Trekking in Nepal

Aaahhhhh.....home again. No, not the place I was born.....Im back in Asia =) It just feels so familiar being here, even though Im in Nepal, a country Ive never visited before!
And it was quite an adventure getting here. It was cheaper to fly from Jordan than from Israel, but it turns out its quite inconvenient to get to Jordan! Israelis dont generally travel there so no one knew how to get to the border! Once I got my hands on a guide book that gave me the right info, I began the 5 hour journey that took me on a smelly mini bus to the border, through 3 long ass lines that would allow me to leave the country (one was to pay a tax to get out!!!!), on another bus across the border to the customs building that allows entry to Jordan and finally in a taxi to the airport. Luckily for me, I met some nice Aussies heading to the airport who let me squeeze into their taxi for free. Benefit of being small #1! So I might have saved some money, but all that was not really worth the hassle!!
I had a layover in Qatar (still not really sure where that is) and coincidentally so did Lindsay - my Nepal travel partner. It would have worked out perfectly except that she was booked on a 1 am flight to Kathmandu and I was on the 9 am the next morning. Batting my eyes at the nice Qatar man did me no good as her flight was full. So we had to separate again and meet up in Kathmandu. While my persistence (I'll admit it was more like badgering that flirting) didnt get me on the earlier flight, it did somehow get me upgraded to first class on my flight! Whoever said money cant buy you happiness, doesnt have any....first class is heaven!!! But dont worry, the 4 hours of bliss wasnt enough to change me. I got right back to arguing with a taxi driver over price when I landed in Kathmandu. It turned out my efforts were for nothing because I looked up and there was Lindsay. We had arranged to meet at a certain hostel but on her flight she met an American who was originally from Nepal, coming back to visit family. He took her to meet them for the day and then brought her back to the airport to pick me up in hopes we would stay with his family rather than go to a hostel. Lindsay seemed to trust him and Im always open to experiences I cant read about in the Lonely Planet, so we accepted his invitation.
The family had a huge house with about 3 guest bedrooms and 2 young girls who looked after it all. They cooked every meal for us and cleaned up after us and we didnt even have to bargain! The only drawback was that it was quite a far walk from the tourist area, which is where we had to go to find out about trekking and to eat anything other than the dal bhat they served us (which is rice, lentils and potatoes)! We got so sick of it that one night we bought pasta and showed them how to cook it (although they ignored us and fried the pasta sauce anyways!)
Kathmandu was an interesting city due to the huge contrast between old and new. There are people walking around in traditional Nepali outfits and people in jeans. There are small huts whos roofs are being held down with rocks and huge houses built from concrete. There are mules transporting goods and Range Rovers transporting the rich. Some people seem to know its the 21st century while others are happy obliviously living in the 19th. One kid gave me the sad "im a starving poor boy look" and asked for a cookie and when i said i didnt have he touched my ass instead. As if i owed him something and he would take it in the form of harrassment if need be!
Thamel is the tourist area of the city....its a labrynth of narrow , badly paved streets lined with vendors basically selling one of 5 things....trekking clothes, books, food, souvenirs or tours. This being peak season, there is an abundance of tourists and for some reason people are brave enough to try and drive their bikes, rickshaws and even taxis down these streets. So never mind do you have to watch out for people and hawkers, but you have to be ware of vehicles as well. And the hawkers are actually the worst. the constant honking is annoying but hearing people bring up their phlegm every 10 seconds ad then avoid the spit hitting your feet as you maneouver around the traffic is quite tiring!! But the array of western and Nepali food makes up for all that! there's even a middle eastern place with hebrew writing on the menu that sells hummus and babaganush!

Here are a few more things Ive observed about Nepal:
1)The adult generation is quite traditional and respectful while my generation seems to be unmindful of their culture. They walk around in jeans and hoodies looking like they are ready to enter the Western world. The family that hosted us was more than gracious, and wouldnt even accept a gift as a thank you. While their son asked us for payment in US dollars for his and his friends service every time he took us out.
2)Reasons for honking: to announce your arrival at an intersection, when passing another vehicle, when going around a bend, when you want a dog-cow-chicken-goat-person...to get out of the way... However no one can actually tell whos doing the honking since its coming from everyone!
3)I have yet to see a real traffic accident, somehow, yet when theres a near accident, both drivers feel the need to get out of their cars to yell at the other. So all traffic is stopped, since they dont pull over to do this but just get out of their cars in the middle of the road and anyone within earshot gathers around to join in.
4)Cows are more respected than people so they are allowed to roam freely and poo where they wish. I havent seen many sights because Ive spent most of my time here looking down to avoid stepping on cow poo!
5)Garbage disposals dont exist so garbage is burnt on the sides of the roads once the pile gets big enough.
6)People are generally happy and pleasant but not as accepting of their fate as other Asian cultures. I would assume its due to the influx of tourists, but locals here seem to be very aware of opportunities in the western world and unhappy with the fact that their fates are sealed. Most Nepali men in Pokhara for example are destined to be porters or guides. So they spend most of their time with travelers from all over the world who are spending more per day than they make in a month.
7)This country attracts all types. Its not limited to young party goers like the majority of other Asian countries, but older people and families as well. We encountered so many people along our trek, it was inspiring. Should I ever choose to do it again, I now know 70 is not too old....and it might take me that long to build up the courage to do it again!
8)The country suffers from power outages at least once a day. No one knows exactly when theyll take place or how long theyll last! Usually we experienced about 2 hours of it every night around 7 pm.
9)I see kids everywhere, but very few pregnant women.
10)Everthing runs on "Nepali Time" which means if someone tells you to comeback in half an hour they really mean 3 hours!
11)Nepalis will NOT say "no." Instead they will give you the runaround until you get tired and give up but at least they have saved face from admitting they dont know the answer or dont have what you are looking for! This, at times, can be ridiculously frustrating! They will also never giev you a simple answer. If I need simple directions, like, do i go left or right, its never less than a 10minute discussion. if you go into a shop, they will say sit down and befor they answer your questions they have 5 of their own such as "Where are you from, where are you staying, have you been trekking" and so on!
12)Most local restaurants have Pepsi products while restaurants with western food have Coke (stupid thing to notice but i like mountain dew and all the local places have it!!)
13)Men and boys will hold hands with someone of the same sex but not the opposite. And they do it quite frequently...I'll very often walk down the street and see two boys holding hands or just linking fingers.

