My Last Week in Kathmandu

This past week has been very similar to my first week here in Nepal. I've been waiting for my visa for India to come through, so I've had a few extra days more than I would have liked here in Kathmandu, but I've enjoyed them more than I thought I would. I was taken around on motorbike, scary, to many of the temples that I didn't make it to during my first visit. The days I was on my own I walked from one side of the city to the other and back again, immersed in the chaos that floods the senses to the point of exhaustion. I'm staying with a family a little bit outside of the city, and my favorite hobby with them has been to get demolished in chess by the 8, 9, and 10 year old boys. There's 17 kids total, most of them taken in or adopted. Last the father and I stayed up late watching India barely beat Australia in the Cricket World Cup quarterfinals. It's been nice staying with them.










Today was pleasant. During the time I had to wait for my visa, I walked around Durbar Square in Kathmandu City, through many narrow streets lined with merchants and overcrowded with motorbikes, rickshaws, taxis, and people. I picked up a few souvenirs that I'd been planning on, which really made me feel like I was preparing to come home. I leave on a bus tomorrow for India, where I'll train around for a little less than three weeks, then stop off in Kathmandu to pick up a few things and America jane (I go to America in Nepali).

Chitwan

Wednesday morning started with a two hour canoe ride down the Rapti River in Chitwan National Park. We had three guides and two other tourists besides myself, the edges of the canoe were only a few inches out of the water the entire ride. We saw over twenty crocodiles, and a lot of cool birds, my favorites being the Ruby Shelduck and White-Throated Kingfisher. They were all extremely vibrant.

After the canoe trip was the jungle walk. We started about ten o'clock and walked through the national park, resting at lookout towers and tracking animals until after sun down. An hour into the trip we saw our first rhinoceros. A short while later we were able to watch another one bathe in a small lake, and saw one more in the evening from a lookout post.

During one of our rest breaks there were monkeys playing in the trees above us. This langur monkey was nestling it's baby in one arm as it swung from branches with its other, all while keeping a close eye on us trespassers.

Next up were Sloth Bears. After we startled one in the early afternoon, I received my first lesson in tracking a sloth bear. First, wait a few minutes after it runs away to see if it reappears somewhere. When it doesn't follow its path to try to startle it into moving again. When that doesn't work, start a fire with the dry grass in the area to try to scare it into moving again, then circle back to your original vantage point and wait for a few more minutes. I was fairly certain the bear was long gone, and it turned out it was. The brush fire grew bigger and louder as we sat and watched nothing happen, then left after a few minutes, leaving the fire to burn out on its own. It was strange to say the least. We did get lucky again and saw four or five more late in the evening. One cub even riding on her mom's back as they curiously spied at us.

The sunsets and sunrises were incredible, and the moon at night was full enough to light up the river and surrounding grasslands. As soon as we got back after the two day hike, it was time for the daily elephant baths. I was in desperate need of a shower, and so was the elephant. It rolled around in the water for a while, me always failing to hang on to its back. It sprayed me with the river water, which probably wasn't too clean but felt great in the moment. The rest of the afternoon I sat on the beach, reading and writing, only moving to walk into the river and splash myself with water to stay cool. It was a great few days in the jungle.

Celebrating Holy Days

A few friends from our organization, who we refer to as the Dutchies, came up to visit our village on Monday.


Wednesday night we celebrated Shivaratri in the village. They do bonfire right here. Some music, some dancing, and a whole lot of sugar cane.




Thursday was the Buddhist New Year, so we went down to the Monastery in town and watched the dances being performed. It was so hot, and they danced in these heavy costumes for so long. One of the coolest things I've seen here so far.

From the Journal

A few excerpts from the week...

March 2- Shivaratri (Holy Day)
Warm, blue, breezy, and free. The energy of everyone here and celebratory is strong. Sister is aimless, but it is refreshing after watching her everyday toil through her chores from before we rise until after we go to sleep. To witness Ama sprawled out on the straw mat, half asleep but to tease me in Nepali and occasionally pass me grapes, compared to her usually tireless labor. And Baa, the unresting soul that he is, granted time to relax only to fill it with making making more bamboo baskets. As other men of the village wander lazily and purposelessly, he fills the day productively, while never ceasing to be an attentive host to the others. A day to spend with family, to appreciate and enjoy.

