NEPAL!!!!

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Well here we are folks!!! At the end of another tour...today is our last day in Nepal, and again, we will have to politely request that you park it and get a snack..and maybe something to drink, cuz this is gunna be another long one...perhaps even longer then last time!!!

I should first start by properly concluding our final days in India. We had 4 days free in Delhi (and this was less then a week after a bomb went off within 1km of our hotel) so needless to say, the two of us were in a bit of a hurry to find somewhere to safely hibernate for a little while.
Ive always wanted to stay in an Ashram...do a little yoga, maybe try meditating out, so we contacted the Sri Arubindo Ashram of New Delhi, filled out their application form (yes, there was an interview process over the phone as well :-S ) and once we got the go-ahead we headed over.
(**FUN FACT**: an Ashram is a place of…what one could call worship, but its not for any one particular religion. Its more a place to contemplate life, meditate, do yoga, and in this case, listen to some of the wisdom Sri Arubindo had to offer through the readings that were done each morning.)

I'd now like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to anyone capable of properly meditating for any duration of time exceeding 15 minutes.
Below, I have compiled a short list of my thoughts, which will help guide you through my first real attempt at meditation:
**please picture with me, a quiet room, maybe 12-18 people sitting on pillows, all at least twice my age, dressed in the proper attire, backs straight as a board, legs crossed, eyes closed, hands perfectly relaxed and extended-resting on their knees, inscents are burning and its completely silent.
(Im there in my lululemons and a black tank top with a hot pink bra...IDIOT!)
ok so my thoughts were as follows:

1) ohmm...

2) ..think about silence, think about the color white...ohmmm

3) ...man its quiet in here.

4) *sniff sniff* - wow...the dude sitting next to me smells kinda funky!

5) ohmmm...come on Leanne, focus on being at one with the universe...

6) hmm I wonder whats for breakfast...Ill bet you theres people in the kitchen making it right now...

7) WHITE! ...just focus and think about the color white!

8) Nope, its for sure the guy sitting in front of me who smells off...

9) ohmm

10) oh jeeze..my legs have fallen asleep! hehee I cant feel my toes...are they still there??? :-· *peek with one eye just to make sure* ..yup they are. ok good.

11) SILENCE!! focus Leanne! how tuff could this be...

12) ohm..ohhmmmuffins!!!!!

And this all started maybe 10-15 minutes into my meditation session. As you can see, the internal conflict brought on by a variety of rather pressing issues prevented me from getting too deep into meditation, so its safe to say its a work in progress. I've decided meditation can be likened to Mom's meatloaf...full appreciation and a real taste for it can only be acquired over a certain amount of time...and a small amount of suffering ;-)

Moving along to Nepal now...

Our first couple days were spent in the capital, Kathmandu...and we cruised through the markets, meeting people, trying the food and seeing a couple of the historical monuments. (I think Jen's appreciation for these locations far exceeded my own...but I got to feed some pigeons at a 200year old temple, so that was kinda cool :-)

We took a flight up to Pokhara where we stayed at the Fishtail Lodge for one night before embarking on a little Himalaya-hiking!!! (It should be known that this lodge was a little slice of heaven. Totally secluded...we had to take a boat across a small river just to get to it. Placed at the foot of a little mountain, completely tucked away by tropical plants, trees, wildflowers... just gorgeous…and quite a nice change of pace from the loud and rather aggressive cities of Delhi and Kathmandu.

...And then the trekking began!!! To sum it up in three words:

We got high.

heehee!! not the marijuana-induced high...the sort of high that can only come after hauling ass up step after step, after steep sloap and endlessly winding path after path. We climbed to 2300m from sea level in our first day alone!! And trust me, when you climb to an altitude like that, and are deliriously tired from all the other traveling you've been doing...there’s no need for marijuana cuz we certainly got a serious case of the giggles from the endorphins that were flowing! (We put in 8 hours with four 5minute breaks that day, by the way) ...and after 5 days of trekking 6-8hours/day I feel it is appropriate to declare that the word "grueling" originated somewhere in the Himalayas.

The following 4 days were a lot of the same. Stairs, pathways, sweat like we have never seen before... we were literally ringing our shirts out and watching the sweat drip at the end of each day. I'd be lieing if I said we didn’t play "Eye of the Tiger" a few times on our mp3s.. and maybe dance a little, like Rocky Balboa when we reached the top of a winding path of 200-300 stairs...but as you will see in our photos...all the hard work was beyond worth the views -which words will do no justice.