As interesting as Kathmandu was, we had to get out just to escape the fumes in the air. The exhaust from the "older than my great aunt" tuk-tuks and the burning garbage made for a dusty and un-breathable environment that was just too much for our clean lungs to handle. So we left for Pokhara, an 8 hour bus ride west. Its a much smaller city and much prettier as it surrounds a lake and the surrounding mountains are so close it feels as though i can reach out and touch them. Unfortunately even with this natural beauty, it still has the garbage and cow poo all over! None the less, we were happy to be in the city where we could start our trek. Luckily we met an Israeli girl who introduced us to the cheapest trekking agency. She also showed us every cheap place to eat, where to get Israeli prices on trekking equipment (which really turned out to be the cheapest) and where the Chabad was, which came in handy when I had a cold....I went there to ask if anyone knew of a trustworthy Nepali doctor and to my surprise, one of the Israelis was a doctor and checked me for free and even gave me tylenol and cough drops!! Unfortunately Mom, she was female, not male, so no, I didnt meet a Jewish doctor to bring home. So now, we only go to places with hebrew writing, since we know well get no bullshit, decent quality product!

Although I was only prepared to trek for a few days, it turns out the 3-4 day treks dont bring you to anything too special but the 10 day treks to Annapurna Base Camp bring you up to 4130 metres and give you incredible views of the whole Annapurna range. So, since id come this far, and Lindsay was up for it, I opted to not be the pussy of the group and spend 10 days walking in the himalayas. And it turns out sometimes taking a risk really is worth it. Somehow my body pushed through and the mountain views were magnificent. Ill probably never do it again, but thats the definition of a once in a lifetime experience, right!! We trekked everyday from around 8 am to 3 pm, depending on what time we dragged ourselves out of bed. Lindsay quickly got accustomed to my grumpy morning demeanour and I made sure to go to sleep early enough that my body was ready for a day of hiking in the morning. And somehow my body persisted day after day. Each day usually had a bit of walking up and a bit of down. And we always took unusually long lunch breaks to recharge! The scenery changed with each day. At times we walked along the edge of the mountain, joking about how stupid we would feel if we were to fall off but that it seemed totally plausible! Then we would spend a day walking through the mountain in what felt like a jungle straight out of a movie. Usually to get from one mountain to the other we could never simply walk around in a straight line, the path would take us down into the valley, across the river and then back up the next mountain. Sometimes we could see straight across to where we were headed but it still took 3 hours to get there. For those afraid of heights, stick to the small hills in Quebec. There were times we had to cross suspension bridges 100 metres long and probably 200 metres up! At night, we slept at lodges in the villages. There are villages all over the mountains, some as close as 30 minutes walk from each other.....ok 30 minutes for us, probably 10 for the Nepalis. Kids in small villages walked to the larger ones for school.....about 30 minutes for them each day, there and back. And we think we have it hard, having to walk to the bus stop! These villages had running water and most people even had cell phones, but for the most part, the villagers lived very primitive lives. They all raised goats and chickens and lived in basic huts with no more than 300 people to a village. Passing through one town, I felt like I had been taken back to another time when I saw a cow pulling a plow! I know that these villages can stay as pure as they are because of their distance from urban life, but if only they were closer I would love to live in one!!!! Having been raised in a big city though, I just cant imagine being a 2 days walk from civilization. And one must walk.....there is no road leading past about 1500 metres up. The food on the trek was amazing. We assumed it would be all Nepali....but where there are tourists, there is western food! And we decided to pay for everything beforehand (the guide, accommodation and food), rather than take money with us on the trek. So all food was included in the price, which meant for once we didnt have to look at prices, we could order whatever we wanted. And we did...we had soup before the meal, dessert after and I usually found some guy to give my leftovers to! I think I ate about one pizza per day and almost as much chicken. Aside from that it was a lot of pasta and spring rolls and eggs for breakfast. Maybe thats how my body survived the long days!

