Here are some pictures from my visit to China
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Leeches and Festivals!
Today is a good day. I woke up in a great mood. In the past two days, I spoke to my father and sister for the first time since I’ve been here. I didn’t realize how much I’ve actually missed them until I heard their voices. I’m eager to see my family and friends again, however I’m trying to enjoy the moments I have here because I know in time I will long for them.
Again, so much has happened since I last wrote…probably because it’s been a while…oops :). Where should I begin? Last time I wrote I had just had the wonderful experience of building mud bricks. So many wonderful and difficult situations have passed since.
After surveying Didi’s mud house, we surveyed two old mud houses (over 100 years old!) in remote villages. They were both relatively near each other and far from our place so we decided to take a two-day trip to the area. We met with the owner of the first house, Charanjit who is a good friend of Didi’s, and visited his old family house that is now uninhabited. We enjoyed lunch and tea at his new place and afterwards he took us around his village. It was amazing! The people around the village were so welcoming and hospitable. We met a fascinating 102-year-old woman who described life in the village when she first moved there at the age of 14 when she had just gotten married. She was amazingly strong and healthy and walked around without any difficulty. I, of course, fell in love with her…I have a thing for cute little old women…I find them inspiring and beautiful.
That night we spent the night at a hotel nearby. It was surprisingly decent and incredibly cheap! We got two nice rooms (nice, of course in a relative sense) for only about $13! Unbelievable, no? The following morning we set out for the village of Asha Puri Devi where Didi had suggested visiting. Our drive up the mountain was beautiful, yet it felt quite unsafe. At many points along the way, the road was extremely muddy and rocky…to the point that we had to get off the car and hope that it could make it through. All along the way, there were remnants of large landslides on the sides of the mountain. The soil above and below us was so moist and looked quite loose…but I have to say besides this feeling of insecurity, the landscape was absolutely captivating. We hiked to the top of the village because the road was no longer drivable. There we visited the temple, but were a bit hesitant about surveying it. We were hoping to find an old house instead of doing a temple that was so similar to ones we’ve done in the past. After walking around for a while and asking village people about old houses, we finally hit gold (or as JoAnna would say, platinum)! :) A man told us his house was over 100 years old and that it was located nearby! His young son led the way to the house, which was again absolutely beautiful! On the way, we saw so many incredible sights…a gorgeous landscape, beautiful young village kids, village women at work, hatch and mud houses. We finally arrived and were warmly received by the large family living in the small mud house. There were only women and children at the house at the time we were surveying. The children were so beautiful and the moms were incredibly young! They must have been around 16 at most. After surveying, we enjoyed some nice chai with the family and took a nice family portrait. The women and children walked us along some of the way back and we said our thanks and goodbyes.
The experience with people from these two villages was one of the nicest times I’ve had since I arrived in India. It was so nice to meet such humble, welcoming, hospitable and generous people. These two days were definitely unforgettable.
After this trip, we began documenting again and spent much of our time working at home and in McLeod Ganj. Throughout the two weeks, we’ve enjoyed a nice dinner for Engin’s birthday, a nice visit to our driver’s home (Happy is his name…hehe), a nice goodbye dinner with Andrea (an Uruguayan-American girl who we met during yoga), a nice boat ride in the lake nearby (which is actually more like a large pond)…this was actually quite silly and fun…Jackie and I pedaled our driver around Dal Lake in a cute duck boat!
Most exciting of all, was our day off last Saturday. That evening was the celebration at Vinod’s temple so Jackie, Andrea and I went shopping for Indian traditional clothes to wear to the event. Happy, our driver, brought his sister to help us. It was so exciting to try on all the clothes. I finally decided on a traditional Punjabi suit (although, I originally wanted a nice saree), some shoes to match and a nice clip-on nose ring! After shopping we went back home, got ready and drove up to the temple. We enjoyed a nice Indian meal, which we ate outside on the floor with banana leaves as our plates! It was a lovely evening…local people gathered, sat around the temple and enjoyed tea, snacks and music. The people there were so interesting! Engin, in particular, met an interesting man who claimed to be close friends with him in a past life…he also claimed to be the father of Nostradamus, as well as “the father of dangerous”…who knows?
