ROAD BLOG AHEAD

I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning, looking out the window in front of me, when one of the local brown monkeys leaped onto the balcony railing. He sat there for a good long while, scratching himself and surveying the street below. Usually these guys are moving too fast or are too far away for me to get a decent picture. This one, however, thought himself quite alone on the other side of the window, less than a metre from where I sat, so he hung out long enough for me to whip out my camera. There’s distortion because of the screen (didn’t want to open it, that would have scared him off for sure) but it’s still a pretty clear shot. There are hundreds of these guys around here, we’ve figured at least 4 distinct tribes in different locations, each with their own customs and territories. It’s one of the reasons windows have bars and screens even when there doesn’t appear to be a danger of burglars - brown monkeys are much more clever at getting in than any burglar:

The next shot is one we took a couple of days ago. We were sitting having a cup of tea on the sidewalk outside a shop directly across from the Padmasambhatva shrine. This is a little pavillion that sticks out into the lake just across from our hotel. It has a circular walkway lined with large prayer wheels that you turn as you go and a fairly large glassed in room housing a statue of Padmasambhatva and pictures of the Dalai Lama who built the shrine as well as lots of lamps and offering bowls. It’s actually a fairly famous pilgrimage point and both Buddhists and Hindus come by to see it and to turn the prayer wheels for the merit. The view from the pavillion out across the lake is also very pretty. Anyway, we were sitting there when three busloads of Indian schoolgirls were taken through the pavillion as part of a “field trip”. This isn’t uncommon. What was different is that these kids were from small villages high in the mountains and the trip to our tiny town was a big deal, sort of like a trip to the “city”. So many of them had never actually met (or possibly even seen) a non-Indian person before. And there we were, Lena, Nyondo and I, seated with our friend Lama Tsering, a Tibetan monk, right by the exit. The older girls came through first as the teachers/chaperones were all with the smaller kids. They spotted us and pointed and giggled and nudged each other. Finally, a couple of the boldest ones came over and, their eyes really bright, said, “hello. How are you?” in their best schoolbook English. We got it and grinned back and said, “Fine. How are you?” and then they stuck out their hands and we shook them.

That’s all it took. Within a few minutes we were absolutely mobbed by several hundred Indian girls who all wanted to say hello and *touch* a foreigner! So we obliged them, touching as many hands as possible, like some sort of politicians on tour. It was slightly intimidating actually, there were so many and they were such an enthusiastic mob. Tsering was a bit too overwhelmed (he’s a cave yogi and mostly sees a couple of people a week if that) and jumped up and hid inside the teashop with a look of horror. We laughed and figured that, if the mob got too rowdy, I’d just stand up to my full 6′1″ and they’d fall back (I’ve used this tactic before in India and Nepal where people are short.) So this picture is of the front line of the mob, Aren’t they pretty?

Finally, the mountains around here, both while it was snowing on the peaks and afterwards, gorgeous in the sunshine.

And yeah, it’s cold. I’m wearing leggings, my ankle-length chuba skirt, silk undershirt, cotton t-shirt and a sweatshirt. It’s 14 degrees inside. I sleep with a hot water bottle now!

It started out with my saying that I needed to be eating more vegetables. Yeah yeah, we live in India, land of the almighty vegetable and sacred cow, but we’re in Tibetan territory which means that it’s easy to NOT eat vegs - especially if, like me, you’re allergic to several vegetables that are among the most common in Indian cooking: tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers and eggplant. So I end up eating a lot of noodle soup and momos (steamed meat dumplings, kinda like potstickers) because most of the local restaurants have five things they cook and all of them contain one of my allergens. A couple will let me make special arrangements ahead of time for something I can eat, but it’s a matter of planning ahead.

Anyway, Lena decided that, since today was Thanksgiving in the U.S., we’d have a feast, so she went to the marketplace and bought a bunch of vegetables and took them over to our friend Veejay’s restaurant and arranged with him to have a special meal prepared. Quite a feast it was: curried cauliflower; carrots and peas in spiced yoghurt sauce; Nepali style mustard greens; sliced cucumber, radish and onion; and a raita of yoghurt, dates and chopped apples. Oh and whole wheat chapatis. No turkey and stuffing, but a lovely meal seated outside in the clear sunshine and crisp air. Then we went for a stroll and sat and listened awhile to Tibetan flute music.

It rained in the night after a perfectly gorgeous, clear day yesterday. We’re in a bit of a bowl of valley up here so we only got the rain. There’s snow visible on the higher peaks this morning and, by midafternoon, those same peaks are obscured by huge, fluffy snow clouds so I expect more is coming.

I’m slowly getting acclimated to the weather. I went from really hot when we left here in August to pretty darned warm in Berkeley to warm in Delhi to this and my body hasn’t quite adjusted. I did bring a certain amount of cold weather clothes and I’m glad of it. At the moment I’m wearing a silk undershirt, a t-shirt, a thermal sweatshirt and a down vest with a linen skirt and leggings. Not exactly haute couture and I’m thinking about putting on a pair of wool socks over my cotton ones. Wish I hadn’t left my boots in Nepal. I had no need of them then and thought I’d be going back there in winter so I stored them in Kathmandu. I really could use them now.

