XIX - The Himalayas

I am back! Well, admittedly, I have been back to Germany for.. aham… a whole of three weeks.

Coming back from one of my biggest adventures in India I needed time to calm down, to readjust, to think, to write and - the most exciting part - to find a job.

Where to start? I guess where I have left off: Lex and my trip to the Himalayas.

As all great adventures, our trip to the highest mountain range in the world started with a well thought-through plan. That was, to go to Badrinath, a hill station, monastery and popular tourist destination. We would acclimatize there, which would have meant to book into a hotel and do exactly nothing for two entire days. Starting at an altitude of 3500 meters in Badrinath, we would then start our ascent, claiming we would go to a monastery that happened to be on the way to the mountains.

As you probably guessed from the past conditional we did not get to execute this brilliant plan. We did not even get close.

In fact, the only part of our trip that went according to plan A was our flight from Bangalore to Delhi and the first ride with the Delhi metro from the airport to the city center. The Delhi metro, btw, is pretty amazing! Having a working metro system that can simply surpass bad traffic and is also super cheap is a great relief. Especially coming from a place with truly awful traffic such as Bangalore.

Anyway, we got out of the metro that brought us from the airport, walked down the street toward the station where we were supposed to transfer to another metro and - surprise! - got stopped by a rikshaw driver. We were able to ignore the usual procedure of “Where are you going?” “I can bring you!” “Only 100 rupees, Sir!” until the driver said the magic words “Is Holi. Metro closed!”. He immediately added that there was a government tourist agency close by and that he would bring us for 10 rupees. We agreed, kind of lost and confused, and for 10 rupees we could not do too much wrong. He did, in fact, bring us to the tourist agency. Where the agent told us the same: “It is Holi, the metro is closed”. Also, he said there were no buses going toward the Himalayas today. But we could stay in a nice hotel for the night and try in the morning. No way, we thought, this feels too much like a scam.

So, we went to the metro station like we had planned to and saw that the metro was running perfectly regularly. So, we took the metro to the bus station Anand Vihar, where we were supposed to catch a bus to Rishikesh and another bus from there to Badrinath. We arrived at Anand Vihar, asking for a bus to Rishikesh and after half an hour of asking dozens of different people we understood that we were at the wrong bus stop. By the time we realized this it had already gotten dark, we were afraid we would not make it to Rishikesh at all that night.

So, we hurried to the right bus station Cashmere Gate, asked for a bus to Rishikesh, purposefully asked the people at the official bus companies’ information desks. “Sorry Sir, no buses to Rishikesh today”. We tried our luck anyway and went on to the actual buses, asking one bus driver after the next. And finally, after we had almost asked all of the bus drivers, we heard a call: “Rishikesh, Rishikesh!”. We ran toward the voice, asked “Rishikesh?” - “Rishikesh!”. Finally! It even was a government bus that took us for the regular price and the bus driver made some space for our big bags inside the vehicle. Five minutes later we were on our way to Rishikesh.

The excitement did not stop after this. Arriving in Rishikesh we had to find a bus to Badrinath. All signs were in Hindi, which we were unable to read, so we again had to ask a bazillion people, getting only vague and sometimes contradicting information. Lex finally managed to find a bus to Joshimath - close enough, we thought and got on. We ended up taking four different buses to Joshimath because people lied to us about where they were going.

When you ride in a bus in the Himalayas, there is not much time to sleep because you constantly have to watch the people sitting in front of you. The winding mountain roads caused a lot of people to get motion sick. They stuck their heads out the windows frequently to vomit on the street. The airflow caused the vomit to fly back toward the open windows behind the sick people. So, you better watch the sick people in front of you and instantly close your window as soon as one of them sticks out their head.

All this trouble, however, could not keep us from admiring the beautiful Himalayan landscape. The mountains and snow peaks in front of us seemed huge, like a big wall that protects you from falling off the edge of the world. A raging turquoise river wound through the mountains, some parts of it had white sandy beaches. Mountain goats ran across boulders and slippery slopes, undaunted by death. It was simply breathtakingly beautiful.

After taking four buses we made it to Joshimath. Only 30 more kilometers to get to Badrinath, we thought. Except, literally nobody would take us. The only answer we got when asking for Badrinath was “Badrinath closed”.

