Category: Uncategorized

Greetings from Indiana. It’s interesting being back here. My two weeks in the Pacific Northwest were great and added to my desire to live there…soon. Leaving for Indiana was hard. Even from the airplane window looking over the flat farmland, I found myself grimacing. I was not ready to be stuck in the flat, dead lands of the midwest. I was excited to see friends, but the reverse culture shock was severe. Since the initial shock, the effects have faded. Seeing amazing friends, climbing in my home climbing gym, and standing on my sister’s property overlooking beautiful rolling hills bounding off into the distance have returned me, all of me, to this place. Maybe it is good to be home to some extent. To be recognized; loved. This month will go too fast and I will find myself on a plane heading back to Mumbai. I am excited for the next move. I am not sure where it will take me, but right now I’m hoping its the Pacific Northwest – namely, Portland.

I finished the paperwork today to do some substitute teaching while I’m back. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes it’s hell.

Here’s a portrait I took of my friend Tiffany using a window as a back light and my Orbis Ringflash on my Speedlite 580exII as fill. I shot Tiffany with my 50mm at f/1.4 while Ed, her crazy 60 something year old roommate watched over my shoulder. He likes to talk.

These last two weeks have been somewhat of a whirlwind. I’ve started hanging out with a great new group of friends and been active all over the city. I’ve been trying to prepare for coming home, but it really gets shifted to the back of my mind. Now, 12 hours before I fly out, I still cannot concentrate on packing.

Monday I participated in the annual holiday of Holi. Holi is a festival of radiance (Teja) in the universe. During this festival, different waves of radiance traverse the universe, thereby creating various colours that nourish and complement the function of respective elements in the atmosphere. My new friends got together to cover each other in colored powders. It was a grand mess and oh, so much fun. I will post more photos later, but here is a taste. 

I am excited to be at home and see my friends and family, but I have mixed feelings. I love being here and hate to leave for two months. Making great friends right before I leave is how it always seems to work for me. But I will be back before I know it. One thing I am really looking forward to at home is having running water 24 hours a day. The current situation is a drag. 


I will update you on the other side…

I’m in the process of putting together a portfolio of my climbing photography to show to companies. When editing I get so interested in the masks I create when messing with layers. Sometimes they’re abstract and sometimes they are just incredibly graphic. I really love this example.

In the last three days I’ve hosted six couch surfers, none of which have actually stayed over night. An Indian doctor and three girls from all over Europe came about 8am and slept on the floor till 4pm, when they left to take a bus to Goa. Last night, two girls from the small, little known ex-USSR country of Belarus arrived here about 11:30pm and left for home at about 2:30am.
They were good company for their short stay, and allowed me to continue my ongoing project of photographing all my guests (I missed the first group because they left while I was asleep).

I really enjoyed living by myself, but I realized that there was an entire room getting almost no use so I opened my apartment up to a couple from New Zealand coming here to work for an NGO. Nigel and Alexandra (Alex) moved in in the middle of January. It’s been great having roommates (and people to look after the apartment while I’ve been traveling). My friend from college, Derek, has been staying with us since the first of February, leaving occasionally to travel. Nigel and Derek took off tonight for New Delhi, so I decided to continue my stated intent to photograph everyone who sleeps on my couch through Couch Surfing or other connections.

Derek is traveling around the world for a year. He’s blogging about his experience on a website called 1earthavenue, exploring the idea that we are all just neighbors with those across the earth.

The four of use shared tight quarters for the last month. Luckily all of us survived.

Badami is a tiny town, though anything but quiet. The streets are overwhelmed with the sounds of cars, busses, rickshaws, horses all honking, and people yelling. I left the busy street and climbed up inside the cliffs enjoying the peace and quiet and making friends monkeys. I climbed and sat amongst the family. They took little notice of me, almost immediately accepting my presence.

Click on image to see larger. A panoramic view of Badami and Bhuthanatha temple.

Steps from the ruins of the fort above Badami

Woman doing her laundry in the lake with the Bhuthanatha Temple in the background

My return from my recent trip to Badami was uneventful besides it taking almost 24 hours for me to get back to my apartment. I took one train from Badami to Bijapur and another from Bijapur to Mumbai. In Solapur a beautiful young woman with two beautiful kids got on board and took the seat opposite me. We conversed in broken English and Hindi and she showed me the pictures of the rest of her family. I had finished my book and was tired of writing so I decided to do a quick sketch of the woman holding her son next to the window of the train. This is a bad representation of “Sanju’s” beauty.

Since December I have barely spent any time in my apartment. I went to West Bengal, Gorkhaland, and Sikkim for two weeks, then I was sick for a week and half before spending my new years in Hampi, Karnataka. I came home for three days before spending a week and some in Andhra Pradesh, shooting the project for HMRI in Hyderabad. Again I was back for three days before leaving for Belapur and a rock climbing competition. Back for three days before I left for Bangalore and Hampi. I came home on the fourth, got wickedly sick, and left on the 10th for another climbing destination, Badami in Karnataka, where I am writing from now.

The views and climbing here are incredible, but they will be highlighted a little later. I want to showcase my climbing photos from Hampi, but I am submitting some of the photos to magazines and sponsor and they do not like accepting photos that have already been published somewhere. As I showed in an earlier post, Hampi is an unreal beautiful historical and magical place. Here are some more photos of the scenery.

click to see larger

I just really like this rock. What do you see?

 Thanks to Michael Fuselier I got a picture of myself climbing on a picturesque boulder on the Junglee plateau.

More after the break –>

I met the beautiful yoga instructor and healer, Lucy Jones from the UK, who wanted to practice her yoga on this beautiful rock near Lands End on the Tungabhadra River on Hampi Island.

