An Offering on Return

This blog has clearly been on its way to the funeral pyre judging from the amount of posts I have made since my return from the Himalayas earlier this year, but I've just been too busy to go shoot, edit and post photos. But here I am! I've just finished sorting images from Shau Kei Wan and the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence that I went to back in December - been a while, hey? It felt good to do some photo work and even though the results were not as good as I expected, I still had fun just being a little more creative than cutting out little flowers from crepe paper.

So... The first set of images that I've uploaded to Flickr are from some of the temples that surround the Shau Kei Wan area. Shau Kei Wan, being one of the oldest fishing communities on Hong Kong Island is host to some of the island's oldest temples, the record being taken by the Tin Hau Temple. There's nothing incredibly special about the temples other than their age, nor is there anything incredible about the area, except for its history, but it was still a nice peaceful walk.

Animal Fat or Fat Animal?

7 days in India and I’m in dire need of a personal trainer as I am under severe threat of looking like 80% of the Punjabi population. I can’t help it though – the food is simply too good and available in abundance. Being plump is a mark of a good upbringing and health here (smart people) and if you refuse to eat, they take it like the worst possible offence and you’re immediately made to feel guilty and forced into taking 5th helpings at the table. 2 more days here and I am sure that I will return to Hong Kong looking like an obese hippo calf. Just like the one I saw today at the Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park at Chattbir.

Covering an area of over 400 hectares of forests and common land, the park has a total population of 5,000 animals and birds making it one of the largest zoos in the country. It is also one of the coolest zoological parks that I’ve been to as the animals are kept in open areas (safariesque) that mimic their natural habitat rather than stuck inside cages (though there are a few of those as well).

I love all animals but I think my love for all-thing-kitty-like was very obvious today because I started squealing and frightening everyone around me every time I saw tigers, lions, leopards, panthers, kittycats, etc. I can’t wait to get back to mine in 2 days!

I thout I thaw a putty tat!

Colours of Chandigarh

Being an experimental civil development project, Chandigarh does not have much to offer in terms of tourism except those places that I covered on my first day here: the Rock Garden, Rose Garden, Sukhna Lake, and the Leisure Valley. And since we came here earlier than expected, we had to head back out of town to keep from boredom.

Well relaxing was the most important thing on the agenda. Having woken up at the break of dawn every day so far to travel, we decided that we would sleep in a little and actually have a vacation. So at noon, we left the house and headed out of the state of Punjab to Haryana. Our first stop was Pinjore Garden, which were designed in the 17th century for Aurangzeb, one of India’s cruelest kings during the Mogul rule. It is also said that these terraced gardens were created on the spot where the Pandava brothers (from Hindu mythology) rested during their exile before, as a sign board reads outside the gardens, “disappearing into oblivion in the Himalayas.” I found that amusing.

The gardens were beautiful though. I know I overuse this word, but I mean it every time I say it. They were very well manicured and for something that was built in the 17th century, they still look as though they were created last year. We walked around there for a good long while mum told me about her childhood visits here and how she used to climb trees and sneakily pick fruits from there – and my god, were there fruit trees!? Hundreds of them! A bazillion species of mango, peach, lychee, guava as well as apricot, plum and many more! Of course most of these were out of season, but that didn’t stop us from picking a few and nibbling on clover-like leaves. All the while, I kept thinking how amazing it is to walk on grass (damn you Hong Kong!)

After the gardens, we went to the Mansa Devi temple (one of the lower-ranking goddesses that I mentioned yesterday) and then to the Patiala Mandir (another temple). Both temples were nearly empty and therefore less…uh…commercial. I actually enjoyed looking around and appreciating the culture there.

From there, it was an hour’s drive home and by then the sun had set. We don’t have anything planned for tomorrow. I’m probably just going to lounge around at home and waste my time this way or that. We’re leaving for Delhi on the 3rd, but I have nothing to do until then. Maybe a little shopping? At least the first two days of 2009 will be relaxing. We’ll see what the rest of the year brings!

Happy New Year!

Cherry Blosson at the Pinjore Garden


Main gate at the Pinjore Gardens


(left) Mansa Devi temple; (right) A truck's rear: trucks in India (and Pakistan) are so heavily decorated that the pretty designs on them almost excuse them for polluting the roads with their heavy diesel smog. Almost. What I find hilarious is the mantra written at the back of most of these trucks. A mantra that rules the India's traffic - Horn Please. Or a variation thereof.

Illness at Dharamshala

Today was a bit short of horrible for me. It all started off all fine and dandy, but over the course of the day, plans had to be changed because my health started deteriorating (thanks to h. anemia).

