Rolling in the Foothills

Before leaving Dharmsala, Martin had one last chore to do, which was to go to the post office and mail home two huge stones (geodes) that he bought off the street near our hotel. What possessed him to go and buy stones in India the day he was to leave on a bicycle ride, I don't know, but he did it. They were nice enough stones, but they weighed about 20kg (thats 45 pounds). And I experienced the Indian postal system years ago, and unless things had changed dramatically, I knew this would be at least a two hour ordeal.

The first stop was the post office, which was a tiny room in a derelict building along the main street into McLeod Ganj. "Main street" here means something that can fit a compact car, nothing more. The office was atmospheric, perfect for a period piece about the Raj. Dingy yellow walls were set off by green paint on the door and window frames; a hasty or lazy job had smeared green paint over a quarter of the window panes as well. The place was dark enough to require squinting at the various forms that the clerks presented to patrons, and the patrons all became very familiar since the waiting area accommodated three persons at most. Men in glasses sipped at tea, smoke whorls danced upwards towards the one functional flourescent tube, and piles of yellowing papers covered all available horizontal space.

Martin presented his package, which was just the stones balled up into a bag he was sending back home. "How much will it cost?"

"First, no more than twenty kilos. Air mail only."

"How much is that?"

"Which country sir?"

"Denmark."

The man did some math on a calculator (I was surprised he didn't use an abacus). "7450 rupees sir."

Martin raised his eyebrows. "You're joking!"

The man waggled his head. "No, no joking sir. 7450 rupees."

I began to giggle. The postage was probably more than he had paid for the stones (the figure was about 170 dollars). "Can I use the scale?" Martin indicated the scale behind the counter; if the stones weighed more than 20 kilos, he would have to split the parcel and pay considerably more.

The man demurred, Martin persisted, and eventually got a flat "no". I stepped outside.

Martin came out a minute later. "Jesus, why won't he let me use the scale...Anyway, I have to make up a package."

Right next door was the storefront of Tailor Master Lobsang Ngodrup, a cavelike place with a ceiling that I had to duck my head in to stand up. Lobsang was in good humor when he saw the parcel. He sewed a bag for the parcel, threaded it shut, and placed sealing wax over the seams, all in the space of about two minutes. I was first fascinated by the parcel bags in Pakistan; India maintained the same system. Is it a make-work system, guaranteed to bring in some pocket money for tailors? Or just one of the myriad frustrations that is part of life on the subcontinent?

In any case, this was an improvement over my experiences 12 years ago - once the parcel was sewn up, Martin was in and out of the post office in ten minutes (I had to go bring together four different people in the post office in Islamabad to get something mailed home, spending well over two hours in the process).

We sat down and ate something quickly, looking over the ads in the Times of India for arranged marriages ("Brahmin MBA seeks same, must be from good family, speaks English fluently" and so on), and noting that the front page had several stories of insurgent groups in the country, from Kashmir to Naxalite groups in the middle of the country, to the female head of the PCPA (People's Committee Against Police Atrocities) turning herself in. Police were being ambushed, and the military was imposing curfews and killing teenagers in Jammu and Kashmir, the next state over. There is lots of ferment in the world's largest democracy, no doubt about it. But all was tranquil in the hills around Dharmsala.

We descended from the clouds by bicycle, the first time I have set off on a tour in three years. It felt good, dropping down a steep rain-soaked road, dodging cows, taxis, and children. The comparative calm of McLeod Ganj quickly receded and the chaos of Indian roads became our reality for the next three days. It isn't much worse than southern Italy, with the addition of the cows, which can really throw a wrench into traffic. Everyone brakes for cows, and no one honks at them either. The cows make their home on the blacktop, laying there motionless, apparently oblivious to the fact that more than a billion people are trying to get from point A to point B. Of course, this also means the road's surface is spackled over with cow dung, smeared from one side to the other. The air, when it doesn't smell of diesel exhaust, is redolent of rotting garbage, decomposing vegetables, and dung. Scents don't waft by, they hang in the air, immobilized by the incredible heat and humidity of the plains (to be truthful, we weren't even in the plains, but at an elevation of over 1000 meters almost the whole time). Martin's thermometer read 39 degrees celsius in the shade when we stopped (that's 102 fahrenheit for Americans), which is bad enough in the desert, but with the humidity of the monsoon, it is nearly unbearable. Climbing hills felt like running a mile on an inclined treadmill inside a sauna.

