the night before the jain temple visit, megan and i were sitting at a rooftop restaurant looking west over the lake and the mountains beyond the city. just as the sun set, we watched a huuuuuge monsoon come in from the west. the whole sky and lake turned bright pink and orange, and we saw deep purple rain clouds sweep across the mountain range infront of us, then into the city. it was the biggest storm we had been in since we got here, the kind of fat rain that everyone has told us they're waiting for. 8 little lizards took refuge with us in the restaurant during the storm.
the next morning we payed 300 rupees to a travel agency to get a ride to Ranakpur, the Jain Temple. unfortunately, the ride was in a truck that a french woman had paid to take her ALONE! she was not willing to have more people in the car with her. so, we watched the guy from the travel company hand our 300 rupees to some guy on a motorbike in the street. he turned to us and said, "he'll be here in 20 minutes to pick you up." so, when he returned we jumped into the back of his car and drove off... for about 10 miuntes. then we pulled down a small dirt road to a little school house, and the engine stopped, and our driver dashed into the school. he emeregd a few minutes later with a tiny 6 year old boy. his son! another 10 minutes or so down the road, we stopped again. this time, we were invited in. we were greeted by his wife in their small apartment, given sweet limewater, and waited a few minutes while she packed a small bag. turned out the guy who was driving us was from jodhpur. he and his wife and son were making the trip back there, and as Ranakpur is on the way, they agreed to drop us there.
the drive was bumpy but beautiful. i had no idea there were such big, green mountains in that part of india! and the Jain temple was unbelievable! And a really nice young guy, Sandeep, showed us around, for free! he and his family have been taking care of the temple for 17 generations, so he seemed to know every little detail about the place. Jainism is a sort-of-religion that branched from hinduism. they rejected the caste system and ritual sacrifice, and are most known for their pacifism and respect for all life. the most famous images of jain monks show them sweeping infront of their feet as they walk and wearing masks over their noses and mouths to prevent accidentally killing a bug. during the monsoon, Jains don't eat onions, garlic, or tomato because so many insects depend on those crops. like buddhism, the ultimate jain will seperate himself from all material things and reach enlightenment. monks do not use any form of transportation other than their own two feet, and a few even go naked. some of the most pious jain monks will actually die from starvation or dehydration.
megan and i parted ways the next day and i made my way to rishikesh to see the ashram where i'm supposed to do yoga for 4 weeks in september. i didn't get the best feeling about it... so i'm considering changing my plans. i left rishikesh the next afternoon on a 15 hour overnight bus to McLeod Ganj, home of the Tibetan Government in Exile. i got a bright pink room with a little kitchen in a smaller town called Bhagsu, about 2km walk from the center of McLeod Ganj. i like it here. it's deep in the mountains, foggy, moist, and cool. everything is moldy and damp, but it's nice to be relieved of the heat in Rajasthan. there's a lot of yoga available here, so i may just stay for a while. the weather's bad enough that being inside for most of the day would be fine!
the streets are very steep and narrow, and the two main roads (Jogiwara and Temple Road) are littered with shops for buying supplies, trinkets, souveniers, and umbrellas. most of the time, the fog is so thick you can see more than 100 feet past your window, but every now and then it clears and you can see the mountains and waterfalls across the valley, and even a high peak in the distance. all the vegetation is thick and green, and there is an active interest in keeping the town litter-free. there are notices posted about using rubbish bins and dumpsters, not burning trash, recycling, reusing, and respecting the life around McLeod Ganj.
there are lots of flyers up about yoga courses, meditation classes, discussion groups about living in exile, information sessions about the chinese occupation of tibet, cooking classes, language lessons, and hiking guides. lots to do in a small town! i'm excited to stay for a while and learn some things :)
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Diarrhea, Vomitting, and an Overnight Bus
Megan and i successfully made it out of nepal and into india! first stop was delhi. it's a hyperactive city with much to see, but we're not big-city kinda gals, so we really only spent one afternoon/night there. the street we stayed on was right outside the new delhi train station, and to be perfectly honest, it looked like a war zone. the front walls of literally every building on the street had fallen, and the rubble was in piles on the dirt street. megan and i have both traveled in developing countries, but neither of us had ever seen anything quite like this. it was a little off putting. the street had been bombed in 2005 and a number of people were killed, but that was a relatively small explosive. we never figured out why the street looked so decrepit. the hotel we stayed in was dingy, hot, and overpriced, but the staff was friendly and it seemed safe. that was enough for us! we had an interesting evening that climaxed with our rickshaw driver stopping on the middle of the bridge on our way back from a late dinner. "300 rupees more!" he insisted. we declined and threatened to walk, in which case he would've lost the entire fare... so he had a quick change of heart. for a second though, i thought she and i would be walking the mile or so back to our ground-zero street in the dark... i was relieved that he changed his mind!
