elliephant

Additional pics: Chitwan traffic jam and Chitwan house. trying to put up more video arggg....



So, after Matt and I left Pokhara, we headed to Chitwan National Park, which was a 5 hour bus ride. When we got there, we found out some friends we had made in Pokhara were staying at the same hotel as us. When we first arrived, we had lunch and a freezing shower before heading to the Elephant Breeding Center where they raise the elephants who work in the park. During training, the guides sit on the elephants' necks, holding a set of reigns, with their bare feet behind the elephants' ears. When they want an elephant to go one direction or another, they kick it behind one or the other ear and when they want it to go faster, they hit the top of its head with a stick. Unfortunately, it's not the most humane animal treatment I've ever seen.


As we walked into the compound, the trainers were giving agility lessons to the juvenile elephants. This consisted of a football (soccer) match between elephants. It was awesome to watch and the little Nepali kids were thrilled as well to run after the ball when it was kicked too far (or into the river). To see the massive beasts playing with a tiny, little soccer ball was pretty adorable. Shortly after that, we saw a rhino which was interesting but sad because it was sick and shouldn't have been in such a relatively populous area. Then we entered the Breeding Center.


There were baby elephants EVERYWHERE and I love them. They are the biggest smallest animal ever and they're wonderful. I never realized how useful a trunk would be! It functions as a straw-hand-cup-thumb-nose. How multi-purpose! And they will do anything for food. We watched one baby steal a bag of grain right out of a trainer's hands and run. It was adorable and the trainer was completely helpless because the baby was about 10 times his size.

The Breeding Center sells biscuits (imagine a giant dog cookie) and we bought about 3 dozen and had a fantastic time feeding them to the babies, which you can watch here (I'm still trying to upload this) . That was about all we did that day but I was happy as a clam because I had been looking forward to playing with the baby elephants for so long.


The following day, we were up early to go for a dug-out canoe ride and jungle walk. Our guide, Krishna, and his sidekick, as well as me, Matt, Robert and Vincent walked a few minutes upriver to the canoe launching area. We ended up waiting for about an hour and a half (because although there were plenty of canoes and "boat men," OUR boat man was not there) which was terribly boring except for two amusing interludes. The first break from the tedium consisted of us finding bamboo sticks and fashioning spears out of them (by cutting one end in half and tying in a pottery shard point) , and the second was when Matt tried to steal one of the canoes. This escapade ended when one staff member leapt into the boat that Matt was captaining and another passed him the end of a bamboo pole from the shore to reel in the renegade American.

Eventually, we had our canoe ride and saw two types of crocodiles as well as some neat birds. The canoe dropped us off in the National Park and we wandered around for a couple of hours looking for tigers and bears that never showed up. We did, however, see a pretty type of monkey that has white fur and a black face before we headed home for lunch. After lunch we went on an elephant ride which was fun but a bit sad as well. I don't think these elephants like their jobs. Halfway through the ride, I saw another white girl steering her elephant, and I asked my guide if I could do the same. He hopped right off and let me ride the whole rest of the way on the elephant's head. It was loads of fun, and by the end the elephant and I were great friends (from my point of view).


After the elephant ride, we had dinner and a few drinks before heading to a Tharu Culture Show. It was in a theater and the stage was lit up but not the audience, so it didn't feel like a million tourists staring at locals. It was actually interesting and quite entertaining. First, there were a few dances with drums and sticks. The men ran around in a well-choreographed pattern, hitting their fighting sticks together to the rhythm of the drums. I must say that the highlights of the show were: the grown man in a peacock suit who hopped around the stage bobbing his head in a mating season dance, and the boy-woman dance when young men dressed as women were being chased by a man. It was rather hilarious. And it turned out that the audience was primarily composed of locals who also thought it was great fun to watch.

We spent the rest of the evening getting into a bit of trouble with our new friends Guy, William, Vincent, and Robert.

I have finally been able to upload one of the paragliding videos, which you can see here. There might be a second video up, so please check for that too if you're interested.

