Noble Silence

Well, its settled. Vin and I have signed up for a 10 day course in Vipassana meditation. Basically it's an extremely strict school of meditation, including a 4am wake up call, no food after midday, and a vow of silence (unless we have questions) during the whole course. At first when we heard about it, neither Vin or I really had any interest in that level of difficulty for an intro meditation course, but as time went on we started entertaining the idea, and now both of us are pretty excited. I posted a copy of the daily schedule for your amusement and you can look at the website here (click on "code of discipline") if you'd like. Also, Vin and I won't see each other the whole time since they completely separate men and women - I know there's going to be some sort of withdrawal period since we've been spending 24 hours a day together for 7 weeks. We'll have to ask when movie night and bar night are when we get there - they don't seem to be on the schedule...
I know it will be difficult, but I really think it will be worth it, especially since its not likely I'll have another time in my life I'm ok with dedicating ten straight days to meditation. Anywho, we'll be there dec 1st - dec 12th, at which point we'll have about a day and a half before we fly out. So I'll be out of internet contact until the twelth, and may not have time to post again until we get home.
In other news, the last few days at the KAT center have been good, and we've been able to do some more treatments and medicine related stuff. Tomorrow hopefully we'll be able to watch one of the surgeries, as it is our last day.
So that's it. I'll be back online on December 12th - stay happy!

KAT, kitties and Kathmandu

Hi everyone!
Well, we made it through our first week at KAT and it has been interesting. The center itself is nice - of course it could use more funding, more space and more supplies, but that's to be expected. We hope to make at least a small contribution while we are here (maybe new towels?), and then hope to send a care package at some point from the states with more much needed stuffs. Unfortunately, the organization of the volunteers at the center is a little confusing, and we both are not sure exactly what our role is or how much we are helping. They seem reasonably well staffed and able to run without volunteers, and we would have to be available for a much longer period if we were to inclined to try to make changes. Mostly we just play with doggies all day (and one kitten- yay), do some treatments, and go for rides to either do pick ups of drop offs of street dogs. I put in a couple pictures of cute animals for your enjoyment. Please, if anyone is interested in adopting a Nepali dog, I am happy to try and bring one back - there are so many here that need homes!
I spoke with my mom recently and she was surprised to hear how large Kathmandu is. Truth be told, it is the by far the busiest, craziest city I have ever been in. Including NYC. Including Bangkok. Including Basseterre. There is no organization of anything, and on a two way street (a narrow street! with pedestrians!) you can have up to five lanes of traffic - usually motorcycles but also taxis - going one direction all at different speeds. Everyone is honking and there are people EVERYWHERE. Our experience going to and from the KAT center has only confirmed that this is how all of Kathmandu works, not just Thamel. The only difference is that the roads are wider and you can have about 10 or 12 bikes widthwise per car length. People shoot out of alleyways on their bikes right into traffic at almost full speed. The buses stop an go enough to give anyone a belly ache. And the buses themselves have seats for about 12 and hold about 25 during busy times, with the door boy at times physically shoving people in. Then we walk an additional 15 minutes back to our room and have to CROSS two main roads on foot. It is insane. I am grateful every night that we make it home with our health and our toes, and I must admit there has been more than one post bus ride shot of whiskey in our room after our 45 minute commute back from the KAT center. That said, we are definitely getting a bit more than the normal tourist experience, which is always good. I tried to take a good "busy" picture today, but as it is Saturday, the volume of vehicles is down a bit - I took one anyway so you can see what a quiet day on the streets of Thamel looks like. Fun stuff.
We are still working out the plan for our last days here (should know by tomorrow), but they most definitely include some serious meditation and relaxation. Will keep you all posted - take care!

