Hiking in northern India

My experiences in India are pretty much out of date, as they were had 30 years ago. The only backcountry trip I did was a 10-day elephant-back “safari” into the northern terai forest at the southern foot of the Himalaya. While many Indians speak fluent English, most of the remote and rural folk don’t. We were a largish group (7-8 elephants, and maybe 15-17 of us, including the guides and cooks). Despite the apparent care that the cooks took, many of us had severe bouts of diarrhea anyway (imagine the embarrassment of having to halt the convoy, get your elephant to its knees so you could get off, and then slip off into the thick forest and hope there were no cobras around).

As for cooking, it is critical that you boil ALL water to kill the many cooties. I don’t think an alcohol stove is up to the task. A canister stove would be best, but finding the canisters might pose a problem. Maybe you could stock up in Delhi? This is where having a guide service to do all the cooking would be a good way to go, but you will still need to monitor their techniques to be sure they are properly killing the bugs.

At that time, Kashmir was totally out of the question, due to the chronic fighting between the Indian army and Pakistan over control of that region. It might be better now (or maybe not), and I certainly would want a guide to get me through that region safely.

India is a very special experience, however one does it. You’ll be changed people after 3-4 months there. If you will be travelling the country after hiking, at all costs you must spend 2-3 nights in Varanasi (the holiest of Hindu cities, on the Ganges), and I would also suggest a night in Khajuraho (to see the few extant Hindu and Jain temples that weren’t destroyed by the iconoclastic Mughal invaders).

I found that I could get along fine without a guide when hitting the main cities. It’s the isolated areas, and the hiking routes, that might pose a problem. This is where guides are worthwhile. They at least can take care of logistics, which can sometimes be a headache in developing countries.

@Gary: Thanks for the tips! I hadn’t thought about having to boil the water completely, so thanks for bringing that up. You are the second person to recommend Varanasi to me, so I will definitely add that to my itinerary.  Khajuraho I had read a snippet about with it having all these enormous facades with orgy sculptures. Holy moly Google Images make it look amazing… will have to add that to the itinerary as well!

For food while hiking, I have also been considering going no-cook and just bringing things like butter, bread, chutney, etc. I’m not sure how feasible this is with Indian grocery stores and also not sure how much my and especially my girlfriend’s stomach would like it after multiple days. But I suspect it would simplify things.

Have a look at Alastair Humphrey’s site- he walked accross India.

http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/adventures/walking-through-india/

I have spent a lot of time in recent years living in Nepal and India, though not hiking unfortunately. Sound like a great trip! The only advice I can add to the above is that you look into vaccinations, leaving enough time before you leave for them to take affect (some need 3-6 months to develop the antibodies) and +1 on the boiling water thing – you can pretty much guarantee the water will be carrying something that won’t agree with you. I have never had a problem finding canister gas in cities or trekking areas. If you are going the alcohol route, make sure you know what names of goes by locally (in Nepal it’s meths or methylated spirits). I always drop a chlorine tablet in bought bottled water too. As for food, people seem to vary – I have friends who can eat in the grubbiest dives, while I don’t seem to be so lucky. I always carry an array of antibiotics – ciprofloxacin is a good mainline defence, and sachets of soluble rehydration (electrolytes) power are a must. Most of these medicines are very easily available in cities.

If you’re passing through the areas you mention, you might want to check out some of the Tibetan communities and monasteries en route. Northern India and Nepal have wonderful monasteries that are well worth a visit.

If you are trekking in Zanskar, take a good bivy bag, useful in rough home stays (with fine people) and if you get trapped by early snows before the high passes, and have to wait for a break in the weather. 1984 or thereabouts, we stocked up on good food in Delhi, peanut butter, honey and vegemite to make the chapattis tolerable that we took on the long hikes (10, 7 days), many noodles. Maybe Leh is better stocked now. Join a pony hike party, you want good water filter, tent easy to pitch, good sleeping bag & down jacket, multifuel or kerosene stove, good kerosene containers, dependable boots, ultra lite daypack for the high passes, collect and burn yak dung, good padlock… so much I forget now, but a wonderful wonderful place. In lower country, I’d be cautious camping re wildlife, leopards, snakes, and if solo or in a small party, brigands. Depends on the area. I took a very lonely long bus ride from Himalayas to Delhi where as I recall driver wouldn’t stop for 10 or more hours, maybe thru the Punjab, I counted over 30 trucks on their sides, some very heavy political struggle at the time. True! I had to piss in the back of the near deserted bus. Quite a few Westeners have disappeared, presumed murdered for their gear. But India tends to look after you in a magical way… Main thing is to keep your head together. Met an interesting local, who made chapatti art, sold them for a quarter rupee. Had been a teacher, became a refugee, he had a good mind. Miss my friend Tashi, family if 4 living in a tiny room, invited me to stay…

Stephen,

Enjoy your adventure in India.

A couple of thoughts.  Having a guide is tough question.  Some places (such as Great Himalayan National Park)  there are rules that you must hire a guide and other places it is personal preference.  Another thing to consider is the impact of your tourism on the local economy and how people perceive you.  Having a guide can open doors but if it is the wrong person, it can also close doors.

Lots of other things to consider.  In my opinion, hiking in Northern India can be not that different than the States once you get away from civilized places.  So if you just want to go to experience the magnitude of the Himalaya, than seeing few people may be what you hope for.

On the other hand, India is something to be experienced.  So staying in homestays may be a highlight of your trip.  Have you read On the Trail of Genghis Khan, The Places Inbetween, or A short walk in the Hindu Kush?  I love these books as they focus not on how hard it is to walk in places like North India, but the place and people.

