Uttarakhand – TRAVELTRUNK.NET

November 29, 2024November 30, 2024

On Uzbekistan’s Silk Route- Tashkent and Khiva

The Silk Route star is supposed to be Samarkand. Famous also for being the seat of Timur’s empire and his final resting place. In my mind’s geography (Thank god it is not a referral map at all!) it was, along with Bukhara, east of the Tian Shan mountains. When we started planning a trip to the cities of the fabled route the geography shifted quite a bit west to Uzbekistan and Khiva, a UNESCO World Heritage site, popped up on the route. (So clueless!) Uzbekistan, the land of Timur, Babur, mosques, madrassas, minarets, markets and as we discovered, oh my goodness sweet melons!!

Land of blue minarets and mosques (Khazrati Imam Complex)

Touchdown at Tashkent

We land at Tashkent on a late night flight and the beginning is tumultuous. After getting the SIM card, soms, and finding a taxi big enough to cart our mounds of luggage at the airport, we reach our hotel only by 2am to discover they have cancelled our booking and not bothered to inform us. Something lost in translation. Fortunately, we are accommodated quickly in a nearby hotel.

Next morning we book a cab for the Khazrati Imam Complex. It is a pleasant surprise to see a young woman behind the wheels with her baby strapped into the co-driver’s seat. The boulevards are wide and leafy with just a few high rises. Most of old Tashkent came crumbling down in an earthquake in 1966 and was rebuilt as a modern Soviet city and remains the most populous city of the Central Asian Republics.

We reach the vast quadrangle of the complex or ensemble as they are called here. The small Muyi Muborak Madrassa, ’school of the sacred hair’ with it’s blue candy-cane dome, is in the middle. Inside, we do not find any sacred hair but the piece de resistance is the Uthman Quran. Written on parchment, this tome, one of the oldest Qurans, is probably the only one left of the six commissioned a few decades after the death of the Prophet. Timur brought it from Damascus. In the small rooms on the sides of this now library are housed a stunning collection of more Qurans. The calligraphy of some is lyrical art but all Arabic to me!

Discover art in- Part Two- What Not to Miss on a Weekend Vacation in Shekhawati

Barak Khan Madrassa at the back has been appropriated with shops selling art and artefacts in the small rooms that must have housed students many centuries back. (The fate of madrassas all over the country). The inner quadrangle makes a pretty picture with a tapchan under a mulberry tree.

The new Khazrati Imam mosque at the other end is a functional one and women enter from a side but once inside we wander all over the gorgeously carpeted bright expansive hall with vaulted ceilings painted in geometric patterns. The courtyard has carved wooden pillars like those found only in Khiva.

Read- A Tale of Two Veiled Valleys: Part I- Shangarh’s Meadows are meant for Musing

The next stop is Chorsu bazaar with it’s iconic dome. At the entrance nans are being sold from cycle carts. Inside, on the ground floor there are sections dedicated to dairy and fresh meats and on the first floor, mounds of dry fruits. (After bargaining you know you have hit the price when the shopkeeper dramatically says you are killing him!)

Around the building are counters of fresh greens and fruits so fabulous and colourful! The apricots are divinely juicy sweet and we drink fresh berry compote, pressed right there. Behind them are stalls of cheap souvenirs and tiny eateries with enticing aromas of live grills. Across the main entrance are lines of shops selling bakery items and small wood work, including bread stamps. After a hearty lunch of piping hot, tandoor fresh somsas and shashliks, we head back since we have an overnight train to Khiva.

Explore- Kashmir with a Cup of Kahwa

Khiva is a Khwabgah

In the morning the train chugs past massive scrubby dunes till we cross the legendry Amu Darya. The landscape changes dramatically from one bank to the next with fields and orchard on the other side. Beyond Khiva railway station’s manicured garden are new hotels neatly laid out. We drive into the small oasis town whose history goes back to biblical times. Legend goes that Noah’s son, Shem found water here (Ironic that the father barely survived a flood). Our hotel is a small old madrassa with a courtyard and a covered platform with the signature carved column. The rooms have tall arched niches and a billowing false ceiling of cloth. It gives a very Arabian Nights vibe.

Read- 7 Cultural Must Do’s of Bali

After freshening up we walk to Itchan Kala. The curving cream ramparts look new. Standing inside in the shade of the incomplete yet massive blue Kalta Minor we realise that although the citadel is small, we will not be able make sense of the labyrinthine lanes and see everything, so after lunch we take a guide. As we walk to the West Gate, retracing our steps, a marriage party makes its way for a photoshoot and over the next few days, at many monuments we see it is a done thing in Uzbekistan. (In Delhi’s Sunder Nursery also!)

