Nepal

Hello all,

I can’t believe it’s already Sunday – my ‘recovery week’ has absolutely flown by…and I have zero lessons prepared. Oops. This week I have another day of deskwarming on Monday, then a holiday (day off – Independence Day from the Japanese occupation when they surrendered to America in 1945) on Tuesday before starting the new semester on Wednesday. I can’t really conceive teaching proper lessons again at the moment, that’s one of those ‘save for later’ thoughts. This weekend I hosted some of my teacher friends from out of town who I hadn’t seen since Christmas – since then we’ve all dispersed and explored quite a bit of Asia all put together, so it was be fun to see everyone again, catch up, and exchange stories.

As promised, I’ll post about my Nepal experience today and show you some pictures! By the way, I have no control over the picture formatting - it always looks fine when I put everything together, but then when I 'publish' the post there are all sorts of funky spaces and blank spots - I apologize. I don't know how to fix it - anyone who uses blogspot is welcome to give me some advice. Just to warn you: it’s long. Read with caution. Take a break here and there. Space it out. Read some and come back to it later if you want. Breathe. Here we go.

Technically, I had seven days in Nepal – not nearly enough time, but I certainly packed a lot in. I had no idea what to expect, but I don’t think much could have prepared me for the crazy country that is Nepal. As a side note, I actually had my first introduction to South Asian culture on the plane from Guangzhou, China, (where I had a two hour layover - we had to walk outside to board the plane, so I'm going to officially say I’ve set foot in China) thanks to my seat neighbor. He was my first observance of the common South Asian pastime of incessantly picking one’s nose in public - at times I was so disturbed that I held my Sudoku puzzle up so that it blocked my peripheral view. You can imagine my delight when he asked to borrow my pen to fill out the immigration card. I mentally forgave him a bit the next day when I was out walking around and realized it wasn’t just him – it was eighty percent of the male population. I was quick to judge, as he turned out to be a very nice guy, but then when I chatted to him just before landing, I picked up on another cultural tendency – the head waggle. It’s really hard to describe, but basically by nodding one’s head from side to side, (like moving your ear towards your shoulder, then switching sides) in South Asia this means yes, yes I agree, or sure. Go ahead, try it. It was so strange because I interpreted moving the head from side to side to mean no, yet usually the person was saying yes. At first I thought my neighbor had an endearing little head twitch problem, but when I landed at the airport and started speaking to some of the airport guys at immigration, I quickly realized that again, it wasn’t just him. It’s kind of cute, but kind of confusing at the same time.

I woke up early in Kathmandu after my flight from Seoul, and was ready to begin exploring the city! I stayed in the area called Thamel, which is known as the ‘tourist location,’ packed full of guesthouses, cafes, restaurants, shops advertising trekking expeditions and trips to Tibet, money exchangers, bookstores, trekking stores, and shops. My very first morning I decided to change guesthouses, as my hostel people weren’t very friendly and I quickly realized that despite my research, the location I chose wasn’t the most convenient. So, I packed up and set off to explore. I ended up getting extremely lucky by asking a foreigner for some directions…it turned out that was his eighth trip to Nepal and he had lived in Kathmandu for a short period of time. He helped me with directions, a guesthouse, and even showed me the way up to my first sightseeing destination: Swayambunath, also known as the Monkey Temple, for obvious reasons. Swayambunath is an important Buddhist and Hindu temple area – in Nepal these two religions are so intermixed that they typically use the same places for worship. Notice the two eyes (the all seeing eyes of the Buddha) on each side of the stupa, and the funny looking question mark symbol for a nose – this is the Nepali symbol for one, to signify unity. The entire area was busy with worshippers and pilgrims, with Nepali music and religious chanting music in the background. It was a nice sunny day out, and the brightly colored prayer flags were strung up all over the place – in Buddhism, it is believed that when the wind blows and ripples the prayer flags, it sends the prayers up to heaven – one of my favorite concepts of the religion.

My next destination for the afternoon was Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. Durbar Square basically means palace complex, and it was made up of dozens of impressive looking temples, shrines, statues, and of course, the king’s palace. Unfortunately, my experience was a bit distorted, as the area was full of people – Nepali and tourists alike, and whenever I tried to stand still or sit somewhere for even a few minutes to read through my notes about what I was looking at, some little guy would come up to me and start yapping at me about what I was looking at, hoping to get me interested enough to pay him to be my guide. No thank you. I ended up wandering around quickly and sneaking into little quiet corners where I could read and research in peace, without much luck. As a result, I don’t really know the names or significance of some of these temples offhand, but the area was definitely impressive. The white building is the former king's palace - called Hanuman Dhoka. Most of the temples are Hindu, and have played significant roles in Kathmandu’s history for many centuries. Nepal is still quite traditional, and it was only a decade ago that Nepal still had a ruling king – since then there has been a Maoist government takeover, and in 2006 Nepal was first announced as a secular state, thus ending its status as a Hindu kingdom.

