The Post Who Walks

Another year, another band... Metallica 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 10:14:00 +0000

Midnight.

Hordes of blank-eyed, lurching, shuffling black-clad zombies churn the field into a swamp, thick red mud oozing up around the feet. That's how I'll recognize them the next day at the airport - that caked layer of loam - the tshirts are off, but that clay - and the stiff, awkward walk, and the slowly-returning-to-reality stare, doesn't wash off so easily.

Welcome to Metallica's Bangalore.

The previous day, it was a sea of black - not just the concert, but the city. Metallica, Sepultra, Pantera, Maiden, Slayer, right down to corporate brands and Angry Birds - you can wear any design you want, as long as it's on black.

(Henry Ford smiles in the grave, momentarily discomfiting his graveworms.)

Humanity's herd instinct never ceases to amaze - a gigantic flock of lost sheep desperately searching for a shepherd, any shepherd, and it doesn't matter if he's from the dark and calling you in. We follow and obey, blind and deaf, uncaring and unheeding - all we want is the freedom from that insistent little voice in our heads that asks what you want to do, and all the responsibility it implies... easier to care for what they care, do what they do. Ironic, isn't it?

Smoke roils through the crowd, thick, glowing white in the glare, redolent with the sweetsour tang of weed, mixed with the tamer and lighter, blue-tinged streams of tobacco, clove & cardamom, and menthol, contrasting against the warm earthy brown smell of humanity, sharp green of crushed grass and drifting grey rain-is-coming scent of the clouds on the wind.

Camera LCDs hover over the heads of the twenty-five thousand, high tech stars in dark galaxy swaying in obeisance to the glaring suns of the stage floodlights. Beyond them, shockingly white and surreal against the orange-glared dark clouds, a flight of herons wheels silently through the sky, starkly pristine, a ghost squadron that vanishes almost as soon as you see them.

The bass reaches through the mass of humanity, through clothes and flesh, through ear and mind, and settles straight at the bone. Your skeleton resonates, ribs rattling and joints humming to the drums... this is what you don't get at home however expensive and powerful your music system might be, the way the music can take your body and strum it, the deepest connect you can have not just with the player, but with every one person in that mass of humanity around you.

It's not as loud as it could have been, though. After Iron Maiden 2007, silence, for a week after, had a tinny, subconscious whine.

Sweat and hysteria, the crush of the crowd - warm breath on your face and neck, hair tickling the skin, the press of bodies... an audience is an organism, and you never feel it as much as at times like these. Some briefly rise above, climbing barricades, the shoulders of friends and random strangers, crowdsurfing, silhouettes against the blinding white. Sudden cool breezes, and brief little patters of rain never felt, never tasted so damned good.

After six hours of standing still, straight, craning upwards, neck, shoulders, spine, knees ankles and toes fuse into one continuous solid cramped pillar of pain. You don't feel it while the music washes through you, but once it's over, that first step, that joint-cracking, bone-creaking movement to bend a knee, loosen shoulder, flex backbone is a sweet, stumbling agony, and you can barely stagger forward through the churned slush of the grounds, like an undead swarm emerging from a epic cataclysm.

It's all worth it. Worth the safety lecture from a paranoid manager who spoke to us like retarded preschoolers, driving us batshit; worth the entire album-and-a-half from Biffy Clyro who made the maximum use they could from the hours-long wait, knowing they'll never get an opportunity like this again.

Leaving the grounds, the crowd's remarkably well-behaved; the Bangalore Police rolls along the road in a gypsy and loudhailer, asking us 'Dear friends' to please walk the footpath, and obediently, we do. Even during the concert, there are very few people crushed or passing out, nobody ODing on either substance or hysteria, and a few half-hearted attempts to start a mosh pit peter out fairly quickly.

Hm, interesting train of thought - the nature of the crowd depends not just on the music, but everything they believe the music stands for. Iron Maiden was clearly wilder, louder, more extreme... this was almost mellow in comparison, though I refuse to believe the crowd was significantly different.

And now, all too soon, it's time to go home.

Living with the Raj

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:42:00 +0000

What I loved about living in the century-old, British Raj-era houses.

Space. The ceilings are twenty, thirty feet high, the bathrooms are big enough to literally swing a cat around 360 degrees, the vast expanse of floor - I literally learned to ride a bicycle indoors - the average Raj house is bigger than the average Mumbai jogging park. Barked shins don't exist, can't happen.
A museum sense of history. They're filled with these awesome little clues about a bygone era and what life was like - the strips of metal on the ceiling from where the fans hang, stretching across the room, with a little wheel-and-pulley arrangement. That was the original support for the punkha - the sheet that would manually swing from end to end on it's castors, pulled by a rope leading out through holes and pipes in the ceiling (scars of which are still visible under the plaster) out into the servants' passageways, where one guy would stand patiently fanning all day.

The cast-ron fire escapes attached to the back, ensuring a safe and rapid exit when the main (wooden) staircase went up in flames.

The giant arches and carved pillars visible under plaster, now replaced by smaller windows and walls. Thick pegs in the bathroom walls where giant geysers and cast-iron cisterns once hung... and sometimes, still hang, creaking and groaning ominously.

The furniture. Like the house, it's older than you, your parents, and likely your grandparents, and built so solidly it can withstand almost anything you throw at it. And perfectly built - not one warp, not one crack, not one sticking drawer or stuck door.

Wooden windows covered in a quarter-inch-think layer of white paint, blurring the outlines, softening the angles... wire mesh to keep out bugs, with little wooden doors to give access to the latches, and thick iron bars to keep out anything else. The windows and doors themselves, over an inch thick, armed with massive, elongated bolts, built for the possibility of insurrection.

Every room with multiple doors - infinite permutations in wandering around. None of this one-room, one-door concept.
Vast empty expanses of wall, sometimes filled with giant posters of mountains and nature. At one time, there would have been trophies there.

The walls so thick - over a foot and a half, easy - that you have proper windowsills. Perfect insulation, too - between a complete block of all the day's heat, fans on poles and excellent cross-ventilation, you don't need an AC - not that they'll work anyway, given the giant room size.
Blue, green and yellow light trickling in though the ventilators in the somnolent afternoons, with the occasional sparrow rustling in their nests ensconced in them.

Talking of sparrows, there's an entire ecosystem built into these houses - the clouds of bugs that emerge in the evenings around the lamps, battalions of geckos emerging from the wall plaster to feast on them, raucous cacophony of sparrows and mynahs in the morning, pigeons and parrots in the afternoon, crows in the evening and then the silent whisper of owls and bats in the evening, broken by wailing cats and distant dogs. Fish ponds with frogs croaking in the lawns.

Ah, the lawns - ponds and rockeries, flower beds and herb gardens, an entire miniature irrigation system, fruit trees, shade trees, bushes and fences, manicured lawns... garden furniture and swings... massive verandahs and sweeping driveways.

Did you know the doors are color-coded? Green for the servants' entrances, black for outsiders, and white for inhabitants?
Giant pantries attached to the kitchen, with a ingrained smell of dust, paint, wood, cardboard, varnish and metal.
In every room, the heavy tick of ancient clocks...

Time hasn't moved in here for decades. It's a place that belongs to a different time, a different era, a different way of life with a different notion of what life's all about.

Motivation 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 09:43:00 +0000

So, here we are. Back again.

And now, it's looking good. The holiday list in one hand long weekends highlighted, a brand new DSLR in the other, a little extra cash, and some interesting potential possibilities opening up.

And behind me, a shadow. Of Time, slowly but surely, running on.

Let's get cracking.

Soorti Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:47:00 +0000

A very, very brief trip to Surat on Saturday. Some first impressions -

Change is a difficult thing to find.

A unique Surat speciality - ice paan. Which is regular paan filled with crushed ice. Have it on a hot afternoon and your whole head fills with this ice-cold liquid feeling, flavoured icy water trickling down your throat. Brain freeze. Numb gums. Chill tongue. Then as the water melts away, the paan flavor emerges... awesome.

Sosyo. A slightly spicy-flavored fizzy drink, and the only way you will be able to digest all the food you eat, because Surat, like the rest of Gujrat, is all about

Food. Everywhere. Anywhere. Anytime. All the time. Food stalls, line the streets, fill the malls, tempting treats, eat them all. I can't even begin the describe the sheer variety of Surat-specific snacks. Which also why you will find

Picnic Roads. Roads are meant, in the classic sense, to travel along, usually in a vehicle. In the Indian context, they can be places to set up business, do your business, eat, pray, live. In Surat, they're also picnic spots. Dividers become tables, railings become backrests, the baskets and tiffins are opened, and awash in the illumination of a thousand malls 'n stalls, the Surat citizens have a gala time sitting, eating, chatting, girlwatching, flirting, drinking, socializing, and connecting. It's a permanent food festival.

Traffic Rules. While the above is happening, what happens to regular traffic, you ask? The answer is not easy do describe without getting into quantum physics. Like purely theoretical particles, Surat cars and several quadrillion bikes can somehow occupy two places at the same time, pass through each other, affect each other's speed and position randomly, as they transport themselves and their passengers through the crowd in a chaotic Brownian Motion of zips, scrapes, near-misses, music and horns. Right of way is determined by speed, size, nerve, and horn volume, traffic lights are amusing entertainment at best, and helmets, seatbelts, and carrying capacity are the gentle suggestions made by snowflakes in hell.

And lastly, add the world-famous Garba. Being the last day of Navratri, Gujratis from Surat to Syracuse will be out on the street dressed to kill, a thousand floodlights blaze in every field, park, and society parking lot, and a million variations of Phalguni Pathak float in the evening air. It's awesome. The entire city is out, and unlike the Cal Pujos, it's not limited to specific localities with travelling in-between; the festival is literally everywhere.

NYC

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 06:19:00 +0000

Don’t stay in NYC; it’s expensive, unnecessary. The suburbs are far better, connected via subways and trains. You need to make an early start, but it’s just once a day; we make every minute count, heading, shivering in the chill at dawn from Linden, to Penn St., New York. NYC can be really explored only on foot. If you’re in a cab, bus, any vehicle, you’re disconnected, don’t get the feel of the city.

You think you’re ready for it, having seen it in a hundred TV episodes and a thousand films, but trust me; nothing prepares you for that first step out of the subway’s humid, crowded cacophony into the vastness of the Greatest City On Earth, where buildings rear up ruler-straight, man-made cliffs, geometry on steroids.

A quick breakfast, a brisk ten-minute walk, and we’re at the Empire State Building, exactly in time to catch it opening to the public, but too early for the crowds. We spend almost an hour at there, watching the sunrise over the megapolis, hearing the rising humming, buzzing susurration of the city waking up 80 stories below.

By the time we’re down, it’s warm, sunny, and beautiful. We walk down to the Museum of Modern Art, another quintessentially NY event; it’s definitely a must-see, summing up all of NY’s modernity, avant-gardism, and also it’s quirkiness, the ability to make bare functionality into art.

Lunch, and we spend the afternoon in Central Park, strolling, watching people. Skaters in a open rink, dancing on wheels, whirling around in bizarre costumes; dancers, a family of singers under a bridge, filling the dim space with ethereally beautiful music; street musicians; live statues that suddenly, startlingly, come to life to acknowledge you with thanks if you drop a tip for them; a guy blowing giant soap bubbles, to the delight of an admiring crowd of kids on rollerblades; horse-drawn carriages, joggers, cops, picnickers… it’s an awesome experience, if you sit back, relax, and soak it in.

Tip: don’t try to visit everything, you’ll end up missing all of it. Get into a place, spend time, absorb it’s essence.

Over the next few days, we visit Ground Zero, the nadir of ‘disaster tourism’, which turned out to be a disappointment; just a giant hole in the ground, surrounded by security and scaffolding. We also did one of the must-do’s of a NY visit, the Statue of Liberty, but via the Staten Island Ferry going past it, saving half a day, instead of the tourist boats, and an evening in Times Square. They say that if you stand here long enough, eventually you will meet everyone in the world; looking at the size and diversity of the crowd there, you know this is true.

