Paragliding in the Himalayas 5:12 AM

While we were staying at neeralaya we took a day to go up to a local ski resort. The girls went zorbing at the base while we tried to bargain for a good price to go paragliding.  That's right, I said PARAGLIDING. Something I have always wanted to do and whats a better place than to do it with the Himalayan range surrounding me. The whole family bought tickets to take the gondola up the ski area to jump off each in a tandem paragliding set up. It was so much fun. The big bummer of the day was only Tamanna and I were able to fly. Due to winds the family had to take the gondola back down after waiting for more than an1 hour. I felt bad but I offered to go later. But inside I was stoked to go first. I had always wanted to go.
All my dreams came true once I jumped off the ground with the wing on my back. I had a wingmen who only spoke the himachal language but I didn't care. I was just so happy to be flying above the trees. Seriously one of the best things I've ever done.

Neeralaya 1:39 AM

Once we finally made the long car drive from Fazilka to Manali, which took close to 10 hours I think, we pulled into our luxurious cottage stay!!! The small resort was called Neeralaya and was located at the edge of the owners apple orchid. It was a beautiful place, well located and really felt like a completely different place than the streets of Himachal. The layout of the place reminded me a lot of the cabin on Kenai lake. A small cabin, some gardens, and then the water, the place was great. We spent three nights before our trek.

one thing for sure, both Tinesh and I were ready to buy our own cottage as soon as we arrived, but they weren't for sale.

Delhi and Fazilka 9:22 AM

So to catch everyone up on our lives real quick Tamanna and I have both graduated from BYU last month.  We packed up all of our belongings into our small 1990 Honda accord and drove from SLC to Seattle, where we will both work for Microsoft starting in July.  Ok so currently we have a 2 month break so we decided to spend our 2 months in India this summer. The itinerary was to go visit family in Delhi, Fazilka, go backpacking in the himalayas, listen to Elder Holland in Delhi, then return to Goa. The next few posts will be some photos from the trip.

We stayed at Tamannas grandparent's house in Delhi which was nice. They were amazing people I had to start learning Hindi so that I could talk with them. By the end of our stay my Hindi was horrible but at least we converse with small phrases.  We took a train to Fazilka to meet tamannas other grandparents.  Fazilka is where Tamanna was born and is a small village in the state of Punjab on the Indian-Pakistan border. Tamannas grandparents were super nice and showed us around their farm. They also had a reverse hottub. It was a huge coldtub which felt amazing in the hot hot heat.  Fazilka was fun while it lasted. It was cool to see how the village remained a small town for all these years since tamannas youth. Themarket was the same and so were many of the places she remembered.
Here are some photos of these days:

The blessing of GSM 8:58 AM

For my birthday this year I asked for an Indian sim card with data on it so that for my 2 month vacation in India I could bring my unlocked cellphone either my Samsung Focus or Nexus One and have internet while there. What I didn't know was the cost.  I thought I'd post the costs to show everyone in America how expensive our data plans really are.
Airtel sim card: 50 rs = $1
2gb of data: 98 rs = $2

I love how its super cheap, compared to $30/month for 2gb.  The only network I have been able to connect to is an Edge network but if I remember when the iPhone first came out, all that was availble was Edge in alaska, so its not that bad. I really have enjoyed it though. I have been able to keep up on my emails and stay online of gtalk so now I have quick and easy communication with most of my friends and mother who loves knowing updates on how unsafe some of my adventures are.
Another huge advantage of having a data connection over here are maps. I don't feel lost ever or like I'm traveling out in the boonies. I just open up maps and I can see exactly where I am. Its great. Sometimes I have to even tell Tamanna how to get places cuz she doesn't even know. Maps is a great tool to have when in a foreign place.

Ok enough about me and my phone craze. I promise to get some cool pictures up of northern india because I have tons!!!