Happily everafter but first a photoshoot.

Thanks to Madiyar, our guide, we wander inside the Mohammad Amin Madrassa which is now a hotel. According to him the prison outside Khuna Ark has just one cell since justice was swift… and often brutal. (No point in wasting the exchequers money on feeding the incarcerated.) Small museums in different monuments depict different aspects of life here. The most stunning and distinct architectural feature in Khiva are the ornate wooden pillars made from elm trees in all the inner courtyards.

Read- Part One – A Day Meandering in Mandawa

The Jama Masjid is a visual feast with rows of intricately carved ones, some worn out but no two alike! Toshhovli palace, the king’s residence has an apartment each for his four wives with a distinctly designed pillar in front. One, intriguingly has a prominent swastika. Khiva was part of the Khorezm empire and its Zoroastrian roots are still visible in small distinct iconography. Timur and his ancestor Genghis Khan, who annexed Khiva with all his murderous mayhem, are no heroes in these parts as they are in the rest of Uzbekistan. After all the walking around on a warm afternoon we need a breather and in true Uzbeki style we sit in a tapchan outside a café and drink tea. Black or green, tea is an accompaniment to all Uzbekistan meals. There is something surreal about sitting in such an ancient place which is still so alive.

From a rooftop restaurant in the citadel we watch the spotless sky go from a mellow yellow to a dreamy pink and then finally an inky blue. A supermoon makes an appearance from behind the ramparts and it is magical with the monuments all lit up. Music wafts in from somewhere, a tandoor in the square below gets fired up to bake naans for the next day, a boisterous birthday party is on on another roof…

Next morning before a beautifully laid out hearty breakfast we make a dash to Itchan Kala to get a bird’s eye view from the ramparts (whether it is worth the additional payment is debatable) and walk till the slender Islam Khoja minaret with bands of green and blue tilework, through alleys yet to wake up, crossing traditional houses neatly numbered with pretty green tiles.

Khiva is an extraordinary example of living heritage where history has not been consigned to museums. Even in Tashkent, on our way out when we take a ride in the metro, getting off at random stations to admire how artfully they have been done up, one line has modern coaches and the other vintage ones. Quintessentially Uzbeki where the past and present run parallel everyday.

Next stop Bukhara and Samarkand.

Fact File

Getting there–

There is an overnight train from Tashkent to Khiva.

The nearest airport for Khiva is Urgrench.

Note-

There is an entry fee for Itchan Kala. A separate ticket has to be bought for the ramparts.

Teressa is a popular restaurant with a great location. It is best to book a table in advance.

July 30, 2019April 27, 2020

Cycling in Dehradun – The Best Routes for Leisure Rides

With my nose slightly in the air I can say that I started cycling much before cycling came into ‘vogue’. The accepted and expected mode of transportation in the small town I grew up was a cycle. So be it to school, to socialize, go for picnics, the fastest way was to get onto a cycle. No questions asked by the adults. It was safe, slow (That was only because the roads used to be, at best, potholed atleast!) and how far would we go on a cycle?( Ahem! Depends on how nefarious was the agenda.) Infact the first birthday present post marriage by the husband was a cycle and that fact has ensured that I have stayed faithful and not eyed the newer, fancier models! So I still have my almost 20 year old warhorse minus any fancy gears going strong. But I admit, cycling is still an athleisure activity for me and while I enjoy cycling immensely I have only that much stamina for it. So at times sleep, weather and sometimes just plain laziness makes me bury my head under the pillow while the cycle waits for another morning.

Cycle and explore – 3 Churches in Mhow: Discovering Obscure History and Outstanding Carols

Doon Cycling Diaries
So this summer, on a longish holiday at Dehradun, courtesy the child (Definitely more teenager than child now!) who was doing some serious round of studies (Will know next year how fruitful/futile that has been.) at ungodly timings, by my standards, but trying to be supportive parents, we decided that the best way to match her routine was to go for cycling in the morning. An extremely short hunt got us to the Bike Shop and soon two cycles plus the slightly oversized helmets were home delivered. The pluses of a small town. The minus we were to discover is that, in small towns, although the number of cyclists has come down, it is still a de facto means of transportation so the other people on the road do not give a fig about giving way to them/us! I mean that wannabe space- age helmet should tell people something about what serious business we are on! Oh well! Our first cycling sojourn in the hills drove home some pertinent facts – east and west are the best for novices. It is undulating so that there is periodic respite and one can carry on for longer. Going northwards is generally an uphill task! Duh!! What goes up eventually rolls down too but God! Uphill cycling can be like fire in the legs not to mention the lungs. All the mountain air is left outside!

