:5/31-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 still on khao san road, ack
|
i finally bought an internet access card
and now i have almost free internet from my hotel room (hence
this update). yay! i don't know why i haven't done this before.
usually i don't want to spend the time sitting on my ass and
munching snacks while i surf when i can be out living life.
now however i have some research to do....i think i have maybe
decided to go home for the summer. or to NY that is. as much
as i totally dread the thought, i have to go back sometime.
my friend katie has a room all ready and even if i get only
a crappy waitress job i will be making more money there than
i can here in asia. maybe i should stock up for the next travelling
season. we'll see... meanwhile goodbye may.
|
|
:5/30-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 spirit houses in siam center
|
i finally kicked ot out this morning because i am spending
so much money with/on him and doing nothing otherwise. he
went to stay with his brother and i went to the internet
cafe to research fares and possible jobs. got nowhere so
i traipsed to surawong road to STA travels to see what they
could do for me in the way of round the world tickets. they
informed me that it is actually more expensive to buy a
round the world ticket in bangkok than anywhere else if
your itinerary includes south america. so i came here for
nothing, basically. ugh. still really have no idea where
to go, actually. i keep getting psychotic emails from my
"friends" in nepal (who apparently misunderstand
every email i send them until we have found ourselves in
quite the quagmire of ridiculous miscommunication), and
between that and the fact that there don't seem to be any
volunteer opportunities until next season, i suppose i won't
be going back there.
spent the evening missing ot, surprisingly, and chatting
with some cute british kids over too many drinks.
|
|
:5/29-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 view of houses from canal boat
|
ditto yesterday. i took otto to see a movie
in siam square, which in his entire life in thailand he had
never done. he was rather awed by the busy lights and the
plush VIP theater. sometimes i forget he's from backwoods
isaan. the matrix 2 was rather silly if anyone wants to know.
i also dragged him to a bar in nana plaza which i remembered
had really good beer on draft. he was embarassed, being a
beach boy in the big city. luckily there was a little girl
from isaan working at the bar who made him relax a bit while
i perused the roomful of attractive pool players.
|
|
:5/28-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 ot in his tightey whiteys
|
typical bangkok day with ot, just wandering
around and doing absolutely nothing i intended to do. we went
book shopping, hung out on the river for a bit, ate thai food,
and went to bed early.
|
|
:5/27-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

taka from tokyo
|
spent most of the day with the adorable taka. turns out
the thai boy last night stole his cellphone and money as
well. we met up so i could give him his camera and ended
up drinking and chain smoking for about 5 hours. it's hard
to communicate with japanese people, their language is completely
alien. luckily he had a little pocket translator so we managed
okay. i have a big fat crush on him and for once in my life
it is reciprocated. we have plans to meet up again.
ot called me later, on his way to see me. i sort of freaked
out because i wasn't ready to get back into the whole ot
"thing". i went to wait for him at sawasdee house
and got drunk with robin's friend whom i mentioned earlier,
and ot showed up carrying his drum and looking crazy. i
had told him on the phone he couldn't stay with me and he
had to understand that i need my space to hang with other
people. he could barely hold back his tears... sigh. after
a couple of drinks and lots of desperate weird conversation
on the river i couldn't resist the kid and let him stay
with me after all. i can't help but love him, a little bit.
i just don't want to support him, dammit!
|
|
:5/26-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 buddha
 wat pho |
i had a marvelous day by myself- sort of
figured out my itinerary for the next, well, year. it's sort
of a big chunk out of my cash flow but if i do end up buying
the ticket i had quoted today it will make me very happy-
it goes from bangkok back to nepal for 2 months (to volunteer
or screw around or whatever), then home to make money, then
to south america, and back to southeast asia. i may go back
and buy it tomorrow but i am not in any real big hurry. i
took a tuk tuk with a friendly chatty driver to wat po and
had a nice massage by a cute thai boy with strong hands. snapped
a few photos of the reclining buddha for posterity. later
i went out and had some somtam (spicy papaya salad) and a
few heinekens at khao sarn center. i was sitting there alone
and i noticed this drop dead gorgeous guy next to me, also
alone. hrmmm. i am not usually aggressive at all but i figured
what do i have to lose? so i (rather nervously, in fact in
the process i chain-smoked an entire pack of cigarettes--ick!)
struck up a conversation with him. turns out he's a model
from tokyo (named taka). he's sooooo cute. completely shy.
almost to the point where he has no personality but by the
end of the night i drew him out a bit. we talked a for awhile
together in broken english until the next table of young,
drunk europeans invited us to join them, so then we sat there
amazed by their uninhibited sexuality and their 3 day alcohol
binge, feeling sort of stodgy and prude together. we finally
ditched them and walked around. ended up at susie's pub, which
is a mostly thai bar-cum-club. i haven't drunk so much in
a long time but somehow i managed to not be too inebriated.
i danced my ass off though. we met a thai guy and a guy from
ecuador. i was happy to practice my spanish with the guy from
ecuador (i can actually carry on a semi-lucid conversation!)
and the thai guy was just super friendly and fun. we had a
great time until the bar closed and kicked us out. somehow
i ended up in a cab with the thai guy (hat was his name) and
taka, headed for taka's hotel. he was really wasted so i wanted
to make sure he got there okay. we went into the hotel, got
him into his jammies, checked out his amazing balcony and
his cable tv, and hat and i left, having done our good deed
for the evening. we headed back to khao san road with dance
music blasting, boogeying along with our happy driver. all
the sudden hat pulls a camera out of his pocket and starts
flipping through the pictures. i realized it was taka's camera
which this idiot had stolen. i gave him a look and snatched
it out of his hand. he flipped out, tried to tell me his brother
gave it to him, tried to hit it out of my hand.... i was really
worried i would have a big problem at 3 am in the middle of
nowhere, with no one but my no-english speaking driver to
defend me. luckily we arrived at khao san before it could
blow itself too out of proportion and i jumped out with the
camera and a sneer. had to make a run for it so he wouldn't
chase me. ran to my reggae friend's shop shaking and completely
disgusted. it does give me a reason to have to see taka again
(luckily i have his email/phone number) which is quite nice,
but yikes, can't people be fucking cool for once?
|
|
:5/25-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 |
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
this is my head. one minute i am definitely going to eastern
europe. but i bought the eastern europe lonely planet and
it was completely boring so the next minute i decided to
go home now, instead of when i get to the point where i
have to or else, and make money to continue travelling with
when the good season kicks in. but i looked on monster.com
and thought about the grueling, soul killing process of
getting a job and was depressed into a plan going straight
back to nepal to volunteer during monsoon season. ack. i
guess i just have to let things fall into place... (five
baht if you guess which one i am leaning towards).
thailand, phew! it's so weird. it's nice to have it to
myself. i sat and read in the bangkok post today that sir
edmund hillary entered trivandrum airport in kathmandu just
as i was leaving. he's there for the everest 50th anniversary.
would have been cool to meet him. also robin arrived in
pokhara the day after i left, of course. anyhoo back to
thailand; i went to siam center to try to see the matrix
2 but it was sold out so i walked around and did nothing.
bought an umbrella just in time for the big afternoon rain.
one reason i've always like khao san road (perhaps the
hippest neighborhood in the universe) is because you find
yourself in such strange random situations with strange
random people. later on tonight my psycho magnet did its
thing and i ended up chatting to this old australian junkie.
the first thing he told me was that he had come to thailand
to "use" because it was cheaper, but he'd had
bad timing because there's a big drug war on here. yeah
sob, poor guy.... that should have been my notice to quit
the situation but i didn't. he ended up being pretty interesting.
he went on to say he'd just gotten out of prison in bangkok
(ack)....we kept finishing each others' sentences so i guess
we had something in common though. we went to a bar behind
the temple in the only quiet area in this whole vicinity.
it was full of thai guys in muscle shirts and big scowls.
blues in the background. 2 vicious looking pit bull puppies
with tattoos on their bellies and thick chain collars ran
around. we played pool with some swedish boys who were so
good as to be redundant. a perfectly sculpted ladyboy joined
in (i wanted to tell him, er, her that they had done a good
job on...it). my guardian angel instincts kicked in as well
and i kept snapping at nicola (my friend) to stop nodding
off, sit up straight and breathe. it seemingly had never
occured to him to try and discipline his mind and control
himself and the big toothy monkey on his back... but maybe
it's just not that easy. i felt sorry for him because i
could tell he'd be a good guy if he wasn't so pathetically
dependent on a stupid drug....still, not the kind of friends
i want to be making here on my own, so i excused myself
to go say a quick hello to my reggae "friends"
and grab some grilled chicken and sticky rice before bed
in front of cable.
|
|
:5/24-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 |
today was same old same old thailand. sort of soothing
in that i don't have to think a whole lot- it's all reflexive
by now... but also sort of depressing because i feel like
i should not be here(!). i ate noodle soup this morning,
spent about 3 hours online trying to decide where to go,
and eventually ended up in a cab to STA travels in downtown
bangkok where i planned to get some quotes on round the
world tix. unfortunately i didn't consider the fact that
it was saturday and they were closed, so i sat and had a
frappucino at starbucks (how westernized thailand is!) and
went right back to khao san. i did a bit of people watching.
thailand is a pure hormone fest if i ever saw one, i'll
give it that. lots of cute people of both sexes to drool
over.
khao san road is full of sexy trendy backpackers doing not
much of anything worthwhile in their own insulated little
brat packs, and the thai people that come here are are pretty
hip and really just as bad. there are rasta thais with their
dreadlocks and apathy, skinhead thais with shaved heads
wearing braces and lace up knee high docs, the label whores
wearing gucci and donna karan, the gayboys with tight t-shirts,
cute haircuts, and their flaming lisps, the little mod girls
in mini skirts, driving vespas, meatheads in muscle shirts
with tattoos and motorcycles... hip music, hip clothes,
pop culture. every aspect of (western) society has representation
here and sometimes it strikes me as totally ridiculous.
i might as well be in new york!.... won't get into that
all again, i went over it yesterday. (sorry, just realizing
that my precious thailand is not "all that".)
i had dinner and my usual mai tai at sawasdee house, predictably
ending up next to a friend of my ex-travelmate robin's from
holland (koon) that i had met before. we started chatting
and he invited me to go dancing with him and some other
people, but then i remembered i don't like him at all. previously
he had talked badly about me to robin and about robin to
me. he's one of those people who talks a lot but has nothing
much to say. like i said anyway, i have no interest in anyone
western anymore at this point. i dismissed myself promptly
and walked around a bit. i ran into a thai friend of otto's
(gun) from the reggae bar on ko chang. we went drinking
(i got very drunk since my tolerance has lowered a bit with
my recent teetotalling), and he made every effort to pin
me down before otto could get to me this time. he tried
to get me to take him to one of the islands in the south,
all expenses paid. i have had quite enough of that manipulative
crap lately so i excused myself from him as well.
stopped and bought some grilled liver and corn on the cob
from my usual lady and went to my room for the night. exasperated,
to tell the truth. not in the mood for "same same"
at all. as soon as i decide where to go i am getting the
hell out of here.
