Troubles in Paradise

When Pakistan and India became independent, Kashmir had already some sovereignty. The Maharajah was Hindu, but the majority of the population was Muslim. 1947 the Maharajah had to make a decision in choosing to join either Pakistan or India Before he reached a decision, a Pakistani militia invaded Kashmir and started a small pro-Pakistan rebellion. Indian forces came to the Maharajahs defence and got aided by most Kashmiris, who actually wanted to stay independent from the two giants. When the fight was over and the Kashmiris thanked for the help and wanted the Indians to withdraw, the Indians were like "nhaa.. We think we'll stay for a while." and the Maharaja signed a treaty with India. India controlled now most of Kashmir, except for the north-western parts which Pakistan had taken and a small part which China had taken. Since then, there has been constant problems in this area, with two major wars between Pakistan and India; one between India and China. Terrorist acts from mainly Muslim groups, pushing either for independence or joining Pakistan, usually hitting Hindu people in the southern regions and in India mainland. The Indian military has many times been worse then the militants they look for, accused for abductions, torture and discriminating the Muslim population.

2008: Some places in Kashmir have highly significance to the Hindu faith and many Hindus make pilgrimage every year to these sites, often being targeted by Muslim terrorists. This year the Shrine board, controlling land in holy Hindu sites, bought some land in Kashmir and this caused big reactions amongst the Muslim population. By the treaty with India, a law exists that forbids non-Kashmirirs to buy Kashmir land. So big protest and riots were made in the capital of Srinigar and in the country side. In the end they won their cause and the land purchase was revoked. So now, in the second biggest city, Jammu, with a predominantly Hindu population, big demonstrations and strikes were called. Also Muslim people started to get attacked by Hindu mobs and big religious clashes starting to accure everywhere in Kashmir.

This is when I'm coming from Kargil in Ladhak, crossing pine tree covered mountains down to Srinigar in Kashmir. My first impression is how much this looks like Switzerland, and that's also what Indians call this place, little Switzerland. With it's many flowers and wildlife, this has been called a paradise by people who has been here. It is very beautiful, but there is a massive military presence. Driving down the road, endless military convoys pass by and there are a couple of guards every half kilometre of the road down to Srinigar. When I finally got there, I didn't notice too much tension, even though so many soldiers and police. I managed to search up my recommended house boat between 1500 of them. The Dal Lake is located in the city and thus Srinigar has many canals and waterways. By the big lake you can stay in a house boat which is a nice experience. Most traffic is by gondola type boats and it's pretty good to have most business coming to you this way. As you sit on the porch, the convenience store (in it's true sense) comes floating by, the grilled lamb man, the tailors, etc, etc. Even the garbage collector comes by every second morning. Lot's of birds hang around here, kingfishers, ducks, geese and hundreds of eagles flying high above. Can life be any more easy? I submit that it can not!

The next morning Sharon arrived. Her bike is in a bad condition and it had to be transported to Srinigar where it could be fixed. A strike had been called to day, but some shops where still open. Walking down the city to find the place where the truck driver would drop the bike off, you could feel the tension in the air. At times people told us to go back, and up, further along the road we saw police with shields and bamboo sticks being hailed by rocks. After a while they had some protesters dispersed by tear gas, but the casualty was one police man holding his eye with blood flowing through his fingers. These incidents happened a bit here and there and it felt a bit aqward strolling by and asking the police for directions where to pick up the bike, while they and their colleges had just been into battle. Finally finding the place where the bike would be dropped, we sat down and waited and had a chat with a few military men and civilians. A small truck drove by on the opposite road, it was filled with men carrying sticks, and they threw rock and harassed any still opened shop and drove away. I asked one guy why the police doesn’t do anything, he pointed at the police man sitting next to me 'ask him!. Clearly, the police are a bit scared and/or reluctant to escalate the tension with the extremists. When the bike finally came, it had to be locked up in the shop. No work could be done today.

The next 2 days were similar tension in Kashmir. Protests, shops closed and clashes with police. I couldn't resist taking the camera down and follow a minor clash between police and protesters. I was very comical. The police seemed to adopt the tactic off being as disorganised as the ones they were fighting. Some police would spontaneously charge, but looking back and seeing no one had followed and had to run back. Both sides throwing as many stones at each other, with the line of control moving up and down. It all looked similar to the western front in WW1, lot's of shouting and screaming, teargas canisters being thrown back and forth, but nothing really accomplished. Me and some media in the middle of it all taking pictures. Finally the police retreated up to the intersection to the armed vehicle and secured that area. Victory shouts and dancing on burning tires on the protesters camp.

Finally Sharon managed to sort out her bike, which was quite funny because women drivers are unheard of up here. I took some time before they understood that there were no third person driving the second bike, she was driving the bike. One guy turned to me with a surprised look 'She can drive a motorcycle? Like, I mean, a long distance???'. 'Yes my friend' I said, 'She is well trained". With Sharon’s bike fixed, I took mine to another mechanic, Mr Hassan, to fix some minor stuff... I thought... in reality, I opened up a can of worms. Trying to fix the annoying sound I've had, we finally discovered that it came from the crank pin. Opening up the whole engine, we saw that the pin, instead of having a nut, had been welded on. A real blue peter badge! The welding had come undone and metal pieces where floating around in the engine. This would take time and money to fix and Srinigar at the moment was not the best place to do it. Tip nr2: Don't fix your bike in a notorious conflict zone!

The next day the situation had escalated. People in Jammu had blocked the road to Srinigar and stopping all trucks, even killing four Muslim drivers. This road is the life line to Srinigar and now people here started to get really pissed off... and hungry! A curfew was called in all Kashmir and Jammu and the minor incidents that acured in Srinigar, spread all over the city. From our house boat we could hear and see at the distance, fighting with police and tear gas shells exploding. This was not a minor clash as I had seen, but major ones with live rounds occasionally fired. In a big protest, thousands of Kashmiris was going to walk the road to Pakistan as to say that they had enough of India and wanted to join the Pakistanis. They were stopped on the way and shot at, killing 27 people and hundreds wounded. The hospitals in Srinigar were over filled and on local TV they were asking for medicine and any assistance that could be provided. The next 2 weeks was like this. Curfews and strikes, very few shops opened sometimes. Down at the boat house things were very good. I had been recommended a very nice family and they took care of us very well. The lake was like a safe haven and things were calm, the days with curfew I spent playing games with the boys and reading, very relaxing. When there was 'just' a strike, but you could walk the streets, I and Hassan drove around looking for spare parts and a leth man to put the engine back together. Driving through the city was like being in a war zone. On the roads, burnt vehicles were still smoking and masses of people were chanting slogans and stuff. We came in to a street and lot's of people started shouting at us. The thing is that I look very Hindu and if not that, then I look Israeli... both nationalities not very popular here! Two guys on a motorcycle stopped us on the way and Hassan told me 'STop! stop stop!' All of a sudden I was surrounded by 30-40 people with various home-made weapons and shouting at me at an unknown language. I looked back and Hassan had disappeared! I saw him in the crowd looking at me with huge eye's and thought 'F%^K!!!' I could just visualize him telling the crowd 'I didn't know he was Hindu. Let's get him!'. I looked around trying to guess the most leader type I could find, and told them that I didn't understand what they were saying and that I was a tourist. Hassan was saying to the crowd that I was English! The crowd kept on jabbering in some language, but finally a man with big al-Qaeda beard and white robe asked me in English were I was from and I said Sweden. He said 'It's ok, you can go' and started to push away the crowd with some other fellows. Hassan jumped back on the bike and we made distance, fast... I can look like many nationalities and in India I melt in very well, which is good for not being harassed by sellers and getting local prices to places. But here, it is defenatly a disadvantage with Muslim mobs wanting to give me stone showers and police wanting to perform bamboo massages. Usually they catch on pretty quick that I'm not local, but still.