Monkey business

I discovered a bakery that sells chocolate mousse for 50 rupees (75 cents) per cup. The enjoyment level is similar to eating a cup of my mom's chocolate crack frosting. This is a dangerous situation. Will keep you posted on potential weight gain...
We are now in our new house in Kathmandu, which is a lot cheaper and still really nice, despite being a little dark. Slept until 930 today and still thought it was the middle of the night... Since we're there for two weeks though, we're going to see if we can move to a place with a window to the outside tomorrow. Its also in a section of Thamel we hadn't really frequented before, and I like all the little shops around us. In other news, Vin and I are both feeling much better than last time I wrote and are back to the semi constant low grade belly ache that is very tolerable. Yesterday after our big move we finally got off our keisters and went to the monkey temple here in Kathmandu. It is a huge stupa and surrounding buildings on a hill overlooking the city and absolutely swarming with Rhesus macaques. We got a taxi over there (we're getting much better at getting a good price for our taxi rides!) and spent about 2 hours perusing the temple area, lounging, and taking pictures of monkeys. There were hundreds of them, and they ranged from cute little bebitas to huge angry male beasts who were just a little bit scary when they came near. Altogether another fun experience and the views of Kathmandu were magnificent. It is an ENORMOUS city! Sprawl, sprawl, sprawl.
We haven't done much today except wander around a bit and continue to try to ascertain just exactly how and when we are supposed to get to the KAT center. Email exchange has been going on for a few days now and we still seem to be missing a few key points about starting tomorrow. Worst case we take a taxi, which is not so bad, but I know the buses will probably be much much cheaper.
This evening we went back to Bouddanath (see earlier posts) because every month at the full moon they (allegedly) light up the temple with butter lamps which makes it look even more magical than usual. Unfortunately, even though we checked the date of the full moon (today), there was no lighting up with butter lamps. Was nice to walk around the stupa with the hundreds of other people making the ritual clockwise circle of the structure. Got a decent picture of the stupa which I added.
So tomorrow we start our little job here - we are both looking forward to it immensely and I will definitely keep you all posted as often as I can. Wishing everyone health and happiness as the holiday season begins!

Taxi? Rickshaw? Fruit juice? Necklace? Flute? Have a look!

We're sick. Sick like the kind where you would preferably spend a significant portion of your day in a certain room of the house, if you catch my meaning. Unfortunately, however, the brunt of the illness caught Vin during our one full day in the jungle (ie elephant/jeep/boat rides galore) and me the next day which was a 9 hour travel day. Joy of joys. Now we are cheerfully back in Kathmandu, staying in a guest house which is by far the nicest place we've stayed so far in Nepal, taking it easy for a day or two. Then we have to find a nice cheaper place to settle in to for the remainder of our stay or certainly during the time we are working at the KAT center (Nov 22 for two weeks). As a reminder, KAT stands for the Kathmandu Animal Treatment center and primarily does spaying of female dogs for population control. As far as I know, they also see any other street dogs (as in, not owned) for a variety of other ailments.
I thought before getting into our Chitwan experience, I'd like to throw a little in here about what we were doing while we were actually in the city of Pohkara. Pohkara is a much more chilled out version of Thamel (in Kathmandu), with wider streets, less traffic, less begging, and generally a more relaxed atmosphere. We spent a lot of the time just wandering around- by the lake, up side streets. Took a couple boats out on the lake. We had planned to do a couple of things that we never got to - seeing the world peace pagoda up close or making the climb/drive to Sarangkot on top of the mountain, but eventually discarded these ideas because the last few days in Pohkara were extremely overcast and views from these places would be suboptimal. Most of the rest of the time we spent in the city was eating :-). We covered a lot of ground with our cuisine, from nepali to indian to italian to chinese to one of the best steak houses I've ever been to. The steaks were huge and (mostly) cooked perfectly, with a good size portion costing only about 5 USD. I was going to add a picture of the menu but it was sideways and the computer is being slow, so instead you get a pic of us with our steaks....delicious! Reading menus has become one of my more enjoyable pasttimes here - too often the mispellings are extremely entertaining. You'll have to figure out for yourself what some of these menu items mean - any thoughts on the last two mexican dishes? We also ate a fair bit of street food in Phokaras which was equally delicious- yes I know what you're probably thinking- we deserved to get sick eventually. The rest of our time in Pohkara was spent trying not to get dragged into shops by persistent shop owners keen on making a sale. My ears may ring with "have a look" and "for you...good price" for months to come. We actually did buy as few nice things (for us as well as some of you lucky few) because the buying atmosphere was altogether much nice than in Thamel.
So on the 15th we departed our wonderful guest house and got on a bus for Chitwan National Park, which is the oldest of the parks in Nepal and covers about 900 Sq Km.
We stayed in a lodge called Temple Tiger, which is one of the few lodges that are actually inside the park so we took the financial hit and dove in. The lodge was very nice, with a perfect setting right over a marshy area that was good for seeing wildlife. During our day and a half there we went on two elephant rides, a few jeep and boat rides, and a nature walk. We saw about 6 rhinos, some langurs and macaques (monkeys), crocadilians, a few deer, and many birds and cool bugs and flora. I put a couple pictures of the rhinos in - they were so darn cute. Overall a good experience, despite some scheduling strangeness and of course sick time. Then as I described before, a 9 hour trip north took us back to Kathmandu, which is where we are now. Its good to be settled in one place again, but its too bad we wont get another chance to return to Pohkara- what a wonderful place.
In other news, I have been getting frustrated the last few days trying to sort out my future and potential internship matching via crappy computers and expensive internet time. Forgive my lack of information about what my plans are after I get back, but please just let me tell you when I know more.
Ok thats it from me for now- thanks again for all the comments and correspondence - we miss you guys!!!

