A JOURNEY TO KASMU

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY TO KASMU

By Ajit Chaudhuri – August 2013

Introduction: This note is about a visit to Kasmu, Estonia, on 27^th April 2013.

I will begin with events in the early 1930s, when a young lady in a coastal village in the country of Estonia was the object of attraction for the village adventurer. Her parents, obviously not enamoured of the prospects of this relationship, decided to circumvent things by sending her to London to learn English. The law of unintended consequences duly applied, she met an Indian medical student while in London, and they fell in love and subsequently married in 1935. They returned to India in 1938, the young medical student (by then a doctor) joined the Indian Army Medical Corps and rose to become a General, and they had four children – the youngest of whom is my mother. They retired in the town of Dehradun, and he died in 1985, a little after their 50^th wedding anniversary. She lived on till 1996, never visiting her village or her country (which in 1940 became part of the Soviet Union) again.

I was close to my maternal grandparents and spent a lot of time with them (and later with my grandmother). They were typical grandparents, I suppose – I was always sure of my welcome, and there was always something good to eat in the house. My grandfather was a typical military patriarch, and the only thing distinguishing my grandmother from a fairly typical Bengali housewife was her light hair and blue eyes. The eldest of my sisters, who was also close to them, said that she also had a certain northern coldness – my grandfather was always delighted at my unannounced visits, but like all Bengali men did nothing in the house; my grandmother was never so overtly happy at them, but did all the work, the additional cooking, cleaning and bed making, that made me comfortable. It was only when she took out her photo albums and showed us pictures from her childhood that we actually saw her animated.

She loved showing these old black and white photos of her family and friends, and talking about her childhood in the village Kasmu, her school and the various cultural performances she took part in, and the times spent playing on the rocks along the shores of the Baltic Sea with her friends Sigrid and Jus. She talked about the Sea School in Kasmu, where her father and most men in her family had trained to become ship captains. She talked about her visits to Tallinn, the country’s capital city, usually done in an overnight sleigh ride, with all the wonderment of a village child seeing the big city lights. She also saved up, to my grandfather’s amusement, a Reader’s Digest article about Ahto Walter, her adventurer admirer, who went on to set records in Atlantic crossings. Estonia, in her descriptions, was a land of milk and honey.

The entrance to the Sea School (now Museum) at Kasmu 

But there was sadness in her tone as well. She could never go back – the independent Estonia she had grown up in did not exist – it was a corner outpost of the Soviet Empire. Her mother, father (who died early) and stepfather were all dead. Those of her relatives who could not escape to Finland or Sweden (both countries across the Baltic from Kasmu) and become refugees in foreign lands were systematically rounded up and shipped off to Siberia, where they died. There was nothing to go back to!

My maternal grandparents (large photo), the brothers Jakob and Alexander Kaskni (right) and Nadezhda

We, the elder grandchildren, did not think too much of it – Estonia was always some faraway place that our grandmother talked about, and nothing more. It was only when we saw her happiness at Estonia regaining independence in 1991 – we were delighted that it happened in her lifetime – that we realized that there was a side to her that we did not know at all. It was after her death that I decided that the journey to Kasmu was one pilgrimage I had to make.

The author in Tallinn

Visiting Estonia became a real possibility once it became a part of the Schengen Agreement (this enables visa-free travel within member states), and I used the opportunity provided by a visa to visit Germany (and present a paper at an academic conference at Heidelberg University) to take a few days out for this. I tried to take my mother along (she has never been), but she demurred – she did the next best thing, however, and financed my trip (thanks Mum). I am not the first in the family to have been – my wife, two sisters, a niece and two nephews have preceded me there over the years. I arrived in Tallinn and spent a day acclimatizing to the late northern winter before making a day trip to Kasmu to see the house where she grew up in and the shores in which she played as a little girl, and to say a short prayer at her family graveyard (where her father, mother and relatives are buried) in the village. I was assisted in this endeavour by my cousins by marriage, Helve and Arvo Saat from Tallinn, who drove me there, took me around, translated for me, and then treated me to a damn good lunch before bringing me back to Tallinn. Many thanks to them! All photos are by Arvo, and, for the curious among you on these matters, the glamorous lady by my side in some of them is Helve.

Helve and I at the door of the Sea School

Kasmu Itself: The journey to Kasmu is a beautiful and pleasant one – northeast along the highway to St. Petersburg, and then a turn westward just before Rakvere to the Baltic coast – traversing temperate forests and the Lahemaa National Park area before hitting the coastline and the two adjacent villages of Vosu and Kasmu. Visiting the region was forbidden during Soviet rule for its proximity to Finland. In April, it was a sleepy little village with no restaurant, but I am told that things liven up in the summer months, when it becomes a tourist hotspot and also the venue of an annual music festival.

The Sea School: It is here that I met my cousin Arne Viik, who runs the Kasmu Museum that was the Sea School in my grandmother’s times. Her father, Alexander Kaskni, was both a graduate of the school and later its principal, and it is here that she was born. During the Soviet years, the building was taken over by the Soviet border guards and used as a barrack.

Cousin Arne showing me photos of our common ancestors

The museum itself is a fascinating place that records Kasmu’s relationship with the sea with dedication and commitment. Cousin Arne was in the process of writing a history of the Sea School and a record of the many sea captains who had studied here, and he mentioned that one of the few of whom he had no photos was Justin Lyschak or my grandmother’s cousin and childhood playmate Jus. I was delighted to arrange for a photo, available with my Aunt Niila in England, so that Uncle Jus was appropriately recorded in the book.

Captain Justin Lyschak or Uncle Jus, who lived a life less ordinary

I also discovered that my grandfather had visited here with my grandmother in the 1930s, and had introduced himself to his family-by-marriage. He was the first dark skinned person to visit the village, and there was much curiosity about him at the time. Great-grandmother Nadezhda had already died by then, but she was famously quoted as saying "If I knew that Ira (my grandmother), who I sent to England to get away from the rascal Ahto Walter, would fall in love with an Indian, I would have let her marry Ahto!" before doing so.

My grandparents, photographed when they visited Kasmu in the mid-1930s

My grandmother had kept in touch with her friends, most of whom had settled in the USA, Canada and Sweden, over the years, and had shared photographs that eventually found their way into the Kasmu museum. It was especially touching to see photos of my own childhood, photos that I had thought were long lost , stored carefully here.

Looking out at the sea on one of the rocks I knew so well

From the Sea School, looking out into the Kasmu Harbour was a weird experience – I knew all the rocks from my grandmother’s photos and vivid descriptions, and I could almost see a young girl and her two friends jumping around on them. I went around the beach, climbed some of the rocks, and even wiggled my toes in the freezing Baltic waters.

