Kailash Mansarovar Again

An entirely different experience from the earlier trip (May 2010).  This time, we were a group of 5 intrepid women, down from a peak group size of 14.  I had made arrangements through Ojha Holidays, which I was told was one of the nodal agencies who directly liaised with the Chinese authorities and through whom other agents worked.  Since we were down to a group of five, I realized we would be attached to another group, to make up the minimum (economic) group size, which to my understanding is 20-22.

The first surprise happened when we landed at Kathmandu airport on June 17, 2013, where casual questioning of the guys who came to receive us yielded information that we were joining a group of ~70!  We were all put up at different hotels (Yak and Yeti was where we had chosen to stay – nice hotel, by the way).  A settling down in rooms, some food and we headed towards Thamel in search of coffee.  We had to be back in the hotel by ~6:30 pm for a briefing by Ramesh Ojha (agent).  Of course, time means nothing in these situations, and after a long delay, Ramesh Ojha made his entrance, handed us our duffle bags and back packs with the news that we would be visiting Pashupatinath temple the next morning, and then leaving Kathmandu post lunch, by something like 2 pm!

Pashupatinath Temple

Reclining Vishnu

So, there went our plans to shop in Thamel and we just hurried off to our rooms to repack, eat dinner (nice buffet) and crash.  Next morning, June 18, after a long wait post breakfast, we visited Pashupatinath and the reclining Vishnu (first time I’ve seen a Vishnu reclining on his back in suptabhaddakona asana!).  We returned at something like 2 pm, checked out and around 3 pm, headed to the buses for the trip to the border town of Kodari.

Lesson number 1 for anyone wanting to make this trip:  Try and ensure you are in a group of your own comprising ~20 people.  Ensure your agent makes all arrangements specifically for your group of 20, including a guide, sherpas and kitchen truck + staff dedicated to your group for the entire duration of the trip.  Otherwise, you will spend forever and ever waiting around while the agent arranges the logistics and nobody will have any information about when transportation will arrive and when you will actually move.  Kathmandu has narrow streets and too much traffic, not to mention the confusion added by the monsoons.  So transit times within Kathmandu are totally unpredictable.  Having your own group, all staying at one hotel, will greatly address this issue

Lesson number 2: Be prepared for long waits and little information.  If you do not face it, good!  And if you are able to follow lesson number 1, this problem should anyway get addressed to some extent at least.  But if you do encounter it, better to face it with equanimity rather than losing your head over it, because this trip is as much about facing everything that comes your way with equanimity, as about physical fitness.  Being impatient and intolerant of rampant inefficiency and absence of information, achieves absolutely nothing other than frayed nerves for everyone in the group

Finally, a bus made its appearance and we clambered in with a few others from the same hotel.  We wended our way through the streets of Kathmandu stopping at a couple of other hotels and picking up more people until we finally headed out of Kathmandu.  By the time we reached the border town of Tatopani, Nepal, it was dark.  So the scenic portions of Nepal were missed on this outward trip.  At Tatopani, we were put up in Sonam Guest House, a narrow vertical structure where we were allotted a 5 bed room with an attached toilet (a great luxury considering others were sharing communal toilets and bathrooms  -1 per floor).  The idea was that we would stay at Tatopani overnight and next morning, after Ramesh Ojha brought the Tibet permit (which was to arrive from Delhi by a morning flight), we would cross the border and head to Nyaalam, Tibet

Dining Room - Sonam guesthouse, Tatopani

Tatopani - one street border town

Next morning, June 19, we waited and waited for news (the same old story of polite helpless smiles and no information) until sometime towards afternoon, we were told the flight from Delhi was delayed landing in Kathmandu due to rains and so we would now only cross the border the next morning.  So, an extra day in Tatopani, exploring the streets, visiting the hot springs and beautiful garden around it, the hillside Buddha (tantric – Padmasambhava?), shopping for prayer shawls and a sweater to replace Kripa’s lost sweater … This was also where we started taking Diamox, with the result that some of us started feeling fatigued, headachy, loss of appetite / nausea etc.  This we were told is a normal side effect of Diamox and would last 2-3 days until the body got accustomed to the Diamox

 

Lesson 3:  Start taking Diamox about 2-3 days before you reach high altitude, as it takes the body that long to get used to it, i.e. for you to overcome the side effects

Bags awaiting loading - identified by color and number

Playing with Tatopani kidswhile waiting

Next morning, June 20, we were ready bright and early, and as instructed carried our duffle bags down for loading into the bus, before breakfast at 6:30 am.  Returning from breakfast, we find our duffle bags still lying on the roadside – a couple of busloads have departed, but we are still awaiting our bus – maybe they were operating a shuttle bus service for this short stretch!

As we waited, bits and pieces of information trickled back – 1500-2000 people were crossing the border that day and there was a long queue on the bridge (for immigration).  It was better to wait at Sonam guest house in Tatopani rather than on the bridge (crossover point).  It was probably something close to 10 or 11 am when we finally piled into the bus for the border.  We disembarked with the rest of our busload and were rapidly pulled aside by one of the organizers – “NRIs (their term for non-Indian passport holders, including foreigners) follow me”.  Our motley group of 5 consisted of 1 American, 1 Frenchwoman and 3 Indians.  So the 2 non-Indians followed the one guy and the remaining 3 of us followed someone else until of course, the 3 of us found ourselves kind of lost in the huge crowd and queues on the bridge.  We stood in a queue for a while frantically looking around to spot someone, anyone, from our busload and Sonam Guest House crowd, with no luck.  Finally, Serena persuaded me to go for a look-see and I found a queue of our larger group frantically waving to me to come join them.  So back we headed from the bridge to outside the gates

Queue outside gates to bridge

Crowd on bridge

Queue on bridge (background)

All in all, we waited for something like 6-7 hours – first outside the gates to the bridge, then on the bridge itself, then (after crossing the bridge under the watchful dead eyes of baby faced Chinese soldiers) in the courtyard leading to the Chinese Immigration Office.  All under the blazing sun, with no seats, no shade, no loos (so we were wary of how much water we drank) and limited food (mostly sweets which we’d brought with the trek in mind, not waiting in the sun on the bridge!)

Lesson 4:  On the day you plan to cross the border, keep food that can substitute for lunch handy in your backpack.  Your duffle bag will not be accessible to you at this time

We finally crossed over and were reunited with our 2 foreign passport holders.  They had had a relatively easy time, having made the crossing in 1-1.5 hours, but were frantic about how long we would take and nowhere to sit while waiting.  Finally, they made their way to the bus that was supposed to carry us the next leg, and spread themselves out, “reserving” seats for the 3 of us who were yet to arrive.

One of the people in our larger group was actually turned back from the border because her (Indian) passport validity was expiring in less than 6 months.  Unfortunately, her NRI son had already crossed over and finally, the lady told the son to continue with the rest of her group (all her friends and neighbors and contemporaries) and be a support for them, while she finally headed back to Mumbai

Lesson 5:  Check that you have passport validity of 6 months and maybe a good idea to have a contingency plan in place in case anyone from the party is refused entry for any reason – will the entire group return / go on, what will the turned back person do – wait in Kathmandu / Kodari / return home – the moment of crisis is probably not the best time to be making this call

Anyway, at something like 3 – 4 pm, we finally crossed over into Tibet (China) and our buses headed to Nyalam, our night stop.  We encountered some 3 checkposts on the way, where passports were collected and handed over and retained by the organizers for subsequent checks.  Such an oppressive feeling when unsmiling Chinese soldiers give you that dead eyed look and ask questions in Chinese.  At some point, I went into hysterics – Question by Chinese soldier : “From where have you come?”.  Deeply philosophical answer : “I am going to Kailash to find out”.  Question : “Where are you going?”.  Answer : “I am going to Kailash to find out!”

Of course, with all these delays, we were all tired, hungry, bad tempered and it was growing dark, so … yet again … we missed out on some of the beautiful scenery through which we presumably passed.  To my surprise, I recognized Nyalam even in the dark, as we were put up at the exact same place where we’d stayed in 2010.  But a new, improved Nayalam guest house -  we now had indoor plumbing – communal co-ed toilets, but with running water and wash basins to brush our teeth.  Luxury by earlier standards!

Sleeping Quarters, Nyalam

Nyalam guesthouse

Again, we had a 5 bed room to ourselves and we made ourselves comfortable and retired for the night.  Interestingly, though we were now at about 14,000 (~4300 mts), none of us were feeling greatly distressed by the altitude.  It was chilly, especially when the wind started blowing later in the night (when we went for a post dinner walk), but wrapped in our windcheaters, we were quite comfortable.  In fact, we enjoyed the invigorating walk after so many hours of being cooped up in rooms and buses and crowds!

