Legend of the White Rock

Four days after the snowboarding adventure and I'd say I'm back to about 95%. My neck is still a bit stiff, but for the most part I can go about my day and not be distracted by it. This pleases me.

We've been making an effort to soak up as much of the sunshine as possible, especially since this region is known for its clouds and rain. It's still a little cool -- 40s, mostly -- but compared to 30 below it's practically flipflop weather. Yesterday Brij took me down to one of the local scenic spots, White Rock Beach. I had been wanting some ice cream, so we found a shop, grabbed some, and talked to the old guys sitting out in front for a few minutes. Canadians are so fucking nice, eh (5:20).

For which the town and beach are named.

Walking down to the end of the pier.

According to the plaque near the big rock, scientists say it was brought down by a glacier. According to one of the local First Nation (I'm told that's what the people native to the area prefer to be called -- Native Americans, natives, Indians, etc are considered insulting) tribal stories, it was thrown out of the sea by a god who had fallen in love with a human princess; wherever the rock landed, their people would settle. That's how the local First Nation got started, apparently. The rock itself is periodically spraypainted white because early in the 20th century it suffered bouts of graffiti; the plaque states that the last straw was when some hooligans painted it black and put a big white skull and crossbones on it. Personally, I think that's pretty awesome.

White is cool too though, I guess.

Surviving Snowboarding

This blog post comes to you from Highway 99 heading toward Vancouver on a bright, sunny, beautifully warm day in Canada. The mountains are covered in trees and snow, and clouds obscure the tops.

That’s right, I said mountains. For a girl from Illinois, they just never get old.

Speaking of mountains, a bunch of us went up to one of the local ones, Mt. Seymour, on Monday evening to snowboard. Monday nights are Ladies’ Nights, which means each of us girls gets in for only a $5 donation to the BC Cancer Foundation. Brij gave me his brother’s gear to use – a few pairs of socks later and even the boots fit pretty well – so we didn’t have to rent me anything.

See the mountains in the back?

Getting closer...

Snow + fog = almost there.....

Long story short, I choose to gauge the success of the evening not by how flawlessly I was able to ride down the cute little “bunny hill,” but rather by how many fewer times I fell on the last run as compared to the first. Going by that criterion, I’m pretty satisfied. I suppose it wasn’t too bad for someone who’s never snowboarded or skied in her life. I did whack my head on the ground pretty hard the first few times I fell (yes, I had a helmet), but after that it was my glutes and wrists that took the worst of it.

I think I rode down that hill about 6 or 7 times in the 4ish hours we were on the mountain, including the first two where Brij was giving me a crash course – rather literally – in snowboarding. By the end of the evening I was able to make it almost to the bottom without wiping out, instead of every few feet the whole way down. A considerable improvement, if I do say so myself. I would have gone down one more time but my muscles were completely wrecked and there was no way it was going to happen.

The next day, yesterday, was spent almost entirely lounging at home recovering. Everyone in our party had sustained some kind of injury and I, being a complete noob, was really hurting all over. It was so bad I couldn’t even sit up from lying on my back because my neck was sooooo sore; I had to roll over and push myself up with my hands. Today I woke up feeling considerably better. I’m not sure if it was the rest or the fact that I broke down and took a couple of Extra Strength Tylenols, but I feel like I’m on the way to recovery.

This morning, the sun was shining and the wind had died down, so we decided to head into Vancouver for a day in the city. So here we are, driving up the highway. Stories and photos to follow.

In which I eat real tandoori chicken

A trip to Lower Dharamsala was made today, and Brij took us to what he has proclaimed to be one of his very favorite restaurants in the area: a place tucked back behind the main road where he could eat every day and never get tired of it. I have no idea if the restaurant even has a name... I imagine it does, but that sort of thing doesn't seem to be so important around here.

Fresh meat market. Not my usual kind of place, but thankfully it wasn't exceedingly gruesome.

Real Indian tandoori chicken, naan, and fixin's.

We ordered tandoori chicken with naan and some rice, and as in most restaurants here, we got a plate of sliced red onions to go with the meal.

No, I do not eat much meat. I was feeling like I could use some protein, though, and I figured I'm in India – tandoori chicken is one of those things that just seems like part of the experience. Furthermore, as far as I can tell there are no such things as factory farms here, and none of the meat I've seen since I got to India has looked like it was on any kind of hormones.

Let me tell ya... it was pretty damn good. That poor little chicken, at least, did not die in vain. Its sacrifice was very much appreciated.

After lunch we moseyed through town and Marie and I stopped in practically every fabric store we saw – which was close to a dozen of them – because she wanted to have a salwar kameez (traditional Indian dress) made and I was looking for fabric for a chupa (traditional Tibetan dress). I think I found some that I really like. Since I'll be here a while yet I decided to sleep on it before I bought anything. I really wish we had fabric stores like these near home in the States. They're like candy stores for us textile-aphiles. Marie and I decided we'd go back down sometime, just the two of us, and take our sweet time perusing the fabrics when we didn't have other people to worry about boring.

