We took a beautiful drive over the morning into Pokhara, a brief introduction in the foothills of the Himalayas. The sunshine and moderate temperatures reminded us why October is one of the major tourist months in Nepal.

We  had a laundry list of things to do when we got to Pokhara. Find a hotel, book the bus to Birganj (see Part I), find an ATM, have lunch. We found a hotel lakeside, the touristy center of Pokhara, with ATM’s abound and a Canadian-Nepali restaurant serving us lunch, a good steak. Walking down the main street, we found a scooter rental place out of a laundromat, and got scooters for the evening and the next morning. It was my first time on a scooter.

We decided to ride up to the World Peace Pagoda at the top of one of the hills surrounding Pokhara. My first scooter ride ever was an off-road experience to the top of a mountain. We turned incorrectly, missed the Pagoda, and headed back down the mountain in fading light. Along the way, I almost killed myself in traffic, falling off the edge of a mountain, and a little girl (she was playing on the road!). We all made it back to the lakeside safe and sound to enjoy dinner at Boomerang. Lamb roast, apple pie, and Gurkha beer still sound amazing as I write here at IIT Delhi. A quick drink at the Busy Bee – first White Russian, verdict: obamanotbad.jpg – some shopping for snacks and postcards, and a quiet close to the first day in Pokhara.

We awoke early the next day to catch a glimpse of the sunrise at Sarankot, a beautiful mountain-top village northwest of Pokhara with a stunning view of the Himalayas. We arrived through an off-road trail, greeted by dozens of tour buses and endless hordes of tourists from around the world. This may be the first and only time I see someone with a multishot camera snapping madly away at the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. Everyone just wanted photographs, and I took my time getting mine. I did enjoy the ride up, the fresh mountain air complimenting the rising light of the sun and the joy of moving faster than a human body should go.

Here’s a peek.

The sun rising over the foothills of the Himalayas at Sarankot.

Annapurna Range at Sunrise, Sarankot.

Speeding away from Sarankot, we arrived at a little village called Kaskikot. We sat for chai tea at a small building on the side of the road, chatting with the local men about their lives. I met a man responsible for the agriculture in this region of Nepal, who had gone to school in the Netherlands. He was home for the festival, and it was surprising to me to find someone like him who had traveled around in the world in a small village like Kaskikot. The chai was delicious, by the way.

Further along, we met some kids who ambushed us and demanded a ride on the scooters. Children, it must be said, are endlessly energetic and that is one of the major reasons I will not have a kid anytime soon. However, when they are happy, they are good company, especially to show us to their temple on the top of another hill. We hiked up, elementary-school-aged boys holding our hands, to the summit of this hill. A stunning view of the Annapurna range opened up to us.

Annapurna Range from Kaskikot

Then the temple. Fresh blood had dripped everywhere, a remnant of the goat sacrificed for the festival earlier that morning. Walking around barefoot in a temple on a hilltop in rural Nepal with goat blood everywhere is not exactly what you would imagine when going on vacation to Nepal. But it happened! We took one last look at the mountains, and climbed down the hill.

Leaving the kids behind (NRs 100 richer, mind you), we scootered past the edge of our map for lunch at some sort of hotel. Nothing memorable, except the whole experience of going 80kmh on a scooter down the mountainside.

We kept going. At some point, we decided this was foolish and turned back to head to the Tibetan settlement before sunset. I’m riding out front, scootering along, and check the rear view. Nobody. Alex and Jerry had disappeared. I pull over and wait. No sign. I turn around and drive back. Still no sign. Around an S-curve, I see them. Jerry’s scooter would not start.

This started a 3-hour saga of many Nepali people crowding around us to see what was happening. We fetched a mechanic from the village a kilometer away, to replace the spark plug. No dice. A vacationing family of 12 came over to help us try to get the bike back to Pokhara. Bus drivers can demand exorbitant prices sometimes, and let’s just leave it at that. Finally, the mechanic assured us that he would walk the scooter back to his village and fix it within the hour. Jerry accompanied him, trusting that the work would be done.

You can’t trust.

Alex and I continued down the mountain, a long series of s-curves, to get to the Tibetan settlement. We entered the monastery where the monks were in prayer. My right ear lost some significant percentage of its hearing as the rag-dun blown repeatedly during prayer was seated to my immediate right. No pictures from here, unfortunately. A quick walk around the village brought out kids wanting a ransom of food to pass. I handed out one Digestive and found none remaining in the box, and we fled the scene. Back to the scooters, back to Pokhara, to the hotel to wait for Jerry.

He’d had his own adventure. Let’s just say he took a taxi with the scooter hanging out of it back into Pokhara to return to the store owner.

Dinner, drinks, bed. Tourist towns are great.

The next morning, we headed for the border, but you already know that story.

