reverse culture shock

It's strange to be home, but for different reasons than i might have thought. My trip has been relatively short. Many travelers abroad travel for 6 months, or a year. My trip was 6 weeks. This shortness lent it an interesting aspect: It was long enough to learn a new world, but not long enough to forget the old. When i returned home after what seemed like a long trip, i expected things to look very different to me, but to the contrary, things looked EXACTLY THE SAME. It was a bit surreal. It felt like i had left this world and gone to another for a length of time, and then zapped back into this world the day after i left.

Of course, i was gifted with the relative sight that only such an opposite cultural experience can give. I see things more starkly, the straightness of buildings, and the strangeness of our culture.

On the drive home from boston to my hometown, i was struck by the number of cop-cars that i saw. So many, darkly waiting in the median for someone to harass, or lights flashing by the side of the road, a victim in clutches. It's no wonder everbody drives on their side of the yellow line! In Nepal, traffic patterns are creative, friendly and practical. Here we're governed by rules and lines, tickets and fines. The same exists over there, but the lines aren't straight, and neither are the fines. Traffic violations are taken care of on the spot, the 100 rupee fine gracing the pocket of the fining officer. No tickets in triplicate, guilty or not guilty, no repeated visits to the courthouse. Too many rules and regulations. With Nepali traffic rules, there is no one right way; everybody is responsible for themselves, and for not unreasonably endangering their brother. And it works. mostly.

Another thing in america governed by straight lines: the buildings. Everything so straight and orderly, plumb and parallel. And entirely incongruous with the surrounding natural environment. In the Himalayas, houses were built from readily available material: rock. In the mountains, that's the element of choice. Imported material is not practical. It's hard to carry 2 tons of factory made brick up a winding mountain trail, so just pick up the rocks from the ground, and build with them. It just makes sense. Not so in america. Everything is from someplace else, brought in on trucks, and assembled into sanitary square boxes that have nothing to do with the ground around them.

Same thing with the food we eat. Nothing to do with the ground around us. Its hard to get a wholesome thing to eat in a developed country such as our own. I thought that the gastro-intestinal adaptation to Nepali food would be a challenge for my system, but in fact the reverse has been true. My stomach is challenged by the reintroduction of preservatives and whitebread and the crazy variation of an american diet, and since i got back i haven't had a normal bowel movement. Corn grown in Nebraska and processed in Pennsylvania, packaged in New Jersey, and shipped in a truck to a warehouse in Maine, delivered to the grocery store down the street. Who knows what my body will do with that? On the other hand, rice grown by my neighbor and potatoes from my back yard, that's a little more manageable. Nothing about our lives here has anything to do with ground around us. This is the distinct advantage that a developing country has, head and shoulders above us. They live close to the ground around them, their food and their water and their houses and their primary mode of transport, all straight from the ground. Where does ours come from? Who knows?

I don't understand how some of these things came about. Why we have developed the way we have is a mystery. The life in a developing country is easy to understand: things have come about through necessity, through the real needs of humanity. In our "developed" country, though, necessity is lost, and things develop through convenience. Necessity is the mother of invention, but convenience is its in-bred cousin. Living by necessity, one must live in harmony with one's surroundings, because it is the only way to survive. On the other hand, when necessity is cast aside, and convenience becomes the driving factor, things become a twisted mess of fad and fashion, decadence and desire, totally disconnected from the true needs of people, and the true needs of people are forgotten, and no longer met. This is a lamentable state to be in. Although we may be the richest country in the world in some respects, in other aspects, we are the poorest.

I spoke to my miith-juu, my soul-friend in Nepal, about the richness of his country. I told him that everybody in Nepal seemed so happy, smiling all the time. He said "If you look inside of us, though, you will see a sadness, a deep grief." I said, "In the same way, you look at us in America, and it looks to you a rich life, but on the inside, we are a poor people, lacking in our true needs, the needs of our spirit. On the other hand, people in Nepal look poor on the outside, while on the inside you are rich, in brotherhood, and love, in the true needs of spirit." Human beings, to be truly happy, must first attend to these true needs that we have all but forgotten in our striving for convenience and our forgetfulness of necessity.

A bit of perspective is all we need. To see our decadent lives in relation to the lives of these bare survivors helps, but it is not enough. We must throw away our superiority, our desire to bring them "UP" to our level, and we must learn from them what they have to teach. I have never had to think for a day in my life where my food is coming from, the effect of the sun and the rains on my crop. This is an impoverished way of nourishment. I have chosen instead to put my knees in the dirt and learn these things. I do not live the hard life of the mountain people, nor can i pretend that i ever have, carrying my 20-pound backpack up past the porter laboring under his 220-pound load. But i have learned from these things, learning to appreciate the real stuff of life, how to nourish the deepest seed of life, and how to feed the human soul. I wish that everyone would step back and take a look at their life from the outside, to see the way that we live for what it is, to live another way for at least a day, in order to gain a wider perspective of how to truly live. Whatever you do, give it a try.

most sincerely,

mark andrew heffernan

Around the World and Back Again

I arrived back to the USA on 4 Apr 2002, after a long
and arduous 3
days in transit, that in-between state, between here
and there,
between now and then, neither one place nor the other.

