Contextless Quotes

I recently came across my old travel journal from my nine-month backpacking trip through Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. Reading through it left me very, very amused. From it, here are some quotes for your enjoyment, taken completely out of their original context:

‘I’ve got the shits and I’m tired of traveling: Why I’m not cut out for this’

‘That was a terrible, terrible idea.’

‘My hotel (read: rooftop littered with rubbish costing a whopping $10 to lay a mattress on) is a dump but it’s all I could find.’

‘She was driving me crazy. Hopefully that thought will be a comfort once the solitude starts getting to me.’

‘The highlight of the night was probably me trying to say in Arabic, “My dear, you are so beautiful!” Instead, I managed to say, “My dear, you are so beautiful and big!” Ktiir vs. Kbiir. God…’

‘Loon was our raft captain who seemed either perplexed or offended when I tried to explain that he shares his name with our state bird.’

‘I’ll write more later about the moral conundrum going through my head at that moment.’

‘I met an 82 year old woman today who has been a Peace Corps volunteer three times – all after retirement. At one point she was the oldest current volunteer on the planet.’

“I just had a psychosomatic stress reaction to the Lao music coming from the bungalow next to mine.’

“Phnom Penh’s been great – almost too much fun, seeing as how a large part of our time was spent at a genocide museum.’

‘The hammock: I believe I’ve found my soulmate.’

‘I asked the weird Chinese girl in our hostel if she still had the tarantulas in the plastic bag up in her room. “Uh, I think so!” was her response.’

‘Suddenly serious, she told me, “Walking this path made me believe in God for the first time. It’s too beautiful, too incredible.”‘

‘I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of an explosion muffled by earplugs and a quick shake of the building.’

‘We danced to horrible techno music and took a “hard man” shot (snort salt, take tequila shot, squeeze lime into your eye).’

‘There’s something profoundly tragic about a people fighting justly to get back what was stolen from them even as there is little to no hope of success…It saddened me immensely, that rally. I walked away with a heavy heart and a bruised faith.’

‘”Are those nunchucks you got there?” I said absentmindedly toward, but not to, a rather pudgy but bulldoggish man on a sidewalk near Beirut’s waterfront. His posture snapped up immediately, as if he had been strolling along, just daring some ignorant fool to comment on his ‘chuks. “Yes,” he said. “Because I am master.”‘

‘I’m so lucky to be doing what I’m doing. It’s amazing, really.’

Six Months On

It’s difficult for me to believe it even after paging through a calendar, that it really has been six months since I got on that plane to Tokyo.  As I reflect on the last six months, it seems like a blur, a flurry of places, people, and experiences. What a ride.

To commemorate this arbitrary day of significance, I’ve compiled a ‘top five,’ one of a few lists of experiences that I’ve been working on for a while in my journals.

Top Five Most Impressive Travellers:

1. 82 year old Maggie from Berkley, CA. A three-time Peace Corps volunteer (that’s a total of six years, two years each in Malawi, Sri Lanka, and Thailand). And here’s the kicker: she did all of this after the age of 65.
2. Wofso, a Tibetan refugee, the receptionist at my guesthouse in Dharamsala, India, and one of the nicest, most genuine men I’ve ever met. Fleeing violence by the Chinese government (his mother and father were gunned down for taking part in anti-occupation demonstrations), he trekked for 24 days over remote Himalayan passes before reaching McLeod Ganj. On arrival and in tears, he was greeted by the Dalai Lama himself. That was seven years ago. He’s been working at Paljor Gakyil Guesthouse ever since, living alone save for travelers like me that take up most of his time. I met him shortly after I did my own trek (for fun and with proper equipment) in the Himalayas in Nepal. It was humbling and somewhat startling to realize so clearly how fortunate I am.
3. 84 year old Dutch-Australian woman named Margo who was traveling through Laos by herself, staying in budget hotels with all us backpackers. When asked if she knew how brave she was, she responded matter-of-factly, “Yes, I do. I’ve been doing this all my life so why should I stop now?”
4. Brian from San Francisco. A Buddhist and a language enthusiast, he has been living with Tibetans in Kathmandu and Dharamsala for most of the last 18 months, learning Tibetan with the aim of translating into English the lesser known texts of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a corporate worker for the last 15 years and before that he was a Russian translator in the military.  He told me that the tedium of corporate life led him to search for something more significant to put his effort into, and translating Tibetan is what he found.
5. Gilbert (don’t be fooled, he’s French so it’s Jheel-behr) of Alliance Guesthouse in Naggar, India.  At 17, he left his home in the south of France to travel around the world for four years. Dissatisfied with the materialistic life in the west, he found himself on a sort of existential search. He met his wife in Naggar, and has been there ever since (nearly 19 years), building up his guesthouse one room at a time. I’ve stayed at quite a few fantastic guesthouses, but this place was one of only three that really felt like a home. It seems strange to say this, but during my stay it was obvious that Gilbert put great love into everything he did. For him, it’s not about money or even about being more popular than the place down the street. It’s about genuinely and joyfully serving people, introducing them to beautiful Naggar, and, in general, sharing life with them. His life’s work at Alliance reminds me of a quote from Kahlil Gibran, “Work is love made visible.” Perhaps the trick is first finding something to do that you love.

My hope is that, through these inadequate anecdotes, you might be able to get a glimpse of these people and the inspiration they have been to me. May we all be as brave as Maggie and Margo, as resilient and joyful as Wofso, and as genuine and passionate as Brian and Gilbert.

An Account of my Pedestrious Tour

I finally finished it! What follows is my account of an eight day trekking tour of the Annapurna Region of the Himalayas. I recently learned the word pedestrious and I’ve been looking for a place to use it ever since. I apologize. In all it was 72 miles of walking, from an elevation of 3,280 ft to 12, 500 ft.

Day 0: Bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara

Start at 6:30AM at the door of my hotel, where my guide, Nabaraj, meets me to walk to the bus park. As we stopped for lunch, Naba decided to buy a line of river trout. There were probably two dozen on a stringer, all about 2-3 inches long. “Pish!” he said, pronouncing the ‘f’ sound as ‘p’ like most Nepalis, “my friend will cook us a great dinner tonight with these pish!” Indeed, the dinner was quite good, but it didn’t make up for having to sit next to a man carrying a bag of smelly fish in a cramped, stuffy bus for the three or four hours.

Pokhara, for a large city in Nepal, is very nice. It straddles Fewa lake and has fantastic views of the Annapurnas from any part of the city. My favorite mountain’s name means “fishtail” in Nepali, Mt. Machapuchhchre (yes, there are that many ch’s).  Naba and I walked around the city a bit and visited a Hindu island temple in the middle of the lake called Barahi. It was nice.

Fewa Lake, Pokhara, Nepal

Ended the day at Fewa Lake Guesthouse, where the owner exactly resembled the actor Seth Rogen. The comparison was only helped by the fact that he was growing weed on the rooftop.

Day 1: Pokhara by Car to Naya Pul, trek to Tikhedunga

Starting elevation: 3,280 ft, ending elevation: 4,921 ft

After a windy, pot-holed ride up to Naya Pul, we embarked on our trek, spending most of the day on either side of a pretty river valley. No mountain sightings today. The walk was so easy that I found myself thinking, “wow, I’m in much better shape than I thought I was!” My inflated ego was violently popped oh, within about 10 minutes of the next day’s trek.

Trekking time: 4 hours

Day 2: Tikhedunga to Ghorepani

Starting elevation: 4,921 ft, ending elevation: 9,022 ft

I woke up at 5:30AM to the sound of a caravan of heavily burdened donkeys crossing the path in front of the lodge. The bells around their necks are surprisingly melodic, not unlike high pitched church bells, so it was a pleasant way to regain consciousness. We saw caravans like these probably five or six times a day throughout the trek, enough, anyway, for me to forever associate the not too unpleasant smell of donkey manure with the Himalayas.

