Serendipity

Today was my second day learning the Tabla and I must say it is pretty fun! It takes a lot of concentration which is good for me. After only 5 days here I’m into learning yoga and tabla. If I’m not careful I’m going to stress myself out! Probably I’ll stay another 2 weeks or so and take it from there. Varanasi is strange, it has a really spiritual feel but you can hardly trust anyone here to be honest. I thought the owners of the guest house were honest but even they were running their schemes. Go figure.

I arrived to Varanasi three days ago. I had planned to stay in nepal 1 month but it was more like a month an a half. My last 3 days I spent at chitwan national park on a really touristy package including elephant ride, jungle trek, and the like. It wasn’t so spectacular and I felt sorry for the elephants. It’s not so easy to sit on an elephant, even when there is a platform to sit on. I saw Rhinos, which was cool. They remind me of Triceratops, which was probably my favorite dinousaur back in the day.

I set off to India from Chitwan in the morning, without a solid plan, but I thought I’d have to stay at the border overnight and continue on. But as it worked out I got an easy train connection from the travel agent. I crossed into India without incident then caught a ride to the next city from a returning cab driver. He told me the story of his life how he was selected (after 3 stages of selection) for the national cricket team but could not afford to pay the required fee, then his brother died and now he has to take care of his family by driving a tourist cab. He wanted to open a shop but needed to save the money. I felt sorry for him and gave him a tip, he was happy with that.

So i was dropped off at the train station and had to wait for a while there for the train to Varanasi. I had my first meal outside the train station, one kid tried to lead me to a place where i had to sit by a loud generator, but I declined. Everyone was pestering me to eat at their restaurant, which I was not in the mood for. I walked away and circled back, finally came to a reasonable place and ate a huge meal for about $0.80. The place was kind of a dive. The train station and area around were really dirty. The whole place had a kind of stale smell. I drank a coffee and it came in an unvarnished clay cup. Those are the disposable cups in India! It tasted good but you kind of get a taste of clay in your coffee. I suppose it’s not bad for you.

I was in a sleeper car — I got in and sat down on the bench. it was wet because it just rained and the window was open. i wiped it off and lay down, but I had to move anyway because i was supposed to be in the top bunk. i argued with the train conductor a bit because the sign was confusing, but he seemed to have an attitude about it. i switched and fell asleep. I was abruptly awakened by the train conductor at 5:30AM, because the train had arrived. In the chinese trains they give you some warning, but here I pretty much had to jump off a moving train with all my bags. I had forgotten a towel and he was nice enough to throw it on the ground at me as the train sped away. I was standing around, dazed and half-asleep when a nice accountant man came towards me and asked me where I was going. I told him and he helped me get an auto-rickshaw to my intended guest-house. I had gotten a recommendation from someone in Kathmandu.
So at sunrise I had a drive through the twists and turns of Varanasi, seeing familiar sights like cows, chickens, and mangy dogs wandering around the streets. It was dense and dirty, and reminded me of Indonesia. With a mixture of advice and intuition I made it to the guest house and checked in, the place seemed good. You can walk 1 minute and overlook the ganges river. It’s relaxed and quiet there, the owners of the place pretty much just lie around all day and it’s really casual. I intend to stay a while.

I’ve been in Nepal for about a month. I’ve still got some things I wanted to write about Tibet, I think the situation there calls for some calculated ranting. But as I’ll be shooting off to India anytime now (prying myself away from Nepal is becoming a seemingly daunting task) I’d better write something while I’m here and still have some impressions of the place.
I’m starting to really like Nepal. Laos is great, but not many people speak english. China is an alternate universe. Tibet is different and interesting, but the plight of the people there makes you want to cry.
I’ve started off here volunteering for two weeks, working in a small village to help build a new orphanage. I had basically hitched a ride to Nepal from Tibet, coming from everest base camp with a group of volunteers based in Kathmandu. I rode for 3 days in the rear of a Toyota landcruiser, lying on backpacks. It was a bone-jarring experience, but I was happy to have a ride. They were a really fun bunch and when we arrived to Kathmandu I continued to hang out with them, just relaxing, partying and chilling out in Thamel, and staying up all night on the roof of our hotel room. It was good to hang out with some friends again! Eventually I decided it wouldn’t kill me to do some volunteering. It turned out that we didn’t do much work after all. The first week we got some good days in, but the second week it rained almost every day so I was just hanging out in the nepali home in the small village where I was stationed.

