Lassies in Kathmandu

Dear friends,

Sorry about the mass email - especially to some of you that I haven't
corresponded with for sometime. However, I hope you'll agree it's much
more interesting to get a random email from Nepal telling you about
traveling adventures than a scheduled email without much new to say
:-)

The Backstory:
----------------------
I was in Boston till about the end of August, doing the usual work
thing - climbing, working on interesting things - life was good.
However, it was in a holding pattern, not moving in any particular
direction - I was lacking any real long term goals and had few short
term goals that I could get excited about. So I figured instead of
chilling in Boston, I should get back to traveling, experience the
world, have some more adventures, return to India after a long-long
time. Of course, as it so happened some friends were planning on going
to the mountains in Nepal, which meant this was the perfect
opportunity to take off on that traveling adventure.

Sept
-------
So I took off from work in Sept, visited some dear old friends and
family. Then spend some time hiking, climbing, camping in NH - in
preparation for coming to Nepal - but really I no longer had my
apartment, and though there were many a nice couches with the great
company of friends - I was looking forward to some time in the white
mountains of New Hampshire.

Now:
------
Since then I've made it back to India after 17 years, visited some old
friends - reminisced about the old times and been trekking in Nepal
since the beginning of Oct. We just got back from doing the Annapurna
circuit the day before yesterday - tomorrow we're heading out to
Sagarmatha National Park to do some mountaineering and trekking. The
Annapurna trek was spectacular: wandering through small mountain
villages, enjoying magnificeint views of ginormous mountains
(giagantic+enormous - only way to describe them), meeting interesting
people. Tilicho lake at 5000m was probably the highlight of the trek -
it is beautiful, surrounded by tall mountains that you really get to
see up close and personal - you feel like you want to climb right up -
but of course even though they look close, they do not look any
smaller or less formidable.

About the `Lassies in Kathmandu' - well I hadn't been very motivated
to spam you all yet - especially since I wanted to first update my
blog before sending you all a link to it. But then as we were taking a
walk (my friend alex + I), we stopped by at a little place to have
delicious lassies recommended by our friends (Misha + Rita). the
lassies (fresh yogurt drink) with a thick layer of cream topped off
with nuts and raisins were mmm .. mmm .. good. Interestingly enough,
it was a very small operation with two guys selling only lassies -
doing one thing, but doing it well!

They were so good, they inspired me to get this email out before
heading off on our trip in the morning :-) .. my blog:
http://aimlessplanet.blogspot.com/

So lacking creativity and being a rocket scientist I used
aimlessplanet (aimless `wanderer') for the name since everything else
was taken. The title `How far you can see from here' was a suggestion
from a much more creative friend (phelpse for those who know him).

It'll probably be sparse for another few weeks as I'm heading off in
the morning and I have yet to put up pictures. Hope you're all doing
most excellent as well!

Namaste & Tashi Delek (hello + goodbye in Tibetan),
- jasmine

Day 11: On to Thorung La High Camp

10.14.08

Thorung La High Camp
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Invading clouds obscure the landscape,
Window of blue sky and white peaks,
Golden clouds reflect the sunset.

- sitting a little ways up from high camp, I was watching the sunset as the clouds were moving in.

------------------------------------------------

This morning we had tsampa for breakfast - our host fed us in the kitchen since it was too cold in the dining room. He let us add our cost - he seemed to trust us and perhaps this business was more for fun. Maybe the missus prefers him to be busy and doing something out of the house - though I only presume.

Alex and I came up to Thorung Phedi in about 2.5 hours, enjoyed a quick snack then headed up to high camp and were up there in less than 4 hours (3hr 50mins). The time was good and we felt good so our acclimatization schedule was working well. We did a little bit of running at altitude with our packs on since there was a fear of landslides at one section. Alex had also had a rough night since the daal bhat didn't sit too well with him - a combination of all this made him a little sick at high camp. Now he's doing better, which is good, since both of us prefer to stay here instead of going down. In the evening we walked to the deurali (viewpoint) - it was lovely. We could see the summit of Annapurna III and Gangapurna and 360deg views of snow covered peaks. We see the Thorung la pass, it looks like a slog. There is a dramatic rock face with some snow one one side (southwest?).

