Hockey Night in the Himalayas - Day 2.5 to 3

(...continued)

I forgot to talk about the rest of Day Two:

After the hockey and getting cleaned up at the guest house, we headed to Castle Tsemo. It was closed to the public in the winter, due to the lack of tourists, so we didn't go inside, but the views from the outside were spectacular.

A hill facing the castle. Love those colourful Tibetan prayer flags.


Patrice, our photographer, trying to get the perfect shot.



A view of the city of Leh from the hill.


Looking at the castle from the hill. Even though the walk to the hill doesn't look very steep, I was still totally scared of tumbling down the hill, but I forced myself to go anyway. I know - I'm a wuss.

The sign says it all.


Me standing beside the sign (not visible).

The bus left us so that we could walk down from the castle to get back into town. We had to traverse a maze of passages through people's backyards before we reached the centre of town.


The winding path we followed to walk down from the castle.


The backyards we walked through to get to the centre of town.

Before going for hockey, Sandy, Art, Ben and I decided to climb up to see a stupa (I think this means buddhist monastery) right next to our guesthouse. We woke up with so much energy thinking that we were more or less acclimatised to the high altitude, but after my first ten steps, I had to stop because my heart was beating so fast. So panting all the way up, we slowly climbed up the steps taking frequent breaks to admire the scenery. Art and Ben decided to head back half-way up because they didn't want to tire themselves before the game.




The stupa.


Wow, what a view! One of the few tourists we met was admiring the scenery from the top of the climb.

Day 3 was a bit cooler, and we again headed to the rink for an 11:30am match. This would be the test, the Indian Champion Army team was itching to play us and many fans somehow made it to the rink to catch the action. Word of the Canadian powerhouse had spread and people came to see the match with the team that beat the Canadians the past two years. We asked for the rink to be swept before our match, and the Zamboni brothers did a great job clearing the ice.

Shane getting in on the action.


Phil showing 'em how it's done.

The temperature was a bit cooler and the ice harder, it would be a fast game. The army team was pumped but so were we, and we had a relatively easy time running up the score on them over 2 periods. After a short break we then took on the best club team, Rimo. Again over 2 periods we had an easy time, with the game challenge turning into how to get 10 year old Austin a goal. He parked himself in front of their net perfectly and had several good chances, but his one timers did not catch mesh.

Cynthia and two of her colleagues. Cynthia is an American, who has done her higher studies in Canada and would switch nationalities if she met the residency requirements. She came to this region to do research for her graduate project and fell in love with the place. She's been living in the Himalayas for the last 10 years at least. She started an NGO, Health Inc., in 1992 to facilitate grass roots initiatives in health, nutrition and education in remote villages throughout the Ladakh region of the Himalaya. She'll walk on foot over ice and snow for three days just to get to a village that is inaccessible by road! Her two colleagues played on our team - though they weren't too stable on their skates, they made a valiant effort!


Everyone's interested in watching the hockey, including some army guys and a couple of buddhist monks.


More spectators


The announcer with his sophisticated PA system.


The chai/Maggi noodles tent


Buddhist monk/first aider/ambulance driver

Afterwards we again turned to working with the locals, coaching, playing, and giving tips as we have done in past years.

Women's hockey on a rink next to ours


The Ladakhi Winter Sports Club is also trying to develop speed skaters.

We headed back to the hotel undefeated, and could sense a bit of surprise in the Ladakhi's who for the past two years had stolen a few ties and wins against the Canadians. At the banquet that evening we had the usual speeches, drinking, dancing and fun, and tried to assure the locals they had not taken a step backwards as the scores showed but that we had a powerhouse team this year. The
washed up 40 year olds of the past were being replaced with Junior and College players as word of hockey in Ladakh spread. The highlight of the evening was when the Region's Chief Councilor announced the government will be donating land to the Winter Sport Club to build a permanent rink, something they had hoped for the past several years. The banquet ended with many new friendships developed, and cheers of joy from the Ladakhi's as snow began to fall and the Canadians may have to
stay another day!

