From my Journal
Nepal in April 2009
A Synopsis
This trip officially began on April 3 when Nikos and Venke arrived and April 4 when Elliott arrived in Kathmandu. At dinner one of the first nights, Elliott pointed out that there was no way the four of us would ever be having dinner together under normal circumstances. It would take a trip to Nepal to bring us together. Although we were four very different people, we quite luckily got along stupendously!
Nikos is from Greece and holds a Greek passport. He is my first non-American traveler. He lives a third of the year in Crete, works a third of the year reading/translating papyrus at the University of Michigan and works a third of the year in Egypt in a tent in the desert excavating a site where he discovered a "crocodile god". He (and National Geographic!) will have to tell you about. He is famous for his ability to read Ancient Greek and Latin and is sought after in his field! I met him through my neighbor, Leyla.
Venke is originally from Denmark, but has lived in Ann Arbor for maybe 30 years. She has two sons. The eldest graduated from the University of Michigan this year. Bravo! Venke works in dentistry, doing research at the University. She is eager to try new things, to meet lots of people and to experience everything. I met Venke at a talk I gave at Washtenaw Community College a year ago. She was ready to sign up for a trip that night.
Elliott lives outside of Detroit. I met him by way of a guest I had at the Trekkers' Lodge. She brought Elliott over, thinking he should meet me and sign up for a trip - which he soon did! Turns out Sandy, a trekker two trips ago, works with Elliott's daughter-in-law. Ann Arbor is a small town. Elliott sells hearing aids and has franchised several stores around the Detroit area. He is friendly, fun! and open minded and was ready to do something totally different. After the trek he told me he never would have done it had he known how hard it would be. I think he's glad I didn't tell him it would be too hard. :)
Now this cast of characters was about to achieve great heights and major obstacles - a few Himalayan Mountains no less. Trekking to Everest base camp is not quite like just going up and up a mountain side. The rivers start at the base of the world's largest glaciers, such as the Khumbu Glacier - five miles of 100's-of-feet-thick ice in the Solo Khumbu region of Nepal, and tumble their way down, heading toward the wide and serene Ganges River in India without thought of a trekking map.
Often the trail is thousands of feet above this river, on ridges high above or cut into the side of steep valley walls. At times this trail crosses the white-water. Narrow bridges pave the way, suspended 300 feet above a certain death. One's steps at these moments cause the bridge to sway and give. Never cross a bridge that has a yak on it! They have horns that want to poke.
Looking at each other across the dinner table at one of many atmospheric, candlelit restaurants in Kathmandu, we seemed to have much to say, many hopes and dreams, four entire lives, somewhat on hold for a few luxurious days of empty space. Nothing due, no pressures, no stress, just the world and us.
Nepal is a lesson in living in the present. The days are always long, and there is lots to do. On the first day, we were downtown touring the ancient market areas. Life seems to have stood still for thousands of years here while the rest of the world went somewhere into cyberspace. An ancient festival was going on that day. It was "Seto Machhendranath" - when they take the white god statue out of one temple and transport it to another temple on a specially made chariot with four god-size, wood wheels taller than the tallest man.
The base of this cart is as big as a Hummer automobile, sort of a moving temple. Above these wheels sits the god in a small room, facing out a doorway-like window toward the street where he is traveling. Above him the locals build a 3-4 story twig tower laden with branches of a certain pine. Driving a Hummer through these narrow streets that were built in the heydays of the 15th Century, LONG before cars, might be one thing - but pulling a tower of twigs on a rickety wood Hummer at high speeds through these streets is definitely another. We had been downtown the night before to see it stationary at a crossroads, with devoted worshipers on all sides, throwing rice, flowers, coins, worshiping and offering praise to the white god inside, lighting candles, creating an atmosphere of ancient and distant lands, a tourist's paradise.
The next day during our city tour we saw the wooden vehicle again, but this time it would soon be moving, making part of its journey - which it did. Hauled by maybe 50 men, pulling ropes that looked to belong to the old tall ships - it moved as if by spirits. Holy mama - here it comes! Barreling towards us, looking down on us maybe ready to tip, swaying from side to side like a furry monster. Would it clip that small shop on the corner?
Such an event would be considered dangerous in this country. Security tape would be all over that thing if it were parked in a street here! Each year people are wounded in stampedes generated as the crowds ahead of it try to get out of the way, yet narrow streets don't give way, and people get smushed. It does also fall - on people sometimes. When this happens it is considered a bad omen for the government. Actually last year it fell, and soon after - the King was deposed!
I was more nervous than my travelers, who were on their tippy-toes, snapping photos. We survived the passing of this god-temple-tower but not without being squeezed just a little by the masses.
Our second day, started with a trip to the main Hindu temple that sits along the sacred Bhagmati River. So sacred, in fact, that it rivals the Ganges in India. Many Indian pilgrims visit this Shiva center every year in bus loads to be near the gods, especially Shiva, the god of creation and destruction. Like the Ganges, this river is seen as a direct channel to the divine.
At the end of one's life it is auspicious to take one's last breath here, near the gods before passage on to the next life. Hindus believe in reincarnation and make every effort to make the passing easy for the traveler. Instead of rushing a dying man to the hospital to breathe more life into him, they rush him to the river to go naturally when his time has come.
Soon after I had explained such things to my visitors and after watching monkeys play with a brilliant red sari and other laundry that was drying in a field, we came upon the smoke, the pyres, the men who had died that day. I've never been to this temple and not seen a cremation going on. It is a reminder that people die everyday. Today, after visiting Mother Theresa's clinic where 300 elderly people obtain free care at the end of their lives, we crossed the bridge and saw a man wrapped almost like a mummy in white cloth. His feet were pointing to the water on a sloping narrow slab of concrete between the steps and cremation platforms - exactly built for this purpose. Toes close to the water where the soul and spirit can make the transition to the other world, this man lay for us as if a lesson in a Hindu textbook.
Next to him was his wife. They might use the word 'wailing' in that textbook. This word never meant anything to me until this day. Now I have heard wailing. She wailed, his wife, in blue. It was a wail like I have never heard before. Such pain. Were we watching her watch her husband die? And when he did - if we were believing our eyes, she fainted. The crowd around her on the concrete steps carried her to a shaded area away from the water, fanning her, holding an umbrella over her.
Hopefully she would survive this day, but we soon knew her husband definitely had not. We were quiet. We sat and watched from the steps opposite the temple on the other side of the river.
The man, his body, was carried to the flat surface where wood had been arranged and where he would be cremated. The large rough-cut logs were in place. Over the next few hours his earthly form, ablaze, would slowly turn to ash. Through the smoke and steam - from wet grasses dipped in the river, his soul and spirit would move peacefully on and into his next life.
We later wandered on to meet and take pictures with the sadus - the Hindu holy men who are covered in ash wearing loincloths and dreadlocks down to their knees.
Next we headed by taxi to the largest Buddhist temple, Boudanath. It is believed that Buddha's bones are buried inside this structure which makes it also a pilgrimage site, especially for Tibetans and Tibetan refugees on their way to Dharmsala, India where the Dalai Lama now lives.
This stupa is large - the size of a small city block. It is solid so worshipers gain good karma by walking around it rather than in it. One must walk clockwise around. On occasion I see tourists who haven't read the guidebook carefully enough, who are walking counter clockwise - against all the crowds. Don't they notice they are doing it wrong? The base of this structure is square and the next tier is round and above that is a square tower and pointed roof. It is actually a three-dimensional version of a 'mandala' which is a two-dimensional painting (or sometimes made carefully and impermanently of colored sand). These are used by the Buddhists as a tool for meditation. It's like a diagram of what the mind should be doing while meditating. From the tippy-top there are prayer flags flying down to the square base, sending prayers in the wind to the gods and generating good karma.
On the square tower overhead, maybe 3 stories up, are painted the eyes of Buddha, which are said to destroy evil as they look out over the city. I think it works because the city seems mostly bothered by the modern world (pollution and traffic) rather than by criminals and bad guys.
This Buddhist neighborhood is a peaceful place. The Buddhist Stupa is surrounded by tourist shops and a walking street where monks in gold and maroon robes and tourists from all corners circumambulate all day for good karma. There are some monasteries in the area decorated with colorful paintings and tapestries which all have meaning, ancient stories telling of enlightenment and nirvana - mostly because the human experience is so full of too much suffering. In general it is a great place to try to get one's western brain around the activities of the other temple.
One Buddhist monk in robes walked in front of me. He suddenly stopped and bent down to help a ladybug get out of the way of so many walking feet. She might be crushed. His large fingers couldn't gain her trust nor could he pinch delicately enough to lift her. He appeared to leave - so I took over, also trying to get her to step onto my hand. Soon the monk's hand returned with a small piece of paper - as if he had used this trick a few times before. The ladybug walked proudly onto the paper, and he whisked her off to safety, thanking me for offering to help.
Venke, Nikos, Elliott and I spent every day of the trip - the next three weeks chatting over breakfast, lunch and dinner, discussing life's conundrums, politics, religions, global forces, the modern world, basic human needs -- all the things my little Nepal wrestles with maybe more than other countries.
Our flight to Lukla, a small town in the mountains at 9,500 feet where we would begin our trek, was delayed, thankfully by only one day. Waking up at 5AM more than two days in a row is too difficult. Luckily the weather cleared, and we were able to fly on our second attempt.
Since I've been going to Nepal so regularly the last 9 years...it's now old hat. To describe it simply, one is fully present while on the trail. It's just you and mother nature surrounded by her earthworks. One little step at a time, and after a few hours that turn to days, you'll be amazed by the mountains you've climbed. Seeing her valleys, rivers and mighty peaks in person is spiritual. Photographs capture something but certainly not nearly everything.
Every time I am here I realize I had forgotten how overly awesome this place is. It's often cold at night, and rice, potatoes, the pasta gets old, but the steady march of international foreigners, bands of determined mountaineers, nights in the lodges over game after game of cards, sleepless and restless entanglements in the sleeping bag at 3AM - are also not to be forgotten. Like trekking to Oz, we find ourselves with others on similar journeys - questioning our realities, the world we left behind - what exactly we are doing here?! At the same time, we beam intensely from the inside out at the prospect that we ARE here, very much in the moment, very much witnessing Mother Nature at her best.
Then on about day 8 we walk into the upper most reaches where just-over-there means an 8,000 meter, snowcapped peak, and China is on the other side. The tree-line is long gone below us, and our normal lives are a distant memory - plumbing, civilization, news, cars. Again we cannot believe we are stepping one-step-at-a-time here - up where Mt. Everest looms grand.
Soon comes the Khumbu Glacier that sits silent - but listen to that for a while, and you will definitely hear something - a falling stone, the crunch of ice, shifting rocks. Crack, the sky is crystal clear and blue, but it sounds like thunder. Look up and snow is falling far away up on the sheerest slope, billowing like an explosion - an avalanche. She must have a plan. Mother nature is showing off. And so are we! Because we cannot believe we are here so close to her, so close to Tibet!
Then up and over the lateral moraine - a rocky mess which soon turns to more rocks but now we're on ice! We can see tents in the distance, a nation of athletes - on the edge of humanity, looking toward fame and glory and money too - if only they can haul their ass to the summit.
All four of us made it to base camp without too much trouble. None of us were breathing as normally as we do down here, but we managed quite fine. At Everest base camp, 17,600 ft., we stayed with the Himalayan Rescue Association. (We were in good hands!) There were two volunteer doctors there tending to the medical needs of the climbers. Their clinic tent was busy. Also sharing this camp was a man named Rohan Freeman - who told us that he hopes to become the first African American to climb Mt. Everest!
A few weeks later, I called the "White House Comment Line" and sent this message to Obama's staff on 5/3/09:
_______
Last month I met Rohan Freeman at Mt. Everest base camp at 17,600 feet in the Himalayas in Nepal. Rohan hopes to become the first African American (and the first Jamaican!) to climb Mt. Everest this May 2009. Unlike the other Everest climbers we met during our trek, Rohan was down to earth, sincere and a true inspiration. If he successfully reaches his goal, he mentioned the possibility of wanting to call President Obama from the world's highest peak at 29,000 feet. However, he was not sure how to do this. I thought I would write to you to at least bring this super hero to the White House's attention. If you want to get in touch with Rohan, the Sherpas who are organizing his expedition can help you (e-mail address). They have a satellite phone at base camp. I think it would be neat for these two men to speak to each other - one in the White House and the other on top of the world on the Summit of Mt. Everest. Thank you for your time.
_______
I learned on May 19, 2009, that Rohan had made it to the summit! He has become the first African American to climb Mt. Everest. Hooray for him! We are very happy to know him and to be inspired by him! I think he did not talk to Obama from the summit. Oh well.
Among the others who we met up there in the thin air were people like, Marcus Scarth, from Aspen, Colorado. He told me his face is on the "O-Water" bottle, a sports drink. He also mentioned that his plan was to snowboard down the mountain. Marcus made it to the summit on the 19th. I cannot find any info online other than he did snowboard from camp 4 to camp 3.
Another man we met who was climbing Nuptse (another Himalayan peak nearby) proudly mentioned that next year his son will be climbing Everest at the age of 13. Also at 13, if he is successful, he will have climbed the Seven Summits (the highest peaks on all seven continents). We'll have to look for him. We met Wendy Booker, a woman in her fifties diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who was also climbing the Seven Summits. Everest was her last. She was using this expedition to raise awareness of her disease. I just googled and learned that she did not make it to the summit this year. That must be frustrating!
Here is my own personal attempt at a world record. You can find my YouTube video, "Tap Dancing at Everest Base Camp", here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFZ_tasBmyk
Also I took a Biggby Coffee cup to Everest base camp and entered a photo in the "Where you B" photo contest. If I win, I'll win free coffee for a month - and the grand prize is free coffee for a year! - which would be quite perfect for my B&B. The CEO and cofounder of Biggby Coffee is Bob. Here is his blog (and my photo):
http://www.biggbybob.com/2009/05/biggby-reaching-new-heights.html.
My competitors can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhappylounge/sets/72157616463510184/.
Sincerely,
Heather O'Neal
Of Global Interest Adventure Travel
The Eighth Street Trekkers' Lodge B&B
Ann Arbor, Michigan
(734) 369-3107
http://www.ofglobalinterest.com
"Travel is glamorous only in retrospect."
-- Paul Theroux, Writer
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