Leech Therapy

Demi Moore paid thousands of dollars to have one suck her belly button [allegedly]! The 'rare' brown ones will bring you around 15,000 rupies per kilo [allegedly]. It wasn't something I could entice Hunter to collect, to start his own business, so I guess I will be paying his college tuition after all!

We started the 2nd day of our trek in complete downpour. Finishing our black tea took a little longer, as none of us wanted to venture outside the comfy dry Gurung cottage. The higher we trekked, the more cloudy and foggy it got, but we knew this was a factor when we started this monsoon hike.

During the morning briefing by our guide -turned bootcamp slave driver- turned drill sergent - Sunil, we were orientated about the potential hazards out there..."Team, today you will face steep inclines and low visibility as we trek on the very edge of humanity; there is only one way to do this: slowly, one foot in front of the other, and don't look down! You will stare into the abyss of a hungry caterpillar, looking like a prehistoric monster under a microscope, so count yourself lucky we don't have a microscope...there will be blood spilled today team! But you will persevere and you will come out MASTER TREKKERS, and you will never, ever fear a slimy leech again! Well, Ok the briefing may have went more like: "Guys here is a jar of Tiger Balm, you should smear the balm on your feet, socks, boots...as high as your knees"; we will be trekking through lush vegetation.

OK, right, on with it then! Thinking more about the poor, rare and nearly extinct Indian tiger, who was savagely poached for balm purposes, I used the nasty menthol smelling Tiger Balm only sparingly. Besides, how hard could it be to spot a black slimy slug-looking leech slithering its way towards my Goretex reinforced Northface hiking boots? Leeches never sleep! They are highly evolved, wormy suckers, with a stealth attack strategy that puts our Green Berets' Black Ops to shame! As unsuspecting vics walk the grassy paths, sending vibrations through the ground, up through the grass straws, the resting leeches are in stand-by mode. The first hiker makes it through the gauntlet. But by now he has disturbed the serpent in its lair. Hiding behind a damp leaf, the prehistoric spineless worm raises itself straight up - like a no. 2 pencil, and sways there, a cobra in a trance.

The hikers dilly-dallying through the minefield will not see it coming! Swift and silent, like a creditcard swiped in Macy's shoe department, the boot or pantleg gently touches the leaf, where the leech is standing erect and before any light can flash before you - the leech has managed to cling, with its thousands jagged teeth, and will now milimeter its way towards human feeding grounds. If you Google the suckers, it says all leech species are carnivorous and some are predatory....no, you're kidding!!??

We didn't stand a chance; not only are they in no way, shape, size or form like a slug - they are completely in camo - grey/black like the mud we were dredging through, and they are so small and thin, smaller than a starving maggot! Looking periodically down towards my feet, I found I already had a tiny species on me, wedged into the seam of my high-tech and way overpriced boot. So what do I do? Pick it off with my finger, only to now have the slimy ba****rd stuck on my index tip. Flicking and shaking my hand, it clung on for dear life. I had to smear it on a rock before it released. No blood drawn so far.

It was an ambush! Aric went third in line, so he got all of them and they made their way in through his wooly socks and on to his ankles. The next 3-4 hours of trekking were spent "looking down and picking off" -we totally missed the lush woods and green scenery as we scouted for blood suckers. At the next rest stop, I grabbed the Tiger Balm from Sunil's pack and scooped out half of the jar...extinct or not, I wasn't having any leech therapy this day!

Cold, wet, bloody (one made it down my neck and latched onto my upper back - yes they can drop from trees too!) we dragged ourselves into the teahouse around 4.30pm after steep hiking for 6 hours. We had made it up through the battlefield to Tadapani at 2630 meters. Black tea and chicken mo-mo's never tasted so good. It was a primitive teahouse and by now we had left the en-suite amenities behind at 1100 meters, so it was either shared flush toilet or the 'hole-in-the-floor' room downstairs. You know what I opted for folks! That evening we played more cards, Hunter worked on his Sudoku and we generally just relaxed having lost SO much blood ;-)

The next morning it was clearing up and we got a nice view of "Fishtail" - one of the famous Himalayan mountains.

Moondance, Monsoon, Mountains, Mo-Mo's

Nothing worse than eating the same food day in and day out. Nepalese people can go out for pizza and ice cream, but then they must go home and have Dal - it's a staple food they can't live without: Lentl soup, rice and chicken curry. Hunter's staple food in Nepal was Mo-Mos, steamed dumplings, preferably with chicken, but sometimes also with vegetables. Personally, I grew tired of the food pretty quickly even though we tried to break up the routine with omelettes and spaghetti.

