How was Nepal?

Ingrid and Alp are no longer with the people of Asia. They have joined the affluent masses of North America. The day they left Sri Lanka, they took first a plane then a train. Changing states of mind, time and space transported themselves across to Chennai. That was the next day. They saw there a 400 years old Banyan tree at last, which was one of the most magical things they had ever seen. With glossy eyes they stared at this tree of the Theosophical Society that covered 60,000 square feet and reminesced of the time where such trees were king. Four in the morning they boarded their steel bird and a long time later they arrived in the city of stories and TV shows. Alp passed through the police and immigration peons with fervor and ferocity to meet his maiden Ingrid once more on the other side. They were much loved by members of the maiden's family with whom they took shelter and still currently reside. On a clear day like today you can see the pulses of love they emanate all the way from Shenandoah.
However they don't expect to be able to answer ^that^ question fully.

Bibliophilia

All our reading material over the past year has come to us fortuitously. I hope these suggestions for literary pleasure will come into your life unexpectedly too.

~Hegemony and Survival, by Noam Chomsky; classic reading for those wanting to accrue evidence to use against the "MAN" for their own personal debating arsenal

~Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell; a wonderfully original, intelligent, multi-faceted novel that will have you entertained and in awe of Mitchell's versitility

~Kon-Tiki, by ?; this real-life adventure of several Scandanavian men crossing the Pacific on a balsa-wood raft is so compelling and wild that we literally couldn't put it down... it deserves a cult following (or perhaps it has one and i just don't know of it, I did see an middle-aged white man in Chiang Mai with a Kon-tiki tee-shirt)

~The World According to Garp, by John Irving; the ultimate read-aloud American novel, it gets better and better and you will remember it and the time you spent reading it with true fondness

~The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood; fascinating, eerie, and important story of how the world in the near future, ridiculously easy to imagine ourselves in this anti-utopia

~The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown; yes, this is airport thriller material in some sense but we read the illustrated version and it was beautiful and wholly worthwhile

~The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami; I didn't know Murakami before this trip but he is a writer that is intriguing on many levels and has an army of books under his belt. A mixture of cherished mundanity with awesome violence and surreality.

~Shantaram, by David Gregory Roberts; an real-life story of an Australian jailbird who makes a new life for himself in Bombay, filled with unbelievably amazing experiences and deserves to be made into a movie with Johnny Depp as the lead (coming to theatres sometime in the next few years)

So Long Ceylon

Though we can hardly count ourselves learned in the ways of Ceylon, I will be missing what I know best about this place, the beautiful view from the windows of Helaena's flat, redtiled warehouse roofs, the low canopy of emerald trees, pelicans and bats flying at eleventh floor eye-level, and exquisite clouds. The thing I know next best is next door, the fabulous Cargill's supermarket, where the papayas are meaty sweet, the ginger snaps spicy, the oyster mushrooms like angelic clouds, the beer cold and cheap and good, and everything is endlessly affordable. When I say alas alack to myself in anticipation of the exorbant lifestyle price increase we will confront upon landing in New York, I have to remind myself that it will be worth it to see all of you that we love in America again.
so long~
Ingrid

