Trip to India

We try to do a big trip once a year to somewhere exotic and far away. This year we were invited to a friend's family wedding in New Delhi, India. I don't know about you. But on our list of exotic places to go, India is way up there. I had always been intimidated by traveling to India. This would have been the best time to go since we'd have friends guide us around and the rare opportunity to attend a traditional India wedding.

We spent less than 10 days there, but it was everything we had pictured and much much more. Can you imagine a 5-day wedding, where two families from different parts of India came together and combined all the rituals into one 5-day celebration? Everyday it was bursting with vibrant colors from decoration to saree to food.

And the food was every bit as delicious as we wished for. We got to sample cuisines from various parts of India as well, because the hosts wanted to cater to guests traveling from all over the country. The daily, or more accurately 3 times a day, chai ritual embodies the spirit of calm and peace. Though we couldn't get used to having housemaid serve us food and drinks all the time. We found ourselves constantly thanking and nodding to the servants.

And then there's the famous Taj Mahal and other tombs and forts built by various kings and emperors of the past. They are impressive to look at from a distance, but even more breath-taking at close-up. Every single piece of decorative pattern was hand-made and manually embedded in the walls, each with intricate detail. There were no plain flat surfaces anywhere except for the ground. Every wall is covered with patterns that were either carved out or embedded in.

I thought the most interesting side of India was what you see out on the streets, outside of well-groomed heritage sites and outside of homes of upper-middle class. In the western media you only hear about the double-digit growth of countries like India and China and about how the cream of the crop lives and spends. You don't hear or see this other side of India where people still live in vast poverty. It makes us feel so lucky and grateful for what we have.

To see more photos of India, go here, here and here.

Fishing on Columbia River

Three of us went on a guided fishing trip, originally purchased for four people.

The toughest parts were
(1) getting up at 2:30am to prep for the trip to make sure we get to the river by 6am
(2) hold the pee for 8 hours straight while we were on the river
(3) letting go 7 fish (2 wild coho salmon, 4 chinook salmon and 1 taken by a sea lion, no joke).

The best part was taking home three 20-lb coho salmon and having the freshest steamed fish heads for dinner that night. Yes, fish heads, arguably the best part of a fish. You ought not to make faces until you've tried it. =)

For photos of the entire trip on Picasa, click here.

Hiking Mt. St. Helen

Just an hour drive from where we camped, we arrived at the first Mt. St. Helen lookout. Even before the lookout, the destructive event and aftermath from St. Helen eruption 30+ years ago was hard to miss. You are looking at mother nature still trying to recover 30 years after every bit of life was wiped out in hundreds of thousands of square miles. It gave me chills. What brightens up the lifeless is the blooming wild flowers, creating such contrast.

Kept on driving towards Windy Ridge, a visitor's center and a head of Windy Ridge hiking trail, we saw clouds obstructing the view of the famous St. Helen. Parked at the visitor's parking lot, we started to hike up. Half way through the hike, you get a better view of the clear side of the Spirit Lake. I say clear side, because the other side is till this day covered in layers of dead burnt timbers from the blast.

life among the dead

Another 10 min up the hill, the trail makes a right turn and reveals our first full view of Mt. St. Helen. You would notice the left side of the mountain is still snow-covered, while the right side (the blasted side) has a giant crater in the middle of it.

After Windy Ridge, we made our way back to the car and drove to Harmony trail, which would lead us all the way down to the Spirit Lake to see the dead trees floating on the water. The first half of the trail was surrounded by lush growth of bushes and young trees that provided much needed shade. Once you descent to the valley floor, there's barely any shade. All you see if wild flowers among dead trees on either side of a sandy trail.

The view of the dead trees covered half of the lake takes your breath away. So does getting down to the water. We jumped from parched logs to parched logs. The water is crystal clear.

First camping trip ever

There's been a lot of expectations around my first camping trip. Friends were curious how I like it. So was I. To ease into it, we decided to do one overnight camping followed by hiking in Mt. St. Helen.
Lenka and Chris suggested a camp ground, Iron Creek, about 1hr northeast of St. Helen.

The camp ground was full by the time we got there around 5:30pm on a Friday. Not wanting to go home empty handed, we drove around to see if there were other camp grounds nearby with availability. Luckily we found a private one by Tower Rock, just 15min down the road from Iron Creek. It's run by an elderly couple on a few acres of open land with small fish ponds. There were flush toilets and fishing equipment rental. We were sold immediately.

our camp spot with a picnic table and a fire ring

a small pond behind our camp spot

fish pond in camp ground

First off, setting up tents. It's pass 7pm now, time for dinner. Chris bought a brand new two burner stove that runs on propane. We have chicken wrap and shrimp/veggie saute on the menu. I had everything pre-washed, cut and seasoned. It's just a matter of warming up everything and assembling together. It took about 45 min for dinner to be ready. Food was excellent, even more so when you ate under the darkening cloudy starless evening sky.

chicken wrap

By the time plates were empty, it was too dark to do dishes. We packed up the dirty dishes and got ready to set up a camp fire. 8 bucks got us a wheel barrel full of fire wood, more than what we could use. I just sat and watched Chris and Jose building a fire, and snapped some really cool photos of the crackling flame. The night fall also brought frog songs, the classic sound of the country side.

building a fire

the crackling fire would send sparks into the air like fireworks

Not sure how many hours had passed before we decided to call it a night and went to our tents. It's so dark out here without any lights. Part of the appeal I guess. The frogs' singing was still going strong. I had never been inside a tent before. It's roomier than it looks on the outside. I had borrowed Jose's old fleece sleeping bag, hoping it would be warm enough for the night.

