Walking towards Borobudur

And then finally a full view!

Just got back from Indonesia. Will post soon.
It's good to be back and re-establish my buttprint on the sofa in the good spot in front of the tv.

The Sardinha Festival

At six in the evening my father calls me. "Where are you?"
"On the way home."
"Don't go home. There's a parade and some festival here. It starts at nine."
Ok...

So my tired brother and I step off the metro and sit and wait for our dad. We have already visited the Gulbenkian museum that day. Then taken a bus to see the ancient Roman aqueduct. Then tried to walk back to where we started from and realized that the bus had been faster than we'd understood and trudged a long way uphill. We make our way to this viewpoint near downtown and sit down on a bench. A man with a dog asks me for money. I pretend not to speak any european language. Yes, not even english.
To add to our misery, there is a freezing wind blowing.

Dad arrives a little later and we're on our way to Alfama, an old neighborhood in Lisbon. And the festival starts right from the metro station. The streets are festooned with streamers and lamps. There is music blaring out of every store. There is a grill outside every store where they are frying sardines. Beer and sangria flow freely. People in the thousands are flocking to the party, swaying to the music. The whole neighborhood IS one giant party!

We taste the sardines. Sardinha no pao. Or sardines on bread. It's yum and there's also a dog sniffing us and trying to get in on the goodies. Dad and I take flight. Then dad and bro buy a beer. One sip each and they are ready to donate the rest to me. Ah the kindness! I refuse point blank. "I shall need to pee." What is it with my family's belief that I will be there for them to finish their beers? Of course, I do finish it for them with a quick chug and then pay to pee at the train station. My brother says its against his principles to pay to pee! I later have to persuade him to run into a restaurant and use the WC. The guy has principles about not paying to pee and also about not peeing in a restaurant where he is not eating/paying. What? Isn't that contradictory?

At some point past midnight we stagger back home. 

Pictures shall be added later. :)

The Museum of Natural History....

Dinnertable conversation last night.
My brother is telling my father about the mathematical exhibit he saw at the museum. The solid shapes of different geometries were on display. My father listens, then asks what museum we went to.
"Museum of Natural History and Science"
"Oh. Your sister left out the Science part."
Me-"I didn't know the science part."
Bro-"So you looked at the maths exhibit and thought math part of natural history?"
Me-"I kind of zoned out after the dinosaurs."
There is a sudden flurry of rolling eyes.

One of my oldest memories is looking at a giant dinosaur skeleton. I am not very sure if this memory is real. But I definitely went through a dinosaur phase.
The Natural History Museum in Lisbon has a wonderful dinosaur exhibit. Allosaurus skeletons, T-rex skulls. Overall a great evening, till we had to leave because it was closing time.

Parent-less in Portugal

It is 3p.m and my brother and I are staggering around the statue in the centre of the 'Praca do Comercio' or 'Plaza of Commerce', Lisbon, Portugal......

Dad is working at an institute here and bro and I have tagged along for the fun.
Mom has decided to stay at home. She's used the oldest excuse in the book. 'I have to study'.
Every day we set out for a new adventure. The two of us have never been left to our own devices in a foreign land before.
Neither of us speak any portuguese and lunch is ordered by stabbing at random lines in the menu. In the absence of both our parents, we've managed to drink a leeetle too much wine. We keep weaving into each other and then we stand to take pictures and my brother has to use me as a camera stand because he can't keep still enough to use a camera which autofocuses!

After a while we consult our map book. I shall not be able to understand maps until 3D maps hit the market. My brother, thanks to years of NFS, turns the map round and round and predicts which direction we should walk in. Sometimes he's wrong. So then we just walk downhill because its easier to.

The other day we ended up at a museum in an old ruined convent. The collection included the creepiest little mummified children. And while entering the museum I asked for student tickets. The lady asked for student ID. My brother started searching his wallet for his card. Me, am I even technically a student at the moment? I definitely don't have any student ID. I started flapping my wallet back and forth and wondering what to do next. Before I took any action (I'm sorry I'm a liar/cheapo/idiot who's lost her ID) the lady got bored and just let me in.

Later that day we tried some pastry at a 180 year old 'pastelaria' or pastry store. On the way back in the train we both fall fast asleep.