High camp is an interesting place, you hear many languages: Hebrew, Russian, Swiss German, Nepali, and Hindi because I'm conversing with a guide who's also a management student and watches Bollywood movies. We also met a female guide with the 3 sisters trekking company. Alex met a group of Russians doing the trek. One of them, from St. Petersburg, thought I was a journalist because of my voracious note taking. He's a construction working, an expert crane operator. He and his friends started on the 9th, are at high camp on the 14th - fast - they fly out of Delhi on the 19th so they have to be fast. Incidentally, their pace was too much for their guide who got altitude sick and went down while they continued - I thought that was pretty funny!

Day 10: Rest day at Yak Kharkaa

10.13.08

Yak Kharkha
-----------

Our friends decided to press on to high camp while Alex and I decide to take an extra rest day. I haven't had a rest day and I can feel myself running low on energy. A day of nothing sounds most excellent. We stayed at a simple, small place. It is not as fancy as the hotel we see a little further, but family owned, clean and it seems to have everything we need. The guy lives in Manang with his wife and comes here to run the place during the season with the help of a young Gurkha boy.

We have probably the best tea of the trek here: real loose leaf jasmine tea. The veg fried rice is also really good. He heats up water on the stove for our showers. I also asked him for a little extra for doing my laundry.

So here we are, sitting outside in the sun washing our clothes, just like our host was about half hour ago. I think that's when he started liking us. Then we really enjoyed flossing, brushing and thoroughly cleaning our teeth. Alex was out exploring while I enjoyed sleeping in the sun all afternoon. For dinner we had enormous portions of daal, bhat which was quite good. The dining room was cold so we joined our host in the kitchen; sat by the fire - a bit like a village in Punjab. There was a dutch guy coming from Bengal - he was a bit strange. We also met a Czech guy - a serious mountaineer. He was soft spoken seemed very nice but spoke limited English. He had just come from a Manaslu expedition - had a beard and a winder burned face.

Day 9: Tilicho Lake

10.11.08 (day 8) / 10.12.08 (day 9)

Tilicho Lake Base Camp
----------------------------------------

- hiked to Tilicho base camp via Kangsar. We stopped in Kangsar to have tea and a 2nd breakfast. Our hostess runs the place by herself; her folks are in Kathmandu and brothers and sisters are in Canada, NY, Singapore. We can see people working from the rooftops - I think they're separating grain from the husk. The radio is playing classic Hindi songs.

The hike to base camp was interesting through alien looking landscape: wind weathered rocks, look like rock tee-pees, lots of scree and landslide area. We can see the river below as we carefully make our way across - the landscape is quite Gray, a great location for a sci-fi.

The hotel at the base camp is most expensive one yet with worst service. I guess they have a monopoly and I don't think the people that are here want to be here - it's pretty lonely. They do it for a living so I guess I don't blame them for not catering much to people like us that actually enjoy being up here, since we're only here for a short time but they have to stay for the entire season.


Tilicho Lake
--------------------

- up at 5:30am. Since breakfast is not served at this hour, we had ordered bread the night before which we now ate with jam and the rest of our nak (female of yak) cheese. It was cold but still good. The only casualty was the milk tea, since it's made from powder milk, the powder separated and it didn't look so good.

- I headed up the lake at 6:20. About half way up, I left the pack for Alex since it had the water; though, perhaps not such a good idea since he doesn't drink much anyway. I made it to the snow field in about 2hrs but it was cold so I decided to come back to the less windy area and hide behind a rock and wait for Alex since the pack has more clothes. The lake is about 30-45mins on the snowfield - simply spectacular!

Deep blue water,
Fed from glaciers,
Not a cloud in the sky,
Surrounded by snow covered giants,
A white landscape
with a blue jewel in the centre.

Nestled between beautiful mountains, the 4km by 2km lake stands at 4920m. We cannot see Annapurna I from here. We head down after lunch and stayed at the Tilicho peak hotel above the gompa. I was reading Tagore's essay on woman which gets us started on a discussion about male-female gender differences .. probably one of Alex + my favourite topics :-) .. Rita is also with us though Misha is out photographing things. The Swiss guy sitting next to us is amused by our discussion and jumps in on occasion. He too is on his journey, not sure how long he will be gone. He's heading over to India next for a spiritual and meditative quest.

