Kathmandu's Temple Cities - Bhaktapur

Next on the 'must-see' list was another trip to a temple city – this time it was Bhaktapur, the old capital of Nepal about 10km outside the city.


The bus ride was an adventure in itself, as our local bus (I ended up paying the inflated tourist price of, oh, $.35) headed out. These private buses just wait til they fill up, then it's off we go. Now, by full, I mean actual seats, but that didn't stop them from picking up more, and oh, yes, more folks until eventually it was completely packed... far worse than even my local #22 in London at rush hour.

But, once we got to the town it was great – Nepal took the unusual step of outlawing all traffic from not just the main square, but the entire old city. It's pretty special to wander around streets filled with leaning wooden houses, still being used in much the same manner at centuries before.



The only downside to Bhaktapur was an overly-persistent guide who kept following me. Our conversation went something like this:

Him: Guide?
Me: No thank you.
(Sneakily follows me to next temple)
Him: Guide? Very good price.
Me: No, thank you – I'm just looking.
(This kept on going for awhile... until finally...)
Me: I don't need a guide.
Him: No?
Me: (looked directly at him) I don't want to talk to you any more. Really.

That actually worked for awhile – until he pulled a clever flanking maneuver on me outside the last temple and asked again. Seriously.

The erotic temple art showed its, uh, face here as well – but with a bit of cheeky humor. My favorite was the carving of a woman, um, pleasuring her man while simultaneously washing her clothes. Now that's multi-tasking!



Lonely Planet suggested a meandering rural walk outside town, and it quickly got me off of the beaten path. Some of the highlights? There was a 'ducks only' area in a nearby stream – but all of them were died bright yellow or pink, for whatever reason I couldn't make out. Throw in a nearby river used for ritual cremation (a la the Ganges in India) and lots of quiet backstreets with locals doing their thing – and it was a great way to see the rest of such an interesting city. I always count it a success when they look up with mild surprise to see a tourist so far from the normal stomping grounds...

The evening passed pretty quickly – I got to see a Nepalese wedding procession working its way down Thamel's narrow streets, complete with full on marching band.


Then, I found Happy Hour at a place called Maya's, with 2 for 1 gin & tonics. And man, were these strong – so much so that you could barely fit in the tonic! Perfect.

Kathmandu's Temple Cities - Patan

Phew...now that I finally made it back to, I was in the home stretch of my time in Nepal – so I really wanted to make every day count.

After a long lie-in, I caught a taxi to the nearby city of Patan, home of another of the ancient kingdoms who ruled the strategic (and rare!) flat Kathmandu valley. It always amazing just how densely packed the area is – from people to yaks to ancient temples, you can keep exploring for weeks and never repeat yourself.


But for me at least, it was a somewhat crazy 3km taxicab ride to Patan's own Durbar Square. After getting a ticket, I just sat back and enjoyed the moment – a massive plaza was there in front of me, with temples both large and small stretching out in the distance.


The other key difference with Kathmandu? The quiet. Cars and vehicles aren't allowed, so it's much easier to just merge with the pilgrims who come to pray.

I still don't have that good a grasp on all of the details of the Nepali relgion – but basically, it combines varying levels of Hinduism (Shiva, Gamesh, and other aspects of the larger creator of the universe) with Buddhist flavors as well. Beyond that, I just generally just sat back and just enjoyed the spectacle.



Again, I had to chuckle at the Nepalis' matter-of-fact attitude towards sexuality – the dozens of erotic carvings in their various temples are eye-opening, to say the least...



It was a great way to spend an afternoon – I just explored the surrounding neighborhoods, including a women's collective that manufactured their own woolen goods for the tourist market. Unfortunately, as it was 95 degrees – I couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to buy any!

But, on the winding walk back to Thamel, I did end up finding some fair trade shops that represent various villages. Their selection was amazing, with two stores being 4 floors each – and they cut out the middlemen so that most of the money gets back to these communities, a growing positive trend that seems to be popping up in most tourist areas I've been on this trip.

The Bus Trip From Hell.

You know... travel in developing countries is exotic, mysterious, and all sorts of other fun emotions that make it all worthwhile. But, occasionally... just occasionally... travel can be a seriously big pain in the tookus. Yes, tookus.

