India Part 2

let’s resume the narrative from McCleod Gange. Mike and I spent two more days in peaceful Little Tibet, hiking amongst red robbed monks, dinning at roof-top cafes, and watching heart warming pseudo-propaganda Tibetan films with our new Tibetan and American friends. There were no rickshaw drivers yelling at us, no haggling in shops and abundant personal space. it was as if we had wandered into some hasslefree alternate universe.; 4 days of travelers bliss- that is until the last night.

Tibetan Monks eating lunch under sun umbrellas

A hike to the the waterfall

Chess at the roof top cafe

Our McCleod Gange zen was disturbed the by a 59 year-old parkinsens afflicted American named Amram (wait to judge). Around 6 pm Amram shakily walked into the restaurant we were eating dinner at and, after I locked eyes with him, he asked Mike and I for assistance. We gladly obliged, spending 1 and a half hours helping him through dinner, Mike feeding him and I pulling his shoulders back so that he could breath. We were pepered with condescending remarks and a few insults but we continued because we didn’t have the heart to leave a 59 year old Parkinsons man alone to drown in his own soup. Eventually he was joined by 2 mormons who led him in prayer as we, thinking we had done a couple weeks worth of good deeds, made sure everything was ok and, or so we thought, said our goodbyes.

Mike trying to be more Ferrel than our k9 companion

I then went to watch a movie with our two American friends, Jenny and Carly, and a Tibetan friend whose name unfortunately I can’t remember, however, when I was heading home, I ran into Mike helping Amram zip up his pants in the middle of the street. Evidently Mike had been skyping his mom when Amram, using his unwieldy umbrella as his cane, hobbled his way over to Mike to ask for further assistance. Being the good Samaritan that Mike is, he dropped an important conversation with his mom to help out. Over the course of the next hour Mike helped Amram cross the street and unzip his pants so that he could pee in the ditch.  Despite the fact that Mike had had to endure seeing “old man bush” and had taken time out of his life make sure that Old Man Rivers didn’t kill himself while trembling down the stairs, Amram had the guile to berate Mike with insults and attack his character.

Either because we are suckers or because we are nice people, we spent the next 4 hours until 1am helping the old man. Because no one else would, we fed him his desert, making sure to hold his shoulders back so he could breath, and then hopped in a taxi (which we paid for) and walked him down a dark, poorly paved, obstacle strewn alleyway. The later part took well over an hour because Amram, for some reason unbeknownst to Mike or I, would only allow me to help him. Around 1:30 we got him to his house and had an intervention of sorts, telling him that it was unsafe for him to be in that situation and unfair for him to put others in our situation. He looked shocked but seemed to dismiss our suggestions and we eventually gave up and went home to catch a couple hours of restless sleep before our 5:45am bus.

The one good thing to come out of the Amram incident was that, while Mike was finishing his conversation with his mom, I got to meet a very nice American girl who was smitten with our kindness. We tried not to take too much credit, but it was damn hard to express our resentment in front of Amram and in front of a cute girl. Funny how things work out. 

Luckily Manali was fun enough that we quickly forgot all about Amram. The town was India’s response to Aspen; a clean(er), posh(er), and more comfortable environment than the big cities. We ate well, we slept really well, and we went paragliding. There was basically no snow, so in keeping with our Indian modus operandum, we adapted our plans and booked a paragliding session at the local ski resort. Like the town itself, the resort was an Indian version of Western resorts: It was named the Ropeway Cum Ski Center (we never did figure out what the word “Cum” means in India), and the sings warned against paragliding while “wearing bulky cloths, turbans, saris, neck ties, three piece suits, and long skirts.” The signs also said that all paragliders must have helmets, but obviously these were just for show because when I asked my instructor why my paper thing, non-padded, plastic helmet didn’t have a buckle he simply gave an Indian head bobble that implied I shouldn’t worry about it.

The Janky Helmet

The paragliding itself was exhilarating. Mom you may want to skip two paragraphs down. After a 6-7 meter sprint, Mike and his pilot made a textbook take off, the parachute inflating and sweeping the two of them effortlessly into the air. My takeoff was, shall we say, a bit more… exciting? We started roughly ten feet from a cliff and all that my instructors English could allow him to communicate was “run”. Before our take off I repeatedly asked him, “so what exactly do I do”, and his response was always “run” plus a head bobble. So, when we were strapped in and he gave the word, I started running as fast as I could, however, that evidently wasn’t fast enough and the pitch and frequency of his “run” increased rapidly as we got closer to the cliff. The  sail wasn’t inflating as quickly as it was supposed to, and his urgency/slight panic was palpable. As I began to seriously worry the shoot caught and, a step or two before the cliff, we took off. I personally blame the fact that we only had about 10 feet to get up to speed, but I will definitely hit the track before I go paragliding in India again. 

After we took off we had a 5-10 minute flight, depending on if you ask us or the pilots. A minute or two into the flight my instructor, in a sudden burst of English efficacy asked me if I, “want to do acrobatics.” Of course I said yes and we started rapidly spiraling down, and then spinning upward, the centrifugal force thrusting our bodies in the opposite direction of the parachute. It was fun. A couple minutes later we landed in the middle of a cricket field and, shortly after our parachutes were taken care of, the came recommenced.