This is nice hotel. Another family run establishment. A young guy manages it - he's the son I think. He has a big stack of bollywood movies and the food is great!

Day 7: Ice lakes from Braga

10.10.08

Ice Lakes from Braga
--------------------
It's a rest day, but I really want to go check out the ice lakes. I'll head up there after breakfast (6:30am) and rest in the afternoon.

I started at 7:10 and was up at the 2nd lake by 9:45am (2hr 35mins; 3500m to ~4600m, I think). It felt good. I soaked in the views of Annapurna, plotted routes that people might take when climbing the giant - the mountain looked friendly and climbable on such a beautiful day, though appearance can be deceptive, in reality it is a long ways to the top. After 30mins I started down.

The Swiss couple who started a little behind me were just getting to the first lake, said I must've been going fast as they couldn't catch me :-) .. I guess I was. I met quite a few other tourists on my way down and was glad to have started early to have enjoyed the beauty of this place in solitude. In my hurry to get down, I somehow lost the trail, found a little dog as a companion and followed him down - which then got me off the path a 2nd time and we (dog and I) ended up coming down what looked like a goat path on the mountain side; very dusty and a little sketchy but fun!

In Braga, we also met Misha + Rita's friend Ben from Holland. He's an interesting character. He spends 9 or 10 months of the year travelling in Nepal, India, Myanmar, SE Asia. The other two months he's back home in Holland. When he's travelling, he rents out his apartment and evidently that's enough to continue his journeys.

Day 6: In Braga

10.9.08

Braga: New Yak Hotel (no joke!)

In Braga, we are staying at the new yak hotel. It's a nice establishment, much more like a small business than the homey places we've stayed at thus far. Good food though! The tsampa porridge is smaller in portion. After Ngawal, where I was unable to finish my porridge and had to stuff myself in spite of the fact that I had help finishing it, I decided to share the tsampa with Alex. Of course, this time the portion was more normal size unlike Ngawal and I was to get hungry pretty fast at mid-morning. As such, Alex already calls me the `ever hungry' person - but there is just no way to know how big the meal will be :-) .. besides, as we're doing more acclimatization hikes, my appetite is also expanding.

We visited Milereppa's cave and the Annapurna glacier for our second acclimatization day - it is beautiful. Milereppa was a 12th or 13th c. Buddhist monk and poet who meditated up here. It was about an hour and 15mins to the cave. The lady who owns the New Yak has been to India a few times: to Bodhgaya, Dharamsala, Amritsar. Her daughter is studying to be a nurse in Kathmandu. She was always a good student but can't afford medical school so is studying nursing. People are very friendly, especially to me as I look like them - they always ask if I'm Indian then start chatting. We also visited a 500 year old gompa.

Day 5: Acclimatization in Ngawal

10.8.08

Random notes about Ngawal village:
----------------------------------

Rooftops dotted with prayer flags,
blowing wind carrying the prayers,
stone houses, solar panels,
children playing,
Annapurna II, III,
Gangapurna, Chulli,
mountains surround us,
bright, beautiful morning,
grandma talks to me,
perhaps because I look like her:
`where are you from?'
I say: India and America.
She proudly names all the beautiful peaks surrounding us.

She makes a gesture either indicating our hard trek or their hard life of carrying everything up here without cars - I presume it's the latter - Tashi Delek.

-----------------------------

We did an acclimatization hike from Ngawal. We visited the stuppas above the village. There is also a sort of a cave up there, marked with a lot of prayer flags, I presume a monk must've meditated here. I had a slight headache at first but was good after drinking water. We had a quick lunch of thenthuk at hotel Kailash, say bye to our host Maya and were off to Braga.

On our way down to Braga, we stopped at the Tibetan monastery school. There were about ~ 50 kids there, some from India (Assam) and some from Mustang. It was great to talk to them in Hindi, they were very polite - called me didi (big sister) and showed us around the school and the gompa. They study Tibetan, English and Nepali. They're playing something like marbles but with stones, I wish I could send them some things though I don't know where I'd send it.

We finally make it to Braga, the hike should've been short though it took us awhile, perhaps Alex and I were goofing off. We stopped by at a small place to have some `CHEESE'. There were two kids there, we taught them to play tic-tac-toe - both were quick learners and quite entertaining to watch them play their games.

