More of north India: Four day trek in the Spiti Valley

Spiti Valley –If they look like Tibetans, speak Tibetan, they aren’t necessarily Tibetans.

So we were in Manali, at the end of the tourist season, and we couldn’t find more people to share a jeep to Spiti Valley. So we took the 6am local bus and traveled for 10 hours. It was one of those buses that sometimes you see in pictures of India with people hanging from the doors and people seating on the roof… But it was rather empty and since the bus stopped at every town and village, some people even got down at the beginning of the journey. We ended taking 3 seats each and sleeping most of the drive.

Local bus

On the other side of the green mountains around Manali, we found a pretty impressive desert mountain valley right before Tibet. It had Tibetan mud houses inhabited by people who look just like Tibetans, speak a language that sound just like Tibetan, practice Tibetan Buddhism and eat momos and thukpa. But they aren’t Tibetans, they are Spitians. They are indigenous from the region, and they happen to be the guys that ended up living in the Indian side of the border (before there were any borders). The main difference from the Tibetans (at least from the Tibetans that live in China outside the Tibet(an Autonomous Region), that is, the Tibetans that we met) is that they are way more focused on agriculture than livestock and they are somewhat influenced by Indians food and clothes. We had plenty of different experiences with the Tibetan people (check all the Tibetan posts), but it’s not that we are so much into Tibetan culture, or that we are trying to stare at the Tibet from every cardinal point. We didn’t have the best of the experiences in, say, Qinghai province in China, and I even got into a quarrel with a Tibetan monk on our way back from Spiti. But these people happen to live in the highest and most beautiful mountains where the heat of the summer is converted in breeze and bright sun during the day and chilled nights. And we liked that. And I have to say that many of the Spitians made great hosts (and many speak a great English).

So let’s go back to the story, we arrived in Kaza at 3800 m above the see level. It’s a small and dusty place with ugly concrete buildings but it’s the main town and commercial center of the valley. Besides that, it’s tourist friendly and it has many guesthouses and tourist restaurants (not that this is a good thing) and even though there’s no phone signal in most of the valley, there are internet and call centers. We wanted to start a four day trek in a near village, but we were informed in a very helpful travel agency that local transportation only got there twice a week –the day after the following day. Then we went to the headquarters of ecosphere, a great initiative from three NGOs (MUSE, SSS and STAG), that promotes sustainable livelihoods and eco tourism, between other things. They are the guys that trained the people of the really tiny villages to receive foreigner tourists and provide them a “home-stay”. They also put signs explaining either about the villages, or about the solar panels they installed and even how to use a dry-ecological toilet. There we got some more information and recommendations for our trek from Komic to Dankhar going through Demul and Lhalung.

Then we sat at the only bakery. (It was of course a “German bakery”, who knows why they call the Western bakeries that way). We found ourselves surrounded by Israelis and an Iranian Jew who was angry that everyone was speaking Hebrew and he couldn’t understand. In fact, some of the Israelis were complaining –in Hebrew- that they kept finding Israelis and that it didn’t feel like traveling abroad. An Israeli couple got interested in our four day trek and wanted to join us; and two after-army Israelis (which were unlike the ones we met before in Manali –see the previous post) offered us to join them in a one day jeep excursion to the villages of Ki and Kiber the following day.

So at midday of the following day, the two friends, another Israeli couple that they met on the way and we traveled by jeep first to Kibber and on the way back to Ki.

Kiber is a very small village with around 80 houses and an old gompa (Tibetan monastery); it’s only 16 kms far from Kaza but 300 meters above it. We wandered around, saw the monastery and sat in the local restaurant/guesthouse. Ki is an even smaller village with a huge monastery. We were invited in by a very talkative and cheerful monk who explained us a little about the monastery and showed us the room where Dalai Lama once slept. He laughed all the time and from time to time he talked Gibberish-Hebrew. After the small tour and an optional donation, which he really earned, he offered us tea and tsampa (balls of roasted barley flour) and tried to learn his words of the day. He took a brochure from some NGO and asked us about the meaning of indigenous, provide, support and autonomous.

Ki Gompa

On the way back to Kaza, the four guys asked us about our four day trek and decided also to join us.

