Rampur, Narkanda and Shimla - India
The Kinnear Valley was completely green and a shock after Spiti's desert. But once we admired the valleys, mountains and waterfalls, and watched the goats...View image...it grew a little stale. We were on our way to the Hotel Bushahr Regency in Rampur. Rampur is just a big truck stop for almost all the goods passing through the Kinnear Valley. Because of our change in plans, there were a few days to fill up before flying back to the States and Rampur was just a fill-in place. All I cared about (after last night's miserable stay ) was a clean room, good lunch and less road to drive on.
The Kinnear people wore green banded hats, distinct from the Spiti and Kullu Valleys. Beside the difference in Kinnear clothing, the scenery was different. There was an amazing trail zig-zagging up the mountain on the other side of the river to an isolated village. I couldn't imagine walking up and down on this trail, every single day to get to the road or river on this perfect zig-zag. (No wonder these people are so thin.)
The highlight today (and the most interesting sight during the 100km, three-hour ride) were some shepherds, shearing their sheep by hand using scissors on the side of the road. I've seen sheep shearing demonstrations using clippers, with the shearers showing how quickly they could shear a sheep. Never with scissors, slowly and patiently by hand. The Kinnear farmers usually shear only one sheep an hour and are lucky to get through seven or eight a day. We are so accustomed to a mechanized world that this really galvanized me...and I went leaping out of the car to talk them them (Jagdish translating), take photos and watch the shearing process. Sweet people who were excited over the fact that I was excited. ...View image...
A night at a very nice hotel, a walk to the local Maharajahs palace, ...View image...where they use cows to mow the lawn...
A delicious meal and it was on the road again. Left Rampur after breakfast, driving towards Narkanda. About one-half hour outside of Rampur in the village of Nirath was a Hindu Sun Temple, dating from the 6th or 7th century. It is the second oldest in India. The oldest (and biggest) is in the State of Orissa. A Sun Temple is very rare because the three main Hindu gods are Vishnu, Krishna and Shiva. the Hindis do not worship a Sun God. Quite unique and situated all my itself, off the road. ...View image...
The Sutleg River runs through the entire Kinnear Valley. It is very dangerous with a fast current and some spots are more than 1,800 feet deep. In the year 2000, the river rose over 90 feet in two hours! Thousands of people, villages and bridges were swept away. The flood originated in Tibet but no one knows the exact cause.
Into the "U" shaped Kotgarh Valley, the first area in the Himachal with apple orchards. It's interesting that the first "Delicious" apple seedlings were brought from the United States by Samuel Stokes, a social worker from Philadelphia, in 1916. The eventual apple orchards transformed the economy of this valley. ...View image... A family in Kotgarh can earn approximately $10,000 a year from their orchards which makes them very rich in India. Statistic: 81% of the population earns under $2.00 a day. It was apple picking time and we saw crates used for eating, as well as bags of apples to make apple juice and apple wine. I loved their method of hauling apples down the hill and across rivers to be picked up by trucks on the road. How? They put the filled crates on a suspended wire which is then hauled down and across. Very ingenious.
Narkanda was halfway between Rampur and Shimla. Another truck stop with one ski run in the winter. Stayed at the adequate, but grand-sounding, Hotel Mahamaya Palace. On the dumpy side but slightly less dumpy than the HPTDC Hotel Hatu that we considered. The people is all these places were very nice. And we, two Westerners, caused a minor sensation just walking through town. Everyone came to a stop to stare.
Shimla, our last major destination, was just one last drive away....
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