Off expeditioning today! Excited to get to drive around the mountains a bit, the moreso since we’re going to look for an unusual rock-cut temple complex. I’ve visited these kinds of sites in many places – here, Ethiopia, Southern France, Scotland. It’s one thing to carve out a cave or tomb, like in Europe, but the idea of having a finished building in mind and then subtracting rock to get to the structure you want…well, I’m intrigued by the imagination that plans that way. The temples at Ellora here, done in that way, are simply fantastic, as are the churches in Ethiopia. I couldn’t wait to see this site.
We drove down from McLeod in almost no traffic (here, too, nothing starts early) and back a ways along the road we’d followed yesterday. Dramatic landscape, getting dryer as we went. The man at the hotel had told us it was 70 km, but smartie me with my map said it was about half that. Smartie me was wrong, and it took us well over an hour to get to the site over winding, one-lane roads.
Of course, there was no one there, but as I was starting into the site, a taxi with four Euros drove up. I said hello and went on up to the complex. The complex was severely damaged in an earthquake in 1905, and a lot of the carved facades and even ceilings had caved in or slid off. Still, there was enough left that you could see it was a magnificent structure. There were tall, narrowing roofs over small altar areas, and you could walk though the structures and up on the roof to get a better view of the ornate carving on the tall roof combs. It looked to me like the roofs were decorated with images of the complex itself, like you sometimes see in Mayan temples. In fact, the whole place felt a bit like someplace like Palenque but a whole lot like Angkor Wat. On a smaller scale.
As I was walking around, one of the women in the other group asked me how I came be there, and so we struck up a conversation. Jane is an editor who works a lot with the Tibetan community in Dharamsala; in fact, she’s been here 20 years and involved in the Tibetan issue the entire time. What a fun, dynamic, warm woman she turned out to be. She told me where the best carvings were and pointed out that this complex, unlike any rock-cut complex I’ve ever seen, was carved out of a pretty much freestanding block, so you don’t have to stand on top of a cliff and look down to see it. She also said that the unusual representations of crowned Parvati and Shiva were significant. I liked her immediately, her openness and warmth, but not wanting to horn in on someone else’s tour, I headed off to the roof with my camera.
While I was browsing around up there, I thought I’d found the crowned heads Jane was talking about, so I shouted down to her where I was. She said she’d try to get up there (she doesn’t like heights), and as I was waiting, the older man in the party came over, Bill. Turns out Bill owns and runs Foyles Bookstore in London, and as we were chatting, I made the (joking) comment that the Khymers had clearly been influenced by this place. Surprised, he asked me if Jane had mentioned that to me. Nope, just my own observation. Turns out Jane is pitching a book about just such a connection. Soon we were all talking on the roof – Jane; Bill; his wife, Pauline; and her son, Darren.
We were like old friends. Darren studied at Dharamsala and has been coming back to India for about eight years, I think. He has a house on the other side of Himachal Pradesh, and he and his brother were friends of Jane. Jane and Pauline knew each other some way, too. Bill and Pauline were out here with Darren on a visit, and they’d just come out to the temple site on Jane’s advice. We had so much in common it was just ridiculous, and we joked and talked about Angkor and about this site.
They were going on a picnic after the site and invited me to come along. Really enjoying the company, I accepted immediately. Their goal was Pong Lake, an artificial lake created by a dam about 15 km further down the road, but we stopped for a cool drink at a little grocery on the way and Jane brought out a homemade cake! And it was really, really good – those Brits can so do cakes. When we finished, I hopped back in my Ambassador, went the wrong way, turned around, and caught them back on the right road.
The road to the lake got too bad for the Ambassador, so I moved into their car and we went the rest of the way together talking of birds and other things. When we got to the lake, it was like sitting in a bowl in an oven. The lake rises and falls a lot with the monsoon, and it was getting low, so there was a broad, flat area around it. Everything shimmered in the distance. We looked at birds while were there, and Jane pointed out a group of Gujar, nomadic herdsmen who seasonally bring their buffalo through the lowlands and the Himalayan hills. I had no idea there WERE nomadic groups in India, and I certainly never expected to see them! Apparently, they graze higher than this when things are greener and then graze here after the farmers and harvested their crops; the buffalo love the leftover rice stems. When the farmers start to use this land again, the Gujar head north.
