Transcript

Why Conferences are Great and not so great

Hello and welcome to this replay of the talk which I gave at the Logan Writers Conference a couple of weeks ago. We had a few technical glitches preventing a livestream. And quite a few of you have asked for the recording because we couldn’t actually come out to the Logan Writers Festival. We were very lucky in Brisbane and in Logan that we could actually hold the festival live and meet people. We had a lot of readers come through.

And also what was good was that we met a lot of other authors, and so it was great to meet other authors. Writing can be a very lonely profession. And that is why I was excited to meet other authors. Talk to them, how we’re coping in the lock down, because authors have a great burden to try and create positive uplifting content, which helps people to escape. And how do we help people to escape what we ourselves are feeling down? And therefore that’s why the conference was fantastic.

But I decided that I would record my little talk for others. And I’m sorry because we could not actually stream it live because we had a problem with the connection, and we had a few tech glitches because it was outdoors on the green, and we had marquees and set up because we didn’t want to have it indoors and therefore all kinds of things happen in that.

So where to get ideas from? And my talk was about “the first chapter”, or really, what happens before the first chapter.

Before you even put pen to paper and write a single world where your ideas come from, what magic happens between the author and the world around her? I’m taking you on a journey through what happened in my mind, what’s happened in my life before I wrote my first bestselling book.

Learning to Fly

I called the beginning – learning to fly in a lockdown world. And that is what we wanted to do in this world. We want to learn to fly.

And I have that picture there because what you’re doing, really, if you are really learning to fly when you start writing a book, sometimes it can be frightening. So here we go.

What I’m going to share with you

• Who am I and what sparked my first steps,
• Remaining grounded in your locality and where you actually are, as well as
• Finding out who you are as a reader and an author.

Ok. Let’s play a game. A few facts and fictions about me.

2Easy2Publish is my company where I help people actually write and publish their books. But I’ve started doing that because I know how to write and publish my own best sellers. So here we are. I’m not very sure I am. So am I an author. Am I an adventurer, a party girl? I yes, I had a corporate life. I worked in corporate for many years. I also did a lot of hiking. I still do a lot of walking. Yes.

Taking off the Mask

I’m going to take off the mask and show you who the actual author is and how I got here. By understanding a little bit about an author and their journey, you can start your own journey by really seeing how anyone can do it. I’m really nothing very special, very much grounded in reality in this corner of Australia.

So this was my corporate life. I worked in a number of very big enterprises. I was in it, all of them. It did lots of exciting things from advanced computing to working on the first Mars Lander. Locally I worked in Mincom, and ABB.

In VeriFone which did financial transactions and Red Hat in Open Source So I worked with all these enterprises for more than 20 years. I think I write 65 books in that time, and not one of them is in my in my name because of course they belong to the company because I was a technical writer or content strategists – in all these companies and I was indeed writing very exciting stuff. I really loved it. But it wasn’t in my own name.

So at some stage I decided that I was going to write my own books. And today it became easy to publish with Amazon. So I have three Amazon bestsellers. All of them are hiking and adventure books. They sell regularly on Amazon all the time. Okay. I may not be JK Rowling, not be James Patterson, but my books to sell. And people like the books. I have 200 reviews from readers who love the books. I have readers writing to me all the time. I have readers also. I have a matter. Let’s face it. But I do have that connection to readers, which I never had before when I was writing in corporate.

So this is my credentials of why I can share with you, how you can get ahead.Also remember that this talk was at a live conference and so I had to have  nteraction with the audience. I said, let’s do this. The three truths here and lie and you need to guess which of those is a lie. So tell me which one you think it is.

 Three truths and a lie

• I was born in a real life case and I was educated with princesses.
• Yeah, I have family in every state, Australia,
• I’m an excellent dancer and
• I love roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

So tell me which one you think is a lie. And these are the fiction and fact about me.