A view of Kasmu Harbour from a window in the Sea School

The Kristenbrunn Residence: Alexander Kaskni died early, and his wife, my great-grandmother Nadezhda, subsequently married Eduard Kristenbrunn. My grandmother and her cousin Jus (Nadezhda’s sister and her husband both contracted TB early and gave Jus over to Nadezhda to bring up before they died) also moved to the Kristenbrunn residence. It is here that my grandparents stayed when they visited Estonia in the 1930s, which was to be my grandmother’s last visit to her watan. The residence is now a writers’ home, or a place that writers come to for prolonged periods of peace and quiet so that they can concentrate on their writing. When my sister, niece and nephews visited, cousin Aarne, who was taking them around, jokingly announced to the writers in residence that they would have to leave, the original owners of the building had come to reclaim the property. My wife, who travelled here with a friend while on an official visit to Sweden, even stayed the night here – she visited in mid-winter when nothing was open.

The Kristenbrunn residence

I was shown around by one of the writers in residence, who also asked me to write something in Hindi in the visitors’ book that they maintained.

Sitting at the table where my grandmother used to eat, with the writer in residence

The Family Graveyard: One of the things my grandmother had done, once it was possible to do (i.e. after the Russians had buggered off), was to have a proper gravestone put on her father’s and uncle’s graves. The graveyard is beside a Lutheran Church, reminding one of a time when Estonia was not the most non-religious country in the world (it is now). I did a round around the yard and spent some time reflecting by the graves of my ancestors.

A moment of reflection at Aleksander Kaskni's grave

The stone mentions Ira Kaskni-Roy on the right hand corner

Conclusions: The visit concluded with a wonderful lunch in the neighbouring village of Vosu, washed down with Estonian beer, and a drive on that beautiful road back to Tallinn. But I left wanting to do this again, with my children, and with the nephews who have yet to make the journey, so that they too recognize the part of themselves that is from this strange and faraway land, and so that they too are acquainted with that wonderful lady, my grandmother, and do not relegate her to just another name on a listing of ancestors. I hope that all her Indian descendants get to make this journey once in their lifetimes.

COMING TO AMERICA

COMING TO AMERICA

By Ajit Chaudhuri, July 2013

Introduction: I visited the US (for the first time) earlier this month, Afghanistan in May/June, and Germany (with a break in Estonia) in April/May – traversing four countries – the world’s most forward and backward nations, the economic powerhouse of western Europe, and a corner of the erstwhile Soviet Union – in a period of four months. If I may say so myself – WOW!

Few dispute that Afghanistan is the worst country to be born in today, and those questioning the US’s no. 1 status too would be on sticky ground; it is a huge country – the world’s third largest in area and population, and by far its richest – it is the sole global superpower, it combines natural resources with first world infrastructure and innovation with high quality governance, and it is unsurpassable in software, entertainment and high speed pizza delivery. The differences between the world’s two no. 1s (i.e. those at either end of the spectrum) would fill an encyclopaedia, but are pretty much obvious. It is the rather fewer similarities that interested me, especially so because these also contrast them sharply from the other two countries I visited. On the soft side, the first similarity was that religiosity is high, the second that family is important and the safety nets it provides critical for an individual’s progress, and the third was the love for guns within the populace. Respect for hard work and a lack of shame in undertaking menial occupations were discernable in both. And, on the tangible side, the complete absence of any form of public transport (except the most rudimentary kind) was common to both countries.

But this note is not to compare, it is to reflect upon the many things I learnt and to convey my wonderment at what I did, saw and heard upon my visit to the US. For me, the visit served to convert a familiarity gained from newspapers, novels (especially Steinbeck, Chase and L’Amour) and films to one gained from first hand experience. Let me begin by saying that this is the only longish (3 weeks Delhi to Delhi) trip that I have ever made that has had only highs – there were no low points, no difficulties or unpleasantness’s of any sort, no trying circumstances, from the time I left my doorstep in Delhi to the time I returned. For this, I owe a huge thanks to my father and brother, who joined me for the trip, and to my aunt and cousin in Seattle, all of whom did everything they could to make my experience memorable (yeah, I know, this sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech, but is no less true for it).

Getting to the US: The difference, for the visitor, between the US and other developed countries begins well before the visit, with the visa process – high tech, streamlined, efficient, and ending (for me) with a long-yerm visa. This compares favourably with the UK (where the visa process is a profit centre and charges are huge) and Western Europe (where every visit requires a visa, and one has to make false hotel bookings and lie about itineraries). I must confess to having been worried, expecting my six visits to Afghanistan since 2009 to set off red flags, but nobody in the visa process, or even later (for example, homeland security while entering the US) was in the slightest bit interested. And a bit cheesed - all that time and money spent photocopying my Afghanistan contracts and preparing explanations gone to waste!

I went to Seattle on Emirates Airlines – this involved a 14-hour flight from Dubai to Seattle, the first time I have flown so long and among the longest commercial flights one can take. This was my first time on Emirates as well, and I was subject to another surprise here. My experience is that most journeys westward with a changeover in the Gulf area involve a jam-packed flight from India to the Gulf, usually in the company of beedi-smoking labourers, and a near empty flight from the Gulf onwards in which one can spread out. Here, it was the opposite! I got three seats to myself on Delhi-Dubai and a window seat next to the emergency door (and therefore nothing in front) with an empty middle seat on Dubai-Delhi. Dubai-Seattle was full, but I had the company of my father and brother and we were well looked after and plied with copious quantities of beer and wine while I watched educative films such as ‘Cockneys versus Zombies’ and ‘The Quartet’. Seattle-Dubai was done alone in a jam-packed but pleasant flight, and I managed to see ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (not a patch on the book) and ‘Argo’ (quite good) and get some sleep. I also discovered that flights touching the US have an additional safety instruction – passengers are told not to congregate in the common spaces, such as outside the toilets – never heard that one before!