the next morning we took an early train to agra, home of the lovely Taj Mahal. Our hotel here was a little nicer, with a beautiful rooftop view of the Taj. (Side note, it has to be 105F here and we are traveling sans AC. kudos to us. it really puts a value on magically cool air blowing on you all night!) Agra is a very conservative town, mostly because of its muslim roots. it is the only place we've seen women completely covered, and heard the call to prayer every day. we got a guide and payed the expensive entry fee for the Taj, and it comes with a cute little gift bag with a bottle of water and shoe covers for the tomb! It is even more beautiful than it looks in all the photos! It was refreshing, too, that such a masterpiece wasn't built for God, as they usually are. don't get me wrong. people build really beautiful things for their love of God, and i appreciate that... but to know that a man built such a work of art for love of his WIFE!! now that's romantic! (she was his third wife, gave him 14 children, and died in labor. not so romantic.)
the next morning we took a 5:00am train to jaipur, the pink city, thus completing the "Golden Triangle" tourist circuit. jaipur was okay... it's the capital city of Rajasthan, the desert state, and it's most famous for shopping. some guy painted it pink, the color of hospitality, to welcome british royalty. it's very dirty and overpriced, and we had to use too many rickshaws. however, we were most impressed by the famous Raj Mandir Theater! we watched a bollywood movie called Milenge Milenge, a story of young love and serendipity and fate and mishaps and all that stuff. no, neither of us speaks hindi, but it was still pretty easy to follow and the dance scenes were AWESOME!
from jaipur we went south to a small pilgrimage site called Pushkar. it's most famous for its Brahma temple, which is one of only a few in the world. they say that Brahma dropped a lotus on the earth and Pushkar was the result. Usually there's a beautiful lake in the center of town with bathing ghats all around for Brahma worshippers to cleanse themselves in the sacred waters. as luck would have it, the indian government is spending $10million to make the lake bigger and cleaner, so the lake was drained this year to start the project. right now there are just bulldozers and cows in a dirt field.
i got really sick in pushkar. i must've accidentally swallowed some tap water or eaten something wrong. i never knew you could go through an entire roll of toilet paper in just one night. megan explored the town while i stayed in our sticky bathroom. the worst of my discomfort lasted about 24 hours. being sick in india in july definitely makes you miss your mom, AC, and soft toilet paper. we gambled on my recovery and bought tickets for an overnight bus to udaipur. my tummy had 'til 7:00pm to throw its fit, and then it had to stop, or i was in trouble. so, of course... i started vomiting!
fortunately, by 7 i was nearly normal, so we packed our bags and went to the bus station. the overnighter was the cheapest option, and the description from the travel agency made it seem like a piece of cake! NOT cake at all. the first bus we piled into was a double decker sleeper bus, and it was really nice! the driver took us to a desolate parking lot in Ajmer, kicked us off, and said "udaipur!" as he made a waving gesture towards the highway. there was nothing for a really long way... so we just sat and waited. after about 25 minutes, he allowed us back onto his bus and he drove us to a small bus stop in town. by then it was about 9:30 at night, and we were starting to get a little confused. there were instructed to just wait 5 or 15 minutes... so we waited... and waited... and waited...
eventually we were herded into the back of a small 3-wheeled autorickshaw truck thing. the driver started to insist we pay him, but as we had already payed the travel company, we refused. this just disappointed him, resulting in a short lived standoff. "200 rupees!" he said. "one million rupees, i'll pay you tomorrow!" i said. silence... staring competition... he caved, so we won! he carried us about 6km through the city to what was our bus to udaipur. the other bus had been pretty clean, but this bus was DISGUSTING! there were seats along the aisles and then sleeper compartments dangling omenously over the seats, and it looked and felt as though it hadn't been cleaned in a decade. with sour faces, megan and i climbed into our compartment, got down on the grungy felt-covered bed, and started laughing. we settled down and the bus started to drive away, so i closed my eyes in hopes of sleep. i hadn't slept the night before, as i was on the toilet, so i was hoping to get at least a couple hours. just as i was starting to relax, i got a funny feeling... one of those intuitive "something isn't right" feelings. so, i open my eyes and a hand is reaching up through the window by my face!! i shrieked, megan shrieked, and i grabbed by book from under my head and started judo chopping the hand in the window! the hand quickly retreated. i closed my window. later, megan got diarrhea in the parking lot where we stopped a couple hours into the ride, then almost fainted onto a cow. it was not a great night, but that's what you get for $7, i suppose.
miraculously, arrived safely in Udaipur at 5:30. we went to a hotel that had been recommended to us by a dutch woman we met in pushkar, and checked-in immediately to a room WITH AC!!! and we slept until 12:30 on the most comfortable pillows we had found in a week.
