Heaven

The point

Our hotel

If there is a heaven, this is surely it. We are on an island 100 miles from shore in the middle of the Arabian Sea called Bangaram. There is nothing on this island but a hotel with 30 simple even ascetic huts, about 30 people staying in them, another 120 people working at the hotel and a few fishermen and coconut gatherers who come every now and then. The hotel only operates eight months a year, and closes every May 15 when the rains come. Then everybody who works at the hotel goes back home. And the island returns to nature.

When we arrived, the hotel manager briefed us. He said, “On Bangaram, everything is very simple. There is no TV, no internet, no phone, no golf, no tennis, no A/C and no hot water. But it is very luxurious and you will love your stay here, I promise.” I was, like, “What!!!! No hot water???? We are paying $400 a night and there’s no hot water?#%?$@$%?” But the manager was right. It is heaven. It’s just quiet and peaceful and intensely rejuvenating. The water is so warm we don’t wear wet suits when we dive, and the evening breezes are so soft they brush your shoulders like angel wings. Some days we dive, some we don’t. On the days we don’t we just laze around on the beach, or in the water, marvelling at the astounding beauty of Bangaram. We read. We write. We swim. We nap. On the days we do, we go out in the hotel’s ancient wooden launch to the reefs. The trip takes a leisurely hour because the boat is so slow, just like everything else on Bangaram. We swim amongst the lionfish, the turtles, the moorish idols and thousands of splendidly-colored other-worldly creatures. It is such a marvel, this second planet that God created under the sea. So much more ephemeral and beautiful than ours, and so much more serene.

The Bangaram Island Resort is the very opposite of resort. But it is vastly more luxurious than any resort we have ever been to. We privileged few are so very lucky to have this whole heavenly island to ourselves.

A Real Safari

We checked in to the best hotel in Coimbatore to plan our next move, and decided upon the Mudumalai Wildlife Park and Tiger Reserve.  This was a desperate attempt on my part to see an elephant in the wild.  I was terribly disappointed that we could not go to Chitwan, so I agitated for Mudumalai in the hope we could see some animals.  , past the spectacularly beautiful tea plantations, up to the highest hill station, Ooty, at 7500 feet, and back down again to Mudumalai at 3000 feet, on a hope and a prayer that we would see an elephant.

The Nilgiri Hills

 

 

 

 

Tea plantation

 

 

I learned how to identify both tiger and leopard prints.  It had rained the night before so the ground was soft, and the prints were very very fresh.  We came across a tiger kill (some kind of deer).  We knew it was tiger because there were four large, deep, perfect pad prints.  Elsewhere we found leopard tracks.  These are smaller than tiger prints and resemble a parachute formation.  We also found a hyena’s den clawed into a hillock with a large stone plinth blocking the entrance so a leopard cannot enter.  There were two babies in there although we could not see them. 

On our elephant walk

 

Hyena den

 

 

 

 

 

We took our second safari in the evening.  This time it was a jeep trip.  It was magnificent.  We saw a troop of black-faced langur monkeys leaping from tree to tree.  The females all had their babies, most of which were only a few days old, clinging to their bellies as they flew in the treetops.  We saw countless peacocks in the wild, mostly males.  While none put on their fabulous tail displays it was nevertheless magic to see them where they belong – hanging out in trees and calling to their lady friends.  They sound just like cats mewling.  We saw several wild boars rooting in the undergrowth, and a female elephant ambling along with her adolescent tusker and a baby.  The baby had been badly bitten by a tiger in its right hind knee.  The knee was terribly swollen and infected and he was limping badly. 

Mom with juvenile tusker and injured baby

 

Watering hole

 

 

 

 

My final safari was the best.  For some reason nobody but me wanted to go, so I had Achu and the jeep all to myself.   Right off the bat, we saw two male black buck deer.  These are very large black animals with spiral horns just like a unicorn’s.

 

 

Mother and son

A Note on Saris and Salwar Kameez

Saris are astoundingly beautiful; and Indian women, no matter their size, look astoundingly beautiful in them. The sari is a single piece of silk measuring 6 1/2 meters long by 3 1/2 meters wide. It is wrapped around the body three times, with the end thrown elegantly over the shoulder. An under garment is worn – a solid-color tight blouse with short sleeves that stops just below the breasts. When the sari becomes a little loose, the woman flashes a little skin around the midriff. This can look incredibly alluring, especially on a slim woman, but plumper women do better to keep themselves covered up.

