Holidays from Agra to Auli

[Lonely Planet]

I do not know what it is with us people living on the plains – many among us have this insane urge to go visit the mountains in winter, as if the cold in the plains was not enough. And so it was with me…. Wifey wanted to see the Taj Mahal, I wanted to build a snow-man and so we went from Agra to Auli in the last week of December. A poorly designed trip it was – we ended up sitting in a car and rushing through the country-side much more than we had bargained for, only doing a spot of sight-seeing as an afterthought.

AGRA

The first leg was Delhi to Agra – Haridwar piece. We landed at Delhi two hours behind schedule because of the fog that engulfs that part of the country in winter and then made a dash for Agra in the evening, driving through some more fog, reaching Agra very late, around an hour before midnight. The next morning we were arrested by a tourist guide, one of the thousands that cover the streets of Agra like foliage, who unilaterally decided that we would not be able to see the Taj without him.

My past travels to that region of India tours had taught me that people there used a version of English that is strongly vernacular, but on this trip they exploded all notions I have ever had…. As soon as we were in the car, the guide, who sat up front, There were just the two of us and the driver.

That was the only sentence we could understand. What followed was a torrent of words, presumably English. I strongly suspect he spoke Hindi with English nouns and syntax and it was with such a rapid-fire ferocity that we were stunned into wide-eyed silence, till we told him that we were too weak in English to comprehend and could he please speak in Hindi. He got the point.

They do not allow any vehicles nowadays within a 1.5 Km radius of the Taj, the reason for which was explained on a long wooden board with six-inch high white lettering near the outer gate of the Taj Mahal area. I guess you get the point about English I was trying to make earlier.

The trip to Taj Mahal lasted about a couple of hours, during which time, our guide gave us his version of the history. “Mumtaj was the only wife Shahjahan ever married, and she died giving birth to their fourteenth child,” and so on… I tried to tell him that Shajahan had many wives and had actually killed Mumtaj’s first husband to marry her, and he protested vehemently : “That ij galat histry. I am telling you histry orginally from gorment of India.” I duly shut up – the “gorment of India” thingy always forces me to.

But he was passionate about the place and showed us with a small torch, the intricate filigree and inlay work in stone that covers the mausoleum and has held countless generations of visitors in thrall and awe down the ages. The Taj Mahal can stupefy one into silence with its beauty… in case you didn’t know.

Agra city has changed dramatically… Wide, clean roads with traffic separators and lanes, abound. A very far cry indeed, from the Agra I had been to in my childhood – dirty, smelly, open drains and horse manure everywhere. Good for the place, and for the Indian pride, since that is the focal point of our inbound tourist traffic.

AGRA– HARIDWAR

And then, after a quick lunch, we were on our way to Haridwar. Our driver, in his bid to avoid paying road tax in Haryana, chose to take a route through Uttar Pradesh itself, via Aligarh, Bulandshahr Meerut, and Roorkee. We drove gaily through the food bowl of India trips, lush-green with agricultural richness, over terribly pot-holed roads and past countless posters of the ruling dispensation of that state, only proving the point that like most local governments, they too, do not do their job.

Aligarh was just about the dirtiest city I have been to in recent times. But the municipal corporation, in its bid to prove that it cares about cleanliness, has instituted a unique measure – it has encased all the statues at the road-crossings in hideous rectangular glass-and-aluminium cages. Some of them even had permanent steel ladders attached, to enable the periodic garlanding festival that reaches it peak around election time. The poor pigeons have been left to fend for themselves.

We ran into a traffic jam somewhere in the middle of the city because a sewer main had burst flooding the road with its odorous contents, and after about an hour or so, our driver figured out a way to get past it. We did a U-turn and drove back about ten miles, to take the “nallah road” a by-pass being built for Aligarh city, that runs for about fourteen kilometres along the main sewerage canal. Windows rolled up, handkerchiefs on our noses, we endured the by-pass for one odorous hour, watching the sun set quietly in the west.

A couple of hours later we reached Bulandshahr, a nondescript district town that had more tractors on the road than cars. Here too, the statues were encased in similar glass-and aluminium cages. These local municipal bodies seem to have an enduring fear of the pigeons. We reached Haridwar well past mid-night, too tired to even smile at the hotel receptionist.

HARIDWAR – JOSHIMATH

Early next morning, we set out for Joshimath (and Auli), a distance of about 280 kilometres from Haridwar. The hill road began a few kilometres later, as we were leaving Rishikesh. This particular road is the life-line for the thousands who live in the hills and the tourists who come, and has some very heavy traffic indeed. Most vehicles here have “UK” number plates, including some “Govt. of UK” labels..(“Uttarakhand”, silly…).

There is a large road-sign that says “Welcome to Devbhoomi” (Land of the Gods), as one enters Haridwar. They never let you forget that it is “Devbhoomi” – all available cuisine in Haridwar is strictly vegetarian. Which is pretty curious, you know, given the fact that none of the gods in the Hindu pantheon is a vegetarian, at least to my knowledge? Most of them are warring, blood-thirsty characters, some benignly so, given to eating horse-meat periodically to celebrate a victory in battle, and immortal to boot of India Tourism.