Day 4: Ngawal via Gyaru

10.7.08
7:45 am

Morning in Upper Pisang:
---------------------------------------------

Bright sunny day,
chasing away morning clouds.

Annapurna II towers above,
looks formidable,
"Himalaya" - abode of snow.

A wall of snow and ice,
rising behind green mountains,
prominent and chiseled features,
as if sculpted by hand.

Exposed patches of rock,
too steep or protected,
for snow to accumulate.

Ridge between east and north face,
sharp as a knife,
beautiful chutes and gullies,
descend from the ridge.

A work of art
expressed on the canvas,
a great variation in form and texture.

Does someone actually climb this?

------------------------------

- enjoyed a scrumptious breakfast: cornbread, buckwheat bread, honey, tsampa (so good!), apple porridge.

The hike from Upper Pisang to Gyaru to Ngawal is beautiful. We took a break at a nice little teahouse in Gyaru. An older lady served us tea, she started conversing with me as I obviously looked Nepali/Indian. She didn't speak much hindi but we communicated nonetheless. Her son spoke English; I left him my novel by Chetan Bhagat. He had moved back from Kathmandu 7 years ago. He was a tattoo artist there, but since his father passed away he helps his mother run the teahouse. He likes Gyaru, it is beautiful but very boring for him.

In Ngawal, we are staying in Kailash guesthouse. It is another very nice, simple, family run establishment. Maya, our host speaks good hindi and english. We invited ourselves to her kitchen, instead of sitting in the dining area, and chatted with her as she made our meals. She was born here and loves this area, it is beautiful. We're eating `thenthuk'; it is a type of stew with lots of vegetables and some dough cooked in it which tastes a little like noodles.

A lot of food grows here, like wheat, buckwheat, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, radish.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Try, try, try again till you succeed ...

or something breaks. I saw a guy trying to fix the tape player on the rooftop terrace. I was curious so I started working with him. He was only too happy to share with me his diagnosis of the problem. He meticulously took the pieces apart. After poking and looking at it, I too understood why it was not quite working - mechanical problem. We used cardboard to fix it, we thought we have a clever idea and were excitedly implementing it. But my friend lost a small piece in the process of pulling things apart. Plus it got cold; as we were engaged in our activity, the clouds had lifted. My friend points out Annapurna II (7555m). Magnificent! We decided to go inside since the sun was disappearing and it was getting cold. There was no light inside - I can help with that with my headlamp. He put the tape recorder back together but we are disappointed as it does not work, or rather it is inconclusive because the missing piece has broken something else. Here we had to stop as we couldn't improvise the missing piece. Sonam is a teacher at the Tibetan school below and also an electrician, up here to set up the electrical system on the lowest floor of Maya's guesthouse.

Day 3: Onward to Upper Pisang

10.6.08

Onward to Upper Pisang:
----------------------------------------------

- started at 7:45 the next morning and had an amazing view of Manaslu after our first uphill.

- got a complement from a Nepali guide that `I was walking fast and strong' :) .. though he perhaps guides a lot of tourists, many of whom may not be routine hikers back home. I told him I always have a little extra energy in the morning, though I need to work on my stamina - I slow down as the day progresses.

- Alex and I saw a little girl playing catch with a hackey - I started playing with her. Pretty soon three other little girls joined. It was a nice experience, I like little people!

- we stopped in Talekhu for lunch: it was some of the best daal, bhat, tarkari yet. Rita, Alex and I were playing with the three kids who I presume lived in this home. Misha was out shooting photographs. The mum of the children was our host - she had a small, clean kitchen with one stove using firewood for fuel. She'd prepared daal (lentils), bhat (rice) and quickly made spinach and potatoes for us. The spinach was fresh from the garden - so good!

- we enjoyed and thanked her for a great meal. In the meantime, a monk had also come and joined. As we left, he decided to walk with us and we soon realised he was drunk as he tried to first test then walk off with my trekking pole. Alex made sure I got it back.

- I also met a guide for a father-daughter team. He's a teacher and they all have holidays for a big festival (Dusarat or Dusherra) so he was out working as a guide. He's a Gurkha and his brother is in the Indian Army, which has Gurkha regiments, actively recruits them. Gurkha's have historically been active members of the Indian Army.