Picnic lunch on wayside

Lake Peigu Tso (pronouned Pickaachu locally)

Next morning, June 21, was spent shopping (oxygen tubes, walking sticks, some warm weather trousers and tights and sweaters).  It was during this shopping trip that we first encountered breathlessness at the slightest incline or load carrying.  This was the first indication that we were at high altitude and short of oxygen.  We left Nyalam around 10 – 11 am, for New Dongzpa.  Umpteen police checkposts along the way, a picnic lunch break somewhere by the roadside.  But for the first time, we were able to enjoy the scenery – the sand dunes, the rugged mountains, the electrifying blue of lakes ....

 And so we reached New Dongzpa for our night stop, found ourselves assigned to another room with 6 beds and crashed for the night.  I think none of us had the energy to stay up for dinner, since the kitchen truck had been delayed and the sherpas had only reached New Dongzpa along with us at something like 10 -11 pm. 

I have not mentioned this explicitly so far, but here’s lesson number 6 : You spend a lot of time just travelling from Point A to Point B, only to reach there, rest-recharge and move on, before you ever reach Mansarovar or Mt Kailash.  The journeys are long.  In a Land Cruiser, you tend to bounce quite a bit.  The roads are tarred for the most part, but they sometimes have potholes (Made in China potholes!) and sometimes there are speed breakers … we found the smoothness of the drive better in a bus.  But of course, what you gain in smoothness you give up in flexibility – that’s the trade off

Also, lesson number 7:  We had carried a lot of food with the parikrama in mind – so calorie rich, dense foods, typically sweet.  We would have dearly loved a lot more of the time-pass munchies kind of food to while away the boredom during the endless drives

Guesthouse at New Dzongpa

Packing and repacking every day

New Dongzpa was the first place, on this trip, where we had to resort to the wide open spaces for loos.  We found ourselves favorite places – behind a wall here and behind a building there and learnt to just get on with the job at hand.  For one reason or another, we find ourselves packing and repacking our bags every day, trying to decide what to keep in our backpacks and what to stash away in the duffle bag (which would not be accessible to us during the day).  At each repacking, we’re trying to second guess the weather we will encounter, what food and how much of it to keep handy, what warm clothes to keep handy or stashed away …. All really tough decisions to take when your brain is oxygen starved and the weather changes hour to hour.  

June 22: Breakfast in the morning and back into the buses, heading for Mansarovar at last.  Enjoying the beautiful scenery now and looking forward to reaching Lake Mansarovar, we trundle along.

Filling water, dipping rudraksha in Lake Mansarovar

Scenic view of Lake Mansarovar

Suddenly, our bus stops, one of the organizers gets into our bus asking our group of 5 to step out and into a Land Cruiser.  This is where our group parts company from the rest of the group, in line with our expedited schedule.  So with our day bags (backpacks) and hopefully nothing left behind in the sudden switch, we settle ourselves into the Land Cruiser with driver Karma, and zip towards Lake Mansarovar.  We enjoy our first sight of Mt Kailash and Lake Mansarovar and then Karma takes us to a place where we can comfortably wade into the lake.  We all wade in, dipping our rudrakshas and filling our water bottles.  The water is cold, but not uncomfortably so – quite bearable.  None of us is inspired to dip under water though.  As I come out of the water, I become aware of how chill the wind is and my legs feel cold.  Almost in a panic, I come back to the Land Cruiser to grab my towel and dry off before I catch a chill

Lesson 8:  Keep your towel handy (even slung round your neck) when you wade / dip in the lake – even if the lake itself is sunwarmed, the windchill when you come out of the water is considerable and there is a high risk of exposure

The next day, we heard the story of some lady in a group a couple of days ahead of us – she’d forgotten to take her high blood pressure medication, stayed underwater for 3 minutes in a surfeit of devotion and then succumbed to hypothermia before she could be taken to where medical assistance was available.  So, Lesson number 9:  You are responsible for your own well being.  Make sure you’re taking all the medications you need to take regularly and do not try foolish things like dipping in the water and not drying off immediately – even if the sun is warm, the wind blowing off the glaciers is chill.  In fact, it is probably safest not to dip in the water, but just take a small handful and pour it over your head, if at all you feel you absolutely must

While the lady in question might have felt that she achieved moksha / nirvana by dying at Mansarovar, she left her entire group traumatized by the incident, not to mention the bureaucratic headache involved in bring her body back to India. 

Base camp, Lake Mansarovar

 

Hot salted Tibetan tea at Mansarovar

After our dip and water collection, we headed to the base camp of Chu Gompa (?) where we indulged in a couple of cups of tibetan tea each with salt (and no yak milk or yak butter) while our duffle bags were identified and pulled from the general truck into our Land Cruiser.  Due to our expedited schedule, we sacrificed a night stay at Lake Mansarovar

Duffle bags loaded into the Land Cruiser, we headed on to Darchen, where we joined a group who were a day ahead of us and planning to start their parikrama next morning.  This group happened to be led by the Shankaracharya of Hampi, and comprised some 40 odd people.  A more manageable number than the 70 and 150 that we’d been attached to thus far!  This group was led by Basanta Baral, brother in law of Ramesh and Govind Ojha, joint proprietors of Ojha Travels and overall a guy with MUCH better organizational and leadership skills than either of the Ojha brothers

Full moon viewed from Darchen

Mt Kailash watching the door

A night spent at Darchen, where the full moon woke up Kripa in the middle of the night by shining full on her face and Mt Kailash brooded over the entrance to our door on the other side 

June 23 … an early morning start with breakfast and we head off for Yama Dwar from where the parikrama will start.  The long awaited day is here.  It takes about half an hour to reach from Darchen to Yama Dwar and then again waiting around while ponies and porters are arranged.  Sherpas are assigned to keep an eye on specific groups of people, and we set off passing through Yama Dwar.  From what I’ve heard, now that we 5 have passed through Yama Dwar, there will be no purgatory for us – the path to heaven will be without any stops en route!

North Face, Mt Kailash - Ganesha in profile on right, Shiva front face facing

The first day’s trek was easy – a gradual incline where there was one, and many plain stretches.  The challenge came purely from the lack of oxygen.  A short 15 degree incline, barely 10-12 feet long could require a stop or two before reaching the top, simply because we felt out of breath and could feel our hearts thumping in our chests.  Also, due to the size of the crowd and the shortage of porters, we were carrying a small back pack each, which started to assume significant proportions as the walk continued.  The down jacket we were each carrying also started to become a nuisance, given the warmth of the sun beating down upon us.  So with faces smeared with sunblock, heads covered as much as possible against the sun and struggling with warm clothes that we did not need, we completed the first day of the trek and reached the base camp of Deraphuk at the base of the famous North Face of Mt Kailash

Carousing customers at our chai stall night quarters

Sleeping baby in our night quarters

This time, I was mindful of the mistake I’d made last time, and made it a point to stop every few minutes to look around and take in the sights around me.  I photographed all the mountains around me, as well as the not insignificant number of birds that we saw.  I looked for the mountain deer I’d seen back in 2010, with no luck, but certainly managed to enjoy the scenery around a lot more.  A cup of Tibetan tea at the halfway point and then pressing on, we reached Deraphuk, where we had been assigned 5 cots in a tented chai stall (with a stove to keep the place warm and a 12-14 month old baby to keep the soul warm).  It took a while for the assorted yak men and pony men customers to understand that we wanted to sleep and somewhere around 11 pm, they vacated the beds where we were to sleep and we went to sleep while they caroused on 

Sunrise on Mt Kailash, North Face

June 24.  We photographed Mt Kailash glowing golden in the rising sun, and then headed for breakfast.  At breakfast, we were informed quite categorically that there had been 5 feet of snow and ice in the mountains and nobody would be allowed to proceed on the parikrama – everyone had to turn back and head back to Darchen.  Given the tightness of our schedule (we each had to reach Kathmandu on June 26 to catch our respective flights back on June 27 and then Val was to fly from Singapore (her home base) to France with her son on June 28^th night!), I thought it just as well we did not risk bad weather getting us stuck in the mountains.  So we took a photo with our landlady for the night with her cute little baby and set out to return to Yama Dwar and Darchen

Based on our experience of the previous day, we loaded all our down jackets and thermals into the bags for the porters and clad in light clothes covered by a wind cheater in my case, we set out.  And lo, the weather turned round and decided to be a cloudy overcast day.  Towards the end of my trek (and I was amongst the last to finish), we got caught in a bit of icy rain and hail storm.  I was happy to have my windcheater on.  By the time I pulled my gloves out of my pocket and wore them, my fingers were red and shaking and I truly thought I would have to explain to people how the backs of my hands were sunburnt while the fingers had chilblains!  The big achievement of this day however was, that I managed to spot the well camouflaged deer on the mountain side and point them out to Sushmita with whom I was walking.  I blindly pointed my camera at them and shot them, hoping against hope that I would capture them.  The camouflaging is so perfect that you cannot spot them unless they move

End of the parikrama, back to Darchen for a quick lunch, luggage segregation from the rest of the group, a chat and photo op with the Shankaracharya of Hampi while Sushmita changed out of her wet clothes and then we piled into the Land Cruiser with Karma to start our homeward journey. 

