Hi Namita,
Be careful on public computers.
You forgot to sign out.
Mumbai Group you met.
Rakesh
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
April Fools!
Hah. The last thing you expected was a blog posting. APRIL FOOLS!
Joe and I celebrated the eve of this very important holiday in a very special way: A Nepali ring tone of a borrowed phone (ours was stolen on a bus in Patna, along with my wallet and shoes WTF) wakes us up at 5:00AM this morning. I'm a bit groggy from not sleeping great seeing that my "-40 C" down sleeping back doesn't zip up and I am constantly cold as my body warmth seeps into the cold cot below me. It also could have been because I was up late playing poker with the Indians who are also trekking through Namache on the way to see Everst Base Camp. Oh yea. We are in Nepal, and have been trekking for 8 days now in the Himalayas.
But this posting is about April Fools Day, not about our trip around the world.
Joe and I put on our incredibly fake yet waterproof "NorthFace" pants and down jackets: Mine is bright yellow in order to fully complete my Yellow Power Ranger look, Joe's is an oversized blue making him complete his smurfy getup. Atleast we are warm finally. We blend in here as everyone is wearing "everest" marmot and columbia brands. We don't blend in because we are kind of incredible at scaling mountains as we have been hiking about 8 days longer on much more tortuous terrain than most of the tourists here. Due to our lack of funds, we have had to hike into the heart of the himalayan valley south of Everest, while most people on a tigher schedule and a bigger budget can comfortably land in Lukla, a day's hike away from where we are now, with their damned ski poles and porters. I really hate the sound approaching ski poles make while you are trying to hike.
Anyways. So now that we are downed up, we walk out into the greyness of Namche Bazaar, greeted by the excited yelps of Sabine, our enthusiastic German companion from the past 8 day hike from Jiri to Lukla. She and her boyfriend Peter are leaving today to go back to Jiri, and we decided to spend our last hurray together by hiking to the Everest View Hotel at sunrise. Joe and my visit to the gompa on our breathless and "high" stroll yesterday paid off, as there is not a tourist around, cloud in the sky, and the ground is covered in a fluffy layer of powdery snow. A dream come true. We start the zombie trudge up the snow covered hill above Namche. Our goal is to see Mt. Everest, but we are soon distracted by the symphony of snow covered peaks of the other mountains around us alighting due to the sunrise. Bing! Bang! Zoom! Craggy crops turn a blinding white, and the shadows of the morning disappear. Sabine is silly happy and it's addictive. Soon we are all rolling in the snow, throwing snowballs, and making snow angels. (Well I was the only one who thought a snow angel was cool.) 45 min later, we are staring at IT. IT being Mt. Everst. Wow. It actually doesn't look that impressive from the hotel. Just another beautiful snow capped moutain. But it was ours, and we captured it first this morning. Drunk with altitude and our well-earned gift from nature, we begin posing in front of the mountain. I do a tripod, while Joe and Peter are a bit more creative with headstands. Remember, a tripod is NEVER a crowd-pleaser.
An hour passes and a package of strawberry dream-creams is consumed. We finally turn to have breakfast at the hotel and begin our trek back down. The four of us have had a really good time together this past week and stave off the imminent separation by distracting ourselves with skiing. Skiing?! Yes, little short wooden skies you tie to your feet. I fell a lot, while Peter and Sabine were a little more brave and lenient with their snow-plowing. I didn't even get to the plow position before I ate snow. Joe found half a gasoline can, and began "snowboarding" which led to the most spectacular falls, leaving the crowd of Nepali's and breathless and achy tourists laughing.
I don't know what you find funny. I don't even know who reads this blog so I'm not going to cater to my PG-13 audience. There is a rare bird in the Himalayan Mountains called a Snow Cock. It's really cute, small, and I haven't seen one yet. Animals can smell my lack of showering miles away and tend to avoid me. This snow was perfect for making snowmen, so the four of us began rolling giant snow balls down the hill. Finally it was decided. We would construct a giant Snow Cock since it was such a rare thing to see. We didn't want the tourists to miss out on this gem of nature. 45 min later we were walking back down to Namache, and people were asking us if we had seen the "snowman's..thing" to the right of the viewpoint...
