Saturday, June 24, 2006

stars


"making stars"

rishikesh, india. june 2006.

love to all...

Friday, June 23, 2006

fire


starting a fire from leaves outside of my home with a friend, Honey.

Dehradun, Uttaranchal, India, February 2006.

Love to all...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

kicking it in kerala


two rickshaw drivers chillin'.

kottayam, kerala. february 2006.

love to all...

Monday, June 19, 2006


A Boy from the Village. March 2006.

Gyan Dura, Uttaranchal (Kumaon), India.

love to all...

Saturday, June 17, 2006

june 18- happy birthday pops!


pops, happy birthday!!

i know i'm putting this up on the 17th, but since i won't be able to get to a computer tomorrow, i thought i'd prematurely wish you a happy birthday!!!!

happy birthday!!!!!

"pops outside of the Indiana State Fair, before he and i head into our first and most likely, last, gun show"

dad, i love you...

light writing




inspired by a gorgeous moon that prematurely went behind the nighttime clouds, my good friend gaurav and myself partook in some late night light writing on the roof of my home here in india.

with the world cup in full swing, there was a mood of patriot sensibility throughout our half hour light writing session.

it was loads of fun.

created with the help of a digital camera, a lighter and a nokia mobile phone.

dehradun, uttaranchal, india, june 2006.

love to all...

Friday, June 16, 2006

roti


Cooking roti over a fire.

Dehradun, Uttaranchal, India, June 2006

Love to all...

Thursday, June 15, 2006

breakfast of champions



The man with the sunglasses is a good buddy of mine from the Kumaon region of Uttaranchal.

And the Chef, well he fries up some tasty pakoras and makes a darn sweet chai.

Love to all...

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Dosas


The most unique and extremely mouth watering Dosas I've had since I arrived back in India at the beginning of the year were down in Kerala. In the evenings, I would sit at the local Indian Coffee House as the breeze from the Indian Ocean would blush and bounce off my cheeks. I'd order the special- a beetroot dosa, with sambar and chutney. It was the yummiest thing to eat after the sun set, sitting outside, alone, just listening to the world.

Recently I went to a friend's sister's wedding, here in Dehradun. This man was cooking up some dosas of his own.

Love to all...

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Ah-reah!!!



In Uttaranchal, when someone hears of something crazy or sees something crazy, they might just let out an,

"Ahhh-reah!!!" signifying a mixture of bewilderment, wonder and shock.

This boy was selling warm, sweet milk in the mountain town of Uttarkashi. And I saw this poster in Uttarkashi as well. All on my way to Gangotri.

Love to all...

Monday, June 12, 2006

asman



In Hindi, the word for "sky" is...

asman.

love to all...

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Samosas!!!!


Samosas!!!

Yeah!!!!

Love to all.

Friday, June 09, 2006

The Nicest Army the World


At the end of our eight day trek we came upon a group of Indian Army soldiers who had just completed training. They had spent a month in the backcountry and had climbed the massive Baigrathi Peak.

Nick and I spent the last grueling day walking back over the Gangotri glacier, towards civilization, hot chai and tasty parathas. We ran into some bad luck the last two days in the backcountry as our butane stove had problems and basically we had been without hot food for two days.

After a four hour hike we reached the Army's staging post and base camp. There were about seventy five army soldiers hanging out and forty tents set up. The senior most army man invited us into the field kitchen and we were treated to rice and daal and a whole bowl full of dehydrated potato chips. It was the tastiest food we had eaten in days. And we were shocked by the welcoming we recieved by the army.

They were incredibly nice. For the time being our faith was restored. The Indian Army was really, really nice to us.

Love to all.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Take the snaps!!






"Are you going to take the snaps?"

When friends in the mountains saw my camera that would be the first question. Get the snaps, get the snaps. So I tried and I tried, like always sometimes I pulled out my camera and other times I just let the memory go...

Here are some of my favorite "snaps" from the my trip trekking. The last image is a photo with a little description of the route we took across the massive gangotri glacier. Notice that our crossing was six kilometres wide but the glacier itself must be forty or fifty kilometres long, massive!!! I've also included some altitude heights within the image so you can see the size of the peaks around us and the meadow we slept on. I'd recommend clicking on the image to see the bigger picture.

Love to all.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Ben vs. the ibex






In the misty mountain mornings, I would wake up from a frigid night of sleep, step out of my tent and see a huge herd of ibex lazily munching on a breakfast of grass around the high altitude meadow I was camping on. It was a beautiful sight to see and I found myself super jealous that I had to heat up a stove and start cooking. Hmm, why can't i just munch on grass too?

There was a wide stream that seperated the meadow in Tabovan from a view of the glacier. Nick and I needed to scope our route over the glacier and one day we hiked to the other side of the stream, using a rickety made log bridge to make the stream crossing. On the way back I decided to kick the flip flops and attempt to launch my body from one side to another. The day before I had captured an ibex in mid spring.

Whose got better style and form? You be the judge?

Love to all...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Gangotri Yatra




Two weeks ago my friend Nick and I packed up our bags with the essentials- warm clothes, dry food (badam, kishmish, chocolate and kaju), sleeping bag and iodine pills. We jumped on a bus and six hours later stopped in the beautiful mountain town of Uttarkashi. We headed to the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, rented a tent, purchased a butane stove and then jumped in a Tata Sumo the next morning and made our way to the sacred Gangotri Mandir and then onto Goumukh, the glacier that is the beginning of the mighty Ganges River.

Right now is summer school vacation here in India and there were many Indian tourists making the pilgrimage to Gangotri and the surrounding char dham yatra, four of the most sacred and holy places in India for Hindus. Tourists flocked by private bus and many sadhus made the pilgrimage barefoot, walking thousands of kilometres just to reach and see this place. Nick and I were decked out in woolens and more, and it was amazing to pass by these barefoot sadhus in the cold, wothout shoes and covered in thin flowing cloth.

Nick and I had big backpacks full of food, clothes and assorted items for eight days in the backcountry. Over the course of the week we hiked almost eighty kilometres. We climbed steep scree cliffs and crossed the massive Gangotri Glacier which currently is covered in boulders and crevasses, basically a maze of glacial moraine. We camped at 12,0000 feet then 14,000 feet and finally at the highest point 15,000 feet. We slept on beautiful high altitude meadows and we were greeted by wild ibex every morning. Fresh glacier water ran in streams through these meadows. In the morning the streams were small but by the evening, as the glacier melted, the streams rushed and overflowed with water.

Sleeping was a problem and although it's around 35 degrees celcius here in Dehradun, at 15,000 feet the thermometer dropped to -4, -5 degrees celcius. It was tough to sleep and the altitude certainly slowed us down. The peaks surrounding us were all over 22,0000 feet, humbling and reminding us the massive scale of the Himalayas. The wind, the stars, the moon and the streams, lulled us into a trance. The break from the hustle and bustle of the Indian Concrete Jungle was much needed. We ran into hindu saints and sadhus and a mata-ji running an ashram at 13,000 feet, tucked and hidden in a old cave where Shiv-ji must have lived.


More to come...

Love to all...