I woke at 5:30 am Nepal time (it was late afternoon
the day before at
my final destination) and rode to the airport in a
haze of
sleep-muddled confusion, and fought the queues and the
chaos of
check-in, finding my way through barriers of questions
by blue
uniformed officials speaking two different languages,
finding my way
to a cup of tea and five minutes of calm, and then
confusion, finding
myself in the company of my fellow travelers, sitting
with no place
to go. Our plane was not to fly, not at at the 8:10
that it was
supposed to, not this morning either. Rumour has it
that we shall
leave at noon. OK, what to do? Go to the Hotel
(which Hotel?) and
have some breakfast. How shall we go to the hotel
(the hotel? which
hotel?) The white van shall take you to the hotel.
Where is the
white van? The white van? It has gone to the hotel.
How shall I
get to the Hotel? You can't get to the hotel.
Sitting talking to
blue-uniformed officials, who only feed my confusion,
confusion which
is turning to hunger and pale anger. Who put these
men in charge?
Are they in charge? Who's in charge here? How do i
get to the
hotel? The white van. Oh the white van. Where is
it? This way.
Waiting, waiting, and then this way to the white van.
Ah the white
van! White on the outside white on the inside, white
linen seat
covers, and we are off to the hotel, and then sitting
at white tables
on green manicured lawns, somewhere, but nowhere, at
that place in
between.

So here i find myself waiting in Kathmandu, a city i
said goodbye to
yesterday, waiting at a four star hotel (compliments
of the airline),
with white linen tablecloths and seat covers, banquet
breakfast and
buffet and only 50 rupees in my pocket, waiting for a
plane that we
feel will never come. Tommorrow, Nepal Bandh, and the
city will shut
down for a week-long strike, so we must leave today,
or stay. I walk
from the hotel into the streets of Kathmandu, these
streets where i
have walked daily, but today i feel like a phantom,
like i'm not
really here at all. Even though the street hawkers
offer me
miniature chess sets and tiger balm and hashish, even
though my
physical person is here in the streets, Kathmandu
thinks that i am
gone, and so do i. So i return to the hotel, the
surreal transitory
state, neither here nor there, eating from the buffet
and sitting
back beside the pool, hands bound behind my head,
watching the sky
change through my sunglasses. The sky changes from
day to night,
hope changes, rumoured plane departure changes from
noon to midnight,
and still i sit, in transit, but unmoving.

Royal Nepal Airlines has but two planes, and one of
them is bound to
the ground, technical difficulty preventing our escape
from
Kathmandu, with the Bandh imminent. The other left
for India this
morning, and will be back later. When? Some time
tonight. The
buses line up in front of the hotel at midnight,
carrying us would-be
travelers to our point of transit, Tribhuvan airport,
Kathmandu. We
hundred pass through the circuits of security, and sit
expectant in a
room, and an airplane approaches the windows, looming
up out of the
dark, engines whining. A murmur arises, hopeful and
doubtful at the
same time, "our plane?" and lightning splits the sky,
silhouettes the
huge shape, and the lights go out. Expectancy hushes
us hundred
travelers, and rain begins to fall, big drops on the
still-warm
tarmac, and we sit in darkness, lit by lighning only.
Then the
lights flash on, and the door is opened. We dash out
across the rain
spattered runway and up the stairs, into the plane
that is finally
ours, taxi to the runway, and with a roar, we rise
into the
lightning-torn sky at 3 in the morning, and we are on
our way.

I was meant to have a day waiting in Bangkok, to catch
my flight in
the morning from Thailand to Taipei, but with the 19
hour delay in
Kathmandu, my day in Bangkok dwindled to what might be
a few minutes.
The Royal Nepal airplane touched the ground at
7:55am, leaving me to
run for my 8:25 departure, only to reach it and find
no seat to sit
in. So my few minutes in Bangkok becomes once again a
day in
Bangkok, 24 hours in-between, neither here nor there.

So once again, i find myself in the surreal world of
four-star hotel
buffet dinner courtesy of Royal Nepal Ailines, and i
have a chance to
wander the sweltering, busy streets of Bangkok,
sampling spicy-hot
Thai food, sipping cold coconut milk straight from the
shell, walking
among markets selling cheap chinese factory goods,
amidst the
bustling metropolis of four-lane highways and shiny
cars, the other
side of Kathmandu's coin.

I had a candle-lit dinner by myself, overlooking the
city from the
Sky lounge of the 43 story hotel, and i was still
in-between, in
transit. But for the fact that it was dark, it could
have been
morning or midnight or midafternoon. I had not slept
all night, and
then i slept all day, and my body did not know which
way was up, and
which way i was going. It all fed the surrealism of
the situation,
finding myself serenaded a woman in an evening gown,
by the light of
a candle and the city below. I rode the elevator
down, stopping on
the way to sleep for the night, and then went straight
to the airport
again, to resume my travel.

