Tibetan Foothold

by Dervla Murphy

  Today I came across a lot more wildlife than yesterday. I saw:

  (1) The monal, a very rare type of pheasant, commonly found only in this valley. A cock flew close by and alighted beneath a tree some four yards away while I was sitting by the river. Its shining dark-green plumage really was quite breathtaking – though in build it didn’t look at all pheasant-like to me.

  (2) A musk-deer – small as a goat – appeared briefly on the opposite bank of the nullah, scented me and vanished into a tangle of scrub. (My nostrils often caught the whiff of musk, but this was the only one I saw.)

  (3) A goral – which is another deer, almost as big as a Jersey cow, with a thick, dark-brown coat. This lovely creature crossed the trail so near that I could almost have touched it, then sighted me and bounded away through the trees.

  (4) A couple of flying foxes frisking on the opposite bank: they really are the most enchanting little creatures imaginable and I spent fifteen minutes zwatching their antics and observing what a highly developed sense of humour they reveal as they play together. With their silky chestnut coats gleaming in the sun they looked at times like two little flames darting through the undergrowth.

  (5) A troop of graceful, slender monkeys with very beautiful silver bodies, black heads and tails and enormous liquid eyes; I would have identified them as lemurs if that species were not nocturnal. Perhaps some domestic crisis was keeping them up all day.

  (6) An otter, tracked by following its wet tail-marks on flat slabs of rock by the river. Eventually I came on it lunching off trout and I felt rather bad about interrupting the meal: naturally it took fright on seeing me and slid into a deep pool beneath an overhanging boulder.

  (7) Last and greatest thrill of all – a real live panther, rippling sinuously up a bare, sheer precipice like a poem of motion. That indeed was beauty in action.

  Needless to say all this nature-study wasn’t achieved without hours of sitting around, and I didn’t arrive at the Forest Rest House until 5.30, by which time it would have been quite dark but for the moon, whose brilliance here in India never ceases to astonish and delight me.

  After Malana this hut, complete with table, chair and charpoy, is comparatively luxurious – yet I’m thinking enviously of that yule-log, for no heating is available and by now my fingers are almost too numb to hold the pen. I’m writing by the light of a wick floating in a bowl of malodorous mutton-fat and I’ve just dined off two flimsy chapattis and a tiny mug of dal. This fare didn’t begin to match my appetite, but one is reluctant to ask for more when it’s quite likely that one has already eaten the chowkidar’s supper.

  I forgot to mention a little experiment which I conducted this morning on the outskirts of Malana. The Malanis prize cigarettes very highly, as their normal smoke is a hookah filled only with woodembers, so when I met two young men collecting firing in the pine-forest I stopped and offered them a cigarette each, holding out the open packet as one does. They hesitated for a moment and glanced at each other, before signing to me to put the packet on the ground. When I had done so first one and then the other bent down and gingerly removed a cigarette, taking great care not to touch the packet itself, which had been vilely polluted by contact with an ‘untouchable’ hand. Having pocketed their spoils they grinned a trifle sheepishly and then withdrew at speed from my unwholesome company.

  Now I think a long and, I hope, mouse-free sleep is indicated.

  TIBETAN ROAD-CAMP NEAR SHAT: 27 DECEMBER

  (I can’t refrain from pointing out what a superbly appropriate name this is for a Tibetan camp site!)

  Today has been relatively uneventful, though most enjoyable. We left Jari at 8.30 a.m. and had a bone-and screw-shaking freewheel down to the main road at Bhuntar. In fact I walked about five of the fourteen miles, both to spare Roz’s tyres and to give myself another opportunity to admire this valley.

  Breakfast at Jari had consisted of one chapatti and a cup of ersatz tea, so I stopped at a Bhuntar eating-house to devour a four-egg omelette – my first sustaining meal for many days. The people of this locality are the poorest I’ve yet seen in India, though Kulu is famous for its fruit, particularly apples. One suspects that hitherto the orchards have been the monopoly of a few rich men and that the peasants have been too ignorant to make the best of their land. Now, however, the Government is subsidising and supervising the planting of small orchards, and is actively encouraging poultry-farming. One sees few goats or sheep, the pasturage being too poor. Cows are also scarce, and half a pound is their average daily yield.