Although this is part 2 of the semester break series, it chronologically comes first. I am going to tell you the story of my travels to Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal.

We start at IIT Delhi, 5AM in the morning. Our flight was at 0730. The taxi was booked for 0545. I had a cup of tea, a quick pack of my bag, and off to the taxi with Alex, 5 minutes late. No taxi. I call the taxi service. 10 minutes, they said. 0600, we’re going to the airport. We get there at 0630. Check in, tags on the baggage, through to immigration. Alex gets a chatty old man; I couldn’t tell if the man was regaling Alex with tales of his past, or if the man was living vicariously through Alex’s stories. No matter, I pass through immigration quickly, into the shortest baggage scanning lineup. Alex makes it to the same line, 5 minutes behind. It’s nearing 0700. I pass security. I check the board, AI213 to Kathmandu, final call. The PA comes on. “This is the final boarding call for Air India Flight AI213 to Kathmandu, paging passengers Mr. Alexander Harmsen and Mr. Dominic Tong.” There’s a first time for everything, including a headlong sprint through the duty-free shop to reach the gate.

We get on the plane. The seat next to me is taken by a Chinese man, who was displaced by the Swiss French man who wanted to sit with his travel companions. The empty seat was somewhere at the front. Alex and I speak six languages of varying fluencies between us; this rotational swap of seats took three. The little things you don’t see when you sit at home in Vancouver.

A flight in, a visa application, USD $50, and a taxi ride through the winding, bumpy, unpaved roads of Kathmandu later, we’re at Jerry’s hotel. We’re meeting him here. I go to the ATM to get Nepalese rupees; Alex asks for the Malagasy, who is out somewhere in the city. Alex and I sit down in the hotel courtyard, outside, enjoying the sunshine and a cold soft drink. A plan is to be made for the day, just after noon. We order our food, I grab the $4 Lonely Planet of Nepal I had printed up, and off we went on our imaginary trip of Kathmandu. A walk would be good, we decided, down from the tourist center of Thamel to Durbar Square, the place where the city’s kings were once crowned. Then a visit to a temple on the east side of the city, and back to our hotel in Thamel for an early bus ride out to Pokhara.

Jerry arrived, we all ate, we all agreed it was a good plan. Step one, find a hotel. We found one. Somewhere. Unremarkable place, I don’t remember much other than sleeping that night. Then the walk down, wandering about, shopping for t-shirts (“My brother went to Nepal and all I got was this stupid t-shirt” for my companions’ siblings) and other miscellaneous things. This was the slowest walk through of a city I had ever done in my life, weighed down by the keen shopping eyes, eager to buy some souvenirs, and by the people. Traveling with Alex is like traveling with a novelty item, a constant source of amusement, consternation, and being in some other person’s scrapbook of “Look at the foreigners I meet!”.

What I remember of the walk: temples, everywhere. People, everywhere. Wildlife, everywhere. Garbage, everywhere. It was like the old Delhi, not the new south Delhi that I live in. Frustrating? Sure. But not a shock, not anymore. I wish I could put you, my reader, wherever you are from, into the Asan Tole, one of the main city squares. That is an experience to behold.

The masses of people, the smells, and the sounds are overwhelming in central Kathmandu.

We get to Durbar Square. A security guard walks up and asks for our tickets. What tickets? Over there, he points, at some booth. We brush him off, obviously a scam. Jerry checks his Lonely Planet. Nope, not a scam, we need to pay for this place. We wander to the tourist booth, and continue wandering. A guide offers his services. INR 1000, he says. Too much, too much, Alex fumes, over and over. We’d done a lap at this point. We get him to INR 500 and he tells us the story of Durbar Square as the sun sets. I honestly do not remember much. The sunset was beautiful, captured by Jerry’s camera.

A part of the Durbar Square, Kathmandu.

A quick walk back to Thamel, and into a travel agency to figure out the bus to Pokhara. All buses are full, and we are scared away from local buses at this point. (Ha! – see the previous blog post). A car to Pokhara, it would have to be, a pricey method to get to Pokhara, the town where we really wanted to be. Before dinner, I would buy a new backpack, a 50L fake North Face bag for use over the rest of the trip, my next south India trip, and not much else.

Dinner was a steak. Alex cuts his steak. It slips off the table. A quarter of a steak, gone. We talk about castes in India, a product of Jerry and Alex being in a sociology of India class back at IITD. Then, a history lesson about Yugoslavia and Tito, and some more about the Indian subcontinent. I have a lot to read about human history.

A quick cold shower, and that was it for my only day in Kathmandu.

I’ve been trying to write a few blog posts about the semester break I just finished two days ago, but I didn’t like my writing. It didn’t seem fluid enough to tell such a great story. When my friend back at UBC, Sabrina, finally had the time to have a chat, I had a great chance to tell one of the stories from my trip grand adventure to one, live person.