Maybe when I upload some pictures, it will better elucidate the meaning of April Fools Day better.
I'll write about our adventures in India some other time.
Love,
Namita
Joe and I celebrated the eve of this very important holiday in a very special way: A Nepali ring tone of a borrowed phone (ours was stolen on a bus in Patna, along with my wallet and shoes WTF) wakes us up at 5:00AM this morning. I'm a bit groggy from not sleeping great seeing that my "-40 C" down sleeping back doesn't zip up and I am constantly cold as my body warmth seeps into the cold cot below me. It also could have been because I was up late playing poker with the Indians who are also trekking through Namache on the way to see Everst Base Camp. Oh yea. We are in Nepal, and have been trekking for 8 days now in the Himalayas.
But this posting is about April Fools Day, not about our trip around the world.
Joe and I put on our incredibly fake yet waterproof "NorthFace" pants and down jackets: Mine is bright yellow in order to fully complete my Yellow Power Ranger look, Joe's is an oversized blue making him complete his smurfy getup. Atleast we are warm finally. We blend in here as everyone is wearing "everest" marmot and columbia brands. We don't blend in because we are kind of incredible at scaling mountains as we have been hiking about 8 days longer on much more tortuous terrain than most of the tourists here. Due to our lack of funds, we have had to hike into the heart of the himalayan valley south of Everest, while most people on a tigher schedule and a bigger budget can comfortably land in Lukla, a day's hike away from where we are now, with their damned ski poles and porters. I really hate the sound approaching ski poles make while you are trying to hike.
Anyways. So now that we are downed up, we walk out into the greyness of Namche Bazaar, greeted by the excited yelps of Sabine, our enthusiastic German companion from the past 8 day hike from Jiri to Lukla. She and her boyfriend Peter are leaving today to go back to Jiri, and we decided to spend our last hurray together by hiking to the Everest View Hotel at sunrise. Joe and my visit to the gompa on our breathless and "high" stroll yesterday paid off, as there is not a tourist around, cloud in the sky, and the ground is covered in a fluffy layer of powdery snow. A dream come true. We start the zombie trudge up the snow covered hill above Namche. Our goal is to see Mt. Everest, but we are soon distracted by the symphony of snow covered peaks of the other mountains around us alighting due to the sunrise. Bing! Bang! Zoom! Craggy crops turn a blinding white, and the shadows of the morning disappear. Sabine is silly happy and it's addictive. Soon we are all rolling in the snow, throwing snowballs, and making snow angels. (Well I was the only one who thought a snow angel was cool.) 45 min later, we are staring at IT. IT being Mt. Everst. Wow. It actually doesn't look that impressive from the hotel. Just another beautiful snow capped moutain. But it was ours, and we captured it first this morning. Drunk with altitude and our well-earned gift from nature, we begin posing in front of the mountain. I do a tripod, while Joe and Peter are a bit more creative with headstands. Remember, a tripod is NEVER a crowd-pleaser.
An hour passes and a package of strawberry dream-creams is consumed. We finally turn to have breakfast at the hotel and begin our trek back down. The four of us have had a really good time together this past week and stave off the imminent separation by distracting ourselves with skiing. Skiing?! Yes, little short wooden skies you tie to your feet. I fell a lot, while Peter and Sabine were a little more brave and lenient with their snow-plowing. I didn't even get to the plow position before I ate snow. Joe found half a gasoline can, and began "snowboarding" which led to the most spectacular falls, leaving the crowd of Nepali's and breathless and achy tourists laughing.
I don't know what you find funny. I don't even know who reads this blog so I'm not going to cater to my PG-13 audience. There is a rare bird in the Himalayan Mountains called a Snow Cock. It's really cute, small, and I haven't seen one yet. Animals can smell my lack of showering miles away and tend to avoid me. This snow was perfect for making snowmen, so the four of us began rolling giant snow balls down the hill. Finally it was decided. We would construct a giant Snow Cock since it was such a rare thing to see. We didn't want the tourists to miss out on this gem of nature. 45 min later we were walking back down to Namache, and people were asking us if we had seen the "snowman's..thing" to the right of the viewpoint...
Maybe when I upload some pictures, it will better elucidate the meaning of April Fools Day better.
I'll write about our adventures in India some other time.
Love,
Namita
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