Of course, I needed a close-up view of the glacier at the foot of the range. I was scrambling through slippery ice for a vantage point. One of my trekking poles went tumbling down the side on to the frozen slush. I had another week of treacherous rocks to negotiate on the way down. How would I manage without the second pole?
I need not have worried. The ever-resourceful Dinesh managed a branch in this treeless landscape, which he sharpened and shaped into a pole for me to use on my descent. The porters and guides here are pole-free wonders, nimble and fleet-footed, skipping over the rocks and scree that so challenge the rest of us.
If you think we got a rousing welcome when we returned home intact, think again. There was nary a squeak from any of our detractors. My husband just shrugged his shoulders, secretly hoping we would not be emboldened now to repeat this foolhardy venture to yet another mountain next year, a wish that must have resonated with P’s spouse as well. S’s American family promptly pre-empted any such possibility by declaring their intention to henceforth take family holidays to Mexico and Latin America instead of wasting their resources and time on nostalgic trips to Asia.
Coiffuring is challenging business in windy Jomsom, the starting point for the Mustang trek
Awed and Outwitted by Egypt’s Gifts
You may choose to go to Aswan for your own reasons. You might be an Agatha Christie fan stalking the ‘Old Cataract’ out of sheer nostalgia, an archaeologist enamoured of real antiquity for a change—in a world full of fake ones, an admirer of Egypt’s former president Abdel Nasser for cocking a snook at the British by building the Aswan High Dam. Be advised—you will, in all probability, be lured into deceptively mundane pursuits, despite yourself.
Aswan’s placid streets don’t seem to be overrun by tourists, even though, as if in anticipation, the town is peppered with ‘Papyrus Institutes’ and ‘perfumeries’ waiting to ensnare the unwary traveller. And your guide can be extremely persuasive in leading you to these lairs. Should you be foolish enough to wander into any of these establishments, you would have indeed crossed the point of no return. Even before you realize what’s happening, you’re shepherded into a garishly designed lobby and surrounded by a posse of shrewd and extremely aggressive salesmen who take vantage positions to block your exit. A lurid red liquid in a stem glass—which you later find out is an unpalatable drink made out of dried hibiscus flower—is thrust into your hands and you are pushed on to cushions and sofas. The manager, dressed like a bouncer at a disco, soon materializes, and with his practised eye, swoops down on the ‘boss’ of the group—the one who can make purchase decisions and loosen purse strings. In fact, everyone in Egypt, from tonga-wallah to souvenir salesman, seems to have the uncanny knack of accurately identifying the ‘boss’.
And then the blitzkrieg begins, on essential oils and lotus and its significance in ancient Egyptian folklore and how it can cure everything from arthritis to asthma—this, looking at your middle-aged midriff bulging ominously, and how it can enhance your vitality and vigour—this, with a meaningful glance at your menfolk. You give in, if only to stop the filibuster sales spiel. Many vials are thrust into your hands and you are shepherded to the cash counter. The walls are lined with photographs of the manager with film stars, sportsmen and celebrities, all grinning nervously like lambs en route to the abattoir. Your wallet is considerably lighter and your heart commensurately heavier as you emerge from this ordeal laden with an assortment of bottles shaped like minarets and domes and all filled probably with coloured water.
The Nile appears even bluer in Aswan and of course it has swelled, like a pregnant woman, to a lovely lake—Lake Nassr—formed by the Aswan High Dam that turned the barren desert into verdant swatches of sugar cane, mango and banana plantations.
The Aswan Dam has an interesting history that is linked to the history of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, a narrow channel between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, built in 1869, was a huge boon to the West, whose oil supplies from the Middle East would otherwise have to take a circuitous route around Africa. Although built by Egypt, largely with forced labour, the canal was controlled by the British and the French who had vested interests in it.
When Nasser wanted to build the Aswan Dam on the Nile to stop the annual flooding and to generate electricity to light up homes in Egypt, he had originally negotiated financial assistance from Britain and the US.
