Hikes, Games & Animal Sacrifices

July 7^th – July 23^rd, 2012

After Garth left for Leh, I moved into a smaller room, one that I stayed in last year as it’s cosy and has a great balcony looking out at the mountains.  My next door neighbour who had just moved in as well looked familiar... Oh ya, I remember him sitting by himself at a table next to us at the Olive Garden, singing to his chicken tikka!  He was enjoying his meal so much that Matthew was inspired to get the same thing.  Kris hails from the Ukraine and he owns a small business making “wafers” as he explained.  Being an ex-IT professional I immediately thought of silicon chips but no, he meant “cheese wafers”!  Nice.  Kris turned out to be an absolute joy to be around.  You could never predict what he would say or do next (except perhaps “I dunno...is it, is it time for a beer now?”) and he had my laughing a lot over the next few weeks.

Over the next few weeks I spent a lot of time with an interesting group comprised of Matthew (my US paragliding friend I met in Bir), Robin (my German chess buddy from Arambol), the aforementioned Kris and a couple from Hungary, Peter and Ester (whom Robin met in Arambol after I left there).  A number of hikes, games, dinners, drinks and of course laughs were enjoyed by all.  Matthew, Robin and I even supergeeked out by having a simultaneous three way chess match.  We hung out at either the Olive Garden or Shesh Besh restaurants, or back at the Purnima guesthouse (shooting some pool or hanging out on the balcony)...many late but very fun nights.  

I hiked up the tributary by Old Manali one afternoon:

The "Chess Bonanza"...in the first round, I beat Matthew, he took Robin and Robin won over me, so all of the white teams one.  Round 2, Matthew won both his games to finish first and I squeaked out over Robin:

The view from my balcony:

 Playing Carrom with Robin and Kris:

One day we (everyone except Robin...who preferred to sleep in) hiked up behind Vashisht on a path that I descended on last year when I did a three day trek to Bhrigu Lake.  We gained about 700 meters in altitude and made it close to the top of the mountain but rain around our lunch break turned us back.

Ester and Peter climbing up:

Getting higher up:

A mule train coming down the mountain:

Lunch!  Peter, Ester and Kris in the foreground  with Matthew in the back:

This could be their new album cover:

Manali in the distance:

On a walk over to Vashisht we crossed this little temporary bridge...as did this cow: 

That’s the “hikes” and “games” topics covered...now you’re wondering where the “animal sacrifices” come into play...  Well the guys working at the guesthouse told us that there was a special day at the Hadimba Temple with a number of different animals being slaughtered as part of a religious ceremony with an Indian water buffalo being the star of the show.  In the evening there would be a big feast (so at least the animals don’t go to waste).  I was intrigued...not to see the carnage, but being a meat eater I can’t say that there is anything wrong with this festival provided the animals are killed quickly and with minimal pain and afterwards not wasted.

After a late lunch in Shesh Besh, the whole group minus Robin (again, still sleeping) decided to walk over to the temple.  As we arrived at the forest grounds we noticed signs with “No photography” everywhere.  To the side of the temple were 6-10 huge cooking pots, the kind that could have been used to boil European settlers in North America hundreds of years ago, heating up under some fires.  Off to the left in the distance I saw the headless corpse of a sheep being skinned as it hung from a tree by its hind legs.  To the right, close to us was another sheep, this one alive; poor guy, probably another contestant. 

There was a large group of men gathered around the stone square in front of the temple - that must be where the action is.  Kris, Matthew and I tried to edge forward to try and see anything but the Indian men were packed in tightly and if you’ve ever been to India, you know that these guys know the physical keys and tactics to butting in queues.  Near the wall of the side of the temple was a pool of extremely bright red blood.  All of a sudden a man walked out from the crowd right passed us holding just the head of a ram by one of its horns.  Whoa.  I can see why they have the “No photography” signs...

I tried to work my way around to the front to see if I could be more successful in penetrating the crowd.  During this time, another ram was led towards Matthew and Kris and they got a glimpse of the curved machete descending down into its neck (thankfully only the top part of the swing).  I meanwhile got a lesson in how easy it could be to get hurt or killed at a religious festival like this.  You know, you hear about people getting squashed or trampled to death at a pilgrimage or festival in the news and I always wondered how it seems to happen so frequently.  Well there was a couple meter drop at the front of the stone platform that everyone was jostling for position on.  I could see that a number of men holding ropes were leading the buffalo around from the far side and soon the crowd was aggressively pushed away from the center and some people including myself almost went backwards off of the platform!

Drums were being pounded in an increasingly furious tempo and volume while some crude type of curved horns were sounding off...something was about to happen.  I was reminded of the infamous scene in the movie “Apocalypse Now” where Martin Sheen kills the deranged general (Marlon Brando) in the jungle.  Even though it was the middle of the day, there was a definite eerie feeling with death in the air.  There was a crescendo in the percussion and the frenetic nature of the crowd and then it was over.  I missed it, the actual execution, but circled back to meet up with Kris and Matthew.  We tried to move back through the throng towards the centre to see what had happened.  At this point men from the middle were trying to work their way back out so we got a chance to move closer.  As I got a couple of rows away from the core I could see the back end of a black buffalo lying still on the ground...and then I got a glimpse of the headless neck.  An Indian man involved in the ceremony looked at me, being the only non-Indian around, and said “Either come in or go”...so I decided to go for it, not sure of what I was going for.  I took the lead from those around me and dipped my index finger into the pool of blood around its neck and traced it on my forehead to make a tilak.  Okay, that wasn’t so bad. 

I regrouped with Kris and Matthew at the side and suddenly there was another push of people towards us sending poor Matthew unceremoniously onto his butt.  The buffalo was being pulled off of the platform, down a flight of stone steps to be prepared for the feast.  We walked back past the huge boiling pots, stopping for a few minutes to watch the 8-10 butchers sitting on the ground hacking away at various legs and body parts of various animals.  I imagine it was a hell of a feast that night...but we’d had enough.

A few days later we passed by the temple again and it was creepy to see the massive dark purple bloodstain on the platform...especially knowing what had gone on there.  Thankfully we’d just come from happier times from a short visit to the nearby small, pathetic and seemingly closed carnival park where I enjoyed watching Robin bargain with the ferris wheel operator to take him, an Argentine lady Maria and comical Kris for a ride for 100 rupees total.  After some intense haggling the operator finally succumbed, fired up the motor and whizzed them around on a private ride...sweet.