Now time for the stories about camping:We took the taxi from Kathgodam (standing for 2h in the fully packed bus was pretty hard so we've got off after 10min).
The ride there was already great and we loved the view. But when we arrived to Saat Tal (means 7 lakes) we completely fell in love with place. First of all - very very peaceful, few people around.
They took us by jeep up the hill and the camp was on top of the hill, with beautiful view, great, clean tents, the top 3 cleanest bathrooms in India, working shower and people.... they we're soooo lovely, nice, helpful. Food was amazing.
We've got our own guide, who took us for a walk, we did a bit of canooing, swimming in a lake - water was very very clean in both, hiked to the temple. In the evening we had couple of drinks with Manoj, the owner of this place. He is very very good story teller, he knows a lot and is really open minded person. He told us some things about Indian culture and how people live now, how it changes over the time. He seems to have quite a bit to tell, b/c he read a lot and what more, they do all different kind of trainings in this camp for young people. So by talking to them and observing them - he has pretty good picture of nowadays. He even invited me to the Himalayan, 10 days trek with his friends but I don't have any equipment so will not go with them. It is very very sad b/c it sounded awesome!!!!
Finally we spent one night more in this camp, b/c at 8 in the morning next day - 2 friends of Daniel (actually cousin Joop and his girlfriend Luc) came to join us directly from Delhi after arrival to India. All together we spent some time being lazy, then walked down, did a bit of rock climbing, and then in the evening some of those local people living in this village and running the camp, and they were singing and playing some music!!!! They sung in their own dialect so even Alizia couldn't understand nothing any more. One men, from Nepal, sung one song in Nepalese (?). They played drums, harmony, tambourine.
Since weed grows in that area like a grass, you can imagine that all 4 guys got quite excited and of course made us of it, together with locals and Manoj.
Manoj, after few joints suddenly showed up as a pirat, wearing strange turban ;) When we asked him if those kids playing music are his, he said - I would love them to be mine, they would sing all night long and I smoke hash...
In the morning we wanted to go with Luc for bird watching, but we were a bit late and for Indians 10 min = 25min at least so Vinod (our guide was late as well) and when we went for a walk it was already too warm and birds activity was very very low and we didn't see too much. But walk was very nice and view - once again stunning.
Next stop after Saat-Tal - Almora. We took local bus, me and Luc didin 't sleep on the way at all, but those 3 who slept the most in the morning (got up about 11-12am) totally slept whole journey. Bus driver was very good (I must admit that Indians know how to drive even in those mountains serpentines) and even rikshaw/taxi drivers - they turn, honk, slow down suddenly but I' ve never seen any accident and they always are able to maneuver properly while needed.
So when we arrived to Almora, wanted to find a hostel arranged by Manoj, but after walking 1km up the hill, we realized it's 3 km further, outside of the city. So we had a break, used some local people toilet, got eaten by mosquitos and started going back to the city center. There we stopped in first hotel, got 3 room for quite good price :)
After that dinner in a local Sikh's restaurant and all had tones of meat!!! We were all craving for meat ;) The staff was even laughing at us (in hindi but I could understand) b /c we ordered a lot of food and couldn't fit it on the table. Funny times.
After dinner, in 5 min I was ready to sleep after that long day :)
Next day we took jeep to to Bismer Park and hiked a bit. It is wild life sanctuary but since we went there around noon, as you can guess we couldn't see too much wildlife. Daniel saw from the jeep one deer and later on we saw some white monkeys. But the hike was very nice. They were supposed to have guides up there but apparently b/c it's off season - they didn't have any actual guides available. So one guy from the guesthouse went with us for a walk and it was supposed to cost 150 Rs. But after we came back, he said that it is actually 150 to the "0 point" but he walked much more with us so we have t o pay him more... Indians are able to make money on everything... What was very annoying for me that we didn't see Himalaya snow peaks :((((( I was really looking forward to it but the visibility was very very poor and foggy.
After that nice hike, we went to one restaurant and asked to bring out the table on the terrace to watch the sunset... Sweet :)
And later on I decided that I go back to Delhi to celebrate with Pawan's family the Raksha Bandan festival - celebrating sister-brother relationships. Thus Tuesday I split with Daniel, Alizia, Joop and Luc. They went more north, to Kausani.
Me, before I left Almora, went to Panchchuli Weavers Factory and it was one of the coolest places I' ve seen so far in India :) http://www.panchachuli.com/estart.html
There is 350 people working in this factory, mainly woman. They make everything from a scratch, starting from cleaning pashmina wool (shaved from pashmina goats from Tibet), making the threads, inventing the pattern, weaving (manual or mechanical), picking up extra, unnecessary threads, tying knots at the end of the shalw and some other embroidery works. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures so I won't be able to show you how amazing it looks.
Next stop is Delhi - by crazy bus ride I' ve got to Kathgodam and from there by over night train to Delhi. Picked up at 4am by Pawan, I'm now safe and happy in his home and beaing greatly taken care of :)
One more story about Kathgodam. I got off the bus and on the way to the train station I stopped at one guesthouse to ask for taking a shower. The guy told me 100Rs.. So I said "no, please, I'm a student" . So after I shwered, and went to the office to pay, there was this old men (retired government worker) sitting, who invited me for a coffee, told me some astrology, numerology, and other stories, gave me a pen as a gift, gave me his address, phone number, took mine contact and when he was leaving gave me some money b/c I'm his daughter now... Isn't that sweet? As a gift back I gave him one of my childish-colorful pens :)
Ok, I gotta go to get ready for the festival celebration.
