Honeymoon Recap

Barbara and I love Inidan food. We do not love India. We got to see the Taj Mahal and we are thrilled to have seen it. As a matter of fact, we have now seen many sights in India that we are glad to have seen but, never knew we needed to see them. At the start of the trip, we had thought that maybe we would schedule a trip in future years and come back to see Southern India. We're not so sure now. Don't get me wrong, it was a great trip. But, there are other places we would rather see before India makes it back to the top of the list. I had read somewhere that India is actually the acronym INDIA and stands for I'll Never Do It Again. We completely understand this.

Nepal, however. We'd come back here next week if we could. The people are friendly, the city is clean(er) and we just liked the vibe here. People are happy and seem to have purpose. There is a positive energy and contentedness you can feel as soon as you arrive. Maybe that's due to the contrast of coming from India, but, I believe that just made this feeling more tangible. Due to the rich history and the preservation efforts of the people, you get a feeling for the continuity of the living heritage of the place. We loved Nepal.

Our guide even talked to us about a guided trip that you fly from Kathmandu to Lassa, Tibet and then take 5 days to drive back to Kathmandu seeing sights along the way in both countries (up and over the Himalayas, to boot). Another trip that goes into Bhutan for 3 days from Kathmandu. What a trip that would be; Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. That has to be on our list!

Homeward Bound

We sleep in. As we are packing up our belongings, the phone rings. I answer it and am told that the guide service headquarters is on the line for me. They want to assure me that everything is fine and that the guide will be there on time. I thought this was a bit strange.

Until they tell me, "No doubt, you have heard of the local plane crash that happened this morning". Uh...what? How am I feeling, they ask. I'm fine. How was your trip to Nepal? Did you enjoy your stay? It was great and yes, I enjoyed it immensely. They tell me that the guide will be at the airport at 12:30 as scheduled and hang up. I'm a little taken aback by the way they slipped in the whole thing about a plane crash. Like it's an everyday thing.

After a quick breakfast, our airport guide shows up and I ask him about the crash. He says that it was one of the Everest mountain tour planes. They are not sure what caused it as of yet. He believes it had to do with some rain and strong winds from the morning. The plane went down while coming in for a landing; Nobody survived the crash. Our guide's friend was the pilot. Seems that this specific airline has been operating that same tour for 12 years. This is their first incident. I guess, in the long view, that is a pretty good track record.

If we had been playing by the rules and not moving things around, our Everest flight was supposed to be this morning. You read that correctly. According to the tour, this morning was to be our attempt. But, because we made it clear to our guide that we all wanted to do this, he wanted to give us as many attempts as we could get to make sure it happened. On this trip we have missed an Earthquake, a hospital bombing in Agra (while we were in Agra) and now a plane crash. Raj had said that we were lucky that we got to see some of the things we saw. I guess, as a group, we are luckier than he thinks.

We take the trip to the airport and say our goodbyes to the guide and crew we head in to catch our flight. Of course, the check in counter for our airline (SpiceJet) doesn't open for another hour, at least. So, we park it in the tiny Kathmandu airport waiting to check in to our flight. After we get checked in and through security (three sets of pat downs, one x-ray, two wandings, and one physical bag search) we wait in a small and overly crowded departure lounge.

There is an earlier SpiceJet flight to Delhi that has been delayed and is still sitting on the tarmac. It had to have been sitting there for four or five hours already. Come to find out from another passenger in the lounge that it had a bomb threat on that plane and that's why it still sits there. In retrospect, I'm not so sure that was actually why it was there. It eventually took off. It may have just been bad weather.

We sit and wait for our flight to get called for boarding. If everything went off according to the schedule, we had almost 2 hours before boarding. 3 hours later we are told that nothing has been happening in the terminal because there is a small plane stuck on the runway. We talk amongst ourselves and are pretty much about to volunteer to go out on the runway and push the plane out of the way: no charge. Shortly after that we start hearing planes take off in rapid fire. Our flight number is called and we rush to the get into the land of 'no personal space'. An Indian guy with a large belly saddles up behind me and basically dry humps me, he's so close. His belly is pressed into my back. I want to start throwing elbows. Onto the plane, down the runway and into the air we go.

