The Land of Flying Lamas
The Land of Flying Lamas
And other REAL travel stories
from the Indian Himalaya
Gaurav Punj
westland ltd
61 Silverline Building, 2nd floor, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600095
No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560026
93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, New Delhi 110002
First published in India by westland ltd 2013
First e-book edition: 2013
Copyright by Gaurav Punj 2013
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-93-83260-52-2
Typeset by Ram Das Lal
Illustrations: Shreyas Navare
Photographs: Gaurav Punj
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.
CONTENTS
A few words by Harish Kapadia
the mountain man
Trekking the Way of the Wise
By Rujuta Diwekar
Foreword
Any trip to the mountains, to the Himalaya or otherwise, generates a variety of experiences, from the mundane to the unforgettable, and interactions within the group and with locals on the way create memories worth holding on to and narrating at the next campfire. You follow directions, look at the peaks and enjoy beauty, but its the human interactions, which we call stories, that let you understand the land and its people most intimately.
This is what Gaurav Punj, the author, has done in this book, and he is eminently qualified to write such a book. An engineer by education, corporate honcho in his first avatar, he decided to give up the humdrum, but well-paying life, for the uncertainties of mountains as a means of living. In a way it was in his blood, having been born in the foothills of the Himalaya, in the Shivalik range. Perhaps to him the high profile CV appeared miniscule compared to the grandeur of the mountains. But while roaming the hills your banker cannot help, so he set up his own company, appropriately named Connect with Himalaya. Since then he has not looked back, being connected with the mountains all through the year. He enjoys it, as I have seen him in action once in the mountains.
For lifelong passion for mountains there are a few hurdles. You finish education and you are supposed to toe the line; join work or business. If you still continue to trek, then various circumstances are likely to challenge your chosen life. For the survivors, the hardest hurdle to cross is choosing a partner with whom to live the rest of your life. A companion with less understanding of your passion can lead to many conflicts between the social life in a city vs. the hard life of mountains. Gaurav has succeeded in solving this riddle by choosing Rujuta, a celebrated author and a passionate trekker herself, as his life partner. Their marriage, realized in a small temple in a remote Himalayan village, is an example of their love for the Himalaya.
This book contains many things of interest to a Himalayan lover and trekker. There are maps and trivia, suggestions of local service providers for those interested in travelling to the places covered in the book and, what I like most, references to read and research further for a discerning trekker. Many important aspects are covered in appendices, particularly about altitude sickness, which cannot be less emphasized.
But the main strength of this book remains in the narrative that blends the real experiences and folklores. Whenever lecturing, one principle to be followed to make it interesting is to narrate stories. Presentation of the history of the peaks, lay of the land, politics and scenes of bravado are useful, but it is the interactions with locals and humour experienced on a trip that keeps the audience interested. So this book with its stories of human aspects and attractive presentation will be of interest to many.
Harish Kapadia
Mumbai
May 2013
The Why, What and How of this Book
A wise man once said, Books are written through you, not by you as good a disclaimer one can conjure and one that fits particularly well in case of recreational writers like me.
My claim to writing fame so far has been an essay on A rainy day in Class 7 and a one-pager on How I taught Physics to undergraduates during my Berkeley stint. The writer inside me and make no mistake, there is one inside everyone held on to those few lines of spontaneous outburst of miraculously connected sentences for all these years. And then I started travelling in the Himalaya, Indian Himalaya to be precise (and you will catch me harping on this difference throughout the book). I travelled and I got inspired, sometimes enough to write a blog on the place Id visited. Those few, irregular blogs caught the attention of my editor (or rather I ensured they caught her attention, she travelled with me on one of my trips you see), and the publishing house, in their infinite wisdom, felt a book on the other Himalaya made sense. Just thought I should briefly share the story behind the book you are holding in your hands. And by the way, thanks for doing that; I do hope this book written through me entertains you.
Book introductions provide the writer one last chance to influence the reader and I am going to grab this one. So here is the why, what and how of this book.
Why another book on Himalaya?
Well, its a book on the other Himalaya, and frankly there arent enough. About ninety per cent of visitors to the Indian Himalaya go to the same ten per cent places year after year. This book tries to cover parts of the remaining ninety per cent and attempts to convince you, the reader, that its very much possible to travel there, on a family holiday or as pure adventure, and does it through stories of people like you and me who have done just that.
Its these stories that form the crux of the book and differentiates it from the usual guidebook to the Indian Himalaya. Of course, there is information as well, but I dont intend it to form the basis of your plans to travel on your own in the Himalaya. For that, there are genuinely good guidebooks, and I must mention the ones I have read and gained from:
The Outlook Traveller books covering Uttarakhand and Himachal. Also, the monthly Outlook Traveller magazine, which remains the only authentic travel magazine in India, covering off-beat Himalaya in addition to the rest of the country.
The Driving Holidays in the Himalaya series by Koko Singh, covering Ladakh, Zanskar, Himachal, Uttarakhand and Sikkim.
Lonely Planets Trekking in the Indian Himalaya .
www.indiamike.com, regardless of its name, is a superb online forum where some of the best trekkers discuss and offer advice about almost everything related to travel in the Indian Himalaya.
This isnt a book about climbing either. I have never done any and have no qualification whatsoever to write about it. Again, there are some terrific books about climbing in the Indian Himalaya but without doubt the best of them are the Across Peaks & Passes series by Harish Kapadia, covering Ladakh, Zanskar, Himachal, Garhwal, Kumaun and Sikkim. He has written about almost every climbing option (and many trekking ones as well) that currently exists, and along with his observations on the place, people and history these books are veritable encyclopaedias. When I quit my corporate job and was planning and conceptualizing CWH, I spent most of my time reading these books and they have obviously influenced the way I look at the Himalaya, its inhabitants and also the way I write.
