Week 15: I was the Walrus but now I am John

Tony at the Taj.  

The Magical Mystery Tour is complete after 15 weeks (105 days) of traveling.  I trekked through Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Nepal, India, and then some decompression time in Texas with friends and family.  I’ve just arrived in California and this will be my last travelogue for some time.

I am thinking about having a cocktail party at my house to show some of my travel photos.  Send me a private message or comment if you are interested in joining (so I can pick the best day).

When I last posted, I was scrambling around Nepal armed with a lonely planet guide and an increasingly dilapidated backpack.  Subsequently, I joined forces in India with Alexa La Plante, who is a former colleague that was doing charity work in West Bengal before starting a tour of Northern India.

Varanasi alleyway pilgrim

I was in India for 3 weeks and visited around 12 cities/regions.  The first stop was in Darjeeling where two friends doing charity work with Alexa named Anne and Kunal joined us for sightseeing.  The Darjeeling region is adjacent to Tibet and was once part of Nepal.  Although an Indian province, most people in this region can still speak Nepalese and you can’t go too far without seeing an ancient Buddhist temple.  As such, the area is an interesting combination of Indian, Nepalese, and Tibetian cultures set in the backdrop of the Himalayas.

Darjeeling is probably best known to westerners for its tea and its depiction in a movie called ‘The Darjeeling Express’.  The tea planting areas were similar to the Napa Valley hill country – and it was great fun to take gondola rides and do tasting tours of the tea plantations.  The Darjeeling train that we went on was a little too authentic for my tastes since it still used coal and if the wind was wrong, choking smoke and fly ash would fill the passenger cars.  Usually I’m totally down for languishing in toxic fumes, but for some reason, on that day in India, I was not in the mood for it :)

Varanasi Fire ceremony celebrating the end of day

Rounding out the Darjeeling region, we visited Pelling, Gangtok, and Kalimpong where we focused mainly on the ancient Buddhist temples that occupy the highest peaks.  One day, Alexa and I were fortunate to be in a temple nicknamed binoculars (because it was at the top of a mountain and you could see every direction from the peak) when a prayer ceremony was performed by monks in a temple several hundred years old.  They began with around 5 monks chanting, and then added a 4 man horn section playing instruments I had never seen before.  The air was thick with incense as we sat on prayer mats silently joining a tradition that has been continuously practiced for over 2000 years.

Launching prayer candles at sunset on the Ganges

After Darjeeling, we headed for the Northern Plains of India.  The terrain went from mountainous and temperate to flat and boiling.  When I say boiling, I mean boiling mister bigglesworth!  The average daily high was 110F (43C).  Needless to say, we were some of the only Westerners visiting during that season.  Weird as it may sound, you sort of get used to the heat. Our tour guides were especially happy to see us, since many of them had not had work in a month.  We went from being curiosities in the hill country to “what-the-heck-are-fair-skinned-people-doing-around-here-let’s-ask-if-we-can-get-a-picture-with-them-for-facebook” local entertainment.  People were so rabid to take photos with us that one time a group of guys asked me to take a picture with them while I was actively using a urinal – presumably to beat the rush of other paparazzi lurking outside.

Monument to the location of the Buddha’s first sermon

The first city we went to in the Plains was Varanasi - which is the oldest continuously occupied city on Earth.  People have been living on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi for over 4000 years.  Bathing and being cremated in the Ganges is central to the Hindu religion – some Indians plan their whole life to have a sacred pilgrimage to the town.  Alexa and I watched the sunrise and the sunset from a small boat on Ganges near ancient temples – it was majestic and spiritually moving.  In the evening, there was a fire ceremony to give thanks for the day and to pray that loved ones make it through the night.  During the sunset ritual, we launched votive prayer candles on the Ganges – I can’t remember what I wished for, but fingers crossed it was something worthy of the occasion. 

