The joys of bureaucracy

Victorious, I actually have a bike now for the bike touring. It only took 4 1/2 hours, 12 different printouts, two trips to the deputy commissioner, and about six different signatures to finally release my bike from customs. Really, there is no better way to spend your day than dealing with bureaucrats in a foreign country. In the end I win, because the bike trip can finally get rolling.

Killing time

My bike has made it into the country, wahoo. Unfortunately it will remain at the airport until tomorrow morning when the Customs office reopens after their three day holiday. I am keeping my fingers crossed that my bike is intacted and Paris and I can finally get rolling towards Rajahstan later this week. So tired of killing time in Delhi.

Christmas cheer

Nothing like celebrating Christmas in the Tibetan enclave of Delhi. The cafe where I ate breakfast provided yule tide cheer by rocking Aerosmith at nine in the morning, a forgotten Christmas classic. I was looking forward to picking up my bike tomorrow morning only to be foiled by the damn customs office which is closed till Tuesday, punks. Unexpected delays always fill me with Christmas cheer.

Agra

To kill some time until my bike arrives we rolled down to Agra for a few days to check out the Taj Mahal and other sites. Riding on the train was a pretty low key affair, discounting the fact that I was hauling my gigantic backpack with me. Me and my backpack were a little oversized for the train aisles, and I'm sure I pissed off more than a few people with inadvertent body blows from my red behemoth. I'm a jackass, what can I say.
Despite all the warnings about getting scammed by taxi drivers at the Agra train station, we still got scammed. Went to the prepaid taxi stand, paid for a ticket to the east gate of the Taj Mahal and the little douche bag who drove us dropped us at the west gate. Which sounds like something that you would notice, but since cars can't drive up to the Taj Mahal, we didn't realize it until we had schlepped our bags the 500 meters to the west gate. All you can do is laugh, or if you're lucky spot your driver and dish out some vengeance. Ultimately walking in the touristy chaos around the Taj Mahal is a sport in and of itself and not all that unpleasant after three hours on a train.

I love buses

Nothing beats 12 hours of overnight bussing in India. Coming down from Dharamsala felt like a rollercoaster, sharp turns and bumpy ass roads with plenty of exhaust to suck in. This was followed by my body being pleasantly folded up beneath the seat reclined in front of me for the following 7-8 hours all the way into Delhi.

The combination of the bus ride and our arrival in Delhi has left me a little scattered. After spending a week and a half hiking in the lesser Himalaya and wandering amongst Buddhist monks and Tibetan refugees on the streets of Dharamsala, Delhi has a distinctly different flavor. Hopefully my bike will take to the air tomorrow and in a week Paris and I will be out of Delhi and rolling along the roads in Rajahstan.

Triund

Our growing posse, temporarily up to 4 with the arrival of Paris and Bridget, rolled out for a one-nighter up to the saddle outside of Dharamshala. Due to various circumstances we headed out right around dusk with a collection of head lamps and cell phones equipped with LED's, to assist with navigation and death prevention. Of course as with any poorly planned, last minute trip a few things are usually forgotten, in this case shortly after leaving town we realized we had forgotten the whiskey. Valiantly I ran back to town to grab a bottle with every intention of quickly rejoining the group. Turns out, hiking in the dark in an unfamiliar area is a little harder than I expected. Took a few wrong turns, traversed a couple of peoples yards, and ultimately found the crew about 45 minutes later. Not one of my wiser decisions, but a very tasty one while we were sitting in our sleeping bags at the saddle.
We had some sweet views of the mountains all morning from our campsite and from snowline a little higher up. The hike down was nice, and I was thoroughly emasculated by a women at least 20 years older than me, carrying about 20lbs more than me down a steep rocky trail in slippers.

Northwest habits

Kashmir was great, but as an agnostic in a muslim dominated culture, I was ready to move one. Or perhaps its more accurate to say, that a muslim dominated culture is not conducive to someone who enjoys a cold beer from time to time. Dharamsala has beer and great hiking into the lesser Himalaya, done and done.