So the following day we were supposed to be us and other six people starting the trek. We ran into the first couple (from the bakery) on the (only) street and they said some lame excuse about why they’re not coming. That left us six people. The second couple came to the bus stop to say that they aren’t feeling well; the girl developed altitude sickness during the night and hardly slept. That left us four people: us, and Adam and Omer -the two post-army friends

From Komic to Dankhar

So we took the local bus around 2 pm and we arrived in our first stop, Komic (4500 m), one hour and a half later and around 800 meters higher! We were received by Kunga and his great family in their mud house and gave us a room in the upper floor with an amazing view. After seeing the stuffed tiger on the entrance of the local temple and its interior (well, not all of us, Iohi couldn’t enter because the entrance is forbidden for women – I suspect this is because the image of guy biting the ass of other guy), we went back to our home-stay. Kunga prepared Indian food: dal, vegetable curry, rice, pickles and chapattis and answer all our questions about Spitians and Spiti Valley. We learned that the workers that were building more mud houses outside were actually Nepalese immigrant workers! Who could imagine that farmers living in mud houses had workers doing their hard work! During the night Adam and Omer hardly slept and started to go one by one all the symptoms of altitude sickness. We were supposed to walk up to 200 meters higher before going down to Demul at 4300 m above the sea level, so they decided to quit and return to Kaza by jeep. That left us: the two of us trekking alone.

So after having breakfast and having Kunga’s wife put a lot of rice in our lunch box, we started to follow up a jeepable road under the bright sun of 4000+ altitude. We were alone most of the time walking up on a moon-like landscape and we only saw far away some shepherds. At that height walking with our bags, water and food was a pretty hard task, but eventually we found some Spitians on motorbikes that point us that the trail to Demul went up from the jeep path across the mountain. Then every step was an excruciating task, we had headaches on and off and even breathing was tough. After 4 hours we were thrilled to see the Tibetan prayer flags that marked the highest point of the trail: 4700 m above sea level.

From there it was a nice and relieving walk down. After one hour or less we started to sea the terraces with plantations of barley, potatoes and wheat, and the people working the land with yaks. Soon we arrived at Demul (~4300m), mud houses on a steeped slope and everyone, men and women, was singing and working. We still don’t understand what they did; they were moving, splitting and all sort of stuff with dried straws.

Demul

  We were led to a home stay by guy in his forties or maybe fifties, it was hard to tell. The situation was a little ambivalent, they were by far the most apathetic family of the trek, but the same night they held some kind of party there so we had the chance to glance at a tipical Spitian celebration and to taste the goodies: some kind of barley spirit which tasted between vodka and whisky, steamed sheep blood sausages that were exquisite, and very tasty recently made mutton meat momos.

Inside the homestay

On the following morning, we headed to what supposed to be the shorter trekking day –4 or 5 hours. So we started an extremely stepped walk down the valley; in less than 2 hours we descended around 1000 meters! First we went down a river until we reached a village of five mud houses called Sanglung. We had there some nice trees to have our lunch (box) and then we peeked in a house until we were invited to have some chai with the local family. We asked regarding our next destination, Lhalung, and the guy from the family did a single hand-movement that pointed down towards the river bank and then west. We were a little puzzled, our printed instructions (from 2008) indicated that the path goes east and then down the river to cross a bridge and then up again to reach Lhalung.

So we went down till almost the river and asked again to a group of workers who pointed east (like our printed instructions). Since we didn’t want to walk up again to the trail, we went off the path and walked over the river bank towards the east. We supposed that we’ll eventually find the bridge right there over the water…

So we walked and walked off the path over the stones and mud on the northern shore of the river for hours. Suddenly we had Lhalung up the hill in front of us, and on the other side of the river. But the thing was, there was no bridge…

We considered many times to cross the river but we weren’t sure how dangerous that could be. So we walked again up and down the river looking for a quieter spot, but the current seemed pretty strong everywhere. The idea of crossing the water vanished when Iohi put a toe in the freezing cold water and we decided just to go back.

