Goodbye Nepal, India… Here I Come. December 7, 2006
Posted by gurfheffalump in Nepal.2 comments
In a few hours, I’m scheduled to be on a plane headed for India.
Nepal has been a complete and magical experience. Nepal has some of the most beautiful natural scenery and it’s completely different from any place I’ve been so far. But I know that’s not what I’ll remember Nepal for. It will be the people of Nepal that I’ll always remember. They are probably the warmest and most welcoming people I’ve ever met, and for that reason alone, Nepal is one of my favorite countries. Nepal is a poor country and it’s residents all acknowledge that fact, but if you speak to them about their lives you also begin to realize that they also know just how lucky they are. They are happy people; they talk to each other. They know their neighbors. Their worries seem to be more on what their next meal will be and less on how they will retire. I’ve been here no more than 3 weeks, and I feel that I’ve developed some real and substantial friendships with the locals, and they make it easy. As Sunil, a Nepalese friend, puts it, “The country of Nepal is very poor, but the people are very rich.”
If it’s ever within your grasp, I’d recommend Nepal.
So India… It’ll likely be the last ‘new’ country I have to visit before I start the process of heading home. And I’m approaching the last leg of my trip with some resistance. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit hesitant about India because of the reactions of some of the people who’ve been and their stories about India. Here’s some of the more memorable responses to the question “how did you like India?”:
Hyung, a good-natured Korean traveler I met in Nepal who speaks in broken English:
“Fuck… Shit… (looks down and shakes head)… fuck.. (sigh)… Fuck India.”
Chad, my buddy who’s traveled in India for a month:
Chad shows me a postcard of what I believe is Shiva, a Hindu God. Shiva has a necklace of skulls and he is in a land that resembles ground zero of a volcanic eruption. The god is stepping on bodies, blood is everywhere, corpses are cut in half, the postcard is pure chaos. Chad then says, “That’s India, buddy.”
A Travel Agent who’s done some traveling:
“I.N.D.I.A. stands for I’ll Never Do It Again.”
There are countless others and most have the common thread of people trying to cheat you and insistent hawkers who won’t let you walk down the street in India. I’d say about 90% percent of the reactions from travelers on India are negative, but I’m going to try and dive into the last leg of my trip with a combination of optimism, a sense of humor, and a very large dose of caution. If anyone is reading this, please wish me luck.
Trekking- Day 4 December 6, 2006
Posted by gurfheffalump in Nepal.Tags: Nepal, nepal country side, traveling, trekking, village
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Today was a full and defining day of my trip. Much has happened but I’ll just run through some of the main points.
About 10 am, Buddha and I started to make our way to his remote little village, a trip that took 2 hours and 3 bus changes. The buses were local, very local. They were cramped beyond belief, with people sitting in the aisles, sitting on top of the bus, and hanging out on the sides of the bus. It was chaos in a can, which had it’s advantages. For instance, I was able to light a cigarette in the bus and no one even batted an eye. At one point in the bus ride, a full-grown goat was crammed into the aisles of the bus amongst all the locals, right in front of me. Everyone acted like it was just another passenger on the bus and didn’t pay much attention but I couldn’t stop the periodic bursts of laughter throughout the ride when I looked at Billy, very well behaved and sitting comfortably in the bus like he’s done this before. When you’re riding with barn animals in the same vehicle, you know you’ve tapped into some very local vein of a place.
The second bus was even more eventful. Because it was jam packed, Buddha asked if I wanted to ride on top of the bus! I’ve had a desire to do this since the first time I saw locals on the top of the bus, but I was also a bit hesitant because it’s on curving mountain roads and the driving is something that’s not from this planet. The bus drivers pass on blind corners and get dangerously close to the edge of both sides of the roads (By this point I’ve already seen two buses toppled over because it fell into ditches on the sides of the road). The other side is not a ditch, but the side of a mountain with no guard rail. It’s a 300-foot drop and I’ve also seen busses that got too close to the edge on the base of the mountain, upside down. With an answer that contained 1 part nervousness and 2 parts excitement, I agreed to the top of the bus.