Any of them would tell you a little bit of it of what I truly like. Okay. I’m not going to tell you. No, I’m going to tell you. You got to guess and tell me which one is a lie.

Come FLY with me

So what am I writing? Well, I said we’re going to fly, right? You thought this was the writing conference. You thought this was about writing?

No, it’s about flying, right? It’s about your sequence of going from a dreadful place, fly through the enchanted air and arriving at your dream. It’s your dread to dream journey. And to do that, you have to fly.

So what is F

F is to find the problem.

L is to be local, be grounded in your reality. Be local, be real, be authentic.

And Y is YOU will be only you because there is nobody else is exactly like you.

And that as the saying, be yourself. Everybody else is taken.

My Find the problem came from a small personal problem that I had about ten years ago, I started putting on weight and I’m an inherently lazy person. I do not like to train and go to the gym.

So I was putting on weight so I did what I wanted to do and which was to walk.

So I started walking in nature, in the forest, around my localities. First I was in Mount Gravatt, walked in every forest in a 20 or so range around me for the last six years. I can walk from five to ten kilometres a day, not I stop every now and then, but I can do that in the day. So it’s not just to walk for ten minutes or 15 minutes. These are serious walks.

I can walk from two to 5 hours every day, especially when I’m training. And so what happened is I started doing things which I liked it. I liked to do that. I like to walk. And from that I got the idea that if I was going to walk, I could watch as we do a through walk.

And I say I could again walk in different place. I told you my problem. My problem was I was lazy. My other problem is that I get bored very easily.

So after walking in the same forest again, I want to walk in other places. And that’s the way I want the idea of having through hikes and having adventures that way because it was exciting. Right. So I found a solution locally.

Find the solution locally because it’s easy to start an adventure when you just have to step out of your door or maybe hop into your car and just drive for five kilometres.

So this is actually a forest very near where I walk with a Lake in it. And we walk there once or twice week. We can actually get a 15 kms by going up and down from this area. So find a solution to your problem locally. And it takes away all the excuses which you have.

Taking away excuses is a big part of being a successful writer. Okay, so look locally. And why? Guess what others are looking for a solution to what you are doing.

 Finding the story in the everyday

When you find a solution to your problem, you’re suddenly going to find when you share that problem, you’re going to find that the other people who have the same problem and what you can do is you can tell them, you can give value, you can share your solution with them. And that is what the purpose of writing your book is really is that you want to share your solution with people. It’s not about becoming famous. It’s not about becoming rich.

If you help people to solve their problems, you are inevitably going to solve your problem this way.

But who are you? Who are you shape your art. So what are your passions? What are your hobbies?

What are your adventures? Start thinking. If you’ve never thought of writing your book before, you can write a book by taking of what you really love. Take your passion, take your hobbies and take a timely piece of I don’t take a huge thing about it. For example, if you like quilting, I do not try to write the ultimate guide to Quilting.

Write a short book on how to make quilt with a theme, say, or how to make a quilt for a baby.

A simple one. And that is enough for a book or a small adventure doesn’t have to be the adventure You see, it’s not huge. A hundred page book is enough!

The idea of your first chapter and this is a quote which is really important. Right, everyone, you must take whatever happens to you as your raw material, as your clay and turn it into something which is wonderful, , which can be taken and created into a book.

So this is from all that happens to us, including our humiliation is given to us as raw materials so that we may shape our art and our art, of course, is our books.

When we fly, we create the magic, you escape the mundane into adventure. And what you do is where people read a book. They wanted to do things they want to either be entertained for they want to be educated.

Both entertainment is a big thing today. And you know, when you when you make people have fun and you make people feel happy, that’s the time they learn the most. Ok. So here is my first book. It was a pilgrimage hike in Spain.

Hikes to Bestsellers

This book, the Camino Ingles, has 125 plus reviews internationally in all different markets. Right. I actually I was quite astonished to find that I’ve had downloads in Japan, in Brazil, in India, in UK, UK. Most of my downloads from UK because people can walk to Spain very easily there. So this was my first book.