Some background: Pokhara is the second-largest city in Nepal, a tourist center close to the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. We (Alex, Jerry, and I) had had a hell of a time there already, and now Alex and I needed to get to Kolkata.

Sabrina is an awesome friend back home from Science One. We don’t talk often enough, and when we do, we’ve done enough with our lives to relate crazy tales about what’s transpired between chats that we can write multiple blog posts about them. This is part of one of those chats.

me: okay

pick a story

the Pokhara scooter ride

the bus and train ride from hell

12:16 PM the Sundarban Tiger Reserve, the British girl, and the best night of the trip

12:17 PM Sabrina: in honor of halloween….the british girl

jk lol

tell me your favorite

me:  I promise I’ll write the blog posts today and publish them

Sabrina: awesome 🙂

me: okay, favourite story

12:19 PM the bus/train ride from hell

because Pokhara is better told through pictures, and the British girl one isn’t flattering for me 😛

[BLOGGER NOTE: You’ll hear them soon enough.]

12:20 PM we were in Pokhara, Nepal, and we needed to get to Kolkata, India

our internet research indicated that we could take a bus from Pokhara to Birganj and cross the border there to the Indian town called Raxual; we then had a sleeper class train reserved from Raxual to Kolkata

Sabrina: lol….you’re going to have to tell me the british girl story eventually

12:21 PM me: in person? 🙂

aaanyway

12:22 PM Sabrina: sure, in person….just eventually!

me: We get into Pokhara around 2PM. We’re hungry, tired, and cranky, but we need to figure out how to get to the border. The hotel calls around and finds out that we’re going to have to take two buses: one to Bhairawa, Nepal, then onto Birganj. The guy assures us that we can get tickets in Bhairawa for a bus within the hour.

12:23 PM yes, we will have dinner, in person, and I will tell you the British girl story if you ask nicely 😉

Sabrina: I’ll hold you to that

12:25 PM me: We get on a “tourist bus” to Bhairawa. A glorified shuttle bus where all the foreigners have seats and all the locals sit/stand in any space available. We wind our way down the foothills of the Himalayas. I’ve got a window seat, perfect for watching the valleys unfold below me and for emergency puking bucket. I had bad travel sickness and accidentally took an antacid instead of my meds.

Welcome to the lush green foothills of the Himalayas. With the snow tipped peaks on one side, and the lush valleys (shown) on the other, this is a heavenly piece of the world.

12:26 PM Lunch was nothing more than a 30 min. pit stop of rice, followed by more nauseous twists and turns, unveiling the grand valleys and fauna of Nepal. Holy smokes, Nepal is beautiful.

12:27 PM Sabrina: can’t wait to see pics of nepal

[BLOGGER NOTE: Pictures have been inserted as necessary.]

me: We get to Bhairawa. A short bicycle rickshaw ride to the bus station, and we ask for tickets to Birganj. Those don’t exist today, because it’s the festival. Practically no one is working. They tell us to get a bus to Pathlaya, then a connection to Birganj. I buy the tickets, we have 3 hours to kill.

This next part is possibly my favourite part of the trip.

12:29 PM We walk to this hotel close to the bus stop. There’s a guy that speaks perfect English (think Queen’s English) that directs us inside for some momos and Pepsi. He offers us festival food (Nepalese food, yum!), and some liquor if we want. We gently refuse the liquor and start chatting with the gentleman.

12:30 PM I look around and see all these pictures of army stuff. Guys in uniform, guys with guns in action, “6th Battalion, Queen’s Gurkha Regiment” proudly on the wall. I’m thinking, this guy can’t be a soldier, he’s a pretty rotund guy!

12:31 PM He was a former Gurkha soldier in the Queen’s Regiment, training in Britain and deploying with the British Army in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sabrina: whoaa

me: If you don’t know, Gurkha’s are regarded as one of the toughest, most courageous, and professional fighting forces in the world.

12:32 PM I’ve heard that to get in, you need to pass a physical/psychological test much like the US Army Rangers.

I’m talking to a badass, in other words.

Sabrina: wow, he told you this?

me: Yup!

Then he told us about the story of the (lack of) Nepalese government.

12:33 PM In 2002, the crown prince shot everyone in the royal family, and then himself. The throne went to the King’s brother. This man tried to consolidate power too ruthlessly and the people raised a rebellion. The Maoists won, the King capitulated, and the Kingdom of Nepal became the Republic of Nepal.

[BLOGGER NOTE: This happened in 2001, more detail and way more accurate info on Wiki, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Nepal]

12:34 PM No “credible” elections have been held since this victory.

Sabrina: mmhm

me: I was in a country with no government talking to a man who has seen more combat and adversity than I ever will.

