Footprints on the Mountainside

Heh. This is an easy one for me to write, and if you really think about it, it is all stuff you know anyway. How many points for betting that you may not have thought of things like that?

One of the best ways of knowing if the promotion material’s claims and the experience match is hindsight. *ducks under the table*

Ok. I’m serious now. What follows are the real ways to tell.

1. Count the number of destinations offered, deduct 2 and divide by the number of days of your tour. If the number you get is greater than one, your tour is going to be too hectic to really see anything. The lower the number, the better. I like 0.7ish
2. Sleeping in a new hill station every night is not seeing the Himalaya. If you don’t have the time to do something special in each place, the pace is too fast.
3. Does your guide love the place he is showing you? If he doesn’t, you’re missing out on insights collected over years of experience - which is something you are paying for when you ask for a guide.
4. Ask to meet the guide before you pay. If your guide doesn’t go all enthusiastic about the place in ways not mentioned on the brouchre, you might as well save the money and travel with a road map and brouchre.
5. Does your guide speak the language of the place - even a little is good - but do you have someone handy to communicate with the locals?
6. Read what is being offered in the tour carefully. How much of it is statistics and luxury descriptions and how much is local information? You can be sure that the same will be reflected in your tour most of the time. So, if you want luxury, or if you want interesting stuff, or something else, reading up befopre paying up can be a good idea.
7. Ask questions. Before you pay, make an effort to read up about the place and ask questions in the meeting. Knowledge shows - even if it means admitting ignorance, but having a good idea on where to find out.
8. Do the people have a sense of fun? Self-explanatory.
9. Find out about other people on the tour and ideally, attend a group meeting to make your payments to get a good idea of whether you will gel with the group or not.
10. To find out if an operator is reliable - simply show an interest in an unlikely variety of tours anthropology and pilgrimage, for example. If they want to sell you anything you point at, get out fast. They don’t really care what your interests are, as long as you buy a tour.

Or come to Wide Aware

Getting out into the outdoors is not as tough as it sounds. Honestly, even though I provide the service, I don’t do any rocket science. Most of the enquiries I get are for outings in the Sahyadri from Mumbai. So here, I provide a detailed method of going about it.

1. What do you want? Is it a challenge, relaxation, exploration……? What do you want to do when you have this itch to get out of the city.
2. Narrow it down - For example, if you’d thought of exploration in the previous step, go a step ahead. Is it exploring forts, caves, sea forts in particular, fishing villages……?
3. Figure out other stuff you want - how would you like to travel…. bike trip, local buses, private vehicle…? What would you like to eat - local food, self-cooked stuff, full-royal resort meals…? Stay where - in nature, resort, caves, local homes……?
4. Once you have this, you’re ready to begin preparing. Simply put together all requirements and make a list of everything you will be needing. Fuel arrangements, resort bookings, routes, stocks of food….. whatever. Make this list as detailed as possible. Feel free to ask other travellers for tips.
5. Most resorts can be booked online or through agents. If you’re planning to stay in a village or cave, there are no booking needs of course, but you may wish to find out details on the village or condition of fort etc. Most of this is readily available online.
6. Put one day aside for shopping and preparations. Get your act together and be sure to go through your entire list.
7. That’s it. Leave on time and have a blast.

As a general guide, if you have figured out transportation, food and accommodation; there’s little that can go wrong. However, be sure to cross check all information you get, as once out in the rural areas, it is not uncommon to find unmarked roads, or those that have been too damaged to use, etc. Similarly, a trekker who visited a fort a few years ago may confidently tell you that the village is 10 min from the fort, when in reality it may be 2-3 hours. Information that seems the same from a few different sources is generally reliable.

This is probably the only place where an organized trip is stronger, as we have strong contacts in most places we operate in, and checking any changes in status of information are a matter of routine. However, many trekkers and regular travellers know enough of the place to help verify information.

So why am sharing this? Because my objective is not to sell tours so much as to get more and more people venturing in the outdoors and developing a love for the land they live in. If this helps people get into a car and head out of town more easily on a weekend, I’ve got what I want.

The people who come to me easily become capable of this within a trip or two, so its no real secret anyway. I think they pay me just because they like the company, or would simply like me to handle the hassle reliably.

One of my freelancers was just enjoying a cup of tea with me during some spare time on a programme. He wanted some advice, and I had all the time in the world, unless something went wrong, so we plunged into the subject.

He had been offered a job with another company and was wondering if he should be taking it. He does some freelance work with Hills and Trails, Wild country Learning, us, OET, and some other companies as well, and earns, (like most other free lance outbound resource people in India) in a very erratic manner. A good month is riches and luxury and some months are a step away from being very badly broke. Not that it isn’t the same with any self employed person, but I find this particularly of concern in the outdoor adventure industry in India.

The salary offered in this case was pitiful, but it would be guaranteed every month. On the other hand, this boy would lose his freedom to choose jobs that he liked, paid well or even helped him learn and develop. It was a tough decision.

Most Indians are not too aware of adventure tourism, and even those aware of it are not always happy to pay big money. Most adventure businesses do reasonably well, but the pool of freelancers we mint our fortunes on, are not as lucky. Some of us are now taking care to offer better rates, more reliable working relationships, some security, etc.