Sari

Plump women looking mighty fine in their saris

Lately, the salwar kameez has come in to fashion. It is a knee-length tunic with drawstring harem pants underneath. It is always worn with a long scarf that is centered in the front, with both ends evenly draped down the back. The salwar kameez is, to my mind, way more functional than the sari. It is very lovely, but nowhere near as ephemerally beautiful as the sari. The salwar (pants) and the kameez (tunic) never match, but are also very well coordinated. They can be contrasting or complimentary colors

Salwar kameez

You might think that the sari is what you would wear at a party or more formal occasion, and that the salwar kameez is what you would wear every day. This is true for the middle classes, but not so for the lower classes, including the Untouchables. The lower castes and village women wear saris every day of their lives. They work the fields in their saris. They throw pots in their saris. They work construction in their saris. And they even work on road crews in their saris. You would think that doing heavy work in their saris that they would be a) workaday cotton and b) very dirty. Neither is true. It is inexplicable. Their saris are always impeccable. I cannot figure out how they keep them clean, especially as most of the washing is done on stones in the rivers.

Women carrying 50 kilos of rocks on their backs

The upper lower castes and lower middle castes all generally wear salwar kameez, as this form of dress is considered more modern and forward-thinking. At weddings and other formal occasions, though, everybody breaks out the saris. Formal saris are breathtaking — adorned with exquisite bead and sequin work, even semi-precious stones. And one displays three or four gold neclaces at the same time, and many many gold bangles on both arms.

The upper castes wear western clothing, with maybe a kameez over jeans. But they, too, at formal occasions, wear heirloom saris.

I have no idea what the glitterati wear. I want to see a Bollywood awards show to see what the famous actresses are wearing. I imagine, heavily sequined and beaded sleeveless or strapless dresses; but I am most curious to find out. I am sure that when we go back to Meera’s house in Delhi, she will tell me.

What Were We Thinking?

Our hospital room at the Ayurvedic cllinic

One of the things we were looking forward to the most was our visit to the Ayurvedic clinic in Coimbatore for some good old hot oil and massage therapy. We eschewed a spa as inauthentic and went straight for the jugular: the AVP clinic, which is the seat of Ayurvedic medicine in India and the world. Ayurvedic medicine is geared to improving health, not just healing, so you don’t have to be sick to go to an Ayurvedic hospital. We booked 10 days although we knew were cutting it short as the recommended treatment time is a minimum 3 weeks, with 5 weeks preferable. OMG. I cannot imagine even 3 weeks there, let alone 5 weeks. We lasted exactly 2 days. You can’t expect a lot for $10 a night, but there was no toilet paper, no towels and no top sheet; and forget a hot shower. There was no shower at all… just a spigot and a bucket . Plus, we were in the middle of nowhere, and an hour by car from the nearest anything. We received only one 1-hour treatment a day and the rest of the time we just sat around in the sticks feeling like prisoners. There was no gathering area to meet with other patients, no cafeteria (believe me, after a few days, room service gets really really boring). The treatments were pretty weird, too. Rubdowns with hot oils sounded great, but the massage tables are hardwood (emphasis hard) with troughs carved at the sides so the attendants can recapture and reuse your oils. First, they cut a little diaper for you out of muslin, which they tie on and then totally ignore, oiling you up everywhere. You are never on your stomach; just on your back and your sides. The weirdest part was being massaged on your side because you just float all over the oily table, desperately trying to get a handhold somewhere to keep yourself from slip-sliding all over the place. I found the first treatment intriguing, the second irritating, and fervently hoped there would never be a third. Ed, as it turned out, totally agreed, and we fled together from the clinic. We felt badly about it because our doctors and attendants were so wonderful; but once we were out of there, we were, like, Whoopie!!!!!

A Visit to the Doctor and a Stroll Through Town

I was woken today, as I was yesterday, by what I thought were crows making very uncrowlike sounds. A kind of screeching mantra that I have finally figured out are monkeys saying their morning prayers. Ed woke up feeling really miserable, so we asked the hotel for doctor. The front desk recommended Dr. Marwal, and said he could cure anything. We walked to the clinic to see Dr. Marwal, who examined Ed and gave him some medicines that have made him much more comfortable. Dr. Marwal’s clinic was maybe 10’ x 15’, but he spoke perfect English and was warm and sympathetic. His charge for the examination and the medicine: 450 rupees, or $9.

