Well, today is the last day I spend in Mussorie. This afternoon we take a train to Delhi and tomorrow night fly for the states. There are definitely mixed emotions: on one hand I'm really excited to return home and see friends and family, but this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I will miss soooo much of India. I suppose, though, that goodbyes and transition are just a part of life. In fact, you could say that life is just one big transition into eternity. As one of my friends wisely put it: "There are seasons and times for certain people to be in our lives. We yearn for those times to be eternal, but that cannot be satisfied in this life. It will only be met when that kingdom that Jesus was always talking about shows up in fullness with everything he promised."
Please pray for me and the other interns leaving that our journey would be safe and quick, that we would transition well back into American culture and customs, and that we would be able to find the right words to describe our incredible experiences to others.
Wednesday, July 15
Wednesday, July 8
Amritsar photos
Walking through the streets of the old city
The Golden Temple
The end of the photo shoot
Crowds of people come to see the border ceremony
I love those head things the guards wear
A snapshot of the ceremony
Harry squished between Indians.
4th of July weekend
Well this weekend Ko, Harry, and I went on a sightseeing trip to Amritsar in the state of Punjab along the northwestern border of India. Due to limited train availability and our work obligations, the only possible time to schedule this trip was over the 4th of July weekend. We thought that it would be ironically proper to spend our 4th of July as close to Pakistan as we could possibly be. We also found Amritsar to be a really nice city with great food and a few major attractions. Here's how it went:
We took an overnight train to Amritsar and arrived around half past 8, while the weather was warm but not yet hot. Interestingly, I had found conflicting weather reports online that said Amritsar would either be partly cloudy with a high of 45 C (110 F), or 80% chance of thunderstorms and 30 C (85 F). Go figure. It turned out to be clear all day and hot, but certainly not 45 thank goodness. We decided to walk first through the old city to the Golden Temple, the center of the Sikh religion. Thanks to Google maps we successfully navigated our way into the old city, where we promptly got lost in amaze of haphazard streets and alleys. Luckily, Harry spotted a glint of gold over the top of a building and after wandering towards (what we hoped was) that direction, we finally bumped into the golden temple complex.
The temple itself is situated in the center of a square, man-made lake. Construction began in 1574 and embellishments/additions have been added to the complex until the present day, including the 100kg gold plating on the inverted-lotus shaped temple dome for which it has become so well known for. Today, pilgrims from all over India and the rest of the world come to show their devotion. The complex, like all Sikh holy sites, provides meals daily free of charge to pilgrims and even has simple rooms for the devotees to stay in. The kitchens at the Golden Temple are extremely busy and serve over 30,000 people a day.
In order to enter, we all had to leave our shoes outside the complex, walk through a foot-washing basin, and cover our heads with a provided handkerchief. It really is an impressive place, and the two things that especially make it stand out is that it's clean and you do feel welcome, with far less stares than you would receive elsewhere. We walked around the inside of the complex and visited the Sikh museum, which houses paintings and artifacts depicting the history of Sikhism (much of which has been very violent).
After satisfying our curiosity, we headed out and found the Jallianwala Bagh. A park that has been converted into a national memorial commemorating those Indians that were killed and wounded in this place in 1919 when the British opened fire on a peaceful demonstration against the foreign rule. It was a very nicely maintained place, and a large group of Indian tourists stopped us to ask for our picture. That escalated into a 15 minute photo shoot as more and more people wanted their picture with us.
By this time it was getting hot, and so we headed to a coffee shop to grab a cold drink and discuss our next plan. We ended up gabbing an auto-rickshaw to a museum that supposedly had some weaponry that dates back to the Mughal era. Either we went to the wrong museum or the guidebook lied because the museum our rickshaw driver dropped us at was dedicated solely to the life of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was an interesting guy who united the punjab region into the kingdom of Lahore, and the museum was set up fairly well, but it wasn't what we were expecting. So we grabbed some lunch at a local dhaba and went to see a Hindi film called New York. There were no subtitles, but a few portions of the film were in english and it was not difficult to catch the basic drift. Basically, the FBI recruits an Indian man to spy on his old college friend who is suspected of terrorism. He turns out to be a terrorist, but only because he was falsely accused to be involved in the 9/11 attack, imprisoned, and tortured by the American government and now he wants revenge. Its complicated by the fact that the FBI guy used to be in love with terrorist's wife while they were all friends in college. It was interesting, and I would like to watch it again with subtitles.
