Varanasi trekking

Imagine a labyrinth of narrow Venetianesque alleyways (galis) that would be impossible to navigate if it weren’t for arrowed signs painted on the cracking corner building walls leading you this way and that way to the popular guesthouses and German bakeries. For some reason in India and Nepal the locals got the idea that all bakeries should be deemed a “German” bakery. Alternatively, men offer to lead you to your destination with the hope that you’ll then check out their shop. The usual line is “I saw you yesterday. Remember me? You come look at my shop now.” Ariella and I chose a guesthouse that happened to be next door to the “burning ghat.” The ghats are the steps leading up from the Ganges that you see in all the classic images of people bathing, doing laundry and giving morning "puja" to the sun god in the river. The burning ghat is the holy holy ghat where Hindus come to cremate their relatives who have made a pilgrimage to Varanasi to die. The bodies are ceremoniously carried on stretchers down to the ghat, bodies covered by a sheet with colorful gold and red decorations. The bodies are cleansed in the river and burned under a pile of wood (the type of wood and size of the pile depends on how much a family can afford). The cremations go 5-6 at a time, 24/7. Relatives get their heads shaved in respect for the dead so there are lots of barbers sitting around to do the job. No photographs allowed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It was quite a sight to walk by every time we came and went from our hotel (and quite a smell).

Speaking of smells, the crowded alleyways are covered with trash and feces (often of unknown origin – cow, dog, cat, human?) and the stench of urine is hard to escape. But in addition to this, they are full of life. Compared to privacy-seeking westerners, street life abounds – food and chai stalls, buying/selling of every sort, worship, cows, beggars & hawkers, casual conversations and so much more. I don’t observe there to be such thing as personal space in India. Understandably so, with over a billion people living in a land mass 1/3 the size of the US.

We didn’t realize upon leaving the Nepal Himalayas that we’d be back to trekking in Varanasi, but we got quite a workout going up and down and up stairs. Let me remind you that May is the hottest year of the month in a country that gets hot hot hot. We knew this going into it, but sure enough it was too hot to be outside doing much of anything between the hours of 9am and 7pm. So after early morning boat rides or just walking the ghats to watch the morning activities & rituals, we’d find a café with at least a fan or an internet café or splurge on a day at a hotel pool.

Varanasi is quintessential India, unlike anything I’d seen on my last journey to this amazing country. Like a sign I saw, the "Ganga (Ganges) is the life line of Indian culture" - I take this to be spiritual, symbolic and geographic life line - and you can feel it. Just don’t go in May. But do go, do go.

India in not so many words

Pictures speak more than a thousand words. While I haven't written yet about my 5 weeks in India, I've now posted nearly all of my slideshows. After Varanasi and Jantar Mantar I've added:
* Agra - a visit to the Agra Fort and Taj Mahal in some serious hot weather
* Delhi - Red Fort, Old Delhi and New Delhi (including the neighborhood where we stayed called Paharganj, which we fondly (or not so fondly) referred to as Pahar Grunge)
* McLeod Ganj - home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile, as well as lots of soul-searching hippies and volunteers working with Tibetan refugees
* Pahalgam - a moutain resort town (primarily Indian tourists) in Kashmir - the landscape looks like Alaska, the gypsies look like Afghanistanis

I arrived in the 70 degree Istanbul today (ahhhhhh, so refreshing) and so begins Phase Four of my journey...
Phase One - Fiji/New Zealand/Australia
Phase Two - "Asia light" (Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos)
Phase Three - the subcontinent of Nepal & India
Phase Four - Turkey/Eastern Europe (I think. Plans could always change.)

I hope summer is treating you well!

