The last few days have been eventful indeed and thus will eventually explain the few days of silence on this little space in the Internet.
Oh where to begin…
Let it be known that if you are in India and are, for some ungodly reason, tempted to go to a three day trance party in the woods make sure you know everything you can before you commit.
Joshua and I made the mistake of misinformation and ended up in a series of hilarious and bizarre situations.
I suppose I should start at the beginning. Thinking it might forward our story somehow last Thursday we purchased some gypsy-like clothing and crammed ourselves into the back of an over packed share taxi on the way to experiencing our first Indian trance party.
A small fleet of a dozen or so white tourist vehicles like ours took the more than 100 eager party goers to a spot in the middle of nowhere on a bumpy three hour drive from the town we’re staying in.
On the way the scenery was beautiful. The sun set over the rocky mountainous terrain casting a golden glow over the green pastures and fields on the valley floor. The locals we passed smiled and waved staring curiously at the sardine packed tourists speeding off into nowhere.
As the sun dipped below the horizon line our caravan stopped in the middle of a village that likely was seeing its first foreigners. A small shop sold cloth and another sold snacks and packaged pastries of unknown origin.
Feeling the cold on our skin and fearing that our hour or so of preparation might not have been enough Joshua and I sprung for a couple three foot pieces of colorful fabric with which to wrap ourselves against the quickly cooling air.
Looking like complete assholes we trudged up into the mountains following a line of backpackers who presumably knew the way to the magical trance glade where we would all go nuts.
We climbed up a rocky boulder strewn path through small villages where the local shepherds and their families lived. We waved and smiled and uttered namaste as we stumbled forward in the cold.
After about 45 minutes to an hour of this we got to the spot where the trance was supposed to happen. Rather than a glowing glade pumping bass and good vibes into the night, we instead found a cow shit strewn field surrounded by thorn bushes. The only evidence that we were in the right spot was a pile of dirty mattresses and a table with a something that looked like a turntable on it.
Having not been given any direction we grabbed a couple sullied mattresses and wandered off to find a place to put them where we wouldn’t be stabbed by nature our bathed in cow dung.
Soon after people began setting whatever they could on fire to ward off the cold. We followed suit and it was good for a while. An international crowd gathered around our small burning pile of thorns and talked and laughed. In another corner of the field a few shepherds were huddled over a ditch fire making some sort of stew in a cauldron that looked like it dated back to the Raj era.
We figured tomorrow had to be better than this and held out hope as we sipped whisky and ate the scalding shepherd goulash with our hands. It was soon after this that things began to go further south.
Surrendering to the night Joshua and I bedded down and tried to sleep. Unfortunately a cadre of babbling Indian men, who we were later told were undercover police, had decided that our fire was the perfect place for them to gossip, laugh and shine flashlights into the eyes of these two cloth wrapped and shivering foreigners.
When it was clear they weren’t going to leave we picked up our soggy mattresses and struck off to find somewhere else to pass out. This turned out to be a minor stroke of genius. We found an open spot at the mouth of the field and managed to fall asleep among the multilingual noise of conversation and the halfhearted bearing of a tabla drum.
At two or three in the morning the “party” was raided. Between 30 and 40 uniformed Indian police officers streamed in carrying sticks, guns and super powered flashlights. They began poking at the sleeping foreigners presumably searching for charas (hashish) and baksheesh (bribes).
For some reason Joshua and I weren’t bothered. Maybe we looked too tough, maybe we looked too manly, maybe we just looked too pathetic lying back to back underneath a shared sleeping bag, half wrapped in a dirty mattress shivering in our silly gypsy clothing who knows.
Either way we got out unscathed save for the thousand or so rupees we lost between the ticket and the taxi ride back from that hellish spot.
• • •
Yesterday despite exhaustion from the events of the day before we all hiked up to top of Triund, a mountain bordering the town we are staying in. Today my legs are stiff and sore. In the evening we watched some pretty amazing gypsy women perform a fire dance.
Here are some pictures, as these words are getting too hard to write, check out Joshua’s blog for more details:

We finally managed to find a place to stay and by the end of today we should have our war room set up and be ready to chase this story.

Yesterday I got hit with the sickness and getting out of bed, when it did finally happen, took a Herculean effort. We spent the day wandering around McLeod Ganj and Bahgsu settling bills and trying to play chess. My head felt heavy and my body ached.

We’ve set up shop in Dharamkot the smallest of the three villages the make up the majority of upper Dharamsala. We’re basically in the center of little Israel, today we sat down for breakfast and were handed menus completely in Hebrew.

I’m not sure what our plan of attack will be but we’re certainly ready to act on it. Adam and I have decided to try and walk around without our cameras as a sort of exercise in paying more attention so pictures will have to take a little break.

