Do not make friends.....

'Kripya anjaan logon se dosti naa karen'... 'Do not befriend strangers' blares the PA system on the Delhi metro from time to time. I registered it the first time. When I heard it for the 3rd time, it got me thinking. It does strike as odd. Since I am not supposed to befriend strangers and everyone is a stranger to me at the time of birth, that implies I will be born and die friendless. If everyone was to take this sage advice seriously, the earth would be divided into 6 billion societies constituting 1 person each. I know I may be taking this arguement too far and the intention of the person who had this message written was just to caution people against trusting someone too much. The choice of words, however, is terribly wrong, which brings me to the point of this post.

What drives messages like these? Insecurity. In other words, the concern for security. It could be the concern for someone's personal security or the concern for the security of a country/society. In the last week, I have seen a friend cancel a trip to the North East and have seen another one feeling anxious about being locked in together with 3 unknown people in the 1st AC compartment of a train. I have myself not done lots of things over my life labelling them as 'dangerous' or 'not-safe'. We do that to drinking water all the time. Dont get me wrong. I am not criticizing anything or anyone. Infact, I do understand where the concerns stem from, which is why it is even more important to consider what this leads to.

Today, as we live in a world close to the one George Orwell vividly pictured in his masterpiece 1984, our thoughts governed by the mass media, we live in constant fear. Fear of being looted, fear of being conned, fear of being fooled, fear of being killed, harmed, injured, raped, taken ill. Infact, we keep inventing new fears all the time. While the fears in themselves are understandable because insecurity is the key to survival, the question is where is the line between being insecure for survival and being insecure in general. This question is important for it determines what we do with our lives.

I dont have a big point here. I am just wondering. How many times do we not have new experiences because our insecurity does not let us do so?

Missed Opportunities

During over a year of travelling, thinking and vagabonding, I have come to realize that every time you make a choice to do something, you are also making a choice to not do many other things. The question I am faced at the end of any period is 'Did I make the right choices?' This is not an efficiency tirade. So, I am not discussing whether I made the most efficient use of my time. Its just a question of whether I did what I would have liked to do and whether I was good enough to overcome inertia and try out things I wanted to. Looking back at my 'independent life', which I would count as having started from 1999, when I was 17 and joined Bachelors in Engineering, a lot of opportunities have come my way. 11 years and counting to be precise. Each second of these 11 years, I have made choices to do something or sit idle. How have I fared? What have I missed? Below is a laundry list of things I could have done but did not do (and this is much shorter than it should be because I dont remember most of what I missed). I am sure if I think hard, I can find reasons (read excuses) to justify why I did not do these but thats beside the point. The opportunity was there, I was around, the time was right and I did not do it. This list will hopefully serve as a reminder of how much have I missed versus how little have I really done.

1. Life in graduation - joined 1999, ended 2003 with a B Tech in Electronics and Communication
• Missed learning French/German - course was on offer, I attended one class and gave up.
• Missed travelling around - was young, did not care about comforts, could have seen the length and breadth of East India but chose not to. Was anyway not attending lots of classes.
• Missed being a good engineer - poor attendance, lack of interest in general.
• Missed playing badminton - was good at it but never did it regularly enough. Played once for college but did not follow up.
• Missed listening to new music - had people from all states of India, all listening to their regional music plus lots of them listening to English music. I just stuck to what I liked and only added some to my PC when I liked them. Never tried anything new out of the blue.
• Missed drinking - had a mental block (or whatever) against drinking. The one opportunity I had to try everything and be silly, I missed.
• Missed Bengali food - had converted to vegetarianism a couple of years before I joined and continued. Missed the brilliant bengali fish preparations and lots of other non veg food.
2. Life in Post Graduation - joined 2003, ended 2005 with a PGDM
• Missed studies - yet again!
• Missed drinking and non veg yet again - Lucknow had the best selection of non veg joints and the brilliant Awadhi cuisine and I had none of it. Mistake repeated from Bengal!
• Missed learning new sports - had good sporting infrastructure, could have tried out tennis, volleyball but never did it for long enough to really learn.
• Missed partying - there was a weekly party at the institute, drinking, dancing, fooling around et al and I had none of it.
3. Life in Chennai - worked for Citigroup for about 21 months
• Missed travel - hardly saw anything except local Chennai. South India was beckoning and I was sleeping.
• Missed local food - for a while till I was veggie, I missed Chettinad cuisine. Had the sense to convert later.
• Missed learning swimming - was earning well enough to pay for lessons but never did it.
• Missed learning anything - outside office, I learnt nothing new.
• Missed staying fit - transformed into a balloon.
• Missed meeting friends - was too 'busy' with work.
4. Life in London - worked for Citigroup for about 27 months
• Missed travel - travelled about 4 countries, could have done much better.
• Missed drinking - of all things, missed drinking while in London. The breadth of offering was mind boggling but my mind was closed.
• Missed making many new friends - dont ask why, I dont know.
• Missed historical sites - went to quite a few but missed many more.