We're currently still in Udaipur. it's a really beautiful city, situated right on a lake and surrounded by steep hills. the locals don't let you go 10 steps without reminding you that the James Bond film "Octopussy" was filmed here! It's much cleaner than other cities we've been to, and there seems to be a lot more public works happening. there are safe sex signs, water preservation signs, cleanliness signs, anti-littering signs. the people are very friendly and say "namaste" without inviting you into their shop or restaurant or rickshaw or hotel, etc. The city palace is beautifully maintained and the mosaics inside are well worth the entry fee. it's all a nice break from the rest of india, which is essentially covered in cow shit, reeks of urine and curry, and won't let you walk a half step without being offered 3 saris, an wooden elephant, a pashmina, and some leather slippers.
tomorrow we're taking a 3hr taxi ride to a 1,000yr old Jain temple. then megan goes back to china and i venture out on my own. i'm headed WAAAY north to an outdoorsy town called Manali. can't wait for mountains, moisture, and cool air.
miss you all! email me with news and addresses so i can send postcards! xxx jojo_jensen@yahoo.com
the next morning we took an early train to agra, home of the lovely Taj Mahal. Our hotel here was a little nicer, with a beautiful rooftop view of the Taj. (Side note, it has to be 105F here and we are traveling sans AC. kudos to us. it really puts a value on magically cool air blowing on you all night!) Agra is a very conservative town, mostly because of its muslim roots. it is the only place we've seen women completely covered, and heard the call to prayer every day. we got a guide and payed the expensive entry fee for the Taj, and it comes with a cute little gift bag with a bottle of water and shoe covers for the tomb! It is even more beautiful than it looks in all the photos! It was refreshing, too, that such a masterpiece wasn't built for God, as they usually are. don't get me wrong. people build really beautiful things for their love of God, and i appreciate that... but to know that a man built such a work of art for love of his WIFE!! now that's romantic! (she was his third wife, gave him 14 children, and died in labor. not so romantic.)
the next morning we took a 5:00am train to jaipur, the pink city, thus completing the "Golden Triangle" tourist circuit. jaipur was okay... it's the capital city of Rajasthan, the desert state, and it's most famous for shopping. some guy painted it pink, the color of hospitality, to welcome british royalty. it's very dirty and overpriced, and we had to use too many rickshaws. however, we were most impressed by the famous Raj Mandir Theater! we watched a bollywood movie called Milenge Milenge, a story of young love and serendipity and fate and mishaps and all that stuff. no, neither of us speaks hindi, but it was still pretty easy to follow and the dance scenes were AWESOME!
from jaipur we went south to a small pilgrimage site called Pushkar. it's most famous for its Brahma temple, which is one of only a few in the world. they say that Brahma dropped a lotus on the earth and Pushkar was the result. Usually there's a beautiful lake in the center of town with bathing ghats all around for Brahma worshippers to cleanse themselves in the sacred waters. as luck would have it, the indian government is spending $10million to make the lake bigger and cleaner, so the lake was drained this year to start the project. right now there are just bulldozers and cows in a dirt field.
i got really sick in pushkar. i must've accidentally swallowed some tap water or eaten something wrong. i never knew you could go through an entire roll of toilet paper in just one night. megan explored the town while i stayed in our sticky bathroom. the worst of my discomfort lasted about 24 hours. being sick in india in july definitely makes you miss your mom, AC, and soft toilet paper. we gambled on my recovery and bought tickets for an overnight bus to udaipur. my tummy had 'til 7:00pm to throw its fit, and then it had to stop, or i was in trouble. so, of course... i started vomiting!
fortunately, by 7 i was nearly normal, so we packed our bags and went to the bus station. the overnighter was the cheapest option, and the description from the travel agency made it seem like a piece of cake! NOT cake at all. the first bus we piled into was a double decker sleeper bus, and it was really nice! the driver took us to a desolate parking lot in Ajmer, kicked us off, and said "udaipur!" as he made a waving gesture towards the highway. there was nothing for a really long way... so we just sat and waited. after about 25 minutes, he allowed us back onto his bus and he drove us to a small bus stop in town. by then it was about 9:30 at night, and we were starting to get a little confused. there were instructed to just wait 5 or 15 minutes... so we waited... and waited... and waited...