Another day's adventure shall be another post.

2011 was epic. I graduated college and bagged a college honor. Both very unexpected, as my parents told me. My brother graduated school and got into college as anticipated. My parents completed twenty five years of being married to each other.

And to celebrate....... family trip.

SO we board a flight to North bengal, book a room in a resort near the jungle, and with Axl Rose singing 'Welcome to the Jungle' in my head, punctuated with my Mom screaming at me to pack more clothes, we're off.

Like true bongs we have packed enough warm clothes to withstand Arctic cold, with mom seriously considering buying a monkey cap, and once there we don't know what to wear. Because it is HOT. In the day atleast. Evenings we all flaunted those skull caps.

In the flight there is an unfortunate child in front of me wearing a sweater knitted by her grandmother. The body is sky blue and red stripes. The arms are cobalt blue and red stripes. Gran ran out of sky blue wool it seems.

Day 1: Lyaadh. (yeah, sorry, this is still my family's trip)

Day 2: Jungal Safari

Jungal Safari turned out to be very dusty with not an animal in sight. Just a lot of elephant poop as the driver pointed out proudly.

Then there was the trip to see the Kanchenjungha. I really don't know how to spell that. My dad stared out at the horizon and after a moment of scrunching his eyebrows finally asks us..."Where is it?" My brother points. Dad hadn't thought to look above the clouds.

And skip skip some boring parts, some depressing meals because the chef was sick it's the last day.

Looking at a CUTE rhino from a watchtower, followed up by tribal dances and drinking their salty tea, it's time to go back to the room, driving through the forest in the dark, followed by fireflies.

Peace to everyone. Have an epic 2012.

the next edition of our family trips kicks off tomorrow morning. the previous editions have included mom getting stung by jellyfish, mom getting pickpocketed, mom unable to breathe through a snorkel and more such family bonding moments.

Merry Christmas everyone.

road trip 1

diwali in dehradun at the house of a friendly ninja turtle. we celebrated halloween and not diwali. yes my years of diwali ecoterrorism are over.

road trip 2

Saturday evening. I'm walking down the road, on the phone with my roommate.
"I want to get thrown out of hostel. I hate everyone. I hate everything. F***ing retards. M*****f*****s."
"What happened?"
She is patiently ignoring the swearwords and pretending to be interested. The one day of the week she has leave to spend the night with her boyfriends i call her to whine.
"Somebody stole my watch. My broken watch. I mean seriously, why would you steal a BROKEN little watch?"
"To sell?"
"AAAAAAAAA. Hypothetical question. Anyway, I'm leaving. I hope I get thrown out. I might never come back. Bye"
"Where are you going?"
"To meet school people. YUCK man. Why must I be social. Ok, i've reached the metro see you tomorrow byee."click.

What happened next was unexpected.
We meet.
We politely discuss weather and current events. (How is college? How were exams? How was internship? Is your library open all night?) Yeah that last question was from me.
We bond over bitching about people from school, gossiping about people from school and well u get the idea... school+negativity=very strong bond

So. Next step? Roadtrip. Yay!

We call concerned authorities i.e parents or warden and lie to them. Now we're free.

Let's go to Jaipur. Too far. Nainital. No. Jalandhar. WHY? No. Chandigarh. Ok, let's. Friend says there will be fog.

So we all go to Agra.

Crazy driver who thinks the brakes are a challenge against newton's second law. last moment deceleration and screeeech.
Chai at little roadship dhabas with strings of fairy lights. Peeing in creepy little ceilingless toilets and using quantities of sanitizer.
Sunrise at the Akbar's Tomb in the midst of all of UP's population doing morning exercises. No kidding. They ALL run and do push-ups or yoga.
Then the Taj mahal. Yes picture above. The camera got stolen. That's my crappy cellphone trying it's best. This is the only picture of the trip I have now.
And so one whole day after leaving my creepy hostel without leave I am back. So kill me. :)


p.s- i havent actually posted road trip 1. last week i went to dehradun but i havent got pictures of that yet.

Picture of Angkor Vat. Just realized that I had managed to not upload the picture after three whole posts on my trip to Cambodia.

