Nepal #12: Mmmmm Chiya!

As requested, a post about the delicious beverage that is omnipresent in Nepal. We had this multiple times a day for three weeks, and I still loved it at the end. I think that's a good sign...

Here's the step-by-step process that our host father (Rajendra-dai) taught us. I brought the tea and powdered milk back from Nepal, but I'm hoping that I can get a hold of something similar in the US. Powdered milk is powdered milk, right?

Step 1: The fresh spices are my favorite part of this recipe. Bring a saucepan of water (~ 4 mugs worth) to the point where it's just about to boil -- when spirals of bubbles start to come to the top, but it's not rolling yet. Crush ~ 5 cardamom pods between your fingers and drop them in the water followed by a few cloves.

Step 2: Bring the water to a boil and add a few tablespoons of the powdered milk mix (pictured below). The water will get frothy and try to boil over, so make sure to keep stirring.

Step 3: Once the milk is all mixed in, add a few tablespoons of chiya. The chiya seems to be crumbled up black tea leaves, so it kind of looks like coffee. I'm hoping that just using black tea will produce the same results, so stay posted for an update about that! After this step the liquid quickly becomes a beautiful rich brown color:

Step 4: At this point the tea is full of all kinds of crunchy things that you probably wouldn't want to eat, so the next step is to pour it through a very fine strainer. I went on an adventure in Kathmandu specifically to find this strainer, but it ended up being a 1-minute-adventure because Urja, the trek leader, came along with us and found one in the first store we went to.

Step 5: Enjoy! Preferably sitting next to a campfire watching the sun set next to a snow covered mountain. Or just in your apartment in chilly Ithaca, NY with a good friend!

Nepal #9: Trekking in the Himalayas!

A typical day on the trek... it's a long one, I apologize!

"Chiya! Chiiiyyyaa!"

After a few days on the trek I've become accustomed to waking up as quickly as possible when I hear those words. Ratna and Sarita, the Nepali students I am sharing my tent with, are rustling out of their fluffy down sleeping bags, which are about 2 feet too long for them. I hesitantly unzip the tent to see two blurry smiling porters handing me a metal cup filled with steaming Nepali chiya, a delicious black tea that Nepalis drink multiple times per day. "Namaste didi!" (hello older sister!) they say. I take it with my right hand and pass it to Sarita on the far side of the tent (which isn't very far since the three of us are squeezed into a 2-person tent for warmth). After handing another to Ratna, I take my cup and try to find a place to set it to cool as quickly as possible since the metal sides heat up ridiculously fast. Finally, a metal platter covered in biscuits comes into focus and I grab a bunch of those to share. We ate these Good Day cookies twice a day for the entire trek, and I'm starting to believe the name!

I reach into the tent pocket for my watch and glasses. It's about 7am (in Nepal, time doesn't really matter - all that matters is that we just had morning chiya). We start packing up our sleeping bags and getting ready for the day. We leave the tent two at a time so the third person can change inside -- it's not appropriate to change in front of anyone, regardless of whether they are male or female. I don't really mind though - the time passes quickly when the view from your tent looks something like this... This mountain is Langtang Ri.

Once we're dressed and have had time to use the latrine (see below), we head over to the dining tent to wash our hands for morning dhaal bhaat. See this post if you're curious about what we ate!

After breakfast we pack up our tent, which has hopefully dried in the strong high-altitude sun. We put the tent on the pile of tents for the porters to carry to our next campsite. They are responsible for carrying our shelter and food. We just carry our personal belongings and a few group-gear items in case of an emergency. I really can't complain about the set-up - my pack feels heavy enough already without adding a tent, a huge bag of rice, and a couple fuel bottles!

We meet in a central location with the rest of the group. By now most of the porters have packed up their baskets and left for the next campsite. The leaders of the day tell us the plan, and before we depart Alex (American student in charge of all things medical-related) facilitates a pulse check. We've been checking our pulses a couple times a day, at rest and during times of exertion, to gain an idea for what each person's normal pulse is. If Mike gets injured on the trek, for example, we will know that his resting pulse of 50 isn't abnormally low!

The first half hour is always the hardest. Our packs feel so heavy, and the uphill is so steep! We walk slowly though. The leaders of the day are in charge of maintaining a good pace that keeps the group together. On the uphills, especially on the snowy and higher altitude days, we only go one or two steps per breath. Every half hour we stop for a pee/snack/water break. This continues for 3 to 6 hours, depending on the day. Along the way we pass locals carrying huge loads of fodder, packs of firewood, and freshly chopped logs for building houses.