12:35 PM Then he grabs two photos. The first is a man, kneeling in sand, M-16 raised and firing. That’s him, in Iraq.

12:36 PM The second, a handsome, suited man sitting, playing a traditional Nepalese drum with a younger version of this badass I’m talking to behind him.

Sabrina: who is it?

the handsome guy 😛

[BLOGGER NOTE: Of course, she’d ask about the handsome guy]

me: A party to celebrate the graduating class of officer’s school in London. The Gurkha in front of me, in the background, with the crown prince of Nepal.

12:37 PM Sabrina: wicked

so what does he do now?

me: Same guy who shot everyone!

Oh the Gurkha. Living handsomely off his pension in Nepal (conversion rate, woot!), running a hotel and illegal gambling/whoring racket inside because he’s a badass and has a relationship with the police.

[BLOGGER NOTE: I did not get a picture with him. I will get a picture with him in Hong Kong when I’m there over Christmas. He’s got family there, in my hometown!]

12:38 PM We then get on another bus, but a local bus this time. It was empty as we pulled out of the station. It was about to get worse.

12:39 PM It was an incredibly bumpy ride, punctuated by frequent stops of the bus to let people on, and the sound of the horn into the dark night.

Note that it let people on. Never off.

12:40 PM I dozed off on a seat in the back right corner of the bus. When I woke up, the bus was crammed full. Luggage everywhere, people sitting, standing, painfully wedged together at the front. And, I needed to pee!

12:41 PM Sabrina: uh-oh

12:42 PM me: I try out the window (yeah, not my favourite option) a few times, but the bus moves before I…. yeah.

Sabrina: you tried to pee out the window?!

me: My only option is to wind my way to the front of the bus and ask for a pit stop. I do that, trampling on pretty much everyone along the way.

Yes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

12:43 PM Sabrina: hahahahahahha

me: Bus stops, I sprint off for the washroom; my friend on the bus tells me the entire bus laughed their asses off when I did. I really didn’t care.

1AM, I get taken off the bus by the manager guy, directed to another bus for Birganj, and sleepiliy doze my way into Birganj.

12:44 PM Sabrina: I’m trying to picture how peeing out the window would work in my head

can’t figure it out haha

12:45 PM me: This border town is the main exit point for exported goods in Nepal. It’s hustle-bustle, busy as hell. I’m there at 3AM. Only dogs and bicycle rickshaws are moving about. The few lights punctuating the streets reveal a massive number of cardboard beds with people on them. We try to find a hotel, marching with our bags around town, getting chased by dogs. Unable to find one open, we ride to the border and cross into India.

It’s a pretty big window 😉

And guys can aim, ha

12:46 PM Sabrina: hahahahaha

12:47 PM me: We knock and enter the Indian Immigration office. The old man tells us to take a seat and promptly goes back to bed inside his mosquito net. Oh god. Mosquitoes everywhere.

Lots of these guys flying around everywhere. A healthy dose of Odomos and a mosquito net should do the trick!

We drape a mosquito net over ourselves, apply repellant pretty much everywhere, and fall asleep.

6AM, office man walks in. “We’re here to enter India.” “You need to exit Nepal first.”

12:48 PM Sabrina: lol

me: Back across the border to find the small Nepalese post, 100m before the big Nepal/India ceremonial gate, to the right in the forest, obscured by some shrubs.

12:49 PM Get the stamp, go back, get into India, take a rickshaw around town trying to find water and biscuits in a town where no one speaks English, trash is piled up in the streets, and the air is thick with mosquitoes.

Sabrina: holy, you guys mustve been dead tired

me: Back to the train station, a quick nap, onto the train, lunch for 90 rupees. We take a quick look at money remaining. We’ve got 50 rupees.

That’s $1 CAD

50 rupees left. This much. It’s CAD $1.

12:50 PM An 18 hour train ride in a sleeper class train where the bunks are flat and not much else is good. I almost didn’t have enough headroom to lie down in the top bunk.

This is a sleeper class train between Raxual and Kolkata. It’s cramped quarters, but very cheap! Blurry due to the uneven motion of the train!

12:51 PM The landscape though, was beautiful, and seeing the locals filter in and out as we wound our way through the countryside towards Kolkata was rewarding and draining.

Not much more to say about the train ride; uncomfortably cramped quarters with local Indian people through the countryside.

Kolkata is a whole other story 🙂

Sabrina: :S just hearing about it makes me tired

def not for the faint hearted

12:52 PM me: I went to India

after Germany

I think that qualifies me for insanity.

12:53 PM anyway, thanks for making me write a blog post ;), and hope you enjoyed my storytelling

do you have any feedback about my writing style? 😛

Sabrina: yeah you def wrote me an essay. you should just C+P it over

12:54 PM me: I will

I’ll just leave your comments in

an organic blog post, if you will

Sabrina: I’ll comment on it when you have it up

🙂

me: 🙂

If she doesn’t comment, I’ll know. You, my beloved reader, should leave a comment too! I like writing for you anonymous folk!

