Delhi Wedding

Well, we had an amazing time in Delhi celebrating Kunal and Monika's wedding. There were 3 days of functions, fun and dancing. Dave Kennewell joined us for the last 2 days of functions. Highlights included Nathan's stole catching fire at the wedding, Dave being harassed by an elephant and much more. It was awesome fun being part of the baraat. As Kunal was on the horse and chariot, all of his family and friends danced with a huge band for hours as we approached the wedding venue where Monika and her family was waiting for us. There were fireworks, an elephant, huge lanterns, a moving bar and LOTS of noise - it was excellent fun!!

We'll let Dave's photos do the talking....

Us with Kunal (my cousin) and Monika

Some of the family

Henna hands

Kunal and Ishan

With Ishan and Tania

Wedding chaos in the house

Girl cousins tying the sehra on to Kunal

Dancing with the band at the temple

Kunal and Ishan on the horse

A bit wary in front of elephant

Dancing fun!

Kunal and Ishan on the chariot

Kunal peeping at his crazy family dancing

Case in point.

This drumming guy looks like ravan

Kunal's dad tearing up the dance floor

And again....
And some more...

And some more....

Monika arriving on palki

The bride and groom
Dave eating like a Maharaja

Waiting for the wedding ceremony to start (it's about 3am in the morning....)

Leaving after the wedding ceremony (about 5am....)

Annapurna Circuit

We just completed Annapurna Circuit!! Dave, Nathan and I had a blast and now we have "Calves of Steel" so look out! We're just adding a few photos, mainly Dave's, given that I dropped our camera on route...... We took 17 days to complete the circuit. The length of the circuit is disputed and most say it is 230km long. I would agree that it is at LEAST this long and possibly they mean 1,230,000km.

Luckily none of us had done anything at all to prepare for the trek, except buy ridiculously cheap trekking gear in Kathmandu. My "Goretex" boots were only $30 and I was shocked to discover on route that they weren't waterproof! Who would've thought?!

The boys required an additional acclimatisation day in Yak Kharka near 4000m (wooss bags). I started getting a headache at 4550m but we all took tablets and were ok for the day of the pass. The day we did the pass (5416m high!) was stunning - beautiful sunshine and no wind - whoopee!! Our Guide has done the circuit 100s of times and couldn't believe our luck with the weather!

Scaling a landslide / road "construction" (with no warnings of blast times - how exciting!)

After watching "Into Thin Air" sitting on a yak rug, we couldn't believe people could be so unprepared before climbing Everest. After the movie we opened the door of the 'cinema' to discover pouring snow - we ran back in thongs/sneakers without any wet weather gear....

Where's Dave?

We went for a little acclimatisation stroll after reaching 3500m. We were lucky to view this avalanche from very close up! Meanwhile back at the lodge, our guide was a little concerned of possibility of 3 missing Australians

All lodges claimed to have "24 hr Solar Heated Shower" - brrrrrrrrrrr (Dave didn't shower for 6 days in a row! Nice one!! Sorry to Dave's mum - this is no indictment on how your raised your dirty little boy)

Trekkers contemplating the 1km climb to the 5416m pass the next day.....

Walking at about 5am to get to the pass. It's freezing and the air is thin....

Still trudging up the 1km ascent....

Proof we made it to the Thorong-La pass - woohoo!! 5416m!!

What goes up, must come down!! Well done to my $10 fake North Face wet weather pants - they worked!!

Wet, wet, wet on our way to Pokhara (this is where my "Goretex" boots FAILED)

Teaching the local Nepali people to play poker with chocolate money

MOUNTAIN MAN COMPETITION

Pre and post Mountain Man experience. Who has the best mountain beard?

The following will offend vegetarians

Well what a start to the new year. Not unusually we were greeted in the morning by Masai who had taken to popping by to have long chats to us in what we believe was Swahili, happily bantering away with us completely unaware of what he was saying. This morning it seemed Masai wanted to lead us somewhere - we didn't know what he wanted so we followed him into the property next door and came to understand he wanted us to take a photo of him. After much confusion we finally realised we needed to go to where a large cow was standing and take a photo of Masai and Nathan with this cow. So here is the photo.

This is where we met Loveness, a very friendly Tanzanian girl who introduced herself to us after we walked into the yard unannounced with a Masai warrior and took a photo of her family's cow. Loveness who is a lawyer in Dar es Salaam informed us that in a few minutes, the cow was to be slaughtered cooked up as part of their family new years tradition. She introduced us to her lovely family and they all insisted we join them and their friends in the days celebration. The slaughtering was hard to stomach and has surely made us reconsider our eating habits. Masai was a key-man in the process and although he was thin and tall, he was crazily strong! He turned the whole cow over on his own! And he did not spill a drop of blood on himself or anyone else. The whole process was swift and precise with everyone operating as a well oiled machine. It was incredible and a little disturbing to see the massive pots full of seasoned beef which had been moo-ing only minutes before.