Have you ever thought on these lines? What are the opportunities you have missed? Please feel free to post in comments.

Footloose in Dilli

Its winter again. There is no trekking again. I go crazy again. This winter, its walking Old Delhi (Dilli) and learning Spanish. Its not all crazy though. Learning a language has been a long standing dream. Walking Delhi is a way of getting out of my comfort zone (again!) and doing something diametrically opposite to what I have done in the last over 1 year. It promises to be as different from mountain trekking as is possible.

All of it goes on a blog called 'Footloose in Dilli'. Suggestions and company for the walk are welcome.

They Killed Me

I am dying tonight. I was born virgin, untouched. Virgin of body, virgin of mind, virgin of thought. The whole world was my playground. Everything beckoned me to do my bidding. Get out in the open air to walk my own path, make my own mistakes, cry over them, correct course, learn, be a better person and go on with life. Along the way meet new people, try everything there was to try, fail many times, getting up each time to walk towards the end of life. The day I would lie on my death bed, my life would be a rich tapestry of my experiences, a kaleidoscope of my many colourful adventures. I would have loved, been loved, hated, been hated, stolen hearts, had my heart stolen, broken hearts and would have had mine broken.

Before I had started, I had someone coming over to me and talk to me in hushed tones. It seemed they were telling me some secret noone else knew and I listened intently. I took it seriously. Along the way, I met others who would come to me, tell me things. Each time, I thought they were right and that I was making mistakes. They wanted me to learn from theirs. I did. I avoided paths they had taken and failed on. I treaded with caution on many paths. I looked at some from afar and remembered to not take them. I looked at some others from afar and was tempted to take them but resisted.

There were times I saw people taking the forbidden paths. Many of them fell over, had their teeth shattered, had themselves laughed at. It almost looked dark from far. Their paths were lonely, fraught with danger at every turn. It did not look like living at all. 'Surrendering to evil' is what they called it.

Looking back at what I have been, I dont see much. I just see a path which has many footsteps on it. It is hard, compacted. There are no footprints anymore. I cant see mine. I dont know who I have been. I have achieved a lot in life. I have things to show for it. I have succeeded. I have not lived. I am dying not knowing who I was, who I am, not even knowing what I could have been.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
- Henry David Thoreau

The end of a road

He was encumbered in thoughts. Thoughts circling his mind, thoughts searing his heart. Thoughts that refused to go away, thoughts that refused to let him get away. Outside, a cold, wintry rain was lashing down. The wind was howling, the thunder growling. It was violent and tempestuous. Suddenly, he got up, put on his waterproofs and walked out. Clad all in black, a hood all but covering his face and walking on a grey road, he cut a forlorn, almost a morose figure. There was no one on the country lane for miles. Two jet black crows were cawing on grey electricity wires.

As he walked a little up the lane, his feet, almost as if by instinct led him to a uphill dirt track. A grey dirt track leading through a black jungle. Two roads divulged in the wood and he took the one he had not walked on. As he walked up the road, it got muddier before culminating near two mud huts. That was when he remembered he had been here earlier. It was the road he had not taken that he had not been on. 'I really am lost....in thoughts', he thought to himself.

Scrambling down some rocks, pushing and racking through wet, spiny bushes, he found the road he had not taken. The sky was getting greyer and the day blacker. Mud was clinging to his boots, making them heavy and encumbered, refusing to go away. The rain drops were getting bigger and denser, scattering all over in no patterns. As he passed a small house, a dog started barking and kept barking long after he was out of sight. Nature seemed to talking in metaphors.

