CALVIN

CALVIN
CALVIN - THE KING

Saturday 27 October 2007

My Memoirs of A Himalayan Trek


I was new to group travel. I have always been a solo traveller, or at most with no more than a couple of buddies.
The whole group dynamics thing hardly rated a mention in my thoughts. I simply thought, if I don't like the other people in my group I can just walk away. This walking away theory may well work in other places, but when outside is below zero, you are days away from civilisation and the only quiet place as an alternative, is an icy long drop toilet, you ain't walking away from nobody.
So who is in your group, how they act, and how you react make an awfully big difference to the enjoyment of your holiday.
After getting this rather rude surprise I asked a few of my friends upon my return about their encounters with group travel. Surprisingly their stories matched mine in some places. It seemed there are certain categories inherent in travelling groups and they seem to evolve and mutate like dank, green fungus the longer you go on.
Here's a few of the standard roles that exist in travelling groups, and do be mindful that you too could fall victim…
The Scaredy Cat

I must confess to being part of this group occasionally, in particular around steep descents and ice. Scaredy Cats, at best, are great canaries in the coalmine, as they can warn the group at an early stage of impending danger. At worst, they are that whingeing, squealing girl who is screams to her husband that she is too afraid to walk in the mud just in case they get a leech. (Right…a leech at 14,000 metres).
There was however one time when I couldn't quite bring myself to make it to the outside toilet one night. This was because of the killer cows.
I woke up sometime in the wee hours…they are called wee hours as you do this regularly at altitude as you are drinking so much…and started to make my way to the little wooden long drop. I got to the lodge doorway and looked outside. Well firstly it was snowing. I had never seen that before. I looked up at the beautiful light flakes floating down. They were almost glowing as the moon lit each and every one. I then shined my torch down to check how deep the snow was and was met with a set of glowing orange eyes. I almost didn't need to reach the outhouse after that.
In fact, on closer inspection, there were two sets of demon eyes, and I could hear a few bells mysteriously clanging quite close to me. This was yeti territory.
As my eyes got better used to the dark I could make out it was a few cold dyokyos (half cow, half yak) huddling together in the snow. Still they were too close and they had horns and there were some just moseying on around the toilet that could gore me if they wanted. But god, what was with the eye thing?
So I did what any Scaredy Cat would do. I went and woke up someone for help. My husband wasn't amused.
Well not until I told him about the Killer Cows and since he was originally a country boy, I suggested he would know whether it was normal that their eyes glowed in the dark.
He was intrigued. He ended up laughing his head off as he made shushing noises leading me to the toilet. He even waited outside just in case the killer cows tried to get me whilst I was over the toilet. (Notice I said over the toilet, not on the toilet.)
The Photographic FanaticLook, I've probably got more cameras than most people--count' em, five--but what makes a photographic fanatic is that is that they talk about it ALL the time. And they always presume that you know nothing at all. We had this one guy on the trip who was carrying a huge backpack chocful of every bit and piece you could ever imagine and all of the stuff he could attach by various gadgets to his rather ordinary Pentax. And he did nothing else than talk about it all.
Let me give you an example. You: "Oh look it's Mount Everest!" Him: "Well you will need a red filter and a polariser to capture the highlights." You: " Wow, this would look great in black and white." Him: "Really, I'm using colour. Black and white here may be a little difficult to shoot due to the strong contrast. I could show you how…" You: " This chanting by the monks is so peaceful isn't it?" Him: "Huh? It's too low in light to take photos in here, I'm going back outside." He even had his own photographic assistant with him…oh, I mean his wife.
The Jock

Jocks come in both sexes and can be any shape or size. The main defining characteristic is the super-concentrated dose of ego gratification they bring with them everywhere and the total disregard to the journey. We had a number of jock types but two in particular were outstanding in their category.
One, a girl, took 30 herb and vitamin tablets per day and did not bother bringing a camera as, "Well, all the mountains look alike really." The other, a guy, would take great pleasure in rushing ahead and disdainfully looking down from the day's high point on those of us who were taking it a little slower. He usually would be sitting on a rock laughing at us poor puffing souls as we staggered into camp.
Happily, he was duly rewarded for his haste and bad manners by a few days of high-pressure vomiting due to altitude sickness at our high point.
The Clown