Even though it's cold out, the sun is ridiculously strong at higher altitudes. I was initially skeptical when told that it's because there is less atmosphere for it to penetrate, but a couple migraines later I was convinced! Mid day attire included sunglasses, a baseball cap fitted with a bandanna to protect my neck and cheeks, and multiple thick layers of sunscreen (especially on the backs of my hands!). Somehow I managed to avoid getting burned, which I rarely achieve at low altitudes...

Some time in the afternoon we arrive at our new campsite, where we are welcomed with a steaming cup of chiya or hot chocolate and more Good Day biscuits! We search for a flat spot to set up our tents, which is not always easy - everything in Nepal seems to be on a slant.

After a couple hours of relaxing, taking pictures, playing cards, or exploring the campsite, the sun starts to set and the temperature drops significantly. Frost forms on everything that is exposed to the sky, so we learn quickly to put everything in the tent! Chilly clouds form and sweep through the pass:

We layer up - swapping sun hats for wool ones and adding a couple layers of long underwear, top and bottom.  It's time for evening dhaal bhaat. The porters did a great job of including some variety in our evening meals. Some examples include pasta with tomato sauce, spring rolls (hand made!!), other beautiful filled pastries, potatoes at almost every meal (sometimes as french fries), ginger soup, noodle soup, and sometimes veggies. It was all very carb-intensive, but we definitely burned it off during the day! Yum!

After dinner we gather around the campfire (well, more like blazing bonfire) that the porters have set-up. They are singing our favorite song - Resham Firiri - and we join in. It's fun because the chorus stays the same, but people make up the verses and usually say something funny or tease someone else in the group. It usually resulted in a lot of laughing with very little understanding!

Soon we hear a call for tato paani! It's time to take our BPA-filled nalgenes to the dining tent and fill up with boiling hot water. This serves two purposes: treated water without the nasty taste of iodine treatment and even more importantly, sleeping bag heaters! During the entire trek I consistently got the best sleep from bedtime until about 2am, right around the time my water bottle failed to be warm...

We dash from the warm fire into our warm sleeping bags. After a few minutes of reading or journal-writing, we are exhausted.

Did I mention it's about 7:30 or 8pm?

P.S. Post soon about the route we trekked and a brief description of each campsite!
P.S. (again) Thanks to major jet-lag I'm actually writing these posts at about the rate I'd hoped... Alright, time to go back to bed (it's 3:45am).

Nepal #8: Learning to Cook Tarkari

Tarkari - Vegetables
These were pretty much omnipresent in our daily dhaal bhats. The mixture of vegetables varied from day to day, but almost always had potatoes as the base, with guest appearances from cauliflower, green beans, green leafy veggies, and tomatoes.

Since I love cooking, I spent a lot of time with my family learning how to cook veggies, buffalo meat, chicken, and chiya (tea). Here's a video where I am prepping the veggies and talking a little bit about them! That's my host-mom and her son Susil in the background.

How to make tarkari:
(in our household -- others might have varied a bit):

1. Chop potatoes and other veggies with sickle (another post soon about how the blacksmith makes the sickle!).
2. Heat a good amount of sunflower oil in wok-shaped pan over fire.
3. Add methi (fenugreek seeds) to oil. They should pop if the oil is hot enough. 
4. Add a handful of roughly chopped shallots. Stir well as they fry to golden brown.
5. Add a bunch of aloo (potatoes) to the hot oil, stir, and cover with lid to allow the potatoes to cook through without burning. 
6. A bit later, add the green beans, a good tablespoon of turmeric, some paani (water) to keep from sticking, and stir well.
7. Add lots of salt! (Way more than I would ever use... but now I understand why this was so tasty!)
8. Add cauli (cauliflower) and stir.
9. Add approximately equal amounts of cumin and cayenne pepper (less than the turmeric). Stir together and cover. 
10. A few minutes later add the tomatoes and chopped scallion leaves.
11. Add the very end add a handful of chopped cilantro.

I apologize if the quantities are very vague! They measured spices out using the lids of the spice jars, so any amounts I tell you would be very inaccurate.  I think it's a pretty resilient recipe - adding or removing a step shouldn't affect it too much. These are so delicious! Tarkari and chiya (future post) are the two things I think I couldn't get sick of!

Mitho che! Delicious!