Photos galore

Just wanted to give a head's up that I've added hours of viewing pleasure with more Nepal & India photographs. Okay, maybe not hours (i don't want to scare you away), but I tried to break them up into smaller albums from the different locations within Nepal and now India. The new albums include:

• Sarangkot (mountain village above Pokhara with stunning views of the Anapurna range and the most gentle people)
  
• Maoists & Election Day (a variety of flags, marches & signs around the country in addition to images from election day in Pokhara - so peaceful after all the hub bub!)
• Pokhara (beautiful hippie lake town where we stayed in & around for over 3 weeks)
• Bandipur (no-vehicle mountain village situated above the morning clouds)
• Trisuli River (Susan and I went on 2-day river rafting/camping adventure - our campsite was next to a quaint village. I can't believe folks drive motorcycles across walking bridges like that... well, i can believe it)
• Chitwan & Lumbini (I spent a few days relaxing and reading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" next to the river in the jungle area of Chitwan, watching tourists sit/stand on elephants & get thrown off into the river. I met Ariella in Lumbini after her 10 day Vipassana silent meditation retreat - what an accomplishment! You couldn't get me to painfully sit in meditation for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight... Check out her intense yet amazing experience on her blog [link is above slideshows on right])
• Varanasi (okay, so I had trouble editing down images from the sacred Ganges (or Ganga), and believe me, this selection is edited! I highly recommend visiting anytime other than May when the temps reach 110... or I guess monsoon wouldn't be too fun bc the life of the river is on the steps (ghats) which are then underwater. but do visit - it's a place like none other)
• Jantar Mantar, New Delhi (this series of structures for reading the skies & various other astronomical uses was built by a ruler in the 1500s. i think it's a cool playground for adults and kids alike!)

So grab a cup of chai or two and have a gander. Enjoy!

Holy Cow!

Varanasi, India

A Maoist new year

Back in Kathmandu, back to pollution and hectic activity in the streets. After nearly a month in Nepal, I can definitely say my favorite parts of the country are in the mountains - the quaint villages with welcoming souls and without pollution.

We spent about 3 weeks in the Pokhara area - the town itself and mountain surrounds. Every traveler I've met who has been there says the same thing - Pokhara sucks you in and it's really hard to leave. I kept saying, "tomorrow I'll leave," and then the next day i'd say the same thing. I'm still not sure what it is about the place, perhaps the laid back atmosphere, lake, mountain views, nearby treks (Anapurna region and others), and of course the local people, some of whom we'd hang out with everyday. We stayed longer to wait out the election as well, then had to stay to celebrate New Year's. Happy 2065! (different calendar in Nepal...) No space age stuff here in Nepal yet though.










After Panchassee (see last blog entry), my 2nd favorite place in Nepal is a town/village called Bandipur. It's in between Kathmandu and Pokhara, perched up on a ridge with 360 views of rice-terraced valleys below. The town was on the old trade route between India & Tibet and they have recently been restoring the main drag which has Newari-style architecture. Think Nepali row houses with doors you have to duck under (well, if you' above avg Nepali height that is). I've hit my head a number of times in this country. There are no vehicles in the town and by 8pm nearly everything is closed, especially if the power is out. I'd say there were no more than 30 tourists there at a time during my 5 days, and for some reason most people only pass through staying one nite - they seemed to be on packaged trekking tours.











While I tried for early morning mountain views the first 2 mornings, instead I was treated to a "white lake" view - complete cloud coverage over the valley below, with some nearby hills peaking out to say good morning. It was like being in a plane above the clouds, but outside - not looking over the wing through a tiny window. stunning. There's not a lot to do in Bandipur but wander the paths, chat with people, watch folks bathe & fill water containers at the natural spring water spouts, and take in the scenery. Somehow I kept getting pulled into random experiences as I kept trying to venture out of the main part of town. One day I head guitar playing & singing and asked a little girl about it. She took me upstairs in the home to a Christian prayer meeting. I was quite surprised when I realized they were singing Hallelujah and had bibles in hand, given the majority of the country are Hindu or Buddhist, or a combination of the two. They even had an English/Nepali bible for me to follow along. The singing was lovely and the loud praying (everyone speaking at the same time) interesting to observe. As with most visits in Nepal, the meeting ended with tea.

