Nepal

A lot of people go to Nepal and fall in love. Not in the romantic sense, but with the country itself; its people, it's culture, it's natural beauty.  I didn't love Nepal. Not in the way that I loved other places like Vietnam and maybe Thailand. I couldn't love the caste system which still weighs heavily on the culture, nor the food, which I found to be a run-down, less diverse version of Indian cuisine, nor the buzz-kill 10pm curfew. But Nepal definitely has its charms and I would absolutely go back to enjoy more trekking in the Himalayas (which was the most amazing thing I had ever done) and to feel good about my tourist dollars supporting a nation figuratively amputated by natural and political disasters (which, by the way, might be more help to Nepal in the coming years than any foreign aid that's given to the government there).

Though it was a grim state when we left, our first three and a half weeks in Nepal were, on the whole, glorious. I finished my last post just after arriving for the first time in Pokhara, where we spent almost a week slowly preparing for our trek of the Annapurna Circuit, but

Chillin in Pokhara, lakeside

mostly just hanging out around Phewa lake and on sunny restaurant patios. Shortly thereafter, we left for the trailhead, myself triumphantly equipped with secondhand gear acquired serendipitously from a lovely lady named Colleen who had just finished her trek in the Annapurnas. I was delighted to have met her because not only did she have the same size feet and general build as me (meaning I got all the gear I needed from her for a fraction of the regular price), but she turned out to have a winning personality that turned us into fast friends. When we returned from our trek, she was back in Pokhara too and we ended up working together to acquire supplies to fill a bus full of aid for earthquake-hit Gorkha region. Most of the people we met along the trek were on a set itinerary dictating the number of days they wanted to take to complete the circuit, or half of it at least, usually ranging from 14-19 days, but we went without a timetable, opting to listen to our bodies instead, taking rest days or half days when we felt like it and not worrying about falling behind schedule. This was our first long-distance trek, so we were excited to get started but, on the bus leaving Pokhara, excitement turned to desperation as we bumped along, trying to avoid getting puked on by several car-sick Nepali people who got crammed into the aisle of the already full bus shortly after departure. Fortunately, that was the last bus ride we had to endure for over two weeks, and it was quickly followed by the joy of spending many beautiful days trekking through the Himalayas.

THE CIRCUIT TREK

I loved those trekking days dearly. It was so nice to wake up and go to bed in a different town each day, with the satisfaction of knowing that my own two feet had carried me the

whole way. Our typical daily routine had the perfect balance between challenge and leisure - wake up at around seven, eat a hearty breakfast of muesli with hot milk or pancakes, pack up and then set off for the next town around 9:30am. After breaking for a snack of trail mix or chocolate bars (decadent energy for hiking - and cheap!), usually we'd stop for lunch at about 12:30 or one, and if we felt like continuing on (which more than once we didn't) we'd typically end our day at around 4:00pm. We stayed in guesthouses overnight, which were simple, rudimentary wood and brick houses, colourfully painted on the outside, often furnished with hand-made furniture and plywood walls on the inside. Those were homey, cozy times we spent in the guesthouses before and after our daily hikes. My favourite area was always the common room/kitchen, especially if it had a wood-burning stove heating it, which all the trekkers, guides, porters and the guesthouse family would sit around and chat about their day, where they came from, etc. We met interesting people from all over the world doing the circuit - France, Holland, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Norway, Russia, US, China, Japan, lots of Israelis and more. We all

had stories to share about our lives before the trek, as well as ample tales of surprises that met us while on the trail. Some of our most memorable days before crossing the pass were when we were sidetracked by gorgeous locations or crazy happenings such as nearby avalanches and landslides (sometimes right across our path) forcing us to stop early for the day, a super aggressive, snapping dog on a chain blocking our path that bit Cameron's leg (luckily it just bruised him without breaking the skin), a girl down and nearly passed out from altitude sickness on the side of the path while one of her friends ran down to hire a horse to bring her to a doctor, and of course witnessing the beautiful and fascinating change from tropical to temperate to coniferous to alpine ecology, always amidst a backdrop of increasingly impressive Himalayan peaks.

Avalanche on the other side of the river

A landslide which occurred the day before blocking our trail. Luckily it was an easy climb over.

The view from the top of the Pass

Getting there.. single file hiking at 6am.

Reaching the pass itself was definitely the highlight of the trip, and a day I'll never forget. It was our 11th day on the trail, and we were up at 3am  - even earlier than anticipated thanks to a noisy troupe of Slovakians. We bundled ourselves up and were on our way by 4am, making it up the short but very steep path to High Camp (about 2km almost straight up in one hour, in the dark), the last lodge before the pass. Climbing up that radical slope at super high altitude in -28C before breakfast was the hardest portion of the trek in my mind. Even though I knew it was short, my body was not used to such exertion at altitude, and without fuel it was difficult to go more than five steps without a short rest. After briefly losing the path during our scramble up in the dark with only one headlamp to guide us, we made it to High Camp (4833m), where we warmed our toes and fuelled up with the best trekking breakfast (or at least fastest consumed one) ever, before setting off, along with about 150 people we saw hitting the narrow trail at different times before the

sunrise.  It took about 3 hours of slogging (in cold, damp shoes), often behind a slow train of single file trekkers huffing from the stain of the altitude , but at 8:40am on April 19, we finally made it to the pass at 5416m, the top of the Annapurna Circuit, also called Thorung La (to give you an idea of how high we got, Pokhara's altitude near the lake where we stayed was 742m. Meaning, we climbed over 4,600m in 10 days.) There was an absolutely jovial feeling up there in the thin, crisp mountain air. Everyone was whooping and hugging each other as they snapped photos of themselves with their comrades.  It was interesting to see the different ways that people commemorated the moment; some unrolled banners and grouped up for their snapshot, couples, bros and friends hugged and kissed, one guy posed with a pint sized stuffed bunny, a couple of spaniards took their shirts off and posed with their Gorkha Beers, and one of the Israeli guys was tossing an arm length, star-shaped banner in the air like a pizza chef tossing the dough.