Now THAT is what I call a selection of colors!

The pretties! Look at them!

On our way down to the bus/Jeep stop to head back to McLeod Ganj, we spotted this little gem. The photo op was too good to pass up.

Isn't this a nice pic, Brandi? It made me think of you. <3

In other news, my knee is nearly healed up, I decided to cover up some of the stubbornest dirt on my walls with what we'll call a mural, and Brij has given me two and a half more pages of Hindi vocab to study. There has also been talk of travel for the next few weekends, and hopefully it will involve dancing! Stay tuned for details.

To TED or not to TED

We saw this guy on the way up to McLeod Ganj this evening:

There were some snails too, but I'm having trouble with the uploading thing tonight.

Gill, Marie, Brij, and I spent most of the day in Lower Dharamsala roaming the place and just generally looking around. There was supposed to be a TEDx talk in the area, but according to the website the venue was simply "Dharamsala, India." I hate to break it to you, TED, but Dharamsala is a whole city, and a sprawling one at that. We had originally intended on attending the event, but after the very rainy morning and the fact that we weren't sure where to go, we decided instead to just go wherever seemed like a good idea at the time.

When we got back, I helped Brij get some splinters out of his hand (he had also taken a spill earlier in the week) and he helped me do this:

Yeah, it's time to quit being a slacker tourist and learn the local language. Yes, English is technically an official language of India and yes, 90% of the signs here are in English. Everybody seems to prefer speaking Hindi, though, and I can't think of a good reason not to learn at least a few key phrases. Wish me luck. ;)

Observations on India 2

• Yes, my knee is looking (and feeling) better. Thank you for your concern.
  
  
• You know that saying about “People often mistake kindness for flirtation because it's so rare these days”? There's truth in it. I may need to stop being so nice.

• Prices for goods (and services) easily reach into the multiple 100s in India; you will find yourself tempted to haggle the prices down. Keep in perspective just how much 100 rupees actually amounts to, though: about $1.65. If someone quotes you 600 rupees and your reaction is “My god, that's so expensive!” keep in mind that it's actually only about 10 bucks. If you manage to talk them down 50 rupees congratulations, you've saved almost a whole dollar. Sometimes it's less stressful for you (and better for the local economy) to just accept that the original price is still pretty damn low and cough it up.

• Restaurants advertise when they have ice cubes available, because this is a fairly rare commodity here.

• Restaurants also advertise when they take care to wash their veggies in something better than tap water (I believe most of them specify potassium permanganate.. I'm not a chemist, though, so I may have gotten that wrong) because

• You do not want to consume the water unless it's been boiled first, and for this reason

• “hot water” is the beverage you order here. It's the free, default beverage you get, like you can always get ice water in the States.

• Unless the restaurant you are ordering from has one of the above disclaimers, you probably do not want to order any sort of raw veggie. Sadly, this means salad is very hard to come by, and it's almost impossible to maintain a raw diet (if you're going for that sort of thing).

• Standards of cleanliness, professionalism, and time management are very different in India than they are in the US.

• If you do decide to scrub the walls in your new Indian place of residence, be forewarned that a fair amount of that dirt may be load bearing. Don't be surprised if you get just as much paint off the walls in the process... not that I know from experience or anything.

• Incense is your friend. So is hand sanitizer. This is coming from someone who uses neither at home in the US.
  
  

Glad I got that tetanus shot

People around town are getting excited for the end of the monsoon, and that includes me. This morning I decided to skip the teaching and instead take advantage of the bright, sunny balcony and do some laundry. Last night I actually made the executive decision to wash my pillows and their cases – after I saw how much dirt came out of them, there's no way I could have slept another night on those things. Damn. I'm hoping it's more due to the fact that everything in India is dirty and dusty, and less with the housekeeping of the staff at this establishment.

Regardless, it's my room for at least the next month, and that means ultimately it's up to me to keep it the way I want it. My spoiled American self is adjusting well, I think, to the fact that if I want something done I'd better be prepared to spend some time doing it myself. After I hung and laid out the rest of the laundry I decided to see just how much of the dirt on the window frame was permanent, and to my surprise and delight, the answer was “not much of it.” I had asked, with the help of my good friend and colleague Brij, for them to clean the room prior to my move in last weekend. When I arrived the floor was still a bit damp and so I figured they'd done all they could to ready the place. After I tried out the bed they even switched the mattresses for softer ones and gave me what appeared to be decently clean sheets.

After this morning, though, I realize that there is work to be done. Thank you so much for the new pillow Mom – it came just in time and it will be appreciated like no pillow has been appreciated before! Perhaps it's even my new best friend. I set out for Lower Dharamsala where things tend to cost less because a) I had to pick up a gift that I had made for one of you, and b) I wanted some cleaning supplies.

