Think of India, and the chances are that the picture in your mind has a hot, sunny backdrop. That’s the India we all come to know. While we did experience this side of the country as well, my most memorable Indian moment is set in the heaviest snowfall I have ever experienced, and involves the best example of a can-do attitude that I have encountered.
We stayed in Manali in January last year. Many Indians might tell us we were crazy to go there at that of the year anyway. Manali is deep in a Himalayan valley in the state of Himachal Pradesh, and is over 2,000m above sea level. There is one road in and one road out. As we arrived the snow had started to fall, and our driver left us at our hotel the Solang Valley Resort, high above the town, to get to safer ground. And then it snowed. And snowed. And snowed.
We enjoyed a day in the beautiful valley, hiking, riding on a snowmobile and relaxing at the hotel. By the time we were due to leave, there was a steady accumulation of over a metre of snow around us. When we stepped out of our rooms to go around to get breakfast in the hotel restaurant, the snow was over our waists, and at one point almost up to my shoulders! The hotel had a problem. We were the only guests by then, and we were supposed to be checking out. No sign of our driver of course – nothing had travelled along the road for many hours. We had an eight hour drive to Shimla scheduled that day.
At no point did anyone suggest we would be stuck here. With a quiet confidence the hotel manager told us he was making the necessary arrangements. And so it transpired. After a couple of hours, three horses arrived. One for each of us, and one to carry our luggage. Off we trudged, down the mountain. The horses were not tall, and soon our legs were soaked and frozen, with the snow well above the height of our boots, and in fact covering the horses’ bellies. But they soldiered on, and after a couple of hours descending the hill, we were met by a Jeep that had been arranged to meet us as high up the mountain as the jeep could travel. This 4×4 then took us another 20km down the valley until we lost the snow completely, and there was our driver, who had anticipated the whole scenario and retreated to a point of safety in his “good weather” car. No fuss, no complaints, he greeted us with a smile and drove us on to Shimla, starting 8 hours behind schedule.
The staff at the hotel deserve full praise for their problem solving approach. Very few places in the world would have gone to such lengths to make this evacuation happen in such an effective (and exciting!) way. As does the driver, who took professionalism to a new level.
What price such a response in the UK?
(Jan 2008)
