After getting down from the Hampta pass and back to Manali I had one night to recover my concrete block legs and then it was off to the Parvati Valley, specifically the village of Tosh. The whole valley is known as the hash capital of India and the police simply look the other way, as it provides the livelihoods to many of the villagers. Traditionally Kasol is the most commercialized village that gets more Indians and Tosh is higher up in the mountains and gets more Europeans and Israelis, so many it’s nicknamed Little Israel. It is (or was) a hugely popular place for young Israeli’s to go after finishing up their military stints. I was a little skeptical because large groups of young Israeli’s have not been the most pleasant groups of people to be around, but at the same time I hadn’t talked to anyone who wasn’t Indian in well over a week and I wouldn’t meeting some more foreign tourists. Plus the setting of the village is gorgeous!
The old temple that you can’t touch
I like that it’s more like a town with actual inhabitants than a tourist strip
I was able to take a bus most of the way there, then it was another bus to get to the village right below Tosh, and then a shared taxi from there to climb the potholed road, and then a nice sized walk to get to the accommodation. Easy! If you can’t tell I’m starting to get a bit worn out from all the mountain transportation at this point. This trip, which included at least 30 minutes mountainside gridlock, took over 6 hours to go 60 miles total! Sigh. I did meet some Indians on the bus to who wanted to hang out, although I couldn’t help but sounding like a snob when I didn’t want to stay in some crowded $4 dorms with them. I had a nice room with a western bathroom, good mattress, view and balcony in mind. We exchanged numbers to do dinner together. Spending $15-20 on a room seems crazy cheap in USD, but for these young Indian guys, that’s prohibitively expensive.
my view
Anyway the place I wanted was booked out, but I could stay next door for $10, also with a balcony and view! So fine by me. Finally some real time to relax! I did absolutely nothing that afternoon, and then did next nothing the whole next day, great stuff! Just sipping on mango lassies and watching the birds go by. I had certainly not had enough R&R days on this trip. I couldn’t take too many days off because I had a deadline and I wanted to get in enough of Pakistan! Oh and somewhere around this time my visa did eventually get approved for Pakistan, nice. I did have to fork out an extra $100 for a Letter of Invitation, which I was told weren’t needed for most applicants. Annoying.
Curiously there were very few Israeli’s and yet again, almost all domestic tourists. And they all seemed to be doing this one hike called the Kheerganga trek and camping overnight. I also did it, but woke up early to pump it out in the morning and avoid the crowds. Compared to the other stuff I’d done it was woefully underwhelming, and at the end is dozens and dozens of stationary tents and campgrounds where all the Indian tourists spend the night, hundreds of tents. Ugh, not my thing at all. Everything popular in India has to involve tons of other people around. You don’t even have a nice view of the mountains from where the camps are located! Anyway I was glad I was doing it as a day hike. There’s also some hot springs, which is was the one redeeming factor of the hike, and I forgot by swim trunks, doh.
The next day I checked out of the guesthouse and stopped by a Sikh holy temple called Manikaran, which also had hot springs, and I did have my suit! The popular holy sites in India are pretty damn great, there’s nothing like them in the world. The Sikh sites in particular are cool because they staff massive kitchens that feed everyone who comes, for free, no matter who you are. At the Golden Temple in Amritsar they feed 100,000 people a day during the busy seasons, crazy. So of course I grabbed a platter and took a spot on the floor where they served up rice, chapatis, dhal, and potatoes. It’s a cool experience! Even when I get frustrated with India, the unique experience of a place like Manikaran perks me back up again.
After Manikaran, lots more buses! A few hours to get down the mountains, a few hours to another city, a few more to Dharmshala, and then a 30 minute taxi ride up into the hills to Mcleod Ganj, and further up, a 9 hour day. Mcleod Ganj is the home of the Dalai Lama and is nicknamed Little Tibet, you can see monks strolling everywhere around the streets. Where I was staying (Bagsu Village) was further in the hills was a bit more calm, more of a western style hangout. Foreigners like to come here for yoga and meditation courses, energy healing, that kind of stuff. You get more of the longer term crowd who get an apartment for a month or a few months.
You can also find western breakfasts! Where I was traveling you might be able to find western lunch/dinner options, stuff like burgers, chicken sandwiches, pasta, pizza etc, but the Indian + Tibetan dinner cuisine is diverse enough that I usually didn’t eat much western food. But what does not seem to exist up north is anything other than bread omelets (usually greasy and overcooked eggs on two pieces of toast) and parantha (a type of fried flatbread, usually with onions or potatoes inside) for breakfast. I had literally started my day with those two dishes for weeks straight! So I was more than thankful to be able to eat something like a fruit salad with yogurt and granola, or avocado toast with poached eggs, or French toast with berries. With a decent cappuccino. Yessss.
boring!
So it was nice to hang out here a couple of days and chill, drinking good coffee, reading my book, editing some photos, getting some massages. You could even smoke hookah. Of course there is one popular trek that I felt compelled to do, the triund, 3 hours up, 2 down, with some great views of the mountains in the background. Although compared to some of the scenery I’d already seen, this trek was a bit underwhelming (I’m spoiled, I know). Also very crowded. Everything in Northern India this time of year is just so crowded! But nothing compared to the crowds at the Golden Temple!