And so i found myself on another plane, flying to
another place, and
after 6 hours, i was there, in Taipei, Taiwan. The
news i had heard
was that an earthquake had just struck Taiwan, but i
did not see
anything of it. Being in the airport of Taipei is
entirely different
than being in Taipei. Airports fall into this
category of places
that are not actually places. Other place that are
not actually
places include highway rest areas and elevators.
These are not
places that people go TO, only places that people go
THROUGH. There
is a sort of suspension of reality in these places, a
sort of
semi-existence. Sitting in the Taipei airport
drinking a cup of tea
is like sitting NOWHERE and drinking a cup of tea,
except for the
fact that people speak Chinese. So i sat nowhere for
4 hours,
drinking a cup of tea, just waiting to go somewhere
else. And
finally it was time to go somewhere else, so i got on
another
airplane, an airplane flying to New York, USA.

It takes 16 hours to fly from Taipei to NYC, and 16
hours is a long
time to be in a pressure sealed cabin 6 miles above a
vast wide
ocean, confined to a space of 4 sq.ft. 16 hours is a
long time to
sit next to the same elderly Chinese man, who had the
same bad breath
the whole time, and the same 2 granddaughters
constantly shuttling
back and forth between grandma and grandpa, squeezing
past my knees
every time. 16 hours is a long time to entertain
oneself with two
movies and one book. 16 hours is a long time to be
awake due to one
regrettable cup of coffee after dinner. 16 hours is a
long, long
time. But after 16 hours, the plane landed at JFK in
NYC in USA, and
i was once more in my native land.

As soon as i was in New York, i knew it. I was
greeted with that
beautiful New York charm. The man behind the
immigration counter
spoke to me with that Brooklyn warmth, saying "Hey
buddy, do I look
like the only guy heah? Move it on down the line!"
The baggage
people were very helpful, telling me, "Dere's an exit
sign on da
ceiling, it says EXIT. Use it!" On the way through
customs the guy
says i can go, and then says "go on, move it before I
change my
mind!" The baggage checkers were kind enough to tag
my baggage with
the wrong airline tag, and then promptly lost my
luggage. Ah, back
in the USA!

One more airport, one more plane, and then i arrived
in Boston, on a
late night flight, and so, after 49 hours on the
ground waiting at 5
airports and 2 four star hotels, with 5 complimentary
buffets, and
27 hours in the air flying in 4 different airplanes
with 5 airline
meals and 3 packets of peanuts, through 11 time zones,
across 1
international dateline, i finally arrived home 3 days
later, with my
body not sure if it's day or night, breakfast lunch or
dinner time,
time to sleep or time to wake.

Regardless, it's good to be home, with a deeper and a
wider
perspective than i had before i left. I feel like i
was lifted out
of this world and dropped in another entirely
different world for 6
weeks, and then dropped back into the same world i
left, the world
unchanged but my perspective of the world altered
slightly, like
looking through a different lens. It may be a
challenge to hold on
to the focus of my experience, being thrust back into
american
everyday, but my experiences in the other world have
certainly
changed the way i see. I would highly recommend this
sort of
experience to everybody, just to give some perspective
to our
everyday lives, to REALIZE the way we live, and not to
just live it
blindly. To learn how others choose to live, or how
others MUST
live, is to learn how it is that we actually live.
It's hard to see
from the inside, but from the outside, one is given a
point of
reference, and the opportunity to see our lives as
they look to
others, and the perspective to appreciate some aspects
of our lives,
and to call into question others.

Now i am home from Nepal, but this does not mean my
trip has ended.
I still have some adventures from the other side of
the world to
share, and some perspectives from this side of the
world. I hope
that the fact that these emails come from someplace as
close to home
as massachusetts or upstate NY does not alter their
interest to you.
I still have more to share, and i sincerely appreciate
the interest
that all of you have shown thus far. Thank you, and
keep in touch.

much love,

mark andrew

Holi Ho!

Today was madness in Kathmandu. Holi is a festival of
craziness, and
of all the colors of the rainbow. It is a celebration
of the first
full moon of spring, and the coming of the cooling
monsoon. Water is
being sprayed everywhere, and water balloons coming
from rooftops,
colored with dye, and everybody throwing color powder
and smearing
each other with color. It is particuarly risky for
white people to
go outside, as we make particularly good targets (we
color easier).
This morning i was not able to walk safely to my
friend's house in
Dholpu, a 7 minute walk. I got pegged from rooftops,
chased through
the streets by a guy with a bucket full of orange
water, and yellow
powder smeared on my face. And that was before the
fun started!