But then came the Cold War era. Nasser’s refusal to side with the US against Russia (he was a buddy of Nehru and Tito who spearheaded the Non-Aligned Movement) and his perceived proximity to the latter put paid to the loan agreement. A determined Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal and collect tolls from passing ships to fund the dam. Naturally, this precipitated an international crisis. Britain, France and Israel teamed up to invade Egypt, but were thwarted by the UN and the US. Since then, the Suez has remained with the Egyptians—their pride and their highest source of income.
Understandably, your guide too swells with pride when he narrates the history of the Aswan High Dam. He even tells you that the Statue of Liberty was originally meant for the Suez Canal, but got diverted to the newly independent confederacy of American states.
After Aswan, we’re off to Abu Simbel, deep into the Nubian Desert on the Sudanese border. Travellers to Abu Simbel have to move in a convoy that leaves twice a day, once before sunrise and again around 11 a.m. Ever since a bunch of rogue Nubian tribesmen—allegedly Sudanese—swooped on a busload of Canadian and European tourists and stabbed quite a few of them to death some years ago, the Egyptian government takes no chances. In fact, in most parts of Egypt, Tourism Police are ubiquitous, and here, they tote guns and pistols. After all, isn’t tourism Egypt’s second highest money-spinner after the Suez Canal? But this feels more like being led to a concentration camp in the middle of the desert than to the historical treasure that Abu Simbel is.
Carvings in the temple at Abu Simbel
The temple at Abu Simbel has its back to the visitor. In order to access it, you have to navigate a minefield of persistent Nubian salesmen chorusing ‘Namaste’ and hurling in rapid-fire the names of our Bollywood heroes in the hope you’d buy their kitsch. You dodge them deftly and go around a barren mountain and suddenly come upon the three massive statues, each 20 metres high and depicting Ramesses II in a seated position watching over the Nile for any intruders who might be foolhardy enough to challenge his supremacy.
Relief Carvings of Nubian slaves in the temple at Abu Simbel
Carved out of the rocky mountain on the west bank of the Nile, the temples dedicated to gods Ra Harakhty, Amun and Ptah—apart from Ramesses II, ancient Egypt’s mightiest and much admired monarch—were an accidental discovery. Swiss explorer Jean-Louis Burckhardt chanced upon just a massive head jutting out of a sand mound. The temple was then excavated and dusted and put on display. When the Aswan Dam was built, the temples were in danger of being submerged by Lake Nasser. A conscientious Egyptian government then had it shifted painstakingly, stone by carved stone, to its present site.
The temple of Hathor II in Abu Simbel
Even as you’re gaping at the statues, an alabaster jar is thrust into your hands. It is indeed beautifully translucent and very light. As you’re admiring the jar, holding it up against the sun to see the patterns, it crumbles into a million pieces and scatters to the ground. This is what the Bedouin salesman was waiting for. You cough up the extortionate price that he insists you pay. It is only much later you find out that this is a standard con job in these parts and that alabaster is too delicate to even hold.
Few visitors stay on in Abu Simbel, which has just a couple of hotels, both overpriced. But with such excellent roads, whoever would think of staying back? On our way back, I chat with Atta, our guide, and tell him it must be a difficult name to have these days—9/11 had happened just a few years before. Atta is unfazed by this patronizing comment from a boorish Indian woman. ‘Oh, because of 9/11? In Egypt, Atta is not only a common surname, but it also m
eans Gift from the Gods.’
Oktoberfest: The Goblet of Bacchus
Avoid Munich in October. It’s that time of the year when the city’s denizens and visitors lose their collective marbles to hilarious effect. Oktoberfest is an unmitigated (but not altogether unpleasant) assault on all your senses—visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory. Of course, everyone present, including you, is both perpetrator and victim. During the fest, Munich in the evenings is a visual delight, with millions of twinkling fairy lights complemented by brightly illuminated rides and roller coasters. One can indulge in every juvenile whim and fancy: get tossed in a swirling merry-go-round that rides up a pole and opens like a giant umbrella to hurl you upside down, drop down in a stomach-churning devil trap through a vertical shaft or saunter through an artificial cave to confront demons and monsters.
