Some wild flowers of the hills

This star shaped flower grows on a succulent.

Primulas which we never see in the tropics, grow as wild flowers in the hills.

Cactus flowers

Today's Flowers

These flowers were growing in the wild in the Himalayas. They look like Wisteria, but I am not sure whether it is wisteria.

Wisteria or Wistaria as it is sometimes spelled, is named after the scientist Henry Wistar.

The flowers are pea shaped and profuse.

My grateful thanks to the team of the meme 'Today's Flowers" for hosting the interesting meme.

The Hot and the Cold

This is a tea garden in the Himalayas. They were just starting to pluck the leaves. These tea plants are not hibrids, but the original plants brought from China 200 years ago. A very fine quality of green tea is made from the leaves after fermenting and drying them. A hot cup of tea is very welcome in the cool climate.

Manikaran. Tou can see the steam rising out of the hot spring in Manikaran. Some people tie little cotton bags of handfuls of rice and float it in the hot spring to become cooked rice.

There are Hindu and Sikh temples in Manikaran, who both offer the traveller delicious hot food free! I had a tasty lunch in the Sikh temple.

The locals make an ice cream known as kulfi. To freeze the thickened milk, they don't use the refrigerator, but keep the vessel in the swift flowing , cold river Beas for a few hours. This man sold the kulfi served on leaf plates of the Palash tree. The Kulfi was delicious!

The Himalayan mountain goats were being led to the pastures on the higher ranges. They come down to the lower ranges just before winter. The softest wool in the world, cashmere , is made from their wool.

A Tibetan shop in Dharamsala selling woollen articles.

Many Tibetans, including their leader, the Dalai Lama stay in Dharamsala as refugees.

I just caught a glimpse of the great man as he was going to inaugurate the cricket matches.

Grandeur of the Himalayas

In the great Indian epic Mahabharata, the protagonist, Yudhishthira is once asked by his wife Draupadi: "Why do you love Truth so much? Truth has given you nothing but misery."

Yudhishthira replies, " I love these Himalaya mountains. They have not given me any material gain. But they are so beautiful and grand, that anyone would love them...Truth is also like that. Beautiful and grand. That is why I love Truth."

Anyone who visits the Himalayas once, longs to visit it again and again.

Watery Wednesday- Following the Beas

The river Beas originates from a glacier in the upper Himalayas. We followed the river from the higher ranges, right down to the plains of Punjab.

The water is still ice cold in the camping site.

The river loses its force, and flows calmly in the lower foothills. The water is not icy cold, making the place ideal for a bath.

English Garden in the Himalayas

The British , who ruled India for 200 years, could not bear the summer heat of Delhi. So, during summer, the whole government would shift to Shimla, which is located in the Western Himalayas. Naturally, the Viceroy had to have a castle, and this Scottish castle came into being in 1888, complete with electric lights, running hot and cold water in all the bathrooms and an indoor tennis court! A beautiful English garden with box hedges, manicured lawns and English flowers was made around the castle. Rain water was harvested in an underground tank to water the extensive lawns and tennis courts.
Now the building houses the Institute for Advanced Study, a post doctoral research Institute. Since it is no longer the seat of power, the gardens are not given much importance.

Besides such English flowers like carnations and cornflowers, there were these flowers whose name I could not find. They are not Alstromeria.

A great attraction was the profuse flowers of the 'Whistling Rose', shown above. I don't know who named it and why, but I think it was called Whistling Rose because of the hundreds of little birds in the bushes.

Although the Viceregal Lodge had an imposing appearance, some of the ladies who inhabited it did not like it. Lady Curzon thought its appearance ludicrous, calling it a building "a Minneapolis millionaire would delight in".

The Thief and the Church in the Wilderness

Near Dharamsala in the Himalayas, there is an old church among the deodars called the Church in the Wilderness. In the nineteenth century, a British officer was killed there by wild bears.

The church has beautiful stained glass windows.

The church reminds one of a bear, somehow.

There are magnificent Deodar trees all round the church.

Lord Elgin, who was a viceroy of India, is buried here. It is the same Lord Elgin who stole the marble sculptures from the Panthenon in Greece. By all accounts, Elgin seems to have been an unscrupulous and cruel man.