Location: Cambodia
Time: July, 2010

My mom is in a souvenir store. Which sells jewellery. She decides on a set of aquamarine set in silver. Then she starts haggling. I'm standing there on one leg and not interfering, jewellery isn't my thing, I just have to ensure that my mom doesn't spend more money than what she has. Cambodian riels are very confusing. The shop girl keeps telling her how beautiful the set is, and how beautiful mom will look in it. Eventually mom gets bored of her line of attack. She says,"This is for my daughter." And points at me. "For her wedding". My stork yoga pose meditation is shattered. I overbalance gracelessly and gawp at mom. The shop-girl also has a really blank look for a moment. I can see her thinking child marriage. (OMG! This child is barely eighteen. Indians are strange!! Ah well, the customer is always right.) She looks at me,"Your marriage???" I blink. "When." I say. "Later." Coherent sentences were refusing to form inside my brain.
"IF!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I think and shout 'if' at my mother inside my head.
Anyway, knockout punch delivered mom triumphantly walks out of store.

Angkor Thom

gateway to the walled city. (above) and the temples. (below)

Orchids. Botanical Garden. Singapore.

I'm off. Singapore and Cambodia awaits. Be back in ten days. Yay. Travel travel and food and hopefully FIFA world cup live telecasts on hotel room tvs. Pictures of Angkor Vat with nerdily excited historian mom in front soon. Peace.

fhud

Uh, Baguettes and croissants that will make my dry morning bread seem worse.

And cakes. The French people, they can bake!

And beef bourgoeignon with mashed potatoes. (that spelling is not correct but i cant figure out the right combination of vowels)

And french wine.

And chocolate. Yummy creamy blissful.

5. The Louvre
Yes I saw La Jaconde. I smiled back at her politely.
I also saw Venus de Milo and liked all humans wondered where her arms are and what they pointed at.
wanna know what she looks like from the back? MonaLisa not venus de milo.....
That's what. Except the woman of course.
Pictures and sculpture from around the time of the renaissance. My pick was the young martyr by Delaroche. Check it out online. I didn't take too many pictures of pictures. There are better ones online.
The Egyptian exhibit was good too. And the royal bedrooms were all so well-preserved. Such luxury and grandeur! I wondered what the Mughal palaces were like before the British stripped them clean.
6. Orsay museum.
Was amazing. All the impressionist art. Vibrant colors. The pictures on the interent or in books just do not do them justice. Those thickly applied colors, brushstrokes were just too beautiful. Monet's cathedrals. Sisley. Pissarro. Van Gogh. Starry night left me stunned. And Cezanne drew apples a lot, but he did draw them rather well.
7. The Orangerie. Eight of Monet's waterlilies canvases. Huge canvases. In oval shaped rooms.

Everyone demands a travel description post. Paris defies description so easily, I'm sure lonely planet has a better one than mine.

But I must take a shot ...I told everyone who asked me for a description that I would just put one up and spare myself the trouble of repeating it too many times, for one reason.

Let's do this pointwise, I shall add points for the next as many days as strikes my fancy then.

1. Public transport there is great. Metro, bus, train and the same weekly ticket works for all of them. Sometimes the ticket doesn't work, especially at times when everyone else with whom I can squeeze and scoot over has crossed the gates. Then either a nice guy offers to let you squeeze through with him or you try through the doors of the other end. A fat frenchman hit me in the stomach with his suitcase when I tried that, strange patriotism, and I shouted "the pass got stuck" as loudly as I can at him and then ran through while bro activated the mechanism to open the door from the other side for me.

2. The notredame's architecture inspired respect for gothic things in me. Not that that means everyone wearing black clothes and nailpolish can now pretend to be gothic in front of me. (2nd pic on top, gargoyles in previous post)

3. Watching the artists paint at Mont-martre (pic on top)

4. We could see the eiffel tower from our flat which was in the suburbs. at night it lights up and at the beginning of each hour there are twinkly lights. The door to the verandah was glass. Basically, half the wall was glass. And you could fall asleep watching it.

Art and Food will have to be later posts. à bientôt.

