Trekking to Hippo Falls 4:44 PM

This was the backpacking trip that the Kalra family planned for a family vacation.  It was up in the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh.  I’m feeling a little pressured to see pictures so here are all of the pictures from the Northern India trip.  I mixed in there pictures form Fazilka, Neeralaya, and the Himalayas.

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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.