Clueless

I wanted to write an informational detailed account of some of my recent hiking trips as a helpful 'how to' guide, after all how hard can it be?(ring a bell!)
But what can I say, I had no idea what was the final destination in my last hiking trip, we were just walking it up. Next day I was looking up the route, how far we made it and where was the last milestone. Needless to say I will have to undertake the hike again, so that I can walk back with the smug look of actually reaching the end point and then may be offer some words of advice..

Let me try to paint a picture, imagine two clueless Indians trudging uphill with no idea of how far they are from the end point while regularly coming across gaily retreating Chinese hikers. When you can't communicate, everything seems like a mystery and in this case a Chinese mystery (where were they heading back from, what was at the end of the hike, how close are we).. constant questions and no answers, so clueless!
It was almost sunset hour, and the only website we had referred for our hike research talked about a cop who had gone missing somewhere along the trail. Although I couldn’t fathom how, because it was a paved road and there were green taxis going up and down along the road ferrying passengers back from the mysterious ‘end point’. Perhaps I had researched a different trail and we were hiking on a different route..So much for background research in the information age!

Just today I came across an expression, ‘flying by the seat of one’s pants’, meaning to decide a course of action as you go along, using your own initiative and perceptions rather than a pre-determined plan or mechanical aids, which sounded about right for most hiking trips I have undertaken in HK so far and this one in particular.

I was curious about the origin of this phase and did some research. This is what I found; the phrase traces its root to early aviation parlance.  Aircraft initially had few navigation aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilot's judgment. Flying by the seat of one's pants was originally a literal (or nearly-literal) phrase, meaning to use all of one's senses -- including lateral and vertical "G forces" transmitted to your derriere through the seat -- to control an aircraft in flight. Also the pilot would feel the side of the seat to tell how the plane was moving. I was glad to discover the roots of the expression and thought to share the gyan along!

Coming back to the afore-mentioned trail, the 100-kilometer MacLehose trail, traverses Hong Kong’s New Territories from sea level to a peak elevation of about 550 meters (1,800 feet). Here is Hong Kong's most varied - and finest - countryside. The east coast, where the Trail begins, is deeply indented and wild. The central mountains, which the MacLehose Trail crosses, include many of Hong Kong's highest peaks. And the western part, where the Trail winds to its end, has impressive valley reservoirs. (Thank you Wikipedia and such)

The MacLehose Trail is divided into ten stages, and we were (unknowingly) attempting the first section-10.6km stretch. This is not a trail but rather a paved road alongside a concrete retaining wall for about 5 kilometers on one side and the aqua waters on the other side. Since we were not in a hurry to reach the end point of the hike, we took a detour from the paved road, climbed down the hilly slope, hopping on tricky stones and boulders to reach level ground by the side of the reservoir.

It is always a good idea to leisurely lie down on your back on a gentle rock and let the sound of gushing water drown the noises in your head and experience the weightlessness of the wind as it blows away your worldly cares. It is also a good idea to pack some juicy oranges for such an afternoon. When our gods (aka Hanumanji) couldn’t resist the orange temptation in the sky, mere mortals like us cannot be blamed for our orange indulgence on a sunny afternoon sun!

Having enjoyed a leisurely break we thought of continuing our journey since everyone else seemed to be briskly marching ahead. At the sight of each panoramic view along the road we had the temptation to stray from the regular route and explore the vista beckoning us. However like prudent travelers we marched onwards in the hope of completing the trail before sundown. Also with no internet connection and scant milestones/directions along the route we had little information, we were just flying by the seats of our pants.

Directions from people walking down the road were of no avail, the 15minute estimated arrival time didn’t quite ring true when we had walked for 30mins and no end was in sight. We tried to track a passing taxi to get some clue about the distance remaining but that also didn’t help us much because the cliff offered a limited view and the taxi just turned around a corner far ahead and disappeared. The thought of getting stranded here away from civilization with no Naan & Palak Paneer for dinner didn’t quite appeal to us and we turned back.

I’ll update this post once I complete the hike. This time I’ll probably have a better idea of our undertaking, the route and the destination. Also the promised details of the route/bus number will also finally make it to the blog..

