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Published: October 24th 2006
Hi Everybody!
Both India and Kathmandu are having festivals this week. This is India's largest festival, Diwali, the festival of life. They clean their homes well, give gifts to each other, shoot fireworks, close shops, hang garlands of marigolds, and party. I don't remember the name of Nepal's festival. They celebrate 366 festivals a year. We went to Nepal because Walt has always wanted to go. It is a very small country north of India that is famous for trekking. American tourism has dropped 90% in the last few years. The most exciting thing that we did in Nepal was take an early morning flight to view the Himalayas and Mount Everest. We will never forget that experience! The view of the mountains was breathtaking! Eight of the 14 highest mountains in the world are in Nepal. We met several trekkers and enjoyed hearing of their experiences. Three retired teachers from Reno were having a great time traveling through Nepal. Another special lady, Niloufer Gray, sat by us on the plane and shared her 2 week experience in the mountains with us. We have great admiration for her!
We stayed in a fabulous hotel, had great meals, saw Nepalese dancers perform, visited temples, markets, learned more about the Hindu and Buddist religions, and ate way too much! We learned that the people of the country have no respect for their king who killed several of his family members in order to become king. The government appears to be very corrupt at all levels. There is tremendous poverty here. Our hearts went out to the people. They are kind, sweet people who seem happy with very little. We would love to have spent time in the hills and seen more of their country. Sadly, we were only able to do that from the air.
As Bob Seger said, "We are going to Kathmandu" and we did.
Take care,
Everette
Hi Everybody!
When you think of India, you imagine the brilliant colors, mysticism, spices, incense, etc. What you discover when you get here is that poverty overshadows everything else.
Before coming to India, we booked a tour to Agra. That was one of the smartest things that we could have done. There is only one train daily to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, and it leaves at 6:30 in the morning. The Delhi train station is a chaotic place. Even our taxi driver warned us to look out for the thieves. (By the way, our taxi driver looked exactly like Osama Bin Laden. He was a Sitk and they never cut the hair on their body. He wore a turban.) The station was full of hundreds of people, trash, and more trash. Our driver put us on the right train car for which we gave thanks. We sat across from a very nice Indian family of three. He worked for an Indian soft drink company. The mother and daughter had on beautiful saris. They spoke a little English. As we rode along in the trash, we could see 10 to 50 men at a time, squatting to do their business. We passed villages where people were cooking over open fires and living in filth. It would be 1000 times worse than anything you have seen in the U.S.
We ate breakfast and dinner on the train. Breakfast was 2 veg. croquettes, green peas, 2 slices of loaf bread, juice, tea, & jelly.
In Agra, a driver and guide met us. Only Walt and I were in the group. The guide had an MBA and spoke excellent English. Interestingly, he had attended the Central Methodist Church School until he entered college. He took us by to see the church. We visited many many sights in Agra. One was the Agra Nature Center with baboons and Indian deer with twisted antlers. We went to the baby Taj built by the mother of the king who built the Taj Mahal. It looked similar but was smaller and had tile mosaics instead of precious stone mosaics. Both were beautiful! The TM was probably the prettiest manmade structure that I have ever seen. It was well worth the trip to India to see it. The sites were primarily built of red sandstone or white marble. We also visited the Red Fort of Agra, the Sikandra, Fatehpur Sikri, Mariyam's Tomb, the CIE Castle that displayed the finest handicrafts in India (terribly expensive), and a workshop showing craftsmen forming mosaics with semi-precious stones on marble. This technique is used on tabletops, boxes, etc. The marble is dug out, the stones glued on so that they leave a smooth surface. The tomb site had many monkeys (& many baby monkeys.)
We had a wonderful opportunity to try many Indian foods at a special buffet that was part of the tour. The thing I liked the best was the coconut ice cream. Walt liked all of the desserts. This meal was at the Taj View Hotel. We were there a couple of times and met some neat people. One girl had written a number of books, all on children of different countries. She lived in the countries while working on the books.
People in India don't drive in lanes behind each other. They drive wherever they wish. There are almost no redlights or traffic circles. The person with the most nerve goes first. Scooters are everywhere you look. We saw a family of 4 on one little scooter. They have bicycle rickshaws and auto rickshaws. Three ride comfortably with a driver in the auto rickshaw. We saw 8 in the backseat and 5 in the front on some. Pollution is terrible from so many vehicles. Cows wander in and out of traffic. It gets to be pretty crazy·
Children pull on you begging for money. People tap on the car window trying to sell you merchandise. As soon as you get out of the car, they surround you. At first it was difficult to move on, but you just have to keep going. We try to help the people who help us like the drivers, hotel workers, guides, etc. If you give money to one beggar, 10 take that person's place.
Take care,
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Mary Kay
non-member comment
Hi, there!
What great expereiences you are having. That is one place we did not get to but we met some trekkers in Australia, one an Israeli soldier who had taken a year off to do some of these things. They had all trekked in Nepal and said what an experiece it was. The view from the plane must have been incredible! Be safe!