I second A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush…

also PS,

I recommended a bivy bag for home stays with earthen or rough wooden floors and various roving rodents, bugs, dust etc., keeps your sleeping environment a little detached and better controllable. Good padlock is needed for the hotel rooms. I think the danger areas with murders for gear were Lahaul or Spiti, quite some years ago. Don’t eat fruit such as grapes from market unless you carefully clean them first.

Stephen,

Is your PM set up?

Did you get my message?

Peace

@Pete, thanks for the link to Alistair’s site. I went there and ended up reading at least a two dozen of the online version of his India chronicles before getting sidetracked… Good tip on the vaccinations. I’ll be leaving in 4.5 months so I suppose now’s the time to head to the doctor’s office.

@Robert, good suggestion on the bivy bag. I’m planning on bringing one bivy each for me and my girlfriend + a groundsheet + 2-person mid for windy/rainy nights camping outside. I was thinking about bringing a ZPacks Duplex but figured the versatility of bivy+groundsheet+mid would serve us better for any grubby conditions when not sleeping outside.

@Garrett, I did indeed get your PM! :-) will be sending you an email shortly.

@Garrett @Robert, I just got A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush for kindle. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll probably start reading it tonight.

Thank you all so much!

I lived in India for two years, in central India, but traveled a lot in the north and also Nepal. Things I would suggest are:

Water treatment, water treatment, water treatment. Don’t rely just on boiling water as that is often not practical, but take a filter and a backup filter and a way to backflush, and some chemical too (chlorine dioxide etc), and some containers easy to fill (e.g. wide mouth platypus bags). Take enough for all your needs for the trip assuming you will not be able to replenish or replace these. Assume all liquids (except alcoholic ones or boiled things like tea) are contaminated and treat them accordingly, even if they come from a water spout or well or container. Be careful with food, especially raw food. My rule for food when traveling was, if it has been stewing for hours, it’s probably safe(r). Also, if you are not a tea drinker, convert now ;)

Plan to get sick anyway, since you will. Plan to have some zero days to recover; take not just the usual over the counter things for diarrhea – which you can at chemists (ie pharmacies) in larger towns – but some antibiotics for intestinal issues. As someone has already mentioned, get all your vaccinations, including tetanus. Also, plan to do without toilet paper or any privacy when you poop. Take soap and use it often to wash your hands.

Itinerary – pad it with more time. Everything takes longer. If you have tight schedules, that will probably not work. Do less, be flexible with it, and you be able to adapt.

Dress modestly, especially any women in your group. Rural India is not a cosmopolitan place and while you can expect people to be curious, well-meaning and friendly, be respectful of their cultural norms around dress and modesty. For instance, avoid typical hiking gear like shorts, tights and other items that show too much skin, or are tight fitting or revealing. Outside the narrow corridors of villages that are on popular tourist trekking routes, many people are not familiar with American and western casual norms of dress. What you consider ‘comfortable’ may be misinterpreted as ‘sexual provocative’. I know you probably read this in guide books, but I can speak, unfortunately, from first hand experiences this can be a serious issue, so I would urge anyone not to ignore this advice. You are a guest in the country and culture; people will appreciate your respect.

(Tip: I travelled over much of north India wearing a Kashmiri woolen shawl wrapped around me. Handy, warm, traditional, goes over a pack, and not revealing. I even slept in it one night on the top of bus going to Kathmandu. Pick one up in any cloth store when you arrive.)

Bugs, especially mosquitoes, are an issue everywhere. I second the mentions of a bivy indoors as well as outdoors. Take one with very good mesh for bugs, and take some mesh repair patches, too. I slept under old style cotton woven mosquito netting for two years and would have given my first born for some good no-see-um mesh.

Maps and directions: Indians don’t use maps to get around and so using them is not something they will understand in detail. You will need to get used to directions from people that are very landmark oriented in nature. If you show some villagers a topo map and ask, “Are we here?” it will be incomprehensible to them. Maps will help you a lot, but it is useful to start thinking their way of navigating when asking locals for directions. I’d recommend if you don’t know it already, Gatty’s book Finding Your Way without Map and Compass, just to get a flavor for it. Treat navigating more as an adventure in cultural interaction. Also, expect people to sometimes give you directions that may be wildly inaccurate; not on purpose, but it’s considered impolite for someone to say they don’t know. So treat directions with some circumspection, and frequently check along the way that you are indeed going the right way.

Guides are both official and unofficial. Since I usually knew a local when I traveled, I never had issues with hiring official guides, because a guide is (usually) not going to risk offending a local. But use your instinct. Sometimes official guides know a lot about the local area and sometimes they are totally ignorant and the guidebook will know much more. Some guides get a lot better when you start to tip them ;)

You will often pick up “unofficial” guides along they way in the form of villagers – especially kids – who will walk along with you. Don’t be surprised if you get an entourage from time to time, or people volunteer to walk with you to the next village, or help you find your way by walking you somewhere. (Remember, you might be the most interesting thing that’s come along all month for them.)

Political troubles. The past few years, things seem fairly calm, but I would certainly avoid anything in western J&K near the border. Check local conditions and ask how things are as you travel. There are sometimes local issues in town (strikes, political actions, etc) that have nothing to do with larger political issues at all that may close down shops or services you may need for resupply or affect bus or train schedules.

Trail magic happens, especially in India. By and large, people are friendly, curious, and happy to share. Being friendly, curious, and sharing back with them will help you get along and have a great time.