So, we decided to stay in Joshimath for the night and acclimatize there. We were unwilling to pay for a room, so we walked down the beautiful terraced hill, on the search for a camping spot. We stopped at one of the terraces, where some farmers were growing wheat. It seemed suitable for camping. More, importantly, though, the fields belonged to Raviswari Devi and her husband Shevlal, local farmers that lived just below Joshimath. Raviswari Devi found us standing next to her field, and she started talking to us in Hindi. At first we thought she was mad at us, thinking we had stolen some of her crop. After a while it became clear that she was not and that she told us to follow her. Raviswari Devi led us to her little farm house. She had several cows, two nice guard dogs, a big garden, a chicken and a small spring with ice cold, clear mountain water.

All cuddled up and warm in the tent on Raviswari Devi's and Shevlal's porch

 

When she went off to milk her cow her husband returned from work, finding us sitting on his porch, making tea with our camping stove. He said: “This my house”, very politely. We tried to explain to him that his wife had found us, unsure if he understood but he did not bother us or throw the strangers out of his property. This night we camped on Shevlal’s and Raviswari Devi’s porch, had a great fresh, home made dinner, a warm breakfast in the morning and so much fresh water. Raviswari Devi and Shevlal did not have much and they did not accept any money from us. They were very happy about taking some of our trail mix from cashews, peanuts and raisins, though. These two people are some of the nicest people I have ever met. After a long 36 hours of disappointment Raviswari Devi and Shevlal managed to restore my spirits by sharing not much but all they had.

After this unplanned and delightful break we wanted to go on to climbing a peak. Except, nobody would take us even close to where we wanted to go. We spent an hour with the police in Govind Ghat for crossing a river, we had to follow the police back across the river, using a bridge they had told us was “closed”. We hitch hiked lying to people about going to Hanumanchatti, instead got out about 10 kilometers sooner. We snuck our way into the mountains, climbing big boulders in a rocky slope, and pitched our tent on the rocks in the cold rain.

Our tent pitched in the middle of a rocky slope

Our things drying in the sun after a rainy night

Hard to believe but this is where we pitched our tent the first night in the mountains. After hours of walking and a bunch of rain it even felt comfortable.

Finally, after three days of being stuck in Joshimath, which should have been not more than a few hours, we had made it into the mountains. Unfortunately, we started at a rather low altitude, which made our ascent very slow. Especially me who had never been in high altitude for more than an hour at a time it was exhausting to go up and up and up, having only vermicilli, green beans and occasionally some stinging nettles and deer moss to eat. As you can imagine, we did not make it very far. It took us three days to walk 10 kilometers and gain about one kilometer in altitude. We were simply too slow and running out of time. Ironically, going down took us only six hours.

We were really close to the snow peaks but we did not have enough food or time to make it all the way up.

The climb up was especially exhausting for me because I had never been in high altitude.

So, we headed back to Delhi, again we had trouble with people telling us lies about where they were going. Back in Delhi we met a mountain climber friend. We showed him photos of some foot prints that we had found in the mountains close to where we were camping. Apparently, we had been camping in a tiger’s territory.

Poop from a big mammal with fur from its last meal

The foot prints we found in various places on our way up and close to our camping spot - as we later found out they are tiger foot prints.

XVIII – Pondicherry

As I get more settled in my job and in the city I feel more comfortable taking weekend vacations that are farther away than 50 km. This weekend, Lex and me went to Pondicherry.

Pondicherry is a former French city, it is located in a part of India that was a French colony. Hence, we saw a lot of French and European architecture in the city center.

Pondy is also surprisingly clean. There are public garbage cans on almost every street corner, a phenomenon that I have not seen anywhere else in India. In fact, I have not seen a single public trash can anywhere in Bangalore (one that does not belong to a shop or restaurant). Another frequent view in the city are garbage pickers that separate the garbage properly into four different categories. The city center is a very clean place that reminded me a lot of home. As the streets and buildings are so properly maintained I did not even mind that the city is also full of tourists.

A public park

Seaside houses - almost looks like a small city in France.

Not far from the train station (about 30 minutes walking distance) is the beach, offering an amazing view on the Bay of Bengal. This is where we spent most of our weekend.

We did not, of course, stay on the most crowded beach in the middle of the city but on a smaller, more local beach about 8 km south. As soon as we left the neat city center Indian reality struck us once again: The beach was all rocks and full of garbage. The fishermen living next on the shore on the outskirts of the city used the Bay of Bengal as a garbage dump and bathroom – yummy! We had to get quite a ways away from the city until the beach was acceptably clean, meaning it was not full of garbage anymore but still full of human feces.