eventually we were herded into the back of a small 3-wheeled autorickshaw truck thing. the driver started to insist we pay him, but as we had already payed the travel company, we refused. this just disappointed him, resulting in a short lived standoff. "200 rupees!" he said. "one million rupees, i'll pay you tomorrow!" i said. silence... staring competition... he caved, so we won! he carried us about 6km through the city to what was our bus to udaipur. the other bus had been pretty clean, but this bus was DISGUSTING! there were seats along the aisles and then sleeper compartments dangling omenously over the seats, and it looked and felt as though it hadn't been cleaned in a decade. with sour faces, megan and i climbed into our compartment, got down on the grungy felt-covered bed, and started laughing. we settled down and the bus started to drive away, so i closed my eyes in hopes of sleep. i hadn't slept the night before, as i was on the toilet, so i was hoping to get at least a couple hours. just as i was starting to relax, i got a funny feeling... one of those intuitive "something isn't right" feelings. so, i open my eyes and a hand is reaching up through the window by my face!! i shrieked, megan shrieked, and i grabbed by book from under my head and started judo chopping the hand in the window! the hand quickly retreated. i closed my window. later, megan got diarrhea in the parking lot where we stopped a couple hours into the ride, then almost fainted onto a cow. it was not a great night, but that's what you get for $7, i suppose.
miraculously, arrived safely in Udaipur at 5:30. we went to a hotel that had been recommended to us by a dutch woman we met in pushkar, and checked-in immediately to a room WITH AC!!! and we slept until 12:30 on the most comfortable pillows we had found in a week.
We're currently still in Udaipur. it's a really beautiful city, situated right on a lake and surrounded by steep hills. the locals don't let you go 10 steps without reminding you that the James Bond film "Octopussy" was filmed here! It's much cleaner than other cities we've been to, and there seems to be a lot more public works happening. there are safe sex signs, water preservation signs, cleanliness signs, anti-littering signs. the people are very friendly and say "namaste" without inviting you into their shop or restaurant or rickshaw or hotel, etc. The city palace is beautifully maintained and the mosaics inside are well worth the entry fee. it's all a nice break from the rest of india, which is essentially covered in cow shit, reeks of urine and curry, and won't let you walk a half step without being offered 3 saris, an wooden elephant, a pashmina, and some leather slippers.
tomorrow we're taking a 3hr taxi ride to a 1,000yr old Jain temple. then megan goes back to china and i venture out on my own. i'm headed WAAAY north to an outdoorsy town called Manali. can't wait for mountains, moisture, and cool air.
miss you all! email me with news and addresses so i can send postcards! xxx jojo_jensen@yahoo.com
Friday, July 9, 2010
catching up
i'm over a week behind... i'm sorry!
back in pokhara. after hiking down from the peace pagoda we stumbled upon a group of people celebrating the hindu equivalent to a bar mitzvah. i got a dancing lesson from the women after being dragged to the middle of the crowd. lots of spinning and wrist flicking. we were fed. they insisted we continue to dance and dance and dance. dizziness. done. next day-- rice festival. i learned about the back breaking labor of rice harvesting with nepali women in a mud-filled pati at the bottom of a mountain. i will never understand how rice is so inexpensive! cody earns NATIONAL celebrity when he wins the festival's running race through the mud. he was on the evening news and in the newspaper!
next day we went to a tibetan refugee settlement to listen to the monks chant in the evening. what i liked best was that they seemed to be having a lot of fun. dressed in maroon and gold robes, heads shaved, in a beautiful temple, and mid-chant the boys threw rice at each other, giggled when they forgot the words, made faces at each other across the room, and snuck mouthfulls of bread and tea.
back to kathmandu. other 5 americans have arrived!! the organized sight seeing began to three former kingdoms of nepal. 1) bhaktapur. "cofftea" with the army, 5 story pagoda. 2)changu nayaran. 1700 year old temples! (chia. not chai in nepal. chia.) 3)kasthamandup. former palace museum. (chia.) swayambunath --the monkey temple. bright and haunting buddha's eyes. a monkey stole my coconut! (more chia.) world cup, world cup, world cup! (chia.) army museum, hanging out w/ general and colonel. colonel sings folk song and teaches us to play songs on a leaf. i'm still working at it... (chia.) hike to small hindu/buddhist temple on the day people make sacrifices to kali. yikes. (more chia. they believe that if you drink hot liquids in 90F weather, it will cause you to sweat and actually cool you down. agree to disagree.)
