Sorry Buddha...

Sorry Mr Gautama, I had been looking forward to visiting your birthplace.  Things got in the way (a few boulders) so I'll write about the lovely world of Buddhism when I go to your special tree in Bodh Gaya later in the year...

I had planned to go to Lumbini to see the birthplace of Buddha but it didn't quite work out.  The road from Pokhara to Lumbini has a bad reputation for landslides but I'd seen my fair share of landslides in the last month and thought nothing of it.

The tourist bus at 0630 offered the usual tricks of being late then not actually being a tourist bus but a local one.  I take local buses 'locally' but for longer rides it's good to have the upgrade of a sober driver, seat with a headrest and room to fit your legs in (I didn't say move them), and with fellow passengers who have washed and don't spit on the floor (instead of out of the window).  7 hours on a local bus.  Joy.

So there we all were banging out heads on the roof with the Chinese tourists all looking confused that they didn't have enough room to play Tiny Wings on their iPads.  The Chinese are 'the' travellers of this generation; just behind the Russians in their 21st century version of tourist colonialism.  The Chinese are everywhere in gangs and always have a Nikon or Canon SLR round their neck, a smart phone 2 inches from their face and an ability to shout and spit even more inappropriately than the Indians. 

Here's a pic of the average Chinese tourist; this was in my favourite restaurant in Pokhara where the social buzz was amazing, obviously not if you're Chinese.

The ride itself was comparable to offroad driving.  We were driving through the clouds and fog in monsoon rains and every once in a while the clouds would clear and you'd see a view resembling that of an airplane window at 5000m then your ANS kicked in and you realised that you didn't have wings.  Lucky for me it was a cloudy day.

So, the road had a bad reputation for landslides.  After 4 hours on the bus this was landslide#1

This was landslide #2

Landslide #3 was a nipper and the digger got through in just 30 minutes.  Then came #4......1 hour

and behind that was this

At which point the digger driver gave up and went home for a nice cuppa masala chai.  This was the other side of the above.  We were told 5-6 hours for it to be moved.  

BUT.  This was behind it....

At that point we saw a load of locals coming up the hill from Lumbini.   Lumbini was pretty much closed, the airport (my contingency) was flooded, the roads were closed and someone had been crushed just the other side of the above landslide so we decided to turn around.   Bearing in mind we were in a traffic jam of trucks, jeeps and buses and our bus driver was no-where to be seen we grabbed our bags and started trekking back up the hill.  Luckily after a few kms we came across a local jeep driver who wanted to cash in on the stranded westerns and offered us a ride back to Pokhara.  

All of a sudden the clouds cleared and we had a gorgeous day.  One of those special moment when you are travelling whether it's hanging out of a train in India or standing up in the back of a jeep in Nepal that you realise what a lucky fecker you are.  

Here's me and my Spanish mates in the jeep.

The best part was what was waiting for us once we got closer to Pokhara.  I've been in Nepal for a month and seen one summit for 10 seconds.  It was my last day close to the mountains and the curtains lifted for the finale.  And this was the standing ovation...

Goosebumps don't lie and upon seeing Annapurna in all her glory I realised I'd missed something quite special and immediately promised myself to come back and do the Annapurna circuit in the dry season. Who wants to come along?

So after returning to Pokhara for a second leaving night at The Lemon Tree I headed back to Kathmandu on the bus.  I met two girls I'd done Kundalina meditation with the week before so it all worked out rather splendidly.  

Being back in Kathmandu for my final day reminded me of something I'd seen just before I left last time.  30 scouts from the UK stopped by the side and their leaders make them do the green cross code.  It only encouraged the locals to play target practice. Never ever Stop look listen, just walk peacock style and hope for the best.  No Scouts were harmed in the experiment.

I'm leaving Nepal today, it's been a blast, and I hope that Nepal keeps stable after the upcoming elections.  Another reason I didn't head to Lumbini was as most of the south is on strike based on tensions between the two ruling Maoist parties.  Nepal is only 10 years out of civil war and the population has no faith in the government so I hope a peaceful resolution evolves.  