At this point, it should be duely noted that there are more differences than similarities when comparing lifestyles and culture here to the lifestyle and culture at home, and it would be far more time efficient for us to point out the few similarities than to even attempt mentioning all the differences. But in essence, that’s the real beauty of this trip. So please enjoy this short, but amusing list of differences we have observed:

* The whole Concept of "privacy" is fairly obsolete. By this I mean the bathrooms and shower rooms both have windows. But they are not those fun tinted or stained-glass windows, or windows with that cool blurry ice-cube effect...no no, these aren’t even the windows with glass....OR CURTIANS!!!! They’re more like 2 x 2 square holes in the wall that allow air, noise, bugs, and a whole lot of prying eyes to enter freely!

*Food orders, any time of the day take 1 hour to prepare- no matter what you order. (When we were trekking in the mountains, sometimes it took closer to two.) This was because if we ordered anything with veggies...they literally went out into the backyard (which were crops) to pick them. SOO DELICIOUS!

* Power outages are a common occurrence...and happen 2-5 times per day. There is a scheduled power outage every evening here in Kathmandu around 5pm and it usually lasts a couple hours.
In the mountains, there isn’t any power during the days. It is saved up through solar generators and used for only a 2 hour period of time each evening.

*This lack of power in the mountains meant that our showers were only made warm by fire... (shower water would sit in a big tank which was over a big fire) heehee it was pretty much a giant stove with a giant pot of boiling water transferred through pipes and then through a shower head...so yes, it was unbearably hot. But the alternative is freezing cold water and in the evening time, in the mountains...its freaking cold, so an overly-hot shower was much more bearable.

After our trekking, Chitwan National Park was next. Home to more than 200 different kinds of wildlife including; rhinos, deer, peacocks, wild boars (soo cute) and the highly saught after Nepalese Tiger. We stayed at the Temple Tiger Lodge...which was even more remote than the Fishtail Lodge. It was a 40minute off-road truck ride, followed by a 25minute canoe across a river, then a 15minute safari jeep ride...which was slightly sketchy at one point as we crossed a bridge that looked to be around 286 years old...and was literally cracking under the weight of our jeep. (Starting to feel a little guilty about enjoying...and possibly over-indulging in all the ethnic foods :-$) Right at the end of that bridge the jeep stopped and I thought we stalled...or that an animal was crossing the path...but when we looked ahead to see what it was...it was two elephants waiting to bring us to the lodge.
Unbelievable. Both our jaws hit the ground when we saw them. Again, the pictures fall short of depicting the real life experience. Its tuff to capture just how beautiful and majestic these animals are. Their movements, mannerisms... their sheer size- just remarkable. (I have video footage of the ride which I will of course try to post...but its choppy and grainy..and it really just butchers the whole experience, but it might be worth a laugh!)

On our first elephant safari we came within 15 feet of a rhino!!! A real, live, in the wild...not caged in or in any way domesticated RHINO!! it was AMMAAAZING!!!! They’re freakin HUUGE!!! (and made us feel just a little bit better about over-indulging in all the ethnic foods.)

We spent three days there and are now back in Kathmandu. Of course no trip to Nepal would be complete without seeing Everest, and this morning that’s just what we did! We took a flight that went over 6 of the 10 highest mountains in the world...and yet again, we have pictures... but Ill give you fair warning that my $150 camera doesn’t do so well shooting objects 3000feet away through the thickass plastic windows of an airplane!!! (But you all can use your imaginations.)

We have today and tomorrow to spend going through the markets…meeting new people and perhaps eating more food :-) and then tomorrow night we're off to Beijing!!

If you have made it this far, I'd like to congratulate you on the accomplishment!! Jen has assumed the fetal position and has started a rather sizeable pool of drool in her deep slumber :-P

As I am sure you all have noticed, there is again, a seriously scarce amount of photos attached to this long ramble...there is a good reason though!! In my attempts to add photos in both India and Nepal, I have found that the computers are rather hungry ones. They like to eat things...like time...and PHOTOS!!!!!!!!! Every time I have attempted to hook up my camera or Jens camera to a computer, pictures go missing...so when we go to view them a little blue screen pops up instead and says "photo error! Corrupt file!" This is obviously a situation beyond my mechanical capacity...so I shall leave it to the experts in Beijing to solve!!! We have two days to ourselves there to shop for knock-offs and most certainly get someone to help us find a trustworthy computer capable of downloading our pictures safely!
Trust us, we are just as eager to share our experience, as you are to see it!!

That’s all for now... and again, I apologize for serving up a sizeable meal followed by no dessert...but mark my words...we will shower you all with a dessert like no other in a couple days!!! Wonderous pictures of amazing animals...and places...and people :-)

Take care everyone!!

xoxo

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