Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Home
I made it home safe and sound on Saturday. Thank you for all your prayers and support. It feels good to back and I am slowly recovering from jet-lag. Please check back here in a week or so as I hope to post a slide-show of the happenings of the past 4-months.
-Nate
-Nate
Friday, December 10, 2010
Closing Thoughts
Well, this is my opportunity to reflect on my semester in India and put down my thoughts on paper. Without trying to be overly profound (although it is difficult when trying to communicate what God has taught me while I am here) I will share a bit of my experience.
Contentedness Feels Relative Sometimes, But Does It Have To Be?
The title of this section kind of says it all. People say, “It’s all relative,” and at times that is true, for example in India the UP is not the Upper Peninsula but Uttar Pradesh, and “cracker” is not a condescending term used to describe shady white people, but rather fireworks. In my brief travels outside of the U.S. it seems that being content is relative sometimes too; I’m content living with fewer luxuries in the developing world, but when I return home I lose that atti
tude of gratitude.
It’s amazing how great a hot shower feels when you take one at a fraction of the frequency that you’re accustomed to. It’s amazing that a plate of rice and dal can taste as good as a nice big steak (well maybe not quite). It’s great having a nice, dry, warm bed after monsoon, and it reminds you of how much you have to be grateful for. I’ve always wrestled with the passage from Luke 12:48, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” Well I’ve certainly been given much, but I am only beginning to hold up my end of the bargain by doing ministry not to try and earn something from God, but out of my understanding of the depth of God’s LOVE for me and the many BLESSINGS he has given. It’s all about being CONTENT with what you have and GRATEFUL for God’s PROVISION. My hope now is that my gratefulness is not dependent on my country of residence, but even when I return and drink water straight from the tap, that I would still be OVERWHELMED daily by the AMAZING God that we serve.
The Shadow Proves the Sunshine
There is a Switchfoot l
yric, “The shadow proves the sunshine,” I think in so many ways that has been an accurate description of how my faith has been impacted during my time in India. There are certain truths about who God is that have become personal to me, not just words on a page or orthodox theology, but they mean something to me because I have seen first-hand the practice of idolatry and false religion. India is a nation where Christianity is the fourth or fifth largest religion, so the religious culture is a bit different than America. Hindus worship idols of metal, wood, and plastic created by human hands. Contrast that with the fact that we can have a personal relationship with the ONE TRUE LIVING God. Muslims work hard to pile up as many good works as they can, hoping that when they stand for judgment it will found that what they did on earth will be enough, but we have a God who sent His Son to pay our debt IN FULL and be our RIGHTEOUSNESS, so we can be CONFIDENT in our SALVATION and our works are driven by His LOVE for us.
“The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’.”
-Romans 8:15
Published At Last
Our Project Reports went out the door today, and how great it feels to be done. Here's a little bit of what we have done:
This weekend will be my last in Mussoorie as we are leaving Monday night to travel to Jaipur and see the state of Rajistan before returning to Delhi for our flight back to the States on Friday.
Please pray for safe travels and that we would be able to reflect on our time here and transition well to life back home.
This weekend will be my last in Mussoorie as we are leaving Monday night to travel to Jaipur and see the state of Rajistan before returning to Delhi for our flight back to the States on Friday.
Please pray for safe travels and that we would be able to reflect on our time here and transition well to life back home.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Final Countdown
God’s Church
Our director/IT man dissecting the office server
Last Sunday afternoon we had a church dance party. It was so cool to see the different nations represented through dance; India, Nepal, South Africa, UK, and the US. It reminded me so vividly that Christianity and God’s Church is not just an American or Western thing, His truth and salvation spreads across the globe, it transcends language and culture.
The pastor and his wife cutting a rug
Our Work
Our director/IT man dissecting the office server
Well the only thing that has really been going on the past week is work. I feel like I’ve been saying this for the past month, but we are almost done with our project work. We lost a few days to IT woes, but thankfully we were able to recover files from our network(although it is no longer operational). We are in the final stages of revisions for our drawings and report, I think it will be one of the largest reports that eMi2 has published with 22 drawings and 30 some pages of report text. Apparently we are a rather long-winded bunch.