We had a brilliant clown on this trip. This guy was from far north Queensland and really played on that. This means he spoke slow, acted slow, and had a funny hat. His hat actually was his entree into many a village and conversation. It was knitted from hemp fibre so it looked like a floppy knitted hat made from brown string, and it actually grew. As the lethal cocktail of sweat, snow, and dust seeped into it, the hat transformed itself into an organic living thing. By the end of the trip it had distended down over his eyes, it had changed colour, it had seeds germinating on it, and it had even been spat in by a Sherpa lady. We aren't sure why she spat in it, but I suspect it must have been a kind of warding off evil type thing…either that or she was trying to kill it. It was a very furious spit, let me tell you.
This guy would also serenade us every morning with a song. There would be a new one every day and because the lodges are so simple and very open, sound carries extremely well, so no matter where you were you could hear him. You could even sing along if you were so inclined, as I often did.
Imagine it is 6 a.m., you are just waking up, and you look out your window and see a veritable panorama of pristine mountains tinted pink from the dawn. The air is clean and cold. You hear very little but the crunch of a few pairs of boots outside in the snow UNTIL : the theme of "Neighbours" comes cracking into your head. The singer is vastly flat.
The day before it was John Williamson's "True Blue," and day before that an incredibly enthusiastic rendition of Whitney Houston's " I Will Always Love You."
Man, I loved the mornings!
The Virgin Traveller

Yes, there are people who reach their mid-20s and have never travelled. I love watching these people because everything, yes everything, is fascinating. They get bugs in their mouths for keeping them open in amazement so long. Our one lone Kiwi was a travel virgin and for someone on his first time, he was not taking it easily.
Directly after a 25-day Nepalese trek, he was going on a 21-day back roads of Vietnam trip, and then within days a two-week trek in the jungles of Borneo. To think you can happily survive all of that in a row is definite naive traveller territory. Last time I saw him he had a big sore on his nose from a combination of windburn and sunburn ("I didn't know I would need that strong a sunblock"), none of his clothes fit ("Oh, I didn't know I may lose weight"), and I gave him my supply of travel medicine ("You would be OK to eat most cooked things in Vietnam, wouldn't you?").
The Me Too

I don't suffer fools gladly. It's not one of my better more humane points, but stupidity gives me the creeps. And the worst kind of stupid is the kind that lets others make all their decisions for them. In a group it can be tempting not to think and just go along for the ride, but The Me Too really pushes that to ridiculous limits. "Oh, you are having two eggs? I should too." "Oh, you are wearing your waterproof, I better go back and put mine on too." " I don't know what to do once we get back to Kathmandu…should I shower or shave first?" My answer to the last question, was "I do hope you have a really sharp razor."

Friday 26 October 2007

Biking in Himachal



There is splendid biking in northern India. The traffic along the trunkroads has become distinctly dangerous but once off the main roads India is a wonderful country for cycling, especially in Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. Here are some notes from a 2700 km tour we made in 1999.
We took a taxi to Manali at 2000 m altitude in Himachal Pradesh with the bikes still boxed up. A bit expensive but well worth the money to be able to start with our equipment in perfect condition. Our route took us first to Lahul and Spiti then back to Lahul and on to Ladakh, Nubra, Pangong Lake, Tso Moriri and back to Manali via Lahul. Nubra and Pangong we visited as excursions from Leh, where we could leave some of the weight and spend some time recuperating between rides and before setting out for the long ride back to Manali.

