Vindaloo

New Delhi

Nick met us once again for some grub in the evening and after we took a stroll before wishing each other all the best before the next international meeting between the two of us might take place. In around 4 years, the two of us have visited a plethora of destinations from beach towns and festivals, to third world villages and sites of mass genocide, quite something considering we were brought together by a mutual love of sliding down snowy hills on planks of wood! I slept out the remainder of some anti-biotics and hoped for better feelings the following sunrise.

During the night, Aaron (of ‘my regular life’ fame) arrived in Delhi to join us… except I just about sleeping and off 24hours later, back to my homeland of Corringham – in a place called England.

Despite feeling ill, for that day, it was my desire to see as much of Delhi as possible. So myself and Aaron started by turning off the main roads and drinking Chai with locals. We got some poor fella to cycle us to the Red Fort, after tipping heavily and still not paying much more than a dollar, we checked out the fort; an internationally listed historical building. We later realised we did well in showing up early, as by the time we headed away, the place was starting to heave, just as the temperature started to gain momentum.

Without stopping for brekkie, I wanted something safe to eat, and Azz, well he was just hungry; so we fell past an armed guard beneath the Golden Arches for a bit of a Western, India style. With no beef for consumption in this part of the world, the Maccas menu looked pretty bare - with it's flagship burger being the chicken McMaharaja Mac. After some fries and a veggie burger, we were good to go.

Around lunch time we stumbled past Henna artists and succumbed (easily) to them doing some work on our skin. As the ink dried, we met up with the other guys for some lunch in a quirky little restaurant just near Connaught Place; the shopping Hub of Delhi.

We strolled about with no aims in particular as we discovered a shop selling Sitars. Our visit paid huge dividend in providing us one of the most memorable highlights of the trip; a live demo from an old sitar pro. He tuned, the plucked slowly for a while, before letting rip with the Indian equivalent of a Dire Straights solo section! A Western fix of a well known ice cream vendor put a smile on 5 boys faces as a mild afternoon sun started to dip.

I split with the guys for some last minute shopping and returned to them later with a full bag of stuff… and having escaped more business offers than I care to remember at any time of my life. One kid was offering to give my ears a clean with cotton buds, showing me his compliments book of past customers; I was quite happy to pass up on that one.

My final evening was spent with the guys eating a good (if slightly expensive!) meal at an Indian restaurant; though I guess in this particular case it was just "a restaurant".

The following morning I hugged the guys farewell; and began my trip from a skanky hostel in Delhi to a homely place in Essex. I was dropped at the “airport under repair” amongst a bit of controversy which I won’t detail here, and was soon in a dis-organised lineup for check in… before joining another slow moving lineup toward a customs check… before waiting for several unforeseen delays to the flight home.

Like stepping from black to white, hot to cold or a ruckus to silence, I was finally sat on a plane destined for the place I took my first steps. At this point it couldn’t come soon enough.

Say It Right

Srinagar, Northern India

I had packed my bags and left the wintry wonderland, completely high on life and looking forward to taking anything else on. Though as we descended back down to the standard level of living around these parts, my mood plummeted like a fat kid taking a fall, and it didn’t bounce back as I would’ve liked.

I was cramped in the front seat of the vehicle with a random Indian man, who had the gear shifter operated from between his loins the entire 100 minute trip. I had no sympathy for him, and I was caring only to be heading home – even though I still had several days of other visits to go. “ A house boat in Srinegar” was as much as I knew about the next 2 nights and days, and as we pulled up next to Dal Lake I was still in a pretty foul mood.

We were walked down to the boats by Mr Butt… which didn’t even make me snigger to hear, and shown into the front room of our home of 48hours and in 60seconds, I was higher than the kites that circled the lake insistently throughout the daylight hours.

It was like stepping back in time to colonial days gone by in India, a legacy left by the British if you like, a pot belly fire heating the room, couches and a large hard wood dining table partitioned by locally carved and designed wood work. Our personal butler would attend to us at the push of a buzzer and assist us with drinks, food and anything else he had power to muster.

I later found out that many of the groups moods had dropped much the same as mine had but we laughed it off and enjoyed real beer, and high quality cooked food for what seemed like a very long time.

The following morning, we set our alarms to wake us at 5.30am. Fifteen minutes later, we jumped on a smaller boat and were transported though darkness across Dal Lake. We had blankets and hot water bottles provided, that not a single man there was too masculine to decline the use of. Morning prayer accompanied the voyage, which some said sounded like “Little Drummer Boy”, though I reckon Bowie would’ve been hard pressed to see similarity. We observed Kashmiri’s trading at dawn as we sipped tea and ate fresh baked naan bread before heading back across the now highly reflective still waters of the lake. Enchanting, almost.