Lhalung and below the river we wanted to cross

So we walked to the west all the way back to Sanglung and then continued until we finally saw a bridge. We crossed it and we walked again to the east, this time on the right side of the river. So after 9 hours walking, and just before the sunset, we entered in Lhalung (~3700 m). This little village in the middle of nothing had several home stays, even with signs. We opted for Khabric Guesthouse, where we collapsed on the kitchen floor and drank tea until the evening. We were hosted by the magnificent Tashi and his family, and he explained us that the bridge we were looking for on the east was washed away with the last rains.

Iohi had the chance to master her technique in momo making by helping with the dough together with Tashi’s little girl and we enjoyed of Tashi’s family’s company.

Iohi mastering the momo making technique with Tashi's

daughter

On the morning we walked four and half hours to Dankhar (~3800 m). Dankhar is the most touristic town of that area, but we found it the least interesting. It’s nice when you see it from far, the monasteries and the fort on the steeped mountain over a precipice. But when you get there, it’s only OK. Every other village on our way was much nicer and interesting.

Shichling village below of Dankhar, on our way to the bus stop

Back to Kaza, back to Manali

So we traveled from Kaza to Manali again by local bus. But this time the drive was a nightmare, the bus was very crowded, when 2 people got down, 5 got in. I even got in a quarrel with a Tibetan monk because of Iohi’s seat. I ended up on the back part of the bus with more people than seats breathing all the dust that entered from the open windows.

We stayed for a day in Manali, and then we traveled to Dharamshala to meet Iohi’s sister, Sachu.

On the following morning, we took a minibus to Upper Dharamshala, also known as McLeod Ganj, and also known as where the Dalai Lama lives…

Pictures of Spiti in Iohi's picasa

More of Mongolia -Vegetarians beware, "hot pot"

We were kind of stuck in Pingyao for a couple of days, waiting for the train than goes to the exotic Yinchuan, once the capital of the Western Xia Empire. The guy of the hostel was stunned that we want to go where there are people that don't eat pork. (There is a lot Hui population there which is Muslim). Then we were stuck in Zhongwei for other day (and that's a very interesting story that will be told some days (or maybe weeks) later and we finally got to Xining in Qinghai province to realize that most of the inland ways out of the province are closed because of Tibetan unrest. Anyway, more of this later, the point is that I had time to continue the Mongolian story.

Eight Lakes Valley - the yak's way

The Yak!

So we hit the road (or the mud) again: 400 km (see footnote), 12 hours, several stops when the driver had signal and only one Mongolian tape played in loop. Almost a month later we still hum the songs.

Taken by Teresa

We were supposed to start a 2 day walking, 2 day horse riding trek, but the evening we arrived it was raining so heavily that we started to doubt the plan. But when we woke up, it was sunny. But (again) when we were ready to go, it started to rain. We decided to start anyway.

One hour later, it was raining so heavily that we were completely wet and we had to stop in some ger on the way. We were received, as usual, in the Mongolian way, salty milk tea and some more diary products, and we had the chance to dry ourselves.

Wet!

We asked our guide for the forecast, and for what will happen with the weather and our trek. However, in a country where weather changes every other hour, it was useless. One hour later, the rain stopped and we had a sunny day again.

“It’s better for you to go on”, I’m pretty sure the guide said.

We went on for another hour until the storm forced us to stop in another ger. It wasn’t the place we were supposed to spend the night, I mean, the guide knows the families that are glad to receive foreigners for some tugriks, and we usually stopped at those families. However, this family was also happy to host us and this place happened to be highlight of our countryside trip.

We got dry there, and ironically it stopped raining for the rest of the day. The little boy of the family was glad to show us the sights of the place. Everything was bright green because of the rain and the yaks moving slowly into the twilight added a surrealistic flavor to the view. There was a small frozen body of water and also pieces of ice that broke the earth from underground (I think it’s called permafrost). And maybe one kilometer after that, a big transparent lake under the mountains.

The permafrost

The new little guide - taken by Duncan

We walked around until it was getting dark. When we came back, we saw the poor family cat tied to the front of the ger. Our guide was so afraid of it  that she wanted to have it tied outside!

Next day was sunny, but we were worried that we would have to make up for what we didn’t walk the previous day.

The distances and the times she told us didn’t make any sense and they seemed to change depending who asked…

The thing is that asking for information to English speaking Mongolians is a very hard task.

