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GEAR   Packs Osprey Aether 65L Hiking Backpack Full frame 65 liter hiking backpack for everything I have got. Thirty-eight pounds all packed. 20L compressible daypack Carharrt fanny pack Money belt Dry bags (3) Simple dry bags are one of the most useful items for organization. Toiletry pack Roll-able, hang-able, durable. The toiletry pack contains any small items I will need on a daily basis- including toiletries but also clothespins & paracord (for drying laundry) and other little tools. First aid bag This thing is jampacked with all of the wide-reaching precautions of my weeks of obsessing over it. Check out my “first-aid” post for more details. Clothes Shoes Asolo Agent Evo Men’s Hiking Shoes. Waterproof low-tops. I hate the lack of breathability in waterproof shoes… but considering I will be in Nepal during monsoon season this seems nice. At least the Asolos are light, with a wide toe-box and will dry quickly. Merino shirts (4) Two lightweight short sleeves and two midweight long sleeves- all Icebreaker brand. I’ll layer the long sleeves for the coldest alpine conditions. This merino fabric is actually incredible- it basically absorbs no moisture and what it does evaporates very quickly. Hanging it in the air for a half day often gets rid of the smell entirely.   Light mid-layer north face jacket Camping poncho Light and packs down to the size of a tennis ball. Picked this over a rain jacket for it’s lightness. Climbing pants (2) Two pairs of the same Prana climbing pants. Socks/underwear Shorts/bathing suit Beanie, cap Gloves N95 masks Glasses, sunglasses Camping Just kidding- I cut all my camping gear to save weight. Nixed the hammock, pad, & sleeping bag. Maybe I’ll pick up a blanket in the markets of Rajasthan. First-Aid Gloves Tweezers Superglue Surprisingly effective medical tool for forming a hard barrier on tape & even closing wounds. Medical tape Sunscreen Neosporin Chapstick Antiseptic wipes & alcohol Band-Aids Sterile dressings  Sterile gauze (4×4) Medical tape Moleskin For blisters on feet Iodine  water purification Rehydration salts Immodium anti-diarrhea Dramamine  anti-nausea Lactase Ibuprofen Baby aspirin For mild acute mountain sickness, I guess Sudafed Cough drops suture kit Been practicing on a clementine… hopefully this doesn’t come into play Novocain & needles For numbing during suturing Amoxicillin & Bactrim Antibiotics Diamox Preventative medication for high altitude pulmonary or cerebral edema. Other preventative measures include good hydration, good cardio, and a diet high in carbohydrates. Electronics Computer Phone Kindle Headphones Battery Chargers Universal port Surge protector Debated this one because it probably won’t be actually needed and it is quite heavy. Ended up with a 900 joule surge protector in what is probably over-cautiousness for my computer… but you never know with those Indian electrical grids Tools Water filter 4 Liter Platypus water filter with a two micron pass Journal & pens Clothespins & line I expect most of my clothes-washing to be done in the shower and my clothes-drying on a line of paracord. Compass Leatherman multi-tool Binoculars Paracord Headlamp Cheap caribers (3) Padlocks (4) Two small combination-locks for my bag, and two big brass padlocks for hostel lockers. Lighter (2) Tape Documents Passport, vaccine records, immigration forms, etc. Toiletries Hairbrush Toothbrush Floss Razor & shaving cream Deodorant Nail clipper Comb Soap Equipment All of the following to be picked up on the subcontinent: Rope Crampons Ice axe Trekking poles Climbing equipment to be brought by Natalie…

03/28/22 This post is an amalgam of the stuff I’ve learned preparing to be prepared on this trip; its mainly from some meetings with a friend and dentist, an appointment with a “Travel Doctor” from Penn Medicine, and a book called “The Prepper’s Medical Handbook” by William Forgey. Disclaimer- since I’m not a doctor, there might be some bullshit in this post. In my view, there are four main boogeymen: Diarrhea Disease (special shoutout to Malaria) Altitude Sickness Smashing ya self up Diarrhea This one is a classic- everyone knows the good old hot snakes. I expect that “Delhi Belly” is a bit of an inevitability on a first-time journey through India. I’m no stranger this sort of bi-directional liquid expulsion; there are some hostels from my dark past that I will never forget for this reason. Catching a bug from foreign water and food can (maybe) be prevented by being careful- but nothing is 100%. In India, drinking water out the tap is a bad idea. Instead, do this: Drink bottled water Drink boiled or UV-treated water Run drinking water through a two-micron water filter which captures (at least) giardia and cryptosporidium Treat drinking water with iodine I’ll do what I can to avoid it… but when diarrhea knocks on my door, I’m going to be prepared. Mainly with electrolyte salt, anti-diarrheal, anti-nausea, and antibiotic.  