Finally, it was time for us to head to the India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. After tracking down a taxi (who's driver turned out to be a smart, fun guy) to take us to the border, we walked to the grandstand area and were directed to the VIP section. Because we're white. Anyway, the border closing ceremony is a really bizare affair in which guards from both Pakistan and India march ornately towards the gate, high kick, salute and turn around with much foot stomping and pomp. Meanwhile, the 10,000 tourists that are assembled in concrete grandstands whistle, cajole, and scream Hindustani chants. A dance party actually broke out in the street before the ceremony began. I have no idea how this tradition started, but it happens every night at this one border crossing, which happens to be the only open gate along the entire Indo-Pakistan border. The ceremony finished with the lowering of all the flags at the same time and quickly marching them into the guard building. After the ceremony completed, Harry, Ko and I somehow got caught in the Indian portion of the exodus, and were so compressed by multiple bodies we couldn't move of our own accord.
We (thankfully) found our taxi driver who dropped us at a great dhaba where we had thali - a large plate filled with small portions of different courses. Punjab is known for their delicious food, and that they use a lot of ghee and butter. Consequently, our thali was incredible delicious and very rich. After dinner we headed back to train station to catch our train home. As it turned out, our (seemingly) entire train car was related, and it was a very loud, very jolly Indian family that shared our compartment. Luckily, I was sooo tired that I simply passed out and wasn't bothered (except by the ticketmaster at 2am when he asked for our tickets).
We arrived home on the 5th, grabbed lunch with other EMI people after church and headed back for a wash. That evening, we had a cookout with grilled chicken, baked potatoes, veggies & ranch, pop, chips, and even apple pie! And earlier someone had picked up some Indian fireworks with which we disturbed all our neighbors like good Americans. Incedentally, Indian fireworks must not be quality controlled, because more often than not the bottle rockets simple exploded as soon as you lit the wick. It made for some interesting times, because we couldn't let any go to waste. All in all, this was a darn good 4th!
We took an overnight train to Amritsar and arrived around half past 8, while the weather was warm but not yet hot. Interestingly, I had found conflicting weather reports online that said Amritsar would either be partly cloudy with a high of 45 C (110 F), or 80% chance of thunderstorms and 30 C (85 F). Go figure. It turned out to be clear all day and hot, but certainly not 45 thank goodness. We decided to walk first through the old city to the Golden Temple, the center of the Sikh religion. Thanks to Google maps we successfully navigated our way into the old city, where we promptly got lost in amaze of haphazard streets and alleys. Luckily, Harry spotted a glint of gold over the top of a building and after wandering towards (what we hoped was) that direction, we finally bumped into the golden temple complex.
The temple itself is situated in the center of a square, man-made lake. Construction began in 1574 and embellishments/additions have been added to the complex until the present day, including the 100kg gold plating on the inverted-lotus shaped temple dome for which it has become so well known for. Today, pilgrims from all over India and the rest of the world come to show their devotion. The complex, like all Sikh holy sites, provides meals daily free of charge to pilgrims and even has simple rooms for the devotees to stay in. The kitchens at the Golden Temple are extremely busy and serve over 30,000 people a day.
In order to enter, we all had to leave our shoes outside the complex, walk through a foot-washing basin, and cover our heads with a provided handkerchief. It really is an impressive place, and the two things that especially make it stand out is that it's clean and you do feel welcome, with far less stares than you would receive elsewhere. We walked around the inside of the complex and visited the Sikh museum, which houses paintings and artifacts depicting the history of Sikhism (much of which has been very violent).
After satisfying our curiosity, we headed out and found the Jallianwala Bagh. A park that has been converted into a national memorial commemorating those Indians that were killed and wounded in this place in 1919 when the British opened fire on a peaceful demonstration against the foreign rule. It was a very nicely maintained place, and a large group of Indian tourists stopped us to ask for our picture. That escalated into a 15 minute photo shoot as more and more people wanted their picture with us.
By this time it was getting hot, and so we headed to a coffee shop to grab a cold drink and discuss our next plan. We ended up gabbing an auto-rickshaw to a museum that supposedly had some weaponry that dates back to the Mughal era. Either we went to the wrong museum or the guidebook lied because the museum our rickshaw driver dropped us at was dedicated solely to the life of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was an interesting guy who united the punjab region into the kingdom of Lahore, and the museum was set up fairly well, but it wasn't what we were expecting. So we grabbed some lunch at a local dhaba and went to see a Hindi film called New York. There were no subtitles, but a few portions of the film were in english and it was not difficult to catch the basic drift. Basically, the FBI recruits an Indian man to spy on his old college friend who is suspected of terrorism. He turns out to be a terrorist, but only because he was falsely accused to be involved in the 9/11 attack, imprisoned, and tortured by the American government and now he wants revenge. Its complicated by the fact that the FBI guy used to be in love with terrorist's wife while they were all friends in college. It was interesting, and I would like to watch it again with subtitles.