We left Manali that night and arrived in Delhi the next morning. Randomly, I ran into a kid from my Berkeley Thesis class, but the highlight of our few hours in Delhi was us almost missing our train. Mike, after rereading the ticket at least 5 times to check the station, took us to the wrong station. After we realized our train wasn’t at Delhi Central, we went as fast as we could (the rickshaw driver didn’t understand that “fast” doesn’t mean “pull over and talk to every rickshaw driver you meet”) to the correct train station, but we arrived 3 minutes after our train was supposed to have left. Ignoring  the fact that the train was no longer listed on the board, I asked the security guard where our train was and he looked at us like we were idiots and pointed to the end of the station. After running around we found our train, located our compartment and hopped on no more than 15 seconds before the train started moving.

Mike getting into his Hindu side

We arrived in the holy city of Varanasi the morning of the 27^th where wee spent the day walking around the ghats, miles of steps leading into the sacred river Ganges, and taking care of our 3 travel necessities (food, sleep, and toilets).  The next morning we hired a 14 year old for a pre-dawn rowboat ride along the ghats to watch people perform Hindu rituals and put candles on lily leafs and float them down the river. 

After that we took a nice long nap before going to the Burning Ghats where Hindus preformed the sacred act of cremating their relatives on funeral pyres. With Varanasi city folk, we watched from a terrace above as families solemnly gathered around to send their loved ones off the next life. Before arriving neither nor Mike nor I were sure what to expect, or even if we should go, but visiting the Burning Ghats ended up being one of the more important and contemplative events of India. Of course as we were leaving the Ghats to catch our next train we were asked if we wanted a pony ride or hash.

SEX

Both of us with our new Indian hair-does

Our train ride from Varanasi to Hyderabad, a 28 hour journey that was necessary to get Mike to his flight home on Dec. 1st, involved almost as much luck as the Delhi-Varanasi near fiasco. Unfortunately, due to rules that we will never understand, being first on the waitlist for a train meant that a dozen or so people got their seats and we didn’t. Fortunately, we befriended a very, very nice–it is hard to understate how incredibly nice- guy named Pradeep. Pradeep and his buddies gave us food, one of their bunks and helped teach us how to bribe Indian rail officials (evidently a prerequisite for getting a waitlist seat). In typical India fashion, the trip turned from near debacle to a memory neither of us would forget.

We spent the ensuing day making friends and eating Indian munchies that our new friends wouldn’t let us decline. Pradeep and his buddies were super nice, but my favorite new friend had to be the overly excited 10 year old boy genius. We showed him ski movies (cultivating the youth), taught him the various forms of “pound its”, took apple photobooth pictures and taught him how to count to ten in German, Spanish, Norwegian and Canadian. (In case your confused, Candian goes “one ehh, two ehh, three ohh you betcha, four ehh, five keen, six ehh, etc.)

Once in Hyderabad, we spent the day getting  Mike an old fashioned shave -just for you Leslie- and eating really, really good Briyani. Mike went in just wanting a mustache, but the barber convinced him to go for the handlebar/flavor savor combo because a famous Thaliwood star rocks one and their evidently coming into style. I, meanwhile, enjoyed an orgasmic head massage for a mere 40 rupees while laughing at Mike. After eating Biryani (a type of saffron, cumin, chicken rice dish) at the city’s most famous restaurant, we went out to the Airport to say our heartfelt goodbyes before I caught a train to Hampi and left Mike to spend a McDonalds filled night at the airport before his flight home the next day.

I'll talk about this in more detail in the next post (hopefully coming sometime this week), but since splitting ways with Mike I went south to Hampi, a backpackers paradise in the midst surreal boulder landscape studded with massive 2,000 year old temples and palaces, and then went to Varkala, a laid back beach town, before going up to the pristine beaches and hippie paradise that is Gokarna. Those two weeks of traveling weren't quite the same as the previous month had been with Mike, but they were definitely fun. I'm now in the Kashmir, splitting time between the ski town of Gulmarg and canal city of Srinagar. I'm helping 3 Aussie girls set up a bar and I've been assigned the task of "mak(ing) contact with some of the village elders and rustl(ing) up a group of kids that you can give lessons to."I'm not sure how this will work out since there is no snow and none of the instructors have arrived, but it should be interesting.

It’s a month and a half into my India travels and I feel like I can finally start wrap my head around what I’ve seen. Despite the fact that these posts consist of a series of individual stories, India can best be comprehended as a flavor rather than a set of individual ingredients. Like a good paneer butter masala, neither the zesty sauce, lightly seared and perfectly seasoned paneer, nor the butter garlic naan can be considered representative of the whole; rather, the essence of the dish is found in a single, mouthwatering bite in which the dinnee combines all of the contents into one, all encompassing flavor. For the sake of brevity I’ve tried to paraphrase key experiences in the blog, such as the Amram incident, but unfortunately the shock factor of certain highlights can distract the reader from the experience as a hole. So far, each frustrating situation is undoubtedly overshadowed by half a dozen amazing experiences, ranging from teaching a 10 year old the newest High Five/ Pound It techniques being to invited to an Indian wedding (it happened shortly after Mike went home). Yes, India is a dish in here are undeniable hints of frustration and confoundment, but it is also decidedly delicious- easily one of the best experiences I’ve had and, for that, I’m quite fortunate.

I don’t know if I’m going to get another post within the next week, so I just wanted to say I miss all of you -I’m assuming you’re only reading this if you’re a close friend or family member, and I hope you all have a great holidays. I also have reliable wireless internet for the first time in India, so if any of you want to skype during the next month and a half, just contact me with a time and date and let’s see what we can do.

