[JPM Travel Journals]
INDIA and NEPAL 01
Intro to India
Holi Holy Vrindaban
The Sadhu in Taj's Shadow
Pushkar's Respite
A Sitar & a Vespa in Udaipur
The Clean-Bombing of Mumbai
Goa Beach Hippie Sighting Tours
Unequal Vision in Benares
Everest, Out the Window
Into Their Thin Air
Anna Purr Now
Within You Without You
Rishikesh Part 2
Amritsar: Bold, Gold
His Holiness of Dangerous Liasons
Delhi Visit #5
New Delhi Turns to New York
[ PHOTO ARCHIVE ]
22 April 01
Thamel. Kathmandu, Nepal.
The entry I am about to write cannot do proper justice or documentation the excitement and experience of the past few days; I will try. Four days or so ago I left India (Varanasi) via a two day bus trip crossing the border at Sonauli into Nepal. I slept in a ramshackle guesthouse there at the border after obtaining my visa, and in the morning was back on a bus, and as I expected, riding with the chickens and rice sacks and the few other odd tourists-- but mostly Indians and Nepalis singing and belching and playing little musical instruments for the next eight hours.
Gazing on the Roof of The World.
We stopped more times than I could count on the digits of every rider of the bus, but finally we made it to Kathmandu in the evening. Somewhere along the way I think I ate a samosa or something with a touch of something that isn't agreeing with my belly. Never before in Mexico, Asia, India, Africa had I caught the obiquitious traveller's potty-anxiety-syndrome ... but yes, the last few days I finally had my humbling touch of such aggravation. Actually I think its pretty much run it's 48 hour course, and as long as the air pollution and other toxins don't hamper me I'll be moving on fine.
Arriving in Nepal-- I was so out of my head, and the culture shock was strangely harder than anything I've experienced (with the possible exception what it was like to walk the streets of NYC after a month in S.E. Asia.) Now, after six weeks in India, then being on a bus for two days and then here in Kathmandu, Thamel, such a touristy and westernized Bangkok-Khao-San of sorts; so disorienting. Even the next morning I was feeling really strange.
I splurged and jumped from the $2/night guesthouse room bracket of the last few weeks, to a fat $5 a night room with my very own bathroom and even a carpet. Hell, this place even gives you little soap bars and towels! I took my first hot shower in about three weeks and realized that the rich deep tone of my skin wasn't a tan as much as I thought it was-- it was road filth and perhaps too much ash from watching dozens of cremations in Varanasi. (Sick, yes, I know.)
Kathmandu is a carnival. Out the door now I see legless beggars on simple wooden push-carts, hand push-blocks, & with tyre innertube rubber for 'pants' and those that have knees are so calloused from the crawling on the tarmac -- its incomprehensible.
Despite my ambitions to meet some Bona Fide Mountain Climbers, heck, at least just to chat and fantasize, I haven't been so lucky. Plenty of western tourists that have rolled into Kathmandu for a few days of R&R and meeting their own kind at the western bars. Recalling mountaineering stories (Krakauer, etc) I'm seeking out the places where the eccentric, bearded suicide kings hang out and plan their mountain assaults. At the Kathmandu Guest House, I joined a map-gazing party of three young and yet (possibly) experienced climbers who were drooling over their map and permits for (Khumbu Region) Island Peak and Meru Summit, ~6400m. I told them I did some trekking and climbing in Mexico, plenty of camping and hiking and outdoor stuff and had hoped to do something modest here in the Himalaya... one scoffed at me: 'Dude, you've never even used ropes?' 'No, sorry, we had to turn around on Ixta even before I got to put on the crampons, but we did sleep at 15500 feet' 'Hmm. Yeah, well, you'll like the circuit trek.' (Flips his dirty blonde San Francisco dreadlocks around over his shoulder and scratches his billy goat's gruff.) Hmmph. Ecuador, next fall.