- we walked through a lovely evergreen forest. There was a clear lake along the way, eventually the path led through a big, open valley. Upper Pisang is at ~ 11,000ft (3300m); I felt a bit of a headache in the back of my head.

Day 2: Chyamje to Danaque

10.5.08

The river flows furiously,
carving and weathering rocks,
standing on the bridge,
I feel its spray,
luring me in,
I want to jump,
but I cannot fly.

--------------------
- It was a good day. I was walking pretty fast (I think) - from Chyamje to Tal in < 2hrs; passed all the other travellers in the morning then stayed behind the local mule train.

We stayed for free (thanks to Misha's negotiating skills) at a spacious lodge in Danaque. The lodges make most of the money from food so you're expected to eat meals at the lodge where you stay. A big group had just come into this lodge, it was late in the evening and Misha was likely trying to get a discount. They must've concluded it's better to have us stay and eat there than to have us go elsewhere to a cheaper lodge, so our room's were free of charge. Go Misha!

The large group was Israeli. We've met a fair number of people from Israel; and as I soon learnt, after the mandatory military service many of them take a year or so to just travel. After all the discipline of the military, they let their hair grow, live a very free life, travel and see the world in countries where it is cheap so they can stretch their funds. It's an interesting series of events but the net result seems positive - it's good to experience some of the diversity in the world before you get tied down with things like jobs, life etc.

Their guide, Turong is originally from Tibet. There were two other porters/guides with them. One of them asked in reference to Alex who he is to me? This is an interesting cultural difference, nobody in the West will ever directly ask how two people (guy and girl) travelling together are related. In the East, it's one of the first questions asked. If you're travelling by yourself, one will ask about your family, whether you're married etc - things that people in the West would not ask about, the first time you meet.

Day 1: Bhulbhule to Chyamje

10.4.08

- walked from Bhulbhule to Chyamje, starting at roughly 8am and finishing about 5:30pm.

- since I got too warm in my nylon pants, I changed into my sarong. That was a surprising change for me too, since all the locals happily noticed and smiled as I looked Nepali to them.

- we met Sunuco in Chamje. She works at the lodge we're staying - a delightful young woman. We were able to talk in Hindi and I think she had as much fun chatting with us as we had with her. She's teaching me some Nepali and I see that much of the vocabulary is similar to Hindi but the sentence structure is different - if someone speaks slowly, I can understand the gist of things.

Day 0: Kathmandu to Besisehar

10.3.08

Lost in thought,
staring out the bus window,
at the dense forest covered hillside.
The winding river in the gorge below,
is a constant companion on this journey.

-------------

Kathmandu to Dumre - We took the tourist bus to Dumre. It was comfortable, we all had seats inside the bus! It stopped for breakfast at a local place on the way, probably the usual stop for all such buses. The restaurant was basically like an outdoor cafeteria where they had prepared a few different breakfast choices and tea. Depending on what you wanted to eat, you'd stand in the appropriate line, pick and choose what you want then sit in the garden and eat. It was a simple place, set in a beautiful place. I think half the fun of breakfast was the garden and the environment.

From Dumre to Besisehar was an adventure - we took the local bus. The bus came, Misha and Alex got on top to secure our backpacks. As I was about to pass my bag up, the ticket collector motioned for me to get on, and I said I was passing my bag up - but he meant I should get on top; so I did, followed by Rita. We were riding on top - evidently there were no seats inside. It was a fun ride with `natural' air-conditioning :-). The road was paved and the drivers are quite skilled at ensuring a gentle ride - nobody fell off.

Once in Besisehar, we had a couple of hours in the day still so we hiked onward to Bhulbhule where we spent our first night.

Freak Street in Kathmandu

10.2.08
5:30am

We're in Kathmandu, we got in yesterday afternoon. Our friends Misha and Rita were already here and had warned us that people will try and send us to Thamel, we should ensure we get to Freak Street.

This area is Durbar square and is called freak street because all the hippies used to stay here in the 60s. Our taxi drivers did try very hard to dissuade us from coming here, they said it was dirty, full of drug addicts, not a place for tourists - blah, blah.

We managed to get here, and it is perfectly fine, safe and secure. Our hotel, Annapurna Lodge, is simple but clean - nothing fancy. A lot of hotels in Thamel probably give a commission to taxi drivers, which is why they are such aggressive advocates of Thamel. We really enjoyed Annapurna Lodge at Durbar square.