I'm off to the sunny south east today (Thailand) for a month's yoga at Agama before heading back to work in India (I finally got my passport back after a 3 week wait....thank you Indian diplomacy).  Every person I know who has gone to Agama in Thailand has stayed longer than they'd planned to.  Let's see what happens ;)

I was so high off the ground that I could see for miles around :)

I love mountains.  I've been lucky enough to trek in mountains on every continent and in Dublin I have big hills (bless) just 10 minutes spin from my house.  Nepal, however, is the ultimate destination for extreme peaks piercing the clouds.  Unfortunately, not during Monsoon!

I finally managed to escape Kathmandu and after a 7 hour bus ride turned into 10 hours thanks to a puncture and landslide I've spent the last 10 days in North East Nepal and mostly up in the clouds :)  Here's 20 seconds of me screaming:

and here's a quick flash of what else happened at altitude:

• Hip hop and hot pants
• Foto OD - Feck it it's the Himalayas and they is pretty
• North Fake and Gore Tex mi hole
• A mini vipassana for me - helped by leeches in the clouds
• When water is more expensive than a bed
• Me being in the Now
• MORE proof that Yoga is good :)

Firstly a note to all at home in Ireland.  I'm delighted you are all basking in the heatwave enjoying a Teddy's on Dun Laoghaire pier.  I'm guessing with temperatures above 30 degrees the good people of Ireland are even sunbathing at night - long may it continue.  I seem to have attracted a 'normal' Irish summer climate here with the average day being like this:

Pokhara is a gorgeous town next to a lake in North Eastern Nepal.  It's where people setup before heading off on most of the Himalayan treks.  It's also home to more foreign volunteers than I've ever met.   Even I feel guilty for not volunteering here.  In a country with even worse regulation of charities than India, Nepal is the fashionable capital to build schools and teach children English   Unfortunately very few are sustainable solid projects, most are just looking for a quick $ in return for some photos with cute kids.  If you are considering volunteering here please do your research first.  Two projects I highly recommend are UK charity The Mountain Trust in Pokhara and Irish charity Team Nepal.

One of my few dry sunsets in Pokhara.  

I spent a few days enjoying the fresh air taking a kayak across the lake and jumping off a hill doing a tandem paraglide.  I then headed to Sadhana Yoga, Nepal's most famous yoga retreat.  It was recommended by my yoga/yoda master Krishna Varma and I didn't know it was the #1 thing to do in Nepal according to The Lonely Planet.  If I had known I wouldn't have gone as the Lonely Planet makes for very outdated non-lonely recommendations. However, it was gorgeous, and a 5am to 9pm schedule of yoga/chanting/meditation/good food was just what I needed.  

My ankle also got it's first test with a quick trek up Sarankot the highest mountain in the valley.  This is the best local spot for views of full Himalayan mountain range.  I was clearly in Pokhara in the wrong season, a decent walk though.

A tandem paraglide from the side....with the World Peace Pagoda in the background

...and this is what it's supposed to look like (NOT MY PHOTO......Pokhara in the winter)

Paragliding goats....

  

Matthias, a swiss volunteer, entertaining the local kids. 

  

The local kids....

You can understand why volunteers want to work here.  The kids are gorgeous......

Most trekking tourists come to Nepal for Everest or Annapurna Base camp but now is not the season, monsoon is heavy, the leeches are on sucking duty and the views of the big peaks are rare. So as I knew the terrain of slippery rocks and monsoon would be a test for my ankle (three months ago I couldn't walk), I opted for the mini 5 day Poonhill circuit.

I went with my two mates Paula and Diego - this is 'team Castellano'  looking up at something BIG (alas it was a cloud covering a mountain)

As a guy who likes mountains I have a lot of technical gear.  90% of which is in storage in Europe.  I didn't get it sent over as I thought for a short trek in the summer I wouldn't need it so I shopped locally with North Fake and Gore Tex (mi hole) local gear.   My Gore Tex Hat turning to mush within 30 minutes of monsoon.  My big mistake, however,  was socks.  I'd happily part with 10euros for a pair of hiking socks in Dublin but seeing as that's more than 1 night's accommodation here with my travelling mindset I put up with shitty socks with holes in.  Compeed, blister plasters, I owe you.

