Forty-Six and Sunny

My first few days in Canada were warm compared to the winter back in Illinois, but they were still windy enough that it was too chilly to really hang out outside. Wednesday the wind had died down, so Brij wanted to make the most of it by showing me around Vancouver.

Our first stop was Stanley Park.

We saw some baby geese.

And whatever this cool-looking bird is.

The city of Vancouver as seen from Stanley Park.

I got a coffee from this place. We also picked up some touristy maps.

We checked out the totem poles.

So.. cyclists can weigh as much as they want?

Brij holding the Lions Gate Bridge.

Another angle of the aforementioned bridge.

We wandered around and scoped out the scenery for a while. We were both hurting from snowboarding, though, so we drove more than we walked. Oh well, at least we were in the sun and fresh air.

After the park we headed out to see Granville Island, a touristy area full of artisan shops. Now, normally I'm not all that interested in this sort of thing (the quaint small-town Main Street vibe doesn't tend to do it for me), but there was something about this place that I really enjoyed. I've found that the general demeanor of the west coast is totally different from other places I've been. Seattle seemed more chill than home, and Canada is even more so. All the people are nice, everyone seems relatively happy. To my delight, I've heard a fair amount of "eh"s and "aboats" and such.

Anyway, back to Granville Island.

Not long after leaving Stanley Park, we found that both of our phones were dead (and our GPS along with them). Being resourceful, we grabbed the coffee shop maps from the back seat and managed to navigate most of the way to Granville Island before deciding we needed to find food and a place recharge our phones. We wound up stopping at a pizza place where the guy behind the counter told us he'd toss our pizza back into the oven for $3; maybe we were hungry or maybe he really did just have a damned good poker face, but either way he got us good.

The pizza was so-so, but the staff was good company.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on Granville Island before meeting one of Brij's buddies for "a real lunch."

It appears the slide is closed for the season. Bummer. :(

I got endless amusement out of the fact that there's a place called False Creek. So what is it, really?

Compost bins abound in Vancouver.

Seagulls do whatever they damn well please, thankyouverymuch.

Sign up sheet for live performers in the Granville Market. I'm not sure why I can't get it to rotate... sorry. :/

This dude must be a regular here. He was covered in pigeons. I mean COVERED.

I figured why not? Plus, look at the cute kiddo!

Those vicious beasts...

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.

I only threw up twice

After yesterday's all-day excursion to Triund, we were feeling a little skeptical as to whether we'd want to spend another entire day running around. We had planned to visit the church in town just because it's there, and then we'd hire a taxi driver for the day and visit the Kangra Fort, the Masroor rock temple, and some hot springs that are on the way.

We wound up doing all of it. This morning Marie and I went to meet Suzanne for coffee.

Then we got picked up and went to church. We weren't supposed to take photos inside but I managed to snap this one anyway.

There were about 50 people in attendance, a mix of westerners and Indians, and a few who looked to be Tibetan. The church itself was a rather nice old building: stone walls, a wooden roof with a tarp covering part of it outside, and really, really bright CFLs in all the light fixtures. There were Christmas lights around the stained glass window; in true xmas light fashion, half of them stayed lit the whole time while the other half cycled through blinking patterns. Why do they always do that? Can't anyone figure out how to get them all doing the same thing?

The sermon was about Abraham and the whole sacrificing his son thing. The preacher talked about how Abraham was able to have a son at 99 years of age and then be willing to kill him "because he had great faith"; the most disturbing part of this for me was how it was said with a smile. That and some of the other things that were pointed out to us today were perfect examples of what the book I'mreading has to say about, and I'll be gentle here, the dark side of monotheism. Nevermind thinking for yourself, just repeat what we say and don't question it. Faith is better than reason.

I could have stuck around and took notes on the brainwashing a little longer, but Marie had had enough so we left after about 45 minutes. The taxi driver picked us up and we headed out.

We'd made it about 20 minutes before I started really feeling the effects of the winding roads out of the mountain. I don't get motion sickness easily (I'm one of those people who usually has no problem reading in the car), but I had some on the initial bus ride up from Delhi, and I definitely felt it as we made our way toward the Kangra valley.

Eventually I made my way up to the front seat because the general consensus was that it would affect me less there. You know, though, how once you feel nauseous you can't always shake it until you actually throw up? I had that going on. Or at least I thought I did. We got to the hot springs and so I got a bit of a respite.

They really were warm, like bath water!

Then it was back in the car for another hour-plus. My personal nausea situation went from bad to worse, and once we stopped the car at the rock temple I got out and spent a few minutes vomiting off the side of the road. As tends to be the case, I felt much better once I'd gotten it out of my system and had a little water.

Ruler of all I survey.

This shrine looked like the dolls/statues/whatever in it had real shrunken heads... like they were someone's actual mummified remains. O.o

I spotted a few of these little guys chilling on the rocks.

The view from atop the temple.

There are always dogs around! These ones were quite friendly.

After an hour or so at the very cool, very big, very old rock temple, we had a snack of fruit and headed out to the fort. I did have to stop the driver one more time somewhere in between so I could get out and hurl again. I kept thinking of Garth's famous line; eventually I just couldn't hold it anymore and gave in. So it goes. The combination of the heat (it was probably around 90 in the valley), the constant sharp hairpin turns, and the fact that all the taxi drivers in India seem to drive in such a way that they accelerate, then brake hard at the last second, and take turns very, very tightly – over and over and over again for the entire trip, no matter how far you're going – made for a veritable trifecta of misery for our otherwise spunky heroine.

Whatever. By the time I really felt sick it was too late to go back, so I just stuck it out like a big girl. I didn't even cry. (Though at one point I did seriously consider it.) Brij even commended me later for “manning up” when it would no doubt have been much easier to wuss out, which I took as quite a compliment.

Behold: the Kangra Fort!

Whee, fountain!

Verity listening to some Kangra Fort history.

A little altar to Shiva.

Arrow slits.

Apparently we hadn't even made it inside the actual fort yet!

Oooh, ahhh...

A carving of (for?) Lakshmi that took 10 years to sculpt. It's also part of the restorations that are happening at the fort.

The courtyard on the roof of the fort.

There was a little ledge outside one of these windows where you could perch like Altair or Ezio... the only thing missing was a haystack on the ground below. Yes, that was the first thing I thought when I saw it.

I reeeeeeeally wanted to go for a swim.

Go ahead and try to tell me this isn't one of the most beautiful scenes you've ever seen. I dare you.

We all survived the fort and the trip back to Dharamsala was quick and easy, and I didn't have any further issues. I even managed to finally get some food to stay in my stomach more than a couple of hours. Victory!

Lesson learned: if you are either prone to motion sickness or have never traveled much in the mountains, do yourself a favor and take prophylactic measures if you are planning such a trip. I'm going to stock up on peppermint, ginger, a bottle or two of pop, and probably even some OTC anti-nausea stuff just in case. I've got some trips planned and I don't want to be “that person” who makes the driver pull over every hour because she can't handle it.

Other recommendations are gladly accepted! What works for you?

In any case... Bring it on, Dhauladhar mountains. I see what I'm up against and you won't catch me unprepared next time.