Tuesday, Nov. 13th was Deepawali (or Diwali for short), the Indian "festival of lights." Diwali and Holi, celebrated in the Spring, make up the two most important holidays in India. I perused the internet on the day after Diwali and a few reports of Diwali caught my eye. They talked about the colorful sand art, the beautiful candles, and the sweets. My experience couldn't have been more different. From my point of view, Diwali isn't about colorful sand, candles, or sweets (sweets does hold second place to...), it's about one thing and one thing only - blowing fireworks and firecrackers up, and blowing up heaps upon heaps of them!
The bungee jump team of Mark, Martina, Sue, and Matt, Flow, Arvind, Arvind's son, Shoki (a cook for Red Chilli), and me all headed up to Arvind's house to feast and blow things up. Between Arvind, Flow, and Mark, we had a serious arsenal of firepower. Shortly after dark, the night erupted. Diwali is very different than Fourth of July or New Years - there is a total Indian randomness to the way the fireworks and crackers are set off, there is no "at 12 o'clock, all the fireworks go off in unison!". Further, instead of a visual show put on by American holidays that include fireworks, Diwali is much more auditory...it is loud! As a matter of fact, it sounds like you are in the middle of a war zone. We all ate way too much food, laughed tons, and added to the mayhem of the night.
If I could describe Diwali in one word, it would be "loose." Kids who couldn't have been older than 7 lit off small bombs. If the fuses lit but went out on the first try, no 10 second rule to see if it would go off - they'd lunge right back in and fire it off! Walking down the main street, big firecrackers seemed to rain in from all directions, lobbed at passing bikes or people (of course, all in good fun :) ). And Indian fireworks and crackers are of such inconsistent quality, you never know which direction the bottle rocket you're about to light is going to go and how fast the fuse will take to ignite the gunpowder inside. With little else to do, we just laughed at the absolute chaos of the night as India laughed right back at all us westerners had learned about firework safety. Enjoy the video of the experience...
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Tonight, I embark for Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh - the wild west of India (although its in the east). Making it to Arunachal is the biggest goal and challenge of my trip to India and I feel that all I've learned and experienced here will get put to the test in the Northeast. Still, Arunachal isn't India - it's the Northeast. Indians from the mainland feel as if they're in another country when they visit the Northeast. If mainland India is a frustrating place to travel, Arunachal takes patience to a whole new level. In my dealing with people in Arunachal, responses promised in 15 minutes take hours, days turn into weeks, and next week probably means never. Further, I'm going out to guide for a local outfit. While my good rafting friend from California Roland co-owns the company, he hasn't been to India in two years and has no idea what the state of the operation is (check it out www.riverindia.com). Nino Dai, Roland's co-owner and local Adi tribesman from Arunachal, is one hell of a guy to get a hold of. Persevering through weeks of non-communication over the last few months, the plan as of now is for me to guide the paddle boat on a seven-day expedition down the Subansiri River (which will be flooded by a dam in the next year or two) and after, hopefully lead a guide school and guide an expedition on the Siang River (aka the Yarlung Tsang-po River in China where it starts and the Bramaputra River once it flows out of Arunachal into Assam, India). If I have time, I would also like to make the 3-day overland journey to Tippi and the Indian Institute of Orchid Study (housing some of the rarest species in the world) and Tawang, home to the largest monastery in the world outside of Lhasa, Tibet.
Internet should be good enough to write from Arunachal and I hope to send updates soon after arrival. I'm off by overnight train to Delhi where I'll catch the morning flight to Dibrugarh, Assam, staying in a hotel for the night. The next morning, I'll wake up and take a jeep to the two-hour ferry across the Brahmaputra, then another jeep into Arunachal and Pasighat. I have my permit (you need a Restricted Area Permit to enter Arunachal) and some good contacts so I hope all goes smoothly at the border. Wish me luck! Until next time...
I'm happy to say that my absence from this blog as of late can't be traced to laziness. Rather, I've been running around without a moment to spare and it's been great! I'm in Rishikesh now, resting after a busy week. I'm quite tired now, but I've wanted to write for a while so I'm rallying to update everyone who's following my trip.
