Sleep ins are getting longer, don't get moving until 10am. Check the post office just to be sure the communication was accurate and yes, very quiet. Take a set of back stairs up to Lalal which leads us past some beautiful stone houses that could be relocated to Woolahra, Sydney without looking out of place, before being popped out onto the bazaar. We grab some breakfast, quickly followed by early lunch at Malla Mahal after emailing cycle stores in Singapore and Britain in an attempt to fast track the tools that we need. Either way whether local or os suppliers it will not be until Monday when we can expect to hear back.
Have identified that the bazaar roughly follows the ridge line, so we decide to drop down to the other side opp to Mall rd. This takes us down into more of a residential area, but similar to Mall side accessed via thin cobbled / concrete paths some of which walled. The view across the opposite valley is great and the sun is fantastic. We climb back up to Mall where many stores are closed and the flow is a trickle of traffic. Drop back to Mall Rd past the Gandhi statue and find a share Taxi just up from the taxi rink and before the touts. Accept rate of 50rup per seat to Jageshwar 34km to the NNE to see some 8-12th century temples.
Jump into the back bench seat and wait for some other passengers before getting on the road. Capacity would easily be twelve passengers. No seat belts and troop carrier seats in the back. Two older ladies squeeze into the back seat with us plus a little boy. In the front is one other passenger before we get on the road. Less than 50mtrs up we pull over and three middle aged guys jump into the back.
We head up along LR Sah Rd and out of town. The honking is a little diminished from inside a vehicle. Notice that the car near where the rego sticker goes has an Eco approved green car sticker, not sure what you have to do to get one of these and whether compulsory but plenty of vehicles do not deserve one of these. Also notice that the speedo does not appear to be working. Still the company is good and Soph identifies that she is handling the bends ok which is great.
Just near Chitai the ladies jump out and an old guy jumps in with a chest gurgling ragged cough, I start to visually work back through my resuscitation training, just in case. Try to start up a conversation and he uses the English he has to ask basically where we are from. When I answer Australia he nods his head and says acha Japan. Neigh Australia, I reply. More head nodding. Obviously no tv in his household.
The bends increase in severity and frequency as we start to descend down towards Bare Chhina. The forests on this side the same as on the Kosi Rd, fir forrest with sparse if any undergrowth with steep gullies. The road is fine overall but the odd section of road work is passed carefully. Not so the blind corners, but plenty of honking announces our imminent approach. People jump out and in along the road passing rupees forward to the driver on departure. A waved arm sufficient to hail followed by a quick confirmation of route through the window.
We climb back up to Artola where the road junctions down towards Jageshwar. Enough shared jeeps are floating around to give us confidence of our return journey. From Artola the road enters a denser deodar forest where a little stream drops as does the temperature.
We pass a temple on the way down nestled in amongst firs but continue down to a small scattered village to the right of which is the temple complex. We notice white on the walls and the grass down by the stream, which I point to and gesture snow to which the driver shakes his head and I thought indicated and mouthed powder. We jump out and wander past the Archaeological Survey of India museum, numerous chai and dhaba stores, a couple of Hindi offering shops and in through the gates of the complex. No official charge unless videography (which costs 25rup).
At the gate is a shoe depository where a guy is looking after the shoes but there are so many shoes all over the place that I feign ignorance, smile wave and place the shoes where I can see them. Soph stays on shoe guard. This is stupid the stones all worn smooth over time are at freezing temperature, do I really want to check out the temples this much... Yes I guess so.
Head down the stairs and it does not take long for a guy to affix himself to me, starting with asking origin and providing some unrequested background on the temple prior to directing towards leaving donations in the temples. An Indian lady who follows identifies that the donation is option and she is not sure whether the god in this case Shiv or Shiva minds. I follow the advice and loose my advisor. Wander over to inspect the white and dam it is ice, and plenty of it. My feet are not lying.
The Nagar styled lingas and larger sikhara temples are fantastic. They ebb age and the main temples contain beautiful carvings on the outside and Shiva stones inside, not to mention the copper or bronze cobra. The Shiva stone is shaped in a teardrop with a phallic stone in the centre. Not sure that it is supposed to be phallic but he is the creator and some of the other man shaped statues don't leave as much to interpretation. Inspired but freezing I make for my shoes where I see Soph a little while later and it appears she was also rounded up by the donation divas as she has a marking dot of yellow in the middle of her forehead also.
We leave the temple complex, cold and tired of being hassled and head across to some temples further down the stream and outside the gate. It is hard not to notice the rubbish that is accumulating in the otherwise beautiful stream below the temples, but there are no donation seeking attendants here, a few monkeys though. We also notice the massize size of some of the surrounding trees. Nature has made this place beautiful it is a shame that it is not respected more in action.
Decide to head up to the Museum partially out of interest to see what is shown and also to give hopefully an official donation that will help maintain the complex.
The museum is carpeted, great, but shoes are off. The temple protects statues previously housed in the surrounding temples of which there are supposed to be about 125. The statues range from Shiva, Parvati, Ganesh, Lakshmi among others and are really interesting. Many show chakras, tridents, ox, cobras etc in the carvings. The museum attendant identifies that there are 1008 names for Shiva, no wonder I am confused. The museum has unfortunately no power and so only the front rooms lit with some of the external light are viewable per the attendant. Thankfully we have our head torch so end up moving through the back room from statue to statue with two locals and the attendant in tow. Well worth the visit.
It is now getting on and we have no desire to walk the 34km back to Almora as we estimate at best pace it would most likely be 10-11pm by the time that we made it. Soph chooses this time to raise whether there would be leopards in the surrounding forest similar to Chindi and Kasauni. We start back up the road to Artola. The walk through the forest is beautiful, the afternoon light is streaming through the trees and the sound of just the stream (which on the upside of the village is clean of garbage) is peaceful. We come to the Dandeshwar temple about halfway up, built in the 9/10 century by the Katyuri rulers, one of whom (Pona Raja) we had seen in the museum represented via a bronze sculpture.
Continuing up the hill we are only passed by Tourist taxis which don't pick up strays. A couple of guys did stop and offer a lift to Artola but we decline the space post passing on thanks.
At Artola there was a distinct absence of share taxis so we kept on walking along the road towards Almora. It was not long before a small Tata pulled over and we settled on the increased price of 100rup return. Still we were content as to hire a single taxi out and back was priced and quoted at 800rup, so we had saved 500 rup by playing the game.
The little white car already has two other passengers and so with the driver we make a full house. The rear suspension has apparently long gone as has the seat belts but what did we care as long as we were going in the right direction. The driver proceeds to light up as managing to career around corners, following which the silence is broken only by the phlegm being brought forward and then spat out the window as we dodge oncoming vehicles obviously deaf as our driver uses the horn to great advantage. Soph felt she had crossed over into rally driving, which is not suprising as given the lack of suspension and therefore bone rattling jars as we pass over at speed.
Finally we pull into the Dharanaula bus stand and make our way up repeated stairs to the Lalal before moving onto Glory for our fourth night in a row. It is just as good as the last three nights and we have nearly worked our way through there whole Indian menu.
Back to the hotel where we flake out in the warmth.