Moving on

After a month and a half in Srinagar we are out. We called an abort on the field work a day early due to the coming storm that is about to hit the moutains. It seemed the prudent decision since the only other time it snowed since we've been here we spent the better part of two days pushing our bald tire, rear wheel drive SUV out of various mud pits and snow banks. In the interest of time and our sanity we decided it would be best to roll a day early and miss the storm.

Too many things come to mind about all the experiences since we've arrived. One thing I have to mention is a note of praise to our Kashmiri field crew. If every other person that we worked with had been as reliable as Showkut (our driver) and Shabir (Kashmiri Master's student) we probably would have finished a week earlier. Besides watching Showkut dish out some vigilante justice to the guy that tried to steal his cell phone, my favorite memory was the daily game of avoiding the toll collector. Showkut was pretty adept at using the dumptrucks as a shield until the oppurtune moment arose to make a dash for freedom. Unfortunately every so often the collector stood his ground, jumped in front of the car, and exacted the 5 rupee toll. Shabir provided our local protection, standing up for us in all matter of circumstances, from backhoe negotiations, to military encounters, to the occasional rude local. Without him the work would life would have been significantly more difficult. So our time in Srinagar ends and now we move on.

Stress relief

Inevitably at the end of a field season there will be complications and delays in the mad scramble to tie up loose ends and collect the final pieces of data. For a while the military wouldn't stop shooting at our trenches, then right when we needed it our GPS went on the fritz. So when things don't go your way, there is no better way to relieve some stress than by throwing big rocks off a cliff. Taken with Shabir coming back from the field with 300lbs of potatos, the day was actually somewhat successful.

Military encounters

The high comedy of the day came when Chris, the indiginant paleoseismologist, stormed the firing range demanding to see the commanding officer, and declaring that they couldn't begin their target practice because we needed to conduct a survey in the area. In their great benevolence the army granted us 15 minutes to do the survey while they finished preparations for their target practice. This led to soldiers making comments about "a live target", followed by laughter as I ran around the firing range with the survey pole.

Kashmir

Friendly people in the valley, which equates to a copious amount of apples and frequent tea breaks. Amazing mountains, on the few days they're visible. Always entertaining and or stressful traffic conditions, like a video game with consequences. Punctuated by the odd scene of mob justice when an offending driver tries to make a quick getaway.

Mob justice also extends to petty theft, most notably when somebody tried to swipe our drivers cellphone from the open window of our parked car. After trying to dart off into the market he was hauled back into a crowd of pissed off locals and presented to a witness, me, to confirm his identity. After staring at the guy blankly, with no idea if it was in the fact the same guy, he was pulled back into the crowd, slapped in the head a few times and herded away before things got out of hand.

No matter where we are in the valley, it's impossible to forget that we're in a military occupied state. Patrols on the roads every morning, ubiquitous military bases, and military sentries who usually have their guns slung lazily over their shoulder and pointed carelessly into large crowds of people, reassuring. As an added bonus at the end of their patrols they comandeer taxis for free rides back to their bases, dumping the locals on the side of the road. Just to highlight their laziness, they tried to take our cab to get a ride to their base a half a kilometer away. We've been lucky in that all three times they've stopped us, they were loathe to kick a couple of foreigners onto the street.

Other pleasant experiences with the military include trenching by the firing range at the military base. It feels like a vanilla version of trench warfare, logging in the trench with AK's going off a hundred yards away. Every once in a while it sounds like bullets are richocheting over the trench.

Love the fact that a small jar of Skippy Superchunk peanut butter costs twice as much our accomodations, I refuse to give up the chunky western goodness. I also have yet to try life without toilet paper, you usually have to search high and low for the white gold, but life is so much better when its around. As a 6'5" white guy, I never cease to feel like a circus attraction to the locals who can't seem to stare enough at Chris and I when we walk around Srinagar.