...also in thailand i smoke too much, drink too much, and
stuff myself with tons of crap. i feel flabby and withered
and listless. got to get to someplace healthy.
|
|
:5/23-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 |
i met a strange australian genius yesterday evening over
a plate of bad spaghetti and a couple glasses of wine in
kathmandu. he was the man of 1000 names (he explained that
when you travel you constantly acquire new names, which
is true...he was usually called bill), with long flyaway
red hair and startling blue eyes. he was as hippified and
freaky as anyone who has spent the last 5 years motorbiking
around india must have to be. he was extremely well read
and self educated. yet he was dyslexic which caused him
to see anagrams left and right in the english language,
and he would pinpoint the most obscure associations in any
conversational path, usually leading back around to something
related to satan and his influence on the world. i believe
he was crazy but sometimes it's really interesting and mind
opening to meet an intelligent psycho. makes you question
your prejudices a bit.
anyway last night i was all set to leave nepal and then
checked my email to find a note from a place with a volunteer
opportunity right in pokhara teaching internet skills to
tibetans for free room and board. perfect. of course the
airline ticket office was closed by then so i couldn't put
mine off.... this morning i tried to miss my plane but guiltily
found myself at the counter staring at a sign saying that
it was delayed 3 1/2 hours.... i agonized the whole time
waiting over what to do and promised myself at check in
i would ask to change the date, but at the last minute chickened
out and got on the plane.... had to hold my breath and clench
my fists to prevent myself running off before takeoff, and
at the last glimpse of the himalayan peaks from the window
i felt my heart sink into a murky depression. let me tell
you i am already seriously mourning the loss of nepal in
my life. i don't know how to explain it, i have never felt
like this about a place. yeah, ko chang. but ko chang is
a fairly plastic, prepackaged westernized experience in
an admittedly gorgeous setting, but compared to nepal it
just isn't real, you know?
i sat next to a cute nepali guy on the plane. it was his
first time flying and he was nervous and i calmed him down.
he innocently squealed at every dip and dive of the turbulent
ride, and i fell asleep for a bit to wake up later feeling
him clutching my arm. he had 23 hours more to go when i
disembarked- he was headed to texas to study. i completely
fell in love with him of course, as i do with most nepalis
instantly. there is something about the people that i just
know. after he left i felt rather irrationally devastated.
like he was my last thread to the country.
got to bangkok and went through the whole same same process....got
my usual freaking room (#1303) at d&d inn (ack why do
they do that to me) & sat on khao san road eating somtam
and grilled chicken (have to admit that's a benefit to being
here)....looking around i realized how fake thailand can
be. the country's motto should really be "rape me"
because it gives itself up so freely to western exploitation.
it's hardly it's own culture anymore. the people on khao
san for example are so ostentatiously dressed and there
is so much excess everywhere; music, drinking, partying,
spending of money on useless crap. their priorities are
different here- it was almost culture shock coming from
innocent simplistic nepal. usually i get to bangkok and
am relieved to be able to buy snacks and have a choice of
shampoos and be able to listen to western music...conveniences
& all that... but after nepal where i learned to really
live basically it seems almost obscene being here. thai
people are so "hip" and friendly and easy going,
but they aren't really so sincere. and everything is just
too easy. i don't know what i am trying to say but nepal
changed me(!), and i think that it may have almost surpassed
thailand in my list of favorite countries. i am tempted
to get right back on a plane to pokhara and just lose myself
in that simplicity and loveliness for some long length of
time.
i decided the only way to deal with my confusion was to
get completely smashed. i had successfully met this goal
with a few mai tais on an empty stomach by about 8p. i was
sitting with two stylin' black gals from some place in africa
i had never heard of. i liked their attitudes. they invited
me to an african dance club on sumkhuwit rd. but i am far
too white, too shy, and too uncool to even attempt dancing
in a place like that. so they left and i ended up chatting
with the manager of khao sarn center. i have been to this
place maybe a hundred times and never met him before- his
name is peter and he's half black half malaysian. he instantly
got himself infatuated with me and invited me to the back
to play pool and have free drinks with an english couple.
we drank sangsom (another benefit) and i got fairly well
fucked considering i had started the evening pretty trashed
to begin with. i liked the people but i realized i am just
not into the traveller scene anymore. british people especially
have to be very witty and snappy, and i am just too straightforward
to be funny. i don't get half of what they say, and to be
honest i just don't care about western people any longer(!)...
they invited me to go to peter's apartment with them tomorrow
for a big seafood lunch and some swimming in his pool, but
i would rather hole up in my room and analyze and re-analyze
what i have learned about life in the past couple of weeks
and hope it gets me closer to some kind of plan. thailand
is dangerously seductive, a fucking trap, and i don't want
to let it get to me this time. the longer i stay here the
more i will forget, the easier it will be to get right back
into the whole thailand thing (partying with travellers),
and right now i just want a little bit of real life.....i
don't think i am even going to let otto know i am here.
|
|
:5/22-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

bye nepal

|
it's storming today in kathmandu which leaves me little
in the way of options other than to plan in my room. i suppose
the monsoon has arrived and thus it's best for me to go.
i have a tentative plan to spend one week in bangkok buying
a round the world ticket, which will start with summer in
eastern europe, include a 3 month pit stop in the US where
i will replenish my funds, take me to south america this
winter, and back to asia in spring. i hate planning though
so i am sure there will be a lot of tooth grinding and hand
twisting when it comes to commiting myself to this plan.
either way, i hope to make it back to lovely nepal next
year for trekking. i miss it already. :(
my plane leaves tomorrow morning at 8:30a for bangkok.
|
|
:5/21-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

bye goats
 bye momos
|
now ladies and gentlemen, i am confused. i left pokhara
for kathmandu this morning with tears in my eyes that didn't
subside until about three hours into my cramped bus trip.
there is not a bone in my body which wants to leave nepal
(especially if it means returning to thailand, which i have
done to death), but if i stay here i am fodder for the nepali
vultures which is both redundant and rather expensive. my
bus took the same route that bikash and i had traversed
several times before on motorbike through the mountains,
and the thought that this might be the last time i see these
marvelous places for a very long time instills utter panic
in my spine. so what to do? i would like to change my ticket
and stay and work for an orphanage/school, however knowing
nepalis as i do now i am quite certain volunteering would
very quickly turn into my financially supporting a child
or children or the whole damn school. plus it's almost monsoon
season. which means being trapped somewhere most of the
days....ack!
i hit kathmandu after a sticky, tedious 8 hour bus trip
and got a rather shabby room at hotel the earth for 300r.
immediately ran into the gorgeous rafting guide asu with
muscles rippling seductively as usual on the street. he's
very shy and i managed to halfway secure a very noncommital
plan to have drinks before i leave. better than nothing
though. i think my last ditch effort will be to find myself
a nepali boyfriend. that's the ticket, then i would have
to stay right? so many nepali men are absolutely fascinating
and gorgeous, completely innocent and corruptible (or should
i say enlightenable), and most of them would do just about
anything for an american girlfriend. i wouldn't mind having
one myself, even if i have to support him a bit. something
to work on tomorrow. :) i have one day to implement this
questionable plan.
|
|
:5/20-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

goodbye expensive bikash

corpse parade (dead grandparents) |
i expected that a round the world trip would change my
antisocial and distrustful perspective where people are
concerned but if anything it has made me significantly more
jaded and i like human nature a whole lot less. today that
was made especially obvious. i knew from the moment i woke
up that i would have to make the decision today to stay
in nepal or go back to kathmandu & get on a plane to
bangkok on the 23rd. i packed my bags and paid my guesthouse
and decided beyond that i wasn't going to do anything else,
i'd let fate decide. so i met up with weird karma by the
lake, whose mood was strange and impenetrable as usual and
who immediately and shamelessly begged me to buy some of
his jewelry without so much as a friendly hello. once again
i paid him 1000 rupees for something i will never wear.
i left him (dodging his greedy tibetan friends who all wanted
a piece of the moola action), had some conversations with
friends on the waterfront and at the music shop, then headed
for bikash's house. bikash moved today actually, into a
new room. he told me he couldn't really afford it so stupidly
& sympathetically i offered him rent money, which he
wasted no time in accepting. he hinted that he couldn't
eat this month either but i ignored that. i told him i might
be leaving and helped him decorate and we smoked a wee joint
and sat chatting nostalgically about all the fun things
we had done together. then he mentioned he would like to
go to the bazaar (shopping district). i agreed without thinking
and we set off in a taxi with two of his friends. i paid
for the taxi and we got to the bazaar and we all had a nice
huge lunch. paid for that too.
i don't mind helping people, okay, in fact it is in my
nature to do so. but there is a point where it goes over
the line (isn't there?). we went to a couple of shops and
i realized bikash had no money and was waiting for me to
volunteer mine. basically he expected me to furnish his
new house. we would go into a shop and he would look at
something he wanted and say "aww... that's too expensive
for me" and look at me with his big innocent eyes.
i completely ignored him and hung back with his friends
until he'd finally walk out of the shop empty handed...
we ended up at an electronics store. bikash's cassette walkman
had broken a week ago and he had no music so i had bought
him a cheap one from the tourist district. they didn't have
any good ones and this particular one didn't even work.
i felt bad, apologized and said i would return it and get
him a new one... today he held me to that, and in the electronics
store he managed to connive me into buying one of the most
expensive stereo systems for him. by american standards
it was a very old and cheap system and i really did want
him to have a nice one, but the fact that he expected it
and purposely chose the most pricey one made me sort of
mad. i bought it. he didn't even say thank you... i know
the kid is dirt poor but it was like he was trying to get
as much as he thought he could get out of me before i left
(the rent money, free weed, dinners, drinks, extravagant
motorcycle trips on me etc. apparently have not been enough
for him). when we returned to lakeside i felt bad and just
left in a huff without saying anything and avoided him the
rest of the day.