  On leaving Bhuntar we freewheeled smoothly down the main road for about eighteen miles – and then turned up another side valley to find this camp of 263 adults and 44 children. The little tent village was established here a year ago and will remain in situ for at least another three months, so again there is no real obstacle to it being a home for most of the workers’ children.

  In each of these camps I met the parents of some of my favourites at Dharamsala. Usually, on hearing that I’ve come from there, they introduce themselves with anxious enquiries about their children, but occasionally I recognise them by some marked family resemblance or because they’ve been to visit the Nursery recently.

  So far, in the course of my Tiblet-checking in all these road-camps, I’ve found nine ex-Dharamsala victims who spent periods of varying lengths at the Nursery before being removed because their parents were shocked by the deterioration in their health. Nine is a small number, yet it cheers me to know that there is a hard core of strongminded Tibetans among the roadworkers.

  TIBETAN ROAD-CAMP NEAR LUHRI: 28 AND 29 DECEMBER

  There was no time for diary-writing last night, as will soon become apparent.

  We left Shat at 7 a.m. yesterday and had covered the twenty-four miles to Shoja by midday. This camp is at 8800 feet and over the last sixteen miles the rough track climbs steeply towards the foot of the Jalori Pass. For the first time since we left Dharamsala the sky was cloudy and the sides of this long, narrow valley were flecked with snow. There was more cultivation here than elsewhere in Kulu and the ingenious terracing reminded me of the Murree area of Pakistan. Clumps of pine trees looked black beside gleaming snow-drifts, and far above the track wooden farmhouses were adhering – somehow – to apparently sheer cliff-faces at altitudes of more than 10,000 feet. Beneath that dark grey sky this seemed a sombre, slightly awesome valley.

  Shoja camp is a big settlement of 180 tents, the majority in good condition and each with its pile of firewood stacked beside it; luckily there is no shortage of fuel in this heavily forested region. These tents shelter 400 adults (approximately) and 161 children (precisely). I spent four hours examining the Tiblets and found that 118 appeared to be in perfect health – against all the odds, for they rarely get milk or meat and live mainly on rice and dal. The chief complaints of the other forty-three were dysentery, otitis media, gingivitis and what I suspect to be worms and TB. The camp has been established here for the past year and will be at least another year on the same site; a brand new road is being built over the difficult Jalori Pass and work hasn’t yet progressed very far. As I was being given these facts by the young English-speaking interpreter anger filled me; considering the numbers of wealthy relief agencies operating in Tibland it is outrageous that no worthwhile medical aid has been provided for such a camp. This neglect can only be explained by criminal stupidity on someone’s part.

  I had intended spending the night with the Tibetans, as usual, and crossing the Jalori Pass today en route for the next camp at Luhri; but the interpreter and the camp-leader both advised me to cross the pass that evening, as blizzards were expected in the area today. They said that Khanag, the first rest house on the other side, was only ten miles away, and generally implied that this was an easy trek which could be done in about four hours. At this stage my reasoning faculty apparently broke down and I unquestioningly accepted their advice, overlooking two elementary facts – (a) that a mountain-pass graded as ‘easy’ by Tibetans might be f
ar from easy to a European and (b) that having already that day pushed Roz up to 8800 feet I wasn’t really in a fit state to continue to 10,700 feet. Yet I then felt quite fresh, after my four hours of sitting examining Tiblets, so at 4.30 p.m. we blithely set out for Khanag.

  The first three miles were less steep than the previous sixteen and I cycled them slowly – but then the trouble started. On this bridle-path over the pass (which is officially open only from May to September) the gradients are utterly inhuman; furthermore, where the Tibetans have been widening the track by hacking away the earthy cliff on one side, we suddenly found ourselves slithering in ankle-deep mud of the stickiest consistency imaginable. After a few yards Roz’s wheels became immovably jammed and she had to be dragged instead of rolled along. Following two miles of this hell we left the mud behind, as the track rose even more steeply – and now we were ploughing our way through new snow a foot deep. Roz took a very dim view of it all; she thought we’d been through enough snow in Europe last winter without repeating the performance. And I agreed. Yet actually there isn’t any comparison as far as temperatures are concerned. At 7 p.m. yesterday, 9500 feet up in the Himalayas, I was literally dripping with sweat, though wearing only slacks and a shirt. Which just shows what last winter in Europe was like. (And which also shows the terrific exertion entailed in getting Roz up that damnable track.) By 5.45 p.m., when we were still stuck in the mud, it was dark – but I knew that an almost-full moon would soon rise from behind the mountains. For a moment, at that stage, I considered returning to Shoja for the night. However, a built-in defect always defeats common sense on these occasions, by never allowing me to turn back, and before long I was suffering for my rashness.