How did I sitting here in Australia so far away? How did I go and write that book? I told you a bit about the story just now is actually walking because I was putting on a bit. I was feeling unhealthy. I was getting depressed and by just walking, I improved everything so much.

And then I went I had you’re the idea to go an adventure to being an actual book there. So this is I actually walked it twice. This is walking. I met other hikers day. I made friends at other hikers.

These are small forests on the Camino English. If we look closely at those forests, those are eucalyptus forests, right? Yes. A touch of home.  So the aim of the Camino is to reach Santiago, which is the Cathedral which you see in the background there.

So from all these experiences, from all these experiences, what happened is that I distilled them out into this book, which has now run into five editions. And the last edition was last year, which are updated for today by adding a lot of stuff to bonuses of telling people how whether they could travel, what they needed to travel. Because when you’re writing a book, you must give people the correct information.

And this is really the book which started me on my bestselling career.

The second book was a dream book

And it’s never too late to dream a new dream and sometimes don’t even too late to fulfil an early dream. The second book was forbidden track in the Himalayas.

It was forbidden to me when I was a younger and finally when I was nearly succeed. I did this trek. Yes, it was difficult high altitude track. But don’t leave it too late right here on one reviewer said dreams are made to be chased, to be hunted not very deep in your heart. And this book from Susan shows you how you can chase your own main dream.

So that’s exactly what I want to do for all readers is to allow you to take on that dream which you forgot about and fulfilled. So here are some pictures from the dream. Here is me talking to some monks because this is a sacred spot for Buddhist and that is catching Jasleen Buddha which I walked for three days to get to that vantage, see the view which you can only see from here and you can see it. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

You’re actually eye to eye with giants you’re after level looking at it. It’s just amazing. So here on the way, right. In a way, your adventures flap like the wings of your dream and is converted into a book. And again you meet different people along the way. You make new friends and this all converted into a book

My lastest book on the Valley of Flowers is a book with more a theme of friendship and adventure.

So this is again for friends and food. What better adventure? It was also quite tough. But my book helped people escape the lockdown, see what a reader says.

So my travel plans for 2020 or quashed.

But reading this delightful book transported me to the value of Flowers. what one reader said.

And that’s exactly what you want to do.

You fly, you help someone escape the lock down safely, they don’t have to take a plane. They just read your book and the transported to the value fly. And this was my last book and I have another book, but because I haven’t been able to like I haven’t been able to write so much.

That is what we talked about. Taking your adventures, taking your experiences from your real life where you are actually sitting down, you’re living life. You don’t have to think that you have to be anything special and do wonderful crazy things. You have enough content in your own life.

Whether you are twelve years old or whether you are 100 years old, you have got enough adventure and enough stories to actually write your book, take your normal life and convert it into a book because someone there wants to read it.

As you can see, my very niche books are about hikes – I’m doing what I love and and improve my health. That’s very small motivation, but I have so many people who wanted to do that,

I hope you enjoyed this.

Take action now and write your own book

I’m more than happy to help you to write your own book or plan your own book! Click below!

Delicious Himalayan Food

“Dhabas” or roadside food stalls serve generic Indian food on the Valley of Flowers route up to Ghangaria, and onto to Hemkund, and there’s simple free food at the gurudwaras, at guru ka langar.” One you are in the higher mountains, you may find that you have to eat vegetarian food, however, it is delicious, though limited, and there seemed to be little in the way of real local food. Be adventurous – Try to eat food that is freshly prepared rather than the odious 2-minute noodles.

Do carry hand sanitiser, and maintain a good distance from the vendor and other hikers while eating.

Trail Mix

We made trail mix, and divided it up into individual portions, one or two for each day. Carry protein bars, nuts or trail mix to supplement the food, as you may not feel hungry, despite the delicious food available. This way you avoid the inevitable cross-contamination.