Further down the hill, other small tracks led away. He kept to the main track, it held more promise of taking him away from his thoughts. The rain was numbing only his hands. The thoughts were refusing to leave him. The heart was less anxious but the mind was still racing. He fell twice in the mud, each time picking himself up and walking on. A little further, it was the end of a road. There was a small footpath leading to a stream. He walked past the fields towards the stream. The stream had dirty, muddy water in it, dull brown and grey rocks around it.

He sat down on one of the rocks. Head down, legs crossed, a thoughtful expression on his face. The rain came down harder. Rain drops hit him hard on the chest, sending a searing pain through his body. They made a deafening noise in his ears and head, which refused to let him be. Nature was still talking in metaphors. The walk had not really helped. He got up, tried to best collect his thoughts and walked back home. He had not realized how far he had come.

The Other Winner

Long ago, in one of my drunken blogs, I praised Buddha for what he was and proclaimed him 'The Winner'. It was a U-turn from my earlier stance of thinking what he was a loser. Yet another, I am drunk. Yet again, its time to write about something I have been wanting to.

There was a man called Kabir Das, lived in the 15th and 16th centuries. There has been enough written about him, including on the wikipedia link. Thats not the point though. The point is all that people say of him on the web or elsewhere is nonsense. Unfortunately, Kabir wrote in old colloquial Hindi. For a generation which does not understand basic Hindi, understanding Kabir is a chore. The result is books which attempt to translate Kabir and such pathetic attempts to translate, I have never seen.

Being drunk, I think I understand Kabir. Its as if I am a contemporary, as if he discussed everything with me before he penned it down. Kabir is not about prescription. Kabir is not about fixation. Kabir is not about conformism. He is about everything you dont associate with literature. He is about life. He is subjective. He is open to interpretation. You will read what you want to read. Its your mindset which will determine what you make of it or not make of it. Its a blank canvas. He leaves you with a thought. You paint it and come out with a picture. When you look at the picture, thats not what Kabir is. It is what you are and therein lies the beauty, in the eye of the beholder.


Kabir says on love

सबै रसायन हम किया, प्रेम समान न कोय।
रंचक तन में संचरै, सब तन कंचन होय।।

The death of Hindi

I am no jingoistic nationalist linguist ruing what many have rued before me. I just happen to belong to a generation which I believe is single handedly responsible for making Hindi what it is today. I am from a generation which is not good at Hindi and is proud of it. We are anyway sh*te at English but like to think we know it well. I have to strain my senses to speak one complete sentence strung together with only Hindi words. I am not much better at English either. I write a blog in English and maintain a site in English, partly because I cant write much Hindi and even if I manage to, my readers sure wont understand most of it. We also live in times where people are judged on their English speaking abilities. If you are polite and speak Hindi, you have probably not made it in life and would never do it. If you speak English, courtesy does not matter. You are very likely either someone big or someone connected or both.

I wonder how it came to this. I am not one of those people who whinge at change. Its nice to see things changing, thats the way it is supposed to be. To see a language dying, however is sad. To see an entire art of expressing your thoughts wilt away? To see tons of literature, where you can learn a lot from going waste? These are just catastrophic scenarios and yet they are coming true. By letting the education system veer towards teaching everything in English (except thankfully Hindi as a language) and not do it well and then let the world buy our 'cheap English speaking skills' (which are dubious at best), I dont know where we have reached. In isloation, I dont think either of this is bad. English is the international language, no harm learning it. If you speak better English than others and can earn bread for it, thats even better. What are the fallouts though? That we are often found lacking to find words?

I dont want to cringe and whinge more. By letting it reach here, Hindi does not lose. I am the loser. Starting today, I am going to start reading some long pending Hindi books, only because there is a lot to learn there which I have been missing. I may not find all of them here. Will anybody volunteer to send me some books please? Dont worry, I will pay.

Why the caste system is ok

This post is going to surprise people. One, because some have thought I stopped posting here. Two, the nature of the beast is such that calling the caste system ok is perhaps a big taboo. This is just an attempt to provide a perspective.

Ever noticed one of the first things we learn as we develop senses? To distinguish! This is mom, this is dad. This is good, that is bad. This is safe, that is harmful. The ability to distinguish is one of the most basic human (and animal) faculties, one which can distinguish between survival and death. The line is fine. Flirt with it and you could be history. Thats ofcourse not that true in today's human world because of how far we have come from natural surroundings and habitats. The point is distinguishing is central to our existence and society.

