Adventure in 60 Seconds: This Week in Exploration

Nepal Annapurna trek, photograph by Jeremiah Cunningham, My Shot

This week in adventure, the mountains are taller, the controversy fiercer, the waves bigger, and the oil slicker. Thankfully, the beasts are tamer and the expeditions are sending back some pictures that you have to see to believe.—Tetsuhiko Endo

MOUNTAINS
Mount Everest saw its first summits of 2010 this week, as reported by explorersweb.com. As usual, it was the sherpa who, as part of their nine to five, topped out while fixing ropes to aid everyone else. Although most teams are waiting for the weather to clear next week, a few on the Peak Freaks team have pushed ahead and touched the rooftop of the world. (explorersweb.com)

At lower climbs, a controversy is slowly brewing surrounding the death of Spanish climber Tolo Calafat, who perished on Annapurna on April 29th. Some of his companions allege that a Korean team cut the ropes that Calafat and his crew had fixed in order to aid their descent and then refused to send their sherpa to help him, despite being offered money by Spaniard Juanito Oiarzabal. Although the Koreans have given plausible, if difficult to verify excuses, the incident, combined with the controversy surrounding Oh Eun-Sun's disputed title as the first woman to climb all 8,000m peaks, has created a lot of bad blood between the two mountain-loving nations. (explorersweb.com)

Biking in India: What If Cycling Were Your Only Choice?

Portraits of India on Two-Wheels - Images by Gregg Bleakney

Five years ago I made a choice to go car-free in favor of using a bicycle as my primary source of mobility. Since then, every time I saddle up, I’m 100 percent thrilled to be living this two-wheeled lifestyle. But…what if I didn’t have this choice?

Earlier this year, I spent two and a half months on photojournalism assignments in India and discovered there are an estimated 300 million Indian people who ride bicycles because they have no other option. This made me wonder: If cycling was not something I did by choice, but was designated by the caste I was born into, would I still love it the same?

To explore that question, I rented one of India’s finest single-speed steeds, an Atlas Redline Super, and spent several days commuting with milkmen and day laborers in rural Rajasthan. I also made 16,000 photos (most of them portraits) of Indian cyclists—brick makers from the untouchable caste, paper boys, homeless children, farmers, mystics, popsicle salesmen, slum dwellers, and more.

Writer Charles Graeber: Ad Hoc Enlightenment on India's Ganges

In an attempt to spread the word about our new, excellent, eminently purchasable anthology, we’ve been reaching out to various contributors, whose superior pieces of journalism appear in the collection. One such is Charles Graeber, who traveled India’s Ganges River in “Being the Boatman.” We asked Charlie if he wouldn’t mind writing something up that would give some insight to his story, and his relationship with the subcontinent. It would be small, amusing, and for the blog, we said. Weeks passed, no word. And suddenly, a few days back, a rambling tale (with footnotes!) arrives in our inbox. It’s funny and sad and true and…pretty long. Sometimes, with writers, and Charlie in particular, you get more than you bargain for. And for that we are so grateful. Enjoy this, and buy the book—because even though it’s not as free, it’s even better. —Ryan Bradley

Photograph by Ryan Bradley 

To read Charlie's tale, see after the jump.

Tensions, Dams, Development Threaten India's Magical Arunachal Pradesh

Last night the New York Times reported that tensions were escalating in Tawang, a culturally Tibetan town in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Himalayan region has been closed off to foreigners for most of the last 50 years due to boundary disputes between India and China. But in early 2007, with the state easing its visa restrictions, a handful of intrepid travelers set out to see, firsthand, the potential for ecotourism, which was documented in our magazine by writer-adventurer Bridget Crocker. A former whitewate guide herself, Crocker was blown away by the state's big-volume rivers, including the Subansiri and Siang, which could make it a world-class whitewater destination—if the rapids survive the 22 dams slated for the region. 

We asked Crocker to give us her take on the situation.

Tiger Watch: Entire Population of Tiger Reserve Now Gone

Text by Paul Kvinta

Last week wildlife officials in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh finally confessed to something that they'd known for some time--Panna Tiger Reserve has been completely poached out of tigers.  