A mix of nuts, dried fruits and seeds make a sustaining snack that give you a boost of energy. when you dont want to stop, or even don’t feel too hungry, and when climbing up to Hemkund, you need sustenance, and the altitude may suppress your appetite.

Water

The only water I would recommend is bottled water, and do remember to brush your teeth with it as well. If you don’t want to carry and drink bottled water, typically called “Bisleri” by its brand name, you will have to drink a lot of masala chai or tea, which is not a bad thing. There is no alcohol on sale in Ghangaria, but even if you carry it in, it is not advised at high altitudes. And Ghangaria is high altitude at 3000 odd metres.

At the end of a long day of trekking, there is nothing more delightful than hot pakodis and jelabis, washed down with steaming cups of tea. You can also get hot toast and butter in most restaurants in Ghangaria. While you can get free food, mostly khichdi, or a sort of risotto at the Gurudwaras, this spartan peasant fare can be topped off with gulab jamuns or hot jelabies from the dhabas outside. I also saw mounds of samosas stacked up and waiting for hungry pilgrims or trekkers.

Khichdi

 

 

At home we giggle over risotto and the gentrification of a plain peasant dish, that is the first food given to toddlers. But in the high mountains, that is its chief feature, khichdi is easy to digest, and a healthy mix of protein, carbs and fats to give you energy on a long walk.

Which brings me to the last food that is ubiquitous on the trek, aloo paratha or kulcha, is flatbreads stuffed with a spicy potato mix, and served with a chickpea curry. On the first evening we relished it, but after a few days, it palled, so much so that I took to eating toast and jam.

It could also have had something to do with the mild attack of Delhi Belly. There is nothing quite as terrifying as an upset tummy on a trek. But it turned out that my fears were unfounded.

If you would like a few of the Himalayan recipes, they are a reader’s bonus, you will find the link in The Valley of Flowers. The book is pretty exciting too! Go read it and let me know, there are more food tales in it!

There is also a recipe book for you to taste the food right from your own kitchen. Click the button!

The Valley of Flowers, The Ultimate Guide to an Adventure Trek in the Upper Himalaya.

Extracts from the book – The Valley of Flowers

Mountain Blooms

High in the mountains, among windswept peaks and gleaming glaciers is a hidden bower that touches the sky. Like a fragrant benediction among the sacred peaks of the Himalayas, it remained hidden until the last century. Despite the ancient pilgrim paths nearby, this valley stayed the exclusive preserve of flower-munching mountain goats and silent shepherds on their way through the valleys and passes to the dry hills of Tibet.

 The rocky path to the high-altitude glacial valley is steep, slippery and soggy. To see the flowers, you must trek through the rains of the monsoon into the swirling cloud-covered reaches of the upper Himalayas. Even then entrance is restricted to a few short daylight hours. Dusk is but a brief interlude before darkness falls like a curtain when the sun slips behind the towering walls of the gorge.

A magic location

The Valley of Flowers National Park is in Garhwal, in Chamoli district, about 595 kilometers from Delhi. The tiny national park, all 87.5 square kilometers of it, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as is the nearby Nanda Devi National Park.

The closest airport is about 300 kilometers away, Jolly Grant Airport near Dehradun. The nearest railway stations are Haridwar and Rishikesh, 276 kilometers away. From Rishikesh the only access is by road along the sparkling Ganges, until the confluence at Devprayag where the road clings to the steep sides of the Alaknanda valley.

The northwest to southeast aspect shelters the valley from winds from the frozen north. Open to the wide skies in the summer, the heat from the golden sunlight melts the glaciers that cover the ground for most of the year. But this is India, with it’s magical life-giving monsoon. 500+ different varieties of alpine flowers explode into bloom from June to August. The flowers germinate, bloom and seed in a 12-week period, in this sky-tossed valley nestled among the spectacular peaks of the Himalayas.