Please pray that we will see the completion of our project through before we depart. Also please pray that I will be able to process the things that I have learned here in India, and be able to transition well back to American culture.
Look forward to seeing y'all soon!
-Nate
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Bird-Day!
We had our own little eMi thanksgiving yesterday, it was actually quite impressive considering none of us really cook extensively. Chicken was substituted for turkey, but the spread was quite wide ranging and all the food turned out great.
I hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving!
Work has gotten real slow around here as we have run into some IT problems. Let me preface the story with this fact, we live about 300 feet from a 250-300 foot tall radio/TV tower which frequently gets struck by lightning during storms. Since the electrical system of the office is quite old it apparently is not sufficiently grounded, because when we get lightning storms you can frequently see sparks coming out of the wall sockets. So when the storm rolled in last week all the electronics were not sufficiently unplugged, and it appears that part of the server and printing network have been fried. Unfortunately all my project work is on the server and our office director/IT man has been on vacation and will be until next week. Sadly that has made things very slow around here for me.
We went to Delhi last weekend as some of the eMi staff and interns were running in the Delhi Half-Marathon. It was a good chance to see more of Delhi, and we also got to visit the Taj Mahal.
I'll try and let the photos speak for themselves.
The Lotus Temple in Delhi. A Bahai faith temple
We had our own little eMi thanksgiving yesterday, it was actually quite impressive considering none of us really cook extensively. Chicken was substituted for turkey, but the spread was quite wide ranging and all the food turned out great.
I hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving!
Work has gotten real slow around here as we have run into some IT problems. Let me preface the story with this fact, we live about 300 feet from a 250-300 foot tall radio/TV tower which frequently gets struck by lightning during storms. Since the electrical system of the office is quite old it apparently is not sufficiently grounded, because when we get lightning storms you can frequently see sparks coming out of the wall sockets. So when the storm rolled in last week all the electronics were not sufficiently unplugged, and it appears that part of the server and printing network have been fried. Unfortunately all my project work is on the server and our office director/IT man has been on vacation and will be until next week. Sadly that has made things very slow around here for me.
We went to Delhi last weekend as some of the eMi staff and interns were running in the Delhi Half-Marathon. It was a good chance to see more of Delhi, and we also got to visit the Taj Mahal.
I'll try and let the photos speak for themselves.
The Lotus Temple in Delhi. A Bahai faith temple
Monday, November 15, 2010
Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Well Nick(another intern) and I got to do a little traveling this weekend. We headed to the Punjab state capital of Chandigarh. Chandigarh has an interested story since it is a relatively new city. When India first received independence in 1947 the Indian-Pakistan(both countries were created/gained independence on the same day) border was determined by the British Government and the boundaries attempted to divide the Hindu and non-Hindu regions as seperate countries. This division not only lead to a lot of violence between the religous groups involved and created the tension between India and Pakistan that still exists, but it also granted the capital of Punjab, Lahore, to Pakistan. You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India . Therefore the Indian Punjabi state had no capital. Rather than select a city already in existence in the state, it was decided that a new city would be built to serve as a symbol of India's independence and progression.
That is where Chandigarh comes into play. The site for the city was carefully selected as was a team of architects(as urban planning didn't really exist at this point) to design the new city. The team was initially headed by two architects from the U.S. but after the death of one of them a new team was assembled. The team was headed by the French(swiss-born) architect Le Corbusier. The city was laid out in a grid system with 800m x 1200m rectangular sectors. The roads are wide and divided by a vegetated median. Le Corbusier also designed most of the government buildings, which although much hyped about pretty much looked to me like most any other building from the 60's, a big chunk of concrete.
Anyway we wanted to go see Chandigarh as it "is unlike any Indian city in it's organization and cleanliness." Nick and I weren't that impressed, although it is certainly more organized it isn't really anything to write home about compared to American cities. Well the trip to Chandigarh was worth it for other random experiences that we had along the way. We got to play a full cricket match in the parking lot of the High Court(State Court) with some Indian guys. We also got to dance in a wedding procession and found the coolest vegetable market. So all in all the 8 hour one-way trip was worth it. Not to mention we had the best Tandoori Chicken.
