I estimate I paid three times what the cook earns. In Cuddalore, on the other hand, I am sure I paid much more than Bhanu could spend. She had the honesty to admit that, which I appreciated, but I suppose that someone coming straight from Europe wouldn’t even realize that. In many cases, volunteering is a way of getting funds. I’ve seen websites where people pay 1000$ to volunteer for two weeks. One thousand dollars! That’s what I spend in three months! But some people are ready to pay this. All they want is a “life-changing” experience, something to impress their friends with and/or put on their CV, without having to go to the trouble of arranging everything. A lot of the volunteers I met in Pondicherry were Danes; they paid a Danish organization to set them up with a Dutch organization, which they paid to set them up with a local organization. Volunteering is big business. People don’t only work for free, but they pay money on top of that. In return, they get there life-changing experience. Sometimes, in the best of cases, the money they pay goes to the organization – nothing wrong with that then, is there? A win-win situation, you say? It depends. I, for one, do not like it so much. First of all, it’s not transparent: you don’t know how much of your money is actually spent on your food and accommodation, and how much goes to the organization. Second, you don’t really know if they want you for the work you do, or for the money you pay. Third, paying to work doesn’t really improve your motivation - I’ve seen with my own eyes the attitude of “I’m paying for this, so if I don’t want to work, I don’t” in some volunteers. Four, they will still try to give the volunteer the impression that he’s doing useful work. In many cases, that means people are doing work that someone else could do much better than them; their work is useless, and sometimes even counterproductive - couldn’t this persons’ time and energy be used in a better way? What’s even worse, is that they might be used to do someone else’s job for free.

In Cuddalore, the original purpose was for me to go to villages to tell people about the dangers of HIV/AIDS, with the help of a translator. Why on earth should I do that? Will they not listen with much more benevolence to someone of there own culture and language? Bhanu admitted this was true, and even conceded that whatever the volunteer says, the translator knows what to say. The volunteer is completely useless – it’s one big farce. I told you about my English teaching. First of all, nothing proves that I’m even remotely competent to do that. But more importantly, what’s the use? I went there, taught them some vocabulary, and went away; they probably forgot everything again by now. It would have been much better if a competent person had trained a local person to teach them. And even then, I don’t really know why I had to teach English to precisely those children. They were healthy, didn’t seem poor, and most of them went to school and learned English there. Sometimes I felt like I was just being used to entertain the bored village children during their summer holidays.

To be perfectly honest, there are cases in which the volunteers do perform useful work. The girl who set me up with Bhanu did a lot of organizational work, and another girl, a real English teacher, trained local people to be teachers. But in at least as many cases, the work the volunteer does is either useless, or could be done better by someone else. And additional, important question is: why should we come here to do this work? There are so many people in this country, and more and more of them have knowledge and money. In fact, the Indian embassy doesn’t issue visas to volunteers anymore (that’s why they always take tourist visas) – India can handle his own problems. The only answer I have to this question is that we are still in a better position to afford working for free for a while.

What about me, you may ask? Am I not guilty of the crimes I plea against? Partially, Your Honor. One of the objectives of my Big Trip was to learn more about the world of NGO’s, to see if there’s a possibility for me to work in that field someday. So, by doing some field work, I wanted to gain insight in the working of the type of organization where I would, perhaps, someday, have a more high-level function. Besides, I feel a bit guilty about being able to afford such a long trip on only a couple of months’ savings, just because the value of my currency is so much higher than the local one - as the cliché goes, “I wanted to give something back”. That’s one part of the truth. Another part of the truth is that I don’t really like the feeling of being a tourist. I much rather feel like I’m really living somewhere, and volunteering is an easy way of obtaining that. I have never denied it’s a kind of tourism. I have never thought or pretended that what I did was noble. Volunteering abroad is great; you’re in a completely different environment, have the craziest experiences, and end up with amazing stories to tell your friends. To me, the real noble people are the ones who work as volunteers back home: people who work with disabled people, or the poor, or elderly people, humbly, without bragging about them or writing about it on some blog. And back home, it seems, is the only place you can really do good work. Of what use can I be in a country where I can’t even properly communicate with the people, let alone understand their culture? Of course, this insight is far from being new; that’s why, nowadays, big NGO’s support local, grassroots organization, instead of doing the work themselves.