Check out Joshua’s blog for more insight

Here are a few pictures I took the other day:

As I write this a woman who must be in her late fifties ambles on by wearing a bright orange genie-style outfit, from her head extends a veritable forest of graying dreadlocks and around her neck various ethnic accouterments jangle and bounce.
After fourteen hours on a bright turquoise Tata bus we made it to McLeod Ganj and it is good. The weather here is cloudy and temperate, jackets in the evening, jeans during the day.
It’s a stark contrast to Delhi. Here it seems the local tourists have adopted a sort of anything goes attitude in their dress and demeanor. Che Guevera shirts, low crotched pajama pants and tie-dye hand knit pullovers are the flavor of the month. With the occasional blanket cape thrown in for good measure. It certainly makes for good people watching.
Sitting in a café yesterday watching some important cricket match scores of colorfully dressed young and young at heart locals poured in and began lighting up thick joints of hashish to pass around. No one seemed to mind. As I said before it seems anything goes.
Today we plan on making a move to the little mountain town of Bagsu in order to get closer to the action. We need a proper war room to get our project started so today we will be on the hunt.
I’ve been feeling a bit off, strange bouts of vertigo and exhaustion coming on without earning. I’m hoping it’s just the altitude but my hypochondria pleads otherwise. I might make a trip to a Tibetan doctor to settle my mind.
Well that’s all for now. Check out my colleague Joshua’s blog for some more perspective.

Ahh India the sights, the sounds, the smells as much you get used to them there’s always still room for surprise.

Today Joshua and I had the pleasure of taking a trip to ISBT, the Delhi bus station, to try and buy tickets to Dharamsala. I’m not sure what ISBT actually stands for but in my mind it will always be Incredibly Shitty Bus Terminal.

That place is a special kind of bad. I understand we’re in India and that things are not always going to be pretty or nice but ISBT is down right medieval. It rained today for about five minutes which meant that the place was basically flooded. Small rivers of dingy trash water streamed through the bottom floor and everything that could, dripped and oozed. I’ve been to this place once before and it was not a fond memory.

We navigated a series of garbagey lakes and made it to the ticket counter. After standing in “line” (in India the concept seems to either not exist or only be loosely understood as a clump of humanity in which one is free to push and lean until they get where they want to be) for about an hour I was told that the bus was full and that another Volvo bus (the nice one) was not available until Monday but that I could take a Tata bus (the possibly hellish one) tomorrow. Feeling the pressure of the huddling mass behind me I made what I hope won’t be a regrettable decision. Tomorrow we ride the Tata to Dharamsala. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Tune in tomorrow to see what we actually ended up riding in…

Here’s a look at ISBT:

Yesterday was a hot day even by Indian standards. We had more errands to run but feared stepping outdoors. The thermostat climbed into the 100s today (40s if I’m trying to be international) and the dust was prevalent as always.

We’re now officially freelance journalists, at least according to our cards… All the pieces are in place and so now we’re heading north into the mountains to start working on a couple stories.

Last night we hung out with a bunch of journalists at the South Asia Foreign Correspondents Club. It was an interesting scene. I’m not used to seeing that many writers and photogs hanging out together. Everyone seemed to be doing pretty amazing things and a lot of them came over here to work freelance. Pretty inspiring to see more people making it work out here.

Hopefully we can too.

Here are a few things that caught my eye yesterday:

Continuing the trend of errands mixed with photo hunts today Adam and I struck out to take care of business cards for Joshua and I. Unfortunately he was unable to tag along as Delhi belly decided to strike in full force leaving him incapacitated in the apartment. I still haven’t gotten my bout of it yet but I’m sure it will come and I get a bit nervous each day that it doesn’t.

We finished our and errands and were trying to figure out what to do when the sky began to darken. I thought it might be rain but it instead turned out to be a dust storm which I hear is typical before the monsoon. The air took on an orangish hue that recalled the film Dune and my mouth and nose were filled with grit. Watching bicycle commuters valiantly battle the gusts was pretty interesting.

Here’s a bit of what I saw:

are one thing in India that never seem to get old no matter how many times I take them. For those who have never been to a place where these contraptions are put to use here’s a little background. A rickshaw is basically a three wheeled motorcycle with a metal shell. It can fit three people “comfortably” plus the driver, but I’ve fit as many as five people at a time in one.

They’re noisy, beat up and really not that fast but the view you get from them is wonderful. I never get tired of watching the city whiz past and on a hot day the air in your face is a welcome respite from the heat even if it sort of feels like a blow dryer on low.

Why don’t you take a look for yourself?

So this blog existed before with a few nice posts detailing the road I’ve traveled and where I’m at now, but through misuse of FTP I killed it. Alas. So here’s another try.

Let’s catch up…

In brief, I used to live in Tampa Florida but I live in India now. I’m trying to pursue a career in freelance visual journalism along with my close friend Joshua. We got to Delhi a few days ago traveling from Tampa to New York City to Munich to here.

India can be an intense place, it’s hot and crowded and dusty and full of bizarre things that just don’t seem to make any sort of sense. I was here for about three months last year and found much of it very confronting. The sensation is different this time. I guess I’ve just sort of learned to accept the heat and the things that I just can’t control or understand.

My friend and Delhi host Adam Huggins has been a great help, showing us places I didn’t think could exist in this nest of chaos.

Last time I was in Delhi I thought the place was terrible. I spent my one night in the backpacker haven of Paharganj and was pretty much through with the place. My room was windowless and lacking AC which during July in India feels like a special circle of hell. On top of that the touts were fierce trying their best to “fix” my sandals and sell me useful things like bullwhips and pinwheels.

Today Adam, Joshua and I revisited that dusty nest of wires and hippy-dressed Westerners during our walkabout of the city. This time around I laughed at the fact that I had spent any time there at all. After seeing other parts of India’s capital it seems to me that the people at Lonely Planet are playing some sort of devious trick on naive backpackers by suggesting they go there to stay.

Needless to say Delhi is far better the second time around and I look forward to seeing more of it before we head up into the mountains to start working.

Here are some pictures of Delhi