March 3-
Every morning here is like camping. Wake up at 6, lie in your sleeping bag until 7, sometimes 8, pretty much until you can't put off going pee any longer. A bit chilly when you first walk outside, but it is refreshing, and it will warm up quickly with the ascending sun. Splashing your face awake from the cold tap, brushing your teeth without the use of a sink or clean water. Walking around the clay yard barefoot, feeling the skin directly in contact with the natural, something that can goes days without occurring sometimes at home. Taking in the weather of the morning, gazing up at the white mountains, and listening to the abundance of birds. Larger animals just as present, but more hesitant to boast of their presence so freely. Their positions, though desirable, better left unknown. It is a life entwined in nature, a life lived dependent on the earth in the most direct and earnest way. It is not poor, it only cannot afford the complications of the West, of the city. If I were smart, I would claim it as my own, this life, but the conditioning of my past has enforced the belief that simple is not better or more efficient. That depending on the manufactured goods which I'm accustomed to is a superior form of life that only a moron would give up. It would be a step backward, an insult to evolution.

School, Home, Lakeside

This is Rashmila, a four year old in the nursery program at our school. Our roles at the school are ever-changing, from teaching three periods a day on our own to only observing during two, to sometimes spending the whole day playing with the nursery kids or writing a final exam for the class you've only just begun sitting in on. We are spending a lot more time thinking of and creating materials to leave behind when our time is up, and a few times a week we play some kind of game with all of the kids before they're lunch break begins and we head back to our home for the day. As we become more and more flexible with what our responsibility actually is, or isn't, our relationship with the teachers has been much more enjoyable.


Life at our home has been the highlight of the trip so far. Every weekend when we come down to Pokhara and have dinner with the other volunteers, we are constantly telling stories about our baa and ama and how hilarious our time with them is. Emily and I tagged along on one of the evening chores, where Baa and Ama gather leaves to feed the buffalo and goats. Baa climbs forty of fifty feet, probably higher, up into the tree, putting his full weight (all of 40 kilos) on branches no bigger than his wrist. Every time he looked down and saw me with the camera pointed up at him, he would crack a big smile and strike a pose. They are always teasing us about helping with the work around the house, but anytime we actually try to help they usually just laugh and tell us to sit down. There's a lot of laughing happening. Rarely are we sure what they're laughing at or whom, but we're fairly certain it's directed mostly at us.



Last weekend we hiked up to the World Peace Pogoda high up a hill above Pokhara. The day was nice, and we enjoyed a short paddle and the steep hike to reach the temple. We walked up the steps and around the stoupa, and enjoyed the views of the lake and city down below, and the mountains across the valley. It was an interesting feeling being at a peace temple in a country that only a few years ago came out of a ten year civil war. I know my country hasn't been able to enjoy a time of peace in about a decade or so, but here in a developing country it is easier to see how necessary it is in hoping to progress.

My new favorite hobby here when not in the village is to rent a boat and drift around the lake for a couple hours. It's been warm enough to enjoy the sun a little bit while on the water. The pace in the boat is not quick at all, so thankfully the lake isn't so large that it takes more than an hour or so to drift/paddle from one side to the other. There's a few holidays coming up that we're looking forward to celebrate. Planning the last few weeks here makes it feel like it's nearly time to come home. We'll only be at the village for another few weeks, then off to trekking for a week or so and see what other adventure beckons after that. India and the Taj Mahal? Maybe a meditation course at a monastery in Kathmandu? Or another trek? Only longer and more remote. We'll see.

A Whole Lot of Happenings

It's a month into the trip, and our third week in the village was the busiest yet. The week began with a gorgeous sunset then sunrise up at Sarangkot with the rest of the volunteers in our organization.




Tuesday was Parent's Day at school, which meant Monday we hung a few flags and watered the dirt to keep the dust down. After the celebration Tuesday morning, I boarded a bus with the rest of the men in the village and rode three hours to a marriage ceremony, not getting back to the village until 9 that night, 12 hours after we left. The women stay behind in the village and sing and dance the entire time the men are gone, the entire time, 12 hours.


Wednesday morning our Baa told us there was no school that day so we went on a little hike up to the top of a hill and sat beneath paragliders all afternoon. Then a bit of thunder prompted us to return home and enjoy the afternoon storm from the porch underneath our tin roof.


That same day, as our ama was sorting through the rice, our baa suggested Emily try on a bit of ama's clothes. When she said she wasn't sure how they were supposed to fit, he demonstrated for us. So funny.



A short school day Thursday and we were off to another wedding with baa and ama. The communication between us has only slightly improved, but we're really enjoying each other's company more and more as we grow more comfortable around each other. While they were dressed up for the wedding we took the chance for a family portrait, minus our sister who was at school. Somehow, appropriately, the tea was ready just in time to be included in the photo with us.

