Biwi wanted to go to the mountains. ‘What would we do there?’, I asked. ‘We would go someplace and then decide’, she replied. We went to Manali. It was our third wedding anniversary. We thought we would go on some sort of trekking. No trekking routes were open (late November). So we just lazied around Manali.

Mall Road, Manali

   

Tourists enjoy snow at Gulaba, close to Manali.

 

In the three days that we spent in Manali, biwi found out an operational trek that started in Mcleodganj. So we took a bus and traveled for 8 hrs and reached Mcleodganj. We walked on the streets for few days before finalizing a trekking company.

 

After we finalized a company, we did some shopping and left for the trek.

Triund was our first halt. It took us about 4 hours to reach there. ‘Triund is like a picnic spot, not even a trek’, our guide would later tell us.

Above: Trekkers reaching Triund from Mcledoganj.

Because Mcledoganj-Triund is an easy short trek (never gets too steep), many return the same day. Some camp for the night and return. Few, like us, trek further uphill – to Indrahar pass.

 

Indrahar Pass is typically a 4 day trek – two and a half days of climbing and one a half day of descent. So we had an easy first day. We had three more days to go.

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The second day was an easier shorter trek from Triund to an unnamed place between Snowline and Lahesh cave.

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Above (from left of photograph): the cook, the guide, biwi, porter 1, porter 2.

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This place was cooler than Triund. May be around 5 degrees. Our guide and his team set up some wood on fire. We heated ourselves, we ate and we slept. And we waited for the next day in anticipation. It was going to be a 5 hour climb up and 4 hour climb back, we were told. Half the tourists who try to reach Indrahar pass, give up mid-way, we were told too.

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We left for Indrahar pass early morning the next day and after a lot of steep climbing, reached the pass in about four and a half hours. ‘What has been the slowest time taken by any one to climb this?’, we asked our guide. The answer was six hours. We felt happy about our speed. ‘What has been the fastest time taken by any tourist to climb this?’, we asked our guide. Two and a half hours was the answer. Our happiness was short lived.

Climbing down was even tougher and took almost 4 hours for us to reach back our tent. It was a mostly painful walk back. ‘This is pure unadulterated pain, climbing down’, I made a remark at one point.

 

We stayed for one more day in Mcleodganj, gave rest to our tired bodies, packed our bags and returned to Delhi.

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Above: we wait for our bus back to Delhi, at Mcleodganj bus stop.

Above: the last picture that I took during this trip; a selfie from inside the bus.

We reached Delhi early morning today. Biwi flew to Goa a short while back. I will leave for Ambala tomorrow for a wedding shoot. This was a picture story from Himachal Pradesh. Bye.

The last two days in Uganda were spent in Kampala. I had few interviews to shoot on both days (for few hours). In the evening, I took more pictures in the streets of Kampala.

 

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In spite of significant traffic on the streets, Ugandans are way more civilized on road than Indians are. Few people honk (and mostly when really required) and most vehicles (except few boda-bodas, i.e the motorcycle taxis) show a lot of patience at intersections.

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We met a manager at a cafe called Cafe Javas. He was a Banglorean, working in Kampala since 8 or 9 months. He told us Ugandans were extremely patient and rarely got angry. But when they fought, they fought to kill each other. Shanta and I were happy we never had to deal with a heated up confrontation with anyone.

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When we had recently arrived in Kampala, it was intimidating to see so many armed security guys all over the city. But over the course of our stay, we got used to such sights.

George, a waiter at Cafe Javas introduced us to his son. He had to keep his son around while he worked. Because in Uganda, unlike India, children are not assumed to be mother’s sole responsibility. The value of women in this country can be appreciated to some extent by their dowry culture that is the polar opposite of what happens in India. In Uganda, a guy who wants to marry a girl, has to offer cows and goats (and whatever else he can – dowry) to the girl’s parents, before the wedding can happen!

