September 13 Thursday
Grey and drizzly skies are once again upon us as we set out for our next day enroute for the village of Dharapani. Chandra is waiting patiently for us outside his home and urges us to wait a few moments and runs into his home and brings out a bamboo walking stick. He looks at the stick then looks at Tony and then taking out a knife he shortens the stick to a height more suited for Tony. His wife takes a good look at the stick as well and makes Chandra sand off the jagged edges before he gives it to us. He makes a motion to his waist and says, “Water, here.” His announcement worries me as I look down the path trying to figure out what exactly we are heading to. I stray down the path while Tony exchanges addresses and says his good-byes. Chandra’s daughter follows me and asks for a pen and I give her three trying to tell her to keep them for herself so I don’t get mobbed by other children. Unfortunately like most children in the world she probably ran back into the village excitedly holding the pens in the air in front of all the other children saying, “Look what I got!” It didn’t take long for at least five or six other kids to catch up with me begging for pens which I didn’t have for all of them. Tony eventually reaches me proudly sporting his brand new walking stick and tells me that Chandra and his family were very happy to have met us and will be praying for us as we continue on our journey. I hope that we will be able to keep in touch when we return home and if not I hope that if we are ever to return to Jagat he will remember us.
We continue to follow the Marsyangdi northward and signs of our accent are beginning to show as the valley gets steeper on both sides so much so that the grey muddy trail is like walking along the edge of a cliff. Small huts cling to the steep hills and I wonder how they ever managed to get up there because below them are jagged cliffs and steep walls of mud that continue to erode and fall into the river below. Behind me I can hear the faint sound of bells ringing which could only signal that a herd of mules will pass me shortly. Our path turns sharply up a steep and forested trail that zigzags several times to a location that I can not predict through the green dampness. As usual I take my time on the accent stopping every few minutes to catch my breath. The mules have finally arrived forcing me aside bobbing their heads up and down in a synchronized rhythm with bells resonating a tribal beat. There must be at least thirty or forty of them in the group because I can just barely hear the mule driver whistling and yelling in the distance behind me. I am forced to stop completely because the mules have also decided to stop and the trail is not wide enough to pass them. Looking up the incline I see mules zigzagging back and forth up the trail all of which have now resorted into eating vegetation along the trail. I cannot even see Tony and AB they were some ways ahead of me and have since vanished in the green. All I can do is lean on my walking stick and stare at the ass of a mule and hope he does not decide to kick me. Standing still in the humid climate is not the best thing either because it will make it easier for the leeches to crawl on me. Paranoid I continue to check my legs and my clothes only finding one little leech inching his way up the side of my boot. The walking stick becomes a handy tool in getting the leeches off which I use to scrape them off and dump them at a distance that comforts me. Two men come up from behind me whistling and hooting as they take bamboo sticks and jab them hastily into the back sides of the mules. They acknowledge me briefly with a smile and hurry on up the zigzagging trail against stumbling mules.
After what seemed like hours the mules begin to clamor up the hill and I try to move quickly but the incline wears me out and I find myself continuously stepping aside letting mules walk past me. By the time I make it to Tony and AB all the mules have long since disappeared and I finally get to meet what was holding up the mule traffic. A waterfall cuts steeply down the hill and separates the trail by about fifteen feet across. There is no bridge and the water is not exactly running as a gentle spring. Various logs and branches have been laid along the waterfall in an attempt to make a safe crossing, but the current is pushing them hard against the few trees and shrubs that cling before the next decent and I do not care to balance on them. I look uncomfortably at Tony and AB. “Well, only one way across.” AB says as he steps into the level part of the fall. I grasp the walking stick and step in behind them. The water goes just above our knees but because it is falling so strongly we are all completely soaked in a few seconds. I am clinging to a rock face because I feel the water falling hard against my backpack almost forcing me into the current and down the rest of the falls. We all take careful steps testing with one foot for stable ground, AB almost loses it taking a step that is deeper than he suspected. He investigates the last five feet of the stream where the current is the strongest and deepest. There is a narrow log braced between some rocks in the steam and connecting to the mud soaked trail, however there is nothing to hold onto and there is a steep drop down to the river. AB and Tony do what could be compared to tight rope walking with arms spread from side to side and hurry across the log before they loose their balance. I am still clinging to the rock face and when I turn to approach the log bridge I am nearly tossed into the river by the strong current. The water is adding so much weight on my back that I can not find my balance enough to step onto the log. I look at Tony and AB in panic and say, “I cannot do this!” They both cry back over the noise of the falls, “Yes you can you have to, there is no where else to go!” I put one foot on the log wobbling horribly from side to side grabbing onto tree branches that are much too small to support me. I want to crawl across it because I cannot see myself being able to balance my backpack, but the log is just too narrow. “I’m scared, and the rushing water is making me dizzy!” I cry again. AB slips off is backpack and steps out onto the log and reaches his hand out to me. I lean with all my might scared to death that I will fall and grab him. He takes my other hand and walking backwards he guides me across the bridge. My feet slide onto the other side of the muddy trail and I thank AB a thousand times, there is no way I could have made it without his help.
The waterfall ordeal was enough to deal with, however as we recollect ourselves and continue our mission to Dharapani we find that our soaking clothes and shoes cause the most uncomfortable sensation. My shoes are as wet as they could get and all day of the rest of the hike I am slopping in my boots. I make an attempt to change socks, but the new ones become just as wet after a few minutes of walking. We reach Dharapani just before sunset and we are all chaffed and chilled to the bone. I peel my clothes off like I’m peeling a banana and do my usual leech check. All I can think about is warmth, warm clothes, a hot pot of tea, and a warm dinner, that is all that matters to me.
Dharapani
We sit in the dinning room of our hostel and get to know some of the other people who have been hiking the same trail. Jack and Trisha are a couple from Los Angeles who are traveling around the world, before Nepal they were in Bali. They have one porter and one guide with them both of whom are very friendly and spend most of their time talking with the innkeepers. Jack tells us they are going to climb Pisang Peak which is a mountain just off of the Annupurna trek before completing the entire route. We also meet a quiet Austrian woman and her guide who is also extremely quiet and shy. We try a new dish called mo-mo’s which is sort of like what we think as spring rolls stuffed with spicy veggies and sometimes meat. Tony falls in love with the dish, saying he is going to try to make them when we get back home. I have a coke with dinner, but am still craving a hot pot of tea. I look over the menu and see Tibetan tea which sounds delicious. A little girl serves me the pot proudly saying, “Your Tibetan tea” and sets it before me. I pour the tea seeing a delicious creamy tea steam into Tony’s and my cup and I take sip. My taste buds are immediately filled with a very harsh salty taste, like I just took in a mouthful of ocean. “Oh my god, that’s disgusting” I say with teeth nashed together. Tony looks equally displeased by the taste and we both stare into our full cups and the full pot still on the table. I try to keep sipping hoping I might get used to it, but every swallow burns down my throat and into my stomach. I have to chase each sip with a shot of AB’s water to get any of it down. The little girl passes through smiling saying, “You like Tibetan tea?” Of course I shake my head up and down, “Yes, it is very good” thinking to myself how am I going to get rid of it without insulting her and her family. AB once again comes to my rescue sampling the tea and not exactly liking it, but continues to drink it so that it at least looks like we all enjoyed it. We pass the pot around to the other trekkers each having a taste. Their only comments are “Mmm, interesting” with a frown.
Tibetan tea: A tea brewed from salt and yak butter.
Yak: a cow that grows a long shaggy coat and can live in very cold climates at high altitudes.
In the morning we rise early and it is the first time I notice painted above the window in our room in bright yellow letters, “Free Tibet”. At breakfast our innkeeper sits in the room with us holding his one year old son who tries to grab anything on the table that he can. The innkeeper talks about Nepal, the Maoist, and about King Mahendra who was murdered three months before we arrived in Nepal by his own son. “These are bad times for Nepalese,” he explains. “When the king was still alive he would come out to the villages pretending to be a porter so that he could see his people as they really lived and that is because he loved his people and his country.” The innkeeper looks uneasily at the floor, “Now, everyone is afraid because of the Maoist and the new king comes to the village in disguise and they trick us asking us which side we are on.” “We don’t know what to answer, “If we say Maoist and it is really the government asking us we could be arrested, but if we say we are for the king and they are Maoist then they could kill us for not supporting them.” We shake are heads sadly by the news he is giving us. “The Nepalese do not like the new king because he is not a descendent of the god-line, like King Mahendra who was the incarnation of Lord Vishnu.” “And the Maoist, all they want is money; they come to the village and force us to give them money.” “Neither cares about us, what we need now is a new government, parliament based.” He nods. “This is our only hope, with the god-line destroyed and the violence of the Maoist it is time for Nepal to change, it is the only way to make the people happy.”
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Journal Entry 5
September 12, Wednesday
I awake to roosters crowing and rain falling softly on the tin roof above us and the family already up sweeping floors and clanging pots and pans beneath us. It is about six o’clock in the morning, but with all the commotion below us as well as outside it seems like afternoon. We slept in the loft of a barn, no glass windows and no insulation only gaping two by fours separated us from the elements. We did have electricity, a crude fixture with a dim light bulb protruding from a wall decorated with aged and yellowed news papers. Unfortunately, we were unable to leave the light on too long because of all the moths it attracted from the outside, and not to mention all the wolf spiders we were able to see made having the light off more comforting. As humid as it was I forced myself to sleep with my sleeping bag zipped up over my head for fear of some vicious spider or insect crawling on my face in the night.
AB who is looking much better is stretching outside our door with a liter of water in hand. He says he is going to force himself to drink as much water as he can so he won’t sweat himself to death like he almost did yesterday. Our clothes that we hung to dry in the night are still wet from our perspiration. It is almost impossible to have dry clothing and shoes in such a humid environment and as gross as it feels putting them on that seems to be the only way to get them to dry. We climb down from the loft and are greeted by the warm cheerful smile of our innkeeper. Tony stops and looks at a poster on the wall that features the Hindu god, Hanuman the monkey headed deity. The innkeeper notices Tony gazing at the image and proudly pats the poster and humbly says, “That’s my god.” We sit at a picnic table and order our breakfast of Tibetan bread and eggs with yak cheese. As we sip our tea and coffee I can see the family hard at work in the kitchen preparing our food. A woman is kneading the dough for my Tibetan bread on a blackened tree stump, while a dark stove glows with a wood fire and eggs sizzling on the surface. To the left of our table a young girl goes to a small alter covered in red wax and rings a small bell and lights some incense. It all is so simple, a morning prayer, preparing food, playing with children, and working together for survival as a family and as a community. Back home we start our days alone by rushing to work or school sometimes barely eating breakfast if we eat any at all. We leave our children with strangers and we go someplace we would rather not be, but cannot survive without. We go to work dreading the day until our paychecks come and we can spend it on things that entertain us only for a short time and then we bury them in a closet or we yearn for them for another two weeks until we are paid again. These people are not distracted by a commercial world and are in no need of it because they have each other and are surrounded by a harmony and a cultural tradition that makes them who they are. We have lost our traditions to a materialistic and industrialized world, but although some of us do not realize it we are constantly searching for it when we absorb ourselves in the toys, clothes, gadjets, vehicles, and vacations we buy every day, every month, and every year. It reminds me of something the Buddha teaches, “The gift of truth conquers all gifts, the taste of truth conquers all sweetness, the joy of truth conquers all pleasures and the loss of desires conquers all sorrows.”
The rain is still falling steadily as we pack up for another long day on the trail. We wrap our belongings in plastic bags and then stuff them in our packs so we can be sure that we have dry clothing to change into in the night and also a dry sleeping bag to crawl into. We pay our friendly innkeeper and I leave one of his children with an ink pen which is a highly prized item in the mountains where a pen helps kids learn to write easier than chalk. We shuffle onto the trail with other children who are on their way to school. They wear blue uniforms if they are available or affordable because some kids do not wear them but still attend school. They pass us in the rain with umbrellas or plastic bags over their heads some looking up at us shyly while others mostly the real little ones try their hardest to avoid being noticed by us. There were times yesterday when we would be walking along the trail and off in the distance we would hear someone shout, “Hello, hello!” or “Hey Namaste!” and up on a hillside we would see several children dressed in blue waving at us from their school yard.
