Nepal dheri man parcha!

Beautiful Bhaktapur

The laser beam eyes of Buddha in Bodha

More Bhaktapur

.. and more

Class 5

Two local girls one with festival tika

Prayer stones of Swayambhunath

Farewell madness

Monkeys at Swayambhutnath

Blessed mutt

That’s where I am see, I’ve lessons in Thangka starting up on Monday. Seeing the wall paintings in the gompa of Upper Pisang I’m renewed in ambition to learn of Buddhism through the artistic medium.

At mentioning Upper Pisang I’m reminded of how little I’ve put down here save a few fleeting phrases of reassurance. A finger in palm of “I’m ok!”. With such a poor record, I’ll try now to present a sufficient recount:

Trek to Tilicho lake (at 4950m its one of the highest, a few ancient signs around the place made claim that it was the highest. Well well. It was mighty high and that is that) began at Bhulebhule south of the trail – Verena, Paulina, June and I. We were quite the favourite being such an international community of youngins tramping trail all on our lonesome.

In 6 days I was quite in love with all of them and sorry to part with them in Manang. Manang district is all rainshadow meaning the rain forgets this place and so the mountains are unnourished and emerge from the brown earth rather haggard and bitter. There was a whirlwind of a night where I visited the dining halls of most houses to ask aloud for companions to the lake next day. I met some lovely people in the process and found myself a lone companion who shared the same plans.

The morning rose and discovered me quite reluctant to move from bed for the fear of the obstacle before and the cold making ice in the fields. But I rose with the morning and was congratulating myself all the way up the trail. The trail started through the stone steps of Manang and then up into a scar-trail dug into the sides of mountains. We were encompassed by snow line of the neighbouring mountains and the distorted rock features of a mountain bullied by wind. After a few landslide crossings we found home for night. Cold cold cold cold. Morning time and it was three hours of battling wind and altitude to make it to the lake. I regret to say I was not in the proper mind frame to best appreciate the lake, though beautiful it was. The wind had found all the faults in my clothing and a bad fall and found my hand (momentarily naked) embedded in ice. I jumped around and hid behind rocks, all the while with an eye locked on the lake. Then our guide with his cloth shoes and lack of glasses and gloves asked me gently could we go? I leapt up and then bolted down the mountain dizzy with exubulation and fresh pockets of delicious oxygen.

That day was meant to be over at descent but we pushed on keen to make Thorung La sooner than later. We found ourselves walking at night with cold air rattling our lungs and bringing up vicious coughs. Well well. Yak Kharka was a haven of yellowness. Warmth and dahl baht and tea and hot water. Next morning I found I could not sleep past half 6.

Push on to Thorung Phedi (phedi means bottom of the hill) where we passed time by drinking generous proportions of tea, playing yanif and chatting with fellow trekkers. Reggae is huge in Nepal and half way through my potato egg fry up Roots, Rock, Reggae bounced through the room and convinced us for a moment that we were warm. Warm and that the snow falling outside and threatening our chance at the pass was nothing to worry about.

(Two blankets that night plus sleeping bag).

Morning started at 3.45. We were walking 4.15 with head lamps and a carefully picked line to give those without enough light to see the trail. Thankfully an ambitious group had decided to attack the snow before us and left us a trail of packed snow. We climbed, slowly slowly with our lights bouncing round the mountain mixing up the colours so we were watching blues and whites beam over the snow. Moonshadow came to mind and wouldn’t leave, as reassurance I hummed it then sang it softly and though there was much effort and mental exhaustion the ‘trail trance’ fell on me again and I nodded gently up the trail with a small smile behind my scarf.

Reaching Thorung La the light had come and with that the heat and the wind which we had been working hard to avoid. They were baby winds, windlings .. so I lingered happily in the broad pass clicking my camera at the mountains looking ghosty in the clouds and the frozen prayer flags. Then down down over the steepest parts I’d come across. Steep and packed in and icy. Did a bit of sliding.

Walking towards Muktinath I was by myself as Koen my companion was 6″5 and made predominantly of leg, thus meaning he was ahead a few hundred metres. Never mind. Each step made me warmer and the juniper has a funny way of calming you yet startling eyes wide afresh. The way was still brown, still in rain shadow region. I was all humming buzz and bliss.

Now on the western half of the trail there was the road which had done a lot of pollute the trail. Desperate to see darling Sebas in Pokhara and Koen needing to get back to Pokhara as well we went by jeep and bus through to Marpha then Pokhara. Pokhara was three nights of bizarre wackness. I couldn’t sleep dispite my exhaustion. I walked in zombie for about three days before pushing on to Lumbini. In Lumbini I was missing company and feeling a right sore amongst all the temples. So with word that Verena and Paulina were in Sauraha I bused a day their direction and waited their arrival from a jungle walk. By the river with A History of Time blowing my mind I fell into a pacified state of awe. The universe, human capacity to think beyond great vastness and great smallness and our capacity to love and create what stars can not. Aah.

Happily reunited I bounced around with elephants while they had their baths and then climbed on the back of one for a walk around Chitwan where we saw rhino, deer and monkey being beautiful.

Then in a haze of transport, light cones and black holes I was in Kathmandu.

And that is the honest happenings (though brief and missing much further detail) of a one se payne to date.

I plan visits to my family and painting courses and general chilling. I plan to eat up, the trek took a bit off me and I want it back thank you very much. (photos of trail and more below)

My love to all!

–Steph

(I fly for Sydney in 6 days!)

Manaslu with eagle wing

Tilicho Tal (4949 m)

Thorung La pass (5416 m)

Prayer wheels in Upper Pisang

The blessed flatness and warmth of the Terai, Sauraha north of Chitwan Park

Had a spiffing birthday. In Thamel we got beers at a reggae bar and I was dancing and astounding the room with my surreal interpretive moves when Court checked her watch and screamed: You’re 19!

Next morning she took me out for breakfast and I had a golden bubble of joy simmering in my gut, I love her dearly! Then we travelled to the quiet, beautiful city of Bhaktapur for dinner and to watch the all the tribal dances and sit on the temple steps and watch the moon rise. We walked through the city and it was festival time so small circles of men were seated around grain paintings singing low songs. The children were in small groups throwing marbles and eating sweet milk lollies. There were yellow and pink lights blinking softly from every shrine we passed. Magical!

We saw off Sean, Rach and Dom and I made my way home. Checking in at KEEP I went to see if any one had expressed any interest in my advertisement I’d placed looking for trekking companions. I passed June a Chinese woman who was taking down my email address, so I stopped and introduced myself. Then emerged Verena from Germany who had just been in conversation with June. Delighted we took a seat and ordered tea and began discussing the logistics of our trek. I told them I was keen on only going part way and then diverting and checking out Tilicho Tal when a Polish-UK woman who had taken seat across the table looked up and asked if she could come along! Brilliant!

And we’re leaving tomorrow. My things are ready, I just need to come to terms with whats happening. I’m trekking into the beautiful Himalayas at last. I near gave up hope because I could not find any one. Have faith, have hope, be optimistic. Nepal is fantastic.

I’ll be in Besi Sahar tomorrow and from then on the Annapurna circuit until Manang where I’ll divert to see the Tilicho Tol (frozen lake). Then I’ll walk back to Hongde and fly from there to Pokhara where I will meet Sebas and then to Lumbini and then to Boudha, Kathmandu. I will fall out of touch. I’ll try and put a few words in here so you know I am alive and well.

Must dash!

Much love!

Dancing in traditional Tamang, final party at the village

group gazing out at Langtang and Tibetan border, an hours walk from village

 I’ve been scattered all over the valley of late. The end of Dashain festival saw me in another village called Dadagaon receiving blessings from Sanu-Bouzu’s relatives. We feasted and drank and got copious quantities of tika in our hair, on our cheeks. There was a roof top bus ride down the mountain where Seabass and I charmed our Nepali travellers with many a ballad.

 We resumed our ways in the village much relieved for the comforts of home. Though we began to scrunch noses at the quantity of saag (smokey tasting spinachy plant) being dished onto our plates. School resumed and I lost my class 3 and instead picked up class 1. I was still teaching class 5, of whom I began to fall more and more in love with. They began feeding me umber and chocolate wafers and I teaching them songs and dances. They learnt G’day for me and were becoming bone rattlers at goodbye hand shakes. I drew the line when some of the girls began kissing my hand. No vanity on my half! They charm the socks of me, today was my second last day of teaching and I when I told them I was leaving a few of the boys started crying, so naturally I burst into sobs. Oh deary.

 Bell has rung out for class 2. Interlude.

Back in the computer room. Once again, things will have to be kept to a minimum. My placement is rushing to its end and soon I will be travelling towards Manang and the Tilicho lakes if all goes to plan. I had been hoping to get into Mustang some how but it is so pricey. After my trek I’ll head off to Pokhara and then plan to see Lumbini on bike, and see the Indian sun rise there. After that plans are sketchy and terribly exciting in their vast potential. I’m doing thangka classes (buddhist painting) in Boudha, Kathmandu and saying a final goodbye to my family.

And then?

The question hangs suspended on the air the leaves outside cock their heads in anticipation.

And then I go home.

I am thrilled at the thought, to see my old world and to move into my new world. Though I am thrilled here as I stand.

And that is where I shall tie my sentences to a closing knot.

x

Sean teaching class 2

Dasain Tika

So much where to start? I’ve since played soccer for Kilroys (a restaurant in thamel), scored a goal, did a cartwheel, met and spent time with a lovely German woman, ridden crazy like on the tops of buses, motorbikes, walked the Langtang, climbed 4300m, sampled chang and raksi, hung with yaks, mountain ponies, met characters, played on huge festival swings, received blessings and tikka, usurped old ideas, planted new ideas, watched mustard seeds flower into carpets of yellow, watched clouds shrink to humble gauzes, seen mountains grow bold in the air growing more cold each day. I’ll start in response to my uttereddialogue regarding conflict of reality and preconceived ideas.  From my diary (25th) I wrote:

The clouds shifted constantly, creating a peep show where scarfs of white slipped to momentaril reveal snow caps. Like watching a woman drop her veils – the dance of Salomne? Clouds would part to reveal clouds of a different company so that soon, Courtney and I were watching veils reveal eachother and had near forgotten the mountains we were always seeking. Our vision straight ahead was consistan and it was beautiful. Ranges of mountains clipping the valley into an embrace. Directly behind the hoizon lay Tibet:

unveiled the summit

and beheld two moments of fierce beauty;

that of the lord mountain and his court,

and the birdie heart within my breast!

(take that wordsworth)

Basically, I’ve abandonned this worry I had of pure ideas verses actuality. I’ve unlearnt my heady ways and put down brown toes to the soil of the day.

The Langtang walk was beautiful. I’ll not talk about it much, I’ve photos and breath aplenty in these lungs, thats how I intend to share word of my footfalls there.

Nepal has taught a fine lesson in time, its rather short and the world vast. I’ve little patience typing away here whilse Thamel churns outside. I’ve little time left in Nepal. Twenty days of teaching, then a few weeks of my own travel. I’m hoping to get into the rivers, another trek and then perhaps more volunteer work in an orphanage.

With much love to everyone I execute my writings here.

Adieu!

Upper: local school kids. Lower: group including Sarina

Inside with Pratima (30 sec exposure)

Langtand .. yaks!

Langtang

Langtang - Kanjin Ri

Kanjin summit (Langtang)

 

Soccer with Kilroy's

Here’s an old entry:

Well  class 3 personify chaos. The boys are fighting, girls weeping, then begging for chalk. Whispers ascend to screaming once my attention is diverted. No stern word, no slap on the table, changing seats, confiscating bags, demerit points .. nothing works. Discipline humors them actually and when I’m looking flustered they tug their hair and scream and then look up sweetly and say: “this is miss?” And as if all things are actually elastic anything confiscated ends up in their owners hand with a disruptive loud crack followed by batty giggles. Ah! And yet I love them dearly! Torture!

Things have been travelling at their respective times, the mornings follow the mellow after-sleep time of tidying myself up and having lunch. Then I descend into the tumultuous haze of school full of love and repulsion, time throws me around and spins me up the hill for a steady afternoon of village life with friends. In the village the world is changing, corn season is over and mothers, daughters and grandmothers have been pulling up the last of the corn and carting it up the mountain for the goats. Soon the cauliflower, eggplant and brocoli will go in. Now it means we have an uninterrupted view from any part of the village of the valley and the mountains with their heads wrapped in scarves of cloud. There is wind about and the prayer flags have begun jiggling about. The monsoon clouds have less of a threatening presence and skirt about erratically on the winds. The air is crisp and the mountains once hiding in the murky folds of the horizon are appearing in shy shades of lilac. With the strong sun rays and the lifting spirits of the valley, come the tourists. Thamel is becoming denser and denser and trips into the city are made more reluctantly each time. Tomorrow is a holy day, the living goddess in the old Buddhist city of Patan emerges and blesses the city. Kathmandu shuts down, people announce strikes, tourists begin bulging out of guest houses — it means we’ll assign ourselves a three day holiday. Little will be achieved, so let it go.

It is tempting to stay on in the village, yesterday we climed to Bishnu Mati (Vishnu waterfall) for a wash. We past steep banks of stone trickling water, moss, ferns, fresh pine needles underfoot, asters and horse tail grass. The waterfall itself is an infinite rush of white brilliance. Seb and I found our way to the little cave behind the fall and sat their screaming for awhile alongside the frantically nodding ferns. Yay! But at the same time, the lure of that beyond the valley has gotten me bad. There’s talk amongst the group of possibly volunteering in monasteries. Currently working on it. Meanwhile I’m thinking of seeing Jomson (on the Annapurna), maybe Langtang just north of where I am, eastern Nepal or even Mustang for my 15 day holiday coming up.

All is well. I have some low days and euphoric days, just as always. I’m still contemplating the conflict between pure ideas and actuality, assisted by a JM Coetzee’s Disgrace whereby they discuss a poem of Wordsworth’s:

From a bare ridge,

we also first beheld

unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved,

to have a soulless image on the eye

that had usurped upon a living thought

that nevermore could be.

Should we maintain pure archetypal ideas as if a gauze over actuality to maintain amazement? Because while I love Nepal, I have moments where I am not impressed by the orange clouds in the pines. I am too tired, or the reality is less impressive than the conceptual existence. I find it threatening almost. Well, well well. That is that. I’ll let it go.

My love to all!

(A few village shots below..)

Rach and Dom's host parents

"Mum" or "Hajur-ama"

Rita-Bouzu serves up Dahl Baht

Am missing you all!

Love Ishsteep (my new name)

I’m in a bizarre mood I must confess, as is with the Nepali way, we’ve been given a myriad skines of information. Basically we were told as of today we had a holiday (yipee!) this morning whilst preparing for my day off I was told I had to do my forty-five minute hike to school and supervise for the two hour exams and then do my teaching (wah!), got to school and were told we had a holiday (yipee?). I’ve decided to laugh at the ball of mess I’ve curled into, just like my hair in this heat.

Anyway, thought I’d really open the door and invite you in for Nepali tea (complete with salt and sugar). The village we’re living in is called Dadagon (aka Dandagoan aka Dagaduon), it sleeps on the side of a mountain peeping into the valley watching mountains roll by and give birth to mountains. The house I’m living with is a beautiful mud brick lung of air infused with spice and muck. I share a bed with Courtney (who is magical) and at night we leave our door open so we can look out, past the veranda, past a few heads of corn to the glittering web of Kathmandu. We’ve become devotees to watching clouds and Kathmandu, my journal is evidence of this, I’ve poem after poem of cloud watching. To try (emphasis on try) and relay the goregous reality of it all here’s one:

As I were royalty, in this box seat of mine

And, as if that sheet of cloud were the stage curtain,

I look down and watch Kathmandu take its applause

before it is eclipsed by snowy drapes.

We live on the same level as the clouds and every day we just look forward and watch clouds engulf the trees, then the silver paths and then we hold out our palms and let it roll past us. (ah)

Throughout Nepal so far I’ve observed in the web of everything the constant image of opposites in conflict and simultaneously, opposites embracing. While I live in the clouds with beautiful people and sparkling paths weaving through fields of corn, where supposedly the tiger lives and the hens dominate; it’s only a walk down the mountain and I’m in sensory overload of heat, piles of rubbish, tropical trees with dogs and cows panting underneath, saris and tikkas, women washing by the road, men relaxing with their Nirvana shirts and toothpicks hanging from lips in an almost religious gesture to Marlon Brando.

After school I time myself hitting up the mountain, eye on the minute hand, eye on the road, eye on forests and all around me it morphs. Nepal is one of the richest places in terms of diversity – diversity of culture, religions, beliefs, attitudes – but definitely a place of biodiversity. Every 500 metres up a mountain there is a climate change and a new family of creatures and plants. We walk through pine forests, glades of moss and birch and then we hit the more tropics trees. We’ve so far spotted deer and one mammoth of a boar, I’m keeping an eye of for the tigers, monkeys and leopard cats – will report back when I’ve got them spotted. By the way I’m getting gun at mountain climbing, with a bit more grunt I’ve turned an hour walk home to a 35 minute climb – ooh yeah. Sorry for the boasting my friends, I’m a vain imp. Thing is I end up collapsing at home shining sweat and having my bizarre conflict with the bucket shower (we don’t get on too well). About two days ago I climbed the mountain in 39 minutes and was congratulating myself when Prem and Rita climbed in with bags of feed on their backs (roughly 50kg each), I got put in my place that day.

The family is brilliant, I think I’ve already said that, but they are. They’re all ridiculously beautiful and healthy, with low hesitant words of english and quick white smiles. I’m loving lunch and dinner which is just sitting together on our mats and grabbing finger loads of dahl baht. Breakfast is a glass of tea, lunch (at 8.30am) is a bucket load of dahl baht and then dahl baht for dinner. I can’t get enough of it, it is meto chha! Once Prem felt sorry for us and cooked rice pudding for us with chunks of coconut and cinnamon and cardommon, I almost cried for my dahl baht. At night Courtney and I play cards with Elina and Pratima (who usually dominate us), last night we had the whole family in our room. Prem was listening to Courtney’s iPod and Courtney, Elina, Pratima, Rita and I playing a finger crushing game of snap. It was lovely, after Pratima helped us to bed pulling our mosquito net out and tring it up. Our bed is amazing, Nepalese sleep on a wooden bed with a mat of bamboo and a thick, heavy quilt. We have a beautiful old dark wood bed pushed up against the mud walls painted blue, made from local sand which glitters silver and a beautiful painted mosquito net gathering us into the lap of sleep.

Sleep is a great way to axe the thread of this post. I’ll close with a little spell that you’ll all sleep beautifully tonight. I’m off to climb Mount Shivapuri!