Breathe some mountain air in- Barot – And the Serendipitous Catch in the Uhl River

Rediscovering Dehradun on a Cycle – A Road at a Time
Crossing Garhi Cantt we would see ardent golfers, joggers and young ones out in full force making the most of cool summer morning playing football and cricket. We would zip past Doon school closed for the summer and head back through the main market past the iconic Clock Tower. One particular morning we came across an old tree brought down by a summer storm the night before lying right across a road in the cantt, when we were finally through with the uphill huffing and puffing and looking forward to rolling down. The choice was between going back up a bit and hauling the cycles somehow across the tree. We decided to give our legs a break and exercise our arms instead and opted for the hauling!
Going on the Sahastradhara road we realized was definitely a north bound exercise, albeit a shaded and undulating one and the pedaling was nearly nonstop till we went down a steep slope onto a road that finally joined up with the main Rajpur road. There were parts of Doon I was seeing for the first time and I realized thanks to this slow mode, made slower by the fact that I could not pedal any faster on an incline, I could take in views which one would zip past in a car (like all the lovely houses and gardens I peered into!) and yet, on the other hand, reach places I would never be able to walk to.

Explore more places of Uttarakhand in- Disconnecting with the World on a Mountain Isle at Shaama

On the slow road, if you take a look around,there are stunners to be seen

We rode past the imposing FRI building sitting back in it’s expansive spread and it’s fairytale bungalows complete with green shutters and chimneys till IMA. Heard the marching practice and on the way back once overtook a learner on a Scooty minus her helmet (I guess according to her, her speed didn’t warrant the security of a helmet!) smack in the middle of the road oblivious to the jam in her wake. Zero for safety but full marks for confidence.
Our default setting became going on the Sahastradhara road to Raipur village through pockets of thick green cover of Sal and Mango trees near the Ordinance factory and then on towards either the airport or the road going up to Maldevata . The latter, initially, a one degree straight incline till it hit the hills. We saw jackals and their cubs scavenging by the roadside, not inclined to pose for a photograph. Towards the fag end of our cycling mornings, slowing down to give way to traffic we discovered at the end of Raipur the most beautiful ‘havelis’ with arched balconies, massive doors and in one, the most elaborate painted façade. Eye tonic early in the morning!

Discover more artwork in- Part Two- The Old Gold in Outstanding Orchha

Huffing and Puffing in a Cyclothon

We not only managed to participate in a cyclothon but also got our two minutes of fame when the photographs got published in the newspaper! Must be one of the shortest cyclothon (Thank god!) but with a killer route for people like us who are in the ‘whatever category there is before amateur mountain riders’. We were left eating dust in five minutes flat while the regulars, ranging from experienced twelve year olds to sexagenarians disappeared up the road towards Mussoorie. We cycled, got off and pushed the cycle, I realized it is smarter to be on one then be pushing it uphill! Repeated the cycle (Pun unintended!) till we reached half way at Kuthal gate. Then we cruised back on the old Rajpur road, which was mostly downhill, with me eyeing all the lovely houses enroute and going through my favourite patch of remaining jungle in Doon, with the fluttering Tibetan flags. Somewhere the husband asked why I was putting my brakes on the down slope. I wanted to tell him that we were touching nearly 40kms /hour on what is essentially a metal stick with wheels and with just a notion of protection on my head. Even if I had remembered to pack in the parachute I doubt it would deploy incase I overshot a turn and my landing would be hard, fast and over even before he could get his superman cape on.

Read about another cycling escapade in-Part One- On the Wild Side of Outstanding Orchha

March 27, 2019April 25, 2020

Disconnecting with the World on a Mountain Isle at Shaama

Room with a view of Nanda Devi & Nanda Kot

There are some places which, on the first visit, make such an impression that they have to be revisited again, to relive, reconfirm the magic that was woven the first time around; because once is not enough. The love affair that is ignited continues, the embers linger in the memory, waiting to be rekindled.

One such place is Shaama. The first visit had been as part of a trek to the Namik glacier. Each piece & place of that trip had been utterly memorable but the one place that took my breath away was Camp Shaama in the village of Gyandhura. If I had my way I would live on that ‘almost island’ in the mountains for ever. (Like so many horses we can’t ride, so many wishes waiting on the wings…) But since that doesn’t seem possible in the near future I contented myself with a brief break there.

