Himalayan Challenge for Whizz-Kidz
Indian Himalayas, October 28^th to November 10^th 2006
…only to be sparked into life again as the sun lifted the dark chill of night, and we sat once more at the long table in this Himalayan garden… for breakfast. Enough of an experience in itself, really, but the gods had other ideas…The deceptively tentative, early morning voices of an intrepid trekking team swelled before long into the chorus of a well-known British birthday song, and I was regaled with gifts and cards… A particular annual event I thought I had kept quiet…	Log 4 November 1^st Part of the Dhauladhar range…just a warm-up…			Today was to be a practice run for what was to come…we had done no real walking since arriving in India…It was time to get off our laurels, don the walking boots, fill up the platypuses with water…and get to grips with those poles. We took the jeeps to our starting point, and walked up to the remains of Ahju Fort…Built in the 17^th century, it had originally been a look-out point for the Maharajah’s kingdom. It wasn’t difficult to see why. At 7,200 feet, it commands a very respectable position…certainly in strategic terms…and afforded, for an overheated team of trekkers, a well-earned stopping place where we could drench ourselves with water…and view Act 1, Scene 1 of the spectacular Himalayan theatre.
Himalayan foothills from Ahju Fort		Trek team near Ahju Fort	Bir in the valley
Approaches to Sherab-ling Monastery		But, as with any good drama, an interval is a necessary and highly valued hiatus…so, following the descent to our vehicles, we drove to Sherab-ling Monastery…almost a hideaway, lost as it was amongst vast swathes of trees. We spent the early part of this afternoon intermezzo once more immersed in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Sherab-ling Monastery was founded along similar lines to the original monastery in Tibet (Palpung) where talented people were cultivated. The vision was to create a place here to transmit the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in its purest form. Impressive indeed, with its gold plated, jewel encrusted three-storey high Buddha and beautiful intricate thangkas, it was very shortly to be the scene of a big celebration. Whilst we idled around this impressive monument to the Kagyu Lineage, the monks outside in the courtyard were industriously preparing large vats of food for the forthcoming celebratory offerings…at which point we would most definitely be somewhere entirely different… I guess a bit of a shame really…and would the chance ever come again? But I wonder, given the choice, would any of us have stayed?… A case for ‘Sliding Doors’ perhaps…	Sherab-ling Monastery…with finger
As I recall, the later part of this last afternoon before the trek began hung in a kind of frisson of excitement. We wanted merely to relax and recharge our batteries, but, of course, there were things to be done…I mean, you can’t just get up one morning and walk off into the Himalayas… So we flittered between frantically sorting and packing clothes, flaking out on a chair in the garden, dashing madly from one room to another, collecting a camera from this one, borrowing some medication from another, back to the garden for a cup of tea , checking lists, swapping thoughts, and, hands on hips, collectively nodding and sighing in that resigned way of a traveller and his forgotten toothbrush… …and then back to the village we went! Well, it was just a break from the frenzy, a chance for a gentle stroll and a few breaths of late afternoon air…Had we stayed back, we’d have missed the children…who seemed to come out of nowhere just to see us, shake our hands…and warm our waiting hearts… And we really hadn’t gone for beer…but somehow managed to return with the odd bottle tucked here and there…and I remember that the only sounds accompanying us on that last walk back ‘home’ were the infectious peals of childish laughter echoing back and forth on the evening air… We all wanted a shower of course…should it be the last one we ever had. Twenty folks, two showers…and not a lot of time, but the prospect of deprivation’s a great incentive, and we were all scrubbed and polished by dinner… A time and motion man’s dream. It was a meal for the memory that night…Seated on the floor in carnivorous fashion once more, we filled up on the delicious fare…Especially meaningful for me, as a birthday without precedent drew to a close with an exceedingly large, fully illuminated, chocolate cake…and another round of a particular song… That day and another bonfire were snuffed out as I laid down for the last time on the hard, hard bed that had been preparing me for what was to come…
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