Use electrolyte salts to effectively re-hydrate while you’re being sick. Straight water often won’t do the job because when you expel liquid you’re losing salts as well. You always need to hydrate in a balanced way between salt and water. This is also a good tip for hangovers. Imodium can be used basically as a “cork” for your butt. It will prevent you from shitting for a few hours (imagine you need to board a bus), but it can’t address the root cause (bacterial infection). Also- you want to be careful with self-administering Imodium because often diarrhea is your immune systems way of flushing out your system. You should let your immune system do its work as best you can. Azithromycin is the heavy hitter- have this for severe cases of diarrhea and nausea which aren’t abating. This is an antibiotic which works by inhibiting growth of the bacteria that’s giving you problems. Finally, carry dramamine to alleviate nausea. Ginger is also an effective natural alternative. Disease (S/O Malaria) To me, malaria is a pretty spooky one. I’ll be in a few danger zones including rural southern India & rural areas in SE Asia. The CDC lists malaria danger by country in a table at the link here:  https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/travelers/country_table/a.html Until humanity gets their shit together and enacts Operation Global Mosquito Annihilation, we are stuck with mosquito born illnesses like Malaria. Block mosquitoes when possible. Use long sleeves and mosquito nets treated with Permethrin. Mosquito repellent options: Mosquito repellent with 30-35% DEET (N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) on bare skin lasts for about 4 hours. This is what I have- its pretty nasty stuff. Picardin is another common repellent used on bare skin, which lasts up to 12 hours. Also nasty stuff Finally, Oil of Eucalyptus can be used for a kinder (but possibly less effective) alternative to the industrial chemicals Other insect precautions: Wear khaki/tan clothing- bright colors attract insects Sleep in air conditioning, or using a bed net treated with permethrin The second layer of defense against Malaria is medication- including chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, doxycycline, mefloquine, and many others. I’ll discuss a few pros and cons of some of these medications. Chloroquine & hydroxychloroquine are widely available and very well-known safe drugs. The problem is that its only effective for the mosquitos of Central American and the Caribbean. No help to me here. Doxycycline is a cheap and widely available antibiotic preventative treatment to malaria. Pick this up in any Asian pharmacy (although try to buy from an established hospital pharmacy to avoid fake pills). Personally, I want my gut bacteria in full force arriving in India so I’m trying to use antibiotics very sparingly when possible. Mefloquine is a very effective preventative course of medication for Malaria. Plus, you only have to take a pill once per week. The downside is that for some people it causes depression, anxiety, sleep paralysis or nightmares! Sidenote- as I am writing this, I have just tried the first Mefloquine pill. I felt somewhat nervous considering the side-effects; however, so far my brain feels normal 🤞 lets see about them nightmares… Other diseases which will get an honorable mention for my trip, at least, are: Typhoid, Hepatitis (A & B), Tetanus, Rabies, & Japanese Encephalitis. Vaccines are available for all of these and should be considered for travel. Personally, I got every vaccine except for Rabies. I figure I can just avoid rabid monkeys and whatnot. It was actually very expensive (around a thousand bucks including a $700 double dose of Japanese Encephalitis), but its hard to put a price on this sort of thing. I probably overprepared though. Altitude Sickness Altitude sickness takes the form of acute mountain sickness, pulmonary edema, and cerebral edema. The last two deal with fluid building up in the lungs/brain. Its an extremely dangerous situation and should be addressed with rapid descent from altitude. For this reason, its essential that trekkers & alpinists can recognize the rather sneaky progression of symptoms. “You will not need to worry about high altitude illness of any kind unless you must depart suddenly from a lower attitude and head for the hills—the high hills, that is . High-altitude-related illnesses can generally be avoided by gradual exposure to higher elevation, with the sleeping ascent rate not exceeding 1,000 feet (300 meters) per day when above 9,000 feet (2,800 meters) . Alternatively, avoid sleeping at greater than 2,000-foot (600-meter) increments every 2 days when suddenly traveling from near sea level to 10,000 feet (3,000 meters).”  William Forgey, “The Prepper’s Medical Handbook”: Measures to prevent altitude sickness: Climb slowly Good cardio Stay hydrated High-carb diet (at least 70% calories from carbs) And then there’s

