Himalayan Cowboys

September 18 & 19

Pending. Check back soon.

September 20 and 21, 2010

We set the alarm for 12:45 AM. Outside, we waited in the dark for our bus to arrive. The stray dogs that nap and nuzzle sweetly in the day time had found their prowly night time egos and were walking the streets, howling for trouble. They traveled in packs of six to ten, and if one of them stepped wrong or if they crossed another, they'd snarl and lunge to attack. Joshua swung his pack in his hand, ready to use it as a weapon if necessary, but they trotted by uninterested.

A few minutes after 1 AM, our mini-bus arrived. From the driver's seat, a short, rangy Ladakhi man hopped out and ordered us to hand over our packs, now. Ok, yes. Go to your seats, now.

In the bus, there were 11 passenger seats. In front, three men were already seated, swaddled in large fleece blankets. As soon as we sat down, it became clear that my seat's reclining mechanism was AWOL. The only things that kept me sitting upright or laying at an obtuse angle were my abdominal muscles. Still fiddling with the lever, I looked behind me to discover another man stretched out along the back seats. I gasped a startled, 'joo-lay.'

Our driver swung back in his seat and began driving through the empty streets of Leh, and after a couple of minutes, the man who had been sleeping in the back seat came up to sit next to me. With an enormous smile, he asked us where we were from, and then he told us his name is Aksai and he is from Kathmandu. Then, growing concerned over our thin leggings and simple fleece sweaters, he asked us if we might have hats or jackets. He rubbed his shoulders for emphasis.

Everyone else was clearly bundled for sub-zero weather, so when our driver stopped at the next Guest House, we climbed into the back to dig out our rain jackets. As I was fiddling with my rain jacket, angel-faced Aksai took the coat from my hands, pulled out the sleeves, and directed me to step in. A little flustered, I did so, and just as I began to zip up, he straightened out my hood, pulled it over my head, and pat my ears. 'Good,' he said, beaming at Joshua and me. We were ready.

At the first guesthouse, we picked up a young man who immediately settled in to sleep. Before he did, we exchanged a perfunctory, 'where are you from?' and established that he was Israeli. Driving on a bit further, we stopped for a couple with bicycles. While they dickered with our bus driver over where they would put their cycles and panniers, Aksai beamed at us, and we nodded back, having exhausted all our common vocabulary.

With the cycling couple inside and their bikes strapped on top of another mini-bus, we continued on. Driving out of Leh, we stopped at the bus station where we picked up a man and two women, and then a little further on, we picked up two more men. In all, there were fourteen of us. When the two last men boarded the bus, the two Indian men in blankets crouched in the aisle, wrapped their arms around their legs, and poked their heads out of their fleece shells like turtles. The bus was packed.

Finished lashing the last of the luggage to the roof rack, our bus driver swung back into his seat and started up the engine. The bus coughed and smoked, and over the hum of the engine, he blared Indian, Asian, and American pop music. For the first fifteen minutes, I watched as sleeping Leh slid by the windows, and when we crossed the Indus, I closed my eyes.

Over the next few hours, I was vaguely aware of my body popping and jolting as our driver wound us over dirt roads with deep potholes and enormous boulders. Half sleeping, I watched as our driver man-handled the steering wheel. For him, the drive from Leh to Manali is as much about athleticism as it is about focus and agility. In order not to snap an axle or fly off the road, he had to be completely attuned to the road and his maneuverings the entire time. At some point, I realized that he was not only a maniac, but also truly gifted. I slept a little more deeply.

At about 6 AM, the bus stopped. The sun was just beginning to come up over the horizon, and in the hazy glow of morning, we could just make out the sweep of snowy mountains. In front of us, there were three or four vehicles that had come to a stand still. Ladakhis, tourists, and Buddhist monks in their red robes were milling about, sliding their feet over the icy tracks and looking out over the edge of the road where it dropped into a great abyss.

Our driver jumped out of the bus and walked up to the first vehicle. The woman cyclist wandered outside to pee and came back in to report that the roads were slick with ice and that there was a carrier truck crashed deep in the gorge below. The men gathered in front were getting ready to push the first vehicle up around a particularly narrow, steep, and icy bend. There are no guard rails; there is no shoulder; the road drops off at a vertical pitch.

Sitting in my seat, I watched as the car reversed to the bottom of the slope and then gunned the engine. At the top, the car began to sputter, and the men rushed up behind to push it the last few meters. I let out my breath when the car made it through the curve.