After Kathmandu - with the polution, noise and smells, we actually cherished going to Pokhara to begin our trek in some clean air. We flew with Yeti Air !! and the flight was only 25 minutes, but our porters took the bus and sat in traffic for 15 hours! There was a landslide which caused back-up. Good call on paying for the air travel!

Pokhara sits at 900 m and has a large beautiful lake, fed by rivers and streams from the higher Himalayas. Since we had to wait for our porters, we decided to stroll around town and buy a few hiking things (like a better poncho for the monsoon down pours) and extra socks. Next time we go trekking we'll be leaving 60% of our stuff at home. Boy we overpacked and it wasn't until the poor porters showed up to carry it, that we realized we had way too much crap. So much for consulting the internet on what you need on a trek.

Beer was served at Didi's (means sister) - everyone calls their sisters and female friends Didi...Sunil took us over to meet her. After the beer, we headed over to Moondance for lunch, played scrabble and pool. We spent the entire afternoon hanging out in the upstairs area overlooking the main street. Full and happy from a couple of Mojitos, we decided we wanted to go boating...we had heard that there was a secret waterfall you can hike to (just like a scary movie, we couldn't wait to go to a secret forbidden place :). It turned out to be a small stream with a 10 foot fall, which- while nice, didn't offer any swim opportunity. The paddling gave us a good work-out in the arms and shoulders though.

That evening we went to a Blues Bar for dinner. An early call next day when our ride was going to take us to Nayapul for our 6 day trek. Nayapul is around 1100 m and is a small village bordering the Annapurna Circuit. Once you get there, you can't get further than the New Bridge by car.

Thanks to my 1000 prayers we had blue skies and sunny warm weather for the whole day. It was the best feeling, not to know what was ahead and being surprised by different landscape and people around every bend of the trail. All we knew was that we would hike up, up, up, about 900 meters to Ghandruk (sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings) at first, relatively steady and at the end, up 3000 steps - literally a stairmaster workout. The first 2-3 hours we met so many children who take that same trek down and up to get to and from the school bus. Aric said you must be able to bounce a rupee off Nepalese women's butts, with as much as they hike up and down every day....we didn't try to bounce a coin....but I knew that I was going to get Annapurna buns of steel by the end of the trip! Truly, everyone we met had shapely and muscular legs! It was like a bootcamp trip! Even the mules and goats were sporting well built muscles.

Our first stop was lunch at "Didi's" :) - this time an old granny, with two daughters who cooked a killer meal for us. When I saw a parmesan cheese the size of a handbag sitting and maturing in the sun, I knew she had to be an old-school cook. While we rested, we watched her scoop all the sun-dried Millet into sacks. They grow Millet on the hills, it's like hops or Barley I think - used for wine and beer and bread. This old granny did everything. For the vegie dal meal they went and harvested herbs in the field....and we seriously enjoyed lunch and the view.

Tummies full we continued up the steps pass several small villages and an abundance of wild Marijuana. Well, wild and wild - the plants were well tended to and the buds were impressive (not that I have a lot of experience in that field), but all we took were pictures...since we're not into that sort of thing and certainly never inhaled!

By 5.30 we reached our tea house for the night in Ghandruk. That first cup of black tea was so welcome! And here we were, in the middle of the Himalayas, in a small tea house, and there's a Montepicello red wine on the shelf....could not believe it! Sunil taught us how to play "shithead", a card game like Uno, and we enjoyed Chianti that evening. It was to be 4 more days, before I learned that Aric had thrown out his wedding ring in our small bathroom (not on purpose), but that evening, nothing could have wiped off my tired smile as we settled into our sleeping bags and fell into a deep blissful sleep.

Car Horns and Yak Horns

"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.

The words any mom longs to hear....

I woke up today and realized how much work it is to keep a room clean and take out the trash and go to work all at the same time.

Aidan Ault
Sept 19, 2010

don't forget the baby wipes!!

This Nepal trip - this spiritual journey we ( I ) plan to embark on - is perhaps more complicated that I thought. Granted I worry too much, it's my personal demise. But I started thinking about the practical things, such as what we will get to eat and drink, besides water and tea and where we will...well, you know....get rid of it all afterwards, on a trekking path in the Himalayas at 2800 meters above sea level? When I booked our trip it was a place none of us had been and we are always craving adventure. Monsoon, mudslides, fog, leeches, primitive cuisine, well that was all just things we didn't connect with trekking in mountains.