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve got some things in the works, a lot has been going on. Mostly I’ve been rock climbing and taking pictures of rock climbers. I soon will be leaving again to take more pictures of rock climbers in the sandstone sport climbing center of Badami, Karnataka.

One short (unproofed) article about the climbers from around Mumbai has been published on Climbing Magazine’s website, Climbing.com.   Other images, already shown on here can be seen as well. Images from two trips to Hampi and a bouldering competition will be submitted to magazines. I have already gotten some interest from two professional climbers’ sponsors for use of images, which is very exciting.

Anyway, this post is more about the updates to my portfolio website with the addition of the “adventure” tab that will eventually incorporate everything from rock climbing to skiing and hopefully kayaking. So far only climbing has images. I have also added the 09Travels page to the India subtab.

I will hopefully have some more updates soon. Cheers.

I really want to draw more. I enjoy using that part of my brain, and it doesn’t get used nearly enough. I wish I had the time/patience/money to paint. I miss the days in High School of experimenting with new painting techniques (new to me at least). I guess I really thrive on being creative. I know I have to be creative in my photography, but somehow that is not enough.

More Sketches After the Jump! –>

I write. I’ve written music for years, playing small shows with just me and my acoustic guitar. At fifteen and sixteen I would write short stories modeled after my favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut. Going back and reading what I wrote then I am impressed, and I feel like I lost something in my writing as I grew (in my creative writing, not my music – I just laugh when I think about the songs I used to play for people).

I film. I have wanted to buy a video camera for years after making short films in the woods with the guys I played paintball with as a kid. When it came time to upgrade my camera this last time, I was delighted that Canon had included HD Video as a key feature in the new camera. This opened up the possibility of high quality video recording using my DSLR and my professional lenses (which saved me from having to invest in a whole new system for video). I posted a short film in November of an experiment using my studio strobe modeling lights. This short was well received and I’ve been asked when I will do more films. I have started writing a script for a completely different kind of short film. I am enjoying writing the script, working in fiction and making someone else’s life come to…well, life. It’s also possible put your own problems and experiences onto someone else, looking at how funny or stupid the seem from the outside. Not sure it will give me any answers, but it helps looking at it from different angles.

I sketch. I like to sit in public areas and draw, quickly sketching people and their actions. As I said before, I want to do this more often. These images came about while I was sitting in the back of a car driving from one village to another on this last assignment. The road was incredibly bumpy and I decided to see what my sketches would look like if I closed my eyes and tried to draw. These are the result.

These are supposed to be women.

This is supposed to be a bottle.

This is supposed to be a landscape.

Last week I worked on a project for HMRI in Hyderabad. There tagline is “Health For All”, something I can appreciate. They provide a variety of service including a 911-like emergency ambulance service and a hotline to get medical advice, connecting you directly with an actual doctor. The hired me to take photographs of their mobile health clinic vans that go to every village in Andhra Pradesh that is further than 3kms from the nearest health clinic. I traveled non-stop from Friday night at 8pm till Wednesday morning at 6am. I would get off one train, get in a car, go to a location shoot, go back to train station, sleep on the train, get off and get in a car, go to a village and shoot. It was a long four and some days.

My assistant from Bombay that I planned on using missed the train from CST station, so I called my friend and great photographer, Shashi Khan, in Hyderabad to see if he could recommend any assistants. An hour before I left Hyderabad he confirmed that Suman, a young photo student, would meet us at the station. He warned me, though, that Suman doesn’t speak much English. Madhu, my contact from HMRI, and I meet Suman and start our journey Saturday evening. Four in the morning comes and we exit the train to meet a driver who takes us to our first village. After a stop for breakfast we arrive around 9am. I told myself I would keep track of all the villages we went to, but I cannot even tell you one. (I really need to get better at recording details surrounding shots, like…the person’s name.) Back in the car and back on the train. The days bled into one long experience that I can hardly differentiate between days and villages.

Fortunately, about an hour before I left Mumbai the package I had been waiting for came. The package contained replacement Cybersync radio slaves for my flashes which made most of these images possible. Also, my mom packed the box full of junk to make me sick and fat (I have a habit of eating all of something before I can move on to something else, which works fine for dinner, but bad for a big box of sweets).

Some of the images I used my Orbis ringflash to light the subject, but some others are bare flash. My assistant worked as my moving light stand. I prefer working this way. The light changes exposure, angle, and distance by voice command. It’s great!

This is mostly what I was doing, showing the team in action. I bounced the flash off the big white van to the right.

More Photos after the Break!












I did not notice until one of the workers pointed it out that she did not have a foot on her right leg. She was walking on it like nothing was wrong.

It happens with bad days; one thing compounds into the next. But this time it rained work. I came to Hyderabad for a shoot for a company that tries to send mobile health clinic vans to every village that doesn’t have access to a medical clinic within 3kms. Then someone requests model portfolio shoot. I get asked to submit a quote for a fashion shoot for a Celebrity News magazine. I establish contact with Climbing Magazine, and they want me to submit a portfolio. I’ll get to those in a bit. All exciting. I ended up shooting almost everyday last week, which is good but exhausting. Even on Sunday I ended up taking portraits of my friend Emmanuel, something I had wanted to do since I met him.

The friend of a friend I was staying with allowed me to use his all white room for the photoshoot, which I am extremely grateful. It worked perfectly and allowed me a lot of freedom when working with only two speedlite strobes. I could bounce light off anything, it was great. Here are some of my favorites.

More Photos After the Break!

You could say I was looking for something different. This year I didn’t want some drunken New Year party topped with poppers and horns blown after a boisterous countdown. On this holiday away from home I didn’t want to waste away hours soaking in the sun on an overpopulated beach. After a rough several months I wanted to finish off the year amongst stunning scenery and an eclectic gathering of rock climbers literally from around the world.

