3,286 Cups of Tea and 3 Cups of Coffee (Ah!)...

Back in Kathmandu, Nepal

Yes, I've had 3 cups of coffee and they have been SPECTACULAR! After a month and a half of tea and more tea (and more tea, and some more tea, and yes, even more tea, and oh, yes, tea please, and even a few "What? $16.00 for a pot of tea? I'll stick with my cold, Steri-penned liquid germs for now.") - so after swimming in tea for 6 weeks I succumbed to the call of the coffee. I'll admit I was skeptical - the only coffee I'd had since leaving the States was on Dragonair from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Kathmandu - it did not resemble coffee in the slightest and was so bizarre tasting (euphemism for putrid) that even if I was dying of thirst in the Sahara and came upon a lake of this coffee, I'd drink the sand instead (and not because I didn't know the difference - anyone remember that line from The American President - one of the best, understated, cutting remarks about our fine citizenry in moviedom - but I digress...). Anyway - so in Lukla (the little place with the tiny airstrip) - last day of our trek, there is a "Starbucks" - not a "real" one, but it looks pretty darned good (early in our trekking, when we were fresh faced and energetic, we swore we'd never go to such a "Western" place, but months go by, priorities change...) - the Starbucks logo, designed by the owner - it's Ama Dablam with stars overhead (rather than that Starbuck person) - it's stunning! And the coffee - WOW - let's just say, after all that hiking and tea drinking and yak dodging and too little air to breathe - it was absolutely PERFECT! Sometimes you just need some decadence!

So, enough about coffee! Yes, here we are, back in Kathmandu. Since we were last here in mid-October, Kathmandu has gotten colder, calmer, and cryptically less crowded. Okay, maybe just colder. As for the rest, I think we've just gotten used to the chaos, though I probably still say "Watch out!" about 40 times an hour to Raiona and Marc as we walk the narrow streets full of honking cars, zooming and beeping motorcycles, ding-a-linging bicycle rickshaws, people and more people. Definitely less tourists than in October. Marc regularly gets asked if he wants to buy hashish (and this is after shaving and cleaning up, too!). We are targeted by every shopkeeper wanting to sell to the few tourists (one guy followed us, shouting prices which kept falling like a torrent over a cliff, his price dropping about 10 fold because "you're the only tourists here!" - it worked, we bought).

It's been a bizarre week here, because the day after we flew in, there was a total strike (called by the Maoists, the Communist Party of Nepal who have disrupted things quite a bit in the past, violence notwithstanding - we met several trekkers who were stopped by Maoists collecting "donations." Thankfully, we had no such encounters...) - so the strike - no vehicles running, no shops open - nothing. We went out walking - easy to do because you didn't have to didge all the traffic - there were lots of people (Nepalis) out, but not a single vehicle anywhere. (Westerners who had to get to the airport were taken on a government supplied bus.) There was supposed to be another strike yesterday and today, but they postponed it due to public protest and the fact that yesterday was an auspicious day for weddings!

Today we walked up to the famous "Monkey Temple" (Swayambhu Nath Stupa). It's on a hill so you get a big view of the surrounding area, but there is so much pollution you can hardly see any distance at all. Crossing a river on the way, so much garbage it's unbelievable - truly sickening and disheartening - on the other hand, we passed people carving intricate designs in stone, a man pounding out beautiful brass bowls, women stringing bright orange flower leis, we've seen amazingly ornate beaded and embroidered fabrics, intricate paintings that take 14, 20, 25 days of painstaking work, golden painted statues and intricately carved building fascias - it's bizarre to have such beauty in some respects, and such utter degredation and filth in other respects - I don't know how people reconcile these things.

So, here's some details from the last week or so:

Hydro at Cheplung - So, 2nd to last day of hiking (Dec. 3), it's getting late and we're looking for a lodge - everything's CLOSED! (end of trekking season), so we keep going and going, and we're tired, it's close to dark, it's getting later and colder, and some of us may be getting just a bit crabby, and when are we ever going to find a place to stay (on the way in this section was a parade of trekkers, now there's nobody but us!). Finally - a lodge! Open? No - but her sister's lodge is, just 5 minutes up the trail. She has this guy accompany us there - he offers to take my pack but I have him take Raina's - and we ZOOM up the trail - this guy is going fast - we're smack in the middle of a yak train and he's jumping up on the side of the trail, speeding past these 2000 pound beasts who don't even know you exist, but we have to keep up with Raina's pack (Marc's not so lucky and gets stuck way behind the herd). Finally ahead of the yaks - where is that lodge? Finally there, and we learn the name of our helper (Ang Dawa) and learn that he is a cook for this lodge. We are the only guests, there are no lights, it's COLD, the toilet is way outside (so in the middle of the night I have to go downstairs, through the dining area where someone is sleeping, through the kitchen where someone is sleeping, unbar the door, through the gate, around back. Whew!) - BUT, we have a place to sleep, we have TEA (of course) and incredibly good dal bhat for dinner, and the family is incredibly NICE! AND the man really wants to show us their hydroelectric plant! (Who can resist?) So next morning we follow the guy down, down, and down some more, almost running along a rocky, muddy, steep path through the forest, till finally we come to a small stone building, about 6X6 feet, with a DANGER (in Nepali) sign on the door. Inside was a wheel in a shroud (6" wheel maybe?), a pulley to an induction motor/generator, wires going out of the building nailed to trees. And that's about it!