Yours truly batting in cricket, clearly not knowing what is going on and/or looking like a baseball player. Surprisingly I ended up hitting the game winning run.
The vegetable market
You probably can't read this but it was a label of an architectural drawing done by Le Corbusier at a museum in Chandigarh that documents the history of designing the city. It says, "Three dimensional sketch highlighting the variation of brise soleil for the facade on the Minister's Block. The design for this was suitably altered to incorporate more vertical supports for structural stability on the advice of the engineers." Perfectly sums up the architect-engineer relationship.
The High Court building, designed by Le Corbusier
The groom at the wedding procession that we got pulled into. After some dancing we were kindly asked to leave as we were distracting from the groom's moment.
Work
We are slowly but surely getting close to completing our design report and drawings.
Prayer Requests
-Please continue to pray for our diligence and focus as we complete our project work
-Please also pray for our english teaching outreach, that we would have the opportunity to share the Gospel with the men we teach, and that their hearts would be receptive.
Bread and Butter
"Where does your bread and butter come from?" That was the questioned posed to me by one of the guys we were playing cricket with after I explained to him what I do and what eMi is. While it took me a while to figure out exactly what he meant, I knew what he was getting at, "Where does your salary come from? How do you live?" I just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers and financial support which allow me to serve and live here in India.
Well Nick(another intern) and I got to do a little traveling this weekend. We headed to the Punjab state capital of Chandigarh. Chandigarh has an interested story since it is a relatively new city. When India first received independence in 1947 the Indian-Pakistan(both countries were created/gained independence on the same day) border was determined by the British Government and the boundaries attempted to divide the Hindu and non-Hindu regions as seperate countries. This division not only lead to a lot of violence between the religous groups involved and created the tension between India and Pakistan that still exists, but it also granted the capital of Punjab, Lahore, to Pakistan. You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India . Therefore the Indian Punjabi state had no capital. Rather than select a city already in existence in the state, it was decided that a new city would be built to serve as a symbol of India's independence and progression.
That is where Chandigarh comes into play. The site for the city was carefully selected as was a team of architects(as urban planning didn't really exist at this point) to design the new city. The team was initially headed by two architects from the U.S. but after the death of one of them a new team was assembled. The team was headed by the French(swiss-born) architect Le Corbusier. The city was laid out in a grid system with 800m x 1200m rectangular sectors. The roads are wide and divided by a vegetated median. Le Corbusier also designed most of the government buildings, which although much hyped about pretty much looked to me like most any other building from the 60's, a big chunk of concrete.
Anyway we wanted to go see Chandigarh as it "is unlike any Indian city in it's organization and cleanliness." Nick and I weren't that impressed, although it is certainly more organized it isn't really anything to write home about compared to American cities. Well the trip to Chandigarh was worth it for other random experiences that we had along the way. We got to play a full cricket match in the parking lot of the High Court(State Court) with some Indian guys. We also got to dance in a wedding procession and found the coolest vegetable market. So all in all the 8 hour one-way trip was worth it. Not to mention we had the best Tandoori Chicken.
Yours truly batting in cricket, clearly not knowing what is going on and/or looking like a baseball player. Surprisingly I ended up hitting the game winning run.
The vegetable market
You probably can't read this but it was a label of an architectural drawing done by Le Corbusier at a museum in Chandigarh that documents the history of designing the city. It says, "Three dimensional sketch highlighting the variation of brise soleil for the facade on the Minister's Block. The design for this was suitably altered to incorporate more vertical supports for structural stability on the advice of the engineers." Perfectly sums up the architect-engineer relationship.
The High Court building, designed by Le Corbusier
The groom at the wedding procession that we got pulled into. After some dancing we were kindly asked to leave as we were distracting from the groom's moment.
Work
We are slowly but surely getting close to completing our design report and drawings.
Prayer Requests
-Please continue to pray for our diligence and focus as we complete our project work
-Please also pray for our english teaching outreach, that we would have the opportunity to share the Gospel with the men we teach, and that their hearts would be receptive.
