In Orchard Hut Awe

My impression of Orchard Hut

Back to nature, indeed. I think I had a smile plastered to my face for the whole 3 days and 3 nights in Orchard Hut. This no-frills, heart-felt, home-stay resort embodied everything I wanted (and what I think everyone needs) for a retreat. I felt so FREE! I was a city girl released back into the wild! I’m sure at one point some of my travel buddies were sick of my incessant laughter and playful antics. I was in too much of a blissful state to really take any notice.

We were provided with all the creature comforts: 3 organic, scrumptious vegetarian meals a day (clean food and fresh vegis!!); chai o’clock between lunch and tea; spring water swimming pool; and good-for-the-soul activities to fill in our days. I started each day with a one-hour meditation session with Mr Prakash. OOOhhhhmmmmmm…..Shaaaanntiiii….. leaving me in the best of moods for the day (Porcelain: But you’re always in the best of moods!) I’d done some unguided meditation on my own and have had success with it, but it was so much more…powerful to be lead into meditation. Mr Prakash would first talk for 30 minutes about the birth of ‘Ohm’, the first word of the Universe, and explain its role in meditation. He described the chant as an internal massage; the sound sends vibrations through the body, loosening all the tension within caused by stresses of life. He also taught me a simple way to finish a session. Previously I’ve just blinked slowly out of it, stretch and carry on with the day. He instructed me to assume the Namaste position (hands in prayer), bow and murmur ‘Ohm Shanti’ (Shanti is Sanskrit for ‘peace’), sweep your hands over your face, behind the neck and back into Namaste. Done =)

Later on, I had a full-body massage (loosening up all the tension without), again with Mr Prakash who expertly kneaded every knot out of my muscles leaving me more supple than a bendy, newborn baby. He read my energies and said that my body is a great vehicle for enlightenment. My chakra channels are clear and I’m headed down the right path in life. Needless to say that left me in an even better mood! Then Mr Prakash took us for a tour of his orchard. He impressed us with his fitness! This 65-ish year old man, with a generous ponch and hair sprouting from his ear canals handled the steep slopes of his farm with the agility of a ninja! He challenged me to a race and whooped my ass. We met some of his prized cows and watched him groom them. His most prized animal was Golab (Hindi for Rose), the water buffalo who was heavily pregnant and had the most gentle demeanour. I too wanted to join in on the grooming and started sweeping off some dust off her back. But as I did so, the dust didn’t come off; it just spread. No matter how roughly I patted it, it wouldn’t come off. And then I noticed that the ‘dust’ could be easily manipulated…and the next thing ‘Deb’ was written on Golab’s back. ‘Hey guys! Come check this out!’ Clo looked on and her face dropped in horror. It was then I realized what I’d just done- I’d just defaced a Holy Animal of India.

Please don't do this if you visit India...

Luckily for me Mr Prakash had an awesome sense of humour and had become quite fond of me. He told me that he sees my name on the buffalo as a blessing, and once the calf is born and is a female, he’ll name her Deb! Talk about leaving your mark!

Our other activities also included henna tattoos, a cooking demonstration, palm reading, and lazing around the pool. The pool was my absolute favourite. Natural spring water flowed directly into the pool from the mountain reserves so we were bathing in the elixir of pure nature. Its invigorating temperature was perfect to jump into after our half-day trek in the upper village. I didn’t even wait to get to the pool’s edge. I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag and jumped from the top of the stairs into the centre of the water. KASPLASH!! And then 2 more splashes followed (from a lower height) and I was joined by Karin and Jen, clothes and all! My laughter rang out through Orchard Hut and everyone gathered to see what the sudden noise was about. ‘Yeap, Deb’s back.’ So alive!

My most memorable moment, however, came on my last night. Throughout my stay, I’d been spending a lot of time chatting to Sahil, who has appeared in my entries quite a few times now. We had a lovely conversation on the open verandah about his passion for nature, my passion for humanitarian work, our beliefs about freedom…you know, the deep stuff. And then it turned to how I seem to be so happy all the time, with an endless supply of energy. I told him that lots of people think that I’m on drugs. He looked at me with genuine confusion and asked ‘Why would people say you’re on drugs??’ I was taken aback by his confusion. Isn’t it obvious? ‘Because they all think it’s impossible to be so constantly happy.’ He shook his head and simply said, ‘People on drugs are not happy.’ Aint that the bloody truth.

Ohm Shanti.

Mountain Smiles Continued

Ok, I lied. I wasn’t ready. At all.