At an altitude that varies between 3000 to 3600 meters, drained by the Pushpavati, it is tiny, barely ten kilometers long and two kilometers wide. This does not seem difficult, but at this altitude you are 3 kilometers vertically up in the sky. It can be hard on lungs, knees and feet, make sure you acclimatize before you go. 

A Seasonal Feast of Flowers

Snow and ice cover the Bhyundar valley or Valley of Flowers from October to May. This includes access to bustling Ghangharia which turns into a ghost town from October to May.

You can trek from early June until the beginning of October, check exact dates, as it depends on the ice melt. The best time to visit is from mid July to mid August, when the flowers are in full bloom. This is also the wettest part of the year, so add time for road closures.

Day temperatures of 15 to 20 degrees C, falling to 8 to 10 degrees C by night, make for a cool trek. Layer clothing as it can get warm when trekking.

Flowers include the majestic and protected Brahmakamal, lilies, anemones, primula, and blue poppies. The blooms come in all colors and sizes and change from month to month in subtle waves of color.

Anemone, Geranium, Marsh Marigold, Primula, Potentilla, Aster, Lilium, Himalayan Blue Poppy, Aconite, Delphinium, Ranunculus, Corydalis, Inula, Saussurea, Campanula, Pedicularis, Morina, Impatiens, Bistorta, Ligularia, Anaphalis, Saxifraga, Lobelia, Thermopsis, Trollius, Aquilegia, Codonopsis, Dactylorhiza, Cypripedium, Strawberries and Rhododendrons, Anaphalises and Potentillas, the unfamiliar names hide the sheer beauty of the flowers. These are not the names of dinosaurs, but flowers.

In May when the ice retreats, sweet scented primulas cover the rocky terraces in blue and snow-white anemones light up the valley floor.

With the arrival of monsoons in July, pink and red varieties of flower flush the valley with rosy hues. Balsam, Wallich Geranium, and River Beauty, dominate, although there are plenty of yellow, purple and white flowers.

From late July to the end of August, Pedicularis, Potentilla, Ligularia and many other yellow varieties appear.

More information in the Appendix.

Thinking of walking? Read the book for now! 

Today is Day Seven, and the after one day up at the Valley of FLowers we take the right fork to hike up to Hemkund

If you missed the beginning, go back and read.

Extract

Reaching for Heaven

With one last pull and push on my trekking poles, the last switchback is negotiated and ducking down beneath the blue tarps, I enter a narrow path lined with shops selling goods and shawls to offer at the shrine. Gleaming silken shawls in pink, orange and purple jostle hard steel bangles, and other offerings.

Up the stairs and one last right turn, and the sacred destination is mirrored in the emerald waters of the lake.

The lake reflects the green slopes, rocks and the clouds, and only a splatter of raindrops interrupts the perfect image in the water. A circular group of peaks crowd around the lake, and down from them creep thin threads of glaciers.
The seats in the shed are welcoming and dry, and I join the rest of the pilgrims shucking off shoes. I lean back, the weight off my feet, and I take a large breath of the thin pure air before tiptoeing into the lake. Wait.
There is a guy who goes on and on – shoes off, socks off, shirt off, hiking pants off…stop please. Cheered on by his friends, he tiptoes in looking for a flat spot in the rocky floor of the lake, he wades out slowly into the freezing water, before a sudden plunge, a faster leap up, and a splashing rush to the shore. His friends laugh and chuck a towel at his shivering shoulders.
I lift a doubtful foot. I’m not proving any points here. I dip an uncertain toe into the frigid waters and beat a quick retreat. The only ablution today will be back in the hotel – that wood–scented hot water in the bucket seems a treat.
Some water is to be looked at, and some to be bathed in, and ne’er the twain shall meet.
A forlorn Laxman temple nestles up to the gurudwara, one of the only shrines dedicated to Laxman alone. It is locked up, a concrete box enclosing a dark alcove with a barely visible idol.
In the open shining halls of the gurudwara, the Guru Granth Sahib is being chanted.

