Treading water

Not literally, but the last week has just been spent visiting with friends and trying to figure out what on earth to do with my two weeks of free time. A few plans made and fallen through, and ultimately my frustration with feeling like I was just here taking up time prompted me to change my ticket to Nepal. I'm tired of trying to figure out how to spend my time when I could be walking in the mountains!

I've basically just been hanging around Bangalore and Delhi, being social. Good to spend time catching up with people here - went to see the movie "Up in the Air" (interesting), met with some of the people involved in making Samim's RAAM ride a reality, finally went to Qutb Minar (a beautiful stone minaret in Delhi), and otherwise did a whole lot of... not much. I've gotten to exercise a little, but it's hard in crowded cities with bad air quality. So as always I'm torn between spending time with the people I want to catch up with and needing to take care of myself. Almost two weeks here reconnecting with friends, and it's time for me to run off.

So, tomorrow going to Kathmandu, then off to the hills. To avoid the possibility of being stuck in Lukla by weather, unable to fly back to Kathmandu to meet our trekkers, I'm going to take the bus to Jiri and trek to Lukla, then as far up the Khumbu as I can with the week and a half I have, walking back through Lukla to Jiri and the return bus to Kathmandu. That's the plan, anyway! I'll let you know in a week or two how it worked out...

Up and down

Up to Sikkim!  Whirlwind flights and buses landed me in Gangtok, launching point for another mountain biking event in this tiny Indian state tucked up against Nepal, Tibet/China, and Bhutan.  Late, of course, due to little information on schedules and transportation in any event literature.  But in time for dinner and meeting up with many people from last fall's MTB Himachal, putting my bike together, and preparing for the next day's start.

After the usual speeches and bagpipe band, we wound through curving mountain streets until spitting rain and the realization that we were ahead of the guide vehicles (and off route) drove us under whatever eaves were nearby.  An hour, much confusion, and two false starts later, we arrived at the starting point for the first timed stage.  This is the second year of the race, and things were still not worked out properly.  Start times were 4 minutes apart to ensure good timekeeping and rider spacing.  But with two at a time, 50 riders, and 10-minute gaps between categories, that meant the last people were waiting for 2 hours!  Cold and bored...  Things were better next tim, but some folks still got in after dark.

The second day was nicer, and a little smoother, but I managed to get not one but two flats on the downhill race stage, the only kind of terrain I have any chance of getting a decent time on!  Sheesh.  That's as many flats as I've had in all my cycling days!  Then a long uphill race stage, followed by another big uphill grind to camp.  Are we having fun yet?  I elected to ride in the Army truck once done with the racing.  Yup, wussed out.

By this time, however, my lower ribs, strained by so much coughing recovering from bronchitis, had worsened from the exertion of mountain biking (OK, and skiing, but it didn't bother them much at the time!). I didn't want to quit, but sneezes were excruciating and it was starting to affect day-to-day activities, like lying down to sleep.  No more riding for me.  Boo.  I lent my bike to someone with a really crappy cycle for the rest of the ride and gathered emails from some of the various Indian, Canadian, etc riders that are the real reason I come here...

But to distract from that: as I was riding in the support vehicle the next day, taking a rest/decision day, a friend that I had finally met on this ride had a bad crash.  Arriving on the scene before the ambulance, which never actually came, I and several other people ascertained that nothing was life-threatening, but definitely messy.  Knees, elbows, side, and particularly face were pretty well scraped, and half of one front tooth gone!  The army doctor eventually arrived to treat him there, and a visit to the local hospital finished cleaning him up.

With Harsh out of commission and headed back to Delhi, I decided to follow to discourage myself from foolishly opting back in.  After the drive back to Gangtok, we were able to take a chopper back to the Bagdogra airport for only Rs 2000, about $40!  Nice views, though the high Himalayan mountains so close to Everest were clouded in.

Back in Delhi, I've gone to a recommended doctor who frowned, ruled out cracked ribs with an x-ray, and basically said I'd pulled all my lower rib muscles.  Rest until they get better - nothing that uses them.  Huh.  That's pretty much everything I do, and definitely out of line with my scheduled activities!  But I have to be completely better by the time I'm scheduled to work again in early May, so hopefully that motivation will keep me in line.  Ah - travel, reading, and sitting around eating too much, my favorite.  I'm still going up north to Uttarkashi to meet with some mountaineering institute folks about future work/collaboration - I'll just be careful... *grin*

Layover in Delhi

Ah, travel. For fun and profit, yes, but currently blurring the line of fun. Though not taking care of myself is my own fault! Mostly over the bronchitis from Aconcagua, I've caught a nasty head cold on the plane to make up for it. My four days in Delhi have involved a lot of sleeping and wishing this cough would hurry up and go away. Sigh.

But it's spring here, so the scent and sight of flowers is wonderful - my October visits didn't afford such luxuries. And the exchange rate is at an all-time high/low - 51.8 rupees to the dollar, which makes my surviving this trip on tips from Aconcagua much more likely.

I got to catch up with a few friends here - lunch with Darvesh, tea with Dickie, and an evening gathering of several riders from last year's Himachal bike race. Fascinating conversations for those of us still trying to figure this place out - the nature of Bengalis, assignment of irresponsible development blame, the significance of hindi script on sweets.

Tonight Lin and I head north to the Himalayan foothills in Solang, just north of Manali, for some backcountry skiing. There's eventually going to be a short lift at the local ski slope, but it's been scheduled for opening "next year" for about ten years...

Round Two

OK, here goes another try. A little relaxation and recovery in Delhi - hot shower, laundry, and good food, now off again. A little lower elevation this time, not quite as cold, and on our own. Keeping it simple, just out to enjoy and explore. Up to Dharamsala and Manali, scoping out actual ski terrain for Lin to tackle in the spring once there's snow. Hoping to be gone for a while to avoid lots of travel back and forth to Delhi, but as always, we'll see what comes up. Ah, the off-season...

Holy Jetlag, Batman

That's one whopping 13.5-hour time difference. Combined with the smog and dust of the city, these have been a couple of tired days. But it has been interesting and, more importantly, Lin and I are leaving tomorrow morning for Ladakh and some mountain time.

Delhi has been interesting - not so different from most other partially-developed nations and cities. Funny little three-wheeled cabs we call tuk-tuks, the familiar odd mixture of western advertising and man-handled local goods, 15th century architecture in the park, more haze than your lungs know what to do with, haggling for prices, and getting temporarily misplaced among the various streets marked in letters from a foreign language.

We went shopping for salwar kamis (local costume) and got me decked out, went running in the local park where coddled living-room plants grow heartily (ficus trees, even!), found the two closet-sized outdoor stores that exist in Delhi (get what you need before you come!), and I went for a stroll to India Gate and past the Parliament building.

There are 16million people in Delhi, and those without shelter end up everywhere, hawking trinkets to people at stoplights, sometimes begging in public spots, and occasionally bathing in the park fountains. Life can be rough here.

Enough of the flatlands. Orange-sunrise, that lowland haze, squawking birds in flowery trees (I finally know what bougainvilla looks like) - Rudyard Kipling makes a lot more sense now.