This time we combine it with a visit to the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, which is just as well, because staying inside the sanctuary at the Kumaon Mandal rest house is a preview of things to come, for the ‘need to be connected’ big city companions – limited electricity which ensures a perforce weaning off from all gizmos & no running water either to boot. Though the staff is geared to provide the buckets of hot water (Making one feel like a ‘Burra sahib’ of old.) in the otherwise refurbished modern bathrooms (Fancy faucets pour out icy cold water only!) & the rooms are delightfully cozy with their wood paneling, there is no T.V, no room heaters, nada! Just this beautiful silence & deep darkness broken at sunrise by birdsong & the oohs & aahs of an appreciative crowd braving the morning chill on the terrace to see dawn breaking over the mighty peaks on the skyline. The days are spent exploring the various trails through the lush, moist silver oak forest sighting birds & the occasional deer.

Another place with a lot of trails is- Ranthambore Alert -Ticketing Trials and Tiger Trails

So after two days of detoxifying & disconnecting intermittently, one bar less at a time with the world outside, we get out of the sanctuary & set off for Shaama. The drive is leisurely as the roads are surprisingly empty almost. The mystery is solved when we are told that Holi, which is a round the corner, is not a one day affair in the hills & is celebrated in all serious fervor so most people come home for it. We witness a few scenes on the way back, of the ‘seriousness of the affair’, when we cross motley groups of men carrying their local deities around in palanquins, full of merriment & colour. The stragglers in the groups happily lurching around, high on colour & whatever else, trying to keep up as God & men make their way to greet other Gods in this colourful carnival. Thank god mountain folks still walk instead of driving around everywhere!

After Bageshwar we climb up & away on this gentle winding road, through a pine forest & cross the crest to the other side, more or less maintaining altitude now, getting a close view of the Nanda Devi massif peaks, enveloped in pristine white snow at this time of the year. We leave our vehicle at a hamlet & trek the last three odd kms on a narrow path, around this precarious, vertigo inducing corner ( The one speed-breaker enroute to paradise which slows down my steps & ups the heartbeat rate…all for the wrong reasons!) & behold – Camp Shaama, at the far end of the narrow spur that falls down dramatically on three sides into a sea of nothingness. We cross the few simple quintessential village houses set amidst the step fields of green wheat to reach the camp. It is set on this sliver of land seemingly floating so high up that one can barely see the Ramganga flowing down below on the north of the spur. On the east are the peaks near Munsiyari, on the south the world & on the north separated by just this deep narrow valley, the wall of the Nanda Devi massif & the Namik glacier. The dramatic setting offers a stunning almost 360 degree, to-die-for view!

The Karakoram mountains are right there in- Nubra Valley – Forging our own path

The beauty of the camp lies in it’s simplicity. There is a cookhouse on one side, doling out copious quantities of tea & piping hot pakoras & the most sublime food fresh off the land. A thatched structure has the place of pride right in the middle of the highest field, serving as the dining area & the place for congregating in the evening around a bonfire. A few stone & mud huts, each with a different yet fabulous view, scattered around on the lower fields make up the accommodation. I appreciate the fact that the camp ensures one communes with nature by keeping the facilities snug but simple. To lounge in a room in a locale like this would be a criminal waste. My absolute favourite is the washbasin holding on to the trunk of a tree in the washroom area. I can’t recall there being a mirror because I couldn’t take my eyes of the vista in front of me – the peaks visible through the trees, the birds flitting around the tree tops below…

Discover nature and hill food in- Barot -And the Serendipitous Catch in the Uhl River

We spend three days bedding down early, in time with nature’s clock & getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the sunrise & the most peaceful sight – the first rays of the sun casting a glow on the peaks while the deep valley is still in inky darkness. We tramp around the fields startling pheasants into flight, do a day trek to the spur on other side of the village feeling a bit like mountain goats minus the finesse, as we traverse narrow ledges at times. Go down the spine of the spur beyond the camp along a stone wall (Mountain people can give mountain goats a run for their money with their agility at times!) which divides two village lands, collect suspicious looking herbs( Which turn out to be fantastically aromatic but sadly nothing more!) read & soak in the view. The peaks dominate the panoramic setting, each one – Nanda Devi, Nanda Kot seem right there & they are! (Unless you are actually climbing up to them!) We have a run of the camp as it is still early on in the season. In the evening sit around the bonfire with warming drinks, totally disconnected by now from the world as there is no electricity in the camp so no phones! (No portable chargers. That would be cheating!)

No wonder when it is time to head back to the world below from this suspended idyll, the trek to the vehicle seems to get over too fast & the sounds of the phone coming back to life is cold comfort.

Fact File – Camp Shaama is run by Wildrift Adventures.