The golden Bull in the financial district was a conveyor belt of tourists posing and taking snaps; Chinatown was slightly shady, very interesting, and in character, world apart from the other streets we’d been on, with English taking a very poor second place to Chinese text on all the signs and shop boards, and where every face on the street, and every conversation overheard as we passed, was Asian; Little Italy, a little further northwards, was filled with interesting little boutiques and shops with fascinating window displays (I remember a twenty-foot high wall of beautifully polished sewing machines in one) with nice shopping, lots of small exotic dogs, and awesome bakeries, which are a must-try; Magnolia is one where the line stretches around the block and you have a good chance of finding yourself waiting in line next Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, who are huge fans of this place. During lunch, we saw Sex and the City’s Mr. Big on the sidewalk catch a cab – can’t get more classic NY than that!

The East Village is the counterculture hub, with goths, psychics, music and comic stores filled with fascinating memorabilia, roadside cafes and pubs in profusion – another new world to explore.

And, of course, no New York Experience will ever be complete without a taste of the famous subways; At least once, try to buy a ticket and find they appropriate train to get from one place to another. In Penn St. station, amongst the labyrinthine corridors, platforms, levels and sublevels, and searingly bright lights, the chatter and hum of millions of footsteps, public announcements, cellphones and conversations mixes with the deep subterranean rumble and clatter of the trains whooshing through the dark tunnels, and everything is a hurried, humid, deafening and blinding kaleidoscope of confusion until you finally step out into the crisp, chill air, glowing with the self-satisfaction that comes with having come that one step closer to becoming a native New Yorker.

If you have time, don’t forget to visit the Meatpacking District, Greenwich, the Upper East Side, and Soho; all familiar places from Hollywood and TV, not to be missed in real life either.

NYC is supposed to be fast and rude, but by America’s standards, not India’s; growing up in the midst of crowds and the constant fight for space and free time, we felt right at home. We saw it as it is – brisk, efficient, and so incredibly diverse, you could be lost here a lifetime and still never see it all.

Two very important pieces of advice for new visitors to New York, from a local – one, walk fast; two, take all the pictures you want, but don’t block people. These are two critical things tourists forget, becoming irritants to the city that has things to do, places to go, and all too little time. Besides, who wants to look like, as the locals say for the overawed tourists, that they stepped right off the boat?

Stroll around, wear walking shoes and carry an umbrella, use the subways, eat mustard-laden hot dogs at roadside food carts, talk to the people. And most of all, don’t be afraid, and explore. The city is a microcosm of Earth - everyone is here.

And there’s everything to discover.

Niagara

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 10:18:00 +0000

It’s early morning. Streamers of mist slide over the car, rippling past in the wet air as we race down Route 476. The landscape’s shrouded in fog, dim, eerily silent, and empty save the occasional car whipping past, driver in his private four-wheeled warm cocoon, and rarely, a behemoth eighteen-wheeler lumbering past like Star Wars’ opening scene.

Then, gradually, the sun’s warmth pierces through, the mist dissipates, and as we move North, the glorious autumn colors begin to emerge. Lush greenery gives way to brilliant yellows, vivid browns, and fiery reds; entire tracts of forest flame, blazing color in the sunshine. We’re driving up to one of the planet’s great natural spectacles, the largest waterfall in the world – Niagara Falls.

Reach early evening, just in time to catch the last Maid of the Mist tour boat. These boats take you into the basin beneath the falls, in the center of the falls’ horseshoe curve; there, you’re surrounded on 3 sides by a wall of water so gigantic, it defies description. At four million cubic feet a minute, the experience ceases to be something to see or feel; you become a part of it, a tiny particle in an awesome display of elementalism. The foaming spray blinds, drenches, deafens, and drowns you, the closest you’ll get to breathing water. It’s not the flying rain of monsoon storms. It’s heavier, more mineral; smells, tastes, feels different. Snow-white, chilling cold under cloudy autumn skies, the falls tower up almost two hundred feet… and everything you worried about for so long, work, money, everything, suddenly feels… insignificant. All you can do is just be, exist in the face of grandeur.

We walk later through caves on the American side, along wooden walkways constructed around the base – the only way to get close enough to actually touch the falls. Luckily, there’s enough sun to let us dry off before evening, when the October wind carries a sharp bite.

At night, a light display is switched on; as glowing reds, and soft, powdery whites play across them, the falls transform into something unearthly, alternating between heaven and hell. It’s a surreal vision, and never to be missed; and if you can, get a Canadian visa, because the US might have the falls, but it’s the Canadians that get to enjoy the best view.

Apart from the Falls, there’s not much to do in Niagara, so we head back next morning. It’s a day’s drive to New York, a brilliant experience. The Amish countryside, as you pass through Pennsylvania and Delaware, is vast, flat, and spread open for hundreds of miles, all directions. Lightning flickers on the horizon; being autumn, it’s Halloween season, and all the towns and houses we pass are putting up decorations. Pumpkins everywhere – on the roadside, in the markets, lit up as lanterns, in bread, cakes, even ice-cream and tea. After some irresistible stops at farm diaries for natural, fresh icecream (mmm!) and lunch, it’s late evening by the time we reach our New Jersey hotel.

From A to B, to the sea

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:18:00 +0000

Mathematically, the shortest and most efficient distance between A and B is a straight line.

Leisure-wise, the longer, quirkier, and more circuitous the line, especially if it happens to go through some interesting places, is the most fun. Like this round-trip... starting and ending at the same place, the Gateway of India... but going in a large, crazy circle around Mumbai Harbour. In a brand-new, state-of-the-art, racing-grade French sailboat.

Some photos follow.

It begins with the Gateway

And it's riotous carnival atmosphere

From where the intrepid sailors step forth.

Every class of technology coexists from this -

to this...

to this. (Mukesbhai ni navi navdi it is)

Our ride - the Storm Rider, a 25-foot Beneteau sailboat

we outboard out of the crazy floating traffic jam

and it's time to race the wind!

easily outpacing our competition,

we glide, whisper-silent, over the arabian sea

relaxing in the sun

under the able guidance of Abhishek, our captain

sky-watching

and taking control of the boat.

we also learnt a bit about how modern sailing happens by watching R almost get whacked into the sea with the boom.

Ropes - the most critical part of the boat

then, as the evening wore on,

the sun dipped,

and the sky softened into evening colors

it was time to head home

back to the shore...

winding up with a Kasab's-eye-view of Mumbai.

The End.

Dry Hampi

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:16:00 +0000

The Amazing Vibrabus

It's evening, and we're standing in a little group at the side of the road, waiting for our bus and co-passengers, trying to have a conversation. Since it's the Western Express Highway in rush hour, we aren't succeeding - so we stand around and smile at each other through the horns, engines, smoke, and shrieking agents trying to fill seats. One asked me very aggressively if I was going to Goa. Maybe I had a 'going-to-goa' kind of face... he looked so desperately furious I almost went, had R not called me exactly then asking how to get to the meeting point. No agent scorned has a wrath more terrible than an R denied directions, which is how the trip happened at all...

Ah, here comes our bus... it's a gigantic (ever notice how buses look so monstrous inside the city?) black-gold VRL with snarling radiator and antennae-like mirrors, like something out of Starship Troopers bearing down on us... step inside, whoa, it's an icebox! Huddle into seats and thank VRL and God for blankets. We stop, idling at a signal, and the bus' true USP emerges - it's vibrating like something out of a demented honeymoon suite on a caffeine-amphetamine cocktail. Teeth chatter, body trembles, vision blurs, and speech stutters.

And here we go - I was wondering when this person would show up. Ever notice, on any bus ride, there's always be one person who will have some kind of violent physical aversion to his seat, and will stand in the aisle as long as he can? He blocks the passage! He lurches! He stuffs bags into the overhead compartment! He drops stuff from the bag! He picks them up, and, whoops, now drops the bag itself! He cannot keep his balance! What does he do?! Aha! He wedges passenger A's shoulder into the crack of his ass, put's one hand on Passenger B's head, and one foot on Passenger C's crotch! He is stable! He drinks water! He spills water! He searches for towel! He... anyway, let's go on.

R sets a record - 2 hours straight on the phone. And the kid in the seat next to us starts vomiting.

At the food court on the highway, we get screamed at by our bus driver - "Jaa apne aadmi ko bula! Ina time khaane ko kya lagta!" Suitably chastened, we troop meekly to our seats, and the bus driver tortures us hideoulsy for the next 2 hours with the mandatory awful trip-movie. Ever noticed there's a whole class of movies that appear to have been made for the sole purpose of inflicting hideous pain upon trapped bus passengers, locked into a chilly, reverberating iron shell roaring along at 90 kmph, where certain death by leaping, screaming in horror, from the window is only marginally less attractive an option as staying inside and watching 'Do Knot Disturbb'.

The morning introduces us to Hospet and a bright yellow-and-chrome minibus almost as old as the ruins of Hampi itself. Many a bone-shaking, tooth-rattling and soul-vibrating mile later, we are in Hampi.

Hampi... is a strange place. There are no buildings - just rocks, hillocks, scrub, and shanties. And, sprawled through it all, rearing up in the middle of nowhere - deserted, silent ruins, all around. It's... more than a little surreal.

Hampi was the capital of the ancient Vijaynagara Empire from 1336 to 1565, and was a large, sprawled-out city, with markets, palaces, forts, temples, the whole hog. Today, it's a deserted, silent ghost town, with a small village nestling in it's center around the main Virupaksha temple complex which has the only habitation. Venture out beyond that, and you will find yourself walking through a silent stone necropolis, bereft of any life apart from the some signs of repair work by the ASI, or the occasional overawed tourist group.

Our 'hotel' is a virulent pink color on the inside, with blue doors and red sheets on the bed. The overall effect is very, almost disturbingly, womb-like... and it's not helped by the sight of a mosquito net hanging off the ceiling like a giant used condom.

An interesting menu.

Recycling ancient structures

Start walking around. Past the bazaar, which has cheerfully colonized the ancient marketplace pillars and used them as support in their own shops, there's a brief rise and a gigantic Nandi. This is supposed to be the largest monolithic bull sculpture in the world. The titanic taurean Must be 15-20 feet high, carved in a reclining posture, complete in great detail and anatomical correctness. ;)

A giant load of bull

Further on, cresting the rise of the hill, we come face-to-face with a scene straight out of Tomb Raider: In the middle of overgrown jungle, a series of buildings rears out, a lost city among the palms.

The ancient market road

All we need is Lara Croft

Support for the sky

Carved history

Royal dog

Standing in Ruins

Soft lightplay

ancient grinding-wheel surface

Cool shades

Changing perspectives

Entertainment center

Dream sequence

Lunch is followed up with crisp, fresh jalebis from the market, and then a tour of the main Virupaksha temple. Here we see the makara-yadi - the seven-in-one animal guardian of the city, India's second-largest gopuram (temple gate), an ancient pin-hole camera that projects the image of the gate onto the opposite wall in an underground room, best seen at 6 am and pm daily when the light is perfect.

The Makara-Yadi -

elephant's trunk, crocodile mouth, peacock's plumage, rabbit ears, horse's body, lion-claws, and the all-seeing eyes of a Narasimha

Gopuram - 1

Gopuram - 2

An ancient pinhole camera projection

The main hall is still used to perform marriages for the village couples; imagine getting married under the thousand-year-old frescoes, feeling the history of a millennium around you. The adjoining chamber inside the actual temple, however, is closed, and is opened only for visiting royalty once a year.

reserved for royalty

There's also an underground chamber, which has two gods - Hari and Hara - Vishnu and Shiva - which again occurs in only one other place in India, Varanasi. This makes Hampi a major pilgrimage spot as well.

The underground temple

At the gate there's a three-headed Nandi - the Trikaladhyananandi - the only one of it's kind, representative of Bramha, Vishnu, Shiva - the past, present and future - which used to be worshipped inside the temple until it got damaged.

the trikaladhyananandi

Also in the temple courtyard is Lakshmi, the friendly local temple elephant. Feed her bananas you can buy outside, or give her cash; food goes into the ever-smiling mouth, cash goes to the handler sitting next to her looking bored out of his skull, and the trunk comes up and gives you a quick pat on the head as a 'blessing'. Only for cash, though. Bananas earn you elephantine goodwill, but that's it.

May you return with bananas next time

As we step out of the temple, I walk into a pair of bulls fighting, and get stepped on. Those things are heavy! I limp around for the next half-hour.

