It was my privilege to visit Kashmir and once again see the deodar forests in these Himalaya mountains. I always try to visit the Marwah valley where over the years I have become friends with many of the residents. As my time was limited due to an error with my visas I had only a limited amount of time and thus not able to explore unwalked regions off the main valley.
My initial primary reason for this visit was to see what changes had occurred since my last visit which was pre-covid. Those of you who have read my previous trekking blogs will know that I had a major concern as to what would happen to the valley after the dams were built.
So the trek itself was only 2 days in the valley after I left Nowparchie or Yordu walking down the river to Lopara and Sonder. I was fortunate in so many ways as my physical condition didn’t always match my enthusiasm. My friend Arju Faried and his brother
accompanied me on the first leg from Nowpatchie to Hanzel. There I stayed overnight and again assisted by my old walking mate from Yordu, Ulfat Malik continued on to Lopara. This is essentially where the forest of Kishtwar National Park ends and where the valley is essentially open to farming. Over the years the trekking in this valley has been lessened by the intention to build the dams and hence invade the valley with roads and other infrastructure. In my first trek access by road was very limited with a long days walk to get to Sonder and another from Nowpatchie to Insham at the base of Margan Pass.
It was a lot of fun seeing Arjo and hearing about his lifestyle. Arjo studied pharmacy in Bangalore , is now married and has one lovely baby. Now that a new hospital is being constructed the medical needs of this part of the valley should be improved. In the past accidents or sickness could be very dangerous especially in winter when the valley was cut off by snow from the rest of J&K. Arjo will play an important role when this facility is completed.
We had a lot of fun walking the valley eventually reaching Hanzel in the late afternoon. My previous host family was away so for a while I wasn’t sure where I might sleep. Fortunately another relative Somnath Thakur
invited me to his home. A lovely family where I was treated royally. I guess I wasn’t a great visitor as I was worn out. This didn’t appear to be the case with Arjo and his brother who returned to Nopatchie after they got me settled.
Hanzel is a very small town with little farming land as far as I could ascertain. It doesn’t seem to get the sun a lot of the day. But would you believe it it does have mobile reception. It would seem that there is a race on to see who will provide this service for the valley. All the way from Nopatchie you can see steel poles in the ground but no lines hung at present. I reckon this system will be hard to maintain as the forest are also close.
My friend Ulfat as I mentioned earlier carried my bag on the second day from Hanzel to Lopara. Ulfat lives in the Yordu a smaller town than Nopatchie but on the other side of the river. Ulfat has accompanied me on many trips in the past. Their home is a traditional home made of deodar trees with their cows living on the ground floor. I have always stayed with them arriving unannounced as it was impossible to contact them before hand. (that will change soon as the mobile network reached them) . Ulfat wasn’t going to come with me this time as he was recovering from a compound breakage to his arm when he fell out of a tree. Ulfat doesn’t speak
English and I have have the same problem speaking Urdu. So sometimes we do not really understand each other. Most of the time this doesn’t seem to matter.
I had indicated that he shouldn’t come as I didn’t want him to have an accident. We said goodbyes but low and behold when we were almost on the outskirts of Hanzel, Ulfat was waiting for us there praying on a rock. We were so surprised to see him and for some time not sure that it was even him. However it turned out alright as he insisted that it was his role to carry my bag on the second day.
Nopatchie and that area are mainly Moslem. Hanzel and Lopara are mainly Hindu. Whilst further down the river towards Kishtwar both ethnics live side by side. Lopara is quite a big town certainly wealthier than the other villages that I travelled through. The town has the equivalent to a mayor and local infrastructure seems to be progressive. I was hoping to catch up with Bansi Lal Bhandari but he was away in Kishtwar with his work in Wildlife Department but fortunately his brother Anil made me welcome.
Physical I was a wreck when I got to Lopara. Quite the opposite to what I had hoped. My intention was to thank my old hosts Bansi for his support on my last visit but instead I was still struggling. (fortunately not with giardia.) The Bandari family have a strong presence in Lopara and the house I stayed in is aboce their shop and overlooks the main house. Whilst I was there I commented on the large pear tree outside my room but higher and ladened with fruit. Well this gentleman climbed up the tree and I ended up with a bucket of fruit.
I rested up the rest of the day and by morning the next day was ready to do a little exploration of the township and its surrounds. This is what I noted down: “14th September: this is the harvest season. Soon it will be getting colder. Every one is aware that the summer weather will soon be over. Everyone is trying to get as much done as possible before rain of snows shut down the year. All the ladies are carrying bales of air from the fields to storage near their homes. There is no possibility of trucks or other mechanical devices to help in these activities. The paddocks are small and access is often only available alongside the irrigation trenches. Meanwhile horses are carrying sand collected from the river embankments for contruction. (remember in Lopara and elsewhere timber is no longer available and the houses use brick and cement mainly.)
I am impressed how much they get done while all the time no one seems to complain. I guess the winter is long and with the short season they have to work hard.
I had one more thing to do in Lopara and that was to visit the local High School. There I caught up with my first contact made years ago Om Prakesh. He is a teacher at the School and also Sonder. My topic this time was cleaning up the rubbish which always seems to be dropped along the ways. In towns such as Lopara but quite prevalent everywhere plastic rubbish mainly lines the trails. I guess that is why I like the remote areas as they tend to be clean. This habit I guess is somewhat a traditional one when rubbish dropped could be eaten by animals. Plastic waste however can’t be consumed and just sits there. So my talk emphasized that the youth of today can make changes and guide us in new ways to protect this beautiful land. Empowering anyone though is not an easy task and with this particular topic I have never made any progress.
After my talk and a break I caught up with Om and we made our way back to Sonder. Somehow I was still struggling and eventually Om gave me some much needed help with my rucksack. The path from Lopara to Sonder is a tedious one. I have always had negative thought about it as it seems to be completely unkept and boulders abound. I imagine there are many accidents on this trail. To complicate matters more this is always the section where Police and Army check points prevail. Each little stop some official wants details and jots them down without necessarily understanding whow they are going to be useful . I must have been really tired as I did find this a little annoying.
That gets me to Sonder where I stayed with Om. I should just mention that the road to Kishtwar now has been extended to Sonder and a little beyond. Strangely it was a pleasure walking the last leg on the new road after the boulder strewn track which preceded it.