i went to meet karma to say a tentative goodbye (feeling
that leaving was inevitable by this time). he looked so
cute that i wanted to kidnap him to kathmandu with me, which
is something he has been asking me to do anyway. but i thought
twice when immediately he started in on how i should buy
him something big (a stereo, a jacket) before i leave, if
i am his real lifelong friend. i don't understand this mentality.
in the US most people would sooner die than ask so blatantly
for something. i was rather disgusted, gave him a "you
must think i am fucking stupid" look, and left him
in my dust with not a backward glance. goodbye poor confused
karma. & that was that.
on the way back to my room i was very sad. usually in a
couple of weeks' time your relationships with people can
be written off as fairly shallow. but when travelling it's
a bit different. there is something about freedom and lack
of inhibition that makes relationships more precious in
a shorter amount of time. i still talk to people i met travelling
years ago and only spent a couple of days with.... these
nepalis- i honestly love these people. i have had some of
the most amazing experiences of my life with them. the past
couple of weeks i have been deliriously happy, and i felt
that we really connected in a way i don't usually connect
with people. you know? i felt like i had some real friends
here. but no, it's just the old snag a tourist and milk
them for all they're worth trick. happens all the time,
all over asia, and i don't know why it surprises me by now
that i am being used. i thought back and realized that not
a day went by when bikash or karma or any of their friends
did not try to convince me to give them all my money, my
body, my future, plane tickets to other countries.... it's
a game for them. and i am a good, generous, friendly and
apparently gullible girl who was taken advantage of, dammit!
my first instinct is to say fuck them, they come from a
totally ignorant country, and if they can't see me for what
i am instead of some idealistic american superheroine icon
then it's their loss. i really have helped them even beyond
my means (i spent a whole months' budget in a couple of
days), the only thing i have bought for myself since arriving
in nepal is my drum... but really i feel extremely disillusioned
and sad. i have lost friends that i suppose weren't really
friends in the first place. nepal is more like india than
i thought, just a little bit subtler in it's scheming...
i don't understand ulterior motives. i rarely have them.
i ran into the little burned kid who asked me to buy him
a mango and some shoes (i gave in on the mango since the
fruit cart was right there). ran into my favorite old tibetan
lady who begged me to give her my umbrella to use in monsoon
season, which i did. gave a dirty sadhu with a dreadlocked
beard a pocketful of rupees, bought water from the nice
lady at the corner stand who always begs me in her direction,
and left a nice tip for the momos restaurant. i'm nice,
really!
bikash found me later, i reluctantly agreed to have a goodbye
smoke with him and his friends. he mentioned we should have
a little party and buy beer. everyone turned out their pockets
and no one had any money but me. so i bought my goodbye
party beer. his friends begged me to do a free website for
them and i agreed to that too. i got a little smashed and
walked bikash back to his home where he desperately tried
to get some last minute sex. my shoestrap broke and i had
no light to walk home with, but again today i was thoroughly
disgusted and left my supposed friend in my dust without
a backward glance. goodbye bikash.
& that was that. off to kathmandu it is. :(
|
|
:5/19-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

ciao weird karma
|
ack. today i had the very first bout of homesickness for
new york. nepalis can make you certifiably insane. a young
cab driver picked me up today with eminem stickers plastered
all over and he turned his sound system (which in nepal
is a screechy cassette player and tinny little speakers)
up really loud, and all of the sudden i felt horrible because
if ever there was a country lacking in american influence
i think it is nepal. the poor kid had no idea what eminem
was saying, let alone everything that goes along with that.
image. commercialism. capitalism. crass patronization of
self. sometimes i start to feel like an alien (people certainly
treat me as one!), having to interpret a culture that i
don't even understand completely to one that is totally
opposite. i miss worldly people a bit. people who can understand
a good eminem tune (ack not really) :) ... but then again
i had to listen to a totally corporate type from texas or
somewhere equally embarassing talk about his prepackaged
experience in nepal on the phone next to me the other morning.
i remembered that americans make me cringe a little bit.
they talk to each other like objects, they're full of stupid
cliches, they have little evil goals hidden behind most
of their conversations. they're much less honest and thus
more distrustful...
today i had an exasperatingly weird and at the same time
beautiful and memorable (secret) day again with karma.
we went to a cave and just hung out in the park next to
it... later we of course got caught in a rainstorm on the
bus back. i think he threw me into the nostalgic run-for-home
mindframe more then the eminem guy simply because a conversation
with karma is made up of his reiteration of the same three
points, having to do with being happy and living up to buddha
and sometimes venturing off into tibetan-nepali borderland
which means wild and crazy talk that i don't understand
at all. i don't know why i hang out with him, i think it's
the same magnetic instinct that attracts me to every psycho
in my life. i ignored most of what he said and contentedly
played with a hindu baby who was wearing a bindi and charcoal
rimmed eyes on the seat in front of me on the way back to
lakeside. wished i could have a conversation that made some
freaking sense for once.
bikash later caught me all high strung and he was quite
opposite and sad so it was a weird night as well. he introduced
me to more of his friends including a nice french couple.
we watched the nepali guys make dinner and fresh ginger
tea. nepalis love to cook and they are very clean. they
know how to live simply in very small spaces (one's room
is also one's kitchen and living room all in one). sat around
smoking and listening to really good nepali pop that sounded
a little like the cure or depeche mode! (weird) ...but karma
had told me earlier that the whole town thinks i am a prostitute
so i had to excuse myself early from the room of guys to
avoid creeping guilt... i wonder if there is another girl
in this world who has this problem. being completely honest,
every single one of my good friends in my adult life have
been male. i don't sleep with them all though i do realize
that might be their ultimate goal. people literally think
that by travelling alone (instead of taking a man with me)
that i am actively seeking a man or men. it's not true!
with a few notably gorgeous exceptions that never seem to
talk to me, i really couldn't care less about these guys'
sex lives, i just like hanging with them. it doesn't seem
to work here though because girls don't just "hang"
with guys, girls are cooking, cleaning, babymaking machines.
i am always myself, i have toned down the boob shirts and
have become very adamant about where the borders between
friendship and otherwise lie, but it's nobody's business
anyway, right? ...i wish that was the case.
|
|
:5/18-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

motorcycles rule
 rainy day tea
|
this morning i decided against the elephant trek in the
chitwan jungle to see rhinos and tigers because frankly
i was sick of being dirty and missed my nice home in pokhara.
after a semi-decent indian breakfast bikash and i set off
on the 3 1/2 hour motorcycle ride back. (ow- my arse!)
the ride was of course amazing (from chitwan to pokhara).
in fact i think it is one of the most breathtaking trips
on earth. everything is so dramatically beautiful. i definitely
recommend a motorcycle as the mode of transport of choice
when exploring almost anywhere. it's a perfect way to see
things. bikash periodically picks good resting points where
we stop and smoke and marvel at the excellence of everything.
it's really relaxing, centering, wonderful to be so close
to nature and away from anything resembling a rat race (not
that much of anything in nepal does that). the only bad
thing i can say about it is (like the rest of asia) with
no emissions standards enforced here you find yourself choking
half to death behind belching buses and overloaded dusty
trucks on the highways. when you get home you can take a
wet cloth and wipe and see all the black oily grime you
sucked in all day long and convince yourself with paranoia
that nepal might kill you.
driving through the villages i noticed that a lot of the
action centers around the village water pump. there are
always a few skinny men standing around in their tightey
whitey underwear chatting, pretty women brushing their long
black freshly washed hair and wearing towels, babies screaming
from underneath cold water buckets, girls filling silver
urns. there is usually a hindu altar with burning incense
not too far away, that people take a sidetrip to pray to.
the mountain people aren't so hung up on appearance and
can look quite scraggly and unkempt- especially the kids,
who are right out of disney sketches of tattered hillbilly
orphans... lots of sheep, chickens, ducks, cows. no matter
where you are it is not surprising to see an oblivious,
happy water buffalo pop out of nowhere, sniffing the air,
flapping his ears, and turning an appreciative head towards
the sun as he saunters directly into your path. (i tried
buffalo meat today- tough and stringy and totally guilt
provoking as i really like the little guys).... also you
can be driving out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by
quiet, majestic views and thinking you have them all to
yourself, when out from the thick jungle brush will trudge
an old barefoot man (white skirt(?), blue shirt, pointy
polkadot hat) with a bundle of sticks on his back or a stooped
wrinkled lady (wrapped in embroidered material, large prominent
nose piercings) whacking goats with a stick. people live
in (and are stuck in for long periods of time) small simple
shacks in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but with unreal
natural backdrops... poor but still lucky, i say.
we luckily stopped at a rich married friend of bikash's
once we arrived in pokhara. five minutes later there was
a huge raging storm, which we sat through with milk tea,
a joint, and good conversation in a somewhat leaky rooftop
room of his gorgeous house. we watched groups of uniformed
little children tentatively forge a stream below us that
had flooded until it was more of a river on their way home
from school. i was happy to be back in pokhara. when i got
to my room i peeled off my soiled clothes and took a long
hot shower and languidly stretched and slept like a kitten
in my huge clean bed for the rest of the night.
|
|
:5/17-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 elephant bathtime
 nepali folkdancing
 chitwan national park
|
woke up at 6am which is painful to one of my unusual slothfulness.
hopped bareback on a huge gaseous elephant and trotted to
the river to give him his daily bath... all the elephants
are brought to the river around the same time in the morning.
it's really cute. they like to roll over on their backs
and spit water all over their bellies with their trunks.
they also like to throw their riders off into the water.
fun in the heat.
later in the day i took a canoe down the river with bikash
and a reclusive jungle guide as a start of a 4-hour trek.
supposedly the river was full of crocodiles but they must
be shy or mythical because i saw not a one. ditto with rhinos,
sloth bears, and tigers in the jungle. i did see a family
of monkeys swinging overhead, a small curious snake, and
several interesting insects. i am apparently unlucky with
animal sightings though. after a long hot walk through the
thick steamy jungle and the tall itchy grasses i was exhausted,
but we reached the riverbank to find our boat guy had thoughtfully
abandoned us. a storm had moved in and made the very wide
river very choppy. to my panicked astonishment our guide
made us forge it on foot. i was so scared of leeches and
crocodiles, not to mention getting swept away, that i had
to close my eyes and hold my breath the entire way, with
bikash yanking me along. the water was shallow and the riverbottom
muddy though and the worst that happened was my one pair
of thick cordouroy pants were soaked completely through
for the rest of the day. which was pretty bad actually.