Fast forward a few years. When we grow up, whats the first thing we do subconciously on meeting people? We try and place them. Place them amongst the stereotypes we know. Our general chit chat starts with education, family, backgound, occupation. Why? We are judging where in the social echeleon does the person facing us stand. Above us or below us? And often, not necessarily intentionally, our judgement has a bearing on our behaviour. How many people have you seen speaking very politely to a guy cleaning a drain? How many people have you seen speaking rudely to someone getting out of a Mercedes?

Banks 'segragate' their customers by the total money they hold with the bank. Those with less money dont have personal service, are not offered all the products, sometimes dont even have their calls picked. Simple, they are not priority. Same goes for all corporates. Philip Kotler called it 'differentitation', as much amongst the people as of the product.

Countries segragate between people using passports. If you are an Asian (ex Japan) and want your passport stamped by the US, you know what you need to go through. Even if that happens, reach JFK and expect a strip down search. Does that happen to a US born US citizen? No, because he/she is perceived to be a lesser threat, both as a terrorist and from a resource drain point of view. India would do the same to a Pakistani citizen. Isn't it always about allocating more resources (which are always constrained) to a few?

The point I am driving at is, we have an inherent insecurity which is perhaps part of being a living being. We want to eliminate that insecurity by putting checks and balances in place to aid survival. We dont want to feel threatened by anyone around us. We need to know who to please and who not to please. We dont want unnecessary complications anywhere. Only as much is necessary to be handled.


Now, rewind back to a rural society. All people have similar assets, land and animals. The earnings are not much different as well. Maybe the richest (except the king of the territory) earns 4 times that the poorest in the village. The society is growing. It now has 5000 people. How do they differentiate? How does one part of the society feel better than the other? How do they ensure better resource allocation to a few? The measures we use today are non existent. The society has not 'globalized and liberalized'.Travel is limited between a few villages, countries do not exist. The world is not networked, MNCs do not exist. Kotler is still not born. There has to be some way of pigeonholing people. Caste system it is! You take occupations and arrange them in a hierarchy and you have the answer. Just to further secure the causes of your insecurity, the powers that be also decree that occupations pass down from generation to generation.

Now when there is nothing wrong with statistical analyses of various kinds, when there is nothing wrong with differentiation amongst nationalities, what is wrong with the caste system? Nothing, except that in today's context, its a little outdated. With new parameters to segragate on, the caste system is not needed. So, lets stop fooling ourselves when we say we dont believe in caste but do believe in segragation. You either believe in both or you dont believe in either. So looking down upon rural societies who still exercise this is not really holy. We do the same thing, in a different way. Just as we think we are doing right in our way, they are doing right in theirs.

Ganjing

Its a term in Hinglish used to describe shopping (sometimes window) in the Hazratganj area of Lucknow. I went Ganjing many times when I studied here for 2 years. It was however, narrow minded Ganjing, covering just some restaurants and eating joints. Today was a little different. For starters, I had an SLR in my hand, an itch to click in my head and a friend getting engaged tomorrow. The places I saw therefore, were quite different.

Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar guides the Lucknow crowd on its way to shopping.

The nawabi Nagra shoes on display in a Janpath shop. The price tag depends on where you buy them. Cheapest in Old Lucknow, costliest in Hazratganj and a compromisable compromise at Janpath, these are best worn with Kurta and Payjama.

The telecom wars have reached Lucknow. BSNL, the country's largest operator and Uninor, a new operator fight it out on the main street of Hazratganj.

Tunda Land

The Confused is wandering to Lucknow on 1st April (and its no fool's day joke). The Confused was not very bright when he was earlier in Lucknow. Infact, he was dumb enough to be vegetarian in the land of Kebabs for full 2 years. This will be a short opportunity but the confused is not confused enough to not make full use of it. 3 days, 12 possible meals, all on kebabs and sharabs. The new Nikon D5000 will accompany the confused and will try to capture stuff when the confused is kebabing and sharabing.


Meanwhile, the confused also came back from an arduous trek in the Dhauladhars. Read more about it here.