8:45 am: TADAA! We made it!

After getting our photo in front of the Thorung La sign and all the prayer flags (a Nepali commemorative tradition) strung up next to it, Cameron and I retreated from the crowd to share some celebratory Oreos and trail mix, and watched the trailing trekkers arrive, exhausted and elated, at their goal.

After about an hour, we decided it was time to get in the growing queue on the trail for descent. Over more than three and a half hours and 1200m of altitude, we toed it down the steep mountainside, our shoes pulling up with a sucking noise for the majority of our steps as the trail down was more often than not reduced to icy mud by the combination of spring snow melt and and heavy traffic of Trekkers. Poor Cameron spent more time on his butt and hands than on his feet during our descent because he was trekking in his running shoes, which were useless on the slick, melting snow and soggy, mud-logged trails. Often, he forewent the trail in favour of a quick and wet slide off the side into the low valley several meters below, where he could walk back to the winding trail ahead and scout out his next slide down. On and on we went like that under the hot midday sun, getting more and more burnt by the reflecting sun on the snow, despite reapplying sunscreen every hour, until we finally reached an oasis of teahouse

Teahouse in Charabu,  the entrance to the Mustang

patios in Charabu at the base of the mountain. We had lunch with a young, smiley Slovenian guy while we dried our sopping shoes and socks in the sun. It was almost 8 hours since our first stop that morning at High Camp, and we had long since run out of water, so while we rested we guzzled back as much as we could to get our bodies ready for the last leg of our long hiking day. Luckily, after that, it was an easy, breezy 45 minute walk across mostly flat terrain to Muktinath. It was on this path that I was stopped dead in my tracks by the sight of a brownish-white horse marvellously sporting a blonde moustache above his horsey lips.  When we made it to the Bob Marley Hotel in Muktinath, where a number of our acquaintances from the trek were staying,  the first order of business was a nice, long hot shower, followed by some much needed laundry and then relaxing. The next day just happened to be 4/20 - ol' Bob's unofficial birthday - so in his honor we stayed an extra day at the hotel and celebrated before saying goodbye to our friends there as many were ending their trek early and hiring a jeep down to Pokhara or a village closer to the end of the circuit so that they could save time before their flight out.  Though we weren't on a timeline, the next day we had to make it to Jomsom. Again, our money situation was dire.  Contrary to what we'd heard, there was no ATM in Muktinath and we realized after paying for our room and food bill before leaving that our budgeting had been flawed and as a result we didn't even have enough money left over to buy a single meal or bottle of water for ourselves that day. So we set off for the 5 and a half hour trek to Jomsom with no food but thankfully had a few water purifying tabs left over so we at least had 3L of clean water to make it through til we got to the Jomsom ATM.
Our trek that day brought us up a steep Mustang desert mountain to the Lubra pass, where we found a pile of about 200 stones, each commemorating something for the trekker who placed it there. Recently, Cameron's mom had mentioned to him that if he saw one of these structures, it would be nice if he placed one for his grandfather, who passed away in December. Dutifully, he found a stone and wrote a lovely and colourful dedication to both of his grandparents, who are finally reunited after more than five years apart. He wrote "lots of

hugs and kisses" as a recognition of the paramount value they passed onto their children and grandchildren - unbounded love and affection. Watching Cameron begin his, I went and found a nice stone too and wrote on it for my Oma, who departed this earth in January 2014. I put part of her favourite Bible quote on it, "the Lord is my rock". She had such a strong faith, even after experiencing so much hardship in her life, so I was instantly sure that's what she would've liked to see best.  The exercise stirred some strong emotions for both of us and smarted at the wound of missing home, but it felt good to be able to honour our grandparents in our own special way.

Nothing brightens a somber day like the arrival of new life. After making it down from the pass,  we were approaching the town of Lubra, when we heard an odd sound, almost like a whining cat but not as drawn out, and came across a man carrying not one but three

Cameron with one of the kids

newborn kids (not humans - the goat variety) - two were in his otherwise empty backpack and another hung in the crook of his arm.  And of course we got to hold one of them as we fell into step with the man, who turned out to be a Nepali resident of the US, just home for a visit to check on his family and the hotel he was having built in his village. We walked and talked with him for at least 45 minutes but I don't remember too much about the guy because I was too busy freaking out about how cute and delicate and new the goat was - It's feet had hardly touched the ground yet! it was literally born just two hours before I held it.  Precious.

CUE PART TWO: MOUNTAIN BIKING MADNESS

Two and a half hours later we made it to Jomsom where, at long last, we rejoiced in finding an ATM, water and the most delicious samosas we'd had since India. A couple days later we contacted a bike shop and had a pair of mountain bikes flown up to us from Pokhara so we could begin our two-wheeled adventure out of the Annapurna region. We took three days (with lots of ups and downs in between) to make it to Beni, the town where we'd catch a bus over a steep pass to

Assembling the bikes

bring us close to Pokhara. About a half an hour after we began cycling out of Jomsom that first day, the skies opened up and wind and rain started to pour over us. Not entirely confident in taking on the trails such conditions, I pulled over. But Cameron, the mountain bike junkie, was optimistic and eager to continue since we'd barely gotten started and it was already 1pm by this time. Not really wanting to spend another night in Jomsom, I grudgingly agreed and we pulled on our rain ponchos. The rain intensity died down pretty quickly but we battled through heavy wind and very rocky trails (sometimes boulders) for most of the day. And then Cameron fell. Twice, in like 2 hours; once narrowly avoiding smashing his left elbow on a rock. (He later attributed this to poorly adjusted suspension.)  So it was a tricky start, but by 4:00 the weather cleared up and a few hours later we were greeted at our lodge at the end of a long day with a crew of jovial, boisterous greying German gents, celebrating a birthday with many a beer. They'd already had a few by the time we rolled in at 7:00pm and as we stepped in the door they roared a joyful welcome to us as if they'd long been awaiting our arrival to the party.

