I’m now in Dharamsala just a day away from the grueling overnight bus trip to Delhi and then a flight to Cochin in Kerala, South India. Am working on getting my blog updated on the events of the past three weeks. Stay tuned!
To read about my travels in Sikkim, scroll down to my post from Dec. 6th, or go to http://megnoblepeterson.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/sikkim-is-everything/
My two daughters, Martha and Cary, and I trekked for two weeks in the Kangchenjunga range (Kangchenjunga is the third largest mountain in the world, and I was seeing it this time from the Indian side, not the Nepalese, as in 1996), and we experienced the challenge of a lifetime! Many thanks go to Kalsang Choden of the Potala Tours and Treks, with whom we planned our trip in Gangtok…and to an amazing guide, cook, and porters, all of whom took care of us as if we were family.
Take the rocky, unpredictable “trails” of the White Mountains and add altitude and freezing weather and you have the Sikkim Himalaya. We went up and down with a gain of 3,000 ft. on the very first day of climbing! But we enjoyed every minute (especially the two half-days of acclimitization rest), because we were immersed in a fairyland forest of bamboo, pine, and huge rhododendron, which was covered in a variety of hanging moss. We passed streams and waterfalls, crossed narrow, swinging bridges, and came upon sudden views of mountains rising out of the mist, only to disappear in an instant, swallowed by cloud and forest. It was so magical that we whooped and shouted for joy! Many trails just cut through the forest, and many were treacherously slippery with mud, and some were meticulously built with rocks jutting out for a better grip on the slope. These were also pathways used by locals to get from village to village. I don’t know what I’d have done without Cary, who sang me the Tara mantra and took my hand whenever the going got tough.
After six days, imagine getting up to 14,000 ft. to holy Lake Simiti and being surrounded by peaks freshly covered in snow. And imagine being pummeled by high winds as we considered whether to continue up the ridge on the higher altitude trek we had originally planned. The temperatures were plummeting and the ridge was covered in ice and snow. Nobody was going there…and certainly not us! The weather had turned cold much earlier than expected this year, but at least we managed to avoid the earlier rains that other trekkers had faced.
We had our beautiful starry nights, of course, and we had our frigid runs to less-than-optimum squat outhouses during those nights. And we had one night in Thangsing when we were sure the tents would blow away. But we had terrific food and the challenge of watching Martha’s reaction to high altitude kept us occupied. What a good sport she was! We had been promised by Kalsang that we didn’t need diamox because we’d have garlic soup every day. And she was right. But Martha still had her problems. First she lost her appetite (which gave the rest of us more food, though we weren’t that hungry, either). Then her eyelids began to swell, giving her the look of a curious frog. We photographed her daily and watched with each 1,000 ft. of elevation to see her improvement as she descended. Still, with all the discomfort, she’s game for a trek in Langtang in Nepal next year. Bravo, Martha!
We returned via our original route back to Thangsing, Dzongri (where we had seen the sunrise in the early morning from a high point), Phetang, Tshoka, Bakhim, and our starting point, Yuksom. Our final three days were spent on a monastery trek, every bit as steep, but in lower altitude along terraced hills dotted with small farming communities that clung to the mountainsides. We spent time talking with and photographing several families eager to see themselves on the digital screen. We observed unusual vegetation–fields of cardamon and trees being pruned of leaves, which are fed to cows to produce more milk. The countryside abounded in flowering bougainvillia and poinsettia bushes. And school children passed us along the way, shouting, “Hello, how are you.”
Everywhere we went Cary was intrigued by the gardens, especially those at higher altitude. We also enjoyed watching the young children, many of whom helped round up the animals and care for them. Some were as young as four-years-old. It was just part of their day and their responsibility as a member of a farming family.
Some of the monasteries we visited are: Dubdi and Hongri (where we tented about six inches from a cliff!); Sinon (or Silnol) and, on the very last day, the famous Tashiding Monastery, which was being prepared for the upcoming visit of the Dalai Lama. Groups of men and women were working– preparing the grounds, painting, and constructing new out-buildings. It was a beehive of activity! We were also there during the visit of a high lama from Ladakh, whom we watched being carried up the many steps to the main monastery, shielded from the noonday sun by a colorful umbrella, and accompanied by drumming and the blowing of ceremonial horns.
After a gala farewell with our guide, Tenzing, and his staff, we headed for Darjeeling, a veritable city in the sky, famous for its tea and its unusual scenery. Stay tuned for a recap of the next three weeks. Sorry there are no pictures. I’ve taken about 2,000, but am not good at uploading from internet cafes.