Sept. 23, 2012

The last day in Dharamsala! I set an early wake up call for myself at 6:30AM, to get out and explore the surrounding mountains without the hassle of others and the clouds rolling in. The morning turned out to be the best part of my day.

I had a pleasant, but relatively tough walk through the mountains to reach St. John’s Church in the Wilderness. This was a place in the wilderness. There was  the church, the road, the cemetery, and not much else. Buried here is Lord Elgin, one of the Governor Generals of India who died during his term. It was quiet and peaceful here, a welcome break from the noise and chaos of Delhi.

A church in the wilderness.

This cow knows what’s up.

I then proceeded up the mountain to Dal Lake, the same lake I could see while perched on a cliff cut into the mountain. It was a festival for the goddess Shimla, and festivities were had and security was tight. An interesting hour wandering about, talking to others, trying to piece together what this festival was about.

I took a short auto ride back home, and ended up hiking back up to Kharamdot again. We wanted to go up to a temple, secluded in the mountainside. I lost the group, as I was feeling a bit sick and hung back, when the rains began. Doubling back, we descended the mountain back to Mcleod Ganj in torrential rain. We were all soaked thoroughly.

We had a quick change and meal at the Tibetan Kitchen (momos are seriously good, okay?), took a taxi down to Lower Dharamsala to our bus pickup point. The gas station had lots of goodies, thankfully, and I do love me some orange juice. The bus arrived, we got on, and we were on our way home.

We took a short break at a rest stop where I watched England getting slaughtered by India in cricket. It was not pretty watching the Englishmen struggle at bat, but I cheered the Indians on. I think 173 was the target, and England was at 60 runs with 8 wickets lost, and this was a 20/20 match. I think that may be equivalent to a 10-0 lead in hockey; not quite impossible, but close enough.

Back on the bus, to sleep, and suddenly, home. Well, “home”. I’ll have to talk about the concept of home later on, when I’m back in Vancouver, but home for now.

Sept. 22, 2012

An early start to the day. 6AM. Worth it? We marched down to the temple to see the Dalai Lama in a prayer service. Confirmation that the man is alive and not a myth, unless someone built a remarkably well-tuned robot. Served with the prayer service were Tibetan bread and milk, given out freely to anyone who entered the temple. That was delicious, a healthy start to an early day. No electronics, and security was tight, so unfortunately no pictures from the glorious morning or glimpses of the Dalai Lama.

A nice breakfast #2 of more Tibetan toast and 2 eggs, sunny side up, washed down with Darjeeling tea, retrieval of cell phone and camera, and a gigantic mess over changing hostels to avoid the 11:30PM curfew the current hostel had, and we were off to trek.

Up to Dharamkot, again, then up an unknown mountain. We met a few Indian guys who wanted pictures with us, and three monks who were happy to agree to be in our pictures. More group pictures with people we don’t know! That’s how life should be though, an exchange of friendliness and openness, at the very least. We climbed further up the mountain, and when the group seemed tired and wanted to turn back, we met two Tibetan high school students, going up to their favourite spot to study. Pasi asked if they knew if they knew somewhere good. Nope. They knew where somewhere awesome was (insert Neil Patrick Harris line, maybe?).

Monks, Indian guys, and us.

Spot #1: They guided us up a quite treacherous path, onto a small overhang perched above Dal Lake below. In the dense clouds, rolling in and out like the tide, the lake would come and go as it pleased,  as would the civilization on the hills around it. I was literally in the clouds.

Seriously, in the clouds.

Spot #2: Cliff ridge between 3 mountains and a river running in between them. Some of the group split off and headed back to Mcleod Ganj. Too bad for them, as 2 more amazingly scenic spots were coming up. We scrambled along a small ledge to this beautiful spot looking up at 3 mountains. In the brilliant light of the coming sunset, we saw the beautiful end of the trees and the start of the wonderfully coloured rock faces of the mountains.

Oh and I forgot the cloud. Can't forget the clouds.

A relatively long lunch break that saw us go to 3 “restaurants” before doubling back and accepting the slightly higher prices of the first one we went to, and we hit spot 3.

Spot #3: The river. We climbed for 45 minutes to reach the gentle descent of a river from the mountains, the water as clear as that of home, beautifully pristine, untouched by the garbage and pollution of Delhi, a jewel to behold. The sun was setting at this point, and we scrambled back along the path in the darkness. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Once we got back into a residential area, the rains hit, and we sprinted towards an auto. INR 100 later, we were back in Mcleod Ganj. A quick change and a short walk took us to Fanny’s birthday dinner. I still love momos. The beer was pretty cheap here too, but the dinner was to celebrate her birthday. I think we did that in style. Bonne fete a toi in my language, joyeuse anniversaire in yours, Fanny!