It makes 2 Kw (yes, you Utility nerds, that's TWO kilowatts - and more info for you Utility wanna-bes - the head pressure was just 20 PSI. Has a 5" penstock.) It serves 54 homes/lodges (that's roughly 200-250 people - so that's, like, 7 watts per person). It provides one or two lightbulbs (compact flourescents) per customer. People pay 200 rupees (a little under $3.00) per light bulb per month. The load shed happens because below a certain voltage the lightbulbs dono't work, so if there's too much load - the lightbulbs go out (thus shedding load) and the voltage goes back up.

That's probably more than most of you cared to know - but hey, it was really quite exciting (including the trail down to it), so we really felt we lucked into a fantastic situation!

Flying out of Lukla - Dec. 5. So, the airstrip at Lukla - fist of all, there are police (in riot gear) ALL over the place - we learn that the prime minister and cabinet had a meeting at Everest Base Camp (on global warming in the Himalayas) the day before, so now the police were ending their "field trip" to Lukla by taking group pictures in all their gear - there were still a lot of media around - they even interviewed Marc for the TV news! We did a lot of waiting around wondering when it would be our turn to get into one of the little 14 seat planes that kept flying in, spewing luggage and passengers, inhaling the next bunch, and zooming out again. Finally our turn - I'm in the from seat looking right into the cockpit (as the guy outside the plane is offwering the pilos tea and cookies through the window). Take-off - the runway is quite shore, so the planes turn at the very ultimate end of the strip, put on the brakes, rev up the engines (the little plane had propellers, just like the ones we put on the bus at Holden for our Easter flight to Bali/Koinonia last year), let go the brakes, blast down the 12-degree slope of the runway, take off, veer left before hitting the mountainside just ahead! "Adventure, Tyler!" (See the movie Never Cry Wolf for an explanation of that comment.) We flew quite low over the entire route that it took us 12 days of hiking and a 10-hour bus ride from Kathmandu - we could even see some of the lodges we'd stayed at! Circled Kathmandu a number of times, and were soon having tea (what else?) and snacks on the terrace of our Thamel hotel!

Power - the power in our area of Kathmandu goes off every night for several hours, and sometimes in the morning too. I think they need some consultations with Holden Utilities!

Eating - Dec. 7. So we have been eating our way through Kathmandu. Let's see, today we had breakfast at our hotel (eggs, toast, fried potatoes, tea), then bought 2 cinnamon rolls at a bakery (ate them), then bought samosas and doughnut things on the streets (5 samosa, 5 doughnuts, ate them), then had lunch at a momo (dumpling) place. Then we bought a loaf of bread and a giant nut cookie tart thing (ate them). Then had dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant. Then bought half-priced (after 8 p.m.) bakery goodies (2 pretzels, a cinnamon bun, ate them). So I think we are finally getting fillled up! Bilbo would be proud!

Philip's orphanage - Dec. 8. Some of you may remember Philip who volunteered at Holden in the summer of 2006 and again for a short time in 2007. He runs an orphanage in Kathmandu, so we had the chance to visit! Just getting there was quite the adventure - Philip says there are no traffic rules - then amends it to say there are, but only on paper. Took about 40 minutes in a taxi to go 4 kilometers. Anyway, we met a number of the kids - all in their blue school uniforms. Philip's mom served us the best dal bhat we've had in Nepal. Philip is doing such a good thing for these children - saving their lives really. He also had a number of copies of Holden's Fall Newsletter, so he gave us one. As we were looking through it, we found both Raina's and my picture in the paper (Raina in the Shakespeare play, me hiking across the avalanche debris). It was such a weird, but exciting connection, looking at the Holden newsletter, seeing our pictures, while hanging out at Philip's orphanage house in Kathmandu! They were all so very gracious. We feel lucky to have been able to visit.

So TOMORROW - we fly to Bangkok, Thailand! Last night here in Kathmandu! It's been quite a trip, hard to believe all that has happened. And now on to the tropics, and fresh fruit and vegetables!

My time is up (as usual) on this computer. I'll try to proofread this later, but for now, please excuse the mistakes. We'll be volunteering at the elephant sanctuary in Northern Thailand from December 14 - 27. So if I don't get back on the computer before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I think we'll decorate an elephant on Christmas Eve!

Anyway, many thanks for all of you who read this. It really makes us feel connected! Feel free to leave comments. I read them all! Thanks for being our extended community. We miss you!

Much love from us!