Last weekend we helped Maggie to celebrate her first ever Thanksgiving at Kopila Valley.  All of the volunteers pitched in and we managed to have a pretty good Thanksgiving meal, despite the lack of traditional ingredients at our disposal.  The uncles killed a turkey that day and because all we have is a small toaster oven we pan seared it instead.  It came out pretty well too.  Mashed potatoes and the canned cranberry sauce were easy enough, as was the steamed corn.  It was Matt's and my job to make the gravy.  We were going to make gravy using chicken bullion but then we found a few packets of instant country gravy laying around.  Even though it was a different kind of gravy we decided that it would be harder to screw up so we took the easier route.  As it turns out I am not very good at mixing.  We also made way to much gravy.  The stuffing came out pretty well also.  Then, to top everything off, we had some apple crisp, basically apple pie without the crust.  We pushed the tables together, lit a few candles and had a good old fashion American meal in Sukhet, Nepal.  We also celebrated with a girl who'se parents are Nepalese but has grown up in London.  It was her first Thanksgiving as well, and she thoroughly enjoyed out rag tag meal.  

Thanks for the pictures Ben.

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Last, but certainly not least, is the third part of our vacation.  As I said in the last post, Matt and I hopped on a bus last second from Gorkha and the Manakamana Temple to Kathmandu where we needed to extend our visas.  Matt's was expiring in just a few days and mine wasn't expiring until mid December but I figured that I was so close to Kathmandu already that it would have been foolish not to just do it then.  So I took Nike's advice (Just Do It) and jumped on one of the many buses baring a rough version of their logo.  All of the buses in this country have either Nike or Adidas logos, sometimes both, painted on their sides, I think because potential riders know and trust the logos.  It has nothing to do with actual sponsorship because they are all slightly misshapen.  Again, and I probably don't even need to say it this time, the ride took longer than expected.  Other than being stuck in traffic for over an hour because of, believe it or not, road construction, the ride was pretty uneventful.

After dropping several people off at their doorsteps, Matt and I were the last two aboard the bus.  We asked the driver and the "conductor" to drop us off at the bus park.  They said okay and then instead dropped us off on the side of the road where their buddy who drives a cab was waiting.  Its funny because they think that we don't see right through their little ploy to help out a friend but it in the end it really doesn't matter, as long as we're not getting "white people prices."  This was something a different cab driver thought he got away with saying to us.  When Matt asked what he said he changed it to, "good Nepali price."  We managed to whittle it down a bit though.  Anyway, we asked the cab driver to take us to Thamel.  He either didn't understand what we were saying or had never heard of the Buddha Garden Hotel so we were just dropped in the middle of Thamel with no direction.  It was quite the sight when we stepped out.  I'm not sure words can do it justice but it was kind of like a much, MUCH denser, shorter, dirtier, and sketchier version of Times Square.  Oh and I'm not sure you could call it a grid either.  Streets cross in every which way, and not a single one of them is named or labeled.  The next thing we were shocked by was the number of white people walking around.  The number of white people I have seen in this country since my time here began easily tripled in the first two minutes we spent in Thamel.  There were lighted signs hanging off of every building, seemingly about to fall off, power lines and other various wires and prayer flags draped across the streets, and vendors, shop owners, and tourists everywhere.

We walked around acting like we knew what we were doing until we couldn't help but laugh at our own ineptitude.  We then began asking around for the Buddha Garden Hotel, largely without luck.  We ended up stumbling across Fire and Ice, a very popular brick oven pizza restaurant just outside of the hustle and bustle of Thamel that we were told to visit.  With bags on our backs we decided to eat before finding the hotel.  The pizza was actually very good, but keep in mind this is coming from someone who has been without American food for 2 months.  We ended up eating dinner there every night, and once or twice for lunch. We were seated at a table for four with a guy and girl, both from China.  We had some interesting conversations.  I asked stupid questions when it got silent for my own entertainment; questions like, "what do you prefer to use, chopsticks or forks and knives?"  At least one of them thought I was funny.