The next day I was drawn to singing outside a temple, and a woman who was walking outside invited me in. It was a small prayer session for a Krishna temple. This group was mostly women over 60, with a couple kids and one man who read the prayers. Mostly they sang and one person would dance in the middle of the circle. Of course they quickly motioned for me to dance, so I had to oblige. I had no clue of the dance style, so I did some twirling & hand motions similar to those that the women were doing while sitting. My new favorite phrase is "what to do?" You just gotta go with the flow.











Later that day I started chatting with a 12 year old girl named Pragya (well, she started chatting with me with the usual "where are you from" "what is your name" "how long in nepal"). She invited me inside to see her currency collection, so I said sure. First we talked as she finished her daily work of wiping down the dirt floor with water. Then we went upstairs to her "international bedroom". She clearly engages with a lot of travelers, as she had little mementos from all over the world. Mom brought tea and Pragya took over my camera to photograph her home and us. She insisted I come back later that evening bc she wanted to "make me pretty". Sure enough when I returned she spent an hour & half doing up my hair in a variety of styles and painting my face with make up. The orange lipstick stung my lips (likely very old), and the homemade heavy black eyeliner was a bit smudgy. but what fun!

The next day, the owner of my guesthouse took me along with him to the equivalent of the rehearsal dinner for his niece's wedding. I felt honored to be there, but I think the bride was a bit skeptical of my presence. Her family was taking pictures of me as the oddball guest. As the tradition, upon entry to the tent I washed my hands, gave her tikka (the red pigment placed on the forehead), placed a flower petal on her head, said my wishes for a happy marriage and long life, and gave her a gift of 100 rupees. (luckily i had been instructed beforehand...)

I didn't really want to leave Bandipur, but alas, I came back to Kathmandu to check out some sites I missed the first time around. Over the next week I'll work my way down to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, to meet up with Ariella and Susan before heading to India.

If you haven't been following the post-elections in Nepal, the Maoists have a decent lead in the coalition assembly and will be the ruling party. Due to delayed voting in some places bc of unrest on election day and recounts, the final results are not in, but the Maoists have given the king 28 days to vacate his palace (which they plan to turn into a museum). Overall the elections went very smoothly and peacefully. My bus from Pokhara to Bandipur was stopped for a while as I watched a Maoists parade process down the highway, with a local winning candidate perched atop a car as the highlight of the celebration. Everyone was covered in red pigment - all over their faces - to mark the celebration. Fascinating.

So as the country brought in the new year 2065, the Maoists indeed have a lot to celebrate.

As luck would have it, my friend Campbell from Wharton (who also just quit his job and is traveling for a year) arrived in Kathmandu yesterday. So great to see a familiar face, in Kathmandu!

p.s. did I mention how exhilarating riding atop buses/jeeps is? yes, i held on tight. much better than being squished inside in very uncomfortable positions...

Never Ending Peace And Love

According to a menu in a small mountain town, NEPAL = Never Ending Peace And Love. I believe it, despite the political unrest that has been building up to the very major election here on April 10. Since we arrived on Mar 23 the election has been the talk of the country, as well as the headlines on all the newspapers. Maoists and some other small parties have been the culprits of most of the violence. Sadly politicians have been murdered and kidnapped. Gun shoot-offs, cadres beating up cadres of other parties, knife fights and more. However, as a traveler, I've only been privy to the peaceful Maoist rallies - motorcycle gangs driving through town waving communist flags, trucks with loudspeakers praising the working man's party doctrines encouraging voters. I must admit, it is pretty trippy to be somewhere that is about to experience a major political shift depending on tomorrow's outcome. If the Maoists do win, then the country will become communist. If not, the newly established democracy will endure. Either way, the constitution will be re-written by the new constitutional assembly. Formerly ruled by a king whose brother murdered the entire royal family in order to become king about 5 years ago, this is a very historic event. Everything is supposed to be closed on election day, but i've learned that the tourist area where i'm currently hunkered down in Pokhara (5 hours west of Kathmandu) will be open for service. Tourism is the #1 industry in Nepal.