Me Come You're Country

Folks we did it. It is been months in the making and a global effort but finally Alp has an American visa to get married to Ingrid with. It has been a tremendous adventure, from contemplating what kind of visa to apply for to trying to figure out where to apply from. It has been a rollercoaster ride with the most exciting and scary part at the end. The embassy here has been very nice especially the extraordinarily helpful head counsular officer Marc Williams. The last two weeks have been a bureaocratic wrestling match. My criminal record hadn't come from Turkey and we were thinking that it might be something we can swing considering I lived in America for the last seven years, but it turned out that we really needed that or they did. So I started the phone conversations with Turkey. At this point I should thank God for Skype. It was day after day of talking to the same man who told me he would help me from the first day and sounded so sincere yet managed to do so little for so long. With Eid (Muslim holiday, end of Ramadan) approaching, last week we had two and a half days to get that form out of them, he flip-flopped until Tuesday as to whether he could give it or not. It turned out that they had lost my form completly and not even the duplicate copy that was supposed to be in their records was there. Because of that he was telling me that he couldn't get it signed, he would have to stick his neck out and admit that they had lost it. Luckily for me the telegraph that came from our other extremely helpful attache Ahmet Bey at the Turkish embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Turkey changed his mind completely and against all policy he said send in whoever you are sending and we will give it. This happened the day before the Eid holiday was to start and the next day was only a half day. Then I did most stupid mistake that I could've done and mixed up the time difference and called my Dad's good friend Ozcan Oktu at 11 o'clock, an hour before closing. Miraculously he was at the man's office ten minutes to twelve and got the form, mailed it with UPS and viola! four days later it arrived. I must also thank Ozcan amca here for being so marvelously wonderful, for without him running this last lap, it wouldn't have happened. So now the plan B is scrapped, which involved changing many a flight and train reservations, getting extra visas, and worse possibly getting separated with Ingrid, we are on trak and hope to see you all before and after Thanksgiving; we will have a lot to give this year.
Alp

Yippee and zipididooda to all of you lovely people!
Unbelievably everything Alp has said is true. It has been such a long and arduous process of vicissitudes in feelings and plans that we are breathing a massive breath of relief. And now we can finally reveal to you all what we have been keeping from the blog- the ups and downs- because we had grown superstitious in this labriythine world of visas and didn't want to jinx anything. Ffffeww! And I get to marry the most wonderful thing Turkey has ever exported!

We have been mostly confined to Colombo because of waiting for papers, calling on embassies, going to appointments, and so on. But this weekend, we took out Helaena's Mazda and went inland for two and a half days. Unaccustomed to being in the front seat of a car with power brakes(the first time in over one year), I was feeling nauseated as we were making our way out of the city, into the densely populated suburbs that never seemed to end. The landscape was lush and green though, with many side-of-the-road stands selling corn, king coconuts, and inflatable animal toys. Our first tourist stop was the beautiful botantical gardens outside of Kandy, where we stood under a massive java fig tree that spread its arms out seemingly infinitely and provided shade and perches to numerous shyly kissing couples. Sri Lanka's green spaces seem to be dominated by young lovers, some of whom use umbrellas to shield themselves and their clandestine embraces from view, but who actively lock lips noticably far more than their Indian counterparts. I suppose we Westerners take for granted being in our twenties and being able to make out in our own houses. Then we went onto Kandy, the capitol of the hill country and Sri Lanka's second largest town, where we were sold tickets to a cultural dance performance by someone praying to the Buddha lakeside who managed to convince us jaded travellers that this was our lucky day to be in town to catch this marvellous performance!! and we had to go and see fire-eating dancers and 25 baby elephants! It was our first "cultural performance" in all our travels through many countries offering cultural performances and, though it was interesting, it certainly was a nightly gig. The next day we hopped in the car (which had diplomatic stickers and certainly made us look far more important than our fairly tattered appearances belied) and went north to Dambulla. We were completely perplexed when we could not find a place to eat lunch in either Dambulla or the next town over. Finally, we found some grub in an alley shop next to the bus station and decided to go to the Buddhist painted caves nearby. They were very nice... buddhas, buddhas, and more buddhas in several caves on top of a splendid hill that offered views of the thick vegetation blanketing the area. We spent the night in the next town over, Sirigiya, famous for its massive rock fortress. Our hotel was in a wild garden, where we saw a substantial rat snake writhed around a palm tree, and it proved to a quite a wildlife haven. There were little frogs in the toilet that got flushed down with the first push of the lever and most shockingly, a surprise swarm of thousands of winged flies that poured in to the room and gathered around the lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling, mating and worshipping the light in a mad, disconcerting push to pass on their seed. There were hundreds of wings littering the floor after just a few minutes and we escaped the room for a while to eat a magnificent dinner of Sri Lankan home cooking. The food here is lovely and somehow still exotic for its different use of coconut, cinnamon, and other indigenous spices than southern Indian cooking. The next morning, thankful for the lack of any other memorable interactions with animals, we went to the rock and were dismayed, indeed bummed, to find out the entrance fee was a $20 per person. We decided to abort our mission and boycott the double standard in pricing (Sri Lankans: 20 rupees, foreigners: 2000 rps.) and drove back to Colombo. All in one piece, we had our taste of the Sri Lanka at large that we were dreaming of seeing while waiting in embassy lobbies and happy to return to the comforts of the eleventh floor. Amen.
ingridaisahappygirl

