Last day in Dehli

The lure of yet more shopping was not very high so I decided to book a car and driver for the afternoon and go to the Oklah Barrage reserve, just outside Delhi. Having been there the first time I was fairly certain of at least seeing some birds. So I went to reception and booked it before walking up the road to an emporium. The walk was good after all the sitting round we had been doing but it did mean that various Tuktuk drivers kept trying to take me places. I found the store but it was very disappointing as it didn't have the materials I was looking for so I looked round and then returned to the hotel. As it had rained during the night the humidity was very high. I had found out that I could buy a swimsuit at the spa, so I went down and bought the most amazing costume, with short sleeves, a frilly skirt and thigh length leggings. I then went to the changing rooms, changed and enjoyed half an hour or so just swimming and floating in the pool before I got dressed, went up to the room and then got ready to go out.
The desk were a little confused about the car but eventually I was handed into a very comfortable BMW and we set off, the driver referring to a google map to get us to the right place and then asking at various kiosks until we arrived at the entrance where a Police car blocked the entrance as the place was closed for a Shiva festival. The driver explained that I was an old women who really wanted to take photographs before I flew back the next day and they let us in, apparently for half an hour but we stretched it out for about an hour. There were very few birds on the water with some ducks, Cattle and Great white Egret, Purple Heron and a few Night Herons about. There were lots of sunbirds twitting about the bushes and I saw an oriole in the top of a tree. We had a green bee eater, babblers and many house crows but it was just fun to be birding and looking.

 

All the time we were in there there was a steady stream of men walking through carrying a variety of wooden structures decorated with tinsel and bells. These would be walking for the next few days to a festival in honour of Shiva. The humidity was a nightmare as the glass in my optics just steamed up as soon as I got out of the air conditioned car so photos were very difficult.

As we only had a limited time in the park the driver suggested I went to Haynumyas tomb as there were lots of trees around and I could probably see some birds so I agreed and he parked up in a car park were I walked across and bought a ticket and had my bag searched before going in. It was a large complex of mogul style tombs and buildings and really very interesting. 

There were quite a few birds about including parakeets and hornbills just about photographable in the misty gloom and I spent some time wandering round but I will do some research when I get home.

By 5.00 I had had enough and we returned to the hotel for a shower and sweet lime soda before we got dressed up, ready for our farewell dinner which took quite a while to get to because of the traffic and then wasn't very welcoming or friendly. However, they did offer two choices, a set Indian or Chinese. 5 of us went for the Chinese which was very tasty and lots of choice of dishes. We returned to the hotel and agreed on a 7.30 wake up call with breakfast and cases outside by 9.00, ready to go to the airport by 9.30. The breakfast was once more very comprehensive and international and then we checked our luggage was in the coach, loaded up and were delivered to the airport with plenty of time. Bag check in went Ok, security was lengthened by two bag x-ray machines feeding into one human arch and a woman officer who insisted on doing a thorough check on every female which took forever, added to by a large group of women pilgrims joining the queue where ever they felt like, then having to put bags on the rollers and generally holding things up. Once through there, last minute nicknaks, spending all the Indian money and we were called for the plane. Once onboard, it wasn't long before we were off, first having a short delay because of 'bird activity' not that I could see any. The flight back lasts around 9 hours and the visibility was quite good, so it was interesting to see the effect of water in the desert regions around northern Afghanistan and just how big the Caspian Sea is.


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The drive to Dehli.

I got up early and went for a walk up the road from the hotel. There were lots of little birds about but very difficult to see as the light was quite murky and they were flitting about in the leaves.
In the grounds there was a Greater Barbet pulling stuff off a tree and several Green-backed Tits moved about the bushes. The resident Black Bulbul defended his bush, calling and seeing off any birds that came near. The Blue Whistling Thrush lived up to its name by whistling loudly but getting pictures was a nightmare as the light was so bad.
Further up the hill there was a flock of small warblers and which I think needs some sorting out, with what I think was one of the streaked tits (book packed will check when I can) as well as several very yellow warblers. There was a very noisy flock of parakeets, (see above) as well as a pack of macaques which were running about on the rooves and crashing through the tree tops.

I returned to the hotel for breakfast and then we walked down into town to look for more presents and souvenirs. The others went to the Post Office while I did some bartering. They found a bookshop so I went down there and bought a concise copy of the flora of the Himalayas. I also got a t-shirt embroidered but as I had to wait for about half an hour we went for a walk round. The others went off and I went back for the t-shirt before returning to the hotel by Tuktuk.
We had a late lunch around 3.30 of more trout and chips before loading everything up in the cars, saying our goodbyes, taking pictures and then setting off for the coach station. This was the usual organised chaos, with coaches driving out, backing in and tooting. One of the families from Manali came to see us off. Our coach was the luxury Volvo for Dehli, we checked our luggage, found our seats and settled in for the long drive.



I manage to sleep some of the way, apparently through some heavy rain and thunderstorms, which, we heard later, had caused landslides and 2 people dead the next day. We had to negotiate several lots of road works which are, apparently, for firbre-optic cabling going to Manali.

There were several stops, including one roadside stop for a wee and two for drinks and food. We arrived in Delhi at around 7.10, the coach was waiting so we loaded up and returned back to the Shangri-la's Hotel. As it was so early we had to wait about an hour for our rooms so some of us went off and had a breakfast, which was really comprehensive and international before going to our rooms and getting a much needed shower and change of clothes.



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Back to Manali

We were up at 5.30 for breakfast, packed and ready to go for the long drive back to Manali. It was just as difficult a drive with a stop for drinks near a bridge where there was a flock of Yellow-billed Choughs flying around, a couple of Hill Pigeons and I walked back over the bridge to photograph a couple of flowers.

