From Dar es Salaam to Dharamsala and points in between

Its been a bit of a whirlwind since we left Dar on April 23, but we have managed to fit in some pretty amazing tourism experiences in the interim before winding up in Mumbai, here at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research.

First stop was Cairo, where we spent a weekend, one day of which was with a car, driver and guide. We zoomed around this city of 24 million people, hitting some of the main highlights – the 2 sets of pyramids were amazing close up, but what I really liked was the way they loomed up behind buildings and dominated the cityscape. We had time in the souk (enough to get thoroughly lost),  in the Egyptian Museum where treasures are just piled everywhere and to visit the huge mosque in the citadel.

On Sunday, we flew to Paris, where the real culture shock set in. It was springtime, and the tulips, lilacs and spring greenery reminded us that there are seasons other than wet and dry! Also, parks, wine, statues and art everywhere. Lars had meetings, but I enjoyed visiting the Musee D’Orsay where I wallowed in impressionists for a happy morning. We had some fabulous dining out, and stocked up on red meat and wine, knowing it would be scarce in the months ahead. Then on Wednesday, we picked up our rental car, and with trepidation navigated our way out of Paris, and headed east to Alsace. Oh, yes, that was me doing the driving on the wrong side of the road as Lars had had a spot of emergency dental surgery that morning and was a bit out of it!

We met up with some of our kids in a gite in Alsace – Natasha and Cam from Geneva and Brendan and his girl friend Regina from Munich.  We visited Strasbourg (where I was quite taken with the wise and foolish virgins carved over the doorway of the cathedral – guess which ones these are!). We walked, ate, played games and talked, and enjoyed needing the warmth of the tile stove in the evenings!

After a night spent in a gorgeous medieval town on the “Route des Vins”, we had to hustle back to Paris the next morning to catch the plane to Beirut – we might have lingered in the developed world just a little too long to have a relaxing drive! 

Spencer met us in the middle of the night at the airport, and we were whisked off to the apartment he had just moved into with his friend Ali. In spite of all that, he was able to provide us with a comfy bed and we needed it!

We spent almost a week in Lebanon, and were impressed with how the country has recovered from the war that cut our last trip short 4 years ago. Cranes and building sites are everywhere, and the Dahia, heavily bombed, was sprouting legions of new high rise apartments. Municipal elections were happening at the end of our week there, and we amused ourselves trying to decide which of the mugshots plastered all over the city would get our vote. There was lots of excitement caused by this – parades, cars driving around with megaphones blaring, people in bright t-shirts stopping cars to hand out lists of candidates and of course extra military in evidence.  

But mostly we traveled about, and saw all the things we missed in Lebanon last time. Spence was our driver and tour guide, and did a great job. We saw a hopeful "new seventh natural wonder of the world" site at Jeita caves, and they were amazing. Went to Sidon, with its wonderful souk, Tyre with a lovely beer place on the beach (warm enough to swim in – the water that is), Byblos with its incredible layers of ruins dating from Neolithic times (including this lovely lion in the Persian part circa 500 AD with thyme for a mane)  through to present day...

and finally Baalbak in the Bekaa Valley with even more incredible Roman ruins.

We also had lots of time for wandering about and eating great Lebanese food, giving Spence and Ali advice (and maybe a little practical help) on furnishing and decorating their new apartment and having discussions on the state of the middle eastern world. I swear I did not set this photo (one below) up – it is a copy of the magazine of which Spence is the editor on their makeshift coffee table. And in spite of this photo of him smoking sheesha, it is not Spence who is the smoker!

All too soon, we were on a plane again, with yet another wait in Cairo airport (they have the most expensive beer there), and then we were arriving in Mumbai at 8:30 in the morning. After sorting out some missing bag issues, we  were immediately thrown into the heat, the smells and the crazy traffic. The airport itself is surrounded by a huge slum (I’m not hesitating to use that word, everyone else does) which you see as you land, and then driving north to Goregaon, it seemed it just continued, interspersed with glittering high rises and a few shopping malls.

So here I am at the Gateway to India, with the Taj hotel in the background (partially opened again), a symbolic entryway to and exit from India for the British Raj. We have now had 2 forays into south Mumbai – a different world from where we have ended up! Handsome colonial buildings, modern high rises and all manner of businesses and sophistication. 

Goregaon, on the other hand, is the pits, apart from the IGIDR which is a little oasis of green and fanciful architecture in the midst of a huge slum….this Escheresque stairwell cum cloister is inspired by the Elefanta caves where Buddhist monks meditated as they walked. It is totally impractical as a way to get from one academic office to another – it requires advanced topographical awareness to figure out how to get anywhere, thus actively discouraging academic discourse. And apparently it doesn’t even keep you dry during the monsoon!

It only took us a day to realize that 2 months in Goregaon might be too much, in spite of the congenial atmosphere at the institute. A good travel agent was recommended to us, and we immediately started making plans to take a few trips, and within a week we were off on the first one to the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. We had a day in Delhi, where it was 44 degrees, and good preparation for our trip to Rajasthan next week. The best part was wandering around Old Delhi and visiting the oldest mosque in India, the Jamid Mosque, where a non-verbal guide led us around and quite entertainingly mimed some of the highlights. 