and then the 7 day wedding began. day one: mehendi, or henna, party. sulava's took over 4 hours to complete! almost women only. we danced ourselves silly! i don't know how these women dance in saris! next day was the official engagement, and we met Atul. lots of religious ceremonies in sanskrit that NOBODY understands except Sulava's grandfather. he is currently writing a nepali-sanskrit dictionary. his personal library is one the most beautiful and fascinating things i've seen in nepal. have i mentioned that already?
every one of us has gotten sick for at least a day.
then our rest day. allen, heeral, and i went to the bhote kosi river, two hours from the border with china, to try the world's 2nd highest bungee jump and the world's highest canyon swing. jumped off a 162m suspension bridge! so ridiculously fun!!!!
will write about the 19 hr wedding next time.
i'm not very inclined to do the descriptive kind of writing, but as it was requested, i'll give it a try... so, soon i'll try to mix in entries that each focus on my experience through one of my five senses. miss and love you guys. will have more time to write when the wedding is over!
back in pokhara. after hiking down from the peace pagoda we stumbled upon a group of people celebrating the hindu equivalent to a bar mitzvah. i got a dancing lesson from the women after being dragged to the middle of the crowd. lots of spinning and wrist flicking. we were fed. they insisted we continue to dance and dance and dance. dizziness. done. next day-- rice festival. i learned about the back breaking labor of rice harvesting with nepali women in a mud-filled pati at the bottom of a mountain. i will never understand how rice is so inexpensive! cody earns NATIONAL celebrity when he wins the festival's running race through the mud. he was on the evening news and in the newspaper!
next day we went to a tibetan refugee settlement to listen to the monks chant in the evening. what i liked best was that they seemed to be having a lot of fun. dressed in maroon and gold robes, heads shaved, in a beautiful temple, and mid-chant the boys threw rice at each other, giggled when they forgot the words, made faces at each other across the room, and snuck mouthfulls of bread and tea.
back to kathmandu. other 5 americans have arrived!! the organized sight seeing began to three former kingdoms of nepal. 1) bhaktapur. "cofftea" with the army, 5 story pagoda. 2)changu nayaran. 1700 year old temples! (chia. not chai in nepal. chia.) 3)kasthamandup. former palace museum. (chia.) swayambunath --the monkey temple. bright and haunting buddha's eyes. a monkey stole my coconut! (more chia.) world cup, world cup, world cup! (chia.) army museum, hanging out w/ general and colonel. colonel sings folk song and teaches us to play songs on a leaf. i'm still working at it... (chia.) hike to small hindu/buddhist temple on the day people make sacrifices to kali. yikes. (more chia. they believe that if you drink hot liquids in 90F weather, it will cause you to sweat and actually cool you down. agree to disagree.)
and then the 7 day wedding began. day one: mehendi, or henna, party. sulava's took over 4 hours to complete! almost women only. we danced ourselves silly! i don't know how these women dance in saris! next day was the official engagement, and we met Atul. lots of religious ceremonies in sanskrit that NOBODY understands except Sulava's grandfather. he is currently writing a nepali-sanskrit dictionary. his personal library is one the most beautiful and fascinating things i've seen in nepal. have i mentioned that already?
every one of us has gotten sick for at least a day.
then our rest day. allen, heeral, and i went to the bhote kosi river, two hours from the border with china, to try the world's 2nd highest bungee jump and the world's highest canyon swing. jumped off a 162m suspension bridge! so ridiculously fun!!!!
will write about the 19 hr wedding next time.
i'm not very inclined to do the descriptive kind of writing, but as it was requested, i'll give it a try... so, soon i'll try to mix in entries that each focus on my experience through one of my five senses. miss and love you guys. will have more time to write when the wedding is over!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
leeches, etc.
megan and cody made is safely from china to kathmandu, and sulava, kaka G, and i collected them from the airport on friday night. it's so great to see a familiar face. megan and i were roommates in college, but shortly after graduation i moved to durango and she moved to china to teach english, so we hadn't seen eachother in over two years! i cried a little... ok, a lot... i was excited!! so, since then, the three of us left the gautam family in kathmandu to get out of their way, and we bussed to a town towards the center of Nepal, called Pokhara, which is about 400m lower than Kathmandu, on a lake called Phewa Tal. tal means lake. there are LOTS of tals out here. it's a big hub for the adventure tourism stuff. lots of the really big remote treks start from here, excepting the Everest Base Camp trek, which leaves from Kathmandu.