In the meantime, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and an auspicious New Year!
It has only been two days since I left Maplewood, NJ, but what a two days this has been! Never mind the five plus hours to London, the layover at Heathrow, the ten hours to Delhi and the two hours to Bagdogra. Try adding another five hours driving to Gangtok over winding mountain roads that resembled dried river beds, being held up for one hour by a traffic jam (the only stretch of road being resurfaced, so far as I could see) and twenty minutes to let two trains go by, and you can imagine the condition my body was in upon arrival. But I’m not complaining. After only one day of roaming around this hilly town, visiting the Do-Drul Chorten Monastery, and poking around side streets and a main bazaar lining a modern pedestrian mall, my daughters, Cary and Martha, and I were once again immersed in the contradictions of modern India. You could see new buildings going up in rudimentary fashion next to shacks soon to be destroyed. Garbage and debris flowed in the gutters as you looked down several stories between buildings. Music blared, people swarmed in happy crowds, and children in crisp uniforms scampered to school. It is amazing how the cars careen over the hills with no guardrails, no policemen, and no traffic lights, and somehow manage not to run us down or take the sides off their cars.
We also visited the Sikkim Renewable Energy Development Association and learned of their work in solar energy and biogas production and will be visiting a rural biogas digester on our way to the Rumtek Monastery tomorrow.
It’s now Friday night and there’s a band playing down in the street. I won’t tell you it’s in tune, but it sounds as if they’re having fun! They then had a parade with people with placards demonstrating on behalf of the rights of the disabled. That’s the first time I’ve seen this in India. I’ve always felt that the sign of a progressive country is how it treats its people…all of them.
Time to go eat at A Taste of Tibet, and walk up the mountain to our hotel. And go to work on my jet lag. I want to be in good shape for the climb1
It’s great to get back to Asia. There are so many things here that remind me of Myanmar and Ladakh everywhere I look. I feel right at home….
SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS….
IS A LOT EASIER THAN THIS….
…BUT THERE’S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES.
As most of you know, I’m off, tomorrow, for 3½ months in India, starting with a three-week trek in Sikkim with my two daughters, Cary and Martha. Sikkim is way up north and will be my taste of winter for this year. Am I blessed or am I blessed? This time I shall be looking at Mt. Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, from the Indian side instead of from Nepal, where I trekked for a month to its base camp in 1996. It was a wondrous sight and I’m sure will be just as wondrous from Sikkim.
Martha will leave on Dec. 10th and Cary and I will spend the rest of the month in Dharamsala, visiting our Tibetan friends, the TCV (Tibetan Children’s Village) schools in Dharamsala and Bir, and the lovely mountain village of Tso Pema.
In January I’ll be on my own, but have enough alternatives to choke one of the many elephants (and tigers) I hope to see in the wild animal parks that abound in central and southern Indian. I plan to meet up in Tiruvannamalai with Lee Compton, from Whidbey Island, with whom I spent some time in Myanmar in 2007, and three weeks later on the beaches of Gokarna near Goa with Gullvi Eriksson, with whom I trekked in Norway and Sweden in 2005. Some of the places I have my eye on are Khajuraho enroute to Bandhavgarh National Park; Mangalore; Mysore; Hyderabad; Bangalore: Kerala; Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Cardoman Hills; and the Ellora and Ajanta caves. India is one big country and the guidebook, alone, takes up a good hunk of my daypack. I’ll probably be traveling by train, but who knows? Things have changed since I spent time in India twenty years ago and wrote about it in Madam. Those were the days when just making a call home was an all-day adventure. It’s a whole new world out there! So keep an eye on my blog posts. I’ll try to be brief, but hope to hit the high spots.
I’m overjoyed that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel laureate, has finally been freed by the military dictatorship in Myanmar, after spending fourteen of the last twenty years under house arrest. I urge you to check the web and follow the events as they unfold. I had planned to visit for a month in February, but changed plans at the last minute. It was just too difficult, logistically. But I shall return soon. Suu Kyi, whose father was assassinated in 1947, was duly elected in 1990, and immediately imprisoned by the military junta. She heads the National League for Democracy (NLD), and is still wildly popular and a symbol of hope for the Burmese people. I think the military has greatly underestimated her support among the people and somehow thinks that because an election was held, which has been condemned by most countries as a sham, she would be sidelined. As she says, there is much to be done and she intends to continue the fight for democracy in Myanmar. This is a struggle worth watching and supporting.