Our route was consistently in mountains above 3000 metres. We carried a mountain tent (Hilleberg Namatj) and some dehydrated food and a stove (Trangia Kerosene) that we used some nights, though most we slept in local hotels bringing our cycles into our room and eating the food that was locally available. It would be possible to ride from Manali to Leh without tent but it would be considerably harder, not least because of the altitudes, having to spend the night out, or getting acute mountain sickness, could be fatal.
We used mountain bikes, Crescent Ultima, with steel frames, and ancient Tange front shocks. Our panniers were Karrimore's largest in the back, and one for the front hanging on the steering bar. We used Tubus chromoly racks, and found them light and durable. Headset and stems were Tioga, bars were Kalloy, saddles Avocet Air Titanium, and the drive train a mix of XT and XTR components. Front deraileur XT, 22,32,44, back deraileur XTR, cassette XT 11-34, Sachs power chain, bottom bracket UN72. Rims Mavic 117, hubs Tioga in front, XT on the back wheel. Tyres were Micheline Wild Grippers and Geax as spares. The gear mostly held up fine, but we had some problems. A back wheel got out of true and the rim started to come apart badly after our trip to Nubra which involved endless fast descents with consistent breaking: e.g., some 70 km in one go from Khardong La to Nubra. A Swiss MTB group could fortunately sell us a wheel. A front deraileur crashed travelling up the Indus valley to Mahe, where it was used heavily as one would go in a speed of 40 km one minute, and 4 the next. I had to switch the chain between the front rings manually for some 700 km after that. Surprisingly, it worked quite well. Mainly due to the topography: in Ladakh it is either up or down. The Karrimore panniers were not really up to sustained riding on rough roads: the weakest link turned out to be the bolts that connected them to the mechanism they hung on. They gradually fell apart. Most disappointing was that the aluminium bar that carried one of our front bags snapped at Chang La in the cold of an early morning. The cold had made it brittle. A black smith in Leh made us a new of a disused steel wire.
Culturally and ethnically our route took us through great variations. In Manali the dominant people are Parabatyas, who are culturally close to the Chetris of Nepal, north of Rothang Jot people are culturally close to Tibet. They are Lama Buddhists and speak Tibetan dialects. In Ladakh the Buddhists are dominant, but there is also a significant Muslim minority, both Baltis who also speak a Tibetan dialect and Kashmiri. On the high plains one encounters Champas, semi nomads who speak Tibetan. There is also a great number of people from the plains in Ladakh.

World Filled With Wonder and Magic



Nobody owns a mountain

Nobody owns the sea,

None can possess the sunshine -

A bright reaching Summertime tree.

Nature is all around us

Lending her special charms,

Touching God's world with her magic

And holding it fast in her arms.

No one can hold a snowflake

So quickly it melts away,

We can't bid the twilight to linger

When it comes to the end of day.

Rainbows are but for a moment

There in the blue of the sky,

Bright colored leaves of the Autumn

Are gone in a blink of the eye.

Winter soon changes to Springtime

Then quickly a soft Summer day

Fades to the magic of Autumn

Then white Winter snowflakes at play.

A world filled with wonder and magic

Miracles loaned from above,

Yet no one ever can own them

They are God's gifts of heavenly love.

Thursday 25 October 2007

Enchanted Moonlight.




Enchantment. The word is enjoying a giddy revival these days. Books and seminars for reenchanting your life are everywhere. The word itself is tantalizing, tickling the tongue like a spoonful of spiced berries. But what is enchantment? It is that innocent sense of wonder that startles us, melts us and lifts us out of ordinary time and space into a magical realm where, for perhaps a heady instant, we know, really know, that mountains and trees can speak.
Living among animals wild and domestic in my Himalayan home, I'm blessed with a steady and magnificent assortment of guides into other worlds. Animals can tilt me off-center like nothing else. My appreciation of their "otherness" carries me instantly into another kind of consciousness. In this state of mind, I am again a child, innocent, playful and wide-eyed. It is on this unfamiliar ground that enchantment is often discovered.
.Last night was a perfect example. In honor of the full moon, my husband and I drove out to watch it rise over our favorite spot. A veil of steam and a blanket of ice crystals sparkling like tiny fireflies welcomed us as we pulled up to the edge of the water. We sat in silence, bathed in surreal blue moonlight. Eventually my attention drifted to the top of a bluff next to us. Silhouetted against the skyline was a moving creature. The creature shifted and took form. A deer! The surprise took my breath away. A dewlap hung from her chin like a medicine bag, and steam curled from her nostrils while she gazed down at me in all her glory. As the moon came up behind her, she pawed the snow with impossibly long silver legs. An enchantress is what she was: stunning, evocative, magnificent. My breath stopped and then fell in time with hers........