Only semi-sleeping for 15 hours on the “semi-sleeper” luxury Volvo A/C overnight bus, I stumble through the touristy main road of Hampi past towering ancient temples down to the river and wait for the small motorboat to ferry my friend, Vinay, and myself across to the more peaceful side.

Goan Corner Guest house is surrounded by rice and fields and palm trees but only a five minute walk to the impressively chaotic granite boulder fields. Grass roofed huts encircle a relaxed open-air cafe serving everything from traditional Indian cuisine to falafels and Israeli dishes.

Nishit and Shyam greet us as we enter the compound. I have been climbing with these local climbers in the mountains outside of Mumbai for the last few months. They are powerful and dedicated climbers, some driving over two hours every weekend to train on newly discovered bouldering problems and classic sport routes. Everyone is excited to be in Hampi, made famous by Chris Sharma, Nate Gold, and Katie Brown.

The vast granite boulder fields provide endless possible routes; you could realistically spend a lifetime climbing here. Anyone who finds themselves standing on the Rishimukh Plateau looking over countless boulders of varying sizes, some balanced unnaturally on top of others, naturally wonders how the landscape possibly got to be this way. Neither of the two common explanations satisfies my wonder. The scientific account says the world’s oldest mountains eroded over millions of years leaving only individual boulders remaining. The Hindu myth says two gods threw pieces of the mountains at each other in a fight over a woman. Somehow the mythical account seems more logical.

The heat during the day keeps everyone sitting in the shade of the cafe or resting in a hammock by their grass roofed huts. Around 4pm groups start to venture towards the rocks carrying their shoes and crash mats confident they will flash the new route someone just told them about. As the sun disappears from the Rishimukh Plateau Shyam Sanap from Mumbai sends a reachy V5 boulder problem with only two big moves that requires great balance. Mangesh Takarkhede, also from Mumbai, sticks The Shield, a challenging route with a cramped start and a dynamic throw to a crimp finishing with a moderate top out.

Unnamed V5 on the Rishimukh Platea. Climber: Mangesh Takarkhede
ISO 400, 1/80, f/2.8, 16mm 

More Photos and Story after the Break! –>

Climber: Shyam Sanap
 ISO 400, 1/80, f/2.8, 16mm 

Climber: Amirut
 ISO 400, 1/80, f/2.8, 16mm 

Mangesh working on The Shield V4
ISO 400, 1/60, f/2.8, 16mm  

The Rishimukh Plateau lit beautifully by the almost full moon.
ISO 200, 122″, f/5.6, 16mm  

Nishit gives us the answer to life.
ISO 200, 99″, f/5.6, 16mm  

Nishit having an after midnight climb on the Heart Boulder.
ISO 200, 76″, f/5.6, 16mm 

The sun wakes me from my sleep on the terrace of The Goan Corner on New Year’s Eve and I make my way to the boulders shining with the morning light. I wander around just taking in the scenery, glad to be out of Mumbai for a while. I hear climbing noises coming from behind a nearby boulder; a group from Australia and Finland has found a climbable route encroached by large bushes. Every boulder provides a possible climb, many waiting to have a first ascent.

The beautiful morning light on Rishimukh overlooking palm trees and rice patties.
ISO 100, 1/60, f/8, 16mm  

ISO 100, 1/60, f/8, 16mm

Another view of Rishimukh
ISO 200, 1/125, f/8, 16mm

ISO 200, 1/125, f/8, 16mm

On the Rishimukh Plateau several groups of boulderers progress from one boulder to another. Oyvind Blaker and Eirik Thorsrud from Norway send a couple of problems on The Shield boulder, and Tomi Lindroos from Finland and Petter Kattstrom from Sweden work on the Classic Crack, a V3 crack in a small dihedral.

Eirik Thorsrud of Norway working on a problem on the Shield Boulder
ISO 200, 1/125, f/8, 16mm

Oyvind Blaker also of Norway getting ready to stick the classic face of The Shield.
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8, 16mm

The topout
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8, 16mm

Petter Kattstrom of Sweden working Harry’s Traverse
ISO 200, 1/125, f/8, 16mm

Tomi Lindroos of Finland works on Classic Crack on the Shield Boulder V2
ISO 200, 1/125, f/8, 16mm

Petter Kattstrom of Sweden on an unnamed highball on the Rishimukh Plateau.
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8, 16mm

I feel a bit ADD when bouldering compared with my usual sport climbing. I’m not stuck to one route or wall for long periods of time and not even paired with one climbing partner. I act like a vagabond, wandering from boulder to boulder to see what everyone else is climbing. I see a group in the distance climbing near Cosmic Caves and I follow my urge to see what they are climbing. Lan Yao of Canada works on Classic arete on the Cosmic Friktion boulder, an overhung V6 arete with a difficult sit start, and she and Stephen from Norway work on Cosmic Friktion, sliding off the balancy slab V5. Shyam Sanap strolls up and climbs Cosmic Friktion like a ladder to the frustration of the others and joins Pete Marriott from the UK projecting an unnamed problem just opposite at the Cosmic Caves. The overhung start on the picturesque boulder has great holds, but after moving your feet you must either make a big throw to sharp arete to the left or to small crimp directly above the start, neither being easier than the other. The move to reach from either the arete to the crimp or the crimp to the arete pulls your feet off and sends both Shyam and Pete swinging uncontrollably off the route. By the lack of chalk marks you know no one has reached any higher recently. By noon it is too hot to be in the sun and everyone meanders back to the Goan Corner.

