Milam glacier, down to Rishikesh, up to Shimla
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
14
33
Trip End
Nov 24, 2004
Shimla,
India
Saturday, June 26, 2004
MILAM GLACIER TREK
No messing around with guide or porter agencies this time - strengthened by my experiences in the Pindari valley and the rest I had in lovely Kausani, I was set to do the Milam trek solo.
The day of departure from Kausani was typical - when I woke at 06:00 to get an early start it was bucketing down with rain, so in true Jeroen-style I quickly gave up the idea, turned off the alarm clock and woke at 11:00 to find it much better. We had views of the mountains in the distance, no less. Cursing myself for my usual laziness I still headed off, taking the bus and jeeps all the way to Thal, a considerably warmer one-street valley town 70km south of Munsyari where the trail starts. I arrived after 6 hours of crammed jeeps at 16:00 to find there was no more transport up to Munsyari, so I selected the least smelly hotel and restaurant, and set the alarm clock early.
At 07:00 I tied my rucksack on the roof of a comfy Mahindra Maxx jeep heading up the mountains, and we set off for the beautiful ride. Passing only one town of any size, we drove up wild 2500m-high mountains that got ever steeper, passing pretty villages stuck to the flanks and huge waterfalls. When, after an hour, I saw the valley come to an end in a huge wall of rocks, I wondered where the road would go - but it snaked higher and higher along impossible cliffs (200m straight down, hurray) to a 2800m-high pass. After a break for tea and a visit to the local temple, the road snaked down to Munsyari, which was high up on the hillside, facing a set of five beautiful snow-clad 6000m+ peaks, the Panchchuli.
After finding a hotel to leave 10kg of excess baggage, it was another bus ride to the bottom of the valley where the footpath started at 1700m, following the Gori Ganga River up to its source, Milam glacier at 3800m. The first day, I hooked up with a local Munsyari lad called Aris ('irish') who was on his way to Milam as well for a short holiday trip. After only two hours of easy walking along well-paved footpaths and passing a few cute villages, we arrived at Liliam, where I got a 'delux' double room with valley views and storm lantern for 80Rs at the first 'tourist rest house' on the trek.
Here I met a group of trekkers from the Delhi branch of the Youth Hostel Association (YHA), who were on their yearly trek. Strangly enough, most of the members of the party were well above 30 years old, and only three of them were still in possession of youth. Nevertheless, they've been on some very impressive and challenging treks all over the Indian Himalayas - but I outpaced them by two days on this trip as they were travelling with porters and mules carrying up their food and tents.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner from now on, like on the Pindari trek, consisted of a combination of:
paratha (flat bread with spicy potato much inside, usually for breakfast)
dal (lentil curry)
chapati (flat roti bread)
sabji (a spicy stew of vegetables or potatoes)
rice
chai (sweet milk-and-sugar-infused tea)
swigs from my bottle of purified water (which tastes like a gulp of swimming pool)
Not much else is available in the dhabas (small roadside eateries) and teahouses along the path, and this indeed is what locals eat every day, all their lives. Not much vitamins in there, but it's excellent trekking nosh, except for the dal-induced farting. Some places now also sell packets of stuff locally known only as 'Maggi': pre-cooked spaghetti with a bag of weak taste to add to it. I took along 500grs of dalia, wheat that can be cooked with water or milk to make tasty porridge
The dhabas along the route are usually small sheds made with logs and straightened-out tin oil cans whacked to the sides. Higher up the valley, some are very nicely built, just using local materials (wood with forks to keep up the beams, all connections secured with strips of bamboo and no nails or other bourgeois materials at all). The invention of the chimney has yet ro reach most of the Himalayan valleys - instead the cooks crouch down in the smoke to cook, with all eyes in the small room in tears. The locals are used to it, but foreign trekkers like myself sometimes have to run out into the cold for some real air. I have discussed chimney technology (suggesting using a couple of those old oilcans) with several dhaba-wallahs, but they seem put off by the idea of making a hole in the roof. Rain might come in.
It's funny how at every stop, the dhaba-wallah will come to you, sit down and seriously start discussing what you want to eat ("Dal, rice, chapati and sabji, sir?") even though the 'menu' is the same everywhere and you end up getting these four ingredients. For variation and to make it more exciting, you'll sometimes skip the rice, or the chapati.
A Delhi-ite in the YHA group expressed his worries of the hygiene of the local kitchens (which are filthy of course) and only trusted the Maggi. I seem to be resistent to all kinds of Indian bacteria by now and happily gobble down anything from dhabas - within certain limits. At least in these places you sit in what is also the kitchen, and see how filthy it is - in city restaurants you never really know what is going on behind that kitchen door.