Bread and Butter
"Where does your bread and butter come from?" That was the questioned posed to me by one of the guys we were playing cricket with after I explained to him what I do and what eMi is. While it took me a while to figure out exactly what he meant, I knew what he was getting at, "Where does your salary come from? How do you live?" I just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers and financial support which allow me to serve and live here in India.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Diwali!
Diwali!
I had the opportunity to witness Diwali during my time here in India as it was celebrated yesterday. Diwali is known as the "Festival of Lights", it is kind of like part Christmas part 4th of July and part mayhem. Diwali commemorates the return of the Hindu God, Lord Rama along with Sita and Lakshman from his fourteen year long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. The fireworks and lights are to guide the Lord Rama home and celebrate his return.
We headed down to the bazaar last night after work to get a feel of the festival. It was pretty wild, people were lighting fireworks off in the middle of the main road without regard for motorists or pedestrians. The thing about indian fireworks is that about half of them are duds, but very powerful fireworks are easily and cheaply available. You can buy a pack of "bombs" for about 50 cents and each of these could probably take your hand-off, they are not no girly american firecrackers, some of these things pack a serious punch. My favorite phrase related to Diwali is "busting crackers" which describes lighting fireworks.
Flag Hill
I took a short hike this morning to a hill just outside of Mussoorie which is renown for its great views. I wasn't disappointed, the sky was clear and cloudless this morning and many of the more distant mountain ranges could be seen. For those of you that really like big mountains, and I know their is at least one of you out there, the mountain peak shown in the picture below is Nanda Devi(I think, not 100% sure). The peak of Nanda Devi is at 25, 640 feet and is the tallest mountain that lies entirely in India. Nanda Devi was once believed to be the tallest mountian in the world.
Nanda Devi(I think)
I had the opportunity to witness Diwali during my time here in India as it was celebrated yesterday. Diwali is known as the "Festival of Lights", it is kind of like part Christmas part 4th of July and part mayhem. Diwali commemorates the return of the Hindu God, Lord Rama along with Sita and Lakshman from his fourteen year long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. The fireworks and lights are to guide the Lord Rama home and celebrate his return.
We headed down to the bazaar last night after work to get a feel of the festival. It was pretty wild, people were lighting fireworks off in the middle of the main road without regard for motorists or pedestrians. The thing about indian fireworks is that about half of them are duds, but very powerful fireworks are easily and cheaply available. You can buy a pack of "bombs" for about 50 cents and each of these could probably take your hand-off, they are not no girly american firecrackers, some of these things pack a serious punch. My favorite phrase related to Diwali is "busting crackers" which describes lighting fireworks.
Flag Hill
I took a short hike this morning to a hill just outside of Mussoorie which is renown for its great views. I wasn't disappointed, the sky was clear and cloudless this morning and many of the more distant mountain ranges could be seen. For those of you that really like big mountains, and I know their is at least one of you out there, the mountain peak shown in the picture below is Nanda Devi(I think, not 100% sure). The peak of Nanda Devi is at 25, 640 feet and is the tallest mountain that lies entirely in India. Nanda Devi was once believed to be the tallest mountian in the world.
Nanda Devi(I think)
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Learning a Language
Well I started Hindi lessons this week, it is with a private tutor and one other intern. We'll meet twice a week for an hour or so each time, while I attempt to teach myself as much as possible between meetings. Language learning is one of those things that I think certain people are gifted with, I don't think I am one of them, but I am excited to give it a shot.
For those who think I get to hike around the Himalayas all the time, well you'd be wrong, I've also been working recently as well even though it has recieved little mention in this blog. We are very close to publishing our design report for the ministry that we visited back in September. I have been working a little bit in Google Sketchup which is a free piece of software used for 3D renderings of drawings(amongst other things). One of my work tasks this past week was to create a 3D site plan from our survey data using SU. This will be used for the 3d architectural renderings of the buildings on the site.
Posted below are a couple more photos taken by another intern on the trek. Looking back on that week I must say I have a whole new respect for the power of mother nature, and how important it is to be properly prepared(but not over-prepared because then your pack gets heavy).
Indian Minute
I thought it would be fitting to have a share a few hindi phrases. Spelling is phoentic(for me) since Hindi has it's own script.
Aap kaise hain? - How are you?
Mai thik hoon, aur aap? - I am fine and you?