Two more vehicles took the same path, and although one of them came to a standstill, a clever monk scooped up icy dirt to throw in front of the tires. With grit for purchase, they both made it.

Our bus was the largest vehicle to attempt the curve, and muttering something about 'very dangerous,' our driver came back from the pushing crew to drive us up and over. We barely made it to the curve before the wheels began to spin and the bus came to a stop. Turning around, our driver commanded, 'we get out now.'

One by one, the thirteen of us climbed out. I immediately regretted wearing my sandals. Everyone else had sensibly worn hiking boots or sneakers; I was trapsing about in the snow and ice practically barefoot. One monk looked first at my feet and then at me, shaking his head, 'no good,' he said.

Our driver gunned the engine again, and we all struggled to push it up and over. Apparently, the monk had spread the word that some crazy white lady was trying to push a mini-bus up over a snowy Himalayan pass in her sandals, and they all demanded that I get back in the bus with our driver.

I really didn't want to go back in the mini-bus; with the conditions as they were, I was pretty sure that the most dangerous place on Earth was inside that mini-bus, not in my bare feet. Nevertheless, I was not about to make a fuss: if a monk tells you to get inside the mini-bus, you go.

Settled in the passenger seat, our bus driver turned to me and asked me where I was from (that I would be so stupid to wear sandals in the Himalaya). I asked him his name (after all, if I'm about to skip off the side of this cliff with him, I should know his name). 'Adjay,' he said. He turned the key in the ignition and paused one last time to look in my direction, 'ok,' he said, 'we might die now.'

I almost died from the terror. For a second, I thought about jumping out of the bus anyway, but I figured that leaving Adjay to die alone in the mini-bus was really bad karma (or whatever), so I stayed. As Adjay revved the engine and everyone else pushed, the bus skidded and slid. At one point, our rear tire came perilously close to the edge, and I heard screams. My heart did a somersault in my mouth.

Finally, we made it over the curve. Adjay stopped the bus, turned to me, and said, 'that pass is very dangerous. Every year, people die there.' Not knowing what else to do, I laughed. Adjay looked at me as if I was crazy, 'I'm not making joke. The buses, they go phttt - whoop!' He demonstrated with his hands. I nodded. I understand.

We hopped out the bus to help the bus with the bikes up and over. While we waited, I dug out my hiking boots and rain pants for warmth. Next time, I'm not getting back in the bus, monk or no monk.

With the other bus over the curve, we all bundled back into the bus. Adjay guided us slowly over the last few snowy kilometers to the pass. Over the next couple of hours, we watched as the sun warmed the snowy peaks. I dozed for bit, warmer in my rain suit and boots.

By 10 AM, we had stopped a few more times to help the bus with the bikes. There was a serious language barrier, so while the tourists speculated - brakes? Alternator? Engine-thingy? - the Indians and Ladakhis bickered over the open hood. People grumbled about being hungry, and digging out the apricots we had brought with us, I told Joshua to pass them around. He started with the Indian man sitting in the aisle. Misunderstanding, he took them and burried them under his blanket for later (for the rest of the time, he nodded his head gravely whenever he saw me and even smiled at me once.)

Finally, we arrived at parachute village. Inside tents made of parachutes, women were cooking bhaat dal over an open fire. We gathered round a low table, and as soon as we sat, the women poured us each cups of hot, milky chai from their thermos. When they served us the dal, I looked dubiously at the offering: it's not that it didn't smell good, but I had seen one of the women retrieve the rice from a pan covered in skanky blankets out back. When everyone else dug in, I said a prayer to the god of Delhi-Belly and did too.

When we had all finished, we gathered outside to watch a team of Indians repair the other bus. With a precariously place jack, four bodies under the hood, and a very large rock (?) propping up one side, they fiddled. Their tools included (I shit you not) a hammer and a hand saw. As we watched, we exchanged names. Matan, the Israeli, teased us about our 'suburban' names, and he was absolutely tickled when he discovered that we had met on a big yellow school bus in the suburbs. The cycling couple were from Switzerland, but while the woman was from Western Switzerland and spoke German, the man was from Eastern Switzerland and spoke French (this explained their conversations in heavily accented English). Curious about their cycling, I asked them where and how long they had been touring.