Rolling on the river...

Hi everyone!!I hope that you all are doing well stateside - we are enjoying the comments and emails so keep 'em coming! Pohkara continues to be beautiful and we would stay here another few weeks if our schedule allowed it. I put a picture in from our hotel, the Gorkhali Dhee, where we were on the top floor and had a gorgeous view of Phewa lake. The second picture, which is unfortunately not the best quality, is of one of the decorated cows wandering around Pohkara last week. During designated days of the festival Tihar, they worship crows, dogs, then cows. This was on cow day, when women would chase down cows on the street, bribe them with tasty snacks to stay still, then proceed to paint them and adorn them with flower necklaces. I wish I'd gotten a good picture of a Tikka'd and necklaced street dog, but unfortunately did not :-)
As it is, we just got back last night from a crazy rafting trip down the Kali Gandeki river in southern/western Nepal.
Rafting is one of the popular touristy things to do here because the rivers are so beautiful and action packed, but neither of us really planned on doing a trip and it was kind of a last minute adventure decision. It was a two night three day trip down grade 1-4 rapids (with a well trusted company and safety kayakers in tow) where we stayed on nice sandy beaches at night. There were probably about 20 of us in all, including nepali guides, and it was really a wonderful time, with campfires at night and surprisingly tasty food. This was my first experience with rafting, and although it could be pretty scary at times (like when we capsized into a hole), it was overall lots of fun and a highly memorable experience. And the worst we came back with was a couple bumps and bruises. I put in a picture of the put-in place at the river, one of our sleeping arrangements, and one getting the rafts ready to go in the morning.

The plan for us right now is a couple more days here in Pohkara, maybe do some shopping or go see the world peace pagoda on the hill across the lake, then head out of this beautiful city. We go next to Chitwan National Park, where we are treating ourselves to a two night/three day organized program at a lodge inside the park. It includes jungle walks and river trips, as well as some local cultural stuff and slideshows. Hopefully will get to see a Rhino or two and maybe some other fun wildlife. I'm really really really excited. :-)
Ok, thats all for now. I hope everyone is transitioning well into winter and staying happy. All the best!!!

From the other side...