Driving in the US: I asked many regular visitors to the US a) whether I would need an international driving license to drive and b) how difficult was it to drive there, given that I was used to doing so in Delhi. I got differing advice on the first, and this was only cleared up once I checked the rules for Washington State (where I was visiting) on the Internet where it specified that, as a short-term visitor, my normal (Indian) driving license was valid. This was confirmed when I actually went to hire a car from Hertz and had to display my license to get the car and insurance – there were no difficulties. On the second, everyone said it is easy to switch to driving on the other side of the road and to do things one doesn’t do in India like observe rules and lane discipline. This wasn’t quite the case! I did a fair amount of driving, including on larger inter-states (such as the I-5 connecting Mexico with Canada along the Pacific coast), smaller highways (such as the 101 that circumnavigates the Olympic Peninsula), inner city roads (in Seattle) and small town roads (going through Port Angeles and Aberdeen comes to mind here), and don’t remember a moment wherein I did not have to concentrate fully. It helped that the car we hired had a ‘Neverlost’, a GPS system with nearly idiot-proof instructions on directions, including options such as ‘no-tolls’ (avoid all routes involving toll taxes), ‘no-freeways’ (use smaller roads only) and ‘nearest-Burger-King’.

The author inside the Washington National Park near Anacortes

One would have noticed that car advertisements on TV always have the featured vehicle rolling along empty but perfect roads amidst idyllic scenery – far removed from the realities of driving. In the US, driving was quite close to these advertisements – great roads, not too much traffic, and beautiful scenery (Washington has ocean, coastline, mountains, islands, rivers, lakes, forests, and an abundance of spectacular sights). Good road manners was evident everywhere; people made space when a car enter their lanes, kept correct distances on the road and at traffic lights, and acknowledged and waved hands in apology for mistakes. The main difficulties I had were figuring out the correct speed to drive at (on average, traffic moved at 9 miles per hour above notified limits on highways, and limits were not overtly written in many urban areas), keeping to the centre of the lane (being used to a view of the road from the right of a car, I was unconsciously veering right), and getting used to overtaking and being overtaken on both sides (which is fine in the US but illegal on the wrong side anywhere else). On the whole, driving in the US was a pleasure, and I rediscovered my long-lost liking for it here.

Mt. St. Helen's, a volcanic mountain that last erupted in 1980

Public Behaviour: We had many minor interactions with strangers during the visit, and the high standards of public behaviour in the US stood out. Outside of the inner cities and the crowds, it was done to greet people warmly when you passed them and to speak to others softly, politely and correctly. This was in contrast to written impressions typifying Americans as loud and boorish, and to England, where politeness standards are high but it is somewhat fashionable to intersperse one’s conversations with pejoratives. Some say that this overt politeness is superficial and used mostly by people whose job requires it, such as waiters and shop assistants, but we found that it cut across and that it was often a pleasure to get into conversations with the people around us. The youngish couple seated next to our group on a sailing trip around the Puget Sound turned out to be West Pointers with tours of Iraq behind them, and the guy driving a Corvette in the Washington National Park was happy to take a photograph with me sitting in its driver’s seat so that I could show off to my wife back home. One also saw cleanliness in public places, without any signature warning against littering, and unobtrusive but high quality maintenance of public infrastructure. Were there beggars? A few – mostly white males, and mostly hanging out at traffic lights with signs making their case for alms (pathetic stuff like ‘Single Dad needs support to look after his two young children’). Indian beggars are far more evolved! I pondered over issues such as the honesty elasticity of begging incomes or, to put it minus the economic jargon, the extent to which honesty in these situations, and therefore signs like ‘addict needs money for his habit’ or ‘broke bum needs cash for booze and prostitutes’, would loosen purses.

Native American Reservations: We passed through and spent time in Native American reservations, and stayed two nights in the Quiluete Indian Reservation on the Olympic Peninsula. Some differences between Indian reservations and other areas stood out. The first was that it was obvious that Native Americans had problems with booze and drugs – the reservation areas had overt signs warning against the use of narcotics, the availability of booze in shops and restaurants was limited, and our instinct in the reservations was to be back in our hotel rooms before dark (which was at about 2200 hours, so it’s not that we missed much). The second was that some large businesses appeared to be community owned and run, with profits being plied back into the community, businesses such as the (excellent) resort we stayed in and restaurant we ate in on the Quiluete Reservation and the multitudes of casinos we saw that seemed to be a synonym for Indian Reservation, businesses that would have been in the private sector in other parts of the country (except casinos, which are allowed only on reservations in most parts of the US – a result of decentralization of law-making to local Native American councils). This left me wondering if there is something worth emulating in India in the not-particularly-successful UN-promoted programme to set up community-owned productive assets. And the third was that the proportion of slim women observable on the streets was low, even by American standards.

These two young Quiluete ladies, Kimberley and Samantha (middle), are mother and daughter. Samantha was our server at the River's Edge Restaurant at La Push. The author is about to tuck in to a Blueberry Pie & Ice Cream dessert.

Shopping: Conventional wisdom goes that one should not shop in a first world country – exchange rates make everything ridiculously expensive, and most things are available here in India anyway (gone are the days when one had to go abroad for nappy liners). The US turned out to be an exception – good quality clothes are cheap (and made in India, China and Bangladesh), especially if one visits the out-of-town outlet malls and warehouses, the choice is humungous, and the rights of customers are respected. Similarly with food, booze, cars and shoes. As somebody who abhors shopping, I must admit that our purchasing expeditions were pretty good fun. The main disappointment was in toys – the famed Toys R Us was downright boring.

Attitudes: It was obvious that Americans are very proud to be Americans; this showed in every conversation everywhere, and in the belief on their faces every time the Star Spangled Banner was sung. The American identity is expected to subsume all other identities in this essentially immigrant nation in what people refer to as a ‘melting pot’, in sharp contrast to ‘salad bowl’ Canada, also an immigrant nation where it is acceptable and even expected that one could retain other identities while staying together. This was most obvious in the difference between 4^th of July (I celebrated at ‘The Gasworks’ in Seattle) and Canada Day celebrations (I was in Ottawa on the day in 2006). While joy, pride and a sense of occasion were common to both, most revellers in Ottawa draped themselves in two flags – the Maple Leaf, and the flag of their country of origin. In Seattle, there was only one flag visible.

Fourth of July at The Gasworks in Seattle

Most Americans are inward looking – to them, the world is a chaotic place that they want nothing to do with. Few travel out of the country, mostly to Mexico and Canada. And they share a distrust of anyone telling them what to do, such as government, and extreme distrust of foreigners telling them what to do (such as multilateral and global institutions). Even a remote corner such as the Olympic Peninsula had signs denouncing the UN (there is concern in the Quinault Reservation that a possible UNESCO heritage site will affect logging, hunting and fishing). And herein lies an interesting paradox – while no global institution can survive without the US on board, Americans themselves have no time for such institutions and see no reason to be subject to their laws and party to their agreements. There is a logic to this – it is undemocratic to ratify laws that have not been made or subjected to scrutiny by a nation’s own representative institutions, and therefore easier done by those who do not have such institutions (such as dictatorships) and those that do not take laws too seriously and have little intention of making the hard choices involved in implementing them (such as, I say with shame, India).