The bus ride was RIDICULOUS! it took about 7 hours through the mountains on a dangerously narrow and curvy road. Drivers tempt fate and pass eachother around sharp corners, beeping their horn as a warning to oncoming traffic. Their honking has a sort of language all its own. One honk means, "Hey, man, what's up?" Two honks mean, "I'm coming!" Lots of honks mean, "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" We saw an overturned bus on our way down, luckily on the inside of the road... I'd be a fibber if i said i wasn't a little nervous, but we made it safely to this lovely lakeside town.
we're staying in sulava's uncle's friends hotel. it's a little nicer than we would've chosen for ourselves, but it's nice to have a fan and a western style toilet! we had beautiful weather the day we arrived, so we just explored and got acquainted with the town. day two we visited Devi's Falls, on the other side of the lake and hill to the southeast of the main part of the city. this is a powerful waterfall! i've never seen anything like it. it's small, but the whole river narrows to just a few feet wide, then drops. it goes straight underground for who knows how long, completely disappearing into the earth. apparently the name comes from a swiss visiter, called David, who was too curious about where the fall ended. he leaned to far over the edge and fell in, taking his ladyfriend with him. she must've been pissed!
from devi's falls, you can do a hike through a town and up a ridge to the World Peace Pagoda that sits on a ridge overlooking Pokhara and Phewa Tal. the hike is technically the long way up, but we thought it'd be fun... i'm not sure i would do it again! it was really hard to find the trail head. nobody seemed quite to know what we were talking about. we ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere, found a little village in the woods, and after a good laugh at our misfortune, two boys guided us straight up the mountain to the trail. they were SO CUTE! they must've been around 6 years old. they both were in rubber sandals, and stomped through the wet forest up the mountains without even breaking a sweat. we never would've found it without them. we were WAY off. but once we had the trail, it was pretty easy to follow.
it isn't advised to hike in the woods in nepal during the monsoon. not because of the rain or the mud or the heat. it's because of the leeches. YUCK!!!!!!! about two thirds of the way to the pagoda we stopped at a fork in the trail to discuss which direction to take. i turned to cody and pointed northeast and up the mountain with my right hand... and he made this face... it looked like he was about to tell me my goldfish had just died...
"JoJo, I'm really sorry," he said, walking towards me, shaking his head. "I'm really sorry..."
"Cody, don't joke about that!" megan scolded. she could see the terror in my eyes, but she couldn't see what cody saw.
"I'm not joking. I wouldn't joke about that," cody assured.
I wish he had been joking. I HAD A LEECH IN MY ARMPIT!!!!!! so of course i squealed like a little girl, jumped up and down like somehow that would help. it took cody four or five yanks to finally get it off me, and i bled all down the side of my shirt. (now, two days later, it looks like a really small, dark hicky. blegh.) after we found that first one it was like we couldn't get away from them. there must've been 15 or 20 all over our shoes, trying to get through our shoelace holes. and these things aren't slow either. it's not easy to get them off! the hop around and latch on with considerable determination. poor megan took her shoe of and watched one make his way all the way to the toe of her shoe. she couldn't stop him!
we finally got all of them off our shoes and decided the faster we moved the better, so we hauled ass up the rest of the mountain to the pagoda. a really nice nepali man gave me a bandaid for my bleeding armpit when we reached the top. his name was Hom, and he was born and raised in a home a stone's throw from the Pagoda. He now runs a store and guesthouse up there. before we walked up to the Pagoda, we all stripped our boots and socks off to rid ourselves of the bloodsucking hitch hikers. blegh. cody had gotten one on his ankle through his sock. megan escaped without a bite.
we climbed the stairs to the World Peace Pagoda. it's beautiful, bright white and gold. it was built by japanese monks, and a group of them still live there. they chant every day and play those enormous drums, but we missed it, unfortunately. the view of Phewa Tal, Pokhara, and the mountains beyond was truly unbelievable. it's too cloudy to really see Macchapucchare, the 26,000ft peak beyond Pokhara, but we did see just the very tip peaking through the clouds for a few seconds. that's a big friggin' mountain! Macchapucchare means fishtail. From the right angle with the right weather, you can see that there are actually two peaks, so the mountain looks like a... you guessed it... fishtail! It's the only peak that the Nepali government will not allow people to climb.
there's still plenty to tell about the end of the day and the following day... maybe you're tired of reading... i'm kinda tired of typing. i'll finish up in my next post! please email me and tell me what's going on or if you're reading, or if there's anything you want to know about! miss you all!
music i'm listening to: fleet foxes, pheonix, discovery, regina spektor, deer tick, and jackson browne. thanks bullet rogers!