Behind the temple, there's a tableland filled with pillars, pagodas, and skeletal stone structures standing silent in the whispering wind, through which the last rays of the setting sun fall on the hordes of monkeys playing. The city had been been lost for three hundred years before being rediscovered by a british hunting party during the Raj; for those three centuries, these simian citizens were the sole inhabitants, lords and masters of the stone. I think of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book - the monkey kingdom - and the effect is simultaneously saddening and a little eerie. A sense of greatness and mystery - not defiled, but passed beyond such trivial concerns. We can today see only a fraction of a fraction of what it must have been like... and it still inspires awe.

the plateau of memories

pagoda

sunset of an empire

last sliver of sun

absorbing the atmosphere

stone skeletons

There's another connection to monkeys one that I don't find out until afterwards, and the serendipity of this above observation is hammered home - Hampi is identified with the mythological Kishkindha, the Vanara kingdom identified in the Ramayana. The original monkey kingdom. So I guess the primate population really was the original owner...

mother-son monkey

exasperated-with-tourists monkey

monkey see monkey doo

grumpy Hampi monkey

Another kind of inhabitant makes their presence felt extremely strongly at this point - hordes of mosquitoes, fed up with months of monkey-blood, descend on us like an Alfred Hitchcock special effect, crazed with the thirst for human blood! But fear not! For I am armed with bthe mighty Odomos! I am invincible!

Asif loses his camera during the day; a carload of Bongs arrives, the essential component of any tourist spot; and R meets some people she knows, again. This is getting freaky.

Early next morning, a small group of us decide to trek up Matanga hill. It's a clear, chill dawn, the air pure and clean with a slight trace of mist. A minor wrong turn delays us, and we miss the actual moment of sunrise, but the view that early morning from the hilltop is awesome; a complete panorama of all the places we spent yesterday exploring.

Hampi wakes up in the pre-dawn chill

In the distance, the mist is still rising from the valleys, while the low hills blaze with sunshine; flat black and white bars of sky, mist, mountain, cloud, and valley. We sit for a while, accompanied by an elderly European gent, the sun shining off his bald pate like a spotlight.

sunrise!

the first sun touches the temple

view from the top of Matanga

the view-watchers

exit

Then breakfast, followed by the largest glass of coffee I have ever had, including the Latte Grande from Kosta Koffee.

Later in the day, head for another temple complex - the Vittala temple. Walking along the banks of the Tungabhadra, we are accosted by a Voice. There's no-one around for at least a hundred feet - yet it rings out, loud, clear, and reverberating back and forth between the hills - "Hello sir! Where you going? Boat coming! Please waiting!" It turns out to be coming from a boatman in a coracle in the middle of the river, apparently blessed with iron lungs and a dolby surround-sound voicebox.

A disgruntled deity

the King's Balance, where he weighed himself in jewels to give to charity

Good incentive to diet?

delicate carvings

Vittala temple has one of Hampi's most-photographed landmarks - the stone chariot, in the middle of the main courtyard. Huge crowds of tourists. They are all getting group-photographed; the cameraman has to stand forty feet away to get them all in the frame. Wouldn't be surprised to find the group visible on Google Earth.

the stone car

huge crowds

But away from the chariot, the crowds thin, and we find the peaceful side of the temple - ancient, twisted, gnarly trees, straight out of Running With The Demon's haunted foliage, and places where you can sit on the cool stone in the shade and watch the circus of humanity dance around you, laughing, chattering, posing, pointing, photographing. And if you sit there for a while, not doing any of these things, you feel a sense of peace, connect with the place.

serenity

demon tree

You can see in your mind's eye what it was like during the abandoned years, what it must have been like at the zenith of it's existence. And then the past than the present run together, and the true age, the timelessness, of the stone is felt. Savor that feeling when it happens, because everything else you see can be found on Wikipedia and Flickr. That feeling is the reason why you travelled here.

sunlight

the musical pillars -

9 identical pillars, each of which would produce the sound of a different instrument when tapped.

Lunch is at MangoTree restaurant, the restaurant for the Aam Junta. A series of concentric terraces around a central (you guessed it!) mango tree. Full on crowd, harried waiters, massive rush, but excellent food. The trick is to order what is easiest to deliver - usually the main thali, or the day's special. You know it's good, it's there, and it will be served fast.

the Blair Witch tree

local color

Royal Indian hunting-dog

G.I. Joe

Take an alarmingly lurching boat across the Tungabhadra to Anegudi. Saw an interesting huge ceremonial chariot, but the rest of the trip was a let-down; just a lot of getting your bones rattled in autos. Maybe we just didn't know the right places to go to.

ceremonial chariot

Last day. The Elephant Stables, a row of huge doorways in front of a parade-ground, and the royal zenana - The Lotus Palace - glowing a soft, organic pink in the sunshine, looking almost alive. (and I'm wondering why the two are in the same compound? Wouldn't the ladies object to effectively sharing quarters with a bunch of elephants? Or vice versa?)

Both are in a far better condition than the Queen's quarters across the river. I guess some things don't change - when you're into cars and women, the first priority is to relocate the wife out of the way.

elephant stables

an idea of the height of the door.

still didn't stop R from accidentally cracking her head on the edge

friendly locals

the Paan-Supari market

the temple of a thousand Rama's -

a three-tier graphic novel of the Ramayana, in stone

black marble pillars

Acoustic Elephant -

makes a ringing noise when tapped

bathing tank

Return of Terror

Finally, packed up and ready, heading for Hospet. This time we're gunning all-out, roaring down the highways in a cataclysmic cacophony, roaring engines, rattling windows, lurching roads, cursing driver, hysterical horn, whistling wind, shrieking passengers... this bus is a shock to sanity. Every half-hour, we stop for 5 minutes for the driver to head into the bushes; apparently something he ate earlier didn't agree with him.

the medieval minibus

We make it just in time, with seconds to spare before the Volvo leaves for Mumbai. Ahhh, the Volvo... air-conditioned, air-cushioned, silent, stable, cool and comfy... after the terror of the rattletrap, feels like, as the ad goes, Heaven.

Then they turn up the volume and switch on Mission Istanbul.

Nasik: Pandavleni Caves

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:18:00 +0000

This was a quick stopover on the return trip to Mumbai - the caves are around 8 km outside Nasik, on the Nasik-Mumbai highway.

Parked in a clearing, then started walking up the steps to the hillock. In the early morning, the weather was bracingly chill, and the steps aren't steep enough to be painful - but still good enough to make you take a rest stop or two on the way.

About two thousand years old, Pandavleni Caves are quite similar to a lot of other Buddhist caves found around Maharashtra - with the stark difference of having, in spite of a Hanuman temple (or at least, a mural), absolutely NO monkeys.

Monkeys are an inescapable fact of any Maharashtrian tourist spot, even those located on islands like Elephanta... you have a choice of the red-faced macaques (who are noisy, boisterous, aggressive, greedy, and aren't above grabbing anything that looks like food or scaring you into dropping it with hoots, screeches, screams and the occasional stinging slap) and the calmer, more elegant black-faced langurs.

Maybe we were too early, or this was off season, or something... because this place looks like prime monkey habitat, so it was quite surprising to find none.

The place is peaceful, quiet, cool, and not very crowded; the caves themselves, around 30, aren't as grand or well-preserved as Elephanta or Ajanta but still pretty interesting.

The high point was walking into a darkened cavern and hearing the haunting tone of a bansuri floating out of the main altar. It was being played by a tall, bearded man - he didn't look like a priest, but more like a musician who enjoyed the atmosphere - and the acoustics. The sound filled the cavern, end to end, and pure, smooth, and perfect.

That sound gave the caves their character for us, fixed it in memory.

Every time I hear a bansuri played again, I'm going to remember a silent, dark space, cool rock on all sides, illuminated by a brilliant white square of light from the entrance at the far end, and, half-hidden in the shadows all around, calm stone faces watching impassively, as they always have for centuries...

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from The Post Who Walks

Nasik Trip: The Sula Vineyards

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:17:00 +0000

This blog post is going to be unique for you because you're going to be seeing via a new tech I'm testing out - blog updates via mail, brought to you courtesy Posterous. (www.walkthetalk.posterous.com)

That's why the format I've used so far is changing - making for shorter and more digestible posts. (General public heaves a sigh of relief and there is much cheering below the balcony)

Anyway, coming back; or rather, going - to Sula is dead easy for us lucky Bombayites. Get onto the national highway, and it's a straight 3-hour drive to Nasik (and 15 mins from there to Sula). You can actually plan a day trip and be back by evening if you like.

Sula's a short distance out of the idyllic small town of Nasik, which is home to beautiful, quiet vineyards, nicely crisp-n-cold weather thanks to the Western Ghats, and horrendous traffic jams involving trucks and other... creatures that look like they stepped out Terminator Salvation because this is also one of the heavy-machinery and automobile OEM hubs.

But the early mornings are worth an overnight stay, and there's enough decent hotels in Nasik (or you can try Sula's Beyond which is horrendously expensive, at least by my standards.)

The vineyards themselves are at after a winding drive through narrow, field-surrounded roads, until you drive into an elegant two-story bungalow-type place in the middle of a sea of green. The ambiance is lovely; there's a long verandah-style balcony stretching along the front looking out over the rows of vines, and behind the bungalow is an ampitheatre-like place, nice landscaping with pillars sticking up supporting the sky.

But avoid the weekends. A lot of ambiance disappears when you're surrounded by screaming children, irate mothers, which means the dads are getting pleasantly (then unpleasantly) sloshed and getting into the loud, expansive mode where the effectiveness and eloquency of an opinion is directly proportional to the volume in which it is expressed, and even (I kid you not!) disapproving grandparents and assorted aunts and uncles.

Harshad from Sula takes us around the place, showing how the wine is made from the grapes to the bottle; it's a walk through the vineyards, the crushing machinery, (dozens of clinically shining aluminum tubes is contorted shapes coming out of a machine that looked like a well-mannered cement mixer) the fermenting tanks (a giant, dark, cavernous hangar filled with rows of twenty-foot steel tanks and redolent with aroma and ketones, and since the fermenting had to happen at 11 to 13 degrees, nicely chilly as well) followed up by a brief lecture on how the various wines are made... and finally up to the tasting session, where we move across a 6-wine spectrum at the bar.

There's a more elaborate and advanced version every thursday where we match wine to food, but... that's for next time. There's also a whole bunch of souvenirs - Sula tshirts, Sula juta bags, Sula wine racks, and, of course Sula... wines! In bottles, minibottles, gift packs, the works.

Afterwards, we head over to one of the on-premise restaurants; they have a Kareems' and a Little Italy (we tried the latter and it rocked - the desserts were to die for) and I tell you, there's nothing like settling down in a beautiful, peaceful, dim restaurant in the gradual chill of the descending dust, with some good wine and beyond-good woodfired pizza.

As the Dalai Lama says - "The purpose of our lives is to be happy."

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from The Post Who Walks

Buck Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:36:00 +0000

In 2008, I made 45 entries in this blog. In 2009, that number dropped to 3, the worst ever. (2005 had only 2 but that's because the blog started in August.)

2010 needs to be better. Much better.

The Ajanta Road Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Ajanta – Ellora Caves. You all know about them from your Class V history book. You’ve seen them mentioned in a lot of Incredible India ads, Lonely Planet guidebooks, so many places. They’re a World Heritage site, famous for their Jain, Buddhist and Hindu paintings and sculptures. This long weekend, we went a step further, and decided to pay a visit.

7:30 am, we piled into our car, topped up the tank and headed out. The drive is long – close to 7 hours – but the roads are sheer poetry. On the trip, we encountered sudden thundershowers, loud restaurant managers in even louder shirts, I got mistaken for a dhaba waiter, and we lost our map, but the drive through the Sahyadris was like being in an Indian Switzerland – gentle, rolling grass-scapes and hills, clear traffic, music and good conversation, and plenty of relaxed photo-ops. I am in love with the Maharashtra highways.

Serene, smooth, and silent roads

Dhaba Breakfasts

Windmill farms - looks like something out of War of the Worlds

Aurangabad is the nearest major town, and that’s where we stayed; a little worried, since we hadn’t made any bookings, but a brief search gave us some pretty decent hotels. Even on a long weekend, it’s easy to find vacancies.
Tip: Avoid the hotels that appear in guidebooks in this scenario, they're guaranteed full. Others are equally good - if you don't mind roughing it a bit. After seeing scaffolding in the lobby, (Hotel 1), bedbugs in the mattresses (Hotels 2 & 3), supercilious, arrogant receptionists (Hotel 4), a 60% discount, but still out of budget (5-star hotel 5), no lift (hotels 6 & 7), and no AC (hotel 8), we still got a decent deal at the Bagga International on Airport Road, which has decent rooms, good prices, and a kickass restaurant.