The children here are full of smiles and generally not scared to approach strangers. If we were stopped for a short rest the children will come to us and touch our packs or clothing or in my case the tattoo on my arm. They whisper little things to each other and giggle and test their English skills on you by asking for treats or pens. “ Sweet?” Have pen?” Unfortunately giving out candy is not recommended because there isn’t any kind of dental care here not even toothpaste so giving candy out increases their chances of having tooth decay. I read a report from the Everest region that so many tourists pass through there and give out treats to the kids that there is a real problem with tooth decay and a dental clinic actually needed to be put in the village of Namche Bazaar, the last big village before Everest.
5:00PM Jagat
It rained all day, the air was nice and cool but after walking long hours in wet shoes and water dripping down my neck and the sleeves of my rain jacket I wanted the hot weather to return. We were introduced to another native of Nepal, leeches. Disgusting slimy worms that suck onto your flesh until they are bloated with blood and then fall back to the ground leaving you a bloody mess from the anti-clotting agent they release into the blood. The worst part about them is that most of the time you never notice that they were on you, but you find the wound they left behind bleeding terribly. You wonder how they manage to climb on your boot and under the cuff of your pants and lastly up your leg without ever being seen or felt, that really gives me the creeps. When we got to our room for the night Tony slipped off his shoes and had four of them on his foot, two of which were practically on top of each other trying to get the perfect vein. To remove them the best thing to do is take your thumb and scoot it under the leeches sucker then pick it off quickly before it tries to reattach itself to your hand. Supposedly using a lighter or match will work as well, but when we tried it hurt us more than the leech.
Changing from my wet clothes to dry clothes I notice my body starting to show wear and tear from my backpack. I have sores on my shoulders and on my hips and a nasty blister forming in the center of my back. We made ourselves a first aid kit before we left the states full of band aids, tape, mole skin, ointments, and sports wraps since good sterile medical care is not available here in the mountains. I take a few snips of the mole skin and apply it to my hips and my shoulders, hopefully it will get me through the many miles ahead I still have to hike through.
There still is enough daylight left in the village after we are settled in so we decide to walk to the end of the village and hopefully get a chance to meet local people. The rain has stopped, but a heavy gray mist lingers over the surrounding hillsides and the sky itself is thick with dark clouds. Despite the weather everyone in the village is live and happy and children are playing on the pathway. There are still a few lingering trekkers coming into the village for the night asking us where we are staying and if the rooms are nice others continue on trying to find the last inn at the end of the village so that they can get to a quick start in the morning. I have Tony carry the camera and as he snaps a few shots he meets a little girl probably about seven years old and asks to photograph her. She immediately shimmers with happiness and beckons Tony to follow her to her house at the end of the village. She calls for her father and mother and excitedly yells, “Picture, Picture!!” From inside the tiny thatched roof shack comes a young man and woman maybe the age of twenty-five or twenty-eight carrying two babies, one a newborn and the other close to twelve months. They welcome Tony into their home showing him the kitchen and pictures they have received from other western travelers. I had also brought pictures from home of friends and family and my two cats of course and passed them around to the many children that have gathered around the house. It is amazing how well these pictures worked as a way of communicating with each other, because while the Nepalese do know a little English it is still a challenge to try to have a conversation based on a few words. They looked at the pictures of my cats and reacted to them by saying, “Meow, Meow!” One little girl ran home and brought back a kitten to show us. I also had a picture of me with my mother and they would hold their hands around their face in an up and down motion and say, “Look the same.” and point to me.
We have the family pose for the picture and are also asked to get into a picture with them with promises to send them the photographs when we return home. We give the father who we find out is named, Chandra a picture of Tony with our friend Eric in Times Square which he fell in love with, actually kissing it as he hung it on the wall in his house repeatedly saying, “This is very good, very funny, very good.” The picture is rather comical showing the two of them in a stance like they were models or a couple of gangster rappers in the middle of New York City. It is funny how Chandra not knowing Tony or Eric could somehow pick up on the humor of the photograph even with the cultural barrier.
Darkness was beginning to set in and our innkeeper catches up to us and asks it we could return so he could prepare dinner for us. We say our good nights and tell Chrandra we will stop back on our way out tomorrow morning. What a great experience to be able to meet local people who simply wanted to connect with us out of the curiosity and kindness of their hearts. It breaks the wall down of feeling like a nosey foreigner. Some people go places simply to check it off of their great list of accomplishments and to brag to friends back home, “Been there, done that.” However, in order to truly live you have to open up your heart to everything and every person that surrounds you and let them experience you just as you experience them. Photographing your experiences is great, but sometimes you have to remove yourself from behind the camera and not worry about what there will be to show for it when you leave. You just need to enjoy the moment for what it is because sometimes that camera can prohibit you from connecting with people. Tonight we were lucky and it did help us, but I am noticing that the site of the camera can also make people very nervous and more likely to hide.
The three of us end up being the only guests staying at our inn that evening and because of this we are treated royally by the family running it. We seat ourselves at a picnic table and order a round of dal bhat sets while white moths flutter around the burning lamp above our heads. Our food comes and we realize that we might be in a constant battle with the moths to keep them from diving into our food and drink. At one point a moth nose dives into AB’s bean soup and while we were not certain one of the girls attending to us let out a shout that sounded like, “Shit!” as she grabbed for the insect. I know it seems silly to report the incident, but the only reason it is funny is because she really didn’t speak any English and hearing that burst from her lips out of nowhere took us by surprise. Shit is probably not what she was saying, but it did give us quite a laugh. The innkeeper attempts to play a radio for us, but is having trouble getting any stations to come through. He is so determined to get the radio to work that he labors over it for a good forty-five minutes. Unfortunately we were all pretty tired and had long since finished our meal and after waiting out of kindness for him to try to play us some music we finally had to urge him to stop. Bless his heart for trying to make us comfortable while we stayed, but we felt bad having them run a generator only for us just to give us some light and music. The people are wonderful here.
I awake to roosters crowing and rain falling softly on the tin roof above us and the family already up sweeping floors and clanging pots and pans beneath us. It is about six o’clock in the morning, but with all the commotion below us as well as outside it seems like afternoon. We slept in the loft of a barn, no glass windows and no insulation only gaping two by fours separated us from the elements. We did have electricity, a crude fixture with a dim light bulb protruding from a wall decorated with aged and yellowed news papers. Unfortunately, we were unable to leave the light on too long because of all the moths it attracted from the outside, and not to mention all the wolf spiders we were able to see made having the light off more comforting. As humid as it was I forced myself to sleep with my sleeping bag zipped up over my head for fear of some vicious spider or insect crawling on my face in the night.
AB who is looking much better is stretching outside our door with a liter of water in hand. He says he is going to force himself to drink as much water as he can so he won’t sweat himself to death like he almost did yesterday. Our clothes that we hung to dry in the night are still wet from our perspiration. It is almost impossible to have dry clothing and shoes in such a humid environment and as gross as it feels putting them on that seems to be the only way to get them to dry. We climb down from the loft and are greeted by the warm cheerful smile of our innkeeper. Tony stops and looks at a poster on the wall that features the Hindu god, Hanuman the monkey headed deity. The innkeeper notices Tony gazing at the image and proudly pats the poster and humbly says, “That’s my god.” We sit at a picnic table and order our breakfast of Tibetan bread and eggs with yak cheese. As we sip our tea and coffee I can see the family hard at work in the kitchen preparing our food. A woman is kneading the dough for my Tibetan bread on a blackened tree stump, while a dark stove glows with a wood fire and eggs sizzling on the surface. To the left of our table a young girl goes to a small alter covered in red wax and rings a small bell and lights some incense. It all is so simple, a morning prayer, preparing food, playing with children, and working together for survival as a family and as a community. Back home we start our days alone by rushing to work or school sometimes barely eating breakfast if we eat any at all. We leave our children with strangers and we go someplace we would rather not be, but cannot survive without. We go to work dreading the day until our paychecks come and we can spend it on things that entertain us only for a short time and then we bury them in a closet or we yearn for them for another two weeks until we are paid again. These people are not distracted by a commercial world and are in no need of it because they have each other and are surrounded by a harmony and a cultural tradition that makes them who they are. We have lost our traditions to a materialistic and industrialized world, but although some of us do not realize it we are constantly searching for it when we absorb ourselves in the toys, clothes, gadjets, vehicles, and vacations we buy every day, every month, and every year. It reminds me of something the Buddha teaches, “The gift of truth conquers all gifts, the taste of truth conquers all sweetness, the joy of truth conquers all pleasures and the loss of desires conquers all sorrows.”
The rain is still falling steadily as we pack up for another long day on the trail. We wrap our belongings in plastic bags and then stuff them in our packs so we can be sure that we have dry clothing to change into in the night and also a dry sleeping bag to crawl into. We pay our friendly innkeeper and I leave one of his children with an ink pen which is a highly prized item in the mountains where a pen helps kids learn to write easier than chalk. We shuffle onto the trail with other children who are on their way to school. They wear blue uniforms if they are available or affordable because some kids do not wear them but still attend school. They pass us in the rain with umbrellas or plastic bags over their heads some looking up at us shyly while others mostly the real little ones try their hardest to avoid being noticed by us. There were times yesterday when we would be walking along the trail and off in the distance we would hear someone shout, “Hello, hello!” or “Hey Namaste!” and up on a hillside we would see several children dressed in blue waving at us from their school yard.
The children here are full of smiles and generally not scared to approach strangers. If we were stopped for a short rest the children will come to us and touch our packs or clothing or in my case the tattoo on my arm. They whisper little things to each other and giggle and test their English skills on you by asking for treats or pens. “ Sweet?” Have pen?” Unfortunately giving out candy is not recommended because there isn’t any kind of dental care here not even toothpaste so giving candy out increases their chances of having tooth decay. I read a report from the Everest region that so many tourists pass through there and give out treats to the kids that there is a real problem with tooth decay and a dental clinic actually needed to be put in the village of Namche Bazaar, the last big village before Everest. 5:00PM Jagat
It rained all day, the air was nice and cool but after walking long hours in wet shoes and water dripping down my neck and the sleeves of my rain jacket I wanted the hot weather to return. We were introduced to another native of Nepal, leeches. Disgusting slimy worms that suck onto your flesh until they are bloated with blood and then fall back to the ground leaving you a bloody mess from the anti-clotting agent they release into the blood. The worst part about them is that most of the time you never notice that they were on you, but you find the wound they left behind bleeding terribly. You wonder how they manage to climb on your boot and under the cuff of your pants and lastly up your leg without ever being seen or felt, that really gives me the creeps. When we got to our room for the night Tony slipped off his shoes and had four of them on his foot, two of which were practically on top of each other trying to get the perfect vein. To remove them the best thing to do is take your thumb and scoot it under the leeches sucker then pick it off quickly before it tries to reattach itself to your hand. Supposedly using a lighter or match will work as well, but when we tried it hurt us more than the leech.
Changing from my wet clothes to dry clothes I notice my body starting to show wear and tear from my backpack. I have sores on my shoulders and on my hips and a nasty blister forming in the center of my back. We made ourselves a first aid kit before we left the states full of band aids, tape, mole skin, ointments, and sports wraps since good sterile medical care is not available here in the mountains. I take a few snips of the mole skin and apply it to my hips and my shoulders, hopefully it will get me through the many miles ahead I still have to hike through.
There still is enough daylight left in the village after we are settled in so we decide to walk to the end of the village and hopefully get a chance to meet local people. The rain has stopped, but a heavy gray mist lingers over the surrounding hillsides and the sky itself is thick with dark clouds. Despite the weather everyone in the village is live and happy and children are playing on the pathway. There are still a few lingering trekkers coming into the village for the night asking us where we are staying and if the rooms are nice others continue on trying to find the last inn at the end of the village so that they can get to a quick start in the morning. I have Tony carry the camera and as he snaps a few shots he meets a little girl probably about seven years old and asks to photograph her. She immediately shimmers with happiness and beckons Tony to follow her to her house at the end of the village. She calls for her father and mother and excitedly yells, “Picture, Picture!!” From inside the tiny thatched roof shack comes a young man and woman maybe the age of twenty-five or twenty-eight carrying two babies, one a newborn and the other close to twelve months. They welcome Tony into their home showing him the kitchen and pictures they have received from other western travelers. I had also brought pictures from home of friends and family and my two cats of course and passed them around to the many children that have gathered around the house. It is amazing how well these pictures worked as a way of communicating with each other, because while the Nepalese do know a little English it is still a challenge to try to have a conversation based on a few words. They looked at the pictures of my cats and reacted to them by saying, “Meow, Meow!” One little girl ran home and brought back a kitten to show us. I also had a picture of me with my mother and they would hold their hands around their face in an up and down motion and say, “Look the same.” and point to me.
