Unconventional Tours, Too Many Rotis and Water Water Water!

We were in a beautiful city and I felt like I’d swallowed bubble bath liquid again. Not that I’ve ever swallowed bubble bath liquid before, but I’ve felt like I’ve swallowed it a lot during this trip. It’s a sensation of bubbles multiplying and crowding in the intestinal highway, trying to push past each other just as Indian drivers do. Nausea was also sneaking insidiously upwards from my stomach towards my throat. I decided I should go to the doctor the next morning. This time I would act fast.

But I didn’t need to act fast. Other people acted even faster for me.

We were ready to turn in for the evening. There were several Indian men chatting outside the hotel. I can’t even remember how it happened now, but one minute they were complete strangers and the next minute Moonho and I were piled into a car with all three of them and off to find a hospital.

I’m not sure exactly why three fully grown men, four including Moonho, were required to get me to a doctor. But if I’ve learnt one thing in India it is that questioning a genie on his motivations rarely results in clarification.

So we just went with the flow, and the flow took us on a grand tour of every single hospital in Shimla. I kid you not.

“Thank you so much, really, but I think I’ll survive until morning,” I said after it became obvious the doctors were all at home doing Sunday night things. My voice was immediately drowned out by a chorus of Indian accents insisting “But you might get worse at night! You seem sick! You need medicine quickly! We will take you, no problem…”

My mind flashed back to how the Tibetans insisted on helping when I got sick, then further back to the many times Koreans carted me off to the doctor for ailments that would have buggered off of their own accord. On that night, however, the Indians hit a new record in sheer determination to be helpful. Resistance was simply not worth the effort.

As our search exceeded one hour Moonho and I startled to giggle. We couldn’t help it. It just seemed so absurd to be touring hospitals on a Sunday night with a random bunch of Indians, well-wishing as they were. This is how things tend to happen in India. Everything is so sudden. You are about to go to bed and then boom! You are caught in a current of Indian enthusiasm; a current even stronger than that of the Ganga River.

Unable to find a regular doctor, they took me to the labour ward of a woman’s hospital, which was open because newborns don’t care whether or not it is Sunday. I tried to explain that having a parasite is quite different to having a baby, but they were determined to explore every avenue. I entered a labour ward full of Indian women whose eyes immediately went to my belly (which I’d been rubbing due to the pain.) Unable to speak Hindi, I let them think what they would.

One of the genies, called Sushil, ushered me towards the doctor’s room, and I sat down awkwardly. “Eh-hem… hello… I’m not actually pregnant,” I said. “I just have a bad tummy.”
She looked at me for a moment and asked if it was related to periods.
“Eh, no… only, these men very kindly wanted to help me and… well, they insisted on bringing me here… I know you only deal with pregnant women though…”

The doctor turned to our new friend and explained patiently that we’d have to find a regular doctor. Then, zoooom! Off I was zipped once more! I’m sure we must have left a puff of genie smoke behind us in the doctor’s office.

After what must have been at least two hours of valiant doggedness, the genies did manage to find me a doctor who kindly saw me despite the late hour. He gave me medicine, I took it gratefully and only then would the genies allow me to go back to the hotel. Thus ended our Tour De Hospital, and so begun our friendship with Sushil.


Sushil and Sulochana

Sushil is mildly obsessed with rotis (one of the many types of round Indian flatbreads.) He started by insisting that I should eat five or six with every meal, a habit which would absolutely cure all my ailments and prevent any other from occurring..

“Are you sure?” I asked.
“No doubt!” he replied. This is his pet phrase.
I tried to explain that women don’t usually eat as much as men. That was a mistake.
“Nooo, women need to be strong. Women must eat more! They must eat seven or eight rotis at every meal!”

Not only would a daily overdose of rotis cure me of all ills, he said, but it would also ensure lots of healthy babies. That is where things started getting really silly. “One roti for each baby!” he insisted, his ever-present grin expanding even further. “But I don’t want eight babies!” I said, laughing. I could feel Moonho silently but vehemently agreeing by my side.

Moonho and Sushil

Sushil teaches maths and science at a little ‘after-school school’ below our hotel. We ended up chatting with him often, during which rotis only filled the conversation about fifty percent of the time. It wasn’t long before we were invited to his house for dinner. We accepted with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Exactly how many rotis would I be expected to eat?

“My wife is very lovely and sweet,” he informed us, utterly sincere. “And you can try her cooking. It is great!”

I looked at his eyes, bright against his dark skin, and thought that perhaps his was not an arranged marriage. I asked whether it was (this is not a rude question in India) and his face lit up. “We have a love marriage!” he announced.

And indeed, the two together were a pleasure to behold. Their smiles were as fixed as the shape of a boomerang. They obviously took great pleasure in each other’s company. Sushil even wants to create a position at his school for her so that they can be together during the day as well.