Nadeen, the woman, told me that both she and Gaetan, her partner, had begun in Switzerland. While she had started a year and a half ago, Gaetan had started a year ago. Just to double check, I confirmed that they had, indeed, cycled from Switzerland to India. They had. Nadeen had started with her boyfriend at the time, and Gaetan had started with his girlfriend at the time. Six months ago, they met and decided, hey! Let's switch! And so they had. They'd cycled through the Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Staney-stan, and now they were in India. They were cycling the Silk Road.

I asked them where they planned on cycling next. They had taken a detour to Ladakh, and not wanting to cycle back on the same road, they were taking the bus to Spiti, 8 hours outside of Manali. Nadeen told me that she planned to 'go to Asia. But I think that maybe we are together now,' she looked at Gaetan surreptitiously to make sure he wasn't listening. He wasn't. 'I will go as far as we are together, and then when we aren't I think I will stop. Maybe one more year?' (This conversation is also known as Lifestyles of the Swiss and Crazy.)

I was in awe. It's not that I want to do the same thing; I don't. I can't imagine constantly living with the risk of storms, warfare, and sandy roads. They carry enough food for a week, and each night, they either camp or they stay in hostels or guest homes. They've biked through wind, rain, desert, and the Himalaya. They've crossed borders that I would never dream of crossing. They don't wear helmets. Nadeen's face is weathered from the sun, and she has deep lines around her mouth. I couldn't begin to guess how old she is: 20s? 30s? Gaetan's jacket has rips in it from where he has fallen. He's handsome and just a little bit mean. When I ask him questions, he coolly pretends he doesn't understand me, and then when I repeat myself, he purposely gives the wrong answer before he gives the right answer (ex: Did you start from Manali? How long did it take you (in reference to their bike ride from Manali to Leh)? He pauses, looking at me as if I were impossibly slow. 'No,' he says, 'I started in Switzerland. It has taken me a year,' and then, without any further prompting from me, 'yes. Manali. Two weeks.' He goes off to smoke a cigarette. Nadeen looks worriedly after him but does not follow.).

After Gaetan had gone off to smoke a cigarette, we watched as the team of Indians finished up their handiwork. Somehow, they had found a log, sawed it to size, and tied it to the axle with twine. In addition, they had taken a coat hanger, hammered it into some sort of origami shape and then lodge it into the engine somewhere. I'm serious. I'm not kidding you even a little bit. I wish I had a photo. When they had finished, Adjay, our Himalayan Cowboy, gave the driver a thumbs up and said, 'brakes good.' For a test drive, the man whipped a few wheelies. The brakes were, in fact, good.

With the bus repaired, we all jumped back into the bus and went back on the road. There were more mountain passes, and the scenery was spectacular. Over the naked hills and in the middle of nowhere, nomads with their heards of goats walked on and on. Matan gave Joshua and I brain teasers: you're on a 100 meter cliff. You have a 75 foot rope. You may only anchor at the top and at 50 meters. You also have a pocket knife. How do you get down? Or, your grandfather takes two pills each day. They are two different pills, and both are 'life-saving cocktails.' At the beginning of each week, your grandfather puts the pills in a row of pill boxes. It's the end of the week, and he has two days left. All the pills get mixed up. He can't buy more (jesus, you Americans think you can fix everything by, 'oh yeah, we'll just buy another'), and he must have both pills. How does he survive? Or, you have 27 black balls, all equal in size and color. They are the same in every way, except one of them is heavier. You have a double-pan balance. You may use it three times. How do you find the heaviest ball? (I'll give you guys the answers if you guess :))

It began to get dark again. The road stopped being quite as bumpy, and the switchbacks grew hair-pin narrow. On one side of the road, there was always a precipitous, breath-taking drop, and although I had managed to stave off the motion sickness through mind-games and sheer will power, the switchbacks and sheer terror and a growing pain in my intestines did me in. At 8 PM, we stopped again for food, and the god of Delhi-Belly stopped listening. It's official: I gots the squirts.

After more bhaat dal and milky chai (which grows a skin on top - yuck), I went down to the squatter one more time and all of us loaded back into the bus. Clutching a growling Delhi-Belly, bouncing up and down, and freezing, I barely slept for the next 8 hours. In Manali, we all unloaded and parted ways. The bus-ride had taken 27 hours; it was 4 AM, and Joshua and I still had a 10 hour bus ride to Dharamsala. As far as we knew, the next bus left at 8 AM, and after that, the only other buses were at 5 and 6 PM. So, the option was: find a guest house, wake up early, and ride through the day, or sleep longer and take a bus through the night. Um. Not appealing.