After dinner we needed to find a place to stay and lost tourists are an easy target for taking advantage of in the eyes of the locals.  We ended up bartering with a bicycle rickshaw driver to take us there because he claimed to know where it was and the streets were quickly clearing out.  It was only about 8:45 pm when we were dropped off at the hotel but much to our surprise the big metal gates out front were already locked shut.  It was time to call an audible, something we were completely unprepared for, especially in a part of town like Thamel.  As we stood in front of the locked hotel and wondered aloud as to what our next move would be, we were approached by a man who asked us if we needed a place to stay.  As it turned out, he was a hotel manager and his hotel was across the street and down just a few buildings.  The name of the place was Hotel Chillout, recently changed from The Diplomat or something like that.  I guess something so official sounding didn't fit well in a place like Thamel so they decided they needed an image change.  Anyway, we took what sounded like a fair enough price for the night, which actually wasn't, but was a cheap enough mistake to make, and then enjoyed a beer on the roof of the hotel with the staff.  They were very friendly and made us feel at home.  We even got to congratulate a brand new father on the birth of his daughter that day.  We were wary enough of our new friends seeing as we just met and already knew some about Thamel's reputation, but it turned out to be a great experience to just sort of stumble into.

We slept well enough in our room and started the day early the next morning.  The plan was to go get our visas extended and then get breakfast.  We found our way to the immigration office and stood around with no one there to help us.  We eventually found some more information which led us to realize how woefully unprepared we were.  We didn't have visa pictures, copies of our passport, or US dollars which we were wrongly told we needed.  We decided to get all of those things after lunch at Fire and Ice.  Getting all of the necessities was easy enough.  A travel agent helped us procure those items and book a flight back to Surkhet, the newly opened air port which is much closer to the house than Nepalgunj.  The rest of the day we pretty much just rested and ate.  We ate at Fire and Ice, yet again, and this time with a guy from Singapore.  His english wasn't quite as good but it was still interesting to talk with him.  Afterwards we decided we wanted to get out and see some of the nightlife so we decided to check out a place called the Rum Doodle which is famous for all of the visits from Everest expeditioners.  They have large cutouts of feet hanging from all over the ceiling signed by many different expeditions, some dating back to the 70's and maybe even late 60's if I remember correctly.  We stayed for only a drink and eves dropped on a large group making all sorts of toasts.  By the looks of them we could tell they weren't going to be summiters but more likely base camp visitors.  We then decided to check out Hotel Garuda, which many famous Everest summiters have stayed in the nights before their trek, including Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, John Krakauer, and others from the best seller, Into Thin Air.  They had lots of memorabilia and signed posters from Hall and Fischer.  We then checked out one more bar that had a surprisingly good live Nepali band playing good American music before we called it a night.

The next day we got up early again so we could be at the immigration office before it opened and be done with it.  There was already a small line so we jumped in and waited patiently.  After listening to some other tourists talk about potential problems and ways that they may try to screw us we grew a little nervous and stressed.  There was only one more group in front of us before we were up next.  After they got through and just before we could step up to the counter we had a Nepali man put out his arm and prevent us from moving forward.  As he did this he waved up a group of eight Italians standing directly behind us in line.  They grabbed Matt's backpack and made him step aside as if he were their previous prime minister.  There was nothing we could do except sit and steam.  The Nepali man clearly had a friend in the office.  It was just weird that they waited until we were next.  About 20 minutes later we ended up getting through without any issues.  We left our passports at the office and had to come back at 3 pm to pick them up.  In the meantime we found a KFC and gorged on that for lunch.  I never knew greasy chicken could taste so good.  Then we walked around for a while, taking in some of the architecture and buying some stupid stuff for Christmas presents.  Don't ask what.  It's still November.  At 3 we returned to the immigration office and were in line to pick up our passports.  The Italians were no where to be seen until, again, we were next in line.  Can you guess what happened?  Yup, shoved aside again.  I now have a legitimate counter argument to the statement, "Americans are the most obnoxious tourists."  We checked out of our hotel and actually decided to check into Hotel Garuda, just to say we did.  As it turns out, we unknowingly turned down the room Rob Hall and Jan Arnold had stayed in for the room right next door.  Although, for the superstitious, maybe that was for the best.  Their expedition didn't fare too well.