The First 3 Weeks of India

Hey guys,

It’s been 3 weeks to the day since we’ve arrived in India and it’s been a hell of a ride. The country, culture, infrastructure- everything, is kept together by a lattice of paradoxes that confound, amaze and, occasionally, overwhelm. I’d love to wrap our experiences up into a few neat sentences, slap a bow on it, and present it to you, but that’s just not India. I’ll keep this post in tune with our experiences; I’ll avoid attempting to make things faster by paraphrasing or getting fancy with witticisms, I’ll just write the stories we’ve had.

At Midnight on October 29 we arrived at Hyderabad Airport in the region of Andhra Pradesh where, to the complete amazement of customs, we had no plans for a place to stay, no plans as to what we were doing or how we were getting there. After 45 minutes, we convinced the very concerned, very matronly, customs official that we in fact would not die and she gave us a stamp and wished us luck.

For good and for bad, there’s not much to Hyderabad. It was a great jumping off point because there weren’t many tourists, and thus few touts and hawkers, but as Lonely Planet (AKA, The Bible) aptly puts it, “No travelers, Andhra Pradesh is not flirtatious.” So, after storing our snowboards, skis, extra baggage, and grabbing a couple of very tasty meals, we caught the first train to Bombay and didn’t look back.

Bombay/ Mumbai

Bombay, unlike Hyderabad, is flirtatious. It’s that girl at the party that talks to all the boys, but leaves each one wondering whether or not she was cute, or whether they were just, you know, a little intoxicated. It has 16 million people, more skyscappers than LA or New York, smog, good food, and lot’s and lot’s of taxis. It has world class attractions, McDonalds and amputee beggars. It’s familiar and strange; modern enough to make you drop your guard, but Indian enough to shock to shock you and remind you of where you are; It’s the archetypal Indian city on steroids.

As we were checking into our hostel the manager handed me a phone and told me I had a call. 45 seconds later I turned to Mike and informed that, yes, we were going to act in a Ballywood movie the next night. Flabbergasted and still delirious from the 17 hour train ride the night before, we spent the rest of the day laughing about our impending acting carrier and wondering what the hell we had gotten ourselves into.

The next night, two German girls, two Australian girls, and ourselves we picked up by Indian guides sent from the studio. The guides were more like handlers, or shepards, and they didn’t talk much except to tell us when to push in and out of the overstuffed, overheated metro cars. During the 45 minute ride, the girls and ourselves cracked jokes and bonded over the mutually awkward situation of being the only non-Indians in a train that was packed more full clown car at Circus Circus.

The Girls Post- Makup

Once we got to the set we were given dinner and thrown into hair and makeup. The girls were put in get-ups that were oddly reminiscent of1970s Bond Girls and Mike and I were given copious amounts of hair gel and supplied ridiculous leather or denim jackets with “nut-hugger” pants. They couldn’t find shoes big enough for me, so I was instructed to keep my feet under the table at all times.

Our Ballywood Get-Ups

After we were camera ready, we took our places at dinner tables around a glamorous mirrored cat-walk. For the most part, we were separated and paired up with random Indians or Iranians that constituted the regular Ballywood extras. Mike and Anita, one of the Germans, were seated on the opposite side of the catwalk from myself and Mike decided it was a good idea to wait for me to look in his general direction and then start to do a smug Indian style head bobble in an attempt to make me laugh (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw88JamMxFw&feature=related or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmDo52NnTY&feature=related). It worked most of the night. 

The movie itself was no less surreal than the rest of the night. The set was like a parallel, very disorganized, universe of Hollywood. Over three hours we shot 1 scene that amounted to, maybe, 45 seconds of footage. We stood up, clapped and looked white during a runway show that involved handicapped - both mentally and physically- kids walking down a catwalk led by some famous, cute Ballywood star we don't know. The kids had the time of their life, but they managed to ruin almost every shot by either running ahead or falling down because their crutches couldn't get traction on the mirrored stage. Takes were alternatively gut-wrenching and hilarious; a thoroughly Indian experience.

The rest of our Bombay stay was spent seeing the sights in and around Bombay with various travel buddies. When we teamed up with the Germans to see Elephanta Island, 2,000 year old cave temples that carved out of rock mountains, a monkey accosted Mike and took his water . We also took a day trip to Aurangabad where we saw to the dozens of stunning caves at Ellora before catching our one and only case of “Indian Rage” with jackass cab drivers. However, all agitation aside, I thought Ellora was amazing, probably cooler than the Taj Mahal. We wrapped up Bombay with Dwali, the festival of lights, India’s most important holiday. The night started out Chowpatty beach where a very outgoing young Indian named Yosh taught us how to pose for pictures and light off Indian fireworks.

Yosh teaching me the "Stylin' Pose"

After Bombay we went up to the “Venice of India”, Udapuir. I’d hesitate to relate anything in India to Venice, but Udaipur had an unmistakable charm. The city was full of rooftop cafes, winding streets and beautiful lake palaces. Compared to Bombay and Hyderabad, it was an oasis of calm. With our new friend Louise, we went on a  sunset boat ride to see the various water palaces that were immortalized in James Bond’s Octopussy. We also met up with the Aussie’s again to play pool and watch Bond flicks on the roof.  After three days, however, I got sick for 5 and the rest of Udaipur became a blur of movie watching and chicken soup.