With Shankaracharya of Hampi

At this time, we discovered that someone from the group had slapped their pony man, and the cops were on the premises wanting to throw the offender in jail – Chinese jail!  Since we left before the issue got resolved, we have no idea how it ended up.  The negotiations were continuing about 2-3 hours into the police arriving, so it was obviously not an easy matter to resolve.  So Lesson 10:  You may consider yourself to be on a Hindu / Jain / Buddhist pilgrimage, but do not ever forget you are a foreigner in Chinese territory.  And the Chinese police are known for their brutality, lack of reason, conviction without a hearing etc. etc.  Take no chances and be afraid at all times of doing anything that the Chinese may perceive as wrong doing.  

Low hanging clouds at New Dzongpa

A long and tiring trip, the last part in darkness and being bumped around quite a bit even as we dozed in our exhaustion, we finally reached New Dzongpa for the night.  The courtyard was full of Land Cruisers but everybody seemed to have retired for the night.  So eating whatever we could lay our hands on, from our food stash, we too retired for the night.  Sometime around 4 am, I was woken up by Land Cruisers speeding away and in the morning, when I got up around 5:30 am, the place was deserted with the exception of our Land Cruiser.  

Freshly ground coffee at Saga

June 25.  Karma was visibly upset that the local inn keeper had vamoosed and not kept her promise to give us tea and breakfast (Jhoot bolna achha nahin hai, he muttered – it is not good to tell lies), so we drove off in search of an elusive neighborhood chai stall.  It took us all the way to Saga, around 11 am – 12 noon to find one, but what a café that was.  Blue Mountain Roast – a premium decoction coffee brand - coffee made with freshly ground beans and Chinese pao for breakfast at 11 am.  After that break, we pressed on and somewhere around 4-5 pm on the 25^th, we reached Zangmu – the border town on the Tibetan side of the Nepal-Tibet border.

It was Val’s birthday, and it turned out that Karma ran a restaurant in Zangmu, so after a quick washup (indoor plumbing – we were back to civilization even if it was a communal loo!), we all headed off to a well earned dinner at Karma’s restaurant – Val’s birthday treat to us all.  With pretty much no breakfast or lunch, we were all hungry – we’d also stopped taking Diamox the previous day – so we went to town and pigged out on steamed vegetarian and fried yak momos, thukpa soup (which came in such a large bowl, it was a meal in itself) and some chow mein.  Helped along by constantly refilled mugs of jasmine green tea, we ate till we could no longer stand and then tottered back to our hotel for the night

June 26.  A hearty breakfast at the café attached to our hotel after which we headed to the border enjoying the tree filled gorges and waterfalls en route.  Numerous stops for police verification – saala police (damn police), as Karma referred to them with the right intonation and venom in his voice and then we had about an hour or so of waiting before we crossed the bridge and were back in Nepal!  For all of us, we felt we had escaped China and were back on home territory – so oppressive is the police presence and atmosphere in Tibet

On the Nepal side, we piled into a Scorpio driven by a very stylish young man who said his name was Shekhar.  To the beat of filmi music, we took to the road and this time, were able to enjoy the scenery that we’d missed in the dark coming out.  Despite checks by the Nepali police – at one stage, a young soldier clambered onto the roof of our Scorpio in his hobnailed boots, leading Shekhar to yell in despair and pound the roof from the inside to straighten out the dents! – we made it back to Kathmandu at about 3:30 pm on 26^th.  What a relief.

Some inevitable mix ups – with Ramesh Ojha, it seems to be inevitable – we had no bookings at Yak and Yeti, roundly refused to be shunted off to Manuslu as it was too far from Thamel where we wanted to go for shopping and insisted in being put up at Shangri La.  Checked in, had a much awaited bath (8 days since our last bath!) and then headed to Thamel for some shopping.  Back to the hotel and the bottle of Champagne Val had brought for the occasion followed by dinner, packing and sleep (after I’d managed to lock myself in the bathroom and had to be rescued by having the door knob dismantled after 1 hour of struggle by the hotel staff – ShangriLa standard is much fallen since 2010 despite having been renovated since then).  The next morning, 3 of us were leaving at 7 am for a 10 am flight, so we just about enjoyed the buffet breakfast together before we split up – 3 of us to Mumbai, 1 to Delhi en route to the USA after 5 days and 1 to Singapore to pick up her son and then head off the next day to France on vacation!

 

Highlights of Dos and Don’ts :