Jackpot in a Curdpot

Ayubowan friends~
It took us only thirty minutes to fly across the channel between India and Sri Lanka, allowing just enough time to swallow the pizza puff offered by the hurried Sri Lankan airways stewardesses wearing peacock-patterned saris, so it was difficult to believe we really went anywhere, much less to a different country. It took no time to get through immigration and pick up our luggage (which was over our allowance by 10 kilos already~ ouch!) and be met by a driver whom Helaena had arranged to receive us. But driving into Colombo, we were immediately impressed that this is a different country from its big sister up north. The first, and most shocking, piece of evidence was: brilliant orange coconuts. In India they are green, sometimes yellow, sometimes brownish, but never orange! Second, the ladies are allowed to show a bit of leg, if they desire... sometimes their skirts actually came up to just below the knee, which I found fascinating. The signs written in the local script (which I am not certain is Sinhala or Tamil) looked like a parade of little animals. There are pickups and cross-bikes here, a feature that reminded me more of South-east Asia than India. It was a full moon holiday, so the streets were extremely quiet and all the shops closed. Evidently, Sri Lankans have more holidays than anyone due to their civility in having every full moon day closed for business.

We are staying with our friend Helaena, who has the fortune of living in a very posh flat in the Hilton Colombo Residences due to her industriousness in actually having a job and being a junior diplomat rising in the ranks. She has been away in Delhi though and we are anticipating her return along with her three cats, who love to be petted. We are backpackers in disguise here and enjoying the amenities fully (sauna on the third floor, etc.). The view from the eleventh floor is lovely and we can see the Indian Ocean stretching out beyond the city and ships in the seas. We have gone to the US Embassy, which is right on the ocean and smells like saltwater, to get things rolling with Alp’s visa interview. At a shopping mall, we discovered one can buy excellent-quality DVDs for $2 a piece. Most of Colombo seems rather tame and business-like compared to the frantic cities of India but walking up and out of the Fort area, we went into the Pettah district, which was surprisingly intense. It is the main shopping area of the city and it seemed like at least half of the men we passed said hello or were trying to get our attention. The streets were packed with people and, as one shoe salesman pointed out to us, many of them were Muslim women come shopping for the day, not having cooking responsibilities with it being Ramadan. There are so many things to enjoy about being here and I will leave it to Alp to describe some more of them. We feel so lucky to have such nice friends, here and there and everywhere, and are missing all of you~
love~
Ingrid

Howdy?
It is a different world here not only because of the yogurt but the Hilton Residence is not an experience that we have been used to lately and Helaena’s house is very nice plus has very friendly cats. Our place in Pune was luxurious but of course not furnished and when you stepped out the door most of the construction was not finished around us. That was a different feeling. Here everyone is paid extra to be friendly to us so there are lots of “Hello sir and good evening Madame”. Funniest part for me is going down to the sports complex in my faded clothes and sandal look while everyone around are sporting synthetic and nike look. We have not been able to start working out as we planned because of our lack of shoes. But today after shopping around I managed to find a $4 pair of school brand tennis shoes which are my ticket to pumpin iron. And I can’t wait to see the reaction when I finally summon up to courage to use the pool in my longita (the Indian underwear that I have been using at the beaches). So far we are making excellent use of Helaena’s library and learning about detoxifying among other things, and creating a schedule for detox. One last thing I had wanted to do in this trip was to detoxify and in Kerala they had the Panchakarma, ayurvedic detox method, but we kind of didn’t have the time for it and also it involves a lot of throwing up and other uncomfortable things. Of course there is the tourist version where you get massages and hot oil dripped on your third eye. Well instead now we are going for the old trusty sweaty.
Among the novelties that we found in the grocery store number one is the yogurt that is excellent and the cheaper variety comes in clay pots; fresh shitake and oyster mushrooms among others, cheap good stout and Belgian white, sapid ginger beer and fruit and fishes. It is marvelous of course to have flat to enjoy these things.
On the visa front there could be a wrinkle, but I won’t bore you with that before it is certain.
All these wonderful things still don’t keep us from missing everyone who is dear to us. No beer better in the world than the company of family and friends, but the two combined is an experience on a higher dimension. –audience “wah wah”
alp

