PHEW! May already!

Busy busy busy. Of course there was the Royal Wedding on Friday - yes I sat down and enjoyed it enormously, especially the ghastly get ups Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice turned up in. I love the way the 'hat' has a Facebook page now - ha ha ha. The bridal party looked lovely and the good old Queen was elegant as usual.
But while all that was on I was busy on the interweb emailing India backwards and forwards. You see, the SPOT that I posted actually arrived. Amazing. However, the person I sent it to believes I didn't set it up right as they keep pressing the send button and I don't get a message. I have explained about 4 times now that as it is a one way device, it will confirm that the message you sent got to the satellite, but what happens to it after that it cannot say. He keeps asking me for the logon details so he can 'check' that I did it correctly. Oh no my good man is the constant reply. And he reckons you can't get lithium batteries in Delhi. Rubbish I say. Plus I am still angry about the logistics bloke buying a new camera body for Rs35,000 that doesn't work. So I have told Maninder that whether he can get the SPOT to work or not he is to forward it to Robin soonest (an Indian saying). The SPOT site does indicate that it won't actually work in India, but as Robin is up in the mountains and at a completely different lat, long and altitude there is always the chance it will work as there are plenty more satellites available there. It's come this far it might just as well keep going! God give me strength.
It finally stopped raining in Sydney - everything feels so soggy and damp and it really makes my knees ache. Still, the zumba must go on.
On the GHT India front, Robin and Bob are now on their way to Joshimath via the southern fringes of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve. When I spoke to him briefly on Friday they were faced with a day of 800m down, 600m up and 1300m down to get to wherever they were going - which may have been Namik - the connection wasn't 100% clear. Next time I hear from him I'll let you know.
I've been organising the books in the front room as sir has bought so many books we had nowhere to put them. Up and down the ladder I go carrying books, sneezing from the dust (must speak to the maid about that), and deciding which ones to keep and which to throw. Then comes organising them into my un-Dewey decimal system - I'm still working on that.
And our Nepali niece and her hubby (the wedding in Nepal last June that I wrote about) got their visas for Australia so no doubt they will be busy trying to get organised in time for that- they'll be studying at a Swiss Hotel school in Adelaide from July. Big step. I'm sure poor Puru (her dad) is very sad...
Here's a traffic jam (just a small one) in Kathmandu to cheer you up for another week of communting. And the umbrella is because I was crammed into a rickshaw that I was too tall for..
as usual.
I was very amused to see during the week that although all the political parties in Nepal promised they wouldn't have any strikes (bandhs) this year as it is Nepal Tourism Year and yet there was an all-in strike the other day and people had to walk 11 km from the airport with their wheely bags on the crappy pot-holed roads to get to where they were going. Great advertisement for the place.
And last but not least, I just checked my footy tipping for the weekend and saw to my total surprise that I scored a perfect round! I think that means I get a cash prize. Should get a bloody medal since I don't know a thing about it. Robin will get a laugh out of that. I do miss him a lot...

Update on the tired trekkers

I finally got to have a long, sensible and not expensive chat to Robin today while he and Bob enjoy 2 days off in a hotel in Munsiyari. He isn't overly impressed with Munsiyari as it is at a low elevation and therefore has a lot of flies - and anyone who knows Robin would be aware that he he can't stand flies. He and Bob were both happy to get their boots off and air their blisters for a bit. So for now it's a chance to relax, ditch the climbing gear and plan the next stage. Much will depend on whether they can get permission for the Kalindi Khal or if they need to take a longer detour to reach Joshimath. So no doubt there will be some more sorting out of paperwork and running around. One problem they face is that all the local trek operators deal with vising Indians from the plains, who are notoriously unwilling to walk for more than a couple of hours - so all the trek timings they get are almost useless for them.
Bad news on the camera front - the body that was purchased for Robin doesn't work with the lens (although they are all Canon) so Robin STILL doesn't have a camera. It's extra annoying because he was toying with either getting a new one before he left, or borrowing mine. And of course he did neither. And he has a Rs35,000 camera body he still can't take pictures with. And there isn't a Canon dealer around....
It was lovely just to sit and chat about this and that for almost an hour today without worrying about the phone bill - thank you skype!
They were unable to cross the Ralam Pass as there was way too much snow -  even then  they ended up bush bashing to get to Munsiyari and the flies.
For the next 2 weeks they will be very close to Nanda Devi, but at relatively low altitudes so the weather reports won't be as critical, but of course I will still be doing them. It looks as thought the cloudy weather should clear by Thursday, which would suit their plans perfectly. So it probably won't happen.
You all know that my cat, Princess Lakshmi, is a very naughty girl. But I found out my sister's cat is more naughty - apparently Babooshka jumps into the cupboard where the papadams are stored in a ziplock bag, grips the bag firmly in her mouth and runs down the hall, then hides under a bed and chews through the plastic to eat the uncooked papads. Weird.
Time to cook dinner.
See you soon

