Serious Karma

California is the worst thing that ever happened to Buddhism. Not the place really, but that New Age garbage that seems to have been tagged on to every concept, to the point where the actual meaning of the words and the ideas behind them are unrecognizable from the actual meaning. This may be more true of our basic understanding of the concept of karma than any other that has entered into popular understanding. It may be somewhat unfair to blame just western hippies and media though, as the influx of Hindu and Animist traditions that shaped Buddhism into a religious practice in the east is just as full of nonsense as the crystal healers of the West. The popular understanding of Karma is that as you do good things, good things happen to you, and the converse of bad things is also true. So for instance if you help enough elderly woman cross the road you are saving up some kind of mystical "good" points that might be cashed in at some point to win the lottery. This isn't really even close to right.

Wholly Agnostic

A friend of mine recently wrote a post on his blog that touched on the terminology of belief, and he briefly touched upon the terms of atheism and agnosticism (you can read his post HERE), and it got me thinking about how I generally label my thinking, which has over the last few years become entirely dominated by a growing commitment to a very deep sense of agnosticism. (I touched on this briefly in my year in review post HERE). This isn't a rebuttal to my friend's post as I generally agree with him, but more a closer look at what a deep commitment to agnosticism really looks like, and why the term is I think generally misunderstood.

When you say your agnostic most people only think this applies to some ideas about religion, and worse they often take it to indicate that you are kind of on the sideline and haven't looked close enough to have made up your mind one way or the other. In short most people look at agnostics as something akin to undecided voters the day before the some big election....the assumption is that they don't have a great grasp on the arguments that are being presented or are slightly lazy people that just haven't been paying any attention to something that is potentially quite important. This I think though is an unfortunate misconception, and while it may be applicable to a few people out there, I would make the case that anyone that has taken the time to at least come to a point that they are not just accepting what ever cultural stories were put before them has done more thinking on the topic than maybe the average person.

The Purple Thread of Epictetus- One Year On

Just over a year ago I decided I was going to try and write a book. The topic would be the application of some ancient philosophy, that in my mind was grounded in solid logic, to modern life and knowledge. At the books center would really be a new version of Greco-Roman Stoicism in concept but taken without its unfounded pronouncements about the heavens or the logos. In doing some research for the book I started to see a striking similarity between the aspects of Stoicism I wanted to carry forward and the core philosophy of Buddhism. Both philosophies, in my mind, suffer from undue cultural and religious trappings, so what I wanted to put together was something that drew from the strongest elements of both, where they were correct in their overlap and produce a modern guide to living. This is something I have almost felt a need to do my entire life, and if I accomplish nothing else aside from laying this all out I'll die a happy man.

The purpose of this post though is not so much to go on about this book, but to talk about what I've learned in writing it over the last year. The first of which is that writing is actually hard work. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it quite a bit, but getting yourself to really take it seriously,to focus on every word, to sit down and pound out at least a few pages every day despite what else is going on around you is tough.There have been times when I have been really good about sitting down every day and really concentrating on my work and there have also been months where I didn't keep a single word that I put to electronic paper. For the first few months I set aside a 4 hour span in the morning that was only for writing and it worked well, and after only three or so months I had pounded out a first draft, and I was ready to declare that this whole writing thing wasn't all that hard.

Faith as Virtue in Buddhism

As someone who is very interested in virtue based ethics I've always found it odd that Buddhism, a philosophy that by everything I have read holds skepticism in high regard, would hold faith as a virtue. Faith is one of those ideals that some people claim is a good thing, but I most often completely fail to see how this is the case. Faith by definition often asks us to hold a belief about a thing on which we have next to no evidence and cannot verify by any quantitative means. Sometimes faith asks us to hold positions that are in direct opposition to each other and ignore the inconsistencies. In short faith often acts as a lazy way to believe what we are told we should and ignore any evidence to the contrary.  On these grounds I usually respond to the concept of faith with a fairly negative view and am highly skeptical of it's value when I see it listed as a human virtue. So while reading some Pali texts recently I was a bit dismissive at first of the attempts to frame faith as a human virtue.