1. Be mentally prepared that you will spend a lot of time travelling and waiting around, and it may all be for nothing – if weather is bad, you may not be able to even attempt the parikrama (circumambulation) of Mt Kailash.  Or you may do Day 1 of the parikrama (it is a 3 day trek), and have to turn back without being allowed to attempt Day 2 and 3.  Or you may do Day 1 of the parikrama but have such bad weather (clouds, rains etc.) that you cannot really see anything of the mountain or surroundings.  The Sherpas warned us repeatedly of this in 2010 – the weather is unpredictable – people one day ahead or behind you may have a totally different experience from you.  If Lord Shiva permits you, you may see Him, and complete the parikrama.  If not, you will not be able to do anything about it and you HAVE to obey the guides when they advice you for or against the trek.  We heard one of our guides was jailed for 2 days on an earlier occasion because he insisted on leading a group through day 2 of the parikrama despite being warned against it by the Chinese authorities.  Which is understandable given that the latter would have to risk their own lives for rescue operations if things go wrong
2. Ideally, form your own group of 20-22 people and ensure your agent is treating your group as an exclusive unit, with dedicated resources (guide, sherpas, kitchen equipment and staff, China guide)
3. In case you have any non-Indian passport holders in the group, be aware that the Chinese government wants at least 5 passports to be from a single country before they will process the permit.  This seems to be a not so strictly enforced rule, since in the entire larger group (of over 150 people) we only had 1 French passport holder.  However, it is probably best to check this thoroughly with the agent before you firm up your plans.  At any rate, it is probably advisable to have at least 5 non-Indian passport holders as a critical mass within the group.  Note, that the agent may refer to foreign passport holders as “NRIs” – do not get misled by the misuse of the tern NRI – they mean non-Indian passport – nothing to do with country of residence
4. Travel in Kathmandu is invariably by bus.  If you have your own group, bus travel in Tibet is more comfortable – less bouncing around.  If you are not in your own group, a Land Cruiser gives you more flexibility in terms of not having to wait for the group when leaving, stopping for bio breaks etc.  But I did see instances of Land Cruisers getting ruthlessly commandeered for ferrying people who were feeling unwell (high altitude sickness) to hospital.  So you might end up paying for a Land Cruiser and then getting squeezed into a bus
5. Avoid full moon trips – with 1500 – 2000 people crossing the border in time for it, and the Chinese least interested in providing any facilities or expediting the process, the border crossing becomes extremely painful.  If you are going to cross over on such a day, ensure you are carrying something to shade you from the sun, protection in case it starts raining, food – as in lunch, not just munchies, water / soft drinks to stay hydrated (remember, you should be on Diamox by this time), maybe a book or music or something to keep you calm and entertained.  Remember though – no politically sensitive reading material – nothing to do with Buddhism, Dalai Lama, Freedom for Tibet, Communism, Chinese occupation of Tibet etc.  Best case - the Chinese will confiscate it, worst case – they will throw you in prison!
6. Take no photographs on the bridge crossing between Nepal and Tibet – the Chinese can arrest you for it.  While there are signages warning of this, it is easy to miss them in the midst of all the crowds and there is no reasoning with the Chinese authorities
7. Between one trip that I undertook in May (2010) and one trip in June (2013) which is a better month to go – hard to answer.  In May, we felt miserably cold almost all the time once we reached Nyalam; and on the trip back, till we reached Zangmu.  In June, the weather was more comfortable – in fact, uncomfortably hot at times.  But June brought the rains and associated uncertainties due to delayed flights, delayed permits, the possibility of landslides and delays en route, getting stuck etc etc.  We all acclimatized more easily this time – I am not sure whether it was just that last time, we were so miserable with the cold that we found it harder to acclimatize
8. Diamox is a must.  People in our larger group who had not taken it were found puking their guts out at Nyalam and later.  While it is true that it leads to loss of appetite, nausea etc etc at least until the body gets used to it (48 – 72 hours), the effects of not taking it seem to be worse.  Start taking it 48-72 hours before you hit high altitude (Nyalam on this route).  The body takes that much time to start absorbing it and restoring the body to normal pH (with decreased oxygen we tend to breath faster, making the body pH alkaline.  Diamox helps to restore the body to normal pH).  You can stop taking it as soon as you start the descent (in our case, we took our last dose in the morning when we left New Dzongpa on the return trip)
9. You are responsible for your own health and well being.  Do not miss any medications that you need to take regularly.  If you feel unwell, inform the organizers (agents) – they are usually at least somewhat trained in what symptoms to look out for and will take you to a lower altitude if they deem it necessary for your well being.  At the same time, do not push yourself beyond your physical capabilities, especially if you feel your heart thumping, breathing accelerate too much
10. Keep a wind cheater / rain coat with you at all times – even when the sun is hot, it only takes a cloud to cover the sun for it to turn chill, or to start raining
11. Keep food rations and munchies for non-parikrama days beside special food for parikrama days.  The latter can be cheese (tastes really good at that altitude), dry fruits, nuts and chikkis (til is supposed to be best in terms of high oil content).  Hot water is freely available at every tea stall and rest stop in Tibet.  So it is a good idea to keep soup sachets (the kind which do not require cooking) handy – empty a soup sachet in your flask, add hot water, shake and hold for 1 minute, sip over the next couple of hours
12. I have now experienced 2 agents – Ojha Travels, who is supposed to be a nodal agency for many smaller agents and Prakash Shreshtha (who presumably connects up with Shreshtha Travels – a name that kept recurring on this trip).  Of the 2, Shreshtha was definitely better – possibly in part because we had our own group of 22 people and a dedicated set of resources throughout.  Ramesh Ojha appears to be a guy who believes in sending as large a group as possible with the same set of resources.  I heard at one stage that he had combined 7 groups into one, and our group size at New Dzongpa was 156.  This makes the group totally unwieldy at the best of times.  With poor organizational and leadership skills and frequent Chinese nitpicking, the challenge is greatly compounded
13. Indian rupees work in Nepal, so no need (in fact better to avoid) to exchange money in Nepal.  1.6 Nepali Rupees (1.6 NPR) = 1 Indian Rupee (INR) or Indian Currency (IC), as they call it.  You do need to change money for China though.  In 2010, it was INR 8 / Yuan.  In 2013, it was INR 10.3 / Yuan.  How many Yuan to carry is a big question.  In 2010, the cost of a pony / mule was 1000 Yuan.  In 2013, we were told it was in the range of 1200-1700 Yuan while changing money at Tatopani.  We none of us expected to need a mule, but guides advice us to carry enough to hire one in case of a medical emergency.  When we actually started the parikrama, free market dynamics had pushed the price of a pony to 2000 Yuan (for the entire 3 days trip, which remains unchanged even if you return after 1 day)!  A porter to carry our backpack was 600 Yuan (again for the duration, whether 2 days or 3).  These are the only expensive items.  (Note: A pony cannot be shared – we had intended to hire one pony between the 5 of us, in case of a medical emergency and to carry our backpacks.  We were told the pony would be attached to one individual (whoever hired it) – if anyone else fell ill / suffered a broken leg etc, the pony would not be available to that person.  I am not sure to what extent that is true – with no language in which to communicate, we have no option but to believe what the guides tell us.  Also the pony will not carry backpacks – for that you need to hire porters separately.  All in all, a way of ensuring employment for local Tibetans and fleecing tourists, but given our inability to carry any loads at that altitude, we have no option).  An oxygen cylinder, if you wish to carry your own, is 12 yuan at Nyalam, and if it is not used, they will buy it back for 9 yuan.  A walking stick is 15 – 17 Yuan (market dynamics pushed it up to 20-25 Yuan as our group descended on the stores and stock started depleting).  Some warm tights we picked up ranged from 55 Yuan to 65 Yuan.  A nice warm sweater was 100 Yuan (we were not the world’s best bargainers).  A woolen knitted cap with ear flaps was 10 -15 Yuan.  Food items tend to be expensive – a cup of instant coffee at Nyalam cost us 25 Yuan per cup (akin to a Starbucks!), while the Blue Mountain Roast freshly ground coffee at Saga was 20 Yuan (there was competition at Saga – many cafes).  Nyalam is rich in terms of gear for the mountains – you can pick up gloves, jackets etc.  On this trip, Ojha Travels gave us down jackets for the duration, while last time with Shreshtha, they had arranged for a Kathmandu guy to rent us down jackets on need basis (in the region of 700 INR for the duration of the tirp).  If you have your own, you might prefer to carry it, but it is certainly not worth buying a down jacket if you (like me) live in a warm climate with no potential to use it other than trips like these.
14. With Shreshtha in 2010, we were given hot soup at the start and honey in hot water at the end of every lunch and dinner.  Along with watery curries and the amount of water we kept drinking, we felt the need to urinate every hour – which is a benchmark.  With the Ojhas, we got soup perhaps at 2 meals during the entire trip and no honey in hot water at all.  Overall, I felt we were not getting enough fluids, because we certainly were not emptying our bladders every hour.  Of course, this might also have been because it was so much warmer this time, we were losing fluids through sweat and were not only dependent on urination to excrete fluids.  While my preoccupation with this may seem gross, it is an important parameter to monitor while at high altitudes
15. You do need a mountain stick to climb the mountain.  On day 1, it may be possible to manage without it, but on day 2, if you manage to do it, you definitely would need it.  It is only ~15 Yuan, so well worth the price.  And it collapses neatly into a size that can go into your check in baggage, so not a huge nuisance to transport it back home.  Or you could always just give it to somebody else / leave it with the sherpas – for that price, you probably would not mind
16. Sunblock, sun protection is as important as cold protection or rain protection.  While we all took care of our faces and noses, we forgot our hands.  The backs of all our hands were burnt at the end of the parikrama.  Luckily, no lasting damage
17. Ensure you have 1-2 days buffer in Kathmandu, so that an unavoidable delay in reaching Kathmandu does not make you miss your flight back home.  If you are flying international, you might want to leave more of a buffer, simply because landslides are not uncommon in Tibet and Nepal in this season.  Also, monsoons in Nepal can cause delays as well
18. Remove all jewellery – fingers may swell due to water retention and rings may become a problem.  Ear rings, necklaces etc can get tangled up with caps, mufflers etc and get lost, never to be retrieved
19. Do nothing to piss off Chinese authorities – I felt many of the people in our larger group (not the 5 of us), were not aware that we were in China and at the mercy of Chinese rules and regulations and were behaving as they might in India (like slapping a pony man!).  The Chinese authorities are brutal and there is no reasoning with them – take no chances with them.  Also, be very clear that the Chinese authorities in Tibet behave differently from Chinese authorities you may have encountered in Shanghai or Beijing etc, while on a business / tourist visit
20. Ensure adequate passport validity (6 months is the norm.  I was a few days short, and had checked with the agent beforehand that it would be ok.  But better not to take the chance from what I saw on this trip – the Chinese are unpredictable)
21. The locals who act as porters and pony hirers during the parikrama are unorganized.  I would guess that how many are available on any one day is a big unknown.  While the agents will promise to arrange for a pony and / or porters if you need them, be prepared for the event that there is none available and decide what you will do in that eventuality.  Depending on your physical fitness, you could carry your own bag, but we found that even a bag weighing less than ½ Kg was something of a strain.  Admittedly, the very next day (returning from Deraphuk), we had acclimatized to the extent that we were not panting nearly as much on the inclines
22. While I have travelled with friends who carried fancy cameras, the weight does become something of a burden during the parikrama.  Passion for photography can carry you through, but do think it over very carefully, since it is not easy to entrust an expensive camera and lenses to a Sherpa or a lumbering yak or a bouncing truck

Things to carry

• Clothes

a.       Hot weather wear for Kathmandu - suitable for temple visit (trousers ok, shorts probably not)

b.      Hot weather wear for trip from Kathmandu to Nyalam (and return) which can be layered on and off as altitude gained / lost and temp drops / rises.  The same may be used for parikrama days as well – weather changes day to day and is totally unpredictable

c.       1- 2 sets of thermal wear - upper and lower (you may never use them or you may use both sets at the same time … the weather is very unpredictable)

d.      Warm cap / ear muffs / muffler

e.      Multiple pairs of socks

f.        Trekking boots (well broken in)

g.       Slip on shoes for night time loo visits and while travelling in bus / Land Cruiser – best to have something that can be used with socks in case it is cold

h.      Raincoat – windcheater

i.         Gloves / mittens

j.        Sunglasses

k.       Peak cap / sun hat / umbrella (not recommended)

l.         Sweater / fleece

m.    "Dipping clothes" and towel for Mansarovar dip – I just changed from warm padded tights to shorts, waded in the lake, dried off and changed back into tights

n.      Pack all clothes in sari bags / separate plastic  packets, partly for protection from dust and partly to keep things segregated in the duffle bag

• Food (Items may be assigned to members within group rather than everyone carrying everything)

a.       Munchies for timepass on bus, in car

b.      High calorie, dense nutrition food for trek – cheese, chikki, dry fruits, nuts, nutribars which can be made into small packets in individual Ziplocs and kept in jacket pocket at start of each day of parikrama

c.       Soup sachets (which do not require any cooking)

d.      Tea bags / hot water flavoring to your taste (lemon tea, peach tea, chamomile etc)

e.      Meal substitutes (may not be required, but nice to have in case required) for crossing over day and the odd other occasion when the kitchen truck is delayed / you are following a different schedule from the rest of the group 
f.   Instant tea and / or coffee for those times when the service is delayed ... hot water is almost always available

