Mountain Time
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2011
1
13
15
Trip End
Dec 04, 2011
What I did
Los Montanas
Ranikhet, Uttarakhand, India
Monday, December 5, 2011
Friday!
Friday started with an unexpected benefit where Abhijeet and Anupama grabbed me and took me off to the mall to make sure I got the right gift for Nicole. We went to 3 stores before finally settling on a good value/ design of a traditional Indian women's suit (whose name I'm not super sure about- even though I thought I knew it before). Anupama was incredibly helpful because I don't have any idea what's going on when it come to clothes shopping and oh yeah, I don't understand Hindi.
After that we stopped off at a store that looked a little like confectioner's to get golgapas. These are delicious but hard to describe. It's a puff pastry, a little like what you'd start with for a cream puff, then there's something you place inside it, maybe something like a vegetable or potato mixture. Then you pour in some sweet-ish brown sauce and top with the green chutney which has become my favorite. You eat them at about 5 a go. Eat one (one bite) then get another and keep going. Then at the end you get your bowl filled up with a mixture of the brown and green sauces and you drink that down. It's really tasty. Like everything over there- spicy and sweet.
After that we got back to the office finished up some emails, checked on some projects* and then jumped in the car to head to Ranikhet. This was only a 9 hour drive.
We broke up the monotony of the drive by playing games and stopping for dinner at a roadside food hut. These places are like a three sided basement. It's a concrete structure, usually with two "bays". On the way up to the Ranikhet, one bay was for alcohol and one bay was for no drinking. At the place we stopped I saw my first desi, a kind of Indian moonshine that comes in Ziploc bags and was made popular during the movie Desi Boyz** (more on that song later).
Ganeesh and Madhukar handle the ordering and the food comes incredibly fast. It's a kind of bean paste/ stew which is spicy and good which comes with a plate of paneer cut with onions and peppers. I should mention that we are here because initially Madhukar wanted to stop at McDonald's because he was afraid that my American palate (and intestines) were getting overwhelmed. I have made it my mission while I'm here to never turn down a food, so I see it as a point of pride that we skipped Mcd's. Also, I can say from later experience (Airport on the way to Frankfurt) that Mcd's is underwhelming in every country.
We stop again after another hour or so for coffee and I teach the team about a little West Virginia magic called the Hillbilly speed ball (Mix One shot espresso with 1 shot scotch). This produced a general wackiness that got us through the next 5 hours.
We played a game that Madhukar invented for about 2 hours which I dubbed "Eska baad" which is hindi for "next" or "And then" because the game is played like this: One person names a thing, then the next one has to recite the things that have come before them and then adds their thing. Example: Madhukar: Tree, Ganeesh: Tree, Frencepost, Dave: Tree, Fencepost, Monkey etc. It was fun but what we found out is that Madhukar and me are awful at this game, while Ganeesh and Jeetu are almost uncanny. Rahul is in the middle (and in the middle seat).
It's been dark for a while and after we've gone up into the mountains I kinda look out my window and realize that the stars are only about 10 feet away and brighter than I've seen them in ages (you'll recall that my last real "mountain rural trip" was in Alaska when it was having 24 hour daylight).
The brakes are put on. The flashers are put on. The music is cranked up to the gigawatts. I believe that the first track that gets played is in fact Desi Boyz. If you followed my link earlier and listened you now know how weird it is to be surrounded by both the magesty of nature and the pounding of Indian Techno. The scotch is dragged out, Vat 69- which I started calling Bat 69 because the next morning I had clearly been hit by something. We proceed to take in the stars and rock out. It's funny because it's really the first time I have been on a road in India where I was not being jostled or honked at. It's amazing.
Then it's back into the car, because even though we are solidly into the mountains our destination is still and hour and a half of switch backs in front of us. Speaking of switch backs!
I trust that many of my American readers have made the drive to Tahoe, possibly even including the drive between South Lake and North Lake up route 89 past Emerald Bay. There's a section of that drive I call "The spine of the world" where you are on this needle ridge line and there's a cliff of about a thousand feet on either side of you. It's scary as hell and I am not afraid of heights. I want you to picture that drive. Got it? Okay now change the road. Make it gravel at spots and one lane wide at spots and when it's one lane wide have it not be one lane by design but it's washed out so that the only thing that's holding you to the side of the mountain is your intense desire not to fall off it.
Kinda glad you drank that scotch now, aren't you?
Anywho.
So we drive and then we get to the "welcome to Ranikhet" sign chain. We are welcomed to Ranikhet no less than 5 times (see the first one in the pictures attached). When we get to the lovely Alka hotel (also in the pictures) it's not time for the feint of heart to take a nap. No my friend! It's time to play cards until the sun comes up!
Here's what I learn:
- The Indian version of Poker is called "flash" it's played with three cards and involves mostly pairs and flushes.
- There is another version of flash called Lam becka lam which crudely translated means red black red and the card that is not part of the set (both black or both red) is wild. I hate this version. I lose easily 60 rupees ($1.20) playing
- Madhukar has an almost infinite ability to continue to invent new variations of Flash- "We'll play with 6 cards and form two hands!" "We'll play with 10 cards and form three hands and one has to be imaginary and one has to have a king!"
It's fun. It's also a little blurry. Did I mention that there's scotch involved and it's about 5 am?
I wake up around 11:30 am and decide to head off on a "hike". I get as far up the road as the military base at which I am told this by a dude in a rather sharp uniform:
"We have problem. You are foreigner. This is secret base!"***
So he sends me back down the road and my hike is over.
I stop on the way back right by a school where some kids are playing basketball to watch the game. The game stops. Now the game is watching me. One of the kids dishes me the rock and waits for me to make what would have been an amazing shot if I was Dirk Nowitski****. Instead, I drive the lane and make an unblocked lay up. Thank god I made it and thank god I was unblocked, because if I had failed I think it would have ruined the international impression that all tall white people from America are professional basketball players. I pull my own rebound and dish back to the kid nearest me. I wave and continue my walk to resounding applause and chants.
When I get back the guys are up and we go on another walk. I sample Indian toffee (sweet) and Indian Peanuts (nutty). Then we have dinner.
Ganeesh has been working on his catch phrase all weekend. Yea-pa! (Say it loud! With Authority!) During the game last night it became formally recognized. Now it's common vernacular. Yea-Pa means whatever it is that it means at that exact moment. here's some variations:
- My cards are awesome
- My cards are crap
- I will now raise the stakes!
- This is good chutney
- Hello and welcome
- Should we get more tea?
The dinner is punctuated with many Yea-pas.
Then it's back into the room for more cards and some tea and some more scotch.
Halfway through the night there's a clamor out on the road in front of the hotel. I get up to look. There's a guy on a horse being led by like 100 people who are dancing down the street with drummers and loud music. I ask "what's all this then?"."It's a wedding." Says Madhukar. "wanna go?" he asks. I say "well.... what the hell... when in Rome..." And now comes my favorite advise from Madhukar the entire trip.
He looks at me in all seriousness and says "If I say run... you run."and then we're down the steps and into the crowd.
***** Tune in Later this week to find out how the Indian Wedding goes and learn about the drive back! *****
*Here's the great thing about working black Friday- there were no emails- there was no one online....
** Be careful with this one. It's kinda racey
*** It should be noted that the secret base has a giant sign in both Hindi and English telling me that it's an Indian military base and the home of the Fightin' Mountaineers
**** Over the back board, behind the tree, onto the court, nothing but net
