Category: Nepal

This week we wish our family and friends who celebrate, a very Healthy and Happy New Year! We learned here in Nepal that our 2017 is actually their year 2074…

Loren and I started our week in Bhaktapur, about an hour away from Kathmandu by car. We walked around Durbar Square, appreciating the incredibly intricate detailed hand carvings on the wood at so many of the temples, and, mourning the need for ongoing rebuilding from the destruction that occurred in the 2015 earthquake. For example, stairs to some of the temples remain, but the temples are completely gone. 

  

At dinner in our hotel’s restaurant we tasted our first Juju Dhau, a traditional sweetened yogurt that is famous in Bhaktapur. I should also mention that our favorite dishes in Nepal have been, for Loren, vegetable Thuppa which is a noodle soup, and, for me, vegetable Momo, which are dumplings, or, Loren likes to call them Nepali ravioli. We have also both enjoyed vegetable Pakouda, a deep fried delight, and Papad Masala which is papadam with veggies peanuts and a light sauce sprinkled on top, a bit like nachos. I also appreciate vegetable Dal Bhat – rice with lentils, and sometimes served with a piece of papadam, pickle sauce, Nepali spinach, and curried vegetables. Over dinner on this particular night, we met an interesting Italian man, and enjoyed conversations with him at dinner and over breakfast. This first photo is a morning view from our hotel rooftop.

  

With our newest friend from Lombardia, we visited the “Peacock window,” walked to the river where cremations are done, visited the museum, and, saw the “55 Window Royal Palace.” There were none happening this day, however, we did witness a ceremonial – what we surmise was an offering – of a cock, that included methodical decorating of a shrine before and after the beheading. We also saw the before and after – again we assume to be an offering – of two goats, which was accompanied afterwards by a lengthy musical tribute by about a dozen men sitting in a circle playing horns. We bade our friend farewell after lunch together, then Loren and I returned to Kathmandu by taxi.

  

This week included Christmas. The Nepali were honoring their tourists, with lights and special offers. We first enjoyed celebrating with FaceTime visits with Loren’s Mom and Sister, and, with my Brother, Sister-in-law and one of our Nieces.

We then had a light dinner on Christmas Eve in the restaurant downstairs from our hotel, and returned there on Christmas at 2pm for a most leisurely dinner, which included sparkling wine, appetizer, main course, desert, cognac and coffee. We thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere of the quiet restaurant… for nearly 6 hours!

  

Santa brought us each a massage and we watched a video of Little Buddha which our Italian friend who we met in Bhaktapur had suggested we see. 

One other memorable experience for us this week was in visiting Pashupatinath with our New Zealand friend from our hotel. We went by taxi to this, Nepal’s holiest Hindu site that is devoted to Shiva. It is located on the banks of the Bagmati River. One writeup suggests that it is “always abuzz with pilgrims and sadhus (Hindu holy men), a place of somber worship, as it is also the city’s most important cremation ground.” It too is a World Heritage site. Here we respectfully witnessed some cremations, and, we saw the body of one deceased elderly man being prepared, which included a ritualistic foot bath. 

   

I also want to mention how impressed we have been with the hardworking people we have met, including many who are young adults – in our hotel, the restaurants we have frequented, and elsewhere, and always with a greeting, smile and generosity of spirit. It is so touching and endearing! At the same time we have been dismayed to observe some abject illness, disease – some seeming worthy of medical care or hospitalization, and extreme poverty, that we have come across in parts of Nepal. Certain memories of Lumbini, Bhaktapur, and Pashupatinath stand out as examples. How I wish the turning of the western year could bring a turning of fortune for all these people! We are consoled with the notion that at the very least our tourist dollars are helping in some small way. 

This week we wish to those who celebrate, a very Merry Christmas! This will be Loren’s and my second Christmas spent away from home on our Journey…

We were finishing our second trek in Nepal at the beginning of this week. At breakfast in our hotel in Dhulikhel, a bird came to the nearby balcony and serenaded us for quite a while.  

After breakfast we hiked to Namo Buddha for our last overnight of the trek, and stayed  at the monastery called Thrangu Tashi Yangtse. This is much bigger than the other monastery where we had stayed in Lumbini. Where that one had just 3 adult and 3 youth monks, this one had 200 adult and 150 youth. It was built as a tribute to the “place of Great Compassion,” the site where Buddha, in a former life, had selflessly given his body to a starving tigress to feed her cubs.