The walk to Ghorepani was entirely uphill. Over the years the path has been improved in various ways so that today it’s pretty much a stone staircase (over 2,000 steps). It was slow going because we took many, many breaks. We had a few sightings of mountains, but we could only see the tips. Only when we arrived in Ghorepani, utterly exhausted, did we see the majestic Dhauligiri Mountain it all its splendor.

On the way to Ghorepani, our first glimpse of Dhauligiri Mountain

I went to bed early after a game of cards with a Canadian woman, a Japanese woman, an Australian guy, and my guide, Naba.

Trekking Time: 7 hours

Day 3: Ghorepani to Tatopani

Starting elevation: 9,022 ft, Poon Hill elevation: 10,531 ft, ending elevation: 3,904 ft

I woke up before sunrise today to take the famous predawn walk up Poon Hill, a lookout point with spectacular views of the Annapurnas. It was a much harder walk than I expected it to be (I think the previous day was still catching up with me), but the payoff was immense. I’ll allow the photos to speak for themselves:

View of the Annapurna Range from Poon Hills lookout tower

Me on the amusingly named Poon Hill

Sunrise over the foothills of the Annapurnas

While I was enjoying the view, I started a conversation with another trekker named Erica, who I found out is also from Minneapolis, only 10 blocks away from where I lived. It was a nice reminder of home and a strange coincidence.  From Poon Hill I started the day-long descent to Tatopani.  Of the 8 hours of walking that day, an hour was going up Poon Hill but the rest was entirely downhill, mostly on a stone staircase similar to the day before. It was more difficult than I thought it would be to walk downhill for an entire day; my calves were angry with me by the end and my pinky toe responded by becoming one mammoth blister. I’ll spare you the disgusting photo.

The physical exhaustion, horrible cough given to me by Bangkok and Kathmandu’s pollution, and smarting feet couldn’t even begin to put a dent in how breathlessly gorgeous it was. I couldn’t help but marvel at the way, over countless generations, people have been able to make a life in such difficult conditions. In the photo below you can see the bright green, irrigated terraces that line all the inhabited valleys in Nepal. The amount of labor – all by hand – it must have taken to build the terraces is simply astounding. Nepalis are very, very hard working people.

Terraced agriculture like this floursihes all over the Annapurnas

I arrived in Tatopani utterly exhausted. My state of mind at the sight of the public hot spring in the village cannot be understated: I was so, so happy to have a natural hot tub to spend three hours soaking in. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of the springs, just imagine a cement pool right next to a river with delightfully hot water and lots of beleaguered trekkers nearly passed out in it.

Trekking Time: 6 1/2 hours

Day 4: Tatopani to Ghasa

Starting elevation: 3,904 ft, ending elevation: 6,594 ft

On this day my body finally started to get used to the exertion.We walked along a newly built road that’s been blasted out of the cliffsides of the Kali Gandaki valley, something I was dissapointed to discover. It ended up being alright, the road was much more comfortable to walk on than the stone steps of the previous days and only 5-10 vehicles passed us in a day.

Me on the way to Ghasa, sweaty and happy

We passed a waterfall that literally fell into the road. Jeeps and buses have to drive through the gushing waters to continue on their way.

As I started to get more accustomed to the hours of walking each day, time began to pass by very quickly; before I knew it, we had arrive in Ghasa. I had a delicious dinner of garlic soup, hot water, and a triple dose of vitamins, which helped get me over the threshold of my respiratory problems.

Trekking Time: 6 hours

Day 5: Ghasa to Marpha:

Starting elevation: 6,594 ft, ending elevation: 8,759 ft

I awoke feeling much, much better – according to Naba, the garlic soup did the trick. The morning was exhilarating. The views continued to be indescribable and I felt so much better physically that I felt a profound sense of elation, almost a high. This high feeling was in no way related to the naturally growing marijuana bushes I saw next to the road, I promise.