We have the family pose for the picture and are also asked to get into a picture with them with promises to send them the photographs when we return home. We give the father who we find out is named, Chandra a picture of Tony with our friend Eric in Times Square which he fell in love with, actually kissing it as he hung it on the wall in his house repeatedly saying, “This is very good, very funny, very good.” The picture is rather comical showing the two of them in a stance like they were models or a couple of gangster rappers in the middle of New York City. It is funny how Chandra not knowing Tony or Eric could somehow pick up on the humor of the photograph even with the cultural barrier.
Darkness was beginning to set in and our innkeeper catches up to us and asks it we could return so he could prepare dinner for us. We say our good nights and tell Chrandra we will stop back on our way out tomorrow morning. What a great experience to be able to meet local people who simply wanted to connect with us out of the curiosity and kindness of their hearts. It breaks the wall down of feeling like a nosey foreigner. Some people go places simply to check it off of their great list of accomplishments and to brag to friends back home, “Been there, done that.” However, in order to truly live you have to open up your heart to everything and every person that surrounds you and let them experience you just as you experience them. Photographing your experiences is great, but sometimes you have to remove yourself from behind the camera and not worry about what there will be to show for it when you leave. You just need to enjoy the moment for what it is because sometimes that camera can prohibit you from connecting with people. Tonight we were lucky and it did help us, but I am noticing that the site of the camera can also make people very nervous and more likely to hide.
The three of us end up being the only guests staying at our inn that evening and because of this we are treated royally by the family running it. We seat ourselves at a picnic table and order a round of dal bhat sets while white moths flutter around the burning lamp above our heads. Our food comes and we realize that we might be in a constant battle with the moths to keep them from diving into our food and drink. At one point a moth nose dives into AB’s bean soup and while we were not certain one of the girls attending to us let out a shout that sounded like, “Shit!” as she grabbed for the insect. I know it seems silly to report the incident, but the only reason it is funny is because she really didn’t speak any English and hearing that burst from her lips out of nowhere took us by surprise. Shit is probably not what she was saying, but it did give us quite a laugh. The innkeeper attempts to play a radio for us, but is having trouble getting any stations to come through. He is so determined to get the radio to work that he labors over it for a good forty-five minutes. Unfortunately we were all pretty tired and had long since finished our meal and after waiting out of kindness for him to try to play us some music we finally had to urge him to stop. Bless his heart for trying to make us comfortable while we stayed, but we felt bad having them run a generator only for us just to give us some light and music. The people are wonderful here.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Journal Entry 4
September 11, Tuesday
We wake to a beautiful morning, clear sky, green everywhere , and our first site of snow capped peaks way, way off in the distance. AB has the biggest grin on his face and he says to me and Tony, “ Oh yeah, now I remember, this is what I came here for.” It feels good to be out of Kathmandu in the fresh open air, away from people hasseling us on the streets, away from the traffic, away from a way of life that we have grown up with and yet they are trying to become. It scares me to think how western the entire world is becoming and I wonder if in the future if anyone will value their traditions or will we all be eating at McDonalds and wearing jeans. I already hear that in certain parts of the world different languages are dying out and being replaced by what is more well known, like English. Is it evolution or is our modernization taking over, making everyone unacculturated, making them loose their own song or their own sense of being. I know that I wish I knew more about my ancestors, where they lived, what they believed in, and what was the song in their hearts before Christianity and their coming to America blended them in with everyone else.
We get to a late start, because we awoke the latest of all the other trekkers. They are all packed up and enjoying their last sips of black tea by the time we get a table. Jeremy left at six in the morning skipping breakfast altogether, probably because he didn’t want to spend anymore money than he absolutely had to. After breakfast we strap ourselves into our backpacks which we will carry everyday for the next fifteen to sixteen days through rain and shine. Walking onto a rocky trail which acts more like a small babbling brook we leave behind the pothole ridden road that ends at the base of the Annapurna foothills. From hear we will follow the Marsyangdi River until we reach the height of our journey the pass of Thorung La at 17,769 ft. I hope I can handle this journey, because there is no easy and comfortable way to get out of the mountains and if I have problems it will be a bitter experience for me. My pack is heavy and I have a liter of water swinging at my side, but I manage to glide over worn rocks in my brown hiking boots and long skirt. Skirt? Yes, I am wearing a skirt which for those who don’t know me is a rare occasion, but here in Nepal it is more respectful to wear a long dress or skirt than pants and especially shorts. People don’t show a lot of skin here, and in their culture a pair of pants actually shows way too much of a lady’s figure for their liking. Those who do choose to wear shorts, tank tops or tight clothes will be stared at by both men and women. I want to leave as little impression on these people as possible and I certainly want it to be a positive interaction so I will be as respectful of their beliefs as I possibly can.
AB walks ahead of us and it doesn’t take him long to be what seems miles ahead of us. After a couple of hours Tony and I are clumsy on the water filled trail, delicately trying to keep our feet dry and I mistake a patch of grass for solid ground and end up sliding off the side of the trail onto the a joining rice terrace which sits three feet lower than the actual trail. My pack makes the clumsiness worse because the slightest stumble pushes all my weight in it’s direction and as I am clinging onto this one rock trying to clamor back up on the trail the weight on my back is pushing me and the rock further backwards. I can already feel the burning of a scrape on my leg as a curse my way back onto the trail in the grasp of Tony’s hand. Tony gently rubs my shoulder and asks if I am okay and I reply yes even though I am really hating myself because I feel like a complete idiot. Here I am all concerned about the people and the respect of their environment and then I go and fall on their rice paddy, now how’s that for a tourist!
We bend forward as we cross a bamboo bridge which consists of a bundle of bamboo sticks tied together with wire and rope. The railing sits low almost on what you would call the floor of the bridge and each step you take you feel the bridge bouncing to your rhythm. Heavy loads are carried over this bridge everyday and I assume that the low railing supports the weight of the cargo being carried on a person’s back. I cross the bridge with no problems although I will admit that the rushing water beneath it makes me dizzy. Over a small ridge I can hear the rumbling of our true water source the Marsyangdi a grey river constantly rushing and churning its way out of the mountains. It is the late monsoon and the river is at it’s highest level and it’s performance heeds warning to those who would dare try to cross it; For this is a river that would surely break you and swallow you whole.
People are busy at work all along the trail, transporting goods, controlling a herd of pack mules loaded with supplies, and building and repairing parts of the trail. Some people greet us with friendly smiles and shake our hands. They ask if we like Nepal with big shining smiles and when we say yes they put their hands together and say, “Oh, very good, Namaste!” Sometimes we pass women who will hide their faces from us, probably fearful that we will take their picture or shy and maybe even afraid of Tony and AB.
The Annapurna sees loads of tourists every year and at the height of the trekking season two hundred trekkers a day could pass through a single village. It is no wonder why these women would hide from us because I am sure there are people who come here with no respect for privacy and snap pictures without asking. However, you also have to be amazed with the friendliness of these people having to deal with this all of the time. I know if my front yard was a tourist attraction I would be very bitter and edgy all of the time. Perhaps they can live with this because they know that these treks bring in money which allows them to live high up in these mountains without having to move to a larger city for work. Sharecropping is income for some, but the majority here are working the tourist circuit, transporting goods, running inns, cooking food, keeping the trail cleared, checking permits, and selling those essential items like toothpaste or a dry pair of socks that we run out of on these sorts of trips.
We stop for lunch just after noon and our taste buds jump with enthusiasm when we find out they have ice cold coca-cola and sprite to drink. Apparently we can or we should be able to get soft drinks and beer at almost every village we stay in. AB calls it the Coca-Cola trail and I am amazed that people would carry these glass bottles in and out of the circuit just to make us feel more “at home”. It is nice to get that sugar fix after hiking in the hot tropical heat all day, but it does take away from that feeling of being in a far off place that time forgot. We run into the other trekkers who are just getting ready to hit the trail again. Jeremy is with them and he chats with us briefly asking us what village we are going to stay at for the night and how we are handling the trip so far. Other than sweating a rain storm, especially AB we are all doing fine, but my feet are soaked after walking in water for most of the day. Taking my boots off is great, but in about forty-five minutes I will have to put them back on again and that will feel worse. All three of us order a plate of fried potatoes glazed in curry sauce. During the course of our trip we will all order the same meal, not that it has to be potatoes, but whatever we pick to eat we each have to have the same thing. This is because it is easier for the people to cook, since they only work out of a small kitchen and there is usually only one or two people making the food. Full of carbohydrates we suit up for the trail which steadily climbs higher above the Marsyangdi.
6:00PM
The sun will sent in about another hour and we are still hiking looking for the village of Bahundanda where we are supposed to sleep. We keep passing people and have asked them how much further to Bahundanda and they say thirty minutes, but I can tell you we have passed thirty minutes over four hours ago. Nepalese walking time is measured on a different scale compared to out of shape western tourist hiking time. Worst of all is that the tropical heat and endless hours of hiking has taken its toll on AB who has slowed up a great deal behind me and Tony compared to when we started in the morning. Tony and me stop to take a rest near a small farm house and wait for AB and it takes him a good twenty minutes to come in site of us. I am worried that it will be dark before we reach the village so I go on ahead while Tony stays behind with AB. I am amazed by the great burst of energy I’ve received and I can suddenly skip over large rocks on a steep incline. I almost feel like I am running, perhaps my adrenaline has kicked in from being so worried about getting where we need to be. I’m getting pretty far ahead and I still don’t see any signs of a village, only a few small farms. I stop for another rest and wait on the boys and with in fifteen minutes I see Tony rushing up the trail.
“AB is in bad shape, his legs are cramping up and he is having trouble walking!”
“What should we do, I still don’t see a village.” I say.
“Give me the rest of your water, because AB is almost out and I’m afraid he will pass out from dehydration.” Tony explains.
“You go back with AB and I will try to find the village or the next house and get some help.”
Again I am back in my sprint up the mountain hoping that the next bend will bring me to a village. After another twenty minutes of speed hiking I come face to face with a hotel and two trekkers having dinner at a picnic table. I am out of breathe and the both look at me with concern. Out of the darkness of the kitchen a man comes towards me and he is glowing with joy from ear to ear. He claps his hands together and says, “Room, yes?” I barely make out a yes from my heavy panting and it takes great effort for me to explain that there are two more coming with me. He simply grins at me and says, “No problem, plenty of room for you and food too, yes.” He shows me to the rooms and without even really looking at them I say, “Great!” and throw down my pack. My only concern right now is finding AB and Tony but relieved that I have finally reached Bahundanda in the little light that is left outside. I tell the two trekkers my situation and they are immediately concerned offering to come down the trail with me and carry AB. Luckily I peak over the railing and I can see Tony and AB slowly making there way up. I rush down the trail after them and both of them look at me with distressed faces. “Did you find anything, yet?” asks Tony. “Yes, your almost there it is just around the bend I got rooms and everything.” Every step AB takes is followed by a moan of pain and he continues to grab at his calf muscles while sweat pores from his body. I feel bad because there is nothing I can do, but watch and urge them on. I offer to carry AB’s backpack, but he won’t let me, saying it is too heavy. I know he just wants to get there and stopping would just be more torture for him to endure. I am relieved that his journey will be over in just a few more steps.
We wake to a beautiful morning, clear sky, green everywhere , and our first site of snow capped peaks way, way off in the distance. AB has the biggest grin on his face and he says to me and Tony, “ Oh yeah, now I remember, this is what I came here for.” It feels good to be out of Kathmandu in the fresh open air, away from people hasseling us on the streets, away from the traffic, away from a way of life that we have grown up with and yet they are trying to become. It scares me to think how western the entire world is becoming and I wonder if in the future if anyone will value their traditions or will we all be eating at McDonalds and wearing jeans. I already hear that in certain parts of the world different languages are dying out and being replaced by what is more well known, like English. Is it evolution or is our modernization taking over, making everyone unacculturated, making them loose their own song or their own sense of being. I know that I wish I knew more about my ancestors, where they lived, what they believed in, and what was the song in their hearts before Christianity and their coming to America blended them in with everyone else.
