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Hike it: India
India is larger than
the world, opined theArgentine writer Jorge
Luis Borges. Since I frst
started visiting in 2007, its a land
that has continually captivated
me with its enormous human
dramas, its colossal landscapes,
its extreme degrees o beauty
and ugliness. Its a place where
religion orms the deep backbone
o the culture, so intertwined
with daily lie that almost every-
thing is invested with a spiritual
signifcance. Hinduism in particular
is oten religion-as-riot, passion-
ate and unruly, and never more so
than on yatra. On these religious
pilgrimages, millions o people
will travel thousands o miles ora single moment odarshan the
glimpsing o a sacred place or idol
in spots as distant as the east-
ern beaches o Puri or the hilltop
temple o Tirumala in the ar south.
But no pilgrimage in Hinduism is
as arduous or as revered as the
three-day trek to the holy Shiva
cave at Amarnath, deep in a snow-
choked valley hidden in the ar
northern mountains o Kashmir.
From the 3,377m plateau at
Pissu Top on my rst day, I can see
an unbroken, three-kilometre-long
line o overburdened ponies and
ootbound pilgrims down below
me, snaking up the muddy, ravaged
hillside Ive just ascended. The skyis huge and blue above me, with
snowcapped mountains all around,
a scene that or its remoteness and
beauty should seem peaceul, calm
and meditative. Yet what I see beore
me, in the orm o no less than
10,000 human beings teeming like
a kicked anthill, is a scene o total
madness. It will take me two hard
days to reach the Holy Cave, and a
urther day to trek out to the base
camp at the ar side, a 44km loop
topping elevations o 4,200m; and
yet still this wilderness is packed
with more people many o them
very old, very at, or maniestly
Matthew Crompton joins 10,000
pilgrims on the three-day trek to the
Shiva cave at Amarnath in Kashmir.Think dance parties at 6am, divine
phallic symbols and an experience like
nothing else on Earth
a hindupilgrimage
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Hike it: India
no pilgrimage in Hinduismis as arduous or as
revered as the three-
day trek to the holy Shiva
cave at Amarnath, deep
in a snow-choked valley
in the mountains
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Hike it: India
langars, huge open kitchens ofering
ree ood or pilgrims. Theres a real
estival air; inside the tent I see doz-
ens o people, men and women and
little girls, all smiling and squatted
around low wooden tables, uriously
rolling out chapattis as devotional
music booms rom the loudspeakersoverhead: Bom Bholay! Bom Bholay!
Bom Bom Bom! The twilight is purple
and mauve on the dusty mountains
and theres a kind o happy madness
in the air, passionate and inectious
and wild as only India can be, and as I
squat on the rocks with my metal tray
o dal and rice balanced on my knees,
I eel spontaneously joyul, diferent
rom the pilgrims around me but not
Whos writing?Teacher, writer,
photographer
and part-time
metaphysi-
cian, Matthew
Crompton has
at various timescalled Cleveland,
San Francisco
and Seoul home;
in 2011 he was
abroad in the world at large. Passionately devoted to
trivia and the search or a reebase orm o caeine,
hell argue at length about the relative merits o squat
toilets and the complete validity o rice as a breakast
ood. Women, zoo animals and most Marxists nd
him irresistible.
inrm than an Old Delhi bazaar.
And its not just mobs o
charged-up trekkers, nor the
thousands o poor ponies alongside
them, stoically bearing a somewhat
more indolent group o pilgrims
slowly along the way. No: there are
also, so help me, hundreds o peoplebeing carried, on crude litters made
o rope and lawn chairs and bam-
boo, each borne by a team o our
dirty and understandably hassled-
looking Kashmiri men, slipping and
panting up the muddy track.