From the Shark Tooth to the Pearl; Pir Melinge

I have marvelled lately that all it took to get from the northernmost brushstroke of India, the Line of Control in Indian Kashmir, to nearly the southernmost pencil point of Kannyakumari (or in our case, Trivandrum, which is 60kms shy) was three harried days on the Enfield, and a total of four nights on the train divided over three different journeys taken over three months. When detailed in those terms, perhaps it does seem like an important stage to have nearly reached the end of India, both geographically and literally for our time left here. It seems, alternately, like we have floated here or crawled. And we are disbelieving that we are truly flying away from this vast place tomorrow morning, as we were expecting somehow that our lives would always carry the daily possibility of buying more Mysore Sandal Soap, seeing albinos that look more like they belong to Ireland than India's billions, and being harassed by young men selling drums in tourist areas who insidiously whisper "hello my friend, you like to buy drum?" and expertly run their fingers along a drumskin to produce an unmistakablly annoying psychedelic wooing sound. But we have been blessed with a mission that makes our eventual return less anticlimatic and are boarding our plane to Sri Lanka expecting to leave after one month, triumphant with a fresh new American visa in Alp's impressively arrayed passport (a visa that, I might add, will say officially "To marry Ingrid Hakala Millis, of Falls Church, Virginia"). Our wonderful friend Helaena is going to allow us to be her guests in Colombo and we are anticipating wildly and silently all the great small glories of a new nation, not to mention more passport stamps and stickers.

As for our last few weeks in India, we have confined ourselves to a small area of Kerala. Trivandrum is a busy, sunny city with many varieties of bananas and only thirty minutes from a beachy place called Varkala. We spent slightly over a week there, eating fresh tandoori fish every night, doing yoga in the mornings, breathing deeply after what was far too many months in assorted cities. It took us a while to find the beach, as the main one was far too rough for swimming and full of Indian families staring at the sea, munching on snacks and not knowing what to do with themselves. The northern strand was small, but offered continuous wave action that left me exhausted trying not to lose my bikini and Alp smiling like the little Turkish boy he once was playing likewise in the waves of the Black Sea... that is until we noticed that the surf was foaming with jellyfish carcasses and were unnerved. We gathered drinking water from a spring that flowed beneath the small rust colored cliffs of the seaside and took naps in the afternoon. Back in Trivandrum, we have visited the Botanical Gardens, a very nice wooden palace of the Travancore royal family, and nearly twenty footwear shops looking for replicas of my sandals. I have gotten over my original preconception that South India is terribly different in ambiance and mores than the North... Nearly everywhere in India south of Himachal is hectic, hot, and fun in a similar way. But the men here do wear lungis instead of pants underneath their western-style shirts, leading to a fashion look that Alp and I have described as "business on top, shower on bottom." And there are more curry leaves, mustard seeds, and coconut in the curries. We are sure to tell you all about what we find in Sri Lanka and until then, I wish we knew how to say farewell in Malayalam (the local language and an awfully long pallimdrone) but I imagine it sounds like this: bpoooluuuyuttappam (try saying this with marbles in your mouth).
Ingridkutty