One of the things to enjoy in India is the signage, which is predominantly in English. Misspellings abound, and the particular variant of English here doesn't really square with that spoken in, say, the US or UK. There are lots of archaisms and strange constructions that proliferate on signs, or in the verbal interactions. Always you are "friend" or "sir", as in "From which country are you coming, sir?" A bus passed me with an advertisement for a bank, claiming "generous loans" and "stupendous growth"; another for a restaurant advertised "decent food". There are advertisements everywhere for English-language secondary schools, with guarantees for passing tests that are no doubt gateways to employment of some kind here. Some even go so far as to say "100% employment guaranteed with signed MoU" - the small type was nowhere to be found on the ad, but I imagine there are plenty of charlatans out there taking advantage of poor people's aspirations for their children.

We stayed in hotels at night: the official justification I gave was that neither of us had malaria prophylactics, and there is a risk of contracting it below 2000 meters in India. The reality was that I couldn't bear to camp outside in the heat, and the fact that there weren't really any places to camp away from people. Anything flat was being farmed or lived upon. I have camped in extremely marginal places in the tropics (Indonesia, Vietname, etc) in the past, but I have gone soft. Better to spend five bucks on a room somewhere with a fan and a door to keep away prying eyes.

Our first hotel was in a town called Bir, apparently a hanggliding destination. We were clearly here out of season, or it wasn't much of a destination and the signs painted a brighter picture than reality. The town, more of a crossroads, came after a long climb up a pass from one watershed to another, a thin line of shops strung out along the roadside. It was dark as I rolled past shops, looking for signs of a hotel; Martin was well behind me. I had just finished saying to him at our last break that I didn't want to ride on Indian roads in the dark, and here I was, riding sightless on a road hoping that the trucks whizzing by would see me.

Fortunately, "Friend's Hotel and Restaurant" appeared at the end of the strip of buildings, a very unlikely place for a hotel. Who ever stayed here? A man in white shalwar kameez stood under a bare light bulb, his features hard to make out in the light.

"Is this your hotel?" I asked in English (I have made the assumption that people engaged in commerce have at least a limited grasp of English).

He nodded and came over to me. "Yes."

It didn't look operational. "Is it open?"

"Yes - you want room?"

"Ah, I'll just wait for my friend."

Martin showed up, we were ushered in. "Put the bicycles inside, no problem."

The lobby, if one could call it that, was a cavernous room, completely empty and unlit save for one bulb next to the door and a desk. We placed our bikes against a wall.

"It's OK to leave bike, they are safe, no problem." It was obvious that they wouldn't detract from the ambience.

I was shown a room, the best in the house, which consisted of a large platform that could probably sleep four side by side. A fan hung from the ceiling. "Does that work?" I indicated the fan.

"Yes, see for yourself."

He also indicated the bathroom. "Great," I said.

"Please have a look," he said.

I hadn't really cared to see it, I assumed it was functional, but now that I was being shown the bathroom, I was stunned that he was proud of it. A broken toilet was in the middle of a longish room, two handles protruded from the wall, but there was no showerhead, there was not even a sink. A plastic bucket lay on the floor next to a tap. I turned the tap.

"Yes, water," my host said smiling.

"OK, its fine," I said. "How much?"

"500 rupees sir."

This was ridiculous. I looked at him and smiled. "Really...500 rupees?"

"Yes, will you take it?" He wore a vague smile, either obsequious or greedy.

In the past, I might have bargained. Now, I felt a strange pang of sympathy for this man, living in this crossroads, no other guests for probably months, unable to afford to build a decent bathroom. I felt compelled to bargain, just to save face, but my heart wasn't in it. "350?" I said.

He stared at me for a few seconds, and said "500 sir."

"Stupendous," I said, "500."

When it came time to register and pay, he led me downstairs and sat down at the abused desk underneath the weak light. He invited me to sit down on a stool, and pulled out a scuffed brown plastic briefcase. He opened this to reveal several papers, and a book of forms with carbon paper. When was the last time I had seen carbon paper?

"Some dinner, something to eat?" he asked.

"Sure."

The restaurant was next door, under a tin roof. The menu was extensive, but nothing was available. We were steered to chapati and dal.

We slept under the whirring fan, awakened by the rumbling of trucks passing through in the night.

We made it to Manali two days later, a resort town at 2000 meters (6400 feet) elevation, a place for downcountry Indians to cool off, and for foreign backpackers to sit around, smoke weed, and eat banana pancakes. This resort town is completely charmless, undeserving of any reputation for beauty. The same dirty streets, the same cows and dogs roaming the streets, the same fetid ditches. But, it is blessedly cool, and a light rain pattered down on us as we rode into town. This place would be home for the next day, as I retreated into the hotel room and watched movies on satellite TV, tired and looking for respite (already!) from the heat and the dust.