It wasn't.

take a peek inside the tent

Next morning I woke up with frozen toes at 5:30am. It was still quiet outside with occasional bird chipping in the trees. The rain fly over the tent kept us and our shoes dry. After a quick freshening up, we started preparing breakfast. Chris was the chef this time, while Lenka pulled out a banana bread she made ahead of time. We cook water for tea and cocoa to take the chill out of our body.

breakfast sausage, potato wedges and eggs

Lenka's yummy banana bread

After breakfast and dish washing, we planned out what we would go to hike, packed up our stuff, paid the camp owner and drove off to Mt. St. Helen.

I can see myself doing this again. I was skeptical before, but I think I can handle this, as long as there are flush toilets. =)

Rafting trip on lower clackamas river

Ceci, Jose and I bought on a Livingsocial deal on a rafting trip in Oregon City, 15-20 min south of downtown. We called to reserve the trip for this Saturday, which turned out to a perfect day. There's not a wisp of cloud in the sky. The temp was in the low 80s.

After 15 min of trying to figure out the logistics and another 15 min of getting stranded on the highway and almost getting lost, we managed to get to the starting point of the rafting trip, which is not where we were told to meet the group. At one point, I was thoroughly confused and decided to just follow Jose and Ceci. The company that organizes the trips, Northwest River Guides, seemed overwhelmed by the responses from livingsocial deal that they were struggling to get things organized. So we didn't get off a good start.

Our guide was a young guy named Ben, who was trying to make witty remarks that fail to solicit any response from the rafting crowd. Everyone was still a bit pissed by the start and couldn't wait to get in the water.

Unfortunately we were told to leave all things behind, unless its water proof, I couldn't bring the camera with us. These were the only photos I was able to get before leaving it in the car. We also had to put on life jackets, the only reason I agreed to do the trip since I don't swim.

that's our raft

lower clackamas river

Jose and Ceci having a talk with our guide Ben, the buy in yellow

Once on the water, the mood of the crowd lightened up. Something about floating on cool water just calms you down. Everyone was also busy trying to memorize the different paddle commands and various paddling strokes. Jose volunteered as the stroke captain and took the job seriously. Whenever the guide said "all forward", Jose would go "stroke, stroke, stroke..." It cracked me up.

It may look easy, but paddling is a serious core workout. It's a small raft that held three people each side. We got a 12-yr old boy on my side who's more interested in riding the bull on the front of the raft than paddling. That means me and the other guy behind me had to work extra hard.

We weren't paddling the entire time, as we were going down the stream. There were a few rapids during the trip, level I and II. Nothing spectacular for seasoned rafters, but for people who've never rafted before, like myself, it was super fun. Dotting the side the of river are little rocky beaches where people sunbathing and chilling off.

Midway through the trip, we came to a spot called the "High Point", which is a stretch of the river with tall rocks on either side. Local teens were jumping off the rocks into the river. Some jump-off points were 30 feet tall. We were taking a break at the High Point. Jose and Ceci were both going to jump off the tallest one. I wasn't. Did I mention that I don't swim? Although I was standing up there with them from the rocks. It looks scarier from up here. They both jumped and came back up with a huge smile on their faces. That's when I was talked into jumping from a lower rock, which was still 15 feet above the water. Jose and Ceci are now in the water waiting for me to join them. I was having second thoughts. I heard Jose say "don't think, just jump".

And I did just that.

I stepped over the edge and immediately the feeling of free fall kicked in, followed by "when is the water going to hit? damn this is high!", followed by water rushing into my nose and vision blurred by white foam. I wanted to breath, but wasn't sure if I was still submerged in water. All of the sudden, I could hear Ceci and Jose laughing and screaming, and realized that my head is indeed above the water (remember the life jacket?).

That's when it hit me. The water was cold.

I wish I had my camera with me. It was so fun. So we did it again. They from the tall rock and I from the short rock. I even fantasized about a fancy pose when I leap off the rock. But all I could manage to do was simply stepping off the rock. Then the same sequence of sensations cycled through, the free fall, the fear, the water impact, the blurred vision and finally the cheer from Jose and Ceci.

When Ceci said she wanted to come back here soon, I agreed. That was really the highlight of the trip. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. When we were not paddling, we could look up to see the houses on the side of the river. We could see ospray resting on shore. We played splash war against the kayak team.

It was an awesome trip. I'm proud of myself for jumping off a short rock.