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts, but after walking nearly 18 days straight, we have been taking some serious down time in Pokhara and avoiding as much responsibility as possible. I have been also avoiding writing this because it would be impossible to write a blog that describes our trip accurately and completely in under three hours. Plus I've got about a thousand pics to sort through so I can't promise the ones I post on here are the best. That said, I'll try and do my best. Four of us set out for our journey on Oct 18th from Kathmandu - Vin and I, our guide Kishwor and Flora. Five hours later of vomit inducing bus ride we were in Besi Sahar, having seen very much of the beautiful countryside of Nepal in between. Luckily none of us got sick, but that can't be said for most of the rest of the people on the bus. Good times. We decided to start walking right away, and after two hours we spent our first night in a village called Khudi, in a little guest house over the river. From there we had our very first (of many!) beautiful views of snow capped mountains. It was immediately obvious during our first two hours of trekking that it was going to be a hard and potentially embarrassing journey, as 60+ year old Nepali women were passing us on the trail, carrying more than us, barefoot. Oh yeah, and Nepalis carry everything on these trails with their loads strapped to their foreheads. But that's ok. We spent the next week or so slowly making our way up and through the mountains through extremely varied landscapes and vegetation, and through numerous little villages. We passed ponies and and pack donkeys, cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, village dogs - made friends with a few too. There are so many bits and pieces I could throw in here about little adventures during this time - making challah in a Nepali kitchen for Shabbat dinner, playing on swings with neighborhood kids, frolicking in rivers, local cards games, prayer wheels and gompas, etc, but I could not do it justice here and so a few pictures of various parts of the trip will have to do. We eventually passed into the Manang district, which is mostly comprised of Tibetan refugees and others who have lived in the mountains for decades to hundreds of years. In the center is the fairly large village of Manang, located above 11000 feet and the perfect place to spend a little rest time. I should interject at this point that by now I had raging achilles tendonitis in my right ankle and had been walking in flip flops (with a 30 lb pack on) for two days. Vin's feet were also not doing fantastic and we both had a touch of altitude headaches so instead of the one day rest day in Manang, we opted to do three. Turned out to be a fantastic idea, as Manang is one of the most beautiful places I've been in. We took some daily short hikes around the area, but mostly just relaxed and healed up a bit. The picture with the lake and surroundng mountains is from just outside the village. We also tried our very first taste of Yak meat, which was strange and delicious and well worth it. Couldn't find a great Yak picture - perhaps Vin has one that I can post later.
After finally leaving Manang on Oct 29th, we made our last few days push to the Thorong La pass - 5416 m/17769 ft. As the air got colder and the oxygen content continued to decrease, we crossed the pass in a snow storm on the morning of Oct 31st.
My lungs were not super happy at this point, and for the last 100 m or so it was nearly impossible to catch my breath, but we all made it in one piece to the top, where Vin and Kishwor promptly took their shirts off for some photo op posing. It was -6C with high wind and snow- don't know how they managed. Anyway, somehow, there is a little tea shop at the top of the pass where you can get a hot drink and attempt to warm up. After 30 min or so it was apparent we were all just getting colder, so we got our packs back on and started the 1600m descent to Muktinath on the other side. It was snowy and slippery and my knees may never forgive me, but once again, we persevered, and made it to our next destination. Muktinath is a very well known holy city in Nepal where probably thousands of Hindus and Buddhists make a pilgrammage to every year. It was the perfect place to stay after our brutal pass, and we even spent some time at the temple in the morning before heading out to Kagbeni. One night in Kagbeni, then our last day of walking to Marpha :). I put in a picture of our final approach on foot to Marpha. Needless to say, it was time to take a little weight off of our feet. We took a bus from Marpha to Tatopani, which is famous for its natural hot springs...a fantastic treat for our weary bones! One night there then a jeep and taxi to Pohkara, known by some as the heaven of Nepal. Haven't done much since we got here, but we found a beautiful and cheep place to stay off the main drag and plan to be here a few more days. The last picture is of Vin and I on a rented paddle boat on Phewa lake with Kishwor and Flora.
Ok- this blog has been just about the end of me...Vin has given up and gone back to the room. Hope everyone is well and hope to be in touch again soon. Stay happy!