Footnotes

That's right - more me time! I mean really, if I'm going to work on my vacation time, I should at least get a vacation while I'm here. *grin* Lin joined me at the last minute for a trip to Chennai to see a new friend and her family check out the surrounding areas of southern India, a new locale for me.

Chennai (named Madras by the British, corrected relatively recently back to a more local moniker) is a bit different than most of the places I've been so far. Furthest south, and close to the ocean, it's incredibly humid and warm, even in "winter", which is now. It actually reminded me strongly of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, a strange connection that took a day or two to shake off. Lots of temples of various architecture and age, including many older ones (600 AD?) in a place called Mamallapuram, a tourist town that did little to dispel my Mexico schizophenia.

Most interesting, however, was getting to stay with my friend and her husband and son - altogether an incredibly talented family. She is a very accomplished Indian Classical Dancer, and we were treated to a short private performance. There are many styles of classical dance, but I'd never seen any of them, and to get such an amazing performance up close was perhaps the best introduction one could hope for. Her husband is a well-known Classical Vocalist who performs with her as well as in his own shows; she played a commercially-produced CD of him for her mini-performance. And last but not least, their son is a budding western-style guitarist, inordinately fond of Jimi Hendrix, who we got to hear play in his school's "western music assembly" the day we arrived. Wow. Best of all, they are all incredibly warm and welcoming, a pleasure to get to know individually as well as part of a family.

Also met up with a new friend from this year's MTB Himachal (funny being on the same trip and meeting back up with people from previous activities...) and cycled to Pondicherry, about 150km south on a beautiful coastal road. My first trip on a road bike was great - so different than the grinding you do cycling up and down rough mountain terrain. No crazy pictures, but it was great to just ride through the greenery and salty air. A quick stay with other cycling friends there and back the next day - nice tour.

Now off to Bangalore for the last stop on this tour - a little climbing, a little cycling, and some good face time with friends.

Epilogue

But that's not all... being an official-type organization, there was lots of time to be spent tidying up official loose ends.

We spent about a week back at the main NIM campus de-issuing gear, doing a bit more rock climbing, practicing the graduation ceremony, and, most importantly, going into town so the long-deprived students could have some junk food. Junk food in this case means chaats, street food, often fried, frequently sweet, and, as required by the definition of street food, largely without redeeming nutritional value but fun to eat! Tikki burgers (fried potato patties on a roll with chili sauce), dahi puri (fried crunchies with sweet sauce and chili sauce and yogurt), and jalebis (fried swirls of batter subsequently saturated in sugar syrup)... sense a trend?

But the more important graduation ceremony was carried out in good style, followed by a "cultural" presentation - everything from Bollywood-style dance numbers to skits about decompressing from the NIM experience to local dance and traditional music. Students returned their stylish NIM graduation sweaters and were suddenly faced with that inevitable end of such an intense ordeal and bonding experience. Hasty goodbyes and early-morning departures left some relieved, some hoping to see new friends on the Advanced Course next year.

I personally am ready for some down time, and am looking forward to a visit with two new friends, one from the mountain bike race, one from the Basic Course, in Chennai. Mmm... warm weather.

Made it...

Wow - that was definitely interesting.  I learned a ton of old-school and expedition-specific techniques, a bunch more Hindi, and the names of about a quarter of the students.  I thought remembering eight English names on a 3-day Rainier climb was hard...

A three-day march brought us to Base Camp, complete with generator and electric lights, 10-person canvas tents, a stone shelter with propane stoves, a cook staff, and the biggest pressure cooker pot I've ever seen.  Porters carried up daily fresh vegetables and eggs, and the ten goats I watched being weighed at our first camp were regularly made into mutton stew.  (I love the idea of being able to pet my, or my fellow climbers', dinner's fuzzy nose.)  Once a week there was even a "mail run" - money could be given to a porter who would bring back sweets or TP the next day!  Crazy expedition stuff.

Over 18 days of hiking in and practicing around Base Camp we covered ice climbing, crevasse crossing, basic snow skills, navigation, and height gain.  Some things were the same, some from about 20 years ago, and a few things were just straight-up new to me.  Such a strange mix of old and new techniques.  Fortunately, a guy who works with a climbing-certification organization paid a visit as well, so I wasn't the only person insisting on crazy things like manufacturer-specified angles of ice-screw placement.