After the doctor, we strolled through town. I bought a skirt and an ankle bracelet with bells on it, which I love. And we visited a Tibetan rug factory, one of the Dalai Lama’s projects. We are staying in upper Dharamasala, or McLeod Ganj as it is called.

Tibetan woman

This is the very heart of the Tibetan exile community. Indeed, we can see the Dalai Lama’s compound from the terrace of our hotel, which is itself a branch of the Norbulingka Institute. Most of the people in McLeod Ganj are Tibetan. They look very different from the Indians. Their faces are so strong and so interesting and so filled with experience. The older people are chiseled, wind-whipped, deeply lined. The younger ones look happy, hopeful, and already wise. There are also monks and nuns everywhere, shaved, and wrapped in

Tibetan man buying sandals

their saffron robes. I feel like I’m on a studio tour, and this is the set of a period film about Tibet. We also visited the Dalai Lama’s temple, which was actually something of a shock, in that it was very small, very simple, unadorned, similar to many of the roadside temples we see so many of. Not at all

Weaving a rug

like the Karmapa’s magnificent temple. In fact, it wasn’t even as impressive as the temple in the monastery in

Shearing a rug

Woodstock where Ed’s teacher Rimpoche lives. But the simplicity of his temple actually, made me love the Dalai Lama even more. This April is the 50th anniversary of the Chinese takeover of Tibet. Is it possible it has been that long? When will Tibet be free? What will happen when the Dalai Lama dies? He is 74. The Chinese will certainly try to appoint a new Dalai Lama, but how long will it be before the high lamas identify his real reincarnation? Sometimes it is many years before a high high lama’s reincarnation is found. And what will happen in the meantime? Who will carry the torch? It is so sad.

Free Tibet

Nobody Home

Our next stop after Nepal was Dharamasala, India, where their Holinesses the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa are living in exile. Ed has wanted to visit Dharamasala for about 40 years.

McLeod Ganj with the Himalayas behind

We missed our connection to Dharamasala by 7 hours and the next flight wasn’t til 2 days later, so we snagged a cab into Delhi. By the grace of God, our driver was Jazwant, and he spoke English (sort of). We were too late to book the overnight train (you need at least 4 hours advance and mostly you need at least a few days), so we told Jazwant to take us to the bus terminal. Jazwant said ”Oh, no, no, no, no, please. You cannot go by public bus. Not nice. We must try the train.” So he drove us to the railway station even though we were way past

Truck in Dharamasala

the deadline. I waited in the taxi while Jazwant took Ed in, where they told them that it was impossible to buy seats on the train this late. But Jazwant was The Man. He found us a porter who found us The Fixer – a young man named Rawl who fixed everything. For 7,000 rupees, he secured us 1^st class sleeper tickets on the overnight train to Pathankot, which was a mere 4-hour cab ride to Dharamasala. While we were waiting to board the train The Fixer lamented the rampant corruption in India that would cause us to have to pay twice the correct price for our berths. He told me, “Momma, everybody in India is corrupt, including me. It is a national tragedy.”

The Dalai Lama needs no intro, but perhaps you have not heard of the Karmapa. He is the spiritual head of the Tibetan nation, and along with the Dalai Lama, the oldest reincarnation of the Bodhisattva. His mission is not to live in a cave, but to go out in to the world to insure that every living soul can be enlightened and liberated, however many reincarnations that may take. This Karmapa is the 17^th Karmapa, and he is a very young, but very wise man. He is the head of the lineage under which Ed studies and practices, and is a most important person in Ed’s world, maybe the very most important. So this journey to Dharamasala is something of a pilgrimage.

Tibetan Shrine

We arrived yesterday, and today we went to attend the Karmapa’s traditional Wednesday afternoon teaching only to discover that the Karmapa is not in Dharamasala, but in Veranasi. I am heartbroken for Ed. Just heartbroken. We tried to find someone who could tell us what the Karmapa’s schedule is, indeed where he is teaching in Veranasi, but no one knows. Everyone attending him, his entire office, has gone with him. One of the monks told us he would be back in about two weeks. So sad. And to top it off, Ed is now suffering terribly from my cold. We visited both the Karmapa’s temple, which was fabulous in the truest sense of the word, as well as the Norbulinka Institute, which is the Dalai Lama’s foundation to keep Tibetan arts and culture alive.

At Norbulingka Institute

They were both very beautiful and spiritual places. But they could not make up for the crushing absence of the Karmapa.

Hot Water!!!