  

The meditations at Namo Buddha were more elaborate in that they included a larger number of percussion instruments, and some parading of sacred objects during the prayers. The meals too by contrast were very simple, methodically dished out by the youth from huge containers – as we sat seat by seat, row by row, compared to the generous, more family style meals in Lumbini. 

  

From Namo Buddha, our return drive included a stop in Sanga to see an enormous status to Lord Shiva, The Destroyer, one of the three most prominent Gods of Hinduism. We had originally intended to hike here and spend the night, but we opted to continue on back to Kathmandu by car from Namo Buddha instead, as we had taken an extra night earlier in the week, and, it would have been “hiking” strictly on paved city streets. We also stopped at Boudhanath Stupa in the eastern outskirts of Kathmandu. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and considered the holiest Buddhist temple outside Tibet. With Dil, we enjoyed our lunch at a rooftop restaurant with great views of the stupa. I asked him if he would please write our names in Nepali script, which he seemed happy to do, writing first the characters, then adding the line at the end over each word.

  

Back in Kathmandu, we said goodbye to Dil, and settled back into our cheerful hotel room, which Loren has decorated with two strings of prayer flags. We have enjoyed two fun dinners out as well. One with the young woman who we had met in Nargakot, and who was preparing to leave for her trek to Everest Base Camp. The other with our friend who is staying at our same hotel. At her suggestion, today we are on our way overnight to Bhaktapur – about an hour from Kathmandu to see Durbar Square there. 

 

 

We wish our Dear Family and Friends a Happy Hanukkah, to all who celebrate!

This week we met some fellow travelers at our hotel. With one, we made a date for a night out to dinner together. Originally from Chile, then Easter Island, she now lives in New Zealand. She is not leaving Kathmandu until the same day that we are, so we will be able to spend more time with her. We also met a couple of American filmmakers who had sold their home in Florida. Before they left for the airport we enjoyed a couple of conversations, one about the film they just made about building a volunteer Earthship in Nepal. Loren and I had stayed at an Earthship in Taos, New Mexico last year, where the architectural design was developed. We learned from this couple that PT stands for Perpetual Traveler. Loren and I know that we are not PTs, we are simply on extended travels, for now.

We also had an enchanting afternoon and evening at the Garden of Dreams. This was once a palatial garden that had fallen into disrepair, and has been reopened now for some few years. It affords innumerable nooks with bench seating, where it seemed that nearly as many couples sat close, enjoying the quiet solitude. We spotted our first Christmas tree at the cafe here and splurged on a light meal. I noticed that some dishes on the menu included the GOD acronym in the name. At dusk, flocks and flocks of crows cawed and cawed as they flew nearby, as they do each  morning near our hotel, but this evening being outside reminded us both of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller, The Birds. By staying to eat, we were then treated to the attractive night lighting of the grounds. This park offers a welcome respite from the chaotic city streets just outside the Garden walls.

   

The rest of the week found us with Dil again. This time he was guiding us on a trek in the Kathmandu Valley. On the way to our starting point by car, we stopped at Gokarna Mahadev Temple. I had read that this is “a visual A-Z of Hindu iconography.” The only image I could identify with any certainty was Brahma, from his four heads. Brahma is the supreme Hindu diety, called the Creator. Dil helped me identify a few others that were less known to me.

 

We then began our trek in the town of Sundarijal, along the southern edge of the Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park. We trekked north, on trails in lush forested “hills” – which to us are more massive than that name implies. True to the write up I had read, we passed through several traditional villages, and saw many, many small farms, each home to a buffalo or two, some goats – more so than sheep, and usually several chickens.

 

We had our first views of the snow-capped Langtang range of Himalayan peaks as we approached Chisapani at the north end of Shivapuri Park. Also spelled Chisaapaani, it means cold water. This tiny village where we spent our first night had been all but eliminated in the 2015 earthquake. We learned from our guesthouse family that sadly, “six people were killed here, and everyone was injured.” The owners of the most badly damaged buildings have chosen not to rebuild and since relocated to Kathmandu. Such a tragic event for such an idyllic setting… 

  

We continued on after breakfast with our next night’s ambitious – for us – destination of Nargakot. The  downward slope to Jhule village was incredibly steep, demanding that we take it extra slow, so we stopped for overnight accommodations with a lovely Nepalese family just outside Jhule instead. 