Once I recovered, we went up to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was easily one of the most amazing things either of us had ever seen, but Mike and I were in concurrence that the 7^th wonder of the world had been hyped to the extent that it merely managed to live up to its’ reputation. We whiled away the rest of Agra with a few games of what has become one of our favorite past times: chess.

Udaipur

After the Taj we headed up to Delhi for a couple days. In most regards, Delhi was more organized, tamer version of Bombay. We made some friends and watched a Social Network before catching a train to Amristar, the home of the Sikh Golden Temple.

Amristar was amazing. The Sikhs exude an ora of peace, wisedom and general coolness that is hard to match. Essentially they take the good parts of all religions, combine them into one and say that all gods are united in one whole. Thus, they are accepting of all religions and eager to learn more about you, but unwilling to cheat you. It’s a win win.

In Amristar we stayed in the pilgrims hostel at the temple. I’m not a very religious man, but being in the midst of hundreds of thousands of people on pilgrimage is something truly powerful. There is an overwhelming feeling of peace and respect that I can’t full express. I wandered around the temple for the book transferring ceremony at night and then Mike and I went back in the morning before eating with the pilgrims at the cafeteria which serves surprisingly delicious free food to 80,000 pilgrims a day. Everyone was eager to meet us, teach us the custums and learn our story.

We made a night trip out of Amristar to go see flares of nationalism at India Pakistan Border Closing ceremony. Entering the masses of Indian patriots in grand stands, we were surrounded by Indians dancing, cheering and shouting insults across the border to their Pakistani counterparts. It was mixture of a college football game and a bizarre Zoolander style walk off. Each side had 8 army men who took turns preforming marchs that looked straight out of Monty Python’s Ministry of Funny Walks. They would do one really high kick that almost hit their forhead and then speed-strut, their arms flailing mechanically at both sides, towards the other boarder. Once they reached the boarder a mustachioed cheerleader, oddly reminiscent of Oski or the cheer squad from Cal, would lead the crowd with chants and insults. In the middle there were Indians having a girls only dance party- essentially a “fun off”, in  which each side tries to show they can have more fun than the other. This whole ritual went on for over an hour until both sides lowered their national flags in unison and a surprising calm swept over the stadium as everyone filed out. It was a truly bizarre experience.

After Amristar, we went up to where we are now, McCleod Gange. As Mike said, “McCleod Gange is the most peacefull place ever”. It’s full of Tibetan monks in Red Robes, the Dalai Lama lives here, and there is no haggling over prices. It’s a nice bit of respite from the sometimes overwhelming hustle and bustle of India proper. So far we’ve been getting gifts, catching up on internet, making our first American travel buddies and watching parts of bootleg Harry Potter 7 copies. It’s definitely been a great stop, but we’re heading out to Manala tomorrow. The hope is to rent some ski gear for 500 rupees (ironically the exact amount we made working for Ballywood) and then go hiking in search of snow. We’ll probably spend a day or two in the ski town before heading off to India’s holliest city, Varanassi. After that we’ll head back to Hyderabad, where Mike will fly home and I’ll fly up to the Kashmir. My plan is then to scope out the volunteer possibilities at the Kashmir and hopefully get a gig for the next month and a half. However, there are no guarantees in India, so I could be coming home anytime from early December through late January. I’ll do my best to keep you all posted with more regular blog posts.

Everything Else New Zealand

By the time I’ve posted this I will have arrived in India, six weeks behind on New Zealand posting.  Because six weeks is a lot of time to cover, and because none of you want to read 6 weeks worth of minutia, this post will be relatively scant on detail, but high on anecdotes that (hopefully) allow all of you to get at feeling for what’s been going on. I’m simply going to cover the last few weeks with brief descriptions of the geographic locations I was at and then cap it all of with a, “Top 10 Plays of New Zealand”, that should bring together the good, the bad, and the just plan ridiculous of NZ. Hopefully it’s amusing.

Christchurch (Sept. 15-20): Timbo, Maggie and Fey dropped me off at Salvation Army and I volunteered at the food distribution center for 2 days, met some cool kids from World Vision who brought me out with them for a couple days. This was easily my favorite/ the most interesting part of Christchurch, and possibly NZ. Along with a lady researcher, we went door-to-door in the most effected areas of Christchurch, delivering two trucks full of care packages and aid information. The extent of the damage was mind-blowing; in some places there were fissures 3 feet high splitting houses clear in two, and other places had only foundations and walls cradling the stories or roofs that used to be above them.  Perks included an abundant supply of chocolate and a free Big Mac (my first ever) that the researcher lady bought me in exchange for an interview. At night I had some great times with some cool Brits, Joe and Rhiann, who are going to be ski instructors in Whistler next season, and a rough and tumble roller derby girl, Marrissa, who taught us all how we should drink a bag of wine and how to use a street cone as a stripper’s pole. ‘Nuff said.

En Route to Queenstown (Sept. 20-22): I hitched up to Cragieburn, one of New Zealands archaic club fields, and met up with Mike and some of his co-workers from Coronet Peak. I couldn’t get a hold of them via cell phone, so I called the lodge they were staying at and the guy who picked up responded: “Oh, you mean those kids that I had to tow up here cause got their campervan stuck in a ditch”. Needless to say, I met up with them the next day and we swapped stories. The skiing was great, but the “lifts” was brutal. We got fresh tracks cause the mountain had just reopened after a week of storms, but I had a bruise the size of an apple for a couple weeks from the nut-cracker system. Nut-crackers are the vestiges of New Zealand’s old school lift system installed by local farmers way back in the day; a rope tow like mechanism conveys a skier or boarder up a run via a rickety cable threaded through a series of pullies and a metal clamp attached to ones waist by a 6 inch long rope. Each rider gets yanked up the slope, no more than six inches away from the whiring pullies, fearing that their fingers, limbs or buttocks will get smashed into some part of the apparatus.  

