Kasol o mio

It was bloody hard to leave the paradise of Rishikesh. The pain wasn't eased by spending 16 hours on a succession of three ancient rattletrap buses crammed to the hilt with loudly chattering Indians all hopping on and off every five minutes to the piercing screech of the conductor's whistle, the jarring halt of the brakes and the energetic slamming of doors which shook the entire bus and threatened to burst an eardrum or two every time. We left Rishikesh about 5pm and arrived sleepless at our destination of Kasol about midday the next day, in a cold foggy drizzle which had managed to completely drench all our bags which we'd stupidly hurled onto the roof the night before.

Kasol, heaven and hell on earth.




A tiny mountain town deep in the Parvati Valley by a raging river and nestled between beautiful high mountains covered with thick pine forests reminiscent of a Beautiful British Columbia poster. Unfortunately it had a very bad energy about it. I don't mean that in a hippy-dippy, "whoa man, the aura of this place needs realigning" kinda way, but that this two street town is full of cagey Indian jewellery sellers (like Raj from Rajastan and around the corner Taj.... also from Rajastan) trying to wheedle money out of everyone with their shifty eyes and unctuous smiles. The only other group in town is about two hundred Israelis who hang out in huge packs smoking hash openly all day long in the streets or cafes, passing around bongs, joints, chillums and contraptions I've never seen before, but which billow out huge mushroom clouds of smoke. That in itself wasn't an issue at all, but unfortunately they were the most unfriendly bunch of humans we'd ever met. We were the only three people in town not from either Israel or India and all the Israelis refused to speak to us, acknowledge us or even look at us. If you passed someone in the street, caught their eye and nodded and smiled you'd get nothing but a hostile blank stare in return. By the second day of this we were really trying our best to remain upbeat and not generalise about Israeli people. Hey all the signs may have been written in Hebrew, but at least there was really good felafel on offer!

The next morning we'd had enough and ignored the rain to take a four hour hike the hell outta that place to a sacred hotspring high in the mountains, which is where things completely turned around.

The hike was gorgeous. We also adopted a young Czech bloke with a backpack weighing about the same as a small truck who was starting an 8 day hike, and a gorgeous fluffy dog/guide completely covered in burrs. Imaginatively, we called him Burr.


Stopping for chai



Random meetings




Khirganga is a natural hot spring at the top of a high sloping alpine meadow on which there has been erected an Ashram and three tent restaurants. Once again we were the only non-Israelis in town, but suddenly we had a revelation. They were all lovely and all hated Kasol as much as we did for the scene there. Suddenly we were a novelty and everyone was gossipping about the mysterious group of a Japanese-looking girl, a blonde girl and an Israeli-looking guy all travelling together. Seriously, I think I'm an undercover Israeli, literally everyone starts chatting blithely in Hebrew to me until I let them know I have no idea what they're talking about. We found out later that apparently there was a minor turf war as to who would be our friends. Bring it on I say, fight for my love!

Collapsed with exhaustion