"Does the hotel have internet, mom?" Classic inquiry from Hunter, who was so abruptly pulled away from his PS3 and dragged onto a flight bound for Nepal. He reluctantly agreed to wear sensible hiking shoes and light pants that dries quick. It didn't sit well with his normal fashion style....the underwear didn't show!!
On the flight to Kathmandu, we contemplated how many leeches we would get. I said 7, Aric said 9 and Hunter said he wouldn't get any at all. With that discussion behind us, we sat back and relaxed until arriving in a down-pour monsoon (as expected).
In the line to get our visas, I was relieved that we had exchanged all our money to Nepalese Rupees, since they don't take Rupees at all. "Dollars, Euroes, Yen..." Oh, you don't take your own currency?? No, this is the government, so we only take foreign currency. Yeah that makes sense. Bugger, back in line to exchange Rupees back to Dollars!!
Anyway, in the safe hands of our guide, Sunil, we made it to the Shanker Hotel which would be a base camp for two days until our trek started. This gave us the opportunity to explore Kathmandu - a populated, busy,very dirty, "old meets new" trading place and melting pot of Asian people. Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim and Christians all mingling in a spiritual life, 1300 m above sea level. By now, we have tuned out to all the car horns, bike horns, motorcycle horns constantly messaging: "out of my way, I'm coming through!"
We went to a local traditional Nepalese dinner with Sunil and had way too much rice wine (which tasted like tequila). No matter, we were indeed blessed with red dots to prove it and enjoyed the rice and dal, wild bore, chicken and other savory bites.
The next morning, we set off to see three temples. The first, a mixture between Hindu and Buddhist prayer place, filled with monkeys, and the second, the central place for cremation, were by far the most culturally extreme places I've ever seen. It is still hard for me to get over the charred bodies, smoldering for hours before being tipped into the river as mere ash remains. Further down river, men were swimming and diving into the water to pull out the wood which could be dried and used for burining again at home. With 5 mill people, of which 85% are Hindu, and the only holy way to pass on is cremation by this river, you wonder why bodies aren't stacked up in line to be burnt! Thank God the wind was blowing away from us!
I spent my first money on a nice necklace made of Yak-bone. Probably overpaid at $8 even though I bargained like crazy with the lady. At least I got some Yak... seeing as we wouldn't meet any on the trail (too warm for them so low in the mountains; they apparentlyt only do the Everest trails!)
The last temple we visited was all Buddha, the whole Buddha and nothing but the Buddha!! The third eye still haunts me. The sky was brewing a dark cocktail of thunder so I spun a few prayer wheels for sunshine on our trek. I like this "mass econo prayer"-deal...a spin of one wheel is a thousand prayers. I just spun 12-15 of them to be sure! The sun did actually come out in the afternoon and our first day of trekking turned out to be nice and hot.
Stay tuned for next chapter of "Aults do Nepal".... Pokhara and the Annapurna Poon Hill Circuit.
On the flight to Kathmandu, we contemplated how many leeches we would get. I said 7, Aric said 9 and Hunter said he wouldn't get any at all. With that discussion behind us, we sat back and relaxed until arriving in a down-pour monsoon (as expected).
In the line to get our visas, I was relieved that we had exchanged all our money to Nepalese Rupees, since they don't take Rupees at all. "Dollars, Euroes, Yen..." Oh, you don't take your own currency?? No, this is the government, so we only take foreign currency. Yeah that makes sense. Bugger, back in line to exchange Rupees back to Dollars!!
Anyway, in the safe hands of our guide, Sunil, we made it to the Shanker Hotel which would be a base camp for two days until our trek started. This gave us the opportunity to explore Kathmandu - a populated, busy,very dirty, "old meets new" trading place and melting pot of Asian people. Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim and Christians all mingling in a spiritual life, 1300 m above sea level. By now, we have tuned out to all the car horns, bike horns, motorcycle horns constantly messaging: "out of my way, I'm coming through!"
We went to a local traditional Nepalese dinner with Sunil and had way too much rice wine (which tasted like tequila). No matter, we were indeed blessed with red dots to prove it and enjoyed the rice and dal, wild bore, chicken and other savory bites.
The next morning, we set off to see three temples. The first, a mixture between Hindu and Buddhist prayer place, filled with monkeys, and the second, the central place for cremation, were by far the most culturally extreme places I've ever seen. It is still hard for me to get over the charred bodies, smoldering for hours before being tipped into the river as mere ash remains. Further down river, men were swimming and diving into the water to pull out the wood which could be dried and used for burining again at home. With 5 mill people, of which 85% are Hindu, and the only holy way to pass on is cremation by this river, you wonder why bodies aren't stacked up in line to be burnt! Thank God the wind was blowing away from us!
I spent my first money on a nice necklace made of Yak-bone. Probably overpaid at $8 even though I bargained like crazy with the lady. At least I got some Yak... seeing as we wouldn't meet any on the trail (too warm for them so low in the mountains; they apparentlyt only do the Everest trails!)
The last temple we visited was all Buddha, the whole Buddha and nothing but the Buddha!! The third eye still haunts me. The sky was brewing a dark cocktail of thunder so I spun a few prayer wheels for sunshine on our trek. I like this "mass econo prayer"-deal...a spin of one wheel is a thousand prayers. I just spun 12-15 of them to be sure! The sun did actually come out in the afternoon and our first day of trekking turned out to be nice and hot.
Stay tuned for next chapter of "Aults do Nepal".... Pokhara and the Annapurna Poon Hill Circuit.
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