I don’t
think that this area in the Himalayas is actually referred to as the “Land of
One Thousand Waterfalls,” but it totally should be. I don’t think I’ve ever
been anywhere with more rivers and waterfalls in my entire life. Just to get
from our hotel to the town of Munsiyari we have to cross 2 rivers and that’s
only a 15 minute walk. Another thing, when I say cross a river I don’t mean use
a bridge to pass over the river without getting wet. I mean we take off our
shoes and walk through a river than spills out over the road. These river
crossings aren’t uncommon, either. On the drive from Jageshwar to Munsiyari we
crossed tons of them in our jeep (going a tad too fast if you ask me). I really
do admire the skill of the drivers around here. They take mountain paths very
quickly, turning a one-way street into a two-way street by simply driving off
the road to let the cars driving the other way pass. I’m not doing these
gut-wrenching rides justice in their descriptions. Although I’ve never actually
feared for my life during them, there have been times when my heart has skipped
a beat as we swerved to avoid oncoming traffic or teetered near the edge of a
cliff while forging a river.
On the drive from Jageshwar to
Munsiyari we passed through an area that had just had a landslide the day
before and at the bottom of the valley there was this beautiful braided river
of clear mountain spring water and dirty erosion water. There were beautiful
views of emerald canyons and jagged mountain peaks, all streaked with white
waterfalls. My camera was unfortunately in my bag that was stuck under a pile
of other luggage, but I’m sure some of the other BYP people got amazing
pictures of the drive.
There was one particular fall that
we could see from kilometers and kilometers away. It was stark white against an
otherwise deep green mountain face and none of the pictures we took did it
justice. We ended up hiking up to it (much to our surprise) and it was one of
my favorite experiences in India thus far. After a 5 hour car ride all of us
were itching to stretch our legs and lungs and many of us speed
walked/jogged/sprinted to the top (we had to slow down as we got nearer and
everything was covered in moss). The path led right up under the waterfall and
we were all jumping and screaming in the downpour. We tried to take pictures
with Alex’s waterproof camera, but there were always droplets on the lens that
would obscure our faces in the pictures L.
After about a minute we were all totally soaked and it was only then that we
realized we still had an hour more to go until we reached Munsiyari. Trekking
back down to the car we frantically attempted to wring out our clothes, but
mostly we were all really wet and really cold (it was probably around 65 F
out). To add insult to injury, I was wearing a white kurta and had to
strategically position my green dupatta in order to remain fairly covered. We
all piled into the cars and sat on what towels we could dig out of our luggage.
I found 2 more leeches on me on the drive and that distracted me a little from
how insanely cold I was, but I think all of us had our teeth chattering at some
point or another.
Soon enough we arrived at Milam Inn
and we all raced to change into warmer clothes. It’s not actually all that cold
in Munsiyari, but we all were wearing multiple layers, hats, gloves, and
basically whatever cold weather gear we could get our hands on. I even semi-enjoyed
my chai that night because it was warm and I was so cold. (I’ll write more
about my feelings on chai later).
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