The problem with reading much of these older texts, be they Greek or Buddhist, is that I'm reading English translations. While English is a very diverse language there are several concepts that it often fails to accurately capture or convey. At other times, many of our words carry a certain amount of historical or social baggage that distorts the actual connotation in which the original author was conveying the concept being discussed. This is, in my opinion, what seems to be the case with Buddhist faith. Because really faith isn't the right word, and this slowly became apparent as I read more into the sutras. A much better translation would be trust, not unfounded blind faith, but a trust that is gained through reason and deduction, observation and analysis.

America- Realm of the Devas

Most of the time I'm rather dismissive of Buddhist and Hindu cosmology, most of it seems as absurd to me as when Christian theologians mapped out the heavens, hell and assigned names and  hierarchies to the inhabitants of those places. One always wonders where such insight and knowledge came from, what special divination do these folks have access to that the rest of us don't? So it is then that I have never really taken the whole Buddhist wheel of life too seriously; it talks of the world of Devas who are always warring with demi-gods, of a realm of hungry ghosts, hell, and it populates these realms with the same kind of fantastic beings. While I was in Bhutan though something our guide said made me take a second look at the diagram. 

A Buddhist Wheel of Life

Surpassing Expectations- Why Bhutan Shouldn't Be Missed

The only thing I knew about Bhutan prior to going there is that it had within its borders the very famous Taktsang Monastery, better known as Tiger's Nest. Very few people go to Bhutan, on account of the fact that it is rather hard to get to (it's a small country in the eastern Himalaya) and that going there as a foreigner is very restricted and compared to neighboring countries quite expensive. Last year only 27,000 dollar or euro spending tourists arrived in Bhutan, compare that to Nepal which is also a small Himalayan country that received over half a million tourists and you begin to understand how few people visit this nation. This small nation stands apart from its neighbors from its unique form of Buddhism to the fact that they measure development in terms of GNH (gross national happiness) as opposed to the normal GNP (gross national product). It is also a very small country in population having just over half a million people, a very small number when you consider both its neighbors count billions and even Nepal has around twenty million. These peculiarities and its inaccessibility to most of the outside world have led many people to declare Bhutan as the last Shangri La.

Bhutan is a little different from everywhere else.

A Question Worth Asking

While spending time on the beach in Thailand, I'm trying desperately to get some writing in and not waste all my time here. If nothing else some time on the beach and in the ocean gives a little time to think. Increasingly I have become convinced that volition and human action should not only be the focus, but are almost the only question worth asking in philosophy, possibly aside from some more minor ones having to do with epistemology and logic. What follows is a new addition on the role of philosophy.

There has been a fear that philosophy may never get so far as to state a problem that is capable of being answered, one that is a genuine and capable of being tackled. Philosophy has, in its modern form, seemed to flounder, with its reliance on top down structural cohesion by a supreme law giver torn away under the most trivial scrutiny the void of nihilism and relativism that greeted it seemed to loom like an insurmountable storm. Yet on closer inspection the threat of nihilism seems to me to be more like a hangover caused by the continuation of thinking in an outdated patterns and asking questions that are no longer relevant. We make the mistake of acting like there should still be supreme answers, ultimate realities and absolutes hidden somewhere underneath all that we observe, we have it seems never come to terms with accepting a system that might be more open ended and we have had trouble accepting that we ourselves may be the final arbiters of the value of what we encounter. In the realms of physics, cosmology and the other sciences, the philosopher, has been relegated to the sidelines, occasionally offering helpful, and possibly almost as often unhelpful, commentary on the advances of human knowledge brought about through the research of the scientific community.

So as modern philosophy stumbles into the 21^st century it has all but rendered itself a sideshow offering it seems very little in human understanding. From one fad to the next we have meandered through a sea of ill defined isms, content with deconstructing all of our questions to meaningless quibbles. Yet, despite the final say of what seems to be the recurring voice of 20^th century mantras of relativism and nihilism there seems to be within them a failing, an ignoring of the real question of what philosophy needs to answer. In all of the theory and proclamations, philosophy forgot to consider that we are all still here in the real world, and despite all that it might assert about some actions being no better than others, or the arbitrariness of what actions we might take, we know that some actions taken are preferred to others, that some outcomes are better than others, and that despite the relative foundations of all we experience this does not mean that there is not enough of a foundation with which to assault the most important question of philosophy, “What do I do now?”