I am one to put myself in the way of danger from time
to time, and so
i did today. Yesterday, i bought a whole outfit of
white clothes for
450 rupees, and i went out today at the mercy of
Krishna, and before
5 minutes, i was a mess, covered in red dye and soaked
with water.
The whole town was painted, and water was flying from
every
direction. We walked to the heart of Thamel, the
tourist center of
Kathmandu, and it was a mad scene. Multi-colored
people were packed
in the street, boxes of powder being sold at every
corner, red yellow
orange green silver gold black white blue, people
covered head to
toe, water battles going between rooftops and us down
on the street
soaked and colorful. There were battles between the
ground and the
rooftops, and the best shots were wildly applauded by
everyone,
sometimes a roofdweller getting it in the back of the
head, or a
bucketful of water dumped from three stories up.
Everytime a clean
person tried to sneak by, a roar rose from the crowd,
and the poor
victim was surrounded and attacked by a rainbow of
hue. There was a
purple bearded madman jumping up and down, and
spraying his color
everywhere like a maniacal smurf. Motorbike riders
became quite
colorful, and cars that tried to squeeze through the
crowd with an
unlocked door or tailgate were in trouble. The door
would be opened,
and a crowd would descend upon the unfortunate
passenger with powder
and water and color paste. In a word, it was
madness!! And some
real good fun!

As far as i can tell, America doesn't know about
festivals, how to
have real good fun! For one day, everyone in Nepal
cuts loose and
sprays all of their brothers and sisters, and no one
is allowed to
get mad at each other. There were some minor
altercations that i
witnessed, but the instigator would get a bucket
dumped over their
head, and somebody would yell "Holi Ho!!!" and the
bad feelings
would dissipate quickly, and the fun would start
again. It was the
most fun i've had in one day, and i wish that more
people in our
country knew how to do it.

At the end of the day, i was covered in red and green
and purple, my
clothes dyed, and also my feet and my face and my hair
and hands. I
think in a week or so, i will be my original color
again, 4 showers
later. We'll see.


Kolorful in Kathmandu,

mark.

A Primer in Nepali Language and Life

While in Nepal, I've had the great advantage of being
constantly in
Nepali company, and i've learned the Nepali language
to the point
where i can hold a decent conversation while walking
up the trail
with somebody, or haggling over prices (EVERYTHING is
negotiable!),
or sitting on the dirt floor in the kitchen drinking
tea. It's given
me an entirely different perspective, allowed me to
get inside the
country instead of being such an outsider, and i've
had many great
conversations with great people.

Here are some of the most useful things i've learned:

Namaste: hello and goodbye, the most used word in the
foreigner's
vocabulary

Kweeri: foreigner. I like this word: it says that
white people are
weird. They eat pizza and drink beer, Kweeri food. A
little bit
queer. What's wrong with Dhal Bhat?

Dhal Bhat: lentil soup and rice, about all that the
average Nepali
eats.

Ramro cha: It is good. This is a useful phrase: it
says a lot.
Where english has ten or twenty words: nice, good,
fantastic,
wonderful, etc... Nepali has one word: Ramro. Good.
You can use
this phrase to say: Nice Weather today, Huh? or Your
home is very
nice, or The mountains are amazing, or you are
beautiful, or Good
Food! Useful phrase, that.

Dheri: very, as in DHERI ramro cha, that is Very Good

Mathi: up

Tholo: down

Garu: difficult

Sojile: easy. all 4 useful words in the mountains
(you don't use
sojile all that much, actually)

Bistarai: slow. also a useful word in the mountains,
as in Bistarai
Zahun, Slowly we go.

Thik cha: OK. Somebody asks you how you're doing (Ke
Cha?), say
Thik Cha. I'm OK.

Thikai cha: Not bad. This is if you're not doing so
hot.

Kati ho: how much is this?

Mongo cha: That's EXPENSIVE! I find it a very useful
phrase when
used thus: "AYA!! MONGO CHA!" coupled with a step
towards the door.

Sasto Cha: That's cheap. as in: "Sasto cha, Ramro
cha"

Sathi: friend. Someone who you like, and who gives
you a cheap
price.

mero: mine. Mero sathi, my friend.

tapaiko: yours.

The nepalis are very happy to talk to me. As i walk
past, they say
Namaste, and i reply in Nepali and ask them how
they're doing, and
then i'm talking for a half hour at least. They love
to chat,
especially if you take the effort and learn their
language.

They live slower here, talking more and enjoying each
other's
company. It seems that in America our lives are all
filled with a
whole lot of nothing, running to stand still. We're
too busy with
ourselves to pay attention to our fellows. Here they
all address
each other as brother and sister and friend,
EVERYBODY. Its a good
life here, even though its hard. They live closer to
the essentials,
thinking about the food that they grow, or the house
that they build,
instead of all the stuff that they have.

