December 13, 2008, New Delhi: I MADE IT!

It saddens me to say that this will be my final post. My last few days in Delhi were spent saying goodbye to Syreeta and Jeanie, sending some things home and cramming in a few remaining sights in India's capital. Sitting in the airport and knowing that my trip was over wasn't as sad as I thought it was going to be; in fact, I was ready to go home, and excited about my week layover in Germany to visit friends. Being back in the West needed some getting used to at first (i.e. Western ideas of mild mannered behavior in restaurants and on public transport). I had forgotten that queues are mandatory for purchasing tickets, and that asking someone if the water's boiled might not be necessary. Being loved on by friends and family, on the other hand, came like back second nature.

A word to my faithful followers: I thank you all for reading and responding to my blog. www.minu-ga-hana.blogspot.com has served, in a way, as either a really high-tech travelogue or a really emotionally unavailable travel companion. There were so many things over the past several months that I experienced, interpreted, remembered, and blogged, so as to share with my family, loved ones, and friends what I was experiencing. This process was often done without an additional perspective or feedback from a fellow traveler. That being said, traveling alone, and recording my thoughts in a digital journal, with the assistance of photography and video, has provided a means of recording what I saw, and how I interpreted it to be viewed by those not experiencing the events first-hand. The feedback I received from you, sometimes on the site, sometimes in private emails, was the only continuous, second-party response I could gather, seeing as my settings and acquaintances were constantly changing. In a way this blog has somehow served a rather illusory means of bringing you all with me. Oftentimes I experienced things, wondering how people would respond when I blogged about it; some things I purposefully avoided documenting. My mom scolded when I was too "adventurous," my family comforted me when I was lonely, and my friends laughed with me over funny stories. Knowing that these exchanges would be possible via blog and email made you all much more present in my mind, and often influenced some of my choices and the way I viewed certain places. I wouldn't call a travel blog cheating, although honestly, it was often that which kept me going. And granted, a traveler only one generation ago would not have been able to document a fraction of what I have. But I'm glad I've done it, and I'm glad you may have enjoyed it, and once again, I thank you for taking part in it.

As to the meaning of "minu-ga-hana": it's a Japanese saying that essentially translates into "not seeing is a flower" or rather "ignorance is bliss." In previous travels, I've realized that some places remain better unvisited. The value of a culture, the richness of a history, and the depth of a religion is sometimes not best interpreted through the eyes of a tired, hassled and lonely backpacker. After months of worldly wonders and sleepless nights, how well can a weary traveler appreciate the complexities of places so foreign? So at the beginning of my trip I posed myself this question, "Is ignorance bliss?" Now I look back on my trip and ask myself the same question. Has walking down Ko Sahn Road, along the Great Wall, up the Himalayas and beside the footsteps of Gandhi enriched my perspective on things that beforehand were largely left to Encyclopedias and my imagination? Through all the difficulties and frustrations, yes, it honestly has; but important to remember was always the singularity of that one day and that one person that so shaped my memory of that one place. In traveling one reaches a zenith of random subjectivity. Without the proper mindset, one form of ignorance simply lends itself to another. In this sense, it's hard to answer questions like "So, do you like India?" or "What are Chinese people like?" I can't quite remember what my expectations were going into the trip in terms of these big questions, but I have learned about myself and how I respond in extreme situations (see entire blog). Beyond that I met heaps of wonderful people and had the opportunity to confront some of this earth's most defining attributes; human, natural and otherwise. Ignorant? Less. Blissful? Indeed.

Punjab!

Since we didn't want to spend the last 5 days of our holidays in Smelly Delhi we decided on visiting another city; the capital of Punjab. Chandigahr is the actually an invented city, arbitrarily placed over former farm lands by the state of Punjab. After Independence and the separation of Pakistan, the Punjabi people lost their capital Lahore. As a sign of the New India, moving forward and embracing its modern identity as the most populous democracy in the world, Prime Minister Nehru decided to build a new city from scratch by bidding out its urban planning to Western architects. The Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, ultimately won the bid and set out to plan a city laid out in superblocks in which work, education and recreation (body, mind and soul) are integrated into a unified cityscape.
Today, only 50 years after it inception, Chandigarh is home to almost a million Punjabis, a massive complex of political and cultural institutions and boasts one of the highest standards of living in India, all of this within the context of mid 20th century, post war, European architecture.
If you've noticed I've taken quite a few pictures of turbans in their native setting. I think the turban is misunderstood and falsely represented in the West. Most people are scared of the turban, intimidated by the turban, and even make fun of the turban. Turban wearers are not to be feared or laughed at, in fact, they are mostly worn by Sikhs, a peaceful offshoot of Hinduism that rejects caste distinctions. Turbans are worn to bundle and set a man's hair because it's viewed as sacred and, therefore, not to be cut. I found the turban rather distinguished looking and even tried my own version. Alas, my lack of hair and proper material made me fail miserably.
We spent our few days touring the government buildings and recreational parks of the Punjabi capital. Our highlight was a massive rock garden, discovered decades after a single man created an extensive playground out of the left-over materials from Chandigarhs first phase of construction.

