Annapurna ho!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, after spending the last two days in Pokhara Codie and I are ready to venture forth into the great (kind of-sort of) unknown of the Annapurna mountain range. We checked our trekking ability earlier on this trip outside of Kathmandu an I realized that $6 hiking boots from a vendor in Thailand will fall apart after three days (seriously...both pairs no longer are attached to the soles without the expert stitching of Nepali shoe repair employees). Codie realized the painful lesson of hiking with a pack in flip flops for a day, and we both ditched half the junk we brought on our first excursion for this length of our trip. We are heading up ten days to the Annapurna Base Camp (that's where the real hard core people keep going to the top...we are not hardcore). It's not Everest but there is snow and it's far. We're excited to exist on a steady diet of Dahl Baht (Lentils and rice with seasoning) for the next few days and to really get into the Nepali mountain range.
Pokhara is a Nepali tourist town with a great mountain view but we managed to beat the crowds today by renting bikes and boats and rowing out in the lake to watch the sunset as devotees hired boats to visit the island's Hindu temple. We didn't go to the temple but we did rock out to the sounds of Tibetan monks singing Nepali pop songs from the boat close to ours. Check back with you in 10 days! Happy March!

Shiva's Birthday + Tibetan New Year = Busy Day

A few days ago Codie and I were staying at a Tibetan Monastery in Kathmandu that was situated next to one of the biggest stupas (Buddhist pointy thingies that are supposed to hold the relics of a Buddha (an enligthened person).....or in this case THE BUDDHA...and by relics, I mean bones. This one may have a toe, a finger, a ribcage. Who knows?) in the world. The place was peaceful, beautiful, and had the best alarm clock in the world. Starting at 3am the monks were in the main hall chanting, playing drums, and blowing on incredibly long copper horns (I'm talking long, like two people need to hold one, long). While this was quite a way to wake up, it was also really early and lasted all morning long. When we finally got up to see if this was an everyday occurrence or whether we were just the lucky two who got the all night show, we found out that, surprise, it was the last day of the celebration of Losar, Tibetan New Year, and we were invited to spend the afternoon celebrating. There are a lot of refugees here in Nepal and the Bouddha area of Kathmandu is an especially thriving Tibetan community. Crazy enough, we were at the monastery because it was within walking distance of another festival Mahashivaratri, SHiva's Birthday, which was being celebrated at Pashupatināth, the biggest SHiva center in Nepal.
So....we made a day of it. We spent 3 hours at the monastery as monks danced in elaborate outfits, that were like nothing I have seen--a cross between a witch hat and a royal outfit, as other monks in yak fur hats that resembled Spartan warriors watched on. The dancer would pick up different objects to be offered as Puja (Ritual offerings) and spin around with them gracefully. This lasted two hours before two guys with orange masks came out and ran away with an obscene cake featuring a depiction of the male anatomy that looked like it had been molded with feces. I didn't get it, but after they scurried away with the demon cake we all went outside and threw everything in a haystack (all while still doing the circle dance mind you) and then lit everything on fire. My kind of party!
It was late afternoon at this point and although the Tibetan monks threw one heck of a shindig, we still wanted to make it over to Shiva's Birthday party. That's when things got out of control. There were home made toll booths on the way down that kids had set up and made us pay to pass or we would suffer the wrath of their water balloons. A dollar fifty later, we reached the temple grounds.....and so did about 400,000 other Shiva devotees. We became part of the great flow, past the traditional singers and the eight year old rocking out on the drums, past the naked holy man dancing below us, past the crazy monkeys who kept trying to eat my popcorn, and ended up on a bridge watching funeral pyres burn over the river while talking to a group of men who wanted to explain the intricacies of Hinduism in broken English. All in all, a great day to explore two faiths living la vida loca.

Namaste or should I go?

C and C Thai factory is taking a little hiatus from the Land of Smiles to visit the land of Chai tea, mountains, and living goddesses. Thailand is entering the Hot, hot season and it's summer vacation for the kids (I know, I know, I get two summer vacations this year. So not fair). We took off Monday to Kathmandu, Nepal and are going to be here for a month before heading back to Thailand where we will spend the rest of our summer break touring Thailand and teaching English in a small coastal area for a month before school starts again.
Kathmandu is a place I am already feeling is beyond my capacity as a writer and photographer to adequately describe. I keep feeling like I am a character in a movie watching the city go by.
LONGSHOT- An airplane is landing in the Kathmandu airport. We see our two travelers going across the tarmac.
MEDIUM SHOT- They get closer and we can see they are tired form the 10 hour train ride and 4 hour flight. We follow them into the airport. The VISA room is about the size of a VFW in Northern Wisconsin and smells like one too. Sixties carpeting and stale cigarette smoke overtake the senses.
CLOSEUP- travelers faces as they wait for an hour for the Visa workers to process the line of Visa (not because of the length of the line but because the Visa worker flirts with every girl going through the line and pauses after every stamping to laugh and talk to the other Visa employees).
CUT TO TRAVELLERS OUTSIDE THE AIRPORT. They are getting into a tiny car and are getting their first glimpses of the city.
CLOSE UP on dropped mouths.
LONG SHOT-The camera now follows their eyes as they slide down the mountain hill into the valleys of Kathmandu. The background noise is overwhelming with motorbikes honking and large trucks and buses honking customized horns like ringtones. They drive down a mix of gravel, sand, and paved roads. As they drive we see the city from the side window. It is always dusty to the point where some images seem to be in in sepia tones. A woman cutting a half carcass of a buffalo in a a cave like shop about the size of a closet. Not even room to stand. We drive pass open door passages that give a glimpse of a stupa inside. The next doorway has kids, an undetermined age, playing cricket in a Hindu temple the wicket barely missing the top of a stupa. Outside the doors are another group of teenagers shooting marbles with the looks of hard faced gamblers in Las Vegas betting it all. We drive past a cart selling popcorn and roasted nuts in bags made out of old test papers from the university. We see a group of Nepali teens holding hands and laughing as they make their way down the sidewalk. A thousand pigeons suddenly shoot up in front of the car blurring the images ahead. We see 17 cars, bikes, trucks, motorbikes, old ladies, children, and dogs all heading toward the same point in a roundabout.
CLOSEUP- The shock on the travelers faces that no one has been hit, sideswiped, or trampled.
FADE TO BLACK
More to come....