At the same time they live slower, they also live
quicker. THe
average Nepali man lives to about age 50. By the time
somebody can
talk, they learn how to do business, and a boy of 13
is already a
Man. They smoke a lot of cigarettes, climb mountains
barefoot with
100 Kilos on their head, ride on the top of buses, and
all sorts of
other things that we would consider risks, and we've
made laws
against. Its a different life. People die a lot
here, and its
accepted as a part of life. Western thinking does not
accept death,
and we do everything to avoid it. But here, in their
buddhist
thinking, death is just another part of life, another
go 'round.
It's a better way. After all, we're all going to die.

Everybody asks me where i'm from (Kun Desh? Which
Country?), and i
tell them america, they say, "Ah, Ramro Desh". I
reply, "Ho,
America Ramro cha. Tara Nepal dheri ramro!" (ho: yes.
tara: but)

one of the best phases i know is:

Ramro jindogi: Good Life





Tomorrow is Holi, a mad festival where everybody
throws water
balloons filled with color dye at each other. Damn,
who though this
up? What a great idea! I wish we had holidays like
this!

Nepal-ma, Ramro jindogi!


Tapaiko dheri sathi Nepal-ma,

mark.

much love.

it's okay, i escaped

sorry to leave you in suspense last time, with myself
in police
custody in Nepal. Everything worked out (the police
just have
nothing to do way up there in the mountains, and they
needed somone
to talk to). The security at the Nepal Tibet border
is somewhat
present, but way up in the mountains, the police force
is somewhat of
a rag-tag bunch, and they're all just guys after all.

It was a beautiful, bright night sky, the night of the
full moon,
nestled way up in the mountains. Timure sleeps
cradled in the Bhote
Khola river valley. Dogs keep sentinel all night,
barking at nothing
in particular, or just barking at everything.
Standing on stone
terrace of the low stone house where i stay, I can see
Tibet, that
forbidden land across the line, Shangri-la in the
moonlight. But i
am IN Tibet, Tibet in exile, the uprooted village with
a history as
old as people. These mountain dwellers care for me
like one of their
own, or even better. I stay in this family's home,
eat with them,
drink tea with them, talk with them (in my limited
Nepali language);
I am given the largest bed in the house, and a
comforter to keep me
warm (and some fleas to keep me company). They are
hospitable to a
fault. I ate until i was ready to burst, because they
keep filling
my plate, until i learned to say "Pugyo!!" ("Enough!")

I returned in the morning to Briddim, walking with
Kamal, mero sathi,
and Pema, mero miith-juu, and stayed on with my
Tibetan family for
another night, and then, after parting ways with my
Miith-juu, and an
extended family farewell, tromped on around the
mountain with Kamal,
taking the high road up the Langtang river valley, Up
to Kyanjin
Gompa, an ancient monastery high in the glittering
mountains. As we
traveled up the way, up to 8000 feet, 10000 feet,
12000 feet, the hot
jungle sun gave way to the crisp sharp snow sun of the
Himalaya, and
we arrived at our lodge in Langtang Village just as a
snow storm
barreled down between the ridges above us, screaming
white snow
hurling against the windows, obscuring the outside
from our vision,
snow finding its way in between the cracks to the warm
room where we
sat huddled around the small stove, burning yak dung
to keep us warm.

I awoke in the cold of morning, after a fitful night
of sleep, and
snow was still blowing against the windows, and
everthing outside our
door frosted with sugar. We huddled around the stove,
and at noon,
with all the feirceness it had come with, the storm
cloud broke in
two, and the sun shone. We walked up across the high,
rock strewn
alpine meadow, up and over the lip of a bowl, and
there lay the
village of Kyanjin Gumpa.

The Monastery is a old, rude stone building, some 500
years old, here
in the high mountains, surrounded by the crytal spires
of the
Himalaya, shimmering pearl in the sun. It now used
only
intermittently, on the full moon and other special
occasions. There
is a village of lodge that has grown up around it, a
tourist village
that is starved for life. "Less tourist, this year,"
everybody
says.

I met a charming couple of Australian doctors, great
company, and
together we conquered Kyanjin Ri, what WE called a
mountain, and here
it is known as a "Hill".

So, after a journey of almost two weeks up, we left
Kyanjin Village,
and tumbled down the valley, rumbling like the River
we followed,
fumbling down through the jungle, and then finally
crumbling into a
bed in Shayfru Besi, at the end of the trail,
returning from the
snows to the roads in one day, and my legs hurt for
two.

Now i'm in Pokhara via Kathmandu, did some business in
the city then
back up into the mountains, and i leave tomorrow to
head up to
Muktinath, and then to Marpha.

more later...

"Jahun Bistarai" (take it easy)

mark

To the Edge of Tibet

In the afternoon of the last day of February, the day
of the full
moon, we walked north from Briddim, a party of eight.
Kamal, Pema
Lama (miith-juu), Dorche Lama, myself, and then four
young men, one
of whom was going to Timure, the next village, to ask
for a woman's
hand in marriage.

We walked down out of the village into the jungle,
past a cascading
river, and up to the next chowk, set on the opposite
shoulder of the
mountain overlooking the village.