To Conclude: I did many things in what turned out to be a packed schedule, and have missed describing several that I would have liked to; my first Major League Soccer game (Seattle Sounders vs. DC United in a full stadium), and my visits to the University of Washington (what a library), Microsoft (what variety in their food court) and Boeing (watched a Dreamliner being born). The US made a great first impression on me, and I look forward to visiting again. 

A GLUTTON'S GUIDE TO NORTHWESTERN AMERICA

A GLUTTON’S GUIDE TO NORTHWESTERN AMERICA

By Ajit Chaudhuri

Introduction: Be warned, dear readers inclined towards vegetarianism or healthy eating – this note is about real food! I visited the US for the first time this summer. I was looking forward to many things, but I must confess that titillating my taste buds was not among them – after all, what could one expect from burgers, pizzas and hot dogs washed down with a Budweiser? Boy, was I WRONG! My father, brother and I (all hardcore foodies), often accompanied by a resident aunt and cousin, spent three weeks traveling around northwest US, across its peninsulas, islands, mountains and coastal roads, in search of good food and beautiful scenery. And we got plenty of both! As an aside, we also took in a Major League Soccer game to make for the perfect holiday. An appendix to this note lists the specifics – when, where, what, etc. – for those interested in gastronomic adventures in the region themselves. And we used tripadvisor.com and our own foodie networks to select eateries.

Burgers, Pizzas and Dogs

We observed a code that precluded visiting any food chain type of places (and made only one exception during the entire tour, a rest room cum driver-change stop at Burger King), and so got to eat some amazing typically American food. The two highlights were Mrs. Beasley’s and Linda’s Kitchen.

Mrs. Beasley’s was an unassuming (above) but highly recommended place on the famous west coast highway that lies along the Pacific Ocean and connects Mexico with Canada. We stopped there for a late breakfast en route to the Mt. St. Helen’s volcano, and I had a double cheeseburger washed down with a fresh strawberry smoothie. Heaven! The tables (and the entire ambience) were clean but basic, and there was no service – one had to order, pay, and then pick up when one of the staff (all of whom looked like advertisements for good food) yelled that it was ready. We chatted with the other customers, all repeats who stopped every time they passed by, and learnt that we were unlikely to get another burger of this quality in America.

Linda’s Kitchen (pictured below) was visited when really hungry – I had completed a 15 km hike around Lake Ozette on the Olympic Peninsula (famous also for being the only temperate rain forest in the northern hemisphere) before arriving at this joint in the Makah Indian Reservation in the absolute northwestern corner of the contiguous United States.

I had pizza with homemade mozzarella cheese and pepperoni topping (pictured below), washed down with homemade root beer. Again, fantastic to the extent that we had a bite of the first pizza and immediately ordered a second. The ambience too was wonderful in a homely and comfortable way – there was a guitar lying around that I used, some kids were playing chess on a couch in the room, and the other customers were talkative and friendly. No booze available, though, in the restaurant or anywhere on the reservation.

Linda herself seemed quite a character – proud of the fact that everything she served, including the ingredients, baking dough, cheese, etc., was made in the kitchen and that she took her time over her cooking (and you had to wait). Rumour had it that whenever she had too many customers she simply closed shop – apparently she was averse to any form of stress. We were given a tour of the kitchen, where Linda showed us her stove (pictured below) – the sign above reads ‘This is a Drama-free Environment’. A wonderful evening overall!

I would also like to mention Patty’s Place in the area around the Mt. St. Helen’s volcanic mountain, where the view from our table is pictured below.

It is famous for its deserts, one of which (a peach and rhubarb cobbler with vanilla ice cream, pictured below) I wolfed down after eating an Elk Burger.

Another honourable mention was the Gere-a-Deli in Anacortes Island, where we ate after visiting the Boeing Factory in Everett (where they make 747s, 777s and 787s), up north near the Canadian border. We had roast beef sandwiches, which they called Reubens, and quiche washed down with Mack and Jack beer. The ambience (pictured below, me in a blue shirt on the right seated with my aunt and cousin) was more memorable than the food, and the clientele consisted mostly of locals. It was here that I was introduced to the fact that, when one bought a cold drink, one was just given a large glass that one could subsequently fill up as much, and as often, as one liked from what they called the ‘soda fountain’. This element of trust – that three of you won’t drink from the same glass – was prevalent in all our interactions in America.

Other facts that I discovered included that one could take photographs almost anywhere, and service standards were high and friendly. We took a picture of the back of our server’s T-shirt, where it was written ‘Serving Anacortes since 1981’, and she smiled so nicely (below) that we got one of the smile as well.

The other place that we all remember fondly is the River’s Edge Restaurant at La Push, where we ate one dinner and two breakfasts because we were staying at a nearby resort and it was the only eatery in 5 miles or so. La Push is a coastal village on the Olympic Peninsula, and is part of the Quiluete Indian reservation (beer available in the village shop, thank God, but not in the restaurant). The restaurant itself looks on to the area where the Quiluete river flows into the ocean (pictured below from our table), and is community owned.

The restaurant’s dinner menu had an item called ‘catch of the day’ (this depended upon what the fishing fleet brought in every evening, and in brackets was a commitment from the Quiluete Indian community that they would never eat, or serve others, farm-raised fish), which I had, and thereby tasted grilled salmon that was fresh from the sea. Wonderful - all it needed was a beer to precede it. It was followed by a blueberry pie and ice cream.

The breakfast menu was different – with two egg combinations of cheese, ham, bacon and sausages and unlimited buttered toast and coffee (pictured below with my brother and me).

In the process of all this, I discovered that typical American food could taste good. I also discovered new typical American food – the highlight of this was the New England Clam Chowder (a thick soup eaten with bread) at Pike Place Chowder, right beside the hippie infested Pike Place market in Seattle. My latest ambition is to open my own Chowder eatery, called ‘Chowder-i’s’.

Fine Dining

Not all meals were had in All-American places in the company of the local peasantry – we did have the occasional posh evening with the glitterati. One such was at Elliot’s, right on the water of the Puget Sound in Seattle. I had the Alaskan cod, and also sampled my father’s oysters (pictured below).

Another was at Daniel’s, a bar in Bellevue, where the highlight was knocking back copious quantities of beer and eating bacon-wrapped scallops and popcorn shrimp while a singer on his piano belted out Elton John and Billy Joel numbers. Pictured below are my brother, cousin and I at the bar appreciating one of the songs.