Desperate Times

Desperate times call for desperate measures. When you are running 3 blogs, seemingly thinking they are unrelated but the distinction often blurs, you are desperate for people to read all 3. People cant but not keep up. So, you go and post on one blog and post about it on another one. I am leaving for another trek day after, more here.

Whispers in the Mountains

Whispers in the Mountains, thats the name of the new blog. Its not hosted on blogspot. Its hosted on Trek Himachal. Just so that the agenda is clear.

1. Whispers in the Mountains - will contain travelogues for all my treks/trips within Himachal, any side/small trips I do or other bit of interesting information about Himachal. If you subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog, you will know Himachal better.

2. The Confused and The Wandering - personal blogs like the famous drunk blogs and any trips which dont fit in on Trek Himachal like the Annapurna Trek. If you subscribe to this blog, you will know me better.

3. Sunsetophilia - ofcourse, what else, you will know sunsets better.

Blog and News

There comes a time in every website's life when she realizes that she is too large to exist the way she has. She then needs to restructure herself and feel in better shape. All the flab needs to be shed and all the curves accentuated to make her look good. I think this is happening to www.trekhimachal.com. Ha, what a joke! I know anyone who reads this is going to laugh out loud. Too big? That website which has barely had double digit visitors in the last 6 months?

Well, yeah, like it or not, it is happening to Trek Himachal. Her lover after long procrastination and then a long discussion with his brother realized that she actually is a little out of shape. It will be a painful process. There wont be any VLCC thinning classes. Just plain good diet and lots of exercise.

As part of this restructring, all travelogues on the site will slowly shift to a blog created on the site. There will also be other content about trekking and Himachal which has been lying in the wastelands of my right brain. Very creatively, the blog was called 'The Trek Himachal Blog' till I realized I could possibly not feed such tripe to my readers. It is being renamed as I write this and I dont know what will it be called. That notwithstanding, its available on the top menu of the site and will get updated quite frequently. It can also be accessed at http://www.trekhimachal.com/newsite/blog and an RSS feed is available. Meanwhile, ofcourse The Confused will keep Wandering here and the sun will keep setting elsewhere.

This is the time to prove yourself. If you really are followers of this blog, prove it by following the yet-to-be-named blog as well.

And yes, any views you have about the site, please feel free to post. I know the maps are shit, I am already working on that. Ta and Ciao till we talk next.

The Streets

I roamed the streets of Kathmandu, those whose pictures are probably not found on google.

I started at 1530 hours yesterday and finished at 2000 hours.

I started again at 0800 hours today and finished at 1600 hours.

I saw the Kathmandu vegetable market. I saw people haggling for each rupee.

I saw the commercial streets with bright red dresses hanging.
I saw the meat market with huge fish, pig heads (literally) and lots of skinned and unskinned chicken.
I saw 4WD KIA and Mitsubishi vehicles, swanky with their owners dressed in smart party wear.
I saw street urchins trying to pick up leftover food from waste bins.
I saw old women selling 10 strawberries for 5 Rs.
I heard people talking Nepali, Hindi, English, Maithili.
I saw Thamel, the tourist area with all its buzz.
I saw neglected buildings in Newari architecture.
I saw well kept Newari buildings with a 300 Rs entry fee.
I saw huge museums with no one inside them and heavy security outside them.
I saw the International Convention Center holding no convention.
I saw the SAARC Secretariat and could not see or feel much co-operation.
I saw dirty slums with garbage all around and I saw glass front buildings which were bank headquarters.

I saw like all of us, Nepal is trying to move on, to be better despite everything.

I did not take any photographs because I wanted it to stay off google.

Poonhill

It was a total of 60 hours that I pondered over this. Sitting in hot springs at Tatopani, lazing around for 2 days, getting drunk on Chang, I cooked up all the excuses possible for not going to Poonhill. You can do Annapurna circuit in 2 ways at the end. Either you go to Beni from Tatopani, a dry, hot walk on a dry, hot road or you can go to Poonhill and then to Nayapul. The excuses included but were not limited to:

1. Its very touristy - have heard from someone there are over 400 people watching the sunrise even in off season.

2. Already on a trek of 15 days, I have seen enough sights and views. What more will a conventional viewpoint add to it.

The reason for the excuses: Tatopani - 1170 meters. Poonhill - 3200 meters. Nayapul - 1070 meters. So, climb 2000 meters and descend 2200 meters in 2 days. It is difficult to do that after the last 15 days.

