Tragedy on Girnar Hill

The main activity we has planned for our stop in Junagadh on the way to Diu was to climb the holy Girnar Hill. This hill was advertised in the Lonely planet as a set of 10,000 steps that lead to some interesting temples and was normally pretty busy with Indian tourists and Hindu pilgrims. This was not supposed to be one of India's most fabulous or spectacular sights, but after seeing many of those it seemed like a good idea to check out a lesser attraction that would be a little more "real".

Sadly, Girnar Hill did not disappoint.

As a side, Nisha and I were arguing, in a friendly way, about weather there could really be 10,000 steps. The hill is 600m (around 2000 feet) high, so I said that if there were 10,000 6 inch steps, that would be 5000 feet, way more then the height of the hill. She said that there must be 10,000 steps, or why would they call it that. We never came to an agreement.

We had a ride to Diu set up at 1PM, so we shoved off at 6AM to climb the hill, thankfully before the heat of the day. The autorickshaw ride was only about 15 minutes, so we got off to a quick start. The climb at first was pretty much how I pictured it, a set of wide stairs, going up the misty forest with many Indians of all ages climbing, many of them older and waring saris for the women and dotis for the men. There were also the usual amount of tea and drink vendors along the side selling their wares. Not another westerner in sight.

In the early morning people were pretty focused on the climb and we did not talk to many people. We made quick time and got to the bottom of the section of the hill with an imposing area of steep rock faces. These probably went up for around 200m of elevation, looking very mysterious in the early morning mist.

The stairs continued as before, traversing the rock face, when we saw a group of people gawking over the concrete rail at something on the rocks below. When we get up there to see what is going on someone tells us that there is a dead man down below. When we look down, sure enough there is a man, lying back down with his feet up in almost a sitting position, in an area of tall grass between two sections of rock face, around 20 feet from the wall that surrounds the stairs. The rock face is not that steep in this area, but a foot or two below the man it drops around 50 feet.

The man is not moving at all, and most Indians seem to just look for a few minutes over the wall and then press on up the hill. Being Americans however, we both feel the need to figure out what is going on, so we find a man who says that he is the dead man's friend. He says that they came from Bombay, and that the man 10 minutes ago sat down on the railing of the stairs and fell over backwards and that he thought that he had a heart attack. He also said that someone climbed down there a little while before and said that he was dead, but that he would do not more, so they should just wait for the cops to show up and take away the body.

I now felt that someone had to do something, especially since the rock face in this area was not anything steeper then on any New Hampshire mountain. So, Nisha told me how to see if someone was dead, and I jumped the wall and headed down the rocks. I got about half way down, and found out that even though the rocks were not all that steep, they were wet and very slimy. At this point I knew that I could make it down to the man, but it was not as low risk as I thought before, and I was not confident that I could do anything to get him back up, as I thought I could if I had some grip on the rocks. Also, the Indians present were not going to be of any help, besides imploring me from the stairs to not go any further and come back up to where they were. So, I chickened out and easily climbed back up. Once we go there, it was pretty clear that we could do nothing.

So we pressed on up the hill, in a much more somber mood then before.

It was hard to stay in a somber mood however, because now that it was a little later in the day, groups of Indians were being very friendly and wanting to talk and take their pictures with us. You never want to seem like some kind of rude westerner, especially around people who seem to see so few of us, so we did put on a happy face and mingled with the locals. The picture thing is really funny too, but as long as the people seem nice I usually have no problem being a prop for them to take their picture with. I also talked for a long time on the way down with some engineering students about the US as they were going to try to get visas next year. I always try to describe the US to these impressionable kids, but I know that when they step off the plane the differences are going to blow their minds. Talking with people like this is one of the biggest joys of going off the tourist track in India, so I never get tired of it.

The temples themselves were pleasant but nothing special. There was a big complex of seemingly abandoned Jain temples about 3/4 of the way to the top and a busy little Hindu temple on top. As far as how many steps there are, they are numbered, so as we found out the top of the mountain is at around 5500. However, as it turns out the pilgrimage goes along a ridge for a while and up two other peaks on the ridge, so there are 10,000 steps, both going up and going down, until the end. We turned around at the top however, as we needed to get back to catch our ride to Diu.

When we reached the place with the dead man the police must have already gotten there and left, because all that was left was an area of matted down grass.

I know this may sound weird, but I had a feeling we would probably see some human disaster on this trip (not to us of course, otherwise I would have stayed at home), as India is so big and so many people get run over by cars and buses and such. Climbing a serene mountain was not where I expected it would happen.

The main thing I was surprised about was the level of apathy towards the whole situation shown by the people going up the mountain. Since I have never been around a similar scene in the US I will never know how a bunch of Americans would have reacted, but I guess I always thought that a bunch of young strong guys would have figured out some way to get a man like that back up to the path so he could be looked at by someone in the crowd with medical training. The rocks were really not that steep and it definitely could have been done.

The thing is I have never seen this kind of thing in the US, so I will never know for sure what the reaction would be. Maybe Indians are just more used to seeing bad things happen and since it was pretty obvious from the stiffness of his body that he was dead, no one thought there was any use in expending the effort. I would have liked to been able to get him though, just so Nisha could have taken a look and declared that he was actually dead, but unfortunately I was the only one there with that opinion.

Nisha's note: Ian wasn't the only one wanting to get to the fallen man. I also wanted to confirm that he was dead ot help him in some way. Even though Ian thought that he could reach the man, I felt that there as a good chance he would fall off the wet ledge, which dropped vertically about 75 feet onto the next set of stairs. The man had had rigor mortis set in before he fell from the wall since he was in an unnatural sitting position laying on his back. Therefore I was confidant he was dead from our vantage point. Hopefully his family will gain some solace in knowing that he died while on a pilgrammage.