Phirangee

Bob Seger was right!!
Friday, Sep 01, 2006 01:49

Today has been one of those days that I think I will likely look back upon for the rest of my life.

I began my surreptitious border crossing adventure yesterday at approximately 4pm, when I said my goodbyes to SC and Vishnu and hopped into a tuk-tuk bound for the New Delhi railway station. SC had himself just returned from a week-long trip to visit his mother, and made it back only a few minutes before I left. With Vishnu in particular though it felt like a real goodbye, as we’d spent the last week "running the place" in SC's absence--cooking food for each other, watching cheesy Indian television together, and in a particularly illicit moment even sharing a beer.

My train left New Delhi only a few minutes late and I found the "AC2" accommodations quite comfortable, though I still didn’t manage to sleep much. We arrived in Gorakhpur (kind of near the Indian/Nepal border) at around 7am, where I caught a 2-hour jeep ride to the border. The jeep's driver snagged me right off the train, baiting me w/ “Rs100 just one passenger.” After talking with a few other drivers and some police officers, I got him down to Rs80, but he still ended up with the last laugh as “just one passenger” turned into 12 people in a jeep that could probably comfortably seat about half that many; so basically I traded numbness in my buttocks and legs and some Nepali kid falling asleep on my shoulder for Rs20.

Upon reaching the border I was again descended upon by a hungry flock of vultures, like the carrion I am, and made the error of walking away with the most vocal, aggressive one. He took me, on his bike rickshaw, first to Indian customs (“oh shit, please don’t notice the switchblade in my pocket!”), then to the Nepalese visa office. From there, he took me, against my request, to a travel agency, where they proceeded to inform (read: lie to) me that I had to book a bus through them and could not just buy a ticket at the bus stand. Note to self: you can always just buy a ticket at the bus stand, or on the side of the road anywhere along the route, for that matter. So they basically fleeced me for a couple hundred extra Nepali Rs, and I still tipped the vulture another Rs40 for biking me around and looking after my stuff. What a good tourist (sucker) I am.

One more short jeep ride later I finally made it to the bus stand, and though a bit bewildered, the bus owner seemed more than happy to let me ride up top on the luggage rack (one more seat inside for him to sell, after all). The bus ride was a long one, as we left the border at probably 11:30am and didn’t arrive in Kathmandu till after 8pm. Several people, including the bus owner and some random German kid, joined me up top for different parts of the ride, but I was the only person who made the entire trip. I could tell by the looks (and cheers!) I got all along the route that a Westerner up top was a quite uncommon sight, although I saw plenty of Nepalis doing it. Though I spent the next several hours in constant fear for my life, and acquiring yet another horrific sunburn, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Without question, Nepal gives Cuba stiff competition for the “absolutely most gorgeous place on planet Earth” contest. In fact, I’m already scheming about coming back and doing this route again, but maybe on foot/bike next time.

So I’m absolutely enamored with Nepal, at least based upon the bus ride and the experience thus far. The air just feels different here. I saw more spectacular scenery (and, I might add, more absolutely gorgeous women) on just an 8-hour bus ride than I think I’ve ever seen before. And the character of the place just seems totally different than India, or at least Delhi. Way more laid-back and fun-natured. Honestly, the word “paradise” just keeps surfacing.

On the flip side, Kathmandu seems, at least on first impression, to be even a bit more broke-down than Delhi. If this perception is correct, perhaps that’s a result of not being the capital city of a colonialist power, as Delhi was. There are also no shortage of men here who seem very eager to “help,” which is difficult for me to take on face value given the India experience. I gave the Louisiana brothers that I met in McLeod Ganj (Daniel & Mike) a call upon my arrival, and it initially sounded as though their guest house was full. When I asked them for other housing suggestions however, they offered to bunk up together and give me one of their rooms. Some fine Southern hospitality, even way over here on the other side of the planet, and the perfect ending to a near-perfect day.

In any event, 3 days in Kathmandu before heading off to Lhasa. We’ll see how it goes…


Pilgrimages, Politics, and Southern Hospitality
Monday, Sep 04, 2006 06:09

I was quite fortunate to have connected with Daniel and Mike Smith, two rockin’ Louisiana boys far from home but quite at home in the world. I met these fellers in McLeod Ganj at the Dalai Lama’s teachings, and they too assured me that Nepal was not only safe, but a grand destination. Like myself, Mike is a Fulbright scholar, and he’ll be based in Chapagaon, Nepal for the next several months.

Aside from just being fun fellas to hang out with, both of them have spent a significant amount of time in different parts of Asia, and gave me lots and lots of mini-lessons in Eastern religion, Asian culture, and language during the few days we spent exploring Kathmandu together.