Chinese Food

I had Chinese food on three occasions, two of them excellent. One of these was at Hing Loon in the Chinatown part of Seattle on the 4th of July, where its other attraction was that it was open till 0100 hours and so we could get a meal after the 4th of July fireworks. In addition to excellent Cantonese cuisine, I had my first taste of the superb Tsingtao beer (evidence below). A group of Indians celebrating 4th of July in a Chinese restaurant – hey, this is America!

The other excellent Chinese meal was at a restaurant serving food from Sichuan province, imaginatively called Sichuanese Cuisine. Nomenclature here was unusual all around – our highlight dish was a spicy and extremely tasty fish dish called ‘Boiled Fish’, and another superb dish, a mix of finely grained meats, was called ‘Ants on a Tree’. Most of the clientele here were Chinese, so one assumes that the food was authentic in addition to good.

Conclusion: It is difficult to get excellent food, service and ambience simultaneously in a restaurant, anywhere in the world. In northwest US, we managed two out of three quite often, and at least one in most cases – a good record. This area has so much going for it in terms of visit-ability, coastlines, islands, forests, mountains, lakes, trails, ocean, rivers, modern cities, top-notch universities, high-tech industry, inter alia, that visiting for its gastronomic possibilities tends to be low priority. This is a pity! My own experience was, and I think I can speak for my fellow travellers as well here, that the area is a food lover’s paradise for its quality and variety. Worth going thirteen and a half time zones for this? In combination with everything else – definitely!



Appendix 1: A Listing of Restaurants Visited
(Date/Meal - Restaurant - Area - What I Ate)

3rd July/Dinner - Century Links Stadium - Seattle - Burgers, Beer
4th July/Dinner - Hing Loon, 628, S Weller Street, Seattle 98104, +1-206-682-2828 - Chinatown, Seattle - Cantonese food, Tsingtao Beer
5th July/Dinner - Elliott’s Oyster House, 1201 Alaskan Way Pier 56, Seattle, WA 98101 - Facing the Puget Sound, Seattle - Fried Alaskan Cod, Oysters, Amber Beer
8th July/Dinner - Sichuanese Cuisine, 15005 NE 24th Street, Redmond, WA 98052, +1-425-562-1552 - Redmond - Boiled Fish, Ants Climbing a Tree, Kung Pao Chicken, Mongolian Beef
9th July/Brunch - Mrs. Beasley’s Burgers, 393, Cowlitz Ridge Road, Toledo, WA 98591, +1-360-864-4866 - Off the Seattle to Portland Highway, Toledo - Double Cheeseburgers, Fresh Strawberry smoothie
9th July/High Tea - Patty’s Place, 9440, Spirit Lake Highway, Toutle, WA 98649 - On the road to Mt. St. Helen Volcano - Elk Burger, Rhubarb Cobbler with Ice Cream
10th July/Lunch - Mongolian Grill, 461 South Fork Avenue SW, North Bend, WA 98045 - At the outlets’ mall in North Bend near the Snoqualmie Reservation - Noodles, meat and vegetables
11th July/Lunch - Gere-a-Deli, 502 Commercial Avenue, Anacortes WA 98221, +1-360-293-7383 - On Anacortes Island - Quiche, Roast Beef Reubens, Mack and Jack Beer
12th July/Lunch - Pike Place Chowder, 1530, Post Alley, Seattle, WA 98101, +1-206-267-2537, www.pikeplacechowder.com - Pike Place Market, Seattle - New England Clam Chowder, Smoked Salmon Chowder
13th July/Dinner - Chateau St. Michelle Winery, 14111 NE 145th Street, Woodinville, WA 98072, +1-425-488-1133, info@ste-michelle.com - During the Chris Botti Concert - Wine, Hot Dog
14th and 18th July/Lunch - Costco Food Court, 1801, 10th Avenue NW
Issaquah, WA 98207 - Outside Costco Warehouse in Issakuah near Bellevue - Hot Dog, Polish Dog
15th July/Breakfast - Burger King, Puyallup
15th July/Lunch - Quinault River Internet Café, 6094, US Highway 101, Amanda Park, WA 98526 - Along the Quinault Lake in Olympic Peninsula - Burgers, Coke
15th July/Dinner and 16th, 17th July/Breakfast - River’s Edge Restaurant, 41 Main Street, La Push, WA 98350, +1-360-374-3236 - Facing the river’s mouth onto Pacific Ocean, on the Quileute reservation - Catch of the Day (Grilled Salmon), Blueberry Pie and Ice Cream, 2 Egg Mix, American style Skillet
16th July/Dinner - Linda’s Kitchen, 1110 Bay View Avenue, Neah Bay, WA 98381, +1-360-645-2292 - At the Northwestern tip of the US on the Makah reservation - Mozarella Cheese Pizza with Pepperoni topping, homemade Vanilla Ice Cream with Rasberries, homemade Root Beer
17th July/Lunch - Bainbridge Island to Seattle Ferry - Across the Puget Sound - Cheeseburgers
18th July/Dinner - Daniel’s Broiler, 10500 NE 8th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004, +1-425-462-4662 - Piano bar with live music, lots of Elton John and Billy Joel - Bacon wrapped Scallops, Shrimp Popcorn, Tacos, Beer
19th July/Lunch - Microsoft Commons, 15255 NE 40th Street, Redmond, WA 98052 - At the Microsoft HQ in Redmond - Fried Salmon and chips, Peach flavoured Soda

22 Years After

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AFTER

Ajit Chaudhuri – June 2013


I first travelled in Germany in 1991 – I spent three months there, hitchhiked around the country, did some journeys on cycle, stayed and ate on the cheap, and generally had a good time. I visited again this April to present a paper at an academic conference in Heidelberg, and took the opportunity to do some more travel within. This paper looks at what has changed in these 22 years.


Let me begin with what has not! I was an unemployed and broke bum in 1991 with an abiding interest in cold beer, good food, beautiful women and football (not necessarily in that order), not dissimilar to my situation today (OK, plus 20 kilos and a few grey hairs!). Germany too continues to be a beautiful and efficiently run country that is a pleasure to visit. Landing in Frankfurt was a revelation – it took 15 minutes from leaving the plane to leaving the airport (immigration, baggage retrieval, customs all included) – quite a change from the chaos of Heathrow that I had grown accustomed to. The forests are just as abundant, and access to them for long walks just as convenient. Beer is still cheaper than water, each town still has its own breweries so that one doesn’t drink customized branded stuff, and two litres of Bayerische dark beer washed down with ‘weisswurst’ and sauce continues to be worth dying for.