after quick showers bikash and i went to the riverside
to watch the sunset and drink a bhang lassi. it was incredible.
the wild peacocks mewed mournfully and white flamingos stood
on brushed sandy islets in the river. water buffalo trudged
through the long grass to the water to drink. nature program
material.
later our guide took us to the requisite chitwan cultural
program, which was talked down in the guidebooks but i thought
was really quite cool. it was a collection of folkdancing
performed by the village boys. when the monsoon season comes
and there is nothing to do, nepalis hole up in shacks and
drink millet wine and dance and sing, trying to keep things
cheery despite the sometimes desperate situation. the music
is upbeat and nepali drummers are amazing. the boys kept
time with thick bamboo sticks, which they would do elaborate
dances with. i drooled over a muscle-y dancer which made
bikash inexplicably jealous and annoying, and i had to physically
fight him off most of the night thereafter (innocent guys
sure are aggressive...!?)....
sort of put a damper on things. that and the fact that i
am spending about $45 a day in nepal, which should theoretically
set me back only $10-15. stupid guides and their friendly
masks. (i am too nice to people.)
we had to walk through the base camp of either the maoists
or the nepali army (not sure which) to get home. it's intimidating
because big gruff men in fatigues stop you with spotlights
and huge rifles and question your whereabouts before letting
you pass. they have built huge bunkers and foxholes with
sandbags and plaster and the road is lined with razorwire
fences. they seem rather edgy as well. kind of creepy at
night when there is no light at all on the dirt paths.
|
|
:5/16-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 laundry
 sadhu beggars at hindu temple
 mountaintop market
|
for lack of anything better to do i agreed to go with bikash
on a short road trip to manakamana gurka. this is a place
about 100 km from pokhara in which you can ride a cable
car to the top of the canyons to a mystical, smokey hindu
temple. we followed the seti river west. the seti is the
most beautiful river in the world, i think, because for
some reason (mineral deposits perhaps) it is a gorgeous
light gray... almost white, filled with large picturesque
charcoal colored boulders, and ringed by thick green towering
mountains. to me it's unique in that it has a sandy bottom,
and is lined with gorgeous untouched silver beaches at the
bottom of the mountains. i never saw beaches along a river
before. i can not for the life of me get my camera to take
a good picture of it (or the views in general), but for
anyone coming to nepal i highly recommend this ride. it's
mindblowingly gorgeous, if you're into nature & all.
bikash had spent the morning as part of a procession carrying
his dying mother in a wicker basket down a mountain from
her village to a doctor. he had to borrow the 10,000 rupees
(about $125) to pay the doctor from a friend, and was rather
depressed and mopey most of the morning. this results in
his driving insanely fast along careening mountain roads
with my screaming and clutching at him from behind. i made
him pull over and relax. we smoked a joint overlooking a
gorgeous terraced valley (i still don't know if the terraces
are natural or not but they are beautiful) and everything
became okay. it was a fabulous day. we rode the cable car
up to the mountaintop (crazy views) and found a lovely little
touristy town filled with bright markets, squawking animals,
and mellow mountain people. bikash being the good guide
that he is he found the quietest and least touristed corner
of it and we sat and admired the view. we were shyly approached
by 5 scraggly children and a happy nepali man with the typical
pointy hat. we learned that they were mountain people from
a couple of mountains away... they had actually walked from
their mountain down and up to the top of this one to visit
the temple. it must have taken them about 10 hours to get
there. the dirty faced children were wearing holey clothes
and were totally naive and awestruck by me and my camera.
it was fun showing them something new and being admired.
it's also strange how out of touch with the world people
are here.
after the cable car bikash convinced me to let him take
me an hour and a half further to chitwan national park (which
i am sure was his dastardly plan all along), where we had
no choice but to stay the night. i had intended on going
to chitwan before i left nepal so i agreed, despite the
fact that i only had the clothes i was wearing and hadn't
notified my guesthouse that i would be gone. chitwan is
in the terrai part of the country, which is the open airy
fertile plain lined with noisy lush jungle. the people are
sort of dirty and simple and live in houses made with thatched
grass, mud, and smooshed cow dung. the roads are dirt and
rocks and there is not much in the way of conveniences.
bikash and i stayed at an okay place run by his friend and
surrounded by elephant breeding centers, lush landscaped
greenery, and wild marijuana bushes taller than i am. i
prefer the mountains in nepal to the jungle (saw a lot of
that in thailand), and was a little overwhelmed by the responsibilty
of a clingy whiny leechy (though lovely adorable and friendly
too) bikash all night, but despite that & my irrational
misgivings about being there instead of pokhara (damn my
incessant crushes on places) it was all good. we had a nice
dinner and too many beers and fell asleep at a reasonable
hour.
|
|
:5/15-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 himalayan music
|
the problem with hiring a motorcycle guide for the day
is that you have to rely on him to get you anywhere. and
if he doesn't feel like taking you home when you want to
go home, tough luck. today i got stuck with bikash's stupid
horny friend surya all day. he waited all morning by the
riverfront to find me, and i couldn't politely wing my way
out of it, so we set off to explore the area near baglung
(70 km from pokhara). he started the day out by explaining
to me the acronym 'fanta'- 'fuck and then never there after'...this,
he told me, was what he was after. i immediately wrote him
off as an idiot and regretted coming with him. he's a horrible
guide- drives recklessly, stops at ridiculous places...i
spent most of the day just trying to get him to take me
home. very frustrating. we saw some mediocre scenery, made
boring smalltalk, and got stuck for two hours in a dark
(electricity-less) indian restaurant while there was a deafening
ice storm pounding at the windows. we had nothing to say
and he managed to get me to pay for his food and the bike
in addition to guiding so i was thereafter pretty damn grumpy.
i didn't even wait for the rain to let up completely before
i made him hop on the motorcycle and ferry me to my hotel.
we were soaked by the time i got there but i was home so
i didn't care, i left him with only a short nod and ran
in and took a hot shower and passed out on my bed feeling
drugged at about 6p, and that was it for the night.
surya by the way if you are reading this i do adore you-
you're gorgeous, and you're definitely smart too but you
need to get a clue when it comes to girls, honey.
oh hey while i am at it, sam from perth do you read this?
if so write me!
|
|
:5/14-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

scraggly hindu me
|
the two poorest countries i have been in (cambodia &
nepal) have had the most amazing people. i think there's
something important in that. today all i basically did is
wander around and talk to nepalis. in fact, i realized that
i have really spoken to very few westerners since i arrived
here. otherwise it's tibetans, nepalis and the occasional
indian. this is exactly what i am looking for in my travels.
i have learned so much and made some of (what feels like)
the most important relationships of my life in a very short
amount of time, in a strange, fascinating, novel set of
circumstances... nepalis have mastered the art of conversation,
sipping tea in dark shops... sometimes a joint is passed,
someone brings in heaps of dahl bat, roxie (millet wine)
is surreptitiously poured down your throat, someone starts
jamming after a bit so you have a nice soundtrack, the girls
dance their strange dances and cook and clean in the background,
everyone is affectionate and positive and happy and funny.
they are utterly lacking in pretensions. there is none of
this fake crap that we have in america. no one is out to
impress anyone else... just friendly, honest, and open people.
i love them!
it was a weird day for relationships though. bikash (who
has quickly become my best friend on earth despite his clingy
sexual idealism) tiptoed sheepishly through the shadows
all day but never said anything to me at all until much
much later on in the day when i finally caught him alone
and cleared things up with him with a big fat hug. karma
was outright evil. he mysteriously avoided me all morning
until i trapped him in a corner and asked him what could
possibly be up, then he distracted me with his tibetan friend
& her backpack shop which he thrust upon me as he ran
off, never to be seen again today (freak). bikash's best
friend surya completely took advantage of bikash's rejection/heartbreak
by me and tricked me into a motorbike ride up to the top
of the mountain to a place over the river to talk. (he's
super cute so even though i don't trust him at all the eye
candy was savored at least).
i had long conversations with the cute batik artist and
his family, the music shop kids, a weird kashmiri shop guy,
two philosophical medical students from bangladesh, a desperate
drooling punjabi man, a nepali guy who lives in and is obsessed
by dharamsala in india, his airheaded french girlfriend,
the family that runs the momo restaurant i eat at every
day, the internet guy, um... bought the little burned kid
an egg....phew! a lot of interaction, period. i even learned
some nepali in the process. good day.
|
|
:5/13-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 lamb
 nepali pals |
i am torn between staying in pokhara and moving on. i am
being totally miserly for one thing and not wanting to taunt
the starving dogs that are the lakeside guides with promises
of juicy future trips or treks elsewhere. i really have
decided to leave the serious trekking for a future trip
here. but i am thoroughly enjoying just hanging out in pokhara
right now. i never make plans so eventually something will
fall into place, and otherwise i am loving life... i am
realizing that is all that matters.
i had a long luxurious breakfast and wandered to the river
where i chatted with a couple artists in the spectacular
sun. no karma, no bikash. read for awhile, napped a bit,
ventured out for momos and enjoyed them immensely with a
group of impressionable college boys from kathmandu who
did magic tricks for me while it stormed wildly...
later on i ran into bikash and we went to his house and
had a little smokefest until the wee hours of the morning.
the japanese kid, hari the funny guide, his friends, and
a super cool nepali girl named maya were there. maya made
real dahl bat (so that's what it's supposed to taste like,
stupid boys who can't cook). hari entertained. we played
cards for a bit. bikash tried to feel me up all night...
my hotel locks the gates after 11:30 or so so i couldn't
go home. bikash made a rather musty and allergenic bed on
the floor with piles of blankets for me and maya and himself.
maya and i passed out quickly, but i woke up again quickly
with bikash wrapping himself around me. it triggered something
weird in my head and it kind of freaked me out. i yelled
at him and told him i didn't want to sleep with him (i absolutely
adore him but he's too small, like a little boy, and i honestly
just want to be friends, ack), he said okay and i fell back
to sleep. woke up with his hands all over me again a few
minutes later. ugh. finally i just picked up and left. it
was about 5 am and rather cold and i had to wait outside
my hotel gate for someone to wake up and let me in. crashed
finally into my own lovely clean white bed with a screaming
headache.