Aurangabad has some interesting places to visit – there are caves, the Aurangabad and Daulatabad forts, lots of historical gates (in fact, it’s known as the ‘City of Gates’), and a Mughal-era water-wheel called the ‘Panchakki’. The high point, though, is the Bibi-ka-Maqbara, better known as India’s Fake Taj Mahal. It’s the mausoleum of Aurangzeb’s wife Rabia-ud-Durrani, modeled after his father Shah Jahan’s gift to architecture. Different, and yet eerily similar, it has a unique charm, and deserves a visit.

The Bibi ka Maqbara in Aurangabad - India's Fake Taj Mahal

In fact, while you’re in the city, check out two things for certain – a traditional dish called Quaalia Naan (non-veg) – a little hard to find, but worth it – the true taste of Aurangabad. The second is a handicraft called Himroo, seen in shawls, stoles, and even bedcovers.

Ajanta Caves are 120 km, a 3-hour drive from Aurangabad. Everything – parking, food, supplies – is taken care of on arrival (which loosely translates into Attack Of The Touts, Tickets, and Toilet Charges); and a shuttle bus takes you the last 4 km to the caves themselves. Tickets for entry, parking, shuttle bus, cameras, guides... keep plenty of small notes handy.

A quick description of what's around us - around equal numbers of Europeans and Bongs, which make up around 90% of the group, the rest representing all other India. Rock-cut steps lined with the slightly shy, well-behaved Langurs, who will pose prettily for photos instead of their boisterous, aggressive and noisy Macaque cousins. Bright sunshine interspersed with sudden, cooling showers, in which C, fast as lightning, grabs the only umbrella to protect what his newlywed better half calls 'his first wife' - his prized Nikon D90 - while she, and the rest of us, glare at him after scuttling to a doorway.

The Caves were made over six centuries, between 200 BC to 400 AD; later abandoned and lost to history for a thousand years in the mountain jungles, they were discovered accidentally by a British explorer (interestingly enough, named John Smith) in 1819. They’re beautiful, laid out in a horseshoe shape around a small, precipitous valley.

Ajanta Caves

There are three types of art which you’ll see here – Buddhist architecture, in the arches, pillars, and stupas; sculpture, in the rock carvings, statues and decorations; and the most famous, the wall-paintings and murals. Even after two thousand years, the colors blaze out in vivid reds, oranges, browns and yellows – clear, vivid and brilliant in the darkness. The detailing is extraordinary, but most of all, it’s the stories they tell that will remain in your memory. Every mural is a Jataka fable, incidents in images scattered over the wall speaking to you across millenia.

But the flow of tourists is taking it's tool; the combined moisture from people's breathing makes the inside of each cave a sauna, and you'll know it as soon as you step in. Slowly and implacably, this is destroying the paintings; paint peels, fades. It won't be around too long; see it while you can.

Decorated Pillar

Baby's day out

A row of murals

Deep, vivd reds, yellows, and browns - the all-natural colors used by the monks two thousand years ago

Entrance

There are guides in each cave; it’s worth hiring one or two just to see these stories, which otherwise might not be distinguishable.

The first cave has the Padam Pani Buddha, the most famous image to come out of Ajanta; you’ll recognize it instantly as soon as you see it. Caves 19 and 26 have superb, detailed sculptures including a giant reclining Buddha; Caves 16 and 17 have some of the best paintings after Cave 1. You can buy a guidebook to the caves outside for a small sum; read up about each cave before going in to explore. You can’t use a flash, so carry a good camera… but don’t get so absorbed in taking snaps that you forget the experience itself.

20-foot Buddhas, Cave 19

Nokia's the biggest manufacturer of cameras now, btw

Buddha statue, Cave 2

Wall Frieze, Cave 26

The caves alone can easily be covered in a few hours, if you go slow and take your time; and going slow is a good idea. It’s going to be a long ride back. Get immersed in the feel of the place. Slow down. Drink in the atmosphere. Watch the squirrels play on the cliff-face, the elegant, slender silver-furred langurs in the trees.

Outside the last cave

Mandatory Group Snap

There’s an MTDC restaurant outside the caves that’s pretty ok for food, if you aren’t too hung up on ambience; which our neighbouring table people unfortunately were. They asked for 3 varieties of soft drinks, rejecting each for being too warm / dirty / flat. They wanted AC. They wanted a cleaner table. They wanted bigger plates, then cleaner ones. They wanted cutlery. Extra glasses. More menu cards. Then a discussion on each dish in the menu. Finally, after great debate amongst themselves, they settled on chicken, demanding to know how each chicken dish was made, boneless options, and finally if it was available. This is a restaurant that survives on fast throughput; the waiter, fried beyond endurance, tells them all chicken got finished in the time they took to order. They sat morosely for a while, deep sadness writ large on their face, then settled for egg. We had ordered, eaten, and paid the bill in the time it took for them to finish ordering.

Then, time to head home.

Ellora Caves are about an hour out of Aurangabad, but don’t try to do both Ajanta & Ellora in a day, it’ll be too hectic and you won’t be able to enjoy either. Ellora’s bigger and more spread out than Ajanta, so it’ll take longer to explore (though faster to reach). The high point is a Kailash Temple, best of all Ellora excavations, an entire temple cut out of a single rock over one hundred years. It’s breathtaking. Unfortunately, between bad weather and too much time spent at Ajanta, we didn't have enough time left for Ellora; so that's kept for trip 2.

As we drive off, the stormlight in the sky darkens into thunderclouds, and our homeward journey is punctuated with showers that turn the countryside into a dim, green and quiet fairyland, while the smell of wet earth rises out of the ground like the scent of Life itself.

Stormlight

It's like a dream - and the dream symbolism manifests into a slightly surreal experience when almost the entire chinese zodiac parades past the car at regular intervals, monkey, dog, pig, ox, rooster... and some Indian additions like an elephant, a pair of camels, and finally a whole tree on the back of a tractor.

The perfect weather to sit in a dhaba’s verandah with some hot chai, watch the rain and look back at a holiday well-spent.

The Perfect Ending

The man, the machine, the truck driver.

Getting there
By Road: Aurangabad is reachable via Mumbai-Pune-Ahmednagar; you can either drive or take an overnight bus.
By Train to Aurangabad station, around which most of the hotels are found;
By Air: you can fly in to Aurangabad airport, 10 km outside the city.

Once settled in, you can hire taxis to Ajanta (120 km) or Ellora (30 km); the road to Ellora also passes through Daulatabad and Khuldabad, with their own attractions and places to see. There are also buses, share-taxis and jeeps.
Ajanta is closed Mondays, and Ellora Tuesdays, so plan accordingly.

Epilogue: It wasn't over yet. The last - and easiest - part of the trip, the drive home to Mumbai on the Expressway, was interrupted with a cloudburst that reduced visibility to ten feet. Ever driven at 80 kmph in pitch darkness, on black asphalt, with the only visual input a row of oil drums painted with reflector stripes, in a six-foot-wide channel for over an hour? It's like being in a videogame, orange-red flashes zipping past, everything else invisible... your body goes slack, frozen in place, while the eyes and the hands and feet on the wheel and pedals talk to each other in a language that bypasses the rest of your conscious mind. Fugue State. You feel yourself waking up, as if out of some deep sleep, when it ends.

Package Tours are the best thing to have happened to tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:51:00 +0000

"Yes," I hear you say. "Ashish has finally slipped off some godforsaken mountain in the middle of nowhere and landed on his head."

But think about it. Dozens and dozens of overweight, overfed, overpampered aunties. Travel is the new status symbol, so they must have it. whether they like it or not. Enter the freindly neighborhood tour guide, who puts them in an air-conditioned seat in coaches / flights / hotels / ferries, shows all the locations they need to click for their albums, and sends them off home.
Leaving all the rest of the places for the rest of us to explore, climb, dive into, enjoy. They even carry their own food, so local cuisine stays unspoiled. They don't move anywhere outside cellphone network, electric supply, air-conditioning, and motorable roads. So the wilderness remains wild.

It was a zero-sum game, but we've put them in a share of the pie that has mile-high, iron walls. They stay in, we have our fun outside.

Koh Samui: One of the most beautiful tropical islands in South-East Asia.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:12:00 +0000

The experience starts before you even arrive, climbing into a rainbow-hued turboprop that flies you into what looks like a tropical resort, with thatched roofs, open golf-carts… no, wait, that’s Samui Airport!

The ride to the resort on the island’s opposite end is a killer four-wheel drive truck, zipping through the island at ninety in just a few minutes. The first evening, we’re just relaxing at Thong Krut beach, strolling, watching the sun go down into a maze of tiny islands off the coast.

The only practical – and flexible - way to get around is by yourself, so we hire a bike the next day. Awesome range. Small gearless mopeds are about 200 baht; you can also, if you like, hire cruisers, dirt bikes, racing superbikes, and Harleys.

Samui’s a beach paradise, with all the action along the coastlines – the restaurants, shops, clubs, watersports, and places to see, all line the beaches. Chaweng and Lamai are the established beaches, the heart of all the activity; others get less crowded the further you go, cleaner, quieter.

We decide to leave beaches for later, and start with the interior; there’s a series of waterfalls, trekking trails, and Namuang Sanctuary. Here’s where we meet and go for a ride on Nuona, a beautiful twenty-year-old Thai… elephant. ☺

Next is a two-hour walk up to the top of Namuang waterfall, and our local guide shows us a secluded, calm pool where you can leap off an overhanging rock down twenty-five feet into the water, swim under the waterfall, and into a small cave.

There’s also a series of cable-rides where you can get into a harness, clip yourself onto a series of cables between the tall trees, and go sliding through the air, sometimes hanging upside-down – if you have the guts to, that is.

Next is a full-day trip to Anthong Marine Park, reachable only by boat. It’s a collection of islands, dozens, carved by the wind and the sea into fantastic shapes – huge vertical standing rocks hundreds of feet tall, sphinxes, monkeys… you can do this by ferry, but I strongly recommend the (slightly) more expensive speedboat option; it’s far more enjoyable, and you get to see a lot more, not counting the speedboat experience itself. I’d sat right up front, sipping a Singha as the boat reached top speed across the azure ocean; it’s like sitting on the roof of a racing bus. Amazing speed, the wind in your hair and the sun on your face, while waves skim past at 90 kmph a few feet away…

At Anthong, we make four major stops. The first - snorkeling around a coral reef at Koh Wao Lai. My first time; the mouthpiece takes a lot of getting used to before you’re ready to actually relax and enjoy the sun-dappled world below, filled with little quicksilver flashes as the local fauna comes up to investigate this strange new shape splashing about in their ‘sky’. I get a little distance away from the rest of the crowd, the water’s clearer, more to see.

Second stop is the Green Lagoon at Koh Mae Koh, an inland lake, gleaming emerald against the surrounding sapphire seas. The walk up to the lagoon – and a lookout point above it – is from a series of wooden walkways and ladders. The lookout itself is just a small platform, but the view is to die for – a birds’ eye view of the archipelago, a panorama of green islands dreaming in the sun, spread all around.

Then – lunch. At a small fishing village at Paluay, we enjoy a traditional fisherman’s lunch – giant freshly-caught shrimp, rice, vegetables and fresh fruit.

And finally, after we’ve rested, there’s a long halt at Koh Lak, where they bring out a couple of kayaks. Some of us go rowing around the island to explore more marine caves, and others laze around on a pristine white-sand beach or play in the surf.

It ends, finally, with the long ripping ride back along the island’s northern beaches, glowing in the setting sun. I might have been roasted like tandoori chicken, but it’s been one of the best days so far.

I’ve kept a day for roaming around the island. We take a look at the Aquarium & Zoo, (where I got to touch a Giant Manta Ray as it swam past) and a touristy, but still fun, bird and tiger show.

We also drop in at a few temples, including the Wat Khunaram which has the several hundred-year-old mummified body of a Buddhist Monk on display;

the Grandfather-Grandmother rocks (rock formations that bear a remarkable resemblance to human genitalia and could have been celebrated as a tourist attraction only in Thailand).

Another interesting discovery in Chaweng is a shooting gallery, where I try out a .45 automatic and turn out to be a surprisingly good shot.