Have you ever woken up before your body? Where your eyeballs are darting around behind your eyelids, willing them to open; your body’s as heavy as lead and no matter what signal your brain sends, your limbs refuse to obey? Yeah. Scrambling up a mountain for 6 hours induces that same affect. I didn’t try too hard fighting it though. I just laid there on the hard, unforgiving bed, enjoying the sudden awareness of every muscle in my body. I was reminded of a story I read in one of my hippy, spiritual books where an apprentice monk kept asking his master, ‘how does one be present?’ day in and day out, wanting his master to give him a plain language answer- but being ‘present’ is not a concept to be understood purely on an intellectual level. It must be experienced. Fed up with the apprentice monk’s incessant questioning, the master sent him away with a huge load on his back to the top of the steepest and tallest mountain in the region. ‘Deliver this load and you will understand what it means to be present’. The monk couldn’t see how that would help him understand, but obeyed anyway. It was the hardest climb of his life and his load was an absolute bitch to carry. Once he reached the top he was exhausted, sweaty, shaky and weak. He dumped his load and fell to the ground, relishing the end of his errand. He was so tired he couldn’t think of anything. Suddenly, he was aware of every twitch, pain, pore and fibre in his body. He felt the breeze caress his sweaty skin, cooling it down. He could smell the grass on which he lay and heard the subtle sounds of nature surrounding him. He looked around and his eyes widened in awe of the beauty. He smiled. He was present.

My experience wasn’t quite as romantic as that, but it falls in the same genre.

We had 5 more hours of trekking before we reached Chamba Town. Down hill. Which seemed like a relief…but once we started, we were a convoy of stiff-kneed, whinging Westerners. Ow ow ow ow OW OW OW OW OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW. I loved it! I thought it was hilarious! But that’s usually my reaction to anything. Why take the situation so seriously? It’s only temporary.

The biggest test of the trek though, wasn’t the heat, wasn’t the lack of shade, wasn’t the protesting muscles, nor was it the annoying spring in Sahil’s step as he bounded from rock to rock DOWN the mountainside- it was waiting for the bus.

Karin and I trying to make sense of the Crazy Lady at the station. That's not me being mean! The locals told us she was!

After a 2000m descent, a hearty lunch and a pep-talk for the last leg of our journey to Orchard Hut, we waited for the bus. At the local bus station (in INDIA, need I remind you). In 38 degree heat. Encircled by locals (yes, we had an in-the-round audience to witness the Western Misery show). No seats. For an HOUR, where we, as Clo so eloquently expressed, ‘slowly descended into the depths of our inner hell’. Mother Jen, English Adam and Porcelain Joelle stood there stone-faced; Traveller Karin sat on her backpack with her head between her knees- given up; Tom kept moving Clo out of the way of oncoming buses; and Chetan and Sahil were fending off all the locals with camera phones, trying to take snaps of us. Me? I was there. Laughing.

Then finally our bus came. Chetan called us all to follow him to the entrance to get on the bus that had just arrived at the station. We all whooped and cheered and elbowed our way through the sea of Indians to get a seat on the bus. Naively optimistic, we thought we would just take off once we were all on, but the bus started reversing further and further back into the station and stopped- right where we were standing. And there we waited for another 30 minutes. Without aircon. *sigh. At least we were sitting? The latter wait wasn’t that bad. Tom lightened the mood by telling lame dad-jokes, which led me to give my mean impression of a leprechaun. Clo said I had the best Irish accent she’d ever heard in a joke. Coming from an Irish girl- BOOM! That’s a compliment! Then the engine started up and we were off on the most terrifying bus ride any of us had experienced. The bus driver was a Jedi using nothing but the force to careen his way around blind corners with only centimeters between the wheels and the vertical drop of the mountainside. We all held on, white-knuckled, for our dear lives. I was still laughing- but not really.

Mother Jen and I on the bus, putting on a brave face. Except Adam in the background. He had that face and variations of it the whole way.

Once the bus stopped, we all shakily disembarked, relieved to have survived the ordeal. But then were hit with a fresh wave of dread when we realized we had another hour of ascent up to Orchard Hut.

‘There has to be another way. I’ll pay. I don’t care. I’m out of water. There must be another way.’ Poor Karin. She looked like she was ready to cry. Chetan just ignored her pleas and said that we were at the ‘elephant’s tail’ of the journey. Just a teeny-tiny bit left. Once we started, I was really surprised by how easy it was. I guess because we’d been moving downhill for so much of the day, it was actually a relief on the muscles to be going back up. Kind of like turning around in circles for ages one way, and then turning the other way to feel right again.

‘There’s the Hut.’ Sahil announced. And there it was, emerging from the plantation of fruit trees, a gorgeous wooden structure, carefully built into the green of the mountain. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was like someone had planted a huge seed and from it bloomed a HOUSE. Waiting past the tree hammocks and more fruit trees, was Mr. Prakash. The owner and founder of Orchard Hut- his passion and dream. He was a friendly faced, old man with big, bouncy belly and fuzzy ears that made him look like he had steam coming of out them. He welcomed us with a huge smile and open arms:

‘Welcome Back to Nature.

’

Welcomed with a traditional Himachal cap and bindi at Orchard Hut