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Published: November 22nd 2007
The Beginning of the Journey
On the bus at 6:30 am and ready to go.Other fun things mentioned in this entry include:
- Watching a beheading
- Almost being beheaded
- Laundry disasters
- Abnormal amounts of semi-nakedness
- Aliens
- 180 chocolate bars
- Landslides
Now that I hopefully have your attention, we'll get to the story and the title and the items above will be explained in due time...unfortunately, it's likely that the explanations will be letdowns compared to the possibilities. Also unfortunately, I believe I'm taking my long-windedness to new levels in this one. There's just too much to tell. So make a new cup of coffee, get comfortable, make sure the boss isn't around, and enjoy.
When we last met, I had said I was about to head off to go trekking in the mountains. As is the trend...that's not what happened...sorta. I did do a bit of trekking in some mountains, but much different than planned.
There's truly no way I can possibly do a proper job of relating this experience to you, but here's my best shot.
After our VIN activities for the day - Marie, Romi, and I would try to practice our small amount of new Nepali language skill with the staff at
the hotel. I had told one of the guys there - Hemraj - that I was going to the Annapurna Circuit...to which he replied that he was going trekking too...to his small remote village for
Dashain - one of the main Hindu festivals here in Nepal. Then he suggested that I should join him rather than doing the AC. I thought it sounded like it would be really cool, but didn't seriously consider it because I knew I wanted to do Annapurna and wouldn't have time for both. Also...it just sounded a bit nutty to head off to a village with some guy I didn't know at all.
Two days before I was to leave for Annapurna, he mentioned it again and I again explained to him how I didn't have time & really couldn't do it. As the day wore on I started to think about it more and was wondering what the crap I was thinking...how many times have I mentioned that I wanted to get more off the beaten track and do out-of-the-way things? How could I
not do this? How could I make this happen and still do Annapurna? The things in the way were
my 60-day Nepal visa, the inevitable crunch on my time in the destinations to follow, and my scheduled start for teaching with VIN at the beginning of November.
To address the visa issue I would simply need to pay an extra $30 to get a 30 day extension. But the problem was that staying here an extra month would squeeze my time in the next country. I eventually decided that there wasn't any reason to not try to go for this unique experience in exchange for time somewhere else later on. Then I talked to Bhupi and he said it wouldn't be a problem for me to push my start time back a couple of weeks. So with all that sorted out, I told Hemraj to hook me up with a bus ticket and I'd get packing. Small town Nepal - here I come.
All the staff (who were all related to each other) of the hotel kept telling me
"You so lucky. Now you seeing real Nepal. The water in my village tastes like milk." I did feel lucky...but I'd settle for the water just not tasting like anything at all. The final advice being...
"When you going The Roof Gang
This was actually the day where the roof was less crowded. The next day we had about 35 folks up there along with the luggage. toilet, you go far away. Somebody coming." For some reason, the -ing ending is way overused by Nepalis...but I took note to going far away when I going toilet. (The implication, of course, being that they don't have toilets in the houses).
The Emperor's (or dead King's) New Clothes Right...packing. This didn't turn out to be the simple exercise I thought it would be. I gave my laundry to the hotel desk in the morning...and at about 3:30 that day I was hanging out in the lobby/common-room-thingy and the manager says "Can I talk to you for a minute?"..."Umm...sure."
He points to a pile of bags of washed laundry and says, "Your laundry is not here." I was certain that he must have meant that it was just somewhere else (which I guess is technically true), but it turns out that the laundry guy just simply didn't have my bag of stuff when he got back to the hotel with it. They explained that a guy picks up all the washing and ties it to the back of his bike (fairly standard here...they overload everything by tying stuff to vehicles, bikes, backs, animals, etc) and my bag must
End of the Road
Time to get the shoes back on our feet and our packs on our backs...we're heading off into the rice fields. have fallen off. Despite going back twice he was unable to find it. Sweet. So now it's 4pm and I'm supposed to head off at 5:30am for 2 weeks and they've lost most of my clothes.
The casualty list:
- 6 shirts (3 of which were high quality merino wool...a fabric that doesn't accumulate odor...perfect for backpacking and trekking. Can't replace that here.)