Lan Yao working on her project, Classic Arete on the Cosmic Friktion boulder.
ISO 200, 1/500, f/5.6, 16mm

Pete Marriott of the UK grabs a sharp crimp on an unnamed route at the Cosmic Caves
ISO 200, 1/400, f/6.3, 16mm

A large group gathers at Cosmic Caves for the afternoon climb. The fading sun casts a beautiful orange glow across all the boulders on the landscape. A few more people work on the unnamed problem but no one seems to be able to advance from the second move. As dusk moves in everyone meanders through the “caves”, spaces between the balanced rocks. On the east side Kevin from Canada sends Japanese Samurai, and Pranesh T from Bangalore sends a highball route just to the right that gave Katie Brown problems when she was here. The light is all but gone and he pulls himself over a slopy top out with nonexistent holds that he has previously fallen from three separate times, but this time out of fear or pure adrenaline he pushes through. With merely the full moon lighting the path at only 6:30pm we make our way back to the guesthouse.

The view from Cosmic Caves of Rishimukh just before sundown
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8, 16mm

Click on image to see larger
ISO 200, 1/100, f/8, 16mm

Adi wearing his “New Year’s Tights” to climb a route opposite Cosmic Friktion
ISO 200, 1/320, f/2.8, 16mm

The Goan Corner provides a buffet for New Years Eve, and everyone gathers in a large circle around a campfire. Excited voices chattering in a multitude of languages mix with the sounds of the night. Climbers and travelers from all over the world talk about the day’s climbs, past memories from the last year, and hopes for the future. Pranesh T entertains the crowd by spinning his flaming poi poi giving all of the shutterbugs a chance to play with long shutter speeds and moving light.

Angie from Canada shows off her skills in Poi Poi on New Year’s Eve

Pranesh continued to impress the crowd with his flexibility while using Poi Poi

Tensions are high as the countdown till 12:00am, January 1st, 2010 starts. I set my camera up on the Rishismukh Plateau and wait for the fireworks to start going off above (and around) me that several of the climbers had pooled their money to buy. I unknowingly set up next to part of the display and am blinded by a blaze of fifteen foot high sparklers set off only a few feet in front of me. The night is bright with the light of the full moon; bright enough you can walk with no help from additional lights, but the rockets exploding over my head light up the boulders even more. I get pelted with debree from some of the large blasts. The finale finishes with an impressive series of sixty rockets from a single box and two of the largest rockets soaring hundreds of feet before creating spectacular colored chandeliers.

ISO 400, 30″, f/4, 16mm

ISO 400, 30″, f/4, 16mm

Breakfast at the cafe at 8:00am is sparsely populated on New Years Day. In the distance two Norwegians work on the boulder problem called The Goan Corner visible from the cafe, a challenging V8 overhanging arete. I make my daily ritual trek through the rice fields, which at night sound so loudly of bull frogs its deafening, to the Rishimukh Plateau where I meet up with a couple from London. Gerj and Georgina are working on the Toulouse Ka Kallus Boulder, and I warm up on a few easy problems. My skin, not used to Hampi’s wickedly sharp granite features, left a hefty chunk of my right pointer finger’s pad on my first climb of the day, an easy V1. I take them to Cosmic Caves and flash an unnamed V1 route on the boulder to the right of Cosmic Friktion. I see a possible route about five feet to the right of the V1 that has no chalk marks and decide to give it a go. The climb starts with overhung tiny feet and a stretch to two painful crimpy holds. Cautiously move your feet higher and make a big move to a small crimp with your left hand. Once you’ve moved your feet up you can reach a positive pocket and the topout is easy. I failed repeatedly to make the big move to the left crimp. Only when I thought I did not have the strength any more to keep trying did I stick it. I do not think I have ever climbed such painful rock. I would rate it somewhere between V4 and V5.

It’s funny, in most sports I excel in sprinting. In high school track I ran the 100-meter dash and the 110 hurdles; I swam the 50-meter freestyle; I could steal any base in baseball and in soccer I would outgun anyone for a loose ball. But when it comes to climbing, I have always prefered the endurance of sport climbing, though I guess I never gave bouldering a fair chance before Hampi. Here you really have little choice; you either boulder or you highball. Hampi did something to me, pitting my strength, skill and pain tolerance against these short but hyper-intense climbs. I didn’t want to leave. For the first time I was enthralled by bouldering, I couldn’t get enough – if only the skin on my fingers agreed. (Now as I write back in Bombay my fingers have properly calloused over and all I can think about is climbing, but regrettably I won’t be touching another rock for at least two weeks because of a work trip)

The perfect way to reward myself after sending the new route, I join my British friends for a lazy float in the Hampi Lake, about a 20 minute drive from the Goan Corner. We rent inner tubes from the Whispering Rocks Guesthouse and trek up into the hills from their parking lot among hundreds of untouched boulders. Fifteen minutes later I am enjoying the crisp cool water, relief from the sweltering sun. What better way to relax and watch the sun recede from the sky?

Gerj and Georgina, “George”, meet me for breakfast on the January 2nd and we head back to the Rishimukh Plateau. We climb just about every possible route on the Heart boulder including two wonderfully challenging slab routes on east side. Slab is not my forte, but I enjoy the struggle, the technique, and balance it takes to complete such routes. I have to push myself through my weaknesses, a learning experience every time. We move to TV Boulder, which overlooks the river valley full of rice patties and the Goan Corner Guesthouse. On the V3 Classic Face you stand up from solid right hand and right foot holds and stretch to a crimpy left hand. Bump your right hand to a positive undercling and work your feet up. Your left hand crosses to a small crimp and with high feet you make a big move to the jug with your right hand; the topout is straightforward. It all seems so easy when I write it out on paper, but I was having an off day, I couldn’t even climb routes that were easy for me the day before.