And despite being the "slow" instructor, both in the speed of my students and my non-understanding of daily instructions in Hindi, everyone was great, super helpful and largely indulgent of my ignorance of daily camp workings.  On top of it, I had to take my turn as Duty Instructor, responsible for making sure everything happens on time and in line.  But I don't know what I'm supposed to be ordering or finding out during morning parade, let along the Hindi words for "attention" and "at ease"... (Actually, I do now - Sabdan and Vishram, in case you ever need to know.)  One of the hardest things I've ever done, truthfully - maintaining a (relatively) even keel through not knowing what's going on, trying to suggest improvements while not being condescending, and generally having to sit back and watch a situation I would normally be at least partially in charge of run completely differently.

My basic goal of understanding more of how climbing works here has definitely been accomplished.  Larger goals will come with time - I intend to do more with the programs here, though I'm not sure yet in what capacity or timeframe.  Down from the mountains now, we're back to more ceremony and logistical management than activity, and I'm about ready to go.  A couple more days of graduation rehearsals, assessments, etc, and I'll be on my own again, in charge of my own time.  Amazing how important that is when you don't have it.

79 Rock-Climbing Students on the Wall

(...sung to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer)  A week here at NIM's Basic Mountaineering course has gone relatively smoothly and we're about to head up into the mountains for 18 days of mountain skills.  The last week has been spent on logistics and basic rock climbing skills, and it's time to find some snow.

All in all, I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the whole system.  I'd heard many things about the army-based teaching system and the comparative isolation of the climbing community and techniques here.  But despite some rather old-school equipment (gear is not only subject to up to 50% import duty, but comparatively very expensive relative to earnings) and techniques (I've never actually done a shoulder-body rappel!) the teaching progression is quite good and remarkably effective for a group of 79 students!

This group is broken into rope teams of 5-7 students, each with an assigned instructor for practice sessions.  So there's a lecture on rappeling, for instance, then I take my 6 ladies (17-40 years of age, 3 different languages) and we practice the skill.  Always with some time constraint, but with the ability to show details and ask questions.  Turns out, this is the first Basic course that has been offered co-ed.  There is always (has been since the founding in 1968, admirably) a women-only course, but just one a year.  So this is an experiment in mixing the Basic course; usually only the very advanced courses like Search and Rescue are mixed.  So far it seems to be going well - my group is usually slower (than the guys or the other women), but the instructors have made the logistics work around this really well.

On the flip side, I've learned things like how to rappel with a rock hammer, normally used to place pitons (amazed picture with one of two foreign students, right), pack with canvas stuff sacks, and sit separately from the students.  I've gotten slightly used to being addressed as "madam" in India, but it's proscribed here by the military setup of the place - students and instructors/staff are very much separated.  They get their cafeteria food (Indian curries and chappatis) by standing in line past a serving window, we get to sit at a table and have it brought to us.  I understand why it works this way, and it does work, it's just tough for someone who never (never?) thinks of herself as better or more worthy of not sitting on the ground than anyone else.

So things are good, and we're headed up into the mountains for 18 days tomorrow.  Porters, canvas tents, afternoon tea, and some time up high!  See you soon...

Vacation

Really, this isn't as selfish as it sounds. But rarely do I (do any of us!) get a complete break from others' demands on our attention, time, or schedule. So I've got a week in Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas that produce the Ganges river, to just read and run and hike and... do whatever then heck I want! When I want to! OK, so I'd love a fresh hummus sandwich with lettuce and tomatos and pickles and onions and mustard (yum!), but you can't have everything.

Rishikesh the tourist town is separate from the actual town, suitably populated by weathered beard-wearing men dressed in the holy color of saffron, variously wandering about, reading languages I can't (yet), and/or asking for money along the well-traveled pedestrian corridors. There are more Hindu temples here than I can pronounce, which means there are as many Indian tourists as foreign ones, all targeted by sellers of an assortment of jewelry, sandalwood, cowboy hats (really!), clothing and blessings - a tikka mark on your forehead, say these words, here's your string bracelet, donation please?

But it's close to the mountains, so there are some beautiful places. A twenty-minute hike reveals two waterfalls, dammed up to make pools to swim in, and just beyond, a valley filled with rice fields and simple houses. Locals as well as tourists come to swim in the falls; I watched three skinny local boys swimming in their underwear once a middle-aged white couple had gotten out, followed by the too-cool boys from Delhi who were still silly once they jumped in and ruined their styled hair. The air was cool in the shade, and the forest green and teeming with butterflies, so different from the dust and smells of the city.

