Bandh!

So again, much, much more about the mountains a little later. For now, what I returned to when I came down out of the mountains. Last Wednesday we returned to civilization, i.e., television, and heard that Nepal was in it's fourth day of a nation-wide general strike or bandh. This story will give you a flavor for what was going on. The Maoists thankfully called off the bandh Friday evening, and I was able to travel down to Hetauda, where Tiffany is living and volunteering.

First off, a couple questions about this whole bandh thing and the Maoists, in general. I know there is a whole history behind this that I should read more about, but my basic understanding is that the Maoists either are or were until recently a part of the government. Somehow, though, they still maintain a militia? They have cadres or professional revolutionaries--what on earth could that possibly mean? They do things like call nation-wide general strikes where all stores and offices are forced and nearly all transportation is stopped, including for example food stuffs into Kathmandu, with the threat of violence. Frankly, the whole thing is just very confusing to me. And it's right here under my nose. Literally.

So yesterday morning I was sitting at the nice hotel the trekking company had us in for two nights after we got back from our trek--we got back Friday, and so were scheduled to be in this hotel Friday and Saturday nights. So anyway, Saturday morning, I'm having my breakfast, reading the local paper and see that the night before--Friday night--the Maoists had just up and called off the bandh out of the blue. Here I thought I was going to be stuck in Kathmandu for a week unable to see Tiffany just 60 km to the south--I fly to Switzerland this coming Friday. So I call Tiffany, confirm that the bandh has been called off, run a couple errands, say goodbye to my trekking buddies, and catch a taxi to the Tata Sumo stop. The taxi ride seemed normal enough at first. But then we reached a more major street, and there was this huge protest/march all of the sudden--Maoists. They were waving their red flags, chanting call and response slogans. They had sticks in their hands and grim looks on their faces. Once again, I appreciated that this is serious business, no joke. I can become focused sometimes on how inconvenient this is for me. But this is a national emergency. For an entire country. Big deal.

Oh, and here is the poster that can be seen all over the place--even up in the mountains--advertising the May 1st Labor Day festivities... or something. You can see Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao up in the corner. There is another sticker on top, though, indicating that 2011 is meant to be the Nepali national year of tourism, i.e., no strikes. Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

But I made it to the Tata Sumo place. Eventually, all 13 of us piled into the nine-seater. The four and a half hour journey took more like five and a half because of a torrential downpour that caused a flash flood that backed up traffic for a bit...

But really, the jeep ride was great. It was an opportunity to hang out with ordinary, every day Nepalis. Older folks, children, business men. To meditate on comfort, something we can be so attached to, but how important is it, really? To meditate on happiness. What do we really need to be happy? What do I really need to be happy? One day before too long this trip will end. I won't be sitting in an internet cafe, listening to women speaking in Nepali, sweating even though the fan is going. I'll be in Grand Central Bakery on Hawthorne having coffee cake and a coffee reading the Economist. But will I be truly happy? Is that what I really want? Clearly, this whole bandh business--and being in Nepal, in general--has me thinking deep thoughts. Such is life sometimes, eh?

And there were fireflies as I walked to Tiffany's place in the dark last night. And the muezzin boy recited the day's final call to prayer from Hetauda's only mosque, near Tiffany's place. And the frogs were going crazy.

Oh, and Tiffany had some interesting things to say in recent days, as well, for what it's worth...

An interlude

So yes, I'm still travelling, still alive, still blogging even. I've been up in the Khumbu for three weeks, away from computers, etc. Much more about that later--for now I'll just say that it was wonderful.

One of the first things I heard when I returned to civilization a few days ago was that the company I worked for at my first "real job," Movie Gallery--think Hollywood Video--will be no more sometime within the next few months. I quit just a month and a half ago, before embarking on this journey. Turns out my timing wasn't too bad.

Worth a thousand words and all that

A few photos, finally. ;-)

This was on my second day in Kathmandu. I headed over to Boudhanath. Needless to say, beautiful place. I went there again today.

Tiffany and I went trekking in the Langtang region for about a week. This is just a little sample. I'll have more to say/write about this later--when I have access to faster internet connection, etc. It was pretty darn spectacular up there. By the way, written on this stone is Om mani padme hum, which is the mantra that shows up everywhere and on everything in the Buddhist parts of the country. Young people, old people chanting...