So. Dear little blog etc. Here I am. Back from Paris. Yes P A R I S. That city. Where even the houses are pretty. Where the museums are just....i dont know what. Amazing?
Ok. enough useless words. Here's pick of pics.


notredame. me and chimaeras. fairly distinguishable unlike the one of bro and them


shoili at the gateway to hell. rodin museum




in front of a monet. waterlilies canvas



jim morrison's grave.
eiffel tower. with bro

Little Ivan and the rest of the trek

So we came down the mountain. Ivan doing it with two crutches, a feat which seemed incredible when we later came to know he's fractured his leg in three places.

I also became friends with porter RumSingh when he pulled my suitcase for me after I was calling home and telling Mom that I'm gonna throw it into the Beas and she can fish it out of the Ganga in Kolkata. We made RumSingh sing in his language. Kulvi I think he said it was. RumSingh made me sing in my language.

We reached Kullu pretty late. The first thing we did was run around the room screaming in joy at the sight of the beautiful bed and bathroom. Literally. Then we changed out of our trekking clothes. Muddy, dirty and in my case torn. My windcheater had torn after I tried to jump into it in world record time after spending two hours sitting right beside a fire with the porters and guides. Chhotu and Gopal. Apparently the rest of the team couldnt take the heat. I spent my time peacefully drying everyone's wet clothes. I remember somebody's sock drying on a branch fell into the fire. The Somebody coolly threw the other sock in too.

Anyway, then we ate tandoori rotis with meat and fell asleep. Federer won the French open.

Next day was spent eating plums, apricots, peaches and hanging around Ivan's room. By evening I had become fast friends with the kid. Little Ivan has a very enchanting something. R crushed on him and Nepu (short for nekapusu or silly pussy) actually replied when he called her Nepu. Upon which he turned and winked at me fully aware of his achievement.

Next day we went to Manali. Manali has these temples. For Hidimba and her son Ghatotkach. Both portrayed as rakshases in Aryan literature ie the Mahabharata. So the G I have mentioned before is called Ghotu, short for Ghatotkach. This gave rise to a lot of merriment and the kids enjoyed Manali. We took loads of pictures for Ivan. I ate a 4-in-1 softy icecream in Manali. Choco-vanilla-strawberry-black currant. Slurrrp! mmm... I also found a Tibetan jewellery store which everybody loved. Thanks to that I had to sprint down the mainroad of Manali with an uncle coz he wanted to buy some for his kid and there was 5 minutes left to reach the busstop. We finished the world record sprint and jewellery buying but then I sprinted off again when another guy offered to treat the kids to momos. We ate like 4 momos each then packed the rest and ran back coz the leader of the expedition was calling us up and yelling through the cellphone. Special mention must go to S (kid who stranded me in frozen water). He ate 8 momos in under a minute without choking.

The next day was the bus journey to Chandigarh. Train at midnight. The train journey consisted of singing our lungs out and exchanging phone numbers. Me and Little Ivan also discussed injuries and football and lots of things. We also ate all the remaining supplies which included a box of chocolates.

Ivan told me a great story. When he was sitting with his plastered leg at Manikaran a Punjabi came up to him and asked about his leg. Then he said,"That's a nice shirt." "thanks" "But weren't you wearing a different one yesterday?" "Uhhh....yeah...." "Hm.""Why? When did you put on the shirt you're wearing now?" "I dont remember."

Then we reached good old Howrah station and I squeezed the breath out of my Dad and went home and ate breakfast and lunch consecutively. Not brunch ok? Both.

And that, is the end of my trek chronicles.

The Trek

After the highlights comes the match replay :D

So after a month long round of exams I come home dying to do something. Lugging with me an extra suitcase full of winter clothes coz Mom has arranged for a trek with a group of people I do not know. She knows one of them. And as it turned out, the group consisted of no-one my age.

So I bought a rucksack, a jacket, a sleeping bag and two pairs of rubber-soled shoes and cheerfully set out to 'see mountains' as I put it. That's because thanks to a very asthmatic childhood all my vacations are seaside. Or hill station. But I had never seen snowcapped peaks. Or snowfall.

At the railway station I was introduced to a group of children, around 15 years old at an average and their parents and a core group of trained trekker and mountaineer men.

So we piled into a train and set out. Singing cheerfully.