- 6 boxer shorts (my entire supply)
- 1 mesh shorts (no biggie)
- 2 convertible trekking pants (again, my entire supply)
- 2 pair socks (no biggie)
Thanks to those items for their faithful service. I hope they find themselves in good hands.
The conversation that followed was a little complex and aggravating, to say the least, but I tried to keep a good humor about it all and realize that it's just another part of the journey and that getting mad wouldn't help. As mentioned in the previous entry, the Thamel area is well stocked with trekking gear shops full of fake gear. So off we went to replace all my good stuff with crappy stuff. Certainly I'd rather have equivalent replacements, but some things weren't available here and I had a
Let the Trek Begin
Shortly after we left the bus and entered the rice paddys. Shoes still dry at this point. hard time demanding that a really poor Nepali laundry guy fork over more than $300 for my stuff.
Once that was sorted out, Hem and I headed off to the local market to buy a sari as a gift for his Mom. This was humorous for several reasons.
1 - Being the day before all of Nepal semi-shuts down for Dashain,
everyone was out and about shopping in the local markets. We had to swim through the insane crowds of bartering Nepalis on the narrow streets.
2 - The power was out...naturally.
3 - A couple of dudes shopping for a dress-like garment. Need I say more?
I was counting on Hem to have a clue...but he didn't. We just sat there as store owners kept pulling dozens of saris of varying color, quality, etc off the shelves and assuring us that it was the best, they'd guarantee the quality, and give us a good price (the standard discussion when buying anything here). We finally pulled the trigger and called it a night.
Up early the next day we were at the bus station by 6:30 amid a chaotic scene of multicolored overcrowded buses with the most
annoying horns ever invented. Our stuff was tossed on the roof and we crammed into our Nepali sized seats. To be clear..."we" is actually a threesome of a Danish dude named Christopher (also roped into this gig by Hem), Hemraj, and me.
Ridin' High I owe several apologies to the slow airport bus in Bangkok. It's not anywhere near the slowest bus in the world. Every bus in Nepal holds that distinction...so far. As we were leaving town, it literally took us nearly 3 hours to go approximately 4km. During this time I ventured up to the roof to have a look around. Turns out that many Nepalis ride on the roof...and it also turns out that I spent the rest of the day up there with 25 or so other folks.
Riding on the roof? Yeah...nothing is ever full in Asia...there's always more room. So rather than just fill the seats - fill every possible bit of space on the bus with people...roof included. I've attached a few photos to help illustrate this.
Since this day was the Nepali travel equivalent to the day before Thanksgiving, the roof was fairly loaded with luggage and Nepalis. I
Our Accomodation the First Night
Cost us a whopping Rs100 (which is $1.50) between the 3 of us...well 4 of us if you count the bug that was crawling on my head all night. grabbed a bit of space near the rear rear of the luggage rack, dangled my legs over the back, and held on. Not the most comfortable way to spend the entire day, but better than trying to fit in the Nepali sized seats below. The lack of comfort was offset by the amazing views of the hills and river valleys below. (The other advantage of being on the roof is that I could fool myself into thinking that I'd be able to jump off to safety when the bus plunged off the road...something that seemed way too possible)
As became a trend over the next 2 weeks, now that we were out of the normal tourist areas, Christopher and I were quite an attraction for all the Nepalis to stare at & talk to. They also were entertained at meal stops when we'd dig right into some dal bhat along with them.
Speaking of stops...there weren't official bathroom stops. They'd just occasionally stop in the middle of the road and everyone would run to the bushes. And by "everyone", I mean the men. I'm not sure I ever saw any women get out of their seats to pee.
Christopher and Me
On the first day of hiking. Sore-bottomed, white-knuckled, and coated in a day's worth of dust, we pulled into a town at 10:30pm and walked to Hem's uncle's house (where the uncle's non-Kathmandu wife lived - polygamy...alive and well) for a snack and sleep on the floor.
The next day involved a rickshaw ride to the bus station where we found that the bus was already way more loaded up than the bus the previous day. Up top we went again...tried to find a tiny gap between people and wedged myself in for the ride.
