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Last night we went to a little town (possibly a village) so that on the following morning we could get an early start climbing Hatu peak.
This morning we decided not to get up early and didn’t start our trek until about 1000. The walk from the hotel to the peak is approximately 8 km and a rise of 700 m. Now while that rise doesn’t sound like much we were starting from 2700 odd metres and ascending to 3400 metres. Which in theory is enough to give some signs of altitude sickness, but luckily for us since we had been dwelling at 2300 metres we’ve had enough time to adapt.
The climb started well enough, a nice gentle slope, scenic views. A bit of the way up we found an emergency shelter, outside of which was rectangular dug out pit, filled with ice. I postulated that it was a dam for watering animals during the not quite so frozen season whereas Mark proposed that it was an ice skating rink. Later it turned out that I was right. 
Whilst we were having a look around a car showed up and we had a chat with the occupants. As per most conversations we’ve had in India they revolved around “Where are you from?”, “What are you doing here?” and “Where are you staying?”. After answering those questions and then commenting on the state of cricket (since we’re from Australia) they went up the hill.
We reached the last driveable bit of the road (we were walking, but it was where other cars were parking) and we ran into the car full of people that we met earlier on, turns out they were filming a documentary on the state we are currently staying in, Himchal Pradesh. They invited us to climb up the rest of the slope with them, about 3 or 4 km.
Along the way Jampa (the guide who was with the other party), Mark and I decided to take the scramble path up a section rather than taking the long road route. It was rather fun, but a bit scary as it was very icy and snowy with footing that wasn’t entirely clear. I made it safely to the top and we proceeded along the way to Hatu peak. As we got higher the road became more and more treacherous, but thankfully I had an ice axe that provided me with sufficient stability to traverse the more precarious services.
We reached the top and viewed a magnificent 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding mountains. Including a good stretch of the Himalayas, the vista (not the Microsoft one) was just magnificent. I’ve tried to capture it on the camera but it really just doesn’t do it justice.
On the way back the film crew asked if they could film us going back down the scramble path. I avoided taking the same path down as I took up as it was fairly compacted snow and quite slippery in places with ice. About one third of the way down I slipped and threw my arms out to catch myself. It worked; I arrested my descent, but not quite as I planned. I felt, as I stopped myself, my left shoulder cease dwelling where it was supposed to and come out. I dislocated my shoulder. Lucky for me I’ve done this a number of times and I know it will pop back in given a short while, which thankfully it did here. I managed to continue my descent but not in such a stylish way (not that dislocating a shoulder is stylish). This wasn’t falling with style, it was simply bum sliding down this slope.
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We made it down the rest of the hill with no further incidents. Half way down they director decided it would be a good idea for the talent to learn how to ski. Unfortunately there was no snow around for her to ski on so she did so on an icy road. She had as much skiing talent as I do and after being placed on skis promptly fell over. So they re-shoot scene having her hold on to the skis for the first shoot, then shoot her falling over after travelling around 1 metre. To be fair I fall over roughly after the same distance.
Guess which girl below is the talent.
It’s the New Year, happy New Year everyone. Over here it’s just cold, bloody cold.
I really wish Indian would look around themselves occasionally. Their country, especially in Shimla is beautiful. Simply stunning, but they just drop their rubbish wherever they damn well please. Rubbish seems to congregate in places on the slopes and forms what Mark poignantly called a trashalanche.
Kissing is forbidden from being portrayed in the entertainment industry and yet if you watch a Bollywood music video it becomes clear that showing a whole lot of skin while dancing using moves which are more appropriate for strip club (or so I would imagine, not that I would know) isn't. Doesn't really add up.
Today we walked to the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies and then on to the Viceroys residence. The Viceroys residence was the place where the Viceroy lived during the time of the Raj. It was built in the Scottish baronial style, which basically boils down to very impressive.
After the Raj left it was converted to some important political residence for the new government and later in to a university building in which humanities and social science are studied. We went on a tour of the building in which we had to pay 50 rupees and 20 rupees for Mark and myself. I saved the dollar by showing my Indian citizenship card. Not that they readily believed me, I think the thing that saved me the money was the fact that the card listed my occupation as student, and currently I guess I am a student.
The tour consisted of 2 rooms and two hallways. The first hallway consisted of a brief history (which I didn't listen to as you can observed from my above paragraph) and showing us the old felt mountings for the guns and sword. There aren't any weapons left, they've been removed but the felt remains, impressive. In the second hallway we were showed a library where we weren't allowed to see inside and some brass light switches. Which all the Indians then queued up to see, we did to, to see what all the fuss was about, they were light switches. The next two rooms were equally impressive as the light switches, so once we hit the museum (a room with some low quality photos) we bailed, which was fortunately the end of the tour. That said just walking around the grands of this place was fantasitic. Really beautfiul, with old trees, lovely grass fields with the obligatory couples being couples on them. Indian style couples though.
Today we started in the general theatres in the hospital. If I thought the other cardiothoracic vascular theatre was a bit disturbing the general are far far worse. They look like they are from a MASH scene. White drapes, halothane, no ventilators, blood everywhere. In one theatre the only monitoring they had was ECG, the sats probe was broken and the BP cuff wasn't connected. They do possess some advanced equipment, like a laparoscopic stack, but currently it's broken.
Unlike the cardio theatres, there didn't seem to be a disaster associated with each operation. The operation of choice is a cholecystectomy; I've put this down to the Indian diet of eating things doused in ghee,
Indian food is fantastic, wherever you walk there are dhabas; shops that sell all sorts of delicious food, usually deep fried. But it isn't ordinary deep fried western food, because that would be disgusting and unhealthy. This is deep fried indian food, which is delicious and unhealthy. We've been having samosas, paranthas, bread. Just to clarify the middle one isn't strictly deep fried, but it is cooked in a puddle of ghee. When I say bread, I do mean bread, plain ordinary bread dipped in batter.
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