To me the central question of philosophy is simply the one that confronts the most basic question in need of an answer for the human condition, and that is the question of agency. That is not to say whether there is human agency or questions of determinism, such questions are near meaningless, the question that philosophy must answer is; what do we do next? This is a question that is forced upon us at every moment of our lives, and at each moment we act (or choose not to) and in this way it is the central concern of the human condition, and it becomes in my mind the most important question that philosophy can answer for the individual. Even those who insist at the top of their lungs that all endeavors or actions are equally worthless cannot escape that at every moment they themselves choose one action over another, and it is this reality of the human condition that lends itself to a non arbitrary application of our decision making powers to the outcomes of our lives.

This in my mind brings philosophy back to its roots and plants it back within the soil from which it was born, making it the study and application of how to live a human life. The art of using philosophy to create for us lives worth living has been at its core through much of its history, and it seems only in modern times that it has lost its way and deviated from this course. The core of philosophy lives in three fields; epistemology, logic and above all ethics.  For in answering the question of what it is that we should do next, we are asking our self an ethical question, we are asking ourselves what is the right action for me to take? In answering such questions philosophy also needs to come down from its theoretical heights and spend some time in the muck of actual human experience. This is where it is most needed, where it was meant to be practiced as made clear by most of the ancients such as the Stoics, Epicureans, Pyrrhonists, Buddhists, and many others. We have forgotten in the modern age that philosophy is not meant to just be discussed, that in order to be relevant it must also be lived. That is a key component that must be reintroduced to philosophy if it is to remain relevant.

While other questions may weigh in on this central question of agency, all other questions stand trivial beside it as the weight of circumstance bears down upon each of us in each passing moment of our lives. Questions of the nature of the universe, the origin of our species, the basis of reality, the reality of volition, all of these become peripheral to dealing with what circumstance has lain before us right now. Why am I here, what is my purpose, why is there something instead of nothing; all of this falls before the more immediate question; I have to pee, do I hold it or go to the bathroom despite the fact that someone is talking to me? The most important questions are not with the fundamentals of the universe, but the everyday questions that we are confronted with every moment of our being.

The Concept of the 'Self"- An Excerpt from The Purple Thread of Epictetus

This is a subject I have been tackling at length over the last month in a book I'm trying to put together. This topic has been particularly difficult, but after a good writing session today on draft three of this chapter I think I have most of what I want covered. There is still a good degree of off topic meandering which needs to be trimmed, some topics addressed too briefly and I'm not entirely happy with some of the opening paragraphs, but on the whole I'm finally content with the body of the chapter as a whole. So with all that said I'd thought I'd share this chapter as it stands for now with everyone. At one point I reference the logic problem known as the Ship of Theseus, which I go over in a previous chapter, I linked the wiki article there as a refresher to those who aren't familiar with it.

Chapter 7- Defining the Self

“…because, of all things in the environment an active body must make mental models of, none is more important than the model the agent has of itself.”

-Daniel C. Dennett

Consciousness Explained 

No object will be more considered than ourselves, as we are the object that we seemingly have the most control over, so it is important that we spend at least a chapter considering what our “self” is. It seems painfully obvious to most of us what we are, “I’m me!” one might protest. Looking a little deeper though it is hard to find exactly what we are, what defines “you” and where we should even start to look. When considering objects back in chapter five we noted the need to see things as they actually are, discover what they are made of and strip them of their pretention. It would be less than thorough if we did not do this to ourselves as well as everything around us. Coming to an honest understanding of what you yourself are is an important part of setting yourself free. Because the subject object of much of your thought will in fact be those things that are in your power or those desires that arise in the mind, it is best to understand the object you will be observing the most, which is yourself.

Enlightened Salsa

So it looks like I will be trying to sell some Salsa at the farmers market. Over the last two weeks I have been a salsa making fool, and have settled on five different types that I am very happy with. I actually had a mango salsa that I really liked, but mangoes seem to be going out of season, so I won't be making it.  How much of this stuff I can sell on a given weekend is up in the air, I have no idea. Where I will store it all, given the size of our refrigerator is also a point that I will need to consider. I'm going to go into the first weekend with low expectations and a fairly limited amount of product and see how it does I think.

This is the label for the standard chunky garden style salsa. Kim put together the picture for me, and I did the colors and writing. There was some discussion about whether it might be offensive to have the Buddha in a sombrero, but I think it's clear from the tag lines that it's all meant in good fun. If this kind of thing bothers you, most likely you need thicker skin, and besides Buddhism teaches to let such trivial things go anyway.