Off of the Shelves, Into the Bags

Greetings confreres~
We have been a long time without blogging but the sedentary life does render fewer tidbits to share. We have settled into our little pied-a-terre and its quotidian comforts; with no other flatmates, we have the entire place to ourselves to walk around in dishabille, cooking and lounging to our hearts' delight. Our day begins at six, after a few blissful dilatory snooze button pushes, and Alp prepares his sapid ginger honey tea to warm our bodies before heading out the door, across the "highway," through the park, and to the yoga institute. It has been raining extremely regularly so we are usually muddy and squigy when we arrive. Our beginners' classes are taught by a different teacher everyday and they do different things as they please; some yell, some chat, some explain aspects of the postures with particular luculence, but all make for copacetic classes. Iyengar yoga is active and the teachers require punctilliousness in their students to perform the asanas correctly. We are only allowed on the top floor for classes but as we travel up and down the stairs, we can catch glimpses of the general class dangling from ropes, hanging over chairs, and contorting themselves in exciting ways. The redoubtable Iyengar himself is still alive and commanding respect, as we have seen his followers fully prostrate themselves in front of him, and will soon be leaving for America for a five week yoga tour. From photographs in the lobby of the Institute, it seems clear that he was a yoga rock star during earlier tours, teaching hundreds in auditoriums. We walk home and prepare breakfast, alternating daily between a highly evolved version of porriage and eggs with toast, and become acquainted with the world with some minutes of postprandial BBC watching. Then I buckle down for some GRE studying, which I am beginning to enjoy entirely, as it gives me the oppurtunity to learn vocabulary and to shake off some of the effects of the hebetude occasioned by nearly one and a half years outside the realm of academia. The rest of the day is devoted to errand-running, as we always seem to need something or another, or relaxing. And before I bloviate for too long, i will pass this onto my partner in amour~
with love~
ingrid
ps~ if you would like to learn vocabulary like me, go to http://www.dictionary.com and maunder through the word of the day files.

salaam namaste
As the days passed here in Pune I felt a great sense of accomplishment for all the dreams we managed to fulfill, at the same time feeling uneasy for all the more dreams that have been dreamt while we have been in India that are waiting their turn in the future. I have learnt that dreams do come true but never in the way you imagine them, and I can say we didn't worry about the seeming obstacles in our way and our dreams came true in a way better than we imagined. The bike has got a new owner, and with only two days left in Pune it was a close one but no worries, no wrinkles. It is very exciting that we are going to Kerala as we hadn't in February even though we came very close when we were in Coorg. It is fabled to be very beautiful yet at the same time it is the most crowded state in India, which makes me happy that we avoided it on the motorcycle. Ayurvedic tradition is the most alive in Kerala and we might take a class on massage when we are at the beach there. Also very exciting is the new cuisine and the fish that we will find there. I am thrilled to go there as this sedentary lifestyle without work is not the most alluring. Hope all is well with all of you, love you and miss you, and you are all smoking in my nose.
alp
~p.s. go to the photos link, then to the Pune Revisited folder, to see our newest photos of domestic life!

Out of the Luggage, Onto the Shelves

Our most generous hosts in Delhi have seen us off but not without giving a wonderful birthday celebration for me. Since they came late the night of my birthday that happened the day after and on my birthday I had the most wonderful treatment from my beloved Ingrid. I will not get into details as not to make the angels jealous (makes them kind of demonic). Over the weekend our internet service was miraculously restored and I managed to speak over the internet with many family members, sadly whenever it was time for the sleepyheads in America to wake up we lost connection. We are planning a few calls in the upcoming days as soon as we have the hardware, meanwhile sorry to those that did recieve pranky calls (we could hear but you could not). Following my birthday we said bye to our hosts with gratitude and sadness (hope to see you soon again:) and hopped on the train south to Pune. We loaded the bike on the train with expected hassle but koi bhat nehi. 26 hours later getting it off was more of an adventure. I saw the bike being loaded and because of our luggage rack it is longer than normal bikes so they ended up propping the bike up at a complex angle, I didn't say anything because it was obvious that it was that or nothing. Luckily we arrived in Pune twenty minutes early because when I made it to the front of the train the porters were only opening the door and when I said I had a bike in there they looked and said I had to talk to the officer as it seemed too hard to them to get to it. This was obviously a tactic to evade the labor and I knew if I went looking for somebody the train would be gone by the time I found an "officer". After watching the porters pass 3 minutes just looking in the luggage car and shaking their heads, I jumped in and started dumping and throwing the sacks and crates off to reach the bike. Amazingly it only took about three minutes to get to the bike and then it was out. After that it was again the expected hassle and even the porter who refused to help me asked for bakshish. There was no damage on the bike and soon we were on the road to find accomodation. I have been waiting since Srinagar to bring the bike to our mechanic Pradeep here in Pune and now it is REALLY calling his name for some lovin'. Hope to speak to everyone soon and if you would like to hear from us and we dont have your number please email or comment. With love,
alp!