Nepal #5: Daal Bhaat. It's what you eat.

"Daal Bhaat power, 24 hours!" 

These wise words were coined (I believe) by Zac (Ji-dac) Edwards to express that Daal Bhaat is what you eat and what powers you every day in Nepal!

Daal = Lentils (usually split black gram and spicy)
Bhaat = Rice (always white)

 Porters serving Dhaal Bhaat on the 5th morning of the trek. Zac looks excited.

The meal schedule in Nepal looks something like this: wake up, morning chiya (tea with some cookies) around 7am, morning daal bhaat around 10am, afternoon caja (snack - something different and delicious every day) around 3pm, evening daal bhaat around 7pm, bed. All other parts of the day are planned relative to these meals.

Sometimes daal bhaat is fancied up with treats like tarkari (vegetables), chicken, dried buffalo, or achar (pickles - NOT of the cucumber type, thank god). For example, a rather complex/fancy Daal Bhaat with a rather low ratio of rice to everything else is pictured below:

More commonly you would receive a HEAPING (I mean heaping) plate of white rice with a small scoop of curried veggies and a bowl of spicy black lentils on the side. The ratios of carbs to veggies/protein were very different from what I'm used to in the US, so it definitely took my stomach some time to adjust... During the first couple days in the village it was a huge struggle to finish my plate (it's considered rude if you don't finish everything on your plate). We all agreed that by the end our stomachs had stretched to a deliciously dangerous size. We graduated from hopelessly trying to fight off that second/third/fourth helping of rice that so often came flying out of nowhere to watching it zoom in and land on our plate without the least bit of hand waving. It was quite magical.

A Short How-To: Daal Bhaat Eating!
Oh, another thing misleading about the above picture (taken in a restaurant), is the cutlery. Did I mention that we only ate with our hands in the village? And by 'hands' I mean our right hands exclusively. It's an art that we clumsily developed over the weeks. I recommend you try it - it's quite fun, and you get used to it rather quickly. A common novice would try to pinch the food from above, but this results in leaning back your head and trying to drop the rice in. This also results in serious embarrassment/soiling of clothes. A true hand-eater scoops in from the right with palm up. Then you spin your hand around so your fingers are facing your mouth. Once finger tips are close enough, use your thumb across your hand to push the rice into your mouth. Easy as that!

Stay tuned for posts with videos/explanations for how to make delicious Nepali foods like tarkari, roti (round fried bread), and chiya! 

Seal Cove and around Bartlett Island (Mt. Desert Island Day #3)

Here is part 3 of 3 (Yes, the days are out of order, but I guess that's just going to be a trend in this blog), a guest post by Mary Kate Wheeler summarizing our third and final paddle on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. 

After a last minute decision to join Nena and Ben's MDI Expedition, I headed east from Warren, Vermont on Friday, arriving at the campsite just minutes after dinner ended. Fortunately my ever prepared companions dug up some leftovers and even an extra tent to make me feel well at home.

 Fisherman dinghies at the put-in.

Mist hovered along the coastline as we drove to our launching point on Saturday morning. After hearing a rumor of exceptionally friendly marine life off the western side of the island we chose to paddle out of Seal Cove. Although it seemed to be a popular spot for fishermen and motor boats, the cove provided a nicely sheltered place to launch kayaks.

 

 At the put-in, with Mary-Kate's self-made skin-on-frame kayak in the background.

Our goal of having close and personal encounters with marine mammals was quickly and unexpectedly met. Paddling among lobster buoys on our way out of the cove we spotted dark dorsal fins of several porpoise (at least we think they were porpoise – probably harbor porpoise) swimming in our general direction. We paddled towards the pod and waited, scanning the surface, until a pair came up almost underneath Nena's boat. Not too interested in paddlers, the porpoise continued on their course and we observed for a while before continuing on ours.

After leaving Seal Cove we turned north and paddled along the western shore of MDI, passing Hardwood Island to our west. We continued north past Folly Island and Pretty Marsh Harbor. By the time we entered Bartlett Narrows - the waterway separating Bartlett Island from the main island - the flood tide had created a strong current that carried us quickly to the northern end of Bartlett Island.

Knowing that we would be paddling against wind and current on our return trip, we still chose to paddle around the northern point of Bartlett Island and return on its more exposed western side. Although the paddling became more difficult our work paid off as we saw two harbor seal - one on the northern side of the island, and a second one near the island's southern point. 