I like Sikhism, the object of their veneration in the temple is a book – the ultimate Guru.

The Lake and the Spear

Hemkund, the name derives from the words Hem (“Snow”) and Kund (“bowl”). The tarn is surrounded by seven snow– wreathed peaks. and since you are at 4600 meters, they don’t seem too much higher than you. This is a lake dangling in the sky, held up by threads of waning glaciers and cupped by a bowl of slotted shale.
I half hope that a Sikh King Arthur Singh will appear on a rearing horse and toss a gleaming Excalibur into the still waters, with the Lady of the Lake seizing it and disappearing into the depths of Hemkund Sahib with scarcely a ripple.
In a surreal time shift, a Sikh priest in flowing saffron robes and a towering turban strides barefoot out of the temple, his medieval magnificence completed with a shining spear flut- tering with tassels of gold. Behind him, the chants from the Gurudwara fade into silence. The spear is ceremonial only, there will be no impaling of heretics today. Neither will he toss it into the lake. His stern face relents as I ask for a photo with him.
There was no way to do a parikrama round the lake. Stern warnings prohibit this is in multiple languages, so we line up at gurudwara, place our shoes carefully in a row of lockers and enter the temple barefoot and with our heads covered.

The Power of a Vow

The clouds and threatening rain make the steep path slippery and dangerous. But I prefer to walk, despite the importuning of many muleteers. I do not understand how mules judge edges and heights, but I’m unwilling to risk my neck and life to the broken toenail of a recalcitrant mule. The mules are mostly well fed and well looked after, caparisoned with colorful braids and ribbons. There’s always a lead mule, who decides the stop and start times of the meandering way. While mules are not allowed in the Valley of Flowers, they are allowed here, a boon for the many older pilgrims.
I will walk downhill leaving the glaciers and clouds to enter the lush forests of the valley below. On my way down, I stop to talk to a grey–haired grand- mother, her head wrapped in a dupatta, borne up on both sides by teenage grandsons, every excruciating step of the way. She had a long way to go, but her grandsons, with their barely there beards and downy moustaches, shrugged and said she had refused a pony or porter, as she had made a vow to walk – barefoot. Nearly there, I smile.

I lied.

#ValleyofFlowers Day Six Aug 6th 2019

What it feels like to achieve a goal – whether reaching the valley 4 kms up in the sky , or publishing a bestseller about it at the height of a pandemic – brilliant. Never give up on a dream.

EXTRACT

Darshan

It’s not a coincidence that this feels like worship. Ten thousand years of awe well up in me. A lingering legacy from ancestors who gazed at these mountains and wove them into a lasting mythology. Darshan is a two-way action, you look at God and He looks back at you.
From me “I am here, Lord”, and in reply, a simple all-encompassing “I am”.
Above me lush green meadows soften the harsh edges of the peaks, and the entire valley lies ahead. The sun comes out on a verdant flower-speckled space ringed by snowy peaks that look close enough to touch. As we are so high, the peaks – a picture-perfect range of snowy peaks like the cupped hand of God. “I will hold you in the palm of my Hand.”

Baman Daur or The Boulder Gate

The towering boulder marks the visual start of the valley. It’s where everyone sits down for a picnic lunch. A group sit down and begin handing round hot drinks, cold drinks and food, with laughter and a lot of clutter they eat and make merry.
I leave.
We will eat on our way down, time is too precious to waste on picnicking. Not that I don’t enjoy picnicking, thanks to my adventurous parents, I’ve picnicked from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and Amritsar to Arunachal Pradesh, but given the narrow sliver of time in this valley, I’d rather be walking. Alone or with my friends, in this space, I am not inclined to talk to strangers.

In the footsteps of fate

Pushing onwards, the meadows lush with a green never seen on the plains, fragrant embankments of flowers, through it all the sound of running water. We are now treading in the footsteps of the early explorers like Frank Smythe and Joan Legge.