At the end, after two weeks of drama. We managed to sort the bike out and finding a gap when there was a 3 day break from strikes, and we headed off!

Note: At the time of writing, the Hindu protests (which was done all over the country) gave results and the government agreed to give the land back again to the Hindu Shrine board. Happy feelings in Jammu, but in Srinigar, I can just imagine a massive conflict arising.

Bob, Zanskar and Demon Swordsmen!

After driving around the areas close to Leh, Sharon and me decided it was time to leave and head towards Kargil and then Zanskar Valley. The way up was nice and the road good and we spent 2 nights in a small town called Lamayuro. Here lays the oldest monastery in Ladhak, and as usual, nicely situated on a cliff. A big shot Lama was here for 4 days to give teachings and the monastery was packed with people. The teachings were in them selves good, but with a all dead time for translations from Tibetan to English and Ladaki, even a senior monk sitting in the honors podium fell asleep. Me and Sharon had no chance, after I woke her up, we tip toed our way out.

We headed on north to the bigger town of Kargil, a place situated very close to the disputed line between Pakistan and India. This town was artillery shelled a few years ago in the so called 'Kargil war'. As soon as we came near Kargil, the people, architecture and religion changed from Ladhakian Buddhist to Muslim. Nice white and brown monasteries, to turquoise and pink mosques. Signs are mostly in Arabic and it felt a bit like being back in Egypt. In the entrance of town is already posters with old Khomeini, as the population is mainly Shia Muslim here. Inside the town is many similar posters with other old men with turbans and white beard. We stayed here only one night, checking up the bikes. Next morning we started our journey towards Zanskar Valley. If Ladhak, at least until a few years ago, was a isolated part of the world, Zanskar is the essence of it. This Valley can only be reached during the few summer months, as the road can be opened. During the winter it's almost totally isolated, reachable only by foot and Yak. The road was the most horrible I ever been on. I'm sure the Romans must have built better roads! The dreaded Manali - Leh road was a new built auto-bahn in comparison to this! After 5-6 hours drive, we made 70km and got off with the heads still shaking!

We met a climbing expedition team in a small guest house where we spent the night. The nearby mountains of Nun and Kun attracts top climbers, but one group of climbers had been a bit careless and 2 disappeared, one was found frozen. The had been told by the guide to come down from base came because the weather had started to turn bad, but going against his instructions and also ignoring the guidelines, the wanted adventure and stayed. They knew the risks, up to them. Now the expedition was there to collect them but also to train some local youth in proper climbing techniques, to make them future guides.

The next day the trip to Zanskar went on. The landscape here is breathtaking and after being jaded a bit from Leh areas, this was really nice. But the bad road made it hard to concentrate on the surrounding's. You need an eye all the time on the way looking for a way around rocks and holes, crossing big water streams and avoiding trucks and jeeps. Preferably honking a bit just in case, sometimes the drivers fall asleep and can hit you without knowing. Some people Sharon met had been in a jeep were the driver snoozed off and drove off the road, luckily not at a drop off, and they came away only with cuts and bruises. Driving a Royal Enfield can be really great, but it can also be a royal head ache. Apart from some oil on the spark plug in the mornings and a slight knocking noise, Vaselia has been running really great the whole time. Bob has been having some difficulties with the gears that keep slipping off, but still it's manageable and we keep moving forwards. Time to time you have to make an annoying stop at the police check post. It is totaly useless, they just want to fill in anything in the papers because they know it doesn't really matter. One police asked me what registration number the bike had. I couldn't really hear or understand him, so I asked "Registration?" He started filling in 'R-E-G-R-I...' on the papers.

Reaching Karsha, a village with a big monastery near the main town of Padum, we found a really nice family whom we could stay with. There's also a whole bunch of hyper active kids, fingering and looking at everything we did, a big annoying if they weren't so lovable. The house had also a perfect view of the monastery and the surrounding valley, which was specially nice at night time. The only thing was that we had to park the bikes near the main square, which was crowded with small kid with nothing better to do then climbing, pulling, pushing and jumping on every inch of Vasilia! Every time I came within sight of the bike, I had shoo away some kids before they would pull a 180kg Enfield on top of their heads!

We seemed to have come at the right time The next day was a 2 day festival at the monastery with masked dances and night time festivities in the village. We went to to see the festival in the monastery, which had much much less visitors and tourist and no charges for front seats or whatever. The dances were much like the one in Hemis that I had seen before, with impressive costumes and a lot of Buddhist symbolism. But instead of small monks with bamboo sticks, whipping people from coming to close, was a Demon swordsman (with a real sword) with a scarf over his face, drawing lines in on the ground but constantly having to smack people a bit with the steel to move them. I was sitting on the main stairs where the actors/dancers were coming down, and around me sat some other people also trying to squeeze up against the sid to not be in the way. The demon swordsman homed in on us. Spanking away people around me, he surprisingly left me squeezed against the stone wall and didn't touch me. Great! I had a nice spot for taking pictures, almost to close as the dancers almost smacked and stept on me as they danced down the stairs. The demon swordsman walked over to me again. This time he bent forward a said "Claudio, you remember me? Tenzin Lekshey?". "Yeeaaaa!!" I lied, I had no clue... They are all named Tashi, Tenzin, Dolma etc.. But after the dances were over he came up to me again and I saw who it was. One of my athletes from the Tibetan Olympics in McLeod G. I knew he was a monk, but not that he was sword swinging old ladies and not that he was staying here. It turns out that the house we are staying with in is also part of his family! Small world they say...

Zanskar valley is something else. Off the beaten track, the villages are still quite untouched, but very soon they probably will be bombarded with internet, Kashmiri souvenir shops, restaurants and the usual tourist things. This because a road is being built to link the Valley with Manali. Then it will be easier and faster even to come here, then Leh. This is really good for the people living here in isolation and bring them closer to Buddhist Ladahk instead of the administration from Muslim Kargil.

Having some time on our hands, we thought about finding a mechanic and fix Bob's gearbox problems. In the town of Padum, we found a man some people called a mechanic, but he didn't want to touch the bike. Instead the was a group of other willing men to help, that hallways through the operation said "No, we are not mechanics, but we like to fix things our selves!" As you can understand, the gearbox ended up 10 times worse and as icing on the cake, they gave Bob a very strange and bad sound coming from the engine. We had to change his name from Bob to Crazy Frog because of that.
So tip nr1: Don't give your bike to be fixed by local farm boys!
Bob never made the drive back home to Karcha and had to be left by the side of the road... Big bummer! The only solution was to put him on a truck and send him back to Kargil and, hopefully, fix him there. Sharon took the bus.

She's on fire!!!

No time to rest! The day after passing the blizzard, there was a big festival at a monastery called Hemis, an hour or so from Leh. It is the biggest monastery in Ladhak, quite beautiful but to packed with people for our liking. Tons of tourists and locals were crowding the central area where the masked dances would take place. The battle for the longest camera lens was on. Me and my mate Jose, a professional photographer ran around nuts with the cameras inside the monastery. We managed to elbow our ways to some prime spots "ringside", just by the allowed line, guarded by 8year old munks with bamboo sticks, hitting people like the LAPD shouting"back please, side please!!"The dances were a bit lame, but the feeling, costumes and masks were really breathtaking. It was a shame it started raining towards the end and most people ran away and didn't see the finale.