Finally, it was time for us to head to the India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. After tracking down a taxi (who's driver turned out to be a smart, fun guy) to take us to the border, we walked to the grandstand area and were directed to the VIP section. Because we're white. Anyway, the border closing ceremony is a really bizare affair in which guards from both Pakistan and India march ornately towards the gate, high kick, salute and turn around with much foot stomping and pomp. Meanwhile, the 10,000 tourists that are assembled in concrete grandstands whistle, cajole, and scream Hindustani chants. A dance party actually broke out in the street before the ceremony began. I have no idea how this tradition started, but it happens every night at this one border crossing, which happens to be the only open gate along the entire Indo-Pakistan border. The ceremony finished with the lowering of all the flags at the same time and quickly marching them into the guard building. After the ceremony completed, Harry, Ko and I somehow got caught in the Indian portion of the exodus, and were so compressed by multiple bodies we couldn't move of our own accord.
We (thankfully) found our taxi driver who dropped us at a great dhaba where we had thali - a large plate filled with small portions of different courses. Punjab is known for their delicious food, and that they use a lot of ghee and butter. Consequently, our thali was incredible delicious and very rich. After dinner we headed back to train station to catch our train home. As it turned out, our (seemingly) entire train car was related, and it was a very loud, very jolly Indian family that shared our compartment. Luckily, I was sooo tired that I simply passed out and wasn't bothered (except by the ticketmaster at 2am when he asked for our tickets).
We arrived home on the 5th, grabbed lunch with other EMI people after church and headed back for a wash. That evening, we had a cookout with grilled chicken, baked potatoes, veggies & ranch, pop, chips, and even apple pie! And earlier someone had picked up some Indian fireworks with which we disturbed all our neighbors like good Americans. Incedentally, Indian fireworks must not be quality controlled, because more often than not the bottle rockets simple exploded as soon as you lit the wick. It made for some interesting times, because we couldn't let any go to waste. All in all, this was a darn good 4th!
Sunday, June 28
Leopard noises...
So, last thursday was cell group, so we went over to our pasor's house and just hung out, ate some dinner, and got our butts whooped in a game of Uno. At the end of the night, Caleb, Harry and I started home in the dark. After walking probably a hundred feet down the path, we all here this gutteral, low-pitched growl emerging from the bushes not ten feet to our right. I don't think any of us had any question as to what animal it came from: definitely a leopard. Caleb and I instantly turned our flashlights into the bushes, and Harry took off running down the path. Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), we couldn't actually see the leopard in the dense underbrush. It took about a second for me and Caleb to realize that we were standing about ten feet away from a leopard, but once it sunk in we took off after Harry. Thankfully, the leopard didn't follow us (as far as we know). Looking back, running may not have been the best strategy, but what would you do in that situation? The internet didn't seem to have much info on what to do when a leopard attacks you, either. Anyway, we were quite wired for the rest of the night. What a cool (and somewhat frightening) experience!
Saturday, June 20
A good train story
Wow, it has been over a month since my last post. And I've been busy too, so my apologies for not updating. However, this is my 24th post, so mathematically I'm averaging about a post a week over 6 months. Anyway, I'm back from the project trip down in Mumbai and I would love to share my experience on the train ride down from Delhi.
So, first of all our tickets were wait-listed, which means we have to wait for someone else to cancel their booked ticket in order to get a spot on the train. We had booked over two months in advance, however, and our names were first in line to get passed. Our chances were good. Well, we show up to the train station in Delhi and only four of our six tickets had fully passed. Caleb (one of the other interns) and I would have to share a seat. Oh well.
As it turns out, our 9:30 pm train didn't even reach the station until 11:30, so before we even get on the train we're tired and hot (it was about 95 out, even at night, but luckily we had secured a spot on the platform under a fan, and it was one of the cleanest railway platforms I have seen in India.) Well we get on the train and Caleb and I go to find our seat, and there's a family already sharing it. Mom and Dad sitting on one half, passed-out kid lying on the other. Not being in the mood to try to parley with this Indian family on our bunk (who didn't speak hardly any English either), we decide to help everyone else find there berths, find a spot for our luggage and talk to the ticketmaster. He was no help. When informed of our situation he simply said "go sit in 43" which was the number of our bunk with the family in it. But, a random guy that was in Graham's (one of the engineers) cabin was more that happy to help us. In fact, he literally jumped off his bunk, offered to help, grabbed our ticket and ran down to the end of the car where our bunk with the family on it was. Looking back, I seriously suspect that this guy was on something, seeing as how he and his buddies stayed up most of the night drinking, smoking, and playing music.