            The next day we went back to Round Hill (see day 1) and rode NZ’s longest nut cracker to some more fresh tracks. As Mike aptley pointed out, it was as close to heliskiing as you can get without a helicopter.

Queenstown (Sept. 24-Oct. 10): I skied a lot. I only missed 2 days during this period and the snow was good- not great- with a lot of springy, blue bird days. I crashed at Mike’s place with his 7 room mates and, after being told they didn’t want money, I paid my rent with a huge Mexican feast. It was really, really nice to scratch that culinary itch. Joe and Rhian made it down  for a few days and we taught each other local drinking games by night and went skiing and lugging (more like go-carting on a downhill course without an engine) by day. QT’s highlights, however, had to be doing a backflip off of the bag jumps at the Remarks and pond skimming on the last day at Coronet Peak. The backflip was dedicated to Mr. Chris Langel of Berkeley California.

Queenstown to Mt. Hutt (Oct. 10-15): We took advantage of various “relocation deals”, and got a car for about $17 a day and missioned up to Mt. Hutt in search of more snow. We alternated nights between a $50 tent named, “Lue-tent-tent Dan”, in honor of his equally handicapped and camo-clad namesake from Forrest Gump, a hostel, and the front seats. We met up with Cody and Megan from Queenstown and had 4 extremely sunny days, leaving Hutt with smiles and some of the best goggle tans of our lives.

***I’d like to give a shout out to Emily Rusca. We toasted said nice beers to you. ***

Mt. Hutt to Auckland (Oct. 15-16): We celebrated Mike’s 22^nd birthday by buying a nice sixpack, driving a few hundred km,  and taking a 3 hour ferry ride. We drank the beers after the driving. This whole period was spent in Sub-Ways, the Lue-tent-tent, the car and- yea, that’s about it.

Auckland (Oct. 17-19): This city is pretty boring. It’s got a cool, semi-hip, super chill vibe, but there isn’t much to do. During this initial pit stop, we got a lot of internet time in, saw Inception on IMAX, saw Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, and found the one and only good Mexican restaurant in New Zealand. We went every day.

Northland Road Trip (Oct. 19- 21): We looked at a map and decided that it would really be cool to go as far North as we could so we rented another discount car and drove up the northern peninsula, cooking dinner by sunset on the beaches of the West Coast and watching sunrise where the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea meet, before camping out for a couple days. We posted up at some white sand beach I spent a day and a half reading “Three Cups of Tea”, researching India, hiking and basically relaxing. It was a tough life.

Coromandal Peninsula (Oct. 22-24): Easily one of our coolest experiences of NZ. Upon showing up to the Coromandal’s Hot Beaches, a stretch of beach where all you have to do is dig to have a (very) hot pool, I inquired at the local café as to a place where we could park our campervan for the night. The owner responded that there were no free places for miles, but, after chatting for a bit, a really, really, nice American named Cherie invited us to set up the Lue-tent-tent in her back yard. Little did we know that Cherie lived in a mansion on 15 acres of land overlooking one of the most stunning beaches either Mike or I had ever seen. Cherie, her husband Steve and daughters Ariela and Stephanie turned out to be some of the nicest people on earth- anywhere. Steve, a hippie turned Buddhist yuppie who wakes up at sunrise every morning to meditate, had obviously done something right to end up with that house and family.

            When we weren’t chilling hard-core with the Steve et all, we explored the beaches. We spent a day jumping off cliffs and exploring the caverns of Cathedral Cove and then a day at New Chums beach which had been rated a top 10 beach in the world. Not to slight New Chums, but Mike and I thought CC was the better of the two. The day we left I woke up at 6 and drove down to the beach to watch sunrise. The Coromandal never failed to impress, and I ended up watching dolphins frolic - if that is what dolphins do when they play – two meters from the beach and a watercolor sunrise.

Tongario Alpine Crossing, AKA Mt. Doom (Oct. 24-25): After Coromandal we set out for what Fodors calls, “the world’s greatest 1 day hike”, but most Lord of the Rings (LOTR) aficionados call Mt. Doom.  We begin the hike around 6:45 and sleepily meandered through the marshes of Middle Earth and into the heart of Mordor in clothes that made all 5 other hikers on the trail do a double take. Mike rocked long socks with gym shorts and his stock red white and blue beanie, while I donned hiking boots, boardshorts and my finest button down tourist shirt. It didn’t matter though, cause we booked it through 20 km of Mordoor’s harshest wind, snow and sun. Luckily we ended up hitching a ride all the way back to our car, some 30 km away from the trailend, even though we decided to through caution to the wind in the morning.

Yes, I made a lot of LOTR references. Get over it.