Rocks, garbage, feces and goats right next to the beautiful sea

The fishermen's houses

As we crossed a little harbor I even saw a fisherman taking a dump in the water. He sat on the boat, let his rear hang over the railing and... well, I guess you can imagine the rest. It was pretty gross. I really wanted to have jumped into the water and just swam all day. My motivation to do exactly that ceased immediately.

A little improvised place of worship at the fishermen's settlement 

Luckily, the spot on the beach we found later on had was directly at the open ocean, which meant that at least the feces are washed away and smashed in the waves immediately, distributed in the whole ocean, not gathering on the shore. So, we did get to play in the waves a lot :)

Playing in the waves and fresh, cheap fish from the local fishermen (1 Euro per kilo) made our stay worthwhile and made us forget at least for a while that there are people who use this beautiful ocean as their bathroom.

Lex carrying the inner tube for playing in the water

Fresh fish! :)

And lost of crabs

Staying the night on the beach was yet a different experience. The local fishermen were very convinced that the spot we wanted to stay at was infested by snakes and that their settlement, which was situated only 50 meters from our spot. According to the locals, the bright spotlight that lights their village made all the difference of keeping animals away. They came and talked to us four times and even brought a translator to try and discourage us from sleeping on the beach at that particular spot. I got a few mosquito bites during that night because we did not have a tent but I did not find any snake bites on me in the morning.

The fishermen's boats close to our camping spot.

Watching the sun rise over the Bay of  Bengal

I would highly recommend seeing Pondicherry. It is very clean, has beautiful architecture, the sea is right there and the fish is super fresh. Especially if you stay in the city center it is a great place for vacationing and adventure awaits you just outside the city.

The obligatory garbage pickup - always leave a place better than you found it!

XVII - Partey

Here are some insights into a genuine Indian birthday party for a one-year-old:

The family that threw the party rented a whole school. Not just a single room, they rented the whole common area of a big school.

A colorful crowd - about 300 people - came for the birthday party of a one-year-old.

About 300 people came, all acquaintances of the family. All of those people received humongous amounts of food. Mutton biryani, different kinds of curries, dal and gravies, rice, chapatis, yogurt, rice pudding, vegetarian curries, chips, ice cream, cake, cotton candy and chocolate. About 20 people were hired to keep the crowd happy, serve food, perform, set tables, make cotton candy and distribute fresh water. All of this for the birthday party of a one-year-old, who probably did not really know that all of this excitement was related to him.

The whole feeding thing is yet a separate issue: Imagine 300 people but only 80 seats at tables. What to do? Correct! You have your guests eat in shifts. After the first group is done eating the tables are cleared and the next group gets to sit down and eat. As you wait for people to finish their food you make sure you get a seat in the next round. How to do that? You talk to your friends and family and tell them to reserve their seat for you. When you see that friend finishing their meal, more or less discretely sneak behind their seat, just to make sure you really get that seat and nobody else steals it from you. An organized cutthroat system.

The tables are covered with a thin plastic table cloth that is changed every time a new group of people sits down to eat.

Fancy prints on the table cover.

This guy rinses his plate with water before food touches it. Makes lots of sense if you eat from banana leaves, not so much when you eat from paper plates.

Serving food and water.

Lex and me were the only non-Indians at this party. The whole two hours that we were there we were the center of attention. We could not walk ten meters without people stopping us and asking where we are from; so many people wanted to take their picture with us. I stopped counting after 15 random strangers that wanted their picture with the exotic foreigners.

Adults and children alike wanted their picture with us. Unfortunately, I did not get a shot of the people who made me pose with their baby in my arms.

This one-year-old's birthday party was truly an experience. It was very exhausting to be especially nice to everyone as the only foreigners and to patiently endure the photo sessions but I would not have missed it for anything less exciting.

XVI - Staying in shape

I like sports. I like moving, dancing, bicycling, climbing, swimming, trekking, walking, lifting; I can even make do with running if there is no better alternative. Especially during my time in USA I discovered that I love exercising. It simply feels good! For me, physical movement is the best balance for a (stressful) everyday life.

As I work a lot in India I certainly have enough stress. Although I am not the kind of person that is easily effected emotionally by a high workload I do need my exercise to keep it that way. Unfortunately, I have to admit that all the exercise I get right now is walking to and from work (admittedly, it is 2.5 km each way, so it is more than just a stroll in the park). In order to increase the difficulty a little bit I load down my backpack with 5 kg of water. Sadly, this is pretty much the only exercise that I feel fit enough for.