We land in Delhi for our transfer to our Air India flight. We are forced to fill out immigration forms to enter the country. Even though we don't intend on leaving the airport. I leave the address while staying in India blank. The immigration guy doesn't give me any real guff about that after telling him that we are just there for transit. We have to pickup our bags and then check into our outgoing flight. The problem is that they require a printout of the ticket information for each person to be let into that section of the airport. I have mine printed out, but, we don't have one for Barbara. I can't tell you how many people I argued with about this. They won't let her in unless she has a printed ticket (apparently, an email with your itinerary is a valid ticket to the idiots acting as security) or a boarding pass. I tell them that I don't have one, how can I get one. At the check in counter. Great, but, they wont let her go *to* the check in counter without it. They do not see the problem with this catch-22. I finally am told that she has to wait outside the check in area while I go in and try to get someone to get me a printout. More arguing at two different counters and I get someone to print out a piece of paper with some flight information and Barbara's name on it. What an entirely pointless and frustrating experience that was.

We get checked in to the flight and head towards security. Oh, and I now have to fill out departure immigration forms. I do have to explain to this immigration official that I never left the airport and therefore do not have an address that I stayed at while I was in India. I have been in the country a whole hour and a half, at most. He approves our departure. I mentally spit on their backwards bureaucracy. We go through multiple levels of security. We even have to go through security again right before our gate. How about doing security once and doing it correctly instead of doing it several times? I am still a little frustrated at it all.

We take off from Delhi on our 14ish hour journey. Barbara and I watch several movies and get some fit full sleep. We land in Newark. I am not happy with this, as we should have landed at JFK. Seems that JFK had some fog and the pilot redirected us. He didn't even get the right STATE! The announcement comes that we have landed in Newark and they hope that we can catch our connecting flights from here. WTF? Right, I'll just call the airport and have them send my connecting flight here to pick us up. We sit on the jet way. An hour goes by and we are told that the crew is in touch with their home office and they are trying to determine what they are going to do. Another hour goes by. More wishy-washy announcements. Another hour. Then another. We are finally told that we have refueled and will be flying over to JFK. We'll only be about 5 hours late. Nothing to worry about. I sure am glad that I purchased the cheap ticket option that forced our layover in JFK to be almost 11 hours. We should be able to get through immigration, customs, terminal change, check in, security and a lunch stop without any problems. Our friends Ann and Don are not so lucky. They miss their connecting flight by a couple hours. Looks like the next probably flight for them to get home is tomorrow at 12:30am.

So, here I sit at Gate 10 in the JFK airport waiting for our flight. There's another hour before boarding. Instead of waiting to see how things turn out, I am going to presume that our flight leaves on time and is a nice, smooth flight. We've had enough delays on this trip home. We deserve a nice, smooth flight. By the time we hit our homestead, we will have been travelling for almost 48 hours. A shower and bed awaits us.

Yoda, Goddess and Cats...oh my!

Listening to Raj speak reminds me of listening to Yoda sometimes. He starts to talk about an aspect of Nepalese life and veers slightly off and talks about the philosophy of it (or how he sees it). I feel like I'm sitting and listening at the master's feet. Soaking things in and understanding immediately what he's talking about. We really got an awesome guide.

We head down into old Kathmandu. We visit old palaces, temples, temples and even more temples. Raj says that Kathmandu has more temples than houses. He's serious. Every house has a room that is a temple. So, every house is a temple. But, not every temple is a house. Someone once told me (I think it was Holly) that you can only see so many temples before you are done. I understand that now.

Raj tells us that if we are lucky we may get to see the living goddess. Taking a picture of her is against the law. We enter into the viewing court and are told repeatedly that pictures are not allowed. Close the camera. I even get into the act by telling another tourist who is gripping his camera tightly that pictures are not allowed. I'm not going to be standing here for an hour while they keep repeating the same thing until people put the cameras away. Finally, she comes to the third story window to that we may worship her. She's six. I think that nowadays, it's less worshipping and more tourist viewing. After about a minute, she walks away from the window and the viewing is over.