The next day were back to work and a few days later we went to survey an old school of dajji dewari construction, which consists of timber frame and bracing with masonry infill. It’s an interesting type of construction, one that is very common in the state of Kashmir especially in Srinagar. I read about this type of construction when I first arrived in Delhi and was fascinated by it. This type of construction worked well under previous earthquakes while many concrete buildings nearby completely collapsed killing many people. After surveying, it was back to documenting and hours by the computer.
Three days ago, after hours of working, we all decided to take a nice hike up to the Bhagsu waterfall. We were unsure of the way, but we decided it would be a nice adventure…and boy did it turn to be an adventure! After walking about half an hour or so, we found a local man who led us along some of the way. He helped us cross the river and tried explaining how to reach the waterfall. After crossing the river several times (we had to do this to avoid some of the difficult terrain), it began to get quite dark and we were unsure how long we had before arriving to the main road. My legs began to itch and I pulled up my pants to scratch my leg. To my terrible surprise, I found leeches sucking blood from my leg! I completely freaked! I started screaming and Engin ran to me and pulled them out. We all decided to check ourselves and found ourselves covered in leeches! Well, it was mostly just our legs and feet except for Abhishek (the photographer from SEEDS) who found them on his stomach, as well. We walked the rest of the way barefoot and thankfully reached the main road just before it got pitch black. Jackie and I bought new clothes and shoes to change into and then we headed for the hospital. The doctor said they weren’t dangerous, but that we should wash our wounds to prevent infections. We were taken individually to the examination room to wash the areas were we were bitten. I could not believe the conditions of the hospital room. The examination bed was covered in dried blood and everything around the room was filthy. It was interesting to see how they labeled the different rooms in the hospital…one was called the “casualty” room and the another the “resuscitation” room. The hospital overall was quite dirty and depressing…too many disturbing sights. We finally headed home and were received with another surprise. We had forgotten to close the gate that leads to the stairs to our place when we left. During our evening adventure, a cow decided to go into our hall and take a dump! We had to jump over cow manure to get into our place! It was quite disgusting! The rest of the night consisted of warming up kettles of water to wash ourselves and our clothes in warm salt water….what a day.
Oh yes, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention a nice adventure we had about two weeks ago while trying to find a waterfall that nobody seemed to know much about. Engin had read about it in some tourist book and thought it would be nice to visit…problem is we never actually arrived since nobody really knew the way…unless we were willing to cross a river that didn’t look so safe. Extremely hot and disappointed that we wasted 2 hours driving to find nothing, we started heading back home…about 5 minutes into our drive we got a flat! And of course, our lovely driver Happy did not have a useable spare…so we found ourselves drenched in sweat walking back to a little store we had seen near the river…we enjoyed some cold drinks and walked down to the river. There, many young Indian boys were swimming in the water. Overwhelmed with the heat and frustration of being stranded, we all jumped in the water with clothes and all! It actually turned out to be a very fun experience :).
The last couple of days have been filled lots of work and with less exciting activities …we’ve mostly been documenting and are in the process of surveying our last building, a nearby heritage hotel. We only have one week left before we head back to Delhi to give our final presentation. I can’t believe time has flown by so quickly! Although the project is almost at an end, I still have a good amount of time left in India. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with the rest of my time here, but I’m in the process of figuring that out :).
Again, so much has happened since I last wrote…probably because it’s been a while…oops :). Where should I begin? Last time I wrote I had just had the wonderful experience of building mud bricks. So many wonderful and difficult situations have passed since.
After surveying Didi’s mud house, we surveyed two old mud houses (over 100 years old!) in remote villages. They were both relatively near each other and far from our place so we decided to take a two-day trip to the area. We met with the owner of the first house, Charanjit who is a good friend of Didi’s, and visited his old family house that is now uninhabited. We enjoyed lunch and tea at his new place and afterwards he took us around his village. It was amazing! The people around the village were so welcoming and hospitable. We met a fascinating 102-year-old woman who described life in the village when she first moved there at the age of 14 when she had just gotten married. She was amazingly strong and healthy and walked around without any difficulty. I, of course, fell in love with her…I have a thing for cute little old women…I find them inspiring and beautiful.