So, it was time for another Enfield experience. Jumping on the bike to drive home, I tried to kick start her and small signs of life next to nothing. Suddenly Sharon points out some smoke under the seat. Looking down I saw a fire big enough to BBQ hot dogs. Eject! Eject! I jumped off the bike faster then lightning, then got to my senses as Sharon threw water on it. The wires were totally burned away... Again, we had to roll her down as far as possible since we were high up on the mountain side. By the road we tried to fix her by cutting of the back break light wire (U never use that light anyway) and fixing it to the battery. Another start, another fire, stopped by Jose and a bottle of water. We had to stop a vehicle a get a thicker wire to connect. A nervous start again; supervised by Jose 'the fireman' ready with one hand full of sand, one with water, it finally seemed to work. The drive back to Leh was a nervous one though, with Sharon constantly looking down under the seat. During the drive I knew I had to change the whole electric system. I refuse to feel like a mafioso, waiting for the bike to explode every time I start the bike! Next day I changed the whole dodgy 8volt system to a normal Enfield 12volt. It was amazing what difference that made. Most importantly my horn now sounds like a trains and people and vehicles jump to the side as like one was coming! Now, hopefully everything is sorted with the bike. And no more Enfield Club stories!

After all of this, still Sharon has turned a liking for driving Enfields and wants to get her own. After an intense hunt for a bike for sale, we found am older model with a deep booming engine 'Bobob boboobo' So she bought him and named him 'Bob'. Now, Bob and Vaselia is going together for adventures up north, on to Zanskar Valley and further on to Kashmir and Srinigar!

Vaselia vs Blizzard

When you have a motorbike in India, particular an Enfield, it becomes your world and decent mechanics here and there becomes your, want to be, best friends and saviors. There you spend allot of time together with other enthusiasts, fighting for the main mans time and attention, sucking them up with chai. There is always something more to fix, improve and decorate. Also my circle of friends tend to be more bikers now days and more and more conversations about our toys. It was about time that my bike got a name and what could a Cloud better want then the goddess of wind carrying me. So her new name is Vaselia, the goddess of Wind, Stars and Travels. I also invested 4€ on a full face helmet, making my looks change from teenage skater to a Power Ranger wanna be.

After fixing her up and giving her a nice cosmetic makeover, it was time to take her out for a new trip. We were going to Pangong Lake, a huge lake up in the mountains, crossing over from India to Tibet. Sharon, an English girl I met in Leh came on the back of my bike and a french couple I met coming to Ladhak, came on another. The roads in Ladahk are quite good and it was a nice drive past valleys and over the worlds third highest motorable pass. Vaselia was going very well, until the other side of the pass where I had to drive through a small river and she just died coming out on the other side. Luckily the road was down hill and just using the breaks I managed to navigate her down hill on some dodgy road with the horn barely sound able and trucks popping up around corners. The battery seemed to be dieing on me as well and instead of a beep there was a pathetic sheep's baaa. In India, worse then having bad brakes is having a bad horn. Somehow we made it down and the engine came on and off all the time until it just died again outside of a guest house in a village.

Next morning the power of the bike was completely gone and after a bit of panic and running here and there looking for a new mechanical savior, we checked the battery one more time and saw that one of the wires were off. She was OK again after fixing that! Off again, continuing to the Lake through a bit dodgy roads and crossing rivers we finally made it there. The Lake was beautiful, constantly changing color depending on the light, going from dark blue to turquoise with the brown mountains surrounding it. We stayed with a really nice family in their small house over the night. It is amazing in these parts how it can be so extremely hot and when the sun is covered or goes down, how cold it gets. Up here is the only place they say you can get a sunburn and frost bite at the same time! The temperature ranges in the summer between -2 to 40 degrees. The people here are so resistant to the weather the didn't react to the flux's, we kept changing clothes.

When we woke up in the morning, it was snowing! Our hopes for a change didn't come and foolishly we left anyhow to go back to Leh. "Down" at the lake it was snowing, but up at 5000 meters it was a blizzard raging! I couldn't see anything with the helmet visor down, so with it up and having horizontal snow flying in to my eyes, I could see a bit of the snow and icy "road" winding up. Vaselia struggled bravely on upwards, but she was so hot I could smell the engine and hear her sizzling the snow before landing on her. At times the loud roar barely took us up. Crossing the point of no return, it was better to go on forward to the military barrack on top of the pass. I was pushing her like a lunatic, not to unlike Quin in the movie "Jaws", shouting "come on you #&'é" and singing madly, as the machinery was on the brink of collapsing. With Sharon pushing on the worst snowy bits, Vaselia made it to the pass and to the surprise of a Indian gentleman watching two snow men on a snow bike, ecstatically driving passed the tea house, shouting victory slogans and continuing downwards. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore and my boots were covered with ice, but I didn't want to risk getting stuck on the top for a few days. As we came further down, the soldiers of a station rescued us with two gasol stoves to warm our limbs and some hot chai for our dumb heads. To this day I'm still a bit numb on my left finger tops! In the end of the day, another experience and another story for the guys of the Enfield Club. Having the bike and driving it for barely a week I haven't done too bad at all, earning my "Wheels"

My new Lady

So, there's a new lady in my life... She is 19 years old, weighs 160kg, Indian with English descent, has a loud roar when she gets going and needs lot's of attention and service!! Yes, she is a proper 350cc Enfield Motorcycle!

I remember when I first was going traveling outside of Europe. I went to the doctor to get all kinds of vaccines, mosquito nets and malaria tablets. The doc told me something that I would keep in my mind until now. He said "Claudio, it doesn't matter how many of these shots I give you, as long as you don't drive a motorcycle abroad, chances are you are going to be fine!" Hehe... If he only knew I was going to drive a bike through India, where 300 people a day die in traffic accidents! So, I got a cool half face helmet also for safety, making me look something like a skater. Anyhow, he should have better told me about all the head aches and tantrums this bike could bring.

Straight after I bought her, I had her checked up at Anu's workshop (a well known mechanic apparently) and next day me and Tashi head off on one of the most spectacular road in the world. 500km, it can only be opened during the summer months, it's going over the second highest motor pass in the world before coming down into the Tibetan plains and finally reaching the town of Leh. This is considered one of the most risky roads in India, because many parts of it is not really a road, sometimes it's as wide as a Swedish bicycle lane (and trucks try to pass each other there!) and as the snow and glaciers melt the avalanches keeps destroying it. There is constantly 1000 of workers mending the road, so mainly the military can get through. Many people were trying to talk me off from going, but I guess it's nice conditions to start learning how to drive an Enfield!

Day 1: We were supposed to meet another Belgium couple and a German dude to go together for the tripp early in the morning, but my bike broke down just at the intersection and I couldn't get it started... This was shit, just had it serviced for a full day!! After calling down my sleepy, hangover mechanic to the road and checking the bike for two hours or so, changing this and that, we discovered the fault. I had put in some metal spare parts in a compartment on the bike filled with electric wires... ooops, as we opened the compartment there were electrical fire works sparkling away in there; and also in the mechanics eyes, looking at me sideways! 4 hours later we were on the way again!

The partly muddy road winded slowly up to a high pass were Indian tourists were enjoying 100x10 meters lenght of snow with Yaks pulling them up, and going down on big tires. Some youth were hip hop dancing, fully dressed to their ears like Eskimos. After that first mountain pass, the road was really good and it was a nice travel in the valleys.

Day 2: This is life! Riding an Enfield a bit nonchalant with my feet up on the leg guard, cruising amongst the most amazing scenery I ever seen. Spectacular mountains, deserts, lakes, canyons and sand rock formations. The road gets a bit tricky here though, but my Lady is holding up really well. By the side of the road we pass many groups of workers, hacking big rocks to smaller pieces with sledge hammers, the smaller bits with big hammers and finally knocking those rocks to gravel with small hammers. This is proper medieval work and the workers are black, fully dusty and probably earning shit. In the evening we made it to Pang, an isolated oasis of a few tents for food and sleeping matts. Our heads are a bit spinning from the ascent to this 4000m something altitude.