And football continues to be important! In 1991, Germany was the reigning world champion and Bayern Munich the richest, most successful, and most hated (outside the province of Bavaria) team in the country. Today, with both Champion’s League finalists from Germany, it is difficult to suggest that German football is not right up there, and there was evidence to support the latter statement as well. The footballing public continues to be passionate, knowledgeable and friendly – I was in the country for the Champion’s League semis (when Munich and Dortmund played Madrid and Barcelona respectively), saw two of the matches in packed bars and felt welcome and comfortable despite my more-Spanish-than-German looks and the fact that I was the only one not jumping around every time the German clubs scored.


Now, for the changes! First, the roads have turned kinder. In 1991, when a German got behind a steering wheel, s/he reverted from a polite and considerate person into the sort of barbarian that had had the Roman Empire trembling, helped along by the best cars in the world and a highway system sans speed limits. They still have great cars, but the drivers are considerably gentler. All that testosterone seems to have transferred to cyclists over time – they are now rude and aggressive, just as the cars used to be. The train system, which was a mess in 1991 and a laughing stock in neighbouring countries (the French had just introduced high speed TGVs), has sorted itself out – I did some travel by train and found them clean, fast, convenient and punctual (though not quite to the minute that Germans are famous for). And the public transport was of a very high standard – there is a saying that ‘a developed country is not where the poor use cars, it is where the rich use public transport’ – Germany truly is a developed country by this standard.


Some changes are because the world has changed! In 1991, Germany was still a frontline state in the cold war (even though it had just unified). Western Germany had large numbers of American armed forces strutting around, and the eastern side still had the considerably scruffier looking Soviet Army all over the place. I remember that, when I was there, five of them saw an opportunity in unification and asked to defect to the west. The German government asked the Soviet government what to do, and the Soviets replied, “By all means take them, but be ready because tomorrow you will have 500,000 more.” The Germans didn’t! The Americans are still there, but with a smaller and a lower key presence, and the Soviet Union doesn’t exist. In 1991, unification was on top of everyone’s mind; the erstwhile East Germany, according to everyone from the western side, was a dump that had to be dismantled and rebuilt from scratch, all to be paid for from their (the Wessies) taxes – think German attitudes to Greece and Bulgaria today. I travelled a bit in the East as well, and saw the Easterners initial struggles with the capitalist paradise they thought they were entering, where, for example, free day-care suddenly turned prohibitively expensive. At that time, if you had suggested that, twenty years later, the all-powerful German Chancellor, sitting on the same chair as Bismarck, Adenauer and Kohl, would be an East German woman, your audience would have thought you were smoking something.


Germany’s place in the world too has changed! In 1991 it was still tentative, low key, and somewhat apologetic about its Nazi past – a financial centre but a political minnow. It’s capital was Bonn, a small university town along the Rhine whose only recommendation was that it was uncontroversial. I was in Bonn in 1991 when a referendum was held as to whether it should continue as capital and, while there was a sense of sadness that Germany chose against it, there was also a feeling that the large and historic city of Berlin would be a suitable headquarters for a European powerhouse, which was Germany’s rightful place in the world. Today, Bonn has reverted to being a small university town – the federal government has shifted completely to Berlin, and Germany is the economic and political centre of Europe.


Two changes took me by pleasant surprise! The first is that the German immigration police have turned nicer! In 1991, and in my many subsequent visits in the late 1990s and early 2000s, about the only unpleasant thing about visiting Germany was dealing with these racist pricks (I crossed passport controls in many European countries in those days and it was rarely, except for the UK, an easy experience, but the Germans had harassment down to a fine art – maybe it was because I used the city of Cologne a lot to get in and out, a smaller and less busy airport where they had the time to pester a kaalu). In fact, I think I almost had a heart attack when I last visited in 2006 and was handed back my passport immediately, with a stamp, a smile, and words of welcome – a cynical German I mentioned this to told me that they had been told to ‘be nice’ for the four weeks that Germany was hosting the World Cup and, not to worry, they would revert back to business as usual once it was over. Well, they were ‘nice’ this time too, and I am left wondering how to explain this! Indian passports have become more acceptable? I don’t look like an undesirable alien any more? Or, the principles of niceness, dignity and politeness have finally invaded that last bastion of apartheid values?


And second, the women have turned beautiful! This too was quite a shock! Germany in 1991 was an ornithologist’s hell, and a blind lecher would not have rued his disability here. This time, there were beautiful women all over the place, in numbers, and in all age groups. Again, I am left having difficulty explaining this phenomenon. Can a Darwinian evolution in response to post-modern values of ‘self’, ‘image’ and ‘beauty’ have occurred in just twenty years? Or has my taste deteriorated in inverse proportion to age? A possible explanation is that, in 1991, German women were trying to look as bad as they possibly could (no make-up, bad hair and frumpy clothes) – an outcome of the feminist attitude of the time that ‘you have to like me for what I am inside’. And today, they are trying to look as good as possible (realism has set in, and the attitude is – tart up and be noticed, who has the attention span for substance?), and the wide difference between the two explains the change.


Last but not least of the changes, the Germans have learnt English! In 1991, only the educated elite could hold a conversation in English, and I had to use my rudimentary German while travelling around – for getting directions, buying beer, organizing night stays at youth hostels and everything else – and get taken for a Turk or an Arab in the process. One often got to see people’s real attitudes in small interactions, and there were many surprises. For example, I found that that famed Prussian rudeness in Berlin was just a cover – if one needed help, Berliners would go out of their way to provide it. This time, almost everyone spoke enough English for me to get by, and people were happy for opportunities to show off their command over the language (good English continues to be a sign of education and status), making the small interactions considerably easier – but also, I missed the opportunity to improve my German. You win some, and you lose some!


Twenty-two years is a long time and of course there will be changes, especially as 1991 was before the Internet, the cell phone, and low cost airlines, when globalization had yet to set in, and this paper would be a long one if I were to recount them all. It is the soft changes that have been, in Germany, (almost) universally for the better. I would happily visit again!

Back in the USSR

BACK IN THE USSR

Ajit Chaudhuri – May 2013


The closest I had been to the erstwhile USSR was when working in northern Afghanistan in the provinces bordering Tajikistan, and while visiting northern Norway, near the Koyla Peninsula in Russia, in 2001. This changed in April 2013, when I took the opportunities afforded by an academic conference in Germany, some free time, and the Schengen Agreement (which enables a visa for one European country to allow for travel in others) to visit Estonia.

