Gulmarg 3 Jan 2013 Thursday

We had our first ski yesterday. 

It took a couple of days to get our season passes organised in true Indian bureaucracy.  

It was a beautiful sunny day and hardly anyone on the slopes.  We only had four runs (10kms in total) but that was enough for our first day.  The snow was light powder in areas and wind swept in others but overall good fun except for those falls I had. 

When we arrived the hotel was busy with Indian tourists but most have gone home now that the New Year holiday is over.  There are only ten rooms occupied out of forty.  Apparently it gets busier in a week with February being their busiest month.

The food at the hotel is really good.  Breakfast is a buffet of porridge (too sweet in typical Indian fashion), toast, eggs, Indian fare of rice, noodles, chapatti, juice, fruit, tea and coffee.

Dinner is a buffet: soup, rice, pappas, naan, a meat dish, dahl and a couple of veggie dishes and sweets, semolina or rice (once again too sweet).  It is yummy.  One bad thing about dinner is the time it is served - 8pm.  That is late for us.  We like to be in bed by 9, which we still are but now we have full bellies, not so good.

Now that we have been here a few days, the hotel does have a few idiosyncrasies; like the hot water only coming on from 7pm.  It stays on overnight but by mid morning is off again and the heating comes on around 4-5pm and stays on overnight also being turned off during the day.  We are lucky because our room has a large window facing the mountain and the sun shines in heating it up nicely during the day.

Jim has been busy with Ski Himalaya work for the past two days.  There is a bit to organise.  While Jim is doing Ski Him work I do yoga, read or walk.  I will start cross country skiing as well.  I went and checked out the track today. The past few days have gone really quickly.  The first lot of Ski Him guests arrives on Jan 6 and then it is steady till the end of February.  

I will probably only blog once a week or so from now on because life is in a bit of a routine already and routines do not make for good blogs. 

Snow is predicted for next Wednesday 9 January, sunny days till then.  Will head out for a ski in the morning and then Jim has Ski Him work again in the afternoon. 

Skiing past the rubbish trailers - a scar on a beautiful landscape
the picking order is dogs, crows then the monkeys

Going up the chair

Alfresco dining in the distance, taken from chair - notice gondola