Nepal (Nov 2013)
Disclaimer: The following is an email I sent to friends and family in November 2013, preserved here for posterity.
Subj: Vignettes From Nepal
These should have been spread out, sorry.
The Arrival
I landed in Kathmandu at 11pm, picked up my bags and was greeted by a horde of taxi drivers offering rides for 1000 rupees ($10). I figured this was probably a rip off so I kept walking away shaking my head in disbelief until I found a guy who agreed to 500r. Since I was coming straight from South Africa and I only had Rand and a few USD, he also agreed to take me to an ATM on the way to my hostel. What a nice guy! I had the name of my hostel and the street it was on, and after some pondering he seemed to have a good idea of the general area of where it was, so we were off! We wound through Kathmandu on some very unpaved streets, and I noted the lack of tall buildings for a capital city, and the surprising number of cows in the road. We pulled up to a bright machine with the international sign for money: ATM. I got out wondering if Capital One would let me access my money and as I was typing in my pin I had an unsettling realization. I didn't have any idea where I was, I didn't speak Nepali, it was midnight, a stranger knows I'm about to have a wad of cash, and of course I left all of my possessions in the unmarked taxi 20 feet behind me. What could go wrong?
Of course it was fine and the machine dutifully spit out some paper and the driver didn't abandon or rob me, and we continued our sketchy ride through the eerily empty city. After some hesitation, we passed, then reversed into a narrow alley and the driver gave me a hopeful glance that said "this is probably it." I tried to covertly fan through my bills without revealing that I had made the maximum withdrawal, and my heart skipped a beat. I didn't understand the numbers on the money! I had naïvely assumed that number symbols would transcend language and be the same everywhere, but in hindi (I would later learn) the 5 looks like a 4, the 1 looks like a 9, and the 4 sometimes looks like an 8. In a different situation I might have shown my cards and let a helpful local make their own change, but I had reason to believe taxi drivers were not the most honest lot, so I sheepishly reached into my emergency USD supply and gave him $6. My suspicions of his character were immediately confirmed when he protested that $6 was only the equivalent of 90 rupees. Nice try. I didn't look up a map of the city, or directions to the hostel, or numeric system basics, but I definitely checked the conversion rate. Without much protest, he lets me go to my uncertain fate and abandons me with my 2 bags in the dark deserted streets of what is probably the alley that my hostel is on.
I turn a corner and find a dark hand-painted sign for my hostel. I let out a deep breath before I see the gate. And a lock on that gate. And all the lights off inside. I fumble at the lock in disbelief. What happened to "24 hour reception?" I take that breath back. Well, this is off to a great start. I start to turn around and dejectedly waddle down the street in hopes of finding some miraculous hostel or temple or doorway I could sit in until morning when I hear a sound.
Click, clang behind me, the door of the hostel is unlocking and opening and a young man who is pretending not to have been woken up by my fumbling with the gate opens the door with a beaming smile! I'm elated. My room is on the 3rd floor (It seems I constantly thank myself for packing light) which is probably why it's more expensive ($15 instead of $12 for "Deluxe?" Yes please). He can't find the key for the lock on the door and the "great wifi" is not working. The sheets look dirty, the windows don't close, the water in the toilet isn't particularly clear, but I couldn't care less as I lie down and count the long string of blessings that miraculously led me to a bed that night and I sleep like a baby. Fully clothed. This is not the first world South Africa I was used to. Could be interesting...
Yum
One day I walked down to the village (15 minute hike down the mountain) with the mother (Sarita) to get 20 kilos of rice. Half way down we stopped for tea and gossip (in Nepalese) and we saw Krishna coming up the road with three Scandinavians he had gone to get earlier. He said we didn't need rice. We kept going into town anyways to pick up some little things, when Sarita dragged me into this restaurant for some momo (steamed dumplings) because she craved some meat/food she didn't cook. After the momo, she ordered something else with a mischievous smile on her face. It looked like chopped up surgical tubing mixed with fuzzy socks and fried until edible. She refused to tell me until I had finished it that it was buffalo intestine.
So Chewy
Fast forward a week to when I had accidentally spent 4 hours in an internet cafe (sending the South Africa update and replying to everybody). I was hungry because I had missed lunch so I figured I would patronize the same restaurant because it seemed like Sarita knew the woman and loyalty is nice.