Day 3: In the morning I put in some engine oil and when I start the bike, she starts spewing out oil in a big leak all over the ground... my poor baby! I can't drive the bike any further, with no oil the engine would crash after a few km. We try to close the leak with some M-Seal (a poxy kind of mass that turns rock hard), but as soon as the engine starts, the leak finds its way out. A big biker gang ride by and a mechanic give me some more M-seal, not to any use, the oil kept leaking out. After a long day of frustration, Anu and his group of customers suddenly appears and comes to stay the night in Pang. Finally I can get some proper help from the famous mechanic. He gives me some M-seal and advice how to put it on... wow, surely this has to work now...

Day4: I try the Anu way and wait a few hours, but big surprise, leakage streams out.. Time for another solution! On the road, a truck had stopped with some problems with the cooling system and we ask the driver if he can help us to take the bike to Leh. For 500 rupiees he agrees and we struggle to load the bike up on the truck which is loaded with cement to take to Leh. After some food and drink, the driver tell us to wait by a main road in Leh at 8 o'clock the next morning. Finally everything sorted, we leave some bags in the truck as well and head off on Tashi's bike! Driving over the worlds second highest motorable road, we finally made it to Ladhak. Ladhak region is a part of Tibet and is more Tibetan then the Chinese counterpart where much of the culture has been destroyed. Here all monasteries and cultural heritage remains untouched. Amazing scenery of green valley and brown coloured mountains as we drive all the way to Leh. This is can not be called a city, it is more a small town with a few main streets. This that used to be a very isolated part of the world, is now getting crowded with tourist shops and Internet.

Day 5: Up in the morning a stand by the road at 8! One hour pass, two, three, four... f^&k!! The truck is not coming. Tashi is saying not to worry, but that's pretty hard for me. At least I have a photo of the truck and the licence plate. Being only one road between Leh and Manali, I start back tracking the check posts for to see if the truck already has passed towards Leh or not. After a whole day checking everywhere, it seemed that it still hadn't passed the mountain pass to Ladhak. But I had to be sure, so I hitchhiked all the way back to Pang on a truck. Finally reaching there at dusk, I saw the truck but no sign of the driver. Not much to do, I'm sleeping in the truck. In the small hours of night, a drunk driver stumbles in to the small driving area. When he finally understood who I was, he started an endless monologue in Hindi for ages before passing out next to me. Before having this wonderful experience of sleeping together with a drunk Indian truck driver, with whiskey breath on my face, I understood the the cooling system was broken and it would take two more days before he would make it to Leh.

Day 6: It's amazing how many people you met that you knew from before somewhere. 3 friends on bikes had been staying the night in Pang as well and were off to Leh, but no space for me with luggage. I hitched a ride on a truck back to Leh after breakfast (after Mr. Drivers morning drink) and after a long day, I finally came to Leh at night and updated my friends about the situation.

Day7: Finally I have a day to relax. I had a nice walk around this town, seeing the market, the castle and the mosques. This place have some nice restaurants and hanging around the tourist street I met allot of people from Vashisht. A group of western, long timers in India, all experienced biker, had heard what happened to me but the story was way out of proportion. It was like I handed over the my totally crashed bike to Aliens and were told to wait for a week for it, somewhere out in the desert. I don't know who told this story to the Enfield Club, but he sure broadened this out!

Day 8: So today I was finally going to get my precious baby back. I had made arrangement to met the truck by the main post office (where he was going to offload the cement) at 9 o'clock onwards in the evening. Again waiting, waiting, waiting for hours until around 11 the truck pulled up. I climbed and opened the door and three strange men sat inside and wondered who I was... I was certain this was the same truck and asked the guy's for the plate number, it was the same and I started yelling 'This is my truck!!' They guy's had no clue what I was on about and they told me the driver had been drunk half ways and had ran off into the desert somewhere. One of the guy's was the truck owner and wondered if the bags were mine. I told them I didn't give a shit about the bags, I want MY BIKE!! After I told them my story, they looked in the back and found my bike there. I was told they would offload it the next morning at 5, so I could come and get it then.

Day 9: 4.45 I woke up the gang in the truck. 2 hours later my lady was off loaded and finally back in my arms!! First thing was to take my baby to the doctor and have her stitched up. Then off to the beauty parlour and have her washed and cleaned from all the cement dust. A 3 day trip had turned out to a long journey, but finally everything had turned out good!

Babas, Malas and Football

After spending two nights up in Kiriganga, me and the Estonians headed down to Kasol again, packed and took off to Manali in their car. I had made plans with one of the athletes, Dawa Tashi, to come and stay with him in his village, Kalat, near to Manali. The Estonians jumped in to a hotel and I followed Tashi into a very small path for 10min into the forest, jumping over small streams and getting my face whipped by branches. Just as I was wondering where the h#ll we were going, a small house appeared. Tashi is staying with his grand parents, which are 78 and 88 years old and still very active running around doing stuff. They chat away with me as my Tibetan was supposed to be fluent, but I just return them a confused smile. And also staying here is his little niece, a shy girl that gives a smile and runs away, unless I freeze her with a pointed camera. The house is made in a traditional Tibetan style and has several rooms down stairs and two up, one being a small Gumpa (Tibetan temple). The kitchen house is next doors and has a large U shaped dining area, with the usual pictures of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama. I got the TV/guest room for myself and that was great for the late night matches. The next few days the Estonian team continued filming Tashi and his family for their documentary, while I was going for walks in Manali, even managed to see an old student of mine (nice to see you again Patrick) and bathing in hot springs, yet again.

Manali is the largest town in the north Himashal Pradesh region, before you head off on a two day ride up through the 2nd highest road in the world to Leh, which is the capital of Ladahk, a pristine Tibetan region within India. Manali itself is a buzling town, packed with Indian tourists who come here to enjoy the scenery, ski, paragliding, trekk and even go Yak-skiing! If you can find a herder who are willing, you get on the skis, holding on a line to a yak, a bag of nuts are strapped in front of the yak and off you go! Most travellers stay away from the busy town and lay their hats in either Old Manali or Vashisht, two villages nearby. After a few days with Tashi and his family, I moved on to Vashisht. Here is a strange mix of traditional farmers life, Indian tourists, backpackers, Hippies and Babas (holy men). A farmer got hold of me when I came with my back pack and threw me in to one of his rooms. It's harvest time now, so in the yard cows are walking on the wheat in circles and I just hang around watching the farmers life. The narrow streets are a mine field of cow shit and it's ok to get by though. But when it starts raining, the whole alleyways are flooded with smeared out poop, and then it's not so nice splashing around with flip-flops! In the main square of Vashisht, there is two old temples, one of which is walled in and has holy hot springs. These hot springs are very nice, walled in and with small altars with Hindu deities. Unfortunately it's always crowded by noisy Indian tourist, so it's a bit hard to fully enjoy the serenity and beauty of the place in a relaxing way. Rather you have to enjoy the Indian family interactions around the pool. Little kids reluctantly being dragged in by the fathers, people praying at the shrine, splashing, screaming and shouting next to your ear.