Well, we follow him back to the end of the car where he is in a lively conversation with the family in our bunk. Eventually, the family graciously moves over to their relative's berth (which now contains four people), but leave their somnolent son on our bed. As it is already past 12:30 at this point, Caleb and I simply thank everyone involved and promptly sit down. Caleb got the part of the bed where the kid wasn't, and I sat next to his feet. As I couldn't lean against the back of the seat because of the kid's feet, I leaned forward against the wall and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately, our helping and probably half-baked friend insisted that I shouldn't sleep in that position. So he squeezes past me and tries to rearrange the inert child's position next to me. This looked like quite a difficult task as the kid was quite husky and the guy was a stick. Eventually he succeeded in shoving the child more into the corner of the berth and folded his feet up in such a way as to provide me with a place to lean back against. Fortunately for us all, the comatose child didn't awake. Hence, Caleb and I leaned our backs upright and tried to fall asleep.
Around 1:30ish the ticketmaster comes back. Caleb was already asleep; I was quite near that beautiful stage of repose. He informs us that we are to be moved into different bunks. Not in the mood or having the intellectual/emotional/conscious capacity to argue we follow him down the aisle to another cabin. He shows us our new bunks, and there is a young couple sitting in this one. Fortunately, however, the opposite bunk is empty and so the ticketmaster convinces the young couple to move over to the other side so that Caleb and I can use the opposite bunks. They graciously agree, and Caleb and I ready our partially complete bedding packages (I somehow only received a pillow out of the provided two sheets, towel, pillow, and blanket), and the ticketmaster left. Not two seconds after he leaves, the couple's mother walks into the cabin and sits down on the opposite bunk with her daughter, and the guy comes over and sits at the foot of my bunk. So, I simply resign myself to the fact that I'll be sharing my bunk with a random Indian guy, curl up my feet to give him some sitting room, and go to sleep.
I woke up halfway through the night to notice that the man sharing my bunk had somehow acquired a sheet and moved to the floor. I offered him my pillow and then turned over on the bunk with no bedding and resumed my hibernation. I actually did sleep fairly well that night, but I awoke with a strained back muscle that bother me for a few days. Good times on the Indian railway system!
So, first of all our tickets were wait-listed, which means we have to wait for someone else to cancel their booked ticket in order to get a spot on the train. We had booked over two months in advance, however, and our names were first in line to get passed. Our chances were good. Well, we show up to the train station in Delhi and only four of our six tickets had fully passed. Caleb (one of the other interns) and I would have to share a seat. Oh well.
As it turns out, our 9:30 pm train didn't even reach the station until 11:30, so before we even get on the train we're tired and hot (it was about 95 out, even at night, but luckily we had secured a spot on the platform under a fan, and it was one of the cleanest railway platforms I have seen in India.) Well we get on the train and Caleb and I go to find our seat, and there's a family already sharing it. Mom and Dad sitting on one half, passed-out kid lying on the other. Not being in the mood to try to parley with this Indian family on our bunk (who didn't speak hardly any English either), we decide to help everyone else find there berths, find a spot for our luggage and talk to the ticketmaster. He was no help. When informed of our situation he simply said "go sit in 43" which was the number of our bunk with the family in it. But, a random guy that was in Graham's (one of the engineers) cabin was more that happy to help us. In fact, he literally jumped off his bunk, offered to help, grabbed our ticket and ran down to the end of the car where our bunk with the family on it was. Looking back, I seriously suspect that this guy was on something, seeing as how he and his buddies stayed up most of the night drinking, smoking, and playing music.
Well, we follow him back to the end of the car where he is in a lively conversation with the family in our bunk. Eventually, the family graciously moves over to their relative's berth (which now contains four people), but leave their somnolent son on our bed. As it is already past 12:30 at this point, Caleb and I simply thank everyone involved and promptly sit down. Caleb got the part of the bed where the kid wasn't, and I sat next to his feet. As I couldn't lean against the back of the seat because of the kid's feet, I leaned forward against the wall and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately, our helping and probably half-baked friend insisted that I shouldn't sleep in that position. So he squeezes past me and tries to rearrange the inert child's position next to me. This looked like quite a difficult task as the kid was quite husky and the guy was a stick. Eventually he succeeded in shoving the child more into the corner of the berth and folded his feet up in such a way as to provide me with a place to lean back against. Fortunately for us all, the comatose child didn't awake. Hence, Caleb and I leaned our backs upright and tried to fall asleep.