Anyway, something, I dont know what, motivated me to do it. I am so glad I did it. The circuit would never have been complete without doing it. A 180 degree view of the himalayas, starting with Dhaulagiri (8167) on the left, Annapurna I (8091), Annapurna South (7XXX), Macchapucchre (6XXX) and many more. Clouds were below us, the mountains above. It was totally worth every meter climbed and descended. I think the images speak for themselves.

More of the other side

I will confess it did start seeming like a trudge at some point, so much so that I even wanted to have a post titled 'Trek or Trudge?' The unforgiving road, the really hot sun, long days of walking on the hard road. There was a time on the day I walked from Muktinath to Jomsom that it felt like a Spaghetti Western. One person, only one person in a vast expanse of a desert, no settlement for ages, no water in sight except the dirty river. Then, a small settlement with huts. I almost felt like Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood. :)

It went on like that but with a little more crowd for a couple more days. And then things changed. Like they always do. Kali Gandaki remembered that it was a mountain river. The mountains remembered that it was not illegal to have trees on them. There were wheat fields and a whole lot of early spring flowers. Life was back

The other side

I have often noticed the 2 sides of a mountain pass are different. Sometimes, they are quite different and sometimes, they are just different enough to be different. There are differences in geology, vegetation, geography.
I started from the east of Thurung La Pass and crossed over to the west. It is a different world on the other side. Pardon me, its actually a different planet.

The east is about a deep V shaped river valley, starting with tropical vegetation and then large expanses of blue pine and spruce jungles before it gets too high for any vegetation. There are wheat fields, some flowers and then there is the quintessential mountain river, the Marshyangdi.

 

The western side.....is a cold desert, a la Lahaul and Spiti. A cold desert at above 3000 meters. Do I need to say there is no vegetation? None at all, whatsoever. There are mounds and mounds of brown earth, heaped in various ways. This whole is surrounded by the really high Himalayas. Then there is the river, Kali Gandaki. A look at it and you could believe this is a river in its dying stages, about to estuarize. Its a very very very wide valley, runs for miles together. In a sense, its a high plateau, a very high plateau indeed. The river seems to have forgot that its a mountain river.

The other big difference is the road. The road comes right upto Muktinath. Ok, its not a great road but a road it is. I mentioned in one of the earlier posts about the trek dying. You bet, I was right. People take jeeps from Muktinath, like Peter did. I was wrong however about tourism dying. Road brings different kinds of visitors. Those who cannot cross the pass, those who do not want to cross the pass, those who think they cannot cross the pass and the came saw conquered type. Yes, those who huddle together in a jeep one fine morning, drive 4 hours into the cold desert, get the driver to stop in the middle of a valley, take out point and shoots.

Click left

Click right

Back into the jeep. Oh sorry, I forgot the center. Get back out, click center, get back in and go home. To there people, Shalabh says "Guys, dont waste so much money and time for doing this. Send me an email at shalabh.w@gmail.com, I will send you the photos, all free of cost with all the rights."

Crossing the pass

First of all, thanks to all who are reading and commenting, makes the effort more worthwhile. If you really like it, make more people read it, that will make it even more worthwhile. :)

Its been 6 days since I last blogged. So much has happened since then. Lets do this in chronological order.

The moment I finished my last post, I met Peter, a Dutch guy trekking the same trail. When I said 'Easy name to remember', he replied ' Easy going person too'. By jove, he was right. Something clicked and we trekked for the next 5 days together. Our similar trekking pace and Snickers lunch philosophy helped.

From Chame, where I blogged from last, the walk to Lower Pisang and then on to Manang were pieces of cake. At Manang, the vegetation was almost non existent and it had snowed very recently. Cold winds in the afternoon made life really difficult. At Manang, both me and Peter felt good and fresh, skipped the recommended acclimatization and saved it for later. Letdar, 4200 meters, the stop after Manang was so cold that the water bottle next to my bed froze completely. I had a slight light feeling in the head due to altitude. Next morning, we left for High Camp. In some ways, I was not sure if I wanted to sleep that high.