Raj pulls us to one side and explains the story to us. Many years ago, there lived a King. That King could call upon this goddess and visit with her anytime he wished. However, no one could ever be allowed to see the goddess. All was good and well with the world. Until one day (of course) a lady caught a glimpse of the King and the goddess. The goddess disappeared and said she would never appear again. Years later, the goddess came to the king in a dream and told him to choose a female child. She would inhabit the child and allow others to view and worship her through the child until that child came of age. From that day forward, a young child was chosen to be the living goddess. The current one has been the goddess for three years.

After that we view a few more temples and then head back to the van. Next we are heading to Patan city, our guide's home town. We walk the streets of the town and go from temple to temple. Walking through alleys and squares. We dine at a small garden cafe. Barbara and I both have momos again. Barbara, however, not feeling very well, eats 2 of her 10. I eat all of mine and 3 of hers. Just a side note, 13 is too many momos.

In this cafe we find something that we have not seen since leaving the States: cats. Two of them. They hung out under our table and would eat anything provided to them. And I mean anything. They were eating momo pieces, bread (old and hard from yesterday's breakfast as well as fresh bread with butter), hamburger and chicken. Very friendly cats. Also pretty smart to hang out in a pet friendly outdoor eatery.

On the way back to the bus we stop off at a shop that sells singing bowls. Raj grew up close to the family that owns the shop. The family actually makes the bowls that they sell. They have been doing so for a few generations. We got a demonstration of 'bowl therapy' and each got to try our hand at playing them. Each of the three couples walked out with a bowl. Seeing as it was on my checklist of things to buy on the trip, I was thrilled!

Tomorrow, sadly, we head for home. We catch an afternoon flight to New Delhi. Then we have a 12:20am flight to JFK. From there, we have a several hour layover before we catch a flight home. I'm sure that we're going to be dead tired when we get home. It's going to be a long journey.

Everest

Still tired from a fairly restless night, we head down to the lobby for our Everest attempt (I love saying that). Shockingly, we are the first ones downstairs. That is a first for us on this trip. We don't have to wait long for the others and we pile into our van. At this time of the day it only takes us about thirty minutes to get to the airport.

The air tour guide gets us the boarding passes and points us in the direction of security. On the boarding pass, the destination is MTN. I hope our destination is actually back to this airport, not crashed into the side of the mountain. These people take security very seriously. I get a pretty thorough pat down as well as my stuff going through the X-ray machine and then hand checked. After that, I get another pat down. Then I run my stuff through another x-ray machine. Before boarding the bus that will take me to the plane, I get a pat down a third time. Where the hell was I supposed to find any contraband between these stages? The women complain that they did not get a pat down as much as a breast examination each time.

There are only 18 passengers on the plane. Each gets their own window seat. This would be so much more awesome if the windows were not all scratched to hell. Sitting on the tarmac, I'm having a hard time getting the camera to focus on anything. The scratches are messing with the auto-zoom function. I'm going to have to go full manual for any pictures.

There were 8 people all dressed in white robe type clothing that boarded the same flight. They seem to be on some sort of holy pilgrimage or something. Those bastards take our seats and feign that they don't know English. We all just pile into the back of the plane and realize that we actually have better views because we are not over the wing.

The flight is 50 minutes long and we get to see a lot of clouds. On a clear day, you can see the Himalayas laid out next to the flight path. This, unfortunately, was not a clear day. However, as we approach our target, Everest is visible. One by one, each person gets to get into the cockpit to take pictures of the mountain. The people up front go first. Those stupid shits knew all about how this works. They took an inordinate amount of time and some of them took multiple turns. By the time I got up there, we had already begun our turn and could barely get a shot. But, on the way back to my seat, the clouds cleared up a bit and I took some great shots out of one of the side windows. The flight back to the airport is done with a huge grin on my face.

We return to the hotel for a quick shower and breakfast. Today we are exploring Bhadgaon. It is a Newar city from the 9th century. It is actually marked as a World Heritage living history site. People still live and work here. The buildings are only 70'ish years old, however. Back in 1934 an earthquake devastated the city of Kathmandu. Most of the buildings were leveled at that time. However, the people rebuilt using the same materials that were lying in ruins. So, the buildings are fairly new but the materials are very old.