There are people rom all over
here, a kind o India-in-miniature
Gujaratis and Mumbaikers, Delhi-wal-
lahs and Malayalees. As I walk along
the gorgeous alpine river-valley
beyond Pissu Top, open beneath that
enormous sky, very green and dotted
with scattered grey stones and crusts
o old snow and herds o grazing
sheep, a middle-aged Keralite named
Pratab points out a huge group o
emaciated, dreadlocked and shirtless
holy men heading deeper into the
mountains. Ah, babas! he says. You
can see they go bareoot, even here,
in the mud and snow.
Thats insane. Ive never seen
so many babas. Its like a baba party
up here.He laughs. It is, actually. They
all come, to meet other babas, to
beg alms, to smoke hashish. In the
camps there are whole baba cities.
Youll see.
Indeed, mid-aternoon sees me
into the massive pilgrim camp at
Sheshnag, an enormous and squalid
sea o tarp-tents, many occupied by
orange-robed babas who are either
very holy or very stoned or both. My
brochure rom the Amarnath ShrineBoard proudly touts the environmen-
tal measures said to grace this years
camps, rom reed-bed composting
toilets to plastic recycling stations, but
even at a glance its clear that these
pronouncements are either hope-
lessly nave or sinisterly Orwellian.
There are heaps o trash and plastic
bottles everywhere, and scores o
people are deecating in crude pits or
on the open hillsides, the wilderness
completely and irretrievably poisoned
by humanity.
Nonetheless, or all its squalor,
the camp is completely ascinating.
When night alls I venture out o my
grubby pup tent to the communal
Basic and bustling: a campsite on the pilgrimage
Never-ending: a queue o pilgrims and ponies
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Hike it: India
The idea of climbing
a thousand vertical
metres at six in the
morning on a head
full of hashish seems
more than faintlyhilarious
Colourul pilgrims beginning the
trek to the holy cave
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Hike it: India
apart rom them, both accepted
and embraced into their revel.
Sleeping like a stone, I wake
rested at dawn to stumble back to
the langarsor breakast. As I sit
gobbling milky tea and sweet bis-
cuits, a group o 20-something boys
rom Jammu sit down next to me.Do you take Baba-jis prasad? one
asks me under his breath, prasad
normally being the term or a kind
o consecrated ood or sweet.
Whose prasad?
Baba-ji. You know, Ba-ba-ji?
he mimes holding a joint to his lips.
I just laugh. Ha! I think Ill pass
right now, thanks!
The idea o climbing a thou-
sand vertical meters at six in the
morning on a head ull o Kashmiri
hashish seems at this moment
more than aintly hilarious. Instead
I join them in a spontaneous dance
party that has arisen just outside
the tent. Someone has remixed
the devotional music with some
kind o house beat, and people are
there in the early-morning sunlight
clapping hands and busting a
move. And why not, I think? I do a
simple six-step and the robot and
people go wild. Sometimes its nice
being a minor celebrity.
Nonetheless, I quickly pack up
and move on. This second day is
the most arduous o the trek, 18km
over the 4,270m pass at Mahagu-
nas Top and then onward through
the security cordon to the camp at
the mouth o the Holy Cave itsel,much o it on a narrow, muddy track
with a steep drop to one side and
a sheer wall on the other, being
body-checked by litter-carriers and
hire ponies all the while. I make the
boggy climb to the pass in about
90 minutes, and nd hundreds o
pilgrims there gleeully playing in
the dirty snow like little children.
He let his soul here, you know,
a man says to me, rather randomly,
as I stand snapping pictures in the
blinding sunlight. The saint, Bholay,
he let his soul at the holy cave, but
also here in the mountains.
All around? I say, And you
think its still here?
It ishere, my riend, he smiles.
Cant you eel it?
And I think: perhaps I can. Its
a long descent through the high
green meadow, down and down
across the grass and rock and
patchy snow, and Im drunk and
A sadhu(holy man)
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Amarnath
Yatra the
lowdownThe Amarnath Yatrapilgrimage, like anything
in the high mountains o
Kashmir, is a summer-only
occurrence, happening in
the Hindu month oShraa-
vana, coinciding roughly
with July and August in
the Gregorian calendar. In
2011 the pilgrimage ran
rom 29 June to 13 August,
though dates will vary
slightly rom year to year.
