4/10/03 Saturday
Badrinath to Karanprayag.
Once again we had an early start rising at 6am. We had a full day of travel in the bus, and another the next day, so we settled in and retraced the road back down the mountain once “the gates” were open at this end of the road at 7.30am. I took a photo of the steep twisty road down the mountainside, to show exactly what it was like. It was not scary, and the drivers were fabulous, safe and slow. The days had continued to be warm, and it was nice to get the wonderful views of the mountains without too much cloud to obscure the rugged tops. Once back down past Joshimath where the valley opened up from the narrow ravine we had been travelling in, we were once again back in the area of the road works. We were held up with the blasting, and just had to wait, knowing that this put back our schedule, and were very reminded again of the Indian stretchable time!! We passed by the pipple tree, left in the middle of the new road, surrounded by a stone wall, protected from the development, for this is a sacred tree. The construction gangs are large, and do tremendous work building retaining walls moving large rocks, and building the wider roads. Still there are landslips over these new walls, and they have not all been cleared so we just drove round them.
Back down in the lower lands, we were back among the rice terraces. Branching of at Chamoli where we had come to on the way up the valley, we drove through a beautiful set of valleys, up and down, beside rivers until we got to a small village where we stopped for lunch. We had driven quite a lot alongside the Pingari River. It was 4.30pm so a long time since breakfast, although we had snacked on fruit, chips, biscuits and nuts along the way. Once again we were the interest of the village people, and they stood and stared at us eating our lunch for ages. We then moved on, once again twisting and turning over the hills and valleys, until we came to our next camp at dusk. The sun was setting on the beautiful mountains and Mt Nanda- Devi, and its surrounding sanctuary sitting at 26,000feet, looked very majestic, but peaceful as the colours turned from pink to bright orange, from our height of 7,500 feet. The camp was beside a small pond where fish jumped in the fading evening light. This was to be our last night camping, and in the morning we would say good-bye to our camp crew, who were heading back to Delhi and then some were going up to the Ganges at Rishikesh, to begin the white water rafting trips from further up the river. We enjoyed rum and tea and Davinder told us some more stories and mythologies. He told us about the beginning of Tibetan Buddhism and how that came about.
Tomorrow we were to leave for Gwaldam and then Raniket. This is the land of Babaji, MahaAvatar.
“I am no-one and nothing. This body has no meaning, it is here to serve people….I am the mirror, in which you can see yourself. I am like fire; don’t stay too far away or you won’t get the warmth: but don’t come too close lest you get burnt. My name is Mahaprabhuji (the great Lord)”.
Babaji.
(From: Message from the Master in the Himalayas. M.G. Wosien)
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