Day two started out great, knowing that it would all be down hill, but took a turn when opted for the hiking trail on the other side of the river instead of the road. Though parts of it were fun or manageable on the bike, we ended up spending three trying hours carrying our bikes and dropping curses across boulders, up stone staircases, and down rocky drops the other side before finally making it to a bridge where we could cross back over to the road. From there, we quickly sailed down to the town of Tatopani. There could not have been a better evening destination for us on this day than that place, because before even finding a lodge for the night, the first thing we did when we got to Tatopani was melt away all our aches and tensions in the glorious natural hot springs, where we were served beer and popcorn in the hot pools. Hallelujah! 

THE GREAT QUAKE
The last day of our journey round the Annapurna Circuit was April 25th, and we generously redeemed ourselves from the previous day's trials. It had rained heavily the night before so when we took to the road, we did a lot of weaving to avoid the pond-size puddles that appeared in the gravel road before us.  After about an hour we gave into the futility of trying to stay dry because there was always a bigger puddle coming up that spanned the entire width of the road, ready to drench us. The adrenaline grabbed ahold of me and didn't let go, even when a rogue tree branch grabbed and tossed me while going top speed along the shallow edge of a puddle. Even with the minefield of puddles, we were flying, way faster than the occasional jeeps and busses we saw and it was SO much fun! We were covered in mud (no blood) and grinning ear to ear by the time we made it to Beni at lunchtime. But just as we pulled into the bus station where we wanted to get a 3-hour ride to the top of the last range before biking down to Pokhara, we were greeted by throngs of scared-looking locals running downhill on an adjacent street, and towards the open bus park ahead of us. Confused, we pulled over to ask what the commotion was all about and just as the response came, it was underscored by a low rumble and hundreds of screams as the four story building across the street began to rattle and shake, lasting about 20 seconds. This, we realized, was the second big tremor of what became known locally as the Great Earthquake, the worst to hit earthquake-prone Nepal in over 80 years. Because we had been passing through a relatively undeveloped and unpopulated part of Beni town on our bikes we hadn't felt the initial quake hit, but when we did, we were very fortunate to already be in an open space, away from any tall buildings (only one of which fell in Beni while we were there, but we didn't see it). There was one more tremor while we were eating lunch, but it was small and we were hungry so it didn't bother us much, or the other people in the restaurant for that matter. We carried on with the rest of our journey pretty undisturbed by the event.  It wasn't until three hours later when our bus was stopped for 45 minutes in a traffic jam stemming from a landslide on the highway that we even began to feel the magnitude of what had struck Nepal. We heard and saw little on the bus though and proceeded to have an awesome time after being dropped off with our bikes near the top of Sarangkot mountain overlooking Phewa Lake and Pokhara, sailing down the luxurious paved, winding road at top speed, leading us back into the city and to the end of our mountain adventure.
As I said, in the hours following the initial strike, we had little understanding of the magnitude of the tragedy that had just stuck the heart of the country, just a few hundred kilometres away. It wasn't until we arrived back at our hotel in Pokhara and saw the dozens of people crowded around the TV that we realized what we'd felt earlier wasn't just a disturbance but a full on disaster. As more information came in the next couple days about the extent of destruction and challenges posed by the fumbling government and remoteness of the hardest hit areas, we knew that we were in a unique position to help provide immediate relief to the victims, but we weren't sure how to go about it. So we asked around and heard about a local non-profit paragliding company operated by some foreigners and Nepalis who where mobilizing jeep loads of supplies and personnel to drive and then hike out to a remote area of the neighbouring Gorkha region, which was the reported epicentre of the quake.  But what we found when we showed up at their small, overcrowded office was

Tourist waiting around to help with relief

that they already had dozens of people ready and willing to lend a helping hand, but just a few days in, the core crew already looked haggardly overworked and under-managed; the volunteer response was more than they were able to utilize, and as a result there was a growing crowd of volunteers just standing outside the office, waiting to be asked to help. It was apparent that this wasn't the right place for us to contribute so we turned around and began playing with the idea of heading up our own effort. Why not? We were in the second biggest city in Nepal, where there were many supplies available and a lot of people, Nepali and otherwise who could point us in the right direction as to where we could buy bulk at a fair or even discounted price, and help us arrange a location and a jeep for transportation. As long as we had the money, there wasn't much stopping us.

