But you can't just walk in there. Armed with the permission, you climb to the top of Barobag and find that the tea shop owner was on the dot. From the crest of the hill, at 8,000 feet, Thanedar unfolds as a magnificent panorama of mountains. The farthest of them are cloaked in snow, oth ers are deodar clad or draped in a soft blue haze. In a gorge, some 6,000 feet below and clearly visible to the naked eye, flows the river Sutlej.
Apple trees are absolutely everywhere and prosperity via the apple is legendary.
The man who stalled it all was an American, Samuel Evans Stokes. It was in 1904, at the age of 22, that Stokes landed in India. He was a freelance missionary from a well to do family of Quakers. However, on seeing lndia's rich tradition of culture and philosophy, he began to have doubts about his own objectives. From trying to convert Indians to Christianity, he began to study Hindu scriptures.