My blog would not be complete without mentioning at least one outstanding play. This month it is The Pitman Painters on Broadway, brought to us from England and written by Lee Hall, who also wrote Billy Elliot the Musical. Don’t miss it. We also had a concert of Mahler’s 1st Symphony at the Plainfield Symphony. This is the year of Mahler and we started it with a bang (and the crash of cymbals!).
In conclusion, let me share with you the waning days of autumn as seen through my bedroom window. This gorgeous maple tree is so intense in the early morning sun that its reflection imbues my room with a rosy glow, filling my heart with warmth and happiness as only nature’s perfection can.
And down the street, not to be undone, we have a blaze of yellow that dominates the entire hill.
The words of Edward R. Murrow symbolize to me the collegiality and warmth of this marvelous rally: We will not be driven by fear into unreason.
I can’t begin to tell you what a delightful day this was for me and for the tens of thousands of Americans of all ages, who flocked into the capitol to show solidarity for the return to rational, humane discourse in this country. There was not a bit of rowdiness or irritation, though everyone was packed in like sardines, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. And I’m sure the organizers never expected so many people or there would have been more monitors and loud speakers. But nobody seemed to care. We were there on a glorious autumn day to show our support. We couldn’t get close, so after awhile we sat on the grass with other families, watching the children play and listening to the music.
As Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, said in his opening remarks, and I urge you to hear the whole introduction on YouTube: “Don’t divide us…we’re all Americans.” Here are a few sentences out of context that really resonated with me. “It takes an exhaustive effort to hate.” His was a plea for unity and civility. “We can have animus, but not be enemies.” “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” “We live in hard times. Not end times.” “And every day, despite our many problems, we work together to get things done.”
There were lots of homemade signs. Here are a few of them:
Moderate to the Extreme
Real Americans Don’t Use the Term ‘Real Americans’
Nobody but Hitler was Hitler
God Hates Nags
God Hates Figs (you know the parody, of course)
Clown to the Left of Me, Joker to the Right. Here I am, stuck in the Middle with YOU!
Real Patriots Can Handle a Difference of Opinion
And here are a few photographs. If only I could have been up in one of the trees so you could see the vast crowds, but the internet will show you that. Martha, my daughter, and I tried like mad to climb onto the verandas of several museums, but it was forbidden. Such is life. It was a grand day. We saw the sun rise and the sun set as we roared in our Maplewood bus along the highway. On the way down the roads were so crowded that we had to go north in Delaware and go off the beaten track to avoid the traffic. All in all, it was beautiful!
Getting there was half the fun
Look up to the right and see who has the best view!
My sentiments exactly
Ladies at rest. Everywhere we went we made friends…
A wide demographic. You name it, they were there!
And they WERE there
One fleeting view of the stage
The wave
Picnics and a breather away from the crowded Mall
It's over
...and the Capitol is still standing
But not Martha, who was grooving in the sun
Matha, Cally, and MP...three generations getting ready to board the bus and head home
I just heard from two fellow climbers I met on the Kangchenjunga trek in Nepal in 1996. I’ve written about both of them before, since they continue to lead energetic and adventurous lives. If all goes well, I’ll meet up with one, Terry Rollins, when I visit Dharamsala in December, after climbing with my daughters in Sikkim. Terry has been teaching English to Tibetan refugees as a volunteer at the Tibet Charity in McLeod Ganj, Upper Dharamsala, since July. He’ll return to Japan in April, to continue as an ESL teacher in that country. I’m thrilled to be able to connect with him after all these years!
Another avid climber from the Kangchenjungo trip is Sigrid Selle, who is a photographer extraordinaire, and has trekked in such faraway places as Pakistan and Yemen. She spent last August in Mongolia, covering the whole country by jeep, staying in yurts along the way, and taking two separate treks in the western mountain ranges, Altai and Kaakhiraa. She planned the entire trip on the spot, visiting small villages and hiring guides as she went. Now this is something I would love to do. Any takers?
Here are a few of Sigrid’s photos, which she has graciously given me permission to scan. The colors cannot compare to the originals, but are, nevertheless, outstanding. She is known in the San Francisco area for her stunning slide shows…and she hasn’t gone digital!