Around 1:30ish the ticketmaster comes back. Caleb was already asleep; I was quite near that beautiful stage of repose. He informs us that we are to be moved into different bunks. Not in the mood or having the intellectual/emotional/conscious capacity to argue we follow him down the aisle to another cabin. He shows us our new bunks, and there is a young couple sitting in this one. Fortunately, however, the opposite bunk is empty and so the ticketmaster convinces the young couple to move over to the other side so that Caleb and I can use the opposite bunks. They graciously agree, and Caleb and I ready our partially complete bedding packages (I somehow only received a pillow out of the provided two sheets, towel, pillow, and blanket), and the ticketmaster left. Not two seconds after he leaves, the couple's mother walks into the cabin and sits down on the opposite bunk with her daughter, and the guy comes over and sits at the foot of my bunk. So, I simply resign myself to the fact that I'll be sharing my bunk with a random Indian guy, curl up my feet to give him some sitting room, and go to sleep.
I woke up halfway through the night to notice that the man sharing my bunk had somehow acquired a sheet and moved to the floor. I offered him my pillow and then turned over on the bunk with no bedding and resumed my hibernation. I actually did sleep fairly well that night, but I awoke with a strained back muscle that bother me for a few days. Good times on the Indian railway system!
Monday, May 11
Goat Roast
Well, this fantastic event actually happened two weeks ago, but I'm only getting the pictures up now. We had so much fun a this event, even though there were more than a few people grossed out. I honestly didn't think that we would be able to pull it off, but somehow it actually turned out quite nice. Certainly not something you get to do everyday.
These are bunch of the guys in the Men's group getting the fire going. We have a lot of fun together.
Here's our goat. Mmm Mmmm...
Here's Akil, playing with the head. Later we ate it. No joke.
Ryan didn't really like the goat, at least until we chopped it up and stewed it in gravy.
I did like like the goat.
=This is how we kept our stereo playing. A great example of Indian ingenuity...
These are bunch of the guys in the Men's group getting the fire going. We have a lot of fun together.
Here's our goat. Mmm Mmmm...
Here's Akil, playing with the head. Later we ate it. No joke.
Ryan didn't really like the goat, at least until we chopped it up and stewed it in gravy.
I did like like the goat.
=This is how we kept our stereo playing. A great example of Indian ingenuity...Wednesday, April 29
Trekking!
Well, apologies for waiting this long to update my blog after the trekking trip. It was totally amazing! We spent two days hiking up 5,000 ft to a mountain lake called Dodital. The next morning we ascended another 2,000 feet to the top of the ridge where we had an amazing view of the mountains. There's actually not a lot to talk about, but I have tons of pictures to share:
This was our first campsite. The guy reading Harry's diary is our camp supervisor. In India, privacy is not a very well understood concept; there are a billion people here\
This is where we got lost in the mountains. The guy with the yellow shirt is Edwin, if you can spot him.
This was a randomly deserted village on our trail up. It's only inhabitted seasonal by those serving the hikers on the trail. It was really strange, but kind of nice to be in a completely deserted village
This is a crappy picture of Dodital. My friends took much better ones that I will steal and bring back when I return.
A great action shot of Edwin on one of the numerous stream crossings we made
fantastic view #1
this is the Yamnotri basin, from which the holy Yamuna river flows.
I like this shot because you can see four seperate ridges in it; the one I'm on, the one forming the valley we hiked up through, the Gangotri ridge from which the holy Ganga (Ganges) river originates, and vaugely in the back is the ridge on which Badrinath is located - the highest mountain in the area at over 25,000 ft.
This was our first campsite. The guy reading Harry's diary is our camp supervisor. In India, privacy is not a very well understood concept; there are a billion people here\
This is where we got lost in the mountains. The guy with the yellow shirt is Edwin, if you can spot him.
This was a randomly deserted village on our trail up. It's only inhabitted seasonal by those serving the hikers on the trail. It was really strange, but kind of nice to be in a completely deserted village
This is a crappy picture of Dodital. My friends took much better ones that I will steal and bring back when I return.
A great action shot of Edwin on one of the numerous stream crossings we made
fantastic view #1
this is the Yamnotri basin, from which the holy Yamuna river flows.
I like this shot because you can see four seperate ridges in it; the one I'm on, the one forming the valley we hiked up through, the Gangotri ridge from which the holy Ganga (Ganges) river originates, and vaugely in the back is the ridge on which Badrinath is located - the highest mountain in the area at over 25,000 ft.
and as we started to descend, it started to snow. A great ending to an amazing day. I also like the disparity in clothing choice...
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