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1064 days ago
I am back in Toronto. My 2006 Expedition entitled Aneil 2K6 is over. Today is Christmas day and there is less than 1 week remaining in this year. I have had an amazing year filled with so many wonderful experiences. I have grown so much closer to my family and met a tonne of new people from all sorts of countries along the way. Some stats from the year... - I flew on 33 different airplanes in 2006 - I visited 9 different countries in 2006 - I summited a mountain (Mera Peak) at a height of approximately 6,400 metres, jumped out of a plane from 12,000 feet, white water rafted in Grade 5 rapids, sailed for 3 days on an America's Cup yacht, snorkelled in the Great Barrier Reef, climbed Ayers Rock, hiked around on a glacier, snowboarded on Canada Day, sheared a sheep, rode a horse along the beach, kayaked in a Rain Forest and slept overnight in a desert - I went to Wimbledon, saw an All Blacks rugby match in New Zealand, attended an English Premiership Football match in ...
1071 days ago
Sorry, the last post was cut short a little abruptly. But just to finish that thought... At the end of the 30-day course that the students are enrolled in, they will be appearing for job interviews with companies like ICICI and other banks, telecoms. The jobs being offered are call centre jobs (the booming market here in India at the moment). So all of these students are really focused on improving and practicing their English. For them, hearing my Canadian accent is good because they are exposed to something different from the regular Indian English that they normally hear. I've started to develop quite a rapport with some of them so it will be sad to leave and unfortunately, my time with them was so short. I hope that I can stay in touch with many of them though and now, I have new people to visit and see the next time I come back here. So over the past 4 weeks (since I got back from Nepal), I have just been visiting relatives and chilling out. I was hanging out with Vas ...
1075 days ago
I've had a great few weeks since returning from Nepal. It has felt quite comfortable here in Mumbai just chilling out and doing regular stuff. Vas (my buddy from home) has been here pretty much the whole time and we've hung out quite a bit, ate at some great restaurants and generally done some fun exploring. I've become a regular Mumbai commuter over the past two weeks so that has been quite amusing. The reason I've been commuting regularly is because I have a job. It's a volunteer job with an organization called the Sujaya Foundation. One of my goals when I came on this crazy trip was to do some work with an NGO while I'm here in India. After returning from Nepal, I started searching for NGO's around Mumbai and I ended up finding an organization called iVolunteer in Vile Parle (the subarb where I'm staying with my aunt). I contacted them and after a little time, I was put in touch with Sujaya Foundation. The work I'm doing is with 20 - 25 year olds who come from ...
1091 days ago
November 13 at 1:30am we got our wake up call. We ate some soup, had some breakfast and started changing/getting ready. We left our campsite just before 3:00am. The group was Nima in the front, me second, Vik third and Kaji at the back end. We were all tied together (with about 5 metres in between each of us) and the rope tied to our harnesses. It was pitch black when we started, cold and windy. We were going very slowly because our toes and fingers were frozen. The other guys had started about 30 minutes before us. As we were going, we started seeing lights coming towards us. It turns out that 3 from the English group had decided to turn back an hour into their ascent because it was just too cold and they couldn't do it. That was quite disheartening. Somehow, Vik and I managed to maintain our wits and help each other get through the next few hours. We just took it literally one step at a time and really slowed things down to ensure we were breathing correctly and getting enough rest. ...
1091 days ago
So on Day 8 of the trek (November 3 to be exact), Vik and I set off in an easterly direction towards our target - Mera Peak. With us was our crew: Nima (our sherpa), Chirring (our cook), Prem (one of our guides), Kaji (another guide), Passang (kitchen helper and porter) and 3 porters who were carrying our gear, the tents and various other supplies. Our first stop was Chitanga (3200m) where we enjoyed a nice night's sleep and then we made our way to Khar-ke-Tang (4000m) where we were met with our only foul weather of the trip. From Khar-ke-Tang, our intention was to attempt the Zetra La pass (4600m) that afternoon but there was way too much fog and the mountain was very icy so we decided to have a rest afternoon in Khar-ke-Tang and let the bad weather pass. To kill the time, Vik and I managed to learn and play a Nepali card game called Dhumal with a bunch of our staff (that we have now become addicted to playing). We also made up a game of horizontal darts with rocks and a hand drawn ...