We are taken into an art school to learn about a type of Nepalese painting style. The painting is done on cloth, not canvas or paper. The cloth is stretched and then prepared with a material. I didn't actually get what that material is. It takes someone 12 years of practice to be able to prepare the cloth correctly. It has to be perfectly smooth. From there, that cloth is painted over by an artist (or several artists) using brush and paint. Normal, right? The longer you practice this type of painting the fewer hairs you get in your brush. The painting doubles as a meditation for the artist. They spend 8-10 hours per day working on a piece. Some pieces takes months. We saw one painting that took the artist 37 months to create. It had such detail on it...we were all blown away by it. The gold color in the paintings were not paint. It's actually gold that they use. It was all very impressive.

We head over to a section of town that holds a Buddhist stupa that is over 2500 years old and is one of the largest of its kind. I thought it was the tallest, but, was quickly corrected by the guide. He tells us that it is one of the tallest in the world and that it is the tallest in Kathmandu. For lunch we are seated in a second story cafe and dine on momos. They are Nepalese dumplings (and a favorite of our guide). We find them to be awesome. With lunch I drink down an Everest beer.

After lunch we walk around the stupa and visit a couple of the Buddhist temples. In the second one, I was one of the only people in there; With the exception of two monks. One of the monks ask where I am from. The US, I say. Would you take a blessing? Yes...please. The other monk sits down and invites me to sit in front of him. He chants over a container of oil and pours some in my hand. He mimes to me what to do. I place some of it on my head, then to my mouth and then to my chest. He continues to chant. Hell yeah! Blessed by a monk in Nepal. I am now living a charmed life.

We head off to something that I was sure I misheard; The cremation place. I think it would be a bit odd to take visitors of your country to the local crematorium. Yeah, I was wrong. That's exactly where we are being taken. Raj explains to us the customs of the Newari people of the valley. When someone dies, they are taken immediately to this place. They are carried there by four people. No matter the distance in the valley. Always carried. Never driven. The feet of the corpse are laid in the river to cleanse the body. Then the body is brought up to one of 10 kats (pyre locations) that jut out. The the eldest son (if it's the father) or the youngest son (if it's the mother) light the corpse. The other three carriers light the body in different spots. Once the corpse is fully burned (hours later), the ashes are swept into the river to complete the cycle and return the body to the last of the elements, water.

Death is not something that is feared in Nepal. It is natural and is part of the cycle. To be reborn, you must die. Raj laughed as he told us that he was not afraid of dying, but, he is not volunteering. This place was a place of mourning, a place of celebration of life, and is (get this) also a park. I have no pictures of this place, however. Raj said that taking pictures was forbidden at one point, but, with newer cameras and zoom lenses, it does not interrupt the ceremonies any longer. I still couldn't bring myself to take pictures of it. I found it to be a little disrespectful...whether I interrupted or not. There were 9 of the 10 kats being used this evening. I could see two more bodies with their feet soaking in the river.

Seems a little morose to end a day like that. But, it wasn't. Barbara had said that after watching the ritual she felt more alive. I realized that I did too. We walked back to the bus talking and joking with the group.

Tomorrow, more Kathmandu!

On to Nepal

So, we got to stay back at the Shangri La in Delhi again before our flight to Nepal. We had been looking forward to this night for the past several nights. This place is pretty swank. Of course we are handed a big steaming plate of disappointment. The room smelled musty. Probably because the air conditioner did a good job of laying a fine blanket of wet on everything. Not wet to the touch. Just damp enough that if you sit down on something you begin to notice it after a few moments. Of course, by the time we figure this out, our stuff has been scattered around, our shoes are off and it's late. We'll deal with it for one night.

The staff asked us this morning how our stay was. I let them know, in detail, the disappointment that this stay was. I even compared the stay of perfection about a week ago to this one. Their apologies were heard, but, the look on their faces was all I really needed. They acted appalled on our behalf and disappointed that we were not absolutely thrilled. I believe they will fix that room before anyone else stays in it.

Bags packed, we head to the airport. We have a new guide for this part; He will just walk us through the airport and make sure that we get checked in and up to security. On the ride over, he began asking details about the trip. How did we like the hotels? How as the meals? Etc. We gave it to him straight. Nobody liked the hotel in Agra. The meals ranged from glorious to OK. The farewell dinner last night was not worth it at all. By the end of our feedback, he was no longer smiling. I think he was hoping that we would give everything rave reviews. We spent the rest of the trip to the airport with silence from him. No matter, the remaining six that were heading to Nepal get along great. So, we entertained ourselves talking about various things.