Frank Smythe, an early twentieth-century mountaineer, discovered the valley and then returned here to camp for months recording and gathering plants. Was he a mountaineer or a technical writer? What a glorious way to produce a manual! Or a travel book.
In a classic real-life twist of the six degrees of separation, only two degrees separate Frank Smythe from myself. In a spot of research, I find that he contracted malaria in Darjeeling….And he was in Darjeeling to plan another expedition with Tenzing Norgay, and as every one who lived in Darjeeling knows, you would always bump into Mr. Tenzing Norgay, either at a school or college talk, in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, or on the Mall or Chaurasta in “Darj”.
Frank Smythe may be forgotten in his homeland but he is remembered with fondness and admiration in both Hindi and English, at the ECO center in Ghangaria, where you can watch a short documentary about the Valley of Flowers, and his journey.

Much as I love his book, I do think it is time that the 21st century book about this magical valley is written by a brown-skinned woman – aka me

Read it now and join me on my journey.

Coming to the Himalaya and trekking has a true Russian doll effect – you keep unpacking more and more layers to your inner self and how it relates to you, your life and future. In this featured photo, its a literal image, Im taking the photo in the window, and the mountains are looking back at me – in a reversed panorama. On this fourth day of the adventure, we reach almost there – Auli in the high himalayas, for a day to acclimatise. but read on.

If you missed the beginning, go back and read.

EXTRACT

 

The Marooned Goddess

Dhari Devi – the women’s shrine is set in the middle of a roaring torrent. It’s raining, but that’s no excuse, we head down to the temple accessed only by a walkway and wonder how people visited here before this bridge existed. Did they swim out clutching desperately to mud pots, did they take boats that battled the swirling waters that threatened to suck them down to a watery grave?

The covered walkway allows us to flip back our hoods to feel the breeze in our hair, and raising our hands we tinkle the myriad brass bells that festoon – both sides of the walkway, announcing our presence to the goddess Dhari Devi. It’s a women’s shrine, rare in the Himalayas, so we head into it for privileged blessings, and after that out again to cross the suspension bridge to the village at the other side.

A mist floats on top of the river even now, late in the morning, as the river thunders around the curve. In the roar is the creak of the rope and the dull thumps from the cable car, and I strain to hear the still small voice of the Spirit that created this mysterious web of water and earth, and brought me here to create this perfect moment.

First Views of the Snows

We whirl through Chamoli, only stopping to take pictures of the road signs that we see for Joshimath and Gobind Ghat. The reality of places that were mere dots on maps, send a thrill through me, and my friends laugh at the peculiar things that excite me. I wonder at the early explorers tracking through these paths and woods with only the peaks and stars to navigate by.

At Pipalkoti, in the cleft of the valley, we see it, the snow peaks of the Himalayas at last, wreathed in clouds, but unmistakable in their glow as they float across the sky. We stop and lift our eyes to the far horizon. The twisted crossing is filthy and rubbish-strewn, but look up for the view. 

From here on the chatter quietens, as the road narrows and the gears grind for the serious climb towards to our final stop for the day. The road is steep, and the valleys plunge into infinity. Peeking over the side, the road below is a tiny thread that switches back in infinite loops above an invisible stream that gleams when vagrant rays of sunlight make it to the valley floor.

Magical Auli

At last the road ends, literally. Up steep flights of stairs with broken treads, pay attention as the steps are of irregular heights. But for now, the “boys” from the resort come down and carry our bags up to the the log cabins with the most magnificent views of the Himalayas. Even the late afternoon clouds and mist cannot fully obscure the jagged pyramids of sloping rock topped with snow peaks.

From Kamet, to Neelkanth to Nanda Devi, all the abundance of peaks leaves us silent.

The view draws us out from the rooms, and we’d like to meet the other people here. The camp is packed with trekkers, and many of them seem to be from Bangalore. We meet people who have common acquaintances. It is camp time definitely; as we need to wait for the hot water boilers to be fired up, and in the cabins the weak lights and charging points betray their solar origins. But we have lights – and the phones and other equipment charge, unlike earlier explorers, who used flickering candles or lanterns that spluttered in the wind.