Panna is one of India's more notable and popular tiger refuges, and five years ago there were an estimate 35-40 cats there. Now there are zero. This meltdown is an exact replay of what happened in 2005 in Sariska Tiger Reserve in the neighboring state of Rajasthan, where poachers exterminated every cat right under the noses of wildlife officials, who proceeded to deny the catastrophe for months. And the same thing would have occurred in nearby Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve--India's most famous--were it not for the fearless efforts of Dharmendra Khandal and a cash-strapped NGO called Tiger Watch.

When I was in Rajasthan last November to report "Cat Fight" (in the June/July issue of ADVENTURE), I spoke with Ragu Chunduwat, one of India's leading tiger experts. Chunduwat worked for years in Panna, and when he first reported evidence of poaching to officials in 2004, they harassed him and finally drove him out of the park. "It's obvious there are no tigers left at all," he said last fall, "but they're still not admitting it. Denying it doesn't allow you to move forward." 

Panna is already engaged in reintroducing tigers from other reserves, but if Sariska is any example, no one is getting their hopes up. Officials couldn't be bothered to do DNA checks on the three tigers moved to Sariska, only to find out later that the trio are all siblings, which means a genetic dead end.

Look for this movie to replay itself over and over again in India. Last month federal officials acknowledged that the situation in up to 16 tiger reserves is "truly alarming." There are supposed to be 1,400 tigers left in India, more than any other country (there are only 3,000-plus left in the wild), but no one really believes that anymore.

You can donate to Tiger Watch here.

Music Wednesday: The Mozart of Madras Slumdog Composer, Oscar Winner was a Child Prodigy

Text by Ryan Bradley

On Sunday night, A.R. Rahman became the first Indian ever to win two Academy Awards—one for best original song (“Jai Ho”) and another for best background score—both for the gargantuan-little-engine-from-the-developing-world-that-could, Slumdog Millionaire. It was a good night for Bollywood, a good night for India, and a very good night for Rahman, who further solidified his place in the rarified canon of Indian music maestros. His talents, like his country, are manifold and multilayered. He’s a composer, a singer, and an ace on the keys and the guitar. He toured with some of the greatest stars of classical Hindustani music before he hit puberty, and then went on to receive a degree in Western classical music from Oxford. He really hit is stride, though, when he started scoring for Bollywood films (he is from Tamil Nadu, on the east coast of India, and had already gained a major foothold scoring for Malayalam films). There is no genre he will not touch, it seems, and his music, like the subcontinent, is dazzling in its density and styles. What follows is an overview of a ridiculously impressive, precocious career—the guy is only 44—from the “Mozart of Madras.”

 

Roja Jaaneman
Rahman’s first film score for a major Bollywood production was hailed as “One of the 10 Best Soundtracks of All Time” by Time magazine’s film critic Richard Corliss. Not bad for a first film.

 

 

Theme from Bombay
A politically charged film from Tamil Nadu about the events leading up to the Bombay riots, Rahman’s score received awards and accolades and was reused in the Nicolas Cage film “Lord of War”—a thoroughly forgettable appropriation, but important in that it introduced Rahman to the West.

 

Lagaan, Radha Kaise Na Jale
A great film that garnered an academy award nomination, Lagaan revolves around a cricket match between British Officers stationed in the subcontinent during the Raj, and Indian villagers. Rahman blends traditional music with classical film scores. It’s East meets West and pure Rahman. 

Slumdog Millionaire
Rahman spent two months planning the score of this movie, and just two weeks recording it. Here’s a very good Q&A in which he talks about the movie, how he met Danny Boyle (the director) and singer M.I.A. worshipping his work.

Finally, iTunes has wisely compiled a “Best Of” collection, which you can find here.

The Love Test: A Modern Adventure Romance

Text by Mara McFalls   Photograph by Daniel Pepper

There's a real problem for people sparking up romance in their 30s. Had I followed John's schedule, we'd have dated for five years, then gotten engaged for a year, then after a year or so, we would have had kids. Um, hello, I'd be 40 before I put a stretchy waist panel into my Sevens.

He's 37. I'm 32. And while John—a nice guy from the Long Island suburbs that I'd met on a blind date—did acknowledge that time was against us, the fact that he'd just divorced a total psycho and that I'd been engaged three times before made him reluctant to rush into anything with me, a runaway bride and/or a flake.

That's when it hit him: love tests. Instead of dating for years, we'd go away on some month-long oversea adventures and see if our young love could stand up to the pressures of extreme traveling. It's simple—up the pressure to yield in a few months what would otherwise take the standard few years to uncover.

Continue reading this story>>