Back to topic now. Liliam consists simply of two resthouses with dhabas, a police post, a red metal mailbox, a tiny post office (with one barred window sporting a sign 'no admission'), and the best shop in the valley, selling paan (chewing tobacco), chocolate, Maggi, Pepsi and snacks from its sole window. Liliam also has some fabulous birds. The Himalayan Jay is a biggie, about the size of a thrush but very colourful and equipped with a flashy 30-cm long tail. All along the river are cute black birds with white heads and bright red wagtails, noisily marking their territory and wagging away at the picky brown ladies.
On day two, the path went steep up the valley to follow a cliff (40m straight down into the seething river) and along the forested 25km-long gorge to Bugdiar. Along the way, it's clear this landscape is temporary - the river surges through the valley with amazing force, and landslides and fallen boulders everywhere show it's planning to make the gorge deeper yet. Nearly all its length, the river is a succession of rapids, with water smashing into huge rocks and sending spray up. A professional rafter who was trekking in the valley said it was too dangerous for anyone to try rafting or kayaking down. At one point the river thunders only a metre wide between two sheer rock faces - under the surface it may be up to 30m deep. Not a good place to reincarnate as a fish.
At Bugdiar it started to rain as soon as I checked in to the simple resthouse. Stuck between two hillsides, it's not a pretty place, as in 1989 a huge landslide caused by days of rain buried half the houses here - and the military staff lodged inside. Dozens of people died, and all there is to see now are some surviving buildings and a plain of rubble with a few monuments. There's a post of the ITBP here - the Indian Tibetan Border Police - and all trekkers have to register so that they won't cause a scandal by invading China. About 10 thoroughly bored policemen hang around their plexiglass igloos in shifts of 2-3 months and drink tea all day. We're their only entertainment, and they took great care in scribbling down my details, including my phone number and father's first name. As it was a depressing place I nodded of at 20:00 for an early start the next day.
The third day took me out of the zigzagging gorge and up into alpine meadows, with the first sights of the big peaks at the end of the valley. Rilkot was the next stop, but as I arrive early and the views didn't appeal enough to me, I decided to walk 2hrs on to Martoli, one of the high villages set at about 3200m.
The villages of the upper Milam valley are special, as they did not thrive on agriculture, but on trade. This valley was one of the main trade routes for mule caravans between this part of India and Tibet, and for many centuries the families in these villages lived from the 4-5 expeditions per year they made across the high pass into Tibet.
The Tibetans had surplus wool (especially the silky hairs of the goat's chin which are used for Pashmina scarves are valuable), cattle and sheep. The Indians mostly transported salt, cotton and cotton clothes and wheat/barley up to Tibet. The route is a six-day mule trek (which means a hard 20km per day, much more than hikers usually do) from Milam, and there were markets in Tibet that were visited by the Indians to do the trade business.
Unfortunately, after many centuries of free trade and unrestricted border crossings, the Indian-Chinese troubles in 1962 meant the border was sealed, and the trade stopped. After a year or two, the villagers in the upper Milam valley realized that they wouldn't survive on agriculture so high up, and with so many families in a delicate environment. One by one they left the villages, often also lured by secure government jobs in towns like Munsyari that were being offered as compensation. Now many of the villages are near-deserted, with ruined houses (their wooden beams and ornately carved doors and windows ripped out for firewood to heat the poor military staff that was posted here) and unused fields.
In 1961, Martoli had more than 60 school-going children; they even had to split the classes and get a new building. Now the village houses about 10 old men, three old women, some shepherds occasionally, and no children at all. The courtyards of deserted houses are used to plant herbs (protected from the cold wind by the stone walls) which are dried and sold in Munsyari for some extra cash. Otherwise, it's pretty dead... and fabulously beautiful, if a little eerie.
There's one 'hotel' that has a dhaba serving the usual food, and visitors may sleep on mats on the first floor of the old house for 10Rs (the cheapest hotel I ever visited... though you share the room with sacks of wheat, some mice and a lot of smoke). The views from Martoli in the early morning are stunning. As it's set on a plateau in the middle of the valley, high above the river, and we often had clear views up adjoining valleys towards the two 7000m+ peaks of Nanda Devi and a couple of peaks over 6000m. And the sunsets were even better.
Just above Martoli is one of the largest birch forests of the Himalayas - an excellent place to sit out of the harsh wind (which blows hats off between 09:00 and 17:00), read a book, snooze or stare at the peaks. Birch tree bark was used by the ancient Hindu writers to scribble down the first sacred texts, and the villagers treated the forest with much respect; cattle grazing was forbidden, and firewood collection was done very carefully.