It was our last night in Thamel so Fire and Ice was the obvious choice for dinner, again.  This time we sat with two German women.  They spoke english very well but spoke in German most of the time anyways.  I think they were commenting on our conversation because I heard them repeat several words that we had just said.  They were very friendly though so I didn't mind.  Then we set out to see a little more of the nightlife.  It was a holiday so I think the sketch dial had been turned up.  All weekend we were being offered hashish by men on the streets but this night was particularly bad.  Our first night it was a little unsettling, the second night it was annoying, and the third night it just became entertaining.  You couldn't walk a quarter of a block without being offered hash.  They would do this right in front of cops.  We almost made it into a game, pointing out the drug dealers before they would rush up to you and whisper audibly, "Hashish? Hashish?"  We even encountered our first group of transvestites/transexuals.  We didn't stick around long enough to figure out what they were exactly but they saw us and were calling us over to them.  One of our Fire and Ice friends had warned us about them and how they like to do just that and then grab your crotch.  We circled wide around them as we passed.  We ventured into one venue for a drink and both agreed it was potentially dangerous so we payed our bill and skedaddled, problem free.  We had had enough of the weird stuff Thamel has to offer for one night so we returned to the Rum Doodle for a drink and then one more at Paddy Foley's, another bar with the same live band from the night before.

Our flight was at 9 am the following morning.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare and when they were letting our flight through security we noticed that the BIR on our tickets did not actually stand for Birendranagar, the part of Surkhet where Kopila Valley and the airport are located.  Instead it stood for Biratnagar.  Our travel agent had booked an incorrect flight.  Biratnagar is southeast of Kathmandu and we intended to go northwest.  For some reason he insisted the Surkhet airport was open, but this was not the case.  Luckily we found an airport employee who helped us better than most US airport employees would.  He helped us change our tickets so that we could catch a flight 6 hours later going to Nepalgunj, the next closest airport to Surkhet.  We killed some more time in Thamel and the caught our flight.  We could see the Himalayas once we took off.  They were stunning.

Landing in Nepalgunj was interesting.  There were far more passengers on the one small airplane than there were airport employees present.  We then took some more rickshaws over to the bus station where we learned that there were no more buses to Surkhet that day and it was only about 4 pm.  At this point we wanted nothing more than to just get back to Kopila Valley.  Instead we had to stay in a hotel overnight and wake up early to catch a 4:45 am bus back.  Checking out was made outrageously difficult but because they knew Kopila Valley they ended up just sending the bill along later.  We were there in time for the bus, but it didn't leave until almost 2 hours later.  What should have been a 2 hour drive turned into about a 5 hour endeavor.  I don't even know why I'm complaining about it at this point, its what I expected.  Anyway, we got home in one piece and just crashed for the rest of the day, no worse for the wear.

It was fun travelling around Nepal with no plans for a while, but in the future I think I'll save those kind of adventures for a country that doesn't add loads of stress to every short bit of transportation.



The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Part two of vacation... We departed from Chitwan early the next morning.  What should have been a short drive unsurprisingly turned into a longer one.   I believe it was about 6 hours to our next destination, the Manakamana Temple.  It is located in Gorkha, Nepal which is only a few hours from Kathmandu.  The temple is located on the top of a mountain which is now easily accessible by cable car.  We all took the cable cars up and got some pretty great views on the way up.  There were small villages scattered all over the mountainside, many painted with the NCell logo.  NCell seems to have surpassed Coca Cola, Nike and Adidas in quantity of advertisements in Nepal.  As we rolled over the crest of the mountain we were greeted by all of the waving Kopila Valley students who had already taken their cars up.