The Kali Gandaki River as it broadens at the beginning of the Tibetan desert

It was this day that the landscape changed dramatically. Moving along, I saw the lush, green hillsides being replaced with austere, desert-like gravel and squat little colorless bushes. We were entering the Tibetan desert, an area in a ‘rain shadow,’ where high mountains block rain clouds from entering the region.

We arrived in Marpha, a cliffside village almost entirely Tibetan, to a snack of Masala tea and apple crumble. Yes, apple crumble in a Tibetan village in the mountains of Nepal. Marpha, I was politely reminded several times by several different villagers, is “the delightful apple capital of Nepal,” hence the apple crumble and various other local apple products.

Back side of Marpha's monastery

Another shot of Marpha's monastery, seen from the courtyard

Birds over Marpha, "the delightful apple capital of Nepal"

Marpha was almost my favorite town, second only to Kagbeni. The Tibetan prayer flags on every roof and the bright red and white monastery in the center of the village made for a very charming and calming place. Walking around, I heard the villages performing their prayer chants, “Om mani padme hum,” and I smelled the incense of the monastery floating down into the streets. It is  a deeply spiritual place, made all the more so by the starkly beautiful mountain-desert scenery surrounding it.

Trekking time: 6 1/2 hrs

Day 6: Marpha to Kagbeni

Starting elevation: 8.759, ending elevation: 9,186 ft

I spent the morning exploring Marpha for an hour or so until we set off. It took us only an hour to reach Jomsom, where we would circle back two days later for our flight back to Pokhara. We spent a few hours in Jomsom, first waiting for internet (Naba needed to check his email, I grudgingly emailed a quick “I’m still alive” message to my parents) and then waiting for lunch. From there, it was a quick 2 1/2 hour walk along the desert riverbed of the Kali Gandaki to Kagbeni. Other than this day, I had great weather the entire trip. It began to sprinkle as we walked into the village.

Dhauligiri Mountain shrouded by quickly advancing rainclouds

Kagbeni, as I mentioned before, was my favorite village of the trek. It was very similar to Marpha but possessed much more spectacular views and had an intriguing bit of animist culture in addition to its Tibetan Buddhist roots. Over every door of the medieval-looking buildings hung an ox scull with dried flowers attached to it and in one corner of the labrynthine, narrow alleys was a sculpture of a fertility god, complete with a larger-than-life phallis and a huge, bloody knife (apparently meant to say “don’t mess with my women,” or something maybe a bit more colloquial). The villagers still practice elements of Bon-Po, an animist religion that preceded Buddhism in the region.

The restricted area of Upper Mustang as seen from Kagbeni

Trekking time: 3 1/2 hours

Day 7: Kagbeni to Muktinath

Starting elevation: 9,186 ft, ending elevation:  12,467 ft

The culmination of the Jomsom trek is the long climb up to Muktinath, a temple close to Throng La Pass that thousands of Hindus and Buddhists make pilgramage to every year.

The climb was relatively easy and extremely exhilarating; by that time, my body had become much more used to the exertion needed to walk for hours a day. We had great views of Jharkot village and Throng La Pass on the way.

Rocks inscribed with Tibetan characters reading "Om mani padme hum," the Buddhist prayer chant

Muktinath was a bit of a disappointment considering the hype it receives but I still enjoyed it. The highlight of my time there was  watching Indian soap operas with some elderly Nepali women at my guesthouse (it got really cold after dark so there wasn’t much exploring to do).

I also had a fun time hanging out with some adolescent monks at the village monastery. They were doing their schoolwork as I explored the complex and, although shy when they first saw me, soon excitedly let me into the monastery’s main center of worship (I’m forgetting the technical name for it). It was a beautiful building full of ritual artifacts like drums and flutes and clarinets that serve as a call to prayer. The building invokes calm and peace as soon as you walk in; however, the young monks’ prodigious energy seemed to overwhelm any tendency toward quiet reflection. They ran in immediately and began banging on the drums and loudly tooting the horns. Each one wanted my attention as they made as much noise as humanly possible. I laughed and laughed. Kid monks are still kids, it seems.