But on the whole, an adventure instructor in India, is leading a life with its economy also in a desperate rescue scenario.

Most such people are more into the business as it doesn’t require any specific qualifications or skills beyond those they can earn on the job. So they aren’t always equipped to have any other profession. They are in a physically demanding profession, and even barring accidents, very few can work in the field as they grow older. They need to be able to figure out other ways of sustaining and providing for their futures, which is something that doesn’t really seem to occur to them.

Not having the benefits of a regular income, or investments through the work place, there is also no source of back up for money. Hardly any invest in any sizeable life insurance, medical insurance or even basic “nest-eggs” for emergencies.

I suggested the best I could. I asked him to tell his new employer that the amount offered was really low, and he couldn’t accept it, unless he was allowed to accept bookings from other companies on the days when the company employing him did not require him. In my opinion, he should have asked for a basic amount per month, with an additional smaller amount calculated according to the number of days he spent in the field. This is what I offer my regulars. Unfortunately, his new employer wouldn’t have allowed that, and I don’t have vacancies.

I hope things work out for him.

This post will be split into two, as there is plenty of content. I’ll focus this on the travel and the people and the next can be about the religious experience.

Getting from Sangli to Kule Narshingpur is a pain. First, there is a state transport bus journey to Islampur, which takes about an hour, and then there is the further journey by bus/rickshaw to Kule Narchingpur, which takes another half-an-hour.

We were lucky to find a luxury bus waiting as we reached the bus station at Sangli, and the journey to Islampur was comfortable and quick. Not much to do, except watch the kilometers tick by, and the wierd little conductor interact with the people on the bus in his singsong voice.

This region is all about sugarcane production, and we passed fields with sugarcane standing, or in various stages of being harvested, sugarcane loaded on tractors, bullockcarts, being stored….. whatever - sugarcane - and loads of it.

In Islampur, we gave up trying to figure out further state transport and simply hired a rickshaw to take us to our destination. The road was now bumpy. I guess the parents in law were not exactly comfortable. Raka was sitting on half the driver’s seat in the front, as these rickshaws are designed to seat only three, so I guess he wasn’t too comfortable either, but I was enjoying the ride through the countryside.

Narrow bumpy roads, blocked with bullock cart traffic - pretty heavy - we seemed to be waiting more than moving. Charming glimpses of the river, and all kinds of people chattering with our rickshaw man as we passed them. Very charmingly rural, if you overlook the not-so-charming ruts on the road.

Bullocks and goats seemed to be all over the place. Parked in front of homes having lunch, yoked, pulling carts, being loaded, unloaded…… I’ve never seen so many bullocks in one day.

We reached the home of the pujaris at our destination. Actually, the pujari on duty was someone else, but my parents in law had good relations with another, who wasn’t on duty, but we stayed with them anyway. I was surprised to find a Marathi family - I was expecting Kannada Brahmins (my in-laws are Kannada) like in Sangli. Apparently there are historical migrations and stuff involved and the seeming discrepancy was a normal state of affairs in such issues.

At least I could understand what was being said. I found myself feeling at home. The family were really charming people, complete with a really charming old widow grandmother - a typical joint family.

We visited the temple in the evening, and I have never seen such a charming location in this region (plenty in the Himalaya). What can I say, I’ll let the pics do the talking.

We left Mumbai by train and travelled overnight to reach Sangli. Uneventful, except for a hugely pregnant and very charming lady and husband occupying the remaining two berths in our “room”. We reached Sangli early in the morning and headed to the home of the priest in the temple we were visiting. We got refreshed (bath and silk clothes, etc) and went to the temple.

The temple is at a charming location on the banks of the river, that looks pretty nice, but smells something awful. The priests actually bathe in it as a part of their ritual cleansing - a thought enough to give me the jitters - it is probably cleaner not to bathe. Anyway, we bathed in a bathroom, so life was good.

Leaving the parents with their God, Raka and I skipped off for a quick tea and food break and discovered a restaurant called Swagat (meaning “welcome”) which was amazing for incredibly delicious food, and the lowest bill (Rs.54/- that’s less than a dollar and a half) for two people I have ever encountered for stuffing myself till I had vadas coming out of my ears. Overall, pretty good.

Floating along in the bliss of a stomach full of extremely desirable food, Raka and I returned to the temple to find that the puja was already over. That is really quick and efficient for these temples. We did the obligatory bowing and donations etc and it was time for lunch! I could swear that I couldn’t eat a bite, after what we were just returning from.

Fortunately, lunch at the pujari’s home involved a significant delay as it was prepared. Then it was time to give a “supache vaan” which is something I cannot describe. Suffice it to say that it is a collection of assorted items related with a female’s fortune in Hinduism, that we gave to the pujari’s wife. What I remember is a sari, comb, coconut, betel nut, betel leaves, kaja, rice, dal, jaggery, salt, some money, mirror, etc. Then it was Raka’s turn to give a dhoti and stuff to the pujari, and we were “clear”. Time to eat.

Food was good, except that there was a massive quantity of rice to consume with assorted dals and vegetables followed by sweet rice, spiced rice and finally curd and rice. I’d had enough ric for a lifetime by the time I was done with that meal.

After this meal, the only thing possible was sleep and all the four of us crashed for a nap in unworded agreemment.