Ever hear how a butterfly flapping its wings can set off a hurricane? Well, this tale is Nepal's equivalent - involving a bus, a too-narrow road, three bouts of fisticuffs, and two rocks. It all started with some of these Maoist guys...

My plan was simple enough – catch an early morning bus back to Kathmandu, a six or seven hour trip through some of the hilly terrain Nepal's famous for. Even allowing for the odd developing world hiccup, I figured the trip would run eight hours tops.

All was going smoothly... to smoothly as it turns out. We even got to within an hour of Kathmandu when it all went very, very wrong – our bus came around the corner, saw a line of other vehicles blocking the way, and stopped. And stayed stopped for quite awhile, as it turned out we'd be waiting for another 7 hours – bringing the whole trip to a 14 hour test of patience.

Ugh.

While I still think the Nepalis are a generally well-centered and friendly bunch, this day did show another side, as tempers grew short. Among the highlights:

* We saw three separate fistfights... not sure exactly why, but the crowd of onlookers seemed to appreciate the distraction from the endless waiting.
* One car tried to cut in front of the endless queue. It succeeded, but since it was limited to a blistering 5kph, a bunch of angry drivers caught up with it and started throwing rocks at it, smashing a bunch of windows. Ouch.
* And, just to end the day on super upbeat note – I was semi-asleep as we were rolling into the outskirts of KTM when a loud CRASH right by my head jarred me. Turned out that a random person threw a fist-sized rock at us – shattering the window before mine and showering me with glass bits. Lovely.

The next day we heard that there had been a strike by the Maoists (who recently joined the government). All the transportation was supposed to shut down – so that explained the road closure, and I'm guessing the angry rock at our bus for violating the strike.

Whatever. I grabbed a taxi back to my fav hotel – Hotel Ginesh Himal – and then got some surprisingly good curry at the last open restaurant in Thamel before bed.

P is for Peaks & Pretty Pagodas in Pokhara

Uh, sorry about the title - I got carried away with trying the alliteration angle...

After my abortive mountain-biking day in Kathmandu, the next morning, I headed out to Pokhara – the other major tourist destination in Nepal that is at the base of the legendary Annapurna range


If I had to make a comparison, it's a bit like Nepal's version of Lake Tahoe in California, or Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, with gorgeous water backed up by high snow-capped mountains. Most of all, it was also famous for a much more chilled out vibe than busy Kathmandu – so it sounded like a perfect place to (as the Aussies say) chillax. Yeah, yeah – cheesy word, but what the heck... blame the Aussies!

An early bus ride out got me there in the early afternoon, and I headed out looking for a place to hole up for a few nights. And to inject a bit of suspense into the blog, this (gasp) is where I might be guilty of stretching an analogy...

I know, I know – cheesy but brace yourself.

Anywho – it's weird, but finding a good hotel is a lot like online dating. You can find out a bit about things through emails (or in this case, Lonely Planet), but it still comes down to that first meeting to see if you felt comfortable or not.

And, Pokhara was no different – I checked out a great hotel, cheap, clean, and so on, but the staff was just stone-faced and unfriendly. So I decided to roll the dice and kept looking...

…only to luck out with a stellar place called Sacred Valley. For about 400 rupees a night ($6), they were warm and welcoming... sold!

The next three days were actually a bit of the same... they revolved mainly around resting, reading, and eating, sometimes all at the same time. There's a good Italian-style cafe near the hotel that does good breakfasts, and for dinners, I always wound up at the Moondance on the main strip which was friendly, cheap, and had wi-fi AND wicked good apple crumble. Who can beat that?

Otherwise, Pokhara is pretty much geared to people heading out on multi-day treks in the stunning Annapurna range of mountains nearby. And, well, since both my schedule and the onset of the rainy season ruled those out, I decided to see what else Pokhara had nearby.

On the second day, I hiked up the nearby hill to the World Peace Pagoda – a massive brilliantly white structure on the top of a ridge that was built by a Japanese group to promote, well, peace (duh!). It was a fun hike – and the rewards at the top were some great views, and more importantly, a cold drink.


On the way back through the gate, I saw a woman and her two young daughters selling bananas in the hot sun. While anyone who knows me realizes I completely loathe bananas in all their forms, I figured it'd be fun to make some balloons to liven up their day. One balloon turned to three or four, and the kids came out of the woodwork, turning into 30 minutes of twisting, tying, and laughing in pidgin English or Nepali. Good times.


