Himalaya Part 3...

DAY SIX - GANGOTRI, HARSIL AND MANERI

After two days of hiking it was nice to wake up a little later this morning and potter around a bit. Today turned out to be one of my favourites of the entire trip because of the variety of things of our day. First, we visited the beautiful Gangotri temple together - some of us had already ventured there the previous night for Arti (sunrise/sunset fire and prayer ceremony), but it was nice to go all together as a group. For me anyway - even though I mostly travel alone, I'm such a community person and I just love it when everyone is together!

Today was all about WATER for me - the falls at Gangotri were unbelievably powerful, and this temple on the shore of the rushing water was music to my ears. The stones felt good under barefeet as I tiptoed down to release some flowers into the crystal Ganga. When we walked over a small footbridge and moved closer to the source of the roaring water, I was stuck for ten minutes meditating with the spray touching my face every so often. It was beautiful. And what I've said about being able to communicate without words stands true once more, as when I was meditating silently, Sergei climbed up beside me and just sat there peacefully before kissing me on the cheek and leaving. Beautiful, plain and simple. I felt like words were no longer necessary - everyone was moved by the same power of nature, and didn't need to speak. I didn't even WANT to speak actually - what use are words when one has been humbled by such majesty?

After driving a few hours (with me feeling the effect of those waterfalls and needing to stop to pee every half hour!) we came to a magical village by the name of Harsil, a Tibetan township where locals sold their wooden toys and woven blankets, and lived in quaint little huts surrounded by Himalayan majesty. We all fell in love with the place, especially the temple there... completely unassuming, I would have missed it if Gena had not opened the heavy door and said "Come inside" in his halting English. We walked around the stupa and stepped inside the prayer room with its ancient smell of old paper and musty faith... none of us spoke and we all knew to ban the flash on our cameras, once we realised it was okay to take photos at all. Without a doubt, it was the most beautiful Buddhist temple I've ever set foot inside - very quiet, beyond peaceful, and humble. I left the temple and silently sat with some friends, each of us in our own silence. I could feel my own heart beating and got a sense that we were made of the same stuff here, know what I mean? And when I left I couldn't walk slowly enough, not wanting to leave this ancient peace behind...

But things must move on, and I soon quickened my pace to catch the others, knowing I'd never forget it and that even though photographs wouldn't even begin to capture it, at least they'd be a trigger point for my memories of that time. We ate lunch in a dhaba whose owners had been having a sleepy day up until the moment that the 16 of us walked in demanding food! Sometimes I winced at the authority in our voices when placing an order, and the frustration when it didn't appear within ten minutes. Our guides did their best to help them, with one of our drivers zipping around the tables taking orders himself and checking in on the kitchen staff as much as he could... pretty awesome really, considering how far away it was from his job description!

The remainder of the day was spent in the car until we reached our hotel in a beautiful river side place called Maneri at around 6 p.m - early! It was a beautiful hotel actually, and there was excitement in the air because tomorrow two of our party were to be wed Indian style, and all women were to get their hands hennaed to high heaven in time for the celebrations. I ate a slow dinner (like, one plate of rice cooked at a time kind of slow!) with Gena, Vlad and Dima and we explored the menu to pass the time. At one stage we erupted into fits of laughter at the 'Snakes' menu and joked about ordering "2 cobras on the side', Indians not being known for their attention to typos in menus.

Our food took ages but in hindsight it was nice to sit and enjoy the company of these men before heading off to be the first girl to get hennaed - I don't know why they missed out the bride to be, but there you have it! I must admit she wasn't the most efficient henna-stylist, as it took 40 minutes to do 3/4 sides of my two hands, with her husband regularly bursting into our room (half-dressed Irina wasn't too impressed...) and our guide Chandan zipping around with his usual frantic energy stealing my scissors and trying to keep everybody happy... my henna was finished by 10.30 but there was still 7 other women to go! Somehow they found another woman to help out on the chain line, but instead of getting an early night I revelled in skipping from room to room and comparing my henna with others. Ksenia took things into her own hands and did one of her arms herself - a fine artist actually! And she even gave Chandan a temporary 'Cheburushska' tattoo - this had been an in-joke for quite a few days now.. Cheburushka is a 70's/80's Soviet cartoon bear ( I think - a bear is the closest animal to describe him anyway...) who they all loved as children, and in mine and Chandan's enthusiasm to learn some Russian words, we somehow learned 'Cheburushska' first, as well as 'Ura!' (a cry of glory which we used often whilst trekking)... I suppose it would be like a non-English speaker learning the name of Winnie the Pooh or something - anyway, it was a funny moment and Chandan still has a photo of his glistening Cheburushska waiting to dry...

Even though I'd already eaten, I went downstairs to join some others for a late night Russian salad (tomato, cucumber and onion, although I hate raw onions so the others always ate mine for me) and Vitaly revelled in feeding me salad as my hands were still drying and I was unable to feed myself. It was beautiful and I felt like a princess - I must say that Russian men are rather good at making one feel like a princess - as he gently wrapped tomato and cucumber inside strips of chapati, added salt, pepper and paprika and fed it to me in little bites.

All up it was 1 am before we got to bed - even the thought of a 6 am wake up call not deterring me from enjoying this night with my friends. An AMAZING day from start to finish... my heart bursting once more. I slept little but was ready in the morning to go ONWARDS once more.