The next day I spent exploring more of Kathmandu – I walked around Thamel and the old city for a while, getting used to hearing the constant beeping of taxi and motorbike horns, saying ‘no thank you’ automatically to anyone who spoke to me, as they were always street sellers, and experiencing a stinging in my nose due to the extreme pollution. Most of the city was low to the ground – only three or four stories at the most, with small little shops lining the streets, and open marketplaces in the central intersections known as chowks (pictured below.) There were also little temples and shrines along the road everywhere I turned, many with offerings of flowers, candles, and fruits. Every morning the Hindu women leave the house to make offerings at a certain shrine, then return home with blessings for the family and give them all the tika, the red mark on the forehead, which gives them blessings for the day. In Nepal I also began what I like to call ‘sari spotting,’ which was fun – it basically involved observing and looking at all of the women’s saris, all brightly colored, many sparkling, and all beautiful – to find my favorite one. If the women weren’t wearing saris, the other typical dress was a kurta, or a long shirt with slits in the side over matching pants, and usually accompanied by a matching scarf. The men typically wore pants and button down shirts.

That afternoon I headed to Bhaktapur, which is called the ‘medieval city,’ for its phenomenal architecture and city layout on the hills. If you’ve ever heard of or seen the movie Little Buddha, with Keanu Reeves, you might be interested to learn it that the majority of it was filmed in Bhaktapur. It was located about 20 miles outside the city center, and the entire drive there we shared the road with cows, dogs, people on bikes, people carrying things on their heads, schoolchildren in uniform, and women in saris. I liked Bhaktapur immediately, mostly due to the lesser crowds and smaller space of Durbar Square. I ended up negotiating a guide price down to about two dollars for a half hour tour (I didn’t want one originally, but this guy was persistent and I finally gave in, mostly to keep all the other guides from bothering me.) I must admit, I am glad he took me around, however, mostly because he took me beyond the city center to some of the back streets, which provided me with a good internal map of Bhaktapur – as a result, when we parted ways, I was able to wander back through the streets on my own and orient myself accordingly. After my guide departed, I spent a wonderful hour by myself wandering aimlessly, observing people in their daily lives. I saw kids playing with hoops and sticks, moms gossiping as they bought vegetables from the markets, teenage kids still in their uniforms hanging out, cows, dogs, goats, and chickens roaming the streets, people sitting in their doorways just chatting or observing, and people working on handicrafts in the afternoon sunshine. I was struck by a strong sense of community, as many of the people did most of their work outside and chatted together. I really enjoyed smiling at people who stared and was rewarded with some great smiles back, especially from the kids, who usually were bold enough to say hi to me, the women, who never tried to talk to me on the streets, and from the older people with missing teeth – those were some great smiles. I greeted everyone with Namaste, the word for both hello and goodbye, like Aloha. Since not many tourists usually wander the backstreets there weren’t really any tourist shops, so I was pretty much left alone, happy to wander and observe.

The next day I headed to Pokhara on a 7 AM bus – though the bus was freezing cold and I had to wrap many layers around myself to keep warm, (Nepal was really chilly every night and every morning – I developed a cold my first week there because they don’t heat the rooms and kept waking up sniffling) all my discomfort went away as we traveled about 20 miles outside the city (Pokhara is northwest of Kathmandu) and the ground, as I like to say, appeared to drop out from underneath the road, revealing an expansive, beautiful valley with rolling hills, terraced fields, and little houses and villages dotting the landscape. Best seven hour bus trip I’ve ever been on. Not only was the view amazing, but I was also able to see and observe the traditional Nepali valley lifestyle. I saw women and children working in the fields, women collecting water in buckets from the springs, people bathing or washing clothes in the river, makeshift housing, cows and goats roaming around the fields, school kids having class outside, and people going about their daily tasks and chores. I felt like I had been transported back to medieval times, but it was all real and it was all right there in front of me.

Pokhara was a beautiful, lakeside city – unfortunately, there was a marked tourist ‘spot’ that had all of the guesthouses, shops, and restaurants, so I wasn’t able to get to see much of the actual city - but the touristy lakeside was beautiful, (the picture is of the Lakeside strip from around the lake) right in the middle of a mountain valley at the start of the Annapurna Himalaya range – Pokhara is the general ‘launch pad’ to begin the Annapurna circuit trek, which takes a minimum of two or three weeks to complete. It was mostly cloudy so I wasn’t able to see the Himalayas until the very last day when I was leaving on the bus back, but the lower foothills were still really pretty to see. I spent a lot of time walking around the lake, reading or writing while drinking milk tea (hot, milky, sweet flavorful tea - yummm), or eating delicious Nepali food (rice and curry is the typical staple meal) and even did a little bit of hiking on the easily marked trails (I just followed the tourists.) On my hike to the World Peace Pagoda (where I was scared out of my mind while hiking through the forest on the rock path by a cow popping out of the trees right in front of me), I lucked out and met two Danish girls who were taking a ‘tourist day’ break from their time studying Buddhism at the nearby monastery – we ended up getting tea, then heading back to town for lunch, and then they invited me back to the monastery to witness a puja ceremony. How could I turn down such an experience?