I'll start back in McLeod Ganj, land of the Dalai Lama and Himalayan views, on the morning of my Nov. 2nd departure to Bir to meet Vipin, co-owner of Red Chilli, and try out paragliding.
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I woke up early on the morning of Nov. 2nd and packed up my things for a two-day journey to Bir, opting to keep my guesthouse room while I was gone to store most of my belongings. Rather than spending 300 rupees to get a taxi by myself down the hill to Dharamsala, I crammed in a jeep with seven, no nine, no twelve! people plus the driver for 10 rupees (comfortably, the jeep would've held five to seven of us with our bags). After making this decision to take a shared jeep rather than a taxi, I committed to this local, crammed, cheap but colorful style of travel for the rest of my journey, wanting to experience public transportation in India first-hand. Fortunately, the guy squished next to me was a young Tibetan college student who was headed down the hill to same place I was headed, the office of the Superintendent of Police. He was getting his Indian Visa re-newed while I was getting a Restricted Area Permit to visit Bir. We had a nice talk about Tibet and life there, as well as life in India for Tibetans. We got off the jeep and transitioned quickly onto a city bus and headed to the police building. Once the attendant who manned the desk in Room #8 (for foreigners and Tibetans) showed up (the office was supposed to open at 10am, he casually cruised in around 10:35am), I found out the place to get my permit was in an office down the street. Leaving my Tibetan friend, I headed down the street with my bags for Bir, realizing I should've known that getting a government permit was going to be a bigger ordeal than I thought.
By now, it was 11 o'clock and I was itching to get going. I was sent to Room #212 in the Deputy Commisioner's building where there were three Indian men sitting at desks. One handed me the form which I quickly filled out and returned to him with the requested passport and visa copies and two passport photos. Surprised at my sense of urgency and "on-top-of-it-ness," he told me to come back at 4:30pm. Smiling, I told him it was not possible for me to wait that long as I was leaving today and needed to get going. State-wide elections were two days away he told me, and the government was working slower than usual. I decided the best tactic for me was to just plop down in the office and sit there until I received my permit. Making small talk with the guys in the office, they realized I was a decent guy but more importantly, that I wasn't going to leave them alone until they handed me the piece of paper I applied for. Of course, after about an hour-and-a-half, I received my permit. I left the building awestruck at the mountains of paper all over the place that make governance in India so inefficient.
Walking up to the nearest bus stop, I waited for a public bus to Palampur or Bajinath, the closest big cities to Bir, where I would get off and hop on another bus to my final destination. Long story short, after a "yes, yes this bus to Palampur," and then "no, no this bus not to Palampur," all the way back to the main bus stop above the police buildings, then on another bus, I was finally on my way. During that Dharamsala bus mess, I was tempted for a few moments to give up my public transit commitment and take a taxi to Bir, paying the extra money (taxi = 1500 rupees, bus = 100 rupees). I was glad I persevered, sitting shotgun in a bus to Palampur that ebbed and flowed from packed, standing room only to only a few riders.
The first of many public buses on my trip, all ornately decorated
After transferring in Palampur, I was lucky enough to find a direct bus to Bir.
Busy Palampur bus depot
Arriving after about 3 hours of bus travel in Bir, I now had to find Vipin who was hanging out at the landing zone. I embarked on a 3km walk through the surrounding village of Bir, finding my way by hand signals from local farmers. The sun was setting fast and the last thing I wanted was to find myself lost in the countryside of Bir in the dark. Even though time was running out, I couldn't resist the kodak moment.
I knew I was getting close...
I finally found the landing zone where Vipin greeted me (pretty obvious to spot the raft guide with the big, red dry bag!) just as the sun was setting. We had some chai and headed back to the bright green house Vipin is renting in Bir for dinner and sleep.
Waking up the next morning, I felt butterflies of excitement as I was set to try out a new adventure sport. I have to admit, I'm not one for heights, and I was pretty fired up for my first flight. Meeting up with some good fliers in Bir who Vipin is friends with in the morning, we headed up the hill on a windy, 45 min drive to the launch site. At the launch site, we wasted no time strapping up and before I knew it, I was hooked to an Indian pilot and we were running into the sky.