That night we spent the night at a hotel nearby. It was surprisingly decent and incredibly cheap! We got two nice rooms (nice, of course in a relative sense) for only about $13! Unbelievable, no? The following morning we set out for the village of Asha Puri Devi where Didi had suggested visiting. Our drive up the mountain was beautiful, yet it felt quite unsafe. At many points along the way, the road was extremely muddy and rocky…to the point that we had to get off the car and hope that it could make it through. All along the way, there were remnants of large landslides on the sides of the mountain. The soil above and below us was so moist and looked quite loose…but I have to say besides this feeling of insecurity, the landscape was absolutely captivating. We hiked to the top of the village because the road was no longer drivable. There we visited the temple, but were a bit hesitant about surveying it. We were hoping to find an old house instead of doing a temple that was so similar to ones we’ve done in the past. After walking around for a while and asking village people about old houses, we finally hit gold (or as JoAnna would say, platinum)! :) A man told us his house was over 100 years old and that it was located nearby! His young son led the way to the house, which was again absolutely beautiful! On the way, we saw so many incredible sights…a gorgeous landscape, beautiful young village kids, village women at work, hatch and mud houses. We finally arrived and were warmly received by the large family living in the small mud house. There were only women and children at the house at the time we were surveying. The children were so beautiful and the moms were incredibly young! They must have been around 16 at most. After surveying, we enjoyed some nice chai with the family and took a nice family portrait. The women and children walked us along some of the way back and we said our thanks and goodbyes.
The experience with people from these two villages was one of the nicest times I’ve had since I arrived in India. It was so nice to meet such humble, welcoming, hospitable and generous people. These two days were definitely unforgettable.
After this trip, we began documenting again and spent much of our time working at home and in McLeod Ganj. Throughout the two weeks, we’ve enjoyed a nice dinner for Engin’s birthday, a nice visit to our driver’s home (Happy is his name…hehe), a nice goodbye dinner with Andrea (an Uruguayan-American girl who we met during yoga), a nice boat ride in the lake nearby (which is actually more like a large pond)…this was actually quite silly and fun…Jackie and I pedaled our driver around Dal Lake in a cute duck boat!
Most exciting of all, was our day off last Saturday. That evening was the celebration at Vinod’s temple so Jackie, Andrea and I went shopping for Indian traditional clothes to wear to the event. Happy, our driver, brought his sister to help us. It was so exciting to try on all the clothes. I finally decided on a traditional Punjabi suit (although, I originally wanted a nice saree), some shoes to match and a nice clip-on nose ring! After shopping we went back home, got ready and drove up to the temple. We enjoyed a nice Indian meal, which we ate outside on the floor with banana leaves as our plates! It was a lovely evening…local people gathered, sat around the temple and enjoyed tea, snacks and music. The people there were so interesting! Engin, in particular, met an interesting man who claimed to be close friends with him in a past life…he also claimed to be the father of Nostradamus, as well as “the father of dangerous”…who knows?
The next day were back to work and a few days later we went to survey an old school of dajji dewari construction, which consists of timber frame and bracing with masonry infill. It’s an interesting type of construction, one that is very common in the state of Kashmir especially in Srinagar. I read about this type of construction when I first arrived in Delhi and was fascinated by it. This type of construction worked well under previous earthquakes while many concrete buildings nearby completely collapsed killing many people. After surveying, it was back to documenting and hours by the computer.
Three days ago, after hours of working, we all decided to take a nice hike up to the Bhagsu waterfall. We were unsure of the way, but we decided it would be a nice adventure…and boy did it turn to be an adventure! After walking about half an hour or so, we found a local man who led us along some of the way. He helped us cross the river and tried explaining how to reach the waterfall. After crossing the river several times (we had to do this to avoid some of the difficult terrain), it began to get quite dark and we were unsure how long we had before arriving to the main road. My legs began to itch and I pulled up my pants to scratch my leg. To my terrible surprise, I found leeches sucking blood from my leg! I completely freaked! I started screaming and Engin ran to me and pulled them out. We all decided to check ourselves and found ourselves covered in leeches! Well, it was mostly just our legs and feet except for Abhishek (the photographer from SEEDS) who found them on his stomach, as well. We walked the rest of the way barefoot and thankfully reached the main road just before it got pitch black. Jackie and I bought new clothes and shoes to change into and then we headed for the hospital. The doctor said they weren’t dangerous, but that we should wash our wounds to prevent infections. We were taken individually to the examination room to wash the areas were we were bitten. I could not believe the conditions of the hospital room. The examination bed was covered in dried blood and everything around the room was filthy. It was interesting to see how they labeled the different rooms in the hospital…one was called the “casualty” room and the another the “resuscitation” room. The hospital overall was quite dirty and depressing…too many disturbing sights. We finally headed home and were received with another surprise. We had forgotten to close the gate that leads to the stairs to our place when we left. During our evening adventure, a cow decided to go into our hall and take a dump! We had to jump over cow manure to get into our place! It was quite disgusting! The rest of the night consisted of warming up kettles of water to wash ourselves and our clothes in warm salt water….what a day.