For the first week of work it was myself, Eddie, and Adrian. Eddie was from Scotland and Adrian from England. After the first week we, along with another friend decided to go on a rafting trip down a really fast river. We were a bit scared because the river was going so fast, it looked pretty mean. But we all managed to climb in the raft. the first bit was really intense and quite a rush. no one fell out of the raft. Our guide would yell at us when to paddle to shoot the rapids and move along the safe path. After skirting “certain death” as we joked, we were all in high spirits and that night we had a party along the side of the river. For some reason there were no other tourists there and we had the stereo and pool table for ourselves. The next day we went on the same river route, it was fun but we had lost the fear so it wasn’t as much of a rush.

Thamel is the home base of operations here in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. It’s a sort of small traveller’s city within a city, an oasis for backpackers caravaning through asia–where visions of hot showers, western food, and the trappings of decadent western life materialize in the midst of the otherwise normal city. You walk from your hotel room, get breakfast, check internet, maybe watch a movie. Not that there aren’t hassels–you are a moving target for all sorts of hawkers. “Hello sir”, “OK! rickshaw!”, “smoke hash?”, “go trekking sir”. You don’t dare look around, appear to be new, lost, or looking for anything in particular–an innocent lamb for the lions

After my brief volunteering stint I went to Pokara to see the place and maybe do a trek. I ended up going for 6 days. It was really nice because everything was so easy. I hired a porter/guide to carry my bag and show me around because I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t have to worry about anything except walking, which was quite blissful. And trekking in Nepal is a little different than what you might expect. Along the main routes there are little restaurants and guesthouses everywhere–pretty cushy. some places we had really good food, and some lodges were so comfortable. One reminded me of a ski lodge! It rained a couple of days, and we had to contend with these little leeches that climb onto your shoes and try to get to your skin–every little while you have to sweep them off with salt. It was early in the season, still the monsoon time. Usually it’s pretty dry. I’d like to come back some day and do the annapurna circuit trek. It takes 3 weeks and you circle around the himalayan annapurna range.

Pokhara was a welcome change from Thamel. It was so peaceful and quiet, mostly because the main tourist season hadn’t started yet. Plus my room at the guest house was very clean and comfortable; when I wasn’t on the trek I mostly hung around and read, relaxed, and caught up on some meditation in my room. Looks like I’m turning into mom and dad! The food was good too so I took advantage of the room service. Pretty cushy.

Upon returning to Kathmandu I finished up the Reiki course that I took to supplement and refresh my previous training. The people at the center were really nice so sometimes I just went in to hang out and chat. I also collected my Indian visa from the embassy, which was a big relief due to the long lines there. At this point I began to realize I was really starting to like Nepal, and I’m a bit attached to the place.

The political situation here feels like it’s almost at a crisis point. It appears to be an insoluable problem. There is a unscrupulous king controlling the military and who almost nobody likes. There is an innefectual coalition of political parties who are corrupt and lacking in popular support. And there are the maoists, who are popular with the poor peasants in remote areas of nepal, but who lack political legitimacy and representation. A couple of weeks the maoists called a ceacefire and lately there have been many more pro-democracy demonstations. Students and party leaders were arrested, beaten, tortured by police. the other day I went out to try to take a bus and there were police everywhere just standing around with guns and bulletproof vests. they had closed off this street where the buses normally wait for apparently no reason. this city seems so crazy, but yet above the noise and traffic and army everywhere it seems so relaxed and peaceful, and the people are just going about their daily business. but sometimes i see somebody’s face and get a sense of the tension. it’s a magic place.

the finger

i saw a girl turn around and give me the finger
it wasn’t meant for me
probaly the guys passed her were rude
she was wearing jeans and had dark eyes

caught up to her and her friend
the other one had a picture of Che
looks like she made it herself
lots of protests lately

the town is buzzing, will there be a change?
maybe it’s part of it, the jeans girl, the finger
bring down the king, change something
then those boys wont be rude any more