Jane asked for me if I could photograph a family, and they agreed. In the contrasty light, it was
only going to be a souvenir pic, but I shot them anyway. Handsome people. As Jane and I walked away, she said that the family was shouting to the other small groups that I’d done their photos and then shown the photo to them. They thought it was really cool.
It was way too hot for a picnic here, but intrepid Jane went off to one of their shelters to ask if we could use it. An older guy was there, and he, Jane and Darren spoke some in Hindi while the rest of us were just happy to be out of the heat. I was taken right back to the Massai when I got to the huts. Of course, there were a lot of flies. There was also a little, dried mud/dung platform in front of the two huts, almost like a patio area, and they’d built a couple of little stoves into that area. Each hut also had a little clay-lined fire bowl, probably for night time heat or even smoking away the bugs. And it was cool in the hut, which was positioned to catch every little movement of air off the lake. You could see a long tradition behind these efficient touches.
The light was beautiful in there, so I asked if I could do photos. I took pics of the old man (the red is henna…he’s muslim), of the man and his granddaughter, and of his grandson. I couldn’t communicate at all, but he was quite friendly. He soon offered us some tea, and the woman I’d photographed earlier prepared it in the two little stoves outside the hut. The old guy told us that the tea was prepared with fresh buffalo milk, so it’d be good. And he was right. We felt embarrassed about taking from these people who had so little, so Jane shared the rest of her cake with them.
Our group mustered itself eventually, and we went back to the car and off in search of place to have a picnic. They spotted the picture (and temperature) perfect place under a huge mango tree. Jane pulled out a huge wicker basked full of the makings, and we settled in.
What a totally fun dinner. There was plenty of fruit (melon, mango), a couple of to-die-for
quiches, a rice and satay dish I’m going to get the recipe for…all spread out on a blue and white checked tablecloth. How totally civilized! I wish I could have contributed a bottle of cider. And conversation was as good as the food – Bill regaled us with tales of the ossified administration of Foyles he found when he moved into actively managing the store, and we talked about the Middle East (they have lots of contacts in Saudi Arabia and the UAE), China, Indonesia and refugee concerns, a field Bill is very active in. It simply couldn’t have been a better picnic.
And as if everyone hadn’t been kind enough, Jane invited me to dinner at her place the following evening. My Southern thing didn’t want to impose, but I seemed to have so much in common with everyone that I just had to accept.
Got back to the hotel (oh..forgot to mention that we were staying in the same hotel), and headed in to relax a bit.
We drove down from McLeod in almost no traffic (here, too, nothing starts early) and back a ways along the road we’d followed yesterday. Dramatic landscape, getting dryer as we went. The man at the hotel had told us it was 70 km, but smartie me with my map said it was about half that. Smartie me was wrong, and it took us well over an hour to get to the site over winding, one-lane roads.
Of course, there was no one there, but as I was starting into the site, a taxi with four Euros drove up. I said hello and went on up to the complex. The complex was severely damaged in an earthquake in 1905, and a lot of the carved facades and even ceilings had caved in or slid off. Still, there was enough left that you could see it was a magnificent structure. There were tall, narrowing roofs over small altar areas, and you could walk though the structures and up on the roof to get a better view of the ornate carving on the tall roof combs. It looked to me like the roofs were decorated with images of the complex itself, like you sometimes see in Mayan temples. In fact, the whole place felt a bit like someplace like Palenque but a whole lot like Angkor Wat. On a smaller scale.
As I was walking around, one of the women in the other group asked me how I came be there, and so we struck up a conversation. Jane is an editor who works a lot with the Tibetan community in Dharamsala; in fact, she’s been here 20 years and involved in the Tibetan issue the entire time. What a fun, dynamic, warm woman she turned out to be. She told me where the best carvings were and pointed out that this complex, unlike any rock-cut complex I’ve ever seen, was carved out of a pretty much freestanding block, so you don’t have to stand on top of a cliff and look down to see it. She also said that the unusual representations of crowned Parvati and Shiva were significant. I liked her immediately, her openness and warmth, but not wanting to horn in on someone else’s tour, I headed off to the roof with my camera.
