Smashing Good Chai!

Before you think India has transformed Nouri and Vanessa into cup smashing jerks, this is actually a common sight in the city. Men sell chai in terra cotta cups intended to be smashed on the roadside after its delicious contents are enjoyed. Naturally we had to try for ourselves....

Colonial Calcutta and the City of Boiling Beans

Ready for warmer weather we boarded a train to visit some friends from the mountaineering course in Calcutta. As you may have guessed from the title of this blog we are keen fans of the train travel (and Wes Anderson for that matter…okay, until this trip none of us had been on a train but we certainly liked the idea). Alarmingly, we almost missed catching our first “big boy train” (the toy train doesn’t fully count..) as all three of us were on waitlist and we couldn’t find any direction on which berth we were supposed to go into once the train arrived. Luckily we all made it onto the train, which was going to travel overnight to Calcutta, unfortunately only 2 of us actually made it off of the waitlist, leaving one of us without a sleeping berth. As a result Christina and Nouri shared a berth (already made for indian sized folk… which Nouri is not by the way) by contorting their bodies in various renditions of the foetal position throughout the night. Needless to say, it was not quite the romanticized version of our first train travel we had conjured in our imagination. 

We arrived in Calcutta at 6 in the morning… way earlier than any establishment that we could loiter in opens. So we found a park with suitable benches and entertained ourselves for several hours eating the most time consuming fruit known to man… the pomegranate. Luckily for us this park was also the popular hangout for the city’s senior citizen crowd, who spend the mornings performing their fitness routines. Highlight of the morning incudes a local senior who chatted us up and performed not only a pretty good cover of “Adelwise” from the sound of music but also rapped us some Frank Zappa songs. Talk about vocal versatility. After a full day of aimless city wandering we met up with our hospitable friends Nikhil and Madhu who cooked us up a delicious Indian feast and treated us to great conversation till the hours of early morn… You heard right Christina stayed awake past midnight (insert gasps here). 

The next day we checked out College street area where one can feast their eyes on more book stalls than seems sustainable in a city of any size. We also rode one of Calcutta’s famous antiquated trams around the city. Once they were off work we met up with Nikhil and Madhu for some dinner great live music. Before our departure Nikhil toured us around the flower market and the Ganges before guiding us to our next train to Bangalore—the city of boiled beans.

Thanks again to Nikhil and Madhu for being such great hosts!

The train to Bangalore was pretty amazing. First of all, as we booked our tickets late, we ended up having to travel first class. Not only that, but all THREE OF US had our own berth! Needless to say we were very excited as we boarded the train, would this ride fulfil our train riding dreams? Not to spoil the suspense, but it definitely did. Our cabin was huge and even had a door. As we set about organizing our bunks one of the servers came in to great us with a flower (yes, Nouri got one too) and bottled water. Off to a good start. After the train departed the server came around taking lunch orders (the two options were: “veg” or “non-veg”). Not only was the food good, but it was plentiful. Our meal started with soup and bread sticks, then came out the actual meal (which was dal and rice!, but it was tasty and accompanied by some other snacks), after a suitable digestion period they even brought out ice cream! We spent a couple hours watching India roll by the window (which meant watching a lot of cows mostly) and napping, after which the server came by to drop off more snacks (which was almost a full sized meal). Again, we passed the next few hours reading, sleeping, and gazing out the window. It doesn’t sound particularly amazing, but keep in mind that sleeping and eating constitutes an almost perfect day for most of us...

And so, after 26 hours of read-eat-sleep-repeat we reached Bangalore at about 4pm at which point we pretty much met up with Arvind, our super friendly couchsurfing host, ate a few dosas and went to bed (ya know, because our train ride was exhausting). Our following day in Bangalore could be described as a vacation from our vacation: Bangalore, being the IT capital of India, is a very large modern city complete with Booster Juice and Levis Jeans outlet stores. So in our days here we got legs waxed (not Nouri), beards trimmed (only Nouri) and ate at a decadent buffet on the thirteenth floor of a building where we were obviously judged for going back for seconds on the dessert round (all three were involved in this one). Oh and we also saw a matinee of TinTin in 3D.

That night we met up with Vishal, Smitha, and Shirley, all friends Nouri and Christina met mountaineering. They took us to get South Indian chat (which are basically Indian tapas) and coffee (which is like any filtered coffee, except it’s made with chickory), and then we checked out one of Bangalore’s many restaurants. 

The next day we were off to Kerala, the neighbouring state, to check out the famed “backwaters” and tour a bit more of the south before heading to our month of surfing. 

Reunited!