And the last noteworthy thing of the night, amid the dimmed lights of Mcleod Ganj, were the stars. So numerous, so bright, such a reminder that we are truly only specks in the grand scheme of things. It had been a good day.

Sept. 21, 2012

Mcleod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh, India

The bus was late picking us up in Delhi. We (Alex, Obi, Praveen and I) got on the wrong bus before that, and when we finally got on our bus, we had the pleasant surprise of the French girls waiting for us on the bus they had boarded an hour ago. That’s what traffic in Delhi and the symptoms of what we call “Indian time” do to you.The bus ride itself was great. An overnight, semi-sleeper, air-conditioned Volvo took us up to the foothills in Mcleod Ganj proper in just over 11 hours. In that time, I had a nice chat with Praveen, who I’d just met the day before, about India, its states, the state of its democracy, and the Pakistan/Bangladesh/India split of the British colony of India. There’s still an incredible gap in my knowledge about the Indian region of Asia.

We were woken up by the operator of the bus, announcing the last stop at 6AM as Mcleod Ganj. Stepping off the bus, I was greeted by a stunning view of a mountain valley below and the crisp, clean mountain air. It was damn good to be alive.

RISE and SHINE(RAMA). Two plays on words. I wonder if any of you will get both?

The four of us found a hotel, put our bags down, freshened up, and headed to breakfast. We met a man who was involved in Tibet-issue protests in Chengdu, China, and heard his tale of escape from the clutches of the Chinese authorities, fleeing from Chengdu, through Nepal, into India, and finally setting up a restaurant in Dharamsala. This has been one of the major themes of being abroad, both in Germany and in India, that world events (Berlin Wall, Tibet, to name a few) have meaningful personal impacts that are less seen and even less thought about back home. We can know about the issues, but that’s all we know.

The man from Chengu in the middle with the weird two-tone shirt.

The next thing up was the Dalai Lama’s temple. We went the wrong way, ending up in Kharamdot. Here, we stumbled upon a group of high school kids, on a volunteering mission to clean up the town. They were taking their group shot, and a quick “Hey we’re from IIT Delhi, can we get a picture with you guys?” got us the strangest picture of the trip. Praveen and I, front and center, Alex and Obi, way in the back, surrounded by Indian students volunteering to clean up the town. Farther on up the road, we stumbled upon a beautiful waterfall, with two snack shops on either side, blocking our advance up the mountain.

Hey there, beautiful.

The clouds started to roll in at this point. At 1725m, this meant we were in the clouds. As we made our way back down to the temple, the visibility decreased to maybe a city block. We bumped into two groups of IITD exchange students along the way, asking about the temple. It wasn’t incredibly impressive, but a safe refuge for Tibetans who have braved a lot to get here. It really did feel like home with the milk being served constantly by volunteers. This was a tight-knit community, representatives of a nation.

Lunch, quite late in the afternoon ,was had at the Khana Nirvana. An excellent Chinese meal in a quiet place up a steep stairwell, staring off into the valley filled with clouds. We had a good chat about renewable energy, fusion, and the future of how we’ll get our energy.

After that was a visit to the Tibet Museum, highlighting the independence movement of the Tibetan people. I now realize I need to see the other side of the issue; how objective can one be when one is fighting for home and nation? Tibet would be an interesting place to visit. We did have a good chat with the front desk man about the Tibetan government-in-exile, the diaspora, and the objectives of the Tibetan movement. I learned a lot about Tibet today, but the other side of the issue remains to be seen.

A bit of souvenir shopping, then back to the hotel for a little nap. That turned into 45 minutes of talking to Praveen about the financial struggles of families in India, the cost of education, social pressures, women, and the Civil Service exam. Civil Services is where you can obtain power in India, according to Praveen. The elected government has bureaucrats behind it, who “actually write the policies and control the power”, whereas the democratically elected representatives range from the educated elite to the illiterate. A lot of IIT Delhi students are studying for this exam to get into the government and into power, hoping to change the system and remove the corruption that is slowing India’s growth. It’s a hell of a fight.

Dinner was at the Tibet Kitchen, where I enjoyed lamb slices in gravy with vegetable fried rice. Not too special. Writing in 4 languages about the food in the comment book was fun, and I started to wonder how far my Chinese has deteriorated. It’s not as good as it used to be.

The bar next door on the rooftop had a great view overlooking Mcleod Ganj. We met Joe and Brianni there, two people (not a couple) who were teaching English and life skills to elementary school kids somewhere close to Dharamsala. We chatted over a Free Tibet (gin, orange juice, lemon juice). I think it’ll be the only time I ever do manage to truly free Tibet, and it wasn’t very good.