Then we got to witness a most incredible feat that would put all good catering businesses to shame. Some of the women and men of the family began the cooking process - meat, veggies, bananas, potatoes, rice etc were all being cut, chopped and seasoned. The cooking was carried out in the largest pots I have ever seen. The meat was cooked in about 4 different ways and accompanied with spicy vegetables, salad, pilau and biryani. It was such a smooth process and looked much easier than it was. Everything was spiced and cooked to perfection, using oversized spoons (the size of shovels) to stir the food. The smells were divine!

From the slaughter to having an incredible amount of food on the table, only took about 3 or 4 hours. The food was served piping hot, a complete mountain on each plate, for several hundred people!! We had never witnessed anything like this!

We parted ways (with very very full stomachs) and Loveness' mum had saved a mango for us from her farm, and she insisted we take it for dinner. Hands down, this was the best mango we have ever eaten.

Thanks to Loveness and her family for restoring our faith in humankind (- Nathan and I were becoming cynics after being ripped off, cheated and lied to so many times through Africa.

Happy New Year!!

A Masai New Year

What an amazing new year. After fleeing Mzuzu (see posting when added) we happened to pull into a carpark in Karonga, next to a bank and lo and behold there were our intrepid german friends going for an afternoon walk. Flash forward to New Years Eve and we decide to head from Dar es Salaam to Kigamboni beach just outside of Dar for a bit of sun worshipping over the new year. We jogged onto the back of the ferry as it pulled away from the wharf, doing our best to emulate the complacent style of the locals (though we didn't have big bundles of fish/bags of coconuts on our heads).

Once there we did the rounds of the hotels and to our shock found they were booked (New Years Eve must be a big deal over here). Our helpful taxi driver came through with a last alternative once we managed to convince him that we were capable of staying in a 'local' hotel. So that is how we arrived at Ngonda village camp. Literally on the beach (white sand, turquoise water) we settled into our airy thatched bungalows, Renu and I in "London" and Irmi and Hubert in "Rome". The bathroom facilities were almost exactly like those 5 star exotic hotels in the tropics. That is they were outside right by the beach, surrounded by only a thatched fence and surrounded by palm trees. The only difference was that rather than a pebbled floor and plumbed facilities there was a hole in the ground and a 44 gallon drum of water with a half platic bottle floating in it. All in all pretty good for $10 for a full night. Especially when you consider the security.

On exploring we found that adjacent was a massive local pub/restaurant which was gearing up for a big New Years celebration with a stage and a stack of speakers powerful enough to call someone to dinner from the moon.

This was as local as it gets and so was the smell of our clothes, so we enquired about getting some laundry done.

"No problem! Just wait I'll call Masai"

5 minutes later our host returned with a Masai warrior!?! A real Masai warrior. An authentic fully kitted out Masai warrior who grinned eagerly at us in anticipation of receiving our laundry as if he had travelled from the Masai Mara specifically for that purpose.

The only modern element of Masai's attire was a pair of red board shorts under his gown which bore the insignia of Tuggerah Westfield Shopping Centre (very strange!). This was the second encounter with clothes from home we have had travelling through Africa. The other was when we met someone drinking at the bar in Malawi wearing an authentic St. Aloysius' College Cadet unit camouflage shirt. Unfortunately in that instance the first name of the original owner had worn off the tag but "Chan" was clearly discerible (further investigation perhaps of the DNA variety will be required to facilitate a re-union of doner and recipient).

Well if one thing can be said for the Masai, it is that they can wash clothes. Our clothes were so clean after the Masai treatment I started to imagine a laundry powder and advertising campaign built wholely around Masai. We were happy to be informed that Masai was our security, in fact we were enthusiasticly told "No problem, no worry, Masai security" so many times that we started to worry and contemplate what sort of environment necessitated a fully armed Masai warrior as security.

As the day progressed so did the insanity of our host who took to obsessively sweeping and re-sweeping and arranging and re-arranging the seats out the front of our bungalow. His ramblings became so malarial at times that we often would have to feign a language barrier and a need to be somewhere else. This was becoming inconvenient as he generally camped himself outside our front door and remained there nearly all of New Years Eve day and night and into New Years Day.

And so it was with much happiness, many 500ml, $1 beers, a little horrible south african wine and far too much drunken Australian and German free form dancing that we hailed in the New Year. It was an absolute blast!!! The music was loud, the beers were cold and the locals were friendly. In fact given the number of people, the age distribution, amount of alcohol not to mention the usual funtion of our lodgings (Renu and I really should write a guide book to African Brothels on our return) it was a very well behaved evening. Much less seedy that an Australian equivalent. I wonder how much of this had to do with the presence of Masai.

Masai was neither tall or particularly thick set but he was the most impressive and scary security I have ever seen. The silhoutte he cast moving sharply through the half light which dappled the revellers was striking and sobering. The ratio of party go-ers to Masai was impressive. Unfortunately Masai declined a photo this day.

Speaking of sobreity I declined (with some little trepidation) Masai's request for a second Kilamanjaro beer. Being unsure of his normal drinking habits, I was loathe to facilitate the reduction of his inhibitions any further lest he take to his security duties with too much gusto and his unsheathed knife.

Thankfully the night ended well and we were confidently walked back to our bungalow by an unstumbling Masai at around 4 in the morning and there would be no slashing that night.