Ladakh
Kangchenjunga, third highest mountain in the world, from Ladakh
Mustang
Kashgar/Xinjiang
Yemen
Hunza Valley/Pakistan
Tolbachik Volcano/Kamchatka
Finally, I cannot disappoint my friends who laugh at my theater addiction. You can’t blame me for seeing two wonderful new shows on Broadway before I depart for Asia. I highly recommend the hysterically funny La Bete, starring the amazing Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley, written by David Hirson and directed by Matthew Warchus (remember, he directed the recent hits, God of Carnage and The Norman Conquests). And don’t miss Kander and Ebb’s final musical, The Scottsboro Boys, a wrenching story that is told as a minstrel show with a powerful bite to match its powerful performance. To top this off I saw the Metropolitan Opera’s latest production of Modest Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, with the magnificent Rene Pape in the title roll. Long it is, but with such a chorus and orchestra, under the baton of the Russian, Valery Gergiev, that the four hours flew by. Many thanks go to my good friend, Phyllis Bitow, who squired a group of us in the wee hours back to our suburban nests.
Stand by for more information about my upcoming trip, plus a few more travel tips.
I think it’s autumn that keeps me in New Jersey. The heat and humidity are forgotten, and the ice and snow seem far away. It’s easy to live in the present, walk through the curled up red and yellow leaves, and kick aside even the storm clouds that bring the blessed rain to revive our parched land and half-dead bushes. Every week or so I join members of the AMC (Appalachian Mountain Club) for a hike up and down the hills of Harriman or Bear Mountain or the cliffs that abut the Hudson River. Sure, Harriman is in New York State, but close enough to qualify as my backyard. Here are a few pictures of yesterday’s seven-mile hike in the park.
Two weekends ago I visited my friends, Carol and Ted Goodman, who moved from Morristown to Williamstown, MA. That is one beautiful community, which I had visited as a child whenever my father returned to Williams College, his alma mater. I’d move there in a minute if it weren’t so far from NYC and my family. The Goodmans have a lovely house atop a hill with a 360-degree view of the Berkshires. Who could ask for anything more? Watch for Carol’s new book, Never Lie Down, coming soon to Amazon.com.
I had a wonderful discussion with Joan Malespina at the non-fiction book club of Maplewood Library. We shared various adventure stories and she told me about Erik Weihenmayer, the blind climber who has summited Mt. Everest. He is the only blind person to have climbed the “Seven Summits,” the tallest peaks on every continent. Take a look at his website. He’s amazing!
In preparation for my November 16 departure for Sikkin, I’ve combed through Campmor and EMS, finally investing in a down sleeping bag that goes to zero (now what do I do with the other three?). With it all I’ve pared down my belongings to one duffel, one backpack, and a small daypack. It’s taken me twenty-four years to get wise. Next, I traded my humongous Canon camera for a small Nikon Coolpix P7000 that has more bells and whistles than I could use in a lifetime…but I’ll try. Add to that a small digital voice recorder and my pint-sized Sony video camera, and I’m wired to go. Expect a lot of reports along the way. The only sure dates are three weeks trekking in Sikkim with my daughters, Cary and Martha, and three more weeks in the Dharamsala area visiting Tibetan friends, the TCV (Tibetan Children Village) school in Bir, and the mountain community of Tso Pema.
A note about Sikkim. It’s the second smallest state in India (after Goa), located in the northeastern part of the country in the Himalayas. It’s nestled between Tibet and Bhutan on the east, Nepal on the west, West Bengal on the south, and China on the north. So you see I have lots of choices if I decide to jettison India. Who knows? I’ll be traveling by the seat of my pants as usual, with a return ticket on Feb. 28. Keep tuned for new developments.
My theater addiction has been drastically curtailed, but I did enjoy the hilarious English import, Alphabetical Order by Michael Frayn. You may remember two of his other hits, Noises Off and Copenhagen.
And for those of you getting on in years (tell me who isn’t?), I recommend a new book, Dare to Be 100, by Dr. Walter M. Bortz II. Hell, he’s even older than I!
I was honored to be interviewed, recently, by Maplewood maven, Jamie Ross, who runs the local Maplewood online website, a great service to the community. We sat down for two sessions, talking about my book, Madam, Have You Ever Really Been Happy?, my philosophy of travel, and some of my recent trips.
HERE and HERE are links to the interview!
Part 1 of the interview
Part 2 of the interview
I’m in the planning stages for another long trip to Asia—Sikkim (northern India), Myanmar, and the Tibetan community in and around Dharamsala—so I’m particularly sensitive to the news bombarding us daily, about the plight of the flood victims in Pakistan and Ladakh, as well as the disturbing information that many of the products we consume, like SUV’s, mobile phones, play stations, and laptops, add to the destruction of the rain forest or the continuation of terror in such countries as the Congo. And most of us are unaware of this.