Since the football is on, most of my nights I hang out with the usual crowd (many Brazilians naturally supporting Portugal) in front of the big screen TV at the World peace cafe. During the days, usually spend my time in a shop learning how to do Malas, necklaces with semi-precious stones. My teacher, Zoohar, a Kashmiri fellow, is really nice to have conversations with and he keeps me coming back for playing chess, drinking more gallons of chai and selling stuff of course... So, after a week, I'm packed with 6 malas, 2 silver medallions, a big statue of Krishna, a Kashmir carpet and chai coming out my ears! But he is nice to chat with and he told me allot about the Kashmir history and the situation now. In Vashisht you have also many Babas, most of the time smoking chillums, disappearing into a cloud of smoke. Zohar usually give the Babas some rupees when they come to the shop and I asked him how he knows if they are really holy men. He laughed and said "yes.. cause then sometimes I see them in a restaurant, with gold rings on their hands, eating spaghetti.. Is this really a Baba I ask my self?"

Apart from hanging out with Zohar and at different restaurants and cafes, there's plenty of treks and walks around this area. Specially there is a huge waterfall with 2-3 drops all in all falling from about 300meters. After a looong climb, at the second drop there's a big cave and we went in and saw the waterfall from the inside out. Very nice indeed and I wish specially one friend of mine was here to see that! Now, DawaTashi and me are looking around for a cheap bike to rent, so in a few days we'll be taking off across the mountains to Leh! Now that will be a story to tell I'm sure!

Respect

Every day now I'm getting up early, around 6-7 o'clock and do my Yoga routine (yes, it's true Dixie). By Indian standards, at least up in Kasol, it's too early. When I come for breakfast at 8.30 to the only place that is opened, they are cleaning the restaurant and making it ready. All shops in the village are closed and I don't see any other travelers up. After, I go down for Internet and the guy tells me that I'm very early, the time is now 9.30.. This is very odd for me, I'm usually the late sleeper! Life in India goes slowly, no stress.

The Estonian team has decided to come and visit me in Kasol on their way to Manali. The day after their arrival, we head off to some trekking up the mountains. Driving the car to the end of the road, we walk for 4 hours up through a small, winding, hill side path. As we walk through a pine tree forest, I felt very much the resemblance to the forests I know in Sweden, but here there are the many small tea huts that are very welcoming on the way. The scenery is amazing with a river passing the narrow mountains, we pass several waterfalls and as you look up you see the clouds covering the snowy mountain tops. We started the day late, so when we finally came up to Kiriganga village, we collapsed for a few minuets and then made a bee line to the natural hotspring baths that is there.

The baths are as usual separated for the sexes, probably to protect the men from the women's peeks. While the women has theirs in a wooden shack, the male pool is outdoors and laying rather steep, so you have an amazing view over the green fields and mountains surrounding you. As we came up, light was quickly getting less and we could still read, or rather, make out some of the random text graffitied on the sides and a little here and there. It said things like no sandals in bath, take shower before bath, no bath at night and no bath between 5am and 7pm (?) and stuff like that. A middle aged, skinny Italian was the self appointed pool guardian as we came and he told us to shower before going in. A group of 6 Israelis came a while after us, when already it's turned dark. They showered and jumped in. As they were siting there, an Indian guy saw that two of them had their flip-flops on inside, and told them off with words like bastards and such. It was a bit thought less and disrespectful maybe, but it was dark and they said they didn't see the signs. It was a rather big deal, because in India, your footwear is considered very dirty, both mentally and physically. This was comparable to walking in with muddy boots into someones bathtub. The Italian pool police, with his funny colorful hippie hat, rang his sirens and blew off some steam, 'You bloody people have no f*cking respect!'. As he grew more and more psychotic, he started to jump up and down and yelling 'va fan culo' this and 'you f*ckers' that! As the small crowed was sitting still with our mouths open due to the over reaction (and this was even before the Italians got whooped by the dutch in football!), he started to run around, a dog got kicked, he grabbed 3 pairs of Israeli sandals and threw them up in the air, down the hill side into the dark. Now, the mad Italian must have been around 170 tall with half my weight and the 6 Israeli's were big boy's and everybody was waiting for an Israeli lynch mob retaliation. But everyone was shell shocked, and one of them even started yelling he was sorry for everything, with a tone like his birth was included! Soon after, as me and the Estonians silently made our way down, we saw some shoe less people stumbling around the hillside with lighters looking for their sandals.
So, this is how it can go if you don't learn to respect the culture you are in! You get thorns in your feet!

Being out in the bush, I was afraid I was going to miss the opening of the Euro 08. But no! A satellite dish and Tv had been brought up and powered by generator, all people cuddled up together in a restaurant and enjoyed the games... Forca Portugal and Sweden!!!

Shalom Kasol!

So, the Olympics was over, what to do? First thing, we have to loot the remains of the stock! In old pirate manner, tracksuits, shorts, singlets, drinking bottles, everything was for grabs.. the rest is being sold on eBay, so check it out! Now when I had so much free time, it was nice to relax and what better way then letting my friend Aina, a yoga, Reiki and massage therapist, having me as a practice dummy!? So, now I'm massaged up and I have a nice morning yoga routine to start the days. Big thanks to you and good luck with your new center!

It was time to move on, I've spent over 6 weeks in McLeod and I needed to see something else. Next stop was to be the little town of Mandi, on my way up north to Manali. Mandi is a nice stop 6 hours midway from Daramsala and Manali. It has a sacred lake nearby and it's a quite an interesting place with lot's and lot's of small Shiva temples. Something that is really nice in India is all the colorful women in their beautiful Sari's. They are very photogenic with lots of different jewelry and piercings, unfortunately most are not willing to let you take photographs of them. In the parts up here, you won't find Indian women in jeans and t-shirts, no no, it's all very traditional. Something that Indian men usually tend to remark, when wanting to start chatting with me, is that they like 'women from my country'. I don't know how many these people had met, but with big grins they say "They are very naughty, no? They like sex. Indian women don't like sex...". Well, what can I say to that? Like in Egypt, Indian men seem to have this idea of wanting to 'practice' with these 'western, sex craving women', before marrying a decent Indian girl. And she has to be virgin of course... Arranged marriages are still very common here and very much according to cast and family reputation. It's interesting watching the contact sections in the news papers, they are divided into different sub sections for casts and everybody sticks to theirs.

After a night in Mandi, I wanted to have another stop over in Kasol before continuing to Manali. Kasol is a small village next to a river, beautifully tucked in between two narrow mountain ridges, making it feel like you are in a canyon. There is lot's of forest here, mainly very tall pine trees and also a huge number of Israelis, easily 90% of the travelers here. There is so many signs in Hebrew that I feel illiterate and they even have a Chabad here (a Jewish religious place to take care of traveling Jews). Finally, some good food in the restaurants and I found Labane again! As you sit to eat, your head and feet tend to move rhythmically to the constant psychedelic trans music that is being played everywhere. Weed grows here and there and the light scent of the herb is in the air. In the restaurants most people are smoking pot openly, very naturally and carefree. Some Israelis I met in the restaurant lit up a chillum and told me that all the restaurants pay off the cops and they turn a blind eye for quite some big money by Indian standards. I have to say that even though they tend to have a bad reputation, I do like most Israelis, they are nice people, easy to get along with, always up for good parties and they do keep the prices down!

Next day I walked a bit further up the river to a village called Manikaran. This village is built over natural hot springs and the villagers even cook their rice in small bags that they in a 'fishing' manner dip into the pools. Most houses have hot water and in a few guest houses here, you can have your own hot spring pool! The way in to the village is through a bridge straight in to a big Gurdwara, a Sikh temple. This has also a nice Hindu shrine and the place is holy for both Hindus and Sikhs, that make their was here in masses. Inside they have bigger hot pools, separating women and men. The water has to be diluted with cold water not to cook people, but even so i had to tip toe in very slowly cause it was so hot. It was very nice and I came to think that I probably want to live in Budapest when I grow up. And for the ones that say "there's no free lunches!", I beg to differ and ask them to go to nearest Gurdwara. Here anybody from anywhere get free accommodation for 3 nights maximum (donations are appreciated) and free meals, langar, (just cover your head). In a big hall people sit in rows and volunteers comes with buckets of food and spoon it up on you tray. Sikhism began partly as a reaction against the cast system and the Sikhs regard them selves as Khalsa, chosen soldier saints, fighting for morals and righteousnesses. They don't cut their hair and they run around with knifes that should be used for self defense or protecting the weak. In the shops outside the Gurdwara they sell these religious knifes, but the vendor warned me that I can only bring the small ones on the plane... He had been stopped trying to bring on a bigger model with knuckleduster on a local flight! The whole area around the temple and the village was very intriguing and with the hot water steaming up here and there, laid a mystic, ambient mist over the whole place. There is lot's of Indian tourists right now (holiday time), but I saw hardly any other travelers.