I was forced to become a “pure” vegetarian for those few days; “pure” meaning veggie food sans onion, garlic and ginger. A terrible letdown, I must say, after all the effort I had put in over the years to crawl and claw my way to the top of the food chain, having consumed in the process many creatures – from the fish and geoduck of the sea to rabbits and antelopes of the land, and frogs and crocodiles in between…

Everything and every place in this part of India has either a mythical connection or a mythical name. There are two suspension bridges over the Ganga in Rishikesh – Ramjhula and Lachhmanjhula… I guess it leads one to conclude that the other two brothers were incompetent bridge-builders.

We followed some river or the other throughout the journey into the hills. Devprayag, is where the Bhagirathi meets Alakananda and becomes the Ganga; then Karnaprayag, where Mandakini meets someone else, Nandprayag and Rudraprayag, where Nandakini, Pindar meet … oh ! Never mind. Bottom-line is that there are five places where five, fast moving mountain streams, almost white water in some places, flow into each other and are considered as spots for pilgrimage. I am yet to figure out what is holy about two rivers meeting…. The last one, Vishnuprayag lies between Joshimath and Badrinath. We did not go there to figure out who meets who.

Twice along the way, we were stopped by the Border Roads Organization (BRO), who were busy clearing some recent landslide or rock fall with excavators and trucks. The highway was good only in parts; major sections of it were mere rubble – signatures of past landslides. The lower hills, up to Rudraprayag have very little rock in them and the road was dusty to the point of reducing visibility significantly, given the amount of traffic. We had lunch at Srinagar – yes, there is a Srinagar here too, with an “h” added for comfort and to distinguish from the other, more famous one.

Progress was slow, and it was dusk by the time we reached Chamoli, somewhere just about two-thirds of the distance. Thereafter, our driver, an expert in this terrain, drove on in darkness, now going uphill, now down hill, through hair-pin bends, bumping along over rubble, loose boulders, narrow roads, where the outer section had fallen off into the ravine below, all the while chatting gaily about how drivers from the plains frequently drove off the cliff edges instead of moving along the road….

There are countless villages along the highway, but almost all of them were in darkness, caused I presume, by either shortage of power, or by power lines being snapped by landslides.

Quite so often we would come across a large boulder, some three feet high, sitting in the middle of the carriageway, which our driver explained, would have just come down the hill. The BRO would remove it in due course, but till then everyone drove around it. These boulders were well-mannered, I must say, they came down on the road from the hills above only when the coast was clear.

The last three hours were scary, to say the least. We reached Joshimath at about nine-thirty in the evening, well past normal travelling time in the hills. Then we parked at a “Govt. of UK” guest-house.

AULI

The next morning was bright, sunny and chilly, as we got ready to proceed to Auli. There is a cable-car arrangement that one can avail of; the cable-car climbs to a height of about 10,000 plus feet over a distance of about 3.5 Kms from Joshimath, which is located in the valley at an altitude of about 6,500 feet. It takes about twenty-five minutes for the ride and one does get a wonderful view of the mountains indeed.

It is only from Auli that we got to see the traditional snow-capped Himalayan peaks for the first time during the entire journey from Haridwar. The weather had indeed played spoilsport at Auli; bright and sunny and no snow at this designated ski resort, even in the last week of December.

The cable-car slowly glided over what looked like a large blob of white tooth-paste down one side of an otherwise barren hill top. Not to be outdone by the weather, and out of fear being asked for refunds, the local authorities had taken matters in their own hands and deployed snow-making machines.

From the cable-car we could see little dark spots wobbling in the artificial snow – the skiers were desperately trying out their skills. The cable-car attendant informed us that these were people who had booked skiing slots in 2008, and if we wanted to have a go we could book now and come back in 2012. Great !!! The flip-side of having a large population….

The thermometer at the cable-car station read three degrees Celsius, but I suspect it was an arthritic specimen, because it felt much warmer. The bright sunshine let us shoot some great pictures – the panoramic view was fantastic. You had Nanda Devi to your east and a couple of lesser known but pretty high snow-covered peaks to the north-east. The hills immediately north of Auli are so high that one cannot see the higher snow-capped peaks beyond.

Contrary to the initial hype, all we found at Auli were the cable-car station with a few plastic chairs and tables where people could have tea, a resort-kind of a building, which on enquiries turned out to be a resort, some hills, part barren and part with dark pine forests, and of course, that bit of tooth paste on which people were skiing, or at least trying to.

We came back to Joshimath around lunch time because that is how the cable-car system operates. Your flight ticket specifies by what time you should return, thereby, I suspect, limiting the number of people on the hill and preserving the available snow.

Late in the afternoon we went around Joshimath and to the Badrinath yatra temple complex. Tradition has it that Lord Badrinath spends the summer months at the main shrine, about eighty kilometres further into the Himalayas, and the six months of winter, at Joshimath, when the main shrine is snowed under. They say the trip of the deity back and forth between the two temples is conducted with much fan-fare. Kudos to the fellows who envisioned this business continuity program unknown millennia ago – one that has survived the ravages of time… food for thought there.