Pilgrims can register on site, but its a ar better
option to register ahead o time with the Jammu &
Kashmir (J&K) Bank, either online, or in person once
arriving in India at any o the J&K oces spread
throughout the country. The permit costs only 15 ru-
pees (about 20p!) and requires three passport-sized
photographs.
Once youre registered (to manage the massive
number o pilgrims, youre assigned a specic date
on which to begin your yatra), its best to proceed to
the resort town o Srinagar in northwestern Kashmir,
which has no rail links but can be reached by road or
by air. The yatra itsel begins either rom the pilgrimstown o Pahalgam, or the massive Baltal Camp, both
a couple o hours by bus or share jeep rom Srinagar.
Expect deep mud, rain, cold temperatures
(sometimes below reezing) and even the possibility
o summer snowstorms. Good ootwear, waterproos
and cold-weather clothing are a must. Adequate and
very inexpensive (i squalid) tent accommodation is
available in all the pilgrims camps along the way, as
well as ree ood (very basic but lling) in communal
kitchen tents. Personal cooking gear and tents are
not thereore necessary.
The climax o the pilgrimage is the holy cave atAmarnath, where a phallic lingam representing the
Hindu god Shiva becomes naturally covered with
ice each summer during the pilgrimage season. The
shrine is said to have served as a site o pilgrimage
and worship or over 5,000 years. While the yatra
is wildly popular among Indian Hindus, very ew
oreigners undertake it, and accordingly as a oreign
pilgrim youll be the subject o intense but over-
whelmingly good-natured attention. Expect oers to
dine and talk with people in their tents, and lots and
lots o requests or photographs.
Though the spiritual value o such methods is
dubious, it is also possible to be carried by pony to the
holy cave, to be borne on a crude litter, or even to be
fown in by helicopter! See www.amarnathyatra.org
or ocial inormation and details about the yatra.
giddy on oxygen and pain. In all this
space, I nd mysel suddenly saying
spontaneous prayers or riends
and enemies, orgiving people who
wronged me 20 years ago, singing
happy songs out loud. I trek on,
through the security cordon and up
again onto the precipitous paths,
deeper in to the mountains. By the
time I reach the narrow, snowy dele
at whose distal end the Holy Cave
lies, hours later in a steady drizzle, Ieel completely ready to make the
acquaintance o Lord Shiva. He is
said to reside here, within the cave,
in the orm o a stone lingam a
kind o divine phallic symbol that
each summer becomes mysteriously
coated with a tower o ice.
Im lthy, stinking and unshaven,
but I drop my pack and climb the
long stone staircase to the mouth o
the cave, yawning and lambent in
the semi-darkness, music spilling out
into the dusk. My eet are shredded
rom blisters, but I leave my shoes in
the pile and pad bareoot through
the grit and the lthy water on the
cold stones, and with the chanting
and prostrating pilgrims, move on
inside the cave. Theres a metal gate
beore the lingam which, itsel, has
melted considerably and looks
rather sad and lopsided, but I dont
really care at all. I come carrying with
me all the passion o my co-pilgrims,
all the happy wishes and good things
in my heart. I say my prayers and
make my bows and am summarily
shoved aside by the temple minders,
and on my way out an Indian Armysoldier smiles and gives me an
orange scar adorned with Shiva
mantras. The whole thing, which Ive
walked days to experience, is over in
less than ve minutes.
Outside the cave, looking down
on the steep, narrow valley below,
the hal-moon shines on the snow, on
the peaked roos o the tents, and the
stars are bright as Christmas lights. I
eel at once supremely alone here in
this distant place and yet equally a
part o an ecstatic whole, and I think:
there are many experiences here on
Earth, but truly none like this. I turn
and bow once more, and then head
downhill into the dark.
Proud pilgrim: Matthew having
reached the holy cave