Estonia is the northern-most of the three countries (that include Lithuania and Latvia, to its south) that line the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It is also bordered by Russia in the east, where the border is about 100 km from the city of St. Petersburg, and by Finland a short distance away across the sea. Estonia has not seen much time as an independent state – it was part of the Danish and Swedish empires before being ceded to the Tsar in the 18th century, it obtained freedom in 1918 and kept it until first Stalin walked in (1940), then the Nazis walked in (1941) and then the Russians walked in again (1944) to make it one of the Soviet Union’s smallest member states. It obtained independence again in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR, and has subsequently gained admittance into NATO, the European Community and the European Monetary Union. It has a population of 1.3 million staying in a country larger than Netherlands (which has more than ten times the population), and its capital Tallinn, according to signs in the city, was first put on to the map of the world in the year 1175 by the Arab cartographer Al-Idrisi.

Had I planned my trip better, I would have travelled to Germany on Finnair with a stopover at Helsinki, and done the 60 kilometres to Tallinn across the Gulf of Finland on a hovercraft. The other alternative was getting into a bus in Cologne and doing the journey along the route taken by the German advance towards Leningrad in 1941; across Germany (via Berlin), Poland (via Poznan), Latvia (via Riga) and a small part of Lithuania – about 34 hours in a bus around the Baltic Sea each way. Instead, I chose a cheap-ish but bizarre flight sequence – Cologne north to Hamburg (60 minutes), Hamburg south to Frankfurt (70 minutes), and then Frankfurt northeast to Tallinn (135 minutes) – and back in the same sequence in reverse, with lots of time in Lufthansa lounges in between flights. Had I opted for what I actually wanted, i.e. only Frankfurt-Tallinn-Frankfurt, it would have cost me double! As they say, as a traveller, ‘ours is not to make reply, ours is not to reason why.’

I landed in Tallinn at 2335 on Thursday night and ventured out only the next morning. The weather was a rude shock after warm and sunny Germany – cold (1 to 3 degrees c in the early afternoon), rainy, and generally miserable, entirely normal for the 60 degrees latitude that it is at, and reminding me why I had brought my woollen gloves, inners, and double layer parka from Delhi. The old town of Tallinn is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it is a beautiful and authentically preserved medieval urban area. Walking around on the narrow cobble-stoned streets was a pleasure, despite the weather, and I did this on Friday as part of a tour organized by the Tourist Information Office.

Nightlife in the old town offers the choice between the No. 1 Gentleman’s Club (where one doesn’t have to be a gentleman) and the Golden Dolls Live Strip Show (open from 1000 to 0600 every day)! Beautiful women are among Tallinn’s other attractions – tall, blonde, and open on matters sexual (like Scandinavia) and relatively poor, un-emancipated, and with fewer livelihood options (unlike Scandinavia), which combine to make for a thriving sex industry. Tallinn is popular on the ‘stag party’ circuit, wherein groups of single men (or maybe not single men) come to get wasted over the weekend. I met two straggling members of one such party at a bar (the others had moved on to other pleasures), and they explained the economics of it over two beers; the ferries from Stockholm and Helsinki and low cost airlines from Britain bring the party-cipants over conveniently, booze and women are plentiful and available at prices that would be unimaginable in their own countries, and they go back to their ordinary lives as carpenters and bus drivers having had a damn good time, with reassuring memories of being men and not mice.

Sadly, there was a music festival on in town as well and a top US jazz group, the Charles Lloyd New Quartet, was playing in the National Opera House – so I gave the ‘golden dolls’ a miss and stumped up for a ticket to see (and hear) Charles Lloyd on the saxophone, Jason Moran on the piano, Reuben Rogers on the base and Gregory Hutchinson on the drums. This was an unforgettable experience – the music was jazz at its best, with the artists taking turns to lead and accompany, and playing some really great stuff! I made a mistake regarding dress code, though, turning up in jeans and expecting to have to put up with teenagers smoking stuff. But apparently Charles Lloyd had played here in 1967, with much resistance from the Soviet authorities (who saw the devil in exposing commies to dilettante western music), and he was being honoured by the state upon his return – there were ministers around, everyone was in formals, and most of the audience looked as if they had been there back in 1967. I felt like Bridget Jones in a bunny suit! In the process, I learned that music is important to Estonians – their independence struggle is termed as the ‘singing revolution’, group-singing events attract huge crowds, and there is a certain formality to musical occasions. I spent another evening at a bar listening to live blues music, just a singer and a pianist, again very enjoyable despite much of it being in Estonian (in fact, the only number I recognized was ‘Georgia on my Mind’). Tallinn would be a paradise for the music lovers among you, and, Eric Clapton is playing here in July 2013.

Now, for the sake of that segment of my readership that will want to know what happens in Golden Dolls and similar places, I confess that I did drop in one afternoon to check (ah, the sacrifices that I have to make for you!). The deal is that you pay 5 Euros for entry and another 5 Euros for 250 ml of beer (available in normal bars at about 1.5 to 2 Euros) and then make yourself comfortable on a sofa around a stage with a pole in the centre. I was the only customer at the time, which was awkward because after every number the dancer would come up, sit down with me, and try to entice me into one of the inner rooms for a private number. The third young lady, a beauty called Mira, draped herself on my lap and insisted on me buying her a drink, which I duly did (10 Euros for a Baileys). She soon figured out that I was not a john and got her clothes on, sat me down at the bar, and made pleasant chitchat for about 15 minutes. I liked her – a girl I would have happily taken out to lunch! On the whole, a good experience and a visit that I propose to repeat when I am a dirtier old man (be nice, and you may be on the guest-list for my 70th birthday party here). Those looking to enhance their blackmail incomes, sorry, I have informed my wife (tried to act cool, but her eyes said ‘Good God, what have I married?’) and children (who were unambiguously deeply impressed).

Moving from music and sex to governance and public policy – Estonia is a small country with a history of being road-kill in the power struggles between the Russian and German empires, and it is a young country with a dark Soviet past. As they say, ‘you can fight history but you can’t fight geography’ – it will always have Russia to its east, and it’s main foreign policy objective is to never be a vassal state again. To enable this, it is determinedly westward looking – a liberal democracy, aligned economically and militarily to every possible western alliance (the EU, NATO, etc.), enthusiastically contributing soldiers to the war effort in Afghanistan, and following market-friendly economic policies. Its public finances are well under control, its openness and transparency standards are of the highest order, its social development indicators are great, and it is a ‘good boy’ for multilateral agencies.