We departed by overnight train from the New Delhi station, which was remarkably  quiet considering that the night before 2 people were killed and many injured in a stampede caused by a last minute platform change. 

We spent our first 2 days in Dalhousie, a former British hill station, where we enjoyed walking through cool forests and getting our first sight of the mountains. 

Then we were off to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama and headquarters of the Tibetan Government in exile. Lots of tourists here, both foreign and Indian, escaping the heat – but we escaped most of them by almost immediately heading off on a 3 day trek up to Triund (2800 metres) and then on up almost to the glacier (3200m) where the trail continues over the Indrahari pass. We didn’t quite achieve the agility of these mountain goats, but we learned a lot about the life they and their human herders lead from our guide Chander, who is a member of the Gaddi (pastoralist) people.

Reaching Triund the first day, climbing over a ridge and seeing the mountains so close up was stunning!

We stayed in a simple guest house, with no water or electricity, but with great meals cooked by Chander.

The second day, we went up as far as where the glacier used to be…here. I think this will be what will leave the most lasting impression on me. Chander told us how this glacier has been shrinking over the past 10 years to the point where it melts completely some years by the end of July. He talked a lot about the lack of snow in recent years, and how his village, Dharamkot, which used to have water gushing through it all year round, now has a water shortage – houses get one or two hours of water a day now. Anyone who doubts global warming should talk to Chander for an hour or two.  The really disturbing thing is that this is happening all over the Himalayas, the source of 4 major rivers on which more than a billion people depend.

Straight above my head is the Indrahari pass, where more intrepid trekkers than us and shepherds cross this range of mountains, the Dhauladhar.

Amazingly, there was a chai shop at the snow line where we met these shepherds, Chander’s relatives – he joined in a game of cards with them which was very much like bridge. So that’s what they do when they are up in the mountains for weeks on end!

As we were coming down in the afternoon, we met this shepherd, who with 2 others and 4-500 sheep and goats, were heading up over the pass to the Chamba valley on the other side. They had started early that morning, would rest near where the glacier starts and then make the last ascent starting at 4:00 next morning. They would eventually end up somewhere near the Chinese border, and were carrying all their possessions on their backs.

Earlier in the year, the shepherds would spend 3-4 weeks at a time grazing their herds up here, and living in these stone huts. Members of their families would sprint up and bring them food from time to time.

On our last morning, the weather had turned, and it was blowy and rainy. We went down a different way, shorter, but steeper and had to shelter in various shepherds’ huts a couple of times. But it was still a gorgeous walk, and our legs were suitably sore at the end!

We spent a few more days after the trek exploring Dharamsala, during which time we developed a love for Tibetan food, an appreciation for the plight of Tibet and a better awareness of Buddhism.

And now we’re back in Mumbai, planning our next trip. But in the meantime, we have spent another day in the city, and another week reading the papers, talking to people and getting to know this incredible country. And how does it compare to our experiences in Tanzania? – first I have to say that I have never seen poverty like this before…in Dar, the worst types of houses were still usually at least made of concrete, here there are many made out of tin, what look like flour sacks, and scrappy bits of tarpaulin. And even worse are the squatters’ huts along the railway tracks, or seeing whole families camped out on a piece of cloth on the sidewalk. There is little street crime here, compared to Dar: however, we hear that organized crime happens on a huge scale, murders, corruption and police brutality are everyday occurances. India’s GDP per capita is more than double that of Tanzania, yet more children attend primary school in Tanzania than in India – and from what I hear, the government schools in Mumbai are more or less non-existent. Even the poorest people try to scrape together money to send their children to private schools here, most of them probably pretty low budget/quality. Public healthcare seems equally dismal in both places – a lot of money is required for any kind of advanced treatment through a  mostly privatised system. And the kind of beggars one sees here – its not just that there are so many more in India than in Dar, there is a different kind. I think the ones that affect me most are the old people and the children – today an tiny, ancient woman was begging in the train station – she was so emaciated she couldn’t walk, and couldn’t have weighed more than 70 lbs. And what about class divisions? In Tanzania, there is a fairly recent wealthy class, and there are some families that did well under colonial rule, and still do well. The middle class is emerging, and there are lots of poor people. In India, there are huge divides between economic classes, but added to that there is the caste system, which, judging from the ads on the “Matrimonials” pages in the Times of India, listed by caste, is alive and well.  There is a big debate now about whether people should be asked their caste on the next census.

The Mahalakshmi dhobi ghats where clothes are brought from all over the city to be washed.

But I just finished reading an excellent, if depressing book called “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” by Suketu Mehta and he concludes that India is a country in which everyone is working for and is part of an organism much bigger than the self - even gangsters feel like they are contributing to a cause, and on the most basic level, the family/extended family is what most Indians are working for. Maybe that explains how the auto-rickshaw driver we were talking to, a recent migrant from Uttar Pradesh (as are most of the drivers) can live in one room in the Santa Cruz slum with 7 other men, with no plumbing or access to water, and still send money home to his parents and his newly married wife. I’m not sure I will come close to understanding anything about this country in the few weeks I have left, but it certainly has been a fascinating counter-point to our time in Tanzania!