My life in Mussoorie

I'm settling into a routine of sorts here with my volunteering gig at Woodstock. After a tea-and- homemade/poor attempt at-chapatis breakfast, I make the 45 minute steep hike down the mountain to Woodstock's organic garden. After gardening for 3 hours (mostly a fun game of breaking up the VERY rocky soil), I hike back halfway up the hill to eat lunch in the cafeteria. Depending on a number of factors, I either hike 15 minutes through the woods (also uphill) to Woodstock's environmental center to work on bulletin board displays, or hike halfway down the mountain again and spend a few more hours at the farm. One thing is certain, I am building some serious muscle.

The farm with its many terraces. Beautiful, eh?

The forest path

I finish the day by hiking back up/down to Woodstock, where I meet my neighbor, Immu, who works in the Development Office. She is our landlord's wife, and for all I know the only Ethiopian woman India. I don't know how Dan and I got so lucky as to live next door to her. She's wonderful and has already had Dan and I over for bunna (coffee). I love her quite a bit. And we always make the walk(definitely a stroll) home from school together.

Immu, all decked out in her Ethiopian finest for end of school year celebrations.

Our Crazy Trip to Nainital

This weekend we took a trip to see our friend Esther at a (Christian) Ashram in Nainital. It was a lovely time, although much too brief. It took us about a 14 hour commute each way, leaving us with just a day and a half with Esther.

Esther (on the right) with her parents and sister, Ruth.

The Ashram was in a remote and beautiful place, with green mountain lakes and lots of jungle. Nainital is still in Uttrakhand (same state as Mussoorie), but it still took us a 10+ hour train ride to get there. India is a big, big place; there is no doubt about it. Nainital is so far north that we were nearly in Nepal.

Shortly before we left, Esther's friend, Samson took us to the orphanage that he works at, which was kind of neat. The kids were pretty adorable and seemed happy.













Our trip back to Mussoorie was kind of insane. Dan and I don't actually know how we made it back in time for his Monday classes. First of all, I was really sick. I had a horrendous case of what Indians politely refer to as "lose motion". I had a 2 hour bus ride to survive before we boarded the train (with its blessed and easily accessible bathrooms). It was just our luck (no, really!) that it monsooned on us and we got stuck with a whole ton of other traffic behind a mudslide. The good news is that the mudslide and stopped bus coincided nicely with the worst of my illness and a very nice patch of overgrown jungle. I definitely would not have made it otherwise. After the downpour had stopped and just about the time I was done being awfully sick, some motorcycles and cars started driving over the landslide and eventually our bus was also successful in crossing the obstruction (Dan and I waited for the bus on the other side just to be safe).





The rest of our journey went pretty smoothly, except for 2 little kids that upchucked during our twisty ride down the mountain. We made it to the train station in time for me to be sick some more, somehow got moved from Waitlisted train tickets to each having our own bunk, and reached our stop at about dawn on Monday morning.

Sleeping on the upper bunk of a Sleeper Class train. Riding the train overnight was a first, and a pretty enjoyable way to travel.

Fossilized waves from when rock that now comprises the Himalayas was under the ocean.

After having a week to recuperate from my bout with a parasite, I decided enough hard-core vacationing and time to find a volunteering gig. I'm now spending time on Woodstock's campus, mostly at their environmental center. Tomorrow I will start working at their organic farm, I think. The two workers on the farm only speak Hindi, and I definitely only speak English, so tomorrow might be a game of charades and a little transplanting along with. We'll see.

Here are some pictures from a geology field trip that I got to go on with the first and second grade classes.

This is the shrub from which Mussoorie gets its name, the Mansur shrub. Its small purple berries are edible and taste sweet.

These are the fossilized trails of prehistoric sea creatures called trilobites. This is a rare and important geologic finding. The fossils will probably disappear as the rock erodes over the next decade.

Pictures from a weekend of exploration in Mussoorie/Landour. Enjoy!

Landour with its clocktower

The Mall, the main stretch in Mussoorie, was all decked out in streamers this weekend for some Hindu holiday (not sure which one).

Pausing in our climb up the mountain to rehydrate.

Mmm a juice stand.

Traffic going up and down the mountain along the narrow road/walkway/market/

storefronts is insane. We try not to get run over.

Walking around the less-traveled side of the mountain in Mussoorie (and pausing to admire a cemetery).

Looking down on Landour.

