Sarahan, India

We left Shimla behind as we set out for Sarahan. The drive was quite rough with the bumpiest roads that I have ever driven on (so far), full of potholes and plenty of twists and turns. It was a little unnerving with cars, motorcycles and buses coming from all directions. A huge proportion of the trucks were carrying apples to distributors that would make their way across India and beyond.

I had no idea that Himachal Pradesh was a huge producer of apples. There were orchards and trees covering every square inch of land for mile after mile. (This continued on for several days afterward with the only differences being the decreasing density as the air and water became less and the increasing need for terracing due to the steepness of the land). I felt really sorry for the pickers who had to scale the hills to get to the trees, climb the trees to get the apples and then negotiate the hills again, this time carrying heavy, apple filled baskets on their back. People were serious about their orchards – everywhere orchards were locked and fenced or even surrounded with barbed wire.

We arrived in Sarahan to settle into the government run Hotel Srikhand. It was perched precariously on the side of on a hill. It was a bit scary not having anything supporting the structure below,(especially when you can’t be sure of the structural engineering of the design and the building codes in the area). As the village was located at the level where the incoming monsoon clouds hit the Himalayas, everything was quite damp. On the plus side, one of our co-travelers, Graham, felt that this would be the most challenging hotel of the entire journey. He came to this conclusion after reading the hotel website whose entire list of amenities consisted of ‘hot and cold water.’

We went for a walk to see the village’s Hindu/Buudhist Bhimakali Temple and got to witness one of our traveling companions take part in a religious celebration or Puja.

Prior to dinner we had drinks and tea on the balcony as we watched the clouds roll in to obscure the view of the surrounding mountains.. When the clouds burned off the next morning at breakfast, we got our first glimpse of Grand Himalayas: a snow covered mountain way, way, way off in the distance. It was a little tease to make us look forward to moving on (as if the hotel wasn’t enough…)