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[aesop_content color=”#ffffff” background=”#333333″ width=”90%” columns=”2″ position=”none” imgrepeat=”no-repeat” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up”]On one of our days in Uganda, we read in a local newspaper that the Ugandan Supreme Court had nullified a law which earlier made it mandatory for the girl (or her family) to return the dowry if the girl decided to leave her husband. I asked Jeff (the mayor aspirant of Jinja – about whom I wrote in the last post) what he thought about this Supreme Court ruling. ‘Not good man. Now girls can marry a guy, get the goats and the cows and then leave the guy. Without having to return anything’, he wasn’t too happy. He was not married yet.

Anyhow, so overall these were some great days spent in Uganda. Most of the evenings, I would show my pictures to Shanta and he would show his to me. I am sure I grew up a little as a photographer. I returned to Mumbai few hours ago. I am sitting in the Mumbai airport now as I write this post. The flight to Goa shall depart in just about an hour. And it would take more than few days before I move on from the Ugandan experience.

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https://vimeo.com/137032105

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]

Shanta and I had enough of Kampala. We wanted to take a break. We took a taxi and drove down to Jinja and decided to stay there for three nights. It was about a two hour ride and cost us 150,000 shillings. No, that’s not a lot if you are thinking. 🙂 On the very first evening of our arrival, we did a boat tour around the source of river Nile. White Nile to be specific.

The boatman told us these restaurants (the huts  you see above) and many other establishments got partly submerged three years ago, when government constructed a dam near a falls close by.

Nile is regarded as the longest waterways in the world. It’s water is used by eleven countries. If you look at the map, there are two rivers – the White Nile starting from Jinja (where we were) and the Blue Nile starting from Lake Tana in Ethiopia, which merge together (as they flow up north) to make one Nile river. Shanta had already been to Lake Tana. So he was very happy that he had now been to sources of both the major tributaries of the Nile.

I was happy enough with just one though. I stepped out of the boat and stood at the source of Nile. It felt good. Dirt from my feet would now be shared with 11 countries up north.

Two fishermen wanted a lift back to the shore. They were on a rowing boat while ours was a motor-boat. In return for a free fish, our boatman let them hold on to the motorboat, so they didn’t have to paddle.

The day ended in a nice riverside restaurant where we spent 97,000 shillings on food and drinks. We wished we had spent 3,000 shillings more. And we wondered what else we were going to do for the next two days in Jinja.

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]

An amateur street photographer like me, and a passionate photographer like Shanta, roamed around and clicked when we felt like. Oscar called up. He said it was his day to be with his girlfriend, so he could not be with us. And then he said he could still find some time to take us to an art residency. So we went to the art residency. And amongst others, we met a lady who worked for Meera Nair and a photographer from Sudan.

After the previous day of shooting in a slum, I had wanted to relax, roam around and shoot pictures than take videos. May be that’s what hanging out with a passionate photographer like Shanta does to you. All that Shanta wants to do is take pictures. I on the other hand, moved to wedding photography simply as a means to buy time without losing on financial independence. I was good enough to get work but never bothered to explore photography as an art at a deeper level. I must give credit to Shanta for shaking up the photographer in me a bit last year, when I had met him for the first time in Bangalore. We had discussed photography and photographers and he had shown me some amazing photo-books at his place. He has a library of photo-books collected from across the world. The two books that I went through, had spoken to me. What, I don’t know. But I remember the feeling. Some sort of a gate had been opened. I still didn’t feel like getting in. At least not in a hurry. I had started 3MS recently then. I wanted to learn the craft of video story telling. In fact it is thanks to 3MS that I am roaming around in Uganda in the first place! So not bad I say. The first time I actually went out and shot <a href="http://www.vatsap buy clomid tablets.com/2015/06/23/4113/”>pictures of strangers living their life was only a month ago. In Goa. But it seems like that day of photo-walk pushed me a bit inside the gate. The gate that had been opened a year ago. The visit to Uganda is making me take tiny steps further in.

Oscar left us to be with his girlfriend after introducing us to  EMA – the photographer from Sudan, I ealier talked about. EMA’s name is included in a list of 18 outstanding young photographers from the Arab world. We went out and had drinks and hookah and we talked about India and Sudan and the rest of the world. And then I took a selfie. Which doesn’t look like a selfie. Shanta and I are getting a hang of Kampala.

Series link: Diary [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7]