After one month of separation the Darjeeling ltd blog team has been reunited! Vanessa survived the long Kathmandu to Darjeeling journey with an escort of a few Israeli travellers and the three of us celebrated with balloons, cookies and chocolate (and hugs…hugs are key). Despite Nouri and Christina spending their loitering days in darjeeling waiting for Vanessa to arrive in fog, rain and general miserable wetness, we were treated to clear views of the Sikkim Himalaya and bluebird skies during Vanessa’s stay. To take advantage of the weather, we took a stroll around the town to some great view points of kanchenchunga (the third highest mountain in the world I’ll have you know), visited a tea estate, the Himalayan mountaineering institute (to show Vanessa, Christina and Nouris home sweet home for the past month) and the Darjeeling zoo (of Red Panda fame… google how cute these guys are and you won’t be disappointed). Oh and we ate. A lot. All sorts of things. Waffles, French toast, chocolates, pasta, banana bread, cookies, veg sizzlers, smootheis, hummus sandwiches… the list goes on. While waiting for several days in Darjeeling for Vanessa to arrive Christina and Nouri took it upon themselves to diligently track down the best food options of the city (before passing judgement sympathize that we ate the same repetitive meal of rice and dal for a month ). 

And now to the exciting part… the train of blogname fame! We spent a sunny afternoon riding the world heritage steam train of the Himalaya railway in darjeeling with permanent smiles of glee plastered upon our faces. In reality, the experience was actually quite slow (had we not been eating so many cookies we probably could have run faster than the speed it travelled) and dirty from all the coal. But as a bonus Christina did convince a reluctant conductor to let her stoke the steam engine!

Month of Mountain Madness

After a horrendous 26 hours of bus/jeeping Christina and I made it up to Darjeeling and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, our home for 28 days. Brief overview: Christina and I took a mountaineering course at HMI. The course lasted for 28 days, with 18 of those days being our "expedition". What was the course like you ask? Well, let me tell you...

We arrived to HMI, which is literally in a zoo, the night before the course started. The campus is quite large, and to access it you walk through Darjeeling's Himalayan Zoo, which is home to Red Pandas, Bengal Tigers, Clouded Leopards, and lots of other Himalayan animals. The campus has two artificial rock walls (indoor and outdoors), a hostel, a dinning hall, a "movie" theatre (where they show rock climbing movies from the 70s), accommodations for all the staff and sherpas (yah, they continuously employ a fleet of sherpas), and (inexplicably) dozens of defunct kayaks. The first night was very exciting, as we got to meet all of our co-mountaineers, and most importantly to us, found out our culinary plan of the next month. Turns out our first meal was a very good predictor of every other meal: dahl, rice, sabji (some form of curried veg), and chapati. The food was pretty good, but we could tell we'd be very sick of it very soon. The people, fortunately, we did not tire of, as we managed to make some great friends very quickly.

The first day was equally exciting, as we soon discovered we had joined the Indian army! Not really, but it felt like it, as we were expected to "fall in" (meaning line up in order and stand at attention) frequently, address everyone as sir, and BE ON TIME FOR THINGS! We also discovered that when HMI's website said "instruction in Hindi and English" what they meant was instruction in either Hindi or English, not both. So we had to get some very kind Hindi speakers to translate many of the lectures for us.

For the first week we were based out of HMI. We spent each morning doing PT (physical training) which either meant running and yoga, or practice hiking. We would then practice climbing and rappelling until lunch. After lunch was everyone's favorite: hours of lectures! Particularly boring for us when they were in Hindi...

After the "theory" section of the course came the "practical" part. We left our cozy little zoo for the mountains of West Sikkim. To get there took one day of driving and four days of trekking. The trek was gorgeous, but our bags were very heavy and the terrain steep. The average bag weight was probably 20 kilos (we know because we weighed them...). Christina and I enjoyed the trek, but many of the people found it tough beyond enjoyment. This was probably the most physically demanding thing many of them have done. Lots of the Indian trainees were from the south, which has lots of trekking, but none of it particularly hilly. When we arrived at base camp many people collapsed on their beds (as soon as they had set them up that is). Base camp was a pretty impressive sight. It is located at the base of the Singalia and Sangri ranges, and is about 4500m above sea level. The camp has two barraks, one for guys and one for girls, a dining shack, a kitchen, and many other random buildings. It must have taken a lot of yaks to get all that wood up there!

We had 12 days at base camp, so we got to know it well. Every day we either hiked 3 hours to the glacier for ice climbing, crevasse rescue, glacier travel, or ice rappelling practice, or stayed at base camp and went bouldering, practiced rappelling without a harness, went jumaring, or learned medical stuff (like building a stretcher out of climbing rope). The 12 days were tough, as we were in very close quarters and had minimal amenities, but we survived the cold and enjoyed the 2 weeks. The journey from HMI to the base camp took 5 days -- but somehow the return trip only took 2...Needless to stay it was an exhausting journey!