To indulge in some real action though, head to one of the many tents put up by Bavaria’s famous breweries. The collective chatter of a few thousand voice boxes is loud enough to drown out various bands gamely trying to produce music above the din.
The fest rules require you to be seated, however precariously, to be served beer. That’s easier said than done. Each brand has its own hall and there are several of these. Your hall may be as big as a football stadium, with hundreds of benches jammed closely together. But the place is teeming with humanity, all crammed into these benches and many standing on tables trying to catch the attention of passing barmaids. If you want a seat, you will have to push, shove and crash into groups of total strangers who are equally determined to not let you in. It takes much ingenuity, oodles of charm and powerful ‘elbow’ work to wrest a spot. Once you have accomplished this, half the battle is won.
And then begins part two of your ordeal—catching the eye of the barmaids. You may stand on the benches, bellow, scream, hail, wave and look like a buffoon, but no one minds. Either they are too drunk to care or themselves trying their brand of buffoonery. After several tries, one finally manages to have a barmaid’s wavering attention for a split second in which you thrust two crisp €10 notes into her apron pocket. She disappears into the mass of humanity and there is no sign of her for the next half an hour. Not that you need the beer to get into the spirit of the evening; after all, the tent is so reeking with alcohol that you just need to breathe deeply. Everyone is happily sloshed and most have collapsed on their benches with abandon, their limbs stretched out languorously.
With your fellow benchers in a state of surrender to Bacchus, you eye their drink, wondering if they’d notice if you took a swig. With a furtive glance all around, you reach for one of the many glasses on the table, but a hand promptly comes down like a guillotine to cut you off. Shamefacedly, you try to pretend to be as drunk and manage a weak smile.
Finally, the barmaid heaves into view, her slender wrists balancing six massive glasses in each hand, the frothy golden liquid sloshing all over the place. Also doing the rounds are young women dressed like milkmaids and hawking assorted eats, including pretzels as big as steering wheels.
Earlier in the evening, as I took the metro to the site of the fest, it was filled with men and women in traditional costumes that might have been worn 200 years ago when the first year of the festival was celebrated to commemorate the union of Crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese. Girls in golden braids and milkmaid costumes with partners in breeches and funny hats are a common sight. It is as though you’re in the Bavaria of yore—if you ignore the setting, that is.
There are posters in the city that tell you how, in the previous year, more than 6 million visitors downed 7 million litres of beer, and munched on several thousand yards of sausages. According to a news report, visitors lost or left behind ‘one hearing aid, a leather whip, a live rabbit, a tuba, a ship in a bottle, 1450 items of clothing, 770 identity cards, 420 wallets, 366 keys, 330 bags and 320 pairs of glasses, 90 cameras and 90 items of jewellery and watches. A total of 37 children were also lost’. One can well imagine how much they must have enjoyed themselves to accomplish this feat!
After a drinking spree, if you can still stagger out of the tent, there are hordes of rickshaws waiting outside to take you back to your hotel long after the metro and buses stop running. But make sure you don’t stay too close to the fest venue, or you will end up being awake all night, due to continuous wails of ambulance sirens as they ferry drunken revellers to hospitals in the city. But make no mistake, the same drunken revellers will return to the same fest ground the next day to do it all over again. It is that irresistible!
Time Travelling to Issyk-Kul
It seems a minor miracle that we survived the landing, considering the extent of blinding snow all around the tarmac. Our tiny Uzbek Air plane of Soviet provenance was probably held together more by the indomitable will of its engineer than by the laws of physics. As I stumble out of Bishkek airport at this unearthly hour—it is past six in the evening, nearly three hours after sunset in winter in the Kyrgyz capital—there is a single taxi parked at some distance. I dart out, braving the blizzard, skid over the ice to make my way to the rickety Lada. With nary a by-your-leave, I yank open the back door and dive in.
Maximilian Alexandrovich—I would learn his name later—the grizzly Russian driver was obviously not expecting any passengers this evening. He stares at me blankly. From the fumes inside the cab, I presume he is in a vodka-induced daze. I wonder if ex-Soviet taxi drivers consider passengers an occasional interruption to their daily schedule of lazing around in their cabs. I also wonder whether it is wise to hire his taxi, but unfortunately, there is no other outside Bishkek airport tonight.
