Saturday, March 18, 2006
Festivus
Before I begin, we wanted to update people that the posts and photos will unfortunatley become a littel less punctual as we lost internet access in Solang. While things were all too good with Khem (our hotel owner) allowing us to use his computer at our leisure, his hard drive is not working. We are in the big city of Manali right now and wanted to send a shout out about the last couple weeks...Tibetan stories, festivals, and ya, skiing.
We had a surprisingly good authentic Korean meal in Old Manali with our Tibetan friend Peter a while back and continue to be impressed with his stories and optimistic outlook on life. Besides a most adventurous tale of him trying to get into Tibet, he entertained us with a tale of his first, and only, visit to the ocean. Some friends brought him fishing south of Calcutta where he experienced "low elevation sickness." He hadn't been on the water 10 minutes before he got queezy and experienced "low elevation sickness." Classic. The adventurous one, he attempted to go back out to sea the next day, this time fighting off the lowland bug by going into the cabin and sleeping. He awoke later to step on the deck in complete confusion..."where are the houses, what is going on, where are the houses." Peter was then taught how to cook lobster, which was almost as painful for him. When the captain instructed him to drop the lobster in the boiling water, Peter frieked. "Hell, I can not put that thing in hell." Yes, in Tibet, boiling water is considered part of the devil's playground and it is considered extremely bad luck to put any living thing in boiling water or fire. While there was much laughter, we also learned some more sobering things about Peter's family and other Tibetans living in India. Although Peter and his daughters were born in India, they have no passports, must check in with the police if they travel out of their district, and yet are all very appreciative of the freedoms they do have. It definitely made me ponder how we could help him out. I don't know if he would ever want to leave the Manali area as he does have good family and friends here, but his work ethic and personality would thrive in the great USA.
Joe and I attended a local festival last Sunday with the friends we've met from that village. Em chose to miss out as her stomach was a little questionable and we thought we might be treated to lots of local food and drink. This thought was correct. With our contacts not exactly the religous types, I can not explain much about the tradition or purpose of the festival. But we did visit the temple to watch the "he-devil" and "she-devil" dance around. After that we went to a friend's home for some dal and rice wine. We were escorted into a cozy living room with blankets and pads set up around the walls where we would all sit with the rice wine and local food circling in the center. This trend was consistent at the next five houses we visited and our hosts did a good job to make sure the westerners always had something to eat and drink. After about five full dinners, we fortunately were relieved of food from the kitchen. Then the singing and dancing began. It was especially cool because the ringleader of the singer was consistently Hira La - the GS skier who represented Indian in Turino a month ago.
Then came the Holi festival on March 14. This festival consists of colors - throwing colors on anyone or thing that moves. We were in Solang and nervous we didn't have any paints to throw. Well, to our great surprise, the gods delivered us our favorite color - WHITE. The morning rain turned to snow midday and it then snowed for the next day and a a half. Turns out Solang was pretty dead as far as any color throwing went and we sat in the Iceland, playing cards, and getting excited that we just may be skiing from our front door again.
So, the last three mornings have been skiing. There is over 3' of new just a few hundred feet above Solang. Yesterday, we found some cold smoke on a steep north aspect early morning and then spent the afternoon on the patio in short sleeves and sandals. Ya, life is OK.
We had a surprisingly good authentic Korean meal in Old Manali with our Tibetan friend Peter a while back and continue to be impressed with his stories and optimistic outlook on life. Besides a most adventurous tale of him trying to get into Tibet, he entertained us with a tale of his first, and only, visit to the ocean. Some friends brought him fishing south of Calcutta where he experienced "low elevation sickness." He hadn't been on the water 10 minutes before he got queezy and experienced "low elevation sickness." Classic. The adventurous one, he attempted to go back out to sea the next day, this time fighting off the lowland bug by going into the cabin and sleeping. He awoke later to step on the deck in complete confusion..."where are the houses, what is going on, where are the houses." Peter was then taught how to cook lobster, which was almost as painful for him. When the captain instructed him to drop the lobster in the boiling water, Peter frieked. "Hell, I can not put that thing in hell." Yes, in Tibet, boiling water is considered part of the devil's playground and it is considered extremely bad luck to put any living thing in boiling water or fire. While there was much laughter, we also learned some more sobering things about Peter's family and other Tibetans living in India. Although Peter and his daughters were born in India, they have no passports, must check in with the police if they travel out of their district, and yet are all very appreciative of the freedoms they do have. It definitely made me ponder how we could help him out. I don't know if he would ever want to leave the Manali area as he does have good family and friends here, but his work ethic and personality would thrive in the great USA.
Joe and I attended a local festival last Sunday with the friends we've met from that village. Em chose to miss out as her stomach was a little questionable and we thought we might be treated to lots of local food and drink. This thought was correct. With our contacts not exactly the religous types, I can not explain much about the tradition or purpose of the festival. But we did visit the temple to watch the "he-devil" and "she-devil" dance around. After that we went to a friend's home for some dal and rice wine. We were escorted into a cozy living room with blankets and pads set up around the walls where we would all sit with the rice wine and local food circling in the center. This trend was consistent at the next five houses we visited and our hosts did a good job to make sure the westerners always had something to eat and drink. After about five full dinners, we fortunately were relieved of food from the kitchen. Then the singing and dancing began. It was especially cool because the ringleader of the singer was consistently Hira La - the GS skier who represented Indian in Turino a month ago.
Then came the Holi festival on March 14. This festival consists of colors - throwing colors on anyone or thing that moves. We were in Solang and nervous we didn't have any paints to throw. Well, to our great surprise, the gods delivered us our favorite color - WHITE. The morning rain turned to snow midday and it then snowed for the next day and a a half. Turns out Solang was pretty dead as far as any color throwing went and we sat in the Iceland, playing cards, and getting excited that we just may be skiing from our front door again.
So, the last three mornings have been skiing. There is over 3' of new just a few hundred feet above Solang. Yesterday, we found some cold smoke on a steep north aspect early morning and then spent the afternoon on the patio in short sleeves and sandals. Ya, life is OK.
Labels: India, Kullu Valley, ski touring, Solang