As for the humbling Everest peak itself, or even its Base Camp, I think the closest I will come (this time) was an early morning Himalaya sighting flight that I took early yesterday morning. Clear as could be with only the air and the glass between us, my own eyes gazed upon this earthen roof.
Woke at 5am and took a taxi to the Kathmandu airport, $100 flight ticket and flew roundtrip one hour, past a long gorgeous range of peaks and valleys, out to Everest (everyone crowds to the leftside of the plane, and individually we are called, allowed to the cockpit to chat with the pilots and pretend like we are buzzing the top of the terrestial earth at over 8000 metres / up to almost 30,000 feet.) then we turn around, everyone crowds to the right side of the plane. Each has a window seat and its truly a beautiful experience. Emotional, intense, but that's just the Emo in me finding a way as always. I was listening to New Order (Elegia) for the take-off and in my seat of this two-prop plane, courting my dizziness from anxious lack of sleep. It was like a hallucination.
It was hard to believe it was indeed Everest, Sagarmatha, Chombulonga. It wasn't until we were back (it all went so quick) that I was realizing the fullness of what I'd just experienced. A pity to be virtually alone for this.
I had a similarly chilling (in a good way) experience this morning, in a mountaineering shop, holding in my hands the cold metal cannister of an oxygen tank, battered from use. I was imagining this heavy can strapped to my back and a mask on my face, struggling to the top of K2 or Lhtoste. An Einsturzende Neubauten song (Stella Mars) in my head... about the depths of the ocean, the Mariana trench, the ceilings of the world, the spectrum of altitude and depth relative to human feeling, emotion, love. Tingling, it was in fact sensuous.
So many places I turn, I look, I pause, here in Kathmandu and I feel on the verge of tears from the intensity. It puts into perspective this aforementioned spectrum of human culture, achievement, apathy, aspiration-- everything. You see dreams and hopes and frustration and poverty and wealth and realization all in the span of five seconds and shudders run through your frame, you can feel the blood rushing, your eyes get wet.
- - -
Tomorrow, assuming I sort out all the details, inventory, and cerebral matters, I plan to leave for Pokhara, a small town used as the launching point for most Annapurna ascents and trekking in that region. Then I will spend four to five weeks trekking in this Himalayan heaven, this paradisical land of the gods. Honestly, it's the most spiritual I've felt in a while. (Ironically, India made me feel far -less- spiritual or theistically inclined-- watching, reading, hearing the fighting, hypocrisy of the so-called holy.)
Looking at these mountain peaks-- whether on foot, or from the window of the plane or seat of the bus coming into the Kathmandu valley... it makes one realize the scale of this physical world, how small we are all, how our pyramids and great walls and chrysler buildings are mere anthills. I think I could sooner bow to these peaks, these massive mounds to the heavens, then identify with blue gods, fat bellied saints, or thorn crowned martyrs. Of course, Leonard Cohen's got one up on me, and if I nail down some haiku and get any further into this incidental celibacy, I might well take on a Zen robe-- as long as I can still have a motorcycle. (Smirking.)
I parked my new sitar with my teacher in Varanasi, where I will return in a few weeks, but I've got enough Harrison and the Beatles to hopefully keep me occupied musically, classically. And yes, of course, Viva Hate and Steady Diet of Nothing are my most frequent indulgences. If I don't listen to Morrissey and Fugazi, SOMEWHERE in each exotic country I see, it's like something is missing. To be fair, I usually want some Low and Cocteau Twins too. We always bring a scrap of home, of home's head with us, even to the crevasses of nowhere, everywhere, anywhere.
Planning to try and read/write some more tomorrow or the next day in Pokhara. After that, I'll be off the wires for probably a month, somewhere in the Himalaya, further questioning my sanity; and/or questioning the sanity of the western world. It's the common question of am I crazy or is everyone else crazy?
If I learn to stop asking, I think I've made some significant improvement. If not, I'll just learn how to ask the same hyper-aware, existential questions in other languages.
Into Their Thin Air >>
©2001 JPM. All photography and writing copyrighted.