RETURN : JOSHIMATH – HARIDWAR

The next morning we woke up to a persistent drizzle and dense cloud cover. It was not bitterly cold, but quite breezy. They said the snowfall had started. They said we could go to Auli once again to be a part of it. They also said we needed to leave immediately if we were to reach Haridwar in time, because the rain could slow our progress through the hills.

We left Joshimath for Haridwar quite early. Along the way we could see mountain tops gradually turning white, but the light was too low to take pictures. And then began what I think, was the most dangerous journey I have ever undertaken in my life.

The incessant drizzle meant the roads had already become muddy. The numerous landslide and rock fall zones that litter this highway started to become slippery. We drove slowly, sometimes with very poor visibility when clouds floated across the carriageway, following the vehicle in front, sometimes overtaking, sometimes stopping altogether. The wheels skidded when brakes were applied, loose stones rolled out from under the tyres, and there were large stretches where a section of the road had fallen off, leaving only enough space for a single vehicle to manoeuvre. Naturally, these were one-way stretches. The BRO has planted numerous signs along the way with different slogans. One of these read, “Better late than never” – I think it conveys a significantly different meaning out in these hills.

After about three hours, we finally came to a halt at the end of a long chain of vehicles. The rain had become more intense. Two excavators and a couple of trucks were in action up ahead, clearing a landslide. After about fifteen minutes, the line began to move, slowly inching forward through the just-cleared rubble. We were the fourth vehicle in the line when the rock-fall started again, prompting all to stop. We just sat there, watching. After about another period of wait, the BRO cleared us to proceed.

Our driver started slowly, moved to the middle of the damaged stretch and then stopped, peering upwards through the windscreen. I asked, and then followed his eyes. Two boulders were rolling down the hill. I felt a sudden chill down my spine. The driver suddenly jerked the car forward for about five feet and slammed the brakes. The first boulder, about two feet in diameter, jumped on to the carriageway about a foot behind our car before vanishing into the ravine below. The second one, about the size of a football, fell on the road about four feet ahead of us, before following the other one in its mad downward rush. Before I could react, our car had begun to move, jumping crazily over the stones in a bid to move clear of the area.

A few minutes later when we were once again on normal road, our driver turned around and smiled, I tried to speak but could not. Wifey too, was stunned. The two boulders had rolled silently down the hill – without any accompanying rumble and music as one would expect after the full diet of Hollywood and Bollywood films. If either of them had even so much as touched our car, we would been playing a harp on a cloud by now – no, make that three harps on three clouds.

Great writers have often created words and phrases that lesser people like me can only quote. Ian Fleming, in one of his famous books has said, “You only live twice. Once when you are born, and once when you look death in the face.” With my blood a gooey mass around my feet and all the adrenalin gathered in an untidy heap on the seat in front of the car after having suddenly shot out of my body system, I realised the full import of those words.

We sat in studied silence as the car moved on. A few kilometres and about an hour later, we suddenly stopped at the tip of a hair-pin bend to let a fully loaded 10-wheeler grumble its way upward. I was sitting on the left side and happened to look out – to a view that curdled my blood once again. Our car was about six inches from the edge of a vertical drop, and the bottom of the gorge was not visible. Before I could croak a sound from my parched throat, we started moving and our driver was explaining, The stones that mark the edge of the road must have fallen off because of the rain.

About a couple of kilometres on, we were on another hill, from where I happened to look upward at an angle to that hair-pin bend where we had stopped. The side of the hill station holding the road had actually washed away and the road edge on which we had stood a while ago, was sticking out like a ledge. I pointed this out to our driver and he brushed it off What is there to fear in this ? We will go when our time comes. Talk about fatalism.

The return path through Rudraprayag has a by-pass road which is un-metalled, steep, slippery, and with four hair-pin bends in succession. As we approached it, we could see buses, trucks and SUVs negotiating that stretch, like ants on a rough, yet slippery tree-trunk. Way of life in these hills.

And so it went on… mile after mile through endless landslide and rock-fall zones, rubble-covered road made slippery by the incessant rain, and periodic halts where the BRO was busy clearing the carriageway, till we reached Rishikesh and the plains. Thereafter it was plain sailing…. We reached Haridwar around eight in the evening.

The next day we were on the road again – on the Haridwar – Delhi leg. Out in the hills I had developed a healthy respect for the sturdy little Indica car we had hired for the journey. But on the expressway en route to Delhi tour, we were screaming along at about eighty, while other cars breezed past at more than hundred kilometres per hour. Back on the flight to Kolkata, we were silent – the previous day’s experience still hung heavy.

Bottom line : There are many hill-stations around the country, and the drive through the hills may be dangerous in spots, but there is none like this sector. If you ask me about a second visit I would prefer a “never” to becoming a “late”.

But if you are tired of mundane, middle-class day-to-day existence and need some excitement to pep things up; if, for a moment you want the world to stand still and time to hold its breath while the chiaroscuro of your life’s images flashed before your eyes, then a journey like this, perhaps, could be the journey of a lifetime. After all, you only live twice.