I'm frustrated that I'm having such a difficult time uploading videos and I've been here for almost 2 hours trying. I want to get them online before I reach China and can no longer properly update my blog. Alas...

running jokes

When Matt and I went paragliding, we had to list emergency contact information for our family, including emails. It seem odd to me that they might notify a family of catastrophe by email and now the joke has evolved to become any silly thing we do.
Reply to: crash@blueskyparagliding.com
Reply to: trampledbyelephant@junglewildlifecamp.org
Reply to: crocodileattack@chitwansafari.net

On South Park, the Chinese character (who owns City Wok) cannot pronounce L's. Well, it turns out that the Chinese can say L just fine and that it's only a difficulty for the Japanese. Regardless, the Tibetan phrase for "hello" is "tashi delek" which Matt and I have turned into "oh, tashi derreck." Basically, we say this at random moments and it's completely incorrect and inappropriate.

My new name is "Pants," which Matt has derived the following way: ellie > smellie > smellie pants > pants. So now he refers to me as Pants all the time.

In China, when we sometimes had TV access, Matt and I would watch CCTV9 because it's the only English language station there. The advertisements on that channel are rather amusing because alot of them are strange translations. The absolute best ad was one for a tea pillow. Now I ask you, who doesn't need a tea pillow? It's a normal pillow for your bed, but it has tea leaves inside to sooth you while you sleep. The ad for this ridiculous product begins with a strange man who looks like he's had a facelift, saying, "Imagine the combination of pillow and tea." Which he says rather slowly, as if he is proposing an absolutely genius idea that will revolutionize everyday life. Since this ad was on every five minutes on the only channel in English, it became a standard in our repertoire.

Here in Kathmandu, it feels like everybody is trying to sell you Tiger Balm. All the vendors on the street are in your face, pressuring you to buy it from them. So every time Matt and I are at a shop and notice it for sale, we always point it out to each other. "Matt, here's that Tiger Balm you've been looking for." "Oh there it is! I've been wondering where I could get some! I've been looking everywhere!"

One day, we were in a taxi, driving out of Kathmandu, when we noticed that one of the big, communal piles of garbage on the street had a dead monkey on top of it. Matt turned to me and said, "Hey Ell, where do you put your dead monkey? In the trash, with the rest of your dead monkeys!!" Humor is a fantastic way to avoid considering the reality of the situation.


All of these jokes have become routine on our trip and can be tailored to fit any occasion. They might sound ridiculous, but who are we kidding, this whole thing is ridiculous. :)

Playtime Outside

So, the following day, we woke up and had breakfast before heading to Blue Sky Paragliding. We had scheduled a flight, and although the 3rd was rainy and cloudy and crummy, the 4th was beautiful. So, after waiting around for the first group of the day to come down, they loaded a bunch of us into a van with a ton of gear on the top and hauled us all the the tippy top of a nearby hill. After we got up there, it only took a second to get in the air. I was the first person and we were off in no time. Damu clipped me in and said, "Walk.....now RUN!" Seconds later, we were floating in the air.


For me, it was a great mix of absolute terror and complete elation. I loved it. I wish it had lasted all day (but I don't have the funds for that). There were eagles and vultures flying around with all of us up there, just riding on the thermals. Apparently, the companies who send people up like this sometimes even train birds to seek out the pockets of hot air so that it's easier for the paragliders to find them. But we were up there, riding on the air like waves, and it was amazing. Everytime I looked down, my heart just jumped up to my throat, but as long as I kept looking straight out, it was ok. I'm rather certain that Damu got a kick out of my screaming like a child, and kept doing crazy stuff. Or maybe I just thought it was crazy since we were so bloody HIGH! I told him I was ready for anything, so after gently turning and rising with the warm air, he steered us over to the lake where we spun like mad. It was alot like a roller coaster with loop-di-loops except there was no framework of any kind.


By the time we stopped spiralling, we were not very high above the lake and I could see the landing area. As we approached it, Damu said, "no water, no water, no water.." as if he were saying no whammy. I thought he was teasing for several seconds and then realized we were in fact, quite low. Just as we reached the edge of the lake, we landed in a heap in the mud. As I stood up, a water buffalo walked by with an angry woman following, throwing rocks. I just began to laugh. What a crazy morning.


