TRIUND

If you recall, last weekend we went on a hike. One of our party wanted to go to Triund, but the rest of us weren't feeling up for it as a spur of the moment thing so we kept it local that day. Well, earlier this week we planned. We planned on pulling out the big guns.

Today, we would go to Triund.

Triund is the trekking destination here. It's up on a mountain and getting there is quite an adventure. It's a name that carries a lot of weight around here – “'Where are you going?' 'Triund'” is usually followed by an awed “ooooooh,” whether it's audible or not. From what I understand, it's a hike that many people can – and do – make, not just the seasoned professionals and hardcore hikers. I guess it's kind of like collecting your family or friends and going to the beach for a day... except there's a lot of work involved in getting there.

The hike generally takes about 5 hours to complete if you are a group of mildly experienced hikers moving at a reasonable pace. Most of the teachers at Tibet Charity tend to fall into this group. We thought it would be fun to invite the students to come with, because a few weeks back Brij and I and some students went for a hike to Naddi and had a picnic, and it was all kinds of fun.

So that's what we did. We invited our students to trek to Triund this weekend. We haven't had much rain all week, so we figured it was pretty safe to say the monsoon wouldn't be giving us much trouble. The temperature has been fantastic – comfortably in the 70s – and we've had a lot of sun. We made plans to meet in McLeod's main square at 7:30am (yeah... it's the whole 5-hours-to-get-there thing), have a picnic at Triund, chill for a bit, and be home in time for the Liverpool game at 7.

Last night as Brij and I sat out on our balcony finishing off a bag of sunflower seeds, the fog rolled in. Then we saw lightning. We heard some thunder. The clouds passed after a bit with no real rain, but we were a little concerned for the morning. Regardless, we got up and got ready to meet everyone bright and early (just in case).

A rather poorly taken photo of us failing to look like badasses, on our way to the main square to meet the students.

We got to the main square a few short minutes after 7:30. It's nice and quiet in the main square at 7:30 in the morning.

This guy kept sweeping garbage at me. I was not amused.

At 8am we finally decided that nobody else was showing up, so we had some decisions to make. The Reader's Digest condensed version is that in the end we decided we'd trek up to, or at least toward, Triund after all, just the 4 of us teachers.

Off we went. No more than ten minutes in this dog decided to join us, and she stayed with us for the first hour or so of the hike. According to the guys, every time Tibet Charity teachers have gone to Triund, at least one dog has decided to tag along.

Spontaneous dog acquisition complete, we were on our way.

See that? That's where we're heading.

The rather run-down little altar just before the first tea shop.

These young trekkers went missing during their travels around Trind. It's been around a month now, so everyone assumes the worst, unfortunately.

First tea shop = first break: 1 hour in. I'm really glad I have these shoes. They are badass.

Marie getting ready to head up after the first tea shop and the temple.

Where we came from.

Brij pointing out landmarks. Us saying "omg."

A few hours earlier we were waaaaaaaay over there.

Donkey delivery service! Second tea shop, about halfway to the top.

We met some new friends. These guys are university students from Punjab.

Marie taking a much needed break at the third tea shop.

The fog rolled in from time to time...

One last break before the final stretch!

Oh, what's this? Could it be... the end??

Five hours and three tea shops later, and we finally made it.

TRIUND.

(Don't forget, all photos can be clicked for a better view.)

The photos really don't even begin to do it justice. It was breathtaking.

It reminded me of the Calm Lands.

Or of any starting newbie zone in an MMO.

Of course, shortly after lunch it started raining.

Waaa, rain is cold in the mountains.

We decided to try to wait it out because you can never tell how long it'll rain here, and so when it let up a half hour or so later, we set off.

Five minutes in, it started hailing.

Not to be deterred by a little bit of ice falling from the sky, we kept moving. It's quicker going down because you've got gravity helping, but it can also be hard on your knees and you've got to be careful not to twist an ankle or something.

About halfway down our canine companion rejoined us, and brought a friend.