Another enchanted moment came courtesy of a flock of white butterflies that danced across our snow-covered yard. Rooted to my desk, I felt my heart slowly lighten and skip-hop in response to the fluttering of a hundred wings. And just last week I watched our dogs and cats wrestle and play. When I turned back to my work, I felt exhilarated, as if I myself had romped away those moments among them. Perhaps I had.



I used to think of these as sweet memories in the making, pleasant interludes in a busy schedule. Now I know these excursions into enchantment for what they really are: small journeys into the depths and corners of reality. I hang bird feeders, plant butterfly gardens and set out cat and dog food, but in return, the animals give me back something far more nourishing.........SOUL FOOD.

WHY WRITE ?


The best thing about writing is that moment where the feature catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what they are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising and it's magic and wonderful and strange.You don't live there always when you write. Mostly it's a long hard walk. Sometimes it's a trudge through fog and you're scared you've lost your way and can't remember why you set out in the first place.But sometimes you fly, and that pays for everything. And I cannot wait to get back to it....

Ten Interesting Blog Trends


While researching blogs I have stumbled across some interesting and some not so interesting blogs. A number of people write about dull topics like the social life of their dust bunnies, which of course is ok, but not so interesting. Whereas others take the time to write compelling commentary on controversial or motivating topics that inspire empathy and action.


Blogs are an outlet and a stimulator, and unlike many publishing sources, blogs are equally available to everyone. So no matter how uncommon, unique or trivial the topic is, it can be shared.


Here are ten interesting trends I have have noticed in the Blogosphere:


Informative Blogs:

I commend the time it must take to research and write informative blogs. Some cover topics in history or current events; others relate detailed information on hobbies, techniques or procedures.
Creative Rants:

Rants are posted everywhere and I understand that it must feel good to get the frustration out. But some bloggers have made the extra effort to make their rants entertaining, informative and even funny.
Company Weblogs:

Companies are beginning to see the benefit of projecting a more “human” or “approachable” image and are publishing blogs. I have seen some blogs that do a good job at educating customers about products or even frustrations and accomplishments involved in developing a new product.
Personal Accounts:

Often news broadcasters/ publishers do not have the time or space to relate the whole story. Some writers are taking it upon themselves to document the daily details of an event, like a political race or a natural disaster. This has added a ground level, human voice to pivotal events.
Cultural Introspectives:

Some people are using their blogs to help others understand their culture, history and social views, in hope that understanding will inspire improved global relations and altruistic action.
Pioneering Ideas:

Many blogs start a buzz or promote original ideas before they are realized or marketed to the general public. Since most blogs are not motivated by monetary goals they are free avenues of discussion of innovative or alternative thought.
Niche Notching:

Blogs are cheap or free and readily available, so even blogs that cover obscure or unique topics find readers. No matter what your interest is, you can find a blog on that topic.
Family Blogs: Staying in touch is hard and there are always schedule conflicts. Some families use a blog to share family news and pictures and the blog is available to the entire family anytime of day.
Creative Writing:

Getting published is hard; publishing a book takes a long time and comes with challenges. Some writers are skipping the traditional publishing route and just writing. Blogs can get a writers work out to the world in a hassle free manner. We found many well–composed and thoughtful posts originated by talented writers.
Travel Blogs:

We discovered interesting travel accounts. Some bloggers write about vacationing, others about their tour of service or their research and humanitarian efforts in an impoverished or developing country.


Blogs can inspire, inform or incite. They can be used to document the smallest detail of one life or the largest, most urgent issues of the entire human race. No matter the topic or the writer this avenue of self expression is open to everyone.