Prime Ministers, Toaster Ovens, and Shipping Products from the U.S.

Politics & Prime Ministers
So the Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned five weeks ago. Does Nepal have a new Prime minister yet after three different votes? Nope. Most of it seems like politics as usual in Nepal to me. There was an interesting take on it in an opinion article in Republica today. The article basically makes the case that the coalition that formed to force the Maoists out of power needs to hold or there will be a People's Republic of Nepal. The article struck me as a little alarmist, and though I certainly am not a fan of the Maoists, I don't see any of the other political parties riding to the rescue any time soon. The Maoists actually seem organised and have a plan that they are following through on, to ends that I'm sure will not be good for Nepal. The other parties, instead of offering a real alternative seem to exist mostly to legitimize the government bureaucracy that fleeces the people here of more of their money then it seems to provide in meaningful services and often stands in the way more then helps development in the country. That's my take for what it's worth. The article in Republica by Kanak Mani Dixit can be read HERE if you are interested.


Toaster Ovens
The other day I broke down and got a toaster oven, as I hadn't baked anything in about seven months. Having gone so long, I was immediately quite excited with all the opportunities that opened up. Chicken and eggplant parmigiana? Check. American Style Nachos (full chili and vegies)? Check. Bruschetta? Yes again. To those of you sitting comfortably in the first world none of this sounds like much to you I'm sure. Try going without an oven for half a year and your perspective will change, I promise.


The only problem is that due to some damage at one of the hydro power plants we are back up to eight hours of dreaded load shedding again. They seem to pick the worst times to cut the power too. Today I was about to make some lunch in my new favorite appliance and the power got cut....and didn't come back on for four hours. Sigh. When I plugged the oven into one of my outlets powered by my battery the inverter started beeping, which I took to be a bad sign and quickly unplugged it. They also seem to like to cut the power right around when I make dinner, and although I normally can find the "Power Assassination Schedule" on lline, I haven't seen the latest one, so cooking is a bit of a gamble at the moment.

Monsoon Trekking: Helumbu

At the beginning of these posts I advised that these blog posts are a retelling of my experience, and should not nescisarily be used as an itinerary. When talking about the route we took through Helumbu, I really mean it; both because we took a few wrong turns and because we squeezed it all into one epic 31 mile day with my GPS unit telling me that we had near 6,500' of elevation gain and over 13,000' of elevation lost. I think some of the mistakes we made should be somewhat informative to other hikers and act as a warning to not make the same dumb mistakes.

I passed through this section of trail before back in 04', but unfortunately the more interesting villages of Melamchigaon and Tarke Ghyang were not on our itinerary. Our route took us over only half of the Helumbu Circuit, starting at Therapati and heading south to Sundarijal and on to Kathamndu.

Another Clear Morning; Hills as Seen from Therapati

Another clear morning greeted us, and for some reason that morning nothing on the menu really appealed to either one of us and we settled for just some lemon tea and decided that we could stop possibly in Khutumsang for a late breakfast or early lunch. The morning was a bit on the cool side, but again the skies were clear and it looked to be another great day for trekking. Our plan for today was to do a double days hike and make for Chisopani, a village just on the outskirts of Shivapuri National Park, and only about four hours from Sundarijal. My plan was still to walk all the way back to my front door. I figured it was just over five miles from Sundarijal to Boudha and then only two and a half miles from Boudha to my apartment. 

Fog Surrounds a Stupa just South of Khutumsang

Monsoon Trekking: Gosainkund

The trail up to and through the Gosainkund area was by far my favorite part of this trip. We got some stunning views, and the trail itself was a real joy...though Donnie may disagree with me on that last part. When I left off in the last post we had spent the night at the Landslide Hotel, named I guess for the large landslide coming down the valley face on the opposite side of the river. After a good nights sleep and some breakfast the next morning we were ready to go..kind of. Donnie, on top of his cold and bum ankle, was now also experiencing some gastro-intestinal distress. Being the task master I am, I told him it was a mere 6,000 vertical feet to Singh Gompa, a spot I hoped we could have some lunch at before pressing on to Laurabina Yak, where I hoped to spend the night.

Chorten in the Forest North of Singh Gompa

After leaving the guest house we quickly came to the split in the trail with the right path leading to Syrafru Besi and the one on the left heading to Thulo Syrafru, where we were headed. The trail almost immediately became steep, turning to switchbacks. Some Nepal gray langur monkeys played in the trees at the edge of the trail, though they were a bit too shy for pictures. After about a thousand feet or so of climbing the trail leveled off a bit, we passed a seasonal tea shack and rounded the mountain to a suspension bridge. As I was crossing the bridge I was lamenting that we were five days into this trip and I had not seen a single leech....I mean I didn't want to really deal with the things, but to go a whole trek in the monsoons and not even have an opportunity to brag about fending them off and such was disappointing in some strange, possibly masochistic way. Well, as they say be careful what you wish for.

Monsoon Trekking: Langtang

This trip I'm going to separate into posts by region, and we started up in Langtang. Before I get started I just want to remind readers that what I am retelling here is my experience, I do not necessarily recommend the itinerary that I will relate in this story. Also it should be noted that our recent trip into Tibet left us already acclimatized so we had no trouble with elevation and did not have to plan additional days for acclimating to the high altitudes at Kyanjin Gompa or the Gosainkund Lakes.