With Mike being a religions scholar, much of our tourist activity revolved around sacred sites in Kathmandu, and there are sacred sites a’plenty. We visited a sacred Tibetan Buddhist site called the Boudha Nath Stupa (the world’s largest stupa at a whopping 36 meters high) and the Holy Area of Pashupati Nath (a sacred Hindu site), both part of the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Area. After a full day of holiness, we found ourselves in need of blowing off a little steam, so we wandered through Tamil (the backpacker section of Kathmandu, similar to Paharganj in New Delhi), sampling the local delicacies or just sitting around in a Nepali bar drinking shite beer and watching hordes of drunken Nepali men engage in what someone called “homosociality” on the dance floor.

There was also a political element to my visit to Kathmandu (of course!) that was facilitated by my old college buddy Paramendra. Paramendra is a “Madhesi,” an “ethnic minority” group in Nepal that has been heavily discriminated against. I’ve heard Paramendra compare the situation of Madhesis in Nepal to that of African Americans throughout U.S. history. Paramendra, who has been residing in the U.S. since graduating from Berea, has been working full-time on helping to build democracy back home in Nepal, and has cultivated many contacts there as a result. Mike and Daniel are both pretty politically-astute fellas, so the three of us spent a day trying to track down and meet with some of Paramendra’s contacts. Ram, the owner of the guest house where Mike, Daniel, and I are staying, is also a Madhesi, and he joined us for part of the day as well (details and pics are forthcoming, P, I promise!!).

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the incredibly significant political events that have transpired in Nepal in recent months, I’d recommend checking out United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal. Basically, a revolution has taken place in which the Nepali people have decided they’d much rather live in a republic than a monarchy, and they’ve not so politely asked the King to step down. Now they just have to navigate some sticky areas including when, whether, and how new elections will be held, disagreements over the ultimate fate of the monarchy, and when, whether, and how the Maoist insurgents and the Nepali army are going to disarm. Obviously there’s lots more to it than that, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface, but between what I’ve read on my own and what I’ve learned from Mike and Paramendra, I grasp that it’s an important moment in Nepali, and global, history, and I’m excited to have gotten to have a peek. Hopefully more peeks to come…

All in all, I found Kathmandu a fascinating, enjoyable city, probably more so than any city I’ve visited thus far, and would very much like to return there some time. Actually, that pretty much goes for Nepal as a whole—-this visit was far too short. I finished my last night in Nepal back at the guest house, passing on a ton of hip-hop to Ram and packing up my belongings. As excited as I was to get the next leg of my trip underway, I was also pretty bummed to leave.

Moonlight over Qomolangma
Monday, Sep 11, 2006 05:59

Bright and early on the fifth, a driver met me at the house and took me to the meet-up site for the trip to Lhasa. We loaded our luggage up top, took our seats, and got underway probably shortly after 6 a.m.. Again, the drive through Nepal was gorgeous. We drove up, up, up into the clouds, through a landscape rife with lush mountainscapes and an astonishing number of waterfalls.

As expected (and even somewhat hoped for), our bus was stopped by Maoist insurgents, who demanded Rs500 (approx. $6.60) toll from each passenger. I was somewhat put off however, by their complete lack of showmanship: a 13-year old boy with a Che’ t-shirt and a worn-out looking older feller that I could have easily taken—no guns, no ambush, and really not even any threats except the threat of inevitable delay, as our tour guides and driver seemed uninterested in busting through the “blockade.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was put off—nearly all the Spanish and Chinese tourists refused to pay the toll. I tried to explain to the Spaniards what was happening in my broken Spanish, but they actually understood quite well and were simply being obstinate—referring to the Maoists as “vandals” and “drug addicts.” At some point, our tour guide became quite upset, and told the Spaniards they would have to pay up or get off the bus. For a moment I wondered if this might be some sort of a scam that he had a part in. Finally I became quite bored and annoyed with our little stand-off and simply climbed out my window and up to the roof of the bus, where I relaxed in the sun until the stand-off had ended (eventually I guess the Maoists were willing to settle for significantly less, and I think several people still managed to get away without paying anything).

The young Spaniard who had been most argumentative (and who looks a lot like Che’ himself) and the tour guide joined me on the roof shortly thereafter and we proceeded to get to know one another and have a nice political discussion. It turns out that the tour guide (who’s of Tibetan descent and is probably only a 2nd generation Nepali) not only doesn’t care much for the Maoists, but actually still favors the monarchy—a rarity amongst Nepalis these days, especially young ones. As for my own perspective on the Maoists and why I was so willing to pay up, well, I guess I am just feeling a lot more awkward in the role of tourist than most folks seem to be. Having grown up in a tourism-centered economy and seeing firsthand what that can mean in terms of inequality, commodification, and detriment to one’s home, I kind of feel like natives have a right to fleece the tourists. And of course, any tourist with a survival instinct will resist being fleeced, but I think they should do so with the double-consciousness of one who is both exploited and exploiter.