Paragliding over Pokhara

 

That's Emily with the rasta colored glider, green, yellow, and red. We were in the air for over an hour, and our pilots said it'd been one of the better days for flying they've had in a while. And why not believe them? What kind of guide would 'exaggerate' in order for their customers to have a better time? That said, it was fantastically clear, and we were definitely lucky to be up there yesterday, some days the skies are full of paragliders and the mountains are hidden in clouds. Today we're off to a temple on an island in the middle of Fewa Tal, the big lake nestling up to Pokhara. Then tomorrow all the volunteers in our program are spending the night up at Sarangkot, where the paragliders take off from, where the best sunset and sunrise views of the mountains are available.  

The Village Gharmi

It's a steep climb to our village, half an hour hike from the nearest paved road. Last Sunday would've been a normal school day for the children if it hadn't been for our celebrated arrival. The students were lined up waiting for us, the first four placing bright orange flowered necklaces around our heads to welcome us, the second four waiting patiently to gift us each a Nepali orange. That's all there is, eight students at the school, with five more in the nursery program. The teacher who could speak a bit of English only kept repeating, "It makes me very happy you are here."

 

We have a baa, an ama, and a bahini (dad, mom, younger sister), two water buffalo who we share a wall with, and a momma goat and her two babies, each two weeks old. Communication amongst our family requires considerable effort and patience, but often times in the kitchen at dinner or sitting around the fire after, the broken conversation turns to deep laughter from the small words each of us understand of the others' language and the funny ways we say them. One night, while the power was out and the hillside dark, we heard yelling in the distance, which our baa (the principal of the school and somewhat of the town elder) returned with yelling of his own, and soon somewhat of a conversation was taking place amongst the darkness, each family relaying information at the top of their lungs from one house to the next. A few nervous minutes later we translated that there were three thieves on a motorcycle coming up the hill. A few minutes after that, as we're about to go inside, lock the door, and hide in our room, our family casually said it was time for dinner, nothing more mentioned of the thieves as we sat eating with the door wide open. We figured if they aren't worried then we didn't need to be.


It being the dry season, the rice fields spanning the hillside between our house and the school are partly covered by a bright yellow mustard looking plant, and the rest by green leaf veggies. We also have mountains, great views of three Himalayan peaks off in the distance. The first thing I do every morning is walk to the corner of the porch where all three peaks are visible and see how they are looking that day.




The atmosphere created by the teachers at the school has been frustrating so far, and we have realized that progress with the students and staff will take a bit more creativity and perseverance than we first expected. Our mornings are spent teaching the three separate classes, I Math and Emily English, and our afternoons usually on the hillside somewhere away from the village, reading peacefully. We return tomorrow for our second of eight weeks, and a few conversations of strategy planning with our coordinator and a local teacher have left us feeling encouraged to continue.

Pokhara

An uncomfortable bus ride, spanning only the distance from Denali to Fairbanks, but taking a tiring eight hours, brought us to the lakeside town o Pokhara. For the next few months this town will be our vacation spot, our weekend escape to hot showers and a soft bed, and the company of fellow volunteers flocking to town for the same things. The weather has been foggy and cold the past week, blocking the heard about views from town of the Annapurna Himalayas, multiple 8,000 meter peaks being visible from the city center. An afternoon yoga class took me up a seldom used trail to a lookout of the city and the neighboring lake, where the guru and I sat in a small room with a large window until it grew too dark inside to continue, then talked outside, his Nepali accent and my simple as can be so he could understand English, until again it grew close to dark and I worried about walking back down the trail without light. Yesterday we spent all afternoon walking the streets, shopping and haggling prices, trying on all sorts of strange colored but traditional Nepali pants and shirts. Today it is off to our village, which I am still unsure the exact name or what our schedule will be like once there, but am so excited to have a room and call it home for the next two months.

Kathmandu

A short walk through a narrow passageway leads from one of the thousand noisy streets of Kathmandu to one of the city's hundreds of temples. Here in the temple square, the surrounding old, low-lying buildings allow the sun to stay long during the cold days of winter. A local man claiming to only want to practice his English walked with me there yesterday. When I told him where I was headed he simply said, "There is no temple there," and attempted to direct me towards one of the better known ones in the area. Unlike those better known temples, there are no shops or restaurants in the buildings surrounding this square, only residences. To even those who live nearby, this temple is near to commonplace. Its as if its been forgotten about. The distance separated from the street is just enough to barricade the square from the pollution of taxis and their horns, allowing it the solitude it deserves. This forgotten temple is the most, if not only, peaceful place to sit in Kathmandu.

I shared my camera with two kids who kept asking me questions I couldn't understand, this is one child's photo of the other.