Tongario to Auckland (Oct. 25): We camped in a random park between the two places and befriended a slightly crazy, but very nice, Mauri lady named Mete. She gave us sausages and steak and told us a few of her amazing, and often disconcerting, stories. In one story she told us how her son was conceived in California, but “luckily born completely normal” on a cruise ship after she spent weeks “partying, smoking and drankin”- this was all in front of her now 5 year old son. The rest of her yarns included accidentally ending up in Kosovo during the Balkan Wars, flying over the burning oil fields of Irag circa the first Gulf War, and a theory about how the Southern Hemisphere (including Texas) is genetically more inclined to be bigitous. All the stories were punctuated every minute or so as she explained the different matting calls of the Kiwi bird and taught us basic Mauri phrases. After spending a night talking to Mete, I don’t think New Zealand would have been complete without her.

Auckland (Oct. 26-28): See Auckland, 17-19. We had PB&Js and Mexican every day. 

Week 5, The End of the Road Trip

K, so I'll pick up where I left off, right around Kristen's birthday in Takaka. After our couple days in sunny Takaka and Abel Tasman park we drove along the coast through Marlburough Sound, Karakau, up to Hamner Springs and down to Christchurch where we dropped the girls off for their flight. Personally, the highlight during the couple days between Takaka and Hamner was the driving. There were massive mudslides on sketchy roads and I even got to use the saw function on my swiss army knife to cut through a tree that was blocking traffic. No kidding, the swiss army knife saw kicked ass.  Before Hamner we didn't do much else besides take pictures, hike and explore nature.

True to it's reputation Hamner Springs was a life of luxury- relatively speaking. We got in around dinner time on the 12th, found a spot at a Holiday park (the only night we ever paid for a place to stay) and spent the night drinking beer and conducting a type of relay in which we took nice, long, hot showers one after another until we were more fresh and clean than we could have ever imagined. After some debating as to what we should do, the night basically became a beacon of remiss as we all decided to catch up on a bit of R&R and enjoy one of our last nights together.

The next day The Girls and I went for a 3 hour hike in the morning and then wiled away the rest of the day in the town's famous hot pools. It was pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered; we got to relax and recover from an intensive 2 weeks of traveling while also having the opportunity to reminisce about the stories. We also managed to talk the chill lifeguard into letting us snag a  couple of free rides on the giant water slide before the park closed, allowing us to get the excitement fix we'd become accustomed to. 

After Hamner, spent 2 nights and a day around Christchurch, getting prepared for the next chapters of New Zealand and wrapping up our adventures with Fey. The very last night we camped about 45 k out of town along one of the world's largest sand spits and got some of the coolest lighting we've ever seen. Rainbows, rain, and a fantastic pebble beach was enveloped under a sunset that looked like it must have been photo shopped. The whole thing was just unreal and we spent the evening playing around, taking pictures, and, eventually, jumping into the freezing ocean before grubbing.

We all said our tearful goodbyes to the Kristen Raey and Mindy Service on September 15, 2010. We  pray that they are doing well in the land of Mexican food, sun and double pained windows. Their presence is truly missed... naughhhht!

Later that day, after a few phone calls and some finagling, Timbo and Maggie ended up dropping me and my stuff off at the Salvation Army in Christchurch before they continued South to do some rock climbing and return the car. I've spent the last couple days volunteering at the food distribution center in one of the areas most effected by the earthquake. It's been pretty rewarding and I've been working with a lot of good people from a few different organizations. The plan is to keep doing this for a few more days and then hitch out to meet up with Mike and some of the Coronet Peak kids to do some skiing up at the club fields. Until next time, adieu

p.s. I apologize for the lack of pictures, Blogspot is being weird.

Week 4, Road Trip Week 2,

During a West Coast pit-stop, I tried some experimenting with shutter speeds.

Since the last post we've traveled west clear across the country and then north up the coast to Takaka. We ended up fast-tracking the West Coast route because the weather was junk and route to Hospital Flats (the place with those oh-so-warm hot springs) was closed due to floods. The highlights of this two day driving marathon had to be Jack's blowhole, wind so strong that it's gusts could hold you up at a 60 degree angle to the ground, and a very, very generous free brewery tour.

The North, as opposed to the squalid West, is delightful. Takaka gets more hours of sun than any other city or town in all of N-Zed, North Island or South Island. The town has a super cool vibe because of its fun folk, hippie art shops, boutique cafes and picturesque beaches.

We spent Wednesday and Thursday in the Abel Tasman National Park, doing part of one of New Zealand's famed Great Walks (Link). The trek to the huts was a relatively mild 12 kilometers along white sand beaches and rain forests that look like advertisements for romantic get-aways.

The Oo-La-La Beach

At one such beach, Mindy, Kristen and I made a mad dash down the the shore, stripped down to our swim suits or underwear and broke into hysterical laughter as we started taking our first showers of the trip. Shortly thereafter we realized we weren't alone on the beach. Individually we ceased our hysterics as 40 or so 3rd or 4rth grade kids were slowly shepherded along the beach, between us an d our clothes. The most bold tyke decided to shout, "Ohh-La-La", and the entire gaggle burst into laughter at our expense. The next minute or so was spent oscillating between awkwardly bathing ourselves and rejoicing in the fact that we were finally clean. I'm sure every kid there thought we were either dirty, dirty hippies or clinically insane.

One of Cleopatra's Pools

We spent the next day skinny-dipping in the arctic cold of Cleopatra's Pools, a cascade of waterfalls and startlingly green pools located a couple miles from the huts. After that we proceeded back to Fey and over to Takaka again.

Yesterday, we celebrated Kristen's birthday by breaking our usual asceticism and buying breakfast at a cafe that was aptly named Cafe. It may e a case of hunger being the greatest spice, but we thought the food was so good that we ended up taking dozens of pictures of recipes from their $60 cook book so that we could recreate the ambrosial dishes at home.