Agra

I think one of the reasons we all got along so well was because Syreeta and Jeanie really have a heart for power traveling. On our last evening in Varanasi we boarded an overnight train (2nd class no AC of course) en route to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. We arrived in the morning at 8am, spent the day in and around the Taj Mahal, soon discovered that Agra, as a city, is not worth visiting and promptly boarded an evening train to Delhi. Three cities, two trains, and one wonder of the world in 15 hours, boo-ya!

Varanasi

Boarding a bus to come back to India was jolting; the bus was packed full of Indians heading back to the border, the interior lined with faux golden siding, statues of Hindu gods, multi-colored tassels and graced by the melody of our music box-esque horn. Lucky for me I met two other Indian backpacking veterans, Syreeta and Jeanie, both on their way back to India via Varanasi after a stint of mountain air. Syreeta is herself Indian, born in Manchester and moved to London where she met and befriended Jeanie in art school. Most Indians assumed that Jeanie and I were married, because unmarried co-eds seen together in public is scandalous in most parts of the Sub-continent, and the fact that Syreeta spoke like a Brit but looked like an Indian was absolutely mind-boggling. After thoroughly explaining how Jeanie and I were only friends and Syreeta was born of two immigrants, most Indians were too baffled to even ask us our names. Together, we had a blast.
Seeing as we all had similar itineraries and almost identical flights out of Delhi on the 13th, we decided to stick together for the remaining 9 days of our trip. Our first stop, Varanasi.
Varanasi is most famous for the River Ganges; a river which by international health standards is considered septic, and by ancient Hindu tradition the most holy religious site of the last four millennia. In fact, if a Hindu's body is burned on the banks and then thrown into the river, they are guaranteed a spot in paradise. I didn't quite figure out how that played into the cycle of endless births, but I took them on their word anyway. Over 60 sewage systems run into the river in and around Varanasi and countless high-emissions industries are located just upstream. This provides for a water system that is so contaminated, that if the bacteria were cut into 1/1000, it still wouldn't be suitable for bathing water in the united states. One day while sitting on the banks, observing the thousands of visitors who make pilgrimages to the river to drink and bath from its waters and man looked at me and said, "you think this is disgusting, but this is my god". I was thrown for a loop by this comment. I wasn't trying to give the impression that I found his rituals disgusting, but I assumed that he could read my thoughts seeing as I was armed with several bottles of water, long pants, a long shirt and was in the middle of reapplying even more insect repellent. Coming to Varanasi was difficult, people told me that I would get sick, it's unavoidable, everything is just too polluted. Even seeing the presence of Western NGO's in Varanasi attempting to clean up the river, makes it difficult as a traveler to understand why these people after thousands of years of possible "development" and in the face of modern medicine and sanitation practices, they continue to do what for most Westerners would end with 6 months in quarantine. But like that guy said, this is their god, and they're obviously not interested in our hygiene. One of our days we spent at the university in Varanasi, one of the largest engineering schools in the world. We wondered the day away, talking to college students about life at Indian universities and marveling at the libraries continued employment of the Dewey Decimal System. On our last day I happened upon one of the above mosaics of a Space Invader. Space Invader, an artist from France, travels the world "invading" cities with his miniature mosaics that resemble the villains in that ancient Atari game. Since I first discovered one of his pieces on the Notre Dame a couple years back, I've tried to find as many as I can in cities around the world. Each invader is worth a different amount of points and cities' point values range from in the 100's to the 1000's. Check out more of his work at Urban Invasion Detected

Don't JUMP!

Back in civilization were awaiting me a hot pizza and an even hotter shower, and in cyber space were awaiting me several dozen emails asking me if I was still alive after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Although I was several thousand kilometers away and separated by a Himalayan mountain range, I still appreciated the concern. Not totally given to the idea of "fleeing the country", I did decide to spend a couple more days in Nepal before making my way back down to India for the final leg of my journey. So to substitute the supposed danger of traveling through India as a foreigner, I decided to spend a freezing morning suspended thousands of meters in the air by a couple dozen nylon strings at the total mercy of what Buck, my paragliding tandem, called "thermal pockets". You can't really make it out in this picture but these paragliders were parahawking. This involves training a hawk to fly off and find pockets of warm air where tricks, such as barrel rolls, can be performed. If the hawk is successful, it cries and then flies back to the paraglider, lands on its arm, and receives a treat. Paracrazy.Since I was one of his only customers who managed a take off that he didn't have to salvage by almost knocking me unconscious, he let me take the reigns for a couple of minutes. Thanks Buck!