Back to peace and love, the people in Nepal are stunningly beautiful inside and out. The women are gorgeous, the men are hot. I hate to make generalizations, but it's true. and the kids! the spirit, the laughs, the playfulness, the smiles. We have made some incredible little friends who speak English better than many adults and just want to hang out and have photos taken of them without asking for money or sweets or pens (they like the pens here). "One photo, one photo" is the common cry as we walk by, especially in the mountain villages. Of course we always comply and love their giddiness as the run to look at the photo on our cameras.

I met a Hungarian named Viktor in Kathmandu - i was drawn to his large self-made pinhole camera he carried down the crazy streets. After a second spotting at a Tibetan Buddhist stupa (temple), I sat down to ask him about his camera. As luck would have it, I ran into him several days later in Pokhara. He had highly recommended I trek to a small mountain village in Panchassee and he happened to be leaving for the place the next day. Susan had sadly sprained her ankle and Ariella was looking into a yoga retreat in Pokhara, so I asked Viktor if I could tag along with him. His answering Yes made for a truly blessed next five days.

I was hesitant to trek because of my back issues. I hadn't done any serious hiking in a year - in fact it was a year to the day since I was in the emergency room after injuring my back again. Months of physical therapy and the past three months carrying my bags on the road had increased my strength, but I wasn't sure how I'd feel after trekking. Four hours uphill later, I was in awe of the ridge-top location looking across valleys down both sides of the mountain and didn't even think about my back. While I was sore the next day, I was thrilled that I made it step by step, even carrying my own backpack. Panchassee means Five Seats. The seats are the five mountain peaks that comprise this very sacred area. A revered yogi had come here to be enlightened/die and others have followed his lead. The peaks, caves, lakes and other natural beauties are believed to exude spiritual energy. Sunrise looking out at the Himalayas enhanced the peaceful bliss for me.

The guesthouse where we stayed for 5 nights is called the Happy Heart Hotel and is run by three incredibly special women. All single, no kids, never married. When asked if they like it that way they responded, "No husband. No children. Free." I guess I fall into the same boat. As Viktor had said, you can taste their happy hearts in the dal baht and other meals they cooked for us. Viktor had stayed with them previously for 3 weeks (with his anthropologist friend who lived there for 8 months) and so we were considered family. Instead of sitting in the dining room with the few other trekkers that would show up for a night, we spent most of our time sitting in the small kitchen where they cook over a fire. Much of my time was spent listening during the 5 days, whether it was to guides and the didis ("sisters" - which you call women like "aunty") speak in Nepalese or listening to birds or just the wind. No electricity meant candles after an early sunset. Squat toilets and a cold water bucket shower, of course. Viktor and I took long day hikes, which I calculate to include up and down roughly 10,000 stairs over the course of the 5 days. seriously. there are stone paths that connect the villages that are spread out all over the mountains and valleys. Apparently many paths get washed away with the monsoon season, but then the villagers all work together to rebuild. Quite a concept. The morning we left the didis sat Viktor and I down and adorned our foreheads with a red pigment dot and tied a traditional prayer cloth around our necks. It was an incredible moment. Sadly by the time I was down the mountain my dot was a huge smudge as I had wiped the sweat off my brow continually.... The photo above is a pinhole image of me and the didis made by Viktor. He carries around his darkroom and creates prints for everyone he photographs. He's a special soul.