• Money

a.       Agent payment in whatever form (cash in whatever currency / credit card transaction)

b.      Credit card or ATM card – its use may trigger off a warning and / or a card blockage, but in case you are short of cash in Kathmandu, at least you have some means of accessing some cash

c.       Cash – INR 30,000 – 35,000 per person (as per rates prevalent in June 2013 during a Full Moon  yatra – these rates would vary greatly based on free market dynamics – becoming less during less peak months and days).  If you have them, may not be a bad idea to carry ~200 USD as well, as a backup

• Medical and toilet supplies (again, not necessary for everyone to carry everything – items may be assigned to different members of the group)

a.       Any medication you take normally

b.      Diamox – ½ tablet, taken twice a day.  So compute the number you need based on 1 tablet per person per day, from 3 days before you reach Nyalam (or high altitude) till the day you start descending from high altitude

c.       Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap / soap gel, deodorant

d.      Dusting powder / talcum powder to dust on your feet before donning socks and shoes

e.      Boroline / vaseline, similar strong moisturizer

f.        Chapstick / lip balm

g.       Sun block

h.      Sanitary wear, if you might need it

i.         Toilet paper

j.        Wet wipes

k.       Nose mask (not really used by any of us)

l.         Hand sanitizer

m.    Distinct bottle to use as bum wash bottle, if you want a wet wash / want to avoid littering with toilet paper!

n.      Basic first aid kit – band aids, crepe bandage, paracetamol, diarrhoea medication, acidity medication

o.      Napkin (for teeth brushing, face washing)

p.      Tissues / handkerchief (for leaky nose)

q.      Ear plugs (to shut off snoring room mates)

r.        Eye mask (for when there is no discernible switch for the room light! Or for sleeping in the bus)

s.       Inflatable neck pillow (for sleeping in the bus)

t.        Camphor used by a lot of people – we did not use it, except to insert into damp shoes and get rid of bad smell temporarily!

• Others

a.       Suitcase  with lock which will be left behind in the Kathmandu hotel’s storage facility (unless you come from home base itself with the duffle bag provided by the agent)

b.      Ziplocs of small size (1 day’s / 1 meal’s munchies in jacket pocket)

c.       Head mounted lamp

d.      Thermos water bottle – 750 ml worked well for me on the trip but a smaller one (maybe plastic) is required for carrying on the parikrama – a 750 ml thermos, once filled, seems to weigh a ton up there

e.      Trash bags and extra plastic bags, string bags come in useful

f.        Camera, cellphone (preferably low tech ones that do not need frequent charging)

g.       Extra batteries for head lamp, phone, camera – you cannot be sure of being able to charge your gadget every night at every stop.  There was one occasion when I only managed to charge my phone after 4 days and I could only continue using the phone because I was sending a message, waiting for the delivery confirmation and then switching off.  Each time, switching on for barely a minute, maybe 3-5 times a day

h.      DO NOT CARRY any books etc relating to the Dalai Lama, tibetan freedom struggle, chinese / buddhist doctrine etc. 

i.         Would suggest not carrying an iPad or laptop or similar gadget - you will not be able to carry it on the trek and it will get thrown around on the yak / bus / truck

j.        Mountain poles, if you have them, else they can be bought in Kathmandu / Nyalam

k.       Leak proof unbreakable bottle for carrying back Mansarovar water if you wish to.  Jerry cans of different sizes can also be bought at Nyalam.  Be mindful of weight and airline baggage allowance norms though

l.         Pen knife (be careful to pack in check-in bag and not in cabin bag, both while entering and leaving Kathmandu  - airline security norms)

More photos on https://plus.google.com/photos/107058469702735067657/albums/5895276848485778161

Microbiomes and More

I have long known that bacteria living in the digestive systems of human beings play an extremely important role in the digestion and absorption of food.  I sometimes wondered idly, whether these bacteria actually thought of my colon as their “world” -- whether they played, studied, worked, married and reproduced within my gut, with absolutely no awareness of me as a larger entity housing them.  Anytime I took an antibiotic to take care of some infection, these bacteria probably wondered at this new cataclysmic “world event” that was annihilating them in large numbers.  When I had a bout of food poisoning, they probably thought there was a tsunami taking place in their world.  A bout of acute acidity and biliousness probably had them shaking their heads at each other over the changes in the environment (“global acidity”), and the increasing fickleness of the weather.

I took my thinking a step further and wondered whether a set of bacteria actually adopted other bacteria (or yeasts or viruses or bacteriophages, or whatever) as pets and / or workers.  Or set up armies and fought with each other – with the result that I felt I was ailing, without quite understanding why.  Did they set up hierarchies and compete with one another for various resources – the stuff I often unthinkingly stuffed in my mouth as food?  When I drank water, did they wonder at the sudden downpour and when I was dehydrated, did they speak of the drought?

From here, it was only a small step further to wonder whether we (human beings, and this world in its entirety) also exist within some other organism and play an intrinsic role in the well being of that larger organism?  Is this what is meant, at a very literal level, when spiritual leaders tell us we are all one, and the well being of one is only to be found in the well being of all?

Jungle Tales from Ranthambhore (Koi Movement Hai?)

“Are you out of your mind?  It’ll be burning hot in Rajasthan at this time of the year”.  And then as a grudging after thought – “But it’ll be a good time for spotting wildlife, because there’ll be little water and they will all come to whatever few waterholes there are”.  This was the usual response when I mentioned to anyone that I was going to Ranthambhore from June 21-25, 2012.  As it turned out – yes, it was sweltering hot; yes, it took me 2 safaris to get acclimatized to the heat and the wild rides in the Gypsy; yes, my ribs and backside were sore from being hit against the metal frame of the Gypsy; yes, my tummy was a little unhappy with the anything goes kind of food I put into it; and yes, I was sleep deprived.  But ……. It was a great trip in every way I could think of.

We were three of us, all considered mad by general standards.  We were there for 3 days, from a Thursday late morning to a Sunday late afternoon.  We went on the maximum possible number of jeep safaris in that time, which was 6 – 1 each dawn and dusk.  We had great sightings of birds which I never even knew existed – their colours stood out in their richness against the stark branches of the dhonk trees, even as the deer (sambhars, chitals so numerous, we both became blasé at the sight of each other) blended right into the jungle.  And in 6 outings, we had 4 sightings of tigers …. Each sighting better than the last!

We reached Sawai Madhopur on Thursday morning, around 10:30 am, and by around 11:00 we were at the hotel and enjoying the cool of the AC rooms.  We cleaned up and somehow managed to stay awake till lunch, and then happily gave in to the temptation to nap, with alarms set for 3:00 pm.  The Gypsy was scheduled to come between 3:15 and 3:30 to take us for our first safari.  Padmini, Soonoo’s friend, a practicing advocate at Sawai Madhopur and the daughter of Fateh Singh Rathore, the Project Director who conceptualized and set up Ranthambhore as a tiger sanctuary, was joining us for this first trip.  We were lucky on this first trip, as the four of us had the Gypsy to ourselves.  We were assigned Zone 2, but our maverick driver decided to make a quick round of Zone 3 before heading to Zone 2.

Accordingly, we headed to the lake at Zone 3, with me getting excited at the sight of sambhars so close to the Gypsy that we could have almost touched them  and spotted deer (Chitals) crossing the road barely 15 feet ahead of our vehicle.   Langurs were everywhere, many with babies clinging to their tummies.  Sometimes, we’d see the baby getting adventurous and being either taught or disciplined by mama langur.  There were 2 typical sitting styles of the langur that really caught my fancy – one style was to sit on a flat surface with the forearms resting on the knees in a pose that somehow invariably reminded me of my paternal grandfather (not sure he’d have been flattered by the resemblance).  The second common pose was where the langur would sit at the base of a tree, with all four paws touching the tree trunk – not clutching the tree trunk, just in contact.  In this pose, the hind legs would be slightly raised off the ground and I was convinced that the langur was somehow tapping into the energy vibes of the tree by sitting thus.  I told Mehroo and Soonoo I wanted to try out the pose myself and see if I felt anything, but was hampered by the fact that all the really good trees (lovely, lovely banyans) were all in the jungle where we couldn’t get down from the Gypsy.

On this first trip to the jungle, I was introduced to the Treepai and the Drongo and the Indian Pitta – took me a while to learn to spot this last, but I then became quite expert at spotting the flash of blue and then figuring out whether it was a White Breasted Kingfisher or the Pitta.  I soon got blasé about all such sights though I still felt a thrill when I was the first to spot something.  Mohammed, our guide, had an excellent eye, and was great at coaching us to spot whatever he’d seen.