Happy Easter and Anzac Day

OK ok I know it's been a week since my last confession! I have been very busy thank you Peter, Steven and the rest of you...
Gosh I was babysitting the Foxtel across the road last weekend, it was pouring with rain and I had to have 3 attempts to get a parking spot at the local supermarket. And that was just Saturday! And I got ANOTHER huge phone bill - this time for Robin's global roaming for $638 for a month. So I've had $300 odd, $800 odd and $600 odd in just 2 months. I'll never save a cent at this rate!
In view of the problems with communicating with Brave Sir Robin and Bob (I've not heard a peep since last I blogged) I got Robin a SPOT GPS Messenger doover on Monday. He had asked Bob if he could find one to bring, but Bob was in Taiwan by that time and unable to get one. Anyway, it works by sending pre-programmed messages to pre-programmed people (if you get what I mean) when you press the button. It also has an SOS button if you are really up $hit creek.
So on Monday evening I jumped on the website to activate it and programme in the messages and recipients before sending it to Maninder in Delhi who will get it to BSR & Bob wherever they are. How hard can it be? I thought - just a few details, credit card number and Bob's your trekking partner....
Name & address of registered operator - easy
Select what services you want -  easy
Now the hard part: If you are not the person who will be using SPOT tick here - ticked - fill in their name and contact details - done - OK now list your primary and secondary emergency contacts - OK me in Australia and Sumit in India- ENTER. Oh dear...' Primary and secondary contacts must be different'. But they are??? OK, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, hit ENTER, shout at computer, repeat. Put in someone else's name and phone number. No. Untick I'm not the person who will be using this. No luck. Go back to the start, try again. Same result. Google 'why can't I register my SPOT' and find forums with comments like ' this is the most stupid website ever'  and 'took me 2 weeks to do it' with special note made of 'don't email their customer service cos they never get back to you'.
What's a girl to do? Well, I made dinner and poured a glass of wine. Later that night I got out the laptop (I had been trying before on the desktop) and got straight through. Go figure. Must have been the wine.
So then I wrapped SPOT and wrote a card and got it all ready for the Post Office to do their worst. Oh no, you can't mail anything with lithium batteries so had to unpack the blasted thing and email India to let them know that assuming it turns up they need to get lithium AAA batteries. At least it was only $19.50 to post. I'll be amazed if it actually arrives without having been pilfered. Watch this space. As far as I know the boys are somewhere near Nanda Devi in Garhwal but I can't be more specific than that right now.
So now I have 5 days away from the fabulous workplace thanks to Easter and ANZAC day. The sun is shining and the planes are thundering over, so it's a great day to do some laundry (of course) and maybe later on some more zumba. Hopefully I'll also get to tidy up my messy house - burglars would think they were too late (which may not be a bad thing).
Meanwhile things just get worse in Nepal. They have now run out of fuel and the NOC (Nepal Oil Corruption) can't pay their bill to Indian Oil. Their main problem is that they buy oil from India for say 50 rupees a litre, but sell it for 45. Which would probably be OK if they had a budget surplus, or sold anything to the rest of the world apart from manpower. But they don't. So then India says 'you can't have any more oil'. Or, the Nepal government increases the price of their petrol, diesel and kero but the students protest (what is has to do with them is anyone's guess) so the government, which is so spineless it's almost unbelieveable, just backs down and continues to 'subsidise' fuel. Which it cannot afford. If they were a proper business instead of government run they would have been closed years ago.
Here's a GREAT video of a plane landing at Talcha airfield in Nepal - if you want to see more just go to Nepali times on youtube for a scary take off, and the view of landing from inside. I love it!!!

GHT India is GO!!!!

The boys headed off just after 6 this morning with 7 bags, one car, one driver and 2 'old farts' as Robin's SMS told me. When I called at lunchtime they were at a railway crossing waiting for the train to cross on their way to stay with some friend of Bob's at a place which may, or may not, have been called Jeolikot or somesuch. Anyhow, it's on the way to the border with western Nepal.
The weather in the mountains on the India / Nepal border is not too flash right now with quite a bit of snow falling. I'll be sending them weather reports every day from my fabulous array of websites. At present they are heading for an area around Kumaon and Garhwal, with the mountains Panchchuli and Nanda Devi. There that's given you all something to read....
Right now I can't give you a link to a map but I'll spend some time looking for one in the next few days.
Anyhow, time for this Zumba Zombie to turn the food in the oven.