And so now let me turn my creaking voice to the song of recent events on the nearby peaks of the Himalaya: A few days ago Jas, Trevor, Lena and myself decided to ascend to Triund, a mountain ridge some 11kms from Mcleod Ganj. The climb is a solid 1.5km from 1,400m to 2950m above sea level and took us about 3 hours. The weather was fine at the start, then gave way to light rain. From Triund the first snow ridden range of the "real" Himalayas seem so close that one might reach out and touch them as they shimmer on the wind. The view was incredible. We had taken our camping gear, with the very clear intention of staying there the night: it was brutally cold. So we huddled around the fire with Indian tourists, an adventure guide from Bhutan and the chaps who run the local chai shops and the one guest house. It snowed, it rained, it thundered for most of the night - it was amazing. The following morning we trekked the final 3kms (almost vertical again) to the snow line (at 3,500m), from where we could see the glacier and Indira's Pass. But the weather was bad so we decided to call it good at 3,500 and turned around to return to Triund and then back to Mcleod. As we rolled into the chai shop Richard was standing there with a huge grin on his face, waiting for us. In his usual hot shot, charismatic flair, he managed to seduce the attention other travellers planning their descent to Mcleod, and before you knew it our group of four had become a group of fourteen.
And so with thick cloud wrapping its infinite spiralling tentacles around the mountain, we commenced our return to the Ganj. The Rhododendron forests were reminiscent of the slow churning fogs of Kurosawa films - we joked about what or who might be lost along the way. I stopped to make a recording of the rain drops shattering between the leaves, and thought about the beauty before me that i might have missed had we pre-meditated the rain. Before setting out on the first day, it had been articulated that if the weather was bad, we might not go - but if we had stayed at home we would have missed out on the magic eeriness of negotiating a forest laced with seemingly impregnable cloud. The sort of wet, cold experience you would avoid if you knew was coming, but were so thankful to find yourself in.
And so returned from the mountain we all went out for a Japanese dinner and chased it with drinks at a nearby night spot. I have drawn the liver friendly conclusion that alcohol and i are not on healthy terms for the time being, as the last couple of times i have had a drink (and a modest dose on each occasion) my system has resonded with irrational turbulence - infact, i spent most of yesterday in bed with a revenge bout of the squirts. Today i am much better. Still a bit tired. But... no alcohol... for a while... anyway.
And it rained without sign of easing through the night and most of the day, until perhaps one hour ago when i looked across the valley and the cradle of Triund (now coated with snow) had returned to the horizon, and the cloud was thinning, and it occurred to me that the last time i saw the mountain, i was standing on it.
And what next? To stay in Mcleod and wait for my Iranian Visa approval (i'm still waiting!!)? Or to move on to another place, possibly a warmer place??? Jas has his visa and now must decide wether or not to leave as soon as possible (he has reasons to be back in Oz in early May), or to stick around in India, wait for me, or just stay here?? We are not at a cross road. We are standing in the middle of a deserted plateau. And the question itches like splinters under the skin: toward which slowly setting sun shall we begin to draw our trail?
And so with thick cloud wrapping its infinite spiralling tentacles around the mountain, we commenced our return to the Ganj. The Rhododendron forests were reminiscent of the slow churning fogs of Kurosawa films - we joked about what or who might be lost along the way. I stopped to make a recording of the rain drops shattering between the leaves, and thought about the beauty before me that i might have missed had we pre-meditated the rain. Before setting out on the first day, it had been articulated that if the weather was bad, we might not go - but if we had stayed at home we would have missed out on the magic eeriness of negotiating a forest laced with seemingly impregnable cloud. The sort of wet, cold experience you would avoid if you knew was coming, but were so thankful to find yourself in.
And so returned from the mountain we all went out for a Japanese dinner and chased it with drinks at a nearby night spot. I have drawn the liver friendly conclusion that alcohol and i are not on healthy terms for the time being, as the last couple of times i have had a drink (and a modest dose on each occasion) my system has resonded with irrational turbulence - infact, i spent most of yesterday in bed with a revenge bout of the squirts. Today i am much better. Still a bit tired. But... no alcohol... for a while... anyway.
And it rained without sign of easing through the night and most of the day, until perhaps one hour ago when i looked across the valley and the cradle of Triund (now coated with snow) had returned to the horizon, and the cloud was thinning, and it occurred to me that the last time i saw the mountain, i was standing on it.
And what next? To stay in Mcleod and wait for my Iranian Visa approval (i'm still waiting!!)? Or to move on to another place, possibly a warmer place??? Jas has his visa and now must decide wether or not to leave as soon as possible (he has reasons to be back in Oz in early May), or to stick around in India, wait for me, or just stay here?? We are not at a cross road. We are standing in the middle of a deserted plateau. And the question itches like splinters under the skin: toward which slowly setting sun shall we begin to draw our trail?
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