Once we arrived at HMI we spent 4 days doing very little. We had a day of competitions: climbing and cross country running. Neither Christina nor I took it very seriously (we didn't think it was worth blowing out our knees running down steep pavement), but Christina managed to win bronze medals in both events! Go Canada go! We also practice our graduation routine 4 times, which was extremely excessive considering there were no guests besides our instructors. As a nerdy bonus we did get to wear matching jumpers for our graduation ceremony!

The days following we awaited Vanessa's arrival by drinking copious amounts of tea, eating bengali sweets and all forms of food that didn't contain dal and rice. Our plans once reunited include brief visits in Kolkata, Bangalore and Kerala before heading for a month of surfing and yoga in Karnataka! We are definitely excited to find some warm weather in the south!

Nouri (and Christina)

Banepa Banepa Banepa Banepa: Volunteering at the Hospital for Rehabilitation of Disabled Children (HRDC)

So, for the past month I have been volunteering at HRDC, The Hospital for Rehabilitation of Disabled Children. The hospital is located in the city of Banepa which is approx 30Km outside Kathmandu... which also translates into 1-2 hrs on a packed local bus with a kid hanging off the side yelling "BANEPA BANEPA BANEPA BANEPA" the whole time. The other volunteers (3-4 of us) lived in the home of and with the family of Damu, one of the physiotherapists at HRDC. As volunteers we are quite international, coming from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Australia (and Canada obviously). The hospital is situated on a hill about the size of Mt. Doug and overlooks Banepa... and on a clear day offers a stunning view of the Langtang Himalaya range. Its a really nice facility receiving most funding from international sponsors. This support allows for a really cool set up: although many kids treated here come from poor villages, they are treated regardless of whether or not the child's parents can pay the fee. This includes treatment that range from major surgeries to prostheses to physiotherapy treatment. If unable to pay, parents give what they can and the rest is fronted by the hospital. From what I understand, this is the only hospital in Nepal where this is possible... Cool hey?

Most of the cases here are clubfoot, stiff elbow (improperly healed fractures that are mobilized under anesthesia), cerebral palsy and burn patients... but there are loads of cases each day that we just wouldn't see at home. To be honest, the first few days were tough as I knew it would be but I don't think there's any way to prepare yourself to witness kids in so much pain. These are without a doubt the bravest kids I've ever met in my whole life. While many of them have a family member staying with them, some are alone and others spend more than five months in the hospital. As volunteers, we typically follow the doctors, nurses and physios through the morning ward rounds. After, we usually watch and learn from the physios doing out-patient assessments or follow ups, or we work with in-patients doing range of motion exercises and stretching/strengthening. Physios here have a double role, acting as both physiotherapists and ortho techs so we also had many opportunities to help with plaster cast applications and removals. Needless to say, the language barrier occasionally posed as a challenge; while all of the docs and physios spoke english beautifully, there was a range in the english abilities of the kids. They got a kick out of teaching us to speak Nepali though, so we soon learned the essentials... at least for describing strength and flexibility exercises and for ordering tea. We still relied heavily on charades.... and due to this I think our primary roll was as entertainers.

This month hasn't been all work and no play however (though even our "work" often ended up being just goofing around with the kids). We had a few days off for Tihar, the festival of light. For this occation, we spent a few days back in Kathmandu to take in the craziness of a celebration that to us resembled halloween, Christmas and New Years all rolled into one. Windows and doorways were lit with candles and "Christmas lights" and Marigold garlands while kids go from business to business singing until they're given a few rupees.

So before I mentioned the "stunning view of the Langtang Himalaya range" but you better take note I specified "on a clear day".... for my first three weeks in Banepa, there were no such days. However, the weather FINALLY cooperated durring my last week and for those three days I think my most frequently used word was "wow". Taking advantage of the good weather we took an hour bus ride to Namo Buddha where the Thrangu Tashi Yangtse Monastery is located. Namo Buddha is a sacred pilgrimage site because it is where, according to Buddhist tradition, Buddha gave his life to feed a starving tigress and her cubs. We stayed in the monastery guest house which meant we ate our meals with the monks and, thanks to a very kind monk called Lhakpa who showed us around, we were also allowed to sit in on a 4 hour puja (this is when the monks sit chanting and make offerings of sound and food). It was an incredible experience. The sound of the conch, the horns, the drums and the bells are intoxicating as is the sound of the Tibetan chants. Again, luck was on our side as durring this time the monks were preparing for a festival where Thrangu Rinpoche would be visiting. Though we had to leave before his arrival, we still got to watch the full Lama Dancing dress rehearsal.... did I mention this was an incredible experience?

Now sadly both my time at HRDC and in Nepal have come to an end, and I will greatly miss everyone Ive met this past month. Its bittersweet though; I am beyond excited to meet up with Christina and Nouri in Darjeeling!

Goodbye Nepal, I hope we meet again one day!

Vanessa

PS for more info on HRDC pleas visit: http://www.hrdcnepal.org/
and for more info on Namo Buddha please visit: http://www.namo-buddha.org

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