Namobuddha oh how far away you are

Inspired by the blue skies and my brand new hiking boots needing some breaking in before my trek, I decided to hike around Dhulikhel. I didn't really know much of where to go, but there was mention of Namobuddha in my guidebook. It was full day hike there according to Lonely Planet and my 11am start didn't help matters of heat, it was already about 80 F and sunny as any day I'd seen so far. I hopped on the bus up the Dhulikhel from the nearest stop. Thanks to the bandh (mentioned in the last post) the bus was a bit packed and I had to hold on to the side for a little bit till people got out.

I wandered around old Dhulikhel for a while debating on whether I really wanted to do this hike. There were a few old temples intermixed between slightly newer, but not by much, Newari houses. People mostly stayed in the shade and looked at me funny as my very white self wandered aimlessly through the streets. For a while I was followed around by a guy who was trying to be helpful, well mostly so I would hire him as a guide. After I decided to sit in the shade and soak up the streets and multiple "I don't need a guide", he finally wandered back to the bus stop to find another tourist to follow around.

I found my way through town and started up toward the Kali Temple. A combination of Rotary clubs and tourist boards had funded the "1000 steps" stairway up to the top of the mountain. Gallons of sweat later I arrived at a Buddhist statue most of the way up. I took off my shoes and wandered around, thankful for the rest and the views. The caretaker took my picture for posterity.


The views of the surrounding valley were impressive. Apparently later in the year when the cloud clear, you can see the mountains, but no such luck today.


I wandered a bit farther to the Kali Temple. The views were slightly better, but I didn't really see a temple. There were remnants of what looked like it used to be a temple, but it was mostly rubble with a few surviving shrines. From the army's presence I think the temple was probably a casualty of the recently ended civil war.

I had a lunch of egg-veg momos at a nicely located restaurant at the top of the 1000 steps. I realized that the guidebook mentions having breakfast there... whoops. Anyway I continued on through some rural cornfields and through some villages which were not much more than 4 or 5 buildings on a dusty road. I made my way to a hilltop and was met with a great view of Kavre below.


I continued on but had somehow lost the line of signs that said "Namobuddha ->". Oh well, I knew the general direction and could find my way to a road if necessary. Thankfully all the little kids would direct me in the right direction if I needed it.

I walked and walked and finally found a small tiny stupa randomly in a field. Seems like a good place to rest and fuel up on water. Not being able to read Nepali, I didn't really know what the name of the place was, but it was cool nonetheless.


I worked my way up to the top of the next hill and at about hour three I reached the ridge. I figured I'd be close since I knew it was near the top of a hill. Sadly no, I had climbed up a similarly tall, but different hill... Great. I was able to spot a glimpse of the gompa through the fields of corn and trees. It was a long way to go.


I worked my way along the ridge, skirted the Buddhist retreat complex which forbade all non-Buddhist and tourists. At about hour four I made it up the stupa. Surrounded by small tea-shops and on the edge of steep hillside, the stupa had a wonderful location. I was a bit underwhelmed by the size. Thinking I was going to find another the size of Swayambhunath, I was a bit surprised.


I walked around for a while and found the small path going up to the gompa on the hilltop. The trail up was adorned with hundreds, if not thousands, of prayer flags.



I was not allowed access to the gompa, but it was seriously impressive looking. Everything was beautiful designed and crafted.


I made my way back down to the stupa for a nice cold coke at a tea-shop before heading out to where I saw buses earlier. It was getting late and I didn't really want to walk another few hours down in case it started to rain. I got one last glimpse of the stupa before taking off to the bus stop.


After arriving at the bus stop I found out that I was just in time for the last bus which "should be here soon". It was a dusty confluence of the trail to Namobuddha and the road to Dhulikhel, not much besides a tea-shop or two in the way of amenities.



Roaming around the shops were some seriously cute animals - small chicks and some really cute puppies.


A few cars went in my general direction, but after 30 minutes, no bus.


I sat down and had tea with another tourist - a manager from a hotel in Kathmandu. He too was waiting for the bus, which one shop owner said had already come... uh oh.