IT'S JOE. HE'S FREEING TIBET.

And finally, back to the hotel, the first time there’s truly been peace and quiet since escaping from Delhi. Onto the next day!

Round 1 of minors (midterms here) was done a week ago. I’m happy that the minors take all of 4 days to complete, so there isn’t an entire season of them like at home. With that said, these little 1 hour exams are the devil, and little did I know being sick with the chicken pox, combined with stomach problems and finding my feet in Delhi, would lead to disastrous consequences. Let’s just say IIT Delhi wins this round, but I’ll see this thing through.

You might ask why it’s taken so long to write a blog post about the minors being over (they finished last Tuesday). I’ve been down with something, yet again, a mild but persistent headache combined with more gastrointestinal adjustments. It’s been a trying but telling time in India, and all of this downtime has given me a lot of time to reflect. I finally have had the time to think without moving, for the first time in a very long time. A welcome relief.

To more concrete matters!

Post-minors, I was feeling well enough to have a drink with the guys. I’d been feeling under the weather pre-minors, but during minors, I recovered. Post-minor celebrations seemed like a no brainer. The next day I woke up with a hangover; the day after that, a fever. I was good enough to go out and grab meals with my friends here a few times; here’s some of the stories:

Capri Villagio, Friday the 7th: An Italian restaurant in Haus Khaz village. I got a nice chicken penne with creamy mushroom sauce; the rest of the guys received their food except for the Australian, Jono. He got his pizza right as I finished the last of my pasta. 10:30PM. That, I’m sad to say, is hardly a surprising occurrence in Indian fine dining.

Ambience Mall, Saturday the 8th: Jono, me, and two Frenchmen (Adrien and Nicolas) took an autorickshaw out to Ambience Mall in Vasant Kunj. We bought baguettes and croissants in the nearby DLF Promenade, and ham and cheese in the Big Bazaar. We sat in the middle of the Ambience Mall, a Western mall parachuted into south Delhi, tearing our baguettes and creating our culinary masterpieces. Baguettes with ham and cheese.

We take an incredibly long time to split the bills here, too. Taxes are close to 35% on some of the items, and when one of us misjudges what we have to pay, we all suffer. Just a thought.

I’ve skipped a trip to Rishikesh this weekend with my friend Alex (whom I went to Jaipur and Agra with) to recover from this damned fever and headache. I really have not had a chance to experience India, to see what it is beyond the confines of IIT Delhi. It reminds me of being in the bubble back at UBC, so focused on Fizz that the only trip off campus in a week would be the necessary groceries run.

Hell, that just means I’ve got more of IIT Delhi to show. Another blog post!

More quirks and strange things:

• Cows abound. Cowabunga. There are cows everywhere in India.
• How I Met Your Mother is addicting and the writers have an uncanny ability to mirror your life, no matter how far fetched that seems.
• Stray dogs everywhere on campus. I’m scared of them at night, walking alone back to the hostel. They’re out to survive and to defend their turf.
• Insects crawl all over the place here and I’ve learned to ignore them.
• Nutella must be sealed shut and put into it’s own Tupperware box. Nutella is also the nectar of the gods.
• Food at the mess (which is free!) is monotonous and bland except on Thursday. There, I’ve stated the obligatory mess food complaint.
• Autorickshaws must be the most dangerous form of transportation known to man. 5 grown men stuffed in the back of a three-wheeled rickety rickshaw with a motor barreling down a potholed, chaotically populated Delhi road just might not be safe.
• Crossing the road is simply a matter of staring down the car in the next “lane”. Concentration is key. Move quickly but under control, and preferably in packs.
• Speaking of traffic, horns are generally used like lights are in Vancouver. “Hey watch out I’m in your blind spot and about to cut you off” is a long beep, while “Hey I know you’re trying to turn but I’m not gonna let you” warrants a shorter blast. People, bikes, dogs, cows, and other things (camels, elephants?!) warrant these shorter blasts as well.
• I think I’ve learned more French than Hindi here. That’s what happens when most of the exchange students default to French.
• Everything is cheaper here; therefore, I spend more. Food, drinks, ice cream, more food, textbooks, clothes…. An unexpected benefit to being in India.
• Someone may or may not be a beer pong champion at an undisclosed location. A German male may or may not have been involved.

Most importantly: India is a different place. It’s impossible to compare India to a developed Western nation as everything is different: the culture, the people, the education, the development process. What you have to understand is that India is simply different. Learn the local views, be a local, live like it is home, and maybe, just maybe, get a glimpse into life here. It’s just different.

I have been in Delhi for one month now. It’s been a whirlwind of experiences and sights, an exercise in compare and contrast, and perhaps one of the most transformative months of my life.