There is a small outdoor eating area with some plants down below for eating and relaxing away from the noise of the city. There's a sandwich shop around the corner and Snowman's bakery - it has pretty good cakes. The area itself is a shopping area for locals, for we don't see a lot of tourists, mostly those who stay at this hotel - unlike Thamel which caters to foreigners. We walked around one morning and saw a lot of people selling local produce. People had laid out their blankets selling mostly vegetables on the small streets, which yesterday had been full of evening shoppers. By the afternoon all this will be cleared up and the routine will start again the following day .. and so the rhythm of life continues here in a slightly different way.

Noida Visit

10.1.08

Last Friday (9.26), I finally made it to our old residence in Noida. I had a chance to catch up our old friends after 17 years.

I was 14.5 when I left India. We had a good social circle in Noida, with whom we enjoyed get togethers, bonfires, mehfils (singing parties). We had a little moped we'd ride all over our sector with our friends: gugu and kaka. I looked at our old home from the outside, remembered the cricket games we played in the small area in front of the flats. Back in the day, we played cricket with a tennis ball and I remember breaking one of our neighbors window. Bawa, my brother admonished me saying,`damn it minna (some equivalent phrase we used as kids), I keep telling you to hit slowly over here.' We all ran to the terrace, but then I realised I had to go down and fess up.

The square behind our house used to be our badminton ground. We'd drop down the poles from the 1st floor, set up the net and play. We, meaning my brother, his friends and me. I was the youngest and the only girl so the pecking order was all the good players got to play first, then if I was stubborn (which I was), and helped put the net up and take it down (which I did), then I would get a few games in. Of course, over time Ajay, Gurpreet, Ashish (I think) became friends and I'd occasionally have partners even when Bawa (my brother) started playing soccer in the stadium. I didn't venture as far as the stadium yet, and we moved to the US shortly thereafter, so I never played soccer with my brother till I was in my early twenties when he got me involved with his co-rec soccer team in Seattle.

(.. picking up this note from Kathmandu on 10.22)
I stayed with Kapoor uncle and auntie - it was delightful! Auntie made scrumptious rajma, chawal (rice + beans), alu parantha (potato bread), paneer sabji .. all so good. It especially sounds good right now after trekking for the last two and half weeks. It was great to catch up with Anu Didi and her two beautiful children, Nishant and Nitika. Pragat uncle and auntie looked well and I enjoyed some delicious Indian snacks (chaat + raj kachori) with them and enjoyed seeing Mandeep, and her two lovely boys, Angad and Jaiteg. I also enjoyed a nice dinner of saag roti (yum) with Hari Singh uncle's family, caught up with Gurpreet, his wife Dimple, daughter Pari and Minnie. I even managed to meet Naqvi auntie and Nihal - he's a grown up young man now and hard to recognise.

I even had a chance to visit Kulwant uncle and Deepak auntie in Barhi Kothi at Mohan Nagar. The traffic was unbelievable; however, the place was just as I remember it. Their room where we played dark room on many evenings, and the kotha (terrace) where we played with Sonu, Sonia and I once got stung by a bee .. good times :-) !


Archana Kapoor Yadav:
----------------------------------------
I didn't get to catch up with Archu didi in person yet, she was amongst the first batch of female pilots in the Indian Air Force (IAF). I admired her a great deal as a young woman. Of all the positive female influences in my life, Archu didi has featured prominently. She was in college when we were still in Noida. At the time, she was working on her flying training at NCC (National Cadet Corps). I remember her as a very determined and hardworking person. She has incredible drive and I was not the least bit surprised to see her amongst the batch of pioneer women pilots in the IAF. My perception of her is her single mindedness in forging ahead towards her goals, even when there was not necessarily a path to her objectives. I'm not sure she knew whether the IAF would open up to women pilots during her flying training, yet she and her friends persevered so as to be ready if the opportunity presented itself.

Chaat in Chandani Chowk

10.1.08
7:30am

Alex, one of my trekking mates for Nepal, arrived in Delhi yesterday. We stayed at the Eurastar hotel overnight and are heading to Nepal in another few hours.