Oh yes, I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention a nice adventure we had about two weeks ago while trying to find a waterfall that nobody seemed to know much about. Engin had read about it in some tourist book and thought it would be nice to visit…problem is we never actually arrived since nobody really knew the way…unless we were willing to cross a river that didn’t look so safe. Extremely hot and disappointed that we wasted 2 hours driving to find nothing, we started heading back home…about 5 minutes into our drive we got a flat! And of course, our lovely driver Happy did not have a useable spare…so we found ourselves drenched in sweat walking back to a little store we had seen near the river…we enjoyed some cold drinks and walked down to the river. There, many young Indian boys were swimming in the water. Overwhelmed with the heat and frustration of being stranded, we all jumped in the water with clothes and all! It actually turned out to be a very fun experience :).
The last couple of days have been filled lots of work and with less exciting activities …we’ve mostly been documenting and are in the process of surveying our last building, a nearby heritage hotel. We only have one week left before we head back to Delhi to give our final presentation. I can’t believe time has flown by so quickly! Although the project is almost at an end, I still have a good amount of time left in India. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with the rest of my time here, but I’m in the process of figuring that out :).
Friday, July 27, 2007
Mud bricks! :)
It’s been over week and again I feel like so much has happened. The past week has been filled with all sorts of activity…starting with spending a day at the hospital because I had a “disease” (this is how Engin referred to my infection)…the hospital actually wasn’t so bad…that’s of course if you don’t count the lack of basics like toilet paper, running water and flushing toilets. The doctors and nurses were all very nice and helpful and by the end of the day I was as good as new :).
Besides that, most days have involved work except this past Saturday, which was the first official day off since we arrived in Dharamsala. Jackie and I spent the day enjoying McLeodganj while the boys went on a hike to Triund. It was nice to finally enjoy a day without having to worry about any time constraints. We shopped, walked around, enjoyed some nice Japanese food, drank lots of tea, met interesting people, including a Korean guy and a Tibetan monk who we had a nice conversation with at a café….this part was slightly difficult, but fun, because the Tibetan monk didn’t speak English…luckily Jackie had bought a Japanese/Tibetan/English book which we used to communicate with our new friend. Also, I made a bad move, well actually not so bad, and gave in to a boy begging on the street…I attempted to ignore him, which is what we are always recommended to do, but I couldn’t contain myself when he got on the floor and tried to clean and kiss my feet. He kept on saying he just wanted me to buy him milk…I knew doing so would cause many beggars to ask us for money, but I just couldn’t help it. So I bought him milk and sure enough, Jackie and I ended up with a crowd of beggars following us around…but I guess 10 minutes of discomfort was worth getting the little boy milk :).
Besides our lovely day off, we also enjoyed going to a yoga class in McLeodganj…finally…we’ve been attempting to go since we first arrived, but conditions have never allowed us. Anyways, it was a 2.5 hour yoga class which involved all sorts of crazy stretches…I have to say it was by far the hardest yoga class I have ever taken…and I’m still feeling it :).
As for work, a lot has happened, as well. Since my last blog, we’ve surveyed and completed the documentation of two structures, St. John’s and Kangra Fort. Even more exciting, the SEEDS director came to visit us and took us to meet an amazing old woman who lives in a little village near Dharamsala. She is an extremely knowledgeable and inspiring artist/architect who designs houses using mud and bamboo. Her designs are all environmentally friendly and she mostly uses local materials. She was very welcoming and helpful with recommendations for our project. Today, we visited two structures that she designed and met with one of the local masons. The BEST part was that we got to build our own mud bricks!!! It was so exciting…at least for me :). We now have planned to visit a house she recommended on Saturday and a village on Tuesday, which I’m actually very excited about :). I’m anxious to start surveying villages!
I have so much more to say, but honestly I’m slightly fed up with writing…we spend entire days documenting structures and the thought of writing even more doesn’t really appeal to me right now…I’ll write more next week…or I guess I can always just reference Engin’s blog :).