DIY AID  PROJECT

That evening we sent out an appeal to our friends and family back home asking for donations. The funds began pouring in just the next day, and we soon gathered up a small

Our friend Colleen dropping off and taking stock
of all the supplies we purchased.

group of volunteers, some of whom had done their own fundraising, who were interested in joining up with us. We were informed of a village in need by a Nepali man named Hom, whom we'd met after sitting in on a meeting of tourists like ourselves, interested in helping out, and a social welfare committee run by some local guesthouse owners. Hom was a member so the committee and cut like a typical Nepali man approaching his forties, with a powerful belly and a quick, beaming smile that showed all his teeth. When he introduced himself to the group at the meeting, he shyly stumbled over his English, but his shining gaze around the room and bounce in his heels communicated for him how excited and eager he was to be apart of a meaningful project like this. When we told him of our intentions, and desire to find an appropriate location to deliver to, he told us he had been contacted on Facebook by a young man named Prakash from a village in the district of Bungkot whose village had been rocked by the earthquake. Apparently some 60 homes had been destroyed, and though they were ok for food, they desperately needed tarps, blankets and other hard goods to carry them through the coming monsoons. They weren't very far from the regional transportation hub town of Gorkha, but hadn't received any aid yet because the village belonged to a very low caste. Despite its legal abolishment years ago, the caste system is still very ingrained in Nepal's culture and governance. Because people tend to take care of those in their own caste or make offerings to the more powerful in higher castes, of what little aid resources are given by the corruption-ridden government, a small fraction of it ever makes its way to the marginalized lower castes. Considering that this village was unlikely to get any significant form of support from its government, we thought this would make for a very suitable location for the supplies we were able to purchase and give directly with using our donation money. So we got mobilized, purchased a tonne of stuff, and ended up filling more than a jeep load, thus a local minibus was arranged to haul all of it, us, our 3 foreign friends Angie, Dave and Joel, plus Hom and two of his buddies up to Bungkot. We left at 7am and arrived in Bungkot at around 1pm after stopping in Gorkha for lunch and to meet our contact, Prakash. 

BRINGING AID TO GORKHA, THE INAUGURAL TRIP
When we met Prakash, he was wearing skinny jeans, and a denim shirt over a graphic t-shirt. He was medium height, good looking and sported a youthful moustache above his bright, white smile and chatted amiably with the confidence of any 22 year old university student you might meet in a liberal arts university in Canada. Prakash was one of the luckier young men in his village. He was smart and worked hard in school, and along with his friend Prem (a tall, quiet and heavy-set young man who we also met), had gotten the chance to go to University in Kathmandu. But unlike Prem, he spoke English fairly well and so he was the spokesperson for our visit. We didn't speak much about the village. On our drive up there from Gorkha as he peppered us with questions about ourselves, life in Canada, and western pop culture. Upon our arrival and before we unloaded our supplies, we asked Prakash to give us a tour of the village so that we could have a first hand look at the damage and meet the families who our aid would be impacting. The state of the village took us by surprise. Not because it was so ravaged, but rather because its homes appeared to have sustained

View from the bus on the drive up to Bungkot

relatively minor damage, particularly when compared to many of the homes we'd just seen along the highway on our way up to Bungkot. After passing through Gorkha and up through the mountains to reach this village, we had passed dozens of homes which were either completely or partially obliterated by the earthquake; several were reduced to nothing but a pile of rubble and a lone standing doorframe. What we saw in the first fifteen minutes of our tour with Prakash (in which we asked him to show us the worst hit homes first) however, was mostly large cracks and sagging brick walls of homes whose interiors had been stripped of all their possessions and moved into nearby structurally sound homes, sheds, or barns. It was unanimous amongst our group that what we saw was not at all in line with what we'd been led to believe based on Hom's communications with Prakash. We could see that there were families displaced from their homes, but none were sleeping without shelter, and it by glancing into the packed sheds and barns next to the empty homes, it appeared that no one had lost any of their possessions. So, even though we could see disappointment on the faces of Prakash and his community members, we decided that we weren't going to be distributing all of the supplies we brought to their village. What we did was we gave them a portion of our blankets and tarps, as well as some tools that they could use to erect temporary shelters to last until the end of monsoon season, and then either repair or demolish and rebuild their damaged homes.  When Cameron informed Prakash of the decision, he was noticeably upset at not receiving the whole bus load and earnestly appealed for more. Cameron explained that we had seen the state of their neighbouring village on our drive in, where there were beds set up on the side of the road and houses flattened, and we simply couldn't justify giving all our help to his village when his neighbours clearly needed it more. Luckily, we had brought a lot of tools with us and gave them a good portion of those because they would be key to helping the community help itself to recover from the earthquake. When he continued pleading, ignoring our concern for the other village, downplaying the tools and fixating on the piles of blankets and tarps he could still see on our bus, it was clear that Prakash wasn't of a mind of empowering his people, but was instead seeking to maximize a handout. He was looking at our resources not as relief aid, but as material commodity to be used as currency. We understood his disappointment but felt no pity when, as just as we were starting to board the bus to leave, we watched a second aid truck, packed with food, tarps and other donations, pull up to the village. They had received the same desperate call from Prakash's friend Prem, and were just as surprised as we were at the incongruency between what they saw and what they'd been told the situation was in the village. With that we said goodbye and good luck to Prakash, Prem and the community and wasted no more time in making it to the next two neighbouring villages to distribute the rest of our supplies.

Another aid truck (right) arrives in Bungkot just as
we are about to leave.

Twenty minutes later, we were touring through dozens of homes that had collapsed in like a bad soufflé, unsalvageable furniture and possessions peeking out under piles of dust and debris, and a couple of threadbare tarps sheltering an extended family of thirty. There were many children and women, but a clear minority of young men as many Nepali husbands are away seeking comparatively lucrative work abroad, often in the Middle East, to support their families.  When we reached the third and final village of the day, we deposited the remainder and bulk of the supplies we brought there because     

At night, these villagers were sleeping by the side of
the road on these straw mats before we arrived. 

they represented a larger population and we sensed that they were more organized as a community. There we found two young men who spoke English, and though they had experienced great loss, they told us they knew they were be better off than some neighbouring communities we hadn't seen yet. They invited us for tea so we accepted, we sat down and answered their many questions about where we came from and how we began this project, and talked about how they planned to distribute the emergency aid we gave them to the families who needed it most and would divide the tools up amongst groups of neighbours to share. After finishing our

After: this supersize tarp we deliverd gave
shelter to around thirty people.

tea, we emptied the bus, took some photos, exchanged emails and facebook names, then started the six hour journey back to Pokhara just before sunset. And just like they promised, a couple days later we saw pictures on Facebook of the supplies being distributed among various families in the surrounding community. In the end, our first little aid project didn't go quite the way we had planned, but we learned a great lesson, and felt we made it a successful, worthwhile mission.