Lena has gone to Dharmsala for the day to see an old friend of hers who is dying. She went with several of her old cronies from 30 years ago, Lama Tsering, Khandro and another nun who knew the sick man well. I’ve heard about him for so many years; I’m sad that now I’ll probably never get to meet him in this lifetime.

They left by car before dawn. Dharmsala is the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and a pretty busy place. It’s approximately four hours drive away, not so far by distance, but through the mountains it takes that long. They plan to return late tonight rather than trying to stay over. So it’s been a fairly quiet day without a lot of interruptions. Nyondo and I have been laughing about just how much we’ve gotten accomplished with Lena away. Generally we have a steady stream of visitors who are mostly coming to see her either as doctor or translator. I can translate the simpler stuff, but anything complex requires her more extensive vocabulary. Apparently everyone in town is aware that she’s gone off - in a place this small, everyone really does known everyone else’s business.

The house we’ll be renting is coming along. Apparently the electricity has already been installed and now they’re working on the plumbing. By next week they should be onto the plastering and we can begin to talk to a local carpenter about what furniture we’ll want. Beds, a table,  benches to sit on and work tables for Nyondo and I are priorities. Apparently it’s as cheap or cheaper to have things built locally of decent wood than it is to buy ready-made up here. The nice thing about that is that I’ll be able to get a bed long enough for my 6′1″ frame! I’ve been hanging off the ends by a few inches all along. Plus we can get mattresses that are somewhat softer than concrete which will be a real treat.

This place is big enough that I’ll actually get an office/workroom of my own and we’ll have a guest bedroom. Hoping that people will come and visit us once we’re settled. Of course, by the time we’re settled, it’ll be spring and we’ll be heading back to the West for awhile.

Nyondo is staying here until March instead of going back to the Bay Area in December as we’d previously thought. She’ll have to head back then to pick up some jobs and replenish her stock of dead presidents, but not quite as immediately as we’d all feared. However she does have to go out of India by Dec. 6 as her visa requires this. So she’ll run up to Nepal for a few days by bus and then come back which will refresh the visa. The bus is a pretty cheap way to get there and not too bad in the winter. In summer it’s hot as hell, but in this season should actually be pleasant.  So she is with us through the house planning and set up which is good as the house is for all of us.

I keep intending to post more pictures, but Lena keeps wandering off with the camera and I haven’t been able to download what’s on it. Eventually I’ll remember to get it from her while she’s around and see what’s on it; I know there’s bound to be some fun local colour.

Well, off to hunt up my good wool socks. The sun is setting and the temperature is dropping seriously. My clock thermometer says it’s 15 degrees in here, but it feels colder.

Not sure what time it is back in the rest of the world but here it’s just before 9 pm and we’re all really ready to turn in for the night pretty soon. We were up at 5:30 because that’s almost necessary around here - the Sikh’s start chanting before dawn then the birds start and the dogs and… well, it gets pretty noisy pretty early.

Oh yeah. We’re here in Rewalsar, the little town in the Himalayas that’s “home” for us on this side of the world. Lena and I arrived late last night after a rather long journey from Delhi. It was fairly pleasant actually - we splurged and, along with our friend David, hired a jeep and driver to take us (and all our luggage) up instead of taking the bus. It was well worth it for the comfort and had the added benefit that we got to actually see the countryside as we went. The bus travels at night and you just don’t see anything at all.

It was interesting to watch the landscape change, the colours of the light and the hue of the dust shifting as we gained altitude. India is so varied and so full of contrasts. The ultramodern and technological set against a backdrop of ancient carvings, abysmal poverty, extreme beauty. In Haryana State the women’s clothes were most colourful and vivid - screaming fuscias and acid greens, yellows that make your eyes water and scarlets, turquoise, peacock colours. The Punjab is agricultural and most Punjabi men wear turbans and are taller than the average Indians. It’s a green state, well irrigated with herds of shiny black water buffalo everywhere along the road. It’s also where we saw camels alongside the road, assisting somehow in construction work.

By the time we hit Himachal Pradesh, the state we’re living in, the landscape was mountainous and rocky, palms giving way to pines, the roads treacherous , winding upwards through the mountains with the land falling steeply away inches from the jeep’s tires. Breathtaking and intimidating, particularly when passing other vehicles on hairpin turns! In Himachal you begin to see the wild monkeys by the side of the road, about as common as squirrels are in the west, but less nervous. It was also as we crossed a river in Himachal that we saw the elephant. Definitely we’re not in Kansas anymore.

I’ve gotten a little too tired to describe the journey or the “shortcut” that saved us time but shot the nerves of even our experienced jeep driver. I’ll try again tomorrow if there’s time (lots going on) and try to include pictures. Though, sadly, we weren’t fast enough to get pics of most of the fauna.

