The endless mountains - Himalayas

The train from Delhi to Kalka took seven hours. It was a night train and I had booked the sleepers class. It is the cheapest way to travel with a place to sleep. From your berth (hard bed) you can see eight berths, yours, two below you (I was on the upper one), three across you in parallel and two more by the corridor. You get a very limited area  to sleep and it is a rather noisy place, but in trips like this, you easily sleep as you get exhausted.

In Kalka the weather was colder as we were already a bit up in the mountains. From Kalka to Shimla there is a very famous line with a smaller train that goes in the mountains. The distance to cross is not big but the train goes slowly and makes many stops. This line was characterised as world's heritage on 2008 as they told me.
The view you get from that train is a very good introduction course to the Himalayas. There were two friend-couples on holidays next to me and they offered me food, then showed me pictures of their trip so far and then they started talking about their work and if they could come to Greece to do business. One was working with diamonds and the other with textile so we analysed more the textile opportunities.

Shimla lies at 2500m (well I believe from 2000-2590 as I walked up and down a lot). In the shadow it was quite cold and I can imagine the nights were even colder. It's a touristic city and it was the touristic period for Indians at the moment. I saw only few westerns there. The biggest attraction to my taste is the Jakhu hill where there is a 33m tall, red statue of Hindu deity, Lord Hanuman(the one with the monkey head). The geek's fact is that this is the statue that stands in the higher altitude than any other masterpiece in the world (2591m). It was indeed a huge masterpiece.

In my short time in Shimla, I came across with the monkeys of Himalayas, especially up in Jakhu hill there are hundreds. What a creature?! They are so intelligent, they open tanks of water or even these taps you have to push very hard to get the water flowing, they are crazy acrobats and doing great parkour moves from one house to the other and they even get offended when you look them directly in the eyes. Just amazing!

The time was 15:00 and I had to choose if I m sleeping in Shimla or if I m heading somewhere closer to Jibhi. Mandi seemed a good 5-hours option but I decided to play it hard on a 7-hour bus to Aut and hoping to find a place to sleep when I arrive in darkness around 22:00.

Some people say that the auto rickshaw in Delhi is a lifetime experience, some others say the indian train is but there is nothing compare to the bus I took. Imagine a bumpy mountain road, full of turns, no road lights that can hardly fit two buses. I was feeling that we were participating in a rally for buses or something. The driver was honking all the time and would overpass any car or truck without thinking if anyone is coming on the other side and trust me, trucks were coming all the time in this unbelievably busy road. No way to sleep, you just had to hold tight and not get hurt from the bumping.

The hundreds of trucks we were seeing on the way were not ordinary trucks as we have in westen countries. Each one had a character of its own, full of colours and colourful lights (some had the main headlights changing colours - how cool?!). On these truck I noticed something very artistic, the driver's door. No door was same with another. Usually the base was metallic and on it there were metal colored motifs and paintings. Made me wonder how it works? So a driver buys the truck (all trucks are the same) then he goes to the door-tattoo shop and say "hey, I want this and this and this on my door" and then he is good to go transpotating on style. I ll try to make a photo collection of truck doors .

By this and that, time passed and at 21:30 I arrived to Aut. I was worried earlier that I wouldnt find somewhere to sleep as the more we were driving in the mountains the less life outside I could see but it took me 30 seconds to find a room. First the guy showed me a decent room but when he said the price I said I need something cheaper or even that I can sleep with my sleeping bag on the floor somewhere. He took me then to his worse room for a good price and of course I took it.

Next morning I took an 1-hour bus to Banjar and after one hour an 1-hour dirt road bus to Jibhi where I was thinking to spend some days in the mountains.

I spend like 14 hours on transportation in Himalayas and the distance I did is only a tiny fraction of what it really is. They are indeed endless mountains.

Jibhi is a small village with no tourists at all as it is not the tourist season. I found the place I was searching here called Dev&Ganga and the son of the owner,  Ranu, welcome me and let me pick any room I want as the place was empty. I chose the one on the higher point with a little terrace. Ranu asked me if i m afraid of spiders and I said no unless they are deadly. He said nothing can kill you in the mountains and the spiders are nice.I removed all my clothes, did my laundry and took a shower. I see why he asked my about spiders... there is a huge one living in my toilet. I put some shorts on and enjoyed the sun, the river flowing and the mountains outside while playing some rebetiko music on the mandolin.

The sun hid himself behind the tall mountains surrounding us around 14:50 and it was instantly getting cold. I went inside for a siesta until 16:30 when Ranu woke me up to give me some more blankets and to invite me for Chai downstairs.
Chai led to beautiful conversations and we ended up having dinner at 20:00. We had rice with a sauce of some green small lentiles and spices and it was the first time I ate with my hands in India. At 20:30 we stopped the conversation to go for our healthy sleep. Now is 22:40 and I m falling asleep.

Next post will be for Ranu I believe. A very charismatic boy for his age (28).

Location: Jibhi
Next location: who cares, I ll stay here for a while.