In terms of the Maoists, well, I’d definitely be interested in hearing how many Nepalis might respond to this assertion, but I actually perceive them to have played a positive role in the overthrow of the monarchy; i.e., I doubt if the “April revolution” could have happened if the Maoists weren’t already controlling a significant chunk of the countryside and hadn’t been waging concerted warfare on the monarchy for some time. Not to say that I agree completely with their politics, but I certainly have enough respect for them to pay up when I pass through territory that they control and have wrested from the central government at the cost of their lives. Monarchy anywhere is tyranny—screw the monarchy!

So anyway, political disagreements aside, we three fellers had a beautiful, enjoyable ride together up there on the roof, passing by the highest bungee jump site in the world, and were eventually joined by several other passengers. We arrived at the Nepal/China border, lugged our belongings through customs (much less hassle than I’d expected), and met up with our Tibetan tour guides. From there we began what would be a pretty rough drive through western Tibet. Between the road conditions, the dodgy food and hotels (the place in Nylam where we stayed the first night was particularly awful), and the dramatic changes in altitude, I spent much of these first few days feeling like someone with a really bad hangover. A combination of fatigue, insomnia, dizziness, heavy, incurable headaches, and difficulty breathing—altitude sickness ain’t nothin’ to mess with.

From Nylam, the trip proceeded pretty much as before, the hotels and roads fortunately increasing in quality as we proceeded. We made stops along the way to visit some Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and a cool-looking old fort near Gyantse that was built around 1400 A.D. From Gyantse, we made one last full-day drive to Lhasa, again taking a serious off-road course most of the way. That last day we went through two sizable passes, and also stopped off at the gorgeous Yamdrok Tso, or Turquoise Lake. We finally arrived in Lhasa on the 10th, most of us pretty worn out and a bit testy, but also happy to be done with the drive.

All in all, in the span of less than a week, we went from an altitude of 2300m in Kathmandu, to a high of over 5200m near Lhatze, and back “down” to 3650m here in Lhasa (which is still one of the world’s highest cities, apparently). I have no idea how many miles we’ve traveled, though it feels epic. I think that I’ve finally acclimatized, at least in the sense that I can sleep pretty well now and am no longer having frequent dizzy spells, though I’m obviously nowhere near the level of Sarah, a well-traveled British woman in our tour group who I found out ran a half-marathon yesterday. I still get winded incredibly easily and have little energy beyond that required of our tour schedule.

The other good thing about arriving in Lhasa is that it has a sizable airport, hence providing me with a cover story as to how I made my way here from Delhi. So from this point we’ll switch back to the regularly-scheduled programming at my other travel log, where I can fill you in on all the exciting details about Lhasa and the last leg of my overland journey to Beijing. If you don’t have that address, just let me know and I’ll send it to you. Hope you’ve enjoyed my “Himalayan Hangover.”

Yours truly,
Ammon Hennessey


Jason Fults

Story:

I took a few of my own meandering gaits around town, walking down streets that turned into rock that turned into dirt that turned into empty, grassy lots, then back into city. Along the way I sampled some yummy street food and got my first Nepali haircut. It was probably the most physically intimate experience I’ve ever had with another man. Aside from some serious precision work with the scissors and straight razor, brother-man busted out some sort of cream afterwards and gave me a full-on head/face massage. I had thought he was finished once he put the razor away, and stood up to pay when he said “sit please” and proceeded to massage away. Intense—I was light-headed when I left the place.

I like the small town feel of Kathmandu, at least this section of it. Though from what folks have told me, the city is growing at an uncontrollable rate and the infrastructure is not keeping up. This story seems to be a common one amongst major cities in the developing world.

Story:

On our political field trip, we first visited Vijay at JAGHRIT Nepal, an NGO which works for the rights of Madhesis. We chilled there for about an hour and I recorded the conversation. We then found our way to the Nepal Sadbhawana Party office, a political party which stands for Madhesi rights, among other things. Unfortunately, no one there spoke much English, but we were shuffled into a room full of apparent leaders of the Nepali youth movement (the NSP office also houses the Nepal Youth Front). We had quite a broken conversation with them—-part Nepali, part English—-but translation difficulties aside there was a lot of energy in the room and I really enjoyed meeting them. I mean, these kids, within just a few weeks of our visit, had been out in the streets fighting with cops, had been to jail, and had probably had friends who were seriously injured or perhaps even killed in the struggle. But they’d won! Incredible!