We get to a late start, because we awoke the latest of all the other trekkers. They are all packed up and enjoying their last sips of black tea by the time we get a table. Jeremy left at six in the morning skipping breakfast altogether, probably because he didn’t want to spend anymore money than he absolutely had to. After breakfast we strap ourselves into our backpacks which we will carry everyday for the next fifteen to sixteen days through rain and shine. Walking onto a rocky trail which acts more like a small babbling brook we leave behind the pothole ridden road that ends at the base of the Annapurna foothills. From hear we will follow the Marsyangdi River until we reach the height of our journey the pass of Thorung La at 17,769 ft. I hope I can handle this journey, because there is no easy and comfortable way to get out of the mountains and if I have problems it will be a bitter experience for me. My pack is heavy and I have a liter of water swinging at my side, but I manage to glide over worn rocks in my brown hiking boots and long skirt. Skirt? Yes, I am wearing a skirt which for those who don’t know me is a rare occasion, but here in Nepal it is more respectful to wear a long dress or skirt than pants and especially shorts. People don’t show a lot of skin here, and in their culture a pair of pants actually shows way too much of a lady’s figure for their liking. Those who do choose to wear shorts, tank tops or tight clothes will be stared at by both men and women. I want to leave as little impression on these people as possible and I certainly want it to be a positive interaction so I will be as respectful of their beliefs as I possibly can.
AB walks ahead of us and it doesn’t take him long to be what seems miles ahead of us. After a couple of hours Tony and I are clumsy on the water filled trail, delicately trying to keep our feet dry and I mistake a patch of grass for solid ground and end up sliding off the side of the trail onto the a joining rice terrace which sits three feet lower than the actual trail. My pack makes the clumsiness worse because the slightest stumble pushes all my weight in it’s direction and as I am clinging onto this one rock trying to clamor back up on the trail the weight on my back is pushing me and the rock further backwards. I can already feel the burning of a scrape on my leg as a curse my way back onto the trail in the grasp of Tony’s hand. Tony gently rubs my shoulder and asks if I am okay and I reply yes even though I am really hating myself because I feel like a complete idiot. Here I am all concerned about the people and the respect of their environment and then I go and fall on their rice paddy, now how’s that for a tourist!
We bend forward as we cross a bamboo bridge which consists of a bundle of bamboo sticks tied together with wire and rope. The railing sits low almost on what you would call the floor of the bridge and each step you take you feel the bridge bouncing to your rhythm. Heavy loads are carried over this bridge everyday and I assume that the low railing supports the weight of the cargo being carried on a person’s back. I cross the bridge with no problems although I will admit that the rushing water beneath it makes me dizzy. Over a small ridge I can hear the rumbling of our true water source the Marsyangdi a grey river constantly rushing and churning its way out of the mountains. It is the late monsoon and the river is at it’s highest level and it’s performance heeds warning to those who would dare try to cross it; For this is a river that would surely break you and swallow you whole. People are busy at work all along the trail, transporting goods, controlling a herd of pack mules loaded with supplies, and building and repairing parts of the trail. Some people greet us with friendly smiles and shake our hands. They ask if we like Nepal with big shining smiles and when we say yes they put their hands together and say, “Oh, very good, Namaste!” Sometimes we pass women who will hide their faces from us, probably fearful that we will take their picture or shy and maybe even afraid of Tony and AB.
The Annapurna sees loads of tourists every year and at the height of the trekking season two hundred trekkers a day could pass through a single village. It is no wonder why these women would hide from us because I am sure there are people who come here with no respect for privacy and snap pictures without asking. However, you also have to be amazed with the friendliness of these people having to deal with this all of the time. I know if my front yard was a tourist attraction I would be very bitter and edgy all of the time. Perhaps they can live with this because they know that these treks bring in money which allows them to live high up in these mountains without having to move to a larger city for work. Sharecropping is income for some, but the majority here are working the tourist circuit, transporting goods, running inns, cooking food, keeping the trail cleared, checking permits, and selling those essential items like toothpaste or a dry pair of socks that we run out of on these sorts of trips.
We stop for lunch just after noon and our taste buds jump with enthusiasm when we find out they have ice cold coca-cola and sprite to drink. Apparently we can or we should be able to get soft drinks and beer at almost every village we stay in. AB calls it the Coca-Cola trail and I am amazed that people would carry these glass bottles in and out of the circuit just to make us feel more “at home”. It is nice to get that sugar fix after hiking in the hot tropical heat all day, but it does take away from that feeling of being in a far off place that time forgot. We run into the other trekkers who are just getting ready to hit the trail again. Jeremy is with them and he chats with us briefly asking us what village we are going to stay at for the night and how we are handling the trip so far. Other than sweating a rain storm, especially AB we are all doing fine, but my feet are soaked after walking in water for most of the day. Taking my boots off is great, but in about forty-five minutes I will have to put them back on again and that will feel worse. All three of us order a plate of fried potatoes glazed in curry sauce. During the course of our trip we will all order the same meal, not that it has to be potatoes, but whatever we pick to eat we each have to have the same thing. This is because it is easier for the people to cook, since they only work out of a small kitchen and there is usually only one or two people making the food. Full of carbohydrates we suit up for the trail which steadily climbs higher above the Marsyangdi.
6:00PM
The sun will sent in about another hour and we are still hiking looking for the village of Bahundanda where we are supposed to sleep. We keep passing people and have asked them how much further to Bahundanda and they say thirty minutes, but I can tell you we have passed thirty minutes over four hours ago. Nepalese walking time is measured on a different scale compared to out of shape western tourist hiking time. Worst of all is that the tropical heat and endless hours of hiking has taken its toll on AB who has slowed up a great deal behind me and Tony compared to when we started in the morning. Tony and me stop to take a rest near a small farm house and wait for AB and it takes him a good twenty minutes to come in site of us. I am worried that it will be dark before we reach the village so I go on ahead while Tony stays behind with AB. I am amazed by the great burst of energy I’ve received and I can suddenly skip over large rocks on a steep incline. I almost feel like I am running, perhaps my adrenaline has kicked in from being so worried about getting where we need to be. I’m getting pretty far ahead and I still don’t see any signs of a village, only a few small farms. I stop for another rest and wait on the boys and with in fifteen minutes I see Tony rushing up the trail.
“AB is in bad shape, his legs are cramping up and he is having trouble walking!”
“What should we do, I still don’t see a village.” I say.
“Give me the rest of your water, because AB is almost out and I’m afraid he will pass out from dehydration.” Tony explains.
“You go back with AB and I will try to find the village or the next house and get some help.”
Again I am back in my sprint up the mountain hoping that the next bend will bring me to a village. After another twenty minutes of speed hiking I come face to face with a hotel and two trekkers having dinner at a picnic table. I am out of breathe and the both look at me with concern. Out of the darkness of the kitchen a man comes towards me and he is glowing with joy from ear to ear. He claps his hands together and says, “Room, yes?” I barely make out a yes from my heavy panting and it takes great effort for me to explain that there are two more coming with me. He simply grins at me and says, “No problem, plenty of room for you and food too, yes.” He shows me to the rooms and without even really looking at them I say, “Great!” and throw down my pack. My only concern right now is finding AB and Tony but relieved that I have finally reached Bahundanda in the little light that is left outside. I tell the two trekkers my situation and they are immediately concerned offering to come down the trail with me and carry AB. Luckily I peak over the railing and I can see Tony and AB slowly making there way up. I rush down the trail after them and both of them look at me with distressed faces. “Did you find anything, yet?” asks Tony. “Yes, your almost there it is just around the bend I got rooms and everything.” Every step AB takes is followed by a moan of pain and he continues to grab at his calf muscles while sweat pores from his body. I feel bad because there is nothing I can do, but watch and urge them on. I offer to carry AB’s backpack, but he won’t let me, saying it is too heavy. I know he just wants to get there and stopping would just be more torture for him to endure. I am relieved that his journey will be over in just a few more steps.
Journal Entry 3
September 10, Monday
We awake early today because we have to catch a bus out of town to a village northwest of Kathmandu called Besishar where the Annapurna trail begins. We are once again overwhelmed by people at the bus station who want to help us find the right bus, carry our backpacks, or do something for some money.
“Where are you going?” “What country you come from?” “You go trekking, yes?” -they all shout as they circle the three of us. Everything is written in Sanskrit so AB just walks to a random ticket window and is pointed to another window which we can see has our bus number written on a sign. We cross a dusty parking lot stinking of diesel and board a rainbow colored bus with various images of Shiva and Om symbols painted on it. There are only a few people on it, all of which are Nepali and they stare at us curiously from head to toe. We sit quietly and stare out at the chaos of the bus station. People are just hanging out and it makes me nervous. What if we get robbed or something, I think. I am putting all my security in the driver of this bus to get me where I need to go and to keep us safe, but he can't even talk to us. I jump out of my fearful daydream when I am suddenly taped on the shoulder by another westerner who asks me how much my ticket was. I hear an accent in his voice, but can’t pin point where he is from. He is very tall with dark eyes and semi-long dark hair, he is definitely European. He stands at the doors of the bus arguing with the attendants which he towers in height about the ticket price. He reluctantly pays the fee and boards the bus shaking his head in annoyance and greets us as he passes for the back of the bus. My eyes are taken back out the window as I watch two cows nibble on small patches of grass that grow between parked buses. Then before my eyes pink flowers fall from my head onto my lap and I look up to find a smiling wrinkly old man dressed in orange sprinkling flowers and planting a red thumb print on my head. He says , “Ah, yes this is very good, yes.” He does the same to Tony and then holds out his hand, “Bakeesh, bakeesh, yes.” Tony looks at the sadhu puzzled and I whisper, “He wants to be paid for doing this I guess.” Tony gets out some rupies and the sadhu kindly says, “Fifty rupies please.” We give him twenty which he seems happy enough with and he moves on down the aisle. Hopefully this sadhu is true to his faith and not someone out for money and his blessing will protect us from driving off a cliff or getting caught in a landslide, which apparently happens a lot in this country.
Sadhu, a holy man who devotes his life to the Hindu god Shiva. He gives up all possessions which sometimes may even include his clothing. They usually congregate near any sacred site related to Shiva. They are pilgrim’s always on the move.
4 hours later-
Okay, if you ever decide to take a long bus trip through Nepal avoid “video coach.” I still have two or three more hours on this bus and I have been reluctantly watching this never ending Bollywood movie with the volume cranked so high that it is distorted through the two tiny speakers that happen to be right over me and Tony’s head. How can I describe this wonderful film that we have been subjected to,,, well, it contains everything you could ever want in a movie, drama, action, murder, comedy, romance, musicals, foreign language, and war. They are definitely influenced by western films, but the only problem is that they crowd everything into one five hour film which I couldn’t tell you what is going on because one minute two people are killing each other and the next minute there is a music video going on. The language is funny also, because they will be speaking a bunch of lines in Hindi and then there will be one English word or a sentence thrown in. Despite my confusion and annoyance with the whole thing the people that surround us are loving every minute of it. We are in the second row of the bus and people are sitting in the aisles and on my arm rest to watch the film which is on one small television at the front of the bus. I find it funny to have people pile almost on my lap to watch the film because personal space is very different here. AB had some Nepalese man sleeping with his head on his lap. He just shrugged and kept reading his Nepal guidebook.
As the bus winds around the corners of the lush green Himalayan foot hills I begin to see the real Nepal. Thatched roof huts surrounded by rice terraces where women with bent backs wash pots and pans in the street and naked children run behind our bus waving and shouting Namaste. Every once in awhile we will stop in road side villages to pick up or drop off people and as we wait to move on villagers come to our windows selling bananas, and cucumbers. There is a young boy on this bus that has been with us ever since we departed from Kathmandu. I’m not sure if he works for the bus or if he is just a passenger who loves to help out. He seems too young to work, maybe only seven or eight years old, but he hangs his head out the window with the other two crew members directing traffic and yelling at pedestrians who get in the way. He has the brightest face that I have ever seen on a child, especially a child who wears dirty brown clothes and crumbling yellow flip-flops. He is so happy and carefree on this long crowded bus ride like a kid on Christmas day. At some point on our ride Tony notices the boy looking at us and waves at him and the boy immediately darts towards us and grins, saying “Hallo.” He asks us where we live and offers us some banana flavored chewing gum. “What caste are you in?” he asks me which I find humorous because westerners don’t have castes which is strictly a Hindu thing, but I guess the tikka markings on our foreheads might be throwing him off. I say I don’t have a caste and he just smiles and points to me and Tony, “ You married?” Tony tries to ask him how old he is but the boy doesn’t understand the question and just sort of shrugs at us and asks if we are going trekking. He sits with us for awhile absorbed in the movie resting his head and arm on my side with finger tips dancing on top of my knee. I smile when I hear his little giggle at the movie. Later towards the end of our journey we notice that the boy is missing and I find myself a little heart broken because I wanted to at least say goodbye to the little fellow.
