Learning to fly a paraglider in Kamshet
As far as I can remember, I had one persistent, recurring childhood fantasy/dream: To fly. All by myself.
Some 40 odd years later, it has finally happened. I went through a short training to learn to fly a paraglider. So how was it to live out your childhood fantasy, you might ask? Well, nice! Really nice. But, somehow not as fantastic as the original fantasy!
Mostly because jumping off the face of a high cliff defies your basic instinct.
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3 minute read | 544 words
Cycling the Spiti valley — Nako to Manali
The hardest part about Spiti is reaching there. It took us a 22-hour bus ride to get to Rekong Peo. For the sake of acclimatization we had planned the night stay at Kalpa, which is not so far from there, but much higher. And also much nicer. Having had our fill with the HPTDC’s ‘ordinary’ buses, especially given the quantum of our luggage, we choose to just hire a jeep the next day to take us up to Nako (technically still in Kinnaur) – another five odd hour drive.
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10 minute read | 2104 words
#cycling, #adventures, #featured, #cycle touring, #cycling in the himalayas, #bicycle adventures, #spiti valley
Which is the best cycle for touring the Indian himalayas?
People often ask me what is the best cycle for touring the Himalayas. It is a hard question to answer, mainly because different people define ‘touring’ differently.
For instance, cycle touring may mean cycling hundreds of kilometers self-supported where the rider carries a tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear on the bike, and has the option to stop and camp wherever she fancies. However, many of the well established Himalayan routes can also be toured ultralight, by eating and sleeping in teahouses (dhabas).
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5 minute read | 1008 words
#cycling, #featured, #cycle touring, #cycling in the himalayas, #self-supported cycling, #cycling in india, #manali to leh
Riding the thunder dragon
Where in the world
do you have a car driver slow down to a halt, to let you finish taking a picture from across the street.
Where in the world
do you have women managing the night desk alone in a small hotel, in a smallish town.
Where in the world
do you have women taxi drivers doing solo cross-country drives.
Where in the world
do you have young women single handedly manage resto-bars on the side of a highway, in the middle of nowhere.
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3 minute read | 460 words
#cycling, #adventures, #featured, #cycle touring, #cycling in bhutan
Choosing a bicycle 101: Roadie, Hybrid, MTB, Touring or fixed gear?
So you’re thinking of buying a new cycle? And you are being bombarded by friends, fellow cyclists and salespeople by all kinds of conflicting information?
I have, in the past, tried to clear some smoke for friends. This is an attempt to make my suggestions available on the web. Do let me know if this post did the job for you. Let me start by saying that you will not get a straight answer.
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7 minute read | 1341 words
Khardung: WordPress Theme
I wrote my first piece of code in 1988. And over the years I have abandoned coding for many different things; but I seem to keep coming back to it, like it were my one true love.
In the latest iteration, I started teaching myself PHP and MySQL because I wanted to create a data-heavy, user-editable, personalized website – PublishersGlobal.com. The effort did push the limits of my knowledge of database design and my skills with PHP and MySQL.
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2 minute read | 274 words
Cycling across the Sach Pass, Himachal Pradesh
Perhaps more appropriate to say ‘trying to’ cycle across the Sach Pass. And failing. We did our best, under the circumstances, and failed. No shame in that!
15 odd kilometers short of the Sach pass we had to turn around . The trail (can’t call it a road, even though it was wider than a typical single track) was so steep, and so full of slush that our bikes had no grip.
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2 minute read | 308 words
#cycling, #adventures, #cycle touring, #cycling in the himalayas, #himachal pradesh, #saach pass, #self-supported cycling
Documenting Community Media in India
I started CommunityVoices.in as an experimental project to find, collate and share information about community media in India. The first phase is attempting to create a directory of community media in India.
CommunityVoices.in is being beta tested. At this time you can add a community media organization to the database, but the website itself is not ready for public viewing, yet…
Go to CommunityVoices.in
CommunityVoices.in website CommunityVoices.
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1 minute read | 68 words
Human and environmental effects of 'mass-produced agriculture'
I must confess that I was not entirely surprised to read that the results of ‘mass-produced agriculture’ can sometimes be less than satisfactory. Allow me to summaries some of the human and environmental effects of using using ‘modern industrial production systems’ to grow tomatoes :
Hundreds of herbicides and pesticides are sprayed on the fields. Many of these are known to have negative health impact. There are known documented cases of birth defects among the farm hands.
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2 minute read | 258 words
Recent ceramics
When you throw the clay you literally have little idea how the end product will look and feel… not even when you glaze. Well, at least, I don’t. Or perhaps, not yet. And I love that. Reminds me of my days in the dark room. One used to wait eagerly to see how the picture would finally emerge on paper, the wait for the ceramics to emerge from the kiln is almost similar, for me.
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1 minute read | 85 words
Trekking across the Buran Pass, Himachal
She knew. I could tell she knew that I was in pain. I had been making sure that the violent negotiations between my calves and knees were kept to, well, myself. But she could see through it.
I was determined to take myself and the 20 kilo pack on my back, safely to wherever the trail ended. This was the last, and particularly gruelling, day of a 6-day-trek across the Buran Pass.
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4 minute read | 772 words
#adventures, #featured, #himachal pradesh, #hiking, #trekking, #walking