Tagne 2001

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Dan's Diary

Day 40 - Monday 6th August 2001

Manali Centre

I was up by 9:15am. A man came and knocked at the door. No one wanted to get up and answer it, but Jon gave in first. A porter walked in and took our clean laundry out of the bag and proceeded to show us how all the garments were clean, nicely folded and wrapped in pages from the Times of India. We thanked him and I took a closer look. The laundry had all been done outside by hand the previous day and so I wasn't expecting anything too good. Also, many of the items contained a months worth of dirt! I was surprised to find everything neatly pressed and in pristine condition, better than a machine would have done any day. I contemplated hiring the guy to do my washing for me back in Britain.

We went down to the restaurant for breakfast ready to face another morning of calamities and mishaps. Alan and Steve were already in the restaurant waiting for their breakfast. The waiter didn't disappoint. First of all he forget to bring us our cornflakes and then he apologised profusely as they had run out of milk. I felt sorry for the poor guy who clearly had a memory span of about two seconds. He was always rushing around doing things, but there was only us in the restaurant. I would hate to think what disasters would have happened had he had a full restaurant to cope with. He brought us omelettes but there were no forks to eat them with. We had to ask for more butter, and he brought a few more knobs, but these didn't last long so we had to ask for some more. Why didn't he just bring us lots in the first place, so we wouldn't have to keep asking for more?

The view across the Kullu Valley

We discussed the naming of peak 6030 again and after lengthy discussion, no better name had been proposed than Ocean Peak, or "Sagar", as it would be called in Hindi. It was then back upstairs to watch morning television for a few hours.

Alan and Steve came around at 11:40am and we got ready to go up to Manali. It took us ages to get ready. Alan noted that only one person could put their shoes on at a time as Jon, Andy and I all took it in turns to lace our boots up. Then some of us had things to get together and rucksacks to pack and then the toilet beckoned and one after another we all used it. In the end Andy cleared us all out. We met Narinder and walked up the road a little until an empty rickshaw came by and took us up to the square in Manali.

At Prem Singh's house

Our first stop was at Zingaro Travels to fax our flight details to Eco, but Rahul had been in touch to say he didn't need them anymore. It appeared that there had been no insurance arranged for the horseman, which didn't go down too well as Andy was under the impression we had paid for Eco to arrange cover for all members of the expedition staff. Nainder had had his photos developed so we had fleeting glimpses of the successful summit bid on Tagne before leaving at 1pm and going for lunch.

We went to a vegetarian restaurant, which was situated upstairs at the end of the main square. We sat by the window and could see everything that was going on. Policemen directing the traffic, goats walking randomly, getting in the way, tourists being hassled by the street sellers, rickshaws coming and going, jeeps being loaded up, locals eating dinner on the pavement, pots being washed in the drain and people buying things from the shop fronts. It was a good job we had all this to amuse ourselves because the food took a long time to arrive. We were the only ones in the restaurant, which seemed a bit disturbing; did everyone else know something we didn't? When it finally arrived I ate a nice cheese Korma curry with vegetable fried rice.

Prem presents us with prayer scarves

After lunch Alan and Jon went and exchanged the books we read for some different ones at a second hand bookshop. Andy and Steve went to read and send some more e-mails while I went and bought a tarpaulin and some goods to take home. We all met again at 3pm outside Zingaro Travels. Deui locked up the building and took us down to the main square along with one of the porters. Deui explained to several rickshaw drivers where we wanted to go. Nothing much seemed to be happening until all of a sudden their engines started and we were told to jump in, the rickshaws leaving before we'd even sat down. The three rickshaws raced down the hill in a style that rivalled that of the Minis in The Italian Job. We stopped midway between the centre of Manali and our hotel at the foot of a steep narrow concrete path. We paid the drivers and then followed Deui up the path, which led past some fields. The track soon turned to mud and before long we were fighting our way through the overgrown vegetation. We passed through a small farm and over a small picturesque bridge before reaching Prem Singh's house, being careful not to antagonise a profusely barking dog. Prem Singh came out and greeted us, and ushered us upstairs. We took care not to smash our heads on the low lintel over the doorway. Our boots were removed and we sat on rugs on the floor around a series of tables.

As we sat and talked about Prem Singh's business, our expedition, previous treks he'd organised, and the Tibetan New Year festival, chang (rice wine), beer and tea was poured into various glasses for us to drink. Biscuits, chips and fried onions in batter were brought for us to eat. Before we could finish the food more would arrive on the table. Deui did a good job of topping up our glasses with chang, He would never let you empty a glass for he would insist on regularly topping it up. This was hospitable at the start but after going on and on it soon didn't become funny any more. Our only escape from being drowned by consuming too much chang was not to leave. Alan had drunk so much chang he needed the toilet and the rest of us seized the opportunity to say our thank-yous and leave. We walked back down the road and hailed a taxi to take us to our hotel, where we rested in front of the television.

Leaving Prem's house

At 7:30pm we decided to head up town for yet more food as we'd arranged to meet Narinder at the restaurant at eight. Having walked for a bit, Jon and I found a rickshaw that would take us to the main square, leaving Alan, Andy and Steve to find a second rickshaw and squeeze into it. They arrived in the main square shortly after us and we all made our way to the restaurant. Narinder came in and joined us. The food was good, although slow to come. However this was probably due to us all ordering sizzlers. These were a piece of meat (I had chicken) which sizzled profusely in a cloud on steam and were served with chips and a salad. They attracted the attention of many of the other foreigners in the restaurant, who also had seen nothing like it before. Narinder left early to try and find a friend he had left his walkman with at the start of the expedition.

We left the restaurant at 9:45pm and were immediately hassled by another boy selling the choppers. Initially he wanted 75Rs for one but I managed to get 60Rs for three. We jumped in a rickshaw and returned to the hotel where we watched TV until we fell asleep.