Matan walked with us, and as we exited the bus station, a man came up to us and tried to get us to come to his hotel. For the next 30 minutes, we dickered with the man for a room that was as he said as it would be. Eventually, we found out that the bus for Dharamsala left at 5 AM, and we told the man that we wouldn't be needing a room after all. He got very angry, and it was a nasty scenario all around. Finally, we managed to leave, and when we got to the bus station, a nice man led us to the correct public bus.

At first, the bus was pretty empty, and for a couple of hours, Joshua and I tried to catch a little sleep. After a bit, the bus began to fill up, and we switched to sitting. For the next 8 hours, I dozed on and off. The seats were too close together and my knees knocked against the seat in front of me. Two other women sat in the same seat with me. People stood in the aisles. The bus was packed, and it wound through the softer, greener foothills of the Himalaya. If the mountains of Ladakh are awe-inspiring in their nakedness, these are lush. All around us were waterfalls, gushing rivers, and thick, green forests. I saw my first monkey. In the villages, kiosks sold rich fabrics for women's clothing, cell phones, freshly harvested fruits and vegetables. The women sitting next to me were wearing oodles of gold jewelry, and everywhere I looked, another woman was wearing a shalwar kameez with the most lovely fabric. Jeans and t-shirts really pall in comparison (or, in my case, a muddy rain suit and greasy hair).

At 1 PM, we arrived at the Palampur Bus Station. Our connecting bus pulled up as we pulled in, and we were on our way in no time. For two more hours, we climbed higher and higher, and then finally, at 3 PM, we arrived in Dharamsala. From the bus station, we climbed a series of steps to the taxi court where we paid a man 170 rupees to drive us the last 8 kilometers into McLeod Ganj.

The streets of McLeod Ganj are narrow and steep. The village is built right into the mountain side, and the hills are covered in pine forest. Monks, hippies, and Indians walk along the side of the roads, and autorickshaws fly by, their drivers leaning on their horns. Our driver dropped us off in front of our guest house, and we went inside. Although it's a bit expensive (450 rupees a night), we have our own toilet (necessary now that we both have the squirts), shower, and a TV!

Not wasting any time, we immediately dumped our packs, used the toilet, and went back outside. Climbing the hill out of McLeod Ganj, we went in search of the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Center in Dharamkot, about a mile out of town. Although we had played e-mail tag with their secretary for a couple of weeks now, we had yet to make sure that we were on the roster for yoga classes. Up and over the hill, we passed through busy McLeod Ganj and found ourselves in the woods. Monkeys bounced through the trees and walked alongside us.

In Dharamkot, we found the Center, but a man was walking out of the gate and told us that the office was all locked up and no one was there. We went to investigate, and on the door, there was a handwritten sign that said, 'call Leon or go to the Yellow House.'

Armed with our cryptic message, we climbed the hill to a cafe and tried to call the phone number we had. Unfortunately, the phone number was a dud. Thinking we had seen the Yellow Guest House next to our Guest House, we walked back to McLeod Ganj. No luck there either. We sent a quick e-mail to the Center explaining our efforts; hopefully, it will all work out.

Back at the Guest House, I took a shower and Joshua went to the book exchange to get a new book. Although we're blessed to have hot water from a solar heater, there is no cold water. I'm not sure what's worse: a shower so hot it hurts, or a shower so cold it hurts.

Once we were clean, we walked to a restaurant recommended by LP and ate a dinner overlooking the heart of McLeod Ganj. I ate a vegetable curry and Joshua had a delicious coconut korma. We shared a plate of naan and a cup of tea while we listened to Bob Marley and Kurt Cobain (it's true; EVERYONE listens to American music).

When we finished our food, we went in search of an adapter for Indian outlets and nail clippers (I was starting to look like a sadhu). Joshua went onto the net to send e-mails to the fam, and I went back to the guest house to catch up on my writing. Before I went up, I said hello to the monk in the office, and in broken English we exchanged greetings. As I turned to go upstairs, he stopped me by asking, 'you teach me English?' Like I said, you don't say no to a monk. Just to clarify, I pointed emphatically and said, 'you want me to teach you English?' He nodded eagerly, and I asked him when.