The Last Post from India

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Well, the monsoon was too much for me to take. I think it was the mold that started sprouting up all over my apartment (on my clothes and bed) that finally put me over the edge. Luckily, my company was understanding and let me come home a few weeks earlier than originally planned. Plus, my little bro (who also works at Solution Set) came to visit for the last three weeks so it wasn't so bad. He worked in the office with me for a week, then we headed to the Himalaya for 10 days, then another week of work and we flew home on the same Jet Airways flight direct from Mumbai to SF.

The trip to the Himachal (my second) was epic. We rented Enfield 500's (WWII style motorcycles) and did a 800 Km loop from Kullu (on the wet side of the Himalaya) to Spiti (on the dry side) and back. Here's a link to the photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/damien626/spitimagic

Our flight from Delhi to Kullu was cancelled due to heavy rains, so we spent a day wandering around Delhi and visiting the National Museum which had some excellent sculptures. We ended up taking the 13 hour bus ride to Kullu instead, which would not have been complete without an emergency roadside diarrhea attack.

As we pulled out of Ankit's compound on our massive bikes in the rain, Steffen let off the clutch too fast and nearly crashed. I'm sure Ankit and his brother Panki thought we had no chance of making it back in one piece. The first day was the roughest. Steffen crashed twice (once on a steep hairpin turn and once crossing a creek) and I got drenched in muck after slipping out in a huge, foot-deep mud puddle. 9 hours of riding later, we were in bed knowing we had 9 more days of this ahead of us.

Despite numerous landslides and the most precipitous roads (highest in the world) I've ever seen, we made it back to Kullu with nothing more than a scraped toe and a sunburn. We teamed up with a couple of girls from Alaska touring on mountain bikes, a Belgian named Bavo (the Bavo Lama) and Amir, just out of a 4 year tour in the Israeli army.

Once we made it into Spiti (once part of Tibet) the clouds disappeared. We visited the highest village in the world (Kibbher) and played with children, ducked our heads into 10th century monasteries where the Dali Lama goes to get away and took turns playing a drum in a prayer room that overhangs the village of Dankhar. The highest pass we crossed was 4500 meters and we camped at a lake nearby called Chandertaal.

Before the trip I had a wicked cough and I felt healthy by the end. When back in the monsoon-denched subcontinent, we had a farewell lunch with the Persistent team, bought gifts for family and ate tandoori chicken at Palm Shades in Majorda every night (usually with an Old Monk and Coke). It was a great experience, but I am definitely glad to be home in sunny CA.