"Momo?"
"No."
"Something else yummy and filling?"
"Ya ya ok."
That witch came back 5 minutes later with freshly fried intestine! So I ate buffalo guts twice.
Coincidentally, I also got pretty sick soon afterwards, and for a pretty long time, kind of like I was actually getting sick twice...
I think the needle is clean, it's the size of that stool sample cup that's troubling
The Dentist
Krishna used to be a boxer and lost two of his front teeth a while back. He's had removable fake teeth for a while, but he just participated in this ceremony (long story) where he had to burn his sheets, and in the middle of the flames he saw the dentures that he had put under his pillow the night before. So he needed some new ones. For $10, this guy threw some together in an hour.
Probably not as clean as that needle
Don't worry, he's qualified, he even has posters! Wait ... are those ovaries?
Namo Buddha
We took a day hike (5 hr walk there, bus back) to a beautiful buddhist temple with a famous pole outside to which people have tied prayer flags that stretch for miles.
That was nice
Halloween ******************
I was Captain Planet, and when there are more tailors than clothing stores, obviously I had it custom made ($3). There was a little bit of a language barrier resulting in a rather square "earth" but I think it turned out ok in the end. Ok whoops, I just got around to looking up the real Captain Planet. Turns out the face is blue, the hair is green, and there's more red in the shirt. It's ok, they'll never know.
That colored powder gets everywhere.
Mahabharat
My last week, we took a 3 day trek to Vishnu's Garden on the top of Narayan Than (elevation: 3000m, taller than the highest mountain in Australia, but nothing compared to the Himalayas). The first day we walked all the way from the farm, through Banepa and a dozen other towns to a village just below the mountain.
Ok, we didn't walk the whole way, we hopped on the back of a Nepali communist party truck for a while. Please don't blackmail my political career with this picture later
We stayed one night with a family in the town, where we were treated like royalty because of how weird and white we were. We had hot milk from a cow that had just had a calf 4 days before, lemon tea, corn mash (a labor intensive process), and half a liter of wild honey (and normal dinner and stuff: their farm's rice, spinach, radish pickle, kimchi). The next day they sent us off with boiled potatoes and an awesome soft sweet cheese that the town is famous for. We hiked for a few hours to the top, where there is a stunning view of the entire Himalayas from beginning to end. There is nothing higher in between, and it felt like we looked down on all of Nepal. We stayed on the top of the mountain to watch the sunset...
and simultaneously, the moon rise, directly over Everest (where it would be at least; it's back a "layer" in the Himalayas so you can't see it)(Pic stolen from gal with nice camera)
... camped overnight, and watched the sun rise over the Himalayas the next morning (and the moon set). It was an incredible experience that was impossible to take a bad picture of. I would say it more than made up for the perilous start in Kathmandu.
*******************************************
Whew! Sorry that was really long! I even left out a lot. Maybe next time I'll send stories as they happen instead of a 1 month recap. Or maybe not if that means typing them out on my phone because there's no wifi. I'll find out tomorrow when I arrive in Borneo, but I think I've used enough of this Kuala Lumpur Hostel's wifi for now, and I have an early flight to catch tomorrow morning and the last 6 ATMs haven't given me cash, so I'm not sure how I'll pay the taxi driver at 4am, but it's almost late enough (8:30 pm) to call Capital One when they open at 9 (convenient 12 hour difference, I guess I'm on "The Other Side of the World"). In other words: the adventure continues!
Feedback always appreciated. With this Malaysian SIM card I'll at least be reading your emails regularly, if not responding.
Onwards and upwards!
Colin
[Bonus email!]
Subj: Here it is...
Your moment of zen. Brought to you fresh from Nepal.
A beautiful recording of Krishna (my host in Nepal) chanting my favorite mantra. He has chanted every night for 12 years (lasting from 30 minutes to 2 hours) to bring peace to his mountain and the world. A week before I arrived his son saw the leopard walking down the mountain, and a deer walking up. They simply walked past each other in harmony. Krishna says they hear his songs. And now I'm sharing them with Youtube. That's gotta help right? Enjoy these two minutes. Feel free to watch again with your eyes closed.
(PS: It took me all day to upload this to Youtube in HD quality, so if you can, enjoy it really big)