  During the next two and a half hours I struggled against the soft snow and the preposterous gradient – which was much more severe than that encountered on the far higher Babusar Pass – and by nine o’clock I had begun to feel really scared. Apart from the unbeatable hell of our June trek through the Indus Gorge this was the most frightening experience of my life. Since last winter’s unfortunate encounter in Serbia, forest, snow and moonlight ring only one bell for me – wolves – and every time I heard a rustle I would have jumped a foot if I’d had the energy. I rapidly evolved the theory that Himalayan wolves are twice as big and ten times as fierce as the Yugoslav brand (which seems only logical) but happily there was no opportunity to prove this.

  As we ascended, the gradient became even crueller and the snow lay even thicker. I realised now that there was no chance of crossing the pass that night and several times I was tempted to ease the situation by abandoning Roz and searching alone for some dwelling. But here sentiment overcame reason; if we were going to be lost for ever in a snow-drift then it seemed fitting to me that we should be lost together. At this stage I was totally exhausted and had to stop every five or six yards, leaning my arms on Roz’s handlebars and my head on my arms. Then I caught myself going to sleep in this position – which would have ended the story! – so for future pauses I just stood and gasped, while the sweat trickled down my face onto my bare arms. At every bend in the track I looked desperately for the outline of a rooftop in the moonlight – which was now very bright, as the clouds had scattered – and eventually I got to the point of fancying that big rocks were houses. Then, at last, a real rooftop did appear and instantly my resistance cracked. The house was only about forty yards away and dropping Roz on the track I crawled to the entrance, which was approached over a narrow plank ‘bridge’ laid from the edge of the track to the first floor balcony. (The ground floor of these farmhouses is always used for sheltering livestock and storing fodder and grain.) Fumbling my way along the balcony I came to an open door and though no light was visible a child could be heard crying within. Being afraid of scaring the family by appearing too suddenly I called out ‘Nemuste!’ But there was no response so I entered a pitch-dark room and then saw a faint flicker of firelight through a trap-door in the ceiling. Ascending a long, shaky ladder I put my head over the edge of the opening and rather timidly repeated – ‘Nemuste!’ As I’d expected, the unfortunate people were scared to bits – naturally enough, as even in summertime few foreigners travel through this region. Two young women screamed and jumped up from the central fireplace, which, as in Malana, was the room’s only ‘furniture’. They fled to a corner, each clutching an infant, as their husbands stood up and tried to look threatening, and an older man asked me in Hindi where I’d come from. I replied – ‘Kulu, with cycle,’ and climbed the last rungs of the ladder into the warm room. Then, feeling too done in for any further explanations, I simply lay down by the fire and impolitely went fast asleep – as good a sample of sign-language as you could get!

  On awakening ten hours later I found myself covered in a deliciously warm padded quilt and the fire was burning brightly and the two young women, reassured as to the intruder’s harmlessness, were laughingly preparing chapattis and dal for my breakfast – God bless them! I discovered then that Roz had been rescued from the track and carefully put on the balcony for the night – and that her saddle-bag had been unstrapped and laid beside my head as I slept. This consideration touched me very much and was typical of the thoughtfulness I have experienced everywhere among allegedly uncouth peasants; obviously my host had reckoned that I might waken during the night and start to worry about my possessions.

  This morning the sky was partly overcast again, but though it was snowing lightly the clouds were not low and there was no sign of the forecast blizzard which had been the cause of my ordeal. When I stepped out onto the balcony the view made me gasp with astonishment at the incredible climb we’d done through the darkness of the previous evening. I was looking down, down, down into the dark depths of a thickly forested valley and away to the north high Himalayan peaks were faintly reflecting the pale gold of the rising sun. Otherwise the colouring of the scene was subdued – grey sky, rocky crags, black forest – except where new snow had made the nearby pines, with their dainty, glittering burdens, look like gigantic Christmas trees.