The Kopila Valley greeting

After everyone was unloaded we had a quick snack of tangerines and then walked down an extremely busy road lined with nothing but vendors, all holding out various items and shouting their elaborate sales pitches such as, "you like, yes?"  When we got to the end of the road there was the Manakamana Temple, standing tall in the middle of an small courtyard surrounded by more vendors and small tea shops.  It was bustling with tourists, monks, vendors, monkeys, pigeons and those intending to make a sacrifice at the temple.  Manakamana is the name of a Hindu goddess who is believed to fulfill the wishes of the people.  'Mana' means the 'heart' or 'soul' and 'kamana' means 'wish'.  Apparently thousands of goats a day are sacrificed there.  We saw a good number of goats who enjoyed their first and last cable car ride that day.  I wondered if you could buy a one way ticket.  The temple itself was beautiful and clearly old.  There were burning candles or incense lining the outside of the temple and bells of all sizes that patrons could freely ring.  The line to get inside was hours long so we opted not to go in which I regret.  I was very curious to see inside.  We walked up long set of stairs, which the line of people extended up, to another peak of the mountain.  We found a flat grassy area where we sat and ate breakfast for a while.  Apparently the view from there is incredible but it was too foggy out that day unfortunately.  Maggie told us you could see the Himalayas from where we sat.  We waited some time hoping for the fog to burn off, but to no avail.  After we descended the steps, bought some trinkets for the kids and rode the cable cars back to the bottom it was time for lunch.  We ate some dal baht at a local place, dealt with a child who appeared to have bitten through his lip because of a see saw accident, then piled back onto the bus.

The vendors' street

Manakamana Temple

From our breakfast location

Back down the mountain

Before we piled back onto the bus after lunch

This is where Matt and I departed for Kathmandu.  We needed to extend our visas, were already so close to Kathmandu and had already endured the long bus drive through Nepal that I swore to myself I would not do again.  This meant of course that we had to miss the last part of the trip to Lumbini, Buddha's birthplace, but it would have been silly not to go to Kathmandu from there, having already come so far.  It was a pretty impromptu decision to depart so abruptly but I kind of like not having all of the details worked out.  Some might call that stupid but I might dare to call it adventurous.  Maggie helped us find a bus that was leaving Gorkha for Kathmandu, told us to stay in the Buddha Garden hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu (a touristy part of Kathmandu), and sent us on our way.

Part 3 coming next...



The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Its been a while since my last post, I know.  But we have also had a busy week or so.  I will start with the first part of our trip.  The day after Maggie's birthday we left for Chitwan, a Nepali national park.  We all loaded onto one bus.  We had 40 seats for 50 people.  Luckily a number of the kids are small enough to sit on laps and double up in seats, but it was still a tight fit.  As is customary in Nepal, it took about an hour to get more than a mile away from the house.  We made a few stops, filling up on gas, trying to pick up strangers, and bathroom breaks... because none of this could have been done before they got to the house.  We eventually did get on our way and about 14 hours later we arrived at the resort in Chitwan.  It was dark and everyone was hungry.  I was asked to hold a boys hand who has cerebral palsy when we got off the bus.  This wasn't so strange a thing to be asked but then he promptly  dropped trow and began peeing right outside the bus door.

We all went into the dining room where the kids were seated and served dal baht.  Adults ate next.  We then split everyone up into small groups and sent them to bed.  The rooms were decent enough but small.  We had four adults and two beds.  We made due.  One volunteer got his own bed, one slept on the floor and the other two shared the other bed.  We woke up early the next morning and drove to the park after breakfast where we were to ride elephants.  I was very excited about this.  I used to love Dumbo.  It was pretty cool seeing people coming and going on elephants as we waited in line.  Some of them were decorated in paint or tika.  We all loaded up on elephants in groups for 4 to 6.  The elephants walked carefully down a steep bank and waded across the river.  Then through some grass and into the jungle.  There were winding paths that weaved and split and cris crossed through the jungle.  We all split up and went different directions and then out of nowhere another group on their elephant would emerge from the thick vegetation.  The children were louder than the elephants for the most part.  Otherwise you might not have had any idea they were even there.  Apparently the monkeys were hiding that morning and tigers are rarely seen but we did see wild hen, peacock, two different kinds of deer, which are not spooked by the sight of a human by the way, and several other birds.  Luckily I did see some monkeys on the drive in, hanging out by the side of the road.