The route that Donnie and I had decided on would take us up into the Langtang valley from Dunche, then back down the valley and up to the sacred lakes of Gosainkund before descending back down to Kathmandu via the Helumbu region. I really found the idea of walking up to glaciers on the border of Tibet and then returning all the way to my door step on foot a really attractive idea. That one day you could be be in a place that seemed so far away and then literally walk to your door in less than a week was exciting. At least I thought it was. I was also excited to see what monsoon treks were actually like, and my last post gives my thoughts on that.

7 Miles South of Dunche the Road was Washed Out

The Big Monsoon Lie

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom."
-Thomas Paine


If you read any guidebook, trekking book, or talk to almost anyone in Nepal, both foreign or local, about trekking during the monsoon you will get the same answer; don't. Many books and people will advise that you only trek in places where you are in the Himalayan rain shadow, but many of these places require expensive permits like Mustang and upper Dolpo. Others like the Nar and Phu valley, which has a cheaper permit still requires that you use a guide and sign up through a trekking agency. Eventually this will be something I will do personally, but many people (including myself in most cases) enjoy independent trekking and like to be able to hit the trail on their own terms. The result of this common knowledge about monsoon trekking creates a complete lack of tourists through the summer months; Thamel has only a trickle of tourists and the trails are all but empty. You can go entire days without seeing another foreign  trekker.


Why is the trekking so bad during the monsoons?

Monsoon Trekking, and Random Thoughts on Nepal

So now that I'm finally done blogging about our recent trip in Tibet I can get back to writing about Kathmandu and Nepal, except I'm going to be heading into the mountains again. Apparently a little over 4,000' just doesn't do it for me any more and I can't resist the call of the mountains. After all what would all this time in Nepal be without a monsoon trek? I mean who can resist the idea of travelling on roads with landslides, hordes of jungle leaches and skies so full of clouds that one can't see the 25,000' peaks above them?  I can't.

Monsoon Trekking: Langtang, Gosainkunda & Helumbu
So Donnie, our friend that we went to Tibet with found out he was going to have some additional free time and wanted to go into the mountains, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to find out first hand what monsoon trekking really is like (I'm willing to wager it is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be). I mean the rain here is warm, it's not like New England where the rain and cold just suck the heat (and it feels like your soul) right out of you. We plan on starting up in the Langtang valley, go up to Kyanjin Gompa, turn around and then head south to the Gosainkunda Lakes and then head south through Helumba and back to Khathmandu via Sudarijal.

The most frightening part of this hike will be the bus ride tomorrow.

Lost in Translation- Lhasa Edition

If Lhasa is any indication of how bad the English translations are in China, then I need to visit Beijing in the not too distant future. There were shirts that were literally making us laugh out loud as we passed them. I've captured two of them here, but it seemed like the cool thing to wear here was a shirt with random English words on it. I regretfully did not get any images of menus that depicted such elegantly described dishes as Yak Tongue with Edible Fungus. Mushrooms works just fine folks, edible fungus doesn't do the same job. Without further ado, here are some of the more comical translations of Lhasa.

Goldfish Rickshaw?

10 Days in Tibet: Shigatse to Lhasa

The second part of this trip was even a little better than the first. From Shigatse we headed for Gyangze which was the suprise location of the trip, in a good way. Gyangze is in my opinion one of the best kind of places when you are traveling, you don't expect anything, and you find things that rival some of the best tourist spots in the world.

Picturesque fields on the way to Gyangze.

10 Days in Tibet: Kathmandu to Shigatse

So we had a great trip in Tibet. The price tag was a bit higher than I would have wished, but there is only one flight that goes between Lhasa and KTM so not a lot of competition to bring the price down. Due to Chinese restrictions on travel in Tibet (at least from Nepal) you also have to use a travel agency and be in a group (even if that group is just two people). We ended up going through Borderlands, who have their main office in Thamel, and they were very professional and handled things well. I was impressed enough that I'd use them again. On the Tibet side we had Tashi Delek tours, who I was also happy with, and our Tibettan guide "Jim" was excellent in my opinion and though his English wasn't the best he was very willing to help people out when the need would arise. That came in very handy for us at the end of the trip. 

A landslide about half an hour south of the border crossing.

This was the road we would have to drive on.

So we left Kathmandu early with transportation to the Tibetan border provided by borderlands. Kim and I were accompanied by a friend of ours Donnie, who is in Kathmandu as a research student studying the atmospheric conditions of different areas of Nepal and the effect of pollution and climate change. Anyway we stopped briefly for breakfast and then had a mostly uneventful ride up the Arnaco Highway. It's only about three to four hours to the border with Tibet at Kodari, but roads in Nepal can be unpredictable. Just south of the border crossing we came to a stop behind a long line of cars. In Nepal this can mean many things.

Lost in Translation- Tibet Edition

Until I get my GPS data in order and I have any idea where I was I'm going to put off any serious discussion of Tibet. Until that time I'm going to have some fun with what is some of the worst English I have ever come across. While Nepal may get some English wrong, the Chinese elevate horrible English to an art form. Shirts we came across in Lhasa and other places were literally a mash of random words that made no sense together. There were so many signs, shirts and other labels that made us laugh that I have to split my pictures between Lhasa and the rest of Tibet. This section will cover the stuff we ran into outside of Lhasa.

  

"Becarful!!! Please dont urine here

100 RNB Charg

BECARFUL!!!

These are the kind of signs we don't usually need back in the states, unless you have the misfortune to live next to college kids. In Asia on the other hand, signs like this are needed, especially when your town is over run with Hindu pilgrims from India on their way to Mt. Kailash.