Up and Up

Finally got a flight to Lukla the other day. Not one I would recommend for anyone with a fear of flying, it was pretty intense landing on a 400 meter runway. I've been trekking with a woman from the US and a guy from Germany for the past few days. The first day from Lukla we hiked to Benkar, a small village with a good teahouse to stay in. The next day we did the crazy slog to Namche, which was one of the toughest climbs I've done. The net vertical gain is about 700 meters, but the total net gain/loss is around 1000 meters. It's a tough climb, and a little frustrating when you realize you're not gaining anything on the peaks above, they just get higher and higher. The views here are incredible, and are only supposed to get better as you get higher up, which we will do tomorrow. I've felt a little of the altitude in the form of a slight headache, but overall I'm holding up pretty well. Hopefully tomorrow the headache will be gone and I'll be good to keep going up.

Delayed...

After waking up at 5am this morning and my flight being delayed for 5 1/2 hours, they finally cancelled all flights to Lukla due to bad weather. During the monsoon the airport, which is on the side of a mountain, can get socked in with cloud and becomes unable to run flights. So now I'm back in Kathmandu waiting to try again at 0830 tomorrow morning. This last 24 hours has essentially been pretty shitty, delays at the Indian embassy (I got my visa!), last night I had a giant spider run by my face in the bathroom (thanks for jinxing me, Cassandra), and I woke up at 4am to a cockroach the size of my ring finger in my room. Hopefully this is the end of my bad luck streak and good times from here on. I'm going out now to have a beer, I can't think much can go wrong with that...

Temples Galore!

Ok, I got such a good deal yesterday, I have to brag. A lady outside the Pashupantinath Temples was trying to sell me some jewelry, and after her hounding me and being firm on my price, we settled on 220 Rupees. She wanted 2500. The normal amount you can usually barter down the price is about 30-60%. I knocked off 91%. I am good.

On to Pashupantinath. This is the temple complex that has mainly to do with the life and death cycle. In word word: Deep. People come here to cremate their family members and deposit their remains in the Bagmati River, Nepal's holy river that flows into the Ganges. This continues the cycle of life to death, death to life. The only people that don't get cremated are the holy men, who are instead buried, stopping the cycle. It was pretty powerful watching the cremations, and a Buddhist family performing a ritual on the one year anniversary of their family members cremation. I finally caved and hired a guide for this one.

Today I made a trip to Patan, to go see the Durbar Square there. To avoid confusion, Durbar Square is a universal term, there are many of them around the Kathmandu Valley. It was a pretty cool, medieval looking place. Lot's of old architecture and an impressive array of temples in the square. I was hoping for a clear day to shoot some good pictures, but no such luck. The sun here is so intense and the clouds are so gray it's difficult to shoot against, and a lot of my pictures don't end up being as nice as they should be.

I'm typing this on a computer at an internet cafe, the internet at my guest house has been down for a day so I am unable to post any pictures, but hopefully soon. Tomorrow I go finalize my Indian Visa and get the last minute things ready for my trek on Saturday.

Stupa'd and Durbar'd

Acting on advice given by one of the hotel staff, I headed back to Durbar Square to see the Indra Jatra Festival today (NOTE: In an earlier post at the start of my Nepal trip I posted about going to the Indra Jatra Festival. This was incorrect, that festival was Teej, the Women's Festival. Indra Jatra started today). It really was a waste of money. I'm not sure if I showed up too late or too early, but it wasn't anything exciting and I found myself bored out of my skull at all the Temples I've already seen, hence the lack of pictures taken. I can also now say I've been to a third world gym! I went to one near my guest house today to exercise the shoulder a little. Pretty basic I must say, and it was pretty hilarious lifting and seeing people lift weights without shoes on.

The ball is rolling for my trek, which I will be departing for on Saturday. I had to hang around Kathmandu for most of this week waiting for my Indian Visa to push through, due to Indian beauracracy. I picked up some layers for the cold weather today, and found a decent travel agent to handle my flight and paperwork.



Yesterday I headed to Swayambhunath, aka the Monkey Temple, due to the sheer amount of monkeys that call it home. It is definitely a must-see of Kathmandu, with it's incredible views of the city, the giant Stupa, all the cool temples, and of course, the monkeys.

Back to Kathmandu, Part I

Nearly thirteen hours spent on a non-air conditioned bus in the humid, tropical heat today. I finally arrived in Kathmandu at 7:45 pm tired, hungry and probably not smelling the freshest. They had finally cleared a landslide off the highway this morning, which allowed the buses to run, only to have another one hit when we were en-route. We had to wait for over three hours for them to finally clear the road and allow traffic to move.

My five days in Pokhara could have been better, between being sick and all the rain, but it was a beautiful place and I can imagine a visit there in the dry season would be ten times better. I'm sure the owners of Hotel Crown will be happy that at night they can finally listen to the peaceful sound of the insects chirping without being punctuated by my violently loud bowel movements.

Now I'm back in the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu. Things are noticeably busier now, the streets are crazy and the restaurants are full. What a difference one week closer to the dry season makes. I'm hoping to have my Indian Visa process underway tomorrow so I can start trekking right away and get it when I get back. If everything goes without a hitch tomorrow and I get lucky enough to score a last minute flight, I could be trekking by Tuesday. Right now Wednesday looks more realistic though.

To the Bat Cave!

Excellent day today. I recovered from my sickness, my bowels finally worked properly, the weather cleared up, had a conversation with a North American, and went caving for my first time.

I hadn't talked to anyone from North America in almost two weeks, and it was a great relief to finally have a fluid conversation with someone where I wasn't breaking through language or accent barriers. When I arrive in Kathmandu tomorrow I'll have to start my quest to find a decent trekking partner for my journey to Everest Base Camp. I'm thinking it'll be a great asset to have someone around to watch each others backs and belongings.


I took a taxi up to the Bat Cave today to test out my claustrophobia. Good news, I don't have any. I hooked up with a few other Nepali people, crawling around the wet muddy rock and squeezing through spaces I didn't think I'd fit. I saw one damn bat the whole time, and didn't even manage to get a picture of it. It was fun as hell though, I'd definitely recommend it. An expensive cab ride (almost $10 there and back), but at 20 Rupees (about 30 cents), it was worth it.

Tonight I'll hit up the Old Blues Bar for a beer and pack my bag for the bus ride to Kathmandu tomorrow. That's if the mudslide that hit the highway is cleared by then. Cross your fingers for me.

Under the Weather

Well the past two days I've been fighting a lingering sickness that seems to come and go, sort of a half assed flu. After a fitful sleep and running a temperature, I feel like crap today so I think I'm going to veg out in my room and down fruit juice until I become diabetic. I'm seriously hoping I get better fast, I'm not far away from my Everest trek and it would be very risky to do it sick.



I'm sure the hike to the Peace Pagoda yesterday didn't help things. It was my first taste of hiking in the rainforest, I got poured on the entire way up. Luckily it stopped when I got to the top so I was able to take some pictures. I also went to Devi's Falls, which was pretty cool. It plunges around some cool rock formations into a chasm where it disappears underground, unfortunately the way the footpaths are set up doesn't really offer a really good picture opportunity.