A clothing shop in Landour.

Looking back on the mountain road we hike up every time we go into town (the guesthouse is 4-5 kms up the mountain from Mussoorie).

Probably the reason I came to India. I love fruit! It is definitely worth lugging up the mountain.

Some of you were asking and, yes, I've got an address in Mussoorie for the next month:

---------------------------------

Adrienne Landis

C/O Mr. V. Uniyal

Wolf's Burn, Landour Cantt.

Mussoorie, Uttaranchal 248179

INDIA

My new home in Mussoorie

Here she is, Mussoorie, the 'Queen of hill stations'

My new house in the town of Landour "the Crown of the Queen",

it's a 5 km hike up from the main drag in Mussoorie

Dan and I are getting situated in our mountain paradise, Mussoorie, a 6-hour train ride northeast from Delhi. Well, almost paradise. We are lacking hammocks and monkeys to peel our bananas. But it's a pretty grand setup nonetheless. The only drawback is that anywhere we want to go is a VERY steep climb down the mountain. Or maybe a bonus, I for one have done entirely too much sitting around and trying not to sweat too much the past month or so.

We've been here for less than a week and Dan has already started his language classes. I am still figuring out what I want to do, if anything, and working on getting well. It seems maybe I'm not completely immune to all illness. I fell sick the instant I left Delhi and have self-diagnosed, thinking myself to be infected with giardia, a rather unpleasant parasite. Luckily, drugs in India are extremely inexpensive, so I've got some medication that should get me back up to snuff at less than 1% of the cost in the States. I was impressed, anyway.

In the pines, in the pines..... The pine-scented, cool mountain air cannot be matched.

Note especially the Tibetan prayer flags. I'm pretty sure there are Tibetans around this area as well as plenty of hippies to account for the prayer flags we've seen flying everywhere.

If it hasn't quite come across yet, I'm pretty excited about my new location. Dan and I have been taking some time to explore some areas near our hilltop home, but we have yet to go all the way down through Mussoorie. Mussoorie is known as a vacation spot for both tourists and Indians as well as a for it's good schools. Landour Language School, where Dan goes, gives some of the best Hindi instruction in the country, and Woodstock, is a premier international K-12 school in this region of the world. There's a lot of culture here-- Indian, Asian, international-- which translates into a lot of neat shops and restaurants that I'm pretty pumped to try out. Oh, and the guest house where we are staying has a full kitchen, which means I get to cook again! And to buy delectable fresh produce from down the mountain.

As if it weren't enough, May is the start of mango season. Between fresh mangoes and banana lasse's (banana yogurt shakes), I'm pretty much in heaven.

The view from Landour. The round building is part of Woodstock School.

Sick of hilltop views yet? I'm obviously not!

some pretty sweet views of delhi

Here are some photos from Delhi. If this does not suffice, you should probably check out www.danshetler.blogspot.com to get the other half of the story (and photos).

Dan and I in front of the Lotus Temple (a Bahai place of worship).

The Qutb Minar- Mogul ruins from as early as the 12th century.

Delhi traffic

The Covered Bazaar leading into the Red Fort, Old Delhi.

Inside the Red Fort (wonder where it gets its name?)

Some impresseive Mogul ornamentation inside the Red Fort.

Jamma Masjid, "Friday Mosque", Old Delhi.

A crowded street, Old Delhi.

New Delhi, in part

My trip to the North when even better than I could have expected. As it turns out, trains in India are super comfortable for sleeping (at least the AC sections) and for watching the countryside pass by. I was nervous about getting stuff stolen, but I was lucky enough to have some very kind and trustworthy roommates. And being a foreigner and a woman traveling all by myself, I was treated to everything (food, tea, water) by the business men riding in my compartment. Not a bad deal.

And Delhi is very different from the other views of India I've gotten. It's fast-paced, full of traffic and includes the whole range of slums to ritzy 5-star hotels. I had a fabulous time and successfully met up with my friend Dan and his co-worker, Esther, who showed us an incredible time and tirelessly guided us around, cooked for us and put us up. We took about a million photos, but I'll post them another day. For now, this will have to do.

A colorful shop at a Delhi market (With thanks to Dan for the photo).

Esther and a man hand-stitching a Kashmiri cloth. It will take him 2 MONTHS!! to complete this piece, if he works at it full-time. We didn't ask the price, but I can imagine it costs a pretty penny.