And I’m so glad I did. I remember feeling that for this bus ride alone, the
unobstructed views from the top of a moving vehicle zooming by villages
and the adrenaline rush, it was all a beautiful moment in my trip and well
worth the money I paid for the entire trekking expedition. Buddha enjoyed
this trip as well, drinking Roxy and laying on top of the bus, drunk on his
stomach.
Buddha’s village is quiet and small. It has about 30 visible structures from the main dirt road. I spent the day eating and walking around the village and drinking large doses of Roxy while eating fried fish with the locals. This village was also without electricity so when nightfall came, everything was either illuminated by the moonlight, or the use of candles. Walking back after the drinking session, we came upon a monk who was chanting and performing a blessing in a home, with a small circle of people sitting next to him. There were drumming and water being tossed into the air in the circle and I felt honored to be able to witness this indigenous occasion happening before me. I stood there for a few minutes until someone realized I was a tourist and told us we couldn’t stay.
Buddha’s home is, in a word, dirty. The sheets smell like the way it looks, the smell of ‘never-been-washed’. The floor of the house is covered in dirt and trash is thrown directly on the floor, cigarettes are ashed on to it as well, and the window is basically a hole in the stone wall with bars running vertically through the hole. The Bob Marley tunes were played on a tape player and the music was broadcasted with antique speakers that made the music sound like it’s being played underwater. The wallpaper is basically paper mache made up of old magazine pages with American film and music stars.
I slept in this room but I didn’t sleep well. At 1am I woke up to the sound of rats scurrying all around me; on the ceiling, in the walls, they were jumping from the ceiling of the room to the floor and I knew this because sometimes they landed on the plastic bags on the floor. I thought I even heard the sounds of a nest of baby rats squealing. Sometimes the rats would get so close, I swore they were no more than a couple of feet away from me. After a while, I got used to this and just stared out of the window, which was the only source of light in the whole room. As I looked out of the window with two bars running up and down, with the rats having their fiesta around me, I hallucinated the shillouette of a yeti passing my window and felt that I discovered the place of inspiration for all of M. Night Shamalan’s plotless movies (except the 6th sense, but did he direct that?).
For the rest of the night I didn’t sleep. I spent the whole night looking up at the ceiling in pitch darkness, thinking about all the moments in my trip so far. I thought about what I learned, what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt. I ran through a mental slideshow of emotions, faces, and incredible moments throughout my trip. I thought about what I want to do in the future and how I’ve changed, new aspects of my personality I learned. I thought about the new things I figured out about my life and the things that I still have no answers for. I thought about my family and the advice of my parents. About what family and friends truly mean. I thought about how I really miss my Mom’s cooking, the same cooking I would complain about before I left, how every time I see a dog in my travels I wonder how my own dog is doing, how I exponentially miss my friends and how I think about them every single day. I miss driving my car, playing on my Apple computer, biting into an In-N-Out burger, and simply sleeping in my own bed. I thought about how truly depressed I was before I left and how happy I am now.
Somewhere between 1am and 7am, laying in some remote village in
NepaI, I realized it was time to go back. I was ready to go back home and it was a complete epiphany. For the first time in this trip, the thought of going home sounded right and I smiled inside when I thought of it. I no longer thought of it with dread, but with excitement and confidence. Throughout these last few months, I believe I learned and grew more than I did during my 4 years in college and I was ready to go home with the fruits of my travels and be reunited with my real treasures that were always waiting at home.
Trekking- Day 3 December 6, 2006
Posted by gurfheffalump in Nepal.Tags: Nepal, nepal country side, raveling, trekking, village
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Today I woke up to beautiful mountains and the sound of donkey hooves hitting the cobble stone floor and bells ringing from their necks. I had Tibetan bread and tea for breakfast while entranced by the vast mountain range before me; I looked to the mountains like it would divulge some sort of epiphany about my life if I just concentrated hard enough and I did this for a good part of the morning. It didn’t.
However, in the morning, Buddha did ask me if I would like to head back down the mountain and see the ‘real Nepal.’ If I did, he would like to bring me back to his village where his mother and brother currently lives. When it was time to go, on my right was another day of perilous climbing and on my left was a beautiful sight of a downward stroll. The choice was pretty easy. The village it is.