As to the salsa itself, this one is a fresh garden salsa with tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, all mixed up with some lemon juice and a splash of tequila. I'm thinking of starting this one at 200 Rs which is a good deal I think considering that crappy Old El Paso sells in the stores here for 280 RS, and I think it's only 350ML and my bottles are 500.

This is essentially a bruschetta mix with the addition of capers, Greek olives, and sun-dried tomatoes. I eat this stuff at least once a week on my own as it is. Goes great on bread and with various cheeses. Serve with some red wine and you can almost forget that you're in Kathmandu. As the capers and olives are not local and the sun dried tomatoes are a little pricier than the other vegies I'm going to be selling this stuff for around 300 Rs a bottle, which is rather good considering the ingredients I think.

I love this salsa. I had never thought of using pomegranate in salsa before, but I figured I would give it a try since you can get them year round in Kathmandu. I threw it together with some other Persian inspired ingredients and the result is quite tasty in my opinion. The pomegranate is just subtly sweet and the mix of the mint and saffron along with it makes for a really different flavor. Despite the different flavor undertones it is still definitely salsa, and still goes great on tortilla chips. This one also has some pricier ingredients, so I'm pricing this one at 300 Rs a jar as well.

This was the hardest one to make. Anyone can throw together a super hot salsa, the trick is to over ride the hotness with enough flavor so that people who like spicy food will continue to eat it despite the burn going down (and most likely coming out!). To accomplish this I grilled about half the peppers and blended them in with the liquid component, giving the salsa not only a great texture but also a flavor that over rides that bitter taste you can get if you just rely on hot peppers for lots of spice. Although this label says 3 different hot peppers, I have in fact changed it to 4 and made the flavor a little better. While it isn't the hottest salsa I've ever had or made, it is definitely spicy. This was Kim's favorite. I should be selling this one for 250 Rs.

I had no idea how this was going to come out when I first thought of it, but I'm really happy with the result. Although just as spicy as most of the other salsa's the mint cucumber and lime combine to make a very cool and refreshing summery kind of salsa. A few other ingredients in the sauce give it a distinct Thai flavor. I really want to try and find some wanton chips to serve it with, but I haven't had any luck finding any as of yet.

So if you are in Kathmandu next Saturday feel free to stop by the 1905 farmer's market and try some salsa!

Buddhism & Greek Philosophy

Many people who travel to Kathmandu at least have a passing curiosity in the Buddhism that they encounter here. My first trip here in 2002 was my first real exposure to it, following up on the month I had spent looking at Buddhist temples in Thailand. My view of Buddhism then was rather clouded by what I had learned about it via Hollywood and New Age garbage. As someone whose two least favorite actors include Leonardo DiCaprio and Richard Gere their speaking up for it didn't increase my interest any. On top of all of that the pop-culture fetish in the US with Buddhism and especially phony causes like Beastie Boys and the whole Free Tibet thing did nothing more to kindle my interest. In fact all of this worked to create a bias in me that would keep me from seeing Buddhism as it should be seen, on its own terms as a serious philosophy.

My trips through Buddhist countries in Asia did very little to change my opinion either. To an outsider, the forms of cultural Buddhism that are practiced through Asia can seem rather odd. Be it offerings of beer and whiskey to divine protectors, or the thousands of divine entities that are present in Tibetan Buddhism all of this works against  seeing Buddhism as a rational philosophy of life, at least it does to me. Touts and hawkers in the tourist districts of these countries don't help any either as they try and "sell" Buddhism through the trinkets that western patrons will buy, be it prayer wheels, crystals, thanka paintings, beads, even whole monk outfits. Some of this can be relevant to philosophical Buddhism, like the thanka paintings, and some can be nonsense, such as the crystals. More importantly though, because tourists regions sell what westerns want to buy, the things that they already think Buddhism consists of, your view of it is unlikely to change passing through these regions.

So strangely my introduction to Buddhism came to me through the Greeks. I have a long standing interest in Alexander the Great, as is evident in some previous posts. That interest lead me to study what happened to the far Eastern Greek Kingdoms after his death, especially the regions of Bactria (present day Afghanistan) and Greek India (essentially modern Pakistan). Many people are unaware that the Greeks and Greek influence would have a major role in this region for about the next three hundred plus years. These years include the rise of the Indian King Ashoka who is credited with being one of the greatest Buddhist proselytizers, as well as the fall of the Maurya dynasty only fifty years later to the Sungas. In fact many beleive that the Greek conquest of India that happened under the Bactrian King Demetrius and later Menander (Who is featured as King Malinda in the Buddhist Malinda Panha) were done on the grounds of defending Buddhists from their new Hindu rulers.