  From a practical point of view the new snow was less pleasing: we set out at 9.30 a.m. and it took us four and a half hours to cover the four miles to the top. The snow was always knee-deep and would have been difficult enough to battle through minus a bicycle. Of course I realised now that the Tibetans had left Roz out of the reckoning when they advised me so badly yesterday. Clearly they were thinking of carrying a load on the back: like sensible people they have never attempted to bring bicycles over mountain passes. However, after a good night’s rest I thoroughly enjoyed the struggle: I was in no hurry and being alone amidst such surroundings is to me the quintessence of ‘travellers’ joy’. There was not a mark on the snow until we ploughed through it, not a movement but the slowly eddying flakes and a few swiftly swooping birds, not a sound but the soft plop of snow from branches to ground. Usually the trees were dense on either side but when I passed a break in their ranks tremendous, craggy peaks were visible, almost at eye-level, in the near distance. Towards midday the sky began to clear and by the time we had reached the pass the sun was shining from a blueness enhanced by streamers of wispy cloud.

  From here the panoramas to north and south provided a remarkable contrast. Behind me the peaks were snow-laden and sharp and the valleys deep and dark: before me lay ridge after ridge of rounded mountains, their summits merely dusted with snow and the wide, shallow valleys between them warm with golden sunshine.

  It was 2 p.m. when we started down – and in this context ‘down’ means a descent of 8000 feet in twenty-three miles. Snow lay thick on the track for the first two miles and Roz and I more or less tobogganed over it together: it was an extraordinary sensation to be moving so effortlessly, after the violent exertion of the climb. Soon there was no more snow, except on odd shaded patches, yet because of the gruesome gradients and chaotically rough surface I had to walk about five of the next nine miles. By then we had descended – incredibly – to a mellow valley where huge orange trees were laden
with ripe fruit. (I stopped at a tiny hamlet to buy a dozen luscious oranges for threepence.) Lemons the size of grapefruit also flourish here; when I first saw these monsters in the Kulu valley I thought that they were misshapen grapefruit and only discovered my mistake on buying one. This was a very ‘Spanish’ valley; apart from the orange-groves, at river-level, the bare mountainsides were dotted with cacti and on the valley floor little fields of young wheat glistened like green silk.

  I was able to freewheel down the next twelve miles – though the surface remained abominable – and we arrived at this camp on the banks of the Sutlej at 5.30 p.m. Fortunately there weren’t many Tiblets to be examined so I’m going to bed early in preparation for tomorrow’s crossing of the Narkanda Pass. This is only twenty-six miles away, but we are now a mere 2600 feet above sea-level and Narkanda lies at 9100 feet.

  TIBETAN ROAD-CAMP NEAR NARKANDA: 30 DECEMBER

  By 8 a.m. we were on our way. For a few miles the road followed the Sutlej before joining that famous Hindustan–Tibet highway which, north of this point, has been closed to all civilian traffic since the Chinese invasion in October 1962. At the junction a new signpost says ‘Tibet 115 ms.’, and here I dismounted to stand for a moment looking longingly up that road. What I would have given to be allowed to follow it! But perhaps some day I will get to Tibet, however ludicrous the idea may seem at the moment.

  From the junction our road climbed very steeply for about five miles, till the Sutlej valley looked like an aerial view beneath us. Then the highway penetrated the heart of this range, winding round and round the arid flanks of grey-brown, treeless mountains. For fourteen miles the ascent was gradual, though continuous, and I was able to cycle most of the way – again in shirt-sleeves, under a cloudless sky. This would have been another most enjoyable trek but for the incessant heavy military traffic going towards Tibet: to see it one would think that a full-scale war was in progress on the frontier at this very moment. Countless truckloads of unenthusiastic-looking young troops were interspersed with truckloads of arms, ammunition, pack-mules, fodder and general supplies. Watching these interminle convoys of mule-trucks and fodder-trucks I pitied India’s present military plight; there can be no more difficult terrain in the world than the Hindustan–Tibet border area.