Sunrise from Abel Tasman

Now we're getting ready to head out to Marburough Sound, Down to Hamner Springs and over to Christchurch where we'll drop off the girls. The trip is winding down, but we should have a few more days of good weather and fun times.

Road Trip Delicacies

So our road trip is in full swing and there are some definite trends. Timbo and Maggie have revealed themselves as the real mountain people (or masochists depending on how you look at it) because they sleep outside every night while the girls and I snuggle up in the warm belly of Fey. We’ve started honking at herds of sheep just to see them panic. Its way more fun than it sounds. We’ve also started cooking wayyyyyy better.

The early meals weren’t exactly bad, but they were, shall we say, plain. We tolerated rice and beans for a few days before we began experimenting with our various items. Here’s a few of our more creative concoctions:

Sausage O Delish
• Lamb Sausages (cause their cheap in N-Zed) cooked to tender perfection and then sliced open, covered in cheese, doused with a cajun seasoning and topped with a drizzle of Sriracha. The sausage is then placed on top of budget brand bread roles that have been slathered with simmering garlic butter and slightly salted. Picture a Cajun chilly cheese dog on garlic bread, but better and all for a price under 2 New Zealand dollars each.

Fettuccine Al-beano
• Delicious fettuccine pasta topped with a can of baked beans and baked bean liquid (whatever that is), and a Budget brand can of tomato sauce. The dish is scrumptious as is, but with the optional additions of cajun seasoning, black pepper, and Sriracha it is to die for. It is a melting pot of international cuisine. Italian pasta meets the explosive Thai spiciness of Sriracha and the zesty flavors of the bayou, while at the same time the whole piece is grounded by the calming flavor of good old North American beans.

Tuna A Yuck
• Canned Tuna or Canned Salmon with anything and pasta. We’ve tried hard, but no combination of Sriracha, Cajun salt, beans, pasta sauce and pepper can go well together. Its simply impossible and we all secretly dread it when the we have to use fish for dinner.

Peanut Butter and, Well, Anything
• Due to the fantastic cheapness of peanut butter and its extremely high calorie count we’ve started combining it with pretty much everything in an attempt to stretch our money. Peanut butter and granny smith apples is stellar. Peanut butter and Musslie is great. Peanut butter and a spoon is also delicious. I actually store a spoon in my Costco sized jar of peanut butter at all times.

The JAP
• This was actually created in the dog days of ski season, but it’s brilliance should be mentioned. It is a combination of Jelly/ Jam, Apple and Peanut butter, thus JAP. It not sound that special, but it actually combines perfectly the fruitiness of jelly, the tanginess of a Granny Smith apple and the saltiness of peanut butter, while turning your regular PB&J snack into a full fledged meal. Once you go JAP, you won’t go back.

In many ways we were painters with only a couple colors; some nights we managed to painted rainbows, other nights we had stick figures with uneven arms and one eye. Obviously we were limited to basic cheap ingredients and a few spices, but necessity catalyzed creativity and creativity gave us a few eats. So if you’re ever strapped for cash, learn from our experimentations (i.e. Tuna A Yuck) and give these cheap gourmet dishes a shot.

Week 3, Road Trip Week 1

 We're few days into the road trip and here's some basic stats:

Amazing Sunrises (that we've woken up for):3

Amazing Sunsets: 2

Kilometers traveled: Roughly 500

Times our car has gotten stuck: 2

Hail storms the size of Marbles: 1

Amount we've gone over budget: roughly 750 New Zealand Dollars

Lamb Placentas: 1

Times Mindy and Kristen have said the phrase "Oh my god! baby lambs!": 5,012,371

Ok, now that the stats are out there, here's the context. The road trip started out relatively to plan for a group of 21-22 year old kids. We only left 3-4 hours late and only got shafted with a surprise 750 dollar mandatory insurance policy that more than doubled our entire budget for the trip. Despite the ridiculousness of entire intercourse (I'll once again spare unneeded details), we soon overcame indignation and shock and loving dubbed our slightly-more-expensive-than-anticipated van “Fey”. A night of long driving later, we ended up at a lake close to Te Anu in Fiordland, made rice and beans, and decided to call it a night. Per usual, Maggie and Timbo Braved the elements- in this case rain and wind- outside, while the girls and I settled down to a scintillating night of pillow talk. The next morning- before getting Fey stuck for the first time- we were greeted with the first of what has turned out to be many spectacular waterside sunrises.

Fey plowing through a delicious baby lambs.

We spent the ensuing day working our way south through back country roads, exploring a cool condemned bridge and stopping at  a couple of lakes, all while forcing our way through giant herds of sheep that clogged the roads much like Cholesterol in Bill Swerski's arteries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXhEPxXyhW0&feature=related). 

How low can you go!

We eventually ended up landing at a place called Monkey Island that had the most ridiculously high winds. We took turns leaning off of rocks and seeing how far we could lean over with the wind holding us up [Addendum: I would include pictures, but their are better ones at a later time]. After that we all grabbed our cameras and orchestrated a sunset photo session with Monkey Island. 

The next morning we decided to ignore the fact that we were about as far south as you could go without being in Antartica and sprint through the waves to Monkey Island. Once there Mother Nature decided to express her disaproval by pelting us with a flash hail storm. Hail the size of marbles forced us to take cover and we sat laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation while shivering our asses off.