A good hour after I got to the stop a very full bus showed up. We were instructed to hop on the top. While many might think this would be fun and exciting, I can assure it is definitely the latter, not so much the former. Since everyone except the hotel manager and I take these buses quite often, their butts are quite used to sitting on 1" square steel tubing set a few inches apart. I am not. There are really two configurations which makes it marginally manageable for the unaccustomed. Either you sit facing forward with your sit bones in two separate gaps, or you go perpendicular and have both sit bones in one gap. Either way the potholed, rough dirt road would throw you up in the air, landing squarely on the steel. Definitely not the most comfortable.

I was surprised to see a little girl on the top with a familiar sweatshirt. It read "Alone Across Alaska - Geographic Expedition". So I'm sitting on top of a bus in seriously rural Nepal with a girl with an Alaska sweatshirt on. Now that is small world.

Putzing around Kathmandu

So yeah, it's been a while. I haven't really had many grand adventures so I didn't feel the need to blog that much... But here goes

I went into Kathmandu to visit with a long time family friend Mingma Nuru Sherpa. He runs Ang Rita Treks & Expeditions. He was my father's local contact and guide when he first came to Nepal to go trekking. He's been a friend ever since. Mingma is helping me get things organized for my trek to the Everest region, which I'm set to start in a little over a week.

I walked around Kathmandu for a while, stopping in at a stupa I randomly saw on a side street. Turns out it was quite impressive.


It was surrounded by many small Buddha shrines.


And of course prayer wheels


It was quite the little community. I sat down and had some tea with a young boy on vacation from university who was working in his father's thanka shop. Everyone was avoiding the heat, some shopkeepers grabbed some ice cream to cool off.


Some kids playing chess (I think white was winning that one)


I wandered up to Thamel (the "tourist ghetto"). Lo and behold, more chess. It was a pretty hot, lazy day - tourists stayed inside, shopkeepers set up tarps and sheets to provide some shade.


I was having dinner with Mingma the next day so I decided to wander to the far side of Thamel to find a place to crash for the night. I found the Tibet Peace Guesthouse. It seemed low key and it was reasonably cheap. After relaxing for a few minutes, I decided to wander to Swayambhunath (the monkey temple from earlier). I got there right around dark and wandered around the outer grounds. I finally wandered up to the top to take some photos and see Kathmandu from above at night.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a Buddhist celebration. So I made rounds around the stupa, spinning the prayer wheels all to the rhythmic chants of crowds of Buddhists. I seemed to be the only tourist there, but I didn't seem unwelcome. It was dark, but the stupa was lit up by small butter lamps, certainly a peaceful way to spend the evening.




After a relaxing hour or so I made my way down the 365 steps to the bottom of the east entrance and as I look up I see the lights turn up, illuminating the stupa like I had never seen. Great time to walk back up, no time like the present to train for my trek.


Oh man was it worth it. The stupa was so gorgeous. It was surreal to watch scores of traditionally dressed Buddhist meander around the stupa, offering prayers in one corner, chanting mantras in another.


As I got ready to make my way back to the hotel and have a bite to eat it started raining. Raining hard. So I took refuge under an awning on the side of the stupa to wait it out. I was joined by a young man in a saffron colored t-shirt and a shaven head. He introduced himself a Tenzing, a monk at the monastery adjoining the stupa. He wanted to practice English and I wanted someone to talk to - a match made in... heaven. We chatted for a while and in a break in the rain we went to his room in the monastery to have some coffee. He still had to do his nightly mantras while walking around the stupa and didn't really want to get wet doing it. It was a great experience to see the life of a monk. Not so much different as you might think - he added me on facebook that night from his cell phone. After the rain stopped, we went back out and he started on his rounds of the stupa. I saw a few Buddhist police officers making their rounds as well.


The next morning I went to breakfast at pretty much the first good looking joint I saw on the street. As I waited for my eggs and toast, a dreadlocked man from Belgium joined me at my table. We talked for a while and a friend of his from the UK (they met yesterday) joined us for breakfast as well. After a quick snack, we all decided to walk to the "Garden of Dreams". I didn't know much about it, but it sounded nice and relaxing. We wandered through the tiger balm salesman and rickshaw drivers of Thamel and stepped into what was probably the most relaxing place in the least relaxing part of the city.