Besides that, most days have involved work except this past Saturday, which was the first official day off since we arrived in Dharamsala. Jackie and I spent the day enjoying McLeodganj while the boys went on a hike to Triund. It was nice to finally enjoy a day without having to worry about any time constraints. We shopped, walked around, enjoyed some nice Japanese food, drank lots of tea, met interesting people, including a Korean guy and a Tibetan monk who we had a nice conversation with at a café….this part was slightly difficult, but fun, because the Tibetan monk didn’t speak English…luckily Jackie had bought a Japanese/Tibetan/English book which we used to communicate with our new friend. Also, I made a bad move, well actually not so bad, and gave in to a boy begging on the street…I attempted to ignore him, which is what we are always recommended to do, but I couldn’t contain myself when he got on the floor and tried to clean and kiss my feet. He kept on saying he just wanted me to buy him milk…I knew doing so would cause many beggars to ask us for money, but I just couldn’t help it. So I bought him milk and sure enough, Jackie and I ended up with a crowd of beggars following us around…but I guess 10 minutes of discomfort was worth getting the little boy milk :).
Besides our lovely day off, we also enjoyed going to a yoga class in McLeodganj…finally…we’ve been attempting to go since we first arrived, but conditions have never allowed us. Anyways, it was a 2.5 hour yoga class which involved all sorts of crazy stretches…I have to say it was by far the hardest yoga class I have ever taken…and I’m still feeling it :).
As for work, a lot has happened, as well. Since my last blog, we’ve surveyed and completed the documentation of two structures, St. John’s and Kangra Fort. Even more exciting, the SEEDS director came to visit us and took us to meet an amazing old woman who lives in a little village near Dharamsala. She is an extremely knowledgeable and inspiring artist/architect who designs houses using mud and bamboo. Her designs are all environmentally friendly and she mostly uses local materials. She was very welcoming and helpful with recommendations for our project. Today, we visited two structures that she designed and met with one of the local masons. The BEST part was that we got to build our own mud bricks!!! It was so exciting…at least for me :). We now have planned to visit a house she recommended on Saturday and a village on Tuesday, which I’m actually very excited about :). I’m anxious to start surveying villages!
I have so much more to say, but honestly I’m slightly fed up with writing…we spend entire days documenting structures and the thought of writing even more doesn’t really appeal to me right now…I’ll write more next week…or I guess I can always just reference Engin’s blog :).
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Life's Luxuries
July 10…I woke up to no running water…all of a sudden I began to appreciate the cold morning showers. The entire neighborhood was without water supply. People gathered at the water pump to fill their buckets and jugs. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes for water, I was finally able to take my first bucket shower. It actually wasn’t so bad…the thing that bothered me the most was the toilets weren’t flushing. The rest of the day consisted of sitting in front of a computer documenting the research and on-site observations we had made. Later that evening, our water situation got even worse. The water pump had been turned off! We would be without any water until the next morning. After dinner that night we found ourselves having to fill up water bottles from a natural water source about 15 minutes away.
The next morning, our water pump was back on and I found myself feeling fortunate to be able to take a bucket shower. This day again consisted of sitting in front of the computer compiling our information as well as visiting an internet café to do some research on future structures we would be analyzing. I was shocked at how little information was able to get on the fort we would be visiting the next day, Kotla Fort. The most detailed information consisted of a description of the structure being located in the Kangra Valley…and that was it.
On Thursday, we woke up early in hopes of having a productive day…however, as usual things went slow…our driver was over an hour late, our lunch took longer than expected and before we knew it, it was past noon and we were just arriving. Once I saw the fort from a distance I understood why I couldn’t find any information on it. It sat on the side of the mountain, looked completely abandoned and was not easily accessible. We had to walk across a shallow river and hike up a trail covered in moss to reach the main entrance. It felt as if we were on a jungle safari…the air was hot and humid, we were surrounded by vegetation, huge bugs were crawling and flying everywhere, and monkeys surrounded the fort. Most of the fort was in ruins. It seemed as if it hadn’t been visited for ages….although we did see some locals hanging around nearby. After our site visit, we headed back home and to our great surprise, we had running water!!! I couldn’t believe how excited I was to take a shower that didn’t involve filling up buckets! Just as we were celebrating our electricity went out….so there we were…working on our laptops under candlelight…that only lasted a couple of hours so it wasn’t so bad.