Bye-bye Hotel Harati, you of the gray towels and the tepid water. We tearfully said goodbye to our travelmates but very thankfully moved on to Courtyard Hotel.

The old and the new

We were greeted at the front desk by Michelle, the American wife of the owner, Pujon, a Nepali Prince who is now running his family’s 6-story, 50,000 sq. ft. palace as a hotel. What a change that was! Half the guests and Michelle and Pujon were spread out on sofas in the courtyard surfing the internet wirelessly. Everybody talking, laughing, e-mailing, drinking tea. Michelle told us they screen all their guests. She said that if you are an ex-pat, you are automatically allowed in. There were two real Mexicans staying there,

Ancient street dog

Rebekah and Pedro Martinez. Pedro and his father are the developers of Real del Mar, Alimar, La Joya and numerous other developments in Naryarit. I told Pedro I knew both his father and his mother as they are advisors to P.E.A.C.E.

Pujon was educated abroad. He was sent to boarding school in India at the age of 5. When he was in high school, his sister went to college in Seattle, and she brought him with her to study there. He is thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly, Westernized.

The Garden of Dreams

Somewhere along the line, he met and married Michelle, totally against his mother’s wishes. His mother is terribly spoiled. When she was a little girl, she had a wedding for her doll. She invited 500 people and she and the doll were carried through the streets of Kathmandu, each on their own palanquin. There were musicians and dancers and all the people received candies and favors. In Nepal, most marriages are arranged. The wives come to live with the son’s family and are totally treated as slaves to the mother-in-law. They must cook for

Patan temple

her and wash for her, and bathe her and dress her, and do her hair and rub her feet. Pujon’s mother had been looking forward to her good Nawari daughter-in-law for many years only to find that her only son had married a liberated American girl who couldn’t even cook American, let alone Nawari. She will not talk to Michelle, and has presented several suitable girls to Pujon as she does not recognize the legitimacy of his marriage. Michelle says that his father and his sisters have warmly accepted her, so she is happy enough with the way things stand.

Just hangin' around

Pujon and Michelle’s hotel is an oasis right in the middle of the densest part of the city. We still had to suffer the electricity outages, but at least there was always hot water. Our room was a little strange. There was cream-painted wood paneling about three feet high running around the rooms (we were staying in a suite). And the walls above were painted black. Black would be a weird color in a sunny environment, but in a country where you have usable electricity for 4 hours a day, it was downright bizarre.

Kathmandu at night

At night, we had to train the candles to reflect off the ceiling, which was also painted cream. Black is an interesting color. I thought it absorbed all color. But it appeared to be different colors in different parts of the rooms. In some places it looked blue-black, in other places green-black, in others moonlight-black, in still others, a deep, dark ebony. I didn’t know there could be so many shades of the same color, black. Ed loved the effect. I did not.

Black bedroom in the Prince's palace

Kathmandu

Well, I have had a good night’s sleep and Raj has sent up two buckets of hot water so that at least we may bathe. I feel much better. Kathmandu is a magnificent city: ancient and beautiful, with narrow, winding streets lined with beautiful old houses that lean in toward each other. If we only had hot water, I would be in heaven.

Bhaktapur

Our hotel is very close to the Thamil area of the city. It has thousands of shops selling beautiful things: exquisitely embroidered shawls, jewelry, trekking gear, Tibetan refugee items like brass bells, thangkas

Shop

and the like, hippie clothing by the boatloads, wood carvings, you name

Temples

it. And speaking of hippies, everybody here kind of looks like one. Guys with dreads, chicks wearing long Indian skirts, lots of Japanese, trekkers. Nobody old like us. At night Thamil transforms itself. Music pours out of everywhere. Fantastic blues, live Nepali reggae (you wouldn’t believe it; it’s actually nice!). It is a very hip scene.

And Nepal is clean! By nightfall there is a lot of trash in the streets, but they sweep it away in the early morning and things look really spiffy again. A real contrast to India where trash is everywhere.

Today we went to Bahktapur, a village just outside of Kathmandu. It is 1900 years old and is still vibrantly inhabited. Walking those narrow streets made us feel that we had time-traveled. I don’t think much has changed in 500 years.

Spinning yarn

I felt like I was an extra in a movie. It was just unreal, and I felt so privileged to be there. Leaving it, though we stumbled upon an animal sacrifice. At first, when we were told about the sacrifices I didn’t really see anything too terribly wrong about that because they do eat the animals, but when I stumbled upon a sacrifice I was horrified. It wasn’t butchery. It was torture. I could never put it in to words it was so terrible. I have been thinking about Molly a lot on this trip. They need so much help here, in the schools and with the animals. There are scrofulous dogs everywhere with mange and tumors and worse. We would need 10,000 Mollys here to make a dent. Oh Molly, I wish there were more of you.