While I was browsing around up there, I thought I’d found the crowned heads Jane was talking about, so I shouted down to her where I was. She said she’d try to get up there (she doesn’t like heights), and as I was waiting, the older man in the party came over, Bill. Turns out Bill owns and runs Foyles Bookstore in London, and as we were chatting, I made the (joking) comment that the Khymers had clearly been influenced by this place. Surprised, he asked me if Jane had mentioned that to me. Nope, just my own observation. Turns out Jane is pitching a book about just such a connection. Soon we were all talking on the roof – Jane; Bill; his wife, Pauline; and her son, Darren.
We were like old friends. Darren studied at Dharamsala and has been coming back to India for about eight years, I think. He has a house on the other side of Himachal Pradesh, and he and his brother were friends of Jane. Jane and Pauline knew each other some way, too. Bill and Pauline were out here with Darren on a visit, and they’d just come out to the temple site on Jane’s advice. We had so much in common it was just ridiculous, and we joked and talked about Angkor and about this site.
They were going on a picnic after the site and invited me to come along. Really enjoying the company, I accepted immediately. Their goal was Pong Lake, an artificial lake created by a dam about 15 km further down the road, but we stopped for a cool drink at a little grocery on the way and Jane brought out a homemade cake! And it was really, really good – those Brits can so do cakes. When we finished, I hopped back in my Ambassador, went the wrong way, turned around, and caught them back on the right road.
The road to the lake got too bad for the Ambassador, so I moved into their car and we went the rest of the way together talking of birds and other things. When we got to the lake, it was like sitting in a bowl in an oven. The lake rises and falls a lot with the monsoon, and it was getting low, so there was a broad, flat area around it. Everything shimmered in the distance. We looked at birds while were there, and Jane pointed out a group of Gujar, nomadic herdsmen who seasonally bring their buffalo through the lowlands and the Himalayan hills. I had no idea there WERE nomadic groups in India, and I certainly never expected to see them! Apparently, they graze higher than this when things are greener and then graze here after the farmers and harvested their crops; the buffalo love the leftover rice stems. When the farmers start to use this land again, the Gujar head north.
Jane asked for me if I could photograph a family, and they agreed. In the contrasty light, it was
only going to be a souvenir pic, but I shot them anyway. Handsome people. As Jane and I walked away, she said that the family was shouting to the other small groups that I’d done their photos and then shown the photo to them. They thought it was really cool.It was way too hot for a picnic here, but intrepid Jane went off to one of their shelters to ask if we could use it. An older guy was there, and he, Jane and Darren spoke some in Hindi while the rest of us were just happy to be out of the heat. I was taken right back to the Massai when I got to the huts. Of course, there were a lot of flies. There was also a little, dried mud/dung platform in front of the two huts, almost like a patio area, and they’d built a couple of little stoves into that area. Each hut also had a little clay-lined fire bowl, probably for night time heat or even smoking away the bugs. And it was cool in the hut, which was positioned to catch every little movement of air off the lake. You could see a long tradition behind these efficient touches.
The light was beautiful in there, so I asked if I could do photos. I took pics of the old man (the red is henna…he’s muslim), of the man and his granddaughter, and of his grandson. I couldn’t communicate at all, but he was quite friendly. He soon offered us some tea, and the woman I’d photographed earlier prepared it in the two little stoves outside the hut. The old guy told us that the tea was prepared with fresh buffalo milk, so it’d be good. And he was right. We felt embarrassed about taking from these people who had so little, so Jane shared the rest of her cake with them.
Our group mustered itself eventually, and we went back to the car and off in search of place to have a picnic. They spotted the picture (and temperature) perfect place under a huge mango tree. Jane pulled out a huge wicker basked full of the makings, and we settled in.
What a totally fun dinner. There was plenty of fruit (melon, mango), a couple of to-die-for
quiches, a rice and satay dish I’m going to get the recipe for…all spread out on a blue and white checked tablecloth. How totally civilized! I wish I could have contributed a bottle of cider. And conversation was as good as the food – Bill regaled us with tales of the ossified administration of Foyles he found when he moved into actively managing the store, and we talked about the Middle East (they have lots of contacts in Saudi Arabia and the UAE), China, Indonesia and refugee concerns, a field Bill is very active in. It simply couldn’t have been a better picnic.And as if everyone hadn’t been kind enough, Jane invited me to dinner at her place the following evening. My Southern thing didn’t want to impose, but I seemed to have so much in common with everyone that I just had to accept.
Got back to the hotel (oh..forgot to mention that we were staying in the same hotel), and headed in to relax a bit.
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