-Besishar
At last we made it after seven and a half hours we can finally stretch our legs and be rid of the stinking diesel fumes that plagued the buses path. The tall dark haired fellow I mentioned back in the bus park introduces himself to us when we get off the bus. His name is Jeremy and he is from France, but he jokes with us because we thought he might be from Israel because of his dark complexion. The bus is surrounded by villagers who again shove business cards of their hostels in our faces hoping we will follow one of them. There is only four of us who are here to trek from the bus which out numbers the twenty innkeepers begging for our business. Jeremy asks if AB would like to split a room since most rooms only offer two beds it would keep them from being by themselves and save some money as well. We agree to stay with one of the innkeepers who claims that his place is the closest to the trail head..
Unpacking my things I find everything is wet from being on the top of the bus and the occasional down pours we drove through.
I doubt that any of it will dry by tomorrow because the air itself feels very damp and cool. Luckily my sleeping bag is dry and that is the most important thing to me.
At dinner I begin to notice that Jeremy is on a tight budget. He constantly complains about prices, like he did at the bus park and he orders the cheapest item on the menu. I guess I would be watching my expenses also if I had been traveling for over three months in Asia and India, but I do get a kick out of it because everything is dirt cheap compared to America. My huge portion of curry potatoes ended up working in Jeremy’s favor because I could not finish it and he offered to eat the rest; you could tell he was really hungry.
We awake early today because we have to catch a bus out of town to a village northwest of Kathmandu called Besishar where the Annapurna trail begins. We are once again overwhelmed by people at the bus station who want to help us find the right bus, carry our backpacks, or do something for some money.
“Where are you going?” “What country you come from?” “You go trekking, yes?” -they all shout as they circle the three of us. Everything is written in Sanskrit so AB just walks to a random ticket window and is pointed to another window which we can see has our bus number written on a sign. We cross a dusty parking lot stinking of diesel and board a rainbow colored bus with various images of Shiva and Om symbols painted on it. There are only a few people on it, all of which are Nepali and they stare at us curiously from head to toe. We sit quietly and stare out at the chaos of the bus station. People are just hanging out and it makes me nervous. What if we get robbed or something, I think. I am putting all my security in the driver of this bus to get me where I need to go and to keep us safe, but he can't even talk to us. I jump out of my fearful daydream when I am suddenly taped on the shoulder by another westerner who asks me how much my ticket was. I hear an accent in his voice, but can’t pin point where he is from. He is very tall with dark eyes and semi-long dark hair, he is definitely European. He stands at the doors of the bus arguing with the attendants which he towers in height about the ticket price. He reluctantly pays the fee and boards the bus shaking his head in annoyance and greets us as he passes for the back of the bus. My eyes are taken back out the window as I watch two cows nibble on small patches of grass that grow between parked buses. Then before my eyes pink flowers fall from my head onto my lap and I look up to find a smiling wrinkly old man dressed in orange sprinkling flowers and planting a red thumb print on my head. He says , “Ah, yes this is very good, yes.” He does the same to Tony and then holds out his hand, “Bakeesh, bakeesh, yes.” Tony looks at the sadhu puzzled and I whisper, “He wants to be paid for doing this I guess.” Tony gets out some rupies and the sadhu kindly says, “Fifty rupies please.” We give him twenty which he seems happy enough with and he moves on down the aisle. Hopefully this sadhu is true to his faith and not someone out for money and his blessing will protect us from driving off a cliff or getting caught in a landslide, which apparently happens a lot in this country.
Sadhu, a holy man who devotes his life to the Hindu god Shiva. He gives up all possessions which sometimes may even include his clothing. They usually congregate near any sacred site related to Shiva. They are pilgrim’s always on the move.
4 hours later-
Okay, if you ever decide to take a long bus trip through Nepal avoid “video coach.” I still have two or three more hours on this bus and I have been reluctantly watching this never ending Bollywood movie with the volume cranked so high that it is distorted through the two tiny speakers that happen to be right over me and Tony’s head. How can I describe this wonderful film that we have been subjected to,,, well, it contains everything you could ever want in a movie, drama, action, murder, comedy, romance, musicals, foreign language, and war. They are definitely influenced by western films, but the only problem is that they crowd everything into one five hour film which I couldn’t tell you what is going on because one minute two people are killing each other and the next minute there is a music video going on. The language is funny also, because they will be speaking a bunch of lines in Hindi and then there will be one English word or a sentence thrown in. Despite my confusion and annoyance with the whole thing the people that surround us are loving every minute of it. We are in the second row of the bus and people are sitting in the aisles and on my arm rest to watch the film which is on one small television at the front of the bus. I find it funny to have people pile almost on my lap to watch the film because personal space is very different here. AB had some Nepalese man sleeping with his head on his lap. He just shrugged and kept reading his Nepal guidebook.
As the bus winds around the corners of the lush green Himalayan foot hills I begin to see the real Nepal. Thatched roof huts surrounded by rice terraces where women with bent backs wash pots and pans in the street and naked children run behind our bus waving and shouting Namaste. Every once in awhile we will stop in road side villages to pick up or drop off people and as we wait to move on villagers come to our windows selling bananas, and cucumbers. There is a young boy on this bus that has been with us ever since we departed from Kathmandu. I’m not sure if he works for the bus or if he is just a passenger who loves to help out. He seems too young to work, maybe only seven or eight years old, but he hangs his head out the window with the other two crew members directing traffic and yelling at pedestrians who get in the way. He has the brightest face that I have ever seen on a child, especially a child who wears dirty brown clothes and crumbling yellow flip-flops. He is so happy and carefree on this long crowded bus ride like a kid on Christmas day. At some point on our ride Tony notices the boy looking at us and waves at him and the boy immediately darts towards us and grins, saying “Hallo.” He asks us where we live and offers us some banana flavored chewing gum. “What caste are you in?” he asks me which I find humorous because westerners don’t have castes which is strictly a Hindu thing, but I guess the tikka markings on our foreheads might be throwing him off. I say I don’t have a caste and he just smiles and points to me and Tony, “ You married?” Tony tries to ask him how old he is but the boy doesn’t understand the question and just sort of shrugs at us and asks if we are going trekking. He sits with us for awhile absorbed in the movie resting his head and arm on my side with finger tips dancing on top of my knee. I smile when I hear his little giggle at the movie. Later towards the end of our journey we notice that the boy is missing and I find myself a little heart broken because I wanted to at least say goodbye to the little fellow.
-Besishar
At last we made it after seven and a half hours we can finally stretch our legs and be rid of the stinking diesel fumes that plagued the buses path. The tall dark haired fellow I mentioned back in the bus park introduces himself to us when we get off the bus. His name is Jeremy and he is from France, but he jokes with us because we thought he might be from Israel because of his dark complexion. The bus is surrounded by villagers who again shove business cards of their hostels in our faces hoping we will follow one of them. There is only four of us who are here to trek from the bus which out numbers the twenty innkeepers begging for our business. Jeremy asks if AB would like to split a room since most rooms only offer two beds it would keep them from being by themselves and save some money as well. We agree to stay with one of the innkeepers who claims that his place is the closest to the trail head..
Unpacking my things I find everything is wet from being on the top of the bus and the occasional down pours we drove through.
I doubt that any of it will dry by tomorrow because the air itself feels very damp and cool. Luckily my sleeping bag is dry and that is the most important thing to me.At dinner I begin to notice that Jeremy is on a tight budget. He constantly complains about prices, like he did at the bus park and he orders the cheapest item on the menu. I guess I would be watching my expenses also if I had been traveling for over three months in Asia and India, but I do get a kick out of it because everything is dirt cheap compared to America. My huge portion of curry potatoes ended up working in Jeremy’s favor because I could not finish it and he offered to eat the rest; you could tell he was really hungry.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Journal Entry 2
September 9, Sunday
The ceiling fan is still spinning in our concrete room and a lonely light bulb flickers in the bathroom while AB washes up. He see's me waking and scolds me for leaving our room key on the outside of the door all night. It's not a dream I am really here in Kathmandu. Luckily, nobody ventured into our room and took anything while we slept, but so far I'm not starting of on such a good foot.
Today we will live up to being true tourists and go see some of the famous temples that litter all the National Geographic’s and travel books about Nepal.
We eat breakfast at a tiny coffee shop which neighbors our hotel with a humorous sign reading, “Tired of Nescafe, try Real Coffee.” We find out in the course of our trip especially in the mountains that real coffee is hard to come by. Two young men run the shop, looking no older than eighteen, but I’m not one to talk about age and physical appearance because I seem to look younger the older I get. I have jasmine tea which is served in a big pot with the leaves swimming in it. We are also served a banana pancake which is one big flatbread dribbled in molasses and topped with sliced bananas. It's delicious and we keep returning to this little cafe over and over again during the course of our stay in Kathmandu just to eat the pancake. Outside people our setting up shops, sweeping the streets, and rickshaws and taxi drivers wait patiently on the side of the street for customers. There is a white haze settling on the city and it's already uncomfortably humid for eight o'clock in the morning.
Our first stop is to visit Durbar Square which is a temple city for primarily Hindu worship although some Buddhist elements are mixed in. We try to guess the approximate location of the square and walk through the close knit streets which are busy with people and traffic. I feel like we are the only westerners in this city because I have not seen one since we have arrived. We wander with great effort through the streets but find no temples, and not even signs naming streets or pointing the squares direction. Our map shows street names, but they are absent in the actual city and not shown on store fronts which I thought might show an address. We stop in a Western Union to ask directions and are led at last the right way.
We find Durbar Square and pay a small fee to get in. Young boys surround us eager to guide us for “bakeesh” which means tip. We turn down the would be guides and attempt to walk through the temple square as if we had been there before. Visiting this area as well as most any place in Kathmandu requires patience. Every few feet we walk someone approaches us, “Hallo, where you from?” They enquire, “You want guide?” It becomes difficult to enjoy the scenery with so many boys interrupting us. We walk into a temple courtyard and admire a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu and a boy comes in and walks in front of us up to the statue and starts telling us the full history of this statue, who it is, what its significance is, its age, etc. etc. After his history lesson he asks, “Would you like me to be guide for you?” I whisper to both Tony and AB, “What do you think, it seems like it is going to be difficult to get through this place without constant hassle. Maybe if we have a guide it will stop others from bothering us.” AB shrugs, “I don’t care it is up to you guys.” I look at Tony and he nods an uncertain yes to me and whispers, “But, how much does he want?” We tell the boy that he can be our guide and ask him how much he would charge us for an hour. He answers, “Oh, if you let me and my friend take you we cannot ask for fee, because we are students learning English and this is good practice for us.” “If you like the tour you can pay us whatever you want, because we do this to learn for school.” I’m a little uncomfortable not having a negotiated price and it is hard to discuss this with the boy listening right beside us. The “I don’t know” look covers all of our faces and perhaps the boy could read this and quickly whisks us away, “Come, this way to temples.” We meet the boy’s other accomplice waiting outside the courtyard and they begin walking us through the square. I admit they are very informative and explained everything just like if it were written in a text book, but when the hour was up and it came time to pay they insisted on us paying in American dollars and were unhappy by the twenty dollars they each received, insisting that it was not enough and that we also should tip them. I wonder what happen to “being students” and “we are just happy to practice English”. We were the fooled ones. Twenty dollars is a lot of money by Nepal standards and it would be enough for these boys to live on for a couple of months. We were just another set of tourists preyed upon for money, NOT English lessons. Even though I am frustrated I cannot really be angry with them, because many people in Nepal struggle to make a living in a country plagued with poverty. It is what happens when people give up living in the countryside and move to cities in hopes of finding a better way to make a living. Unfortunately when you are taught to have many children to help you take care of farming it does not fair well in the city. Now too many people are coming to Kathmandu which does not have enough jobs to support all of them. People suffer and live by begging. These two boys like any of the other children in Durbar Square are just trying to survive.
Durbar Square is snuggled tightly between the busy streets of Kathmandu. Ringing bells sound out from various temples as one by one the locals make an offering and ring a small bell fixed on a stand near the entrance. Candles incense, and leaves which are woven into small bowls filled with marigolds are offered to the Hindu deities. Each temple has a statue of the deity it represents which is covered in pink, red and yellow paint from people rubbing the statue in devotion.