The panorama of surrounding mountains on our Kathmandu Valley trek were supposed to include Mount Everest, but, for our two whole days out, the easterly direction toward Everest had been completely shrouded in haze. We did have wonderful views of the Ganesh and Langtang peaks though…

  

As we set out again in the morning for Nargakot, I spoke out loud my prayer for the haze to clear off. And with each string of prayer flags that I saw as we walked, I silently said my plea. When we arrived in Nargakot, not only was it was completely clear, it remained so until sunset, and we were able to pick Everest out in the distance from a detailed map provided by our hotel. In the photo below, she is barely visible in the background to the right of the highest peak in the center. There were some friendly people at our Nargakot accommodation, and we especially enjoyed talking in Italian with a couple from the Lombardia region of Italy, and, a young woman from New Zealand. Another young couple with their year old son, from Canada, will spend the year working in Kathmandu.

Nepal is home to 8 – more than half – of the world’s 14 highest peaks over 8,000 meters. We had already seen Dhaulagiri living up to its name, “The Shining White Mountain,” and the Annapurna Massif from our first trek to Poon Hill with Dil on another beautiful, clear morning. We had seen Manaslu, ‘The Mountain of Spirits,” the Annapurna Massif, and Dhaulagiri, from a distance when Loren and I had hiked up to Sarangkot from Pokhara too. But Mount Everest, known in Nepali as Sagarmatha, is the tallest in the world at 29,035 feet or 8,850 meters from sea level, striding the border with Tibet. It is also known as Chomolungma or Qomolangma in Tibet, and Zhumulangma Feng or Shengmu Feng in China. Most westerners refer to her by the British surveyor’s name.

We were so lucky that the skies remained clear on through to sunrise to see her again, with an even better clarity to our view. Our Italian friends were up on the rooftop early too, to share in the excitement. I asked Loren to help point out Mount Everest in the distance so that there is no mistaking now just which peak is hers.

 

As we continued our trek and viewed the surrounding Himalayan vistas, I came up with a way to help me remember the names of the peaks from west to east. It started out as just mangle:

     “DAM5-Mach-ManGLE (SCZ),” which stands for Dhaulagiri, the Annapurna Massif
     with peaks named I, III, IV, II and South, Machapuchre, Manaslu, Ganesh, Langtang
and Everest (also known as Sagarmatha, Chomalunga, or Zhumulangma Feng).

Everest was still visible as we began our day trekking to Dhuilikhil. Can you find her again? As the morning wore on, our views of the unfolding scenery were similarly spectacular.

 

 

 

We began this week enjoying the postponed dinner date with our newlywed friends from Shanghai, then had one more full day in Lumbini. Over breakfast at our Tourist restaurant, we met a couple from the Piedmont region in Italy who Loren enjoyed talking with in Italian. We learned that, like us, they have no children. We hope to visit someday at their home in Turin, and to meet their beloved cat. We said farewell to our friends from Shanghai at breakfast too, they went to stay at the Canadian Monastery.

Loren and I rented bicycles again and rode over to see the Visitor’s Center and Lumbini Museum in the Park. We also stopped at a couple of Nepali monasteries, and, the last monastery we saw was the Canadian one. We had been invited to spend more respite time at our Swiss/Austrian monastery where we had stayed the night, where we had another couple of hours of reading, prayer and meditation.

  

We had an unusual experience, when first I noticed a small dark protrusion on the forehead of the monastery’s dog, which I had not seen before but imagined it must have been there all along. A bit later, Loren told me he had flicked a “worm” off the dog, then took me to see what he meant. I realized then that dog had picked up a leech. I had read about these being most active above 4000 feet and during the wet monsoon. It was therefore interesting to find one at 500 feet in the dry monsoon. In just a short while it had grown from about a quarter inch to more than an inch in length. The Nepali man who maintains parts of the monastery and who speaks little English confirmed, yes it was a “leechee” and that they live in the tall grasses outside the monastery walls.