There are chowks set along trail in various places,
landmarks to mark
one's progress. They are usually marked by flapping
prayer flags,
and there are stone walls built by the side of the
trail, just high
enough for a weary porter to set down his burden, to
give his head
and feet a rest. This particular chowk is marked by
two stupas, one
rust-red, and the other gleaming white in the sun.

We sit for a while, and Dorche Lama is talking the
whole time,
chattering away in Tibetan language, gesticulating
with his hands,
entertaining our party. The men pass around a dirty
yellow plastic
bottle, each taking a couple of gulps of the clear
liquid. They pass
it to me, and i decline, thinking it is water (i have
my own water
bottle, with iodine), but they thrust it upon me,
saying "Khane!", so
i shrug my shoulders, and take a belt. The bottle
contains the local
rice wine, called rakshi (pronounced like "roxy" with
a bit of a
drunken twist). It's strong stuff, more like liquor
than wine,
strong enough to make the walking and talking flow a
little easier.

They have a saying in the mountains, "Bistarai Jahun,"
or "Slowly-we
go." And so we went, taking it easy, walking and
talking, for a few
hours, stopping every now and again for a rest and
another belt off
the bottle.

Timure is another small Tibetan village, just 1/2
hour's walk from
the Nepal/China border, and as a result of this
proximity to the
communist country, it is a restricted area, and we had
been warned by
a Canadian traveler that we would get some trouble
from the police.
So we prepared ourselves.

As the sun fell behind the mountains, we arrived at
the edge of
Timure, and the men stopped to fill up the ceremonial
wooden carafes,
two with rakshi, one with cyang (fermented rice beer),
and then the
hopeful wedding party, decked with liquor and Khadars,
walked up
between the stone walls of the village, and Kamal and
i were left
behind to wrangle with the police.



to be cont'd....


mark

Langtang

It was wet and rainy as we left Kathmandu in the dark
of morning,
headed to the Langtang Mountains, on the Nepal/China
border. We
drove out of the valley and up into the mountains,
Hindi music
blaring ecstatically from the speakers of the rocking
bus, Nepalis
packed in elbow to elbow, and i the only white guy in
the crowd. We
ascended into the clouds, the road dwindling to what
might more
properly be called a "path". As the rain broke and
the clouds
parted, i caught glimpses of the valley, miles and
miles below, and
it felt more like we were flying than driving. Out
one side of the
bus, there was the mountainside, just 1 or 2 metres
from the window,
but from the other side, nothing was visible except a
gut-wrenching
drop that, if taken, would surely render the bus
unrecognizable, and
afford the ocupant's souls a quick trip into the next
plane of
existence, not a bad deal for Rs150. I began to see
why Nepalis live
so much in the moment, with a smile for every waking
day. This bus
ride affirmed the fact that i was alive: I started
alive and i
arrived alive. It was a good day.

I spent the last bit of the bus ride on the roof,
leaning on a sack
of melons, enjoying the dramatic scenery of the
Mountains as they
rose on every side of my, and the bus crawled along
the trail, far
above the roaring Langtang Khola down in the valley,
and then, after
11 hours on bus, we rode into Shaypru Besi, a small
coal-mining town,
the End of the Road, gateway into the mountains.

We trekked up the trail the next day, the stones
glittering silver in
the sun, trekking above the turquoise and white waters
of the Bhote
Khola (the Tibet River), green rice paddies terraced
into the
mountainside, and mountains rising high above us. We
walked up the
trail for a few hours, and then rounded a shoulder,
and there,
nestled in the elbow of the mountain, high above the
river, lay
Briddim village, red and blue and green and yellow and
white prayer
flags flapping in the wind, a huddle of small stone
huts with smoke
rising from the rooftops. We descended into the
village, stone walls
bordering the trail, and we dropped our packs on the
front porch of
the Village Lama's house. We were welcomed
immediately, and were
served cups of Bhote Ciya, Tibetan tea flavored with
butter and salt,
and Roti, a cracker-bread that is shaped into a
tibetan knot, to be
soaked in the ciya and then eaten.

I was welcomed into the family's household, and i
ducked down through
the door into the smoky, dark dwelling. The tibetan
household is
centered around the fire, which is constantly kept
burning, and the
smoke drifts up and out the eaves, rather than up a
chimney. The
walls and ceiling were velvet black from years of
smoke, and the
beams were decorated with fresh painted designes from
Lhosar, the
tibetan New year. A shaft of sunlight created a
diagonal bar of
illumination, falling across the hut, and pooling on
the floor.

We sat in the hut, drinking Bhote ciya and munching on
Roti, and
speaking with the family in a mix of rudimentary
english and my
limited Nepali. The eldest son, Pema Lama, spoke good
english, so we
talked. He is also a young man of 24 years, like me.
He said to me,
"You and me are miith (pronounced like "meet"), and
then explained to
me that this means soul friends, and that tomorrow, we
would hold a
ceremony which would create a brother-like bond
between us. In
celebration, the family called upon a neighbor to kill
a chicken
(being Buddhist Lamas, they do not kill anything them
selves), and we
had a solemn party, a feast of Dal-Bhat (rice and
lentils) and Khukra
(chicken).

