Jodhpur and Jaisalmer

Jodhpur and Jaisalmer 

Out and about on our own in India.   How very different from the quiet catered experience we had been having up till now. Also,  Gujarat, while it has some tourists, didn’t have many westerners and didn’t cater to that group quite the same way and for that reason was a lot more laid-back for us. 

Jodhpur and Jaisalmer are tourist destinations and as such you get a lot of people selling you things, talking to you, and following you on the streets.   After awhile, you get used to just walking by people and ignoring them completely. This is the best way to handle the situation.  Unless you actually want to talk to someone,  do not turn your head to engage them.  If you do, you are inviting a discourse of whatever it is they have to sell you.  I got a bit better at this practice than Jamie did so I found it a bit easier to walk around. 

Regardless of these issues, both cities were really great fun.  Jodhpur had an amazing fort with an excellent audio tour.  We spent 4 hours there just wandering around looking at things.   The next day we went over to the Jaswat Thada, A memorial one of the kings built for his wife. It was a very beautiful and peaceful marble structure, and we found that it and the grounds were wonderfully maintained. There we met two Australians and we all took the auto ride over to the one World Heritage site in the city, the Umaid Bhawan Palace.  It was built over a period of 14 years in an effort to provide work to people during a famine (oh capitalism).   Unfortunately you can’t go into it unless you pay 3000 rupees (around 45 dollars) or make a reservation at the bar which will cost at least 1000 rupees (15 dollars) and then you can’t see anything else.  Staying there can cost 2000 USD!   So we trekked up there,  looked at the antique car museum, gazed at the outside of the building and wandered back.  As we only had two days in Jodhpur we got back in time to grab some dinner and head to the train to take us to Jaisalmer. 

At the train station we met a charming Spanish couple (Alesh and Lisa) that ended up sitting with us and then staying at our hotel in Jaisalmer, the Tokyo Palace.  We spent the time traveling around with them and one of the adventures we partook was to go on a Camel Safari together (the word safari is used very loosely).  

Jaisalmer is in one of the driest areas of Rajasthan, and popping right out of the middle of the desert is an almost magical golden sandstone fort.  Built up over the last 500 years or so this walled domain is still inhabited by 3000 people or so and filled with shops, restaurants, and guesthouses.  The sellers hawking stuff was a little less than Jodhpur (probably because their are less people in the city) but still enough to encourage a brisk pace up the ancient stone ramp into the small city.  Once inside we found two attractions, a self guided audio tour of the palace (nice but didn’t hold a candle to the tour of the Jodhpur fort/palace), and a collection of Jain temples.  The Jain temples were absolutely stunning.  It was one of those places that just desensitizes you to the level of complexity that went into its construction.  The entire thing was covered in ornately covered stone, I think the only smooth surfaces were the floors that we walked on.

As mentioned before, we also did a desert tour by camel with our new friends from Spain.  This apparently is the thing to do in Jaisalmer, and it seems every hotel is offering some variation of this.  We thought why not and we booked through our hotel.  We all jumped into a car and drove off out of the city for a half hour or so before we stopped off at a local musician village - another one of Jaisalmer’s claims to fame is music.  We said hello to the villagers and then quickly made our destination, a small gathering of camels by the side of the road.  We each were paired with a camel - getting on a camel is pretty easy, as they start of kneeling on the ground.  Getting up for the first time is a bit of a surprise as they do so in two stages - first their back legs and then their front.  And camels are tall!  It was a smoother ride than we expected and our saddles worked out fine for the four of us.  We rode for perhaps an hour until we arrived at a small camp in the sand dunes.  We hung out for a bit while our guide put together a fire and made us some dinner.  It was quite nice and peaceful, and we enjoyed seeing the stars with very little light pollution for the first time in a while - the only draw back was that another camel tour had included with it music and dancing and it clearly had some amplification equipment as we could hear it the whole time.  We were not perturbed, we still had a wonderful dinner in the desert starlight. At some point, Shannon started asking if camels run and our guide said, yes, indeed they do. So he took her out for a wild, dark mildly terrifying run on a camel.  After all that excitement,  We made our way back in the dark (camels have great night vision apparently!) and drove back the hotel for around 10pm. 