But western values take time to set in, and they haven’t quite, as yet, in Estonia. It has positioned itself as a place to visit to express your dark side in ways not possible in your own countries, and to pay for the pleasure – the rich come to hunt bear and wolf, the frustrated come for booze and women, one can also try out assault weapons in shooting galleries, and hotels are fine with you bringing in a ‘guest’ for the night. This is a pity! The countryside is heavily forested and with many lakes and water bodies, the coastline is long and beautiful, all the towns have three distinct architectural styles (old towns with cobbled stones, functional Soviet-style construction, and glitzy modern buildings) and no traffic jams – there is more to it than a dirty weekend.

Estonia is also the world’s most IT-enabled country, to the extent that free WiFi is seen as a human right. Most governmental and commercial functions are done via Internet (including voting). In fact, in 2007, Russian hackers jammed the Internet here in the aftermath of some minor tensions and disabled the state in what is seen as the first ever cyber war. This turned into a blessing in disguise – NATO subsequently set up its cyber defence headquarters in Estonia. Despite all this, educated youth prefer to leave, and work in other parts of the EU (especially Finland) where salaries are considerably higher. There are worries of a rapidly greying society.

The other main policy issue is that of managing the 25 percent Russian-Estonian minority – people settled under Stalin’s ‘russification’ policies who speak Russian, watch Moscow TV, are eastward looking in mentality and world-view, and whose presence is a reminder of unhappy past memories. Estonian and Russian communities live separately, do not inter-marry, and have distinct identities (the young lady sitting next to me on my flight into Tallinn introduced herself as ‘I am from Tallinn, but I’m Russian’) in a manner that Gujaratis would find familiar, leading to issues around nation building.

To conclude, as I’m sure is obvious, I had a good time here!

Addendum to Trekking Advice

I attach a letter from my friend and school-mate Paul Mathew as an addendum to 'Trekking Advice'. Paul is a US-based doctor and a trekker, and has a perspective that combines these (and is therefore rare). Very useful additional information, particularly on implements and appliances and on must-have medicines. Please have a read!


Dear Ajit

Thanks for sharing this personal note with me. It was very interesting to see a perspective from someone who has done a lot more high altitude than I have or perhaps ever will....

I jotted a few notes while reading it, extracting from memory some of the stuff I found valuable from the last trip...I should say that we had mules carrying stuff on their backs for us so weight was not as much a concern although clearly there were limits.... we did carry our layers, water and snacks in Himachal.

- Wet wipes were a savior but a bundle of them does have significant weight...nevertheless a great personal hygeine item to freshen up the unmentionables and deal with the ripeness. A well calibrated number of them e.g. 3-6 per day shouldnt weigh that much....didnt use a shit mug as thats a very Indian thing you know...just toilet paper followed by wet wipes.

- My all time fave was the pee bottle for the night in high altitude. I still give thanks to the Almighty for just being able to roll over, unzip, pee, rezip and go back to sleep...no getting out into a freezing night and panting and gasping just to pee. Plus since we are pushing fluids, I had to pee twice every night...prostate isnt getting any smaller you know...The key things was not to overfill the bottle or spill it inside the tent ! My tentmate Vinod was both jealous and suspicious of the thing...he thought I derived personal enjoyment from its use....somehow he never got up at night to pee and was able to hold it... I wondered at that.

- Highly endorse the layers concept. Including liner socks below the woolen ones, woollen hat that comes down over the ears...I avoided cotton as it doesnt wick as efficiently. I tried to get all breathable woolen stuff as undies for the cold......I had a non-woolen top-and-bottom pair for the lower altitudes and warmer temps to be flexible. A rinse at the end of the day before the sun goes down when the opportunity arises allows it to clean and dry fast....It was good to have a water and windproof outermost layer - both jacket and trousers.
>>>
- For the snow, wrap-around goggles were better than the sunglasses which leaked in glare from the sides....

- I didnt have camp slippers but up high I preferred to unlace my boots so that they were loose and tuck the laces into the boots and walked around camp that way...it was easy to slip in and out of them.

- For drinking the platypus (or bladders as you may call them) that contained up to 3 liters of water with electrolytes (1 tab/liter) in them helped stay the inevitable cramps that I dread at night...I also had a nifty large capacity water filter and iodine tablets for purification. Yup, the weight did add up but again, there were mules...

- Another major joy was the inflatable lightweight (1 lb) ridge mattress that provided sweet comfort and insulation as we camped on snow. I had an insulating sheet over it (vanishingly light material) and then over that my sleeping bag.

- We took diamox for high-altitude sickness prophylaxis and had dexamethasone on hand in case we got sick. Ending up using it as we did ascend rather fast and I started getting headaches and feeling out of it....probably was overkill...but I felt a helluva lot better the next morning and cut down on the dex....There are pretty good websites out there that give good scientific opinions on what best practices are for prevention and treatment of high-altitude sicknesses of varying severity...

Having antibiotics (azithromycin preferred over ciprofloxacin based on my travel docs advice and he was right...cipro didnt work but azithro did for the diarrhea...I was surprised) and anti-diarrheals was great as there was shit everywhere on the trail close to our water sources and we all had loose stools eventually...there are some warnings out on azithromycin and heart arrhythmias now...so we'll see if the recommendations change...

Insect-repellant always a good idea if there are flies/mosquitoes possible...I had hell in Yosemite with the mosquitoes one August. They seemed immune to the repellant..

A whistle in a pocket is a great thing to have - managed to scare a bear that was coming straight toward me while alone on a path in Yosemite...and it could be useful to call for help if needed...

Dont know how to use a compass....yet...or read a relief map. Hoping to take a course on that but with a guide, one doesnt really need that...as long as you are on a well-marked trail...

How about trekking poles? I loved having them, as much for the downhills to take pressure off the knees (fully extended) or on the stiff uphills or traversing rocky surfaces, to test their stability or even while crossing a
stream, for stabilization....

An inner pair of gloves able to operate a camera was also useful in the cold if the outer gloves were too bulky....

Head-torch is the best...hands-free in the bogs...

Learning to shit into the hole with all those clothing layers was quite a performance. Of course the closer you get to the shit tent, the urge to explode is something else !!!

Some of the gear I am mentioning can be expensive stuff but I am hoping to have long use of what I have now...

Anyway, this is the fat spoiled American version...I couldnt help noticing the casual underdressed look of the local camp crew...they are hardy hill folk and I am just a city slicker so not too much shame there....

I think fitness is a big deal as you put it...we were pretty close in fitness until we got above 12,000 and then I really started to struggle...I think it was not merely a fitness thing but a high-altitude tolerance variable as well.... but next trip, I want to be in better shape than I was in Himachal so lets see if I actually follow through....

Keep in touch...ending up being a rather long note...apologies...

XX
Paul