1 wedding, 2 magpies and 3 cups of chai tea = a great day out

Mcleod Ganj suddenly turned on its best sparkling champagne winter on 1 December, the day after I bought a pair of post-mortem rubber gloves for a nun in long-term retreat.  A great time to go for a hike. 

Local Ghadi women in party clothes, Dharamkot

So Julia put aside her studies and translations and I shelve my editing and writing projects and we agreed to meet at the Himalayan Tea House at Dharamkot to walk up to Gallu Falls – likely to be full of water after the torrential rains of the past week.

Long-term blog readers will already know that the HTH serves one of the best aloo paranthas in Himachal Pradesh but I have already started the day with a bowl of Surinder’s banana porridge so I just sip excellent masala chai (#1) while I wait for Julia.

While I’m waiting, I am taunted by magpies. I have been trying to take a photo of a Himalayan Blue magpie and its exuberantly long striped tail for two years. A pair are calling and diving around in the trees on the other side of the taxi rank in the chowk, so I dive over to take a photo. They immediately fly off down the valley. I sit back down with my chai.

Julia arrives and It’s time to walk. But groups of local Ghadi people are congregating to go to a wedding. The women’s costumes are intricate and layered with influences from gypsies and the Silk Roads and proud mountain heritage. They are happy when I ask permission to take a photograph of them.

The magpies return to the tree across the chowk. So do I. They fly away again. When I sit back down to finish my chai, they swoop at eyebrow level across the chowk, almost flying between my nose and my cup before settling in a deodar tree inside the tall iron gates of Tushita Buddhist Institute. Finally, after coyly circling the tree, they let me take their photo as if they meant to cooperate all along.

Himalayan yellow-billed blue magpies
(Urocissa flaviostris)

It’s really time to walk now.

[If you are taking this hike, follow the road to the left wall of the Dharamkot water treatment plant; about 50 metres along, at the gravel piles, strike up over the wooded the ridge on your right. On the far side you find a shady wide forest path to Triund. Take this path.]

The slate-flagged mule path rises gradually over half an hour, always shaded by the deodar trees but teasing us with glimpses of snow peaks ahead. Sunlight streams more thickly through the branches until we reach the tiny open saddle and the full glory of the mountain circle opens up behind the Gallu chai shop. Pause and smile and press on.

Rest A While chai shop, Gallu village

[At this point, walk to the left and contour along the path that passes in front of the Mountain View Guest House and behind the next guest house. The path stays level all the way through the valley cleft from now to the falls.]

For two hours, Julia and I take the narrow path over rock steps, and tree roots, popping in and out of sun patches. A couple of times the path traverses recent land slip rock falls; Julia hesitates at this bit, but she takes a deep breath and crosses. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Two young American men overtake us at a quick pace, disappearing round one of the many corners. Soon we can hear the waterfall – a constant rush of sound somewhere round those same corners. Suddenly the young boys are heading back past us. They didn’t reach the falls before they turned back – did they run out of time or did they feel the fear?

We very soon arrive at the granite platform above the falls, shaded in the bottom of the ravine. The water roars down the dark tumbled boulders then cascades into clear green sparkling pools where the sun is creeping round the spur and into the river cleft.  A group of young Indian men worries that we are too near the edge of the platform.

[From the rock platform,drop down the almost hidden cliff face path back to your left to get to the falls.]

Down close to the water, the tiny stone-built chai shop is open for business. The chai is spicy warm (#2), the padded stone bench is comfortable, and the noodle soup welcome.

Gallu Falls chai shop - highly recommended

Across the river by the still-dark waterfall pools is a slate plaque with painted Hebrew writing. Just the final line commemorates the life and death of Hadas in English. What happened? Did her young life end here? Or maybe she loved this place so much that she wanted her memories of it to be marked after her death?

At Sunset View 

Julia has lost any hesitation as we scramble round the boulders of the plunge pool, eventually climbing and heading back along the landslip path, leaving the young Indian men taking photos of themselves paddling up to their bare knees in the icy cold green pools. Now that’s brave!

We stop once more, at the famous Sunset View tea house along the path, for KitKats and chai (#3) with a golden view down the valley. This tea shop has everything you could wish for: slumbering dogs at our feet, a djembe under the table, chippies and post cards, terraces below where Tibetan hikers are swishing their shiny long black hair, padded benches that double as beds if you want a nap, a wood stove to warm your knees when the sunset isn't warming the open lounge area, and a solitary monk sitting in the window memorizing a text while he sips his glass of tea. 

What a glorious end to our great day out.

PS. About those rubber gloves. My friend Rebecca has a friend who is a nun in long-term retreat over in a nunnery at Bir Billing. We searched McLeod unsuccessfully for a pair of heavy rubber gloves so that the nun doesn’t get such chapped cold hands doing her own laundry in the bitter winter. At last I went to the local Bunnings (that is another story) and the owner produced a solid heavy pair whose packet proudly claims, “Royal Post Mortem Gloves … For protection of the hands…Wash, dry and sprinkle with talcum powder before repeat use”. Who could resist?