Next stop: Delhi.  We are currently (hopefully) nearing the end of an epic train journey from Jaisalmer to Delhi, one that was supposed to leave at 12:45 in the morning and arrive at 10:00PM, but left at 2:30 in the morning and we are afraid to even guess when we will arrive.  Adventure!  Luckily we are in an “AC2” Sleeper, which is pretty spacious and comfortable enough.  More to come.

This is the view from our hotel of the fort in Johdpur.

This is looking down at Jodhpur from the fort.  The blue houses are everywhere.  I've heard a few things on this point.  One was that the Brahmans painted their houses blue. Another was that anyone would paint their house (or door) blue for luck and to ward off bad spirits. Whatever it was and for whatever reason it is now-I like it. 

While I was listening closely to the audiofile, I can't quite remember what this room in the fort was used for. Entertaining of some sort I'm sure. Don't you just love it? I really enjoy the stained glass windows. 

Jamie. Just relaxing after all that learning.

This is that palace, Umiad Bhawan, that I mentioned above. Built to feed people during a famine.  Viewed from the fort. 

This is kind of an hilarious story.   We accidentally locked our key in our room. The hotel doesn't have extras, nor does it have a master key.  When we told the front desk their faces dropped.  Then they asked if we had an open window, to which Jamie replies that we do, but that no one could fit through the bathroom window.   Oh how wrong we were.  

To get into our bathroom window, the guy had to climb out of this room which was, thankfully empty.  Notice the tiny tiny ledge he shimmied across.   Unbelievable. 

Desert Watermelons! 

These are our camels. I'm riding ATM and Jamie is on Hot Shot.  

Our camels stopped to eat what our guide described as "camel chocolate". 

I really like these shadow shots. 

Alesh, Lisa, Jamie and Myself at dinner. 

These figures were on every wall in many of the rooms of the Jain Temples.  I really liked the sign.  

These two men are cleaning the temple from top to bottom.  He's holding, essentially, a flat head screw driver and chiseling off the dirt on the walls. You can see the difference from above and below his tool. 

The picture, above, is of the far right hand corner. You can see him reaching into that corner now. They started at the top and still have another 6 feet below them. 

This is the view of the Jaisalmer fort from our hotel. This fort, unlike others I have visited, is still inhabited and still intact.   You walk through the gates of the fort and BAM, it's liek a mini city.  It's pretty incredible.  There's temples, cafes, restaurants. It is chock-a-block full of people and things. 

Interestingly, when I say it is still intact, that's a questionable statement as there are some serious issues of disrepair, mainly from water seepage.   Everything in the fort is now modernized, including water pipes-something that didn't exist when the fort was build in the middle of  desert back in 1156.  The water seepage has created some serious issues with the footholds of the fort and consequently there has been some collapse.   This, of course, is exacerbated by the thousands of people like me who come to visit the fort yearly.  

Bad Weather in Antarctica

Practically halfway through July.  Time is flying by.  At 1pm the sky is hinting at a light blue these days.  I was expecting to be thrilled that the sun is coming back but instead I'm a bit apprehensive.  The darkness has a nice mellow quality.  I don't feel bad just relaxing in my room or having quiet time.  It's OK if I don't want to go hiking or if I don't take a lunchtime walk for exercise.  It's dark and cold out!  You SHOULD stay in.  However, now that the sun is coming back,  it's almost like I can sense the coming frenzy.  In August our population with double and we'll have normal days and nights.  I am looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong but it feels like the end of a nap.    You know you'll be refreshed when you get up, but you'd just love it go on a little while longer.

I was worried our winter would pass us by without a good storm but we were given a doozy of one last Thursday.  We categorize our weather into three "conditions". Normal daily operations is Condition Three.  This is nice weather and we have no restrictions.  The parameters for Con 3 are: winds less than 48 knots,  visibility greater than or equal to ¼ mile, and Wind chill temperature warmer than -75°F.    Condition two comes with restrictions to recreational travel but work as normal continues about town:  Winds 48 to 55 knots sustained for one minute or  Visibility less than ¼ mile, but greater than or equal to 100 feet sustained for one minute, or  Wind chill -75°F to -100°F sustained for one minute.   It's not uncommon to have Condition two weather.  It's cold and windy but workable.  Condition One is rare.  This was the first time I'd experienced it here.  Condition One means you cannot leave whatever building you are in without a Search and Rescue escort.  If you are in the dorms, they set up rope lines between the dorms and the dining hall  so that you can eat but you have to travel in groups and check out with the firehouse when you leave and then arrive at the next building.   In this recent storm, it got so bad at one point that they cancelled ropeline travel between buildings as well.  Condition one parameters are: Winds greater than 55 knots sustained for one minute or Visibility less than 100 feet sustained for one minute or Wind chill greater than -100°F sustained for one minute.