Due to the over-over-loaded nature of this bus, we were riding quite high on luggage...which meant I had to constantly look forward so I could avoid being be-headed by low hanging power lines every few hundred meters. It also meant that my position was one of 1/2 leaning off the bus...so I always kept one of the luggage ropes wrapped around one of my wrists to keep me from being tossed off as the bus pitched back and forth. I counted something like 35 folks up top at one point.
The road today was slower and more perilous looking as we headed further into the wilderness. I'm
quite certain that the forces of nature were trying to limit the technological invasion of the road and mass transit...there were remnants of past rock slides onto the road every 50-100m. Eventually we came to a rock slide that was recent enough that it hadn't been cleaned up yet. With the road fully blocked, we all grabbed our stuff and walked to the next village to hop on the next bus.
Finally we came to the end of the road. Again coated in dust and with a body full of sore muscles (the most exhausting sitting experience I've ever had) - and a bum that was glad to be not on a luggage rack, we strapped on our packs and headed into the rice paddys of rural Nepal.
Hem had assured me that my trainers would be fine, so I left my trekking boots back in Kathmandu. It took about 60 seconds to realize the advice was horrible. We were continually walking along 6" wide muddy walls between paddys and constantly hopping across the mini-streams that irrigated the fields. Hem explained that he 'forgot' about all the water because when he had last been home 6 months ago
Tipping the Scales
Just some local kids playing on a scale. it was the dry season. Oh well...at least I had a new game to play...seeing how long could I make it without soaking my feet.
We stopped after a couple of hours in a village and got hooked up with a room in someone's house for Rs100 ($1.50). After a bath in the river and some dal bhat (under close watch of all the Nepalis, of course) we went to the room and zonked out. I slept well except for the repeated times that I woke up with a giant bug (longer than 1" qualifies as "giant" for me) crawling on my head. Ick.
Welcome To The Real Nepal The next two days were an unforgettable experience filled with hiking from dawn until dusk through the amazing scenery and terrain of western "real" Nepal. We ate guavas and oranges that we picked straight of the tree...had more dal bhat sessions in front of curiously amazed Nepalis...saw Nepalis carrying mind-blowing loads on their backs (including a guy carrying a woman...all day) wearing only crappy sandals as their footwear...walked along riverbeds...climbed through arid desert-like areas...picked our way through pine forests...trekked past farmers in the midst of their 12 hour day
of harvesting the rice crop in their beautiful terraced paddys...stood on the side of the trail as lines of pack-mules loaded up with supplies passed us by...got rained on and I fell into a stream at the base of a waterfall (thanks to my lack of proper boots)...and the list goes on. My writing abilities are too limited to properly convey it all to you. You'll have to buy a plane ticket for Nepal and I'll get you in touch with Hemraj so you can understand what this was like.
With the tourist-visited areas of Nepal several days behind us...many of these folks had never seen Westerners. At times I would get 100m or so ahead of Hem - and the site of a solo white dude walking along was enough to bring everything to a standstill. I'm quite convinced that many of these people would have looked less surprised had a spaceship landed and a little green alien had gotten out. Someone told me that Nepalis find it rude to stare...but apparently this is a one-way rule. They showed no shame at all in staring at me/us endlessly.
Rukum On the afternoon of the 2nd day, we
It's a Walking Stack of Hay
It really was amazing to see how much they carry sometimes...both in size and weight. finally crossed a bridge that brought us into the Rukum district - Hem's home area. The destination was near. After a final descent down to the river and a 2 hour climb back up the next hill (it was dark by now), a tiny rocky goat-path traversing the hillside brought us to Hem's parents' home.
We walked up the steps that took us above the ground floor barn and entered the 2 room brick and mud Nepali abode to see his parents, sister, and 2 nephews sitting around the fire eating dinner. Introductions were made, gifts were given, and dal bhat was served. Hem informed his parents that sometime this week someone would come to install a solar power system he bought for them. (It seems that having a small solar panel is the current hot item to get for one's house.) Hem translated their response..."Why did you buy us solar? We wanted a buffalo." Fair enough...if you've lived 70 years without electricity and you go to bed shortly after dark...what's the use? Who wouldn't want a buffalo?
A short aside to explain a bit more of the family situation.