Friday we decided to work at café in McLeod Ganj, the nice little town up the mountain. This ended being a great success since we were able to get out and work at a café where we had everything easily available....and we could work while we waited for our food! Usually taking the time to stop work and going out for lunch wastes so much time. The service is usually so slow and something always seems to go wrong that going out to eat becomes such a hassle. While sitting at the café we met a Tibetan refugee named Dawa. He was quite nice and recommended some restaurants and places to visit around the area. After working for hours, we walked around McLeod Ganj with our new friend and had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant where we enjoyed some delicious apple wine, a specialty in the area.
The following day we worked most of the day and decided to hike up to the temple where our good yogi friend lives, Vinod. Our hike up was so nice…we met a nice Indian family during one of our rests and a couple of cute little Indian girls up at the temple. We sat around the shrine, enjoyed some tea and watched Vinod and some local Indians perform rituals and sing religious chants…one local played along with some bongo-like instrument and Vinod joined in with some other percussion instrument called a chitar (?). After dark, our driver came to pick us up and we found ourselves having to walk through the side of the mountain using only two flashlights! We all had to hold hands while trying not to fall off the side of the mountain...this was quite a sight :).
Sunday we enjoyed working at a laid-back café near the waterfall we had visited the previous week (I forget the name of this area...). The rest of the day consisted of working at other cafes and finally having dinner at nice, cozy restaurant.
Overall, our work has been improving, however, our list of buildings to survey has not been finalized. There seems to be some confusion and disagreement over what type structures we will be evaluating. So far we have looked at temples and forts...I was hoping we would be able to look at more residences since I feel it is imperative to understand how people are building their houses in order to even begin to give ideas of how to implement safer construction practices. Tomorrow we will meet with a PhD student who apparently studied earthquakes in the Kangra region....I am hoping he will have valuable input in terms of recommending important structures to study....and hopefully, he will recommend some residences. So far we have completed surveying four structures, three of which the documentation is mostly done.
On a personal note, I feel myself gradually becoming accustomed to life around here. Running water, electricity, internet access, fresh fruit, vegetables and a clean toilet have all become luxuries. Cows, monkeys, dogs, flies, dirt roads and horrible driving have all become part of my daily life. Although my time here has been somewhat rough at times, I have not at any point regretted coming. There are moments throughout each day that I stop to think about how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. This experience has already changed much about my mindset on life and I feel that it will continue to do so.
The next morning, our water pump was back on and I found myself feeling fortunate to be able to take a bucket shower. This day again consisted of sitting in front of the computer compiling our information as well as visiting an internet café to do some research on future structures we would be analyzing. I was shocked at how little information was able to get on the fort we would be visiting the next day, Kotla Fort. The most detailed information consisted of a description of the structure being located in the Kangra Valley…and that was it.
On Thursday, we woke up early in hopes of having a productive day…however, as usual things went slow…our driver was over an hour late, our lunch took longer than expected and before we knew it, it was past noon and we were just arriving. Once I saw the fort from a distance I understood why I couldn’t find any information on it. It sat on the side of the mountain, looked completely abandoned and was not easily accessible. We had to walk across a shallow river and hike up a trail covered in moss to reach the main entrance. It felt as if we were on a jungle safari…the air was hot and humid, we were surrounded by vegetation, huge bugs were crawling and flying everywhere, and monkeys surrounded the fort. Most of the fort was in ruins. It seemed as if it hadn’t been visited for ages….although we did see some locals hanging around nearby. After our site visit, we headed back home and to our great surprise, we had running water!!! I couldn’t believe how excited I was to take a shower that didn’t involve filling up buckets! Just as we were celebrating our electricity went out….so there we were…working on our laptops under candlelight…that only lasted a couple of hours so it wasn’t so bad.
Friday we decided to work at café in McLeod Ganj, the nice little town up the mountain. This ended being a great success since we were able to get out and work at a café where we had everything easily available....and we could work while we waited for our food! Usually taking the time to stop work and going out for lunch wastes so much time. The service is usually so slow and something always seems to go wrong that going out to eat becomes such a hassle. While sitting at the café we met a Tibetan refugee named Dawa. He was quite nice and recommended some restaurants and places to visit around the area. After working for hours, we walked around McLeod Ganj with our new friend and had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant where we enjoyed some delicious apple wine, a specialty in the area.