On our second stop of the day, a man shows us the devastation to his and his
 brother's houses caused by the earthquake

On our third and final stop of the day, we deposited a
large portion of our supplies with these well-organized community members. 

MORE HELP TO GORKHA

A few days later, we had a jeep full of supplies and a similar plan laid out to deliver more supplies to other villages north of Gorkha in need of aid. This time we had a smaller vehicle and fewer people accompanying us; just Cameron and I, a driver, and a Nepali friend named Dave to help with translating. We left early for Gorkha, again arriving around noon to meet with a contact there named Dipika, who was working with a Czech NGO there called People in Need, and would advise us on a village or group of villages where our supplies were most urgently needed. In talking with Dipika and her colleagues, we were able to trust that the information they shared with us about a handful of communities they'd contacted was vetted and without bias because they had independent observers on the ground in several remote areas reporting back to them, and they showed us the information they collected was assessed and scored on a basis of severity of need. They told us about a community in the far northern reaches of Gorkha was in need of aid but was blocked in by a landslide on the only highway to their area. Their group, Together with Gorkha (find them on Facebook), had recently been able to secure a helicopter to get to them, but hadn't yet assembled the supplies, so they suggested if we were looking for a location for our supplies to have the quickest and biggest impact, that this would be it. So although it wasn't the direct, personal relief distribution we had in mind where we could take pictures and get a first hand look at the community impact of our efforts, we were confident that sending our supplies on their helicopter would ensure that the donations we had collected went to the place where it was most needed, in the most timely manner. After they assured us they would keep in touch and report back to us with pictures once the distribution was completed, we dropped off our supplies in their storage facility,  exchanged emails and Facebooks, then confidently shook hands and concluded our delivery and aid project there in Gorkha. (Days later we found out about the American helicopter that went down in the mountains near Gorkha and the delivery was delayed by several weeks after that, but a few days ago we got word that they finally reached Chhekampar Village and were distributed, as a part of a larger delivery, among the 237 households there which were destroyed there by the earthquake. Hooray!) 

KATHMANDU
Days later, we arrived in Kathmandu, a couple days ahead of our flight out of Nepal and shortly after another big earthquake shook the nation. This time it was a 7.3 magnitude and its epicentre was north of Kathmandu, close to Mount Everest. Once again, we were fortunate that we barely felt it in the moment and were not in any real peril, as we were on a moving bus, about an hour west of Kathmandu. The driver pulled us over briefly at around 1:00pm in a small town and as I sleepily stared out the window, I caught sight of some rebar poking out the top of an unfinished 4-storey building waving to and fro like a pool noodle. Less than 30 seconds later it was over, and our bus promptly resumed its journey.  About ten minutes before we would have made it to our scheduled  station in Kathmandu, our driver informed us this was the end of the road for us due to a building collapse blocking the road about 3 kilometres from the bus station. About two blocks ahead of the scene of the collapse, we stepped off the bus with our backpacks into the dusty and chaotic street. As we attempted to find our way to the well-known backpackers ghetto called Thamel, I saw throngs of people sitting on the side of the road or standing in the middle of the street as trucks full of police and military officers rumbled by as well as people on motorcycles. There was a huge crowd gathered in the area of the collapsed building, watching as soldiers and a couple back hoe operators worked to clear the debris. It felt incredibly surreal to be on the ground in the close aftermath of such a catastrophic event; the sensations of the moment created such a curious experience that it's difficult to put words to. It wasn't scary, or even that chaotic besides the traffic complications.  My thoughts were all over the place, wondering everything from were there people trapped in this building in front of us?  about how our flight would be affected in a couple days to how much more crippling this would be to Nepal, to all those people who were already struggling to find some s? Judging by the relatively quiet, subdued energy amongst the onlookers, I like to think that everyone got out in time and no one was seriously hurt or killed by the tremor there, but who knows. The people we tried asking didn't know much as they has just shown up like us, and it was more than two hours after the earthquake.

Since this was the second big earthquake to hit the city in less than a month, nobody was taking any chances by staying indoors, and as we wandered off to bypass the crash site, I noticed that 99% of businesses had rolled down their shutters facing the narrow streets we were walked along. It was an eery feeling to be on deserted streets of the famously overcrowded capital in broad daylight; certainly a far cry from what we expected before arriving in Kathmandu, which we were told was close to back to normal. Eventually we made it to a hotel restaurant that had remained open after the quake and were able to connect to wifi to figure out where the heck we were in proximity to the backpackers hostel that we wanted to find. Luckily, we weren't too far and soon got ourselves checked in to a solidly-built guesthouse, where we survived two wall-rattling, heart palpitation-inducing midnight tremors and somehow still managed to get a good night's sleep. The next day we woke to similarly quiet streets and few cafes open, so we spent a pretty heartbreaking day of sightseeing, or rather wandering through the remains of what once were the sights of Kathmandu, including the  crumbling Garden of Dreams and absolutely demolished UNESCO World Heritage site of Durbar Square.  This plaza area sits in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu kingdom and was dotted with large and beautifully crafted wood and brick temples dating back to the 14th century, but several of them were either full collapsed or looked like they were about to. The hardest part was seeing all the families living outside in the neighbourhood squares, crowded under a few tarps, looking listless, bored, hot and tired in the midday heat. The best part of the day though was when Cameron darted into a corner store and emerged with two big bags of candy and started handing it out to all the kids we saw. We were rid of it all within about a half an hour and it might not have made everyones day that we handed it out to, but it certainly made our day to see the bright smiles on kids faces as we handed them the sweets, and definitely lightened the somber mood that seemed to hang in the air around every corner.