The musicians at the banquet


The same set of dancers came out and gave us demonstrations of various different traditional Ladakhi dances with a change of costume each time. Most of the dances were slow-paced due to the lack of oxygen at high altitudes.


In this dance, the men had to balance a pot of water on their heads. The climax of the dance came when they had to run in circles faster and faster without spilling any water.


Various presentations were made from both sides. The Ladakhis presented us all with white prayer scarves as well as a gift of yak socks and a Ladakhi Winter Sports Club pin which is now displayed proudly on my jacket lapel.


Art read out a letter from the mayor of his town, Grand Forks, stating how honoured the town was to have three representatives participating in the tournament. There has since been talk of making Leh and Grand Forks sister cities.


After the presentations and some more dancing, we were invited to stand up and dance as well. It was fun, but would have been a lot more fun if we weren't all reeling from oxygen deprivation. They had outdoor gas heaters operating indoors at full power. It was the first time during the trip that I felt really warm, but I think I would have preferred the oxygen. They were just giant airsucking devices. I felt really sick by the end of the night, the worst I've felt in a long time. Faint, nauseous, loss of appetite. The works. But luckily, I started to feel better after I got some food in me and breathed in some fresh (but cold) air.

Backtracking a bit: That afternoon, the "Howe family" and I went to visit a functioning buddhist monastery.




Inside, we made a contribution and lit a candle. We walked around and when we went back to the candle again, it had gone out, showing just how little air was in there - scary! That was not the only incidence of lack of oxygen that we experienced on the trip.



Buddha


Buddhist monks chanting while playing simple instruments and sipping chai. What a great experience to see a real functioning monastery in action.


YOu see these wall hangings on sale everywhere in Dharamsala. It was neat to see them displayed in the monastery.


Look at how long those horns are!


Monks and monklings. How do kids end up living in a monastery anyway considering that monks are celibate? Maybe they were orphans? When Paul was showing them his digital photos, he accidentally flipped onto some of the hockey ones and the monk boys' faces lit up as they exclaimed, "Hockey!!"

Hockey Night in the Himalayas - Day 2

(...continued)

Day 2 was a gorgeous day, sunny and temps just near freezing. We headed to the rink for our 11:30am face off, not sure what to expect from our opposition and still adjusting to the altitude. They said they would start us out slow with some easy matches, but after 10 minutes we were walking all over the team so they lined up a new team for period 2. That team gave a bit more opposition, but again too easy for our fast passing, fast skating team so they lined up a third team. By then the altitude was catching up to us a bit, our skating slowed but the goals did not. Three periods against three fresh teams, with no real team to match us. The line in the sand was drawn, the next day they would be sending their best squads to see if they could test us. After the games we stayed at the rink, playing with the local kids, running drills, coaching, shooting on the goalies, handing our souvenirs, and just soaking up the atmosphere. Players young and old were drawn from the other rinks to watch our matches, and just flooded onto the rink for some on ice time with the mighty Canadians. It was a true exhibition of hockey diplomacy at it's best, interacting, chatting, coaching, and playing with players of all ages. We left the rink around 3pm to head back to the hotel for lunch, still bubbling with excitement of the day.

There were even Ladakhi women's teams there!

Ahh.... the mountains. :)

They have a funny way of doing faceoffs here. Instead of waiting for the line changes to take place and for everyone to get into position, the ref just throws the puck onto the ice from a distance as soon as he can. No puck drop or anything.

Some spectators in the corner. At one point, there was a coach with his team there. It sounded like he was telling them to take note of the ways the Canadians played, and even how they did their line changes. In Ladakh, they don't do any line changes!

The Ladakhis lent us a goalie. He played really well for us. Don't you just love his jersey?

Our goalie in action


Sitting on the sidelines. Every time there was a line change, the players had to stumble over the short wooden plank and crash onto their chairs before they completely ran out of breath. Only problem was that the chairs were plastic and kept breaking in the cold!



Check out the melting ice on the side here. It was gorgeously sunny that day.