After that amazing experience and feeling like I had just had a coronary, Matt and I grabbed lunch at our favorite spot before heading to the lake. We rented a strange metal-box-looking paddleboat and headed off to explore. The lake proved to be quite large, and the paddleboat inefficient. We made it almost all the way across before taking a break for a cocktail (Matthew had the foresight for this one). After some lovely sunset mountain pictures, we turned around and headed back in the direction of the dock. When we saw two other white people in a wooden boat, we decided it was no match for our trusty craft, and after all, we ARE pirates. So we paddled as fast as we could straight for their vessel without saying a word. When we got quite close, they were staring, so we stood up and yelled, "Ahoy! Avast ye matey! You've been pirated!" And other such ridiculous phrases.

After a brief explanation, we headed away. Minutes later, they were alongside (as we say in nautical terms...). Surprisingly, instead of being appalled by our behavior, they thought we were amusing (which is good, because we thought we were HILARIOUS) and came over to chat. They,re named Shannon and Andy, and the four of us ended up talked for ages and then meeting up later for dinner. What a great day!

The following morning we got a late start, but after a shower, some breakfast, and a few errands (by this time it's about 3pm, whoops) we headed around the lake to hike up to the World Peace Pagoda. It's on the top of a ridge, overlooking lake Phewa Tal and Pokhara and has a great view of the Himalayas. The stupa (as they call it here) was given as a gift from Japanese monks to promote world peace.


We decided to take the scenic route to the pagoda, so we hiked around to the north side of the lake, and nearby some terraced farms before following the ridge towards the peak. We were moving as fast as we could at the end because the shadow of the ridge we were on was slowly devouring Pokhara and the mountains. We got up to the pagoda just in time to take some quick pictures then practically sprinted down the short side of the hill before all the boats (that row to the other side of the lake, where we're staying) left for the night. When we got back, it was time for a delicious dinner near a fire at Tea Time Bamboostan before bed.

Today, we got up, had brekkie and rented scooters again (sooo much fun). We drove all the way through Pokhara, east towards a lake we had read about. After about 45 minutes (including a brief backtrack), we reached Begnas Tal just at the same time 4 more tourists were pulling in on their mopeds (and we thought we were the only bright ones). We all decided to share the cost of a rowboat and had a great time paddling in circles before reaching a cute spit of land where we relaxed for a bit. There was a family walking around us, washing their clothes and dishes in the lake as we admired all the nearby hills and mountains reflected in the lake's perfectly placid surface.


It was quite soothing to spend those few minutes there soaking up the sun before heading back towards Pokhara on our scooters (or "hogs" as Matt calls them). If you've ever driven on rural roads in a developing country, you know what I'm talking about. It's a chaotic combination of decomposing roads, a lack of traffic rules, rogue livestock, and so many different forms of transportation (pedestrians, bicyclists, giant trucks, little motorcycles, speeding minibuses, etc.) that it all becomes pandemonium. It's quite exhilarating to try to navigate it and Matt and I had a blast.


Following our adventure, we decided to head to the middle of Pokhara to find an authentic Nepali restaurant. We did, and it was great. Those are the places where I love to hang out, and despite the fact that we couldn't converse with each other, this was no exception.



The pictures are: the view from my seat in the air, me and Damu hovering (Matt took that one), the snake charmer who appeared out of nowhere during breakfast, the sunset view of the lake and mountains from the Peace Pagoda, the mirror-like surface of Begnas Tal, and me on my scooter.

Note: I intend to put in video links (that's why some words are red) but the connection here is terrible, so it would be impossible to upload the video now. Please check again in about a week.

Pokhara...

Well hello!! So, Matt and I are in Pokhara now (and he's well and eating solid foods) and it seems like a very cool town. We arrived here by bus after a 7 hour ride from Kathmandu.

Like our other long ride (from the Tibet border to Kathmandu) the scenery was unbelievable. It's really hard to get a decent picture out of a bus window when you're bumping along a dirt road and inanimate objects seem to be ganging up just to ruin your shot (power lines, trees, hillsides, parked vehicles, etc.). But I tried my best, and this is what I came up with:

I was trying to get one shot that showed both the tropical foliage and the Himalayas, but I was thwarted. Alas. (Please note that the second pic DOES have Himalayas in the background, not just clouds)

Anyway, my other good shot from that journey is the following:

So, we're here in Pokhara, and after breakfast and a failed attempt to organize a kayak trip, Matt and I rented scooters and had a blast driving them around the bumpy streets and disorganized traffic of Nepal. First we checked out the old part of Pokhara, which was quite nice and lost in time, before heading to the International Mountain Museum.