The third day continued my bad luck with bikes. The plan was to rent a bike and roll over to old Pokhara and the Gurka museum. Alas, for $1 a day rental, you really don't get quality... within the first 500 meters, the chain kept freezing which almost caused a few accidents. Deciding that discretion (and laziness) is the better part of valor, I retreated to the Moonlight for a beer and pizza.

The only other 'tourist' bit I really wanted to do had to be checking out the Annapurna range. Normally, the mountains can be viewed from the lakeside town, but the summer haze made that a no go most of the time.

So the morning I was heading back to Kathmandu, I caught a taxi up to Sarangote – a viewpoint at the top of a nearby hill, and got to watch the sunrise over the range:


Still a bit hazy, but it definitely whetted my appetite to come back to Nepal to trek through this magnificent area... 'course, now the main problem is that even with this trip, my list of countries to go and places to see just keeps getting longer and longer!

Return to Kathmandu (Cold Beer, Please!)

6/10 to 6/14... Kathmandu

As we were flying back into Kathmandu after the Everest trek, my priorities were very, very simple. Must... have... long hot shower. Wait, wait – must ALSO have some other food beside rice/noodles and some bland mo-mo's!

Right. My first day back in civilization was spent basically pampering the heck out of myself. I took up David and Kristin's advice, and had an hour long “trekking massage” for about $12 – mix of Thai, Swedish, and who knows what other styles, but it was a great way to work out the kinks from the the hike.


Then, an overdue haircut and even better, a bare blade shave at a very local barber. If you've never had the chance to do this, man, it's pretty awesome. Think of it like a combo pedi/mani, but for dudes... for about a buck, you get a head massage, warm lathering with foam and then 2 very close passes with a sharp blade – Gilette Sensor ain't got nothing on these bad boys!

Uh – the one caveat is that you really need to trust the guy who's giving this, since he'll have a sharp knife at your throat Let's just say that ain't the best time for anything more argumentative than football/soccer scores...

That evening was fun too – as our combined group met up for a post-trek beer or three at the now labyrinthine Kathmandue Guest House, house in a converted old palace in Thamel.


Then, as if 130 kilometers of hiking wasn't enough, John talked me into meeting up the next day for some mountain-biking. Kathmandu actually has some great places to check out within a 30 minute ride – provided you don't get killed working your way through traffic.

The funniest sight I had was cycling past a car with two Nepalis, who both did a double-take and grinned when they saw that it wasn't a local, but a brave/insane tourist riding past. I'm sure they were saying something like “Five bucks that dude doesn't make it.”

As for the bike ride, we had a great early start, heading up partway up a hill in a national park on the outskirst of town. Alas, while we were prepped for most things such as flat tires, etc., a chain breaking was not in the plans.

John did some amazing work with our two Leathermans, plus some athletic tape to try and jury rig something together to get me back to Thamel, but no dice. The next hour or two was spent mostly coasting and pushing my bike to town – where the bike shop guy was incredibly apologetic. A 56 year old rock star who's in the peak of fitness, he took a lot of pride in his bikes so gave us a pretty steep discount.

Then to ease the pain, it was time to sample some of the other Nepalese beers – Gurka in this case. My knee was tweaked a bit, but the beer did seem to go a good ways towards starting the healing. Mmm... Gurkha beer...(wonder if BevMo carries it?)

EBC: Days 11-13 - The home stretch (finally!)

Days 11 to 13 - Namche, Phanking, and Lukla

The last leg of the trip passed in a blur of highlights – covering the same ground always seems to pass more quickly. So, I figure that just the highlights will work – and will hopefully help keep my generally uber-long blog updates from getting out of control.


As we rolled out of Pheriche early in the morning, we had the nice surprise of being escorted by a pack of four semi-wild dogs, including one of the puppies we befriended. Like the goats of a few days past, they made us feel very, very slow as they easily ranged all over the hills while keeping pace with us. Sigh.

We had good weather going home – which definitely encouraged me to try and get some last memories of the mountains. Some of the yaks even cooperated – although with near-human sceptic looks at the whole process:


Plus a tea break at Tengoche saw yet more vistas of Everest:


The rest of the first day went pretty slowly – David and Kristin were pretty gassed from the whole trek so we took our time heading back.