My body is pretty exhausted from frequent sickness. After my accident in July 2015 I slowly started putting on muscle again, which I had lost a lot of during recovery. I was on a good way to getting my full strength back when I came to India. Here I got very sick within the first weeks, lost a lot of muscle and body mass and have since not been able to build up my strength and endurance because every time I saw a little progress after several weeks I fell sick again, putting me back to where I started.

The Indian cuisine most certainly does not help with staying fit. I don't want to bash vegetarians here. I truly respect people who can live without eating meat and maintain a healthy and fit lifestyle at the same time. But if you fall sick frequently and have to build up muscle mass deep fried carbs drenched in sugar is not the way to go. There are also a lot of beans and veggies in Indian cuisine and I would eat only those if it was not so spicy. In order to make the food friendly to my taste buds and gastrointestinal tract I have to mix it with lots of rice and bread. Not very nutritious.

Chicken kabab and chutney: One of our favorite Indian dishes

Frustrating as it is I try to stay healthy, stay away from street food and eat chicken or mutton at least twice a week. Every little strength that I gain makes me feel better, more healthy, more happy. And luckily, Lex is not only supportive of physically and emotionally strong girls, but also takes me trekking, an important part of regaining my strength.

I love trekking with Lex

XV - Hampi

Lex and me finally managed to travel a little bit! There are so many places to see in India, this country is just so incredibly huge and culturally diverse. Getting out of the city for just two days felt really good, now we are looking forward to traveling more.

So, we went to Hampi for two days. Many people recommended seeing this place, locals as well as international people. Hampi is known as a place where hippies hang out and live, a place of beautiful nature and ancient architecture. And it's pretty much true: We did not have enough time to properly explore all of the antique buildings and magnificent landscape. The hippies that we saw, though, were pretty disappointing. I would rather call them hipsters - rich western kids that like to dress like hippies. There are a lot of those in Hampi.

Also, the place is super touristy. Everyone on every street corner tried to sell us something completely overpriced. When we got off the bus half a dozen rikshaw drivers urged us to take a ride with them, some of them even entering the bus. One of them followed us on our way through the city and he would not stop wanting to sell us a rikshaw ride. A meal in Hampi is about twice the price of a meal in Bangalore. Every major street has stalls selling overpriced souvenirs.

So, Hampi is definitely worth visiting. The nature and remnants of the Vijayanagara empire are truly beautiful. Just one tip: Go off season (between May and October). I have been told that it is cheaper and less crowded then.

Looking forward to more travels, hopefully to less touristy places that are just as beautiful as Hampi.

One can only imagine how beautiful this place must have been.  

The bathroom of the queen of Vijayanagara. I'd call it a swimming pool...

very detailed battle scenes on the walls of one temple.

Some of the ruins cover huge areas, it must have been like an immense enclosed living complex, almost like a castle.

Narasimha, the hindu god of protection, is half man, half lion. This is a ten meter statue of him.

A public swimming pool

A view on Hampi, with the ruins of ancient temples in the background. The greenish water in the foreground are rice fields.  

Beautiful sculptures, remnants of ancient glory.

An antique step well, used to gather water during the rainy season. 



 

 

        

XIV - Clothes shopping

Those of you who know me probably also know that I hate shopping. I really despise having to roam around the city kind of aimlessly, being surrounded by very pretty but very expensive clothes on the one hand and cheap but crappy clothes on the other hand. Selecting the wheat from the chaff is a huge pain in the butt whenever I go shopping in Germany. Only sometimes do I actually enjoy shopping with my friends – mostly to hang out with them, not primarily to buy clothes.

In India, though, I love shopping. There are so many pretty clothes in all sizes, colors, shapes and patterns, I simply cannot resist looking at them, touching them and buying them. Luckily, Indian clothes can be very, very cheap. Medium quality shirts (Kurtas) start at about 200 rupees (3€), so do comfy Indian pants and cotton leggings, which are usually worn with Kurtas. Higher quality Kurtas and pants come at around 350-400 rupees.

 Kurta, pants and shawl. A typically Indian outfit.

This is, of course, all cotton or cotton-polyester. Although silk is famously manufactured in India, it is really expensive here. So, I stick with the beautiful cotton clothes for now. They might not be as breathable but they sure are very comfy and light enough for the Bangalorean weather.

My new favorite Kurta :)

 

You may call me insane but I simply love Indian clothes and shopping for them, even or especially if it involves going to a very crowded market where people shout random prices at you from each direction and where there are so many stalls and people that you can hardly even walk.