Meanwhile, back in Pokhara Susan and Ariella had been volunteering daily at a local NGO, the Butterfly Foundation, helping prepare a new building for its preschool for orphans and other disadvantaged kids. I joined them when I returned and helped finish up the colorful paintings of butterflies, flowers, and painted a colorful mandala. Susan has an incredible natural ability and drive to befriend the local children, anywhere. We walk down the street and kids will say "Susan!" and give her a local handshake. Ariella and I have been telling her she must work with children upon returning to Seattle. She made a special friend (the most intelligent little boy we've met), Manish, whose parents own a bookstore/Gorkha knife shop. Manish's mom invited us all for dal baht and we enjoyed a lovely home cooked meal in their modest home behind the shop. We've also befriended the owner of our now local bar where we make a daily appearance, even if briefly. Jossi, the owner, painted with us at the school and has encouraged us to stay in Pokhara, although we didn't need much encouragement.

When we first arrived in Nepal we spent a few nights in Kathmandu, which is an intense and polluted city. Despite that, I loved walking the narrow streets and checking out how people live. The buddhist stupas are incredible places to visit, especially joining the tibetan buddhists walking in circles around and around the stupa turning the prayer wheels.

This is definitely phase 3 of the journey, as we're now used to paying $7/night for our own rooms (less if we share), $1 for breakfast and generally living on less than $20/day. I've gotten used to squat toilets outside of our hotel (sorry to harbor on the bathrooms, but it's a real change), and don't flinch as much when I come home to a cockroach in my bathroom. Okay, maybe I do still jump....

We'll move on from Pokhara once the buses are running again after the election. Next stop is Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. Back to serious heat and mosquitoes. Around the 27th we plan to travel overland to India, but I'm not sure if we'll actually be able to leave Nepal. If we do, I will be back.

Oh, I forgot to mention how great it is to greet everyone with Namaste!

So, I've spent today uploading photo albums to my blog. LONG overdue....

When you have some time, peruse my new slideshows:
Melbourne (yes, back to January!)
Sydney/Cape Tribulation
Indonesia (3 albums)
Thailand

Next I'll upload Cambodia. I'm still working on editing Nepal in real time, so hopefully sooner rather than later I will share this beautiful country. How could the home of the tallest mountain in the world not be so magical?

Namaste.

earth to kenna...still here!

no excuses for my lack of postings of late, but internet was very slow to unusable in Cambodia. photo management is still taking up my 'free' time (or, time when i have to force myself to sit down and work). alas, i am still here on the road.

more to come on Indonesia, a few days in Bangkok, the temples at Angkor/Siem Reap, and Luang Prabang, Laos. My friend Lori joined us in Bangkok - and then there were four. fun to change it up with a new face from home! hopefully more of you will join along the way. luckily Lori is really into photography too, so she's fit right in with the clicking camera gang.

this morning we gave alms to the Buddhist monks & novices (Luang Prabang is full of 'em) by handing out sticky rice as they process down the block. orange is a nice color to wake up to in the wee hours of the morning. we've based ourselves here in Luang Prabang and are taking day or overnite trips -- we definitely are a bit weary of moving around every few days.

our overniter involved an elephant trek wherein we learned how to be a Mahout, a traditional elephant caretaker/driver. we wore their outfits consisting of blue pajama lowriders and a matching short sleeve button down shirt. comfy clothing, which is nice since riding an elephant bareback isn't really so comfy. highlight was giving an elephant a bath in the river with a scrub brush as they sit down in the water so just their heads are sticking out. they are such gentle beings, despite their size. We quizzed eachother on the elephant commands before our Mahout training session. Pai! Pai! "Go. Go." Ya! Ya! "No - don't break off that bamboo for a snack" Meplang! "Sit down" - that one was a bit scary, but a convenient way to get off the elephant. Instead of a minivan we took a 2 hour kayak trip down the river to get back to town. Cool to see folks having bbqs, kids fishing by sticking their heads in the water facing upstream with a snorkel mask on, bathing, washing dishes or clothing, or just hanging out along the river.