These are a few of my fav mountain fashions I saw along the way: 

These shoes were worn by 'Hip Hop'.  A girl we met along the way who wanted to look cool in the mountains.  She also wore white hot pants.   I'm a fan of hot pants on hot girls but this is Nepal......hot pants aren't really respecting the local culture.  Besides, her hot pants were the sort of pants you could sail across the Atlantic with.  

My favourite bottom of the trip :)  (a far better example than Hip Hop's)

I might have not had the right socks but at least I had decent footwear.  Unlike this chap from England who had been walking for 10 days like this:

Owing to the monsoon our trip was more about nature than mountain views.  ASOMBROSO!

The hillside villages amongst the rice plains

The accomodation was first class....

And the food simple but nutritious (I've obviously been in Ireland too long as this meal was the best I've had in AGES)

Drying out the garlic for the more exotic 'Potatoes and Garlic'....celtic vibes creepin in

Below was my 10 seconds view of the Annapurna summit (middle left of photo at 8,091m).  It was when I realised that unlike other treks I'd done where I'm always at the front pushing ahead this trek I was actually enjoying every moment.  So much so that I didn't pick up my camera whilst the view was clear as I was simply spellbound.

We saw mountains everyday, but to see +5000m mountains was something very special.  The below was our typical sunset and it was amazing how the majesty of the mountains were caressed softly by the silk like clouds, weaving between the peaks like a patchwork quilt.  

Below is me doing Warrior II whilst looking at Annapurna (behind a cloud ;) )

The accommodation on the trek was a nice surprise, I'm used to soggy sleeping bag trekking but there were lodges along the route and for $10US you'd get a bed in a shared room, and three meals.  The rooms might have been on a sloping floor but they were comfy with big duvets.  

The surprise was water.  Supply and demand is an obvious concept to any tourist in a remote area but 1 litre of water was more expensive than a bed for the night.   It was the same price to get local Red Bull which may explain why all the local kids are running around totally wired with 1/2 their teeth missing.  We also opted to have a guide.  I'd had friends that had done it without one but for $10US/day between three people, our guide Shiva made sure we got the best hostels and helped us find the route when the landslides had wiped away the paths.  

The organisation of the trekking routes is good.   All the food and accommodation is maintained at a fixed price and although I got excited brainstorming the potential of a yoga retreat above the clouds it just wouldn't happen based on the regulations.  And that's a good thing for the local community.

Spending time with nature is always a good thing.  Although I missed out on Vipassana in Kathmandu I did find myself silent 90% of the trek.  I'm used to having my headphones on and pushing ahead but for this trek I walked slower and enjoyed every moment.  Thoughts are always there but for once I blocked it out pretty much for a whole trek and just enjoyed the now. Leeches sucked the blood out of me but it was as if they were detoxing my bad thoughts as walking in the clouds I had none.

Below is a day's worth of leeches on their funeral pile of salt

The villages have no access via road so all supplies are carried by these horsies.  They are treated well by the locals who to be fair often end up carrying even heavier loads on their heads 

We finished the trek 1 day early by coming down from 3,000 to sea level in 7 hours, not the brightest think to do with holes in your socks.  Below was a part of the day showing the gorgeous landscape.  For most of the last day the monsoon was so full on that even the cockerels sounded like they were drowning.

We met very few other trekkers.  One group that impressed me was a group of 30 teenagers from the UK doing their Duke of Edinburgh challenge on the 5 day trek.  Pretty impressive for 16 year olds.  However, I found it funny how they were always complaining with aches and pains and yet 2 decades older my yoga had my body feeling amazing every day.  Just sayin ;)

Team Castellano with Deepak the boss man from The Lemon Tree, our favourite restaurant in Pokhara.  