Apart from the local men, who were all drunk by 10:00 every day, there was a small community of mountain enthusiasts in Martoli. An Englishman who would take his tent and wander up side valleys to camp near the glaciers next to the high peaks. There was a Swiss William Tell-look-alike who spend all summer in Martoli, living in a house that he had squatted, doing treks, and occasionally moving up to a cave he had done up in the birch forest - I swapped a book for some of his excellent muesli-mix before I left. They were a good source of hiking tips and recommendations, and they convinced me to come back here one day equipped with a light tent and stove to do some proper side-valley trekking.
The trek to Milam village involved backtracking, descending 200m to the river, going steep up 200m and then walking via Burphu village (semi-deserted, but they had maybe 20 families, a few children and a post office here) to Milam. Bridges are very important in the Himalayas - and usually get swept away each spring by the violent snow melt. There used to be a good suspension bridge at Burphu, shortening the trek by 1-2 hours, but as the villagers had not paid for all the materials that went into it, the owner had taken off the wooden planks months ago to punish them! In the meantime, villagers backtracked to the only other bridge across the Gori Ganga, crossed at shallow places (though this is potentially lethal: you have 15 seconds before your toes freeze in this water), or walked up to the glacier to cross on top of it.
Milam is a similarly ruined village: more so because it has the army base that desperately needed firewood before they organized a reliable supply of heating oil in the early years of the conflict with China. The poor suckers were all living in shoddy barracks made of corrugated metal, which must be freezing cold in winter - maybe they should have built sturdy stone houses like the natives. I registered at the Indian Tibetan Border Police Post (more bored soldiers in tracksuits guarding a border that never will be invaded) and checked into the wonderful Deepu Guesthouse (with the only good matrasses in the valley), run by Kishan, a kind old man who tended the herb plots around the house and cooked great meals. One evening he asked, with naughty, twinkling eyes: "You like... wine?", and yes, I downed the sickly sweet white wine and regretted it later as my stomach twisted and turned.
It was just 4km further to the glacier (a man told me that he remembers it coming 5km further when he was a child), and I arrived early to watch the sun rise and heat up the stones balanced on the rim of the ice, to come crashing down on the pile of rubble below. I met the YHA group again at the glacier, and surprisingly they told me that the Burphu bridge was to be finally finished that day, making the journey home a few hours shorter... excellent timing.
I walked further up the valley along the edge of the glacier, on top of the rubble dragged along by it, but the debris interspersed with deep, blue crevices went on for kilometers. There was a trail to a mountain lake, but a tent would be necessary for that... next time. Time to get back. I walked back via the wobbly new suspension bridge (mentally celebrating being the first foreigner to cross it), and trekked back down to Munsyari in three days. All in all it was a fabulous trek, not too difficult and well worth revisiting with proper equipment to tackle the advanced level options.
Returning to Bageshwar by jeep, I headed towards the plains again, as this is the only way to cross into the high mountains of Himachal Pradesh (HP, the next state) which does not involve walking for weeks. I stopped for a day of rest and clothes washing at Gwaldam (2200m), which should have great views of a few 6-7000m peaks, but the weather ruined it all by dumping non-stop rain onto me. I got to finish a few books that were suspended in mid-reading, and wandered along a quiet forestry road and watched a family of rhesus monkeys huddle high in pine trees to escape the rain.
An exhausting but fascinating 10hr bus ride took me all the way to Rishikesh, on the edge of the plains at only 350m. We followed the Pindari river to the confluence with the main Ganges river, and turned left to drive among the thousands of pilgrims down to Rishikesh, the world capital of yoga. All along the busy and noisy road between Rishikesh and the top of the road at the famous Badarinash temple (at 4000m!), pilgrims were making their way up and down the half-finished road. Most traveled in packed buses (poor villagers) and jeeps (rich Delhi-ites and Punjabis), many Punjabi boys were attempting the climb by bycicle (no gears... so basically they walked). But the most dedicated pilgrims were the sadhus, the holy men dressed in (not much) saffron/orange, carrying just a small bag, a walking stick and a tiffin (a small metal cylindrical container for meals and begging). The sadhus, mostly old men sporting wild beards, calmly walked for hundreds of kilometers along the road, for weeks, to complete the holy journey (yatra), sleeping and eating by the road or in ashrams, or depending on money given by richer pilgrims. Incredible to see.
Rishikesh, a hot town along the Ganges where it flows dramatically from the mountains onto the plains, is where the Beatles visited their guru, where Geaorge Harrison got the idea to add sitar to the Beatles records, and where nowadays thousands of pilgrims bathe themselves in the river and visit an ashram or guru, before heading up the valley. The ghats are busy all day, especially during morning bathing and the evening puja (offering) rituals, when bouquets of flowers with burning incense and a candle are let down the river. Strangely, the act of placing the puja in the river is enough - it the thing tips over and gets ripped apart by the fast-flowing water just a metre away, it doesn't seem to bother anyone.