Doorway to the past

Melt Down

I got up this morning looking forward to washing my hair for the first time in 4 days and to shopping in the bazaars here. But a) there is no hot water, b) there is no electricity (the Nepali government rations it and our hotel only has it for 4 hours a day, 12 noon to 4 pm) and c) today is the biggest holiday of the year and everything is closed. Not only that, but everybody is out on the streets throwing colored dye and water bombs on everybody else.

The colors of Happy Holi Day

It is 100% crazy. You can only go outside if you are wearing something you don’t care about at all because within a half hour you will be drenched with water and covered from the top of your head to your toes in every color under the sun. Your hair will be dyed. Your clothes will be dyed. And your face will be an unrecognizable rainbow. If you were wearing a plastic raincoat, it will have been ripped off, and people will have rushed at you from every direction to make sure you are totally color-saturated. And definitely, someone will have come up from behind you and rubbed your face with both of his dye-covered hands to make sure you are thoroughly colored-up.

Our friends displaying their colors on Happy Holi Day

Before going to bed, Raj scheduled a group meeting for noon today to tell us what the program was going to be seeing that we were unable to go to either Lumbini or Chitwan, and that we would now be in Kathmandu for a week. At breakfast Ed and I decided to move to another hotel. We found what sounded like a really good place in Lonely Planet and tried to call; but a very nice gentleman told us it was a private residence and that he gets calls for Courtyard Hotel all the time. So we got in to a cab and asked the driver to take us there. He had never heard of the hotel. We told him the district. He said he knew Pokjara district, and we showed him the map with the little triangle for Courtyard Hotel. We drove around for awhile with everybody throwing bombs at us and trying to get us colored up, and then we finally realized we were nowhere near Pokjara district and told him to take us back to our old hotel.

We got back just in time for Raj’s group meeting. He said that today we would go to some Buddhist temples (fat chance they’ll be open!) and tomorrow we would go by bus to a very old town somewhat north of the city that has some very beautiful temples. At the word ‘bus’ I had a major melt-down. We had just spent two entire days on a bus! I am still melted down. I burst into tears and started bawling. Totally embarrassed myself. Fled to my room.

Raj feels terrible. But there is nothing he can do. I am just miserable. And tired. And I have an awful cold. And I told him I just want to spend the afternoon in my room waiting for the electricity to come on and for the water to get hot and that I want some time to myself to just cry my eyes out, which is exactly what I am doing. Mandy told me I am so upset because I am exhausted, and that I just need to rest, and that is probably true. But I am too old for this Intrepid stuff. I need hot water. And white towels. And someone who speaks English to tell me where a pharmacy is so I can buy some Kleenex. I am just over the edge right now, absolutely and truly over the edge. A rubber band stretched too tight that just snapped.

The Revolutionary Road

From Varanasi, we were supposed to go to Nepal — first to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, then to the Chitwan National Park where we were to go on safari for three days to see wild one-horned rhinos, tigers, elephants, leopards and assorted monkeys. But our group leader Raj told us that there was a strike in the flatlands of Nepal, close to the border, and that maybe it would not be possible to go to Lumbini, which is very close to the border.

Our transportation to the hotel on the Nepali border

There are two distinct regions of Nepal — the flatlands bordering India, which is largely Hindu, and the Himalayan area, which includes Kathmandu, which is largely Buddhist. The flatlands wish to establish a separate state and have been staging periodic strikes, which sometimes close the roads. Well, we not only did not make it to Lumbini, but we never made it to Chitwan either.

We left Varanasi for Lumbini at 4:30 am and got to the border around 4 pm. The people at the border told us there was a lot of protest on the road into Nepal, so we stopped at a hotel about 2 km into Nepal from the border. We packed in to the restaurant while our guide scoped matters out. Around 10 pm he told us we would stay at the hotel overnight, and leave for Chitwan, again at 4:30 am. He wanted an early start so that any troublemakers on the road would be asleep and we could slip through without any trouble.