The bus ride was RIDICULOUS! it took about 7 hours through the mountains on a dangerously narrow and curvy road. Drivers tempt fate and pass eachother around sharp corners, beeping their horn as a warning to oncoming traffic. Their honking has a sort of language all its own. One honk means, "Hey, man, what's up?" Two honks mean, "I'm coming!" Lots of honks mean, "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" We saw an overturned bus on our way down, luckily on the inside of the road... I'd be a fibber if i said i wasn't a little nervous, but we made it safely to this lovely lakeside town.
we're staying in sulava's uncle's friends hotel. it's a little nicer than we would've chosen for ourselves, but it's nice to have a fan and a western style toilet! we had beautiful weather the day we arrived, so we just explored and got acquainted with the town. day two we visited Devi's Falls, on the other side of the lake and hill to the southeast of the main part of the city. this is a powerful waterfall! i've never seen anything like it. it's small, but the whole river narrows to just a few feet wide, then drops. it goes straight underground for who knows how long, completely disappearing into the earth. apparently the name comes from a swiss visiter, called David, who was too curious about where the fall ended. he leaned to far over the edge and fell in, taking his ladyfriend with him. she must've been pissed!
from devi's falls, you can do a hike through a town and up a ridge to the World Peace Pagoda that sits on a ridge overlooking Pokhara and Phewa Tal. the hike is technically the long way up, but we thought it'd be fun... i'm not sure i would do it again! it was really hard to find the trail head. nobody seemed quite to know what we were talking about. we ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere, found a little village in the woods, and after a good laugh at our misfortune, two boys guided us straight up the mountain to the trail. they were SO CUTE! they must've been around 6 years old. they both were in rubber sandals, and stomped through the wet forest up the mountains without even breaking a sweat. we never would've found it without them. we were WAY off. but once we had the trail, it was pretty easy to follow.
it isn't advised to hike in the woods in nepal during the monsoon. not because of the rain or the mud or the heat. it's because of the leeches. YUCK!!!!!!! about two thirds of the way to the pagoda we stopped at a fork in the trail to discuss which direction to take. i turned to cody and pointed northeast and up the mountain with my right hand... and he made this face... it looked like he was about to tell me my goldfish had just died...
"JoJo, I'm really sorry," he said, walking towards me, shaking his head. "I'm really sorry..."
"Cody, don't joke about that!" megan scolded. she could see the terror in my eyes, but she couldn't see what cody saw.
"I'm not joking. I wouldn't joke about that," cody assured.
I wish he had been joking. I HAD A LEECH IN MY ARMPIT!!!!!! so of course i squealed like a little girl, jumped up and down like somehow that would help. it took cody four or five yanks to finally get it off me, and i bled all down the side of my shirt. (now, two days later, it looks like a really small, dark hicky. blegh.) after we found that first one it was like we couldn't get away from them. there must've been 15 or 20 all over our shoes, trying to get through our shoelace holes. and these things aren't slow either. it's not easy to get them off! the hop around and latch on with considerable determination. poor megan took her shoe of and watched one make his way all the way to the toe of her shoe. she couldn't stop him!
we finally got all of them off our shoes and decided the faster we moved the better, so we hauled ass up the rest of the mountain to the pagoda. a really nice nepali man gave me a bandaid for my bleeding armpit when we reached the top. his name was Hom, and he was born and raised in a home a stone's throw from the Pagoda. He now runs a store and guesthouse up there. before we walked up to the Pagoda, we all stripped our boots and socks off to rid ourselves of the bloodsucking hitch hikers. blegh. cody had gotten one on his ankle through his sock. megan escaped without a bite.
we climbed the stairs to the World Peace Pagoda. it's beautiful, bright white and gold. it was built by japanese monks, and a group of them still live there. they chant every day and play those enormous drums, but we missed it, unfortunately. the view of Phewa Tal, Pokhara, and the mountains beyond was truly unbelievable. it's too cloudy to really see Macchapucchare, the 26,000ft peak beyond Pokhara, but we did see just the very tip peaking through the clouds for a few seconds. that's a big friggin' mountain! Macchapucchare means fishtail. From the right angle with the right weather, you can see that there are actually two peaks, so the mountain looks like a... you guessed it... fishtail! It's the only peak that the Nepali government will not allow people to climb.
there's still plenty to tell about the end of the day and the following day... maybe you're tired of reading... i'm kinda tired of typing. i'll finish up in my next post! please email me and tell me what's going on or if you're reading, or if there's anything you want to know about! miss you all!
music i'm listening to: fleet foxes, pheonix, discovery, regina spektor, deer tick, and jackson browne. thanks bullet rogers!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Would You Adam 'n Eve It?