As an attempt for a conclusion: I think volunteering abroad is only useful in very specific situations. If volunteering is a kind of tourism – which, in many cases, it is – it is no doubt better than brainless, polluting mass tourism. But I only agree with it under three conditions:
1) The volunteer is aware he’s a tourist
2) There’s full transparency regarding where the money goes
3) The volunteer makes sure he’s doing something useful, or at least not harmful, and that he’s not taking away anyone else’s job
The last point is extremely difficult to assess, especially from a distance, in an unknown situation, in a different culture. When I look back at my “work” in India, there’s not much to be proud of: Delhi was a joke, Cuddalore was probably not harmful, but not so useful either, and Tirunelvely was okay but very limited. I’ve changed India forever…

The Keralan dream

(aargh, I'm so late with my posts! this happened more than one month ago. But I like to tell my stories in a good way, and I haven't really had a lot of internet opportunities lately. Right now I'm in Mumbai, and tonight I leave to Ahmedabad, going back towards Delhi. After that I'll go to the very north of India. I'll try to publish my next stories more quickly.)

After two weeks of playing English teacher, I went traveling again. The plan was to be back in Cuddalore two weeks later, after the summer holidays. That would give me enough time to go around the southeast coast, and the state of Kerala. My main destination was the famous backwaters: a chain of brackish lagoons and lakes lying parallel to the Arabian Sea coast of Kerala, forming a network of more than 900km of waterways (Wikipedia, it’s good to have you). A French guy I met in the North had told me how he rented a canoe, and spent 7 days on the backwaters on his own, just paddling around, sleeping in villages, where he hung his hammock between two palm trees. I was dreaming of doing the same; my only potential enemy was the monsoon, which usually starts around the 1st of June (I left on May, 15th). But instead of going there first, as any logically thinking idiot would, I went straight south first. The reason for this was that the Danish girl who worked for Bhanu before me was going that way at the same time, and when you’re in South India in low season, company is a scarce and precious good.

The first and obligatory stop was Madurai, that houses the “Taj Mahal of the South”. The Meenakshi Sundareswaran temple, which stands as one of India’s greatest cultural and architectural landmarks, is one of the greatest Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu (Wikipedia, I think I love you). This house of gods is one of the must-sees according to my personal catechism, “25 ultimate experiences in India”. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood; maybe it wasn’t the right period to visit; or perhaps I’m just not the temple-visiting type of guy – whatever the reason, I didn’t really feel the magic. Don’t get me wrong, the place is nice. It’s a big and impressive complex, with colorful gopurams (towers) on the outside, and a maze of corridors and halls on the inside. We went early in the morning, and the atmosphere was relaxed, people piously and serenely performing their religious rituals. So let’s say it was nice to see, but I wouldn’t really include it in my India Hit Parade 2010.

Madurai itself was hot and dusty, so we didn’t stay long. We took a bus to Kanyakumari, a.k.a. Cape Comorin, the southernmost tip of India. It’s a special place, because three seas meet there: the Arabian Sea (west), the Indian Ocean (south) and the Gulf of Mannar (east). I had been looking forward to being there. I would stand there, I pictured, arms spread and wind in my hair, with a sense of joy and victory, thinking about all this distance I crossed, all this land I conquered, the waves of three different seas crashing on the rocks in roaring thunder, the sun projecting rainbows in the water drops, children cheering and dozens of sitars playing victorious tunes, and… okay, okay, enough. Anyway, surprisingly, it wasn’t like that. After careful investigation, I have identified the most important cause of this failure: Indian mass tourism. Believe it or not, it’s kind of hard to enjoy the tip of India when it’s crowded by approx. 50 people/m2. Sunrise and sunset are, of course, the biggest attractions. There again, my idea of a romantic sunset on some beautiful beach resulted somewhat illusionary. The sinking sun can only be admired from and ugly and, of course, overcrowded concrete viewing point. Sunrise, on the other hand, is visible from the seaside; but, unfortunately, it was foggy. This didn’t stop hordes of tourists from staring at the invisible horizon and taking dozens of pictures when the long-risen sun finally pierced through the clouds; it was Tiger Hill all over again (for more details on this and many other amazing adventures in the North, the reader is kindly referred to http://julienisgone.blogspot.com/2010/04/serendipity-vs-planning.html). What I did like about Kanya South, are the two small islands just off the coast. One is the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, built in 1970 for this fellow who reportedly meditated on a rock there (contrary to what it might sound like, he’s not a popular musician, but a spiritual teacher). The other island is the gigantic 405m tall statue of Tamil saint-poet Thiruvalluvar, completed on January 1st, 2000 (Wikipedia, would you marry me?).