Aap ka naam kya hai? - What is your name?
Mera naam Nate hai. - My name is Nate
Aap kahan ke hai?- Where are you from
Mai America ke hoon. - I am from America
Aap kya kartay hain? - What do you do?
Mai engineer hoon. - I am an engineer.
On of the interesting things about Hindi is the word order. For most sentences the following order is correct:
Subject + Object + Verb
So you have to get in the habit of Yoda speak.
For those who think I get to hike around the Himalayas all the time, well you'd be wrong, I've also been working recently as well even though it has recieved little mention in this blog. We are very close to publishing our design report for the ministry that we visited back in September. I have been working a little bit in Google Sketchup which is a free piece of software used for 3D renderings of drawings(amongst other things). One of my work tasks this past week was to create a 3D site plan from our survey data using SU. This will be used for the 3d architectural renderings of the buildings on the site.
Posted below are a couple more photos taken by another intern on the trek. Looking back on that week I must say I have a whole new respect for the power of mother nature, and how important it is to be properly prepared(but not over-prepared because then your pack gets heavy).
Indian Minute
I thought it would be fitting to have a share a few hindi phrases. Spelling is phoentic(for me) since Hindi has it's own script.
Aap kaise hain? - How are you?
Mai thik hoon, aur aap? - I am fine and you?
Aap ka naam kya hai? - What is your name?
Mera naam Nate hai. - My name is Nate
Aap kahan ke hai?- Where are you from
Mai America ke hoon. - I am from America
Aap kya kartay hain? - What do you do?
Mai engineer hoon. - I am an engineer.
On of the interesting things about Hindi is the word order. For most sentences the following order is correct:
Subject + Object + Verb
So you have to get in the habit of Yoda speak.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
To The River and Back Again
The Work Recently
Sorry for the delay in posting, we have been on vacation for the past week. We have been working hard on publishing our design reports and hope to be done in the next couple of weeks.
Trekking
For our week of vacation we decided to go for a several day hike nearby the Himalayan mountians. We chose a hike that would put us at less than 5 miles from the peak of the mountain(Bandarpunch) which we can see from our office window. The peak at Bandarpunch is at 20,700 feet which is taller than any peak in North America. 5 of the interns went as well as one of our Indian friends from Mussoorie.
Bandarpunch from the office
Sunday
We started at 5:30 AM with a windy taxi ride to the trail head, taking about 6 hours to get there and with a few members of our group getting car sick. We were armed with hiking equipment that was more applicable for summer camping out of the trunk of your car than for a autumn hike in the Himalayas, although our one saving grace is that everyone had a mummy bag. We hiked about 9 kms Sunday afternoon to a village where we camped out.
Monday
On Monday we hiked to what was sort of our base camp, it is an alpine lake called Dodital. It is a place considered sacred by Hindus and was about 14 kms from where we camped the night before. The lake is at about 10,000 feet of elevation so most of our hike was a steady ascent towards the lake. We also camped out that night as well, and decided our itinerary for the rest of the trip. Most people who hike to Dodital only day hike out of there and then return the same way they came into Dodital. We decided that was kind of lame as there was another route described in the guide book that would bring us up the pass and along the valley until we reached the next town about 25 kms down the river from the pass. With that decided that we would relax on Tuesday.
Tuesday
Tuesday was our chill day, we relaxed and got prepared for the hike up the pass. Unfortunately we got heavy rain that evening which flooded our tents and forced us to spend the night in the resthouse located in Dodital.
Bandarpunch from Darwa Pass
Wednesday
Our hike up to the Darwa Pass got slightly delayed. We had hoped to get started at about 5:30 AM to make it up to the pass before the clouds rolled in and ruined our view. However it was raining when we woke up and didn't get started until around 6:30 AM. We booked it up the trail and made it there by 8:45AM which is pretty good consider most groups take at least two hours and they usually day-hike, while we had all our gear on our backs heading up to the pass. Darwa Pass is at about 13,500 feet so it was a pretty intense hike up from Dodital. From the pass Bandarpunch and the Swargarohini mountain range are in view. We got there in time to see a bit of the mountains before the clouds got there. Nick and I went for a little side hike up to a better view point. After spending a few hours at the pass we decided to head off west along the valley. The guide book describes the trail as "little more than an ill-defined goat track." We apparently didn't find that ill-defined goat track and we were not hiking at the top of the ridge as we later determined we were supposed to be doing. What this led to was having to go up and down valleys that could have been avoided if we were hiking at the top of the ridge before any valley formed. We found a place to camp that was probably around 11,000 feet and fortunately we discovered this old hut that had a bunch of firewood surrounding it, so at least we were able to get warm by the fire. The place were we camped at was pretty cool as Bandarpunch was still in view. When I got up around 11 to go pee, the sky was completly clear and the moon was almost full so the view was pretty impressive.