Tomi Lindroos invites me to join their group heading to Small Cave for the afternoon session. Above the bend in the road Small Cave is a series of boulders leaning on each other creating passageways between them. Tomi works on an overhung arete that starts with a heel hook, and after you walk your hands up the arete to a knob pull yourself onto the slabby finish. Lan Yao and Rachael, also from Canada, project an interesting unnamed V3/V4 problem inside the cave that finishes through a skylight. On the overhung start, with a high right foot and flagging your left, catch a positive undercling for your right hand and a good crimp for the left. Slap to a crimp on the right arete and, depending on your height, reach to a sharp Gaston crimp on the left. Shorter ones have to add another move to get their feet higher. After the Gaston, either cross with your right or bump up with your left to a jug directly above the Gaston then squeeze through the tight skylight to finish. As the light fades the girls decide to save the problem for another day.

Rachael from Canada stretches before attempting the climb up through the sky light
ISO 200, 1/125, f/2.8, 35mm

Lan Yao sticks the Gaston Crimp on the route through the sky light at Small Cave
ISO 200, 1/125, f/2.8, 35mm

Tomi Lindroos gets set to do an off balance move from the Gaston Crimp to a positive pocket on the Sky Light, as I am going to call it.
ISO 200, 1/125, f/2.8, 35mm

Tomi squeezing through the finish of Sky Light
ISO 200, 1/125, f/2.8, 35mm

A climber enjoying his reward after sending a challenging problem
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8, 16mm

After another quick breakfast on January 3rd, I head back to Small Cave to show Gerj and George the great routes there. I try a nice V1/V2 that has a terrifying slash non-existent landing but a satisfying topout and then work on the problem in the cave. I get to the Gaston but am unable to complete the sequence to get the cross with my right. I have to continue working on improving my clumsy footwork, depending less on powering through with my arms.

Three Israeli girls I met at the lake want me to show them how to climb in the afternoon. They find discarded climbing shoes with holes in the toes to wear and follow me up the trail to the plateau. I show them the basics on easy boulder and they continually ask for more challenging routes. Each one excels in a different way: Tzolia with sheer power, Joelle with dancer’s grace and natural ability, and Saria with amazing flexibility. Tzolia with determination attacks the slab on the Heart Boulder, loving the challenge despite repeatedly failing. Several strong climbers gather around and try the problem, many not used to working on such minute balancy moves. Starting with a high right foot and a crimp left handhold slowly stand up using only friction holds with your right hand. Match your left foot to hand and with your weight into the wall and no hand holds to speak of, stand on your left foot and grab the peak. Accepting the fact that they need a decent pair of shoes and more experience, the girls move on to another project.

Cake Man, a local with a large golf-sized tumor on his face that wanders among the boulder fields carrying a cloth bag containing a variety of newspaper wrapped ‘cakes’ and saying “I am Cake Man. I have banana cakes, coconut cakes, chocolate cakes, everything cakes, special cakes. Do you want some cakes?”, comes to offer the girls his baked goods and decides to show them how to climb the problem they are working on. At small caves two days before he had claimed he was a good climber; said he climbed this climb and that climb without shoes. I have to say I didn’t believe him. With quite a bit of skill he showed the girls how to smear your feet on no holds, only using the rough wall to get weight off your hands. I became a believer in Cake Man, though I never did try one of his cakes.

I bought a train ticket for the afternoon of January 4th from a station called Hubli, so I have to leave Hampi around 9:30am to get there in time. I wake up early so I can get in some last minute climbs. I do not want to go from this beautiful place; I never tire of looking at the incredible scenery. Every time I turn away from concentrating on a climb it takes my breath away (I am used to climbing in forested areas where the only good view is from the top of the climb). I love the climbing community, such a positive group always pushing everyone to better themselves unlike the competiveness of most other sports. I am inspired being around such excellent climbers from around the world and mingling with other climbing photographers. I love the climbing; it awakens a part of me I’ve been missing for a while. There are not many things that can convince me to put down my camera, but here in Hampi, despite the incredible possibilities of photographs, I realized I wanted to climb more than photograph. And so it goes, the eternal struggle of a climbing photographer.

Tzolia meets me at breakfast and we head back to the plateau. I make my way to TV Boulder after some warm up climbs. Despite having good beta on the moves my left hand will not stick to the small crimp after the cross long enough to get my feet up. I try repeatedly to make a dynamic move to the jug but my finger refuse to wrap over the lip. My fingers, and the skin involved, are done for now. Time to head home.

Jumping off the local bus at the Hospet bus depot I ask the nearest conductor for an express bus to Hubli and he directs me to the bus that is already pulling out. I find a seat in the back and settle in for the “three hour” trip. I expect to get to Hubli around 2pm, take my lunch and catch my train at 3:15pm. At two I ask the conductor when we’ll arrive in Hubli. “Two hours.” WHAT? You told me this was the express bus! I take my seat visibly upset, passengers turning around to stare at me. Great. I’m going to be stuck in Hubli. The bus driver seems to pick up speed and drive more aggressively and I see a sign, “Hubli 19km” at 2:50pm. Alright…we might make it. I drag my bags off of the bus at 3:15 and run (as much as you can with a full trekking backpack and a camera bag) to the platform, trailed by several schoolboys. Ahh the train is late. I settle into a seat on the platform with some egg biryani and breathe while the boys ask me questions and request American coins.

I somehow love getting back to my apartment, even though I didn’t want to leave Hampi now I am here and can relax. But my apartment collects an insane amount of dirt on everything when I am not there moving around and using fans. I swept my floors only a little over a week ago, but the visible layer of dirt is on everything. This is why everyone hires someone else to clean their floors.

I guess with most trips you feel like you leave in a huff, but this time as I locked my door with the giant padlock and hurried off to find a rickshaw I felt particularly huffed. Maybe I left unprepared; I hadn’t planned enough; hadn’t packed enough. In fact, the only thing I had any idea about was the wedding, the entire reason for my trip to Calcutta.