Sunrise from a small boat on the Ganges

While we were in Varanasi, there was a political rally for a prime minister candidate visiting the region named Modi.  With 1.2 billion people, India is the world’s largest democracy and their election is phased in regionally over several months for logistical reasons.  Mad-house is the only way to describe walking the streets with throngs of political supporters hoping to catch a glimpse of their candidate.  The crowds were so worked up that when I asked to go into the heart of a rally the guide said that only I was allowed to go and that Alexa must stay in a car for safety reasons.  When I went into the crowd, strangers festooned me with an orange Modi hat and then people mobbed me to take photos and videos with me ‘supporting’ a candidate I had just heard about :)

Near Varanasi, we visited the Dhamek Stupa which marks the place where the Buddha gave his first sermon after ‘achieving enlightenment’.  The whole concept of achieving enlightenment confuses the scientist in me.  How do you know objectively if you achieved enlightenment?  Is there an Olympic committee that judges you – or one day do you just sorta feel enlightened?  Maybe you or I are already enlightened and we don’t know it yet!  Regardless of your belief system, the eight principles the Buddha espoused that day are quite inspiring (1. Right Beliefs, 2. Right Aspirations, 3. Right Speech, 4. Right Conduct, 5. Right Means of Livelihood, 6. Right Endeavors, 7. Right Memory, and 8. Right Meditation).

Election rally for Modi as he ran for prime minister

Next stop was Agra - which is the home of the Taj Mahal.  The Taj lived up to its billing as a wonder of the world – it was amazing beyond words and I won’t even try to sum it up in my clumsy journal. After the Taj we explored the cities of Jodpur and Jaidpur that exemplified the success of the fabled Maharajas.

My palace in Narlai

(Note the multi story temple clinging to the lower left of the enormous boulder)

A highpoint of the plains IMHO was a little religious temple hamlet named Narlai.  This town was the most rural of all the places I visited in Asia (population of 7,000) and we were the only tourists in the region.  Our hotel was a former Mogul/Royal palace that has been converted into a 35 room hotel.  In the backdrop of the palace was a 40 story boulder with a Hindu temple clinging to it that looked like a storyboard out of an Indiana Jones movie.  We went to the temple at sunset and Alexa was encouraged to join the procession.  As such, she was ringing the prayer bell and joining in the chants with the locals while I discretely took photos in the lurch.

Although Narlai was relatively temperate while we were there, fear of desert heat kept all other tourists away.  As a result, Alexa and I’s two rooms were the only ones occupied on the compound and we had a staff of around a dozen or so attendants to serve our every need.  ‘Our’ rooms looked out over ‘our’ courtyard and ‘our’ pool and ‘our’ massage/spa tents.  When we were asked what we wanted for dinner, we were also asked where on the property our table should be placed so we could best see the moon rise over ‘our’ palace.  I will never forget the feeling of being a king in my own castle – even if it was just for two short days.

Watching the moon rise from my palace in Narlai

After Narlai, we went to  Delhi (a town of 17 million) that is the capital of India.  I’m not personally interested in mega-cities, so after one day I jumped a 15.5 hour flight to New York (free first class courtesy of my amazing sister).  I took a standby flight to Texas to visit my parents in San Antonio and couch surfed in Austin for a spell (special thanks to Chris, Amy, and Ryan for hosting me)!!!

I’m now back in California, posting my last, and bittersweet, travelogue of this journey.  I’m so very grateful for the opportunity to have seen with my own eyes things that I had only dreamed about before.  I would like to give special thanks to the wonderful people that I met along the way who made me feel at home in faraway places and to my friends and family who were with me in spirit every step of the way.

-Tony

Week 11: Happiness in the Himalayas

Langtang mountain (Day 2)

Nepal is sandwiched between India and China and takes on major influences from both cultures.  The population of Nepal is around 25 million, so the country has ‘middle-child-syndrome’ given that its two neighbors have a combined population of about 2.5 billion.

Nepal is the birthplace of Buddha, but is probably best known for being the gateway to the Himalayas and home of the mighty Mount Everest.  Some people may come to Kathmandu for the street shopping, but I’m guessing that a majority of the western tourists are there to go trekking in the mountains.

Lama tea house child waitress

I flew from Bangkok to Kathmandu direct … but even spending a few days in Bangkok did not prepare me for the frenzied, madcap, and unfortunately, incredibly polluted nature of Kathmandu.

Kathmandu reminded me of a Brazilian Favela with a population of 2 million very charming people.  The famed Nepalese charm disintegrated when you put them behind the wheel of an automobile though!

