74. An Indian day

Today we left McLeod Ganj and the Tibetans behind and walked off into the hills, through miles of forest, around the edge of the Himalayan foothills and found lovely villages perched on the mountainsides, with terraces to grow crops, goats and sheep, houses made of the stones surrounding them on the hill, friendly, handsome people - men, women and children - who greeted us cheerfully and never demanded money, never tried to sell us anything before going on their way.  We got glimpses of high mountains in the swirling mist and looked down towards the plains of India.

When we just felt like a cup of something we found a tiny stone built cafe with a delightful old man who was fascinated by our cameras and managed to take his own picture on mine.  The bush telegraph must have been working as he was walking down to the cafe with his goats just as we approached from the other side. He opened up and put out tables and chairs for us, and the kettle on.

We eventually arrived at a tiny Hindi temple, high up on the mountain.  There were men working there making new statues, and a huge building to house the hundreds of pilgrims who will come for a big festival in the summer.  No small task as everything has to be transported up there on mules and its a good couple of hours to the nearest road.  The temple caretaker came and chatted to us and insisted on bringing us a cup of tea - Indian chai, the tea boiled up with the sugar and milk, and tasting of woodsmoke.  We gave him and his friend some biscuits and he told us to come back for the festival.  He wouldn't take any money for the tea.  We legged it home before the weather came down.

A perfect day.