After some strongly craved internet time, Nick left for Delhi and the Taj Mahal, myself and Chris headed into the main city of Srinegar and the rest of the guys went for a trip around some gardens and a rug factory.

Quite an interesting wander; we saw mosques inside and out, tradesmen applying their livelihoods, without the almost standard sales pressure you’d get almost anywhere else in Asia and, lots and lots of kids playing cricket. I’m not exaggerating here, but they were everywhere, normal places like sports fields and schools, as well as down side streets, car parks and bus depots. They love it.

Despite only eating a bar of milky-bar, myself and Chris somehow picked up a case known in Latin as “Squitum-Vonbellhious”, or as we now refer to it; Delhi Belly. Chris was first to the thrown the following morning with me following in his stinky tracks soon after; only to ripen the smells further.

On a day where I was sick, I wasn’t really in the mood for any more Kashmir, or for that matter; India. The airport run was a serious drag, and after the bumpy (remember the state of my guts) ride, it was time for the highest volume of security checks ever performed at an airport. Now I understand that there is a war on in these parts, but six security checks, whereby you get ‘patted’ down and bags checked is a little OTT. The worst part is the efficiency of the checks; even with a mobile phone, some keys, a fairly solid camera and various other pocket junk, I was never even asked to turn out my pockets. Anyhoo, a quick departure lounge nap, a 1hour flight and a taxi ride in a little rascal of a vehicle and we were back in the Indian equivalent of civilization, less Chris who left for Brisbane.

Darkside/Lightside

Week 2 - Gulmarg

The whole group took a lay day at around the half way mark of the trip to let our muscles recover from the intensive time they had endured and we went to try out one of the only Western food joints in town. Apparently, there would be an internet connection there too! To our dismay though, the current power outage meant no pizza, and no computer connection for the internet. The dodgiest Chicken burger ever managed not to upset our stomachs and we wandered back to our hotel past the ice rink… which had about 30 men clearing 1 metre of snow from its surface. They would bring a large sheet of tarpaulin down to ice rink level, fill her up and sling it over their shoulders. This would then be emptied off in a heap 20metres away. I wasn’t envious of them.

It was Sunday, when, the second phase of the Gondola finally opened its doors to us. As we rose up to its final altitude of 3950metres above sea level, there were only several lines below us and we had the pick of fresh to gun through on our way to personal snow sport hedonism.

As it was our guide’s day off, we had to be careful, so with some caution we headed back down virtually under the gondola – the only “patrolled” area in all of Gulmarg.

This was what we had come to Kashmir for.

An 8 month wait finally at end, as we bombed the Kashmiri slopes and sprayed more white powder into the sky than any Columbian drug baron could ever dream of. I lead the pack momentarily, and spotted a small hill that had perfect snowfall on it, untouched, glistening like a diamond encrusted wedding gown. As fast as I could, I carved one huge turn, looking back to see a huge rooster tail of snow thrown skywards and into the sun; a temporary eyeful of daytime twinkle stars. I dropped back into the valley to see Chris drop a 6ft boulder, land and ride away… we were both in some kind of wonderland; Kashmiri wonderland.

I now have a new “happy place” that I shall return to many times in months and maybe years to come; this was one of the greatest feeling moments of my life.

***

As people around the world faced the ‘dread’, my Monday morning was filled with anything else but… well, aside from the physically demanding task of summiting Gulmargs highest peak. From the top gondola station, our gang strapped boards and ski’s to their packs, put heads down and strutted up hill toward what had been the highest point visible for the past week or so. Winds were sweeping across rapidly, and to look into the wind would cause an amount of pain I’d rather not think too much about. I trudged in others footsteps, and got higher and higher. Roger and I reached the dizzy heights of the summit together, high fived and set about photographing our surroundings as quick as possible. The only problem here was the temperature; around minus 20 degrees, had all but killed my camera battery, so a few shots before thinking about putting a snowboard back under my soles and getting away from these inhospitable temperatures.

As I awaited the rest of the group to attach their boards, my feet were yelling for help. They were the coldest I can ever remember them being. I wasn’t sure how they might react to having to steer me down a steep powdery mountain face. My bindings too, had frozen; I had a struggle trying to get them to lock into place. After they did, I took my turn in the first stage of descent, and to my annoyance, my left foot fell out of lock and I took a tumble. I whimpered down before I could get them fixed up.

Happily, the group including myself, made one of the best runs of the trip so far. Powder turn after wide, fast powdery turn… this is why I was here, this is why I went to Milton Keynes indoor slope all those years ago, this is snowboarding and the rush it gives me.

