Palampur - The Last Chapter

COUNTRY: India, Palampur
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Health
WRITTEN BY: Hayley Hall

The famous Manali weekend definitely lived up to its reputation as a wild, good time. Our journey began with a six hour drive to the snow-capped mountains, driving through green, freshwater valleys with pockets of villages around each bend. It was astounding to see the transport methods between each huge folding mountain which was quite literally a metal basket hanging on a wire that would hang about 300m from the ground.

When we arrived at the snow we headed to "Johnson" lodge, our new favourite place. There, when we weren't living large in our luxurious bedrooms with wifi, we were either sitting by the fire sipping on Australian wine, playing competitive pool or stuffing our faces with the most delicious Italian food and chocolate brownies known to man. Any weight we had lost in India was certainly handed back to us on a plate in the form of yummy Western goodness.

The slopes of Manali were a crazy adventure land designed as a tourist haven. If you weren't knocked out by a Zorb Ball upon arrival, which Todd had a very close encounter with, you were either dodging tyre toboggans or landing paragliders. There were horses, rabbits, dogs, cows and yaks, which Damon and Todd made sure to get a ride on. Adding
to the madness was the fact that we had all been dressed in 80's onesie ski suits. It certainly added another dimension to the fun. Everybody had chosen to ski except for Gaby, Nadine and Jake who took the plunge and went snowboarding.

The cable car to the top of the mountain was very new and impressive however, unlike when reaching the top in Australia there were no marked slopes at all. Imagine cross country skiing with almost waist deep powder down the steepest mountain any of us had skied before. Hence, it took us almost two hours to get down the run the first time. I think the longest we had a straight run for went for about five seconds before we were required to do another sharp snowplough turn. We all verged near breaking point at some stage but we also had lots of fun.

Alice, Mo, Nadine and Leanne (all the beginners) definitely deserve a medal for attempting to learn in Manali snow, the powder when falling tried to hold onto you for dear life. We were all very sore that night.

The shopping in Manali was also the best of the trip so far. The girls found an incredible tribal art store which stole their hearts, time and money. The silver jewellery was exquisite and the handicrafts were so cool. The last night ended with a bang with a "ladies night" happening at Johnsons, the bar turned into a mini club which consisted of just our group and a few stray guests. Being Australia Day, we decided to showcase our best local moves, dancing to terrible pop songs and singing along to the Dj's "last song", which in Indian time ended up lasting another two hours. It had been a fantastic weekend to end the trip with.

After sadly saying goodbye to Manali we returned to our last week of volunteering. This week was "health promotion week" which was aimed towards smaller, less fortunate communities. It also meant we could volunteer as an entire group for the first time which was good fun. After a huge shop for toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, hydraltye, iron, folate, calcium tablets and other useful sanitary products we began our mission towards health education.

We visited tea plantations, rural villages, childcare centres and returned to the Rotary Disability School. This week was definitely one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences we had had. We were really able to interact with people and make a small but significant difference towards the things we all take for granted at home. Due to the language barrier we had to use a lot of play techniques which really showed off Leanne and Jake's experience working with children, incorporating some OT principles to teach life skills like shoelace tying. Bobby and Amit also came along for the ride to help us translate which was great.

For our last night in Palampur we had one last, final hurrah. We all went down to Bobby's beautiful, empty land where he intends to build a self-sustainable home and lit up a magical bonfire under the stars. It was hard to believe our trip together was over. We were all quite sad about leaving and returning to reality but were grateful to go home
with such life-long friendships and memories. The bus left the following afternoon with the boys going off to live it up in a 5 star hotel in Delhi, Alice was off to continue traveling around India, Todd was off to Bali and Leanne, Mo and I were about to be engulfed by an Indian Wedding. So more adventures await us all...