Our vantage point
Bandarpunch from our campsite
Thursday
We began the morning by hiking up the hill a bit to get an idea of where we were supposed to go and how to get there. We realized where we had camped was essentially on a cliff over a valley. We could see our final destination down the river valley and we had two options. We could hike up to the high ridge and hike all the way around the valley or we thought that maybe we could hike down to the river and follow the river along to the village. The river looked pretty tame from 3,000 feet above and seemed like there was plenty of riverbed to hike along. So we spent much of the morning hiking down through the forest essentially blazing our own trail. We didn't make it more than 500meters down the river until we realized that what we were trying to do was basically impossible. The river was in full rage and landslides,boulders, and cliffs made it extremely difficult to hike down the river. Our thought to not backtrack along the trail was thwarted, and the decision was made to hike back to where we came from and get back to Dodital. At this point it had started raining and hailing. We hiked back up the river about 1 km and then began the 4,000 or so vertical foot climb back to the pass. The higher elevations had gotten snow which made it almost seem like I was back in Michigan. We got to Darwa Pass around 6:30 PM under moonlight and through an inch or two of snow(which is astonishing to the two Texans and the one Californian on our trip). Most of our gear and clothes were wet from the rain and snow that we had had that day so we decided to hike down from the pass to Dodital where we thought we might have a warm meal and a dry place to spend the night. So we hiked down the pass under moonlight and flashlight and got into Dodital around 10PM. There is a dhaba(a food hut/shack) in Dodital which we had eaten at before. We woke the dhaba walla who kindly lite a fire for us and cooked us hot food and chai. I think we sat in front of the fire for about 3 hours warming up and drying out our clothes. The dhaba also had a few beds for us to sleep in, which we gladly accepted.
The snowy higher elevations
Friday
We began our journey back down to the start of the trail. We had an uneventful 24 km hike that day and got back to the town of Uttarkashi around 7PM. Unfortunately there were no more buses leaving that evening so we stayed in a hotel near the bus station and caught the first bus back to Mussoorie on Saturday morning.
Prayer Requests
Please continue to pray for our project reports
Please pray for our outreach to the guys that we are teaching english to
Check out eMi2's quarterly newsletter:
http://www.emi2southasia.org/indianthread/E_Thread_Current.pdf
With Love,
Nate
Sorry for the delay in posting, we have been on vacation for the past week. We have been working hard on publishing our design reports and hope to be done in the next couple of weeks.
Trekking
For our week of vacation we decided to go for a several day hike nearby the Himalayan mountians. We chose a hike that would put us at less than 5 miles from the peak of the mountain(Bandarpunch) which we can see from our office window. The peak at Bandarpunch is at 20,700 feet which is taller than any peak in North America. 5 of the interns went as well as one of our Indian friends from Mussoorie.
Bandarpunch from the office
Sunday
We started at 5:30 AM with a windy taxi ride to the trail head, taking about 6 hours to get there and with a few members of our group getting car sick. We were armed with hiking equipment that was more applicable for summer camping out of the trunk of your car than for a autumn hike in the Himalayas, although our one saving grace is that everyone had a mummy bag. We hiked about 9 kms Sunday afternoon to a village where we camped out.
Monday
On Monday we hiked to what was sort of our base camp, it is an alpine lake called Dodital. It is a place considered sacred by Hindus and was about 14 kms from where we camped the night before. The lake is at about 10,000 feet of elevation so most of our hike was a steady ascent towards the lake. We also camped out that night as well, and decided our itinerary for the rest of the trip. Most people who hike to Dodital only day hike out of there and then return the same way they came into Dodital. We decided that was kind of lame as there was another route described in the guide book that would bring us up the pass and along the valley until we reached the next town about 25 kms down the river from the pass. With that decided that we would relax on Tuesday.