The morning started out with bad weather.  We tried to drive up to work but couldn't make it.  At one point we tried to follow someone walking but once they got 15 feet in front of us they would disappear.   Finally we had to roll down both front windows and just drive hollering directions between driver and passenger.  We stopped at the first building we came to and walked the rest of the way.  About 15 minutes after we got to work, the operations manager called us to warn us that they would be changing the condition and we should head down the hill now.   It was 8:30am.   Travis and I struck out to get down the hill together.   Instantly, we were almost blown over and couldn't see any landmarks or buildings.  Instead,  we walked toward the hazy streetlight in the direction of town.  When we got there, it was not where i expected to be and only being able to see 20 feet in any direction, I couldn't orient myself. Thankfully Travis knew where we were and got us back on track.   We stopped in at the galley, gathered snacks and provisions and then went to our rooms to wait out the storm.  The weather continued to get worse throughout the day so we had a snow day!  It was great fun.  People came and hung out in our room, we made arts and crafts,  listened to music and generally just hung around.

While we had a great relaxing day, many other people got called out to deal with all the issues the arise from a Condition one storm.  One of the main issues is temperature moderation. The science building, IT building and NASA equipment is all very sensitive to temperature and with the winds blowing so hard and fast, it's hard to moderate temperature which meant that alarms were going off in all of those buildings all day and people had to be traveling back and forth trying to keep McMurdo systems up and running.  The galley, of course, has to go to and stay at work during Condition One, the Search and Rescue team is out and about escorting people to and from buildings with their GPS systems and fire dispatch becomes a hotbed of activity as people are calling in and out to walk between buildings, report alarms or  request assistance.

The next day is when the fun of clean-up happens.  Fleet Operations is the crew with all the big equipment to get out and plow town out.  The were in their trucks ready to start working at 7:30 on the dot.   When we walked up to our barn, we had a HUGE snowdrift in front of our barn doors. The smallest part of the drift was up to my hips and it started at the door and then came out about 25 feet.  Thankfully, because we have buckets for our loaders, fleet ops came up to help us get out so we could get to work helping to dig out town.   The winds were so intense that in some places there was no snow on the roads but in others it would be 5 feet deep.  Trucks were buried in,  cardboard had blown all over town,  many of our big shipping containers had been knocked around, off stacks or blown down the road, the supply crew had to take a full assessment of all their outside storage and, of course, everyone who was able was out shoveling.   While my co-workers were helping to plow, I had to cruise around town to hunt down all our lost or tipped trash bins and set everything back in order.  By the end of the day, remarkably, town was pretty much back in shape.  There's still a few things that need to happen, but mostly, it looks good.  This is very important because we have a flight coming in this week. The same crew that puts town in order also has to get the runway up and running.  With the condition one that we had, it means there job will be all the more difficult.   They will have to plow and groom the 14 miles of road that leads out to the runway and then smooth and groom the runway to the specific requirements of the AirForce.  Not only that, but out on the iceshelf, the wind really whips through so many of our building there are flipped over, moved and I've heard rumor that one is even lost.

For all that, it was really insightful to be in Antarctica during a Condition One.  It was a good reminder that this is a wild place.

After the walk back to town through the nasty weather,  I went to take my pants off but the zippers were clogged with snow and ice. That was from less than 10 minutes walking outside.  Snow gets everywhere.  It is insidious! 

Our friend Dan standing outside our dorm door during the storm. 

A short progession of the snow accumulation inside one of our windows. 

A nice fine cover. 

Could make a snowball out of all that. 