In many places you travel, you can feel change in the air and you see so much new development and construction. In these places here, big change feels very far away. 'Things in rural India change slowly' I think to my self, as I update this blog through my iTouch.

4 days competition

So, the big day had come of the opening of the Tibetan Olympics. It was to start with Archery and Air gun shooting, but the weather greeted us this morning with a very thick fog. An interesting curiosity about Tibetan calender by the way: Every year it is decided by the Tibetan oracles and astronomers, the days are predicted for the coming year and if a day is considered unlucky, it's simply taken away! So a Tibetan date could be: 23,24,26 etc. When it's all decided for the year, the calendar is distributed to society. So the fog was a seemed to be a very unfortunate event, you couldn't see more then a few meter, never less the targets 30m away! Inside the fog, masses of press and media people was lurking about. There was easily more press then participants, and for paying spectators, there was hardly none... A spontaneous Tibetan folk lore dance and song by the athletes was made and everybody were happy. Soon after the performance, the fog started to go away and the contest began. The weather turned really good and it turned out to be a enjoyable, but long event. Many hours after, until the archery competition was over, most people had left and the shooting competition was made short, with finally just a few people and press to celebrate the winner. Shortly after the event was finished and we stepped into the cars, it started to pour down rain.

After a late lunch, we had to wait a while for the rain to stop and then it was time for the awaited Olympic torch relay run. It started from Dalai Lamas temple and went around McLeod ganj central parts twice. It was very emotional and a big success. Lot's of people came out to watch and cheer on the athletes, but of course it turned out to be cheering more on a political agenda then a sportive avent. The press was delighted as they kept running backwards, constantly flashing the torch bearers and surroundings with humongous photographic equipment, making the Athletes feel like seahorses do in Richelieu Rock. Next day was the long distance run, won by Lobsang, one of the two that due to high blood pressure were advised not to run the race. The day after was swimming, a nice event made in a not too big pool, with self made lanes of lines and balloons.

The finals was a very nice day, lot's of excitement, big crowds and good preparations. A Tibetan youth band came and opened the finals with drums and trumpets. 4 miss Tibet's carried the big flag infront of the band, got allot of cheers and mimicked the official song rather poorly. But who cared, the miss Tibet's were very popular with the mainly sub 18 audience! Games went on their way in different disciplines and the whole atmosphere was really nice, festive and relaxed. Dogs ran around chasing each other over the tracks at times, a cow strolled by the stance and poor performances by the athleats at times, were taken with a hearty laugh by the audience. The last event was 400 mixed relay for fun, where 4 of the athletes were a team, against 4 other youth teams from tibetan schools around and a Media team consistent of random photographers picked out at the moment. One dude from Greece, one Tibetan, one Japanese and moi. I took the first leg and I tell you I felt it was a looong time since I ran a 100 meters! Needless to say, our average age 40 team, running in pants and hiking boots, got our asses whooped badly!

In the evening there was a concluding concert with different musicians playing. A Tibetan band, playing some nice mixed traditional stuff, Phil, a really good guitarist from Woodstock and a popular Estonian punk band went last. And a good thing soo, when they started, most people started making their way out! Most Tibetans that stayed, were left with big eyes and their mouths open, as a steady stream of NOISE forced it's way into their ears! Some random westerners started dancing like mad men, but that wasn't pretty.

All in all, this time had flown by and all organizers, volunteers and athlets were sad that it ended. It had been a lifetime experience with alot of good memories and new friends.

Do or?

The days has passed with a certain morning routine. Up early in the morning, do some yoga, throw in some eggs and bread down my throat and wash it down with some of that salty butter tea, that really has grown on me. Not much time to rest! Plans and times change suddenly and us four chaperone's, a Canadian girl named Dolma and two other Tibetans, Tenzin and Niyma, have to be on our toes all the time, keeping the athletes together and properly equipped for the day. Every time we are counting people in for taxis, there is always a few people missing that we have to wait for. Apart from organizing the athlets, we also take care of minor wounds and I got use of my tibetan massage to help sour muscels. Many small injuries are not actually sport related, one girl had two cut wounds from pedicuring her toes for example! These days we had a few more practice sessions of swimming and there was many personal improvements, but lot's of time was spent playing around with a ball, to everybody's happiness. Apart from the swimming there has been practice at most of the track and field disciplines as well. During all this time we've had film crews and people making documentaries following us for shooting and making interviews. Some are nicer then others. Lot's of respect to the professional Estonian team with Helen(a), the full time comedian, part time camera woman; Olger the quiet sound man; Agne the beautiful, talented director; all led by the clever, creative producer Aet. They gave the athletes lot's of space and found the way's of not getting in the way. Other film crews were not as delicate. Example, my room mate was unwillingly 'abducted' one day, so a team could have some shoots of him walking in the market during morning, they couldn't wait because the weather could change... Because of that, he unfortunately ended up missing the whole days training of swimming + track and field. He was not to happy about that.

One hard thing chaperon these athletes was learning to remember their names. For example you have many Tenzins, they are named after H.H. Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama) for being born under his 'period'. Those following Karmapa, names their children Karma + something. Then you have boy's with the girls name Dolma (after a goddess). If the babies when they were young were very ill, the parents would change the babies name to Dolma for her protection. Also the humor is a very cultural based thing to learn. For example: what is red, white and with metal inside? Answer: A sheep that you shoot in the head and gut from the throat to the belly! Then there's lot's of jokes about 'Uncle liar', a character that lies and somehow always manage to have sex with young girls and nuns. These jokes are told a bit embarrassing and with no girls listening.

Before the last day of training, two guests of honor for the Olympics came for dinner. One was Asha-ji, which has done allot for the Tibetan community in the city of Chennai. She is their mother so to speak and since many refugee kids don't have any relatives here, that has a closer meaning for them. The other, was a sort of world known special character, Shihan Husseini. He's a archery and karate (8th dan) teacher + sculpture and sketcher. This man has been breaking odd records during his days. Breaking stacks of ice blocks with his forehead, by jumping head down on them, had his hand crushed by tiles and then sketched drawings with the blood, sat himself on fire with 100 liters of gasoline, had 4 cobras bite his hand then smashed 100 of tiles (heart attack and hospital next), etc... He held a loud (!), funny, inspiring speech about Tibet, archery and freedom. He was so commanding, no one dared to utter a word! When he asked Lobsang loudly (the Olympics chief) that Tibetans should never surrender, they should 'Do or ?' Lobsang inspired raised his hand and shouted 'Dieeee!!!' No, no, no!! said Husseini 'Do or Do!! why should you die?!?!' as everybody was laughing their asses off. Then he showed us the record breaking events on his laptop. You can also see that on Youtube if you wish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_s8dFF02Ns&feature=related

Next morning there was no yoga. Hence known Cobra master, wanted the morning for archery training, so we quickly gathered the athletes after the early breakfast. From now on it was much easier keeping track of the athletes from not wandering off or taking to much time, you just had to remind them that Cobra master was going to whoop their ass and paint their picture if they didn't hurry! We ended up waiting over an hour on the field before he came in with a big presence and loud voice. The training went well, unneeded to say disciplined. Outside of the 'role' and a thing that the athletes has to touch his feet as a gesture of respect before practice, he is really a nice guy. I had very nice chats with both Asha-ji and Shihan and I am now excited to visit them and see what they do in Chennai. In the evening, I had to take blood pressure on two athletes that was left after further checks. Luckily they both seemed fine, so after allot of check-ups and talks, all athletes were allowed to compete tomorrow.