From what I hear Section 2 of this trail is better and interesting than Section 1, also it sounds a good idea to cover the entire 100km. Guess that’s how life is, one moment you have no clue where you are headed and next you want to walk the entire 100km stretch. Humanity you were always doomed!

Mind's Eye

Straight face me: “If I was not a Naini girl, I would have been a Cali girl..”
Uncontrollable burst of laughter from the other end of the phone, people do appreciate a good sense of humor!

Every time I visit California I am surprised at my ‘wannabe’ streak. However this idea is not so far-fetched, you are either a city girl or a country girl (for lack of better word for all things ‘nature’).
I am just saying give me some green hills, an orange sun, foaming waters, sandy beaches and I am a very content happy person!

On my flight to LA, I was reading about the scientist Nikola Tesla and his experiments with alternating current, wireless transmission of energy and Tesla prong and I feel somewhat inclined to define happiness in terms of physics. You are in a happy state when you find your resonance with a place, person or activity. You connect at your natural frequency, you are most alive, and your mind is unconsciously taking notes (some call it memories). These memories are like an incoherent map of happiness for future reference, a collage of images and experiences frozen in space and time. (key words-incoherent, frozen)

If I was to make a time-lapse video using images captured during my recent trip, the storyboard would look something like this:
LAX airport- colorful pillars you see just before landing, busy, makeshift structures at the arrival section; LA’s palm trees along the roads, curves, always moving traffic. Hit the freeway in the black shadows of the night against the backdrop of the city light. The black shadow of a hill appears right in front of you and as you race by the hill, it recedes and flanks you on the sides. The hills like the loyal sentinels hide away the ocean; however not for long, even the dark shadows of the night cannot conceal the foamy white waves from sight. You slide down the car windows and smile as the lights of passing cars, the wind, the sound and smell of the ocean all hit you at 80mph!

DSLR geeks tell me that making time lapse videos from RAW images is a lot of work but the human brain is unique, it can store millions of memories and string them together in the most beautiful way. I can close my eyes and see the stories that emerge from the images of the peaceful setting sun at the beach, the competitive full-moon following us all the way from Santa Barbara to LA, the picture-perfect postcard town of Solvang with its foreign Dutch air, the cliff with the view of a serpentine railway track running parallel to the shore, the quite ranches and big houses cleverly hidden behind tall trees.

Hopefully all the driving and parking lessons along the way will also stay in my head, at least till the driving test. Here I am completely banking on my Mind's eye!

A little sun...

In the last few days there were two small motions that I noticed around me that triggered a chain of thoughts in my damp head.

The chill is slowly trying to sneak in and how I hate the lousy companion it has chosen-the dim witted fog and the half-hearted rain. The depressing fog greets you every morning and the constant drizzle tests your patience through the day. This sloppy weather is making me miserably miss the sunshine, so much so that I sense a certain dull humidity in my own head. I hear myself singing,

Give me some sunshine, Give me no rain..

Give me another chance, I wanna love the weather again!!

Before I ramble more about the weather, I will come back to the initial purpose of the blog and talk of the two motions.

1) The digital clock on my mobile going from 9:30 pm to 8:30 pm as I just crossed over from EST to CST.  We were driving back from Indianapolis to Champaign and since I don't drive, my job was to extend moral support to the person behind the wheel and keep her company with an entertaining but not too distracting conversation. I would have so wanted to shut up and snore peacefully but I was duty bound. Since I was so awake I glanced at my mobile and saw the digits change in front of my eyes. To lose time on my way up and then gain it on my way back is no bargain but still to get an hour at 9:30 pm, made me suddenly more awake!

2) I sat by my window watching the light drizzle outside with not much of an appreciative look. There were clear signs of the onset of winter, the changing season. As I registered all the changes around I noticed the rain drops landing on the sun dried leaves, the leaves getting detached and fall freely to the ground. For me the movement of the falling leaves was a beautiful personification of Tom Petty song Free Fallin'..

And I'm free, free fallin'

Yeah I'm free, free fallin'..