Different deities protect against various ailments or promise to bring good fortune or movement into a higher caste in the next life. Sickness can be cured or money may be awarded by praying daily to these deities. One bronze statue of Lord Shiva had a rather large erect penis which you could see had been rubbed many times by its polished shine and this is believed to help women who are having trouble getting pregnant. Cows, monkeys and pigeons roam freely in the square and are fed leftovers and garbage. They are sacred and believed to be reincarnations of past human lives so no harm ever comes to them. The most striking thing for me is the beautifully wood carved archways over windows and doors which depict scenes in a various deities life. They are carved to the tiniest detail such as the motion of the fingers or the shape of the lips. I wonder how they stay so preserved in such a humid climate because they do not look like they are treated with any type of varnish or stain.
After Durbar Square we walk to Swayambhna Temple or better known as Monkey Temple because of all the monkey’s that infest the area. As we approach the hill on which the temple sits I can see the golden spire with the mystical Buddha eyes staring back down at me. This is the famous image that I always see when I read or watch television shows about Nepal. We climb a steep hill of three hundred and thirty-three steps passing colorful Buddha statues, and crumbling gray chortens while on the sides crafts people make necklaces and carve in small stones to later be sold. At the top everything becomes golden and millions of prayer flags flap in the wind from the massive white stupa which over looks the entire city of Kathmandu. School children walk clockwise around the stupa spinning prayer wheels and ringing bells. A small boy approaches me and begs for candy with a bright smile and hands cupped beneath his chin, but I have nothing to give.
I notice an old monk walking silently around the stupa with mani beads in hand, he is praying, chanting the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum.” We follow the monk spinning the prayer wheels behind him which also send off the mantra into the wind. Om Mani Padme Hum is translated as, “Om! The Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus!” and by chanting this over and over again one is protected from impurities and spreads compassion to all beings which surround them. It is much more peaceful up here than at Durbar Square and I feel comfortable sitting silently on a bench watching the flags blow in the wind. I wonder what it was like here when Buddha made his pilgrimage here to teach so many individuals. I find it hard to believe I am standing where he once was and I am overcome with a warm feeling of joy as I stare up at his Buddha eyes that are painted on all sides of the stupa. This feeling is unreal like any minute I will awaken from this dream and be back in Kentucky. We watch an oncoming storm from the mountains and decide we should head back to our hotel so to not get rained on. Tomorrow we will leave this city and take a sixteen day trek through the Himalayan chain called the Annapurna Circuit.
Chorten: is a Tibetan Buddhist stupa
Stupa: a hemispherical Buddhist religious structure which may contain sacred objects.
Mani beads: a Buddhist rosary for reciting mantras. Mani means prayer.
Prayer flags: cheese clothe flags colored in the earth elements of red, yellow, green, blue, and white with Om Mani Padme Hum printed on them. The flags are usually hung on high passes, over temples, or on roof tops.
Prayer wheels: a bronze coffee can- like shaped cylinder which has Om Mani Padme Hum inscribed on it and when turned with the hand the mantra is carried off into the wind.
The ceiling fan is still spinning in our concrete room and a lonely light bulb flickers in the bathroom while AB washes up. He see's me waking and scolds me for leaving our room key on the outside of the door all night. It's not a dream I am really here in Kathmandu. Luckily, nobody ventured into our room and took anything while we slept, but so far I'm not starting of on such a good foot.
Today we will live up to being true tourists and go see some of the famous temples that litter all the National Geographic’s and travel books about Nepal.
We eat breakfast at a tiny coffee shop which neighbors our hotel with a humorous sign reading, “Tired of Nescafe, try Real Coffee.” We find out in the course of our trip especially in the mountains that real coffee is hard to come by. Two young men run the shop, looking no older than eighteen, but I’m not one to talk about age and physical appearance because I seem to look younger the older I get. I have jasmine tea which is served in a big pot with the leaves swimming in it. We are also served a banana pancake which is one big flatbread dribbled in molasses and topped with sliced bananas. It's delicious and we keep returning to this little cafe over and over again during the course of our stay in Kathmandu just to eat the pancake. Outside people our setting up shops, sweeping the streets, and rickshaws and taxi drivers wait patiently on the side of the street for customers. There is a white haze settling on the city and it's already uncomfortably humid for eight o'clock in the morning.Our first stop is to visit Durbar Square which is a temple city for primarily Hindu worship although some Buddhist elements are mixed in. We try to guess the approximate location of the square and walk through the close knit streets which are busy with people and traffic. I feel like we are the only westerners in this city because I have not seen one since we have arrived. We wander with great effort through the streets but find no temples, and not even signs naming streets or pointing the squares direction. Our map shows street names, but they are absent in the actual city and not shown on store fronts which I thought might show an address. We stop in a Western Union to ask directions and are led at last the right way.
We find Durbar Square and pay a small fee to get in. Young boys surround us eager to guide us for “bakeesh” which means tip. We turn down the would be guides and attempt to walk through the temple square as if we had been there before. Visiting this area as well as most any place in Kathmandu requires patience. Every few feet we walk someone approaches us, “Hallo, where you from?” They enquire, “You want guide?” It becomes difficult to enjoy the scenery with so many boys interrupting us. We walk into a temple courtyard and admire a statue of the Hindu god Vishnu and a boy comes in and walks in front of us up to the statue and starts telling us the full history of this statue, who it is, what its significance is, its age, etc. etc. After his history lesson he asks, “Would you like me to be guide for you?” I whisper to both Tony and AB, “What do you think, it seems like it is going to be difficult to get through this place without constant hassle. Maybe if we have a guide it will stop others from bothering us.” AB shrugs, “I don’t care it is up to you guys.” I look at Tony and he nods an uncertain yes to me and whispers, “But, how much does he want?” We tell the boy that he can be our guide and ask him how much he would charge us for an hour. He answers, “Oh, if you let me and my friend take you we cannot ask for fee, because we are students learning English and this is good practice for us.” “If you like the tour you can pay us whatever you want, because we do this to learn for school.” I’m a little uncomfortable not having a negotiated price and it is hard to discuss this with the boy listening right beside us. The “I don’t know” look covers all of our faces and perhaps the boy could read this and quickly whisks us away, “Come, this way to temples.” We meet the boy’s other accomplice waiting outside the courtyard and they begin walking us through the square. I admit they are very informative and explained everything just like if it were written in a text book, but when the hour was up and it came time to pay they insisted on us paying in American dollars and were unhappy by the twenty dollars they each received, insisting that it was not enough and that we also should tip them. I wonder what happen to “being students” and “we are just happy to practice English”. We were the fooled ones. Twenty dollars is a lot of money by Nepal standards and it would be enough for these boys to live on for a couple of months. We were just another set of tourists preyed upon for money, NOT English lessons. Even though I am frustrated I cannot really be angry with them, because many people in Nepal struggle to make a living in a country plagued with poverty. It is what happens when people give up living in the countryside and move to cities in hopes of finding a better way to make a living. Unfortunately when you are taught to have many children to help you take care of farming it does not fair well in the city. Now too many people are coming to Kathmandu which does not have enough jobs to support all of them. People suffer and live by begging. These two boys like any of the other children in Durbar Square are just trying to survive.Durbar Square is snuggled tightly between the busy streets of Kathmandu. Ringing bells sound out from various temples as one by one the locals make an offering and ring a small bell fixed on a stand near the entrance. Candles incense, and leaves which are woven into small bowls filled with marigolds are offered to the Hindu deities. Each temple has a statue of the deity it represents which is covered in pink, red and yellow paint from people rubbing the statue in devotion.
Different deities protect against various ailments or promise to bring good fortune or movement into a higher caste in the next life. Sickness can be cured or money may be awarded by praying daily to these deities. One bronze statue of Lord Shiva had a rather large erect penis which you could see had been rubbed many times by its polished shine and this is believed to help women who are having trouble getting pregnant. Cows, monkeys and pigeons roam freely in the square and are fed leftovers and garbage. They are sacred and believed to be reincarnations of past human lives so no harm ever comes to them. The most striking thing for me is the beautifully wood carved archways over windows and doors which depict scenes in a various deities life. They are carved to the tiniest detail such as the motion of the fingers or the shape of the lips. I wonder how they stay so preserved in such a humid climate because they do not look like they are treated with any type of varnish or stain.
After Durbar Square we walk to Swayambhna Temple or better known as Monkey Temple because of all the monkey’s that infest the area. As we approach the hill on which the temple sits I can see the golden spire with the mystical Buddha eyes staring back down at me. This is the famous image that I always see when I read or watch television shows about Nepal. We climb a steep hill of three hundred and thirty-three steps passing colorful Buddha statues, and crumbling gray chortens while on the sides crafts people make necklaces and carve in small stones to later be sold. At the top everything becomes golden and millions of prayer flags flap in the wind from the massive white stupa which over looks the entire city of Kathmandu. School children walk clockwise around the stupa spinning prayer wheels and ringing bells. A small boy approaches me and begs for candy with a bright smile and hands cupped beneath his chin, but I have nothing to give.
I notice an old monk walking silently around the stupa with mani beads in hand, he is praying, chanting the mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum.” We follow the monk spinning the prayer wheels behind him which also send off the mantra into the wind. Om Mani Padme Hum is translated as, “Om! The Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus!” and by chanting this over and over again one is protected from impurities and spreads compassion to all beings which surround them. It is much more peaceful up here than at Durbar Square and I feel comfortable sitting silently on a bench watching the flags blow in the wind. I wonder what it was like here when Buddha made his pilgrimage here to teach so many individuals. I find it hard to believe I am standing where he once was and I am overcome with a warm feeling of joy as I stare up at his Buddha eyes that are painted on all sides of the stupa. This feeling is unreal like any minute I will awaken from this dream and be back in Kentucky. We watch an oncoming storm from the mountains and decide we should head back to our hotel so to not get rained on. Tomorrow we will leave this city and take a sixteen day trek through the Himalayan chain called the Annapurna Circuit.Chorten: is a Tibetan Buddhist stupa
Stupa: a hemispherical Buddhist religious structure which may contain sacred objects.
Mani beads: a Buddhist rosary for reciting mantras. Mani means prayer.
Prayer flags: cheese clothe flags colored in the earth elements of red, yellow, green, blue, and white with Om Mani Padme Hum printed on them. The flags are usually hung on high passes, over temples, or on roof tops.
Prayer wheels: a bronze coffee can- like shaped cylinder which has Om Mani Padme Hum inscribed on it and when turned with the hand the mantra is carried off into the wind.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Journal Entry 1
September 8, Saturday
Nepal.
At last we have arrived after 22 hours on three different airplanes, and two long nights of anticipation, one on my friend Lesley and Billy’s floor and the other in a hotel in Bangkok, we are at last on the other side of the world. As we were landing my eyes were pressed up against the window trying to pierce through the clouds so that I might get a glimpse of the mountain giants, maybe Everest, but the clouds were too thick. Once we descended more into the Kathmandu valley I was in awe over the beautiful, lush green terrain and deep river valleys. It is so incredibly green, like nothing I have ever seen before. Little brick houses dot the landscape and grow more numerous the closer we get to Kathmandu. The buildings remind me of the game Tetris, where bits and pieces of whatever can be found are stacked one upon the other. I get a sense that Mother Nature still rules here even in the city she keeps things subdued to her will. There are no polished surfaces, no perfect paved roads, no divisions of land; it seems a place where there is a struggle between modernization and that which crumbles back to the earth...back to nature. The plane hits the runway with a light jolt.....now my journey begins.
note: I wanted to clear this up before I really get into the trip to avoid confusion not only with those reading, but also myself. You see I am traveling with my husband, Tony and my best friend Tony Bryant and trying to write my experience with two Tony’s might cause a mix up as to which I’m talking about. To make it easier I will refer to my husband as Tony and I will refer to Tony Bryant as AB, which are his initials. I don’t think they’ll mind...”they better not.
The airport is small, only four gates and our plane is the only arrival. There is a nice warm breeze blowing as we exit the aircraft onto the ramp. I notice in the grass two women dressed in bright red saris watching our caravan march into the terminal all of which are decked out in earth tone fleeces and hiking boots. I’m not sure what these women are doing, but it looks as though they are cutting the grass by hand. Perhaps the airport is also used as a farm, not something that would ever be considered at home. Inside the terminal we stand in long lines waiting for the customs agent to issue our visas. I did not notice before, but looking at everyone from our plane I’d swear to you that they are all under the age of thirty. I can’t see Nepal attracting a vast number of people from an older crowd, but I didn’t expect to notice all the young people at once.