A quick aside about traffic in Kathmandu … it is very hard to describe, but here is my first effort to explain it:

• Start with NASCAR and take half of the drivers and make them race in the opposite direction on the same track
• Include about 10,000 motorcycles and 1,000 bikes per block and have them move at times parallel, but most of the time, perpendicular to the general traffic
• Replace road pavement with dirt and gravel
• Replace the air with contents of a barbeque exhaust
• Line the streets with the contents of the nearest landfill
• Include an assortment of monkey’s perching on fences, dogs running on the shoulder, and cows lying down in the middle of the street
• Remove all traffic signals, streetlights, and line delineations
• Have each driver honk on their horn from the beginning to the end of each trip.
• Take the pedestrian density of Manhattan and have them each run for their lives in the midst of the madness

Shepard resting (Day 6)

I’m sure I’m not giving the scene justice … but I personally will never complain about any traffic I encounter in the U.S. again.

From the city I was driven about 6-7 hours by jeep over to the base of the Langtang range for a 6 day hike through remote mountains.  The jeep ride was an exhilarating white-knuckle affair that I may need a few years of therapy to work through emotionally.

I was hiking solo with the help of Rabin the guide and Suba the porter.  Rabin & Suba are Nepalese and both from small villages.  Rabin learned English by Hollywood movies and Hindi by watching Baliwood musicals.  By his estimate, he saw the movie The Titanic 51 times and if there were a few minutes of silence, he would start singing pop hindi dance songs (or play them from his cell phone).  I personally had never seen the movie Titanic … but I’m pretty sure there is a scene where someone says “you jump, I jump” after chatting with him for about a week.  Both Rabin and Suba were fantastic emissaries for their country.  They were both as sweet as they were sure footed.  For example, when we ended the hike Rabin said, “this is not the end of your trek, but rather, this is the beginning of our friendship” … not sure if that was from the Titanic as well, but it seemed sincere and genuine when delivered :)

Tea house on the river trail (Day 3)

The format of the hike was pretty amazing.  The paths are along routes connecting Nepalese/Tibetan tea-houses.  Basically you would hike for 4 hours – go to a tea house for lunch, hike another 4 hours and go to a different tea house for dinner.  The tea houses were very very basic.  The only way to deliver goods to these outposts was to have someone carry everything (and I mean everything) by head or lashed to their back all the way from base camp.  The only exception seemed to be water (that was delivered by donkey).  If you walked along a steel bridge spanning a valley, every bit of it was carried by people from the bottom of the mountain.  As a result, it was not uncommon to see someone passing you on the trail with a 50 kg (110 pound) bag of cement strapped to their forehead.  I also saw someone bringing up a bathroom door, a kitchen stove, and 12 foot spans of lumber all on their back balanced by a strap connected to their foreheads.  While all the westerners were decked out in their expensive northface gear, the locals wore shorts and flipflops and drank water from the streams and carried the real weight … these are a very impressive and hard working people!

Tea house chef and her two 'range' stove

The tea houses were very social … the local woman cooked food for all guests on a single wood fired stove that poured smoke into the kitchen and flavors into the air.  Locals ate Dahl Bat – which was a combination of stewed mountain potatoes, rice, and papdam (a crunchy thin tortilla).  After which you retired to your ‘bed’, which was really a sheet resting on a bed with the dimensions, and comfort level, of a park bench.  The tea houses did allow hikers to avoid carrying tents and let us keep out of the rain (and hail) from the ever changing mountain weather.  Guides and porters slept in rooms if there were extras, otherwise, they slept in a big heap in the common room surrounding the kitchen fire.

After hiking around New Zealand for a month, I was feeling well conditioned for the Himalaya trekking.  However, the transition from Scuba diving at several atmospheres of pressure in Thailand to zipping strait up steep mountains a week later proved too much of a challenge for my body and I was bedridden with altitude sickness at a lowly 12,000 feet or so.  I was so fired up to hit 15,000 the next day, but after 16 hours of laying in bed with a splitting headache and no food, I made the combat decision to descend and visit some remote villages on a nearby mountain a few thousand feet lower.  This turned out to be a great decision because the villages were so remote even the guides had not been there for around 10 years and I pretty much had the mountain to myself.  After a few days, you get used to the lifestyle, but every now and then I thought, “holy cow, I’m on the border of Nepal and Tibet in a hut in the middle of nowhere.”  I won’t soon forget those feelings and the charming people I met who reside on those impossibly steep slopes.

Rabin, Suba, and a tea house family on my last day in the mountains

– Tibetan Tony