This is our bedroom window.  I keep that wool blanket over the bottom half to keep out light and cold so that we can look at the stars while in bed.   This window also got a little snowy.

The light is about 5 carlengths away. There's a whole building there.

This is just one of 5 milvans that got blown around during the storm. One blew all the way down the road. 

This is the bathroom out at the airfield.   Thankfully all the good inside would have been frozen. 

McMurdo Winter C17 June Flight

          The first official "winter flight" came and left last week.  It was a big event.  It's remarkable for any plane to arrive on it's scheduled day so for a plane to be only 3 hours late on it's inaugural winter flight is pretty remarkable.

For the flight to land, we turn out all the lights on the runway because they use night vision to land the plane and the lighting will ruin their ability to see.  To help them use the night vision more effectively, we put out the incredibly reflective cones all up and down the runway. INCREDIBLY reflective. According to the pilot, they could see the cones 250 miles out.  I was lucky and got to go out to help with them.  It was kinda fun to be out there during all this prep for the plane and to see who all is involved.   The Fleet Operations guys had been out there daily for 6 days prior and then constantly for 30 hours prior to the flight. They groom the runway so that a plane can land on it and considering that the runway had been unused for 6 weeks, they had quite a task cut out for them. This was not made any easier by the bad weather and wind bringing in snow drifts and uneven ground.   They were all exhausted. Also, in the days leading up to the flight, there's around 4 mechanics that just hang out incase a vehicle breaks down.  To add to the excitement on the Pegasus Runway, a seal had made it's way onto the runway.  The firefighters had to use their expert skills at Wildlife Management to move it.  Unfortunately, they aren't allowed to touch the seal, so "expert skills"  amounted to them waving their arms and yelling "shoo" from about 3 feet away.  The seal could have cared less.   It was kind of hilarious and kind of sad because it's quite possible the seal was out there in the first place because it was sick and dying.  As a side note, I often think about how if the seals talk to each other, I imagine they experience us as a kind of "alien adduction". Especially if it's scientists that are coming upon them they get treated to spinal taps, anal probes, flying vehicles (aka helicopter or airplanes) all that craziness.   Not so far off from our "alien" stories.  OK back to the flight. 

For loading and unloading the plane, the supply crew gets brought out to become the "cargo" crew to help get all the pallets of food, equipment and luggage off the plane.   The fuelies are standing by in case the plane needs fuel (unlikely for a C17) and then people like me get brought out to do the little tasks and fill in where needed.  The plane lands, does not shutdown, unloads and reloads and then heads off again-all in less than an hour.  It's a pretty remarkable system. 

In other news, May is over and done!  June is here.  We are moving so quickly through this season.  May brought with it the end of "Civil Twilight" so we are in darkness all day long.   I've included a picture of May 1st and then May 31st (both taken at 1pm).    I'm surprised at how easily I've transitioned into living in constant darkness. I thought it would be much more difficult.  I took me quite some time to get comfortable with constant daylight so I expected a similar thing going in the other direction but it hasn't been so bad.  My guess is it's because I was here for the transition.  It's not like I stepped off the plane and it is was dark constantly and I had to adjust immediately. Experiencing the change has been very helpful.   It was a mildly difficult sleeping when I could still see lighter colors in the sky. I think my body was waiting for the sun to come up each day because the sky would be somewhat light in the morning but then when it never did it just meant I was tired all day long and then couldn't sleep at night.   When that was happening it felt like it took forever to wake up.  As it is, it still feels like I'm not fully awake until around 10am, but I can sense that this is slowly lifting and I'm settling in as there is less variety to the light.   I've also made some dedicated life choices and I think those have helped stabilize my mood and transition.  I do a "bootcamp" class twice a week and try to walk/run two other times.  I've also been drinking a lot less and trying to sleep 8 hours every night. Who knew doing healthy for your body would lead to healthy things for your mind!  Gosh!  Can't believe I'd never tried it before! 

Enjoy the pictures.  I started us off  with pictures from the Top Gun party to show off my awesome makeup and crimped hair.  

The supply department put on a Top Gun Themed party and as I didn't have flight suit, we just went for a general 80s look.  

