On Friday the group had a long, but very interesting day. Part of the group started out early by taxi as far as Seokholi (a village about 5 miles along Tehri Road to the east), and then they hiked down the north side of the range down into the Aglar river valley and the village of Tatur (7 miles). Right before Seokholi there is a great view of the peaks east of Bandar Punch.
The rest of us were not as energetic (including me - especially because I have a bad cold) took taxis all of the way down to meet the walkers in Tatur. This is a beautiful area with pine forests and small villages and terraced farms. We met the hikers in Tatur, then continued by taxi across the Aglar and along the south face of the next ridge, this time travelling in a westerly direction.
Around noon we stopped in a village to visit a school. M. had been here several times with other groups, and the head teacher is a friend of some Woodstock staff. The school has children from ages 4 to about 10 or 12. This is a private school, and was situated in this village so the younger children would not have to walk more than 4 kilometers to school .. the nearest government primary school is at least a 6 km walk for some students. The students learn Hindi, English, math, "general knowledge" (which includes social studies and sciences), and music and art.
The students were playing a local form of tag which involves a lot of strategy.
In honor of our visit, some of the younger students changed into local hill costumes and performed a folk dance for us. My thought was how much friends B&S would enjoy watching this!
After this we went on in the taxis for another hour or so, stopped an had lunch, then walked down below the road to the village of KhasKodam, which is featured in the video
Palayan (I have a copy and will be glad to show it to folks back home). This is a poor village, but very picturesque as some of the houses still have the traditional Garhwali architecture with wooden walls and slate roofs. The main crop seems to be corn - though they were also drying beans, chilis, and greens.
They still prepare flour in traditional ways . here is a photo of small stone grinder and also some pestles that are used in stone mortars.
After a short visit there we continued on our way down into the valley to the confluence of the Aglar with the Yamuna .. across the river and back up into the far western side of Mussoorie, past
Kempty falls and finally back to the Hanifl Center. The distance was not far, but the roads are narrow and very windy, with a lot of hair-pin curves. If you have ever watched the tv show about the world's worst roads .. these were a step or two better, but not a whole lot! I just tried not to think about them as we were going along!