We wrap up with a look around Lamai’s nightlife, through the karaoke bars, a rocking Irish pub, and other general revelry.

Towards the end of the holiday, we move to Lamai, and spend a while just bumming around on the beaches. The evenings is when Lamai’s real character comes out; hundreds of multi-colored lamps, lanterns and lights illuminate the sands, deckchairs get replaced by tables and open-air displays of the days’ catch on ice, and you can sit with a drink and watch dozens of ‘good-luck lanterns’, rice-paper balloons with a lamp suspended inside, rising into the night sky. The effect is magical; it’s as though the land, having so much beauty, has decided to give some away to heavens, and is sending little colored stars sailing up to add to the night sky.

Under these stars, bare feet in soft, cool sand, to the faint music – the ubiquitous beach anthem, Bob Marley – and the ever-present soft crashing of the waves, I raise a toast to a small experience of paradise.

To the first of many such more.

Ladakh Trip: It's not over yet.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:08:00 +0000

Hah - abhi khatam nahin hua.
I'm not back in regular life yet. I'm in a limbo, in the Delhi-Bombay train bound for home; but Routine hasn't yet started to force me back into the groove.

What am I taking back from this trip?

A sense of discpline, a tolerance for extremes?

Trekking to 16,300 feet on burning lungs, deadwood legs, and making it?

Playing a diesel drum by a campfire, singing in the firelit warmth?
The sight of the galaxy sprawled across the sky?
The silence of the monasteries?
The people we met?
That sense of being cut off from everything that tied you to your old life?
How people changed on this trip?
How I changed?

These are things I am going to remember for a long time. There are a few incidents in life, a few experiences, that can alter the course you had been on. Destiny shapers. I don't know where this trip's experience will take me - but I definitely know one thing, that change something it will. I know I'm not the same person who came here. I know I'm moving on a slightly different life-path now.

remember.

And the recap -

Day 1: From Mumbai to Delhi - Train trip
Day 2: Delhi - A short rest
Day 3: From Delhi to Manali. Bus trip, hitchhiking, getting there
Day 4: The Journey Begins - Manali to Sarchu.
Day 5: Getting to Leh: Second part of an epic drive
Day 6: Leh: Acclimatization and exploration
Day 7: Khardung la, Nubra, Diskit, Alchi
Day 8: Panamik and the return
Day 9: Chang La and Pangong Tso
Day 10: Pathar Sahib, Basgo, Likir, Ulley Topko
Day 11: Lamayuru Monastery and the Shanti Stupa
Day 12: Rafting the Indus: adventures and misadventures
Day 13: The Stok-La Trek begins
Day 14: Rumbak
Day 15: Stok La Pass
Day 16: Changma Party
Day 17: Return to Stok, leaving Leh

Ki Ki Soso Larghyalo.
Keep us safe on this journey...

Ladakh Trip: Day Seventeen. Return to Stok.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:07:00 +0000

A long, leisurely walk back to Stok, where As and M, who have taken the last six days to freak out in shopping, setting contacts, and exploring the city.

We return to Ladakh Serai, where after a week, I finally have a full, regular, long hot shower. Emerge feeling extraordinarily evolved, glowing with cleanliness from within - it's like I've taken my soul through a car wash and a five-star spa.

A session in the afternoon with Godfather beer. Everyone knocked flat.

Evening, take St to Leh Market, where she makes up for the deprivations of the last week in a titanic explosion of retail therapy.
Ns decides to head to Dharamshala instead of staying with us; he's taking an overnight return Tavera cab to Manali, who will do the 48-hour trip in a screaming, terrifying, 14. We wish him the best and pray for his soul.

I pack by candlelight, dumping inessentials, guesstimating weight, etc, and sleep, to be woken up at 4 am for my flight. Luggage limit is 20 kg. My luggage weighs 19.8. Am I good or what?
The departure lounge has only foreigners.

The flight leaves on time - no bad-weather cancellations, which would have meant I get to see Kashmir with the rest of the group who's going on till there - until the engines roar, I get pushed back into my seat, and the holiday is finally over.

The last look back... icy peaks below. I feel... yes, sad that it's over finally... yet also, in some strange way, elated. This trip had been on my list of things to do for years. It's happened. And no way is this over. This has just been the beginning... and a list is unscrolling in my head, a list of names that ring with more cold, forbidding wastes, monasteries, peaks, valleys, walks, cold wind and warm fires...
The next 20 expeditions, from Kashmir to the Seven Sisters, are already being planned.

;)

Ladakh Trip: Day Sixteen. The Party.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:06:00 +0000

An easy rest day, well-earned. Wake up for once not at the crack of dawn, but well into sunshine, opening the tent flap, looking out at the panorama and sunshine outside, and absolutely glow in the warm realization that today you don't need to go out and walk through it. When I turned over to snooze some more - that was the second-best snooze of my life.
(the best was in the depths of a Delhi December, foggy and icy, on a day when I had a holiday and my (severely hung over) roommates did not. I lay there under the rajai, telling them of the games I'll play and movies I'll watch and hot tea I'll drink, and hey, aren't you guys getting late for office?)

My tentmate, PP, appeared to be fondling himself in his sleep. I kicked him awake. He looked around, sighed, and explained that he was missing his wife. He said -
Ye bedard zamana kya jaane
Kya dard-e-judai hoti hai...
hum l**d pakar ke sote hain
har ghar mein ch**ai hoti hai...

Half the group departed for a walk; the rest of us stayed back, lazing around. Read The Pianist in two hours flat. Strolled down to the nearby Hotel Changma, another parachute paradise.

We had some curious visitors during the day, who walked into camp, peering at us, nuzzling, and generally getting friendly.

In the afternoon, PP decided to go for a lone walk. He's come a long way from being knocked flat by the height at Changla when he arrived... Ns told him, "PP, mera bhoot tujhme chadh gaya hai, aur tumhara mujhme..."
PP: "Yes but I would like it back, please."

The 5 returned, brimming over with ideas for the evening; some of us went and gathered up firewood; and, as expected, now that our camera batteries are stone dead, we have our closest encounter yet with Yaks, who burst through the underbrush while we were woodgathering, barely 5 feet away, and goggled at us in a frankly astonished way before proceeding.

For post-dinner, our camp cook managed to actually bake a cake(!!)

After dinner, we light the fire, and a dance programme ensues; the highlight of which is all the guys dancing to Choli ke Peeche. Yes, there is a video; I will somehow get it from As and get it here one day.
Ajay and Rinku get superexcited, and possibly fuelled by a few surreptitious visits to the kitshen tent, are full of vim and vigour and enthu. Rinku finds a diesel jerrycan, and drums out a beat while Ajay dances around, lost in his own world, to Ladakhi and Himachali folk-songs. Some of us encourage him with whistles, but the head guide shushes us. Since a few dogs had started barking at the Changma tent 2 km away, we asked, 'Kutte aa jaate hain?'
He gave us a very poker-faced look, and said, 'bahut kuch aa jaata hai' and refused to say more.
Dancing makes you gasp in minutes; we sit down, breathing the fragrant woodsmoke, and sing for a while, as the flames leapt and danced all by themselves now, a little spark pushing back the vast darkness.

And finally, it's time to sleep.

Ladakh Trip: Day Fifteen. Stok La.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:04:00 +0000

Wake in the night, the moon so bright

Beating the alarm again, I walk into the dim dawnlight

Rumbak isn't completely flat... have to be careful how you orient yourself when sleeping. Don't want blood pooling in your head...
It's bitterly cold. My whole body's frozen solid. Fifteen minutes of shivering, stumbling movement, staggering in circles to warm up before heading out to find an N-spot. Faint footsteps as somebody else on the same quest strolls around in the dark. Everything numb. Knees weak and stiff, legs trembling.

Today will be the toughest yet - we're going to do two days' walk in one, reaching the next point to give us more time inside the park.
Today, we're going to scale the pass - Stok-La.

Dawn breaks, the peaks erupt with brilliance. A gold-red glow flows down the slopes, slowly trickling downwards as the sun rises. We pack up quickly, a small light breakfast, and by seve, we've started walking.

The next four hours are a haze. Initially it's fine, a gentle slope, and us full of energy. And it keeps going - on and on and on. The slope gets steeper. Breath runs shorter and shorter, until I'm gasping. Head pounds. Lungs burn. Legs are literally screaming for the oxygen that just isn't there.
I'm taking five steps, resting. Five steps, rest. Five steps, rest.
I and St struggle up, encouraging each other periodically, in second place; Nm has gone charging ahead, determined to prove he's not a typical lazy Indian bugger to the group of Germans who crossed us early on, completely kitted out and lugging giant backpacks, several of them well beyond fifty. Everyone else trails far, far behind.

The landscape is saw-toothed and jagged, harsh and savagely beautiful. Blue sky, distant clouds. The horizon is clustered with needle teeth. A sudden break when a young woman in neon-green lycra shorts from a different group just in front of us decides that she has to take a dump; and since there's no place but the path, she does it on the path. I have to stand staring tactfully back at the rest of our team until St gives the all-clear and we proceed.

Himachal and Ladakh is filled with these messages, written by the displaced populace now living in political asylum here.

Rock lichens, blazing orange unexpected life on the sterile stone... the slopes are getting steeper. My head has started to pound, now. Resting is a rare luxury - it's only the trail, and just the trail, that's my universe. All else is steeply-slanted scree, only too eager to send you skating down the slopes with twisted ankles and skin scraped raw, on a single misstep. Nowhere to sit. You just keep walking, cursing-singing in your head...

One bloody foot
after the next bloody foot
One bloody mile
after the next bloody mile...

- The French Foreign Legion's unofficial marching song

The local fauna watches us in amused bemusement, munching peacefully on the scrub as we struggle past.

And the slope gets even steeper. S-bend after S-bend. Scrabbling on sliding pebbles and dust. Pause and turn around - Rv has commandeered a horse to carry her, and is plodding gently along. The Professor is showing a sudden dramatic increase in fitness and energy and is catching up with her. Ns is just about a hundred feet away. Look the other way, ahead, up, up, and Nm is at the top, sitting on a rock and peering down.

Whoops. Looking up was a bad idea. Wait for the flashing lights and the ringing in my ears to fade and start again. Now doing little baby steps. Each leg weighs more than a mid-sized car. The mules also cross us, and it's a terrifying sight; each mule has to be physically pushed up by a guide, to stop it from slipping down.

Ns passes us a few minutes later, looking a bit wild-eyed but otherwise doing ok. The scree gives way to a sixty-degree rock spine, made apparently of petrified razor blades.
Walking not possible anymore, we start rock-climbing. It's a relief in a way - my arms can do some of the work now, and my climb up is virtually a series of boosted push-ups, hauling my body along while the feet just about keep up.

The rock is shattered, splintered, and really, really pointy; I stop feeling the edges after a while, and pain fades away. The biggest mistake you can make is get over-excited and try to finish it quickly; it's higher and tougher than you think, and extra effort only makes you dizzy and queasy. Climb - rest - climb - rest - slowly - steadily - wait for the dizziness to fade - climb again - until suddenly, a panoarama opens up of a beautiful valley before you, framed by fluttering prayer flags.

I've done it. I'm at the top.

Sit among the razor rocks, staring at the distance-hazed snowcaps, feeling my heartbeat slow down to near normal.

Nm and Ns are standing at the top, looking each other up & down. Before I continue, let me update you - the last few days, Nm has been drinking out of a hydration pack he picked up recently. The hydrapak is a flexible watertight container, with a long rubber tube and a bite-valve at the end; you keep it in your backpack, loop the tube out, and bite down on the rubber valve at the end to open it and allow the water to flow, every time you want a drink. It saves you from stopping and taking out a water bottle.

Ns pulls an Appy Fizz out of his pack, takes a sip, makes a disgusted face, and offer it to Nm.

Ns: Nm, apple piyega?

Nm: Tu kuch bhi pila yaar... mein piyega

Ns: Mutthi piyega?

Nm: Nikaal.

Yg: Yaad rakh - pichhle 10 din Nm ko peene se pehle zor so kaatne ki aadat ho gayi hai...

Ns: .....!!!

We hang up our own prayer flag line, and start heading down again on the other side. It's a vast panorama of green hills, and to reach them, there is a long, winding, trail through a mountainside of scree, sand and pebbles.
Our guide does an Indiana Jones on us, lacing up his boots and launching himself onto the slopes, and sliding down at 500 kmph, somehow managing to stay upright in a cloud of dust. An animated meteorite going for a crash-landing.