On the way, I slipped and sustained a bit worse than your average scraped knee.

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I can't say I was happy at the prospect of having an open wound, wandering around India past the cow turds in the street and the piles of garbage on the corners. It's swollen now, but I've got it cleaned and Neosporin-ed and bandaged up, so I think I should be ok. I don't really want to walk too far tonight though, which means if this is posted on what is Thursday morning for you at home, I have gotten creative with how I access the www. If not, I guess I haven't out-clevered the Indian internet yet. Give it time.

Ok, so the knee got banged up on the way to Lower Dharamsala, which means I sort of limped through town as I ran my errands. Luckily, I only had to stop at 3 places before I decided I'd found a large enough percentage of the things on my list that I could head back and not feel like I wussed out too badly. The sky was also growing progressively darker, and I've lived here long enough to estimate that I probably had an hour at best before it started raining. Did I mention I'd forgotten my umbrella at home?

I asked the tailor where I could pick up “the Jeep” that everyone keeps telling me goes between Lower Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj and costs 10 rupees as opposed to the taxi which will run you 40 (usually only if you at least look Indian and can speak enough Hindi to talk them down), if not more. Ok, it's true 40 rupees or even 100 is not that much money. I've been spending more than I anticipated, though, and so I'm trying to cut back. Besides, I had also heard the bus/Jeep takes a more scenic route and I was interested in that. Oh, and it's what the locals do, taking the bus/Jeep. I'm trying to fit in. All the cool kids are doing it, you know.

Anyway, as luck would have it the bus pulled up as I was just reaching the bus stop (which I don't think has a sign, it's just where everybody congregates and the bus obliges by pausing for a moment) and I hopped on. I was really glad, because by this time my knee was reminding me with every left step that I really shouldn't be putting my weight on it.

The bus trundled its way over the potholed road that wound up to McLeod Ganj through a military base that proudly displayed signs with Indian soldiers brandishing rifles and mustaches, and slogans like “May God have mercy on my enemies – because I won't!” Totally worth the 10 rupees.

Half an hour later the bus pulled in to the bus station in McLeod, which I had never been to. I wasn't even sure what part of the city I was in, to be honest. Of course, just as we got there the clouds decided they'd held in all that moisture plenty long enough, thank you very much, and the daily downpour commenced. “That's cool,” I said to myself. “I can hang here for a little while.” And so I did. I chilled there at that bus station for an hour before I finally got cold and tired of the gaggle of Indian women who had since disembarked their own bus and decided to literally surround the chair I had sat down in and pay absolutely no regard for where their purses and dupattas were swinging as they animatedly chatted with each other. (That's a fancy way of saying it was loud, a little smelly, and I got whacked in the head a couple of times.)

At that point I flagged down an autorickshaw that had pulled in and asked how much it would cost for a ride to the bottom of Temple Road. After a brief clarification on where that was, he told me 80 rupees. I had decided before I asked that I was willing to pay 100, and a tuk-tuk, as they are also called, would be cheaper than an actual taxi, so that's why I tried him first.

The astute among you may notice that I could have just taken a taxi from Lower Dharamsala straight to my place and paid 100 rupees or less for the 15-minute trip, and now instead I'd taken an hour and a half and spent about what I would have anyway, and was cold and a little bit damp on top of the knee injury I'd have had either way. I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble if I hadn't been so stingy in the first place, eh? Maybe so, but I actually welcomed the chance to just sort of sit near the dhaba (Indian cafe) in the station and watch people, and contemplate my situation. It may not have been the most efficient route, but I think it was the right one for today.

I got up to my room where I carefully counted how many switches I flipped on at once and took a shower. Or at least I tried to. I had left the water heater on all night in hopes that I could be guaranteed a hot shower whenever I wanted it, but that seems to have backfired because the “hot” water was only a step above lukewarm. Whatever, I thought, I just need to clean this knee up. So I did that, put on dry clothes, and decided I'd take it easy by snacking on some dried pineapple and recounting my adventure to you, dear friends.

For all it lacks, it really is kind of nice here. Some days I think I might actually be able to live in India for more than a few months. Maybe a different part of India; I hear Punjab is really nice. I think I'll also check out Thailand. I've had a bunch of people tell me lately that Thailand is like India but cleaner. That sounds fun.

Don't worry, I'll be home in December. I can't make any guarantees how long I'll stick around, though. In a lot of ways India has what I've been saying I wanted: walkable cities, all privately-owned businesses, and people being more concerned with appreciating what they have rather than working to constantly make more money so they can buy things they don't need. I think I'll probably end up going for someplace in between as far as lifestyle. I don't know that I'm ready to permanently give up reliable electricity and hot water, or salad, or nice knitting needles.