|
|
:5/12-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

movie theater
 old bazaar, pokhara |
why not coconut. no hurry chicken curry. oh la pepsi cola.
a few catchy nepali phrases i learned today. i am almost
a native... let's see. karma from tibet and i had more weirdness
today (it's sort of addictive). i hung out with him on the
river a bit. chattered with a mexican guy from LA who had
many shiny gadgets with him (ie. a dvd movie camera) that
made me feel like i have been in the bush for too long.
walked to karma's aunt's tibetan shop. i scrutinized the
stacks of luxurious wool rugs and silver jewelry while they
in turn both tried their damndest to get me to come to and
save tibet (ack). afterwards to a juice place where karma
pretended to read my palm just so he could hold my (american)
hand and we politely discussed trekking and rafting with
a nearby australian chick. standard. yawn.
then i met up with bikesh and he took me to a nepali movie
(i asked for it). it was really cool actually. like four
hours long but as they say "why not?" in fact,
it totally clarified a lot of things for me. like how completely
removed from and remarkably un-influenced by western culture
this country is! yeesh. the movie theater was ancient, the
seats were tin foil or something and it was pitch black.
the floor had holes in it to trip over and i could hear
rats. little kids were running all over the place with flashlights
and screaming. people kept shifting seats until i thought
maybe i was missing my turn in musical chairs. bikesh smoked
imperiously as he very loudly kept me informed of the plot....
oh my 'god' the plot. first of all it was epic. second of
all it was so freaking cheesy and overdramatic. i have never
seen anything like it. third of all it was part musical.
so lots of dancing. & you know the embarassing guy on
the dance floor at teenage proms who is dressed all spiffily
and dances jerkily and exaggeratedly like the world is enthralled
with him? makes dramatic faces in time with the music? this
is what nepalis strive to be like in their cinematic ventures.
half the theater was crying by the time the son had betrayed
the family for the third time, leaving them with no pot
to cook rice in. i was looking around going "is this
for real?"... wow....i realized just how dangerous
it is to be western and to come here assuming everything
you do is ok. for instance, they can't even kiss on screen
in movies here but european/japanese gals are picking up
the boys off the waterfront, screwing their brains out and
discarding them for the next one. happens in every tourist
area. these are guys who normally have to marry the first
girl they are interested in. it confuses them completely,
they don't understand women, they don't understand western
ethics. they don't ever hear western music or see western
movies. they're in it for the awe factor. but it causes
big problems in their traditional culture. they're too innocent
to be like us.
later it was getting dark and there was no taxi in sight
so bikesh and i went up the hill and smoked a joint overlooking
the old bazaar. it's quite a cool area. old dark wood shops
with big shutter doors full of dry goods. all nepali. there
is a ghetto of sorts on the edge with lots of dirty kids
playing with sticks and their parents kind of just weaving
crookedly in and out of the scene with wild stary eyes...
crack. in nepal. ugh. it's so wrong.
anyway i bought a flute for my friend num in thailand from
my friendly neighborhood music shop, and a nepali drum for
me, both for less than $20. bikash (might as well start
spelling it right now) taught me the basics. it's such a
great drum, i plan on having many good jam sessions with
it. starting as soon as i wake up tomorrow. :)
|
|
:5/11-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 nepali boy
 burlesque blur |
i had muesli with curd for breakfast this morning (sounds
delicious eh) but after i saw how the curd was made i couldn't
eat it. i mean i know it (yogurt) is spoiled milk but i
don't like to see the process, you know? stupid american.
we can just go pick up our prepackaged food at the supermarket
without worrying what it went through, we are so sheltered
from reality at home!.... i rented a bike from the nice
girl at my usual corner shop and took off up the mountain.
it's so nice to ride a real bike after months upon months
of basic inactivity. i completely felt alive and rode as
fast as i could with cows running next to me and my legs
screaming for mercy. i stopped at a yoga retreat. had to
climb up to the top of the mountain to get to it (more pain
for slothgirl) but met some nice nepali people on the way.
the yoga place is $86 for 6 days. totally worth it but i
don't know if i can remove myself from life for so long
because i am loving it! so i pretend it's too expensive,
which gains me points all around.
here's the thing about nepal by the way. i have seen poor
countries before but nothing like this. it's hard to explain.
everyone i meet here blatantly begs (pleads shamelessly
with, really) me to help them. buy them food, jackets, help
their kid see a doctor, give them a place to sleep.... in
places like the US it's kind of annoying to see people like
that because you know if they just stop beating their wives
and drinking with their ignorant overweight pals or shooting
up in dirty toilet rooms everything would be cool for them.
people here are such good people. totally simple, not very
educated at all, no vices, affectionate and protective of,
& generous to others... and they really have no chance
at anything. most of them can't even leave their very primitive
mountain towns. today on the way down from the yoga shack
i ran into a really nice man who was 36 with five kids.
his 9 year old daughter had a serious bone disease that
had left her crippled. she can't move at all from her bed,
even to go to school, she is constantly in pain- he can't
afford a doctor so he just has this friend who sells him
probably fake medication for her. but he can't pay it. so
she is dying or something on this little block of concrete
inside a moldy shack. he kept saying "if you could
only help". ok, usually i don't let things like this
get to me but it's just one after another all day long...i
really start to question whether or not it's a good idea
to give all of my money away....(!)
i ran into weird karma later on and went with him for
tea. i really should know better because to put it quite
bluntly the boy is crazy but i am a little bit fascinated
by him- the whole weird tibetan "thing". there
was another humungous rainstorm and we huddled shivering
in a small tea shack with the little burned kid and chatted.
he told me a lot about tibet. do i even need to get into
how hard it must be to be a tibetan refugee in nepal? competing
for work with starving nepalis? it's completely pitiful.
plus karma is so naive to begin with... he talked to me
a lot about ghosts today (a superstitious freak really),
tried to talk politics with me but really knew nothing about
them, and so resorted to telling me the life story of buddha,
trying to correlate it with why i should sleep with him
(innocently)... along the same lines he also pinned me down
and kissed me to a point where i was really going to have
to call for help (not innocent). i'm not kidding i had to
throw him off. i didn't know what to do after that... actually
what happens is we fight all day... make up, fight, make
up, fight. it's a totally bizarre relationship to have with
a complete stranger. he goes from complete psychopath who
attacks me constantly to a nice friendly insightful tibetan
guy. so i trust him for a bit and then it's back to to a
desperate and needy as fuck person who just wants help,
love, hope, something, everything right fucking now!...
i really wish i could give him one of those things. i have
no extra money, i can't sleep with someone else's husband,
i am not a ticket to the good life, in fact, i am winging
it myself.... ack. it's a lot of pressure (as usual in asia
i guess). i took him to lunch though and fed him a ton of
food. bought him a bottle of water and some medicine (he
has a cold), patted him on the back and sent him home to
his refugee camp.
i took a shower (thai people taught me to be really clean
and now i can't take enough showers or put on enough powder
in a day :)). i found bikesh at the music shop where we
smoked up with a cute japanese girl. the japanese love nepal,
and nepalis speak japanese better than english sometimes.
it's weird, i feel left out... she was funny though. we
didn't understand each other at all but we howled at the
blossoming moon and danced to the music boy's hypnotic peals
together.
afterwards bikesh took me out. i promised to buy him dinner
because he feeds me dhal bat all the time and i know he
would enjoy a dinner out anyway. he manouvered me towards
this place called naasha's. it was so cool. it was like
an old 20's supper club with nepali burlesque dancers. they
were so beautiful- nepali girls are ridiculously feminine.
you don't usually see them in jeans for instance- they make
me feel like a boy. they wore glittery sarongs and small
knitted tops and did a mystical flirty bellyish dance. sometimes
a mountain guy would come dance with them but it got too
cheesy then... like bollywood. everything is overdramatic
and exaggerated. embarassing to those of my prudish culture.
we drank a lot of beer and chatted with our beautiful nepali
waitress. bikesh ordered a lot of food (mmm vegetable pakoras)
but i don't mind. i perused the roomful of gorgeous boys
(not all but quite a few nepali guys are complete knockouts-
they are usually just too short or too naive for me). the
waitress complained that we didn't tip her enough, actually
sat begging over and over until it became ridiculous and
embarassing... but we got a little tipsy and left to walk
down by the gorgeous moonlit, mountain shrouded lake, have
a smoke, and traipse unsteadily on the dark rutted dirt
paths back home. i gave bikesh a friendly hug and let him
use my flashlight to get back to his house.
|
|
:5/10-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 singalong
 snakecharmer |
i don't know how i am ever going to leave nepal... i can't
even manage to leave pokhara long enough to see anything
else, but i am falling madly in love with so many of the
people here. there's the weird indian guy who every day
asks me to stop and chat and every day i say "um- just
running up here" and start running... finally today
i stopped to chat and had nothing to say. we started giggling
to each other like schoolchildren. i have lots of neighborhood
dogs to pet and kids to tickle. i taught my internet shop
guy intro web design today. there's a kid who is burned
all the way up half his body but he's so cool! i let him
ride my bike... he had a little bandanna on backwards and
made a flag out of my water bottle trash. i saw a snake
charmer today... he had a big fat lazy cobra who must have
been drugged because i didn't see him try to kill anyone,
but he did dance out of the hat and everything. the man
(i think he was a sadhu) played this old wooden flute with
a big ball on top, sounded a lot like jazz somehow(?). i
made movies of it with my camera but i still have no idea
how to attach them to my web page. i spent most of the morning
luxuriating in my room (you would not believe how completely
guilty i should feel in comparing my room to the average
nepali's). took a walk and ran into bikesh, who took me
to the music shop. there's this gawky kid whom i think just
turned 20, with a little cheesy mustache and everything.
he is an absolutely genius musician. he's just so intuitive,
and nepali music is so tribal and more like jamming. he
plays this scratchy homemade violin type thing, it completely
melts everything into a happy haze when he plays. and bikesh
starts in with a nepali drum (quite cool) and the nepali
girls sing in their weird ululating off-key voices and dance
like hippies. (i think the hippie thing must have started
here, with the flowing mountain skirts and scarves and nose
piercings and peace and love). there was a party of sorts,
lubricated generously with millet wine passed around in
tin cups. it's a very extroverted culture. you're expected
to dance and sing loudly and clap your hands and stomp your
feet (things i don't do, basically) to their folk music.