My flight is delayed an hour. No, three hours now. I receive a call from the airline saying one hour again. The IndiGo rep. at the counter says its back to three hours…perfect! I can perform my preflight ritual: sitting on the floor of the airport bookstore and frantically writing phone numbers and directions out of their newest edition Lonely Planet into the front cover of To Kill A Mockingbird. At least now I know I have to go to Sudder St. in Calcutta to find ‘cheap’ bedding.

I fly through the first half of The DaVinci Code in the three hour flight and find myself waiting in line for a prepaid taxi still with my nose in the book. I look up to see a familiar face. For the second time in an Indian airport of a distant city of millions of people I run into the family I am meeting later in the week who are at the airport to pick up someone else. (This happened in Delhi two years ago as well).

The city is covered in an ever-present haze, particularly evident at night, glowing in the streetlights. The taxi driver drops me on what he says is Sudder St, but I soon find out he only got me close. I wander around in the fog asking for a guesthouse no one has heard of. Eventually I figure out I’m not on the right street.

“Two hundred fifty.” The room is all right, but I’ve been told I can get much cheaper. “Full” “Full” “Three hundred thirty.” Well, ok. I’ll take 250. “Sorry mate, I got the last one.” 330 then. “We’re full now.” 400, full. 500 is the last. Guh, ok 500 rupees. It’s after midnight when I settle down into the single room with queen size bed.

I spend the next morning searching for a cheaper room, but the events of the night before repeat themselves. I settle for 350/- and immediately pass out on the bed. I wake by 3pm and hurry to start the errands I had planned to do that day. Taking a shinny metro and then rickety wooden busses. I arrive at the Nepal Consulate. In Wizard of Oz fashion, I little old man peaks through a giant metal door and tells me, “Go away. Come back tomorrow.” I am not coming back tomorrow.

Keep Reading! More photos and story!

Taking another rickety wooden bus (seriously, I think everything above the chassis is made from wood) I find myself at the main train station. I need to find the tourist reservation office, but no one seems to know. I stand in line for half an hour only to be told the tourist office is not there, it’s across the river but they’re closed already. I will have to try again…tomorrow.

I stop to eat dinner at a small dhaba not too far from Sudder St. The food is great and I relax, reading for a while. The bill is delivered and I slip a 100/- note into the black leather book. The server returns the book with the 100 note still in it.
-“What is this?” I ask
-“The note is broken.”
-“Ha! What? How can a piece of paper be broken?”
-“It has a tear.”

…For those of you know my stubborn side, it comes out now.
-“You willaccept this bill, it is legal tender, endorsed by the Indian government, worth 100 of these little coins. You either accept it or I walk.”
-“We cannot accept it.”

So I walk out. One of the servers catches up with me and says they will take it, so I return and give them the bill. A man takes it and returns with a wad of cash from somewhere outside. I ask for my change, “Twenty eight rupees you owe me.”
-“No sir, that note is not worth 100 rupees.”
-“What do you mean it’s not worth 100 rupees? It IS worth 100 rupees and I demand my change.”
-“We do not have any change.”

Just then three women come up to pay and receive their change from a drawer.

-“Sir, you have change and you will give me mine.”
-“Sit down, your change is coming.”
-“Just give me my change so I can leave.”

Enter the tall, burly, well-dressed man that the workers all start talking to at once. After they finish he turn to me, “What’s your problem?”
-“I gave them a 100/- note, I want my change so I can go.”
-“The note you gave is broken.”
-“Can I see another bill? Any bill will do.”

The man pulls out a crisp 100/- note. I take it and tear a millimeter into the middle. “Now is this one broken?”
-“Yes, and now you owe 200/-.”
-“So you are telling me that I could devalue the entire Indian economy by ripping all of their notes just a little? That is illogical. If you take this to a bank they will give you 100 little coins.”
-Towering over me, the man says, “What if I beat you head to toe? Would you still be the same?”
-“Yes, and you would be arrested.”
-“You could be arrested for ripping my bill.”
-“Really? Then call the police,” I reply.
-“You want me to call the police?”
-“Yea, I’ll call them,” as I pull out my phone.

The big guy turns to the workers and tells them to give me my change.

Today was pointless. Calcutta gets negative points.

An eclectic group of foreigners sit scattered about the comfortable red couches in the waiting area for the foreign tourist reservation center. A cute Israeli girl with big, bouncy, curly hair highly recommended going into Sikkim to Pelling and Yuksom and by-passing Darjeeling because of the strikes going on there. I buy my roundtrip tickets to New Jalpaiguri, the last passenger train station in the are of Gorkhaland, the northernmost area of West Bengal, bordering Bhutan, Nepal and Sikkim.

Tyler Lunberry meets me at the Konnagar train station and takes me by cycle rickshaw to the home of his daughter’s in-laws. I’ve been friends of the family since I was four and played alongside Dana and her siblings for several years till the family moved to Africa. Dana and Dev, her husband, married already in Chicago but decided to have a semi-traditional Bengali wedding as well so Dev’s family and friend’s could participate. The cycle rickshaw winds through the maze of skinny roads and past frequent rectangle ponds almost at street level. When we reach the house everyone is almost ready to head to the wedding venue.

The ceremony is completed in a small room overlooking a courtyard already set up for the reception. A few people look on as a single priest chants and directs Dev and Dana to perform certain rituals like walking around a fire multiple times while dumping flower pedals into the fire. A video crew with a very bright light records everything and “instructs me” when to take pictures.

There’s plenty of food at the reception, but even though I had not eaten all day one plate satisfies me. There is a noticeable lack of attendees in my age group and no one offers conversation. I eventually wander off into an empty room and fall asleep. I felt it here and most weddings I attend…I do not like weddings. I don’t know if there is more to it than that.