CONCLUDING A SIGNIFICANT CHAPTER

I woke the following morning a hesitant knot in my stomach. As we waited to board our flight that would eventually bring us to Istanbul, I watched as civilians, military, airport, and NGO personnel milled about the terminals, inside as some were boarding flights back to their home countries, and outside as others touched down with their teams and cargo holds full of aid supplies.  I saw a gigantic four-cylinder Hercules military aircraft with the Government of Canada logo on it sitting on the tarmac, politely waiting its turn to takeoff back to our shared homeland. My heart swelled at the sight, but it was heavy in my chest like a water balloon. I'd been in Nepal for six weeks - longer than any country we've been to since leaving China - and I felt tied to it. Like the way you might with a stranger after you've experienced something really intense and scary together. The earthquake knocked them out. And just when they started to get up off the floor, another one came and brought them back down to their knees. We were there standing ringside for a historic blow to Nepal and stood by to lend a hand, but now, so soon we were leaving it behind and something just felt wrong about that.  Even though I was excited to begin a new stage in our adventure and see more of the world, a part of me felt guilty for leaving... but thankfully this part was muted a bit when I got to talk to my parents on the phone for a while, to hear them voice their pride in me and relief that my flight was on schedule to take me away from the danger and desperation of this disaster and that much closer to coming home to them.
 

As the plane began to taxi toward the runway I tried to focus on the positives of our time in Nepal and what we'd been able to accomplish. We had taken on a lot of responsibility by collecting funds from our friends and family, and did our best to make sure that they went towards the most efficient and effective aid distribution scheme we could. Instead of passing the buck off for other volunteer groups to manage, we chose to head up our own project in order to maintain direct oversight and control over the spending of those funds and we were able to ensure that they made the greatest impact possible. We'd set a goal for ourselves based on the response we got, and although the execution didn't go quite how we expected it to, in the end I'd say we definitely achieved what we set out to do in the beginning; turn money from our community in Canada as quickly and efficiently as possible into emergency aid and deliver it those Nepalis who need it. I can say with confidence that there was no motive of 'disaster tourism' to be found in our efforts, because if there was, we wouldn't have given over our supplies to be helicoptered in by another party.  Though it would have been nice to meet more of the faces our aid impacted, I believe all of the decisions we made, including being critical and trusting of the right people, led to a fair and equitable distribution process that put the proper supplies into the hands which needed it the most. I'm proud of us for moving beyond simply talking and 'tsk'ing about the tragedy to actively attempting to lessen the suffering of our Nepali neighbours; of how we were able to turn sympathy into effective action which had a visible, positive impact on the lives of disadvantaged people. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we made the most of it, for ourselves and for you guys - our friends who generously supported us in this endeavour and enabled us to do more than we even thought possible. 

Leaving Nepal, we took away a lot more than we went in with.  The inestimable experience we gained at a time during which the country was set back by several years feels solemn, but we strove to contribute back as much as we could muster. We challenged ourselves to be bigger than our typical "small fish in a big ocean" backpacker roles and, with a little help from our friends, we did it :) 

India: Holi, The Taj Mahal, and Yoga in Rishikesh

DROPPING THE EAST IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

We said goodbye to Thailand from Bangkok, a city we came to appreciate more deeply having spent 10 days there waiting for visas.  We toured there mostly on foot, taking the occasional taxi and metro ride. Where we were staying near Khao San road wasn't well connected with the metro though so we spent most of our time putsing around that area.  From what I heard, most people write off as this area of Bangkok as a one day visit, too touristy and debaucherous to bother spending much time in, but I actually found it had a lot to offer if you could just look past the noisy souvenir hawkers and tuk tuk drivers making popping sounds with their mouths at you offering to chauffeur you to a ping pong show. We found a new, cozy Cafe almost every day to escape from the heat and noise, and in between were never want for new delicious thai street food to sample, or temples and colourful back alleys to explore. We had a fantastic 5 year anniversary day there, spent leisurely walking around Bangkok's Dusit zoo, having our China-instilled prejudices against asian zoos changed as we marvelled at the calm, clean environment in and outside of the animal enclosures. (This stems from our trip to the Shanghai Zoo and Aquarium. See earlier post for a description of the depressing environs within them.) We closed out the day with sunset drinks at a rooftop, riverside bar overlooking the biggest temple in Bangkok, Wat Arun, and then went for dinner, for a third time, to our favourite restaurant in Thailand named Hemlock. It serves authentic Thai food in a clean, quiet, white-table cloth and mood-lighting atmosphere which would normally indicate higher prices, but most items on their (huge) menu were on par with the plastic stool spots next door to them. What I liked best was that the dishes they prepared were really authentically thai, some were even labeled as ancient on the menu and the ones we tried were astonishingly delicious and different from any other Thai dish we'd ever seen offered or tried anywhere else, even after three weeks traveling around the country. If you ever go to Bangkok, look them up. Oh, and some more proof that the world is getting smaller every day: I ran into my best friend's uncle in a Japanese/french bakery near Khao San road. Yep, I was pretty stunned to catch Cool Uncle Richard eating a banana danish a table away from me that morning - as much as he was to see me, since we've met a handful of times in Edmonton but only ever through my friend, and at that particular moment she was either in Paris or Rome, so obviously wasn't around to facilitate this time. Coo-coo. 

