Better Late Than Never!

Gundula and I passed those words painted on a sign next to the ‘road’ somewhere in the heart of the Himalayas. We cracked up laughing. We also got a good chuckle out of reading ‘Good Luck’ painted on the side of a mountain that we inched by. At least the Indians have a good sense of humor when it comes to their ‘road’ signs in the mountains! I’m using ‘’ around road because it’s a bit of a stretch to actually call it that.

The last week has been the most trying of my entire time away from home. We ended up being stuck in Kaza until Thursday morning when the roads opened up. It was rainy and cold the entire time, minus about three hours of sun on Wednesday afternoon. We took advantage of the sunny skies (still cold!) and went for a walk down by the river. The scenery in Spiti Valley is simply breathtaking. We spent the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday playing cards, watching the quarter finals of the World Cup and watching the rain fall.

On Thursday, we boarded an early bus towards Rekong Peo on what we thought would be a 10 hour journey. At 4 ½ hours in, we hit a road block. The Kissan Union, some sort of farmers/ag union we learned, was striking. The strikers put up logs at the end of the only bridge across a river and sat on a tarp on one side. For the first few hours, we sat by the river enjoying the sun, reading and writing. When it became clear that the strikers had settled in for a long day of protests, we started to get restless. Two Belgian guys, Nico and Shive, who are doing the Himalayas on motorbike, also got stuck in the strike. We spent the rest of the day and night hanging out with them. I asked the strikers if we could join them on the tarp to play cards because the roads were filthy. For the next hour, it was almost like we were playing in the World Series of Poker because about 40-50 men gathered around to watch us play. Once they realized that they couldn’t figure out what game we were playing (called Kabo, a game from Peru), they dispersed and we were left alone on the striker’s tarp. I am thinking that my next career should be peace mediation and conflict resolution through card playing.

As it got dark, we realized that the strike wasn’t going to end and we settled in to the only restaurant in town. Gundula and I were seemingly the only females out in public that day, and certainly the only ones in the restaurant. Once we finished our second whiskey and black tea, the men started swarming. They serenaded us with amazing Indian songs and dances...I was laughing so hard I was crying. Then, they begged us to sing and dance, so I quickly taught Gundula the words and the moves and we performed a great rendition of I’m a Little Tea Pot. Upon finishing, they clapped and cheered for us like it was the most incredible thing their eyes had ever witnessed. Awesome. A small group of Indian Army soldiers were also stuck in the strike, and they loaned us a sleeping bag and a mat. Nico also had an extra sleeping bag. The kindness of strangers can be so wonderful. With our borrowed bags, we nestled down on the concrete of the second floor balcony of a guesthouse and passed out watching shooting stars. All in all, not a bad day for being stuck in the middle of nowhere!

After 28 hours, we finally made it to Kalpa where we had views of snow capped mountains that exceeded 6,050m – so beautiful. We spent Friday afternoon and Saturday recharging batteries after a week of no power, enjoying the mattress and hand washing laundry (a lot of my stuff is now what I like to call India black…covered in dust…and they don’t have washing machines here that we have been able to find!). Sunday we made our way to Chitkul, another 6 hour bus ride away. On the way, we had to stop for a few hours so that they could blow up some huge boulders that had fallen on the road. Dynamite is loud! I went across the rubble to another village to try and find food. I could not find anything, but a wonderful woman gave me apples. Chitkul is the closest village to Tibet and we hiked as close as we could get through a valley full of wild flowers...amazing. The village reminded me of a living museum except it's real life. It's the kind of village where no one has an email address and only three or four of the cool guys have cell phones. It is an incredibly peaceful and remote way of life.

Another 9 hour bus ride, where this time we only had to stop for an hour to fix a tire problem. Gundula and I passed the time by dancing on the street. She taught me the waltz and I taught her the ever classic grapevine. The men tried to learn but were slow to pick it up! Made it to Shimla, the capital city of the state of Himachal Pradesh at 4 AM today. It's so amazing to be back in civilization. I almost did a back handspring when I saw a Subway. That's where I'll be having dinner tonight! Today, I needed to buy a new umbrella and camera bag and the shopowner and I went round and round on the price. He finally ended up giving them to me with my promise to send him something from the States someday. Amazing kindness.

My thoughts on bus rides: Imagine a bus ride you've taken where it was pretty crowded. Triple it. Now ride over dirt, rocks, boulders, inches from the cliff that falls straight into a ravine. If you picture yourself covered in dust, cramped and bouncing all over the place, you've almost got it. Now, picture a woman's handbag banging you in the head, a book falling on your lap from the storage racks above and a man's foot resting comfortably on top of yours and you can't move at all. That's a local bus ride in India. I spent a lot of time trying to guess which direction the bus driver would dodge the boulders, cows and oncoming traffic. It seems logic does not always dictate reality! If you don't laugh, you'd go crazy!!