I’ll give my linguistic explanation, for something completely different. Mongolian is an SOV language: first, the subject, then the object and then the verb.

“The boy ate the goat” is said by a Mongolian speaker as:

“The boy the goat ate”, change of course every word and use a completely different phonologic system.

Then something more complex as “The boy thinks that the girl ate the goat”, should be something like “The boy that the girl the goat ate thinks”.

So think about the effort for Mongolians to understand complex sentences such as:

“What do you think we should do if the rain doesn’t stop?” or “Do we have to walk today for all the distance we didn’t walk yesterday?”

So we ended up making simple yes/no questions or multiple options questions. The problem is that most of the time we got a “yes” as an answer (as it happens in many Asiatic cultures), and the yes, we found out, has many meanings:

1.      “The answer is yes”

2.      “One of the multiple options you gave me is correct”

3.      “I don’t have the faintest idea what are you talking about”, or “You talking to me?” or, simply, “I don’t understand”

So the rule was to only take “no” as a valid answer.

Anyway, it take around 5 hours walking with many stops and very minor rains through an astonishing landscape of mountains and lakes and we got there – handmade dumplings waiting.

Lunch!

What’s more, after 5 days far from a shower, we had the chance of a bath in the cold lake.

We slept there one night and we spent the next two days riding horses through more of that beautiful landscape and many yaks everywhere. The riding was amazing; the horses didn’t hesitate in running and galloping with a small kick and some “choo choo” at their ears. But those two days killed us, and we could barely move afterwards!

Evening after our first day riding

After horses

Next morning, we met our driver and van again and a big pot of stew. We started a short drive again and we had new promises of “hot pot”.

Orkhon Valley – where we ate the famous hotpot and the driver gets into a fight.

After half an hour driving, we stopped near a herd of goats. Our guide left the van and we see her talking with the herder. 5 minutes of discussion, she  points to a goat and pulls some tugriks from her pocket. Then she and the herder start to chase the goat until she almost throw herself over it and grabs it from its horns. The driver runs out to open the door, and the guide drags the goat –next day lunch- to the front seat.

They were thrilled and happy and talked loudly, and our vegetarian girl was completely in shock!

It seems that doing a hot pot is an especial occasion and kind of a celebration. I think it’s pretty clear but picking a goat is not so different than going to the supermarket and picking some meat, only that in the Mongolian way, you don’t need a fridge.

So we drove with the goat screaming once in a while and the girl silently crying in shock until we arrived to our next destination on the side of the Orkhon river.

The father of the family that received us there seemed very glad with the goat and the prospect of doing a hot pot and they killed it while we were exploring around... By the time we came back the goat was clean, the little girls of the family were playing with it, and our guide was again preparing inside meat sausages (not our meal this time).

Next day, after a beautiful sunny morning and 2 seconds under the freezing water of the river, we had the famous hot pot.

They put a rather big pan with some water over the stove in the ger, then some layers of meat and hot stones, onions, carrots, potatoes, and again meat, stones, veggies, etc… The meat was assorted pieces of the goat, which was cut in chunks of different sizes with bones and skin. This was an activity that involved all the women around cutting veggies, and all the men trying to catch the incandescent stones from the stove and putting them in the pan...

Our driver putting goat pieces in the pan

The hot pot is ready!

The result was, well er.., pieces of boiled goat. By Mongolian food standards, it was, well er…, kind of ok.

The same day started sunny became a stormy day with hail that caught me, and two of the girls, Teresa and Jen, several kilometers away. And again I had to unfreeze myself in front of the stove. The gers were packed with people this time. It seems that it was a popular spot and another group was also there, and we slept in tents despite the rain.

The night in the tents was ok, except for the yells and what I correctly guessed were the sound of punches. It was raining heavily and none of us left the tents, but on the morning our guide told us that our cheerful driver got in a fight with the father of the family when he refused to provide him with cigarettes and vodka. It seems that the fight also included our driver waving a knife, but everything ended there.

On the morning, the driver did his best to hurry us out of the place.

The footnote: Distance are provided as perceived the Mongolian sense of distance and I’m not sure regarding the relationship with reality. But it was a relatively short distance done in a very long time.