The descent via Poon Hill

and If you look back to the map from my last posting you can see the way I descended, via TadapaniGhorepani so that I could wake up 4:30 in the morning and make it up to Poon Hill before sunrise. Poon Hill, named after a Napali Ghorka soldier, is claimed to be the mountain vista with the most visible peaks in the world, provided there are no clouds, which there were :(The way down afforded countless views of my point of highest ascent. On the way to Poon Hill however, it was finally engulfed in the foothills surrounding it. This picture is an ode to my most favorite peak, Mt. Fishtail, right before our final parting. You'd be surprised how attached you become to visual landmarks after countless hours of climbing in their direction, only to see them become infinitesimally larger (or smaller) in view at the end of the day.

This is a porter carrying someone's stuff for them. They usually set out early in the morning to reach that day's destination early enough to prepare the bed and food for the people who hired them.

Although the view toward the mountains was completely clouded over, the sunrise over Poon Hill was a perfect way for me to say goodbye to the Anapurna Mountain Range. The week I spent in its hills and valleys was a much needed break away from the urban havoc that was awaiting me back in India. Meanwhile, current events decided to wait on my absence before changing the world I had left. When I arrived in Pokhara that afternoon, Obama was President-elect, Thailand was shut down, the financial crisis became a full-on, global recession and India was threatening troop mobilization against Pakistan. Suddenly my blisters and aches were once again put into perspective.

What remains of the glacier.

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Originally uploaded by ethan.arrow

If you turn your speakers up really load you can hear the glacier breaking apart. Pesky Democrats and their global warming conspiracy.

The trek to Anapurna Base Camp

Upon further research, I discovered that the original trek I wanted to do wouldn't be possible in under three weeks, and the other one wasn't worth it unless you were interested in climbing stairs for 9 days and 2 inevitable knee replacements. So given my firm belief that I suffer from Osgood Schlatters and a pair of mismatched legs I decided on another trek that wouldn't only take me straight up one side of a mountain, but rather, up and down several and finally up to the Anapurna Base Camp, which lies at 4100 meters and serves as the launching point for 3 different summit climbs reaching well above 8000 meters. In the end, it turned out to be more climbing meter-for-meter in altitude but was worth it for the eye candy.

If you look at the above map in the bottom right-hand corner you'll see Pokhara, where I started and ended my trek, also one largest cities in Nepal 8 hours east of Kathmandu. From there I took a bus to Phedi, where I was greeted with a 500 meter initial climb up a flight of boulders with only myself and the Beast (see photo of backpack below). A typical day of trekking consisted of waking around 7am, breakfasting a bowl of warm porridge, an apple, ginger tea and setting out on the trails no later than 8am. I usually hiked 8 hours a day, stopping several times along the way for lunch, more water and the occasional avoidance of stampeding pack mules.

The villages along the way were heavily influenced by tourism, offering a host of tea house-style accommodations, lukewarm showers and mostly identical menus of overpriced, Nepali versions on Western dishes. Aside from the obvious marks of our "neo-imperialism" the tribal people, as far as social formation goes, largely still adhere to tradition. Villages consisting of 40 people or less are separated from the one just a few meters down the mountain by caste identification and may even differ in dialect. Complex networks of trade and bartering allow products that can only be grown at certain altitudes to be dispersed around the region. And aside from the presence of Western trekkers, the Anapurna region is under strict conservationist protection from further development.


It took me approximately four whole days of trekking to reach the base camp at 4100 meters. While rounding peaks, viewing waterfalls and discovering new flora and fauna proved parts of the journey exhilarating, other parts- for instance staring across a valley to another peak, realizing that the only way across is straight down and straight up- were downright soul destroying. Many fellow trekkers hired a porter and a guide to carry their bags and lead them to the top. In continuity with the months I had behind me, I did without both, and on a few occasions, spared a few pennies by sleeping in the dining hall with the Sherpas. (Aren't I hardcore?) Actually, aside from some alleviated back pain, most of the available "luxuries" were unnecessary and didn't afford the full freedom to explore and interact the way I was able to. On the way up I ran into yet another childhood friend from Longwood, Lyndsey Curry. For a town of only a couple thousand, we sure are representin' in Asia. We talked and caught up on the last 15 years, acknowledged the surrealness of the moment and continued our separate ways. 'Shout out' Lyndsey. Things went beautifully until around 3500 meters. I'm usually the last person the get motion/sea/ or exotic food sickness, but on the final day I was suffering from AMS. Though none of my symptoms were extreme, they still deterred me from sleeping the night before reaching the base camp and spending too long at the top the next day.
An actual avalanche in process. No worries, my camera was fully zoomed for this shot.
Reaching the top was very rewarding and having to head back the same way rather anticlimactic, but it was awesome to be at yet another destination that can't be reached without days of grueling exertion or the duplicity of modern transportation.