Fire away!

No more sleep ins! Up early and said goodbye to Dixie that had finished her time and yoga teaching course and was heading home. Then I banged some hotel doors, live aboard style, with a loud 'Gooood morning everybodyyy!!' Most athletes had been up running already and soon we were on our way to do the popular morning Yoga. After that, a quick breakfast and I was off with the 5 who had high BP to the hospital. After all electronic checks 3 of them were told not to participate in any running or swimming activities. I felt really sorry for them. They tried to keep their smiles up, but you could feel their disappointment. Specially because these three had always done lot's of training and were good runners and quite good swimmers. One is even a physical trainer at a school. Well, the doctors had said theirs, now management had to decide.

Forenoons training today was shooting air guns. We drove off with the whole squad to Strawberry fields. I didn't see any berry's, but it sure was an amazing place. Green hills with pine trees and snowy mountains looking down on us and the big media entourage. On a field we put up the 2 plywood boards and mark sheets. No one knew who the shooting coach was, if there was any, and in the end we just took out the 4 rifles and the kids got armed. Ooopps! Guns went spinning around, pointing in random directions. Peoples body's and heads twisted, turned and popped up and down as they suddenly were starring into barrel of guns! The Israeli doc started shouting commands, trying to discipline the exited athletes and secure the scene. As an old army officer he took charge, put the shooters in line and taught them basic safety practices. After that he went back under his favorite pine tree and shook his head. The shooting practice went fine though. Slowly they improved their stance and handling of the guns and the accuracy was good! The press got good pictures, interviews and an entertaining forenoon.

After lunch, it was time for swimming practice again. This time we had to go to Baghsu public pool which was a 20min walk from the guest house. I've had heard stories before that women sometimes were harassed and told to leave, because they were said to pollute the water!? So, there were no happy faces going there in the first place and when we got there, the girls said 'No no no' straight away. The place was crowded with Indian men in their tiny underwear loitering around the edges of the pool. Any female getting in was sure to get plenty of attention and maybe 'accidentally' felt up! Off the girls went to the tea shop and watched the show from a distance. Many of the boy's were shy as well and in the end only 6 men jumped in. They were as quick out though! I dipped my toe and the pool was a few degrees warmer than ice water... brrr! A quick dip and back to side line teaching once again! This was no good, I found it hard to try to convince the poor fellows that they had to practice, as they were shaking like leaves after a few minuets. Most of the time we sipped chai at the sidelines just passing time. Later, most people went away and a handful of girls jumped in for a few minuet session as the sun went low.

During my travels, I found Tibetans amongst the most friendliest, honest and goodhearted people I've met. These kids are no different, they are all lovely people and it's really nice to be around them. A few of them were born in India, some came when young and some just managed to escape recently from Tibet. Most of them were sent off by their parents and family for a better future were they are not discriminated, so many came here alone without any or few relatives. Usually, the escape works by hiring a guide for lot's of money, then trek over mountains for about a months time, some days without food and water, trying to avoid the check points. If they are caught by the Chinese, they are sent to an uncertain destiny. There's no fixed penalty for trying to leave China, so the verdict can be anything from a year labor to several years in prison. If they manage to escape, they usually reach Nepal, were they get 'arrested' as political refugees. After a month in camp, most are deported to Dehli, India were they stay for another month before getting placed somewhere in the country. If they are younger then 18, they are sent to normal school and can get a good start in life. If they are older, they are sent to Transit school, where they learn English, Tibetan, Hindi plus some other basic skills like computer knowledge etc. Here at least they have simple room and board, plus 100 rupies (2euros) a month that the Dalai Lama gives them from his own pocket. After this, they are on their own! Many are very poor, but they never complain and you never see any Tibetan beg.

The prize money for nr1 girl and boy is 2500USD each, witch for them is a lot of money. But still between them there is no sense of competition, they all help each other out with skills and technique in the different sports. Just being here is a bit risky, their families in Tibet could get repercussions and media avoids using their real names in interview's. I really love being with these kids and in a true sense, they are all winners.

Being a daddy for a while

This morning I was on my way to meet Jiska, my dutch friend from the Vipassana course, for a nice breakfast with the best carrot and lemon cake in this part of Asia. Yesterday evening I had gotten a message from her, asking if I wanted to help chaperon some Tibetan kids in the Tibetan Olympics. Wow, that sounds like fun! I imagined us to trying to keep together a herd of little energized 10 year olds running off in different directions. The kids turned out to be 20-27 year old Tibetan students, gathered from all over India to this Olympics.

We got in time for the press conference and were handed our over sized staff T-shirts (I don't really go well with L, and thats the smallest they had!). Lobsang, the man in charge, explained to the big media machine, that this was a symbolic Olympic with no antagonism towards the Chinese counterpart. There were some difficulties though to get as many participants as they wished for, primarily because of the criteria and shyness. So the total number of enthusiastic athletes were 9 women and 13 men. (The web page: www.tibetanolympics.com)

We met one of the organizers, Katherine, and she gave us the plan of the day and our first mission to gather them all and help the Israeli volunteer doctor to take their blood pressure. Ok, we managed to get them all in line and organized the doc examined all but five. Here a problem arose. 1 girl and 7 of the male athletes had too high blood pressure. This is quite a high percentage! The doc, Ari, explained that high blood pressure was a very common problem with Tibetans in India and Nepal. Because they normally live at a very high altitude, their diet consists of very fatty and salty food. They need the calories up there. But unfortunately they continue the same diet coming down to lower altitudes and that causes serious health problems amongst the exile Tibetans. Hard to convince them though to give up their precious salty butter tea and deep fried yummies!

Next was lunch and shortly after that, off to the swimming pool for training! The swimming coach, a very nice, older, white Rastafarian woman from NZ, was there to help teaching them swimming. And that was needed. The kids had not much experience with deep water and for some it was the first time swimming! Only a handful could swim enough to be unsupervised, the rest needed coaching and basic swimming lessons. I know how to teach someone to dive, but I'm a bit clueless how to teach someone how to swim for the first time. While Jiska was helping doc with his check ups, I was taking care of the men and teaching some how to kick (holding on to the side) and the ones who knew a bit, how to stroke. I had forgotten my swimmers and I wasn't going to go the Indian way, in my underwear! It was enough seeing men stropping about in their tangas! So I was coaching on the sidelines with big gestures and pretend swimming on land. The whole time at the pool was funny. Lot's of splashing water, arms and legs swinging wildly about and lot's of laughter. Finally, a light hailstorm put an end to most pool activities. The doc rechecked a few high PB:s and we got the number down to 5 high blood pressured athletes.

On the way home I got asked to help out chaperon the athletes during the whole Olympics. I was on my way to leave to Mandi the next day, but that had to change. This was going to be too much fun to miss out on! So now I'm living, eating and doing some training with the athletes. I'm also nursing small wounds, organizing and making sure they keep the times. This is quite some work, specially when you don't speak Tibetan!

