Another young taxi driver was booked to take us to Kasar Devi the next day. I wondered if these were ex pupils of our homestay owner, they seemed about the right age. Due to being given wrong directions by an elderly man sitting in a hut we went on a diversion along a narrow, winding mountain road. Tim spotted this as he had been following the journey on google maps. We found out that our driver had put the wrong address into his google maps so the error was quickly corrected.

Kasar Devi is an old hippie haunt. Apparently Bob Dylan, Uma Thurman and her Dad (who was a hippie), Cat Stevens, George Harrison and Timothy Leary among others have been past visitors. Our homestay hosts were a beautiful couple who made us feel very welcome. They immediately offered us chai and a home made Kumaon meal. Our hostess has a lovely indoor kitchen but she still prefers to cook her chapattis the traditional way.

Diwali fell at the time of our visit and we had diwali lamps placed outside our room every night. Apparently they represent the eternal struggle betwen light and darkness, good and evil.

The Indian government is trying to encourage people to use alternatives to fireworks for environmental reasons. There are laws limiting them going off to a 2 hour time period and a restaurant owner in Almora proudly showed off his diwali cap gun to us – despite not being an explosive it made a massive bang. Still, there were plenty of electric fairy lights in the village.

The main activities in Kasar Devi are lying around eating, going for short walks along the ridge to admire the himalayas, chatting to locals and other tourists and visiting the two Kasar Devi temples.

The route to the Kasar Devi temples is along what is known at ‘cranks ridge’. Our host told us it got this name because Timothy Leary ran along it naked. He did not personally witness this, but he knows people who did.

The whole area is said to be under the influence of a break in the Van Allen belt, which is to do with geomagnetic fields discovered by NASA. The only other two places in the world that also experience this break in the Van Allen belt are said to be Machu Pichu and Stonehenge. This makes the area, especially around the temple, very good for meditation. The Van Allen belt effect has now been disproved as merely a hippie rumour.

There is a big stone between the two temples that is meant to be particularly good for meditating on, so I and Tim tried it out early one morning. I have to say I did feel very relaxed. The place has a special atmosphere, not dissimilar to how I felt on Glastonbury Tor. That could just be to do with the outstanding views and scenery though. Tim got a bad headache, which I think proves that his punk core was in conflict with the hippie vibe.

The best thing about Kasar Devi was the conversations we had – with our hosts; with a hippie Italian man who has lived in the area for 25 years and married a local woman; with a middle class Indian tourist who was escaping from his wife and daughters and the pressure of life in Delhi and with several young Israelis who were seeking respite from the chaos in their country. We also met a young woman who plays for the Uttarkarand women’s rugby team:

The two temples are to the female goddess Durga (this is the oldest temple) and a newer Shiva temple. We visited several times and it was relaxing to just sit and watch the worshippers and listen to the chanting. People were incredibly friendly and welcoming.

There is a story behind the oldest temple about a holy man who meditated in a cave. He had thought he would spent the rest of his life in the cave but then had a vision that meant that he knew he needed to return to the real world. I related to this as I know that this too is my eventual fate. Although not for quite a few months yet, thankfully.

Next stop Haldwani for one night and then a bus to Delhi, from where we have a flight booked to Bagdogra. This will be the starting point for our journey through Sikkim.