As always, I woke up with my ears screaming in pain from having slept on them with noise-canceling headphones shoved inside all night. I was curious to see what Dharamshala looked like since I didn’t get a chance last night, so I stepped out on to the balcony to be blinded by a bright white light coming from the base of the mountain where we were staying. Turns out that we weren’t actually staying in Dharamshala; we were half way up a mountain next to the valley where the city is. The view from my hotel room overlooked the city, but like I said, there was that blinding white light – sunlight hitting a huge cloud of fog that had settled over the entire city. It was mesmerizing and at the same time annoying because that would mean that it would be freezing beyond anything and I wouldn’t be able to take photos.

Still, we had to go, but before leaving, I had to sit and stare at a woman sitting a short distance from my hotel wearing a skimpy sari in the cold, making cow patties. Having been brought up with western social standards, this sounds absolutely disgusting, but these village folk have seen this since the day they’re born and it was interesting looking at the speed with which the woman worked and that too, without any repulsion. Almost made me want to go help. Almost.

But anyway, we finally got out of the hotel and I was told that we wouldn’t be going down into the foggy city, but higher up the mountain through the local canton area instead, along a very narrow and dangerous road that will take us up to the peak of the mountain. At Naddi, we got a full view of the Dholadhar Hills while walking on wet roads with melted snow from last night. Surprisingly it was quite warm in comparison at the peak because of the sunlight. They told us that there had not been a lot of snow fall this year – the mountains are usually stark white with feet over feet of snow, but many of them were barren. Global warming, I hate you.

From here, we went back down across Dall Lake (cute) which is surrounded by a dense pine forest (very cool), through Bhagsu Nag where we visited a temple sponsored by the Indian Military (with the nastiest toilet I have ever seen), and then up to Macloed Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and his temple/shrine when he stays in India. Out of the whole day’s plan, this was the place I was looking forward to visiting the most because taking my previous experience, I was expecting a place of calm and peaceful worship. Instead, as soon as we entered the area of Macloed Ganj, we entered a Tibetan-refugee market busy with hawkers and very scared looking people (thanks China). At the temple, we walked along what should have been one of the most peaceful religious sanctuaries in the world, but instead, we were greeted by sad monks, posters of political prisoners and pictures of those dead in Tibet over the past few months. The whole atmosphere brought me back to reality. Buddhism has always been a religion I associated with peace and one that I always ran into when I felt troubled, but even that has been broken now. It made me think a lot, but I won’t go into that just yet because I am still confused where I stand religiously, if anywhere.

The temple was cute though – there was no fancy architecture or anything. Instead, it was a simple and modest building that to be reflected the lives of the people it served. I was disappointed with how commercial a part of the temple had become, but I can’t blame them. The money the temple makes goes into a charitable trust to keep the monastery up and this is one place, where I think corruption does not exist.

Anyway, as soon as we came back down to the hotel to collect our things, I started feeling extremely ill. I forgot to take my medication yesterday, which just threw me into major fatigue by noon. Because of that and another couple of issues, we decided that we would head straight back to Chandigarh instead of Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar as we had planned. This meant that we would have to cancel our trip to the temples of several goddesses along the way, but as the superstition goes, once you visit a higher-ranking goddess, she does not let you turn around and visit those of lower-rank...and we had visited one of the highest yesterday (Chamunda Devi).

The ride back was very long and I was on the brink of passing out from nausea because of my medication, but we finally reached Chandigarh, ate a huge amount of food and here I am in bed. Plans have yet to be made for the rest of the days I’m here.

Oh and while on our trip to Naddi, I was asked several times why I have not chosen to go into computer engineering or "a reputable career" and why I have not started coaxing my parents into finding a bride for me since I'm 23 already and "getting older very fast." I didn't know whether to laugh or throw those people over the cliff we were standing on.

View of the Dholadhar Hills from Naddi (and an oddly shaped tree!)


Traditional houses in Himachal are made of wood and slate. This is a closeup of a wall (no cement!)


Dalai Lama Centre at Macloed Ganj

Palampur et Dharmsala

I had zero energy to blog last night after getting back from the trip, so I am doing it now and backdating it. Yesterday was simply a day of travelling from one point to another. We left the snow-capped Rotangarh mountains to head down to our next hillstation Dharmsala (or Dharmshala). En route, we hit some of the most beautiful winter scenery with dried out apple orchards, yellowed leaves, long spans of green (farms) against yellow (leaves) against brown (soil) against white (snow). The journey took forever and rolled across some very very windy paths (which was a bit sickening to be honest), but the air was fresh for the most part and I enjoyed the trip. We even ran into a religious group from a tiny hamlet (there were many of those) along the way. Every so often, they hold this ceremony of carrying an idol of a goddess hoisted on a single pole between two men to different hamlets and villages nearby. The procession takes with it a bunch of men with really cool musical instruments and some who go empty handed. They believe that some form of "life" enters the idol of the goddess and as the two men carry it along, it becomes heavier and heavier and makes the whole procession go forward/backward, and what not... they claim that it gets to be so heavy that sometimes you need more than 10 people to hold up the light statuette! It was really cool to see this...