Anyway the mix is not only historically interesting (at least to me) but it also allowed for the transmission of ideas to flow even more readily than they did before between east and west. Historical texts are very clear that many Greek settlers in this region converted to Buddhism, and some texts suggest that the Greeks sent many ethnic Greek Buddhist monks to Sri Lanka and others as far north as the Tarim Basin. No doubt some also traveled back to the Mediterranean to Anatolia, Greece, and Egypt.

It was while reading about some of these transactions that I came across text that showed philosophical Buddhism to be the serious work that it really is. I began to see that there were very strong connections between what it prescribed as a way of dealing with the world around us, and what the Greek stoics taught. In the most basic sense both philosophies teach that since we can not always change the world around us, we must change what we can, which is our opinion and perception of a thing. Both the Greeks and the Buddhists saw that we are not offended by a thing if we remove from ourselves the sense of offence. This got me interested enough to do a good amount of reading to see where Buddhism stands on its own. My misconceptions of Buddhism were plentiful, and this post is long enough without going into full detail.

All of the preceding text was to get to one of the books I just recently read which is one of the better I have read in a long time; Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism. Now I was vaguely familiar with Greek Pyrrhonist philosophy, but I had always thought it was very similar to the other schools of Greek Skepticism. The excerpts I had seen were from Sextus Empiricus and usually his arguments against the dogmatic beliefs of the stoics. Although i am often a fan of much in stoic thought, the line of attack from Sextus was usually demolishing some part of their line of thinking that I was also not a fan of, such as their teleological outlook or some other claim about nature.

This book shows clearly why Pyrrhonism is not just another branch of Academic Skepticism and instead expounded a philosophy that does not infer the negative from those things we deduce that can not currently be known but instead advises a suspension in judgement about all things non-evident. The parallels with early Buddhism are quite striking, and one could easily view Pyrrhonism as an adaptation of a western form of Buddhism. As someone who has always struggled with epistemology in philosophy as the more problematic field that derailed just about any philosophical endeavor, section three of this book on things evident and non-evident was a real joy to read, and gave me one of those rare "aha!" moments that make the world seem just a little more clearer.

As a quick example, in the west when we experience an apple, we take it that underneath all of our perceptions is a form that actually is an apple. It is from this form that exists in the "real" world that the "real" apple transmits to us the look, touch, taste, and sound (if you tap it) and smell of an apple. The Pyrrhonists (and Buddhists alike) do not assume that there is anything beyond experience itself, that what we experience as an apple is merely a bundle of sensations that are consistently correlated, there is nothing in anyone of them that dictates to the others a sense of "appleness". Put another way if you were blind, you could not infer a visual apple from a tactile, or audible apple. Basically there is no common quality that one can observe in which all these modes of sensation adhere, no underlying substance or form.

Another book that has made it on to my reading list because of this book is Buddhism Without Belief, which seems to be very much in line with Pyrrhonist thinking. Although this will have to wait until I finish A New Stoicism which at this point I unfortunately can not recommend all that highly. While it is a well argued book the author has a way of making even interesting topics excruciatingly boring. It's written in a format that is the result of a terrible habit of spending too much time talking and debating with people only in academia.

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, 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.

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.

Celebrating Independence in Tibet

So my computer decided to turn on this afternoon and after moving all important data to an external hard drive I again have access to all my photos from Tibet. There are a lot of things that I want to talk about, and there were some really wonderful places and people I would like to blog about at length, but the first thing I want to address was one of the strangest 4th of July celebrations I have participated in. 

Being American the 4th of July usually means fire works, grilling lots of meat, parades, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and and mixing it all together with lots of family and friends. Somewhere in there we occasionally remember that the holiday is actually Independence Day, celebrating the severing of our ties to the Kingdom of Great Britain an action that lead to the founding of our Republic. Most of the time though that aspect of the holiday is lost on us. We take it for granted. 

