I originally posted this page yesterday but when I checked it today on the blog I seen that large sections of text hadn't posted. I seen on our blog dashboard that a lot of people had looked at this post yesterday, so sorry for the goobledygook. The other pages that I posted yesterday seem to have disappeared into thin air - not sure if it is computer error or Frances error but probably the latter. Hopefully it will now post properly.
This is Champa and Pritam's house where we are staying while in Vashisht. The bottom floor of the house is accessed from the garden. The bottom floor has 2 good-size double rooms. Laxmi, Maniraz (the Nepalese couple) and their 6 month old baby Asna live in one room and the other is Champa and Pritam's bedroom. The white part of the building, on the lower right of the picture, is the kitchen and around the back of the kitchen is the washroom, toilet and storage area. The middle floor of the house is accessed by the spiral staircase at the side of the house. It also has 2 double rooms, directly above the ones below. These rooms are normally rented out to other travellers who also know Champa and Pritam but they have been empty since we arrived as none of the usual crew have turned up yet this year. The middle floor also has a self-contained apartment (the red brick building above the kitchen). Jayne and Guy (the English couple) and their young son Corbin have rented this for 3 years. The top floor is also accessed by the spiral staircase - 2 flights of scarily steep steps - and this is where Colin and I stay. It is a really nice room, bright and airy and really big as as it runs the same length of the house as the 2 double rooms on the floors below. Mustn't forget the other occupant of the house - Tiger the dog - who sits on whatever floor of the house takes his fancy.
This is the bottom floor of the house, with Laxmi's room to the left and Champa's bedroom to the right.
The kitchen is the hub of the house. This is the sitting side and opposite is the functional side. Although Colin and I have a kitchen on the balcony, Jayne and guy have a kitchen in the apartment and Laxmi and Maniraz have cooking facilities in thier room we all still use the main kitchen at times. The other evening Pritam cooked goat (meat is relatively expensive here so it is not cooked that often) and we all ate together in the kitchen and had a good laugh together, between Hindi, Nepalese, English and Glasweigan!. The kitchen has the only fridge in the house, another reason why we are in and out. It's a really welcoming room and if you go in there and Champa or Pritam has friends round it's 'sit down, have a chai (tea) and chat. Also, if we bring any friends back to the house they are certainly welcome in the kitchen.
This is the functional side of the kitchen. In the bottom centre of the picture is the tandoor (wood-burning stove) which can also be seen in the picture above. It is usually only used the colder months - Nov to May. It is an amazing source of heating and has the added advantage of being able to cook on it, so no need for them to use gas unnecessarily. As we arrived here in May this year and the local people think that the evening weather is quite mild - yeah right! - the tandoor hasn't been needed, but we have great memories of previous years when we have been here in the colder months and all of us who are staying in the house are sitting, chatting and laughing, round the tandoor all evening as it is the only source of heating in the house. Doesn't take long though, before you have to open windows, as the tandoor makes the kitchen so hot. When the tandoor stops being used it's over to the gas stove - 2 gas rings on the kitchen worktop, supplied by bottled gas. There's also an electric oven but I've only ever seen someone use it once and that was a Swedish girl who was staying here last year and was cooking us all a carrot cake! Mind you, as India gets fairly frequent electricity outages, you can't be sure that your dinner with a 1hour cooking time will actually be ready in 1hour! Better stick to gas stove-top cooking as the locals do.
This is the view out of the kitchen window, looking towards the garden and the stairs that lead to the path to the village (it's a pity I took this photo when the weather was overcast as you can't see the lovely snow-capped mountains that are along the top of the photo). When you get to the top of the stairs you can turn left or right. If you turn left you go along the uneven rocky path which brings you out at the top end of the village where the village square and Temple are. Also there are a few wee shops for food supplies and many cafes. The path is not too up and down and only takes 10 minutes to get to the village. If you turn right it brings you out at the bottom end of the village. This path is a different kettle of fish. It's quite rocky and has large muddy patches where you have to depend on hopping over rocks to stop from being ankle deep in mud. Then its stepping stones over the river, through the forest and down steep incine of stairs/stones embedded into the hill. It only takes about 15 minutes but you do get a wee sweat on. We use this path if we are going to the main town of Manali 3.5kms away or to neighbouring villages, as it is quicker than walking along the path to the top of the village and then downhill for about 1km through Vashisht. Most people call this path 'the shortcut' and it certainly is when you are going down to Manali. However, when you are coming back from Manali with a weeks worth of shopping in your backpack and you have the choice of a gradual 1km incline walk through Vashisht to the top of the village and then along that path to the house, or straight up the steep incline at the bottom of the village and through the forest over a river and patches of mud, the short-cut doesn't seem that short any more. The other week we had gone to Manali for shopping. The rucksack probably weighed about 15k, so with rucksack on Colin's back we went to get a rickshaw to take us to Vashisht. As the area was still very busy with Indian tourists at that time and there were heavy traffic jams in Vashisht because of this we couldn't get anyone who was willing to take us. So off we started on the 3.5km uphill walk on the mainroad to Vashisht. By the time we reached 'the short-cut' at the bottom of Vashisht village it was completely dark and poor Colin was looking a bit worse for wear - not that surprising as Manali is 2300m above sea level and Vashisht is 300m higher than that, so any exertion takes more effort at this altitude. As we hadn't been expecting to be getting home when it was dark we didn't have a torch with us - a necessity for getting along the path at night as there is no lighting on the path so it is pitch dark, Colin decided to take the short-cut, despite being already knackered. So we stumbled, tripped and swore our way up the short-cut until we got to the house. When we finally arrived at the house I could have made a joke of how knackered Colin looked but even I know when to hold my tongue!
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