The flight lasted about 45 mins and the views were awesome. I enjoyed the experience and found it quite peaceful in the air. We caught thermals where you circle around in an updraft of warm air to gain elevation and then took a tour of the valley below. While I enjoyed paragliding, the experience confirmed my love for rivers and I think I'll stick to rafting for the time being :)
After another interesting bus journey on the way back to McLeod Ganj, I was glad to be back and exhausted from all the public traveling.
I saw Dr. Dhonden the following morning. He slightly altered my prescription and sent me off with a three month supply of black balls (total bill to see the doctor twice = 20 rupees, about 36 cents - total bill for a 3 month supply of pills = about 1500 rupees, less than 30 dollars). While the medicine tastes terrible, I have noticed incredible improvement in my asthma and allergies...it's quite wild and very cool.
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Arriving back in Rishikesh in the early morning of Nov. 6th after another overnight bus journey (which I was much more comfortable with, thanks to my Bir experience), I headed back to the Red Chilli office and caught up with Arvind. To a long story short, Arvind told me that if I wanted to run the Upper Alkhanada as I hoped, me and the team would need to be back by Friday the 9th as the Red Chilli jeep that we could use was leaving for a trek on the morning of Saturday the 10th. This meant that we needed to leave Rishikesh on the morning of the 7th, drive 9 hours to put-in and camp, then raft 90km over the next two-days and drive back 6hrs to Rishikesh right after taking off of the river to return on the night of the 9th. Finding a crew at the last minute consisting of Mark and Matt, jumpmasters at the Bunjee site in Rishikesh, Flow and Rakesh, all kayaking, and me rowing a cataraft with our gear, we decided to get a good night sleep and pack all the gear first thing in the morning. Somehow, I got rallied to dinner at a restaurant across the bridge and ended up having a late night. I was exhausted!
I woke up at 6am to pack my personal gear, met up with the team at the gear store at 7am, packed up the jeep and headed out for the long drive up the canyon. 10 km from the town of Chomoli, the official start of the Upper Alkhanada run, lies a class IV/V rapid called Hillary Falls. The rapid is named after Sir Edmund Hillary who drove his jet boat from Rishikesh all the way up the Ganga and Alkhanada to this rapid which he deemed impassable, ending his journey. Interested, but looking too low to run from the road, we decided to save ourselves the hassle of a possible portage and put-in just downstream. Finding a road to the river but a gate to the beach locked, we carried our camping gear a short ways to a secluded beach, made dinner, and crashed out.
In the morning, with the help of the young guy living in a shanty just inside the gate, we hilariously lifted the gate off the hinges, ignoring the lock, and drove the jeep down to the river to unload the remaining gear we didn't unload the night before. Pushing off around 11am, we put in an awesome full-day on the river. The flow seemed medium, maybe 7,000 - 8,000cfs. The fourth rapid was the first "California-style" rapid I'd run in India, about 200 yards long with multiple moves, big holes, waves, and fun drops. It turned out to be my favorite rapid of the whole run. With downstream progress in mind, I took no pictures of the first day on the beautiful river.
When it was time to find a camp, we pulled over to many camps but each had its issue. For the most part, we just wanted to avoid locals. While kind and good-hearted, they tend to stand about 3ft. away from you and stare. And they stay there, more gathering by the minute, until there are 30 villagers standing almost arm length away from you just starting. Getting tired and watching the sun go down, we finally found a nice beach and set-up camp. The beach we camped at happened to be just across the river from a big Army base. While not our best move, we were running out of options as we headed into a steep part of the canyon. With the occasional spotlight shined on us, hoping that we wouldn't wake up to the Indian Army asking for our passports we left in the jeep, we made dinner and all passed out nice and early.
Waking up the next day, we got a bit of an earlier start just as the sun reached our cold camp. We saw a rapid from the road that looked big and soon after launching, were at the top, getting out of our boats for a scout. By this time, with many tributaries entering the main Alkhananda River, we were running a big-volume river that must have been somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000cfs.
With few pictures to show from the trip, I decided to watch the kayakers run the rapid and take photos.
Rakesh runs far left
The rapid consisted of a holey lead-in that fed a large wave-hole, followed up by a big, nasty pourover to the right and just below the center feature.