Next stop Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha via Nepals most precarious roads :)

A very close shave

There's been a change of plan.  I was supposed to be in Vipassana right now 3/4 way through 10 days of silence (no reading/writing/speaking/eye contact).  However, I was so sick when I arrived that I couldn't even fill in the form (two attempts to write my name below and it's still not my handwriting!).  Two days later and I was in hospital.  It all happened for a very very good reason :)

Here's how it all happened.....

+ Why listening to Dr Who is a bad idea

+ How I know when I'm sick

+ Nepalese Elephant porn

+ I have lunch with the mayor 

+ Shopping.....back to India

When I finished my last blog I was feeling pretty rough.  I'd had a chest infection for one month and in my yogi way had tried to battle it with honey, ginger and Vit C.  I'll stick to the alternative meds for prevention and chemical nukes for treatment in the future.  What I hadn't done was rest or go to the doc which resulted in it getting worse and combined with some food poisoning meant that I turned up at Vipassana looking like I was on the way to a methadone clinic.  Everyone was there wearing loose fitting summer clothes with big happy smiles.  I was there wearing all my layers, soaked in sweat with my hoody up as I couldn't stand the noise.  I couldn't stand the noise at the vipassana reception, the quietest reception you will ever go to.  I had taken some medical advice, I'd called Dr WHO (see prev post) and he had advised me to get some nukes from the local pharma.  Nukes which clearly weren't working.

Two days later, I found myself on the floor of the toilet, shaking with a chill, with my head over a bucket.  I decided to finally seek proper medical advice.  I went to the local international hospital and knew just how sick I was when I didn't flirt with a single nurse.  What I had wasn't that serious but I needed a day on IV to get me on the road to recovery.  I had chest and bowel infections and Dr WHO had misdiagnosed me on the phone and suggested something that made matters worse.  It was my fault.  I had pleaded in broken english with Dr WHO for something that would be a quick fix so that I could do Vipassana.  There was no quick fix.  

After the IV, Nepalese Momos was my diet for the last week :)

So I had 10 days on my hands in Kathmandu.  5 days to recover with a thermometer in my mouth.  I actually loved the downtime, indulging in the 'opposite of vipassana' with movie marathons, facebook overdose and long overdue chats with friends on skype.  It also meant I could catch up on really exciting things like tax returns, job applications, flights, visas.  And THAT is where I realised that it had all happened for a reason.

Indian visas are complicated.  I have had visas for countries in all continents and never come across such a cumbersome senseless process.  If you are a UK citizen they make this even more painful by charging nearly twice the price of most other passport holders.  My visa application process is becoming a problem as I've gone from tourist visa to employment visa back to tourist.  It appears although I've been helping out in the country they don't want me back.  Had I been in Vipassana I would not have been able to complete all the additional requests from the Indian embassy.  Not being in Vipassana also meant I got to say a proper goodbye to a lurvely Galway Gal I'd met out the week before.  It does, all happen for a reason ;)

So I'm now still in Kathmandu.  The embassy have my passport and I cannot leave until it's fixed.  If India were not so amazing, I would have ignored it and chosen to spend more time elsewhere but where I'm staying is full of people waiting for their passport for that very reason.  It is worth the wait.  

I'm now bored silly of Kathmandu.  I've met some very cool peops but despite being a quiet place in the mountains it is still a capital city.  And unlike the lovely Indian mountain resorts like Rishikesh, Kathmandu is not about yoga and peace it's about trekking and partying.  More like Cusco, a little Ibiza in the mountains.

The one thing it does have is shopping.  Being the closest big town to Everest base camp this is a trekkers delight for technical equipment.  There's a lot of fake stuff here but even that is top quality.  And if you are a fan of Hindu Deities, Buddha or mala beads then this is paradise.

Nepalese sellers are softly spoken in comparison to their Indian counterparts.  The only annoyance is the sarangi sellers.  A small nepalise folk music instrument which they will play right up next to your ear.  It's a poor cousin to the guitars I used to make at toddler group out of tuppawear and rubberband when I was 5.