There were only three Americans in our group; myself, Kim and our friend Donny. The way that the days fell, Independence Day fell on our first full day in Lhasa. With the thought that we should try and recreate as many of the normal American observances of the holiday we set out looking for things that would allow us to celebrate at our hotel in Tibet. As everything we consume in the U.S. seems to be made in China, it wasn't as tough as one might think. We purchased some American flags at a place that also peddled portraits of Chairman Mao, we found plenty of alcohol, and though Kim and Donny preferred Lhasa beer, there was the option of Budweiser and PBR (I just tossed some cheap local liquor in with my ice tea). At another store we purchased speakers for Kim's laptop so we could listen to music like the sound track to Team America, Jimmy Hendrix playing the star spangled banner, and other patriotic themed music. We ordered plenty of deserts at the hotel and set up all our stuff, fully prepared to be OK with being the obnoxious Americans.

You see what those passports say?

That's right, we're American.

Annapurna Circuit in 7 days (Part 4)

This is my last post on my trek around Annapurna, and it will cover crossing the 17,700 foot Thorung La pass to the town of Jomsom via Kagbeni, and the not so straight forward trip overland from there to Pokhara. These entries have been titled Annapurna Circuit in 7 days and if you're keeping track there is only one day left. This last day was a long 23 mile journey that brought me from the highest point on the Annapurna trail, all the way to its exit point.

Clouds clear as I ascend above High Camp

So after a cold night at high camp I rolled over at 5AM, looked out the window and it was as I had feared; fog. Ughh. I was kicking myself that I had not gone over the pass the day before. Finding it difficult to get the courage to get out from under the warm blankets I waited until almost 6AM to actually get out of bed. I had eaten extra the night before, and didn't want to take the time to eat breakfast, so I paid the guy running the guest house and was on my way to meet the 17,700 foot Thorung La pass.

Annapurna Circuit in 7 days (Part 3)

In this post I'll go over the part of the trail that takes you over the north end of the Annapurnas and describe the trail between Chame and High Camp near the Thorung La pass. This was my favorite part of the whole trip and the scenery and villages in this section really made the whole trip worth it. Manang especially was one of the most scenic areas that I have ever been.

Cappadocia like Rock Formations just West of Chame

After being quite exhausted on my arrival in Chame, it was nice to get some serious down time and rest up for the next day's hike. I woke up feeling great and after a quick breakfast and some chatting with the Australian trekkers I headed out for the trail. The trail crossed a bridge to the north side of the river and hugged closely to the north ridge, at times the trail even was cut out of the cliff face. The further west from Chame I walked the dryer the environment got, and slowly the scenery began to resemble the American West, with some rock formations that looked somewhat simmilar to some of what you see in Capadocia Turkey. The mix was really beautiful, and the natural scenery through this section was amazing. Views of snow capped mountains continued to dip in and out of view to the south as well, providing stunning views. 

Annapurna Circuit in 7 days (Part1)

View from Praken Gompa, Manang

Any time I say I'm going to be away for a while I always seem to come back a little faster than planned. I had been told that the Annapurna circuit took a minimum of two weeks, but with a little over ambitious hiking and the addition of roads for quick entry and exit to the best parts, I managed to do it in seven days. What is to follow is a retelling of my personal experience, I am in no way recommending this as a template for other people. Often times when I would check in at the ACAP check points the people had to have me explain multiple times where I had come from, followed by questions about what time I got up in the morning, and then finally the inevitable "You must be very fast trekker". Apparently. I point this out not to brag, but as to make it clear that the itinerary I will describe in the following posts may not be something to plan your own trip around.

Kopan Monastery

So today I went for a walk heading toward the north end of the valley, thinking I'd try to get to the valley edge. I ended up drifting a bit more to the east and saw this cool looking building up on what looked like a not too distant hill and decided I'd try to check it out. The building ended up being Kopan Monastery just north of Boudha. 

The building that I first saw was, pictured in the distance above, was actually off limits to visitors, but other parts were open. It must be a bit of a tourist attraction as I saw plenty of Europeans here.

Brian Tries Thanka Painting

So one of my favorite items that we sell through our company, Red Lotus Trading Company, are the Buddhist thanka paintings. We got word through the KTM KTM message group that International Art Workshops was doing a full day workshop on thanka paintings. The organization is run by a British expat named Ilsa, who was really friendly and did a wonderful job putting it together. The seminar itself was headed by Sudarshan Suwal, a third generation expert thanka painter who is the marketing director for Natural Collection Traders.

Above is a picture of Sudarshan explaining