This morning we set off into the national park across the other side of the Ganges by going across a well armed checkpoint on a dam that directs the Ganges to a hydroelectric power station. Nobody la allowed to live in the park apart from a few gypsy families who were stuck in India at partition as their nomadic area covered Pakistan and Afghanistan. They live by their cattle and move from summer pasture up in the Himalayas to their winter quarters by the giant leat that cuts through the park. They are entirely self sufficient and whatever money they ever have comes from selling excess milk. Their huts,which are permanent,are more or less identical to the ancient British houses you see in open air museums and made from wattle and daub. There were 5 families in this settlement with a communal living hut and a recently built communal kitchen where one woman was making chapattis.Other women were looking after their children and attending their own household chores. Our guide said don't give them any money as they wouldn't know what's do with it and the danger also being is they might expect it in future. instead we stopped off at a local shop and purchased biscuits and bread rolls which our guide gave out to the children as we walked around the houses.Despitethe children looking a bit grubby they all looked healthy and the women were spotless. As we got ready to leave the men and other women arrived back laden with vegetation from the jungle for the cattle. One young woman smiled happily at us as we greeted them but apart from that nothing else was said. They are avery shy people who keep themselves to themselves.they speak a gypsy language amongst themselves and Arabic.Our guide said he'd seen them so often on the road that he stopped one day and trust built up between them and they have allowed him to bring people to see how they live. There are more families who live further in the jungle but their children are much older and safer by themselves.this park has all the wild animals and birds you'd expect so you wouldn't a tiger too near your toddlers.
We retraced our steps back through Rishikesh and immediately started climbing up into the foothills along un metalled roads,lurched left up a twisting path and ended by a tented village and started climbing . After about a 100 steps we reached a small iron bridge over a man made pool fed by a waterfall. We stopped to buy a cup of chai from a man with a prim us who was feeding the other visitors who had come for a refreshing dip.This enterprising man comes everyday to this spot to run his little cafe from his village 6 km straight up the hillside. Whilst we were there 2 women and one man passed us heading up the hill laden with cement on their heads to help build another pool a further km up hill. They were also from his village. As we descended the hill our guide said the tented village was in fact people from that village being paid to upgrade the track into a road to the village.as we made our way down in our car a tractor dropped a school boy off and he set off up the hill home 6km up into the hills.