 

The next morning we were up quite early for our 5am bus to Kathmandu. Our predicted 12 hour ride turned out to be 15, between heavy traffic, stops for construction, and more standstills while emergency sirens wailed as we approached the outskirts of KTM. The nice comparison of this bus to the other two we had ridden in Nepal, was that it had a video screen and showed Nepali and Bollywood movies. We enjoyed passing part of the time with their music videos, romances and dramas. Even without subtitles, the plots were discernible from the actions.

One afternoon back in KTM we walked the 2 kilometers – just over a mile, to see Swayambhunath Stupa, nicknamed the ‘monkey temple’ for all the rhesus macaques who inhabit the area. It was worth climbing the long staircase for the views at sunset.

  

  

We also enjoyed two more dinner dates with our special friends from Shanghai this week. They had returned to Kathmandu to prepare for their flight home, and, we already know that they arrived in China, safe, and to a cooler time of the year.

Otherwise, we have spent the week laying low, planning our next trek in Kathmandu Valley, and preparing for more of the next months of our Journey. We are enjoying our time here. We have neat hotel co-owners, who gifted Loren and all their staff with a Nepali style hat. And, we have the best room – we know so because this week when we asked to  move back to it, the staff confirmed, everyone asks for Room 405. It has a south facing wall with double windows, which helps it feel cheerful and also keeps it warm.

  

Finally, this week I just had to snap a photo at a restaurant where we have eaten some of our meals, the image on their wall captures our Journey for me.

 

After returning to Pokhara from our Poon Hill trek, we visited Helping Hands spa for a massage – this is a place where people who are deaf and blind work, and we especially enjoyed our massages knowing that we were supporting this community. Afterwards, we made a short hike up to a giant gold Buddha tribute, nestled on a hillside behind town.

We met our newest friends from Shanghai who stayed at our same AirBnB. They are on their marriage trip and had just returned from a trek the day after us. The husband is Chinese and the wife is originally from Kyrgyzstan. Lucky for us, they speak English very well. In fact I also want to express my gratitude for all the people – both locals and foreigners who we meet as we travel who speak English, which makes our Journey so much easier to navigate and more fun. We enjoyed several conversations in the common area of our AirBnb home together and, as they too were heading to Lumbini the day after us, we exchanged emails and made plans to meet up there. We then bade our beautiful, kind, family hosts farewell, and took our 8:30am Tourist bus to Lumbini.

This bus was the fastest we have ever ridden on such a long, bumpy and curvy road. Our driver had brakes squealing and horn honking nearly all seven and a half hours. We were told it would be a six to seven hour trip, I wonder how long it would have taken if he had had gone slower? But he was adept and we arrived safe and sound.

Between congregating before departure and during three brief rest stops, we noticed some of our fellow Tourists. Once in Lumbini, we would recognize each other as the tourist area in town is small and we took meals at the same restaurant that served food prepared with safe water for Tourists. The restaurant has a creative Earth friendly way of providing candles on each table. Here we shared a few chats with couples from France, and the couple who we talked with the most – beginning on the bus, were from Bangalor, India. These two are platonic friends and retired co-workers. He had been on a long trek before she joined him in Nepal for to visit other parts of the country. 

Lumbini is birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who during his lifetime became the Buddha or Shakyamuni Buddha. The name Shakyamuni or Sakyamuni is a tribute to Shakya or Sayka, the name of the tribe into which he was born. We learned the sweet story of how Queen Maya, dreamt of an elephant under the full moon, which announced Siddhartha’s conception. Later, while on her journey to deliver the baby in her parents home which was tradition, she stopped in Lumbini to bathe. This is where she felt her labor come on. This site, reported “lost for centuries,” is now a vast park. It has a very long, central mall, with most of that designed for water deep enough to allow for boat shuttle. It includes an eternal flame at the Maya Devi end – the actual birth site, and a Peace Pagoda at the far other end.

 

Monasteries, temples, pagodas, stupas, meditation centers, a museum, and other offerings built by Buddhists from different countries are situated on either the eastern or western sides of the mall. Loren and I rented bicycles to visit many of these sites. We began at Maya Devi where we saw the largest tribute of prayer flags imaginable. I learned how the colors in the flags represent 5 elements: yellow for the earth, green the water, red for fire, white for air, blue for sky.

