Signing off from Kathmandu

KATHMANDU — In Northern India, Sam and Ahni and I saw a t-shirt hanging in a store window with the words, “What a long strange journey it has been” crudely stitched above a pair of shoddily sewn hiking boots. As I sit here in Kathmandu formulating my final blog entry my mind keeps wandering back to that phrase – one that so perfectly seems to summarize the past five months.

What a long strange journey it has been…..

Sam and Ahni left me a few days ago, and are currently somewhere between Paris and America I would assume. I, on the other hand am catching my flight back to the states in around 12 hours.

Sam, Ahni and I spent the past month traveling throughout northern India and then Nepal. The day after arriving in Delhi and the delightful 100+ degree heat we left via train to Amritsar, the capital of Punjab which borders Pakistan. We went to the famous “border closing ceremony” where the Indian and Pakistani National Armies conduct an elaborate huffing, puffing, high kicking ritual before ceremoniously closing the gate between the rival nations. It is the only place where people can legally move between the two countries. With music blasting over the loudspeaker and a sort of strange “MC” doing call and response with the HUGE audience, it felt like some sort of odd sporting event. In Amritsar we also visited the Golden Temple — the holiest Sikh temple — which, in my view rivaled the beauty of the Taj Mahal.

From Amritsar we ventured north east to Dharamsala and the home of the Dalai Lama in exile. We had a difficult time finding a hotel upon arrival and for the first time since being over here we accepted the aid of a man on the street in finding a good hotel. The streets are full of people trying to take you to “their” hotels where they reap a sizable commission that often is added on to the price of the hotel – therefore it rarely helps anything to accept there help. But, this time it ended up working perfectly. The man led us up this dark dirt path to a large place under construction that was run and owned by a lovely Nepali family. We had the honey moon suite on the top floor, all windows, that looked out over the valley and the city and aside from the fact that our balcony was frequented by monkeys it was pretty ideal.

A 15 hour over night van ride from Dharamsala took us to the hillstation of Manali where Sam and Ahni got their first views of the Himalayas. We arrived at five in the morning and were immediately overwhelmed by the cold. Luckily Ahni and I had purchased shawls – which is actually a fun story in and of itself. The shawls are soooo soft and beautiful and had stickers that we THOUGHT said “100% wool” or something and it wasn’t until we had already purchased them that we realized the stickers only said “100% shawl” and sure enough a burn test indicated that they were in fact polyester. Ke garne?

We spent a few days wandering around Manali and stayed in this nice little guest house on the outskirts right across from a famous temple that doubled as a nice area for local families to dry their hay and “graze” their cattle. Our room had a nice musky, cow shit odor.

From Manali we decided to go to Leh – the capital of Ladakh, a region within the Jammu & Kashmir province that is almost entirely Buddhist. Unfortunately there is no easy and cheap way to get there. Tourists are given two options: 1) fly and pay lots of cash or 2) take a 23 hour mini van ride from Manali. Of course, we chose the latter and what an experience it was. The road that links the two cities is the second highest motorable road in the world and crosses multiple passes that reach more than 16,000 feet into the sky. In addition our mini bus had no heat so I was huddled in Sam’s sleeping bag and at one point we ran into a snow storm of sorts during which the entire inside of the bus iced over. Perhaps the most memorable moment came during the storm when I was huddled in the sleeping bag, unable to feel my toes and the inside of the bus was iced over. Our driver was smoking a cigarette with all the windows up and with his other hand was scraping the windshield with Sam’s nicely donated credit card.

Somehow we survived the journey and arrived in Leh which is about 3500m and in a small bowl surrounded by mountains. We ended up staying at a nice homey guesthouse run by a Ladakhi family who woke us up each morning with delicious tea. We spent a few days exploring the city and practicing our Ladakhi, which now consists of being able to say “hello” or “Joolay!” The namaste of Ladakh. We hiked to the city’s Old Fort and wandered around a bit until we decided to do a trek.