Mark running left of center where the other two kakayers ran
After watching the kayakers take smooth lines, Flow ran up to get a photo of me. With the camera on, I decided someone had to run the meat! With a line in mind, I headed back to my boat and got ready to run the Class IV rapid.
Further right than I wanted to be but thankfully missing the biggest pourover just after the hole
Here we go!
No problems!
Right down the middle, my line had the guys laughing. After running a few more fun rapids, we found ourselves at take-out, bummed our trip was over. We packed-up the jeep and hit the road for a 6 hr journey back to Rishikesh.
The Upper Alkhanada is by far my favorite section of river I've run so far in India. With big class III and IV whitewater and beautiful, aqua-blue water, it's a river anyone can enjoy. I hope to see it again soon!
The team: Rakesh, Matt, Mark, Me, and Flow (from left)
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Back in Rishikesh, I'm resting and catching up on sleep. I'll write more soon, but I'm slowly fading, my body deprived of rest....until next time!
The Dalai Lama's three-day teaching came to a close yesterday. I'd previously seen the Dalai Lama speak at UC Santa Barbara a few years ago, but it was a whole different experience to learn from him at his home temple here in McLeod Ganj. As an engineer from Denmark told me in a coffee shop after the last session, you can't go to India without having a spiritual experience. Well, I feel like I had mine listening to the Dalai Lama. The teaching was for the most part on "emptiness." The Dalai Lama considers emptiness the fundamental idea to Buddhism, so it was very cool to hear him give commentary on such an important topic. My knowledge and understanding of emptiness is certainly deeper than before. I also learned that my body isn't made to sit cross-legged for four hours a day, but that's another story!
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Today, I hopped in a taxi and headed down the hill from McLeod Ganj to Gangchen Kyishong, the Tibetan Government-In-Exile complex, about 20 minutes away from my guesthouse. There, I visited the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and Nechung Gompa, the Tibetan State Oracle.
The entrance to the Library
The entrance was the most ornately decorated I'd ever seen at a library. On the second floor of the Library is the Tibetan Cultural Museum, which is supposed to be really neat. Unfortunatly, it's under renovation until January or February so I didn't get to see it, but I was glad to know that the Tibetan Government can afford to improve displays of Tibetan heritage (I think with the help of the Indian Government). Fortunately, the lady at the front desk told me to sneak into a room behind me to my right with a slightly opened door. She said it was rarely open and urged me off.
Slyly entering the room, I found a room full of Tibetan texts from floor to ceiling. I knew immediately that these were old Tibetan texts. Historically, Tibetan manuscripts were handwritten on long, rectangular sheets of paper. I walked around the room, feeling like I was somewhere I shouldn't be. There was a monk sitting at a table in the center of the room with books open. I said hello and he warmly greeted me as if he was expecting my visit. I asked him if it was OK to take pictures and he said it was!
In the archives
He told me that these texts were all from Tibet and that after the Dalai Lama escaped to Dharamsala, he requested that these texts be brought over to avoid destruction by the Chinese. All of these texts were snuck out of Tibet in backpacks and on yaks, over the Himalayas, to their current resting place. Most of them were centuries old. Wow! The monk, like most of the monks I've met in McLeod Ganj, was born and raised in Tibet. He missed home a lot but has no way of returning safely - a universally shared experience amongst those that have fled their Tibetan homeland. As I left, he shut the door behind me.
After exploring the rest of the small library, I headed back outside to find the Nechung Gompa, the State Oracle. When trying to find anything in India, you just repeat what you're looking for to everyone that you pass by and eventually you find it. I ended up being led into a really nice monastery and to a big, beautiful building. I asked the Tibetan laides sitting at the steps putting back on their shoes if this was the Oracle. They shook their heads sideways and asked each other in Tibetan if they knew what an oracle was. Feeling like I was close by not quite there, I started to walk away. Then I remembered I had written down the Tibetan name of the Oracle in my pocket. "Nechung Gompa?" I asked. They laughed and pointed to the building we were standing in front of. I should've known better....