The climb down was heaven compared to the day before and I couldn’t believe this was the same trail that was the source of so much agony, bitching, and sweat. It was pleasant! I was in a good mood… trekking! However, at one point we crossed a section of the mountain that was covered in loose grey rubble from a rock slide, erasing the trail that was once there. A small piece of the mountain basically gave way. There was long line of women on this slope, trying to clear the rubble and make an indentation of a trail where it once was. Buddha went first and I followed. At some points the room to step was literally 2 feet wide, and that’s with the women working to clear the trail. With my heavy bag, it became an intricate balancing act coupled with keen decision making on which stone to step on. In the middle of this landslide, I tried to step over a woman in my path but the stone I chose to step on gave away, rubble tumbling down the mountain, and my right leg ended up hanging on the side of the slope. My entire body slowly slid a few inches downward startling the women and they screamed to Buddha ‘your tourist is falling!!!’ With my left leg planted and my arms spread open for balance, I slowly brought my right leg up and kept going. Only after we passed the landslide area did I have a chance to look back and realize how close I was to falling 400 feet to a certain death. Hum… that reminds me, I wonder if my traveler’s insurance covers death from trekking.
We returned to the same hotel in Pokara and the hotel staff was surprised but very happy to see us, welcoming us back with open arms. Actually, the service at this particular hotel is obsequious to the point where it makes you feel guilty, it’s like 5 star service but at a Motel 6. They ask when you would like your meal, fetching food without being asked, running to buy cigarettes at the local store for customers, addressing everyone with ’sir’ and smiling and dipping their heads every time they pass you.
Tomorrow we would head for Buddha’s village.
Trekking-Day 2 December 6, 2006
Posted by gurfheffalump in Nepal.Tags: Nepal, nepal country side, raveling, trekking, village
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Trekking: Day 2
Today I woke up in a good mood; a warm shower, sunshine, and a semi-clean bed will do wonders for me now. After breakfast and tea, I was still pretty much beaming optimism as I thought that “this day will be different. This day will be good, no this day will be awesome! I’m going to see the Himalayas!” Haha. Wishful thinking again.
After breakfast, I waited, much like an obedient circus animal for my missing guide. At 9 am, after an hour of waiting, he walks into the hotel with his girlfriend saying that we would have to leave later and gave me some disingenuous excuse that wouldn’t sound believable to a monkey. Buddha and his girlfriend proceeded to spend an hour in the hotel room. Now I was pissed off. I hate waiting, but this wasn’t only waiting, this was lying and deceit. And not only that, it really pissed me off when I realized I was basically paying him to hump his girlfriend, paying for the room that they are humping in, all the while waiting for them to finish without much choice.
At 10, he finally came out and we loaded our bags into the car and in the process, he had the audacity to ask me for a post-intercourse cigarette. That did it for me and I became the tourist that was tired of getting fucked around with and I let him know. Buddha apologized and said he knew he was being unfair to me, explaining that he just had a fight with his girlfriend and he was sorry it took so long. I still didn’t buy it but accepted his apology and decided it was ok to start fresh.
… … …
After an hour or so in the taxi, we finally made it to the launching point for the trek. But before entering, the Maoists demanded an extortion payment to enter, which I paid. The Maoists are political party officially labeled as a terrorist organization, so not only did I technically have my first known encounter with a terrorist, I also, technically, funded terrorism (according to America’s faultless terrorists list).
Finally on to trekking: After 30 minutes of climbing a mountain with about 20 pounds strapped to my back, I realized I hated it! I absolutely hate trekking, and I hated myself for being the genius that decided an uphill trek was a good idea. An uphill trek in the Himalayas? Why not? And not only did I hate trekking, with each painful, muscle-intensive step, I heaved and vividly felt the toll of each cigarette I’ve ever smoked in my lungs and body. With each step, it was a personal repentance, my own version of Catholic Confession that I had to stop the self-destructing cigarette smoking madness. And several times I just collapsed onto the steps covered in donkey-dung (herds of donkeys are used as porters to get rice and other necessities onto the mountains for the mountain people). Many times, I just asked Buddha to leave me in whatever pile of donkey shit I just collapsed in. After 4 hours or so, we made it to the place we would take shelter for the night. It is a home run by a family that has 2 very charming daughters. At night, the mountainside had no electricity so everything was done by candlelight. The mountains were only lit by the pale light of the sky and everything was still and soundless. Across the valley, the inside of straw huts and stone-brick houses were glowing with candlelight, littered across the mountainside. Everything I saw for the evening I saw in the color spectrum of moonlight, shades of dark blue, silhouettes, and pitch black.