All that day, we saw loads of locals carrying massive loads of firewood – Dawa found out that each village gets a 15 day window to gather wood before the wet season, and it's an all-hands affair, with girls, grandmas, and everyone else out hauling their share.

During a rest break, Dawa even got David and I to give it a try, setting us up with the local Tibetan harness that places most of the weight around the head and neck.




Ouch. Well, the actual carrying wasn't bad – but after 10 yards of walking, I couldn't help but wonder how difficult this would be, in shoes as flimsy and fashion-offensive as pink Crocs (oh yes, they're popular in Nepal too), clambering up and down massive hills day in and day out.

Not that we needed it, but we got even MORE respect and awe for the porters. Those guys rock.

We rolled into Namche for our 2nd night on the way down, and had a bit of a celebration at the local bar.

As we were all free of worries from AMS since we were going down, the beers and whisky were flowing. We even tried our hand at the local, randomly sloped pool table, much to the disgust of some local kids who were watching.

A normal game is supposed to last 10 minutes tops – we set new records for both stamina and incredible lack of skill as our first match stretched to over 30 minutes. Shamelessly looking for scapegoats, I blame the altitude and, uh, the unique playing surface that was carted up piece by piece by yaks years past. Tournament quality it wasn't.

The next day saw us off to a late start – heading out around 11am after a massive breakfast of surprisingly good hash browns, eggs, and my favorite apple fritters and honey.

Let's just say I was a bit sluggish.

In fact, this was the most tired I felt the whole trip – as we made the long descent from Namche to Phanking, I was definitely dragging.

Anyways – I had a good cinnamon bun at the really good bakery, then a last chance to check out the outdoor shops, and ended up scoring a really cozy pair of Jack Wolfskin fleece pants that will be perfect for staying warm after ultimate in @#$ cold London.

A last political discussion with a friendly hotel owner brought up some interesting points such as:
*Namche is doing so well since it is an entirely community run town – that makes decisions locally, instead of at the national level. Litter for example, is sorted out by having each hotel pay a little to fund 8 locals whose job it is to collect and get rid of trash. Even little kids are trained to actually (gasp) throw rubbish away properly – something in that Kathmandu is far, far behind.
*The improving, but still marginal state of education means that democracy isn't the right form of gov't right now. He really liked the last much-loved king, who was killed in '95, after ruling 30 years as benevolent dictator.

On the way down, I had to indulge in one more balloon session... we saw a really cute little girl staring at David, and it turned into balloons for a bunch of the ladies, young and old:



Our last lodge night was spent in Phanking, facing a massive waterfall:



On day 13, we got up early again, with the optimistic idea of arriving in Lukla by 11:30 and possibly catching the last flight to Kathmandu.

Great idea, but one small problem... a strike had paralyzed Lukla, as one of the castes was protesting, well, something (it was unclear even to our guide).

But, the downside was that everything was closed, from pubs to the local Starbucks.

Wait, wait, wait – did I just write Starbucks??

Yup. At 8,000 feet, with yaks and all...




Now, call me crazy, but I'm going out on a limb here – but I'm pretty darn sure that their corporate lawyers in Seattle haven't approved this expansion plan...

So, it was back to the lodge for a nap, punctuated by the shouts of a local Maoist protest, who were arguing for, well, something unclear.

Then, it was a last meal, plus the enthusiastic sampling of the surprisingly strong (and not-so surprisingly badly tasting) local rice millet wine. I'm all for trying new things, but let's just say... yuck.

Fortune smiled at us the next morning, and we were up, up, and away on the first flight back to Kathmandu... personally, I was just keen to get some food OTHER than the filling, yet bland rice/noodles/mo-mo's we had for the last 2 weeks!

Right – just like Kilimanjaro, I figured I should jot down some do's and don'ts for anyone else heading out this way:

DO:

*...Buy a walking stick. At $7, it is a HUGE help in absorbing the shocks going downhill for hours at a time. You look silly, but it's so worth it.
*...Pester your GP for a Diamox prescription. It is worth its weight in gold – helping your body get used to the altitude – plus makes your toes tingle as bonus side effect.
*...Bring some hot sauce, or something to spice up the bland, but filling trail fare.
Stock up on candy bars at Namche – after this village, the costs skyrocket and ye olde favorite Snickers costs up to $2.50.