4/3/22 Nervous about my paperwork, I left Doylestown at around noon on Wednesday, March 30. Dad dropped me off at the Doylestown train station with alligator tears in his eyes.  I flew to Boston, then overnight to Amsterdam. I catnapped in the Amsterdam airport for a few hours and then caught my long flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi. The feeling of flying over the Middle East in the dead of night, totally alone, leaving my home behind… it was pretty weird. It’s still hard to believe that I am here; how far from home I really am. How far I’ve come in just a few days. There is no one on this continent who actually knows who I am or cares about me; its an isolating and invigorating feeling. On the plane, I sat next to a Sikh man and his son. He was heading home to Amritstar, in Punjab, to see his family. His son was visiting India for the first time in 12 years. He told me about Amritstar, about the Gurdwara where one can get a good free meal. He told me about Hindu culture and the turban- how the Hindus wear the turban simply because the Muslims told them they couldn’t, long ago. He told me that Rajasthan will be really hot and (laughingly) that I probably won’t be able to catch the Duke/UNC basketball game at a bar in Delhi.  We land in Delhi at 2 am and I get through customs slowly. Then, it is 3 am and I am in the lobby of the airport, looking through the windows at the throng of taxi drivers just outside on the Delhi streets. The act of walking outside feels intimidating. My original plan was to wait at the airport until sunlight, and then travel to my hostel. However, I am impatient and I want to rest. So at around 4:00 am, I get a taxi from the stall at the airport and get in the car on my way to my hostel… or so I think. This begins a long nighttime journey that introduces me to the scams of New Delhi and does not end up with me at my hostel. We start driving through the muggy Delhi night air; my window is open to the humidity and smoke and horns of the highway. The air has a unique smell like no American city- kind of like a mix of smoke and sweat and food. My driver offers me a cigarette and we smoke together, chatting idly and brokenly about the United States, and India, and Covid-19 and Ukraine. We get to the Paharganj neighborhood and my driver announces that he does not know where my hostel is. For some reason my downloaded map is not working and I don’t have cellular data. Okay… helpless. We stop in at a “Tourist Office” to get information. This is a small, hot hole in the wall beneath the highway on nondescript street in Paharganj. Inside is a sleepy man named Amit who offers a seat and asks me about myself. I show him my hostel booking and he calls the hostel to see what’s up. Apparently no one is answering at the hostel. Also that hostel is in a lousy neighborhood and I should stay at a better hostel. I know the classic hotel scam but at this point it is around 4:30 am and I am very tired. Amit insists that another hostel will be better and will cost the same as my hostel. So, after around 40 minutes at the tourist office, we go ahead to the different hotel. I’m vaguely aware that this is probably a scam to get me to stay at the hotel of Amit’s choice, but if all costs are the same I’m pretty much indifferent. We arrive at the hotel; my driver is now grumbling about how much time he has wasted. I tip him 200 rupees and he starts complaining about what a small amount of money it is. He asks for 500 additional rupees; I give him 300 additional rupees and he is off. We arrive at the new hotel and there are like 5 men standing around waiting for me. I have such a strong sense of being plucked out of my life and inserted into an alien planet; I am confused and tired and I have no idea what is normal and polite. I feel alone. At this point I really just want to lay my head down and rest. The concierge tells me the cost of the hotel is around 9,000 rupees (almost 100 bucks) and now I realize the full extent of the scam. I am absolutely not going to pay 9,000 rupees so we negotiate down to 2,200 rupees and they take me to my room. My room is cool and clean with the news blaring on the television. For thirty bucks this is absolutely great- I actually don’t mind getting scammed out of my hostel. I will find the hostel tomorrow. I’m starting to fall asleep when there is a BANG and a glaring flash of white light outside my window as the power in the room shuts off. I hear voices shouting outside my room as I drift slowly to sleep. I wake up around 10 am the next morning feeling refreshed and excited. I walk up to the roof and take in the hot, smoky air of New Delhi. Then I walk down to the lobby of the hotel and ask for a ride to my hostel. I meet my driver, Ashok, and he is pretty excited to talk to me- asking me all about American movies and stuff. So we get in the car on the way, finally, to my original hostel. Ashok, of course, did not take me to the hostel. In a 25 minute screaming ride through Paharganj, Delhi we arrived back at the tourism office. Amit was standing outside and gestured towards me. At