As we arrived in Pune with our two backpacks and the monsterous suitcase we have been hiding at the Shins' house since November, a short sunshine rain shower began. This seemed rather symbolic to me of the feeling I had being back in Pune: it was nice to be back in the city we enjoy so much but logistical hassles clouded my mind. The accomodation here is far more costly than in any other Indian locale we have visited and we had to take a room for more than we would have liked to pay, simply because we were burdened with too much stuff and no other options. The next morning we started our detective hunt for a short-term flat, because the Iyengar Yoga Institute affirmed that we could indeed come to beginners' classes in the month of September. After one dead end lead, we met with Mr. Modi, who owns a flat in the high-rise building immediately adjacent to the Institute. He was insistent upon renting to us the entire flat, which honestly gave both Alp and I the creeps when we walked in to it because of its wacky feng shui, and asked a price that approximated our Charlottesville rent. We weren't impressed enough to accept and continued to sniff around the rest of the day, turning up ultimately with no other viable options. This morning we were ready to bite the bullet, as my dear ole mom would say, and take the place, hoping the adverse effects of the feng shui would be reversed by six days of yoga a week. But as we were just about to go back up to the ninth floor to have another look, the apartment building watchman surruptiously handed us a card and mumbled some words of direction to find more flats for rent. After Modi wouldn't budge on his price, we contacted the man on the card, a mister Sanjiv Agarwal, and met his wife at their family bungalow to have a look at their flat for rent. Their home was incredibly posh and we were a tad worried about how we would ever be able to afford anything they had to offer. We also felt a tinge of deja vous as we pulled up, remembering how when we first arrived in Pune in December, we went out with our buddies Manish and Priya to see a film and whiled away our time waiting for it to start by sitting on the stone wall facing the Agarwals' bungalow drinking beer and wine coolers. An omen, I suppose. We went to see the place and it turned out to be an extremely large flat in a brand new "luxury" development with good feng shui. It was immediately more palatable than the other place and we decided to take a large bedroom there for the month of September, even though it is still quite expensive. But we will enjoy the kitchen, large-screen television, the view of palms from the window of our room, and its proximity to the Insititute and the cinema and everything else.... We are pretty pleased and feeling fortunate to have the means to fulfill one of our last goals in India of getting a strong foundation in yoga, even if for the short time of one month. Now we are going to celebrate the solving of our accomodation mystery with a meal at an Iranian restaurant, you have to love this city for it's food. We miss you all and are remembering you with love~
Ingrid

Taking Care of Busyness

For the last two weeks we have been staying with the wonderful Shin family. Our plan was to leave Delhi on Monday but as we pleasantly found out they want us to stay longer, so we said yes and will be here until after my birthday which is the 22th of this month for all to know (and happy birthday to all the Leo's known and unknown to us). Here is what we have been upto: there was the idea of getting married in Sri Lanka but as we called the US Embassy there we recieved a cold NO to having our marriage visa processed. So we decided to apply for the Fiance visa which is convinient because we will stay in India a bit longer and meanwhile the clock will be ticking on the processing time, which is a few months. There is still a hitch that we could get refused by the Sri Lankan US embassy for processing that visa as well in which case things will start to get exciting once again. Just this morning we sent the visa package out and it will probably be at least two months before it is processed. Meanwhile we have been visiting the Turkish embassy for soem required documents, regarding my criminal record and marriage status which is nil thank god. Our experience there has been quite different though as we have been having tea at the attache's office and stopping by a few times a week. As he learned we were staying in Delhi longer, he will ask his wife to invite us to tea at his house as well. Things are looking up as we are also graciously invited to stay with Ingrid's friend Helaena who lives in Sri Lankan capital Colombo. I found some of her work there at the www.peaceinsrilanka.org website. We have not acquired our tickets yet but will soon.
alp