The museum was adorable, think: very-well-researched old Japanese straw rain hat placed atop a piece of notebook paper with a face drawn on in marker. We had a nice time reading stories of the world's highest peaks and checking out gear from first summits. It's incredible to think that the people who summited these massive mountains (K2, Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, etc.) in the 50's did so without the aid of any super-lightweight, aluminum shaft, thermal insulating, micro-fiber (insert descriptive phrase here) hi-tech gear that we have today.

So, we were in the museum for about a half hour before it started to drizzle. It almost never rains in Nepal in November but the drizzle turned into a pour that lasted at over an hour. We had thoroughly explored the museum, re-read the Lonely Planet section on Pokhara, spent time talking to local students, and sat in boredom for a half hour before the rain turned back into a drizzle.

We procured some old newspapers for use as umbrellas and went out to our scooters. The scooters were soaked and so were we by the time we got back to Lakeside (the area of Pokhara where we're staying) in the rain. I would, however, like to say that Matt and I are now experts on the fine art of scooting, and that for $5 each for a full day, we might start to do it all the time.

On an unrelated topic:

I was thinking, the other day, about what it is that makes mountains so ______ (gorgeous, inspiring, powerful, appealing, sexy, etc.), and I don't know the answer. The same goes for bodies of water like wild rivers or the ocean, even tiny, babbling brooks.

It's really hard to qualify what makes them so magnetic. It could be the possibility of exploring them, or the history of their creation, their size, or any number of things. I don't know. I might need to consult a philosopher for this one. Anybody have any insight to offer?

Mmmwhahaha, now that I've got your minds spinning, I'm going to go to bed and leave you all to ponder....

Vomitous

Sooo, Matt and I woke up at 5:30am the morning of the 30th so that we could catch the bus to Pokhara, Nepal. He immediately ran into the bathroom and vomited. I won't describe the next half hour, suffice it to say that by the time we were supposed to walk out the door (and we were ready by that point too, showered with bags packed) it had become quite clear that we weren't leaving.

It became progressively clearer that Matt was very sick. I've never seen someone react that way to anything. He was violently sick for hours. By the time the sun came up, I was out at the pharmacy buying rehydration salts and anti-nausea medicine. I also stopped by the store for crackers and ginger ale but he didn't eat or get out of bed for at least twenty-four hours. It took two and a half days, but he finally ate a real meal for dinner tonight. And we are now in Pokhara. (I have some great landscape pics from the ride over which I will try to post tomorrow)

I would like to say that Chris Beall is a savior because he was the one who suggested it was food poisoning. I think Matt and I are a good team. And we managed to get through this no problem. If we were both sick, we could've called the hotel doctor. I think we'll be ok on this trip. More tomorrow and lots of love to everyone.

bliggity

Continued from the previous post...

I neglected to explain all of the pics I put up in the last post, which were the Himalayan landscape as seen from the plane, central Bhaktapur, dyed yarn drying in the sun along Bhaktapur's backstreets, the Bodhnath Stupa, baby and mommy monkey, and the sadhus (the monkeys and sadhus were both at Pashupatinath).

This is a miscellaneous picture because I wanted to show the manner in which people move big things around here. They carry them. Whatever it is, they carry it, giant sacks of grain, big metal file cabinets and furniture.


So we got a late start then ran around like crazy to try to get to Patan. Once we got there, we checked out the museum there which was fantastic. It explained so much of the Buddhist symbolism I've seen but not understood. Now I understand the importance of the position of the Buddha's hands and the reason a stupa always has the same distinctive shape. It really helped to clarify a lot of things as well as helping me to notice additional symbolism in the art (for instance, Ganesh anyways has his trunk stuck in a bowl of sweeties.)


After the museum I got a fantastic set of ox bone prayer beads that are all carved to look like skulls, a wide ox bone bracelet, and a gorgeous ox-bone and wood necklace (they use a lot of ox bone here) all for less than $10. Sweet. Then we wandered around the main square for a while before checking out the backstreets.