Tuesday
Tuesday was our chill day, we relaxed and got prepared for the hike up the pass. Unfortunately we got heavy rain that evening which flooded our tents and forced us to spend the night in the resthouse located in Dodital.
Bandarpunch from Darwa Pass
Wednesday
Our hike up to the Darwa Pass got slightly delayed. We had hoped to get started at about 5:30 AM to make it up to the pass before the clouds rolled in and ruined our view. However it was raining when we woke up and didn't get started until around 6:30 AM. We booked it up the trail and made it there by 8:45AM which is pretty good consider most groups take at least two hours and they usually day-hike, while we had all our gear on our backs heading up to the pass. Darwa Pass is at about 13,500 feet so it was a pretty intense hike up from Dodital. From the pass Bandarpunch and the Swargarohini mountain range are in view. We got there in time to see a bit of the mountains before the clouds got there. Nick and I went for a little side hike up to a better view point. After spending a few hours at the pass we decided to head off west along the valley. The guide book describes the trail as "little more than an ill-defined goat track." We apparently didn't find that ill-defined goat track and we were not hiking at the top of the ridge as we later determined we were supposed to be doing. What this led to was having to go up and down valleys that could have been avoided if we were hiking at the top of the ridge before any valley formed. We found a place to camp that was probably around 11,000 feet and fortunately we discovered this old hut that had a bunch of firewood surrounding it, so at least we were able to get warm by the fire. The place were we camped at was pretty cool as Bandarpunch was still in view. When I got up around 11 to go pee, the sky was completly clear and the moon was almost full so the view was pretty impressive.
Our vantage point
Bandarpunch from our campsite
Thursday
We began the morning by hiking up the hill a bit to get an idea of where we were supposed to go and how to get there. We realized where we had camped was essentially on a cliff over a valley. We could see our final destination down the river valley and we had two options. We could hike up to the high ridge and hike all the way around the valley or we thought that maybe we could hike down to the river and follow the river along to the village. The river looked pretty tame from 3,000 feet above and seemed like there was plenty of riverbed to hike along. So we spent much of the morning hiking down through the forest essentially blazing our own trail. We didn't make it more than 500meters down the river until we realized that what we were trying to do was basically impossible. The river was in full rage and landslides,boulders, and cliffs made it extremely difficult to hike down the river. Our thought to not backtrack along the trail was thwarted, and the decision was made to hike back to where we came from and get back to Dodital. At this point it had started raining and hailing. We hiked back up the river about 1 km and then began the 4,000 or so vertical foot climb back to the pass. The higher elevations had gotten snow which made it almost seem like I was back in Michigan. We got to Darwa Pass around 6:30 PM under moonlight and through an inch or two of snow(which is astonishing to the two Texans and the one Californian on our trip). Most of our gear and clothes were wet from the rain and snow that we had had that day so we decided to hike down from the pass to Dodital where we thought we might have a warm meal and a dry place to spend the night. So we hiked down the pass under moonlight and flashlight and got into Dodital around 10PM. There is a dhaba(a food hut/shack) in Dodital which we had eaten at before. We woke the dhaba walla who kindly lite a fire for us and cooked us hot food and chai. I think we sat in front of the fire for about 3 hours warming up and drying out our clothes. The dhaba also had a few beds for us to sleep in, which we gladly accepted.
The snowy higher elevations
Friday
We began our journey back down to the start of the trail. We had an uneventful 24 km hike that day and got back to the town of Uttarkashi around 7PM. Unfortunately there were no more buses leaving that evening so we stayed in a hotel near the bus station and caught the first bus back to Mussoorie on Saturday morning.
Prayer Requests
Please continue to pray for our project reports
Please pray for our outreach to the guys that we are teaching english to
Check out eMi2's quarterly newsletter:
http://www.emi2southasia.org/indianthread/E_Thread_Current.pdf
With Love,
Nate
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)