The day after Tiffany and I got back to Kathmandu after our trek, I visited her work for a bit and then took a microbus down to Pashupatinath, which seems to be one of the most if not the most important Hindu temple in Kathmandu if not all of Nepal. I went there again today, too. Pretty profound place. Religion, dharma, puja... whatever it is--I don't claim to understand Hinduism at all--feels very alive to me here. Very vibrant. Very few tourists at a place like Pashupati. Mostly just local folks. There are public cremations there, as well, along the banks of the holy Bagmati River.

Okay, now that I've done a proper blog post with photos and the whole bit, I feel like I can head up to Khumbu and be away for computers for a couple weeks with a clean conscious. ;-)

Faith and superstition

I took a "public jeep" back up to Kathmandu from Hetauda this morning. It costs 300 Nepali Rupies (a little over $4.00) to cram into a Tata Spacio with about 12 other people. They put four to a seat instead of three, but there isn't anybody on the roof or anything. I reserved seat #6 (the one behind the driver) a couple days ago with the help of one of Tiffany's coworkers. There are a number of different companies that run these jeeps. It's about 4 and 1/2 hours from Hetauda to Kathmandu. It was a pleasent enough of a ride.

Anyhow, so we stared off a little after 7:00 this mornnig, left Hetauda, went up the little river valley a ways. So many sights, smells, sounds. It can be overwhelming and exhausting at times when everything is new, everything is a potential photo opportunity, everything is a potential story. But I was struck by one thing in particular. The couple sitting next to the driver--I'm pretty sure they were Hindu by the way they were dressed, etc.--made a religous-type gesture as we passed a couple little temples. Religion feels pretty omnipresent here to me. Got me thinking: What is the difference between faith and superstition? Of course, one often has a positive connotation, while the other almost always has a negative one. But, really, what is the difference? I certainly don't claim to have the answer, but I'd be curious to hear thoughts. It's something I've been thinking about a lot, albeit somewhat subconsciously until this morning.

There are a number of things that feel omnipresent in Nepal. Beautiful clothes: reds, oranges, yellows, blues. Motorcycles: often single men, sometimes with a woman behind, then man almost always wears a helmet, the woman almost never does. Music: people are singing, listening to music, all of the time. Trash: there is trash all over, sometimes burning, I mean really all over; I've never seen anything like it; appalling. Open sewers. Cows: in the small town, countryside, and city. Drying laundry: either on rooftops in the towns/city, or beside homes in the countryside.

There are other things that are specific to small town, countryside or city. In Hetauda people stared a lot. Just stared. There are about 5 foreigners in town. Pigs eating trash on the side of the road.

On the jeep ride through the countryside... it's hard to know where to start. Terraced fields of corn, rice, cabbage, carrots, wheat. Forests. Cicadas. Near head-on collisions. Beautiful flowering trees: purples, reds, pinks, whites. People going to the bathroom on the side of the (narrow, exposed) road--men, women and children. Women standing with children on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Women sifting flower on the road--on the road. Men breaking rocks, lots of rocks, lots of men--may roads are "under construction." Various checkpoints, whether police or to collect fees for the "road constuction." Sheppard children with their flock of goats--on the narrow, cliff-lined road. Cows. Water buffalo. Chickens and roosters. Dogs laying in the middle of the road. More pigs. Boars. Banana trees--lots and lots of them. Pine trees. And on and on and on...

And then back into the Kathmandu valley (for my third time now). The smog. The size of the city--absolutely dwarfs anything else I've seen in the country. The "traffic jams": people, bicycles, rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, trucks all fighting for their little piece of roadway. The tourists in the tourist ghetto, Thamel. Mint lemonade and a small combo platter of hummus, baba ghanouj, pita--very much not Nepali, but very nice partially because of that.

Will meet up with the folks from Mountain Monarch in about an hour. Day after tomorrow we start our journey towards Island Peak. I'll return to Kathmandu on May 7th.

Hope to get photos up soon... for real. The internet is sooooo slow here. I'll see what I can do in the next day before I leave town...

Hetauda

Tiffany and I took a "public jeep" from Kathmandu down to Hetauda, where she is living and working for two years. It was a rather uneventful four and a half hour ride through the hills to get here. Well, not quite. We stopped for a snack in this little hamlet. We had some really great, spicy potatoes and some kind of a dounut. The food here has been great. Really, every single meal has been darn good. It is pretty varied, a bit spicy at times, filling, well-balanced, just yummy--which is great!