Being a little party town there are also plenty of dealers around.  The one different kind of dealer you get here is Tiger Balm dealers.  You get guys poking out of dark alleys saying "hey my friend do you want some tiger balm.....it's good stuff."   Apparently it's an aphrodisiac.  I prefer Barry White and a glass of wine.  I did (remember I was bedridden for a week so had some time.....) google 'Tiger Balm aphrodisiac' and it seems women like the smell as it reminds them of a changing room full of men.   I'd LOVE to meet the women who completed that yahoo answers forum.

Just to mention the contrast to shopping in India. Customer service in India is bad.  You are assured good customer service in the 5* hotels but in most activities you'll be lucky if you get eye contact.  One thing that is changing that is supermarkets in India.  I'm a fan of buying local produce from local markets but at least the supermarket chains are introducing good service.  Whereas the market usually 1) charge me a special 'white lanky bloke' price and 2) cough all over my change.

   

This was my local supermarket in Karol Bagh.  Maximising use of the merchandise space.  Note that maximise is different from optimise......I couldn't get down the aisle. 

My local supermarket loved me.  The manager would always come over and shake the hand of the pale man in his shop, emanating me to Hollywood star status among his staff.  I was also the only person I ever saw who got let in with any bag (they take them off you for security) by the guard on the door.  Good job they don't know just how many cadburys cream eggs I used to nick from my local news agents as a kid ;)

Like anything in India, you always expect the unordinary to happen.  90% of the time I shopped in my local supermarket Bollywood music blared out of the speakers and my dizzy creative mind would imagine turning a corner to see all the staff among the barrels of rice busting out a Bollywood dance routine.  The only time I ever saw them animated to music was when Guns and Roses on the speakers.  The song was 'Crazy'.  Not the best song to learn English from ;)

Payment in India is also quite special.  PIN machines are a new concept and they often ask you for your PIN number as opposed to asking you to enter it.  When you do enter it, unlike the western world where we all look away, in India you get a little audience.  I like to play with this by saying four random numbers (not my PIN) totally confusing their English and hopefully keeping my cards are safe :)

Moving from Ireland to India is a bit of a culture shock re. booze.  And for someone who is a fan of fine wines I might as well be living at sea.  I got excited a few weeks ago when in Bangalore I saw a shop sign saying 'More than Wine & Cheese'.  Once I got closer I realised it was a trap and that like all alcohol shops in India it resembled a methadone clinic with the only alcohol being cheap spirits in brown bags.  Apart from in the more cosmopolitan urban areas alcohol is kept out of sight in India.  

Back to my boredom in Kathmandu.  I decided that although I had to stay here at the beck and call of the Indian embassy I could still head off to random places on the bus.  For 20 cents you can hop on a local bus for a few hours to one of many local gems.  My fav so far have been Bhaktapur and Dulikhel.  Travelling alone on the local buses, my favourite question from the locals was "Do you not have any friends?".  Quite the upgrade from the Indian introduction of "Are you married?"

Life gets boring in Kathmandu...

The bus isn't always the best option....

Durbar Square, Bhaktapur

 

If Carlsberg made temples...

Erotic Elephant temple in Bhaktapur.  Do not try this at home.

Owing to this being low season, I found myself as one of a handful of tourists on my trip to Dulikhel.  No-one spoke any English at a restaurant so they summoned a man wearing a suit from an office nearby.  This was the first person I'd seen in Nepal with an iPhone, more importantly he had white socks to go with his pressed suit and shiney shoes.  This gentleman, the town mayor, ended up having lunch with me and showing me around his enchanting village.  A village with some of the best views of the himalayas in Nepal and owing to the monsoon, alot of cloud cover whilst I was there.

I should be out of here in a few days.  Heading to Pokhara for some yoga, trekking and mountain biking. Then, pending landslides, down to Lumbini to see the birthplace of Buddha.  I'm then heading to Thailand for a month of yoga and tantra workshops in Koh Phangan (not the knackersville side of the island....the blissville side).  Happy Dayz.

Prayer Wheels outside Swayambhunath