they look at me weird when i sit quietly in the corner humming
and tapping my foot. i don't mind though.
later i followed bikesh to his house where we made dahl
bat together in the kitchen along with a rather stiff and
strange japanese guy who had hired bikesh for the day. we
listened to jimi hendrix... for the first time i took a
real look around at where bikesh lives. his kitchen is basically
outside, a couple wooden tables and some pots. they have
to carry in water and gas to cook with every day. the water
comes from the very polluted lake, which they drink from,
shower with, cook with- everything. every day they have
dahl bat two times. (dahl bat is basically a ton of rice
with a thin sauce made of lentils and sometimes steamed
vegetables, whatever is around). the bathroom is literally
just a hole in the ground, there is a chronic water shortage
so they have nothing to wipe with most of the time. bikesh
has maybe three outfits that he has to wash over and over
by hand. his room is infested with rats and cockroaches
but maintains it's repectability with a faint bulb in the
corner and some cute american cliche posters (babies kissing
puppy dogs, saying "if you like people, they'll like
you").... his cassette walkman broke and he was quite
depressed. he told me more about his life and if it's true,
damn, i don't know, i didn't realize how hard life is for
some people. it makes me feel so lucky. by the way, if anyone
comes to nepal drop bikesh a line and let him be your guide
for a day. he has never taken me to a place that is less
than amazing. mail
here.
|
|
:5/09-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|
i am listening to that blur song with the words "he
wants to live in magic america/ with all the magic people"
& giggling to myself because it's so appropriate to
this day. yikes. i haven't had a bad day in pokhara yet
but i also haven't yet had one where everyone i spoke to
wasn't transparently trying to scam me for everything i
am worth. they really think americans shit gold pieces or
something. i feel helpless.
bikesh was in a streetfight this morning- his tooth was
all bloody and some older guy (in a pointy hat) was pushing
him around. i handed him his hat and sunglasses that had
been knocked off and that was the last i saw of him today.
the nepalis all crowded around and made it a big drama.
then came karma, tripping round my door. karma is a really
cute tibetan "guide". but a fucking pain in the
ass. we got our boat and got onto the river and found we
had nothing to say to each other first thing (couldn't understand
each other's language, customs, nuthin'). by the time we
reached the opposite bank i was totally bored with him (the
lake was beautiful). we climbed halfway up the mountain
to a little restaurant overlooking the water. the nepali
girls (braids, shiny ribbons, plump, wraparound handwoven
skirts) made us humungous plates of dhal bat. the nepali
way of eating is to mix everything up with your hands and
shove it into your mouth, not stopping to breathe. it's
disconcerting, and i picked at my rice and fed most of my
fried whole (and i do mean whole) fish to the happy dogs
attached to my legs. karma and i made basic conversation.
karma meanwhile dug out a white cloth and spread it out
on the table, bringing out necklaces and bracelets to show
me, none of which i wanted. then i got the whole sob story
about his being a refugee and like, "we don't even
have a country to help us, you know? this is the only way
we make money".....ugh! i really do understand
but if i saved everyone who wanted saving in a day i would
need saving myself. i was however guilt tripped into buying
two bracelets, paying for lunch, smoking him up, paying
the boatman, and giving him 1000 rupees. then i looked at
his new clothes and nice shoes, cute new haircut, thought
about that fact and got really pissed off. so we had this
big loud fight and i accused him of being a member of the
cheat-all-tourists club on the lakeside. blah blah blah
i decided fuck climbing up to the stupa i am outta here
and we fought all the way back down the mountain, he refused
to take me into the boat until we rehashed everything ten
times and i didn't think he was a cheater anymore (impossible
because he was). ack ...finally i gave him his bracelets
back, told him to keep most of the money for "guiding"
me and that was that. shut up!
we got into the boat and looked at each other and started
laughing and from then on we were like best friends all
day. he kept saying "karma gave us satisfaction in
that moment, nicole". weirdo. when we realized we were
both dragon signs he was convinced we were meant to be.
then my wonderful professional guide (heh heh) had a freaking
panic attack on me. we were in the middle of the lake and
this big storm started blowing in from the mountains. the
water rippled a bit and the wind picked up, but i was helping
him row and it was nothing unmanageable... nevertheless
he lost it. (i am laughing my ass off thinking about it
because it was so weird. haha :) ) but he couldn't relax
and just help me row so the boat started going in circles,
then he started jumping up and down and waving his arms
and screaming "help me!!!" at the top of his lungs
to the shore. so the boat started tipping dangerously and
i briefly had a twinge of wonderment as to whether there
should be something to be alarmed about.... another bunch
of indian boat guys finally came to rescue us, and karma
sat shaking in the bottom of the boat while i helped one
of the guys row us back, trying to hide our laughter the
whole way. turns out he thought there was a ghost in that
part of the lake, since 3 tourists drowned there in a storm.
silly buddhists.
ugh then (when i swore i was leaving him and going straight
home), then we had chai in the rainstorm with a nice nepali
family in their shop (shop consisting of an old mini-refrigerator,
a cash register, and an apathetic teenage girl), and when
it let up a bit we walked across the terraced fields and
up the mountain towards sarangkot. sat for a bit enjoying
the view and talking. it was going well, no weirdness, but
then suddenly he tried the "ever had a tibetan massage"
trick on me. tried to kiss me, tried to make me come with
him to the tibetan camp to stay with him (uh, and his wife
and child), invited me to tibet itself, all the rest of
it. he's so guileless that i almost fall for it but by now
i know how it works in asia. everyone's looking for money/sex/love/education/hope--
a savior. and i ain't no jesus christ, you hear me? i got
fed up and we had another little spat and we snubbed each
other all the way down that mountain, i told him he could
in no way think about staying in my room tonight (which
i knew he was getting at) and walked him straight to the
stop for the bus to his village, knocking his hand off of
me every three steps.
he convinced too nice me to wait for his bus with him so
we stopped in this tiny hole of a nepali shop (completely
dark, made of mud, with meat hanging from the rafters and
circling hounds underfoot). the owners were hillbillies,
that's the only way i could describe them (nice ones though).
the woman was all wrinkled and twisted and kept trying to
count on her fingers (one two threee tourists died) over
and over but never seemed to get it right in her head. the
man smiled at me with a toothless scarecrow smile and kept
asking me over and over where i was from. we drank beer.
i tried to have a conversation with them but it's increasingly
apparent that nepalis know absolutely nothing about the
world. if they need anything it's really education. (tibetans
too). karma and i chatted again, he started back in on his
pitiful life story and his sexual innuendos (i did give
him 2 free condoms and told him to go out on the town he'd
have no problems) and i finally sighed, threw 500 more rupees
at him, told him to shut up and go home, and left shaking
my head disgustedly and chuckling without a backward glance.
walked through the town, saw muscle-y asu, nodded at the
music shop kids, helped a little boy ride his too big bike,
ate momos, pet some scraggly dogs and trudged home to sleep...
i hope i see karma again because he makes me laugh. :)
i had a good day foiling most of his tricks. when i think
about it it sort of makes me cringe too though because he
really does probably need help.
|
|
:5/08-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 buddhist painting

laila's bar
|
i woke up and ran for the tibetan bread at my breakfast
joint, and munched it with a nice tibetan boy wanna be guide
named karma. tibetans are extremely pushy and desperate
in nepal because they all seem to be working illegally as
refugees. they carry around backpacks of things to sell
and are always calling you to meet them behind trees and
have a quick look. i feel sorry for them. but once you get
past all that i think they're fascinating people too. they
seem really earthy & they have style. anyway the guide
made me promise to meet him at 11 tomorrow to take a boat
across the lake and go up to the japanese stupa overlooking
the city. he says i just have to pay for the boat. we'll
see about all that but i am learning to trust my instincts
with people- don't know that i will actually show up.
speaking of which i keep finding myself in big groups of
foreign guys i met ten minutes ago alone in small dark chillout
rooms (yeah stupid girl), but i have never had a bad or
threatening experience yet. i think i just know how to handle
men, i am so used to them. i have no qualms about telling
them exactly what i think about something and that keeps
them in line (so far). it's an important skill for girls
who travel alone. :)...but every time i meet someone here
they do start off on their guide spiel ("you want to
go somewhere you come find me, i take you"). i guess
it 's good money for them if i am any example of tourist
gullibility....but ack talk about something else please
just once. (anyone who has been to pokhara must understand
this).
anyway i walked back to the tourist district where the
bar was last night to have a look around. it is not like
the rest of pokhara at all (disgustingly pretentious actually,
mostly western) but it has some really cool shops i didn't
expect to find. & i ran smack dab into mr. muscles (asu)
from last night (whom unfortunately i realized is about
a foot shorter than me- didn't notice that in my alcoholic
haze) magically on the street corner. he predictably enough
invited me in for a smoke at his shop. the shop/house was
small, with mud floors of course, and they were wiring their
own electricity so that they could play moby on their walkman
& a big speaker for me. it was crammed with art- a painting
of a grandmother hanging her grandchildren upside down on
a clothesline, a digeridoo made out of a thick twisted treetrunk,
a couple of brilliant mandala paintings, a lamp thrown together
out of an upside down umbrella and basket. handmade everything.
the nepali guys rotating in and out of the room were all
impossibly handsome, sort of embarrassingly naive and awestruck
over america... fun to drool over, chat with, be bewildered
by (nepalese), and run away from. which i did.
i tried to eat momos in isolation tonight but bikesh showed
up and my order of potato cheese momos was actually curry
cabbage or something on the plate. so i had to go to his
house and listen to his cute jabbering unhappy-in-arranged-marriage
roommate boy and eat another horrible dinner (goat meat
and rice). i'm starving. i ran home early to munch ginger
snaps.
still thinking about trekking, jungle safari-ing in chitwan,
yoga and meditation camp for a week, or just slithering
about pokhara talking to nepalis. maybe another few weeks
here, why not.