now that our travel plans have become less busy, you all will probably be hearing from us a little less often. i don't want to delve into the intricacies of our bureaucratic endeveavors, for fear of really losing your attention and interest in our faraway lives. delhi is muggy with the monsoon rains that almost never come hanging in the air but it is looking green and we are enjoying the shins and their comfortable home, not to mention feeling like we are part of a family once again. with the motorcycle, we are saving much money that would have been going to rickshaw drivers in getting around the city and doing our busyness. it is a different type of stressful driving to be scooting around this city, filled with cars, SUVs, bicycle carts, small lanes, and massive "flyovers." we are becoming addicted to kimchi and acting like kids with the kids; i can tell you alp does a truly artful tiger impersonation.
peas on earth~
ingrid
ps~ we would fancy to know how many people are actually reading this blog. if you read it, please leave a comment with your name, or at least a hint about your name. then we'll have a raffle and send a present to the winner!

Motorcycle Diaries

After our wickedly taxing trip over the mountains to Ladakh, we spent a week exploring Leh, the capitol of the province. It really felt like we arrived in a different country, perhaps because our journey was so arduous but also because the people and culture are quite separate from India at large. The town looked like an oasis of green in the midst of the stark mountains surrounding it like a bowl and, like all the families that stay in Ladakh through the incredibly cold and long winters, our guesthouse proprietors had cultivated a beautiful garden that we enjoyed staring at. The people of Leh are mixed between Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims, and multiple times during the day we could hear the azan and Buddhist chanting (which sounded hauntingly like Radiohead) competing for airplay over the town. There were a number of fascinating Ladakhi men and ladies with wacky tall hats and traditional cloaks to be seen mingling amongst the flown-in European monastary-freaks and Kashmiri merchants with their pashminas and trinkets. And being local product-freaks ourselves, we were delighted by the jars of preservative-free apricot and piquant seabuckthorn jams, as well as completely foreign things like dried cheese and apricot powder (we succeeded in eating, at some point or another, every single part of the apricot fruit). There were also bakeries with fresh tandoori bread and kashmiri kulcha available throughout the day and their wares tasted excellent when hot with our jams.

After being turned back by a police officer with jubilant twinkling eyes for not having the appropriate permit approaching the highest pass in the world, Khardung La (18,000+ feet), we obtained our paperwork the next day and climbed over to the Nubra Valley. This enigmatic valley managed to have both cool streams bursting with water and sand dunes with wild camels and donkeys, flowers aplenty and barren mountains. We returned after tenting for a few days to Leh and were happy to return to our routine of going to our favourite restaurant, Lamayuru, for stuffed tomatoes and naan. We ran into my brother Walt's future brother-in-law, Doe Young Song, and his travelling companion in the main square of Leh and were thrilled to have pizza with him on one of the many rooftop restaurants.

We leisurely made our way west towards Kashmir, believing that, in any case, the danger of the Line of Control would be far less than the treacherousness of a return trip south to Manali. We stopped in Likir and tented in an apricot grove, with an old Ladakhi couple's home in front of us and they kept us entertained. We visited the admittedly disappointing Alchi monastary and were happy to simply take photographs of the Likir monastary. Buddhist gompas and monastaries aren't the most enjoyable places to visit, often with young monks demanding an enforced donation for what seems like shoddy restoration work. They are all in stunning locations though and it is easier to appreciate them from afar. We next travelled to Lamayuru, the namesake gompa and village of aforementioned restaurant, the most ancient gompa in Ladakh and very beautifully situated. Then onto Kargil, very close to the Line of Control with Pakistan, which was a dusty town dominated with military, as most of the towns in Ladakh are.