INCREDIBLE INDIA

Cricket in the park in Calcutta

On March 1st, we landed in Kolkata (or Calcutta, as it's still commonly referred to) for a ten hour layover before reaching Destination Delhi. We had a weird start because we hopped in a cab at 7:00am on a Sunday, and by the time the taxi dropped us near what he told us was College Street there was just a handful of people on the street, standing bleary-eyed in front of the dozens of closed up shops. I was reminded of our late night arrival in Shanghai on the eve of Chinese New Year last year. There we were, thrown into the rickety backseat of a grumbling  yellow cab that looked to be from  60s Britain as it races into the maze of central Calcutta, bracing ourselves not just for the many bumps and potholes in the road, but also for the hoards of noisy people, cars, and cattle that indian streets are famous for. But instead, we looked up to find nothing but empty streets,  shambled by accumulated piles of strewn trash, and shuttered store-fronts.  Apparently we showed up on the only morning of the week when the streets are quiet at that time, as we found out later. We trudged along past college street, towards what we were hoping would lead to a place called Eden garden, but all we saw was a far cry from paradise. As more people emerged into the street, we saw dozens of people standing in the gutter near public water pumps, bathing themselves in the street. We saw people urinating and defecating on the pavement. We walked past pungent heaps of aging trash, and sidestepped dozens of cow paddies and human paddies. I'll never forget the sight and smell coming from a dazed looking young man with matted dreadlocked hair, standing in the middle of an intersection, squinting at the horizon. He was shoeless, wearing a dusty black sweater and pants badly torn down the entire inseam so that you could see the entire length of his legs, inside thigh to ankle. On the fringes of his torn slacks and his legs was bits of what can only have been feces. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO CALCUTTA, DELHI, AND THE MADDENING INDIAN RAILWAY

At the India Gate

Luckily, we ran into some tourist-looking folk, who kindly informed us that we were in fact quite a bit further from the park than we had speculated, and invited us to follow them in the direction of the backpackers sanctuary we were wishing for but unsure of how to get to. They were a group of three, two men and a woman, all working in Calcutta in some capacity and well-acquainted with the area. They led us to an unassuming cafe where we were able to get some wifi and our first of many delicious Indian meals. The rest of the day we spent walking around the busy markets, set up against the backdrop of impressive British colonial era buildings. We watched several games of cricket simultaneously taking place in a big park, and then went for a beer and watched some of the cricket World Cup showing on a projector screen in a dark but airy pub with lofty ceilings, and dark wood tables and benches which, like our taxi cab, could also have very well been relics from the age of the British Viceroy in India.  At 5:00 we boarded another plane, this time to Delhi, where we stayed for

The India Gate (a monument to fallen soldiers) from the rear

An artful nod to India's ever-popular stainless steel
cookery and tableware at the Delhi Art Gallery 

two nights... or three, if you count the night we spent waiting for the train we thought might never leave. After a couple of days exploring the bazaars, landmarks, and the beautiful Indian art gallery, we booked a train to Mathura, our base for the upcoming Holi festival. It was to leave at 5:30pm originally, but when we arrived at the station, we discovered it was delayed until 10pm. Then, when we returned at ten, the departure time was pushed back even further to 12:30am. In the end, our inaugural ride on the Indian Railway system didn't end up taking off until 3:00am, finally bringing us to Mathura at 5:00am. With all the delays, we figured we probably could have cycled there faster than the time it took the train to do the same journey, but such is the nature of the Indian railway , we discovered. In exchange for the incredibly cheap tickets (ex a 10 hour journey in an economy class sleeper costs about $5 CND) one has to be willing to travel on an extremely loose schedule, or better yet, none at all.

HOLI, HUH?

Those Holi days in Mathura were very interesting, to say the least.  Holi, by the way, is the Hindu festival of colours, and is known around the world for the fantastic, playful

No one is exempt from Holi activities in Mathura,
not even the 'Holy' cows

throwing of powdered colours and watery paints at any and every passersby in the streets. It is a celebration marking the beginning of spring in which everyone, no matter their race, religion, or caste, takes part in the festivities, greeting one another with a splash of color and a hug or hand shake. It's also marks the beginning of new year for many, and acts as justification to reset soured relationships and let go of old conflicts and resentments of the past.  Mathura is one of Hinduism's seven sacred cities, and the supposed birthplace of the much-loved Hindu god Krishna. The legend associated with Lord Krishna connects to the Holi rituals because it's said that he started the tradition of playing with colours by covering his beloved goddess Radha, who then became his girl. In Southern india, Holi is observed in a more austere, religious fashion, and events are centred around the local temple where you'd see a lot of people burn a lot of incense and make offerings at shrines. In the North, festivities vary from town to town but are generally more lively, colourful and less sober. So on the spectrum for Holi festivities across India, Mathura's is said to be on the far end of the party side. The city is known for the sporting the wildest, wettest, busiest streets in all of India during this time, and for us they certainly lived up to this reputation. 