At The Foot of The Mountain

Gulmarg, Kashmir - Week 1

Gulmarg is Indias premiere snow sports resort. It has a 2 phase gondola section that gives a vertical rise of 3950metres. There are one or two drag lifts, but these are off limits to snowboarders… and they only service relatively flat areas anyhow. Once at the top of the Gondola, you can either ride one area of ‘patrolled’ terrain, or, if you’re experienced enough, you can go into some serious back country. It is for this reason you must have an avalanche shovel, a probe and a transceiver on you at all times.

The top phase of the Gondola is very subjectively open, and so on days when it is closed, there are many runs you can slash up under the tree line. The quirk here is though, you need a car to drive you back to the top.

Day one of our massively anticipated riding finally dawned. After breakfast, which was my first non-curry meal of the trip we congregated outside the hotel awaiting our guides arrival. The snow had stopped falling, and the sky was blue – it was almost too perfect to be starting this adventure in such beautiful fashion. Local dogs came to see what was happening, snow monkeys carried on with their business in the trees nearby and purple tinged crows flew over head as we tested avalanche beacon equipment. I’d sunk into the deep snow several times just heading over to where we would clip in, and as I knelt down to fasten my new board to my feet for the first time, I finally felt ‘on holiday’ – with all the long, lengthy, tiring traveling behind me.

I watched as a couple of others dropped off the snowy ledge and with the excitement now too much to bear, I too dropped in. My new Burton Fish surprising me with how easy it was to maneuver. A first look at the first phase of the gondola was something else to behold – bearing in mind, we still couldn’t see where it would finally end up – some 4000metres above sea level, for cloud cover still surrounded the upper peaks. The lift ticket system has been something that I think makes or breaks a good resort in Europe, America and Oceania – and I would quickly get annoyed if I had to dig out a pass each time I rode a lift; rather than an electronic pass system… Gulmarg has it’s own charm however. An Indian man sits in the corner near the pickup zone and sells each ride to you individually. In return you receive a voucher for your ride; the sponsors slogan mis-spelt “Stronger than the Stogest”. I decided this could get old quickly but didn’t realize how few times I would need to do this throughout the trip. To compare Gulmarg to anywhere else I’d ever been would be totally unfair however. This trip is the perfect fusion of my two favourite pastimes; traveling to remote locations, and sliding down snowy hills on carbon fibre core planks of wood.

At mid station, the relatively clear sky allowed our first looks of the mountain Affarwat, that just has to be seen to appreciate it’s full wonder. The peak still shrouded in cloud, and a queue solidly formed to get to the final phase of the lift, we rode the lower section several times. Fresh powder made the trips first few runs very enjoyable indeed, and each new run heralded a “better than the last run” feeling.

After a couple of these runs, we finally managed to jump on the gondola to the top station. The winds were blowing hard and the safety officer at the top informed us this would be the last run of the day; so to enjoy ourselves. And that we did. Although the light was as flat as a pancake, it was still easy to find untracked fields of fresh, and hit them at speed too. Before long, we had descended nearly back to mid-station, when I think I broke my personal record for fastest snowboard land speed along a cat-track.

As the snow fell, none of us realized that it would not be until the following Sunday that the top of the mountain would be accessible again.

The hotel continued to host us in charming Kashmiri style, the food was tasty, and dinners became romantic for the fact candles were oft used as the power failed several times per evening.

The storm which had shut down the upper gondola phase, raged on for several more days. I have never seen so much snow fall in such a short space of time, and so it was that every morning for most of the week, there would be plenty of fresh, and a constant snowfall. Since we were forced to stay low, we made the most of our guide Fayez, who showed us some awesome lines through the trees and along some steep challenging terrain that eventually delivered you at Tangmarg; a town based at the foot of the hill up to Gulmarg.

I attended an avalanche safety meeting on Tuesday evening which went some way to educating me of the dangers of back country snowboarding, and also gave a prediction of when the upper mountain would once again open – Friday lunch time at best, and this would be after several controlled detonations of explosives to shift some suspect avalanche hot spots.

The snowfall thinned toward the end of the week, and we lapped up the last of the untracked areas of fresh powder as the weekend landed. But still, by Saturday, we had only made one descent from the top station, way back on day 1… we were getting hungry and restless for all that fresh neige to be made available to us.

I'm Not Working

To India!

And just like that, I’m there… cruising the skies at several hundred miles per hour. I’ve had my last client, I’ve had my last experience of the rat-run and I’ve had my teary goodbyes. All that’s left now is 5 more additional hours to the 2 I’ve already killed till I reach Singapore. I’m being treated to a ride along in a new Airbus A380 along with the ability to plug in my USB memory stick and start word processing, rather than watch some brainless movies (of which I did also!) from the comfort of seat 52C.

