Last I wrote, I was in Manali, a great town for trekkers and backpackers, but also with some local flair, as I found out a little too well. Manali has 2 great temples, Hadimba and Mannu. As we walked past Mannu, they were sacrificing a goat! I narrowly missed seeing it beheaded, but unfortunately looked over just as they were skinning it. yikes. The rest of my time in Manali was spent shopping around, eating the most delicious Indian restaurant food (complete with butterscotch ice cream), and walking around town.
Manali skyline: apple orchard in the foreground. I wish I could have gotten to ski here! There's a ski town about 30 kilometers away.
Mannu Temple in Manali.
The next day, we left Manali, drove about an hour, then stopped at the edge of a river. We packed up supplies, crossed a bridge (see picture in previous post), and walked to the Himalayan Buddhist School to do well-child checks, which was a really fun clinic day. Most findings included dental cavities. Sometimes HHE travels with dentists, but not on this trip, so we wrote a lot of referrals for a local dentist. After the fairly quick clinic, we traveled to Dhakpo Monastery and settled into their guesthouse. (picture in previous post of the view out my guesthouse window, amazing, and playing cricket in the schoolyard). We did 2 more clinics, one at the monastery and one at the nunnery, which was about an hour away. There were a lot of similar findings compared to our first 4 days of clinic, with some exceptions. The first 4 days of clinic were only with Himalayan Indians, who work mainly as farmers, so the older group had a lot more osteoarthritis and joint pain than the monks. Also, among some of the younger monks, who all have shaved heads, there seemed to be an outbreak of tinea capitis (fungal infection of the head), and we suspected that perhaps the practice of shaving may have been contributory to spreading the infection, though we are not sure. This portion of our trip was also memorable for a great hike we did up a river valley. On our way back, the 5 of us on this hike befriended a man also on the trail who had 2 horses with him; one of our group even rode one of his horses back for a while! Then we got a little bit lost trying to take a shortcut back, well, not lost per se, but we did cut through some wheat fields and an apple orchard.
-Doing the Chewbacca wookie call on the hike.
After 3 nights at the guesthouse (complete with 1 bathroom per 4-6 people, but our own cook and outdoor cafeteria tent), we again packed up and moved on, this time up into the mountains again (the monastery was more in the Kullu valley). We REALLY tucked ourselves into the mountains this time, driving 5 1/2 hours to the village of Garagusain. We left the monastery on a beautiful morning, but storms settled in and when we arrived at our new campsite, it was pouring rain with thunder and lightening. No one was terribly excited about our new digs at this point. It was again full camping except for 1 guesthouse with 2 bathrooms, a bedroom (for 2 students who got sick), and a room holding our bags and keeping them dry. It was also much colder at this campsite.
-Yellow 2-person tents where we stayed, black bathroom tent, and beige shower tent for bucket baths.
Clinic was held just a bit down the hill and at the same site for the next 3 days. Over those days, we saw about 520 patients, bringing our total to over 2000. Our patient population was very similar to that of the first 4 days (the first campsite at Panjain), except for some reason, we had a lot less children, possibly because at Panjain we were next to a school for a couple days.
The weather remained, for the most part, disappointing. We would often wake up with some sun, only to have the sky cloud over and rain through the afternoon and evening. One afternoon, we got a respite from the rain, so 4 of us went on a hike up a river/stream. We went far enough to see a snowpile, and we then had a snowball fight, which was great fun, and really lifted my spirits in the dreary weather. We were also lucky to have one absolutely beautiful afternoon, so many of us (probably 12-15 total) set off in smaller groups up a hike that the locals told us led to great views. They were not wrong. We walked through town, then hiked almost straight up a small path for about an hour, then spent another hour traversing a ridge through villages. I was in a later group, and 2 were leaving as I reached the final village along with one friend. We were greeted by a crowd of 8-12 children, who spoke about 5 English phrases but were quick to learn. They acted as our tour guides and led us further up the ridge until we picked a great look-out spot. We had 270 degrees of amazing mountain views with snow-capped mountains in the not-so-far distance. After a long photo shoot with the 2 of us (me and my friend Phoebe, an Australian med student), and the children, we finally decided it was time to go. The kids walked with us for quite a while, and I made them play a silly walk game, where I started doing a silly walk then they all mimicked me, which they LOVED. When they finally said good-bye (after several fake-outs in which they said good-bye, then chased us down the steep path), they repeated some of my silly walk actions and sounds, too. It took us about an hour to get back down. This hike was the highlight of the Garagusain portion.
-At the height of our hike. Note the terracing of the land to the right of me: this is some of the more wide strips of land for farming, most are more narrow on steeper slopes. To the left of my head, if the image was a little more crisp, you would see a snow-capped peak.
A few other remarks on this portion of the trip:
As a group, we grew together playing lots of games: Catchphrase, celebrity (aka Tijuana Family Fun Game), mafia, and Circle of Truth. I think my groupmates learned about my competitive side...
On our final day of clinic, a hail storm broke out! It was the largest hail I had ever seen: the size of grapes, I would estimate. We were all pretty amused, until it left our clinic site in pond-sized puddles, and saddened us when we heard that the ten minutes of intense hail could have wiped out the local crops, including peas.
Today we left Garagusain and made our way 6 hours to the village of Bir, a Tibetan settlement. We are staying in a hotel with wi-fi and showers, so you can imagine, we are all pretty excited! I'll update more as we stay here the next 5 nights. You may catch me on skype or gchat! (I'm 9 and a half hours ahead.)
At first glance I thought you'd wet your pants. It was just a shadow... Thanks for the blog; love it!
ReplyDeletexoxo, liz