The ride there was already great and we loved the view. But when we arrived to Saat Tal (means 7 lakes) we completely fell in love with place. First of all - very very peaceful, few people around.
They took us by jeep up the hill and the camp was on top of the hill, with beautiful view, great, clean tents, the top 3 cleanest bathrooms in India, working shower and people.... they we're soooo lovely, nice, helpful. Food was amazing.
We've got our own guide, who took us for a walk, we did a bit of canooing, swimming in a lake - water was very very clean in both, hiked to the temple. In the evening we had couple of drinks with Manoj, the owner of this place. He is very very good story teller, he knows a lot and is really open minded person. He told us some things about Indian culture and how people live now, how it changes over the time. He seems to have quite a bit to tell, b/c he read a lot and what more, they do all different kind of trainings in this camp for young people. So by talking to them and observing them - he has pretty good picture of nowadays. He even invited me to the Himalayan, 10 days trek with his friends but I don't have any equipment so will not go with them. It is very very sad b/c it sounded awesome!!!!
Finally we spent one night more in this camp, b/c at 8 in the morning next day - 2 friends of Daniel (actually cousin Joop and his girlfriend Luc) came to join us directly from Delhi after arrival to India. All together we spent some time being lazy, then walked down, did a bit of rock climbing, and then in the evening some of those local people living in this village and running the camp, and they were singing and playing some music!!!! They sung in their own dialect so even Alizia couldn't understand nothing any more. One men, from Nepal, sung one song in Nepalese (?). They played drums, harmony, tambourine.
Since weed grows in that area like a grass, you can imagine that all 4 guys got quite excited and of course made us of it, together with locals and Manoj.
Manoj, after few joints suddenly showed up as a pirat, wearing strange turban ;) When we asked him if those kids playing music are his, he said - I would love them to be mine, they would sing all night long and I smoke hash...
In the morning we wanted to go with Luc for bird watching, but we were a bit late and for Indians 10 min = 25min at least so Vinod (our guide was late as well) and when we went for a walk it was already too warm and birds activity was very very low and we didn't see too much. But walk was very nice and view - once again stunning.
Next stop after Saat-Tal - Almora. We took local bus, me and Luc didin 't sleep on the way at all, but those 3 who slept the most in the morning (got up about 11-12am) totally slept whole journey. Bus driver was very good (I must admit that Indians know how to drive even in those mountains serpentines) and even rikshaw/taxi drivers - they turn, honk, slow down suddenly but I' ve never seen any accident and they always are able to maneuver properly while needed.
So when we arrived to Almora, wanted to find a hostel arranged by Manoj, but after walking 1km up the hill, we realized it's 3 km further, outside of the city. So we had a break, used some local people toilet, got eaten by mosquitos and started going back to the city center. There we stopped in first hotel, got 3 room for quite good price :)
After that dinner in a local Sikh's restaurant and all had tones of meat!!! We were all craving for meat ;) The staff was even laughing at us (in hindi but I could understand) b /c we ordered a lot of food and couldn't fit it on the table. Funny times.
After dinner, in 5 min I was ready to sleep after that long day :)
Next day we took jeep to to Bismer Park and hiked a bit. It is wild life sanctuary but since we went there around noon, as you can guess we couldn't see too much wildlife. Daniel saw from the jeep one deer and later on we saw some white monkeys. But the hike was very nice. They were supposed to have guides up there but apparently b/c it's off season - they didn't have any actual guides available. So one guy from the guesthouse went with us for a walk and it was supposed to cost 150 Rs. But after we came back, he said that it is actually 150 to the "0 point" but he walked much more with us so we have t o pay him more... Indians are able to make money on everything... What was very annoying for me that we didn't see Himalaya snow peaks :((((( I was really looking forward to it but the visibility was very very poor and foggy.
After that nice hike, we went to one restaurant and asked to bring out the table on the terrace to watch the sunset... Sweet :)
And later on I decided that I go back to Delhi to celebrate with Pawan's family the Raksha Bandan festival - celebrating sister-brother relationships. Thus Tuesday I split with Daniel, Alizia, Joop and Luc. They went more north, to Kausani.
Me, before I left Almora, went to Panchchuli Weavers Factory and it was one of the coolest places I' ve seen so far in India :) http://www.panchachuli.com/estart.html
There is 350 people working in this factory, mainly woman. They make everything from a scratch, starting from cleaning pashmina wool (shaved from pashmina goats from Tibet), making the threads, inventing the pattern, weaving (manual or mechanical), picking up extra, unnecessary threads, tying knots at the end of the shalw and some other embroidery works. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take pictures so I won't be able to show you how amazing it looks.
Next stop is Delhi - by crazy bus ride I' ve got to Kathgodam and from there by over night train to Delhi. Picked up at 4am by Pawan, I'm now safe and happy in his home and beaing greatly taken care of :)
One more story about Kathgodam. I got off the bus and on the way to the train station I stopped at one guesthouse to ask for taking a shower. The guy told me 100Rs.. So I said "no, please, I'm a student" . So after I shwered, and went to the office to pay, there was this old men (retired government worker) sitting, who invited me for a coffee, told me some astrology, numerology, and other stories, gave me a pen as a gift, gave me his address, phone number, took mine contact and when he was leaving gave me some money b/c I'm his daughter now... Isn't that sweet? As a gift back I gave him one of my childish-colorful pens :)
Ok, I gotta go to get ready for the festival celebration.
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