 We then came to the lake where there were some sambhars wading at a shallow end, as were various kinds of migratory birds like herons and storks.  Both Mohammed and Rayees (our driver) were looking around intently, eyes screwed up against the sun blazing away at 4 pm.  Gazing towards a shady tree on the banks, Rayees said “Doorbeen dena” (Give me the binoculars) …. I passed mine to him and he raised it to his eyes without once moving his eyes from whatever he was looking at.  All of us held our breaths till he finally pronounced the verdict – there’s a tiger sleeping under the tree.  We all screwed up our eyes and looked, then tried through the binoculars, and could spot nothing.  Until Mohammed coached us – look at the dappled spot of sunlight under the tree ….. well, it’s not sunlight – it’s the tiger’s belly as she lies there next to the lake edge!  I was thrilled when I finally spotted her.  See if you can spot her in these photos!

Mohammed and Rayees told us she was T17, aka Sundari, aka Rakhi Sawant – “kyunki woh kissee ke saath chali jaathi hai – aaj isske saath, kal usske saath” (Because she goes with anyone at all – today she’s with this male, tomorrow with that one)!  We couldn’t stop giggling over that, though Soonoo insisted she hated the name and Sundari was not “like that”.  She’d mated with various tigers over the years it was true, but never had any cubs till 3 months back.  According to the locals, that was because until the last mating, she’d had a radio collar on, and that was somehow interfering with her biological system and preventing conception.  That far off sighting was a wonderful start to my first visit to Ranthambhore, and we then made our way out of Zone 2 and to our assigned zone

We traversed through the most beautiful rock faces, where the layers of rock looked almost like they were bound together by banyan roots.  I would have loved going rock climbing in such terrain, but of course, nobody, including the driver and guide were allowed to get down from the jeep – the penalty being that both of them would lose their licenses if we were caught outside the jeep!

We went through some steep paths that seemed to be the ramparts of some ancient fort and had a great bird’s eye view of the dhonk forest spread out beneath us.  The dhonk tree has a strange beauty all its own – it has a short trunk and has thin branches that get progressively thinner as the branches spread out.  The overall effect, when viewed in totality, is a lacy, gossamer effect.  And when you look at a jungle of dhonks, you suddenly realize that this ethereal looking branch actually ends up quite dense, and you cannot spot a sambhar or a chital or even a neelgai standing in its midst until it moves!

As we passed various streams, we saw a wild hare drinking busily, a mongoose going busily about his work, a sand grouse wriggling its bottom to wet her breast hair and cool off in the mud …. And none of them were really perturbed by our proximity!  And as dusk fell, and the setting sun glowed red through the gossamer dhonk branches, we saw a Stork billed Kingfisher, the largest kingfisher of all, sitting on a branch and pretty much posing for us, presenting 1^st one profile and then the other.  We admired him for a while and then started to head out of the park and right near the exit, spotted a pair of Brown Fish Owls!  Unfortunately, my camera was just not sophisticated enough to capture the pictures of birds, and especially not in the failing light. 

This was my wonderful first introduction to the Ranthambhore jungle!  We left the jungle and accompanied Padmini to Maa Farm, where she lives with her mother.  I enjoyed a refreshing nimbu paani while the others had a cuppa, and we all enjoyed Padmini’s tales of her recent visit to Manila, where her sister lives with her husband and kids.  We were in splits at Padmini’s dramatics, and some of the choicest phrases and mannerisms became part of our secret code for the trip.  But we were pretty exhausted and by and by we drifted back to our hotel, Hammir, had dinner and crashed.  But only after setting the alarm for 4:15 am, so we could be ready for our next safari at 5:00 am next morning.

The next morning, 22^nd, was great for birding.  We spotted baby crocs, a monitor lizard or two and birds whose names I’ve now forgotten.  Innumerable deer – sambhar, neelgai, chital.  Innumerable peacocks and peahens and juveniles.  Peacocks dancing with tail feathers spread in full glory, even with no peahen that we could spot.  I think that was the day we spotted the buzzard feasting on a piece of beehive that he’d got clutched in his talons as he sat high on a branch.  And the huge turtle half submerged in a lake, looking for all the world like a boulder.  Some of the guides have amazing eyes to spot such things from a moving jeep.  But I had not quite acclimated and with the clock edging towards 9 am and nothing to eat since getting up at 4 am, I started wilting.  Perhaps that is why I can’t quite remember anything spectacular that we spotted that morning.  I learnt after that though, and started carrying dehydrated fruit and nibbling the moment I felt my energy levels ebbing.  Guarding against dehydration I’d been doing from the start, now I started watching this as well.

Back to the hotel for breakfast, nap, lunch, nap (don’t recollect a bath that day, I think the nap took priority) and the evening safari.  This time, we had another guide and driver.  A youngster called Asok was our guide and the driver (whose name I don’t think I caught) was a gruff older guy.  He was a good spotter himself and would point out various birds to us, and then sarcastically congratulate Asok – “Good eye” – when Asok finally spotted it!  We were assigned Zone 5 and as we drove in, kept looking at the various birds and animals around.  And then we suddenly came upon a small manmade waterhole (Bhootkhora road to those who know Ranthambhore) with some 4 Gypsies clustered around it and there was a tiger cooling off in it, not 12 meters away from us.  Speculation was rife between our driver, guide and Soonoo.  Since we couldn’t see whether it was a male or a female, they thought this was one of the 2 motherless female cubs, 18 months old, who were being brought up by their father – an unusual event in the tiger species.

We must have waited there for something like an hour, with the tiger on alert and turning to face every new movement of a Gypsy.  I felt sorry for her – she wanted to relax in the water, kind of like lolling in a bathtub after a tiring day.  And here were a bunch of gawking tourists, just standing around and staring at her.  But all the pros were convinced she would move soon, and they were keen to identify her (they often have their own agendas like “T-so-and-so has not been spotted for a while, hope she’s not wounded or killed by poachers …. Be on the lookout for him”) so we waited for something like an hour.  There were sambhars walking around just about 20 meters behind us, seemingly unconcerned, or maybe unaware, of the tiger in the vicinity.

 By and by, a sambhar felt thirsty and headed for the waterhole.  He sensed danger however, and walked very cautiously, stopping at every step to sniff the air and keeping one front hoof raised to stamp a warning at the first sign of danger.  The tiger too came on full alert and stood up in the water, watching the sambhar unblinkingly.  But the sambhar had spotted her and gave its characteristic bark-like warning and walked on by.  Tiring of trying to outwait the tourists and the sambhar, the tiger finally decided to come out of the water and lie down in the shade of the jungle.

To our great appreciation, and the clicking of umpteen cameras, she emerged wet (and as Mehroo put it – gundoo (mucky)) and strode her majestic stride to the jungle, where she sat down in the grass and all but disappeared from our view.  We knew where she was sitting, we could see her and see that she was watching us, but if we took our eyes off her for a second, we’d then have to spend the next 10 seconds trying to spot her again.  The camouflage is unbelievable – you need to see it to believe it.  And now I believe what I’ve read before – you can pass 5 feet from a tiger, the tiger will be sitting there watching you, and you will not spot him/her.  Knowing the limitations of my camera, I didn’t even try to photograph her at this stage.

Having had a good look at her, and her swollen teats, Soonoo and our guide and driver pronounced that she was T17 again – Sundari of the 3 month old cubs.  She’d left her great big lake of the previous day to come and bathe in this tiny manmade waterhole for some inconceivable reason.  I’m sure she thought to herself – “kal sone nahin diya, aaj nahne nahin diya” (yesterday, they didn’t let me sleep, today they’re not letting me bathe).

The jeeps all quickly dispersed in different directions after this (obviously some of us were in zones that had not been assigned to us, since only a few jeeps are assigned per zone and we were 5 clustered around her).  We headed out of the jungle – anything after this would have been an anticlimax, though Mehroo kept clamouring for a bear sighting or a leopard sighting (considered the rarest of all).  I was just amazed at my luck – having been repeatedly prepared by Soonoo for no tiger sightings, I’d seen 2 tigers in 2 days (or more accurately, 1 tiger twice in 2 days). 

We returned to the hotel, had a bit of a wash up and headed to Maa Farm, where we’d been invited for dinner.  After enjoying the cool breeze and starry sky and Padmini’s dramatics for a while, we headed in for dinner, where we experienced typical Rajasthani ghar-ka-khana (home food) with lots of achaar (pickle) made by Mammaji (Padmini’s mother) herself.  By the time dinner came to an end, we were dropping on our feet and toddled across the road to our hotel and tumbled into bed with the alarm set for 4:15 am. 

Saturday morning …. We were past the midpoint of our trip, having done 3 safaris and with 3 more ahead.  Today, we had Mohammed as our guide and a driver whose name escapes my memory.  We were again assigned to the same zone as the previous day, but since we’d not gone past the waterhole where we spotted Sundari that day, we decided that was no bad thing.  So off we went, with Mohammed again showing his amazing spotting skill, spotting the head of a snake barely peeping out of his tree hole, or a monitor lizard sunning itself on the ground totally camouflaged … .and all this spotted from a speeding Gypsy bouncing over the rutted paths! 