Traveling to Mustang I was working quietly in the yard of my hostel when my friend Ujjwal and his buddies rolled into the yard with four mudsplattered mountain-bikes. They explained that they had left from Mustang the previous day and rode 180 kilometers down out of the Himalayas and to Pokhara. I was inspired! And without further research I became sure that this was a good plan for the week.  So I rode my cheap bike into town and got to work. I visited a few biking stores and haggled a rental on a new-ish Giant Hardtail for Rs. 1600/day. I bought a bus ticket to Jomsom  (Rs. 1500) and made sure they would strap my mountain-bike to the roof. I bought a cheap North Fake 40-liter backpack (Rs. 1800), and gaiters (Rs. 700) for the mud. I borrowed 2 maps from my buddy Jonas- one of the west Annapurna area and one of Mustang. Finally I dropped by the government office and purchased my two permits for Mustang (Rs. 5000 total).  After two days of errands, haggling, and biking around Pokhara I was ready to go. On Tuesday I caught the 6 am bus to Jomsom with my rented bike strapped to the roof.  Driving through Nepal is absolutely breathtaking. You bump along dirt and mud roads at a walking pace, marveling at the little terraced villages perched on green hillsides in valleys that wind up to snow capped peaks in the shimmering distance. Water flows everywhere- in winding little streams, huge waterfalls, and violent gushing rivers which have cut massive valleys.  We stopped at a small Khaja Ghar (think Nepalese bodega) on a hillside for breakfast at around 8 am. There was curried potato, fried bread, and a hard boiled egg. After breakfast I had a cup of chai masala tea while I took in the view of the valley. Everywhere you happen to stop in Nepal there is some gorgeous view of a valley. We drove higher into the hills. We stopped to switch out one of our tires at a roadside shack with old tires stacked all around. There was a lot of haggling and general confusion but eventually we replaced a tire or two on the bus.  Then we were off again, turning off of the main east/west road to the rough path that follows the Kali Gandaki river northward up the valley, deep into the Himalayan Mountains and the Mustang Valley. After a few hours of brain-vibrating travel up dirt and rock roads, we stopped at a roadside spot for Dal Bhat. I scarfed it down with my hands and hopped back on the bus. I had a fear of being left behind, as the bus would just scream right off when the driver was done eating. Once on this journey, we left some folks behind and had to turn back for them!  In the afternoon, the monsoons came and dumped sheets of water on the roads, turning them to slick, treacherous mud. There were many narrow sections just wide enough for our tires, with hundred foot drops to the right side. This was a very harrowing part of the journey, but I had faith in our driver and didn’t stress too much, as there was nothing I could do. We came through the narrow part of the valley up to a wide rock field interspersed with small streams. In this way, the shape of the Himalayas here was the same as in the Langtang Valley. The southern part of the valley at the foothills was steep and V-shaped, while the northern part of the valley flattened out into a broad expanse. Jomsom sprawls out in this wide, wet field of rocks at the bottom of the valley. There are snow capped peaks in all directions, and I can see the land of the valley rising towards Mustang in the distance.  We arrived at the humble Jomsom bus stop and the bus attendant made it clear that I would have to pay him an additional 2,000 rupees to get my bike back. The price had been agreed at Rs. 1,500 so this was some mild extortion, but with basically zero shared language he was quite successful at just bluntly ignoring my protestations. Eventually I needled him down to a 1,000 rupee bribe and frustratedly got my bike back. It felt good to jump on the bike after all those long chattering hours on the bus, and I quickly forgot my frustration at the extortion. Jomsom The weather when I arrived in Jomsom was windy, wet and overcast. Things were generally ominous and I started to feel slightly intimidated to ride my bike up into that dark valley ahead. It occurred to me that I hadn’t met anyone who spoke English that day, and I started to feel a little isolated. I took no solace from the imposing mountains hemming me in in all directions. I started into Jomsom to find a place to sleep before darkness fell. When I arrive in these small towns, my first order of business is usually to find a cheap hotel