I just watched the excellent new PBS program, Need To Know, last Friday night, the 24th, and was stunned by the segment documenting the horrendous use of rape, torture, and murder as a weapon of war in the Congo. What further appalled me was the connection between these rampaging soldiers and the United States. These groups fund their weapons and, thus, continue to subjugate and terrorize women and girls, by selling a variety of precious minerals to companies in the United States (and elsewhere) for components in the above-mentioned products. Not all these minerals come from the Congo, but a large percentage does.
President Obama touched on this in his speech to the United Nations, but we need to examine our part in buying the products containing the minerals, and to insist on transparency by the U.S. companies as to where they buy these components. Make sure that they have a supply chain that guarantees conflict-free minerals. They may be reluctant to give out such information, but by keeping the pressure up we can help eradicate the atrocities going on in this war-torn country.
I suggest that you look at this report on PBS.org and make your senators and representatives aware of how pervasive the problem is (just this past summer the number of rapes in a few isolated villages topped 500), and the urgent need to write legislation prohibiting U.S. companies from doing business with Congolese warlords and rebel groups. I may sound naïve, but pressure does work.
I plan to return to Myanmar in mid-January for a month, and this time I shall write the stories of some of the people I met on my first trip, and what has happened to them in the interim. The news out of Myanmar has been grim, and I have not dared make any overt contact, myself, for fear of endangering those I met. But I think it’s time to take my own advice and stand up and be counted. I will not use names, but I will tell it as I see it. No holds barred.
The news from the Plainfield Symphony about last night’s concert is great! It was one of the most enjoyable concerts I’ve played, largely because of our new conductor, Charles Prince, and Leonard Bernstein’s daughter, Jamie, who presided over a concert of Aaron Copeland’s Billy the Kid, Leonard Bernstein’s Suite from On The Waterfront, and Charles Ives’ Symphonuy #2. All these pieces were challenging, with six tympani and assorted percussion, an amazing brass and woodwind section, and strings that played faster than seemed possible. Jamie showed the many ways that these composers “shared” each other’s compositions, and, using song and placards to the audience’s delight, traced the use of American folk music by the inimitable Ives.
but so is the heat and humidity. I must admit that it was difficult to drag myself out of the White Mountains and Lake Winnipesaukee this year. I wanted to stay all September and just float in the water, but the Plainfield Symphony was calling as well as the bills and all the minutiae that make up our post-vacation reality. But I’m grateful for a summer of almost no computer, no television, no newspapers, and no loud political discourse. Naturally, I was made aware of the catastrophic floods in my beloved Ladakh in August as well as the plight of millions of flood victims in Pakistan. Who can be immune to that? And I am prepared to come face to face with some of the suffering during my upcoming four months in India. But, then, there are numerous people who are trying to help and actually making a difference, so that’s encouraging. My friend, Tamara Blesh, who just returned from Ladakh, has related her first-hand experience of this crisis. I will write more about her work in a subsequent blog, but do check out her excellent website at: http://www.travelinglibrarian.org/
This summer was a time for family and friends at the cottage….
Leah, John, & Sarah Kelly
Leah and Judy Wyman Kelly
Tom...Shall I? It's pretty cold
Carmen, Tom's girlfriend, experiencing the Peterson family for the first time
….and it was also a time for work, as we repaired the road (thank you, Peterson muscle), stained the dock, and tried to ameliorate the damage caused by Old Man Winter.
Tom starting on 14 tons of fill
Nobody one-ups Martha!
Or me....
A partial view of the results, and there's more to go....for the remaining relatives
There were also some great mountain trips, the most outstanding being a hike up to Greenleaf Hut on Mt. Lafayette in Franconia Notch. It was son Tom’s treat, but he forgot to check with God about the weather. It was the only three rainy days of the month, which provided a very challenging slog up the Old Bridle Path, perilous even in dry weather. But you can see by the smiles that we had a great time. Unfortunately, we had to scratch the hike over the Franconia Ridge and down Falling Water Trail because of the fierce weather. But wait another year…we’ll be there.
Yours truly heading up the Old Bridle Path to Greenleaf Hut in the rain
Son-in-law Gary, Martha, Carmen, and Tom just after coming down the Greenleaf Trail, and preparing for a 4-mile hike to the car
My addiction to sunsets is almost as serious as my addiction to theater, so bear with me as I post a variety of scenes of the water and islands of Lake Winnie that we see every evening from our cottage. There’s no way I will ever be able to capture the soul-soothing images that bombard me each summer, but I keep trying.
The woods at sunset
Cottage in the evening glow
Evening shadows
The beginning of a three-day blow
Now the Day if Over
Really over....
© 2025 Meg Noble Peterson