I asked about their castes, which apparently is also an acceptable question. It turned out that he is Brahman while she is a supposed lower caste in comparison. “But these days those things don’t matter,” Sushil said with a dismissive flick of the hand.

Sulochana laughed frequently and as his equal. In fact, hers is one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard; the sort that takes you along for the ride even if you are not in on the joke. She is a content product of the new generation. And Sushil’s words were not biased – she is also a bloody fantastic cook!

But here is the problem: some people participate in extreme sports. Sushil participates in extreme hospitality.

On his insistence, the amount we ate that night could have fed a whole African village for a week. Dal, curry, rice, curd, pickles, rice pudding and of course rotis piled up before us like the formation of mountains seen in fast forward. The quality of the food was fit for royalty, but afterwards the mountains of food on our plates had become mountains of food in our bellies. Even Moonho, who is a big eater, was struggling. If I’d gone to the labour ward that night instead of the night before, they would have believed me pregnant.

After dinner they refused to let us walk home, insisting that we take their double bed while they slept on a single one. Despite (or possibly because of) a belly pregnant with dal and roti, I slept like a baby and woke up to another meal of herculean proportions.

Although I couldn’t eat like that daily without my digestive tract exploding, Sushil was right about one thing. That food really did give me some much needed energy.

Naughty monkeys

Shimla monkeys are particularly naughty. It is a big city by Himachal standards, which means lots of food scraps to steal. Better yet, lots of meals-in-progress to steal.

I had a bag of peanuts, and noticed a one-eyed he-monkey strutting his furry stuff around our hotel. Aww. A strutting monkey with only one eye.

So of course, I gave him some of the peanuts from my bag. And of course, this was not enough for him. Before I knew it he was soaring through the air towards me like a sugar glider.  It was instantaneous as everything is in India: Now you’re here, now you’re there! Now you see it, now you don’t!

I wasn’t upset over the loss of my peanuts to Monkey One Eye. I thought he could have been more graceful about our wanting to take a photo though. Moonho moved forward a little with his camera, but Monkey One Eye was having none of this touristy bollocks. Fangs clearly exposed, he puffed his body so that there would be no mistaking his supreme manliness. He moved towards Moonho like a footballer looking to vent his testosterone.

The camera clicked, but it didn’t catch the monkey. It caught naught but the blurred motion of escape (Moonho’s escape – not the monkey’s.)

But Moonho wasn’t going to leave without a photo any more than the monkey wasn’t going to leave without all of my peanuts. My husband seems on a mission to take a photo of every mangy dog, every vaguely stationary bird, every scraggly-eared donkey, every watery-eyed cow and every naughty monkey in India.

So he waited until the monkey was busy with his goodies and started snapping. When Monkey One Eye’s appetite was sated, he disappeared over a wall and into the thicket and Moonho put his camera away, believing we’d seen the last of him.

We were eating lunch outside later on when he reappeared. Monkeys can fly – I swear. One minute he is over there; the next he is on our table. There was a brief manly standoff between Moonho and the monkey during which teeth were exposed, muscles were puffed up, red bottoms were flashed and a chair was used as a shield/potential weapon. I’ll let you guess who did what.

I would have helped but a laughing fit had rendered me temporarily disabled. The monkey scampered away in the end, discouraged by Moonho’s elaborate chair act (which had also drawn a few curious Indian eyes.) Yay for my husband, Defeater of Monkeys!

Despite an ego akin to that of a footballer, Monkey One Eye still managed to be adorable and cute. Theatrics over, he flopped over a branch of a nearby tree and started working on all his itchy bits, innocuous as a newborn puppy.

It’s a pity footballers can’t get over their brawls quite so easily.


To Tattapani's hot spring

As soon as I heard this place called Tattapani has a hot spring, I knew I was destined to soak in its warm waters. Stuff registration! I could hear the spring calling my name. Its single greatest desire was to soak all the aches and pains from my tired body. Well, I couldn’t deny a little spring its one pleasure in life, could I?!

So into Damsel we climbed and onto the road we trundled again. I didn’t think the roadside scenery could possibly be improved on what we’d already seen. I was wrong. To get to Tattapani one is transported for a time to the sheer fertile slopes that is Scottish landscape - only this Scottish landscape is dotted with cacti and what appears to be aloe vera plants monstrous enough to attack Indiana Jones.

I’m talking about gobsmackingly beautiful stuff here. While Indiana Jones is tackling giant aloe vera plants in the hills, I wouldn’t be surprised to see James Bond on the road engaging in an exciting car race with a wild, long-haired beauty, halting only just in time for James to win and avoid plunging down into the valley below.

Like James… James Bond, we also avoided toppling over the precipitous hills. Down, down, down Damsel drove, out of the nippy air, out of Scotland, and into dense humidity that sits upon one’s shoulders like a baboon. In one of the deep wrinkles of the valley and by the river sat Tattapani: a tiny town whose life seems to revolve around the hot sulphur water oozing upwards from the earth.