|
|
:5/07-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

himalayan village
 scarecrow daydreams

weed, not mine of course
|
today was amazing from bottom to top. first i had a delicious
breakfast of tibetan bread (grilled with honey mmm) and
coffee. had to avoid the psycho trekker man with einstein
hair from a country called luxembourg (wtf ?) who actually
tracked me down at my hotel and tried to convince me despite
loud protestation on my part to find myself in the middle
of nowhere with him... no thanks. i have bikesh for that,
whom i trust immensely as he has been gentlemanly enough
not to protest at the platonic-ness of our four day relationship
(an amazing feat for local boys who deal with tourists,
let me tell you). plus basically he is my slave since he
knows i eventually pay him (way too much, in fact my moola
is dwindling) out of guilt for his guiding. i sat at the
riverside waiting for him this fine morning, talking to
a mellow batik artist named shite i forgot and several tibetan
salesgals who wouldn't accept no for an answer ("looking,
just looking, little help")... then bikesh showed up
and we were off. he is a magnificent guide, an olympic quality
motorcycle driver, a knower of the best nepali secrets,
and in general the nepal that i have seen so far from him
is freaking great. that's all i can say about it... aside
from thailand i have never felt so at home in a place. it's
impossible to represent to it's fullest in my journal. very
visually appealing.
let's see where did we go today--- oh first i made him
take me to the ghats (ram ghat to be specific), where the
hindu people take their dead to cremate. they lay the bodies
on the steps on the riverbank and dress in mourning costume
and the body burns brilliantly and the ashes are thrown
into the river. or sometimes they just throw the body in
the river to eventually pop up on somebody. quite cool.
we saw a live (dead) one. then we drove up (and here i might
add that the roads ranged from insane to quasi-sane to pseudo-sane
to not sane at all) and stopped in a little village where
bikesh tried to score some smoke from a scraggly lady in
a punjabi. it turns out we were at the village pot man's
house. yikes! we walked into this hut with mud floors and
clay walls, rats everywhere, hillbilly kids in tattered
sweaters coming up and rubbing my (white) skin, a pot boiling
on a fire, hay in the corner (or was that?...), a sleazy
looking drug dealer guy in a tight racing shirt and mirrored
60's cop shades eyeing us suspiciously, and this 90-year
old man wearing one of those weird pointy hats they have
here & who was only semi-alive himself directs me in
to a huge black garbage bag stuffed full of freshly harvested
weed. wow. innocent me. never have i seen anything like
it. christmas. worth the climb up.
it's all amazing here. the mountains we panted up. i can't
even begin to accurately describe the villages we went through...
nepal is totally magical and surreal and there is no other
place like it on earth. we walked/biked/hiked through all
the himalayan villages surrounding pokhara today, staring
aghast at orphan kids with dirty hair and distended bellies,
making fun of exhausted moaning trekkers who'd walked up
for the day, teaching teething girls in pigtails bits of
english, helping move the water buffalo off the road, sitting/smoking
on mountaintops with 360 degree impossible views, passing
brilliant terraced canyons full of scarecrows and robust
smiling beautiful motherly women working in handkerchiefs
tied around their braids, hacking with scythes in one hand
and with the other gathering potatoes to put in their aprons.
racing as fast as we possibly could on a motorcycle on the
worst roads i have seen since cambodia. (put the road from
poipet going up a cliffside you have nepal). we found ourselves
finally back at saranghot, which is a gorgeous little lodge/village
at the top of the mountain overlooking pokhara. we had sweet
tea there and smoked again with the smiley nepali owner.
on the way down the mountain we ran into a tribal ceremony-
the entire village was dressed up, carrying incense, playing
native musical instruments (really excellent tweedy strange
sounds), and parading solemnly down the road with an ancient
painted man being ferried along in a basket on their shoulders.
completely random bizzareness. wish like everything else
i had pictures.
we also stopped at bikesh's sister's hovel (cement blocks,
mud floor, one bed for the entire family, kitchen and living
room in same room as bed) and played with her 4 beautiful
kids while she fed us...i learned that bikesh ran from his
mountain village to pokhara at age 8 and slept starving
on the streets until he learned how to survive.
later i ate momos (my new favorite food, sort of like raviolis),
met up again with bikesh to play pool at laila's bar which
is quite hip for this part of the world, & met a shy
muscle-ly nepali rafting guide (asu- oh, bless you) who
didn't do much other than stand around looking drop dead
gorgeous but that was cool with me. (nepali people have
honest eyes and gentle smiles and usually good teeth and
thai bodies and gorgeous floppy black hair.) i played pool
with him and the energy was so right on i hit ball after
ball right directly in, sinking almost all of my balls on
the first turn. became sort of famous for the night. felt
good about myself as i ended up with a couple persistent
silly admirers. (i don't want another man to have to support
like a pet though).
went to bed tipsy but completely satisfied with my life.
travelling is fun. :) i have been in 3 completely different
countries this month.
|
|
:5/06-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 out my hotel window |
i knew i would have to avoid bikesh (my guide) this morning
but i didn't realize to what extent. i slept in late on
purpose and then tried to sneak out for breakfast and noticed
him sitting across the street from the drive to my guesthouse
(where he first picked me up). i pretended not to see him
and walked casually down the block to have a coffee and
muesli, with him staring at me from fifty feet away the
whole time. i hid behind my paper and when a delivery truck
pulled up and blocked the view between us i paid quickly
and ran in the opposite direction. unfortunately there wasn't
much to see in that direction. i ran into his roommate but
didn't recognize him until long after i had passed, and
realized i had been totally rude. i ended up checking my
email and talking to a travel agent about fares from kathmandu
for a bit (turns out i probably need to go to bangkok, since
it's a hub, and can get cheaper fares from there to e. europe
or s. america). i sat by the lake for a bit reading and
watching people boat around happily, dodged the increasingly
annoying shopkeepers and trudged through the back roads
back to my guesthouse. i don't know how many ways i can
say "quaint" and "beautiful"... those
pretty much sum up nepal in general thus far. or just "wicked
cool" will do.
of course i managed to go the whole day without seeing
bikesh but as soon as i finished my scrumptious dinner of
roast chicken with potatoes and vegetables (damn fine food
in this place if you don't give in to the dhal bhat bargains)
with a crazy guy from luxembourg who wouldn't stop jabbering,
i literally ran smack dab into bikesh on my way home. he
invited himself to my room for a smoke, where i promptly
informed him he's my friend and friend is all. it went over
well and we had a silly time chatting as i flinched at every
move he made (paranoid), put makeup on him (i suspect he
has a little bit of ladyboy in his blood actually- the overdramatic
cockney lisp doesn't help and neither does his fascination
with the way his eyes look with mascara), and listened to
my music (the cds which aren't all scratched to hell that
is). new friends are good friends.
|
|
:5/05-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 pokhara valley
 magnificent buddhist temple
 waterfall pit
|
i wanted to spend at least ten minutes alone in pokhara
before i met up with bikesh to explore, so i went early
this morning to have coffee and a croissant at the bakery
down the street. five minutes later though bikesh pulled
up on his motorbike. we set off a little bit later on a
complete whirlwind of a day. it started with a drive up
to sarangkot, on the mountain overlooking pokhara. we stopped
on the way to buy some hashish from some little old men
at the side of the road (cream 100r). the view was absolutely
stunning. i could see snow-capped mountains which were in
the range of 7-8000 meters high. bigger than i have ever
seen and totally impressive. the canyons are as green as
ireland must be and are terraced all the way down, which
is strange and beautiful. there were eagles circling overhead.
of course as soon as we reached the top we got a flat tire.
we sat freaking out for a bit at the top of the mountain
but decided the only thing we could do was walk the bike
back down. so we did. i took a shortcut through a beautiful
little mountain village, filled with mewling goats and naked
babies and smiling women carrying baskets and wearing noserings
and traditional hindu garb. we got the tire fixed in the
city and set off again.
too many places to tell, all amazing and beautiful and
i can't do any of them justice. among the places we saw
were a strange white river with a beautiful dam, a tibetan
refugee camp with a solemn temple, a crazy bat cave that
we had to wriggle out of up a tiny dark shaft, a perfect
buddhist temple with beautiful paintings and a marvelous
view, a viewpoint overlooking a long staircase going down
into the very deep canyons and a river at the bottom in
which the locals would come to shower (there were some cute
boys showering there at the time), an impressive and weird
waterfall pit, an insane dirt path around the lake which
we drove madly down and which led to a secret restaurant
surrounded on all sides by a magnificent view (we ate noodle
soup and smoked up with the mellow nepalis), and finally
through some small villages and lush fields to to another
amazing viewpoint with a gazebo at the top of a cliff.......
where again we ended up with a flat tire. ack. this time
there was no way we could walk all the way down so we started
flagging down passersby. we finally found a nice man and
his son who were driving a tractor pulling a flatbed trailer.
we managed to get the motorbike up onto the trailer and
sat on top to keep it steady. that was a crazy ride down
the mountain, with the bike slipping and sliding underneath
us and a general feeling of impending death. fun fun. got
there alive though & got the tire fixed in another little
village where the local children peeked shyly at me around
corners and said "namaste". went back to bikesh's
house to smoke again and relax, this time eating delicious
dhal bhat that bikesh made himself.
now came the confusing part. i was under the impression
that bikesh was just being friendly and wanted to show me
around. i should have known that nepali people probably
have better things to do with their days, and it turns out
he was a guide. i asked him if he expected payment and "you
can pay me whatever you want" (to which i offered 1000
rupees) turned into "you can pay me 3000 rupees".
so that's how it works here, they have a bit of indian in
them after all... i felt completely cheated because i happen
to know this is ten times more than the average guide makes
here, and i had already paid to rent the bike and for our
food all day. that added up to what i would spend in a week
here. it was a brilliant day though and i didn't know quite
how to react so i just paid the boy. then i realized on
top of that he is after an american girlfriend (sex) which
also i of course should have known. i am not in the least
attracted to him though. so after a few awkward moments
of his being a little too close for comfort and my being
a little too freaked out overall, i ran suddenly for my
hotel. he tried to extract a promise from me that i would
go spend some time in the mountains with him at no charge
but i blew that off, telling him i didn't like to plan.
fell exhausted into bed (still coughing) and slept deliciously
deeply.
|
|
:5/04-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

phewa tal lake, pokhara, nepal
 bikesh
 rainstorm |
it was definitely time to leave kathmandu today though
much of it remains to be seen by me. it's not a good place
to be sick alone. i caught a bus to pokhara at 6:30 this
morning. the tourist buses are supposed to be more comfortable
than the local buses, so i would really hate to see those
local buses... my bus was made for (very small) nepali people,
and i couldn't sit properly in my seat since my legs were
too long, so i ended up sitting diagonally most of the way
and suffered bad cramps in my back. about ten minutes after
i sat down a very cute nepali guy sat down in the seat next
to me. we chatted most of the 8 hour trip in broken english.