And an experience it was. It was a ceremony open to the public, and there were a few other tourists there, watching the amazing 45 minute ceremony – about three dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks (there are six Tibetan refugee camps in Pokhara alone) all sat cross legged at low tables with prayer chants in front of them. There were big loud drums, gongs, cymbals, and trumpet like long horns that were played at certain intervals – it was amazing. Quite the show. A puja ceremony is to give special offerings to ask for protection against obstacles as you continue to seek Enlightenment – it was important for me to keep reminding myself that in Buddhism there is no actual worship of the Buddha, as there is no one all powerful God, but that the true power lies in yourself to reach Enlightenment, or nirvana. The Buddha, as the Great Teacher, serves as a reminder and inspiration for to continue to follow along the path, but you can give offerings and prayers for help along the way. That’s my very basic understanding of Buddhism, thanks to one of the books I picked up in Kathmandu, and it was so interesting to see it in practice. This is a picture of the monastery and temple. Afterwards I was able to meet some of the younger monks and have tea with them and the girls – the monks attend school and study English just like any other subject, so it was fun to talk with them and learn about their life in Nepal. I also had a peek-a-boo session with the most adorable Tibetan baby in the world – he happened to be all decked out in bright blue, my kind of kid.

My time in Pokhara was too short, of course, and two days later I headed back on the morning bus again – this time rewarded with a view of the snow peaked Himalayas peeking out from above the valley ridges. I spent my last afternoon in Nepal at two more important holy sites just outside the Kathmandu city center: first up, the Bodhnath stupa, which is an Buddhist landmark that Tibetans, on their way back to Lhasa on the trading route, would pray at for a safe journey. It was huge and very impressive – the whitewashed dome is supposed to represent the earth, and the yellow paint is supposed to represent lotus flower petals. The thirteen tiers above the Buddha’s face represent the thirteen stages of life a Buddhist must go through to reach Enlightenment. The giant prayer wheels have the same significance as the prayer flags - when you take your hand and spin them they are supposed to send your prayers up to heaven. Also, at stupas you can only walk around them clockwise and you must remove your shoes before entering certain areas. Bodhnath was definitely impressive, and so large that I was able to spot it from the plane as I flew out of Kathmandu the following day.

Next, I walked about 20 minutes back towards the city center to Pashupatiniath Temple, a very important Hindu holy site. Pashupatinath is Shiva’s holy site, and the temple located there is the oldest in Kathmandu. (unfortunately my camera battery died as I was walking up to the temple…I apologize.) You can Google it! In the Hindu religion, there is a trinity of deities: Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. I didn’t have enough daylight left to properly see the whole complex, but all of the small little shrines in the pictures are dedicated to Shiva. Pashupatinath is also the location of a sacred Hindu cremation site on the Bagmati River, so there were cremation ceremonies going on while I was there. Of course, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the cremation, but you can see the smoke rising from beyond the temples and people looking down at the ceremony below.

I said goodbye to Kathmandu that evening by wandering the streets of Thamel a bit more, stopping by the bookstore, picking up a few little souvenirs, and eating something delicious, I’m sure – everything I tried was delicious. Traditional Nepali food is dhal baat, dhal meaning lentils and baat meaning rice ‘meal.’ Basically rice and curry, with about three or four different kinds of curry to mix and match with, topped off with a serving of curd, which is yogurt – it’s the end part of the meal, a good compliment to the spicy curry.

The next morning was my last morning in Kathmandu…and I have a surprise for you. I ended up being offered a discount deal on an Everest flight – and I agreed to it. I hadn’t even considered doing something like that, due to the cost, but a Nepali man I ended up meeting in Kathmandu had a friend who owns one of the budget airlines that offers mountain flights. He said I would have to pay 70 dollars – I just looked up the price on the Internet and discovered that it’s originally 160 – so I called that a deal, figured I’d never have the chance again for a long time, and spontaneously decided to go for it. Well, my first attempt was Friday morning, and we ended up turning around in the air after seeing only two peaks due to the incoming cloud cover – they said we wouldn’t see a thing. Luckily, they let me try again Tuesday morning, and this time, though it was delayed an hour and a half due to foggy conditions, the flight was a success. The pilot let us come up one by one to look out of the cockpit window at Everest - it's the taller peak on the left. It was also so incredible to see the snow capped Himalaya range – they were absolutely beautiful. It was just like National Geographic episode. After my thrilling mountain flight I walked about 200 meters next door to the international airport with my backpack and settled in to wait until my 2 PM flight to Varanasi, India. As I talked to some other outbound travelers and compared trips, I realized that there was so much more I wish I had time to see – I would love to go back if I had the chance. I learned so much about Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism, Nepali tradition, and I was fascinated by the wide array of colors, sights, sounds, and smells (sometimes I didn’t enjoy the smells though) that was so different than anything I’d ever experienced before. My last glimpse of Nepal was of the impressive Himalaya range through the window of the plane - I said my mental goodbye, then settled back for the hour long plane to Varanasi. Next stop, India!