Our tracks out of Bluff, the 2nd most Southern City in the world. I loved that dog.

We drove along the coastline for a while, eating lunch in Bluff, before setting up camp in Curio Bay. The highlights of Curio Bay occurred the next morning as we spent sunrise scoping out the penguins and petrified forests. 

Over the next couple days we made our way up the coast to Dunedin, keeping the driving pretty minimal and making tons of pit stops.  The most memorable of which was Mindy's first attempt to befriend a newborn lamb. Since it's becoming spring, pregnant sheep are popping babies out left and right and Kristen and Mindy were going gaga for what they lovingly called "baby lambs". After being couped up in the car for a couple hours and watching all of these adorable creatures testing out their new legs, we decided to ford a water ditch and find a lamb for Mindy to pet. After hopping the barbed wire fence, Mindy took off running into a herd of lambs and their mothers. She disappeared in the bushes for a couple seconds before coming back screaming because she realized the lamb she was chasing had literally just been born. It was bloody, still had an umbilical cord attached and, as we shortly realized, we were standing right next to its placenta. After we calmed our stomachs, we coaxed Mindy into leaving the lambs alone- for a while- and went back to Fey.

Mindy, finally finding a baby lamb who likes her.

The rest of our time has been filled with visits to hippie art galleries and scenic Lighthouses, buying home made relish from an 85 year old kiwi couple named Wilma and Clive, and taking a cool hike during which Mindy finally got to touch her first "baby lamb".

Right now I'm enjoying the relative comfort of a Dunedin Starbucks while catching up on internet and preparing this post. We're about to cross back through the country up through Wanaka and to the west coast. Once there, we'll hit up some glaciers, soak up some warmer weather and do a 2 day hike up to Hospital Flats were we can lounge in some toasty hot springs.

Sunrise Sessions

 Original Date: August 31, 2010

Kristen and I went for a sunset walk by the lake last night- check my EHarmony profile, I enjoy such things- and the whole time I was thinking, “god damn, this would make a cool picture”. I realized the lighting would be perfect at dawn and decided that it was imperative that I snag a few sunrise shots before we left Wanaka the next day. As such, I decided to start working off my hangover around 6:30, commandeering Mindy’s bike and taking off towards the lake. 45 minutes of shooting and some fun Bridge sessions inside FEY, our campervan, and I ended up with a few keen pics. 

Week 2

Some god rays breaking through the clouds at Treble Cone

The week started out with a couple of great ski days. Monday was solid up at Treble Cone and Tuesday the girls and I met up with Mike at the Remarks. The day at The Remarks was especially great and we all agreed that it was easily the best day of the season. We spent most of the day lapping an epic run that was sandwiched by a pretty grueling 15 minute boot pack hike straight up the face of the mountain and a hitchiking ride back to the main lodge. It was all worth it, however, as the extra effort scared everyone else away and we were the only ones who ended up laying tracks in a super long run full of playful wind lips and little cliff drops.

The hike at The Remarks

A pitt-stop on the way to Gunns Camp

After skiing we there was a big going away party for one of Mikes friends, but I'll spare everyone -especially mom and dad- the details. The next day Mike and I hitched a ride with Tucker and her friend Nicole to Gunns Camp where we met up with a couple other buddies and spent the night in a quaint little cabin. The majority of the night was occupied nursing alcoholic beverages and making fun of Nicole's awesome/ridiculous swiss accent. Most of the night's games were tailored to include some comedic version of an English saying that she had somehow butchered, but the trip itself didn't revolve around cabin shenagins. We saw a couple of cool lakes, a sunset on the Milford Sound, some glow worms and took a cruise through the Fiords.

One of the aforementioned fun features on the hike

Sunset at Milford Sound

We got back to town on Thursday and I immediately caught the bus back to Wanaka so I could get my board and catch what was supposed to be over a meter of powder by the next day. Friday, Ben, Kristen, Melinda and I got up at the crack of dawn (8:30) and hit the slopes by 10. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day and we got to ski TC's best terrain in knee deep pow for most of the morning. One of the highlights to the day had to be watching two pros throw a backflip and then a front flip off of a 30-35 foot cliff. Ben and I attempted to follow that act with a couple of drops on slightly less sketch lines. I would also be remiss if I didnt mention us trying to throw our own back flips. The snow was the definition of hero snow, deep enough to make you feel you can attempt anything. Neither Ben nor I were successful, and I'm pretty sure that I shrunk a couple inches after getting 3/4 of the way around and landing primarily on my head/ upper back. Hell, you only live once.

Ben skiing in the hero snow at Treble Cone

The last couple days have been a little less eventful because the weather has been pretty bad. We've woken up every morning to check TC's webcam, but we've stayed in town cause its been pure white out from summit to lodge. Right now we're starting to get ready to move out of 190 Stone Street while  planning and packing for the road trip. Everyone is getting awfully stoked as the trip becomes more imminent and the plans solidify. As of now, we're going south by Te Anu and Fiordland before tracing the coast line accross what is known as the Southern Scenic Route. After that we'll cut through Wanaka and head up the West coast along the glaciers and eventually circle around the northern end of the South Island before ending up in Christchurch on the 15th. The plans are hardly set in stone, but hey, that's half the fun. I'll try and keep you guys posted as that goes along, but odds are that we'll hardly have internet so don't hold your breath. Until then, keep on keeping on and just have a little faith that we're all alive and well.