The overnight train to New Jalpaiguri provides me with a bed, but I did not bring any cover my jackets have to suffice. “Darjeeling?” “Darjeeling?” “Sikkim?” Taxi drivers bombard me as soon as I step off the platform. I play my usual “I pretend you don’t exist” game that somehow expresses the point that I do not want their taxi better than actually saying I do not want their taxi. I ask in a tourism office for the cheapest way to get to Kalimpong. A group gathers around me saying, “A taxi. Only 600 rupees.” One man steps out and says, “shared rickshaw, 10 rupees to Siliguri. Take a bus from there.” Another man starts yelling and slapping at the man that offered me advice. From Siliguri I take a bus for 60/- to Kalimpong and a jeep to Lava for 50/-, finally arriving at my destination six hours after getting off the train.

Driving in the mountains is a very slow process with an average speed between 15-20kmph. Around every blind turn are more pot holes determined to knock your from your seat. The mountains are completely forested with almost no sheer cliffs despite the extremely steep slopes. I had always thought the East Asian paintings of mountains were highly stylized; it struck me how much these mountains look like these paintings. Where the slopes meet the valley floor beautiful light blue water courses between and around giant boulders. I would love to have the chance to kayak this river when it is a bit warmer.

Lava came highly recommended from a friend in Mumbai, but I had no idea what to expect. And while I do not have a guidebook for India I have no idea what to do while here. I find a guesthouse and go in search of warmer clothes. I find a sweater, wool cap, and socks, but nothing for my legs or hands.

The village is situated precariously on the top and sides of a mountain. The road zigzags up the slope lined by restaurants and guesthouses. A gold and red Tibetan monastery sits at the bottom of the village and on the edge of the ridge, over looking a vast sea of mountains if you could see through the haze. Beyond the monastery the road splits, up takes you into the “deep jungle” and down leads to a beautiful waterfall.

These children were playing in the street below my guesthouse.

The bed bids me to enter for a late afternoon nap. I plan on going to dinner about 7pm but I do not wake up till 11pm. Being used to often having dinner later than 11 in Mumbai I venture out after food, but I find a completely deserted village. Even the stray dogs are hiding.

At 4am I expected a knock at my door that never comes. I had set up with a young man to take me to a vantage point where I could see the sunrise and the light reflecting off India’s highest mountain, Kangchenjunga, 28,169 ft. He comes at 5:30 and the light has already started so I decline. I had already decided I was leaving this morning, mostly out of not wanting to trek by myself and I seemed to be the only foreigner in the village.

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I attempted to use my journal as a seismograph, recording the roughness of the road from Lava to Kalimpong.

Back in Kalimpong, I purchase a ticket for a jeep to Pelling, Sikkim, and leave the insanity of the “motor stand” in search of more warm clothes and food. The motor stand is where all the shared jeeps and busses come to pick up and drop off passengers. It’s maybe 40ft wide and 150ft long with jeeps and busses crammed into every square corner, but its constantly in motion with jeeps immediately replaces those that have left.

I hear it before I see it. Police are running this way and that on the road above the motor stand, barking orders. Then I see the flags and banners. It’s the people of Gorkhaland demanding their own state; thousands march by chanting slogans and fist pumping. They feel minimized and forgotten by the West Bengal government. They don’t get enough funding for infrastructure, schools, etc. They have almost no voice in the national government. Other parts of India still refer to them as immigrants. They speak Nepali, not Bengali and do not relate to the people to the south.

On the road to Pelling a jeep rolled over on its side blogged both sides of traffic. After the police arrive the men get together and push the vehicle out of the way. Just daily life in Sikkim.

The road to Pelling is much worse than any I have been on so far on this trip. Incredibly rough and slow. Even though I had been told I could not get a permit to enter Sikkim at the border I found that it was a quick ten-minute process. I’m ready to jump out of the jeep hours before I actually reach Pelling, but when we pull into the village, the first guesthouse I see is one from my list. I hear foreigners talking and someone playing guitar around a fire. I think I’ll stay here.

There’s more to the story! Keep reading part II!

It’s cold. After playing guitar around the fire and chess with a guy from Israel named Amos I retire to my room. I haven’t showered in a few days so I decide to take advantage of the hot water shower. Once under the steamy jets I didn’t want to turn off the water. I could already feel my hair freezing while still showering. I jump into my freezing bed under two wool blankets and two bulky divans. I cannot get warm. I think I slept for an hour total through the night with my feet feeling like ice cubes. I got out of bed with a terrible headache and ate breakfast. Gul, an Israeli, invited me to check out a local monastery with him.

The walk up is intimidating. The monastery sits on top of the next peak over from the town. The road up looks like what you’d find on a Japanese Tapestry, with the path zigzagging up the mountain ahead of us, but we get to the top before we know it. The views are peaceful and incredible, the mountain falling away abruptly from where we sit. Gul and I sit and talk about the stupidity of wars and the possibility of religions living peacefully with each other as we listen to the wind blow through the Tibetan prayer flags.

More Stories and Pictures! After the jump –>

After losing again to Amos in chess I go back to my cold bedroom and pray I can sleep through the night. I wear all my clothes and specifically wrap my feet in my jacket shell. I am warm finally under all the blankets. I fall asleep only to be wakened at eleven by a whining dog. This is no ordinary whining dog. He sounds like a human woman mourning the loss of her baby. I want to find the dog and kick it; I don’t even care about animal sensitivity. After a couple hours of fighting it I fall asleep till early morning when it starts up again. This time I wake up, my entire body is sweating. I am feverish. The dawn comes and I join Gul and some others on the roof to watch the sun light Mt. Kangchenjunga off in the distance.

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A group of us are hiring a jeep to take us to the famous Khecheopalri Lake (somehow pronounced catch-a-perry lake). The driver takes us to a couple waterfalls before eventually reaching the lake. I stumble around, coughing and wishing I wasn’t feverish. I sleep in the jeep at the second waterfall as others eat snacks from the stall on the side of the road.