went to brooklyn. played piano in park with tanya at 4am. got stuck behind mermaid parade at 4pm. amazing :)
went to GB. went to wimbledon. saw roger federer, nikolay davydenko, andy roddick, and venus williams. went to london. saw EVERYTHING! amazing :)
got to kathmandu! i don't really know where to start... i've already done and seen and learned sooooo much. learned my first nepali word: pani. means water. it's really, really hot! sulava's family has been so incredibly generous. their home is lovely and her family is wonderful. the food is AMAZING! last night we went to this friend of the family's hotel/restaurant to eat. there had to have been at least 5 courses. we ate and watched the world cup. can you believe italy lost?!
i officially love "momos" or dumplings. everything is so flavorful here -- and not just the food. there is sooo much to stimulate your senses. i love that i don't understand anything. i love that i can't read anything. i love listening to sulava's family talk to/over each other. just a quick exchange about tea sounds like an intense debate. today we went to thamel, the backpackers' district. i'm glad to not be staying there. it's not unpleasant, it's just not as nice as it is to be with a family -- all the cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles... i'm trying to learn all the words for everyone. mom's relatives and dad's relatives are called different things, etc., etc., so it's pretty confusing!
Kaji's family came to collect the things I brought for them from durango. they were incredibly sweet, and i'll go spend a day at their home after the wedding.
sulava's aunt took me to a fabric store today to get a kurta outfit made! sulava kinda picked it out for me. it should be ready in 5 days. i'm stoked! and sulava got me a blue sari to wear to the wedding ceremony :) bought a little cloth mask to wear over my mouth and nose because the polution is so bad here. not stoked.
tonight i sat on the second level porch of sulava's father's parent's house and watched the sunset. the "hills" around kathmandu are the size of the biggest mountains in the east. i'll see mountains day after tomorrow! a red and white kite were flying way over the buildings, and sulava explained about the kite flying competition they hold in the city, just like the one described in the book, kite runner. it's so busy during the day, but the evenings are very peaceful.
i already love nepal, and i haven't even left kathmandu yet...
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Hasta la VISA.
Be advised, getting an Indian visa is a bit more complicated than they make it seem on the website. Visas are no longer processed in the Indian Embassy. They've contracted a private company to do all the processing, and this company (Travisa India Outsourcing) is awful. I was unable to walk into the Travisa Center in DC to do a same-day visa because I am a Colorado resident. Residents of Colorado may only use the Travisa Center in San Francisco. So, since I'm in DC, I had to do my visa by mail. Your passport is apparently not sufficient identification for an Indian visa... They also require a copy of your birth certificate, a copy of your drivers license with your official address OR a utility bill, two passport photos, reasons for going to India, address in India, the names and birthplaces of your parents, and a list of every country you've travelled to in the past 10 years. (They must've dug up my parents' countless criminal charges when they ran the background checks, and discovered my secret past as an international spy, because, without getting too much into detail, I had a heck of a time getting my visa.) So, I ended up having to push my flight to London back a few days. I can't leave the country HASTA LA VISA comes through!!
A delay in Virginia has not been all bad! While San Francisco held my passport hostage, I got to see my good buddies from past lives; hang with the fam; go to a posh horse show; contract Lyme disease; and figure out how to haul 5 leather jackets, a fuzzy purse, a football jersey, and two Jonas Brother's Waterbottles to Nepal for Kaji's family. Best of all, I packed my backpack for five months of traveling from funky new york city, to classy tennis tournaments in London, to a fancy wedding in Kathmandu, to elephant rides in the jungle, to monsoons in crowded cities, to volunteer in the desert, to yoga in a cloudy forest, to a 3 week trek in the highest mountains in the world!
Tomorrow afternoon I'll finally get back on the road, slightly delayed but still very excited.
A delay in Virginia has not been all bad! While San Francisco held my passport hostage, I got to see my good buddies from past lives; hang with the fam; go to a posh horse show; contract Lyme disease; and figure out how to haul 5 leather jackets, a fuzzy purse, a football jersey, and two Jonas Brother's Waterbottles to Nepal for Kaji's family. Best of all, I packed my backpack for five months of traveling from funky new york city, to classy tennis tournaments in London, to a fancy wedding in Kathmandu, to elephant rides in the jungle, to monsoons in crowded cities, to volunteer in the desert, to yoga in a cloudy forest, to a 3 week trek in the highest mountains in the world!
Tomorrow afternoon I'll finally get back on the road, slightly delayed but still very excited.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Contact
In case of emergency, or incase you want to Google Earth it, or incase I forget something really important, Sulava's Family's address in Nepal:
200 Milap Marg
Bishalnagar, Kathmandu
Nepal
200 Milap Marg
Bishalnagar, Kathmandu
Nepal
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