A series of disasters now proceeds to unfold. I twist an ankle. Ns tries to imitate the guide and twists his ankle as well. St manages to get stung by something, and gets the sting stuck inside her skin; she sits and starts frantically chewing gum like a turbopowered chewing machine to make a sting remover. Rv, amazingly, unceremoniously dumps the horse, launches onto the slope, and reaches the bottom in 30 seconds, safe and sound, as scree patters to a stop around her and the dust settles. For the rest of us, it takes two hours. The Prof turns a pretty boiled-lobster-pink in the sun, and I give him some sunscreen. He responds by comparing me to a Community Living Textbook. Yg gets attacked by vicious caterpillars. And finally, by the time we reach a small claring at the bottom of the slope, ns has come down with AMS. He pushed himself too hard while climbing and spent too much time at the top.

'Ladakh really is the land of extremes,' said Ns, emerging from behind some rocks fifteen minutes later, 'I was puking and shitting at the same time. What is this, yaar?'

PP agrees with him by sharing his extreme experience as well on the climb up, where he went from acutely constipated in the morning to acute loose motions 3 hours later.

Walked a while longer, into the sanctuary, passing herds of wild Bharal perched on the sheer rock faces around us (who gave Nm a brilliant Nat-Geo-worthy photo-op) until, by dusk, with perfect timing, we reached our camp at Changma.

Ladakh Trip: Day Fourteen. Rumbak.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:03:00 +0000

I find my own N-spot early in the morning. It feels - as Dave Barry says - good, but also very fundamentally wrong. Your civilized mind is still going, 'Hey! Did you lock the door? Where's the walls?' while nature takes it's course.

Ns, too used to western-style, finds his legs aching painfully, and described his experience as a series of alternating hops, cramps, scrambles, and stretches.

Our guide, Mutuk, leads the way across Hemis National Park, a high-altitude national sanctuary (and, incidentally, India's largest sanctuary, a fact I didn't realize until a year later). You have a chance to meet Argali, Bharal, Shapu, ibex, tibetan wolves, himalayan marmots, brown bears, mountain weasels, golden eagles, and, of course, the peak of the ecological food-chain pyramid, the famous Snow Leopard.

close encounters with Snow Leopard
- unfortunately, not by us

Occasional caravans of donkeys meander past, with a single or two weathered-faced drivers, wrinkles crinkling in grins and the ubiquitous 'Julley!' as they ride past. The scenery is changing now, and the barren lands are gone - now it's shadier, between the rocks and in narrow valleys, surrounded by juniper, dry birch and fir trees.

Solar cooker

Pass through a village, where we're greeted by a sudden rush of excitedly squealing children, and their mothers sitting in a group at a doorstep, sorting grain. We pause for a bit here, letting the rest of the group catch up, at a local - temple? Holy spot? Something like that, anyway, marked by a collection of bones and skulls painted a blood-red and decorated with ibex horns.

Have lunch, and continue. Not a good idea. The food sits heavy in our stomachs, and it's tough going. By the time we reach Rumbak, my legs are heavy, lungs labouring, head pounding with oxygen lack and black spots doing the occasional swirl in my vision. Perspective is all wrong - everything is too far away. Distances you thought you could walk in ten minutes take nearly half an hour to complete.

Rumbak campsite is in the middle of a flat bowl-shaped valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains, perched dead center in a flat plateau. No vegetation at all. Or rocks. Finding the N-spot here tomorrow morning is going to be a serious issue. Yes, there is a hut-like thingy off to the side, with a dry pit underneath - but trust me, you do not want to go in there. You just don't.

Mutuk catches forty winks while evaluating his charges' chances of surviving the next 72 hours

Take a bath in a stream, though I'm still dead tired and gasping, because in another forty minutes the sun will slip behind the mountain and it'll be too cold to even think of water. It's cold all right, but not icy. With every mugful, energy comes roaring back - this is unbelievably refreshing. This is like magic. I bathe, wash a change of clothes, hang it on a couple of posts to dry, and I'm literally bounding around like a rabbit, I'm feeling so fresh. In fact, I inspire Ns to do it too - who in turn inspires St, who builds an elaborate bathing tent for herself.

Now, I desperately need tea - dusk is falling, and I can't feel my fingers anymore.

Professorism #2: Prof. PP checks out the loo hut, and makes a very significant observation - "Couples will like this. The romantic thing is that, in the bathroom, they have put two stools."

Ah. The Defecating Duo. How truly romantic, indeed...

Set up the dining tent, and recharge with boiling-hot tea (and more importantly, in a boiling-hot mug) as night falls.

Stare up at the sky at night - They say you can see 3,600 stars in the night sky from the ground. In a city, you're lucky to get to a hundred. Here - it's a blaze. With no light-pollution from streetlights and traffic leaking into the sky, you can see big stars, small stars, tiny stars, something that could be planets, the occasional spark of a satellite or maybe the ISS slowly moving across the firmament...

For the second time in my life, after almost fifteen years, I can see the galaxy we live in again.

(image courtesy wikipedia. My digicam can't do brilliant stuff like this)

Ladakh Trip: Day Thirteen. The Trek Begins.

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:01:00 +0000

Parkla village, outside Leh. 8 AM. Our heavy backpacks are loaded up on mules, while we carry a small daypack with water, snacks, camera and basic survival kits.

Just as well, really. While we may be all gung-ho and acclimatized and all, I personally don't want this trek to be a struggle for existence, toiling up bent double under the weight of an overenthusiastically packed backpack. It might get us through every disaster short of the Great Flood and shark attacks, but I'd rather enjoy the weather, the view and the sun. At least on this trek, where we have the option.

And talking of sun, we get it in spades. The first day's trek is quite short, just about 6 hours at a gentle slow pace, but most of it is in direct sunlight, through a barren mountainscape. Vast open spaces, distant saw-toothed ranges shimmering in the haze of distance.

Ns goes off on his own path, and forty-five minutes later, we see him as a speck on the flatland below. Do that in the Sahyadris and you'd be irrevocably lost. Here, in this openness, it's impossible.

There's pin-drop silence. Even the wind has fallen, so you can hear conversations happening kilometres away. The group separates along the usual lines - the enthu leaders (Ns) going full speed ahead; the less-enthu leaders going steadily along, knowing that this is the best position for lots of frequent rest stops, photos, and breaks (Me and St); the main body of people chattering away as they climb; and the trailers, of people who're finding this hard going, with their minders.

And, of course, the mules, who left around half an hour after us, caught up a third of the way along, and had unloaded and set up long before we reached.

I know I've been giving you readers an overdose of 'open, empty, vast,' etc, but you can't get over it. It hammers at your mind, forges new ways and a new pace of thought. Distractions, concerns, routine, and the past get sucked away into that emptiness; like osmosis, diffusing further and further outwards into the void, trying to fill it, until they're gone. All you have left is the sound of your breath, your footsteps, the prickle of ultraviolent on your skin where the sunscreen's worn thin, the gentle gurgling of the water bottles in your pack, and faraway sound of voices occasionally carried on the breeze. All you think of, here, is what you come up with there and then.

They say, you can never run away, leave it all behind - it isn't true. You can. A life can irrevocably change, just a few hours into this walk.

Jingchan camp.

A loose collection of parachute tents alongside a stream, several small open spaces for the mules and horses (and foals), a swept clearing where we set up our technicolor tents, and a powerful, pervasive, and penetrating scent of manure.

Manure is an aspect of the trek that's always with us; if there are mules, there will be the stuff, everywhere. Most of it is dry and powdery, and not really unpleasant; just very organic and strong. You get used to it by the end of the first day, and by the second, it's unnoticeable.

Ns has been looking fairly uncomfortable for a while now, and finally comes up and tells us why. The pressure is rising, and, in the charmingly appropriate simile that I was introduced to on my first Sahyadri trek five years ago, a 'fax' is imminent. But there don't seem to be any loos around...?

We have to explain the concept of finding a bush or a boulder to him. He is horrified. The girls promptly grab him and whisk him off to teach the science of finding a proper spot to do the business... which will always be, from today onwards, called an N-spot.
The rest of the afternoon goes in dozing and chatting by the banks of the stream, having chai and snacks, chatting and watching the legs of a firang trekker in tank top and microscopic shorts, apparently building a dam in the stream a little way off.

As evening comes, boredom drives me, Yg, Rp, Mi, and Ni to explore the area. A quick rock-climb at the end of the camp up a rock wall, and suddenly we're in a lush green wood, the stream running through it, and a path. We follow it down. After a bit, we notice there are footprints on the trail as well - of bare feet. Not ours.

It's dead silent.

We emerge, in a few minutes, into an open space. There seems to be a deserted village here. some low, roofless walls with tightly-shut doors. Taller walls with barred, closed windows. Rows of batteries on the sills. Haphazard piles of wood and hay. Not a sound, not even birds or dogs.

We walk along a rise, where we can see into one of the walled-off areas. There's some kind of a thing leaning against one of the walls. Taller than a man, covered with a thick, black bushy, matted pelt of coarse black fur. A distinct snout and pricked-up ears. We stare at it for a while, but none of us can figure what the hell it is. It's getting darker, and the place is beginning to creep us out. We turn a corner, and find a basket lying on it's side... gently rocking. As we look at it, it slows to a stop and lies there.

On the walls, there are cow skulls hung up, encased in a wicker contraption.

Exactly at this point, a little piece of my mind experiences an out-of-body experience. It steps outside, and whispers into my ear, 'Hey, Ashish, do you remember The Blair Witch Project? Didn't you see it, like, three weeks ago?'

And with dreadful clarity, I remember everything. Little wicker and wood figurines hung up in trees. The same eerie silence, the descending dusk. The fact that I have the handycam in my hand. The fact that We're in the middle of nowhere with no cellular coverage. The fact that everyone involved in that movie died horribly, usually involving finding their shattered teeth later under little rock piles. The fact that Mi, who's climbed up a short ladder to peer in through a broken door, is leaping backwards and running towards us, eyes open wide and frozen in panic. The fact that a wrinkled brown face under a shock of virulent red hair is emerging from the broken door.

Heheh. Did that scare you? It scared the crap out of us. Obviously, this is where the camp guys lived; they won't hang out in parachute tents in the deep winter, will they? The hay is for the mules, the wood for fire, the skulls are local religious icons, and the wrinkled face is somebody's mother who likes her hair colored. But for a few moments, we all had that feeling of muscles turning to water in panic. Though in all fairness, we must have given an equal scare to the poor old lady as well, who's now grinning gap-toothily at us and telling something in ladakhi to Yg, who's smiling and nodding back, repeating 'Julley' in relieved incomprehension.

Once our respective hearts had returned from mouths, we decided to call it a day for exploration and headed back for tea and story-telling time.

Ladakh Trip: Day Twelve. Rafting the Indus and the Zanskar

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:00:00 +0000

We get kitted out on the banks of the Indus the next morning, taking very great care not to get too close to the river - the water's icy cold and extra freezing in contrast to the bright sun.

Once we're off, it's a constant attrition. Lathered with sunscreen that keeps sliding off with the copious amount of sweat we generate while rowing, versus sudden freezing gusts of wind and splashes of water that again are replaced by blistering UV on exposed skin...

There are long stretches of flat, calm water interspersed with sudden, dramatic rapids. We float down 24 km of a dream, through hot sun and cold splashes, between gigantic mountain ranges on either side. It's dead silent, no traffic, just our breathing on the raft and the occasional rapid. Not much conversation happens - we're too out of breath. It's killer, this kind of exercise in the thin air. The wind, at specific places along the gorges, finds acoustic perfection and moans eerily.

We also stop for a bit on sandbanks, take the occasional break, search for likely loo spots, but mostly sit and gasp for air before we're off again. But don't get me wrong - it's an amazing experience. We've travelled Ladakh by road, by bike, by foot, even by camel for a bit. But doing it by the river is an experience apart. More than ever, I want to do a river expedition. The rapids are - good, between a grade 2 to 3+ in places; but Tons was more fun. This is a very relaxing activity, really - lots of opportunities to sit back, soak up some sun, feel the breeze, and watch the ravine unroll past on the river's shimmering surface.