From there, we headed through a township called Palampur where we stopped by the Bhaijnath Temple, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This ancient and small temple was so incredibly beautiful with its worn architecture that still stands along the Dholadhar Hills in full majesty. Amazing sight.

Our last stop along the way was at the Chamunda Devi temple. Today we'll cover the rest of the goddess' temples in the area, so I'll explain the concept in tonight's post. Very cool experience that involved entering a small cave!

That's it really, we came up to our hotel in Dharmsala fairly late, so it was really dark outside. It seems like a cute city, but more on that later. I'm going to visit the Dalai Lama's shrine on this side of the border today!

Here are some photos from yesterday. They're not of best quality, but I don't have time this morning to sift through all of them:

The apple orchard I mentioned


Snow-capped Dholadhar Hills (that surround Dharmsala and Palampur)


The temple where the procession started

Kullu Manali

There have been some arguments today about issues I hinted at in earlier posts, but I shall not go into those. Besides those, it's been a great day honestly. I got my first look at himalayan snow, had my first (and hopefully only) experience of nearly falling into a (shallow) river while peeing, and many more.

We started the day at the break of dawn when all you could see outside was white. Fog. Nothing else. I would post a photo of what the view from my room looked like last night and this morning, but frankly, the photo of the fog is on another SD card and I'm too cold to go and get it. Picture this... White. Then hold your arm out - that's about the visibility range we had this morning. But that was only until while we were in the valley at Bilaspur. From there, we drove up and down and all around until we reached the top of one of many mountains and then headed down into another valley that had fog roll around in it like a bowl of dry ice. It was really a beautiful sight and such a cool experience going from 100% visibility to 1% half way down the mountain. From there it was a long but beautiful drive along the rising river bed. We went through a couple towns (Sundarnagar, Mandi, Pindoh, and Bhuntar) until we reached the over populated busy city of Kullu. This city is famous for it's festival celebrations, but since there are no festivals and events happening, it's pretty much dead. There was not much to do here except for driving up to the top of the mountain and looking at the city below (pretty), looking at the grounds where the festivals are held (dull), and going to see the primary school that my grandfather used to go to (amazing). The school apparently has not changed one single bit since his time there when Kullu used to be a small village settlement. Even the furniture in the principal's office is the same as it used to be! I got a little emotional there..it was such an adorable structure too.

From Kullu, we then started a 40km ride against the flow of the river (uphill) to Manali - a tourist hot spot, but where I was hoping to see snow. Along the way, I must have taken about 18,00000 photos because again, the scenery was nothing short of gorgeous! Snow capped mountains against autumn trees, a slightly dried out river bed with giant boulders...oh it was amazing in my opinion. Oh and of course there were clear blue skies and air so fresh that southern Ireland seems polluted in comparison!

It had apparently snowed a couple days ago in Manali, but we didn't see it. Instead we saw the most polluted city in Himachal so far (imo). I did however, get to go to the hot springs there (dull) and a temple that's been around from the time of the Mahabharata (one of India's greatest legends)! The story goes that a daughter of a monster (rakhshasa), who was really quite kind, was married to one of the 5 sons of this brilliant king. They both had a son who was the only person who could destroy the monster because of his strength and so everyone lived happily ever after, etc. Oh and apparently the place where the daughter used to sleep is where the temple was built... and people still go there to see the platform. I unfortunately did not get to go inside because it was so crowded, but the architecture was really interesting, with a little influence from both India and China since it's close to the border.

After taking two really unstable bridges from Manali, we headed to Rotangarh, which is a snow laden area closed by the military in the winter. I don't know why they do this and I don't know how we got in, but we did and it was...well let's just say that a jaw dropping WOW would not be enough. By this time, the sun had started to set and everything was orange, pink, blue, white, pretty! 10 minutes later it was dark.

And we made our way back to Kullu, where we're staying tonight. Here are some photos from today.

The hotel we're staying at in Kullu.

My first peak at the snow-capped mountains in northern Himalayas!

I want to eat these mountains!

Sunset on our way back from Manali.

Entering Himachal Pradesh

And so we reached our first hill station (Bilaspur) in the foothills of the Himalayas today and what a beauty it is! The town is actually a whole bunch of village-settlements stuck together along a wide stretch of the valley. We started our trip early this morning and it took us just about five hours to get here. The views were spectacular, but again, because of the winter fog, parts of the valley and mountains weren't visible enough to take decent photos. We did have some luck in some of the sunnier areas, where I think I must have taken about 300 photos! It was all just too gorgeous!

I am having trouble logging in to my yahoo account at the moment (some security issue?), which means that I cannot upload these photos to Flickr just yet so I won't count them towards my 365 just yet...but I had to share these three. They are of course, unedited:

This was taken soon as we started heading up the mountains. There were so many of these monkeys there! Made me laugh!

Just before making our way back to the hotel(which is amazing), we walked around the river bed, where this photo was taken

This is the view right out of my hotel window! How pretty is that? :)