I guess both these triggers were significant, they made me conscious of time and change. Perhaps the two most powerful things in our life's. Its really a cathartic experience to look at life sometimes and think how time has ushered in so much change in us. All the 'what if's' that come to mind, wondering what life would have been if time took you back or forward in life. All the people and places come to mind and I just smiled for everything that has come my way and brace myself for the winter that is inching closer with each passing day.

However all I ask for is a little reassuring sun somewhere in the sky above! I have no answers for this solar fixation but I blame my pahari genes... :) Or may be the sun is just symbolic of a constant that I like to have in my life when everything around keeps changing with each passing hour..

The Play of Clouds

I had 20 minutes before my creativity class and so i just went and sat outside the library to soak in the sun. And I just became a part of the game between the sun and the cloud.
For a brief 10 minutes I was aiming my camera at the shining sun and the clouds floating beautifully at a distance. Perhaps that was just part A of the celestial game. The winds of change soon came over, I felt a cold chill run through. The brightness around disappeared in a fraction of time as a big dark cloud overshadowed the sun. I angrily aimed my phone camera at the arrogant cloud.
They say 'every dark cloud has a silver lining', Thank God for cliches they do come true!
I encouragingly smiled at the sun peeping from between the clouds and walked back for my class.

Suns and shadows-III

The lofty sky is so far above the lowly earth..

The earth is the playground of the mortals, the sky ostensibly of the immortals. 

The earth is a riot of colors, the sky a somber blue. 

They are miles apart, stretching far far across the eternity. They are so distant that we fool ourselves believing in a make believe horizon; a place where the earth and sky actually meet. It’s a beautiful illusion but nevertheless is an illusion. I believed in the beauty of this horizon, I believed that the horizon truly exists.

I thought if I waited long enough for the night to give way to morn I could see the sun shine bright at the far off horizon..

I thought if I waited for the bright sun to set, i could see the golden colors play at the distant horizon..

I needed to see the horizon to keep my faith alive..

I needed to see the horizon to keep my hope alive..

I needed to see the horizon to believe that the sky & the earth do meet eventually..

And then one day I just realized that all i was doing was waiting. Wait for something to happen and was so deep in self-doubt that i needed to look into the mirror each time to believe in my existence. I wondered if to wait is to cease living.. Life often brings us to this point of self-doubt, where we choose to either stay put and wait or stop waiting for things to happen.We wait stoically and patiently and perhaps long enough to see the horizon after the long day ends.. Or then sometimes we force ourselves out of this reverie of waiting and choose to stop believing..

Yet every time I watch the sun set in the vast blue waters of the ocean I still believe in the transient beauty of the moment...I guess acceptance of this transience is the only believe that can tide  the eternal wait for some of the most beautiful moments of life..

Another new year!

To look ahead 365 days from now and take a wild guess as to where life would take you is beyond imagination. To look back 365 days from now and think how far you have come along just makes you realize how life has its own way to unfold just one day at a time. I understand that the reverse clairvoyance to see that far back may seem overwhelming for some people. For those of you the closest example I can think of would be a kaleidoscope. The patterns change and emerge with each gentle movement. I saw the simplest version of a kaleidoscope at a roadside stall along a beach. It was just two perpendicular glass tubes, filled with a colored liquid and some sparklers. As I looked though the eyepiece, the sunshine around magically conceived the most beautiful patterns in the glass tube in my hand and with each of my hand movements I saw new patterns evolve. So it is with life the patterns emerge, distort and keep changing. Some days it just gets cloudy, some days the hands are just not steady. What lies inside stays the same but what shows on the surface is never the same. 

I am not sure whether I want to hold the glass tube steady and keep looking at what I behold now. I somehow invariably have the itch to shake things slightly, move them around to see what more can evolve. Then I have a second urge to hold on to some patterns that just seem too dear. But incidentally someone too likes to play this game and sometimes he chooses to smile radiantly with all his warmth and sometimes he just shies behind some loathsome cloud.

So for all the sun-shine, clouds, rain and snow bring them on.. its a New Year yet again!