The next day, there was a ceremony, and Pema and i
each put a tikka
on the other's forehead, and we were prestented with a
Khadar, a silk
scarf that is bestowed as a sign of welcome. Thus we
became
Miith-juu, and i was welcomed as a part of the family.



more later...

love,

mark

Step into the Sky...

Tommorrow I leave for the mighty Himalaya, Land of
Snows. I travel
to the Langtang Region in the north of Nepal,
bordering Tibet. I am
going by Nepali bus, which by all accounts will be an
interesting way
to travel, a little dunk in the local color, you know?
I will be
trekking up to Kamal's wife's village, a little
Tibetan refugee
village, where they are just winding down with their
Lhosar
celebration, the Tibetan New Year. Then i go for a
walk in the
mountains.

More when i return to the civilized city...

love,

mark in the mountains.

Quiet Day in Kathmandu

Today and tomorrow, all Nepal is closed down. All
businesses are
shut up tight, and in the valley, there is no
transportation moving.
The shut-down was ordered by the Maoist rebels. The
government
declared a state of emergency in the country yesterday
as a result of
an attack by Maoists on a remote police post this
week, where 153
police and army soldiers were killed. So it is a
quiet, peaceful day
in Kathmandu, and i sat in the hot sun on the upstairs
terrace,
playing cards with the hotel staff.

I have talked to many people about the situation, and
they all seem
to feel that the situation is beyond their control;
they shrug their
shoulders, and say, "as long as i can do my business,
it's OK". But
they are unhappy with the situation because there are
less tourists,
where most of their business comes from.

Everybody i talk to says there is no danger for me.
Maoists target
strictly government targets, they never attack
tourists. This way,
they avoid drawing international attention. Kamal
says that i have
nothing to be concerned about, and i trust his word.
In fact, in the
villages, he has many maoist friends, and he stops and
talks to them:
They say "Hello Kamal! How is trekking?" he says
"Good! How is
your fight?"

So things are OK with me, nothing to worry about. And
the government
situation here, who knows? Time will tell, and i will
keep you
posted.

Love, mark

Pashupatinath

On monday, Kamal and i went to Pashuputinath, by the
Bishnumati
River. This is the place where all the Hindus in the
valley cremate
their dead, the portal to the afterlife. It is a very
sacred place,
and very powerful. There are many steps and terraces
and little
ancient stone temples, in which reside different
deities. Many Sadhus
(ascetic hindu Yogis) live here, lounging about,
sleeping in the sun,
sitting by fires, smoking their ganja, showing off for
tourists.
They all dress in orange and yellow, and paint their
faces, and rub
their bodies with bone charcoal from the funeral
pyres. I would look
them in the eyes, and they looked back with piercing
eyes, looking
deep inside me. They are different than i thought
they might be,
though, these holy men, more commercial than i
thought. They wanted
me to take their picture, then they asked for money.
I gave them
some american dollars, and some tobacco from my pouch,
and we sat and
hung out for a while. They are showmen. When a
tourist comes by
with a camera, they all strike a pose, doing a
headstand or putting
their foot behind their head. They all sat and joked
with the crowd
that gathered, and they packed a chillum and smoked
it, then popped
some pills from a little green packet, then they sat
and chanted for
a while, one of them playing on a little hand drum.

The smell of the place was distinctive, the smell of
human bodies
being incinerated into ash, the soul's earthly vehicle
returning to
whence it came, to the fire, water, air and earth. It
is a thick
odor that settles over the ancient place, ever-present
in the breath
of the yogis who live there. Kamal says aabout the
sadhus, "It is a
good life! No worries about government, the political,
the
development of country. Only waiting for dying."

We sat by the river and watched the monkeys play,
climbing the cliffs
by the river, and then jumping into the river with a
splash! We
walked downriver, past the Ghat, where a body was
being cremated. We
stopped there, and watched. They threw grass onb the
fire, soaked
with water from the river, creating a thick column of
smoke for the
soul to ride to heaven. Kamal says:" Mark, you know,
some people
take picture for pocket, you know? But this, this is
for you. You
keep this. This is a life, you know?"