Further up along the river, an amazing set of ashrams has arisen by the riverbanks... huge complexes of hospitals, guesthouses, inner gardens, temples and prayer rooms decorated with 10m-high statues of colourful deities. It's like Disneyland, only the staff here all have beards, and the cows are real. I thought it all a bit overdone and commercialized - it seems that getting money from pilgrim's pockets into the ashram bank account is the main business here. Still, the place attracts many many devout Indians, and thousands of foreigners too, looking for yoga courses or looking for a guru. It was nice to be in a guesthouse with many other travelers again, though, and tasting other food than just dal and rice (they even sold pretty good renditions of Dutch kruidkoekjes).
A short busride away was Dehra Dun, home to the incompetent Survey of India (the national mapmakers, who still consider all maps of all border areas [including the whole coastline!] as too sensitive to sell to the public, leading to a dearth of good hiking maps... and despite that the Chinese and Pakis all have spy satellites). After Rishikesh, it was great to be in a obviously wealthy town with good restaurants, fast internet connections, two excellent bookshops and the best bus station in India.
The circus was in town, and as the girl in the bookshop said "You haven't seen an Indian circus? Oh my god, then you haven't lived!", I decided to stay a day... just to find an empty field with just some last caravans then next morning. They had packed up overnight. I watched them use the elephants to push heavy carts onto the back of trucks, and was sad to see that one of the small elephants was dying... all the others were in obvious distress, waving their trunks and softly stroking the small elephant.
Arriving at the glam new InterState Bus Terminal well in time for the 08:00 bus to Shimla, I found that the rather pretty bus station had been put to use even though it was not quite ready yet... not many shops, no baggage room, and most importantly, the InterState bus drivers apparently hadn't been told about it, as both the 08:00 and the 10:00 bus failed to show up at all. The enquiry people knew nothing either, so together with two Indians and a Canadian girl on her way to a Bhuddist monastery to help teaching children, we rented a taxi to Solan, near Shimla, for 400Rs each, twice the bus price. It was a good ride in a car with great suspension (wow, I could even read without getting carsick) but it had a maximum speed of 50km/h so it was slow going. The road was good and the views were great as we crawled up the mountainsides again.
Shimla is a brash hill station, a mountain-ridge town at 2100m that was popularised by the British has now been fully Indianised... it's surrounded by concrete suburbs, the spelling on English-language signs has dramatically deteriorated (Wel Come On Arrivel To Shimla), and there's plenty of air, ground and sound pollution. But the main ridge road, The Mall, is car-free and is full of Brit-era town houses, even sporting a neo-gothic church and several neo-tudorian public buildings. This is where the wives of British army and administration officers spent all summer gossiping, flirting and sipping tea, joined by their husbands when they had their leave. The highest theatre in India, the famous Gaiety Theatre, seems to have burnt down last year, and they're busy constructing a new roof.
For 7 months per year Shimla used to be the capital of India: the government, first based in Calcutta, 7000km away, later in nearby Delhi, would move (paperwork, civil servants and all) to this cool abode and rule the country from the majestic neo-renaissance Viceroy's Lodge. There's a cricket ground (the highest in the world), a racecourse, and since 1903 a fabulous 'toy-train' that snakes up from the plains on narrow gauge rails, passing hundreds of tunnels and bridges. For some Shimla was not cool enough, and some viceroys (British rulers of India) ventured even further up into the mountains, following the famous Hindustan-Tibet Route into Tibet... a mere two week walk.
Here I met Alex and Tabby again, the travellers who were ill together with me in Orchha a few months before. They had just returned from the mountains, and told of horrifying bus rides along crumbling cliffs and some of the most beautiful places they've visited in India. I can't wait!
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Next up: the remote Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti valleys; the highest village (4200m) and some of the highest motorable roads in the world (5500m), and Leh, the capital of Ladakh, on the Indian chunk of the Tibetan plateau.
Weather: sunny with patches of clouds. 8-25°C at 3000m, 38°C at 300m, 17°C at 2000m
Mood: glad to be back up in the mountains
Stomach: still going strong, surprisingly.
Signs Of The Day: "Alertness Aboids Aiccidents", "Make safety a habbit" (HP road signs)
Reading: Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
Recently finished reading: The Moor's Last Sigh (Salman Rushdie - brilliant), Train to Pakistan (Kushwant Singh - gripping), Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Louis de Bernieres - fabulous).