Delhi has 7 gurudwaras (sikh temples) and most of them are historic gurudwaras. Last evening, I took Alex to Bangla Sahib, one of 7 historical sikh gurudwaras (temple) in Delhi - we caught an auto rickshaw (auto) straight to Cannaught Place (CP).

One of the things I've enjoyed is conversing the the people that live here about their life, where they are from, the state of India, and listening to their perspective on culture and politics.
However, as a single woman, I was careful not to talk so freely to the men I met, mostly auto and taxi drivers. Since I was with Alex, I was much more open to talking to strangers.
This is primarily because having grown up in India, somewhere in the back of your mind you know that as a single woman if you talk freely with men you don't know, they might misconstrue your openness for something else. If I meet someone with a similar background (ie armed forces background or educated) then of course I feel immediately safer and the dynamics is different and much more open as it is in the west. This fear is mostly conditioning and maybe a little excessive. But a little caution and awareness isn't a bad thing given the numerous stories my friends who live in the Delhi area and UP have told me.

I was chatting with the auto driver and discovered he is a third year student, working on his BA. At present he owns three autos, thanks to his mum + dad's investment and along with his two brothers, they do this business. I discussed a little politics with him, and as with most people in India, he has little faith in politicians, thinks they are all goondas (crooks). As with many young people, he said he'd like to go to the US. Since most people get their exposure to the states from hollywood or news, just as most people in the west get their exposure to India from the news or bollywood, their perspective is formed by a rather limited view. I wish there was some way to have intercultural exchanges, especially for young people, so they could go live and work in other countries and expand their skewed vision formed mostly from TV. Travellers do this by coming to India, but even that experience, though more expansive than TV is limited since the country is very diverse and depending on how you chose to travel (ie budget travel, backpack, vacation etc), it exposes you to only a segment of society. Of the available travel options, short of living in a place, I feel backpacking is the best way to learn about a society.

Next we headed off to Chandni Chowk for the evening. Chandni Chowk is one of the oldest Bazaars in Delhi dating back to the Mughal period - it is full of shops and shoppers, crammed into every nook and cranny. Space is at a premium, and the smaller, more hidden shops in the small pathways have probably been in a family for generations. The real connoisseurs of fine clothing generally come here to places they know. As we were wandering aimlessly, yapping away, a young kid came and started asking for money.

kid: Didi (sister), give me one rupee please.
me: sorry bache (kid), I'm not going to give you any money.
kid: Didi please, just one rupee - bhai marayga (brother will hit me).
me: sorry but no. But do you want to eat something, we'll get you some food.

The kid kept walking alongside us, holding on to my arm persistently asking for money, and I politely almost with good humour kept saying no. Then I heard this older gentlemen yell at this kid for harassing us and I automatically said, `bacha hai, koi baat nahin bhaisab' (it's a kid, don't worry about it brother). Then I heard the older gentleman behind, `Madam, aapne hindi to bahot achee bole' (you spoke very good hindi). So I had to go back and thank him and tell him I did infact grow up in India, hence the good Hindi. As I came back, I think he thought I was offended or something, because he said, `Please don't be offended madam, I said what I felt'. Course, I wasn't - on the contrary I said I was flattered. He was an older gentleman and I chatted with him for awhile before Alex and I left.

The kid was still with us, but his patience ran out before mine did (hahaha), and as we walked by a chat stand, he pulled my arm and said, `ok, I'll have some of that'. As he was eating, two other boys came by so they ate as well. I was looking at all the good stuff but not daring to eat - didn't want to get sick at the start of the big trek plus I'd only been in town a week. I was also asking the guy what everything was, and there was one thing I wasn't familiar with so he said, `Madam, aap khakey to dekhiye' (Try a little and see). I said, `nooo, I'm going to get sick'. At this point he poured me some and said,`nothing will happen, you shouldn't be so superstitious' (vaham in Hindi, I'm not sure superstitious is the correct word but it's the best I can come up with). His mannerism was very casual and hospitable, as if I was a guest in his shop - I tried it, it was good.

So I figured what the heck, now that I've tried some I might as well enjoy a plate of chaat. I love the street food and the snacks. As I was eating, I said out aloud, I hope I don't get sick. Another elderly gentleman standing nearby said,`aapko to waisay bhi kuch nahin hoga' (nothing will happen, especially to you madam). It felt good, he was kindly appreciating our actions in feeding the kids.

It was a good day :-).