Finally, after about thirty minutes of waiting we are stamped and cleared to venture into Nepal. We strap on our backpacks, secure our money and passports, and head for the taxi stand. We walk out the doors and realize that we have stepped right into a huge storm of over a hundred Nepalese men. We are immediately swallowed up by this tsunami of people who have been eagerly awaiting our arrival. Twenty hotel business cards and brochures are thrown in my face along with a million shouts, “Madame I have good place for you, look at brochure.” “No look at this one, very cheap.” “This way madam, follow me I take you to good place.” I’m clutching onto Tony’s backpack while we both try to follow AB who searches for the taxi stand. I yell at AB, "Where do we go?!" He throws his arms up and continues through the mob. It is impossible, we can’t see and people are pulling at us and blocking our view with hotel advertisements. I’m just looking at the ground, shaking my head no over and over again, and trying to contain myself so that I don’t freak out. A police officer approaches us yelling something and I think he is yelling at us for not knowing where we are going, but then he pulls out a club and with all his might slams it into the backs of the men pulling and tugging at us. Holy shit, I’m thinking we are in a riot. I’ve never seen people get hit so hard that close to me, and as much as he beats these men it doesn’t really stop them from swarming us because when one falls another jumps right in. We seem to be walking endlessly in circles only finding more masses of people trying to lead us their way. We find ourselves trapped against the wall of the terminal and there is some sort of commotion between AB and some Nepalese, but I can’t see or hear a thing because I am snuggled tightly against Tony’s backpack and all sounds ahead of me are muffled. I am being pulled and tugged by people and I’m starting to get panicked, and I look to the sky praying, please get me out of here. Suddenly, the crowd spreads and we are following someone towards the parking lot. We must have at last found a taxi or someone who knows our hotel I don’t know because AB is in charge of that. Still as we walk to the cab we are followed by ten people who continue to show me brochures and I just stare down at the ground and pretend not to notice them. We take our packs off to put them in the trunk and right away they are grabbed by one of the men who followed us and put in the cab. He wants a tip for this which annoys the three of us because we didn’t need his help he just grabbed them. The driver and another Nepalese jump in the car with the three of us crammed in the back while the fellow who put our bags in the trunk continues to beg AB for a tip. We ignore him and the cab takes off with him yelling behind, “Tip, tip!”
The man in the passenger seat smiles brightly at us and asks in a gentle voice, “What hotel are you going to?” He looks like Ralph Macchio when he played Johnny in The Outsiders. His hair is greasy and curling around his face and his faded jeans and sleeveless jean jacket cling closely to his thin body. AB tells him the name of our hotel, the Shakti and "Johnny" looks at the driver with a puzzled glance. “Shakti?” Um, I’ve never heard, do you have address?” We don’t, and we don’t even know how to spell the name of this place. It was recommended to AB by a friend back home, but we forgot to get the location or the phone number to the place. “Well, if you like, I have a hotel that you can stay at , it is very nice and quiet.” He hands us a brochure. “You can just look, and if you don’t like I will take you somewhere else, it is no problem.” Feeling hopeless we agree to look at his hotel. I have a suspicion that he and the driver really do know where our hotel is, but are lying so they can make their promised commission from the hotel he wishes us to stay in. Oh well, I don’t care, I’m too overwhelmed to argue, just take me somewhere safe! His name is Kiran and as we drive through the dusty streets he tells us about Kathmandu. I do admit while I feel taken I do like this guy, perhaps it is his gentle manner that comforts me as I take in my first images of Nepal.
The streets are clouded with pollution and dust from the mixture of dirt and fumes kicked up by vehicles on the crumbling road. Garbage is scattered about on the sides of streets and in some spots children play in the debris as if it were a playground. Bandanas cover faces of people selling goods on the sidewalks to protect them from inhaling the toxic fumes. Cows are lying on the road with their tails at war with millions of biting flies. Withered torn clothes of the poor are mixed with beautiful elegant women adorn in gold jewelry and the brightest colored saris. My ears are filled with the noises of automobile horns beeping endlessly, while Kiran tries to point out some of the famous landmarks on our way to the hotel. Sometimes I can’t help but cover my eyes as it looks like we will have a head on collision with another car, bus, rickshaw, motorcycle or truck. There is no order, no right or left side of the road, not even a stop and go, as far as driving is. It seems to be a matter of honking your horn and playing a game of chicken, because a two lane road over here is the size of what we would think is an alley. We are stared at by those passing by seeing that we are not Nepalese.....here we are alone; we are minorities for the first time.
The hotel was tucked off in an alley away from the noisy streets. As we enter the lobby we are greeted by three smiling young men who then rush out to our taxi to fetch our bags. Kiran shows us one of the rooms consisting of two small beds and a bathroom. It looks clean and sounds quiet so we agree to take the room for a whopping nine dollars a night.
I flop down on the bed and take a big sigh of relief, we made it. I just want some peace and quiet for a little bit because I am feeling pretty tense from today’s little adventure. I think we all feel a little overwhelmed and confused on where we should begin now that we are here. AB and Tony decide to go buy a map of the city while I stay behind and rest for a bit. As I lay on the thin mattress I can hear the faint echoes of AB and Tony walking down the steps. Pigeons are fluttering on the window sill and the clanging of dishes can be heard from inside the neighboring buildings. I close my eyes not to sleep but to absorb this new place and rid myself of the culture shock. I must have laid there for an hour, but it only seemed like a couple of minutes when I was startled by AB and Tony returning. They both look flustered and I ask, “How was it?” They both sort of roll their eyes as they tell me how a man playing a fiddle followed them to and from the map shop trying to persuade them to buy his fiddle. AB says that they were approached continuously by individuals trying to get them to buy souvenirs and such. I lay back down on the bed covering my eyes thinking to myself, “Maybe Nepal was the wrong place to go to find solitude from materialism.”
Later that day we all walk together into the city where again we become fresh carcasses for a flock of circling vultures. We are in the tourist district called Thamel which is littered with all sorts of souvenir shops and restaurants. People wander the streets selling souvenirs and just as AB had warned, as soon as we are seen they flash these articles in our faces. “Look madam, elephant statue, good price”. or “Sister come look at this!” The two most popular items seem to be some sort of large curved knife which I later discovered is called a Gorkha knife which was used by ancient Nepalese soldiers to keep out invading countries, and the other item being tiger balm. I can only guess that tiger balm must be the thing to sell to trekkers who have weary and aching muscles after their Himalayan journeys. You learn to say NO a lot and never ever make eye contact or stop and look at something to long or you will be bombarded by merchants who will stop at nothing to get you to buy what they have. There is no doubt that the things we are seeing are beautiful, but this is not what we came for.
We eat dinner at a traditional Nepalese restaurant sampling our first but not our last dal bhal set. Dal Bhat consists of rice, curry vegetables and bean soup and it is the most common dish that the local people eat here. It is spicy and my warm coke enhances this effect causing me to have a little bit of a belly ache later that night. There is not much else to do in Thamel other than eat and shop. The city shuts down around 8:30pm and as quick as the streets were filled with traffic and people they empty. Steal shutters are pulled down over the wears that had been so eagerly forced upon us making each closing vender look like it has been out of business for years. Everyone retreats back into their own dark corner awaiting the next day of routine. It's strange how quickly all becomes quiet in a place that seemed to be screaming at us when we arrived. I settle down in our room and stare at the ceiling fan roaring a hypnotizing sound which puts me to sleep.
Nepal.
At last we have arrived after 22 hours on three different airplanes, and two long nights of anticipation, one on my friend Lesley and Billy’s floor and the other in a hotel in Bangkok, we are at last on the other side of the world. As we were landing my eyes were pressed up against the window trying to pierce through the clouds so that I might get a glimpse of the mountain giants, maybe Everest, but the clouds were too thick. Once we descended more into the Kathmandu valley I was in awe over the beautiful, lush green terrain and deep river valleys. It is so incredibly green, like nothing I have ever seen before. Little brick houses dot the landscape and grow more numerous the closer we get to Kathmandu. The buildings remind me of the game Tetris, where bits and pieces of whatever can be found are stacked one upon the other. I get a sense that Mother Nature still rules here even in the city she keeps things subdued to her will. There are no polished surfaces, no perfect paved roads, no divisions of land; it seems a place where there is a struggle between modernization and that which crumbles back to the earth...back to nature. The plane hits the runway with a light jolt.....now my journey begins.
note: I wanted to clear this up before I really get into the trip to avoid confusion not only with those reading, but also myself. You see I am traveling with my husband, Tony and my best friend Tony Bryant and trying to write my experience with two Tony’s might cause a mix up as to which I’m talking about. To make it easier I will refer to my husband as Tony and I will refer to Tony Bryant as AB, which are his initials. I don’t think they’ll mind...”they better not.
The airport is small, only four gates and our plane is the only arrival. There is a nice warm breeze blowing as we exit the aircraft onto the ramp. I notice in the grass two women dressed in bright red saris watching our caravan march into the terminal all of which are decked out in earth tone fleeces and hiking boots. I’m not sure what these women are doing, but it looks as though they are cutting the grass by hand. Perhaps the airport is also used as a farm, not something that would ever be considered at home. Inside the terminal we stand in long lines waiting for the customs agent to issue our visas. I did not notice before, but looking at everyone from our plane I’d swear to you that they are all under the age of thirty. I can’t see Nepal attracting a vast number of people from an older crowd, but I didn’t expect to notice all the young people at once.
Finally, after about thirty minutes of waiting we are stamped and cleared to venture into Nepal. We strap on our backpacks, secure our money and passports, and head for the taxi stand. We walk out the doors and realize that we have stepped right into a huge storm of over a hundred Nepalese men. We are immediately swallowed up by this tsunami of people who have been eagerly awaiting our arrival. Twenty hotel business cards and brochures are thrown in my face along with a million shouts, “Madame I have good place for you, look at brochure.” “No look at this one, very cheap.” “This way madam, follow me I take you to good place.” I’m clutching onto Tony’s backpack while we both try to follow AB who searches for the taxi stand. I yell at AB, "Where do we go?!" He throws his arms up and continues through the mob. It is impossible, we can’t see and people are pulling at us and blocking our view with hotel advertisements. I’m just looking at the ground, shaking my head no over and over again, and trying to contain myself so that I don’t freak out. A police officer approaches us yelling something and I think he is yelling at us for not knowing where we are going, but then he pulls out a club and with all his might slams it into the backs of the men pulling and tugging at us. Holy shit, I’m thinking we are in a riot. I’ve never seen people get hit so hard that close to me, and as much as he beats these men it doesn’t really stop them from swarming us because when one falls another jumps right in. We seem to be walking endlessly in circles only finding more masses of people trying to lead us their way. We find ourselves trapped against the wall of the terminal and there is some sort of commotion between AB and some Nepalese, but I can’t see or hear a thing because I am snuggled tightly against Tony’s backpack and all sounds ahead of me are muffled. I am being pulled and tugged by people and I’m starting to get panicked, and I look to the sky praying, please get me out of here. Suddenly, the crowd spreads and we are following someone towards the parking lot. We must have at last found a taxi or someone who knows our hotel I don’t know because AB is in charge of that. Still as we walk to the cab we are followed by ten people who continue to show me brochures and I just stare down at the ground and pretend not to notice them. We take our packs off to put them in the trunk and right away they are grabbed by one of the men who followed us and put in the cab. He wants a tip for this which annoys the three of us because we didn’t need his help he just grabbed them. The driver and another Nepalese jump in the car with the three of us crammed in the back while the fellow who put our bags in the trunk continues to beg AB for a tip. We ignore him and the cab takes off with him yelling behind, “Tip, tip!”
The man in the passenger seat smiles brightly at us and asks in a gentle voice, “What hotel are you going to?” He looks like Ralph Macchio when he played Johnny in The Outsiders. His hair is greasy and curling around his face and his faded jeans and sleeveless jean jacket cling closely to his thin body. AB tells him the name of our hotel, the Shakti and "Johnny" looks at the driver with a puzzled glance. “Shakti?” Um, I’ve never heard, do you have address?” We don’t, and we don’t even know how to spell the name of this place. It was recommended to AB by a friend back home, but we forgot to get the location or the phone number to the place. “Well, if you like, I have a hotel that you can stay at , it is very nice and quiet.” He hands us a brochure. “You can just look, and if you don’t like I will take you somewhere else, it is no problem.” Feeling hopeless we agree to look at his hotel. I have a suspicion that he and the driver really do know where our hotel is, but are lying so they can make their promised commission from the hotel he wishes us to stay in. Oh well, I don’t care, I’m too overwhelmed to argue, just take me somewhere safe! His name is Kiran and as we drive through the dusty streets he tells us about Kathmandu. I do admit while I feel taken I do like this guy, perhaps it is his gentle manner that comforts me as I take in my first images of Nepal.