his name was anil, he was 23. his family was well off and
he travelled back and forth between kathmandu and pokhara
to study engineering. being from america makes me an instant
celebrity and he introduced me to the other (rather awed)
nepali people on the bus (half of whom were family). he
asked for my email address and promised to meet me in pokhara
within the week to show me around, but somehow i think it
was just a friendly bus ride with a nice (somewhat touchy
feely) boy and nothing more.
the drive to pokhara was amazing. i have never been to
a country like nepal. everything is just so damned quaint
and unearthly and relaxed. in passing the small villages
i saw families doing their laundry in the rivers (beating
the clothing on rocks), men scraping hides off of hideous
torsos of undentified recently killed animals, groups of
people sitting in shady doorways drinking tea, lots of animals
and bright green terraced fields and canyons.
when we reached pokhara i said goodbye to anil, dodged
the fiendish touts at the bus station, and shared a taxi
with two friendly mexican amigos i had also met on the bus.
we stopped at a group of guesthouses and i got a beautiful
room with a balcony overlooking the himalayas and a huge
double bed for only 200r. giri guesthouse. quite nice. i
took a wonderful cold shower and relaxed overlooking the
garden for a bit.
went to walk around the town and see what was to be seen.
it's like colorado but everything is bigger, deeper, more
breathtaking. and entirely 3rd world. i am staying in the
south lakeside district in pokhara which is heavenly. there
is a huge green lake surrounded by thick forests and flowering
trees. i noticed some nepali men selling their art along
the banks so i had a peek and then just sat there in the
shade to relax. immediately a nepali boy (bikesh) came to
sit with me and talk. he has a strong cockney accent (which
i find adorable on asians), is 23, and is surprisingly well
travelled for nepalis (just did a tour of the thai islands
and some vipassana meditation in india). he invited me to
go with him on motorbike and explore the area tomorrow.
tonight he took me to his friend's music shop where they
custom make jambe drums, guitars, flutes, and traditional
nepali instruments. he played some jambe for a bit and then
the rest of the shopkids jumped in until it became more
or less a party. i like nepali music- it sounds a bit like
reggae and is all acoustic. it started to rain and they
brought out tea and it was a beautiful cozy afternoon. bikesh
and i ran through the rain to another lake to watch it from
a gazebo at the edge. gorgeous with the mountains ringed
with fog in the background. later he took me to his house
where i met his roommate (who told me about his recent arranged
marriage at 22 to a girl he had never before seen- quite
weird), we listened to music and ate some rather salty and
horrible dhal bhat, to the embarassment of the poor nepali
boy who cooked and had wanted to impress the american guest.
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:5/03-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 kathmandu street |
i resolved to do not much at all today in kathmandu due
to an overwhelming sense of unreality whenever i leave my
room. i don't like not being able to walk down the street
without being hassled every third step. some days i deal
with it better than others. and i know i will be in kathmandu
again later so i gave in to a bewildering depression of
sorts (just a culmination of recent tensions) and slept
most of the day.
i did head out and see a movie later at a dark bar with
a large carlsberg and a cute skater-ish boy (nepali) to
flirt with from across the room.
i realized after a morning perusal of the local paper that
the strikes of the past week are called "bandhs"
and are instigated by the maoist rebels, protesting against
the current government. i never paid attention to the state
department warnings on nepal before coming here but the
bandhs appear to be intermittently a big (sometimes violent)
deal in kathmandu. apparently besides smashing up taxis
and attacking policemen they hijack tourist buses demanding
money. comforting thoughts, these. the tension appears to
be mounting right now with a peace talk planned this month.
i looked up working as a hostess in tokyo and it seems
to be a big possibly sleazy hassle and you have to be entirely
fake- facts which i never took into consideration. i figured
you picked a flyer off a billboard and suddenly you had
a lap full of money and sexy new clothes. but then i realized
hmmm nicole, that would make you a 'ho'stess, wouldn't it....
'talentless geisha' is what they prefer to call it though...
a wind up doll who lights cigarettes for boring gibberish-spouting
men and slaps them when they get too close (which they like)...
can't be worse than most dates i've had, and can't be as
boring as sitting in an office all day...good quick money...
but i did read that pretty western girls sometimes disappear
into thin air. if anyone knows anything about this scene
please fess up. is
it seedy or legit? should i teach english or what? i also
applied to work at a preschool in bangkok.
another thing i have thought about doing is volunteer work
somewhere, as that would put me more in touch with the locals
and allow me to relax a bit instead of putting so many demands
on myself to keep moving. but in looking up the information
on the web i've noticed that volunteering ain't cheap. why
is that? not only do you give your free time, but you have
to give them money as well? that seems wrong. i am not spending
$1000 on hopefully good karma.
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:5/02-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 statue in durbar square
 colorful shops |
still sick & i didn't do anything today but to cower
& hide from the word "next?" as if there was
a magistrate with his hand out demanding the sum of myself
at this exact point. sometimes i feel a lot of pressure
to move on to the next place and "see the world",
but i have realized that doing a literal round the world
trip is almost impossible on my budget in a year or so.
so i tried to relax and buy souvenirs or something but i
was too shy to stay in the shops with people hovering breathlessly
over my shoulder. i tried to redesign my main site but my
head was deflated like a helium balloon. i tried to meet
people to distract me but the bars/restaurants i went to
were either dead empty (except cringing me) or the interesting
people were in a big group on the other side of the room.
i did buy a long sleeve shirt from a shop because i liked
the flare sleeves and pretty colors. put it on and went
out on the town... soon realizing that the shirt had shifted
up to sort of a midrift. everyone i passed had their eyes
glued with shock to my sparkling navel. somehow that added
to my discomfort today. only in eastern countries do things
like that matter... maybe americans are sluts. nepal
is another country though where if you exchange glances
three times you get dragged by a buffalo to the town square
and are forced at bugle point into marrying some creep (or
something). and he can legally sample others but you get
a huge penalty and no divorce. and you have to do his bidding.
...so anyway i have this friend (dressed in mysterious
shadows) who wanted to smoke weed because it had been awhile.
so when the smiling (pointy hat) rickshaw man offered him
smoke he jumped aboard and went for the ride. but the rickshaw
man must have misheard him say "marijuana" and
he must have misheard the (shifty hasty) rickshaw man say
"4200 rupees"... somehow though the friend got
confused and counted out the money ($55 dollars worth) without
doing the exchange rate in his head, guessing thoughtlessly
that must be the going rate. that was my (stupid, sheepish)
friend with more hash than he had ever seen in his life
stuffed in his hand and a shiny new potential ten year sentence
upon his back. the rickshaw man made a quarter year's salary
in five minutes and raced off with a wink. my mystified
friend doesn't even smoke hash... this taught my friend
a big lesson about the first and only attempt he ever made
to buy droogs on the street, that of it's being a very stupid
and unrepeatable one. he is soon to flush his noxious brick
down the toilet and pray to god the sewers don't lead to
the local d.e.a. office.
heading for the hills on sunday. tgif.
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:5/01-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
 nepali family
 hindu temple
 medicine man |
my nepal book says that children in the suburbs run away
to kathmandu at ages as young as 5 years old to escape harsh
poverty and neglectful parents. i can't remember having
even had a sense of identity at 5 years old let alone the
resourcefulness to change my situation, but i had a look
around the streets of thamel today and realized that it's
probably the truth. there are tons of grubby, barefoot little
street kids begging for money or food or just someone to
be freaking nice to them. one girl (suya) must be about
7. she carries her 3 year old sister in a sling on her back
all day. she's super feisty... i have seen her wielding
a huge rock & threatening to throw it at a shopkeeper
who was harrassing her for being too close to his entrance...
she can be very persistent when she wants something too,
attaching herself to peoples' arms and not letting go until
she gets what she wants. usually though she plays like a
child, throwing sticks at other children and playing tag,
or giggling mirthfully while being tickled by a passing
squinty eyed hippie. i asked her where her parents are and
she says she doesn't know. she's a charming, brave, and
intelligent little chick and she is fiercely protective
of her baby sister. i've seen an israeli guy buying them
food and a german kid giving them t-shirts to use as blankets
at night (it gets damn cold here), but overall it's pretty
much redundant toothgrinding rejection... my book goes on
to say that most of the kids die within a couple of years
of disease or hunger... i know poverty is endemic to a lot
of asia, and i have seen a lot worse cases in cambodia and
india, but sometimes reality hits you a little more personally
than others. i am starting to realize just how much of the
earth's daily reality is incomprehensible suffering... and
people wonder why i am agnostic.
nepalis don't seem to go out past 9pm, presumeably because
most of them are too poor for drinks and dancing (or they're
already strung out on tea), and with the exception of a
couple scattered tourist places the streets are completely
dead after 11 or so. there's an occasional stumbling shouting
drunk (usually tourist), & there are packs of starving
dogs that slink through the alleys howling at the top of
their lungs, echoing through the dusty dark town. this added
to my thrashing insomnia last night. when i finally fell
asleep around 4am i had desperate drooling dreams that shook
me awake in the very foreign very early morning. i hung
around in bed for a couple of hours trying to shake it off,
get the bad taste out of my mouth, but eventually had no
choice but to get up and submit myself to a cold shower
and an early breakfast.
my adventure for the day was a trip to durbar square, which
is the central area of kathmandu, filled with towering hindu
stupas and terraced temples, as well as little crooked nooks
and crannies from which pop strangely dressed men and shiny
fresh ladies carrying baskets of colorful wares. lots of
rifraff to round things out, all trying to be the least
obvious about the fact that they are selling something,
and failing. i loved it though. nepalis are so generous
and unassuming. 2 out of 3 shopkeepers invite me in for
tea. sometimes i decline but i had a couple of conversations,
including one with a nice fatherly sherpa man who wants
me to hire him as a personal guide for trekking. but unfortunately
i don't think i can afford him. or trekking, period. i have
decided to just relax and see some of the major cities in
nepal but any trekking i do will have to be in the form
of short walks on my own, as once you figure in the costs
of equipment, clothing, porters, porter's equipment and
clothing (yessirree), guides, lodging, etc., especially
with just one person to bear the brunt of it, i just can't
do it.
i took a little sidetrip to freak street (the famous hippie
area which is now rather run down and unremarkable but neighborly)
and after a nice foggy rainstorm which made the already
aesthetically pleasing town even more unbelievably gorgeous,
i went and had my usual solitary dinner and went to bed
to catch up on lost sleep.
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