Thanksgiving in the Desert: Oro Valley and back… 11:28 PM

We had such a fun time spending time with my Grandparents.  We didn’t have a lot pre-planned we just wanted to relax a little with the Grandpa and Grandma.  we did however find a 5K running race that was happening the morning of Thanksgiving so we signed up not knowing much about it and just decided to spend the morning doing a little work out.  It was really fun and we didn’t even know it was going to be so popular:



The race was the 17th Annual Thanksgiving Cross Country Classic and was located in a park that was near downtown Tucson.  Neither of us placed but we weren’t in it to compete, we just wanted to have a little fitness fun.  There were so many young children that ran the race and old grandparents who ran it with their families.  it was awesome.
That evening we had a wonderful meal hand-cooked by on of my favorites chefs, my grandma.  It was just us four and we had plenty of food to make a little leftovers the next day.  Thank you so much Grandma for cooking!!
Staying with the Grandparents is always fun, there is always wonderful food for meals or for snacks, you always get to spend time on the crossword each day, and playing with my grandpa’s new touchscreen desktop computer was pretty fun.  We talked Grandma and Grandpa into joining us in a game of mini golf and turns out Grandma is still a champion golfer.



Grandma, of course, beat all of us.  It was fun to see my Grandparents get out and do a little golfing with us.  I had a lot of fun just watching and playing with them.  Afterwards Tamanna and I took the golf cart for a little spin around the full 18 holes.  It was way fun to drive Grandpa’s little gas powered golf cart.  It was pretty fast for a golf cart.



We had a few more adventures in Oro Valley but to shorten this post up a little bit.  We headed back home after 4 days and we decided to take a new route home.  The grand canyon was a fun sight to see on the way down but we decided to switch it up a little and drive through Las Vegas on the way home.  This allowed us to see a newly constructed bridge that had been built right next to the Hoover Dam.  Grandma and my dad have been wanting to see this bridge so this is a photo collection that Tamanna and I gathered from the bridge.

After the Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge we decided to jump on the I-15 and drive all the way home.  We loved our Thanksgiving break.  It was very fun and I’d like to thank Grandpa and Grandma one more time for letting us stay at their place over Thanksgiving.  Thank you!!

Thanksgiving in the Desert: Flagstaff to Oro Valley 11:24 PM

Tamanna and I slept in in Flagstaff and when we woke up we realized that if we wanted to get to the South Rim we would have to grab a bite to eat and start driving once again.  So we ate at a cool lil mexican restaurant where I got some really good rice and beans.  we bought one more Thermarest for Tamanna (sort of a late birthday or an early Christmas present) and started driving to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  The South Rim was still very cold and very windy.  We were still very cold so we couldn’t do as much hiking as preferred but we got some good pictures and videos:



We came across this deer who seemed to be stalking us.  It was very strange, we think it wanted food but we were just as hungry because we hadn’t even eaten since breakfast:

Walking with a Deer

We spent some good time at the South Rim and had planned on camping there but once we realized that it would’ve been another cold, windy, and wet night in the snow we decided to make the drive further south to see if we could find a free campground near Phoenix. 
We drove till well into the night.  Tamanna asked me if I could find a campground on my phone and to find one soon since we were both getting tired.  I found one campground which was close but up in these foothills north of Phoenix we took the chance and turned off the highway to drive on this dirt road for awhile to see if we could find this so called campground that I had found on Google Maps.  Turns out it was an empty campground shut down for the season, which means Free and Quiet!!!

We woke up in the morning to a quiet campground and readied our stuff to drive all the way to Oro Valley.  The rest of the drive was what we had planned on, desert. We drove straight to Oro Valley and thus ended our road trip adventure to Grandpa and Grandma’s home.  Quite the trip if you ask me.