I think what made the trek doable for me, was having a porter...trekking is one thing but carrying my bag is a whole other! It made the experience so much more enjoyable! Except for the fact that he kept finding my snacks in my bag and eating them! Even after i told him i would share with him but that he couldnt just eat all my food, he would still look at me in the morning and giggle and say those cookies were really filling, i ate them all last night! We chose to simply reflect our anger in his tip! The bad part about all that extra food was the one night we left a bad of nuts out and a little mouse throught it made a great dinner. Being highly sensitive to the sound of a mouse eating at plastic, i immediately jumped up and woke lindsay.....because im still not man enough to take care of a mouse myself! So we both freaked out and through the bag outside. But the stupid mouse didnt realize it was gone and it kept coming back. Wed had enough after it ran over both of our heads and decided to sleep in the dining hall with all the porters!

On our route back, we made sure to stop at the hot springs. The last day of all down hill was pretty brutal so we just repeated hot springs to each other! And they were worth it! That, and the massage i got back in Pokhara helped the muscles get back to normal. Well, the new normal.....my calves have never been this big before!!!!!
Youd think we would have learnt from the mouse incident, but the night we got back it got worse. There were still crumbs of nuts and raisins in the pocket of my backpack and after hours of leaving the room for dinner and internet time, swarms of aunts and cockroaches invaded my bag. As we came in a huge cockroach came with us and led us right to the others who quickly scattered. But seeing 15 mini ones at once was too much for us to handle so we quickly packed up our stuff and got the hell out! Luckily since then, weve stayed at relatively clean places.

After a few days of relaxation, we took a 3 day rafting trip down the Kaligandaki river. Since we signed up with the same place as we did the trekking with, our group was made up of 35 Israelis and 3 non-Israelis aside from me and Lindsay. It was like going back a month to being in Israel! For 3 days we basically rafted and ate! It was pretty amazing how organized it was. We stopped for lunch and to camp out at night, at cleared spots along the river. From nothing but flat land, we set up tents and cooking areas and suddenly it was a campsite! And with the digging of a hole and a tarp held up by paddles, we had toilets! One boat had all the food so it would arrive a little before everyone else. And then the staff and most of the tourists would help prepare the food and within an hour, a meal for 50 was ready. Along the river were tiny villages and rice fields. We would see the locals walking along the small paths on the edge of the mountain to work or go to school. What was amazing was that we would arrive at around 4 to set up camp for the night and then at around 6 it would be dark. and there was nothing to do but sit and talk and eat. and when it was dark enough, look up at the stars...and there were plenty to liook at since we were in the middle of nowhere wth no light clouding the view. It was so peaceful to be away from a city, with no noise, no tv, no internet, no distractions....nothing at all. Just meeting new people and having conversations about anything.

Last week in Nepal was the Dipawali festival....the festival of lights. So every night the locals would light candles outside their shops and gather in large groups to listen to music and dance in the streets. of course the streets werent blocked off for this so cars were constantly honking their way through!

I think one of the most amazing things I've learnt about Nepali people is that they dont seem to measure being rich by how much money they have. They see fortune through relationships. I guess that is why they always want to have conversations and sit with you for tea, rather than just sell you a tshirt. Its really nice. It makes me realize how obssessed western culture is with time.....time is money right? and i feel really bad every time I ignore a vendor because I dont wanna waste my time being friendly, instead i wanna get to where i am going.....but in reality, i am in nepal, where do i really have to go on such a strict schedule??!! And alas, I no w understand the definition of "Nepali Time". No one seems to get anywhere on time since they are constantly stopped at every turn saying hi to a friend!

This past week, before heading to India, I was supposed to be volunteering here. But it turned out the woman I had arranged to volunteer with was more interested in my marrying her brother and bringing him to Canada than she was in my doing volunteer work! Figuring this out in the first hour of meeting her, I quickly realized it wasnt gonna work and caught the bus back to Kathmandu. Unfortunately it takes a week to get an Indian visa here (well, this week it does because of a holiday), so ive been chillin in Thamel awaiting my visa's arrival tomorrow. Ive met some cool people who have made this week pass rather quickly. I got to see some other areas outside of Kathmandu with a US journalist living here and have met some cool locals through her. I went to a Halloween party with her friends. I went to the monkey temple one day and got attacked by one of the older, bigger monkeys trying to steal my camera! And i met a cool Texan couple who live in a city close to the Indian border. I was planning on stopping at their house for a day on my way to the border, which would have been a nice break in the 17 or so hour bus ride. But it turns out November is the time the Maouists have declared they will protest and strike throughout the country without actually specifying where and when.....they are organized enough to say they will do it but still rebellious enough not to say when! And it turns out sometimes their protests come in the form of road blocks. Since I didnt wanna take a chance of getting stuck in the country side until they decided to unblock the roads (which could take days or weeks) I decided to fly. So Wednesday, I flew out to a city called Daran and tomorrow I will finally make my way across the Indian border =)
Can't wait to tell you all about my adventures there....

Namaste

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