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Gangotri
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8, 11-12th October 2004.
We took a rickety, scary, bus from Uttarkashi to Gangotri. A whole day on a bus that has a tendance to back up on the side of cliff faces meant that we were well in need of a drink when we got here. But the whole place is dry as it is one of the holiest places in India. It sits at 3042 metres (read: cold at night), and has very basic accommodation (read: no hot showers, bucket water).
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Many pilgrims make do with these Ghats in town as they can't be bothered to walk the 18 kilometres up river, to the sacred place of Gaumukh, where the physical source of the Ganges is.
We trekked from Gangotri to Chribasa and onto the "Cows Mouth" or snout of the Glacier at Gaumukh
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This is the Gangotri Temple which was built by Amar Singh Thapa in the 18th century.
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Being a religious place of worship, naturally cricket is played in the evening here - another Indian religion. Apparently they give (ie: lose) 5 or 6 balls a day into the great Ganges.
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This guy, in our favourite restaurant here, looks abit like Jason's mate Greg. He definitely acted like Greg, and had a very cheeky manner.
Note: Claire in background clutching hold of metal cup in an attempt to keep warm.
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On returning back from our trek, we got to see Gangotri in full snow. This boy tries to keep warm with his fire, it was one of the only sources of heat in town and we were very jealous.
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Frozen vegetables on the side of the street.
The locals weren't expecting the snow and if this bloke knew it was coming he was probably to lazy to move his veg anyway.
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The Ghats don't look as inviting for a dip in the snow. We didn't see anyone do this in the snow.
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The pilgrims that have travelled all over India to get there, don't care much about the snow. It was so funny to watch them waddle about in their flip flops and plastic wraps, hasn't anyone told them to wear socks and thermals in the snow? We were wearing all our clothes and were still cold.
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We wandered around town trying to find a warm place that would serve us food, instead we came upon this waterfall and a hippy who refused to have his photo taken sitting cross legged in the snow wearing a tea cloth.
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Despite being so cold, it was beautiful and we were like excited kids running around enjoying the snow.
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The next day we decided it was definitely time to go down to lower climates. The bus took a while coming and there was lots of bag changing and bus chaos before we got to Uttarkashi.
A mini bus infront of us banged into a bigger bus, this was the damage.
No one was injured, no vehicle was immobilised but it still took 90 minutes to clear the road while these muppets argued over whose fault it was. They had to sort out payment of the damage as one bus driver is likely to loose his job over the incident.
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