We walked together over the bridge, past the people,
and up the
street a quiet street with no cars, and a quiet
serenity filled me,
as we walked up the street together, under the trees,
back to the
land of the living.





namaste.

mark

Journal excerpt: sun 17 feb

Journal excerpt:

sun 17 feb

I am doing some business in Kathmandu for my friend
susan, so today i
learned Nepali business. I drank about 18 cups of
tea, sitting in
this shop or that, chatting about this and that,
waiting, and
sitting, living on Nepali time. Nepali time is like
this: you say
"i'll meet you at 3" then you show up at 5 or 7 or
tomorrow. My
sherpa guide, kamal, says there is tourist time, and
then nepali
time. Tourist time, 3 is 3. Nepali time, see above.
today went like
this:

11 Sit with kedar and Laxmi, have a cup of tea, do
some business.
12 Sit with Hari, have cup of tea, wait for Rishi.
1 Sit at Yak Wool house, have cup of tea, wait, then
do business.
2 Sit at Ganesh Music with Didi Nanda, have cup of
tea.
2:30 Sit with Hari, chat, have cup of tea, wait for
Rishi
3 Sit with Didi Nanda, have cup of tea, do business
4 Sit with Didi, have another cup of tea, chat.
5 Sit with Didi, have another cup of tea.
6 Sit and wait for Kedar, have cup of tea.
end of business today.


Mon 18 feb

Today Kamal and i rode up to Nagarkot, a mountain
overlooking the
Kathmandu Vally, on Rishi's motorcycle (don't tell
mom). Little
winding roads, with thatched roof huts alongside the
road, families
eating outside, staring at the American riding by. On
the way down,
we saw a film crew shooting a movie, so we stopped to
watch, and i
became the spectacle, a white skinned bearded american
in a wide-brim
leather hat, and the crew wanted me to be in the
movie.
TUnfortunately, the sun was going down, and they
didn't have time for
another shot, so i guess i won't be a nepali film
star. Oh well.

Kamal and i have eaten every night at a little Tibetan
joint in
Chetrapatti. They have the most amazing food in this
neighborhood.
Little places that you stoop down into, you might not
know it is a
restaurant except for the smell of the wonderful spice
wafting out of
the door. Not the cleanest place, but amazing food!
We sit upstairs
at this tibetan place, in the room where the family
sleeps. We sit
on the floor, people packed in elbow to elbow and knee
to knee,
speaking nepali and english, eating mo-mos and veg
fried rice off two
little tables, drinking thomba, some sort of hot
millet beer, "real
nepali style" says Kamal.


That's the news from Kathmandu, i'll write more
tommorrow. "Bhole
beto-lai!" See you tomorrow!

love,

mark.

Kathmandu!!!

journal entry,
15 feb 2002, 9:00pm
Kathmandu

This city!! What an assault on all of my senses! From the upper deck of the hotel Kantipur, in Paknojol, Thamel, KTM: city lights sprawling as far as i can see, up to the very edges of the valley; a huge temple (Swoyambathu, the monkey temple) lit on the hills off in the west; terraces on building tops dotting the landscape like islands, some deserted, but just as many inhabited by people idling over an evening cup of tea, chattering away in a language i don't understand, the sounds drifting to my ears on the still, cool air.

The sounds of the place!! constant honking horns, madcap drivers revving their engines, dogs braying, conversing amongst themselves; the sound of a broom sweeping a patio down in a neighboring courtyard; bicycle bells ringing through the night, all the sounds of humans and animals magnified by the dark of eveing, yet i can almost hear the stars twinkling!

the air of the valley is cool on my bare arms, and the smell of that air, indescribable! It's not the acrid, nostril-stinging smell of New York City or Boston, but a sweet, spicy amalgam of the smells of humanity that fills up the bowl of this holy valley, the scent of fried food mingled with motorcycle exhaust, the scent of incence mixed with the body odor of half a million buddhists and hindus, blended together by the constant stir of activity, creating a recipe for sure nostalgia.

My head is spinning from it all! On the drive from the airport, my face was glued to the window of the little red car driven by my guide's uncle, as he navigated the crazy traffic with consummate skill, avoiding oncoming motorbikes at the last moment, dominating huge rumbling trucks and buses to find a safe pocket of space for the little red car, through the explosion of humanity, the likes of which i've never seen! People with wares spread on blankets and tables out of dank caves, 6 foot square shops packed side by side and as close as possible to the tiny winding streets, streets which are packed with people on every sort of conveyance imaginable: bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, scooters, rickshaws, cars old and new, and God-given bare feet, all engaged in a dangerous dance, precisely choreographed by the insticts of pure survival. Crazy! Children and stray dogs play as peers, and people are gathered around fires burning in the gutters...It's absolutely beautiful!!

tomorrow, i will be attempting to transact some business in this crazy, wacky town. What an adventure!!


love, from kathmandu,

mark.

Embarking on a Travelogue

It is in this space that i intend to post entries to my travelogue, a chronicle of my travels around and about the world. I began my travelogue on 15 February 2002, upon my arrival in Kathmandu Nepal, my first travel to the east. I sent it in the form of an email to my friends and family, and i received great feedback, people telling me to write more, as well as requests to add people to my email list. I now choose to try this new venue of Weblog, as a vehicle for past and future travelogues. I shall first post my past entries, and when i travel in the future, i will create new entries. I hope that you enjoy reading of my travels, and that you may be inspired yourself to see the world. Travel is without a doubt the best education available on earth.

Mark in the World

Welcome. Namaste. Assalam-aleikum. Bienvenue.