I’ll give you a list of quirks, observations, and discussions from this month:

Education around the world:

• Education systems differ around the world. Sitting down with Daniel (a German), Pasi and Bjorn (Swedes), Alex (Canadian), and Cyrille (French) after dinner, we discussed the differences and debated the merits of our respective education models.
• The German system splits secondary education into Gymnasium, Realschule, and Hauptschule. Gymnasium prepares students for university and goes up to grade 12 or 13; Realschule is for intermediate pupils and finishes at grade 10; and Hauptschule prepares students for vocational education. The split occurs at age 10 in most places, 12 in Berlin and Brandenburg.
• The French system is much the same. The baccalauréat is a diploma students complete in order to enter university. This is split into 3 streams: scientific, literature, and social sciences. This split occurs at age 18. Literature stream students lack the scientific knowledge to succeed in scientific university courses.
• The Swedish system comprises of a split as well, mainly between social science and natural science “programs”. The programs are split into 2 different categories: preparatory (for university) or vocational.
• The Ontarian system splits into two streams: a normal stream for university and an applied stream for a more immediate professional focus.
• We talked about how best to split up the classes, whether this was necessary at all, and what the ultimate goal of all of this was. In the end, each system produced the people sitting at this table in the lobby of Kumaon Hostel, in Delhi, and we concluded that we wanted engaged students who were curious about the world and the point of splitting up students was to best gauge their ability to have success in their future pursuits. Whether these gauges were accurate or not is the major question for which we lacked data.

Education in India:

• There are primary (ages up to 14) and secondary (ages 14-18) schools. There is a big problem with attendance due to socioeconomic factors, and the literacy rate is low compared to developed countries. In order to enter a IIT, a student must sit the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and place in the top 10000 of 520 000 entrants. The computer science department here boasts the best of the best; a friend of mine there reports they had to be top 100 in the JEE to enter.
• This breeds an intense competition every year for the JEE. Students work hard (anecdotally, 12-14 hours every day for 2 years) to study for this, while neglecting regular school and seemingly most of the other parts of life. This creates an interesting situation when students do make it to an IIT. Some kids continue to work hard; others consider their hard work done and simply motor at a minimum rate. It’s easy to see this contrast at Kumaon, the largest hostel at IIT Delhi.
• IIT Delhi does provide a good atmosphere for a diverse range of interests. There are teams for just about every sport you can think of (I was asked if I wanted to play water polo!), and the students do take these sports seriously (I was told that the weightlifting team met 6 days of the week for 3 hours a day). I do find myself branching out to do different things and enjoy my time here more than I do at UBC.

India’s Development

• I had another interesting roundtable with Alex (UBC ENPH), Jon (UBC Poly Sci, I believe), and a German business student over yogurt. It was a compare/contrast exercise about the approaches to development that India, the “largest democracy in the world” (more on that later….), and China have taken. In India, everyone has a voice, but there is an incredible amount of visible poverty and inefficiency within the governmental system that renders that freedom harder to use. In China, the system is more efficient with a central plan for development from the one-party state. From what I’ve seen of mainland China and the National Capital Region of India, China is definitely leading the development charge. I feel everything is more organized and less chaotic, people seem to be learning civility faster, and things are much more modern in the cities in China. India is taking great strides, but it still has a ways to go before the people can enjoy their freedoms.

That brings us to my own experiences with the stark contrast between the poor and the rich. I live in Kumaon Hostel. It’s not the best place in the world – it’s hot (there’s no AC), the room is nothing more than a closet, a table, and a bed, the urinals clog every once in a while, there’s no toilet paper in the washrooms, and mosquitoes run rampant. I get some snacks from Gupta’s, some drinks from Lipton’s, and I generally eat from the mess, which prepares food for 900 residents daily. Not the best in the world, but hey, it’s all free under Go Global. It’s not too hard to get used to, either, since I’m here to study.

When I venture outside campus, however, the world changes. I live in South Delhi, close to Vasant Kunj and Vasant Vihar, two swanky neighbourhoods with malls back home transplanted beside the highway and stores nigh unaffordable. We go for drinks at bars with prices like home. We sometimes eat at restaurants with prices slightly lower than home. It’s essentially a little island of AC’d home. Close by, there are slums with satellites on the roofs of ramshackle huts, tarps strung between trees with families huddled under them with gas lamps to avoid the rain, and clothes and garbage strewn everywhere.

It really struck home at Big Bazaar, a department store in Ambience Mall. I needed some plastic containers for my Nutella, also known as the heaven-sent chocolate-flavoured spread of boundless joy, after insects ravaged my last jar. I stepped inside this store and it was like walking into a weird mix of Sears and Save-On Foods. I nearly cried in homesickness, sickness, and confusion. How is this possible with the poverty visible 2 minutes away in an auto?

It’s one thing to know about the problems facing this world; it’s another to see them up close.