There were little ponds, gardens, inexplicable statues of Greek gods and goddesses, and little elephant statues.


If I were Nepali and wanted to take a girl on a date, this would surely be the place.


For my evening, Mingma's son picked me up in Thamel and I spent the evening at his house, drinking beer, eating spicy food, and reading my new (to me) book (Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything). Mingma's house was quite impressive with Buddhist decorations everywhere inside and prayer flags flapping outside.


The next morning we learned there was a bandh (a transit strike), so much for my bus back to Dhulikhel. Luckily it wasn't a full bandh and there were a few busses running. Since there were so few busses running (none in Kathmandu itself, only ones going out to villages were allowed to run), seats were rare. Luckily I was able to score a rare seat since I got on the bus at the first stop.

My life in Dhulikhel

Most, okay all, of my posts so far have been from my little side adventures over weekends and days off. But I have actually be spending a fair bit of time working at Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel, Nepal. Dhulikhel is a smaller Newari town around 30km east of Kathmandu. For travelers along the Arniko Highway it is the last real stop before the Tibetan border 75km away. During tourist (non-monsoon) season, a series of “Resorts” and “Lodges” are filled with tourists admiring the fantastic view of the Himalayan massif. Now-a-days most of the guest houses and hotels are empty and it's only Nepali populating this small town. Kathmandu University (KU) is actually located two kilometers west of Dhulikhel. The bus stop/neighborhood along the highway is called 28-kilo because it is handily 28 km from Kathmandu. KU is then a 800m walk along a road dotted with small shops, homes, and lots of rice patties.

Here at KU, I have been staying at the International hostel. It is a mix of quite a few Nepali students and several students from Africa. Somehow I got a very nice room with an attached bathroom, not sure how I got that lucky.

Everyday we cook, mostly dal bhat, lunch and dinner. One day we used a stove model we had just developed to grill some chicken.

The three story dorm/hostel has a nice roof for drying clothes when it's not raining and has a great view from the surrounding area.

When we are bored sometimes we'll play a little bit of cricket in the common room.

Life around KU is a mixture of football, cows, and stray dogs. Oh and rain, let's not forget the rain. Down below the various dorms there's a football field where kids come to play all the time.

And all around the cows roam, mowing the grass and fertilizing the soil.

The cows normally have someone watching them, at least from afar. It looks like it might be a boring job sometimes.

A few days ago I was wondering around KU taking photos of the rice patties and the town in the valley below (Banepa). As I had my camera sitting on a stone wall for a longer exposure a man ran up to me, through a hole in a fence and waved me down to his house. Apparently the only words of English he really knew were “my house”, “my cows”, and “my children”. Nevertheless I sat down and had a cup of milk tea with him and his family. After his father was very interested in my camera I took a photo of him with his grandchildren.

This past Saturday several other Nepali guys and I went on a short walk up to the top of a hill just outside of town that was having a small Hindu gathering/festival of sorts. Never got the story behind it, but it was a festival none the less. Tons of people.

Even a carney. Yeah they have them in Nepal as well. This game you had to throw the ring and encircle the juice box. No one seemed to be winning so it's safe to say that carnival games are the same round the world.

There was a small pokhari (pond) where people would toss water out into the middle of the pond as well as on their heads for good luck.

On our way back down we took the scenic route and were rewarded with a fantastic view of the valley below

Back at KU, my work has consisted mostly of computer modeling of wood combustion stoves in an attempt to improve the efficiency. Not a whole lot of luck so far, but I'm pretty confident for the next week or two. Here is the current stove design.

And a new stove prototype that was designed in Kathmandu that my supervisor, Suraj, and I went into town to test. And yes that is 20 liters of water that that thing boils in around 40 minutes.

Finally here is Suraj's other project, a biomass gasifier that uses the resultant fumes to run a diesel engine.

That's all for now, maybe in a few days I'll have a cool CAD model picture for you all.

