August 2008, Delhi.
Towards the end of our stay in Delhi we went to stay with a friend on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University. The above photo was taken while exploring the campus one night. With this photo my mini-travelogue comes to an end. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Delhi.
After visiting the Jantar Mantar I made my way to Raj Ghat. Raj Ghat is a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi and also the place where he was cremated. Nowadays, it has a mostly ceremonial function, used by politicians from India and around the world for photo opportunities. It is a pity that Gandhi and his philosophy of non-violence have largely become irrelevant in contemporary India. Even more shocking is the contempt with which most Indians of my generation view him. He is blamed for everything from the partition of India, appeasement of Muslims to not doing anything concrete for the Untouchables. In a world being torn apart by religious extremism and unnecessary wars I feel that his teachings still hold great relevance.
In an interesting side note, I met a lady from Aachen (which is about 30 minutes away from Cologne) at Raj Ghat. She had come there with her husband to pay her respects and we got to talking a little bit about India and Germany.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Delhi.
The Hazrat Nizammudin Dargah is the mausoleum of one of the most popular Sufi saints in India, Nizamuddin Auliaya, who is revered by not just Muslims but also by many Hindus and even Christians. The same dargah complex also houses the tomb of Amir Khusro, the famous poet and musician as well as father of qawwali, who was a disciple of Nizamuddin. Fittingly, every Thursday there are Qawwali sessions organized in the verandah before the mausoleum of Nizamuddin Auliya. The above photo is of one of the qawaali singers, from one such session we attended, as he took a break from singing.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Delhi.
The day after we returned from Mussoorie I fell sick. It was a viral fever. So another painful decision had to be made. We decided to cancel onward travel to Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. I had been looking forward to visiting Ladakh but luck was or rather health was not on my side. We pushed back to Delhi so that I could rest and recover. The above photo was taken outside Delhi Haat, an interesting place where you can find traditional art and food from almost every state in India. The day I went there was the first day of a crafts exhibition of artists living below the poverty line. And the dancers above were there to welcome visitors to the exhibition in their exuberant way.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Mussoorie.
Mussoorie is locally referred to as the ‘Queen of the Hills’. As such it has been a popular hill station from the time of the British Raj. There are great views from the top over the surrounding valley and on a clear day you can apparently see snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas but the day we went there a thick cloud cover descended over the region covering the whole valley below with a thick white blanket. While this eliminated any chance of great views it did offer interesting photographic opportunities of a different kind as can been above.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Mussoorie.
Finally, the rain cleared after two days so we immediately set off for Mussoorie in the morning. The above photo was taken while waiting for the bus to Mussoorie to start. A lot of pilgrims visit the state of Uttarakhand as part of the Char Dham Yatra, one of the most important pilgrimages in Hinduism. The four dhams in the order in which they are supposed to be visited are Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. The incredible thing about this ‘yatra’ is that many of the pilgrims actually complete the whole pilgrimage on foot, which is a few hundred kilometers at least, across some of the toughest terrain in the world!
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Somewhere between Uttarkashi and Rishikesh.
Sorry for the lack of updates for a long time to the mini-travelogue but there has been no net access at home over a bill dispute with my ISP and to add to my run of bad luck my Mac also crashed! Regular updates should start pretty soon. And now going back to the travelogue…
We left Uttarkashi late afternoon for Rishikesh in a shared taxi. This was not a good idea as ver few travel across the mountains in the night. And this would be an eight hour drive at that. But staying back meant wasting another day so we decided to take the risk. The initial half of the ride was uneventful if a little exciting driving along ghat roads around and across mountains, the complete darkness in front of us only illuminated by the lonely beams of our taxi. Just when I was beginning to nod off we blew a tyre at the halfway stage. It was around 9pm, which is pretty late in the mountains.
Fortunately, this happened as we were passing through a small town and even more fortunately we found a shop that fixed tyres close by. It was closed though and the guy who owned the shop, who was talking to his friends nearby, was not too enthusiastic about reopening his shop in the night. But his resistance crumbled before the pleas of my fellow passengers and he got to work as can be seen in the photo above. Tyre fixed we resumed our journey and reached Rishikesh late in the night. We crashed in a hotel for the night and decided to head for Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, the next day.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Uttarkashi.
Our plan was to head to Gangotri from Uttarkashi and from there attempt the 18km trek (one way) to Gaumukh where the actual glacier from which the Ganga starts is located. Only 150 people per day are allowed to trek to the glacier for which permission needs to be taken. When I went to get the permission from the forest dept. (an office which is located on the edge of town, on top of a steep hill, it is as if they want trekkers to test their stamina before an actual trek!) I learnt that there had been major landslides along the route to Gangotri and in one place a section of the road had been completely cut away. Apparently, vehicles had been stopped on either side of the landslide and even people on foot were not being allowed to cross over. Luck was not on our side. We decided to wait for another day and were taking a walk around town when I found this little fella.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Uttarkashi.
After a seven hour bus ride we made it to Uttarkashi. Uttarkashi is a small town nestled on the valley floor with the Bhagirathi (which later becomes the Ganga further downstream) splitting the town into two parts. It is a also the starting point for many expeditions/treks to the higher reaches of the Himalayas (which was what we also wanted to do, more on that tomorrow). In the evening, we made our way to one of the ghats by the river to marvel at the roaring river flowing past with such force. Hindus believe that taking a dip in the holy river washes away all your sins and even liberates you from the circle of life but I decided to live with my sins for some more time as I did not dare risk getting washed away by the swiftly moving waters! The two in the photo had come to make an offering to the river.
In spite of the immense importance this river has for Hindus and the delicate ecosystem it supports the govt. is going all ahead with projects in Uttarkashi and elsewhere up and down the river that would lead to this powerful river being shackled behind dams. Once the projects are finished and go online the river might not even flow at all for most part of the year! Something that will be unthinkable for thousands of Hindus who travel every year to pilgrimage sites along the river Ganga to take a holy dip. For more on this issue go here.
(To read this mini-travelogue in sequence from the beginning please go here.)
August 2008, Somewhere between Delhi and Haridwar.
I returned yesterday after 20 days of traveling in the north of India, mostly in the state of Uttaranchal. Although the trip was something of a disappointment as I fell sick halfway through and had to cancel onward travel to amazing places such as Manali and Ladakh (something I had been looking forward to for a long time) I still got to see some beautiful and interesting places. So starting from today I’ll present a selected (visual) travelogue of the places and people I saw.
Today’s photo was taken halfway through a long, dusty and tiring bus journey to Haridwar from Delhi. The bus had stopped to fill up on diesel. As I look back now it feels as if the whole trip was a series of endless bus journeys. But that is something that could not be helped as the state is home to the mighty Himalayas and therefore mostly mountainous terrain abounds. More on that later as we were still on the hot and dusty plains at this point.