So we arrived in Hetauda around noon or so. Tiffany said there is one other volunteer in town here. It's a medium-sized town--a bit of a crossroads. We went to her place, and then she headed off to work for the afternoon. I rested a bit, and now I am out at an internet cafe. Walking around I feel like about the only non-Nepali in town. I certainly haven't seen any others. People really are friendly, though. It feels good to be here, even if it is hot at times, loud, stinky, etc.

I'm going to meet up with Tiffany in a bit to do some grocery shopping. Tomorrow is the New Year. They use a different calendar here. Look it up, it's like year 2067 or something like that. It's hard to express just how foreign it feels...

The bus

I arrived in Kathmandu about a week and a half ago. Three days later Tiffany and I headed up to the Langtang region for a six day trek. It was about a nine and a half hour bus ride up to Syabrubesi from Kathmandu. (By the way, on Google Maps you can very clearly see the Langtang Valley that we hiked up east of Syabrubesi.) A bit of culture shock but not too bad. The trek was great--more on that later. It's the bus ride back down to Kathmandu yesterday that I'd like to write a bit about now...

The day yesterday started out normal enough. Tiffany and I woke up a little before six, got packed up and were down in the dining area / lobby of the hotel in Syabrubesi by 6:15. Our guide, Ganesh, and our porter, Rishi, met us down there for a simple breakfast. We opted to not have Nepali/milk tea before the bus ride. So we walked out onto the (unpaved) street, prayer flags all around, chickens, half built buildings, etc. We found our bus, put our bags on top, got on, and a bit later started the journey down towards Kathmandu. It's something like 170 km from Syabrubesi to Kathmandu, but it takes something like nine hours. How is that possible? Yes, we stop for lunch, and pick people up and drop them off pretty much anywhere along the way. And yes, the road is still under construction. And yes, the road is one, maybe one and a half lanes. But it is soooo windy. And the "hills" are sooo steep. It's kind of crazy, really.

So anyhow, we stared down from Syabrubesi. There were cases of beer and water on the floor in the middle of the bus, heading down to the next town for some reason. They were burning incense in the front of the bus. There was typical Bollywod music. There were posters inside the bus of Hindu gods and goddesses. The front of the bus said various things in Nepali that I couldn't read along with "Slow Drive, Long Life" or "Slow Control" or something like this. All of the busses are made by the Indian company Tata, and have slogans like this. Many of them also say "Wel Come" on the door. The English spelling and grammar--when there is English--is often pretty entertaining. There were children with their eyes painted with mascara--something about some god and better eyesight? There were many women in reds and oranges and all kinds of wild, beautiful colors.

More and more people got on as we headed down the hill, until it was sholder to sholder in the walkway in the middle of the bus. People would hand off their children to people sitting in the seats. People would just sit on the floor. Tiffany and I had a ten year old girl who looked like she was about to pass out in our laps. Children started vomitting (in Japanese tourists' laps). A woman sitting right across from Tiffany and me projectile vomitted a couple times. The roads are so windy, and the cliffs are so steep and so many. There are no lanes. Truks and busses slow down to a stop, get within inches of each other, and just work it out. We would see piles of rock in the road. Tracters, trucks, people walking down the road hearding goats, people sifting wheat in the middle of the road. The roof of the bus probably had 15 - 20 young men on top of it along with our luggage.

And then there were some Maoists throwing rocks at a minister who drove by. The Moaists had their black flags.

And then the bus ran out of fuel. We found some and started up again.

And then the bus had a short. They fixed it.

And finally--thirtteen hours later--we arrived in Kathmandu. Kind of in shock.

Just one piece of Nepal.

Photos soon. Loadshedding and such...

And so it begins, as all blogs must...

Over the course of the last few years, I've actively talked myself out of starting a blog a number of times. Although having a blog sounded like fun, who would read it? And perhaps more importantly, what would I say?

But I suppose things have changed. I'm off to travel the world, and it just seems the most appropriate means to share my travels with friends and family. So here you have it.

Tomorrow I fly to Kathmandu, Nepal, where I will be meeting up with my good friend who is currently volunteering there. I'll be in Nepal for six weeks, and during that time my friend and I will go trekking in the Langtang Valley north of Kathmandu, I will climb Island Peak in the Khumbu (Everest) region, and we'll hang out some in and around Hetauda where she is based. Needless to say, I'm stoked!

And from there I'll be off to Switzerland... and Morocco. But more on that later. Don't want to get ahead of myself.