- Hem is the youngest of 5 siblings,
the oldest being in their 40s...thus making his folks in their 70s. As the youngest, it's his filial duty to care for his parents. When he has enough money he plans to bring them to Kathmandu for the easier lifestyle. Before I had met them I had foolishly asked how they'd make the journey at their age. After watching them work in the fields 12 hours a day all week, I understood why Hem laughed at this question. They're tougher than any of us young strapping lads...seriously.
- Some of the sibs still live in the village and some have moved to Kathmandu.
- The village is made up of 250 or so people...and as the week went on, I wondered if any of them weren't related in some way. His sister and nephews live with the parents as her husband is off in India trying to make some money.
- Prior to leaving Kathmandu, Hem said that I'd be meeting his girlfriend...which was later revealed to be his wife whom he was forced to marry in the previous year under threat of never being allowed home again. And to this day there's still a debate as to whether or
not she's pregnant from his visit earlier in the year...I could never get a straight enough answer out of him...this was a recurring trend. In any case, she had gone back to her parents a couple days prior to our arrival for some unknown reason.
- Hem's parents' names: Dave Bahadur (father...and I'm certain it's not actually "Dave"...but that's what it sounded like) and Pan Kumari (mother).
We woke up the next morning to the cheery sounds of Narendra and Ganesh (the nephews) playing outside and peeking in our door...which turned out to be a daily ritual. Coming out of the room into the morning light, I was able to see our view for the first time. It wasn't much different from what I'd seen in the previous days...but realizing that this was the family's usual view was quite amazing for me. Here's the basic rundown on the houses and the village...
Hem's village was spread out on the southern slopes of a mountain and ranged from the riverbed 400m below to somewhere a couple hundred meters higer. I had anticipated the village to be a bunch of houses grouped together, but this wasn't the case at all.
Pan and Dave's House
The kitchen/dining room/living room/bedroom of their house. At times there would be groupings of 2-3 houses, but in general is was a minimum of a 5 minute walk along one of numerous zig-zagging narrow paths to get from house to house. Hem's parents had 2 houses...both pretty much like what I described above. A 30 second walk to one side brought me around a ridge and I'd be facing East and looking at a dozen rice farms and a stream that fed into the river below after it thundered down a series of short waterfalls. Walking 5 minutes directly up would bring me to a water source and the location for bathing and laundry. Surrounding and below the houses were their fields currently between the rice and wheat seasons. And the toilet was...well...wherever one felt comfortable.
Christopher (who had now assumed the name "Krishna" to match my "Mahendra"...a god and a king...dangerous duo) and I had been told we'd be in the village for 5-6 days and then head back. We soon learned that the celebrations didn't really even start for 5 days, so it appeared we were in for a longer stay than anticipated. These first days were filled with a couple of day hikes
The Human Alarm Clock
Narendra and Ganesh...Hem's nephews who loved to come play in our room. to explore the area and cruising around with Hem to meet family and friends.
The Adventure of Eating and Drinking Naturally, every time we ate a meal, we were under close watch and felt the pressure to eat a lot and enjoy. The only problem was...both Krishna and I got sick pretty much as soon as we got to the village. Appetites were low...if present at all. The cuisine consisted pretty much of the following:
- Dal Bhat
- Chapattis - disc-shaped bread-like thingies
- Fried chapattis - same as above but fried in oil. Really tasty
- Curd - Not quite yogurt...and could be quite sour. Not the ideal meal for a tweaked stomach as I was constantly wondering why I was eating gloppy sour milk. Always added copious amounts of sugar.
- Veggie curries & green steamed veggies. Varied in quality.
I think the food actually would have been quite nice had we not been sick. We instructed Hem to continually tell everyone that we actually liked the food and were just sick...but I fear that they simply thought we didn't like anything.
We eventually convinced them to start boiling water for us since our
Village Houses
It wasn't really possible to take a photo of "the village" because they were all so spread out. But in a few cases there would be 3 or 4 houses grouped together like this. other methods of purifying didn't seem to be working. Whether or not this helped, I'll never know...but drinking warm water that tasted like ash (which is what they use to clean pots) wasn't all that great of a solution.
