days fly…

they do…

the past weeks have been a whirl of family and work. visits with family from near and far warmed my heart, and i got to spend some time with my two favorite eight year olds in the world.

i’m back at work on the hill now. and i am still working full time for another job, so i always feel like i am trying to catch up on what i have to do. somewhere along the way i just decided that what i get done will have to be enough. how did i become so zen ?

this weekend one of my closest friends is coming to visit for the week-end after not seeing each other for over a year. spending time together is like wearing a pair of my most comfortable slippers.

during the family time i stole away with my mom and aunt for a quick trip to coupeville. we stopped for few pix at the breath-taking deception point on whidbey island…

home…

the kathmandu airport is a series of security checks with numerous scans, pats downs and searches. we leave kathmandu on monday afternoon, and arrive, tired already, in bangkok early monday evening. the 4 a.m. wake up call the next morning means an early bedtime, but there is little sleep for me. an upset stomach, an uncomfortable bed, and desire to be home wake me regularly though the night.

the phone wakes us on time, and by 5 a.m. we are on the shuttle to the airport. a call to room service for a pot of coffee had yielded only a weak cup of instant nescafe, so i am still not fully awake.  the suvarnabhumi airport is already bustling. as it is our sixth time through this airport in two weeks, it feels quite familiar to me. after two preliminary security checks i am at the united counter, upgrading our seats to “comfort plus” for the first leg of out flight to vancouver (the extra five inches of leg room more a necessity than a luxury). despite my exhaustion, i don’t sleep on the flights home. instead, i watch an entire season of dexter, and nurse my uspset stomach….

i see the snow capped mountains of the north shore through the airplane window as we descend. the feeling of relief is both gentle and unexpected. i am home….

walking into yvr, i am struck by the light and the airiness. i am very used to this airport, but this time I see it with new eyes (eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark and bleakness of the kathmandu airport, its numerous odd security checks, and gruff rifle toting airport personnel…)

 leaving the airport, i wait for one of my travelling companions to retrieve her car from the parking lot, and i breathe in the welcome sea air as it cleanses my spirit.i think agin “i am home”….

 it takes me a while to adjust to being home. the two or three days awake were cured by a 21 hour sleep, and a stomache parasite by a dose of antibiotics. i still think about the heat, the dirt and dust, the traffic, the myriad of faces, the heat, the elephants, the laughter, the shopping, the heat, our guesthouses, thamel, khao san, my massage, the ferry ride on the river…

the pashupatinath temple

we walk past vendors with the popular yellow chrysanthemums and entre the uneven grounds of the pashupatinath temple, a hindu temple of the lord shiva on the bagmati river. as non-hindus we do not enter the temple, but instead briefly explore the area. 

below the temple is the arya ghat, a widely used cremation site. what was obviously once a flowing river is dried up this day.  boney cattle roam the soggy river bed, and a monkey scrounges for bits of dropped food. they are not the only scroungers though. two young boys are also loading onto an old rusted cart, chunks of burned wood that had been used in the cremations. i don’t know what the boys will use or sell the wood for, but it is obvious that this task is the result of the poverty they live with and in. i look at a skinny, almost hairless dog and wonder about its life. this place is hard to be in…

as we sit on the bank opposite the temple, we witness three cremations at different stages of completion.  the fire is mesmerizing and i think about what the mourners of the deceased are thinking as they go through what seems to be an elaborate process of bidding farewell to the fleshly existence of their friend or family member….

nepal is one of the poorer countries in the world, and it is a hard place for me to be. i  learn to become “hard”, to ignore the pleading of beggars, to not think about the young men asleep on the pavement that we step over on the way  to a restaurant, to act in a way that i think of as rude when confronted by aggressive vendors from the kashmir region.  i shall not forget this place. i will keep sharp memories of the dirt and dust, the poverty, the noise and the chaos of the lanes and roads. i will also smile when i think about the buddhist vendors (easily recognizable by their soft manners), the frequent power outages, and when i think about the garden of our guesthouse, a little oasis in a foreign land….

and a little friend we made who lives at the guesthouse…

durbar square

from the stupa we take a taxi to durbar square (aka square of palaces), another unesco world heritage site. i gaze at the centuries old buildings and am amazed at their intricacy and innate beauty.