DON'T:

*...Forget to break in your boots weeks before the trip. Hiking this terrain while fighting blisters would be a bad, bad thing.
*...(On a similar note) neglect to bring Compeed. These rock. Period.
*...Skimp on the water purifying stuff. Bring 2x what you think you'll need – you'll save a bundle on not buying bottled water on the trail, plus save on adding to Nepal's ever-growing rubbish problem.
*...Pass on bringing extra books – there's a lot of downtime and it's a good chance to get caught up on your Clancy and Grisham. Whoops – I meant other fine works of literature...

EBC Day 10: What a long, strange trip it's been...

Day 10 - Kala Pathar (5,500m / 18,000 feet) and the long FAST road down...

Call it luck, call it timing - but things have had a way of working out well for us this entire trip. Even the delays for the altitude sickness helped, as we met up with some cool folks, and had even more time to get used to the altitude.

The climb up Kala Pathar was no different.


We got up around 5:30am to start up - only Dawa and myself this time, as David and Kristin wanted to just crash and recover. Sissies.

Weather played even more critical of a role here - if there was clouds or even mist, Everest would be hidden from view, and all our efforts would be a waste.

However, it looked pretty good - so we started climbing. Up, and up, and UP! In terms of difficulty, this was by far the hardest part of the whole trek as it was essentially going to be two hours of straight slogging uphill.

There were some immediate rewards - with the peak of Everest peeking through for a minute:


...which kept me going and fired up to finish the damn climb, even as the last 1/3rd was through fairly deep and slippery snow.

It all paid off though - reaching the top, strewn with prayer flags from previous expeditions training for the actual Everest ascent. The weather continued to tease us, covering us in clouds, then parting for brilliant sunshine every 5-10 minutes, so we ended up with mind-blowing views of the surrounding peaks:




...plus some great looks back at Everest (even if my camera let me down a bit):


The other cool part was the props I got from Dawa. The climb was supposed to take about 2-3 hours - we did it in 1 hour 20 minutes. Not bad for a *sigh* soon to be 37 year old!

The rest of the day - man, we just started blazing down the trail on the way back. Our acclimatization work paid off, as we saw one group with a pretty severely sick man having to stagger back down to lower elevation.

We ended up reaching Pheriche in mid afternoon, covering in a mere one day what took us three on the way up. With altitude no longer an issue, beers were soooo on. At first, I spied a dusty Budweiser and figured that'd be a pretty funny beer to have so far from home - but as its 'born on date' was 2 years ago, I decided to be safe with a locally brewed Tuborg.


Mmm... beer.

Slightly buzzed after a mere one beer (stoopid altitude), we chilled out, ended up playing with baby Maya again, and then hit the trail the next day.

EBC - Day 9: Base Camp - Finally!

Day 9: Goruk Shep and Everest Base Camp (5364m / 17,500 feet)

To butcher the classic Etta James song goes... "at last... the top of the mountain has come along..."



NOTE: In the interests of family harmony, I should say that I meant it to say Mom AND Dad, but ran out of room. Sorry Dad! :)

Ya know - we never really figured that this day would come... we'd been hiking for about a week and a half now, that it just became sort of a routine. Wake up early, go for a long stunningly pretty walk, grab some variant of mo-mo's, soup, and rice, then bed...

Now that THE day was here - it was a bit difficult to wrap my head around it.

We had a bit of a surprise during the night - well, two actually. First, there was a dusting of snow that highlighted how lucky we were that the weather was cooperating. With the monsoon season about to start, we'd been very lucky to have only one day of rain, and anything significant at this point might close off the trails entirely.

The second was pretty random - as we all came out of our rooms in the morning, one of our guys had a surprise guest. Alas, no, no - not an attractive blond with conveniently loose morals. Nope, turns out there was a well-kept stray dog that somehow got into his room during the night looking for warmth.

So, a little nervous, we hit the trail. At this altitude, we had moved into an alpine desert - with lots and lots of rocks, and that's about it.