We made a few more stops for 'rock breaks' and lunch with a longer stop at the Kunzum Pass where we found Edelweiss. As I hadn't got out on the way up I did have a look round this time. There is a stupa surrounded by a fence and lots of prayer flags, which were difficult to photograph as there were odd wires in the way and getting angles was difficult.

Once over the pass we hit the difficult bit of road where there are lots of streams coming down the hillside. As the road is just a level cut from the rocks, these streams just flow across the road or even down it for a while, making it very difficult to negotiate with boulders, rocks and even a large metal pipe at one place. The worst one took about an hour to get through as it causes a bottleneck with cars, lorries and busses all vying for passage through. The four-wheel drives made it easiest, and often pushed through ahead of others. The drivers were very good at helping each other and others by moving rocks and building ramps, but with three cars to get through, it took a while. There were some interesting flowers to look at and the antics were very entertaining even if they got a bit close at times as they surged through the water. One of the busses just charged through, moving a large rock with its front bumper and carrying on regardless.
There were a few other difficult places but we managed to get through due to the careful driving of our drivers and we slowly wound our way through the mountains until we went over the Rohtang pass and began the descent into Manali. We stopped a couple of times for flowers and once Desh, the driver of the car in front, found blue poppies, which two of our cars stopped for. Alongside was an arum and lower down we stopped to quiz a lorry load of wood where there was a pair of Rock Buntings.

We arrived at the Mayflower around 7.00 where Anna and I had the most palatial room, with two triple sized beds in two separate rooms and a bathroom each. Unfortunately, Anna found some small maggots in her bedding and had to get them to change it.
We had a lovely trout and chips dinner before turning in after a long day.
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A Spiti Wedding

Following another lovely dinner of paneer and peas, lentil dall and rice, some of us decided to go to the wedding of a local girl with a man from Kinnaur Valley, the next valley over. We met up at around 10 pm and waited to be told that they were ready. At about 10.30 we set off up the hill to the wedding tent. Passing various other revellers we entered the tent, walked up the end and sat down on 2inch mats, cross-legged again.

At the end next to us was about 4 Spiti men in red hats and 4 Kinnaud men in traditional green trimmed hats with a white handkerchief folded in a triangle and a bunch of fluffy seed pods, pinned on. We were offered Chang, barley beer, or Arrac, a white liquor with a fiery taste. There was a lot of activity going on in the middle of the room and lots of white prayer scarves were handed out, our third one of the trip. This was followed by a lot of shouting and checking in a book. A young lady came and sat beside me and her English was good enough to help me explain some of what was going on. Apparently, in Kinnaur it is the tradition that everyone who has been invited gets a scarf, so they were checking who was here or not and giving the spare ones to a member of the missing family to be taken back and this is very important to them, so the proceedings got more and more delayed. Quite a few families were missing as there had been 3 young men killed in motoring accidents in the last week and they were in mourning. The men with hats had removed them and some were lying on their backs, snoozing.

Some activity took place as new black and white mats were put down and a swastika, with blobs was created in barley, the bride sits in this to help promote fertility. Eventually, well after midnight, there was a stir and the men from Kinnaur put on their hats, got up and went off into the dark. A few minutes later a band came back in followed by the men in hats and the bridegroom, a man in a red hat who was leading the bride and a bridesmaid.

They settled themselves on the mat, the bride had an amazing headdress of silver and aquamarine and never raised her head. Then one of the bride's side started intoning prayers, stopping every now and then to take a sip of something, at the same time people were coming up and giving money. Some of them had made a fan of the money with names of donators pinned to them, some of them had huge wodges of money with names of givers, wrapped up in a prayer scarf and a few had wrapped up presents in bright paper.

We took this opportunity to hand in our small donations and leave as it was getting on for 2.00. We struggled back down the hill and fell into bed, where I had the best night's sleep for a week.



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Back to Kaza

This morning we could take our time as we weren't leaving until after an early lunch. Some of the others went for a walk with Joan to see another part of the village but I decided to do my own thing and potter about the hillside. There was a stupa just up the hill with a wall around it and terraces so I walked up beside the wall where there were some blue butterflies which I photographed and then a Clouded Yellow type eventually settled on a flower head, allowing some photos. A walk up the hill and the flora was very different with some pinks, house leeks, senecio and white labiates dotted about. An oriental Turtle Dove flew off the ground and settled briefly on a wall before going off up the hill.

I returned just as the walking party did and we all sat down to another lovely rice risotto lunch cooked by Rinco.

After packing up and making our way up to the parking area we found that the wedding party were in the process of leaving. The bride was in the car with her bridesmaid and was taking a tearful farewell of her mother. It is customary for the bride to cry and she sobbed quietly, still under her heavy silver and turquoise headdress. There was a band playing in bursts and one of the men from last night was saying prayers while dipping his feathers into some milky substance. There was also a collection of bottles with prayer scarves tied round them and money tucked in, which were retrieved after the prayers.

The drivers had loaded up the cars while waiting for the wedding party to leave and we climbed into our cars before setting off back to Kaza. We were in the middle of the wedding procession with the band playing at the front and about 25-30 cars in convoy. They stopped twice to perform a puja at the entrance to the village and at the bridge before they went right towards Tabo and we went left towards Kaza. At one of the stops 3 of the Kinnaur men came along and stood chatting with us. One of them kept inviting us to visit him in his village.

The drive back took about 4 hours and, at one point, we had to take a diversion across the river bed as the road was blocked. We were, by now, pretty used to the rocking and rolling of the cars and the dust could be a bit of a pain but some of the scenery really was lovely.
We stopped in Kaza for a couple of hours to do any last minute shopping and use the wifi facilities before heading back to the Spiti Serai Hotel. We settled into the hotel again and after a quick wash and brush up we went to dinner.