I had not planned it this way. I was to arrive in Bishkek by noon, take a cab directly to Lake Issyk-Kul six hours away and check into Abror Gastanista, recommended by my good friend R. But my plans went awry when the flight from Tashkent to Bishkek was delayed by six hours. Now I have no hotel bookings, speak no Russian and have to survive by my wits in this strange city.
Optimistically, I show the cab driver the scrap of paper on which R had scrawled the name of my Issyk-Kul hotel in Russian. Maxim mumbles incomprehensibly, groans, turns the paper upside down and holds it inches away from his nose. This is going to take a while. After a volley of more incomprehensible exchange—mine in Tamil and English, his in Russian, a lot of it swear words, I presume—and much gesticulating, it finally dawns on him that I am asking him to take me all the way to Lake Issyk-Kul, not to Hotel Issyk-Kul in Bishkek. Then follows a complex mime act as to how many days I plan to stay there and whether he should also bring me back to Bishkek. Finally, we arrive at the price of $200 for the package. The taxi will stay in Issyk-Kul all three days and bring me back to Bishkek (or at least that’s what I hope his understanding is).
He is still grumbling, half talking to himself, shaking his head, gesticulating. I jam a $100 bill into his grimy hands and gesture him to get going. Reluctantly he starts the car. As the heating comes on, tempers cool down. Fitful attempts at conversation prove futile. I draw my jacket around my shoulders and stretch out on the back seat of the Lada. I have enough time to rue my foolishness in not staying back at the airport that night and to pray that he takes me to my desired destination.
Eventually, the car screeches to a halt and I am jolted out of my slumber. It is still dark, although there is a flicker of light somewhere in the distance. We have stopped in front of a locked gate with a winding driveway behind it. But there is no building in sight, nor any signboard. I notice the snow swept neatly off the road on to the sidewalks has turned into ice. There hasn’t been any fresh snowfall that night.
Maxim gets out of the car, scales the gate, jumps on to the other side and is off without a word. My stupor is rapidly replaced by rising apprehension. The seconds crawl. At last, I spy two forms shuffling towards the gate. Maxim probably came back in five minutes, but in my disorientated and torporific state, it could well have been hours. The other man has a huge key bunch and a torch. He fiddles with a couple of keys before finding the
right one to unlock the gate. Maxim gets back into the car and we drive half a kilometre or so to reach the main entrance of Abror Gastanista, or so I believe, vaguely making out the Cyrillic script.
When I enter the precincts, I feel as if I have stepped through a time machine. The lobby is as cold and still as a crypt. There are life-size wooden chessmen and women placed on the chequered floor at one level. The hall is high-roofed and massive and there is a flaring central staircase with translucent marble steps. The carved banisters are peppered with statues holding up unlit torches. The red carpeting is slightly mouldy. Several over-ornate chandeliers give the lobby a cinematic opulence although the place is devoid of any signs of life.
Maxim leads me to the reception desk where no one seems to be around. But then as we approach the counter, we spot a diminutive babushka dozing off behind a glass case full of matryoshka dolls. We tap the counter and she wakes up with a jolt. She reacts as though she has seen a ghost and I almost return the compliment. She is not expecting any guests in October, the start of winter in the Tien Shan mountains. I did not have a reservation either. R had assured me it was not necessary since the gastanista has more than a hundred rooms and unlikely to be fully booked off-season.
If you’re wondering why and how I chose to go to remote Issyk-Kul of all places, that too in winter, here goes: ever since I had seen a centre spread picture of the mysterious vast blue expanse fringed by snow peaks in a magazine—probably National Geographic—I had come to covet this placid lake in the middle of nowhere. My desire was fuelled not a little by the ecstatic descriptions of my friend R who had visited Issyk-Kul many times during his university days in Tashkent. So, when an opportunity came to travel to Tashkent on work, R urged me to go to Issyk-Kul, never mind the season. Seldom do such opportunities come one’s way and one must seize the day, he insisted.
The Travel Gods Must Be Crazy Page 2