situations

*reminder, click title for pictures*

Part of me hates to steal from a Jersey Shore character, but at least he’s the funniest.  Time and time again over the last couple of weeks as I’ve traveled from India to Nepal, things have happened that can best be described as ‘situations’.  Here are some examples:

Phlegm:

Although horking (sp?) happens worldwide, it never ceases to astound me just how much phlegm people seem to have in them at all times of the day.  In fact, in order to steal my current wireless signal from a nearby hotel, I am enduring the sounds of someone who may actually be in some sort of medical distress, such is the sound and imagined volume of their carrying on outside.

Animals:

Did you know that pigeons wake up even before roosters? Or that goats are louder? I didn’t until they started waking me up in Nepal at 5 in the morning.  The kicker is that I have yet to see a goat or a rooster, it’s like they are nocturnal here in Kathmandu.

Music:

Standing at Sarangot, waiting for the sun to rise over the Annapurna range at the ungodly hour of 5 am, I began to hear a familiar refrain.  Torontonians brace yourselves, it went a little like this: “baby, baby, baby…. Ohhh”.  That’s right, Justin Bieber is owning Kathmandu right now.  And, as you know, once you hear that awful song, you have to sing it yourself at least 10 times, prolonging the torture.

Transportation:

The roads in all the cities we visited in India were absolutely manic.  If you’ve been to Ho Chi Minh or Lagos, you might have a good mental picture of what I’m talking about.  Now imagine taking a 2 hour ride to a place 20 minutes away, through ‘rush hour traffic’ in an auto rickshaw that has neither lights nor a horn.  Picture two girls in the back playing rock paper scissors to determine who should tell the driver they want to go back to their hotel.  Best part: when we finally got back to our hotel, our driver smiled, laughed and said in reference to us bouncing along the brok-ed up roads for hours, ‘driving massage’!!!  (trust me, we’ve had a lot of these and they are NOT massages)

Toilet:

Many of you have asked whether I have been visited by Delhi belly.  For your information, I have not yet, but rest assured, you will find out when it hits.  Toilet talk dominated the conversation on my tour; one of the key situations was being caught out without a toilet roll.  Many a day I pondered exactly how one can go to the bathroom without one and successfully clean themselves without disrobing and taking a shower.  If you have thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them, however maybe via email given not everyone is taken to this type of conversation on a regular basis…

Clothing:

After days of ineffectual hand washing my clothing, I found a laundry service in Pokhara where they promised to wash my clothes in a machine (joy!).  Throwing caution to the wind, I sent a number of t-shirts and underwear to the cleaners.  The next day, unpacking our pleasantly scented clothes, I realized that I was missing not one but three pairs of underwear.  This was much to the amusement of my fellow tour members, who postulate that my underwear was being auctioned off to dirty old Nepali men.  I should be so flattered.  Lesson: if you want it, wash it yourself.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only lesson.  Two days later, looking at myself in the mirror at the end of the day I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw yellow blotches all over my shirt.  Nope, no such luck.  Both of my t-shirts (yes, I only have two) are covered with yellow patches.  My new dressing standard is a smell based test premised on the assumption that officially everything now looks bad.

Accommodation:

After weeks of better than expected accommodation courtesy of GAP tours, we were left to fend for ourselves.  Outcome? Unable to get a reservation in the hotel we were staying at, we ended up at a hotel around the corner.  Very friendly staff but abysmal conditions.  One of my key goals while staying there was keeping my pillow away from the wall. 

Nevertheless, my roomie and I were trying to make the best of it after a day of fun in Kathmandu when we started to hear ‘check, mike, check, check, mike’.  This greatly puzzled us as it was 8 pm and around here everything seems to shut down and the roads clear out at about 7:30 pm.  Unable to focus on booking train tickets, I went out to investigate.  Luckily, the corridors of our hotel weren’t enclosed so at the end of the hall I could look right out on to the street.  Peering down I saw a full band setting up outside of the hotel!!! Not wanting to miss the action, we went downstairs and got swept up in a crowd of rowdy 20 something Nepali boys jubilantly dancing on the streets to the music of a band that was playing from the bed of a truck and hooked up to an outlet at the hotel!!!  Moving aside to avoid the groping, we took in the scene.  The boys were obviously drunk (it was both Dwiali and the Newari  Others partook in falling to the ground, air guitar, brake dancing and jumping on and off of the truck bed.  A highlight was hearing Summer of ’69 by Bryan Adams!! (well at least one of the versus, multiple times) Other gems included selections from Green Day, Bon Jovi and, luckily, not Justin Bieber.  Not to be outdone by the band or the crowd of hotel patrons who opted for ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, an ancient hippie walking by in platform shoes, tight white pants and a bright blue shirt stopped and proceeded to join in the dancing with a bizarre kung-fu style all his own. Today I happened to pass him on the street and could swear he was wearing Mariachi pants (not a joke).  For related pictures see here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=575113&id=513855570&l=ff4a1733ec

And so there you have it, some situations from the road as I traveled from Varanasi, India and across the border into Nepal to Lumbini (the birthplace of the Buddha), Chitwan National Park, Pokhara and Kathmandu.

Tomorrow I begin my next (and final) tour.  Meeting in Kathmandu, we are heading to Mt. Everest Base Camp.  It’s a 15 day trip and if all goes well, I’ll be peering at the top of the world sometime around November 18^th!!!  Fingers crossed it goes smoothly!! Brace yourself for another emotional entry J