By Taxi to McLeod Ganj

To get from Rishikesh to McLeod Ganj there are essentially three options; train, bus (of various shades), or taxi. By chance Jess and I were intending to go there around the same time so we had shopped around looking for the best deal. For some reason we came to a largely silent agreement that a taxi sounded pretty cool. We had tried to get some more people on board but they all piked on us at the last minute.
So, in the pre-dawn chill of Tuesday (6th) I stepped out of my room, fixed up my bill, and knocked on Jess' door. Having forgotten to set her alarm (tut tut) I set off for the taxi alone, savouring the dark, quiet streets. At the statue of Lakshman I met our charioteer and his esteemed carriage. Jess soon arrived and we set off beneath a sky slowly lightening.
It was, shall we say, a small car, and probably not one intended to run the gamut of the myriad potholes and rocks of northern India. Nor, I don't mind saying, was it at all suitable for any more than three people with bags. I silently thanked our two pikers as two was an agreeable number in terms of space (ie. we could both sleep relatively comfortably). The roads themselves were atrocious, often with long stretches 'under construction' (road dug up and left so). We were driving on some major roads too, but the only really decent stretch was around Chandigarh. Most appeared more like neglected backroads to my Australian eyes.
Much of the country we drove through was either simply beautiful or breathtaking. I say this referring both to the physical landscape and the cultural. I was particularly struck by the Sikh country in which shining white gurdwarras dotted the landscape, visible often from miles away, their gold tipped onion-like domes reflecting the hazy sunlight. It gave the land an enchanted feel, rich in stability and tradition. I got the feeling that they acted like beacons, or maybe markers of both physical and spiritual landscape, communicating more than any road sign or guidebook could. I was reminded of the power of the church spire or bells from my own cultural context as a socio-psychological organiser - the way it can act as an local axis-mundi to those whose lives it works in. Where the church bell can be heard, or the spire seen, there the parish lies.
Jess and I stopped counting distinct landscape changes at around 7 or 8 as we entered the toes of the Himalayas again. At first a quiet fascination held our eyes - the land reminded me of northern Greece with its chaotic hills and valleys, hardy trees, and sinuous roads. This was the first 'ridge', and as we hit the top a dramatic valley scene unfolded before us (sorry no pictures... too bumpy). Away in the distance a green-blue river meandered lazily amid a stony floor. In the apparently far distance to the north a bank of clouds sat unmoving. I presumed they were veiling the first true mountains, but when we reached the valley proper I was shocked to realise that there were in fact only a few clouds. Actually what I looked upon was a mighty wall rising seemingly straight up from the river. Even Jess, a Colorado mountain girl, was amazed, but all I could do was sit either in open mouthed amazement, or smile and giggle stupidly at what I was drinking in. How is it possible that this is my job? The guilty pleasure of that realisation made me laugh even more. But there was a hollowness too; where was the person I most deeply wanted to share this bizarre experience with? Where was my translator, my sounding board, my completeness? Where was my Abi? The pain of it was arresting, and the tune in my heart thinned, lacking its full compliment of strings. The sonnet bittersweet. That's life, I guess.
The final climb to McLeod Ganj was vertiginous and a new exercise in riding through corners (a game of which would have been fun but my mood was not right for it). We arrived, finally, at around 18:30 after a touch over 12 hours of physically assaulting driving (my arse was very sore). Finding rooms took us a while, but eventually we settled on a dingy dive in Bhagsunag, a small town 2kms from McLeod Ganj. We looked at some great places that were out of our price range and some that were just crap for the price (though in hindsight we should have taken them). Here's a picture from the top of the Mount View Hotel.Impressive!!
I have only one thing to say about my room in Bhagsunag:
Filthiest room ever!!!