Soon, it was about 4pm and we took a taxi back to Thamel where we picked up the bus tickets from the travel agent and went back to our room to change to meet Sulo (the friend of a friend I mentioned that we contacted in the last entry). After a bit of confusion, we found her driver and went over to her place.


Sulo welcomed us into her home/office with open arms and showed us all over her carpet factory. We saw women weaving massive rugs stitch by stitch. It's hard work, but they get good wages and there's day care for their kids. It was amazing to the the creative process that happens behind things that we totally take for granted (rugs). She got dinner for us and we had a fantastic time talking with her and her husband, Richie. Soon, we were all tired and Matt and I went back to the hotel and to bed.

The pictures in this post are Patan's Durbar Square, a coppersmith's shop in Patan's backstreets, and busy Thamel (where we're staying).

More Kathmandu...

So, the next morning we woke up to an alarm at 5:30. You might ask why, but if you refer to the previous post, you will see that Matt and I had spoken to a travel agent and arranged some exciting adventures which were not detailed on that post. The most important was a flight around THE TOPS OF THE HIMALAYAS!!!



I thought it was pretty neat. I won't bore you with the whole early morning, delayed flight boredom, but will jump straight to the experience, which you can see a piece of here. It was a standard and very short flight except for the incredible scenery and the fact that they let us look out of the cockpit and take pictures of the pilots. We flew along the whole line of the Himalayas to Everest and back. (the pictures are all a bit hazy since they're out of windows)

After our incredible morning, we came back and got another great breakfast at Helena's (grilled bananas!!) before heading back to the old part of town and wandering for a while. I must confess that I spent at least a couple hours this day shopping. We topped off the amazing day with a slideshow and talk by Chris Beal about trekking in the Annapurna region where we found out what we're missing (Nepal is well known for its scenic treks but they don't fit into our schedule) and learned about a couple nice day hikes we might be able to do out of Pokhara. Then dinner > internet > bed.

The following morning, we got up early and headed to Bhaktapur which is one of the other two (besides Kathmandu) cities in the Kathmandu Valley. The oldest part of this city is off limits to most vehicles and had retained alot of its old ways so it's a great place to spend a day.


Before we could start our walk though, we bought coffee from two English-speaking Nepali guys with whom we discussed the importance of good barristos, the 'interesting' (explicit) carvings on some of the nearby buildings, and bad American movies (I also used this occasion to get splashed by the juice of a nearby animal carcass that was being carved up).


We had a great walk around the old city before we stopped for lunch at Fire Fast Food where we were blindsided by the strength of the local liquor (Raksi) and made a young friend who taught us a little Nepali language then showed us briefly around town. The local museum was closed for the day so we headed home for our normal evening routine.

The following day, we got up early and took a taxi to Bodhnath which is a Buddhist stupa frequented by many Tibetan exiles who live in Nepal. We walked the Kora (clockwise circumabulation) around the stupa while spinning all the prayer wheels (about 500) before finding a MASSIVE prayer wheel (about 8 feet tall and probably 6 feet in diameter) which we ran around several times.


Then we set off to find the gompas (basically schools for the mini-monks) which we had quite a difficult time located and eventually postponed the search for lunch. We ate at a Tibetan place where we met an interesting American guy who has been living in Nepal and studying Tibetan language for two years now. After lunch, he set us in the direction of the gompas which we admired then walked to Pashupatinath (quite an interesting 20-minute walk through little neighborhoods) which is another temple. The first thing that struck us about Pashupati was how ancient and empty the place was as it crawled with monkeys.

This is another picture from the same area of Sadhus (or dreadlocked holy men) at the same compound. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed access to the interior of the temples since we're not Hindu, but the place was fascinating nonetheless.


The temple area was interesting to begin with, but when we stumbled across a funeral ceremony, things really got weird. I'm going to leave out the details, suffice to say that it was fairly gruesome and after watching more than we should have, we left. Normal evening procedure... eat, blog, bed.

This morning we got up and had alot on our plate. We dropped off laundry, contacted a friend of a friend, scheduled stuff with a travel agent then headed to Patan, the third of the three cities in the valley.

The internet cafe is closing and I have to go... can't blog for a couple days.
I have a bunch of pictures that I haven't put up, so please leave comments, or email me about any that you want to see. Love to everyone. -ell