The following day we worked most of the day and decided to hike up to the temple where our good yogi friend lives, Vinod. Our hike up was so nice…we met a nice Indian family during one of our rests and a couple of cute little Indian girls up at the temple. We sat around the shrine, enjoyed some tea and watched Vinod and some local Indians perform rituals and sing religious chants…one local played along with some bongo-like instrument and Vinod joined in with some other percussion instrument called a chitar (?). After dark, our driver came to pick us up and we found ourselves having to walk through the side of the mountain using only two flashlights! We all had to hold hands while trying not to fall off the side of the mountain...this was quite a sight :).
Sunday we enjoyed working at a laid-back café near the waterfall we had visited the previous week (I forget the name of this area...). The rest of the day consisted of working at other cafes and finally having dinner at nice, cozy restaurant.
Overall, our work has been improving, however, our list of buildings to survey has not been finalized. There seems to be some confusion and disagreement over what type structures we will be evaluating. So far we have looked at temples and forts...I was hoping we would be able to look at more residences since I feel it is imperative to understand how people are building their houses in order to even begin to give ideas of how to implement safer construction practices. Tomorrow we will meet with a PhD student who apparently studied earthquakes in the Kangra region....I am hoping he will have valuable input in terms of recommending important structures to study....and hopefully, he will recommend some residences. So far we have completed surveying four structures, three of which the documentation is mostly done.
On a personal note, I feel myself gradually becoming accustomed to life around here. Running water, electricity, internet access, fresh fruit, vegetables and a clean toilet have all become luxuries. Cows, monkeys, dogs, flies, dirt roads and horrible driving have all become part of my daily life. Although my time here has been somewhat rough at times, I have not at any point regretted coming. There are moments throughout each day that I stop to think about how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. This experience has already changed much about my mindset on life and I feel that it will continue to do so.
Monday, July 9, 2007
So much to say...
It’s been 2.5 weeks since I arrived and I still cannot believe I’m here. I’m still trying to get used to a completely different way of life.
My last week in Delhi was quite nice. Jackie and I decided to explore the city each evening after work. We went to the Lotus Temple (which I have to say is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen), the gorgeous Lodi Gardens and Old Delhi. Old Delhi was very interesting, although it didn’t feel all that safe…tons of people, cows everywhere you turned, vendors shouting, car horns constantly going…Jackie and I decided to take a bicycle trolley which was quite nice since we were able to see most of the area without having to worry too much about being bothered.
On Friday, Engin arrived…after work, Engin, Jackie, Veda (one of our coworkers) and I went to India Gate and then later to Lizard Lounge, which at first seemed very nice and relaxed, but later turned into a loud, awkward club-like scene. On Saturday, Engin and I went to Red Fort and Jama Masjid. The fort was similar to Agra Fort…much of the architecture and layout seemed identical. As for Jama Masjid…that was quite an experience…overall good, but quite uncomfortable at times. At the time we arrived, there was a bazaar with mostly men…I must have been one of the only girls there…everyone kept on staring and I was just glad that Engin was there. It got to the point that people would surround us and stare intently. I guess I wasn’t too shocked since Jackie and I had a similar experience in Agra, but it was definitely still awkward.
Sunday night we left Delhi and headed to Dharamsala. The bus ride over there was terrible! I’m usually very good about falling asleep while traveling, but this bus ride was like no other. The bus itself wasn’t bad, but the driver was driving like a maniac! If you can imagine…we traveled for 12 hours on a narrow, bumpy dirt road and our driver was passing other huge trucks….it was pretty scary…I was quite happy to arrive safely…although I lost a shoe somewhere along the way :(. I took off my shoes on the ride and I guess somebody took my shoe by mistake! How does that happen?!!! Since we had made a stop before arriving in Dharamsala, I had no way of telling if someone had already left with my shoe….although, I did find an unclaimed orange shoe in the bus…so I’m guessing the owner of this shoe took mine instead! Anyways, point is I had to hop off the bus!!! It was quite a sight.