***

My short experience of Singapore, incidentally comes exactly 2years after the day I flew out of Chiangi airport to Perth (not to mention 1 year since I made a trip to New Zealand for a visa run). I can see a thoroughly soaked runway through some windows, and an absurd amount of Fuscia bursting from every orifice they seemed to be able to grow a plant from through another. The taxi’s that wait to pick people up from the front look like crash test vehicles in a very plane and dull blue… I’m not regretful I won’t get to look around here further today.
***
Now back to more conventional means of mobile computing, I’m on my second flight from Singapore to Delhi, just shy of 5hours flight time, I’m now being blessed with a short, fat slightly disgusting Indian man sat next to me, who at around every 3 minutes, snorts the excess mucus from the back of his throat and then coughs without holding his mouth. He seems hell bent on getting everything he can from the in-flight menu too, I think I’ve counted 5 requests for peanuts… and they don’t even taste that good!

***

I’m a little sad to be sitting in the middle of the airliner as I miss the descent into Delhi – my foray onto Indian soil, but I get my dose of culture soon enough as I make it out through passport control and into baggage… My snowboard bag is waiting there for me, albeit with several wet boot prints on the top, so just my clothes to come now… What seemed like an hour with the hunger that was starting to build in my belly passed me by and I was finally on my way out to the hoards of taxi pimps awaiting my pickup.

Luckily one of those guys had a clipboard with my name on it, and I was able to kick back and let someone else take care of the rest of the evening.

I made friends with a few other guys here to snowboard, and we all laughed at the crazy Indian highway code “Beep to be seen” code of conduct. From the moment I got out of the plane, the air smelt like something had been burning that shouldn’t have been, like when you see a tire on fire on some derelict land; the atmospheric sky both foggy, smoggy and unclear.

I was soon at the airport hotel and was re-united with my old travel companion Nick, who’d flown in today also; from New Zealand. That’s another country we’ve traveled to together. It’s about 10pm local time when I think about sleep, though my body thinks it’s 3am and so I drift off into slumber as quick as I had anticipated. Sydney catches up with me at 2.30am local time when my body thinks it should be getting up for work, gotta love jet-lag!

***

So now everyone had made it to Delhi, and a day that had lasted 29 hours instead of 24 was behind me, we could all sit down to breakfast to compare travel stories and expectations of what lay ahead of us in Kashmir. The spicy curry breakfast was about as Indian a welcome as you could get.

Back through the crazy Delhi traffic, where vehicles seem to be able to travel whichever way they feel, along any roads and around roundabouts – most junctions and by-ways seem to serve more as an obstacle to most drivers than something that forms order and safety on the roads. We arrived at the airport where we checked in, and even had to go and ID our luggage out on the tarmac before it was loaded onto the airliner. It was also here that we would discover something of a recurring theme in India; the power cut. The domestic terminal plunged into darkness a couple of times, though the public don’t really panic… it’s just normality here.


We landed in Srinegar, Kashmir amidst a much cleaner air than we had so far been used to in India. As we walked across the tarmac to the terminal building, armed soldiers were periodically posted to check all was in order. The conflict between India and Pakistan that has continued since the earlier stages of the last century, still casting doubts over the future of Kashmir.

Out in the near-zero temperatures with our bags, we walked out of the airport along a muddy lane lined with barb-wire fences, I felt more like a Prisoner Of War than a tourist; the locals equally interested in us and our long board bags as we were them, and there traditional winter attire.

Once our gear was loaded onto the car roofs, our drivers sped off along the rubble streets and then onto tarmac. Many shanty style houses were there, though strangely, much like the new terminal building being erected, extremely modern blue reflective glass buildings popped up; that wouldn’t look out of place in Dubai or any major modern city.

Some brief flashes of snow covered peaks, and the weather was cooling rapidly – as we arrived at what seemed to be the last town before the bendy roads that would lead us to our home for the next fortnight. Local men mulled around our cars for no particular reason, it was quite unlike any other snow resort I’d ever approached before.

As we started up the final roads to Gulmarg, the snow was falling hard and the roads became more treacherous. Our driver seemed a little too naïve for my liking, and didn’t seem to realize that a vehicle has more traction the more gear notches you go. As a result we got stuck, many, many times. The other half of our group would arrive at the hotel a whole hour earlier than we did and for all my efforts, I just couldn’t educate the driver. He finally saw some sense and got the snow chains out, except in true Kashmiri style, there was only one – which meant the back end of our car was constantly fighting ahead of the other side of the car.

Regardless we were happy to finally get to the snow covered hotel in Gulmarg, still with snow landing heavily around us.