After a long time, we reach a point almost at the end of the journey - the confluence of the Indus and the Zanskar. Just before the joining, there's a large, flat calm area, the perfect opportunity to go overboard and swim around for a bit, chilling, cooling off after the long paddle. We leap off, almost shrieking with the shock of cold water on sunwarmed skin, before the acclimatization kicks in and we're floating in bliss. The guide tells us not to get too far from the raft - and we're soon about to find out why.

The Indus is a decent, well-behaved river, fairly mature by now, and fairly cool after a long trip through the warm sun. The Zanskar is an exuberant, brand-new roaring rush, straight from the snow-melt and shady gorges.

The confluence is the point where the comparatively sedate Indus river meets this foaming high-speed monster, and there are strong currents and near-vertical temperature gradients. Ns and Rc decide to warm up by swimming, and splash straight outwards. The guide notices, and yells - but they're quite a bit away now, and in the chill, are finding the return tough going. Also, it's not just tiredness - the current is picking up, and swimming against the current only exhausts you and carries you out even further. It's touch and go for ten minutes, with us rowing frantically and them splashing back equally desperately, before we haul them bodily aboard - and in the next two minutes, the raft sweeps into the Zanskar and all hell breaks loose, rapid-wise.

Twenty minutes later, we clear the worst of it and look back - at a scene of potential disaster. We, in the first raft, had been lucky in getting all our people back aboard before hitting the Zanskar. The second raft... hadn't. Rp had gotten swept in, and was fished out after nearly five minutes of desperate rowing, blue, rigid, near-hypothermic. The good thing was she didn't panic, and floated, instead of struggling; that's why she just had to deal with the cold only, and not drowning as well.

It's not just a question of going from cold water to colder water. The shock of transition is as great as the one you get when, after sitting in the sun for 2 hours, you jump overboard in the Indus (which, remember, is still a mountain river 11,000 feet above sea level). I stuck my hand into the Zanskar, and the water's chill had knives in it.

Finally, on the beach, we stood and shivered for a while, then baked, then ate a packed lunch and headed home.

Magnetic Hill is another interesting landmark. There's a point along the road where the road appears to be heading downhill away from a large hill. Legend has it that the hill has such large deposits of magnetic ore that it can haul a car against the slope towards itself, if it's kept parked in neutral on the road. It's a hoax - it's an optical illusion that makes the road look sloping away from the hill, whereas actually, it's sloping towards it.

When we reached there, someone was testing his 4-WD on the slopes - and we had the shock of our lives when we saw the 'magnetic' hill apparently hauling an SUV, tyres screaming, dust and rubble churning, up a sixty-degree gradient.

There was a super wind, though, which can easily knock you ass-backwards and blow you away, rolling through the dusty plateau like something out of a cartoon western.

This point in the post also marks the debut of The Professor with his quote of the day - if someone ever calls him during a class (he runs a coaching institute), his standard excuse for not talking - 'Baat nahin kar sakta, abhi mera period chalu hai.'

When we reached the hotel, our arms and legs were solidly aching. And after a superb late lunch of mix veg, yak cheese, mushroom, broccoli, spinach, and soup, our jaws were aching as well.

In the evening, we paid a brief visit to the War Museum. It's a small building, Army-run, housing a small collection of items from the Kargil and earlier wars - Mostly captured enemy weaponry, equipment and documents, and some of the kind of equipment we use.
There were AK-47's, UMGs, small-arm pistols, a pair of rocket launchers, mortars... and a whole selection of Pakistani Army documents, id cards, ration books, and letters. Protestations and diplomatic talk can fly thick and fast, but the truth sits here, quietly but leaving no room for arguments - the insurgents that occupied Tiger Hill, Drass, Kargil, and the rest, were Pak Army regulars. They carried army documentation, and army weaponry. Photos not allowed; you'll have to imagine it.
There was a look on the face of the officer who was showing us around - a bitterness, but also a kind of humour. The look of someone who has seen the arguments and debates, who knows what the truth is, who knows it may not be publicly acknowledged - but also, the look of someone who knows that whatever the public may choose to believe, makes no difference at all to the life he will lead here. He knows what he has to do, what his duty is; he's not looking for approval or acknowledgement. He will do what he has to. The Great Indian Public can think whatever it wants.

Another cultural programme was scheduled, so watched that for a bit, then headed back to the hotel - where, for the third time in our visit, the same group was presenting the same programme, this time to some new arrivals over there. There's a limit to how much culture we can take... help!
Accepted a packing challenge from Rc, and packed up all my stuff - for a eighteen-day holiday and trek - in ten minutes flat. Rc's jaw, hit the floor, and stayed there for a while. I amaze myself, sometimes.

This trip... is becoming interesting. It's cabin fever. Take a group of people out of their lives, put them in close proximity with each other, in stressful conditions, with no chance for escape, for a long time. You can hear the pressure cookers starting to whistle. And the next few days will be a trek - no diversions whatsoever. You could seriously make a movie out of this, a novel, a TV show.
Rocking script it'll be, too.

Ladakh Trip: Day Eleven. Lamayuru, Shanti Stupa

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:58:00 +0000

It's early morning - really early - the sun just about came up a little while back. Perched up there is Lamayuru Monastery.

Lamayuru's surrounded by an expanse of really weird rock formations - some kind of soft rocks, carved and shaped by the wind into disturbingly organic shapes. They have a soft, melted look, and a very... fleshy color. I keep expecting them to start undulating, conveyering us into a giant waiting maw...

They call it a 'moonscape'. Coincidentally enough, the real moon puts in an appearance as well, floating dreamlike over the crags.

The Buddhist Flag -

The five colours of the flag represent the six colours of the aura that emanated from the body of the Buddha when he attained Enlightenment.

Blue (Nila): Loving kindness, peace and universal compassion
Yellow (Pita): The Middle Path - avoiding extremes, emptiness
Red (Lohita): The blessings of practice - achievement, wisdom, virtue, fortune and dignity
White (Odata): The purity of Dharma - leading to liberation, outside of time or space
Orange (Manjesta): The Buddha's teachings - wisdom.

Lamayuru probably comes the closest so far to the classic Tibetan Monastery that I'd imagined - based on, mostly, what I'd read about in Tintin in Tibet. Remote, high, silent, yet also sunny, bright, social... the bustling hub of the surrounding villages.

Inside, we came across a very unique event - a group of monks creating a mandala. It's about four feet across, composed of multi-colored grains of sand sifted in a fantastically detailed pattern, concentric designs narrowing to a core... Mandalas are a key part of meditation practices. Plus, they're employed for focusing attention of aspirants and adepts; as a spiritual teaching tool; for establishing a sacred space; and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.
This one is a part of a ceremony coming up in a few days - it will take about a week to make, last for about four days, and then be wiped clean after the ceremony. Transcience.

We also had a chance to sit in during the morning prayers, for a while. Chanting, drumming, rhythmic cymbals, incense... but most of all, the monk's voice, rolling out sonorously across the hall, word-perfect, never hesitating or stumbling or even pausing for breath... a sense of age-old continuity. An oral tradition's live demonstration.
In some way, also a brief reminder of Sharmaji.

By late morning, we leave, after spending some more time in the shade at the monastery, and a quick breakfast at a roadside cafe downstairs where Yg met a tourist and evoked much merriment with his name.

A long drive back, to the Shanti Stupa at Leh by late afternoon.

The Shanti Stupa is a recent construction, all brand-new spotless white plaster and paint, a giant white egg-like dome perched on top of a small hill overlooking the capital. In fact, the resemblance to a decorated easter egg is quite uncanny, the dome being ringed with colorful friezes showing incidents from Buddhist history.

There are layers of walkways around the central construction, and a large open courtyard in front. And a classic demo of how the mountain-dweller's mindset differs from the plains-dweller; the guy born and brought up on flat ground will put a railing around any surface over six feet, to stop people from falling off. The Ladakhi will look at a six-hundred-foot drop right under his toes and not see anything out of the ordinary.
Which is why the courtyard, and the bordering precipice, has no guardrails at all. It makes for awesome views, a sense of being a part of the scenery instead of just an observer.

It's back to the Kaal, a lazy book-reading-in-the-shade, playing-with-boisterous-alsatian-pup, dozing-waking-reading-dozing kind of afternoon.

In the evening, we head back to the market, where I suddenly find myself the designated guide for all the new arrivals, pointing out interesting shops, best bargains, souvenirs, negotiating deals, and bargaining. Discovered an army surplus store, where I picked up a super-tough, skin-tight, awesomely warm army sweater. It's not for the pot-bellied or out-of-shape; it's designed to keep you warm, not make you look good. Sticks to your body like glue, squeezing... and super-warm. Also picked up some boots and an original thangka.

Yg aquired a bike, and spent many happy hours ferrying all the girls back and forth, heading off for rides; the return-to-college emotion was shining off his beaming face like sunshine.

Decided to skip the hotel dinner in favor of mutton roechowtses at the Summer Harvest in the market; why come to Ladakh and then eat Delhi food?

The night draws on, but we aren't sleepy. At all. We're instead ringing in Yg's birthday, smashing cake on face, and getting into a full-on daru session that continues till 1:30 at night, complete with emotional speeches, the works. St gets royally smashed and has to be navigated back to room without waking up the rest of the hotel; later in the morning we heard from the roommate the horror stories of puked-in bathrooms, nearly puked-in beds, puked-in shoes, and other such fun and games that are such a part & parcel of Saturday night hostel life...

This has been the best holiday ever, so far. And it's not even halfway done yet!

Next: Rafting the Indus

Ladakh Trip: Day Ten. Pathar Sahib, Basgo, Likir, Ulley Topko

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:55:00 +0000

No hangover, barely a few hours in bed and I'm bright and fresh as a daisy. I seem to be needing less sleep up here.
The Leh-Srinagar highway is the best road I have seen in my life - perfectly flat, gently curving, matte-black with brand new dazzling white road lines, and trucks blasting down it at close to 100 kmph in the sheer exuberance of this road after the roughage of Manali-Leh.

Pathar Sahib. A gurudwara a short distance outside Leh, where you can see a rock with an interesting story.
When Guru Nanak was passing through the region, he was requested by the inhabitants of a village to intervene on their behalf; they begged for his help in defending themselves from a Rakshasa who was terrorizing the region. He agreed and sat at the foot of a hill to pray. The demon, in a bid to disrupt his concentration, and possibly kill him as well, threw a giant boulder from above upon him. The rock rolled down, gathering speed, and smashed into the saint. And stopped dead. Then the Guru emerged from in front - leaving behind an imprint of his body, pressed into the rock like soft butter. The outline is still visible, as you walk around the rock.

Wash our feet with icy water, burn our tongues with scalding tea, and back on the road again.

Basgo Monastery is a an ancient clay structure, standing tall in the middle of a fantastic giant-termite-mound-scape of wind-eroded rock. Lonely and deserted. It's like a movie set Harappan palace, Mackenna's Gold with the temperature and sunshine turned way down.
We wander around for a while - there's a large statue of the Maitreya, terracotta bricks and walls, rickety old ladders, parts of that have been closed off as they're too rickety and eroded for safe exploration... and it's lasted these centuries thanks to the dry Leh climate. One single Mumbai monsoon would flatten and wash away the region's entire history.

A few hours on, Likir Monastery. Dedicated to the Water Spirits. This one is different in having the Buddha statue outside the main structures rather than housed inside; A giant golden seated figure, on a base beautifully decorated in glowing primary-colored Buddhist religious symbols and friezes.
One of the points of etiquette in photography in the region, or any Buddhist center - when clicking photos of the Buddha, don't place yourself in the frame. Even an image of the Buddha is an object to be venerated; including yourself in it, is considered highly disrespectful.

The interiors of Likir are the most detailed yet, a riot of intricate, grand designs spread across the entire walls - huge, life-sized and larger-than-life-sized paintings in tremendous, fine detail. You could spend hours just standing in front of a single one and staring, at the characters, the events, the history and the associated myths and stories, the vivid blues and reds with gold inlays... everything.

Virudhaka, leader of the Kumbhanda, is a worldly guardian worshipped as a protector. He lives on the south side of the lower slopes of mount Meru in the Heaven of the Four Great Kings.

A representation of a dorje (a spiritual weapon / sceptre, the thunderbolt diamond)

Some of the implements / instruments used in Tibetan Buddhist prayer ceremonies - horns, drums, bumpa, tingsha, a monk's thick woolen robe, (so stiff it can stand by itself,) bundles of books...