We made it to Delhi with our bodies, brains and luggage intact. I’m trying to catch up on too much email and too li5ttle sleep during our 48+ hour sojourn that took us to Korea, Singapore (which is more like Malaysia, not China as i’d posted earlier, though it acts prety Chinese) and finally into the chaos of India. Even the cheese survived (about 4 kilos of assorted cheeses, Gjetost being the main stock.) I’m catching up on too much e-mail and too little sleep. It’s warm but not unbearable here. On Tuesday (it’s Sunday afternoon where I am) we’ll head up to our little village in the Himalayas. We’ve run into our friend David here in Majnukatilla so the thre of us are hiring a car to take us up instead of doing the bus. I’m pretty jet lagged, but sorta on the current time schedule (roughly opposite the west coast of the U.S.) but I’ve been back and forth through time zones on this trip so I’m pretty confused. Hugs to all of my friends

I’m writing this from Singapore where we have stopped on our way back to India. It occurred to me, when I woke up this morning, that I’m actually in China. I mean geographically, not politically. Oh and culturally. Except that there’s really good coffee here. Even the dim sum place where we ate breakfast has an espresso machine. However it was broken so we settled for a pot of jasmine tea.

As usual, I fell behind in my blog writing while I was having a fairly mundane life in the U.S. Well, maybe it’s not entirely been mundane, but it certainly has lacked the drama of the Nepalese revolution or the psycho landlord episode! The big deal is that we were almost 2 weeks late in leaving Berkeley and that was a kind of drama in and of itself. You see, just as we were getting ready to leave for the airport - indeed, I had already done the online checkin for our flight - I had a really really (dare I say really) bad gallbladder attack.

We suspect it was due to too much partying and rich food during the last few days before we left. People came by and brought goodies like brie and pate, ice cream and a chocolate eruption cake. It was probably the shrimp tempure for lunch that pushed me over the edge. Well, that and the stress. For days I’d been having absolute terrible anxiety about leaving. Irrational and non-specific. I’m guessing now that it was that I was sensing my body was unhappy and was about to do something awful, but at the time I was just dead certain that awful things were about to happen to me once I landed in India again. So I was stressed and twitchy in the extreme and eating rich comfort food with friends.

So we’re about to leave and our wonderful friends had come over and helped us clean up the lovely little cottage where we were staying and our bags were packed to the bursting point. And  I doubled over at the table going, oh shit shit shit!!!

Well, it does help to be married to one doctor and have another as one of our best friends. Lena immediately began doing acupuncture on me to try to break the spasm. Ellen came over as soon as she finished her patients and confirmed the diagnosis that it was, indeed, my gallbladder again with all the symptoms of trying to pass another gallstone stuck in the duct. Owie owie owie. The first time that happened, many of my friends said that they’d much rather have a baby than a gallbladder attack (at least those who have experienced both.) I must concur. That first time, up in Salem, Roni ended up taking me to the ER and they gave me some pretty intense pain meds until the spasm passed. Which took quite a few hours and left me completely limp. The acupuncture, however, actually worked better - Lena was able to ease it a bit right from the start and, after about 2 hours of trying a  variety of patterns, I was only in minor discomfort rather than acute agony. I remember when she stuck in this one needle, on my right foot, and, bam! all of a sudden it stopped, just like that! What  a huge relief!

Of course, by that time, it was too late to go to the airport. Oh yes and, during all the chaos, our ride called and said she had just had a car accident and wasn’t going to be able to pick us up. So clearly there were forces at work conspiring to keep us from leaving. Bless Ellen and Lena (and a little bit of me for finding the right phone numbers even while being so sick) Ellen faxed a medical emergency excuse to the airlines, Lena got them on the phone after hours of trying and we managed to put our trip on hold rather than losing it entirely (remembered, I’d already done online checkin.) How that all went is a long story in itself. Suffice it to say that the next flight out that we could get without paying many zillions of dollars each, was on November 8th! Which put us in Berkeley for an extra 2 weeks. \

I can’t complain. Linda let us stay in the lovely little cabin, we had a car to use, we got to see friends that we might not otherwise have seen (Hi Diana!!! Hi Dianne! Hi Cats!) In a sense, we had the vacation that our trip never quite gave us because we were trying to stuff too much into the time. Suddenly we had this kind of enforced 2 weeks and I had to take it easy and recover and Lena was done working and teaching. She saw a few patients. I saw a few clients, probably exactly the amount to cover the costs incurred by staying. And it’s funny, once the 8th came, I felt/feel no anxiety at all about returning to India. Indeed, I’m looking forward to it, I’m excited to be back on the road again. I’m looking forward very much to seeing Nyondo after all this time and to seeing the friends we had made in Rewalsar.  And I’m truly enjoying the travel, even if it meant flying to Korea first, then on to Singapore and hanging out here for rather a long time before we can get a flight out to Delhi. In Delhi we’ll get met at the airport by a driver from our hotel. We'’ll rest for a couple of days and then a car from Mandi is picking us up and taking us back to Tso Pema. So it’s still quite a long haul before we’re “home”. But we’re on our way.

One thing I will have to get used to is the lack of fast internet. There’s rumors that DSL may come to the region early next year. That would be nice. Meantime, it’s back to working with the bluetooth modem. I’ll have to get my new laptop set up to do that so, if it’s a little while before I post again, it’s not my usual “nothing much happening” insoucience, it’s going to be about getting online with the new technology. Wish me well with that!