I stayed up talking to the Buddha and the older daughter, Cake, smoking and drinking Roxy (Nepalese Wine). Cake didn’t have any wine or cigarettes explaining that said she was a ‘simple mountain girl.’ Through all my travels, Cake was probably the nicest, purest, most inwardly attractive person I’ve ever met. She beamed whenever she smiled and there isn’t a hint of performance, superficiality, or a manufactured smile when she did it; it was real. I think it’s been so long since I’ve seen such a real smile and really smiled myself, that when I finally saw one on that mountain, it surprised me. The impression she left on me made me think trekking 4 hours uphill through donkey shit was all worth it, just to be reminded of the definition of true beauty.
But if Cake was the most inwardly attractive person, her younger sister was probably one of the most outwardly attractive people I’ve ever seen. The first time I saw her I was sitting on the second floor looking out at the mountains still sweating and heaving from the trek. When she first came up the stairs only her eyes were visible, but that was enough, I was mesmerized. Then, with each step, more of her of her face came into visibility and for a short moment of time, I forgot that I was exhausted as our gazes stuck for what seemed like too long for what was reasonable.
Later I asked Buddha how old the younger sister is and found out she was… 15. She was 15! Now even for the Nepalese tolerance for early marriage, this was probably still considered full-blown pedophilia. I wanted to hurl myself off the mountain along with my heart but Buddha assured me that if I came back in a few years, he can arrange the marriage by saying “Why not? You my friend. She good girl. Everything ok!”
“Trekking” Day 1 December 6, 2006
Posted by gurfheffalump in Nepal.Tags: Nepal, nepal country side, raveling, trekking, village
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Since my last entry, I’ve gone on my little trekking expedition that turned out to be less trekking and more drinking with the locals. I guess I don’t need to say that my detox plan failed miserably, despite being on a mountain and in remote villages, I manage to find alcohol and tobacco, kinda like a K-9 unit working for the narcotics division or a hog sniffing out his truffles in the forest… except I probably do a little more ingesting than they do.
Written while trekking:
Day 1:
Today started by me oversleeping the scheduled meeting time with my guide, despite my best efforts to get up. Buddha, my guide, started knocking on my door at 6:40 am, 10 minutes later than our 6:30 scheduled meeting time. By 8:00 am we were on a micro bus headed to the Annapurna mountains, which in itself was a very scenic and refreshing ride because nature was all around: Snow capped mountains, a very blue stream that made periodic appearances, flirting with the winding mountain road we were taking, and the mountain people carrying baskets filled with rice and other goods on their backs, the baskets strapped to their heads. However the ride was filled with putrid, god-awful, foul smells that was something of a fusion between farming manure and a porter potty. Not to mention, the size of my seat and available leg room led me to believe my seat was probably made for some kind of small humanoid, probably the fucking travelocity gnome, judging by the way one of my leg had to be contorted to fit into my seat, the other leg in the aisle.
After 6 hours or so of this torture, I arrived in Polkara, an area most trekkers spend a night before heading off for the mountains. We arrived at a quaint little guesthouse that seemed like it had more staff than guests at any given time of day, but it was a nice little place to unwind after a bus ride. I expected Buddha would maybe show me around the tranquil little city, maybe fill me in on a little history, even some dry and obscure statistics on how many tourists come or how many times the electricity goes out- anything- but nope… after arriving, the undutiful bastard headed out on a motorcycle straight for his girlfriend’s place.
I’ve been alone a lot during this trip. I don’t mind being alone. However, I do mind that he wasn’t doing his job as a tour guide, but what I mind even more is that when he came back, I was eating dinner by myself and he came by to say hello, ripping a fart in the process. And get this: the fart smelled exactly like those same putrid smells that I was taking ambushed mouthfuls earlier in the bus. A bit of rage sprinkled over me when it became clear he was the perp that was responsible for the smells. After that grand entrance, he told me we would meet at 8 tomorrow morning to head for the mountains and with a bounce in his step, the kind that could only come from just getting laid, he happily waltzed to his bedroom and went to sleep. Good night asshole.