Finding all the memorial sites was a bit challenging given the park size and layout, and poor maps to little signage, so we visited the ones we could find in random order. On our first day we only had time before dusk to see temples built by Buddhists from Singapore, and another for Germans, where Loren spun one of their four giant prayer wheels.

 

We had met our Bangalor friends in passing a couple of times during that first day. When we saw them at the side of the boat dock at the end of the day, we learned that she had taken a fall. Her friend appeared unable to comprehend that she could not stand or walk on her left leg due to severe pain, and she remained seated on the bench that the locals had provided for her. It felt fortuitous that we could help a little. Thankfully a rickshaw was readily available to take them to their hotel, across the street from our restaurant in town. We settled in there for a beer after following them back. At the hotel, she was attended by a doctor who referred her for an x-ray in the larger city of Butwal. While she and her partner, who was more solicitous to her needs sorted their belongings, I had a meaningful conversation with her before their taxi arrived.

The next day, Loren and I visited the Sri Lanka site, a monastery devoted to International Nuns, the extensive Myanmar site, and the tributes from Cambodia, India and Thailand.

  

  

We had planned to stay 3 nights in Lumbini, and on the recommendation of our hotel owner in Kathmandu, had hoped to spend one night at one of the monasteries. However, easily finding someone to talk with about that possibility never materialized, so we abandoned the plan to cycle around during the days and sleep at our hotel. Near the end of our last full day though, we befriended a Monk at the Swiss/Austrian monastery, with the grand name, The Mother Temple of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment. Loren then resurrected the plan and soon we were rearranging hotels, bus, dinner date, and bicycle hire, to return to a guest room there overnight. We joined in their meditation and prayers, fulfilling meals, and, gained a much better understanding of Buddha’s life and the concept and practice of Buddhism while there.

The next day we learned that our friends from Bangalor had flown by helicopter to Kathmandu, and were intending to soon return to India by plane. I am keeping her in my heart for a full recovery. Loren and I set off on this day to see the temple of Vietnam – where we saw two Sarus cranes – the largest in the world, and tributes of Nepal, France (not pictured), and China. Loren decided to forego this last site, feeling a little “templed out” but more so wanting to avoid the crowd, and a young Nepali girl engaged me here. 

  

When I returned to join Loren at our bicycles, I saw a peaceful mob of Nepali children.  It turned out that they were all gathered around him! So much for avoiding a crowd. These youth too were visiting the temples of China, then Korea, and were enthusiastic to walk and talk with us. In fact, several adult Nepali have also sought us out in Pokhara and Lumbini to talk and take selfies. While we snap our photos to remember what we are seeing, we are also being photographed – sometimes obviously, sometimes slyly. It seems they want to remember us, for our novelty in their culture.

 

 

Dear Dear Ones, Loren and I hope to all who celebrated Thanksgiving that you had a delicious, fun and wonderful one! A sad piece of news this week is that my Godmother has died, at 95 years of age. I am extremely grateful that we were able to visit with her recently in Florida – twice – since we left home in April, 2014.

This week Loren and I went on a Trek to Poon Hill, in the Annapurna Range of the Himalaya. We only carried what belongings we needed and left the rest at our AirBnB in Pokhara. I smiled in recognition at remembering the old George Carlson comedy routine about “Stuff,” as we pared down just what to take and what to leave…

 

With our expert guide, Dil, we drove in a Tourist van from Pokhara at 2,690 feet to our starting off by foot point of Naya Pul village at 3,317 feet. The village name is also spelled Nayapool – names change from maps to guide books to sign posts, likely because the Latin alphabet is so different from the Nepalese scripts. The roads our van traversed varied too – from smoothly paved to deeply gouged dusty dirt or rock, as well as having sections ravaged by mudslides from prior monsoons. I now understand part of what causes Nepal’s steep terrain. Our driver was adept at navigating it all, along with the other varieties of oncoming, passing or slower vehicular traffic on understandably narrow highways. He stopped once for us to take a photo of our favorite Machapuchhre, nicknamed Fishtail for one angle of its appearance.