The first couple of days in Dharamsala were quite slow….at least in terms of work. The first day we didn’t do much since none of us had really slept on the bus. For the next couple of days we spent most of our time setting up the place where we will be staying for the next two months. It is a nice little house in Lower Dharamsala, although it does have its shortcomings…no hot water, very limited furniture and appliances (no beds, fridge, stove, microwave), sometimes no running water, toilets that flush occasionally, a very noisy neighborhood (especially in the mornings…you hear everything from cows to dogs to people chanting to cars honking to insanely heavy monsoon rains…early in the morning…I’m talking 5 am or so). Basically our home consists of mattresses, some curtains, a table, some chairs, and a water boiler to make tea and coffee :)….I guess that covers most of the very basic essentials….plus, of course, a little balcony with a beautiful view of the Himalayas.
We have done some exploring around the area since we arrived. In particular, we all love Upper Dharamsala, which is like 20 minutes driving distance. It is a beautiful little town (known as Little Tibet) which is where the Dalai Lama resides! Amazing, no? Walking through the streets you can see Buddhist monks everywhere! It’s almost as if you were in another country! It’s quite fascinating :). Last week, we hiked up to a beautiful waterfall and enjoyed some lovely chai tea, which I have to say is quite delicious here in India….so good it got me off coffee! That’s really something. Another day, we hiked another part of the mountain in attempts to reach a Hindu temple on a hill. When we arrived, we encountered an interesting-looking monk performing strange rituals (well, at least I thought they were strange). After clearing up a miscommunication (long story), he invited us in the temple to receive the blessing (I’m actually not sure what this is called…). After, he offered us some tea and we ended up staying for quite a while chatting with him…he was such an interesting character! It turns out he used to study science, but in his second year in college he decided to be a monk instead. He lives in this temple and is a great yogi! He was in great shape for his age and in fact, looked much younger than we expected! Yes, Engin asked him his age…anyways, I found his life so interesting…he does yoga on this mountain every night at 2:39 in the morning (yes, he did specify this time in particular)…and he invited us to join him if we were interested! Hopefully we’ll get a chance to go soon :).
In terms of health, I’ve been doing pretty well….besides a couple of days of throwing up and feeling sick to my stomach (I think it might have just been the malaria pills), I’ve been doing pretty well. Engin, on the other hand, got pretty sick. He was in bed for 2 days straight, but now he’s doing better :).
As for work, I have to admit it’s had its ups and downs. When I was in Delhi the whole project seemed to be so disorganized…I felt so uninformed by the people working on the project even after I asked many questions! Everything seemed to be left until the last minute…it was quite frustrating. So my last week in Delhi I spent a lot of time reading about other projects that have been done in developing countries on vernacular architecture. I was fascinated to see so much work has been done in so many areas…although, there is much left to do. Reading these papers gave me a feel for the type of work I would be doing and overall, it really inspired me to work on projects like these in the future (hopefully). When we first arrived in the Himalayas, work was really slow (as I mentioned before). Everything seemed to take an eternity. We had no list of buildings to survey and very limited information in terms of what we would be evaluating….again, very frustrating. However, things have gotten better and I am learning to deal with the pace of life over here. In the last week, we’ve visited government officials in the area to discuss access to temples....so far, we have visited three sites (Kangra Fort, Shiva Temple in Baijnath and Masrur Temples in Masrur). We have evaluated the Shiva and Masrur Temples and are working on the documentation. The Masrur temple was so interesting…the entire structure seems to have been carved out of a mountain! It’s quite fascinating! Although the objectives are still quite ill-defined, I have to admit things are improving…either that or I’m just learning to cope with it :).
Ahhh…okay, I have so much more to say, but I think that’s enough writing for now :)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
One week in...
I feel like so much has happened since I arrived, I don’t even know where to begin in attempting to describe my experiences so far. I arrived last Thursday night and I took a prepaid taxi to my PG (paying guest) house. I was a bit nervous since it was quite late and the cab driver didn’t seem to know exactly where my PG was located. He kept on asking me questions, but I couldn’t understand him at all! So we were stopping every block or so and he kept on asking people how to get there. We finally managed to arrive and I was so happy to see Jackie, the intern from
As for sightseeing, I’ve seen quite a bit for being here less than a week. This weekend Jackie and I took a trip to
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
On my way...
It's a night before my flight to India and I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions. I'm excited to experience something completely new... a new country, culture and work experience. I am sad that I did not get much time with my family and friends from home. I am nostalgic to have left Stanford for the summer and to have seen many friends graduate and go off to start their new lives. I'm not sure what to expect of this summer. For now I'm just keeping an open mind and hoping to make the best of my time in India.
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