Checking in wasn't too difficult. I mean, we all had to do this in order to get here in the first place. I'm glad we had someone to walk us through it. We breezed through departure immigration without any hiccups. The officer was even asking us if this was our first time in India. They take security a bit more seriously, however. There was a physical pat down, wanding and metal detector. Then we waited for the flight to begin boarding.

We would be flying Spice Air. This airline looks to be the cheap flight alternative within India. They fly to two international destinations; Sri Lanka and Nepal. The flight was fairly short. If you want anything but some water (about half pint of it), bring some cash. Barbara purchased a sandwich in flight and regretted it after one bite. Tammy, one of the ladies we are travelling with, said that the pilot missed a mountain with the wing by several yards while on approach. We landed hard and fast in Kathmandu. I wasn't sure this guy was going to be able to stop the plane. I'm pretty sure we fly back to Delhi in a couple of days using this same airline...great.

We walk down the steps to the tarmac, which is a bit weird for me. It's been a long time since I've done that. We board a bus to hit the international room...uh, I mean, terminal. We have to fill out some paperwork and stand in a hideously long line to purchase our visa. We had been told that the price of said visa was $30 each. We get off paying $25 each. Once we get the visas, we have to go through immigration. That seems to be a guy (sitting right next to the visa provider) who takes one copy of the visa receipt for himself, gives you the other one and writes something on the visa sticker in the passport. Ah, bureaucracy!

We pick up our luggage and meet our guide, Rajir. He tells us that we have about 45 minutes to get to the hotel. He will cover our itinerary once we get there. In that 45 minutes I can tell you several things about Nepal. First, I like this country a TON more than India. It's cleaner. The people are not as shiftless, they all are going somewhere or are waiting for something specific. The four days that we are here will probably not be enough. Traffic is less chaotic and quieter. Horns are used much less (they are still used way more than in San Diego, though).

We arrive in the hotel and are briefed on the itinerary. All six of us want the Everest flight option. Our guide says that he will be right back. He brings another guy over who says that we will try tomorrow morning and he will take care of us. If the weather is bad, we can then try again the next day. Wash, rinse and repeat until we either get the flight, or we have to leave the country. Come to find out that the viewing of Everest is guaranteed. If you fly, and don't see it, you only pay for the airport transfer. Not the flight. We are all pretty jazzed about that.

The room that Barbara and I get looks out onto a construction site with two large air conditioning buildings making a pretty loud racket. She looks at me and says that she is not putting up with that. I tell her to call down and try to get us a new room before we get settled. Within a half-hour we have bell hops at our door with our guide and a manager to move us to a new room. A much nicer one at that. Looks out onto the garden and pool.

We eat dinner with another couple we are with and each dine on burgers. Before you complain that we have sold out and are not eating the local fare, know that the hotel doesn't seem to offer Nepalese food of any renown (according to our guide). They have a Chinese place (apparently, not that great), an Italian place (good, according to previous tour members), an India place (we just came from India) and a continental cafe. The Italian place was further away from us than the cafe and we were tired from the day of travel. Besides, we figured the cafe would be cheaper. BTW, the burger was fine. Not great. But, fine.

We've got an early day tomorrow. We meet in the lobby at 5AM for an attempt at Everest by air! I'm beyond excited!!

Honeymoon Redirect

Most of you already know that Barbara and I have been planning our honeymoon to be a trip to Egypt and Jordan. With the recent turmoil in Egypt we came to the conclusion that maybe it might be wise to redirect this trip elsewhere. We'll circle around to Egypt another time. Not like the pyramids are going anywhere, right?

After some debating back and forth and looking at the choices that were available to us via Friendly Planet, we came down to four or five choices and went through each of them. All of these trips have been on our radar for future trips. We went back and forth on these choices over the past week. We finally threw all these options into the ring and let them fight it out, Battle Royale style! It was a long and hard fight between the combatants. In the end, the Taj Mahal Express trip with a Nepal extension won out.

So, earlier today, after getting some questions answered by one of the reps at Friendly Planet, deposits were made and travel insurance was purchased. We leave a few days after the wedding; September 14th.