Aren't we adorable? The party itself was incredibly fun. They decorated the cargo bay with Cargo netting and airplane props,  we had a beanbag toss (called Corn Hole in the Midwest-who knew!) and they had a Tom Cruise Scientology Center.  The Scientology center was great because the Scientologists had, earlier, in the season sent us a LOT of literature on Scientology, bizarre, but we finally found a use for it.  

On that C17 flight we got mountains of mail!  More mail for 142 people in June than we got for over 700 people in December for Christmas.  The flight came in on Wednesday. The mail lady and 12 volunteers started sorting Thursday Morning at 9am so that everyone could get their mail by Thursday afternoon. What service!  And thank heavens too as we had planned Christmas for the Saturday following the flight.   Santa comes in JUNE! 

Not only did we get mail on that flight but we got fresh vegetables! 3700 lbs of it!  Nothing better than fresh lettuce in Antarctica!  And Coconuts and Papaya!  And Feijoa!  What's a Feijoa you ask? It's a fruit that looks a bit like a kiwi but is bright green and has a sweet/tart flavor. As I was eating this Feijoa (in Antarctica),   I was marveling at how rare it is to try a truly new food.  I can't remember the last time I've had something that I had never had before.   It was a delight. 

And here's the plane! Landing in the dark.  Four people were scheduled to leave on that plane however by the time the plane left, it has 8 people on it.  It brought us 7 in so our winter population is down to 141. 

May 1st 13:00

May 31st 13:00.  Admittedly, it's not this ridiculously dark when I'm taking this photo.  My sad camera has begun to die and doesn't do a great job anymore.   we have gotten a new one.  HOWEVER,  my point is clear. the sky is black and at 1 pm it's nighttime outside. 

Fun in Antarctica!

When we were first planning on coming down here, we had been told of all the fun things there are to do but it's a bit hard to believe how much there is to do until you've been down here.  We brought books and movies down here to pass the time.  Oh were we wrong. Even with a 54 hour 6-day work week,  the social calendar during the summer is non-stop and infact it feels a bit frantic.    Things are a lot quieter now that it's winter but there's still a fair amount going on.  Here's a general list of things that happen here.  Almost all of the things happen both winter and summer but during the winter it's not necessarily every week or with so much at one time.

Here's a basic list of the things that happen here:

Weekly Events: 

Travelogues: Every Monday people have the opportunity to share pictures and stories of their travels.  We've heard stories of peoples trips on Cargo Ships around the world,  hiking the Anapunra trek in Nepal, bike trips across Australia, rickshaw races across India and all the long walks across America. The weekly travellogue is a dangerous event to attend because it just keeps adding to the list of places to visit and things to do.
TedTalks: On Wednesday there's a selection of TedTalks that is shown in the galley.
Science Lectures:  Twice a week the scientists give lectures of the work they are doing down here.
American Night at Scott Base:  The New Zealand base is 2 kilometers from ours and on Thursday nights they open the store and the bar to us Americans.  It's really nice to be able to go somewhere new to hang out and shop.
Brunch:  Every Sunday the kitchen prepares an excellent brunch.  When we were living in Korea I remember paying upwards of $40 for brunches that weren't even as good as these are.
Open Mic Night: Technically not every week, but still an incredible event.  The talent here is remarkable.  There are so many talented singers, songwriters,  poets and performers.
Two-Step Tuesdays:  Every other Tuesday we clear away the tables and two-step!

The following events are pretty self-explanatory. 
Karaoke
Yoga
Insanity
Volleyball
Basketball
Soccer
Rugby with the Kiwis 
Boxing Classes 
Spin Classes
Trivia



Outside Opportunities:
Hiking: There are 4 different walks you can go on here.  Two small ones out from and around town, both about 3 miles.  The longest is Castle Rock Loop, 10 miles and during summer you can walk/ski out to the Runway.
Cross country and skate skiing:  These can be rented from our "gear issue" and you can ski out to the airport, our out on the castle rock loop.
Snowboarding: The Kiwis have an actual ski lift which if you make friends with them, you might be able to use.   However,  you can hike out the the hill at the Castle Rock and ski or snowboard down that.
Marathon and half-marathon: Heck yeah!  If you're really motivated, you can train to run the marathon or half-marathon.