The customary shaking of hands after the game. Notice the puddle has gotten bigger.

The team.



The Canadians doing some drills with the local teams.

I finally get to go for a skate and did it ever feel good to get a chance to do that while living in India!

Me pretending to play hockey.

Me pretending to play on our team.

Hockey Night in the Himalayas - Day 1

(... continued)

We met at the airport on Friday morning for the flight to Leh, and the weather cooperated to allow our timely departure and arrival in Leh. We were greeted in Leh with the traditional music and scarf ceremony and whisked away to our guesthouse.

Oriental Guesthouse front entrance. For some reason, they used a blanket to cover the doorway during the day and only closed the doors at night.

Two yaks who were a fixture at the front of the guesthouse.

One of the cooks who always appeared outside spinning his prayer wheel to wish us good luck on our games.

This year we would be staying at the Oriental Guesthouse, which was located a bit further away from town and near the Panorama guesthouse that the team stayed in during the first two trips in 2001/02. Seems the Lasermo was not open this time, however the guesthouse was run by one of the defenseman of the Rimo team so had everything a hockey player needed including an equipment storage room for us to use. Per protocol we rested the first day, with only a trip to the rink to check out the new location and ice conditions. Seems the old rink on the pond in the center of town was drawing some criticism as being environmentally unfriendly so local pressure forced the Ladakh Winter Sports Club to move the venue. The new location is on a manmade lake just past the airport and Spituk Monastery on the road west to Srinigar, and is very nicely laid out. There are several rinks, some for warmups, some for kids, and the main tournament rink. The atmosphere was quite nice with multiple activities going on the various rinks simultaneously. The only drawback is less spectators due to the distance from town.

The ice rink with mountains on two sides.

Playing with "real hockey sticks". Notice the goal made not with soft cotton netting, but hard wire fencing!

A kid playing a little pick-up hockey with us.

We also did a little bit of shopping for some warm yak songs and other warm clothing at the local Tibetan market. I found myself a warm sleeping bag for any long train rides that I may take in India.


I got cold, so I ducked into the chai shop next door where our bus driver was waiting. This is the chai lady.


As usual in India, the chai lady's family was fascinated by my digital camera and wanted a photo.


Me warming my hands with some hot chai.

Hockey Night in the Himalayas - Pre-trip

I am now back in Chandigarh after a long weekend trip to Leh to watch a makeshift team of Canadian expats play the local ice hockey teams there. Leh is the capital city of the district of Ladakh located in the state of Jammu & Kashmir. Here is a summary of the trip written by the trip coordinator, Tony:


Tony, the trip coordinator and team captain

Planning for the trip this year started early, as all folks who were travelling to Delhi were issued the usual email in the summer --> if you have hockey equipment please bring it! A good number of players moved to Delhi this year with their equipment, more than in the past. An early team meeting in October saw the enthusiasm level high and the usual detailed planning started. We also awaited the opening of the Delhi rink, however that wait turned out to be a huge disappointment. On the December date the snow park opened we headed for a skate, only to find the sledding hill open but the rink bare concrete with no boards. Turns out that the owners decided to rent the rink hall out for weddings instead, and make much more money than with a skating rink that nobody except the Canadians used. It was a set back, however the team was still eager to head to Leh even without the pre trip practicing.

One unusual aspect of the trip this year was the number of players coming from Canada to play on the team. It seems the short film made by film maker Pat Morrow called "Hockey Night in Ladakh" was a hit at the Rocky Mountain Film festival in Vancouver and the Banff film festival in Alberta.

People immediately started emailing me asking for details, and several players planned trips to India to join the fun. In the end the team had an even ten players (two lines); four "impats" from BC, and I guess impats is not the right word - "ringers" is more fitting. Also a coach from the LA Kings Jr Team was coming over to coach the local teams this year and he was also eager to play on the team. The remainder was made up of two High Commission players, two private sector engineers (including myself), and my 10 year old son Austin. It was an entire rookie team except for myself, as all of the returnees from last year were unable to attend due to other business. Several new folks also had to disappointingly drop out at the last minute, but will surely be part of the team next year.