 

The best advice I read about trekking in Nepal was, “Look when you look, walk when you walk,” another valuable mantra for life in general, and, “Stay on the uphill side when passing yak or buffalo for safety,” because a misstep on certain parts of the trails can be treacherous. As a dear friend warned, “the Himalayas are not the California Sierras.”

Here is what a guide book said about our Poon Hill trek [with my added comments]:

     “Ghorepani: in the Annapurna region near Pokhara [between Greater Himalaya
     and Mahabharat – Lesser Himalaya ranges]. Probably Nepal’s most famous short 
     hike, to the picturesque village of Ghandruk, via one of the most unforgettable views
     in the Himalayas. Considered fairly easy [my emphasis], there’s a steep climb on
day two of 3,381 stone steps. … Ascend through forests of rhododendrons [trees not 
     bushes, unfortunately not in bloom in November; much bamboo grows here too] and
rice paddies [or winter wheat fields]. The highlight of the trek is the view from Poon
Hill [Pun Hill, Poonhill] at 3,210m [10,531 ft] of the world’s most famous peaks in one
magnificent panorama. These include Dhaulagiri, [Varaha Shikkar “Twelve Peaks,”
not Annapurna I] and Annapurna South, often the best view in the Himalayas.”

Here is another description to give you some ideas about our week:

     Perfectly suited to beginners and families. One of the easier [my emphasis again]
     treks, packs a major punch when it comes to views. The sunrise over the rugged
     Annapurna Himalaya range is thought to be one of the best in the world. As you ascend
into the hills, the scenery is constantly changing from lush forests, to arid terrain, to
farming fiends. Lovely family-run teahouses are dotted along the route, there’s no need
to carry camping gear. After a fairly steep [me again] climb to the top of Poon Hill,
you’ll be rewarded with one of the best mountain vistas on earth. 

We stayed overnight in these 6 villages: Tikhe Dhunga (Tikhedhungga, Tikhedhunga) at 5,050 feet; Banthanti at 7,250 feet (this is not to be confused with Ban Thanti that we later hiked through at 10,433 feet, but, since Ban Thanti means “in the forest” there are likely more villages with this name in Nepal); Ghorepani (GhoRepani) at 9,380 feet; Tadapani, translated literally means “hot water” at 8,625 feet – and not the similar named Tatopani; Ghandruk at 8,530 feet; and, Syauli Bajar (Syauli Bazar, Syauli Bazaar, even Syaulibazar) at 4,560 feet. We changed our original itinerary before we left to include spending the second night at Banthanti to allow ourselves to acclimate by 2,000 feet each over three days, instead of 2,000 then 4,000 feet over two days.

 

One highlight was when we walked those continuously steep stone steps up, up, up from Tikhe Dhunga to Ulleri (Ullery). I have found counts of the steps tallied anywhere from 3,200+ to 3,700+ and believe the discrepancy is because the choice of which irregular “step” to count when planting the next foot, whether short stone or taller rock. Dil, by the way, is 25 years old and has worked first as a Porter then a Trekking Guide for the past 10 years. 

 

The major highlight included climbing from Ghorepani in the wee hours – because I am a perpetually slow uphill hiker, to Summit Poon Hill. I just have to stop, frequently, to catch my breath on the ukaali, uphill, never mind altitude. We were most fortunate to witness a gorgeous sunrise over the vast view of the Annapurna range – early Dhaulagiri on the left below, a little later Annapurna South on the right being the two most prominent. In fact, every day we had gorgeous weather of blue sky with only some scattered clouds, allowing for great views throughout. And speaking of altitude, fortunately our extent of sickness was mild headaches, lightheadedness for Loren, and mild feelings of nausea for me. Paracetamol (Tylenol) was helpful as we ascended.

 

Our plans had included to go from Tadapani to Jhinu Danda (Jhinudanda) at 5,840 feet, then to Tolka (Tolga) at 5,575 feet. The highlight would have been hiking down to Modi Khola (Modi River) for a soak in the Jhinu hot springs and back up. Unfortunately, from Poon Hill through to Tadapani entailed so many steep, stone steps that Loren’s high school basketball knee injuries flared up, requiring a change in the route. Both my uphill pace and Loren’s knees forced us to learn too well the Nepali word, bistari, for “slowly, slowly,” reminding me of the “piano, piano” I learned in the Italian Dolomite. Instead, we saw the river from above.