Look at this view. LOOK AT HOW FAR YOU CAN SEE.

I'm serious.. LOOK AT IT. It's insane.

Oh, and on the way through town Marie and I stopped to buy some fruits. I asked for parsley and when the language barrier proved to be a bit too much, the guy wound up showing me into their storeroom. I didn't see any parsley, but I did see garlic, so I asked how much it was. The key here is I asked for it in Hindi: I may not know much, but I do know a few words and phrases, and I made sure “lahsun” was one of them. I never did find out how much it costs, but he gave me a bulb for free so I'm going to consider the transaction successful.

And now, my friends, it's bedtime.

Universal Yoga

I do yoga once in a while. Julie says she has done yoga basically every day for the last year. We are in India. If one is going to do yoga, this is the place to do it.

Yesterday, two weeks in to our stay here, we finally made it to a yoga class. Julie and Kalden found it; a little studio called Universal Yoga that involves following a series of handwritten signs down a few flights of steps and through a dark hallway or two into a seedy-looking residential building. If I had been in the US in a place like this, I would have turned around and gone home. But this is India. It's just the way places look here.

We got there a little early and there was a Vinyasa class still in session. We were asked to remove our shoes outside the studio room, and then we were allowed to sit quietly while the other class finished up, since there was no electricity in the hallway outside and it was a little dark and scary.

The Vinyasa class was taught by a tall, dark yogi who spoke as though he, too, was right from the States. He seemed like a good teacher, but I admit I was a little bit disappointed; where were the Indian yogis? Seriously, I travel to the other side of the globe and attend a yoga class in the country that invented the practice, and I find an American instructor?

Their class ended and the students for the next class started trickling in. Julie and I rolled out our mats near the front of the room; it was a good thing we got there early, because we ran out of space. There must have been about 15 or 20 of us; there were a few people who couldn't fit their mats into the room and didn't get to do the class.

A lanky, dark Indian man who looked to be in his mid-twenties took a spot at one of the mats at the front of the room and started leading us in a warm-up. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually decided that his very unexpected, just-thick-enough-to-be-distracting accent was Scottish. It was... well ok, it was just plain weird. Kind of cool, though, too.

He finished with the warm-up and a different instructor stepped in. Let me tell you, THIS guy was the sort of person you'd expect to find teaching yoga in India. Super thin and all muscle, you could tell he'd been doing this for a while. Periodically he would instruct us to do “comfortable Vinyasa” -- which Julie later informed me means a sequence of moves that involves being up, down, and eventually coming to rest – and he himself would do this elaborate series of handstands and the splits and other such feats of balance and strength, and all I could think was “I'm in India... doing yoga... with Dhalsim from Street Fighter.”

Accurate representation of my first yoga instructor in India.

There were a handful of young (in their 20s) Indians assisting in the class, adjusting us students when we weren't doing an asana quite correctly. They had clearly been doing this for some time, because they nudged just enough to put you in the right spot and then deftly moved down the line to the next students.

At the end of class, during the relaxation period, Dhalsim began chanting in this slow, deliberate way that reverberated through the room and my body, and it really was extremely relaxing. I've never been to a yoga class where that was done before. It became so easy to really let go of the distractions and chill for a while. When we came out of Shavasana, he bowed to each of us in turn and thanked us for coming to class.

I dunno, I thought it was pretty cool. Apparently it's one of the best yoga studios in the area as far as cost/quality ratio.

On our way out we met Rico, one of the many hipster-ish Caucasians in the class. Almost everyone there was western, or at least they looked western. Tattooed, unshaven, and muscular, Rico had the look of a wanderer, which he later confirmed in his answer to my question of where he was from (“I don't even know anymore. I spent a while in Boulder...”). He seemed like a nice enough guy. He and Julie discussed tattoos for a bit, he asked what we were doing in Dharamsala, and he invited us out for dinner. We declined because we already had plans, but told him we'd be at the Green Hotel tomorrow afternoon giving English lessons to our monk friend, Palsang. I'll also be Skyping with my parents and hopefully my sister. We'll see if our new yoga buddy shows up.