We reach the lake and walk the five minutes down the path to reach it. BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT EVER! This lake is so hyped around Pelling. It is nothing more than a mud puddle surrounded by trees and prayer flags. I was so put off I didn’t even go out to the lake and slept on a bench by the path. I hate how you never know whether hyped sites in India are actually something to see or a two-foot waterfall. They all get the same amount of hype.

A young boy at the parking lot for the lake.

The jeep pulls off the side of the road about halfway back to Pelling. “It’s a rock garden,” the driver explains. They want us to pay to get in, so we just walk along on the road above. It’s another infamous Indian attraction that I don’t know why it exists except to get a few rupees from passing tourists. I elect to walk the rest of the way back to Pelling because I want to take portraits of the people I see. So many beautiful people had passed thus far on our drive back and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I cross the bridge and start up the hill along the road. Where are all the people? For about the first hour I don’t see another soul. There were so many people walking before I decided to walk. My whole reason for walking was not to get exercise, I am sick, but to take portraits of people.

I have an affinity for making kids cry.

In a small village after taking portraits of a group of people, a man demands I take some tea. I sit and enjoy the tea then take some more portraits. The man says to me, “You need to come down.” Ok? I’ll follow you? “You need to see the village.” He leads me down a steep path through the middle of the village and…back down to the road that I had just come up. “There’s a temple there you need to go to. I’ll be here.” The temple was simple and uninspired. A leper warms a meal over a fire in the courtyard. I then have to walk back up the mountain the way the man led me, bypassing the long switchback I originally took.

After three hours of walking I start getting cold and my legs are tired of walking uphill at 2,000m above sea level. I know that the same jeep that took my group is picking up a group of girls from Canada that walked to the lake and should be coming back about now. Just at the right time I see the familiar jeep come honking around the bend in the road. The girls gladly invite me to join them the rest of the way back.

The jeep driver tells me that I will not get a bus back to Siliguri in the morning because Siliguri, Darjeeling, and other major cities of Gorkhaland are on strike on the 21st. I set up to meet a jeep to the border of Sikkim, then I’ll take another jeep to Siliguri.

I have every reason to sleep through the night. I am exhausted. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in two nights and I’m sick. The dog doesn’t bark tonight and I am warm. But I have this terrible dream that causes me to wake up every five minutes and fall back asleep into the dream. I’ve had the dream maybe three times before and always when I’m traveling.

Dreamworld: I somehow work for a large company like Enron that nobody knows what they actually do or make. I am brain washed and connected to this computer program that every time I have a new thought the computer creates another version of myself. Straight lines somehow connect all of the versions of myself and I can only travel by these straight lines. But every time I want to get to someplace the computer creates a new me in that place, so I never actually move. I know I have to get up at 6am and I panic because I can’t move. Then I realize if I right click (I have no idea what I’m right clicking) I can select a mode where I no longer have to travel just in straight lines and I can move freely in any direction. Then I woke up for good at 6am.

This dream drives me crazy because it doesn’t seem to mean anything but it keeps me from sleeping through out the night. I am ridiculously tied when I get out of bed, and I’m feverish and coughing with a killer headache. Several of the others are taking the same jeep to the border and we go about 50km in almost two hours.

In Jonegeth I find a jeep to Siliguri and we wait for hours for it to fill up. Stuffed four to the back seat, I fade in and out of feverish sleep. At the Sikkim border I am asked to show my documents, so I have to climb on the roof of the jeep and grab my passport. Maybe ten minutes beyond the border I get out to use the restroom and discover my wallet not on my person. I think maybe it’s fallen into the seat, but it is not there. It is not in the jeep. Three options. It fell out of my pocket getting into the jeep in Jonegeth, fell out getting out at the Sikkim border, or someone saw it sticking out of my pocket and nabbed it while I slept. I have no idea which actually occurred.

Lost contents: Visa Debit Card, BC/BS Health Insurance Card, Indiana Drivers License, ISIC Student ID Card, Indiana Wesleyan Student ID card, Choctaw Nation Membership ID Card, spare key to my apartment, and about $40. But this put me in a fix getting back to Mumbai. I had not eaten anything yet that day and once I reached Siliguri I had no way to get to the train station except walking. I convinced a man with a motorcycle to take me some of the way to the station, then a cycle rickshaw driver insisted that I ride with him despite explaining that I do not have any money. I sleep at the train station till my train comes. I arrive in Calcutta in the morning and use my only 12 rupees in coins to take the bus to the airport. It only gets me close so I take off walking. Another cycle rickshaw insists I ride with him despite explaining I do not have money, but this one thought I could get money and took me to a bank. I try explaining I do not have any money and he takes me to a police officer. I explain what happened and offer to pay him in crackers. The police officer tells the ‘rick’ driver to take me the rest of the way and I give him my crackers.

I get to the airport by 9:30am for my 6:30pm flight. Everyone laughs at me when I show them my ticket. I explain I need to figure out if I can get my boarding pass because I lost my debit card. I have to have a police report. They point me in the direction of the police station where I file a report for my missing wallet and contents. One of the officers takes mercy on me and gives me 20 rupees to buy some tea and instructs me to come back to the officers’ mess for lunch. This is the first meal I’ve had in 40 hours. I pull 1000/- from the ATM at the bank after remembering my pin number for my credit card. This gets me some food before my flight and money to pay a rickshaw driver back in Mumbai.

As I am leaving Calcutta I see the lights from the plane. Calcutta looks like a lovely modern city…at night and from the sky. The crisscross of moderately flowing trafficked streets dotted with street lamps lead to the brightest spectacle of the scene, an impressive cricket pitch (field) in full glory, sitting on the banks of the mighty Ganges River, spanned by illuminated bridges. It looks so clean and peaceful. What a deception the night provides!

I’ve never been so glad to get back to my apartment. It’s a shame the end of my trip was marred by this unfortunate event.