To our fortune we spent a lovely Thanksgiving at Ghandruk, where we met our newest travel friend, from Seattle. She and I each enjoyed a bowl of soup, Loren had roast chicken – the item closest to turkey on the menu, while Dil ate traditional dal bhat – lentils with rice. Our conversations before, during, and after the meal were meaningful. In the morning I remembered to take our photo, with Annapurna South and Hiunchuli in the background. I am thankful that we were on a “fairly easy” trek – not how we would describe it, but we are not in the shape we would like to be either. I feel fortunate for the magnificent views in person, on our own power, and from trekking in the Himalayas. We had a few stray dogs join us, saw herds of sheep on the trails, more buffalo than cow and a few oxen in the fields, and, we encountered several mule trains. 

 

We learned that the Nepalese call what we would call a “mountain,” a “hill” if it has no snow, and, only a mountain over 5000 meters (16,000 feet) is called a “peak.” Years ago, when Loren and I had both read Jon Krakauer’s gripping Into Thin Air account of a disaster on Mount Everest in 1996, we began dreaming of hiking, excuse me, trekking to Base Camp, or at least on the Annapurna Trail. Now we are happy to have trekked a shorter – in both height and duration, part of the Annapurna Circuit, as the entire thing seems to us better left to those of younger years.

We did not reach high enough elevation to see yak, and, no, we did not see any Yeti (Abominable Snowmen). Dil first said, “There are no more,” then a moment later, “They are hard to see,” when I asked. I wonder – are they like dragons, elves, fairies, giants, leprechauns, mermaids, nymphs, pixies, trolls, unicorns, wizards, or other such legendary characters? Or is this creature so rare, like the claims of Big Foot or Nessie sightings, seem to imply? Or, is it real, like rainbows, shooting stars, and snow for those who have never seen them? It is written that the father of Tenzing Norgay – Sherpa to Sir Edmund Hillary who together first summited Mount Everest – had seen one. Some believe, others are skeptical, what do you think? I will leave you with a Sanskrit proverb: “A hundred divine epochs would not suffice to describe all the marvels of the Himalaya.”

 

I have not yet mentioned a common sight of men, women even youth in the Annapurna region, Pokhara and Kathmandu, carrying unbelievable amounts of weight, in large baskets or bundles on their backs, using their forehead to support the weight. Many of them work as porters.

It was interesting too how there are very few mirrors in the mountain, excuse me again, hill villages – and I mean simply one community mirror over the shared sink or in a dining hall or courtyard at our guest houses. Maybe that is why my taking a picture of a local and showing it to them brought delight to see their image.

Sadly just like in parts of Africa, empty plastic water bottles, plastic bags, potato chip bags, candy wrappers, lone flip flops, piles of glass bottles and other items of western waste, some stray, some in foul smelling mounds… There is no “away” to throw these things. The good news is that beginning at the base of the “3,500 STEEPS,” a Sanctuary Committee now mandates teahouses and guesthouses to sell only safe water from large vessels and not by individual plastic bottles. How I wish that were applied worldwide! And, unlike Africa, the free range chickens are very healthy in Nepal.

On a brighter note, we have noticed youth playing badminton, volleyball, or soccer in the cleared off rice paddies, and, everywhere cherry trees, marigolds and poinsettias were in bloom. We ended our week with our AirBnB Homestay friends in Pokhara for a couple more nights. The great news is that Loren’s knee is already feeling a good bit better!

This week too we received news from a generous friend who has hosted our blog from California, that his site had been thoroughly hacked on Thanksgiving day. Further, he had to “Park” our blog, used an image of a sleepy kitten falling awake, and, making it unavailable for us or others to access. It was a great sadness for us, and, a big mess for him. I must say that while my concern has been for the stability of electrical power and internet in some lesser developed countries on our Journey, I had not foreseen the disruptive potential of hackers. As Loren often says, “No one was hurt, no one died,” which always helps to put things in perspective. Meanwhile I continued collecting my weekly thoughts and memories. With the kind advice of other friends, creating this new blog had afforded us an opportunity to reminisce. We hope you too might enjoy the results of our efforts!