 Mary Kate and Ben paddling next to Bartlett Island.

About half way down Bartlett Island we stopped for lunch at a gravely beach with a beautiful view of Blue Hill Bay. We timed our rest so we would be off the water while the flood tide current was at its peak. Still, the final part of our trip was a good challenging paddle, with wind, current, and some small but exciting waves off the island's points

We made one crossing, from the south point of Bartlett Island back to the western shore of MDI, and then retraced our path from the morning. On the way back into Seal Cove we sighted guillemots, small diving birds with amazingly red feet, close relatives of the puffin.

Date: July 18th, 2010
Distance: 17.6 miles

Our long day of paddling along the incredible Maine coastline was completely satisfying. Yet we somehow managed to fit in more adventures that evening, climbing the highest peak on the Atlantic Coast, Cadillac Mountain (by car) before indulging in a fresh seafood dinner at Head of the Harbor restaurant in Southwest Harbor. 

Not bad for a summer Saturday in Maine.

- Mary Kate

Southport Island in Boothbay, Maine

(This day actually happened before the previous post)

Now that you're all (the 3 of you who actually read this) probably getting bored of my posts, I've invited a guest blogger!!! I now present you with Jeff Buchman, kayaking partner for the weekend of 7/9-7/11 on our visit to Boothbay Harbor in Maine...

(Plotting our course on Friday night by candle lantern light)

Saturday morning we awoke to the sound of what we though were rain drops on the tent but it turns out it was only large amounts of fog dripping off of the trees. Since it was predicted to thunderstorm I was more than willing to deal with heavy fog since last time I checked no one was ever electrocuted by fog. When we arrived at the beach at Gray Homestead Oceanfront Camping where we were staying we couldn’t see Squirrel Island which is only about 1 mile off the coast of Southport Island where we were due to the thick fog. As we were launching, the fog began to lift and a little bit of sun began to shine from behind the clouds. The first part of the trip was against the tide toward the open Atlantic. While paddling against the tide is a bit more challenging, it is somewhat reassuring to know that if something goes wrong you won’t be getting swept out into the North Atlantic. The wave height was probably 3-4 feet but unlike the Lake Ontario waves we are used to where 3-4 feet means breakers these were all swells with a long wavelength so it was very gentle.

(Nena paddling east towards the open ocean)

As we approached the Cuckold Island Lighthouse, the waves began to get a little bit bigger and we could see fairly large breakers in the distance so we made the decision to cut through Cape Harbor on the south end of Southport Island. We had been debating crossing Sheepscot Bay to the Five Islands area but since there was thick fog moving in and out we decided it would be best to stick to shore and paddle the circumference of Southport instead. While paddling along the western coast of the island we found a number of pleasantly named coves (Christmas Cove, Cozy Cove, etc...) to explore which ensured us that our decision to forgo the crossing would not be regretted.

(Jeff paddling past the Cuckold Island lighthouse)

While in Cozy Cove we saw an area that had a gate built across it and an opening just big enough for a kayaker to squeeze through so naturally we had to investigate (Note from Nena: I managed to run head-on into the edge of the gate and nearly flip myself, but Jeff is being nice and not mentioning it). Inside we found a large salt water pond with a few unused docks that were covered with the remains of seabird meals. Nena found a nice sea urchin skeleton and cleaned it up to take with her but sadly it was later crushed. We stopped for lunch on what we first thought was an uninhabited island but after getting out of the boats we found there we a number of cabins near our landing point. Upon closer inspection no one was in the cabins so we decided to stay and eat lunch while the sun was shining. After lunch some threatening clouds appeared in the west so we decided to up the pace and try to get into the shelter of Townsend Gut (a gut is a small body of water connecting two larger bodies of water) on the north end of the island before any sort of storm appeared. In what became a theme for the weekend, the threatening clouds produced only a slight drizzle. The bridge on Route 27 crossing over Townsend Gut onto Southport Island is a swing bridge so taller boats can get through. Rather than splitting in the middle the whole bridge pivots on a center point and rotates 90 degrees, moving itself out of the way.

(A pile of lobster traps in Christmas Cove)

The paddle back to the campground at low tide was rather uneventful until we reached the take-out and decided to get out on the small floating dock they had there. The combination of two sea kayaks, a steeply angled ramp, and a moving platform made getting the boat up to the beach a bit tricky so after maneuvering Nena’s boat up the ramp we decided it would be best if I paddled back to the beach. Our first day of paddling covered 13 miles and about 100 feet of swimming off the dock once we got back to the campground.