We ended up arranging through a trekking company a six day trek through the Markha Valley – one of the most famous hikes in the area that crosses two 5000m(ish) passes. The three of us were accompanied by a sizable crew – five mules, a mule boy, a guide cum cook and a helper. To my delight the helper and guide cum cook were both Nepali so I once again got to practice my skills. Many Nepali trekking and climbing guides go to Ladakh in the Nepal’s off season so that they can work year round, it’s quite interesting. The trek itself was pretty spectacular, unfortunately Ahni had some digestive struggles for much of it, but she was a champ and was much more upbeat than I would have been. Both days we crossed the passes the weather was iffy and stormy so we didn’t have the best views, but I guess you can’t win them all.

In an effort to avoid having to take the 20 hour bus ride back to Manali we checked the price of flights every day, but much to our dismay they weren’t within our price range. We were therefore forced to take the 20 hour bus ride (which was much easier the second time around) back to Manali where we spent one night and then caught an afternoon/overnight 15 bus back to Delhi. This is what got us….the bus to Delhi was huge, like a normal size USA tourist bus so we thought it would be fine and assumed we would get lots of sleep. Boy were we wrong. The three of us had the back “seats” which were in fact not seats at all, but just a bench with no cushion behind us, and to make matters worse the bus drive drove so erratically and sooo fast that we were really only ON the seat for like half the time. The other half of the time we were in mid air/slamming into the seat in front of us. Needless to say we slept zero and the night is sort of a blur, all I know is that we arrived in Delhi around 8am just in time to catch our 1:00 flight to Nepal.

Stepping onto the tarmac at Tribhuvan International Airport and entering the dungeon-like interior was oddly like coming home. I understood what people were saying and after two freaking months everything was finally familiar. I tried to prepare Sam and Ahni for the horrors of Thamel – the tourist district where we would stay. I freaked them out with tales of insane numbers of tourists, of crazy rikshaw drivers, tiger balm hawkers and people offering to sell you drugs I have never even heard of. Sure enough we arrive and the place has freakin’ cleared out, and is soo chilled out. I guess the monsoon scared everyone away.

We had a wonderful 10 days in the city, getting up late, drinking lattes, beating Sam at cards, reading, going to all the religious sites you have to see, buying shawls, scarves, paper products and all the other cool things Thamel has to offer. It was really really nice to just relax and slow down after three weeks of crazy travel I think we were all ready for a break.

And now here I am, having just finished an omelet and croissant, still sucking down my iced coffee thinking about going home in twelve hours. 12 HOURS. What a ride it has been. It’s hard to even reflect on all the things I have seen, and experienced, all the times my world as I know it has been turned upside down, all the things I have learned and all the ways that I have changed. I have spent more than five months away from home to the extent that now Kathmandu feels like home. In many ways I feel like I have been ready to be in Vermont for months now, and yet, now that it’s actually time to leave panic has begun to set in. Everyday in Nepal/India is exciting, different, scary, and exotic and while it’s overwhelming and exhausting it’s also so so great and so perfectly chaotic.

I look forward to coming home to some stability, though, and I can’t wait to drink water out of the tap, brush my teeth with sink water (!!!) and never again buy bottled mineral water. Twenty-four hour hot showers and electricity and even the occasional hamburger all sound delightful as well. And yet at the same time I will miss those nights when the power goes out (BATTI GAYO!) and six hours later you wake up with all the lights on and the fan going full speed.

So I guess this is the end for my blog. Sorry it has been so erratic and so frequently neglected – ke garne?

SO: thanks for reading it, thanks to Sam and Ahni for coming alllll the way here and being thrown into the fire in Delhi’s tourist district after their terrifying introduction to India via rickshaw! Thanks to Aleeza and Salome for allowing me to latch onto their India travels and for making me laugh harder than I have ever laughed in my entire life. I miss you two so much. Thanks to SIT for everything and for introducing me to people I will never forget, many of whom have become my best friends. Finally, thanks to Mom and Dad for making this whole thing possible, for supporting my decisions to delay my return flight over and over again and for being such amazing parents and friends.