Trekking Time: 4 hours

Day 8: Muktinath to Jomsom

Starting elevation: 12,467 ft, ending elevation: 8,940 ft

We backracked to Jomsom through gale force headwinds in the Kali Gandaki valley. It didn’t take us too long, so I spent the day relaxing in our guesthouse in Jomsom.

Trekking time: 3 1/2 hours

Day 9: Jomsom to Pokhara

We awoke early to catch our 20 minute flight through the mountains, which would have been much better if the plane’s windows weren’t so dirty. It was unnverving to be back in a real city. I had a celebratory beer in a restaurant next to the lake in Pokhara while relaxing by writing some letters and postcards.

In sum:

All in all it was a fantastic experience, definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I would do it again in a heartbeat; in fact, I would love to do the entire 21-day Annapurna circuit, which includes the Naya Pul-Muktinath section. Maybe next year, anyone? Munns is already up for it!

As I mentioned in my last post, it was a profoundly spiritual experience. I think it’s no wonder that Buddhism flourished and developed so greatly in the Himalayas. The scenery lends itself to self-evaluation and compels one to open him or herself up to the divine. In my guesthouse in Kagbeni, I met a Swiss woman who had been trekking around Nepal for a month. She told me that the day before she decided to believe in God as she walked from Marpha to Kagbeni because it was “too beautiful, too incredible.”

Nepal has been my favorite country so far. I recommend it to anyone who loves the outdoors. Go there! Contact Nabaraj at nabaraj_8848m@yahoo.com. He’s experienced, reliable, and he’ll give you a great deal.

Some good fun:

On a lighter or perhaps stranger note, I’ll leave you with this photo, taken on the Hindu holiday of Shivaratri at Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu. Feel free to make up a caption for the photo. Yes, he’s beckoning me creepily. Write what you think the Sadhu (Hindu Holy Man) is saying to me in the comments section.

Quote Challenge: What is he saying to me? Answer in comments section!

Himalayan Elation

Namaste!

I write to you as a new man, fresh off the trekking trail. The trek was breathtakingly beautiful, profoundly spiritual, extremely challenging, and, along with so many more adverb-adjective (thanks for the grammar correction, Michael) combinations, probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

I’m working on a complete, day-by-day account of the trek (with some photos I’m rather proud of) but there’s a lot to say so it may take me a week or two to get it posted.

In all, it was 72 miles in 8 days to a maximum elevation of 12, 500 feet. I walked from village to village among the foothills of the Himalayas (which definitely wouldn’t be considered foothills by most of you), passing caravans of heavily burdened donkeys, solitary old women and men carrying massive, heavy baskets of goods, and mammoth mountains, which never failed to make me feel entirely insignificant but yet so, so alive. I’m still riding the high of the trek – it seems like everything is in technicolor.

I’ll leave Nepal with the firm conviction that anyone who loves the outdoors and considers themselves a spiritual person must do a trek in Nepal sometime in their life. Other than airfare, it’s incredibly cheap (guesthouse rooms were never more than $4 a night) and it’s so easy to get around. The experiences people have here are profound. I’ll definitely be returning as much as I can.

Pictures and a full account are on the way. Thanks for reading!

By the way, tomorrow is a holiday here in Nepal called Shivaratri. I know very little about all the rituals that go along with it, but apparently one of the ways (and certainly the most popular way) to celebrate it is by partaking in a joint, a hashish pancake, or basically anything including or having to do with weed. It’s the only day of the year that marijuana is legal in Nepal. Should be interesting!

Fear and Loathing in Kathmandu

Flying into Kathmandu yesterday after an easy three hour flight, I was pleasantly surprised to find Nepal at a comfortable 70 degrees, which was a godsend after balmy, sweaty, mosquito-y Bangkok.