Thanksgiving in the Desert: The North Rim 10:00 PM

Tamanna and I decided to spend Thanksgiving with Grandpa and Grandma Green in Oro Valley, Arizona right outside of Tuscon.  We decided to leave the Saturday before Thanksgiving so that we could have some good days to camp out at the Grand Canyon.  We drove the whole day to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon only to be greeted with the snow.  We thought we were leaving the snow behind us in Utah by driving to Arizona a desert state, we were wrong.  We got in super late and it was snowing so we thought we would wake up to the sun and look at the North Rim.  In the morning we woke up @8am to a crazy snow storm with lots of wind and about a foot of snow: (this is where our tent was after we took it down quickly)

We decided that the fog was too thick to see anything and that we better try to head back out because there was about 45 minutes between us and the nearest town.  We thought we were all alone on the North Rim and we didn’t want to get snowed in, so we immediately tried to leave.  Tried is the keyword, we got about 5 minutes out before we got stuck ourselves in the new 12 inches of unplowed snow.  Tamanna and I tried for about 15 minutes to get the car unstuck before a park ranger came and informed us that the snow plow is coming and that we would have to move our car to let the plow pass.

With some help from the Ranger, Tamanna, and the plowman we were able to move the car so that the plow could continue plowing the way.  There were about 3 other cars that were behind the plow so we joined the line up and started down the road.  One the way we kept running into people that had gone off the road. 

Along the way we got to meet some climbers, a German who had 3 months holiday in the US, and a family from California.  We all had a great time pulling people out of the ditch and conversing while following the plow.  Then the plow went off the road and got really stuck, we had been helping cars and vans out of the snow but there was no way we could get the plow unstuck so we decided to drive back to the visitors center which was a heated building and waited for the plow to get unstuck.  Tamanna and I played cards and another couple just drank coffee trying to get warm.  We had only brought sweatshirts for cold weather gear thinking we were going to the desert.  We were freezing in the snow!  The storm did lift for about 10 minutes and we did get some good pictures of the North Rim:

The Grand Canyon was huge and beautiful.  The rock was beautiful looking and with the snow on it, it seemed so surreal that this huge canyon was made naturally.

This lift in the storm lasted for about 10 minutes then the wind brought in the clouds again and the storm was in full force once again.  We ended up not getting on the road for about another 4 hours.  The ranger then said that the road was clear and that we could get out if we wanted to.  So we started driving again.  We saw the sport where we got stuck, we drove past all the places where we helped everyone else get unstuck, we drove past the place where the plow was stuck and we thought we were doing good.  The snow was really coming down, it was white-out conditions and driving was getting difficult.  (not much of a ‘Forest’!!)

We were just following the red lights that we could see in front of us.  Then we found out the the road was not completely plowed and that the second plow that was supposed to get the job done had also broke down, and was waiting for a mechanic and parts.  So we decided to follow a mini-van and drive the rest of the way out of this road to a nearby truck-stop called Jacob Lake. That drive was the whitest drive I have ever made:

This is a Storm Snow as referred to by the German!!

we finally made it Jacob Lake by about 6pm to grab some dinner and get back on the road to have some daylight to drive in.  We had decided to drive to Flagstaff where we thought we could dry off in a cheap motel.  On the way we met up with a guy from southern France named Fred, who was on vacation by hitchhiking around the west coast and had decided to rent a car to drive to the grand canyon.  He had spent the day helping a hiker who had lost his keys in the snow while on a hike in the Grand Canyon the day before.  The keys were lost in the snow and he had given the hiker a ride to this truck stop to stay at the small motel that they had there.  Fred wanted to drive with us because it is safer to drive two cars together than tempting the elements by yourself so he followed us while we drove to Flagstaff.  We left the high altitude pretty quickly and soon we were driving in clear black skies with stars and had left the ‘Storm Snow’ behind us.  Along the drive we stopped and took some cool shots and views of the rocks and the Colorado River at Nighttime:

That night after driving for quite awhile Fred decided he wanted to camp on the South Rim and we wanted to go to Flagstaff so we parted ways and drove to Flagstaff.  The journey continued in the morning but that is another post.