After passing huge convoys of military vehicles (which are driven with characteristic machismo by army personnel), we came upon the Zoji La, our last mountain pass and rather low in elevation at only 3500 meters. Despite this, it was a maddeningly ride, as a persistent rain settled in, fog descended, and from what little I could see over the edge of the road through the mist, had steep thousands of meters drops. From the top though we could see a massive camp below on the verdant green meadow full of thousands of Hindu pilgrims hoping to see the weather clear and visit the natural linga in Amarnath Cave. We arrived in Sonamarg throughly soaked and beginning to shake, passing a night there before making the final push to Srinagar. Coming into Kashmir from Ladakh, the change in vegetation and the plentitude of green was overwhelming but sadly, we couldn't fully appreciate it because of the persistent drizzle.

Once in Srinagar, we were embarrassingly filthy and stayed in a hotel for a few nights to clean our clothes and bags. The old city was surprisingly lovely, full of artful and old buildings made of stone and wood in small alleys. We visited the bustling and beautiful Shah Hamdan Mosque and shared apricots with the many curious people who wanted to meet us. We shifted to a houseboat on Nagin Lake to complete our Srinagar experience. Our boat was bigger than our apartment on Monticello Road and done up in a 1930s English style, as the owners said it belonged to a British woman with a wave in her short hair whose picture hung in the living room. It was curious and uncomfortable to essentially have a servant serving us our meals in the dining room overlooking the lake. Merchants patrolled the lakes and invited themselves on to our boat, and we hid often inside the boat to be free of their wily and unctuous come-ons. It was peaceful though to have a little canoe, called a shikara, to paddle out into the shallow lake filled with lily pads, floating vegetable gardens, and blooming lotuses. Nice yes, but we were ready to come back to Delhi. But not before travelling the 300 kilometers to Jammu, the railhead for Kashmir.
cheers~
Ingrid

First I want to say hallo to all the lovers out there... it has been a long time. Now that we are down from the mountain roads and back to travelling in cyber roads, I am exited to be able to communicate with all that read the blog; miss you very much. The roads were tough, all in their own way. The road from Manali to Leh was really most enjoyable as there are no towns on the road and traffic was very low. From Leh onto Srinagar the military presence was kind of annoying if not a bit dangerous as they are vowed against courtesy. The bike did not leave us on the road once which was amazing, many tourist we talked with either had had a bad experience or was under the impression that Bullets are bad bikes. Most of the bikes on the tourist circuit change hands at least every six months and have been around for a long time, but one can't say that sex sucks after having sex with an old whore. Our bike was not a virgin but a widower, and you know those are good (sorry for my language but i imagine the analagy is apt). Leaving Srinagar we thought we would do the 300km to Jammu in one day but for the first time the bike did't start. After kicking the starter for two hours, I got the mechanic and he put a new plug in it and it started (of course I had checked the plug, even put another used plug in it that worked but I guess it needed more of a spark). So it was almost noon when we left Srinagar and the road was so much harder than any of the mountain roads. The asphalt was perfect, which made everyone go quite fast and there very hundreds of jeeps on the road that carried the pilgrims going to Amarnath. The pilgrimage is no longer prostrating yourself for weeks until you reach the destination, rather you take a jeep until you come to the last ten kilometers then take a pony, say your prayers, take your pictures and back you go home more pious, right? You can see a funny picture of how dirty we got by looking at the Eduardo Riaz picture in the new album called Himalayas. Second day towards Jammu started kind of similar, within the first five minutes we got a flat on top of this mountain but miraculously there was a tire wallah 300meters down the road, which made me suspect that they might have given us the flat overnight but the fact that they did not know how to fix a Bullets back tire assured me that was not the case. Luckily I had all I needed to fix the flat except air and that they had, so once again it was noon when we got going but this day was more calm then the previous and our luck held when we arrived in Jammu so we got a ticket for the same night and loaded the bike as well on to the train.
Now friends and family we will try to pass some bureaucratic mountains and if we are successful we shall return to your country well and MARRIED!
lots of love,
alp!

ps link to the pictures from the title
pps there were really funny and insightful roadside signs all along the roads such as:
"if you love her divorce speed"
"mind your brakes or brake your mind"
"better be Mr. Late than late Mr."
"I like you darling but not so fast"
"on the bend go slow friend"
"go easy on my curves"
"no race, no rally, enjoy the beatiful valley"
"slow driving, long life"
"always expect the unexpected"