the stupa of boudhanath

we spend a day in kathmandu seeing some of the sites. the morning calls us to the white stupa of boudhanath, founded in the 6^th century. the eyes on the stupa is one of the famous sites of kathmandu. the air is already hot and dusty. even the shade offers only brief relief, as we walk with many other pilgrims clockwise around the stupa reverently touching the many prayer wheels.  

inside the walls, i am drawn to the bowls of gold flowers.

the flags are worn and paper thin. i love their randomness…

here and there, there are little gems to be seen….

i  also seem to be drawn to animals on this trip, and even here, inside the walls of the stupa, i find two cute pups quietly playing as their mother sleeps not too far away.

i find a shop full of buddhist singing bowls and buy one to bring home. when ringed with a special mallet, these bowls create beautiful tones which can be used for medication and for healing.

i sit on the concrete step as k. and m. as they explore a temple. wishing for a breeze, i watch people –  the school children, old wrinkled ladies, families with young barefoot children, and the oiccasional caucasion tourist – and marvel at the mix of people here.

k. and m. emerge from the little building with cream coloured scarves around their necks. they are followed by a young buddhist monk who drapes my neck with another of the scarves as he gives me a blessing….what a morning….

kathmandu

through the haze in the high air, we can see the peak of mount everest.  the plane descends to kathmandu, and another part of the journey unfolds.

i quickly learn that it is not a good idea to tip anyone within sight of other people. we are swarmed by young men wanting money as we pile ourselves and our luggage (swollen with our purchases in chiang mai and bangkok) into a rickety van to take us through the city to our guest house on the outskirts of thamel, the busy tourist area of the kathmandu. navigating the streets in this city is an art. think about the convergence of cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, pedestrians, and the occasional cattle on road with literally no rules of the road. the incessant blaring of horns becomes a musical backdrop to the chaos, and i am quick to learn that the only people who seem to pay attention to the horns are foreigners.

i don’t take pictures in the  city (aside from some of the special spots). i am too busy staying out of the way of traffic in the streets/lanes, and trying to not be so overwhelmed by the heat,  noise, and people that  i don’t run back to the quiet sanctuary of the guesthouse …

blips…

a muslim hotel

a mix up with reservations for our brief stay in bangkok results in a stay at a welcoming muslim hotel. the only downside is no alcohol on the premises…. (but we do sneak in a few cold beer, which taste wonderful with the roasted chicken m. buys from a street vendor). i find it an odd juxtaposition to have our little hotel, with its garden sided restaurant and luscious foliage, alongside a large noxious canal. i wonder at the health of the teenage boy i see swimming in the canal the first evening (given that at times, one could smell the raw sewage that ran through the waters….).

bangkok

tuk tuks

tuk tuks, a common mode of transportation in the central chiang mai and central bangkok are notorious. the drivers are aggressive in trying to convince tourists to hop aboard. alas, once aboard, getting to one’s chosen destination is a challenge, as the drivers will commonly take their passengers to the tuk tuk driver’s shop of choice (where they will receive a nice little commission from the shop owner of course).  tuk-tuk drivers in bangkok take it even one step further. as we walk from the river to the grand palace, drivers along the way try to convince us that the wat is closed for the morning for special ceremonies, and no tourists are allowed. they offer, graciously of course, to take us to other sites instead…..

 buddhas

we ignore the tuk-tuk drivers and arrive at our destination, the grand palace. next to it, in the wat phra cetuphon (aka wat pho), lies the impressive “reclining buddha”, designed to depict the passing of buddha into nirvana. the gold plated statue is 46 metres long, and 15 metres tall, and has eyes and feet engraved with mother of pearl decoration.

the ”emerald buddha”, much smaller in stature, holds more interest for me. made of jade rather than emerald, this buddha was rediscovered in the 1400′s when its mud plaster covering chipped away to reveal the jade statue underneath.

unfortunately, this buddha is perched high atop a large alter, far from the people who come to see it. this buddha was once encased.  i sit  on the temple floor a while…thinking…

the emerald buddha (stock photo, as no cameras were allowed in the chapel)

fishies and toes…

my feet are tingling like soft mini electric shocks, or pins and needles without the pain. it’s exquisite. these little feet exfoliating tanks are all over the place in chiang mai. the little fish have suckers that remove dead skin. no teeth, no worries….i’d so go again.

and hey, aren’t those lovely toes…?

hanging bridges…

the most daunting part of the trip, more worrisome than men with guns or food and water borne parasites….a hanging rope and wood plank bridge  suspended over the river, and made for people much smaller than i….i just held my breathe and walked. after all there were elephants on the other side