The ringers AKA the "Gordie Howe Line" - Paul is in Delhi studying for one semester while his family has taken this opportunity to visit him, play in hockey in Ladakh and tour Asia. (Interesting sidenote for AIESEC trainees - they are from the same hometown (Grand Forks) as Kent and have known him for many years - small world, eh?)


Rob Armstrong, Coach of the LA Kings Juniors team, came to Leh for two weeks to donate his time to coaching the Ladakhi players.


Shane and Phil, the two team members from the Canadian High Commission in Delhi

The first time I heard about this annual trip was in Ottawa preparing to move to India on my posting. I got an e-mail telling me all about the hockey night. I dutifully packed my skates in my box marked SEA (shipment) and vowed to go on this trip the first chance I got. The only downer was that due to my lack of stopping skills and inability to skate backwards I would not be able to play on the team. No matter though. Soon after I arrived at post, I was e-mailing people pestering them about when the next trip was going to be. When I got a tentative date, then I booked my leave and my plane ticket and I was ready to go!

Unidentified Chinese Veggies

 

This post is mainly for my sister, Pamela, who said she'd help me figure out a dish to cook these veggies in. These are the free frozen veggies I got from the owner of the Chinese restaurant I visited here in Chandigarh (see previous blog post). If anyone else knows what these veggies are (except the broccoli, I'm not that incompetent a chef) and how to cook them, then please speak up. 

Exotic Fruits: Chee-koo

 
Look at what my housekeeper, Saroj, bought for me to try! It's called Chee-ku. It's very sweet, has a texture that reminds me of a dryer version of persimmon and you can even eat the peel (but not the pit). Yummy! 

Who says there's nothing to do in Chandigarh?

 
Last Thursday, the Alliance Française hosted a concert featuring the acclaimed flamenco guitarist, Pedro Soler. Although I arrived 20 minutes late (sorry Pedro!), it was an EXCELLENT concert. The music was beautifully skilled - he seemed to know exactly how to manipulate his instrument to get the desired sounds. It reconfirmed the guitar as my second favourite instrument to listen to (1st is the piano and 3rd is the violin). And it makes me want to learn to play flamenco-style! (Maybe I should master where the notes are first...) I was very impressed with how Chandigarh was able to attract such a seasoned musician to play at a free concert for such a small audience.

The attraction could have been the second act when Pedro Soler played with three local musicians and their traditional Indian instruments - the tabla (two small handdrums attached to each other), the harmonium and an Indian wooden flute. I always enjoy listening to those two first instruments because they feature heavily in my interviews with raggi jatha groups (religious musical groups who are invited to play in Canada by Canadian Sikh gurdwaras). They played together, sort of jazz-style, as in one instrument was featured at a time. The harmonium player also sang in a typical indian style where his voice fluttered over a series of quartertones, not restricting himself to the usual semitones used in Western music.

An unintentional and undesirable accompanying instrument was the constant thump squeak of the chairs in the auditorium as the audience members arrived late and left early right in the middle of songs. This coupled with the frequent ringing of cell phones and the occasional shouting across the row of seats highlighted a cultural difference between concerts in India and concerts in Canada. (Of course, I arrived late, so who am I to criticise! It was just an interesting observation for me.)

In any case, it was refreshing and relaxing to close my eyes and let the delicate guitar music wash over me. Aah... 

What's your new year's resolution?

As you may know already, I don't normally do New Year's Resolutions. I always have resolutions on the go, so I don't wait for New Year's to start trying to implement them. However, for the sake of a blog post, here's mine for 2006.

I will try to wake up earlier than 10 minutes before I have to leave the house in the morning so that I don't have to eat my breakfast on the run. Partly because it's become difficult to do this when I have to bike to work and don't care to flip my bike over suddenly in Indian traffic because I only had one hand on a brake while the other hand was holding my apple.

What's yours?