Tibetan buddhism has a significant action-orientation in their worship. Any activity you do, any ritual - the elements involved have to be moving for them to work. Prayer flags, jaapmala, prayer wheels...

A long drive follows, broken by R suddenly doing a spontaneous, impromptu and totally unexpected request to stop the jeep and step out. We're wondering what she's up to - there's no rocks or bush for miles around to afford any kind of cover, and we're just getting ready to turn away / close eyes when she steps onto the road in front of the vehicle - and starts dancing. we watch flabbergasted until she finishes, and settles back, wreathed in smiles.

The rest of the journey, as we get cramped, cold, uncomfortable and numb-assed, is sometimes safar, sometimes suffer... (that's why they call it a jeep safari...) until we arrive at the Ulley Topko camp.
These are the most luxurious tents yet, with glass washbasins.
The rest of the afternoon is spent in peaceful discussion, planning next trips, debating the feasibility of retiring in the mountains - which, considering the accessibility issue, can be fraught with risk - "Haan ji, aap kal chaar baje aa jaiye, mujhe heart attack ho gaya hai..."

razor sharp slivers of shattered rock line the roadside

In the evening, we discover a small wooden bridge spanning the river, and spend some time there. Standing on the bridge is hypnotic; the water moves really, really fast, and the bridge trembles and shakes with the wind and footsteps - after a while, you find yourself dizzy and motion-sick, if you look too long.

At night, after dinner, we return to the bridge. There's a moon out, and the scene is transformed; the moon has risen, shining silver mixed with the darkness. The river is alive. Bright, dark, frozen, roiling, leaping, churning, swirling, twisting... beautiful, exuberant, yet savage. Watching it was like watching a wild animal - enthralling to look at, but get too close, and there won't be any mercy.

We come back after some time, as the chill begins to bite, and before turning in, renew our acquaintance with another version of an Old Monk - the kind that we've carried with us in bottles. Sitting on the steps of our tent, staring across the moonlit gorge, feeling the heat blossom within while your extremities go numb... this is the life.

Next: Lamayuru and the Shanti Stupa

Ladakh Trip: Day Nine. Chang La, Pangong Tso

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:54:00 +0000

The Prof. joined yesterday, flying in, and contracted mild AMS this morning at we passed through Chang La. He was pretty much passed out at the pass, muttering grimly with eyes tight shut if we prodded him, but otherwise marginally less interactive than a backpack.

Chang La wasn't the highest pass - 17,800 feet - but it was definitely the coldest. There must've been a cold wave last night; stepping out of the vehicles was like entering a world made of icy knives stabbing straight through thermals, jackets, scarves and the works. In seconds we were chilled to the bone.

Shivering, chattering and trying to huddle into our clothes, we watched enviously as one of the locals, filled with life and good humour in his perfect fur coat - trotted up to welcome us. I envy these guys; huge buggers, bushy, and completely at ease in sub-zero temperatures.

Yep, sub-zero; the water runoff from melted snow during the day had frozen into a thin scrim of ice, crackling under your feet as you walked across the little plateau to the tea-shop.

Everything is hardy and tough here; even in this sunless, frozen, barren land, life finds a foothold - however hard it may be - and survives. Lichen, growing on bare rock, living off the ice. The touch of green that said to the universe - Do your worst. I live.
We spoke with a jawan there - Rohan, from Rajasthan - who was on recovery duty. Recovery? Here? Yep - his last posting was Siachen. These guys are posted there for three months, most of which is completely sunless, filled with howling wind and bitter cold. The best equipment fails and falls short. It begins with a killer 3-day climb to the top of the glacier, to the camp, to acclimatize themselves; then three months of turbochilled hell. When he returned, he said, for a long time, he would find his arms and legs spontaneously shaking, trembling with the memory of that bitter winter when warmth would vanish into the void and all that would be left would be the grey, snow-drifted shivering. It sets into your bones, that cold, into your psyche. Yet they do it, all the time, stationed there and losing fingers, toes and skin to frostbite, an implacable, omnipresent enemy far greater than the one they had been officially sent to fight. And most of us never even know about their struggle, let alone acknowledge it.
Next time you look northwards, remember that - somewhere in the distance, at an unimaginable height, someone is slowly dying in a land never meant for human beings to survive. And he's there, so that you can stand in the sun and live the life you have. Remember that.

Our next destination is another famous landmark - Pangong Tso (which Rc insisted on calling Lake Pang-Pong throughout his entire trip).

We look out through the jeep windows at a battered, broken windscape, a land of frozen geological violence; unchanging even as it twists itself into tortured new shapes. It's a world of impossible scales, where distance and time recede out of our comfortable frames of reference; It's big, it's old... it's implacable. It stuns you, all the time.
Reality, if one spends enough time here, starts getting distinctly shaky.

A last patch of green, rough scrub grass on which wild(?) horses were grazing in the far distance, playing, running free...

Lake Pangong.
It's the highest saltwater lake in the world; 134 km long, extending two-thirds into China. Freezes in the winter. No vegetation; dramatic, bare rock, and water in shades of blue, grey, aquamarine, green, and everything in between. The sky's breathlessly clear, between glaring-white clouds that scud across the sky, too fast, too close; it's like watching a special effect. The mountains are completely denuded, raw, dramatic rock. The lakeshore is rough gravel and pebbles, and the lake itself is smooth, but just sufficiently breeze-ruffled to not be a mirror surface; and somehow, I feel that's good. otherwise it may have been too... filmi? This is more real. Greyed skies, mist-shrouded horizon, pebbles underfoot, and the constantly-changing colors of the lake...
When we arrive, there's already a group there, a couple of Innovas parked at the lakeshore; fortunately, they leave soon. Serenity comes as the growl of their engines fades, and we stand for a while, watching the edges of Tibet lost in the faraway mist.

But sometimes, in places like these, when confronted with this beauty, you can get caught up in capturing it on camera so much that you forget to capture it in your mind... and all the best-in-the-world pictures become meaningless, images with no memory attached. You have to remember how it felt, how it touched you. I take what pics I want, and spend some time sitting there, walking around, just... looking.

RSS promptly goes for his gold flakes, but finds it hard going; cigarettes don't stay lit in the thin air. in fact, he's finding it tough keeping himself going.

The water is crystal clear, and as I wade in, so cold that I lose feeling immediately knees downwards. Rc actually manages to strip off and swim, though how he managed to do that, I'll never know. The thawing rush of blood back into your feet as you come out, dry off and get back into your shoes is indescribable; it's like a whole new set of feet is growing, coalescing out of hot blood from the numbness. It feels like being... not born, but created.

There's a brief patter of rain, a bitter, freezing wind rising. Time to start heading back; on the return route, the Pagal Nala will be rising. It's a stream of snowmelt; too late in the day, the sun's heat swells it to proportions that are sufficient to overturn trucks and sweep away cars. We will just about making it, skidding and sliding.

Pangong is - ethereal. Dozens of shades of blue water, under a stark sky in a martian landscape; the eyes scream for green. Every color in the spectrum glows, and a couple of shockingly-white gulls wheel over the water. An alien land.

Stopover for lunch at a tent dhaba on the way, hot omlettes, parathas, bread, tea... and archery practice.

Another stopover near Changla where we relax for a bit in the snow...

...and I leave behind an impression... at least for a few hours. Until the snow melts, softens the outlines, gets covered in the next fall... a part of me stays behind.

Thanks to the Border Roads Organization, the Ladakh roads have personality. They keep chatting with you - coquettish, nughty, nerdy, Smokey the Bear, serious, tongue-in-cheek, and sometimes, profound. At regular intervals, there are little yellow concrete plaques with a one-liner. Watch for them.

This evening, we head back into Leh, for a seedy bar tucked away in a corner of the market. It's filled with foreign tourists, guides, and some locals. The bar is raucous and blazing while the rest of the city shuts shop, goes tight-lipped, quiet and dark; this is another face of Leh, a miniature model of what Leh itself is. Just as the city defies the Himalayan night, this little bar defies the city with light, warmth, music and song. In a dozen languages, from a dozen countries.
Usually at the same time.

Mr. Fulsok has been visiting this bar regularly for many years now; he describes how these are the times when we see it at it's loudest. In the non-season, it's just the locals, who will sit and wait for the summer in grimmer, alcohol-blunted quiet. He owns a book shop in Leh, and he leaves with an invitation to drop in anytime.
By the time we leave, the cabs have all packed up (and the occasional few that pass have a single message - "No space! No space!") and everything is closed; it's a long but pleasant walk back to the Kaal.

Next: Basgo, the ghost capital; Likir monastery, and Pathar Sahib Gurudwara

Ladakh Trip: Day Eight. Panamik and the return

noreply@blogger.com (Mycotoxin) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:52:00 +0000

Back on the road after, we greet the morning with the sight of a 32-truck convoy of Shaktimans rumbling past while our Sumo crouches in a corner trying to make itself as small as possible (no mean task for a Sumo Grande, but next to a Shaktiman, easily accomplished) before heading to Panamik. There's a distinct difference between the way the Air Force drives it's trucks, versus the Army. AF drivers are a lot more cautious... the army just barrels through like they own the road. Oh, wait, right - they do own it.

Panamik is around 9 km from the beginning of the Siachen glacier. We can stand now, in the hot sun, drinking in the peaceful idyll ,and look towards the east... at the faint outline of a mountain, hidden in the clouds, where a brutal, bloody war of attrition plays itself out. A sense of surreality.
The hot springs at Panamik literally are. The temperature at the source, where the water bubbles out, must be close to boiling - it's definitely way hotter than anything the geyser at home at it's max setting can churn out. Too hot to touch, or even to get close to. The rocks around are slippery, not only with the poisonously-green, virulent algae and moss growing wild in the unexpected warmth, but also with the sulphur coating - chemical from deep within the Earth's crust, making a natural soap.

The obligatory group snap

"God made Ladakh - and we connected it to the rest of the world" - Border Roads Organization.

A brief stopover at Leh. I finally figured out what the prayer flags mean - Blue for Space. White for Clouds. Red for Fire. Green for Water. Yellow for Earth. And there you have it - Ladakh in a nutshell.

Awesome views of the valley on our way back - dusk falling, space-blue sky, and the trees swaying against the blazing sunset clouds.

It's been exactly a week since I left, to the minute. We've seen Delhi, Manali, Rohtang, Sarchu, Leh, Khardungla, Nubra... Buses, jeeps, camels, tents, monasteries.
It still feels unbelievable.

The Hotel Kaal. A new hotel, wooden traditional facade, flagpole. Hot showers, aahhh... and an awesome dinner spread...

This is our welcoming committee, a four-month-old, extremely boisterous alsatian pup named Kimmer. The bugger's going to be a monster when he grows up - check out the size of the nose, ears and paws.

Kimmer

I approach...

Growf!

Nah, I'm just kidding - I'm just his latest chew toy. But seriously, though, he will be a monster; later tonight, when I came back in the dark after taking a couple of snaps of the moonrise, he vocalized such a deadly, deep, primal grown from the shadows I damn near pissed myself. To quote Pratchett - it was a growl that went straight from the ears to the little bundles of nerves in the spine that handle the legs, and pressed a little switch called Gibbering Terror. Completely bypassing the brain.

Monks Gone Bad

Some new guests have arrived - including M. and RSS in all his glory, a black cowboy hat, three week's supply of Gold Flake and an unconscious imitation of a monk's maroon-saffron color preference.

A brief conversation back home, now that I have network again. Skerzling, says my area locator. I find myself looking at it and smiling... everything's so new, different, exotic, even in the most mundane things.

I want to introduce another character we have encountered during this trip - Amit Kaushal, a.k.a. Kevin. Kevin is our local trip coordinator, and is arranging for the hotels, the vehicles, permissions, etc while we are here. Kevin has a lot of quotes to contribute...
On the firang kids we'd met earlier - "Bigade hue nawabzade"
"The Karmapa will be staying at this hotel on the eighteenth... you should come. Meet him."
"We've had lots of personalities stay at this hotel... Kate Moss, Melanie Griffith, Cindy Crawford..."
When asked if he'll wake up in time to send the car - "Every morning, I wake up sharp at 5 when the plane from Delhi flies in. That is my alarm clock." Vision of airplane honking on horn as it flies over Kevin's house.
Night falls, and it's time to rest some more. It's been an easy day - but we need to conserve our strength. There's lots more to do, coming up...

Next: Pangong-Tso