High Camp was where I realized how much of a mental thing high altitude trekking is. Every step, you fight your doubts, you conquer them. The moment you start losing the battle, your body stops responding. I was always skeptical about High Camp and that brought about a wave of Acute Mountain Sickness. Only the name is horrible, it was just a little headache, loss of appetite because of the brain getting little oxygen at height. Now, this is normal, it happens to everyone, even those who acclimatize. Since I was not sure in the first place, I felt really down. There was a time I even considered climbing down but decided against it because once you go down, you never usually make it back up.

I slept the night with a Diamox and a Paracetamol and 2 hot water bottles. Something changed in the night, I dont know what. Probably the doubtful part of my mind was conquered by the more optimistic one. I felt fresh as ever and the walk to a 5416 meters pass seemed like a cakewalk. Just 2 hours in -20 degrees and lots of snow and ice instead of the estimated 3.5 hours. 5416 is the highest I have ever been and it is really and exhilarating feeling to have managed this, more so after having a bout of doubts. The climb down was like a run. I did not even notice the 1600 meter climb down in the adrenaline rush of passing the summit.

Oh and I forgot to mention, myself and Peter crossed the pass on just 1 snickers and 500 ml water between the 2 of us. Not for nothing do they say, 'Its all in the mind'.

Doubts aside, the pass had some fantastic views of the Annapurna range. I a short on time and internet is again as expensive. Am pasting some photos, not sure how good are they because I have myself not seen them on large screen. I am sure when you are live blogging from such a place, this is excusable. More later.

First Impressions

I finished the 4th day of walking today. Time for first impressions. These will be short (I am paying 300 NR per hour for the internet).

1. Stunning views - but of course. In the highest of Himalayas and the highest of mountains on the earth, this had to happen. There are snow capped peaks, beautiful villages, interesting clouds.

2. The River - should have been part of views but deserves a special mention. Have been walking along Marshyangdi River for the last 4 days. It is angry, furious, fast and everything else a mountain river can be. There have been some scary suspension bridge crossings.

3. Commercializtion - When I see Swiss Rosti, Hash Browns, Mushroom Pizza on the menus of these small tea houses here, I know something is wrong. Heavily commercialized trail.

4. Road - noise of pneumatic drilling from the road that is to reach Manang in a few months. On the other side, it has already reached Jomsom. When the road is completed, this trek will be a 3 day trek. That, in one word makes me sad.

5. Local people - have seen nothing of them. No one is willing to talk. I am just a tourist for them. Feed him well, earn off him. Thats where it ends. I might be naive but I like my mountains with small, untouched villages where you get a genuine smile from people, lots of incredulous looks and lots and lots of questions.

I am at Chame right now and it is very cold here. Snow all around. I should reach Manang in 2 days. Have heard contradictory news regarding the state of Thurung La. Some say its open, I have seen others returning. We will cross the bridge when it comes.

The fun begins

It has started. I landed in Kathmandu yesterday. A prelude to the trip was visible from the flight. Went straight to Thamel, the tourist neighbourhood. Expensive!! Very expensive! Needed a couple of passport size photos. Only option to get 8 for NR 250 (INR 185, USD 3.5). Internet at NR 100 per hour.

Himalayas from Jet Airways Flight 9W 262 on 10th Feb 2010. Very average shot but better than nothing.


Checked into Kathmandu Guest House, recommended by Gary (the guy courtesy whose facebook update I am here). Changed INR to NR, went for dinner. Large Jack Daniels with coke and a chicken starter, Nepali non veg thali for dinner, sweet dish and masala tea to complete. Wonderful and perfect dinner except the price tag.

The elite Nepali Non Veg Thali. Chutney, Spinach, mixed veg, dal, mutton, papad (Clockwise from left) and rice in the center.


The internet connection is too slow for me to write too much and the keys on the keyboard worse. In short, I got the trekking permit pretty quickly and cheaply today. 3 minutes and 200 NR vs 1 day and 2000 NR for Gary. Indian passport also helps in some places. :)

Lodging was so expensive, I did not see any point in staying. At 11, I got into a constricted 'Micro Bus' (actually a van which accomodates 18 instead of its capacity of 10). 5.5 hours later and 300 NR poorer, I have reached Besishahar a day earlier than I thought I would. Met some really nice locals on the bus, got some tips on getting around cheaper. They say I look Nepali with my short hair and I learnt some basic words. Not sure if that was the reason but today internet is NR 35 per hour and room rent NR 250 per night.

Here I come Gary!