We reached Chandigarh at midnight day after that and piled into a bus. After a twelve hour bus journey with breaks to eat and pee we reached Manikaran. Manikaran is famous for hot water springs. The cool part is that we lived in a gurudwara. Incidentally, bro says, Manikaran has one of India's only two geothermal energy plants. Anyway, so all 46 of us in one room in a gurudwara and eating in a langar was a total new experience. Next morning we piled into cars and set out for Tosh village. Lots of us threw up. It's called altitude change.... (I'm going to take a line here to wish a friend. Dear Vineet, that was probably ur b'day. Happy Birthday. It probably sucked coz u had exams right after but hopefully knowing that people threw up may make u feel happier coz of ur weird interest in puke)

Tosh is this beautiful village. Last outpost of civilization. Last plugpoint. Last bed. Last potty. Wild weed growing everywhere. We stayed in a little hotel run by a local couple. In the afternoon they took us to see the waterfall and the local dam and power project. They almost ran along, leaving us huffing and puffing and hurting experienced trekker uncleA's ego pretty badly.

Next day we started trekking. Wonderful little trail. Snowcapped mountains in the distance. Pine and fir trees around us. Colorful wildflowers.

It was a short trek and we reached camp quickly. Just one minor mishap happened. R and T, two teenagers managed to walk right into the middle of a lot of squishy mud and sink ankle deep in it and get totally stuck. They screamed for uncleA and he came running and pulled them out after handing me his rucksack. I had an attack of the giggles then. I think the altitude had a little to do with it.

Campsite was called Budhaban. My first time living in a tent.

The next day the trek was really really long. Exhausting for everybody. Adding to my misery came a round of menstrual cramps. My stomach felt like someone had pumped it with lead. The guide Teedee, a mountain of a man, put up with my moaning for the last two hours of the trek. How much longer? I don't want to walk anymore....

Just twenty more minutes is what he said every time. The man must have a terrible impression if me.

Camp was called Sharamthach. Night was bitterly cold.

The third day's trek was amazing. We crossed the treeline. We had to cross glaciers, freezingly cold rivers and stretches of the trail were so narrow that one misstep meant disaster. I was walking behind a kid for most of the way. He's got some trekking experience and is good at picking out the right way to go but when it comes to glaciers and rivers he's BAAd. Glaciers, his formula is to cling to the rope and be pulled across coz otherwise he slips. The entire dig in the side of your foot doesn't work for him. Rivers, he just stopped in the middle of one when he found some rocks, leaving me stranded barefoot in ankle deep water which was freeeeeeezing. Man I howled then.

We reached camp. Samsithach. It started to snow. We pitched our tents and rushed inside. Our tent hadn't been pitched too well as we discovered later. The sides weren't pulled tight and water seeped in all night. Added to a porter spilling water in our tent while giving us warm driking water made our tent quite the mother of misery. We fell asleep sitting in the cold wet tent. I was apparently the only one who managed to sleep well.

Bad weather conditions forced us to start our descent the next day after a quick snowball fight. We never made it to Papsura base camp. Lots of us did heave sighs of relief at that.

Descent in the slippery snow was difficult. Two people and me managed to take a little bit of a wrong trail and ended up climbing up the side of a mountain straight to regain the trail. that was fun. After that me and uncleA trekked a long distance. This was fine and we just sat down to eat boiled eggs when 13year old G who had crapped his pants arrived. Apparently he hadnt been, crapping behind rocks not being his thing, and then slipped in snow and done it. He stank something terrible and gave me and uncleA a lot of speed. Little Ivan broke his leg that day. he completed the trek with two crutches. (Applause)

After a last night in tents we reached Tosh the next day and piled back into buses to go to Kullu. That was also the day I realized I was crapping in a Marijuana field.

Little Ivan's xray revealed three fractures and his leg was put in a cast.

last three days to be written later..... :P

Trek Highlights

Crapping- in the middle of a marijuana field, behind a rock while a huge he-sheep comes and stands majestically on rock. (stare right back and he goes away)

note to self- is he-sheep a word, he-goat is. 

Sleeping- in a tent which had come open at the top and is thus tiptilted and has snowfall outside with cold water dripping down the sides and a lot of overturned water sloshing around the floor. I was the only one who managed solid sleep given the conditions. Yay for me.

Eating, then not washing the tin coz it was too cold and getting a round scolding from a 15year old little pahari boy who simply refused to buy the excuse of 'cold'. 

Snowball fight.

more later....