Our guide wouldn't tell us the name of our elephant because he is playful and gets excited at the sound of its own name.  The guide said "he" but I think it was actually a female elephant, it wasn't quite big enough for a male.  Our ride was about an hour long and was lots of fun.  When we got back we bought several bananas for the kids to feed the elephants.  They got to pet its trunk and see it up close from a different view.  We returned to the hotels for some lunch and to relax for a little then decided to take a crocodile tour.  We loaded into some very small boats carved from tree trunks and set off down a very still river.  I think our boat had too many larger people in it because when I looked over the side we had about 2 inches of dry boat.  I had to remind the boys to keep all hands, feet, heads and bodies in the boats at all times.  Maggie made a very strong point of scaring the kids out of touching the water.  The first person to break that rule was one of the uncles who reminds me of Tom Hanks' character in Big.  He is a child trapped in a man's body.  The first one in the boat and he broke the rules before anyone else even stepped foot in a boat.  The second one to break the rules was his son who sat directly in front of me.  His excuse was he just wanted to touch the water.  He clearly takes after his father.

Don't you do it Buhkta...

We did end up seeing several crocs.  I only saw two on land but some of the kids claimed to see one or two more, at least one of them in the river.  One boat had to stop along the way to let some kids out to go to the bathroom.  This was of course about only 5 minutes away from the end of the tour.  They got out and climbed ashore into some very tall grass.  It didn't seem very safe but by the time any of us saw what was going on it was too late.  We got to the end of the tour with all 33 kids and 132 limbs (to save some of you the time, thats 4 limbs per kid).  Then we walked over to where they kept some more elephants.  There they had some much larger males chained up to large posts.  Unfortunately they did not look too happy.  It was kind of unsettling to see how they were kept.  Supposedly the elephants are capable of breaking their chains if they were muster up the motivation.  There was a baby elephant too, which was fenced in with its mother.  The baby kept trying to climb over or though the fence while its mother stood in the middle chained up.  Freeing it would have been fun and made for a good blog post but writing it from a Nepali prison cell might've made that difficult.

The male elephant

We also visited a so called museum.  It was a lot more like a dead zoo.  It was two rooms of display cases and taxidermy animals.  Many of the display cases contained animal reproductive organs and fetuses.  I'm just glad it was in the middle of the day because it was kind of horrifying.  Unless you have some strange need to see some skulls and preserved animal naughty bits I'll spare you the pictures.  I took none of the fetuses... so don't ask. After we left that terrific experience we walked down the road a little to where a baby rhinoceros was standing.  They brought it over to the compound because it had been attacked by a tiger.  There was a small injury on its snout (is that what you call it?)  but it seemed more scared by the large crowd of people standing around it.  I'm curious how it survived a tiger attack because it was not very big.  That was pretty cool but the more entertaining thing was the Chinese tourist.  Couldn't have been more touristy.

Always with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth

Next to the Sunset River right at sunset

Next part of the vacation is coming soon.

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.

Yesterday was a hit.  We dressed all the kids up and sent them on a scary scavenger hunt.  Then each volunteer was stationed in a room for the kids to come trick or treating to.  They went around in small groups.  I was in the temple on the roof.  I dressed up my suitcase as myself and sat it in the temple while I hid behind the temple.  As they came up the stairs I would tell them through the back window in a scary voice to enter the temple so it would sound like I was inside.  It was dark out so they could hardly see.  I learned later that some of the kids went so far as to poke my dummy and say warily  "Ian?"  As they were doing this I would sneak around the outside and come up behind them and scare them.  Some of the older kids were were scared the most, which was perfect.


Then as I dished out handfuls of cheesy poofs I told them the story of the Viper.  A mysterious man called repeatedly to say he was coming soon and then when he got to the house he said, "I am the Viper, I have come to vipe your vindows."  This is of course a shortened version of the story.

Later we had a Halloween dance party with the playlist Matt and I made.  They listened to maybe 3 songs before changing to Hindi music.  American Halloween music just doesn't resonate with them I guess.  It was a great night and the other volunteers had a blast scaring the daylights out of the kids as well.

Halloween decorations (Mosquito nets turned ghosts)

The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent Blinknow's positions or opinions.