After Kanyakumari, as my Danish companion proceeded southwest, I went back to some 80km north from there. Why, you may ask? Let me explain. My father had sent me an email a couple of weeks before to tell me that if I wanted to work in an NGO in South India, I could try to contact an organization called SCAD, where many people from Antwerp are involved. Some weeks later, when I told the girl who had set me up with Bhanu about my traveling plans, she recommended the exact same organization. I knew it was somewhere in South India, but I had no idea of where exactly. When I was in Madurai, even though with the backwaters on my mind I didn’t feel like working at that time, I thought I might as well look up the address, in case I would be in the neighborhood. The name of the city, Tirunelveli, didn’t sound familiar, so I resolved to buy a map of Tamil Nadu – which, of course, I forgot. The next day, on the bus to Kanyakumari, at some point I was staring out the window and I saw a name that sounded strangely familiar: Tirunelveli! Serendipity, anyone? SCAD (Social Change and Development) is a huge organization. They operate from Tirunelveli, but their area is huge; they are active in dozens of villages, and reach thousands of people. They take care of all kinds of underprivileged people and communities, like homeless people, disabled children, saltpan workers and their children, gypsies, leprosies, snake catchers, elderly people, quarry workers, left-handed people, Jessica Simpson fans, … (okay, maybe not the last two). They get a lot of funding from abroad, but they make quite some money themselves as well. They have huge colleges and schools, where students pay according to their parents’ income. All the money generated there, of course, flows to the projects. Even though I had called just one day ahead, I was received like a king – which make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I was picked up at the bus station by an empty school bus and brought to a fancy guest house, in the most luxurious room I had seen in months: real shower, flat-screen TV, AC, … SCAD doesn’t lack money, that much is clear. There was only one other guest, with whom I shared the delicious and hearty dinner, made by our private cook. The next day I briefly met the chairman – a very busy man – and talked to a couple of his staff members. They told me that perhaps I could work with the ortho-technician, who makes all kinds of orthopedic devices for the disabled children. I had to wait until June, though, because of the summer holidays - same story as in Cuddalore, and perfectly compatible with my plans. The only problem was that Bhanu expected me to come back to Cuddalore. Luckily, in a rare moment of foresight, I had taken all my luggage, for in case I wouldn’t come back. Since I felt I could do something a bit more related to my qualifications, and since, despite the external funding, SCAD is a good example of social entrepreneurship, one of my hobby-horses, the choice was easily made: exit Blessing Kids, enter SCAD.

But before getting back to work, I had ten days to pursue my Keralan dream – the backwaters. But again, instead of going there directly, I made an intermediate stop on the coast of Kerala. Varkala is a beach town I had heart many good things about. I was planning to stay there only one night, though, because I expected it to be kind of dead. But then, disaster struck. The condensation of moist, hot air over the Bay of Bengal had slowly led to the formation of cyclone Laila. This temperamental lady was so big, that her outskirts reached the coast of Kerala. And the heavy winds that tormented the east coast of India, at the same time snatched away my romantic dream. Damn you, weather gods! Fortunately, I met some nice people there, some of which were going to the backwaters too, “the day after tomorrow”. So I thought I’d spend one more night there and join them, so we could rent a houseboat together. I ended up staying for five days. This is partly due to the fact that, as I found out, my potential backwater buddies said they would leave “the day after tomorrow” every day. But mainly, the place was so laid-back, the company so nice, and the weather so bad, that it seemed to be the best option to stick around in Varkala. I must admit it weren’t the most active days of my trip. The days passed according to a fixed schedule: sleeping late, having brunch, going to the beach, having dinner, and finally, where it all led up to, having a drink, or two. I think I spent about four times more on alcohol than on the room (don’t worry mum, it’s not as bad as it sounds; it’s just that the room was very a and the alcohol very expensive). After five days, it was definitely time to move on. A Dutch friend I new from Cuddalore had caught up with me, so we went to the backwaters together. The others were reportedly leaving “definitely the day after tomorrow”.

And so there I finally was: the backwaters. Not in a canoe, as I had hoped, but in a noisy, polluting, motorized houseboat. But at least I saw the place, and the weather gods seemed to have a bit of compassion: it didn’t rain. The backwaters…remember when I told you about the beautiful landscapes and roadside of Tamil Nadu? The backwaters are similar, but the roads are replaced by water, and the fields by lakes. The thousands of palm trees are beautifully reflected in the perfectly still water. At the sides of the canals, women are washing clothes, kids are playing in the water, and men are bathing or fishing. Long canoes pass by, transporting sometimes old men, sometimes young children, sometimes entire families.

After a beautiful night in the backwaters, we went to Kochi. The island of Fort Kochi was the first European settlement in India. It has been ruled subsequently by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. Fort Kochi is the most relaxed town I’ve been to in India. There was a cultural centre where we saw local music and theater, which was very special, and very nice. Then, as my Dutch friend headed further north, I had a couple of days left before I had to go back to Tamil Nadu. So I returned to the backwaters, and I spent one night in a “homestay” there, a room in local people’s house, in the middle of the backwaters. I did a bicycle trip on one of the islands, where I ended up in at the side of really small canals with wooden bridges and a natural roof of palm leaves; just beautiful. And guess what, I actually got to do some canoeing! Which, of course, just made me realize even more what I had missed out on. I definitely need to go back someday…