At the gates of the Himalayas

After a few days in Delhi it was time to hurry up to the north and Daramsala. Dixie was late for her yoga teacher training and I just couldn't wait to see the amazing Himalayas again. We took the night sleeper buss which was comfortable, but not too wide of a bunk for two people. The buss kept breaking down as well during the trip. When we were due to arrive, we were still 3 hours away and the buss had broken down for the 4th time! This time it was serious, we were not sure that we could be able to continue. At last, the guy's fixed the problem by using 3 packs of condoms and by wirer them all around the leaking pipe! So there is another reason to always carry a couple right there! The drive up was beautiful, specially when we came closer to Daramsala and you could see the town, the green fields and the big snowy mountain range rising up like a wall.

Daramsala is the 'larger' famous town, but almost no travelers stay there, most go a bit further up to the smaller villages like McLeod Ganj (were the Dalai Lama lives), Baghsu and Dharamcot. Me and Dixie decided to stay in the bit busier of the three, McLeod. This place is a village with two busy main roads and a small square as a center. This is were most Tibetans live and Dalai Lamas temple and residence is situated here. Also here, cows and big bulls cruses the streets, acting like the natural garbage disposers. I still can't get used seeing a cow's head in a trash dump, munching up yesterdays news paper! If you want to mend your body and spirit, then this is the place for you! There must be over 101 different courses and treatments, like various forms of massage, meditations, Reiki, crystals, yoga, moon energizing to even hip hop dance and learning magic tricks! The town is of course also filled with pictures and information about the Chinese oppression in Tibet and various anti-Olympics posters. Every evening at 6 o'clock there is a candlelight walk ending with Tibetan prayer songs at the temple, as a quiet peace protest. McLeod is by Indian standards a quieter place and it does have a quite nice atmosphere. But the surrounding are really beautiful and you can do smaller nice treks and excursions during the day. We got a really nice room with big windows and a nice mountain view straight from bed! The hotel has a 2 terraces with gorgeous open air mountain views, not a bad place to lay our hats for the next several weeks.

I had a Vipassana course booked in about two weeks time, so I had plenty of time to do other stuff in the mean time. So while Dixie was spending her days twisting her body at yoga, I was learning Tibetan massage, practicing a bit of yoga, reading and lurking about taking pictures. Specially interesting time was when the Olympic torch came to India, there was a big anti-Olympics demonstration that started from the temple and a walk down to Daramsala. It was very emotional to watch the desire of a people, hoping for a return to a free Tibet. Controversially amongst many Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is for the Olympic games in Beijing and is not condescending any protests against it. The Chinese government has, probably due to the international attention, agreed to hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama. Maybe they are trying to find a solution, maybe they are just calming the situation down until the games are over. Dalai Lama is not even pushing for a independent Tibet, just for human rights, free press and for a high degree of self-rule within the people's Republic of China. Anyhow, this will be an uphill struggle, but as an Indian bystander told me 'One has to keep on fighting'. Maybe the will for peaceful resistance is soon over I think to my self, as the young monks on the computers next to me throws grenades and unloads machine gun fire on anti-terrorist police, on the computer game Counter Strike.

Something that is VERY annoying in India, is the mobile services. You have to pay for the pre-paid card, then extra for the validaty period you want, then you have to pay 28% tax on every refill and if that's not enough, you keep getting commercial sms:s and phone calls!! Imagine you are in the shower, the phone rings, you hurry out, slipping on the floor. When you pick up, there is music and voice in Hindi starts babbling a recorded message! Another thing that could be quite disturbing was the endless dog fights at night. These battles kept going constantly back and forth, whining and barking, they made poor Dixie having to sleep with earplugs. Other animals that make you life interesting here, are the many monkeys, great fun to watch, less fun being attacked by! Some Indians say use a stick, others say they will only take it from you and chase you with it! Anyhow, I haven't been attacked yet..

One day me and my Danish friend Lise went down to see and hear the teachings from H.H. the 17th Karmapa, wich is the oldest reincarnating lama, older then H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama. Karmapa is the spiritual head of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. After listing to him about compassion and other traditional Buddhist values, me and Lise got a blessed string to wear AND just by having seen him in real life, we are now protected for 7 reincarnations from being reborn as anything other then human! That feels good!!!

At last, India at last!

Stepping down the Airplane ladder, I realized I was taking my first steps on a land I've been dreaming about going for over 7 years. Did I have expectations? Ohh yes! Accompanied by my friend Dixie, my athletic/Mormon/body guard from the Idaho, I felt ready as can be for the coming experience.

First lesson: Patience! In probably the smallest international airport in the world, we waited for our back packs in one of the 3 belts for over 1,5 hours, while imagining the boy's behind probably sipping their chai (milk tea). The way the bags came out on the band was, one bag... 4 min wait, another bag... 3min, etc. Interesting enough, it was an Indian guy who lost the patience game first and started shouting behind the curtains. Chai time was over! A few moments later the bags were piled on top of each other, pumping out on the band.

Following the direction from a friend, we bought a pre-paid taxi to Sudder st., the Khao San of Kolkotta and walk out from the airport. Here, my fantasy world collapsed on me. After many stories of 'first India impressions', I expected a chaos of shouting, begging, bag pulling hoards welcoming us. That was not the case, a few taxi drivers were there and asked us if we wanted a taxi. On the way though, things started to get interesting. Sitting in our yellow cab from the 60:s, I was armed and ready with my Canonsaurus and boy did it go hot. Just getting in to Kolkotta traffic is an experience in it self. An organized chaos of all types of vehicles possibly imagined, pedestrians trying to pass through with their body's intact and I heard more horn honking then any other country's I've been, put together! Everywhere there was so much life, smells, colors and interesting things to see. People in cars next to us, super curiuse, inviting us for football games and this and that. India at last! A unique planet on earth! We checked in to a by Indian standards posh hotel and off, strolling about on Sudder st. I imagine it looking like Khao San Rd. could have looked like... 60 years ago, but with internet and street tea stalls! In India, drinking milk tea by small stalls is a big part of life. If there is people, you are never far away from chai.

Kolkotta is quite a cool place, but unless you get involved doing some volunteer work, a few days is enough. It has quite a busy Indian city life, some curious things and places to see and a meat market that would turn Ronald McDonald vegetarian! It was not only the smell of rooting meat on the wooden cut benches or the dead rats on the dirty floor that makes your stomach turn. But you have hundreds of crows flying around, diving in for unguarded pieces and crapping just everywhere! Hmm.. I was going vegetarian from now on! At night we were wondering around town and got caught in a Jain New Years festival. People in nice clothes, good live musicians and a cart with some deities were parading around in the small neighborhood streets. Me and Dixie danced along as the small street filled up with people. Making a circle a'la old school style one by one people did a special dance appearance. I was reluctantly thrown in and they started shoving money between my lips that i had to give to the musicians. Not very sanitary, but it was a great time and in Rome, do like Romans do!

As my friend said, in the Indian cities, the train stations are like small towns in the city. They are huge and have so much people living there and others coming and going. We took the 17 hours train to Delhi and poor Dixie was very sick all the way. She was not having a good first days in India. In Delhi, we grabbed a good room with air-con to wait until she got better, with the help of our friend nurse Ane from Kolkotta. Delhi you have to say is a interesting capital. Where else do you have melting pot of so many major religions, so much contrasts between new and old, ancient history and modernity, mega rich and poorest of poor, + cows roaming the streets doing whatever they like!? The cows are super safe around here. I saw the golden arches and ignorant as i was, my mouth started to water for a good burger and I ran hypnotically through traffic to the entrance. Waiting stoically until opening time, I found out that there were of course no meat burgers allowed in India! Apart from some chicken, here McD. is totally vegetarian... bummer!

P.S If you want to know more about Kolkotta, check out my friend Bex super interesting blog at

http://www.eyes2open.blogspot.com/