After our first major climb, we had a funny guest - the dog from last night turned up. We ended up calling him "Base Camp Dog" ended up following an American family (with three kids aged 10 to 15) all the way up from Lukla. He had a pretty good life - following a group up and down the trail, crashing in whatever cozy lodge was available and mooching food from trekkers as he went. He'd be a constant companion all the rest of the way:


The trail was (surprise, surprise) a bit steep again...


...with tiny glacial lakes and a bunch of waterfalls all about:



But finally... finally, we reached our last stop - Goruk Shep:


A quick bite to eat and then we were off - making the final stretch to Base Camp, which was about a 3 hour round trip hike away.

Now - EBC can be a bit of let down in the looks department. Basically, it's just a seriously rocky plain at the base of a massive icefall, where up to 500 climbers stay for up to 6 weeks getting used to the altitude, before moving on to the next stages of the Everest ascent. Even the mountain itself is pretty hidden by clouds, so there's very little to mark the place as special beyond just 'knowing' that you're at your final destination, especially since we were at the end of the climbing season and all of the expeditions had packed up for home.

So, we needed to mark the occasion with something a bit more unique than a group photo. What to do... what to do...


...turns out my well-travelled frisbee made an appearance, for the world's first frisbee throwaround at 17,500 feet. Some Brits had come up awhile back to play a game of cricket, and there were the rugby guys as well - but to our knowledge, we were the first frisbee geeks. :)

The trip back down went much faster - we even encountered Base Camp Dog again, just moseying up along after a nice Danish girl.

Plus, we had to do the standard photo op at the battered sign pointing the way up to Base Camp...


... and it was time to roll back to the lodge for a well-deserved dinner, to rest up for the early morning ascent on Kala Pathar - the nearby 'hill' looming over Goruk Shep that held the promise of unparalleled views of the whole Everest range. *sigh* Weather permitting. o' course!

EBC Days 7 & 8: Tukla and Luboche

Day 7 and 8 (Tukla and Lubuche - 4520m / 4910m)


Leaving Pheriche, we were heading into our penultimate leg of the ascent - and had to make some adjustments. The rain a few days back dumped a bunch of snow up high, and blocked the Cholo Pass. So instead of going up to Gokyo peak, and then over to Goruk Shep, we decided to just make a straight up and back trip up to EBC.

No problem - that made sense. However, I did get a little irritated at the next change. One of our group was feeling pretty bad from altitude sickness, which is understandable - it tends to be more of a genetic thing than a mark of any lack of fitness.

However, the #1 tip for preventing AMS is water, water, water... and drinking yet more water. She didn't follow this advice, as that would mean a bunch of pee stops in the bushes. Fair enough, but she now had to pay the price, with a really bad headache and nausea.

Because of this, Dawa decided to have us stop after a mere 2 hour hike to Tugla, wasting an extra day. We passed through the flat valley...

...and then up a slope and across a strong river via a not-so strong plywood bridge. Yikes.


It did work out for the best though - at Tugla we ended up meeting Stacy and John, two Yanks (NY/London and Hawaii) who were a lot of fun to hang out with. They joined us on our (you guessed it) afternoon acclimatization hike up the last slope. In yet another sign of a small world, she lives in South Kensington of all places and it was a bit odd, to be talking to Stacy about our lives in London, favorite pubs, etc. thousands of miles away.

The evening was pretty fun, especially where we tried to teach Yahtzee and Liar's Dice in basic English to some porters and guides. One porter in particular didn't really get the concept - and would continually up the bids into the realm of the ridiculous. He was roundly heckled by his buddies though - and it was still smiles all around.

The next day was an easy hike back up the last major climb - taking us past a number of rock memorials for lost climbers, including Scott Fisher (famous from Krakauer's Into Thin Air):


The Sherpas made their own row of memorials along a ridge - one for each Sherpa lost going up Everest. As you can see, there's enough of them. Sure, the mortality rate has decreased in recent years, but anywhere from 10% up to the 90's to 3% of all climbers in 2006 end up dying each year. Nuts.

Again, in the afternoon, we took another acclimitization hike - with John and I climbing a ridge to get our first view of EBC far in the distance, as well as a large glacier that seemed poised, half-ready to just crash down on the rest of the valley.


We went to bed super excited - because after such a long trek, tomorrow would be the day for our attempt at Everest Base Camp... weather, fate, and sore muscles permitting...