That was another ride where I have no clear memory of spotting anything spectacular.  We saw quite a few woolly necked storks, dancing peacocks … every trip was a joy of discovery even if what we saw was not a great sighting.  That was the day we planned to visit Divya’s shop, Dhonk and then accompany Padmini to Khem Vilas, where her brother ran an extremely swanky and exclusive hotel for tourists.  So after a quick breakfast, we headed across the road to Dhonk and made our very reasonably priced purchases.  Divya kindly agreed to deliver the bags to Maa Farm, from where we could collect it after the evening safari, and we headed into Padmini’s car (she’d come to Dhonk to collect us) to go to Khem Vilas for lunch.

We cooled off with nimbu paani and admired the lotus pond and spa with Padmini before we heard her other guests arrive.  She went off to welcome them, while one of the hotel managers continued to show us around the cottage accommodations.  We all admired the open air bathroom most of all – the fittings were absolutely modern, and it was open to the sky.  With trees all around, you could enjoy an open air shower if you so wished!  We then came back to the main building and sat around chatting waiting for Padmini’s other guests to arrive and the social chit chat to be gotten out of the way before lunch could be served

By and by, we joined the others at the formal dining table, where there were some 10-12 guests, a district judge, some magistrates and other senior court officials, all sitting stiffly around the immaculately set table.  They turned to look at the three of us enter – casually dressed for the jungle, me with my loose pants drooping from my waist like some kind of pajama!  Too bad – nobody had told me to pack for a formal sit down lunch when coming to Ranthambhore!  Padmini was least bothered by such trivia and we enjoyed a wonderful typical Rajasthani, rather heavy lunch followed by dessert.  The judge left, after which the formality reduced somewhat.  Padmini showed us to a room where the 3 of us could nap till it was time for our evening safari – both she and Divya were joining us.  We lolled around and dozed for a while, and then Padmini joined us, having seen off the last of her guests.

After some confusion about whether the Gypsy would come to Khem Vilas to pick us up or we had to go to the main gate of the sanctuary to catch the jeep, we headed for our second last safari.  We again had our maverick driver Rayees, this time with no guide.  We were assigned zone 4 and we headed into the jungle.  We visited one water body after another, since everyone was convinced we’d spot something momentous on this trip.  Suddenly Padmini froze (we had paused by a stream) and told Rayees to cut the engine, she’d heard a sambhar call from the 7 o’clock – 8 o’clock position.

We all froze and then Rayees headed back the way we’d come, up a cliff path to peer over the top at a water body at Bakhola - the junction of Zone 4 and 5.  Padmini kept insisting – “sambhar kabhi false call nahin detha” (the sambhar never gives a false call).  And appropriately enough, it was Padmini, the true daughter of Fateh Singh Rathore, who was the first to spot her – she was lying on her side under the shade of the trees, as we peered at her from the cliff above, barely some 20-30 feet above her and barely some 5 -10 meters lateral distance!  The angle was pretty terrible for all of us except Mehroo sitting next to Rayees.  She literally had a front seat view.  I did click some photos of T41 as she was identified, but she was hard to spot without a whole lot of tree branches, not to mention our jeep itself, coming in my line of sight.  We admired her for a while, as she slept on, periodically waking up to blink at us and then go to sleep again, and then headed off.

The light was beautiful, and we clicked some beautiful pictures of the dhonk trees – every so often, we’d come across a stretch of dhonks that were bursting into leaf – the most refreshing shade of green.  And with the sun shining across the tops, the effect was truly beautiful.  This was the trip where we saw a colony of painted storks nesting on the branches of a tree – great to see these huge, somewhat ungainly looking birds, perched elegantly up on the tree.  And as we drove out, Divya spotted a piece of beehive that had fallen to the ground, raked by the nail marks of a bear.  We picked up a piece and felt it and sniffed at it (rather nice sweet smell to it) before we threw it away again.  In the fading light, we drove out with Padmini scanning the jungle hill sides on either side, hoping to spot a leopard, and Mehroo telling Rayees “mereko bhaloo dekhna hai” (I want to see a bear) but no luck.  And with that, we were almost at the end of our trip, with just one safari left the next morning

We didn’t spend long socializing that day, and headed to the hotel for some quiet time with fresh lime sodas before dinner and bed.  The next morning, I had no great hopes of any spectacular sightings, since all our tiger sightings  till now had been in the evenings, with the mornings tending to be uneventful.  We had a guide and driver whom we’d never had before, and who were unknown to Soonoo as well.  It appeared as if they were the “nothing but a tiger will do” variety, as they sped from one water body to another in Zone 4, briefly pausing to scan for a tiger before saying “chalo” (let’s go) and heading off.  All of us (the 3 of us + the other party of 3 jungle lovers from Jaipur) were getting somewhat exasperated with them.

By and by, we came to a water body at Berda and some sambhar and chitals grazing nearby.  The sambhars were periodically going on alert, but we were not sure whether it was because of us, or something else.  Suddenly, a langur gave a call.  The sambhars were on high alert and we all of looked around keenly in the direction they were looking till we decided it had been a false call (the sambhar had not called, had only raised his tail and stopped grazing).  We headed off, meeting a Cantor (open air bus) and the drivers and guides exchanged notes.  Just then, the langur called again.  The driver and guide unilaterally did a u-turn and came back to our earlier spot, insisting there had to be a tiger around.  After looking for a long time, they finally spotted movement.  The tiger was hidden behind a tree not 20 feet from where we’d been parked both this time and the previous time!

The driver drove to get a better angle behind the tree, and there he was,  with his fresh sambhar kill, so intent on satisfying his hunger, he couldn’t care less about us.  For about 15 or 30 mins (time is always so relative, who knows how long it actually was), we watched him feast on the sambhar, tearing it open from its asshole to pull out the soft innards and eat.  At one point, he stood up to turn the sambhar over and get better access to its soft underbelly.  For Mehroo (for whom this was the 6^th or 8^th visit), this was a first – she had never before seen a tiger with a fresh kill.  We were all thrilled at the sighting – it was a really close look, barely 20 feet away and as close to stark nature as one can get.  After some time, we decided to leave – the driver and guide suggested we move to the waterhole and wait for him to come there to slake his thirst after eating, but they agreed with Soonoo that that would probably be something like an hour away and we decided against it.

So we left T6 to his sambhar meal (not quite the sambhar shaadam of the Tamilians!) and drove away.  Having shown us a tiger, the guide and driver were more relaxed now, and willing to slow down for bird sightings and sightings of “lesser” animals.  As we drove out of the jungle, we got a close look at a most majestic neelgai and then, on the main path of the sanctuary, next to a nullah, were a family of chitals posed all on a row …. Unfortunately, by the time I could get out my camera to take advantage of the composition, they moved and we drove on.  But it was a good way to end the last safari on my first trip to Ranthambhore.  I knew I was (am) hooked, and this was not goodbye but au revoir!

Tigers, Temples and Treks in Thailand

Sunday, June 3, 2012 – a red letter day – it was the day I was scheduled to visit the Tiger Temple at Kanchanabhuri in Thailand.  It had been in my mind ever since my first trip to Thailand, but every earlier trip, I’d gone there on a packed work schedule, and now at last, my manokamna (the unvoiced wish of my mind) was being fulfilled.  K. Bob was coming for me at 7:00 am, so at 6:00 am, I decided to head out to one of the 24 hour restaurants I’d spotted in the neighbourhood.  With my mind totally focused on choosing between the Taco joint and the Diner, I walked on oblivious to my surroundings.  The Diner smelt of cigarette smoke, so I ordered an omelette and toast with orange juice at the counter and went and sat in the outdoor dining space.

And then for the first time, I became aware of my surroundings …. The outdoor dining space shared by all the eating joints in the vicinity, was full of people who’d been carousing all night.  So in the midst of scantily clad, heavily made-up girls eating soupy noodles and guys chugging beer with French fries, I sat in shorts and t-shirt, eating my omelette and toast!

With an inward laugh at the incongruity of the start, I met K. Bob and we left for Kanchanbhuri.  It was a good 2.5 – 3 hour drive, towards the Thailand – Myanmar border.  K. Bob very sweetly changed the Thai music to which he’d been listening, and put on an MP3 with an inexhaustible supply of old English songs.  So happily humming, foot-hand tapping, head bopping and tunelessly singing along, I enjoyed the nostalgia of hearing songs which I’d not heard in probably 30 years or more.

As per instructions K. Prapai had given him, he took me to the war cemetery, where WWII soldiers who’d died (many during the construction of the infamous bridge on the river Kwai) had been buried.  Similar in look, feel, atmosphere to Arlington, though on a smaller scale.  The graves were interspersed with well kept rose bushes and a well maintained lawn.  What caught my eye were the Jewish and Christian graves next to each other. 

I read a couple of headstones and almost wept at the sight of the graves of kids in their 20s. It was a relief to see someone who’d died at 42 - everything is relative.