My favorite part about Luang Prabang are the monks/novice monks. they are everywhere adorned in bright orange, or various shades. the novices like to walk with umbrellas - it's fashionable according to the novice La whom Lori and I chatted with for a couple hours, but also helps from darkening the skin and makes for great photos. the novices come to study and get an education - several that we spoke with want to be tour guides once they graduate, so they practice English (or Spanish as in La's case) with tourists who make the time for it. of course we made the time. (note: not all novice monks plan to stay in the monkhood for life, it can just be a 4 year thing for school) La invited us back for 5:30pm chanting at his temple which was beautiful and incredibly meditative for me. the energy in this town is amazing. food is tasty too. oh, and internet speed has seriously improved.

what more could i ask?

photos coming - still up: Singapore, Indonesia, Bangkok, Siem Reap, Luang Prabang. Doh!

Gili Air and a mountain town with a man named Yoga

So I'm back in Ubud, Bali on the grid. We thought Senggigi on Lombok had slowed our pace, but in the off-season the 3 Gili islands just off the coast of Lombok are even slower, maybe as slow as Fiji time - maybe slower. After a couple amazing scuba dives (a lil' shipwreck, turtles AND sharks) in pretty rough currents but good visibility [we literally didn't have to use our fins but just drifted along - fast], we landed on the medium size island, Gili Air. [note, Gili means island in Indonesian]

No motorized vehicles on Gili Air, so the non-walking mode of transport is horse-drawn carts. We didn't need 'em though, bc the perimeter of the 900-person island is only 5 km. most of the tourist activity is on the beachfront all the way around the island, with gaps of nothing - or wrecked boats washed up, in between. The rest of the population lives in the middle of the island, which doesn't take long to cross trough. But there really wasn't much tourist activity, as we saw maybe 10-15, if that, other tourists in our 3 nights there.

Sat around one night on pillows on the open-air raised-platform-with-thatched-roof tables, singing the type of songs tourists know & love with some local guys - "every breath you take", "you look wonderful tonight" & some beatles tunes. Yoga, a.k.a. Lombok man, also sang some of his originals in Indonesian. He said one song is about tourists and how the locals should take care of the coral so the tourists will keep coming. apparently he's somewhat of an activist on the island, as Susan learned in a heart-to-heart conversation with him. Alas, when we took Yoga up on his offer the next day to be our guide up to a mountain town in north Lombok, a day trip we were considering anyway, we ended up finding out that Yoga is somewhat of a lier/scam artist who took us for a bit of a ride. and then no ride home. we paid a pricey (relatively speaking), but comparable rate for a day tour that we had researched, and his was to also include dinner & overnite at his "family business villa". what his did not include, that the other options would have, was a ride back to Senggigi after our overnite stay in Senaru, a town at the base of the island's volcano. of course we didn't realize Yoga wasn't going to take us the 2+ hour ride back until the next morning. so we had to hire another driver, as we weren't about to pay him any more money. good lesson learned. oh, and of course another guy in town who we hired the driver from said Yoga is definitely not the 'cousin' of the place where we stayed [which was so ridiculously miserable, a board of a bed, no running water in the middle of the night, and they tried to charge us for toilet paper]. Yoga's not from Senaru as he claimed, and the guy said he's really not on the up and up. When we tried to convince him that he had to drive us back, Yoga claimed that he was upfront with us and that we were now confusing and upsetting him. Sad end to what was a fun day trip - but we could've done without the meal that was included (hot water with tomatoes - aka soup - and top ramen, we opted out of the deer meat that seemed to still have hair on it).

I don't mean to harp on a negative experience, and we're certainly a bit wiser and expected to be scammed sooner rather than later, but it's humorous now. Also, we got to see a part of the island that few tourists travel through, rice paddies, markets that smell like bad fish even from the car as we drove by, cute kids in Muslim school uniforms (well, cute kids are everywhere), and Lombok folks just living their lives. Pretty primitive and very rustic.

So Yoga's song about the tourists, well, we now think it might really translate to something about keeping the tourists coming so Yoga can scam 'em. Whatever it is though, we had a great time on Gili Air.