Our room was a bare-bulb room (literally, one lone fluorescent light bulb lighting our room) with no hot water, indeed no water at all. We were so grubby after our 12-hour trip to Nepal that the only thing we wanted was a hot shower. We got up at 4 am, splashed bottled water on our faces, hurriedly brushed our teeth and went downstairs to wait for our bus. It finally arrived at 5:30 am. We piled our bags on top of the bus and boarded for our trip, supposedly to Chitwan. It was a broken down old Nepali bus meant to take people from town to town along the road, but it was the best that Raj could find. It was certainly not meant to travel any kind of long distance. Nepali people are very small, and there was so little distance between the seats that you either had to sit with your legs in the aisle, or with your knees wide apart.

Getting on the bus after making it through the roadblock

The seats were not big enough for all of us, so Conrad decided to lie on the floor of the bus (this turned out to be a lifesaver). There was no suspension, and we were bounced around so continuously that it was totally impossible to fall asleep, not even for a minute. Every time the bus came to a stop it had to be jump-started. The driver’s helper would jump out and push the bus forward or back depending on whether we were facing uphill or down. As it happened, we were on this bus for 17 ½ hours.

We noted immediately that there were people out on the road, and we had not gone 5 km before we encountered a roadblock. There were scores of Nepali men with bamboo sticks and there were huge rocks on the road blocking the way. Five people had been killed there the evening before and their bodies still had not been taken away. The rebels wanted to burn our bus. Our guide pleaded with the rebels that we were just a bunch of tourists and that we had a very ill member of our group who needed to get to hospital in Kathmandu. They looked in and saw Conrad lying on the floor and asked why we would be taking him all the way to Kathmandu, and Raj told them it was because he needed to be flown back home to Australia. Conrad groaned on cue. The situation was so bizarre and we were all so nervous that we had to struggle mightily not to laugh. Eventually, the rebels did let us pass. Later we heard that they burned the bus of a group of people on a U.N. bus and left the people stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a civil war.

We made it through the war zone, but our guide called Chitwan to see what the situation was there and was told things were bad, so we just kept going. And going. And going.

Lunch on the road to Nepal

We stopped twice for food at little places in towns along the road, restaurants with two-burner stoves and one water spigot, and oh yes, toilets out back that had no toilet, just a hole in the floor with two pads on either side for your feet and that reeked of pee and that had virtually never ever been cleaned. It is a wonder none of us has gotten ill as we have lived for almost a week now in indescribable conditions,

The dish washer

eating, sleeping and peeing in indescribable places.

We drove through the Mahabharat Range to reach Kathmandu, where there is no unrest. Kathmandu lies in the foothills of the Himalayas about 150 kms southwest of Everest. The mountains we drove through were so very beautiful and the rivers indescribably so. They were the most amazing colors, shifting from a deep teal to indigo blue. The mountains are everywhere terraced so that the people may grow wheat and other vegetables. They live in very simple but very beautiful homes. They are clearly an artistic culture as the stonework is better and more beautiful than I have seen anywhere. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for instance, which is so well-known for its lovely stone houses, the stones are fairly large and rounded. Here, the masons use smaller stones, with very little mortar, and they chisel the stones so that they have a flat side. Thus, the walls of the houses are perfectly flat. Perfectly. The roofs are either corrugated tin, or thatch. The thatching, too, is exquisite, nothing like palapa. Much finer, and with very elegant lines and elegant detailing. Some of the houses are made of brick, and here, too, the brickwork is exquisite with very fine detailing primarily for ventilation purposes. Yet other homes are stuccoed and beautifully-painted with two colors in the simplest and most pleasing combinations. It amazed me that one of the poorest people on earth could have such an artistic and sophisticated building tradition.

We had expected to arrive in Kathmandu around 7 pm, but ran into traffic on the road that had everything at a standstill. It was an accident, and for several hours, the ambulances (Himalayan jeeps) whizzed by and we waited. We finally reached our hotel at around 11 pm. Tired, not hungry, and indescribably dirty. But we had hot water! Never mind the gray towels, we had hot water! I took a shower but didn’t wash my hair because I didn’t want to go to sleep with it wet (it gets very chilly at night here in Kathmandu; the temperature swing is about 40 degrees F every day).

To give you an idea of the type of hotel we are staying in, there is a paper here that tells you the prices for anything you break or take with you as a souvenir (80 rupees to the dollar).

Blanket Rs. 2500

Water Jug Rs. 1200

Mattress Rs. 6000 ( it’s 3” thick)

Bed Cover Rs. 2000

Towel Rs. 600 (my favorite – a nice gray towel for a souvenir!)

Rug As per damage (what rug? there is no rug in this room)