We chose to stay at Old Spring View Hotel because it cost a pittance and, more importantly, it had two big hot spring baths. The closer I got, the louder their calls became: Leah, let me wash you clean! Let me soak you until you are naught but wrinkles! Let me make your muscles malleable again!

Despite the insistence of the hot spring, I made it wait until night before I graced its waters with my tired post-sickness body. Greedy me wanted the bath all to Moonho and myself, and oh was it worth the wait. Water lazily slapping a dark river shore, the voices of a few crickets and some soft Indian music somewhere in the distance were our only audial accompaniments, and even they melted away as warm water wriggled its way into our pores. We gave each other a massages then simply laid back it splayed postures, allowing ourselves to become limp pieces of meat.

Afterwards we took our new supple, floppy bodies to bed where we both sunk into a deep, still sleep.

Other good things about Tattapani…

Fireflies or faeries?

Tattapani is either teeming with fireflies or faeries. At night the little lights shine everywhere and shine bright, moving gently here and there upon invisible meandering paths. We went up the road to a bushy area and turned off our lamp. It was as if the stars of the sky had descended and landed among the grass blades and bushes. I just stood still and stared, spellbound by the many cousins of Tinkerbell. Moonho tried to capture them on camera but they were not to be caught. Magic things, after all, should be difficult to catch.

Shiva Cave

The walk to get there is small enough that it isn’t particularly tiring and long enough that it isn’t overcrowded. Shive cave, as you have probably gathered, is a cave dedicated to the worship of Shiva. In the wall of a river that becomes fat and turbulent during monsoon, I suspect the cliffs on either side contain many such furrows and caves. This one, however, was a sacred one, and after ringing the bell I entered it reverently with my head bent.

The holy man sitting inside gestured towards my feet. Oops. I’d forgotten to take my shoes off. I scurried back out, took them off, rang the bell and entered it reverently with my head bent… again.

Despite my fear of small spaces, I braved the inside of the small cave, feeling the fresh dampness inside my nostrils and slimy dampness under my bare feet. I was awarded with a tikka on my forehead and some white sweets that look like tiny solidified cotton balls.

Below the cave is a low point of the path that touches the river. The river was clear, flowing rapidly, and was deep enough for swimming. Woohooooo! For the first time in a long time I immersed myself in a large body of water and swam. My love for feeling my body free in water is as intense as my dislike of feeling my body entrapped within a small space. Robbing gravity of its power, the water made me feel light once again. I hadn’t felt that light since before I’d gotten sick in Dharamsala.

Bliss I tell you, bliss!

The Germans

I mention the Germans because they were great. Both in their forties or thereabouts, they had the life-force of twenty-year-olds. Thea had this special laugh that, upon reflection, could only possibly be matched by Sulochana (roti-obsessed Sushil’s wife.). When it started it surprised you, and by the time it ended you’d realise you were laughing too. Michael, the other German, had a kind face that would suddenly crack into these goggle-eyed expressions that shouted out loud and clear “Yes, I’m eccentric, and I’m proud of it!”

We fell in love with them immediately. Thank you, funny and lovely people! The laughter you caused shall make us live longer!

Rafting

July is not rafting season in Tattapani. The river moves too fast and its volume covers the rocks that would otherwise create a break in the flow and white rapids.

But I really wanted to go rafting. I really wanted to.

The first day they said maybe we could go the next day. It rained that night and the next day they said the water was too high. I pleadingly asked again the day after. No go. The day after that I asked one of the guys working at Old Spring View Hotel. He said no. I asked another, just in case he felt differently. He didn’t.

Third time lucky. I asked the main guide and owner of the Old Spring (and two other hotels in town.) He ummed. I pointed out that it was our last day. He aaahed. I made big eyes and smiled. He looked towards the river. I smiled wider and brought my hands together in a pleading fashion.

“Well, it isn’t going to be very exciting without the rapids,” he said.
“I don’t mind, I just want to see the scenery!”
“Well… I guess…”

I know I’m a stubborn poo head. I guess this is the similar to tantrums I used to throw as a four year old, only without the kicking and screaming and with considerably more begging.

Moonho shook his head when I got my way, but hey! We got to go rafting, German friends and all! It was a 6km stint, and I admit there were few rapids. But it was a taste of Indian rafting, and I want more! In fact, I am inspired to take more in-depth lessons if I ever get the chance. There is something appealing about having nothing between you and a live, writhing body of water but a mere layer of rubber and air.

As I watched bulbous green hills drift swiftly backwards, I swore that if I ever make it back to Tattapani at peak season I would hire our friendly guide and do the 45km stint.

But unfortunately it was time to turn our minds towards more practical matters (sigh.) I’d spoken to a guy at the Ministry of Transport, who said that Damsel's registration could be done in Shimla despite what the Shimla lads had told us. Try again, he said. So try again we would.

Phew. All for you, Damsel, all for you…