with a kind-looking, old woman working the kitchen. The older the better because I figure she has more experience cooking. I usually walk around visiting two or three hotels to check the menus and haggle a low price. Often, I can get a free room if I promise to buy dinner and breakfast. Even with such measures, the quality of the meals and the kindness of my hosts is usually a crapshoot. I found my hosts in Jomsom to be extremely cold and even disgruntled at my presence. The host, a middle aged women, never looked me in the eye and only grunted in response to anything I asked. I say “hotel” but most of these are just homes where the family is renting you their spare room. They cook your dinner along with dinner for the kids. In Jomsom I felt like a total intruder in the

There’s a colloquial term in Hindustani called Jugaad जुगाड़. Essentially, this means a “hack.” A clever & frugal innovation born of an environment in which nothing is certain and resources are scarce. Jugaad is the way that the snack-boy on the train meticulously stitches up a crack in his bin with scraps of tough plastic. There is Jugaad in the ancient Royal Enfield motorcycles which roar up and down the village roads, attentively maintained by Indians with no training in mechanics but a deep will to make stuff work. I even see Jugaad in the traffic, the organized chaos in which one can make no errors because there is no right of way; a chaos that necessitates understanding  and care in how you drive. When things are old and rigged up, you have to be humble, patient, and adaptable. When your bus has been stopped for over an hour while the driver searches the tire yard for a suitable tire among the mounds of old junk, you’ve gotta release your sense of self-importance & urgency and simply wait. Or even better- go help find a goddamn tire that has at least some tread on it because your life is on the line too. Jugaad infuses every part of the infrastructure in India, and flowing from the infrastructure it infuses the consciousness of the people.  I began to think of this Jugaad consciousness as a sort of catch-all philosophy on how to approach the barrage of the “unexpected” that it is being in India. Call it Jugaad-Firangi जुगाड़-फ़िरंगी, for an American trying to learn the way to operate in India. As an American, the humility required for Jugaad-Firangi consciousness does not come easy- especially coming from a big American city like Chicago. In urban America, many are in the midst of a series of tasks which must follow sequentially with minimal delay. The final goal of such doggedness is the satisfaction of being able to slump in front of the TV at the end of the day with some tasty dinner and have every item on that damn To-Do List crossed off such that the beasts of guilt and insecurity will sleep soundly for a few hours. In India, of course, people work mind-bogglingly hard- its just that their expectations are different. Jugaad-Firangi, among other things, is the conscious act of having no expectations of how things are going to go- and thus no anger or distress when the schedule goes to shit. When this state of mind is adopted it frees oneself in unexpected ways, and it’s visible in the whole shape of a community. You can see this in the way that people stop what they’re doing to help each other or simply have a conversation. Or even past that, to stand idly with each other long after the conversation has run its course. One thing that jarred me in India is how people would just stand next to me. Nothing to talk about, nothing to accomplish… if you need something I’m standing here, otherwise we’re just chilling. If you need help, let me know. Don’t worry about some silly thing like the “rules,” I’ll help you if I can. Jugaad-Firangi is my tool for addressing uncertainty in a chill way on this crazy subcontinent. And there’s all sorts of uncertainties from the mild, to the hilarious, to the deeply sad. “Will I have power this evening?” “Will this tuk-tuk manage to navigate through the herd of apathetic cows blocking the main road?” “Will this woman sell enough tea today to feed that 7 year old kid in the back of her shop?” While I was on the plane to New Delhi, in the midst of placing a ocean or two between myself and the only people who love me, I met a Sikh man. He was traveling home to Amritsar, India after years being away. He had come to Vancouver in his twenties and worked for a long time as a gas station attendant until he saved the money to purchase a gas station franchise. Among other things I asked him what was the worst mistake a foreigner could make in India. His response: “To become angry.” Snack-boy had stitched up his cracked plastic bucket Grilling on a bicycle Buying gasoline Making chapati on the wood stove Malayali locals in South India doing laundry in the backwaters Solar powered water heater Kids catching a ride up the hill Previous Next