Day off in Bhaktapur and nearing the end of the monsoon (yeah right)

Well I have settled in to life in Dhulikhel and at Kathmandu University (KU). I have a dorm room in the International Hostel on campus that has internet, a stove for cooking, and even a TV that has a few English channels. I get to watch the international version of CNN, BBC, international EN, and a few English language movie channels. With a Sunday-Friday work week, I don't get a lot of time off to go travel and see the sights. This past Saturday I caught a local bus to Bhaktapur. Since I had to flag down the bus on the side of the road after it left Dhulikhel proper, it was packed. I don't think I ever got a seat.

Unlike tourists coming from Kathmandu taking “tourist” buses (they have the word tourist plastered on the windshield) or taxis, I get dropped off on the side of the highway a cool 20 minute walk from the main entrance. I was able to stop and buy some snacks from a store and see the real life of Bhaktapur. After paying a high entry fee, I entered into the old city. All along my way, especially as I approached the more famous parts, I was inundated with people hawking everything from flutes:


All sorts of wood carvings and other knick-knacks:


And many brightly colored decorative rugs:


My first stop was Taumadhi Tole. In the middle of the square was Nyatapola Temple. It is 5 stories high (once you get past the steps) and is the tallest temple and one of the tallest buildings in Nepal. It is so sturdy that it survived the magnatude 8.4 earthquake in 1934 centered just south of the Khumbu region that flattened buildings all across Nepal and India. The temple steps are guarded by a level of Rajput wrestlers named Jayamel and Phattu. Both of them carried heavy maces into battle.


The next step was guarded by elephants:


Lions stood by the next level, with griffons standing above them. Apparently the local kids didn't think they were too ferocious looking.



So here's the first picture of me, taken by some German tourists after I took their picture:


On the way out of the square I stopped by a offering place with several old women giving blessings.


I then took a walk towards away from the hustle and tourist bustle of the main palace (Durbar) square and Taumadhi Tole. In the back streets of Bhaktapur I saw much more of what life was like in the city that was slowly becoming a major tourist attraction. As soon as you got off the main routes it was life as normal. Every once and a while you'd pass by an old abandoned temple like this one. I wondered who decided which temples got to be restored and which ones are destined to be overgrown.


After walking through the backstreets, I wandered toward Durbar square, the center for tourist going to Bhaktapur. The square was remarkably empty when I first got there.


Durbar Square is the home of the Malla King's palace. The palace was protected first by a stone lion.



And then by a much more dangerous fellow. Him and his partner were guarding the "Golden Gate" into the appropriately named "55 Window Palace" with very large semi-automatic rifles.


Beyond the gate (where I did go) there was a royal Pokhari (swimming pool) and a Hindi temple restricted to only Hindus. Outside the palace, I stopped by the Siddhi Lakshmi Temple made completely of stone. Fittingly the other name for it, Lohan Dega, translates into "Stone Temple".


By this time I was beginning to get the hunger pangs for lunch. After living in a relatively rural area, I've gotten used to a large lunch costing 50 or 70 rupees, not the 150-200 they were charging in places geared for tourists. Plus the tourist restaurant vibe didn't really have my number today anyway. I walked a bit through town toward and stopped at a random Nepali food place. At the table next to me there were three guys who had gone through 6 beers by the time I left. Note beers in Nepal are 750ml not 350ml (12oz). After leaving I stopped across the street at the huge Siddha Pokhari.



I made my way back towards Durbar Square through the back streets where I saw even more of the city Nepali life. On the back streets I got a few looks. There was a small inconspicuous temple on the street.


During the monsoon season, this guy has a lot of work as a repairman.


I finally made my way back to Durbar Square and the clouds started to roll in. As with every afternoon, the monsoons made their way towards me. Time to make the walk back to the road and grab a ride back towards KU.


I saw a few chickens and ducks sitting in a cage next to a butcher's shop. I had to fight back to to yell out "You're dead meat guys".

When I got to Dhulikhel and KU, the skies would be dumping rain all day. Now it only rains at night. As I leave work around 4, I can feel the rain coming and by 6 or 7 I'll be glad to have a roof over my head. Does this mean that the monsoon is coming towards the end? I sure hope so. I have a trek in the works planned for around mid-September and it'd be great to show you some pictures of mountains rather than pictures of clouds.