I took my shoes off, climbed the stairs, and peeked behind the cloth entrance to the Oracle. Walking in, there were two monks, one against the wall of each side of the room, reading and chanting. There were big drums laid down along the path to what appeared to be a gold covered seat in the center of the room (I'll guess the gold covered object to either be the seat of the Dalai Lama or the Oracle itself, whatever that may be). Again feeling like I was somewhere I shouldn't be, I took one more look around and walked outside. The Oracle was surrounded by a peaceful monastery and the Himalayas. While I didn't want to take a picture inside the Oracle, the building and its surroundings begged for a picture from the outside.
Nechung Gompa and the Himalayas
I decided that I had poked around enough at the Government Complex and decided to walk 10 minutes down the hill to Men-Tsee-Khang, the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute.
The campus is unassuming, but inside is the present and future of one of the oldest forms of medicine and astrology on the planet. At the request of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Men-Tsee-Khang was founded "in-exile" here in McLeod Ganj by Dr. Yeshi Dhonden, the doctor I had visited earlier in the week. I first headed to the Museum of Tibetan Medicine just past the entrance. The museum housed samples of the raw ingredients for Tibetan medicine (herbs, roots, precious metals, and gems) and described their curative abilities. Downstairs housed ancient Tibetan medical texts (in the same rectangular format of the texts from the archives) and beautiful paintings describing different parts of the texts. No photos were allowed inside the museum, unfortunately.
From the museum, I headed to the main administration building. Once again feeling like I was somewhere I shouldn't be, I headed down a random hall and peeked into a room with a sign above it that explained it was the pill dispensary. I said hello and asked the ladies if I could take a picture. They smiled and obliged.
The other side of the room had bulk bags of pills and powders, in all shades of brown and black
I asked the lady where the astrological office was and she directed me upstairs. Back in the main hall, there was a man who looked like he was getting ready to transport loads of Tibetan pills, laying out plastic liners to go in big canvas bags. I peeked into that room and there were a bunch of young Tibetan guys who were much less welcoming than the nice ladies in the other room. Woops, off I went...
I headed upstairs to the astrological office where my guidebook explained that you can get a whole horoscope of your life based on the date and time of your birth made according to Tibetan astrology. Entering the room, the nice receptionist invited me to sit down. I asked her about the horoscopes and she told me that they were made here by astrologers who study at Men-Tsee-Khang for 5 years and then do a 1 year internship, following historic Tibetan practice. I told her I would like a horoscope made and she handed me a book to fill in my information. Asking her why she needed my address, she told me that when it was finished, she would send it to my home address. "My home address...can't I pick it up later?" I asked. She told me that because they take some time to complete and the high demand, the horoscopes take about 7-8 months from the time of order to the time they reach your doorstep. Surprised, I filled in my information, including the time of my birth my mom had unknowingly slipped into the appropriate page of my guidebook before I left on my trip. I said thanks and headed off, knowing that when my horoscope arrived, I would surely be pleasantly surprised by the late gift to myself from this trip.
I walked outside without exploring more, not wanting to find myself receiving anymore bad stares. Flipping through the Men-Tsee-Khang brochure I received at the Museum looking for my next place to visit, I saw that there was a Mild Therapy Center that offered Tibetan Massages. Figuring I wouldn't receive a more authentic Tibetan Massage elsewhere, I asked where the center was and headed down a steep flight of stairs. As I made my way down the weaving stairs, I saw that on the balcony of a building across the way, roots and herbs were being dried, clearly to make Tibetan pills.
This must be where they make the medicine....
Intrigued, I headed towards the building. The first room I came across was the room where they crushed the raw materials. Neat! I ducked quickly in, then out of the room and set my camera up for a picture. I peeked back inside and snapped a few pictures off, knowing that Tibetans are somewhat secretive about the process of making medicine and that I probably looked like a snoop for some American pharmaceutical company.
Tibetan medicine - from the earth
At this point, I felt like some investigative journalist and my curiosity continued to get the best of me. Against my better judgement, I headed down a hallway into the building. The next room I came across was a sorting and packaging room. All the workers looked up at me. I gave them the Tibetan greeting of honor, a one-handed gesture moving the hand from in front of the face outwards toward the heart. They smiled and I moved on, wanting to remain under-the-radar.
Taking a right turn, I came across two ladies that appeared to be roasting roots. This was getting too good, I quickly snapped another picture so I could share and re-visit what was shaping up to be a memorable day of snooping into Tibetan culture and heritage.