The Wife One day we hiked up to Hem's wife's parent's house. It was a strange encounter. First it was strange because we had been in town for 3 days and he hadn't gone to see his wife yet. Second, after we waited for a bit for her to come back from somewhere and when she showed up...neither she nor Hem said anything to one another for what seemed to be 30 minutes or so. He just kept talking to her father and she sat off to the side folding clothes...or something like that. Krishna and I repeatedly asked him why he hadn't said hi to this beautiful woman who was his wife and yet and he just kept saying "It's not like that in Nepal. And I said hi to her with my eyes." It was also strange because I think she could understand a lot of the teasing and questioning that Krishna and I were throwing at Hem...but
It's a Long Way Down
This was taken on our way down to the shop by the river. But this is more or less the view from Hem's house. she just sat there quietly and laughed from time to time.
Granted it's an arranged marriage and all...but 6 months of not seeing his wife and simply giving her a look as she walked down the hill seemed odd to me. Eventually they all went in the house to hang out for a while, leaving Krishna and myself to sit outside and ponder this strange relationship/interaction.
After that, she came back to Hem's house and assumed all the duties that seemed standard for the lowest ranking female member of the house...making chapattis...cleaning pots...etc.
It Ain't Nothin' But A Party - Everybody Get Loose At long last, we were told it was to be a day of festivities. We made the 30 minute walk over to Rudra and Thula's house (his brother and sister-in-law) for the highly anticipated goat beheading. Yes...it's a Hindu festival...vegetarians...killing a goat to eat for a religious festival. I don't understand it either. But being the suburban lad that I am...I've never really seen my meals die. I was excited.
They drew some symbol on the ground, dragged a goat over to it, sprinkled some water on it while saying something religious-sounding, and
Himalayas!
On the day we tried to hike to a local peak, we got high enough to get my first glimpse of the Himalayas. Someone claimed this was Dalaghiri (sp?)...one of the uber-high Nepali peaks. brought out an enormous blade. The goat knew it was screwed. It was quick and efficient. I'll spare you the details, but for those interested, ask to see the video when I get home. While the mouth was still pulsing open and closed next to the body, Rudra quickly picked up the body and started to carry it around the house so that the blood spurting from the exposed neck would splatter on the walls...because as we all know...goat blood on your house brings good luck.
30 minutes later all the insides of the animal were spread out and being worked on by Rudra and another guy. 60 minutes later, Krishna and I were called inside for first dibs on the freshly cooked goat meat. It was actually quite tasty, but their concept of serving meat is rather different from what I'm accustomed to. I'm used to pieces where everything is edible. They serve pieces where the bulk is made up of bone, tendon, and other things that don't seem quite right to my snobby western palate. They manage to eat just about all of it...but I was glad for the poor lighting so it wasn't too obvious how
Ready to Lose Your Head?
This poor goat knew exactly what was coming & wasn't too happy about it. Being the suburbanite that I am...it was my first live beheading. He tasted pretty good later that day though. much I was rejecting.
The rest of that day was spent hanging out near their house and playing volleyball with some locals at the school. The game ended when one of the spikes sneaked past a building and down the hill...never to be found again.
Day 2 of the festivities didn't involve any death...but instead was centered around a tikka ceremony. We headed back to Rudra & Thula's house and began the tikka exchange. It's basically a ritual in which family members place tikka marks (in this case a mixture of curd, rice, and pink coloring) on each other's foreheads. Kneel down in front of each other and jam some of this stuff onto the other's forehead. When finished exchanging tikka with Dave (Hem's dad), someone proclaimed to me that now I'm part of the family. Mahendra Malla...maybe I could go by "Eminem"? Don't worry Mom and Dad...I'm not giving up the Nestor name.
With foreheads full of drying tikka, we then took a 45 minute walk up the hill to another house for some local dance. It wasn't long before everyone forced Krishna and me to don the dancing gear and join the circle. With the
brightly colored throngs of spectators looking on we stumbled our way around the dance circle. I could feel over 50 pairs of eyes fixed directly on me for a good portion of the time so I tried to focus on looking as smooth as possible. Thankfully, most of the locals weren't so good at the dances either, so we weren't the only bumbling fools running around. Good fun was had by all and another good day of Dashain drew to a close.