The visa process was quick and easy; the customs queue, however, was perplexing. While still in flight, I recieved a unintelligible brochure detailing what constitutes ‘consumable’ items and ‘non-consumable’ items brought into the country. Now, early in my education I learned that when you don’t know what a word means in a book, you must look at its context. Using this helpful principle, I perused the list of items. Under consumable were ‘used photo stills,’ ‘used music player and/or 10 or more cassettes,’ and, simply, ‘personal medicine,’ among others. Under non-consumable were similarly uncategorizable ‘perambulator 1 piece,’ ‘Fishing rod,’ ‘used personal clothes,’ and, I kid you not, ‘tricycle.’ That’s right, with no mention of any other wheeled object, utterly inexplicable: tricycle.

Under the list of items was an explanation of how the customs queue operates. I read through this short paragraph about eighteen times and still couldn’t make sense of it. It cryptically explained that there are two lines, the green line and the red line. If you had items to declare, you are meant to go to the red line. The end of the paragraph made it very clear that ‘THE GREEN LINE DOES NOT MEAN GO;’ it simply means you have no items to declare. Expecting a nightmarish gulag for a customs bureau, I exited the visa line with trepidation and walked into a scene of utter confusion. Bored-looking guys in uniforms that could have been customs officials were sitting around talking to one another, Nepalis were unloading massive carts of boxes into x-ray machines, and all around were signs both ominous and incomprehensible, threatening fines, seizure of belongings, and imprisonment if you were to walk through the green line (which DOES NOT MEAN GO, according to several signs in big green letters) with goods that should be checked by customs. Though I expended a great deal of mental effort trying to figure out if I had dutiable goods on my person, I had no idea which line I should go through. So, thinking I would ask a customs official – and thus  avoid death and dismemberment or whatever it was they’d do to me – I walked up to a group of them and said ‘excuse me.’ No response. I stood there for about 40 seconds and then, satisfied that they could care less about me, walked through the green line (WHICH DOES NOT MEAN GO) unmolested.

I was accosted by a government agency apparently dedicated to helping newly arrived tourists find the most boring hotels imaginable, which is what they succeeded in doing. I love backpacker hotels, where it’s usually easy to meet other travelers even if the rooms are a bit dingy. This hotel, while dingy, seems to be empty. I haven’t met another traveler in Nepal yet, which is a bit depressing. Lesson learned: Don’t trust bureaus at airports to find you the most happening place in town. Luckily I found another guesthouse with many travelers that I’ll stay in after I return to Kathmandu from….

A trek in the Himalayas!

I can hardly contain my gloat-inducing excitement over the 9 day trek I’m embarking upon tomorrow morning. Along with a guide (which I don’t think I’ll need because everything is so well marked but, because I couldn’t find a trekking companion, is necessary for safety), I’ll take a bus tomorrow to Pokhara, from which I’ll hike for 8 days in the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas. I obviously won’t have internet access during this time, so you’ll have to wait until the 22nd or 23rd to hear about it (and I know you’ll all be waiting at your computer screens for the inevitably hilarious, captivating, and profound post).

Kathmandu is a place I hate and love simultaneously. There’s nothing quite like walking through very narrow streets with cars and motorcycles zipping by inches away from you at bat-out-of-hell speeds and being unable to keep from whispering ‘I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.’ Truly, it makes you appreciate being alive. The pollution is horrible, even worse than Bangkok, which I didn’t think was possible. The people are terribly friendly and helpful and their accents are way easier to understand than in Thailand. Policemen walk around not with guns, but 4 foot bamboo poles, apparently very effective at breaking up mobs and fights. Colors everywhere are bright, from every point on the color wheel. I can’t go a block without being offered hashish, a rickshaw ride, kitsch statuettes, or anything else you could imagine. With all that said, I’m happy to get out of Kathmandu and into the mountains tomorrow.

I’m off to catch some z’s before a 6 hour bus ride tomorrow. Cheers! And remember, if you ever end up at Tribhuvan International Airport, despite popular thought, green does not mean go.