Date: Saturday, July 10th 2010
Distance: 13 miles
Time: ~4.5 hours (incl. lunch)

After paddling we decided to head to the lovely little town of Boothbay Harbor where to cure her headache most likely caused by dehydration Nena had some espresso and double chocolate gelato. I decided to go local and try the sea salt gelato, it was surprisingly good. We spent a few hours exploring the town before going back to camp to get ready for Sunday’s paddle. (see previous post)

~ Jeff

Maine: Foggy Knubble Bay & Robinhood Cove (Not Peter Pan or Huckleberry Finn!)

On day 2 (the days are out of order because Jeff is guest-writing the day 1 entry!) Jeff and I made the *calculated* decision to be impulsive and stop at a flea market on the ride between our campground and Reid State Park (where we planned to launch). Amongst the piles of overpriced rusty items we discovered a box of Man Stuff. Although I encouraged him to prove himself by purchasing one of the incredibly useful things in the box, Jeff chickened out and chose to remain un-manly.

When we finally arrived at Reid State Park, we were informed that it would cost $12 to park there, so we turned around and launched (somewhat illegally) at the south end of Robinhood Cove. I hid my car in the woods so it wouldn't get towed. Another great reason to have a forest green car!


Date: Sunday July 11th, 2010
Distance: 18 miles! longest paddle yet!
Time: ~ 5.5 hours

The overall route for the day included paddling up the length of Robinhood cove, heading up to the top of Knubble Bay, popping our heads out into Hockomock Bay, surviving the infamous 'Lower Hell Gate' on the way back into Knubble Bay, circumnavigating Macmanhan Island out in the Sheepscot River, and returning to the south end of Robinhood Cove.

When we first set out, an ominously dark cloud had us worried, but we continued on and eventually it passed without incident. Throughout the day we experienced a number of Maine's signature paddling elements:

1. A persistent, slow, steady drizzle that kept us damp but cool for the majority of the day

2. Intermittent bouts of fog that roll in unexpectedly, in a matter of minutes. These are caused by warm continental air flowing over the colder water, causing the moisture in the warm air to condense. When they roll in you can feel strong alternating breezes of hot, humid air and chilly, ocean air. At one point we watched a sailboat become engulfed in a thick layer of fog infront of us. We could only see the top of the mast sticking out of the layer. While we were watching we could hear a motorboat getting closer and closer to the sailboat, which was sounding its fog horn every minute or so. At the last minute the motorboat finally slowed down and veered off to the side of the sailboat. Throughout this whole business we stuck very close to the cliffs on our left to avoid any close encounters in the fog.

Here's a picture of Jeff next to someone's enormous 'joyride':


This one was taken exactly 5 minutes later (according to my camera) after a thinner fog rolled in.


3. Strong tides that had us doing (scary according to me, fun according to Jeff) scary eddy turns and paddling against the current to get back. 'Lower Hell Gate' was supposed to have very fast moving water since it's relatively narrow and shallow, but we hit it just after high tide, so it wasn't too troublesome. In case you don't already know about the rule of twelfths, here's a basic rule of thumb that comes in useful when planning trips in tidal regions:

- Tides are spaced by 6 hours (ex. low tide at 11am, high tide at 5pm, low tide at 11pm)
- In the 1st and 6th hours, 1/12 of the water moves (between 11am and noon)
- In the 2nd and 5th hours, 2/12 (1/6) of the water moves
- In the 3rd and 4th hours, 3/12 (1/4) of the water moves

Ok, enough fractions. Overall lesson: The closer you are to slack tide (the moment when water stops moving in and starts moving out, or vice versa), the slower the water is moving.

Other fun fact: The higher north you are along the coast, the more the tides change (in Boothbay it was about 9 ft, in Acadia National Park next weekend it will be more like 11 ft).

4. Saltwater armpit chaffing. Enough said. Ow.

We stopped for lunch on Macmahan Island in the Sheepscot River.

Beautiful contrast of misty Sheepscot River and bright green salt water grasses:


Although our landing was nice and clean on the rocks, by the time we'd finished lunch the water level had dropped enough to make our launch quite messy. We got stuck in the slippery seaweed...



On the way back we discovered a shipwreck in Robinhood Cove that we hadn't seen at high tide when we started:


How to end a weekend of paddling in Maine? $13 lobster roll. Absolutely delicious!