In other news, a few of you have been asking what you can send me to make my stay in India more homey. I have begun compiling a list, though I want to stress that NONE OF THIS IS NECESSARY – we are surviving just fine (and more or less comfortably, really) on what we can get here. These are simply things that would be nice to have, should you feel the urge to send them our way:

Protein bars. I like Lara bars, especially the chocolate and/or peanut butter ones (obviously). Some Luna bars are good too (Nutz Over Chocolate... I'm sensing a theme here...). If you find a different brand I'm down for trying something new, please just make sure it doesn't have any high-fructose corn syrup in it. Some of 'em will surprise you, like GeniSoy. :(

Oskri also makes delicious coconut bars... they come in a few different flavors, all of which are great, and look like this:

I would like to have more of these plzthx.

Dried papaya, pineapple, and/or apples. In that order.

Seeds, like pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Nuts are easy to find here but I don't see many seeds. They make for good snackletons.

Licorice. Panda makes “sticks” that would be perfect. Any flavor is welcome, but especially the regular black kind.

Turkey, veg, or ostrich jerky (pepper Ostrim is pretty tasty). I can't remember what the turkey jerky I had on the plane was, but I got it at Fruitful Yield in Joliet and it comes in packs of 2 sticks. I think it was on the top shelf.

Good Q-tips. Here I've only seen the crappy ones that have hardly any cotton on the ends and cause you to always poke the inside if your ears up. You have to take small victories where you can get them.

GameBoy Advance games. I brought my system and three games: the original Super Mario Bros, Phantasy Star Collection (which includes I, II, and III), and Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. Some Zelda would be cool, or Phantasy Star IV. Or whatever else, we'll take it all. Don't spend a lot of $$ on 'em, though.. only send them if a) they are mine to begin with (lol... this means you, Dad and Lonnie), b) they are yours and you won't play them anyway, or c) you get them super cheap, like on eBay or at a garage sale.

Drawing pencils, chalk pastels, or charcoal. I have access to sketchbooks.

Those small packages of Kleenex, the travel size ones that have like 20 in each thing. I found a 3-pack at Target for a couple bucks (at home... there are no Targets here).

A size 3 circular knitting needle, preferably 40” long but I can work with shorter if I need to. I'm already roughing it so I would even appreciate a 16” metal circular, or DPNs... Lindsey and Casey will probably be the only ones who (might) get the humor in this; it's hilarious, I promise. (Seriously though, wooden 29” or 36” would be awesome. Knit Picks will hook you up.)

Photos of you! Facebook is slow here, so send me a couple of real photos for me to decorate my room. I brought a small collection with me but I can always use more.

Flash cards or greeting cards that have art on them. The Art Institute usually sells sets of them, and I'm sure Amazon does, too. They are good for passing out to students and having them describe the painting/picture/photo to each other.

Books of exercises for ESL classes. I can't remember the titles of any of them off the top of my head (and the internet is too slow to do a good search), but look for ones involving phrases like “5-minute warm-ups.”

A USB stick filled with movies that use simple English. It's good for students to have a variety of sources to listen to. Specifically, I'd like to request Toy Story.

An emergency phone backup battery thing. It holds a charge so when your phone dies right before you need to make a Very Important Call you can hook it up and take care of business, like a boss. This is also by no means necessary, but if you can find one that's not expensive and feel like passing it along I will totally make use of it.

And finally, plastic bags. I cannot stress enough that I do not want a lot of them, but if you have space to fill in a package and want to throw a few intact plastic bags in for cushioning, we could use them for trash bags. Plastic bags were outlawed in Dharamsala (which is awesome for the most part) which means you don't find them floating around in the street, but it also makes it a little tricky finding something to put your garbage in.

My address is:

Magda Ksiazak

c/o Tibet Charity

Below Temple Road

McLeod Ganj, 176219

Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India

Please only nice presents. :)

Thanks everybody! <3