The old-fashioned way
As my camera captured the moment, I heard a shout behind me. A man was coming towards me, clearly wondering what the heck I was doing there with a camera. I gave him the honorable greeting and tried to smooth over the situation. I asked if it was OK if I took photos. He responded with a firm "no." He asked where I was from, a common question. I told him I was from California. As we were talking, another man walked up in a white lab-coat and it was obvious he was a superior to this man. I told the guy in the lab coat that I was a patient of Dr. Yeshi Dhonhen's and that I was just coming to check it all out. A smile emerged and he mumbled off a sentence in broken English that I couldn't understand. I think he was trying to tell me Dr. Dhonden founded the place. I asked him if I could take pictures and he quickly responded with a big "no." I asked him where the massage center was and he told me down another flight of stairs to my left. I gave him the honorable gesture and quickly left the building. How cool, I thought, glad my snooping and pictures didn't get me into too much trouble.
I headed down the flight of stairs past some Indian guys who appeared to be chopping up what was probably bleached yak wool with an ancient tool. The long tool had a big circular wooden piece on one end with a wooden rod sticking out of the circular piece probably about 2.5 ft long. There was a string connected from one end to the other and they were hacking at the white stuff with the string. There was an incredibly old Tibetan woman sitting there watching them who could do nothing but smile and rock at my presence. I asked a couple nearby where the massage center was and they directed me further down the stairs and around a building.
Following only a sign that said "this way please," I peeked my head through the last door that I guessed was the entry room to the Mild Therapy Center. With no sign, the three room, incredibly basic clinic was empty. I shouted hello but no one was there. Walking back outside, there was a lady on the porch upstairs who told me to wait and came down to greet me. Thinking I was someone coming for an appointment, she told me to enter the massage room, appeared to start to heat up some oil, and told me the guys would be down shortly. I thought, wow, this is really a no-questions-asked place. I asked her "how much?" and she realized that I wasn't the guy with an appointment today. Laughing, she told me that they offer 30 min massages for 350 rupees - 7 dollars - where two guys massage you at the same time. Sounds pretty reasonable to me! She said they were booked until Monday which is my last day in McLeod Ganj. I signed up and I'll report back how it goes.
Deciding I'd had enough adventure and feeling lucky to escape trouble, I headed back up to the main road and caught a taxi back home.
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As I described in an earlier blog, plans in India rarely end up the way you think they will. Checking the weather, it looked like it was going to be raining in Manali for the foreseeable future. Deciding that I didn't want to hang out in a cold, rainy place, I called Ganesh back at hq to see if I could book a train to Varanasi. Getting my trip to Varanasi in before I left for Arunachal Pradesh would give me more time after my stint in Arunachal in Southern India where I planned to head. With trains fully booked, he convinced me to go on a quick tour through Rajasthan, his home state. Booking my trains and planning my itinerary for me, it appeared I would head to Rajasthan from Nov. 6 - 12, still making it back to Rishikesh in time for Diwali. This was Tuesday. On Wednesday, yesterday, I realized that before I left for Dharamsala, I had spoken with Flow about wanting to do a private trip on the Upper Alkhanada River - the stretch above the dam, previously doing the Lower stretch below the dam in October. The Upper Alkhanada is supposed to be a beautiful free-flowing run with good, challenging, and continuous class IV whitewater with excellent beach camps. I called Flow to see if he was still keen. He was and I called Arvind to work out the kinks. Today, I confirmed with Arvind that we could work out logistics and with Flow that he was still into the mission. With all systems go, I called Ganesh to cancel my train tickets to Rajasthan.
On the 3rd, I'll still head about two or three hours east to Bir to meet up with Vipin, co-owner of Red Chilli, and do some paragliding. I'll leave on the 4th, see Dr. Dhonden again on the 5th here in McLeod Ganj and leave that night, returning to Rishikesh on the morning of the 6th. Shortly thereafter, we'll pack up the jeep and Flow, hopefully Rakesh and Sahdev, and myself will head a day up the Ganga River Valley to spend two days rafting the Upper Alkhanada. And I'll still be back in Rishikesh with time to spare before Diwali. India is a blast, here's a panaroma from the back porch of the Dalai Lama's temple - until next time...