At dusk, the camp is wreathed in a ghostly mist, but later in the night the mist clears and before us like magnificent ships of the night the mountains float in the moonlight. The Neelagiri massif sits astride the horizon, and to it’s right, Gauri Parbat and Hathi Parbat hover in the distance, while closer to us Dunagiri raises a toothed spear to the sky.

There is a little snow on the peaks, but what a wonder it would be in the winter when clearer nights and more snow would create a winter wonderland. The wide windows of the cabins look out on the view, framing them like a giant TV screen. But we are really here, not simply watching it on the television. And tomorrow more views and the first trek with flowers awaits us.

Extracts from the book – The Valley of Flowers

How many decades will there be before the Indian woman is emancipated from the mental, moral and physical slavery she has endured for countless generations?

-Frank Smythe

In the beginning there was a quiet valley, veiled in cloud and wreathed in glaciers and utterly remote from the teeming masses of the plains. But then one day it welcomed a lost wanderer stumbling out of a Himalayan storm, and it became known as the Valley of Flowers to the world.

The people of the mountain, the simple shepherds had long known this valley as Nandan Kanan, the last verdant valley before the brown dry hills of Tibet that lay in the rain shadow of the mighty Himalayas. And year after year it lay quiet and forgotten, except by a few intrepid souls ready to walk for days to reach it.

And when we knew of it, it was like a dream hovering in the distant north. In the vibrant south of India, we got on with converting the sleepy retirement town of Bangalore to the IT capital of the world, and building careers that as Indian women, not even our mothers could have dreamed of. 

And we, the answer to Frank Smythe’s question – two generations. In 1937, when he wrote this book, my mother was a ten-year-old in a small town far in the south called Podanur, and on the trek, I stood in the exact spot where Frank Smythe asked that question.

Getting Real

It started as a conversation on Whatsapp across three continents

• When were we going to do that things we wanted to do?
• With the people we wanted to do it with.

It was already June, and the monsoon was late, it gave us an opportunity – we could walk the Valley of Flowers in early August or September. One by one, we go over the options; independently, or hiring our own taxi, walking on our own, pre-booking? There was no guidebook that we could consult, so we throw our search net far and wide over the internet.

The options narrow as we realize we have limited time; we cannot wait around to catch buses or shared taxis, and I’m always carsick on mountain roads. We need our own car and driver. And I need to sit in the front.

It later transpired that the roads are so precipitous and wet, and the curves so continuous and convoluted, that I sit one row back in the car, but that’s another story.

Once we have our dates and times down, it’s time to plan. We have a ten-day window in which to do a three-day trek, that sounds easy. Until we realize that we need to get to the valley, and acclimatize at heights. I have no qualms about admitting that I have altitude sickness, so we need a slow climb up to the start of the Valley of Flowers. And that needs some negotiation, as the tour operator wanted us in and out fast, and we didn’t. We hand over all the decisions to the best planner among us, Anju takes it all over, and we mostly just nod and smile as she does a great job. I smile to myself as I think back to the time ages ago at work, where I mistook her for someone’s little sister, not a key developer on India’s first supercomputer. 

And when we knew of it, it was like a dream hovering in the distant north. In the vibrant south of India, we got on with converting the sleepy retirement town of Bangalore to the IT capital of the world, and building careers that as Indian women, not even our mothers could have dreamed of. 

And we, the answer to Frank Smythe’s question – two generations. In 1937, when he wrote this book, my mother was a ten-year-old in a small town far in the south called Podanur, and on the trek, I stood in the exact spot where Frank Smythe asked that question. Here is the picture of the position, from a careful reading of his book that is the same spot. And here I am, with a group of pahadi woman who were herding a cow and calf up to their summer meadow.