From the war cemetery, we went to the bridge on the River Kwai …. Since K.Bob’s English was limited, I couldn’t ask him any questions … could only read the legend mounted at the site, but I suspect there was more than 1 bridge built on the River Kwai and I’m not too sure that this was The One.  Somehow, I’d always thought that the atrocities had happened in what was then known as Burma, and here this was in Thailand, admittedly near the border.

 Anyway, in the sweltering sun, we walked the tracks and stood by the side of the tracks (amazingly close) as an old engine chugged its way past us carrying waving tourists along the bridge that was probably no more than a 100 mts long, if that.  K. Bob took some nice pictures of me, and we left.  But not before I stopped to buy myself a hat … a traditional hat, rather than one of the pretty dainty ones that look the same in every country.  It pleased me tremendously when, a couple of days later K. Prapai took one look at it and exclaimed – “Oh, I remember my grandfather wearing a hat like this!”

From the Bridge, we again took to the road and soon we were at the Tiger Temple.  With my heart brimming with expectations, we stopped while I posed for a picture in the gaping tiger’s mouth that made up the entrance.   

Heading up the driveway, we finally came to the place where the ticket counter, restaurant etc was, only to discover the temple only opens at 12 noon.  It was 10 am when we reached.

Back to the car, and we headed to the nearby Sai Yok waterfall.  It was not a very big or forceful one, but very pleasant, with lots of interconnected pools.  Since it was a holiday, there were lots of families there, most  with young kids.  The kids were all swimming while the parents mostly sat around and watched.  I sat and watched for a while, letting the peace of the place seep into my soul.  The lady who rented out rubber tubes was curious about me – probably the only person there who was without any kids, or even friends, in tow.  Luckily for her, after a while, the lady sitting next to me started making conversation in English and they realized I was passing the time till the Tiger Temple opened.  So they pointed out to me how I could climb up the waterfall if I so wished (in clear contravention of the signs posted around that warned people against climbing the rocks as they were slippery).

Of course, I had to try that and it was very pleasant …. Through a thin layer of slow flowing water, I found non-slippery footholds and made my way to the next level up in the waterfall.  And lo and behold, K Bob was already up there, ready to click photographs of me enjoying the waterfall!  After a while, we made our way down again and started wandering around, each by ourselves.  Around 11:30, I made my way to the car, where I found Bob examining a map mounted on the roadside, showing all the spots in the area that were of tourist interest. 

Pantheon of Indian Gods

Dhruvika had recommended a visit to a cave full of stalagmites and stalactites that she had visited, which she’d said was on the way to the Tiger Temple.  So spotting a Lava Cave on the map, I pointed it out to K Bob and got his confirmation that it was nearby.  So back we hopped into the car and to the Lava Cave.  That was a bit of a disappointment – the formations were there, but there was nobody around to show the best angle from which to look at it, or to point out its resemblance to anything.  There were notices around, but all in Thai, so I had to fall back on my own imagination.  I decided to call the first one I saw – Pantheon of Indian Gods and then felt I spotted a Ganapathi somewhere else – too far for my flash to be effective, so I couldn‘t capture it on camera. 

By then it was past 12, and we headed back to the Tiger Temple, where we got the tickets.  I changed from my shorts to the long pants I’d carried, on the hunch that shorts may not be allowed in the temple (and sure enough – the notices there specified no sleeveless clothes, no shorts and skirt / dress length enough to cover the knees).  Also, the women were not to try to speak to the monks!

As we entered the tiger temple, I noticed a procession of a tiger accompanied by a monk walking to our left, moving towards us and followed by a procession.  I was so excited – I asked K Bob whether I could join the procession and at his nod, started to run towards them.  A yell stopped me in my tracks – a volunteer was waving at me pointing out the path I was supposed to follow.  And then I saw – there was a whole bunch of people waiting their turn to join the procession behind the next tiger.  There were 2 tigers, sitting tethered under a tree near where our queue had been formed.  The volunteers were squirting water from a hole in a bottled water bottle into their mouths, and the tigers were gratefully (one assumes) drinking it in the heat. 

As we waited for the next tiger to be walked, a deer of some kind came and examined all of us in the back of the line.  A lady got out a boiled candy to feed it, and the deer started snatching it out of her hand even before she could finish unwrapping it.  She had to pull the paper wrapping out of its mouth!  We were all laughing at the impatience and craving.  Meanwhile, I gave my camera to a volunteer and had her photograph the waiting tiger at close quarters – she did a very good job

Finally, the monk returned and we all got our instructions – the monk would walk with the tiger in front.  All of us would walk behind the monk in a line.  The person at the head of the line would step up behind the monk, stroke the tiger on his back and then step to the side, allowing the next person behind to do the same.  Umbrellas were to be closed so as not to spook the tiger.  We were to stay behind the monk at all times.  No self photography.  If we wanted to be photographed while stroking the tiger, we had to give our camera to the volunteer who would click the photo.  The tiger would spray trees as he passed – if we got into the way of the spray, we were not to scream and spook the tiger.  The locals considered it lucky to be sprayed thus, though it smelled quite strongly. 

By the time my turn came, we had almost reached the canyon (which is where the tigers were being taken) and none of the volunteers were around to click my photo.  I was quite disappointed, wondering “Is this all?  For this, I built up so much anticipation?”

With a vague sense of letdown I trailed along behind the tiger to see where he was being taken – down a hillside and round a rocky outcropping.  And as I rounded the second corner, I found some 10-12 tigers, each staked to the ground, sitting on the ground and calmly looking around.  There was an arrangement of benches in a covered area in front of this canyon, with a volunteer with a hand mike ready to address us all.  I found myself a place and as I settled down, I noticed – right in the middle of all the tigers, the monk who’d walked the tigers sat cross legged on the ground, with the head of a tiger in his lap as he caressed it and spoke in his ear!

The volunteer then announced the protocol – there were 2 formats that could be followed – you could be part of a group of 6 of your own choosing, and have the privilege of a photograph with 1 of the group sitting with this 250 Kg tiger’s head in his lap, while the other 5 clustered behind.  This would cost 1,000 Baht (at a little under Rs 2 per Thai Baht).  The other option was a free one – you would be taken individually to pet some of the tigers on their backs only, while a volunteer clicked your photo using your camera.  I went for the free option, and enjoyed stroking 2 adult tigers and 3 cubs of around 6 months each.  Two of the cubs were tethered close together and were probably siblings.  As I petted the one on the right, the other one perhaps felt neglected and walked away in a sulk even as I tried to lure him back with sweet talk.

After petting the tigers, I also wanted to visit the Buddha temple in the complex, so I made my way there and admired the idol and the photographs adorning the walls.

Having done that, I was ready to leave and went out to find K. Bob. 

Unable to keep the smile off my face, I relaxed in the car as K. Bob drove in his usual competent way, with the music playing on.  Gradually, I became aware that we seemed to be returning by a different route from the one by which we’d come.  I questioned K Bob, and he told me he was taking me to Erawan Falls.  I tried to tell him, I was thrilled with the Tiger Temple visit and there was no need for any further sightseeing, but he’d received his instructions from K. Prapai and he was going to follow them!

And so, we reached Erawan Falls where as we walked towards the falls we met hordes of people on their way back, complete with kids, picnic baskets, wet swimming gear and accessories.  Wonderingly, I walked on until we came to a map that showed how there were multiple waterfalls at different levels and how far you had to climb to get to each one.  Gamely, K Bob and I climbed on, each trying to outdo the other all the way to Level 4.  There was a big pool at Level 4, with lots of teenage kids playing in the water.  There were more kids perched on the big rock from where the water fell, and every few minutes, one of them would relax the grip of his backside on the rock and slide down the rock to land in the water with a big splash.  It seemed like great fun, but I had neither the courage, nor the right company, nor the swimming clothes to attempt any such derring-do.

Having rested there for a while, K Bob indicated to me that I was free to climb on if I wished, while he waited for me right there.  I told him I’d had enough too (the park authorities had warned us that the park closed at 5:30 and we had to get out before then, and we were both quite tired after a long day) and we could head out.  Once back in the car, I told him, let’s head back to Bangkok, no more sightseeing.  I could make out he was tired and when I asked him, he told me his knees were aching from the long hours of driving.  But he still wanted to take me to Srinakarin Dam.  I told him – I have no money left (having exhausted all the Thai currency cash I was carrying, and there being no currency exchanges at any of the places we’d visited that day, nor credit card transactions).  He assured me it was free, and the view from there was beautiful and it would barely take us half an hour. 

That was our last stop for the day – truly a breathtaking sight – the dam on one side and the lake created by the dam on the other.  Gushing water on the one side, and an absolutely calm lake on the other.  Having looked around, and posed for the mandatory picture (K. Bob would demand “camera-camera” from me at each stop), we took off and then it was non-stop back to Bangkok.  A lovely day, which I ended with 28 Thai Baht in my pocket when I tallied my cash before changing some money so I could eat dinner!


Thank you, K. Raj, K. Prapai and K. Bob, for a truly memorable trip!