Several hours earlier I had passed through the last patches of green where gold-furred mountain dogs, companionable otherwise, were busy crunching on bones. A sort of picturesque Golgotha, a local in a homemade poncho modelled from worn tarpaulin informed me that a sky burial site was nearby. Now I was high above the treeline – not that there were many trees – and was almost cresting the trek at Dolma La, 5,640 metres. Save for a fleeting glimpse early that morning, the Mount Kailas had been eluding me by ducking

‘I thank god for this beautiful country and for the balm it is to my spirit, which has been in the last two years so cut and torn and is now by his mercy receiving comfort and strength again,’ wrote Stokes from Kotgarh to his mother in America in a letter dated September 1913. Thank god over a hundred years later Kotgarh is still a beautiful country. Or thank Stokes? Samuel Evans Stokes was an American missionary who worked in a leper home near Shimla for two years where the

I, like guys anywhere, have some of my fondest life-defining memories revolving around the bars in my hometown. In one I threw a bash after losing my virginity doling out the Marlboros she gave me which was also my first smoke, in another I celebrated a university rank, in yet another I drank to a divorce; much anticipated get-togethers with childhood buddies – couple of them out on parole – were always held in this one with spacious, smoking booths with the obsequious bearers fussing over the VIP guests, I

The horizon fringed by jagged snowlines is recurring but not repetitive. You wrestle figuring the Gauri Peak from the Barmal but the white-capped ballad that plays out before you very soon take your mind off such mundaneness as names. The Dunagiri looks better awash with the amber glow of the setting sun? Or with the golden rays of the rising sun sliding over the overnight verglas? Some questions have no answers. As an ancient Indian proverb goes ‘A hundred divine epochs would not suffice to describe the marvel of the

“The museum is the first place I go to when I visit a new country or town,” the effervescent Hilary Taylor told me outside Tharu Cultural Museum along the fringes of the Chitwan National Park of Nepal. Being a paleontologist, Hilary has every reason to linger over and savour the indigenous artifacts, handicrafts and other antiquated articles of traditional and cultural value. Then, visting a museum in any strange land – before you set off exploring the bylanes and art, culture and pubs – gives the place a context. This

Majestic are the moutains so why should staying there be anything less? This summer when you head out for your holiday in the Himalayas, stay in one of these manors tucked away and well into the verdant hillsides; these refurbished remnants of the colonial age, brimming with understated elegance and creature comforts thankfully more an afterthought than arbitrary attachments. A bit on the pricey side, it is because they don’t cater to numbers – for whom options are aplenty, a little bit lower in altitude and closer to town, if

My kitty of some 30 odd pugmarks counted at least a dozen. There was also the unending one which striped my boat’s wake for some distance or so I thought looking back on life till then but was actually headed for the herd of deer grazing on the banks across. Who counted it or whether anyone did at all, I was not sure. But when I saw it in midflight, I was sure glad that I didn’t see it anywhere during the last seven days – black and yellow stripes

Hic! It’s time to make amends. Since the first tourist set out – maps, bags, spirit of adventure, a premature but prickly pining for home, et al – tourism has followed many paths: heritage and medical to eco and spiritual. From the not-so-widely-spoken but practiced sex tourism to new niches like ‘graveyard’ and ‘LP’ tourism (see earlier post ‘The Walking Tourist’). A visit to Napa Valley or Nashik can be passed off for ‘wine tourism’ and everywhere else during summer, ‘beer tourism’. In the froth of all this action, the

‘Telling Tales’ is an ongoing series on my more memorable fellow travellers. Pierre found his daughter Rebecca in more places than he looked. Strangers came up to him and told him where he would find her while some just wished him that he found whatever he was looking for. Another time a little girl, a farmhand, pointed to the picture of Rebecca Pierre carried in his wallet and assured him that she was of the land. Only catch was Pierre was a Canadian travelling through Tibet. Yet he did not