Thank God Aric had the sense to start looking up information on the web. A few trips to the Northface store have resulted in stacks of clothing, flashlights, bug repellant, hiking boots and day packs, which now take up 1/3 of our kitchen floor. But when I sat down and started thinking about the actual day to day activities and that there most likely is no porta potty along the Annapurna trails, it hit me: we are actually going to walk 8-12km every day, most likely in something resembling a mudwrestling arena and I don't know if I can pee in conditions like that!
Heck, I'm not even sure I can eat yak butter, or Sanya Khuna – a jelly type relish made from a fish soup, or drink rice beer!! Wedged between China and India, one would assume that the food would be awesome and spicy, without things like leech cakes, yak stew and fermented vegetables with wheat mush.

Think I'll have issues ? - I haven't even told Hunter, who normally lives on pizza, chicken and mashed potatoes!! We may need to stock up on candy bars and one thing's for certain...I'm bringing baby wipes - LOTS of babywipes!!

One good deed deserves another!

You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."
– Mahatma Gandhi-

It's been a busy weekend in the sandbox! Friday had us on our friend Steve's boat (our boat is in the shop :) for some nice wake boarding. Then it's been cleaning and sorting of Aidan's room. It was successful. Two full boxes of clothes, art things, and just STUFF, all packed and ready to ship once we know the destination. While he is fighting possums Down Under, his family has been Up Over, and we have made his room our home office - what a dream come through - we can now get all the misc paperwork into closets and drawers, instead of piles everywhere.

This means the Maid's room, which had previously been my [small] office, can now actually be used for a maid. It just so happens that our cleaning lady, Nilan (from Sri Lanka) has been unhappy with the family she is staying with. Just across the street in fact, at a Dutch family, where she has not been allowed to live/stay while they are away in Europe for 7 weeks. What were they thinking? If it wasn't for her sister, and the English family she lives with,taking her in for the summer, Nilan would have been homeless.

We have talked to her and agreed that she can move in permanently. She is so excited, we have been to Ikea and got her a bath curtain and little stuff for her room. She already has her own bed and table.

We really don't need her every day, nor for any child care (OK Hunter could use a personal cook....but...) she at least has a place to stay, she can get to her other cleaning jobs with no worries and she is treated better than across the street. She hasn't told the family yet - they are still away, so we are in anticipation of how they will react. But she says she still wants to babysit for them, so hopefully the mother will be OK with the new arrangement. It's not like we planned this maid poaching, but if it works out, everyone is happy.

While we go to Nepal, Slim will actually have a friend watching him - he likes Nilan :)

We sense some other changes in the air. Fall is coming - if you can call it that! There is a light cloud cover coming in and cooling things off (from 105 to 97 F)
but not until we get the very dense fog rolling in around the city, will we know that winter is upon us. That won't be until late October, early November. In the meantime, people are arriving back in their sandboxes and the area is filling up again with people, dogs, kids and cars on the road. My herb garden is idle until we return from Nepal. I've produced two red chilies while away in Denmark. Not only did they grow and mature in to two great looking chilies, but in the heat they became sun-dried on their own....now that's what I call a production! So I'm keen to plant new stuff when it cools off.

My friend Uzma brought back a Sari from India for me. I had asked her to buy me one, but she gave me one as a gift - what a deed. She collects fridge magnets, so I hope I can find one in Nepal (I don't even know if they have fridges in Nepal, I may be in trouble finding her a magnet) Yikes!!

The Sari is needed for a Bollywood style wedding we are going to October 1st. The bride, Meena, is a British friend from work who is originally Indian, and the groom, Darryl - also a Cisco friend, is from the Ceychelles, so culturally, we have a few choices of what to wear. I'm embracing the whole Indian theme with great excitement and wearing a Sari (basically 20 feet of fabric wrapped around you and then throw the end over the shoulder) with lots of jewelry and bangles. I figure I have 6 weeks to learn how to wrap it - how difficult can it be? Hold one end and spin....then put in a safety pin!

Coming soon to a PC near you....

As all good sitcoms and TV soaps - they tend to branch off and spin into another popular show. No difference with good blogs.... For those of you who want to follow the adventures of our lovely and slightly odd son, Aidan, you can tune into this channel for his antics.

Like his latest stand-off with a possum....

http://aidans-trip.blogspot.com/