I hiked most of the way to a temple, deciding I didn't need to hike the rest of the way downhill to actually get there. (Who builds a temple halfway down a mountainside, anyway?) Funny how even a simple walk can feel like a story, like you're in a pilgrimage or travel essay if you let it... Two stoned men sitting in the path feeding monkeys ("good monkeys", I was informed) with monkey snacks so I could feel their tapered fingers on mine, then offers of various versions of a smoke. A little further on a couple shyly posing for pictures with their camera and mine, delighted at my offer, likely because they knew I wouldn't disapprove of their intimacy. Reached the top of the hill to find cell towers and a farm but no temple - that was downhill again. Ah, well - maybe next time.

Rafting, reading, and just enjoying my own quiet space here. Next up, headed to the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering to see what I can contribute there. I'm supposed to be helping instruct their basic mountaineering course, starting with walking uphill and ending with ?? but I'm not sure how I'll fit into their military hierarchy, especially as a woman in a relatively conservative region. Huh. Well, some of us are going to learn something, not sure who...

Hogea!

Hindi for: Finished! I managed to stay healthy, the ribs do seem to be fully healed, and I learned a ton about how to fix and maintain my bike in response to various breaks and failures. Brakes? Who needs 'em? Oh wait - I do, and now I know how to adjust my disc brakes to keep riding the crazy downhills we were sent on. The generosity of two French- and English ex-pats living in Pondicherry kept me in spokes (four broken over nine days!) as I bombed my way down that uneven terrain, and lots of TLC kept the rear shifter working despite needing a new cable. The bike needs a new chain, brake pads, shifter cables, and derailer spring, but it made it. Whew!

The course from Shimla to Manali was largely the same, but with harder climbs and longer days than last year, a challenge to be sure. I felt like a stronger rider this year, though - that hillclimb up Mt Baker and paying attention to my technical riding helped. Around 60 people (mostly Indian) started the race, and only 35 finished! A few downhill accidents early on, but mostly just the daily grind of so much vertical gain and mileage, about 75km and 5,000' of gain per day on surfaces of varying quality, from beautifully smooth tarmac to (mostly) broken tarmac/gravel to these obnoxious cobblestones that slow you down on the descent, let alone an uphill effort!

As with last year, my favorite part of the ride is just getting to know people over 10 days of being tired, happy, hungry, discouraged, relieved, impatient and resigned. You can't fake it for that long, especially working that hard. So a few more friends here, people I'll look forward to meeting up with again, either on a bike or not. And of course, there are the random people you meet along the way - a woman who took care of my cold soggy self by the fire on our one day of rain waiting for the other riders to come, an old village woman delighted to have us take pictures with her flowers, the hoardes of kids endlessly amused by the instant gratification of digital images, and all of the people who made this event happen, many of whom didn't really know what to make of this crazy mud-covered lady riding with a bunch of men.

There were only two women riding, and the sponsored Nepali mountain biker was far stronger than I. So I managed to get second - sweet! We found out later that the organizers had tried to cancel the women's prizes since there were only two of us, and were informed of the error of their ways. So all went as advertised, and the prize money nearly covered my plane ticket over. I would have been happy just to complete the event, but racing for position is a good change for me. I don't think I need to do this event again, especially trying to schedule work around it, but might do more bike touring here in the future.

Back in Delhi, I'm sitting in an "American diner", complete with old CocaCola advertisements, car memorabilia and rock-n-roll playing for ambience. There's Heinz catsup on the table, but menu offerings like "Chips and Salsa - Pringles, Dorritos chips and Potato wedges served with jalapeno salsa" and pomegranate smoothies. Close...

Off to a fantastic start

So I do seem to have largely avoided jetlag - don't know quite how.  A little tired, certainly, but not falling asleep in the middle of the day.  12 1/2 hours is a lot to get used to!

It seems surprisingly normal to land here on my fourth trip.  Not like home, exactly, but without that sense of excitement of going to a new place.  I pretty much know how things work (or don't, as the case may be) and where I'm going.

But that doesn't mean things aren't going to be interesting.  The bike I loaned out at my departure from Sikkim in the spring is here in one piece, but some of those pieces are a little... missing.  Missing part of the headset (bearings and top cap) and the nut on the end of the quick-release skewer for my back wheel.  Really, when you're disassembling it, it IS important that all the little pieces get in the box!  So a miracle part supply by friend Dickie and an hour drive later, I'm trying to figure out how much I really know about bike parts - I know what this bike mechanic is doing is wrong, but not quite what is right.  In the end, I took most of the pieces home and put it back together myself - hope this works!!!

We'll find out.  Heading up to Shimla in an hour and the 10-day race starts on Sunday.  Hope my bike works, hope my ribs are truly healed, hope I can manage not to get sick... definitely always an adventure.  Here goes!