The streets are clouded with pollution and dust from the mixture of dirt and fumes kicked up by vehicles on the crumbling road. Garbage is scattered about on the sides of streets and in some spots children play in the debris as if it were a playground. Bandanas cover faces of people selling goods on the sidewalks to protect them from inhaling the toxic fumes. Cows are lying on the road with their tails at war with millions of biting flies. Withered torn clothes of the poor are mixed with beautiful elegant women adorn in gold jewelry and the brightest colored saris. My ears are filled with the noises of automobile horns beeping endlessly, while Kiran tries to point out some of the famous landmarks on our way to the hotel. Sometimes I can’t help but cover my eyes as it looks like we will have a head on collision with another car, bus, rickshaw, motorcycle or truck. There is no order, no right or left side of the road, not even a stop and go, as far as driving is. It seems to be a matter of honking your horn and playing a game of chicken, because a two lane road over here is the size of what we would think is an alley. We are stared at by those passing by seeing that we are not Nepalese.....here we are alone; we are minorities for the first time.
The hotel was tucked off in an alley away from the noisy streets. As we enter the lobby we are greeted by three smiling young men who then rush out to our taxi to fetch our bags. Kiran shows us one of the rooms consisting of two small beds and a bathroom. It looks clean and sounds quiet so we agree to take the room for a whopping nine dollars a night.
I flop down on the bed and take a big sigh of relief, we made it. I just want some peace and quiet for a little bit because I am feeling pretty tense from today’s little adventure. I think we all feel a little overwhelmed and confused on where we should begin now that we are here. AB and Tony decide to go buy a map of the city while I stay behind and rest for a bit. As I lay on the thin mattress I can hear the faint echoes of AB and Tony walking down the steps. Pigeons are fluttering on the window sill and the clanging of dishes can be heard from inside the neighboring buildings. I close my eyes not to sleep but to absorb this new place and rid myself of the culture shock. I must have laid there for an hour, but it only seemed like a couple of minutes when I was startled by AB and Tony returning. They both look flustered and I ask, “How was it?” They both sort of roll their eyes as they tell me how a man playing a fiddle followed them to and from the map shop trying to persuade them to buy his fiddle. AB says that they were approached continuously by individuals trying to get them to buy souvenirs and such. I lay back down on the bed covering my eyes thinking to myself, “Maybe Nepal was the wrong place to go to find solitude from materialism.”
Later that day we all walk together into the city where again we become fresh carcasses for a flock of circling vultures. We are in the tourist district called Thamel which is littered with all sorts of souvenir shops and restaurants. People wander the streets selling souvenirs and just as AB had warned, as soon as we are seen they flash these articles in our faces. “Look madam, elephant statue, good price”. or “Sister come look at this!” The two most popular items seem to be some sort of large curved knife which I later discovered is called a Gorkha knife which was used by ancient Nepalese soldiers to keep out invading countries, and the other item being tiger balm. I can only guess that tiger balm must be the thing to sell to trekkers who have weary and aching muscles after their Himalayan journeys. You learn to say NO a lot and never ever make eye contact or stop and look at something to long or you will be bombarded by merchants who will stop at nothing to get you to buy what they have. There is no doubt that the things we are seeing are beautiful, but this is not what we came for. We eat dinner at a traditional Nepalese restaurant sampling our first but not our last dal bhal set. Dal Bhat consists of rice, curry vegetables and bean soup and it is the most common dish that the local people eat here. It is spicy and my warm coke enhances this effect causing me to have a little bit of a belly ache later that night. There is not much else to do in Thamel other than eat and shop. The city shuts down around 8:30pm and as quick as the streets were filled with traffic and people they empty. Steal shutters are pulled down over the wears that had been so eagerly forced upon us making each closing vender look like it has been out of business for years. Everyone retreats back into their own dark corner awaiting the next day of routine. It's strange how quickly all becomes quiet in a place that seemed to be screaming at us when we arrived. I settle down in our room and stare at the ceiling fan roaring a hypnotizing sound which puts me to sleep.
Introduction
Walking the Mani Wall
Nepal Journal-August 26, 2001
I have about one week to go before I embark on a journey that will be my first experience away and hopefully out of touch with my American lifestyle. I have been dreaming of this journey for a long while and to tell you the truth I never really expected it to come true. I thought that Tony and I would continue to talk and talk about our big plans to go there, but end up settling for a simple vacation in the states somewhere. Nepal seems so far away and impossible.....does it exist? Only the television brings such far away places to life which never seems real to me because I am sheltered on my own little patch of the planet and that is all there seems to be. I only see a far off place in some distant past, but here we all are scattered across this planet as one, thriving at the same time, and living in our own daily routines separated only by night and day.
So why should I dream so much about Nepal? Many people here have asked me this with absurd looks on their faces. Even when I explain to them my love for hiking they still look at me like I’m crazy and I guess that is because they find more pleasure in taking a relaxing trip to the beach not a 150 mile trek through a third world country. However it is not just hiking that draws me towards Nepal, but my ever longing quest to find the real person that exists inside of me. I have been living in a complicated world filled with distractions that only seem to leave me with that hollow feeling as if I am missing something important in my life. I continuously worry about my future always rushing to have a plan or have control over what I am doing. Why can’t I just stop and as Ram Das would say, “Be Here Now”. It seems that with all the noise, material excess, and indefinite continued progress that plagues most of the westernized world that our heads are stuck in future plans...the bigger and the better. I’m tired of being stressed over my job, money, and my thirst for consuming material objects which I really don’t need. I am not seeing what is important and that is what I have now. I need to see what life really is and I feel like I must get away from the television, the trends, and most importantly I need to slow down. This is the hardest thing that any westernized human can do, “stop” doing things and just sit and listen to themselves. Many of us do not want to hear what that little voice has to say because it brings up our insecurities. Can you image what would happen if everyone in the world could stop and just sit and listen to themselves? No drugs or alcohol to numb our brains, no television, and no consuming our mind from our ever longing urge to want things. I am not even sure that I want to listen to the silence of my own spirit either, but I am screaming on the outside to get away from everything around me. It is time to escape and either face my worst nightmare of find that which is blissful. I need to reawaken myself to Buddhism, which has taught me to have compassion not only towards others, but also with my own self. I once was so inspired by this religion, but I have forgotten the way with my hindrance of worrying about what is ahead. I’m hoping that my pilgrimage through Nepal will be my time to stop and think about living for now. That is what I need a place to walk in silence, to think and to perhaps hear the whisper from the precious Buddha as so many other traveler’s I’ve read about have on their journeys through the roof of the world. I know I really don’t need to hide in the mountains to discover myself or find enlightenment, because if that is what I am searching for I will never find it. I am going there just to be there and that is a blessing in itself to touch the earth, feel the wind, and hear the rivers in a world that I am unfamiliar with. I have been reading the Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen which is a record of the journal he kept when he trekked through Nepal in the fall of 1973. I am touched by his discoveries about himself and the world around him as he walks through the Himalayas. I hope I can see as he did, that which is beautiful and sad.............
Just as a white summer cloud, in harmony with heaven and earth
floats freely in the blue sky from horizon to horizon
following the breath of the atmosphere,
the same way the pilgrim abandons himself to the breath
of the greater life that leads him beyond the farthest horizons
to an aim which is already present within him,
though yet hidden from his sight.
-Lama Govinda, The Way of White Clouds
...Until you reach the path you wander in the world
with the precious Buddha completely wrapped up inside a bundle of rags...
...You have this precious Buddha!!
“Unwrap it quickly!!
-Dharmapada
Then bless me to embark on the boat,
to cross the ocean of the Tantras.
Through the kindness of the captain Vajra-master,
Holding vows and pledges root of all powers, more dearly than life itself!
Bless me to perceive all things as the deity body,
Cleansing the taints of ordinary perception and conception
Through the yoga of the first stage of Unexcelled Tantra,
Changing birth, death and between into the three Buddha bodies.
The Buddha The Dharma The Sangha
-Tibetan blessing
......If I walk through the forest I will not move the grass,
......If I swim through the river I will not raise a ripple.
-travelers oath
Nepal Journal-August 26, 2001
I have about one week to go before I embark on a journey that will be my first experience away and hopefully out of touch with my American lifestyle. I have been dreaming of this journey for a long while and to tell you the truth I never really expected it to come true. I thought that Tony and I would continue to talk and talk about our big plans to go there, but end up settling for a simple vacation in the states somewhere. Nepal seems so far away and impossible.....does it exist? Only the television brings such far away places to life which never seems real to me because I am sheltered on my own little patch of the planet and that is all there seems to be. I only see a far off place in some distant past, but here we all are scattered across this planet as one, thriving at the same time, and living in our own daily routines separated only by night and day.
So why should I dream so much about Nepal? Many people here have asked me this with absurd looks on their faces. Even when I explain to them my love for hiking they still look at me like I’m crazy and I guess that is because they find more pleasure in taking a relaxing trip to the beach not a 150 mile trek through a third world country. However it is not just hiking that draws me towards Nepal, but my ever longing quest to find the real person that exists inside of me. I have been living in a complicated world filled with distractions that only seem to leave me with that hollow feeling as if I am missing something important in my life. I continuously worry about my future always rushing to have a plan or have control over what I am doing. Why can’t I just stop and as Ram Das would say, “Be Here Now”. It seems that with all the noise, material excess, and indefinite continued progress that plagues most of the westernized world that our heads are stuck in future plans...the bigger and the better. I’m tired of being stressed over my job, money, and my thirst for consuming material objects which I really don’t need. I am not seeing what is important and that is what I have now. I need to see what life really is and I feel like I must get away from the television, the trends, and most importantly I need to slow down. This is the hardest thing that any westernized human can do, “stop” doing things and just sit and listen to themselves. Many of us do not want to hear what that little voice has to say because it brings up our insecurities. Can you image what would happen if everyone in the world could stop and just sit and listen to themselves? No drugs or alcohol to numb our brains, no television, and no consuming our mind from our ever longing urge to want things. I am not even sure that I want to listen to the silence of my own spirit either, but I am screaming on the outside to get away from everything around me. It is time to escape and either face my worst nightmare of find that which is blissful. I need to reawaken myself to Buddhism, which has taught me to have compassion not only towards others, but also with my own self. I once was so inspired by this religion, but I have forgotten the way with my hindrance of worrying about what is ahead. I’m hoping that my pilgrimage through Nepal will be my time to stop and think about living for now. That is what I need a place to walk in silence, to think and to perhaps hear the whisper from the precious Buddha as so many other traveler’s I’ve read about have on their journeys through the roof of the world. I know I really don’t need to hide in the mountains to discover myself or find enlightenment, because if that is what I am searching for I will never find it. I am going there just to be there and that is a blessing in itself to touch the earth, feel the wind, and hear the rivers in a world that I am unfamiliar with. I have been reading the Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen which is a record of the journal he kept when he trekked through Nepal in the fall of 1973. I am touched by his discoveries about himself and the world around him as he walks through the Himalayas. I hope I can see as he did, that which is beautiful and sad.............
Just as a white summer cloud, in harmony with heaven and earth
floats freely in the blue sky from horizon to horizon
following the breath of the atmosphere,
the same way the pilgrim abandons himself to the breath
of the greater life that leads him beyond the farthest horizons
to an aim which is already present within him,
though yet hidden from his sight.
-Lama Govinda, The Way of White Clouds
...Until you reach the path you wander in the world
with the precious Buddha completely wrapped up inside a bundle of rags...
...You have this precious Buddha!!
“Unwrap it quickly!!
-Dharmapada
Then bless me to embark on the boat,
to cross the ocean of the Tantras.
Through the kindness of the captain Vajra-master,
Holding vows and pledges root of all powers, more dearly than life itself!
Bless me to perceive all things as the deity body,
Cleansing the taints of ordinary perception and conception
Through the yoga of the first stage of Unexcelled Tantra,
Changing birth, death and between into the three Buddha bodies.
The Buddha The Dharma The Sangha
-Tibetan blessing
......If I walk through the forest I will not move the grass,
......If I swim through the river I will not raise a ripple.
-travelers oath
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