The intersection outside of my hotel my first five nights in Kathmandu, gotta love the tree.

Days Off

One off day per week means you have to climb a mountain when you get the chance. This is from a few weeks ago, me and Joe 'attempted' Sugarloaf, the same Sugarloaf I 'attempted' last year. We underestimated the traverse along a ridge, and turned back before the summit. The windy afternoon spent along the burnt red ridge with a thunderstorm threatening to the east was enough for us that day.


This was last week. Another guide Travis, from Ohio, and I climbed up Mt. Margaret. A beautiful clear afternoon turned into a lightning and thunder show, then as Margaret was engulfed by that thunder cloud it turned into a descent in the fog. This is a shot of the fog moving in over the ridge we're hiking down. Great views of the national park from the top.

The same day. A little bit of clouds, a little bit of Margaret, a little bit of the Park Road, a little bit of the Savage River. A great expanse of valley to watch the shadows of clouds and mountains shift throughout the day.

And yesterday was my day off for this week, spent hopping on a bus into the park for a few hours. Seeing my first grizzlies of the year, a sow and two cubs, a safe distance away from the safety of the bus, just how I like it.

From the Drive North

Evening in the Yukon, the road outside of Whitehorse

A wrong/missed turn led to a dirt road detour, and this view

Moose! Came within a few feet of the car while in Homer


Portage Lake, on the Kenai in AK, beautiful morning no?


Happy kid

Fresh Snow Falling

My farewell to Bellingham came Tuesday in the form of an adventure through Whatcom Falls Park, culminating in this jump. Each visit to the park throughout my week and a half in town gave me the same feeling, "Spend more time here." The morning was foggy but dry, and the river meanders through the dense trees here hypnotically. With company, my option of wussing out was ruined.

In the park, a portion of Whatcom Falls visible under the bridge

In Seattle the next morning, I decided to take the long way to Portland through the Cascade Mountains. Exploring 15 miles down a gravel roads leading deeper into a valley allowed me to enjoy an entire campground to myself that night, where I departed from in the morning for intending to hike to a lake. It rained on me at first, then the rain turned to snow, and as I missed the turn off for the lake and walked another mile up the canyon, I found myself in the middle of a beautiful snow storm in this part of the state that's all but abandoned this time of year.

Today was an adventure on the road. With clear skies in Yakima, I chose to take the scenic route along Rainier and St. Helens. I thought the snow in the first pass I went through was bad, appropriately named White Pass. Then I got to the second pass along Mt. St. Helens. Deciding against taking the time to put on chains in the snow and all that, I followed the tire tracks of previous trucks and creeped to the top, at times my speedometer reaching 30 and 40 mph with my car barely crawling. But I made it, slowly up and slowly back down to the welcome sound of rain on the windshield and a road with lines I can see.

Some Pictures So Far

Glacier National Park in Montana. Atop one of the peaks we climbed that day. You can see in the background how jagged and compact the mountains are here, making it possible to summit multiple in a single day's route.

In Portland. I went to watch the Portland Timbers play their USL playoff match. The crowd was intense. Smoke bombs and chanting and standing for the full 90 minutes.

Out of Bend, OR, I drove up the Cascade Lakes Hwy into the Cascade Range. They had just gotten eight inches of snow the previous weekend, and I was granted to fresh powder on the mountain trails and very few people getting in the way of the scenery.

In Newport, OR., where I hit the Oregon Coast for the first time. I ate at the Rogue Brewery Public House and somehow joined in on a locals Bingo game that night, which consisted, among other things, of creating nicknames for each letter-number combo on the board, a lot of telling of both good and bad jokes, an impromptu hip hop performance, and rocking the Winnebago of a guy from North Carolina who bailed early.

A view of Crescent Beach, still on the Oregon Coast. I hiked out to the beach early in the morning and shared a driftwood campfire with a few people from Portland. You can see the smoke rising off the beach.

Snow In Whistler

My car had a few fresh inches of snow on it as I woke up this morning. Well, really I watched it accumulate periodically throughout the night. A night's sleep in the Element is more like a packed together sequence of hard earned naps, but all the same.

So what I've learned from exploring the Whistler job market: Canadians want to hire Canadians, a work visa is expensive and not guaranteed in today's economy, and living here is expensive. That said, I have little to no plans of what to do next, so for now, I think I'll be making my slow way home. I could go anywhere, do anything I want to. A strange feeling really I've never encountered before. Obviously, I want to make the most out of my time, whether it be filled with adventure or culture or people or hopeuflly a mix of everything, but I feel a pretty big responisibity to choose wisely, and unselfishly. I guess we'll see where things go from here, that's always fun.