Hiking in the Fog

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Trip Start Aug 11, 2007 Previous
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  Landour, India
Monday, September 3, 2007

Happy Labor Day to those of you in the U.S.!  I can't quite believe it's already September, since it seems like it was just the middle of August when I arrived in India.

I've been here a full 3 weeks as of today, and I think I'm settling in a bit.

This weekend was a nice break from being in school!  On Saturday, three friends and I took a day-long hike.  We had originally planned on going to this place called Happy Valley where many Tibetan refugees have settled and where there's supposedly a beautiful Buddhist Temple.  We even got a hiking map of the area from one of the small stores nearby our guest house.  However, we didn't put the map to much use after we realized that we couldn't really figure out where exactly we were on the map, and instead we let our legs guide us without a fixed destination

Me, D & L on Hike

.

We first hiked through some dense foresty areas, making sure to watch out for leeches (as one of our Hindi teachers warned us).  When we came to the main road, we continued on it the rest of the way, winding through small villages with no more than 4 or 5 buildings each. 

We saw lots of cows, a couple groups of school children who giggled hysterically when they passed us, some mountain goats, some small roadside shrines, and lots of fog.  At times, the fog was so thick that we couldn't see more than 4 feet in front of us...it was kind of cool to have the feeling that we were walking into nothingness.

We brought along snacks and stopped for a water and snack break on the side of the road in one of the small villages.  There was a road sign written in Hindi across the street from us, and we tried to decipher the words on the sign.  I was actually able to read most of the words and am quite impressed with how much I've learned in just one week of Hindi classes!

As we were snacking away, we noticed an elderly woman sitting across the road from us with a huge ornamented ring hanging down from her nose.  I later saw the same nose ornament on a woman in a photograph in a book, and the shopkeeper told us that it's not very common for people to wear such elaborate jewelry anymore.  I felt lucky to have seen one of the cool nose ornaments still being put to good use.

Eventually we got hungry and stopped in a dirt area on the side of the road for our first lunch break

Hindi Road Sign

.  I had a not-so nutritious lunch of cookies, crackers, nuts and a banana, but it was yummy and gave me energy to continue the hike.  I imagine that four white kids sitting on the side of the road in basically the middle of nowhere might have appeared odd to the people in cars and motorcycles who were passing by.  I did feel somewhat out of place.  However, we must not have looked lost, because no one stopped to offer us a ride or ask if we needed help.  Though we did get a lot of honks, yells out the window, etc. as cars came around the bend and saw us sitting there.

After Lunch Break Part I, we continued on our journey down the road.  We were heading to the next small town, about 6 km away, called Suwakholi.  However, we never quite reacher Suwakholi due to an unexpected detour that we took along the way.

On the side of the road we noticed a gate and entranceway leading to what looked like a house, and next to the gate was a huge, brightly-colored and professional-looking sign that read "Himalayan Weavers Shop, Welcome."  We thought it strange that there would be a weaver's cooperative shop out here in the middle of nowhere, but I suggested that we might as well take a look, since we were here and didn't have any other destination in mind.

Hindi Road Sign

The gatekeeper let us through and led us up the hill to a brick house with lots of colored wool drying outside on clotheslines.  The house looked all locked up and definitely not like a weaving cooperative store.  However, the gatekeeper knocked loudly on the door and after waiting a few minutes, an older gray-haired English woman opened the door, looking a bit confused.

After seeing us, she said that she was just finishing her lunch and that if we came around to the side door, she would let us into the showroom.

We all went in to what looked like her office/living room and sat down while she shuffled around some things and opened a wooden chest containing beautiful shawls and scarves.

She apologized for her disorganization, telling us that the store did not officially open until mid-September, but that she might open it earlier now that we were here.  She explained that her husband worked in development economics, and they had been living in India for over 20 years.  They had moved out here and started the weaver's cooperative some years ago, and part of the proceeds went to support the educational and health needs of the villagers who made the scarves and shawls

Nearby Villages

.  She told us that all the colors of the wool were created from natural dyes.

One of my friends bought a scarf to give as a gift, and after chatting a bit more, we thanked the woman for opening her store for us and got up to go.  However, before we walked back down to the road, the woman opened a gate on the side of her property and told us that there were some nice hiking paths down that way.

We thanked her and took her advice about the hiking paths.  I think we lucked out, because if we hadn't met her, we would have never have had the lovely mountain hike we took for the next 2-3 hours.  We hiked up into the mountains and had some gorgeous views when the fog rolled away.

At around 4pm, we decided to turn around and head back to the guest house to make it home in time for dinner.  Thanks to the expert navigational ability of my three friends (I'm not very good at directions unless I have a map), we made it back in what seemd like half the time.

After a thorough leech-check when we got back, I was happy to find that no leeches had decided to make a snack out of me that day

Cow

!

After dinner, a few of us watched half of what might be the longest Bollywood movie ever.  We were too tired to keep watching it after the first 1.5 hours, and so we stopped it at the "intermission" and went to bed...maybe we'll finish it some other time (or maybe not).

On Sunday we sent into town (Mussoorie) and wandered around a bit.  I bought some beautiful pictures of some of the Indian gods (I have to learn which ones they are now) and some more fruit for breakfast.  We hiked back up the hill in time for dinner.

Nothing else much to report for now, but I'm sure there'll be mre adventures to come.

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Mountain Goats	Mountains	Mountains	More Moutanins
Gorgeous Clouds	Fog and Moutnains	More Clouds	View from mountaintop
View from mountaintop	Threatening Rain Clouds	Clouds

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