Bands and Parties:
Halloween: This is a huge party and one that people make plans for before the even get down to the ice.  People come with great individual costumes and group costumes to compete in a costume contest. If you win, the prize is usually a trip somewhere.  Very fun!
Waste Barn Christmas Show:  The Wasties go all out for the Christmas party.  This year the theme was from Ferrous to Paris and they decorated the barn like a street full of cafes in paris.  People sing all sorts of songs both Christmas and other.  Again, this is another event that people look forward to all year.
VMF Christmas Party: On Christmas Eve the VMF hosts the Annual Christmas Party.  There's a performance from the Choir, a Santa appearance, photo booths, a photo display, live music, a wine bar,  and snacks.
Icestock: Perhaps the biggest event of the year.  Icestock is our New Years party.  It starts at 6pm and goes until midnight on new years (although this year it was technically a on January 2nd and the countdown to the third was 5 minutes late).   Bands practice all season and perform on IceStock. There's a chili cook-off and usually about 7-8 different types of chili to test and sample.
Math Club:  This is a weekly, alcohol free party this is strictly about dancing.   It is incredibly awesome.  Even people who hate dancing usually love Math Club.  It's early in the evening so people aren't drunk, there's no guys creeping up on women. It's dark with fun lighting and no one cares about how you dances.
Dance Parties:  Aside from Math Club, there are spontaneous dance parties all the time. People love to dance here! Any opportunity to dance here!
General work center parties: Throughout the season the various work centers have parties with live music (and dancing!).   Carp shop, helo hanger, the BFC. Any place that has a big enough space and the time to host a party.


Other Random Things:
Dance Groups:  Special Project Other is a dance hip hop dance crew and will not only put on one or two dance performances but also a great flashmob at Icestock.
Cribbage Tournaments: This is an hilarious obsession on station.  Tournaments are almost constantly ongoing but there is also the "Cribbage Bracelet" that people are constantly challenging each other for and then flaunt when they win.
Film festivals: Each season, both winter and summer, there is a film festival that people on station can participate in.  During Winter, the festival branches out and becomes and international festival and people from all the stations in Antarctica participate.  I can't wait to see it!
Discovery Hut and Cape Evans Hut: Discovery hut is Shackleton's hut that sits right near station.  We can walk out to see it and a couple of times a year we get official tourguides to open it up and we can go inside and look around.  The Cape Evans hut is a little farther out so less people can get out there.  Only about 50 people made it out there this season (neither Jamie nor I).
Room with a view: This is a trip we can sign up for or win by raffle. It's a snow mobile ride out to a hut with an excellent view of Mt Erebus.
Ice Caves:  Another trip that can be won by raffle and another snowmobile trip. This one goes out to the IceCaves in the Erebus Ice tongue. It's the glacier that flows off of the volcano, Erebus.  
Tug-of-war competitions: This used to be an annual event that they brought back this season.  We had a team of 6 vs the Kiwis.   We lost royally.  The Kiwi had actually practice.   We lost in seconds. But it was great fun!  And a very serious event.  We had to weigh in before we could compete. The Kiwis were overweight so that had to drop one person.  Did I mention we lost?
Manhauling competition:  This is a ridiculous competition where people haul, either in teams of 4 or singly, weighted sleds across the ice.  Technically this is part of the Tug-of-War competition, the team that loses can then challenge the winners to another competition.  Whoever decided on Manhauling, i have no idea.  I'm sure you can guess, the kiwis were very good at this too.  They are a bunch of young and very fit men that are competing.
MAAG:  A yearly art show; Performance art, painting, sculpture, music

The Ice Caves.  And the video tour! 

Halloween!  A ghostbuster and David Bowie

Skiing out to the ice runway. 

Our friend's band, Shitty and Loud.  Their title is very literal. 

Dance Party! 

Icestock!!

Inside the Nimrod hut. 

MAAG.

Karaoke! 

The start of the 5K.  You didn't think we actual ran a marathon, did you? 

Hiking with Sage!

VMF Christmas Party

Holiday Meal!

Room with a View Trip

Trivi Night.   Notice the concentration.  They've won twice in a row and are a bit intolerable.  

More hiking! 

My awesome dance crew.  Special Project Other. Feel free to click the link and watch us! 

A link to my performance with Special Project Other: