(The internet is too slow for me to post any photos. Sorry.)
On Friday, I was asked by one of the other volunteers if I wanted to do a "canyon-swing" (I didn't know what a canyon-swing was. It's sorta like bungy-jumping, but when the rope catches you swing outwards instead of springing back up.) and I said I would go, even though I didn't think about it that much. I was told it was one of the highest canyon-swings in the world, which was a little intimidating. Turns out, it's the highest. On Saturday morning, five of us took a 3 hour bus ride towards the Tibetan border.
The canyon-swing consisted of jumping off a bridge and free-falling 160 meters in 7 seconds. We were in the first group out on the bridge waiting for our turn to jump but we still had to wait over an hour watching other people jump and scream and look terrified, which only made me more nervous. When it was my turn, I stepped out on the platform, the guy behind me counted down, and I stepped off. By then I had fully realized how momentously stupid this was and my brain had shifted to auto-pilot, and it wasn't till I was actually falling that I came back to reality. And I just kept falling (7 seconds is a really long time…). It was pretty amazing.
Here are some videos I found on youtube of the jump. I haven't watched them cause the internet is really slow, but I think they show the whole thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lw8mMErVN0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy1JwSRaI0M
Yesterday, I had a language class with Gelu and then he took me to Boudhanath, the largest Buddhist stupa in Nepal. Gelu, a Sherpa from Solukhumbu, runs a trekking organization but works at VSN whenever he’s not traveling. He just got back from a three-week trek with a couple from the Netherlands that are also working at VSN. We got to walk through two monasteries around the stupa and I got to ask him a lot of questions about Buddhism in Nepal. He cleared up a lot of questions I’d had about the blend of Hindu and Buddhist iconography I’d seen around temples and religious sites.
Gelu then took me to a Hindu temple nearby which we weren’t allowed to enter. There was a big sign outside the main entrance that said “Entrance for Hindus Only.” Gelu told me a really long story about how the temple came to built on this particular site which I didn’t fully understand, but went something like this: Around the 5th/6th century, a farmer nearby had a cow. And everyday, that cow would start squirting milk all over the ground at the same location. So, the farmer figured this had to mean something and started digging and eventually found a buried statue of Shiva, the Hindu god. The end.
Beside the temple area was a river and along the stone embankment were sites for open-air cremation. Gelu described how cremation was mandated by the Hindu faith and how it was the responsibility of the son of the deceased person to light the fire. Nearby where we were standing, alongside one burning funeral pyre, a young man who had come to cremate one of his parents was having his head shaved (apparently that’s part of the cremation ceremony). A little farther down the river, a body wrapped in orange-red sheets was lying on a stretcher and friends, family and neighbors were seated and waiting for the cremation to commence. Gelu described how the Hindus believed the ashes of the deceased would flow down the river all the way to India and eventually the soul would be released into heaven. There’s another place along the river, right under a channel that leads up to the temple, where the dead are often place before cremation. Every morning, milk is poured into the channel and runs from the temple to the site on the river where it washed over the body, whose mouth is open to receive the milk.
I’m still in Kathmandu even though I was supposed to leave today. Apparently the flight was booked. But, supposedly, I’m leaving tomorrow for Solukhumbu. I don’t know if I actually have a ticket yet, but the VSN guys are supposed to take care of it.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Kathmandu
Hey y'all. I'm going to try to keep a blog over the summer, even though that might be kind of difficult (as I will discuss later). It was nice keeping one last summer and I think it helped a lot with keeping in touch with people. So, please comment, send me emails, write me letters, send good vibes, etc. A lot has happened in the last 3 days, so this might be a really long first post. Bear with me....
It takes a long time to fly to Nepal. I left Greensboro at 2 pm on Sunday and arrived in Kathmandu (by way of Doha, Qatar, which was pretty sweet) at 8 am on Tuesday. But Qatar Airways is pretty sweet. Every seat has a tv screen and you can choose from hundreds of movies to watch, which made the 12 hour flight to Doha not so bad. I am not ashamed to say that I spent two hours of that time watching You've Got Mail, a truly heart-warming film. I got to Kathmandu and was greeted by people in surgical masks who asked me a serious of questions to make sure I don't have bird flu. I'm pretty sure I don't. Suganda Shretha, the director of VSN (Volunteer Society Nepal), met me at the airport and drove me to the VSN office. One of the first things he said to me was "It's raining. It's been raining for two days," and then preceded to tell me how, in monsoon season (which is about to start), it can rain for days, even weeks. The VSN office is located right outside the main part of the city in an area known as "Pepsi-Cola" due to the Pepsi bottling factory nearby. A couple hours later, Tej, the other co-founder of VSN took me to exchange my US travelers checks to pay for the program. But, for fun, he took me all the way to Tahmel, the biggest tourist spot inside Kathmandu. I rode on the back of his motorcycle as he dodged through traffic with great skill, getting to see a lot of the city, which is pretty huge (i've heard pop. 4 million). Kathmandu is a pretty amazing city. It's kind of overwhelming since almost every building is at least four stories and everything seems so compressed. You look down a street and you see hundreds of signs for shops and little restaurants, all of which are really tiny.
Right before we left Tahmel, Tej took me to a Chinese restaurant and we ate these little doughy delicious things that I don't remember the name of, and I got to ask him a lot of questions about Nepal and about what I will be doing. He told me that they don't usually know what each volunteer is going to do until they actually get there, since apparently a lot of people express interest in coming but don't actually show up. The general program I had signed up to do was teaching English in a Buddhist monastery, and he told me I would probably be living near a monastery just outside Kathmandu, even though everything hadn't been set up yet. But then he started telling me about another volunteer named Natalie who is working at a monastery in "the Mt. Everest region," at which point I could barely contain myself (turns out the monastery is a two-week trek to Everest, but whatever). That sounded way cooler and I asked him if I could go there instead. So, on Tuesday, I will be flying to Solukhumbu, which is apparently one of the most beautiful regions of Nepal. It sounds like it's going to be pretty spectacular.
When volunteers arrive, VSN offers a weeklong language-training/sight-seeing program, which is supposed to be like a crash course in Nepali culture. Yesterday, I sat down with Suzanna, Suganda's daughter, and had my first Nepali language lesson. I learned things like "My name is James" (Mero naam James ho) and "His home is India" (Waahaako ghar India ho). She also gave me some of the basics of Nepali culture, like what "contaminated" food means (If your mouth has touched food/drink, no one else can eat that food. Like, if you're using a serving spoon, that spoon can't touch your plate. It's complicated. I don't fully understand it.) and how you always take your shoes off before entering a home. At one point, she asked me what year it was in the USA. I said 2009. She was like, "In Nepal, it is the year 2066," at which I almost laughed out loud. Nepal uses a lunar calendar, which isn't that funny I guess. The short lesson even included a tea-break (Nepali tea is amazing).
After that, I went with two other volunteers and two guys that work at the school to visit "Monkey Temple," one of the biggest Hindu/Buddhist sites in the area. Buddhism and Hinduism seems to blend together a lot in Nepal, which is apparently around 85% Hindu. I know very little about Hinduism but one of the guys from the school told me that the Buddha is considered the reincarnation of one of the Hindu gods by Hindus, so what appeared to be a Buddhist site (everything surrounding a giant stupa) attracted mostly Hindus, many of whom prayed and walking around the stupa. I felt very ignorant and didn't understand much of what I was looking at, but it was still probably the coolest touristy location I've ever been to. And, being the "Monkey Temple," there were monkeys everywhere. Liana, one of the other volunteers, offered a cookie to a monkey that approached her but didn't let go of it when the monkey grabbed for it. The look on the monkey's face was priceless (I was pretty sure the monkey was about to maul her in anger at having been tricked) and Liana quickly gave it the cookie. This satisfied the monkey. And at one point an elderly woman tried to scare away a monkey by shaking her shoe at it. This only made the monkey angry and some of its friends showed up for backup.
That night, most of the volunteers went to Tahmel to hang out. At the moment, there are seven (I think) volunteers working in Kathmandu, most of them staying around VSN in Pepsi-Cola and working at the VSN school. Most of the current volunteers are American (plus 2 from England, one from Mexico) but recent volunteers have come from Holland, Ireland, the Netherlands, all over. We spent the night at a hotel in Tahmel, which wasn't really a bid deal considering a fairly nice room for two runs 350 rupees ($4.25-ish) and came back in the morning. I got a super nice, huge hiking backpack for like $25 at a shop in Tahmel. Tej had told me that I could do what Natalie is planning to do when she leaves in Solokumbo in 5 weeks, which is trek back to Kathmandu (about a 4-5 day walk), which sounds pretty cool…
This morning, Sovha (sp), Suganda's wife, motioned for me to come to the window in their house. I couldn't figure out what she was pointing at for a while but then I realized that, because it was such a clear day, you could see beyond the mountains of the Kathmandu valley and see a mass of snow-peaked mountains: the Himalayas. It was pretty sweet.
That's the gist of what I've been doing over the last couple days. A lot more has happened and I've taken a lot of photos, but I'm trying to keep this post as short as possible. I'm not sure how available internet is going to be once I reach Solukhumbu, since I'm not sure how far a walk the monastery is from the city. But I'm going to try to keep this going as much as I can. I hope everyone is having a great summer.
Peace,
James
It takes a long time to fly to Nepal. I left Greensboro at 2 pm on Sunday and arrived in Kathmandu (by way of Doha, Qatar, which was pretty sweet) at 8 am on Tuesday. But Qatar Airways is pretty sweet. Every seat has a tv screen and you can choose from hundreds of movies to watch, which made the 12 hour flight to Doha not so bad. I am not ashamed to say that I spent two hours of that time watching You've Got Mail, a truly heart-warming film. I got to Kathmandu and was greeted by people in surgical masks who asked me a serious of questions to make sure I don't have bird flu. I'm pretty sure I don't. Suganda Shretha, the director of VSN (Volunteer Society Nepal), met me at the airport and drove me to the VSN office. One of the first things he said to me was "It's raining. It's been raining for two days," and then preceded to tell me how, in monsoon season (which is about to start), it can rain for days, even weeks. The VSN office is located right outside the main part of the city in an area known as "Pepsi-Cola" due to the Pepsi bottling factory nearby. A couple hours later, Tej, the other co-founder of VSN took me to exchange my US travelers checks to pay for the program. But, for fun, he took me all the way to Tahmel, the biggest tourist spot inside Kathmandu. I rode on the back of his motorcycle as he dodged through traffic with great skill, getting to see a lot of the city, which is pretty huge (i've heard pop. 4 million). Kathmandu is a pretty amazing city. It's kind of overwhelming since almost every building is at least four stories and everything seems so compressed. You look down a street and you see hundreds of signs for shops and little restaurants, all of which are really tiny.
Right before we left Tahmel, Tej took me to a Chinese restaurant and we ate these little doughy delicious things that I don't remember the name of, and I got to ask him a lot of questions about Nepal and about what I will be doing. He told me that they don't usually know what each volunteer is going to do until they actually get there, since apparently a lot of people express interest in coming but don't actually show up. The general program I had signed up to do was teaching English in a Buddhist monastery, and he told me I would probably be living near a monastery just outside Kathmandu, even though everything hadn't been set up yet. But then he started telling me about another volunteer named Natalie who is working at a monastery in "the Mt. Everest region," at which point I could barely contain myself (turns out the monastery is a two-week trek to Everest, but whatever). That sounded way cooler and I asked him if I could go there instead. So, on Tuesday, I will be flying to Solukhumbu, which is apparently one of the most beautiful regions of Nepal. It sounds like it's going to be pretty spectacular.
When volunteers arrive, VSN offers a weeklong language-training/sight-seeing program, which is supposed to be like a crash course in Nepali culture. Yesterday, I sat down with Suzanna, Suganda's daughter, and had my first Nepali language lesson. I learned things like "My name is James" (Mero naam James ho) and "His home is India" (Waahaako ghar India ho). She also gave me some of the basics of Nepali culture, like what "contaminated" food means (If your mouth has touched food/drink, no one else can eat that food. Like, if you're using a serving spoon, that spoon can't touch your plate. It's complicated. I don't fully understand it.) and how you always take your shoes off before entering a home. At one point, she asked me what year it was in the USA. I said 2009. She was like, "In Nepal, it is the year 2066," at which I almost laughed out loud. Nepal uses a lunar calendar, which isn't that funny I guess. The short lesson even included a tea-break (Nepali tea is amazing).
After that, I went with two other volunteers and two guys that work at the school to visit "Monkey Temple," one of the biggest Hindu/Buddhist sites in the area. Buddhism and Hinduism seems to blend together a lot in Nepal, which is apparently around 85% Hindu. I know very little about Hinduism but one of the guys from the school told me that the Buddha is considered the reincarnation of one of the Hindu gods by Hindus, so what appeared to be a Buddhist site (everything surrounding a giant stupa) attracted mostly Hindus, many of whom prayed and walking around the stupa. I felt very ignorant and didn't understand much of what I was looking at, but it was still probably the coolest touristy location I've ever been to. And, being the "Monkey Temple," there were monkeys everywhere. Liana, one of the other volunteers, offered a cookie to a monkey that approached her but didn't let go of it when the monkey grabbed for it. The look on the monkey's face was priceless (I was pretty sure the monkey was about to maul her in anger at having been tricked) and Liana quickly gave it the cookie. This satisfied the monkey. And at one point an elderly woman tried to scare away a monkey by shaking her shoe at it. This only made the monkey angry and some of its friends showed up for backup.
That night, most of the volunteers went to Tahmel to hang out. At the moment, there are seven (I think) volunteers working in Kathmandu, most of them staying around VSN in Pepsi-Cola and working at the VSN school. Most of the current volunteers are American (plus 2 from England, one from Mexico) but recent volunteers have come from Holland, Ireland, the Netherlands, all over. We spent the night at a hotel in Tahmel, which wasn't really a bid deal considering a fairly nice room for two runs 350 rupees ($4.25-ish) and came back in the morning. I got a super nice, huge hiking backpack for like $25 at a shop in Tahmel. Tej had told me that I could do what Natalie is planning to do when she leaves in Solokumbo in 5 weeks, which is trek back to Kathmandu (about a 4-5 day walk), which sounds pretty cool…
This morning, Sovha (sp), Suganda's wife, motioned for me to come to the window in their house. I couldn't figure out what she was pointing at for a while but then I realized that, because it was such a clear day, you could see beyond the mountains of the Kathmandu valley and see a mass of snow-peaked mountains: the Himalayas. It was pretty sweet.
That's the gist of what I've been doing over the last couple days. A lot more has happened and I've taken a lot of photos, but I'm trying to keep this post as short as possible. I'm not sure how available internet is going to be once I reach Solukhumbu, since I'm not sure how far a walk the monastery is from the city. But I'm going to try to keep this going as much as I can. I hope everyone is having a great summer.
Peace,
James
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