A trip to the Indian Himalayas
I had planned to travel around India by train—to admire the Taj Mahal, explore Rajastan, and visit a friend in Goa—but wanting to escape the heat, I went instead to a travel agency outside the Dehli train station and bought a ticket to Manali, a town in the Indian Himalayas. The overnight bus to Manali was filled with backpackers—mostly Israelis—but the woman sitting next to me was French. Marie was petite and had short brown hair. She had a sincere, natural smile and mesmerizing blue eyes.
Our driver was speeding through the night along the winding mountain road, easily negotioating each turn from memory. Marie opened the window and the wind blew wisps of hair across her face. As the bus sped through the night, the moon cast an eerie glow on a statue of Shiva watching over us from the dashboard. I leaned back in my seat and watched the endless darkness outside.
We arrived in Manali early the next morning. As people exited the bus, I said goodbye to Marie.
“You have a place to stay?” she asked.
“Not yet. I’ll probably stay in a guest house.”
“I’ve been staying at a farmhouse on the mountain,” she said. “There’s a spare room I’m sure the farmer wouldn’t mind renting.”
The mountain air was crisp and energizing as we hiked through the town already bustling with activity and headed toward the snow-capped Himalayas.
Marie and I walked along a mountain road through the morning mist, past a hippie coffee house and crossed a bridge over a fast-flowing river, then deviated from the main road and took a steep trail that led up the mountain. She carried only a small duffel bag and nimbly hopped over the rocks as I tried to keep up with her, carrying my heavy backpack.
When we reached a rustic farmhouse, surrounded by fields of cannabis, we saw the mist-draped village of Manali below us, crowned in the distance by the white peaks of the Himalayas. A chubby, balding man walked toward us, whistling a cheerful tune. Marie introduced me to the farmer and explained that I needed a place to stay for a few days. He showed me to a small room with a dirt floor, a bed, side-table and candlestick.
“At night we must use candle,” the farmer said, “as the mountain has no electricity. We eat this evening at six…and would be pleased if you could be joining us for dinner. If you are missing anything, please ask.”
I thanked him.
When Marie and the farmer had gone, I dropped my bag on the bed and walked outside to enjoy the crisp air. I sat on a bench admiring the mountains, watching some goats dozing, when a cheerful young man wearing a colorful skull-cap joined me. He wore a loose-fitting cotton shirt and trousers that fluttered in the breeze. He had an aquiline nose and a sparse goatee, and although his dark face was sharp and angular, he had gentle, innocent eyes.
“All these goats I am taking care of,” he said. “Now resting time for me. If you permit, I come sit with you? After sleeping time, goats very busy, they run in mountain and happy-playing.”
The goatherd smiled and nodded. Then he went to sit on the grass beside one of his sleeping goats and filled his brown wooden chillum with tobacco and hash. He cupped his hand over it, brought it to his forehead, mumbled a prayer to Shiva and sucked the smoke deeply through the opening in his cupped hands. A little goat beside him opened its eyes and he patted it gently on the head.
“Soon I take you walking in mountain,” he said, “happy-playing and grass-eating.”
The goatherd stroked his beard and gazed fondly at his goats sleeping on the hillside. Marie came out and joined us.
“He really loves his goats, doesn’t he?” I said to her.
“Raju comes from a long line of goatherds,” she said.
“Yes,” said Raju, “my father also was a keeper of goats. All the goats are happy. I come every day, talking and playing with them in the mountains, sitting on the grass and looking at flowers.”
We sat and talked some more as the mountains darkened around us.
When I woke in the morning the sun was shinning over the glaciers of the Himalayas.
Streaks of clouds drifted above the whitecaps when I opened the window. The cold mountain air crept into the room and drove me back to bed.
That morning Marie and I decided to take a walk in the mountains. She packed a large loaf of dark bread, some yak cheese, a bottle of water and a couple of apples. The sun was warm and toasted our backs as we started up a rocky path, past a meadow of blue and yellow flowers.
Raju was sitting in the shade of a tree, speaking to the little goats of his pasture.
“Always be happy grass-eating,” he said.
He looked over at us and asked, “Where do you go?”
“Trekking to the pass,” Marie said, “We’re going to explore the mountain haunts of the snow leopard and track the Yeti.”
“Where the rest of your goats,” I asked. “Did you lose them?”
“No, no. They sleep in hiding place on mountain side.”
Light-footed as a mountain goat, Marie skipped along the path that sloped gently upward among rough stone huts where a few sheep grazed on terraced pastures.
When we reached the top of the hill, we ran down the other side, bouncing over mounds of grass, laughing, loosing control and then waving our arms to balance ourselves. We stopped by the stream, at a spot where it became a torrent of glacial waters, tumbling over jagged rocks, gurgling between crevices and spraying a patch of bright buttercups before crashing into a deep gorge below.
Sitting by the stream on a smooth rock, I closed my eyes. The cool vapor rising from the rushing waters felt refreshing against my face. I breathed deeply. The air was cold and invigorating. Marie sat next to me, removed her shoes and dangled her feet in the stream.
We walked and talked until the sun was high and then stopped for lunch on a grassy bank under a tree. From an outcrop of rock, the swift running stream branched into rivulets and slipped, shimmering, over the pebbles and between the stones.
“Beautiful, this spot,” Marie said.
We sat down on the slope. Marie lay on her back in the grass, her head resting on her folded arms, gazing up at the mountains.
Later when we walked home, the snow-covered mountains loomed over us. The sun illuminated the valley, tingeing the white peaks with fingers of gold. In the distance, a lone figure walked along the base of the mountain, small and insignificant, overshadowed by the immensity of the Himalayas.