Yeah, well...I realize this is an abrupt end to the tale, but we only had one more rather uneventful day and I've gone on long enough about my Rukum experience and will cut the story off here. It was a really cool week in the village, but after the week long battle against our digestive systems, Krishna and I had dreams of western food that consumed our thoughts and needed to get back on the road. Despite much pleading from Pan to stay another day, we eventually said our goodbyes, packed up, and hit the trail back through the rice fields and river beds on our way to semi-civilization.
Other Random Stuff - Apparently they just
don't have pants that are the correct size for kids. No one below a certain age (5?) wears pants. I guess the non-diaper society is more environmentally friendly than ours...
- I didn't keep statistics, but it seemed like at any moment 1/2 the women were breast-feeding a child.
- These people are tough. And by tough I mean that they work the fields barefoot 12 hours a day...they pick up hot coals from the fire with their bare hands...they carry unthinkable loads over unthinkable distances. It's impressive.
- The day we hiked down to the river Krishna and I wanted to stock up on snacks. Since I was hungry and everything was so cheap, I ended up feeling like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack...
"Hey, orange balls! I'll have a box of those, gimmie a box of those naked lady tees, gimmie 2 of those, gimmie 6 of those..." As for me it was more like "I'll take 5 of the coconut cracker packages, 8 packs of noodles, 3 Cokes, and a can of Choco-Funs (our second can of 90 chocolate bars)." The group of kids stood outside wide-eyed at the shopping spree display being put on by
Dasain Dancing
Believe it or not, it's mostly other men in the dancing circle...but I tower over them so they look like boys. the two white giants.
- The assortment of toys that kids have to play with here isn't quite as plentiful as in the States. Narendra and Ganesh basically had a marble, a couple of Choco-Fun wrappers, and...well...that's it. So before we brought the Choco-Funs they only had a marble. Yet seemed generally entertained.
- Nepal is the first place I've been that has such a strong component of family duty. Hem's responsibility to care for his folks...Bhupi being forced to marry someone because his younger siblings had found people to marry but couldn't until Bhupi (the oldest) had married first...Hem's situation in which he was forced to get married...etc. Coming from the American world of looking out for #1 most of the time...it's quite a change.
- Like in Fiji, the families here all live in constant close interaction. I wonder what it's like to live your life like this and to do the same routine every day?
- One evening I asked Hem to ask his parents if they had a good day. He looked at me and said "They never have good day. Only on festival." Silly me...makes sense I suppose that if I
Family Photo
The morning of departure. I had known that we were bigger than all of the Nepalis...but this photo really makes us look huge. did hard manual labor all day every day I'd agree.
- Litter. The advent of technology does have some negative effects for these people...though I'm not sure they realize it yet. The society has spent its entire history throwing scraps, peels, etc out the window and on the floor to be decomposed. It hasn't sunk in yet that plastic doesn't decompose and there's a slowly building collection of wrappers everywhere we went. They'll catch on...but will have some cleaning up to do at that point.
- The kids are adorable. The women are beautiful. The men are tough as nails. And everyone is tiny.
- I'm big. The bed was a foot too short. The doorways only came up to my nose - at best. I couldn't stand up straight in the houses without fear of hitting my head on the ceiling. I couldn't stand up inside the buses. I didn't fit in the seats on the buses (mostly...there were a few seats of the correct size)...I needed to either turn sideways or to pull my knees up to my chest.
The sickness put a semi-damper on the experience and I'm quite certain I won't need
Ray Of Light
This was inside Rudra and Thula's house and there was a really cool ray of light shooting through the window. Took several photos and couldn't really decide which to post. The cute kiddo in this one made it the winner over the one of the mom crushing some spices next to the fire. another plate of dal bhat for quite some time. But aside from those factors, I was often in a state of complete wonder and amazement as this was truly a highlight of the journey so far. Similar to Fiji, it was cool to be out in an authentic and radically different (not to mention stunningly beautiful) cultural existence.
Happy Dashain to all...and to all a good night!
Mahendra
PS - When I going toilet...nobody coming. Thankfully.
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Narendra
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Another Narendra?
Hey Nes! Or is it Mahendra now? :) lol I especially enjoyed this blog. Really makes you feel like your in the village and scarily similar to the village I lived in as a child. Glad you decided to go off the beaten path and journey into real Nepal. Hope you enjoy the rest of your travels, -Pers... :)