PRE-PARTY PROBLEMS

However, despite being a city of at least a million and an unofficial capital of Holi, the place doesn't actually have much going for it in terms of tourism, so it wasn't the carefree week of partying that we had anticipated. This was the first city (though it felt like a town) that we encountered since China where Wifi isn't a familiar word yet, many of the local taxi/rickshaw drivers didn't speak English, and actual showers as well as restaurants were hard to come by. So, when we arrived a couple of days before the event started, we were disappointed to find that our hotel, despite advertising things like hot showers and wifi, definitely lacked them as well as sealed windows to keep the mosquitos out at night... but unfortunately, so did all their competition (that we explored). Compounding our discontent, we had the problem of dealing with a booking(dot)com and hotel miscommunication due to our delayed check in. Apparently, the reservations manager at the hotel hadn't been notified of our delay and had informed booking(dot)com (who had my credit card info) that we were a No Show, and thus booking(dot)com would be charging me the full price of our reservation - 13 nights worth. Naturally we wanted this corrected, especially since we weren't keen on staying there for the full 13 nights anyways. But then we faced the difficulty of reaching out to booking(dot)com because, as I said, there was no wifi and the hotel manager did all his business on his phone's 3G, so was unable to help us. Frustrating. Eventually, after being turned down at numerous mobile phone retailers because we didn't have an Indian ID, we talked to the right shopkeeper who was able to get his friend to hook us up with 3G internet on Cameron's iPhone. And so, within a few days of email exchanges and discussions with the hotel we got things sorted out and were saved. 

HOLY COWS, COLORS, AND DIRT ROAD DANCE PARTIES

Even though our our living situation wasn't ideal, we were still looking forward to experiencing Holi, so we spent a lot of time away from our room, getting ourselves oriented before the festival began on the 6th. Wandering down the dirt roads, we admired the heaps of coloured powders, dyes, and silly spray available on every street corner, gawked at the numerous monkeys that live in the trees and on the roofs of the brightly-coloured buildings, passed by 'holy' cows standing or laying down dumbly in the middle of the chaotic street, and met the intent stares of curious locals with smiles and a 'Happy Holi!'. We saw only a dozen or so other backpackers plus one tour bus-load of middle-aged Italians there during the 5 days we were in Mathura, and by talking to a couple of the backpackers, we were finally able to locate a good restaurant nearby their hotel and shared a huge, delicious Indian meal with them - all veg because Mathura's ascetic like that, so meat isn't on offer in most places. The night before Holi (called the 'Holika Dahan' or 'The Death of Holika') at about 11:00pm, we went out for a chai and saw a bonfire had been lit in the middle of an intersection, and people

Local women prepare the bonfire for their neighbourhood's
Holika Dahan, using cow dung patties and a wrapping of string.
This one has an effigy of Holika in the centre, who according to
the Bhagavat Purana, burned to death in place of her virtuous
brother Prahlad, after her father tried to kill him for not
worshipping him as a god. The fire symbolizes the triumph
of good over evil.

were putting offerings of incense, rice, sweets, and spices into it. This is the opening ceremony of Holi, where every neighbourhood builds and lights its own bonfire. We joined the circle on onlookers and watched as people gave their offerings and said their prayers, and I noticed that the fire wasn't just burning wood, but also hundreds of dried cow patties. Thankfully the burning spices and wood were the dominant scent in the air so we didn't have any problem hanging around there for a while. After enjoying the radiating heat for a bit, we carried on walking to the chai vendor's, but then just as we rounded the corner nearest it, we stumbled upon a dance party in the middle of the street. A huge stack of big black speakers were occupying the centre, blasting boisterous Bollywood music as a group of about 15 young guys were bouncing and shaking their shoulders, arms rising and falling to the beat. Naturally, we were instantly spotted and the group rushed over to us, shouting and waving at us to come join. After briefly resisting, we let ourselves get pulled into the centre of the dance floor (I.e. The middle of the dirt road), and danced our pants off, periodically bursting out giggling at the hilarity of the scene and the crazy energy with which these guys were throwing down like they were Bollywood stars. 

HOLI FRENZY 

The next day was Holi and we hit the streets at about 10am. Almost instantly after exiting our hotel's front doors, we were bombarded by group after group of young guys coated in color, armed and ready with bags of powder or water guns full of dyed water to douse anyone who dared come within their range. People going by on automatic scooters would stop when they saw us to come over and gleefully mark us with either a streak in the middle of our foreheads or a  playful splash of powder. As we were on our way out for the day, I had

Mission Holi Accomplished

been warned by some other foreigners whom we'd passed just as they were heading back in. They looked at me and said "Be ready for groping. Not all the guys out there are respectful." I'd already read this as a part of theonline advice for Holi that I'd looked up, so I wasn't shocked to hear this from a female tourist my age but it did unsettle me a bit nonetheless, especially since I noticed she was traveling with a male friend. It's said that women who go out on Holi with a male companion earlier in the morning would be less likely to be harassed by curious, drunk Indian men, whose hands would be more likely to wander the more hours they'd been out drinking and celebrating. I hoped I would be able to stay close enough to Cameron so that what happened to the other girl wouldn't happen to me, but as the day progressed, that turned out to be impossible. On every street there were new posses of mostly young boys and men, some more visibly drunk than others, all eager to 'play' Holi with us. We met with hundreds of people over the course of our first hour walking around Mathura, and 90% were happy and harmless, greeting Cameron and I with equally vigorous handshakes or hugs and sprays of color, forming two separate circles around us, jostling to get up close to wish us each a happy Holi and asking "What is your country??" I feel obligated to stress that this characterized the vast majority of our encounters that morning. But then there were times where I felt guys cupping my face with their hands a little longer than I liked, and few others who swiftly groped at my breasts and butt. I was never able to see the culprits themselves as they were in a swarm of at least ten all around me, and I had to pinch my eyes closed so that the powder they were smothering in my hair and face wouldn't get in. The same thing was happening to Cameron with the colours, so he couldn't see during these times either. As soon as I felt their pinches or wandering hands, I instinctively pushed them all away from me and shouted "No!" until I was free. Then I made sure Cameron knew the guys were creeps and we needed to get away from them. 

 In the moments after I'd pushed away those brazen hands who had pinch my nipples, I was shaking with outrage and indignation at what had just happened to me, in the middle of the street in broad daylight and not two feet away from my boyfriend. I had never felt so violated like that before, and was very emotional.  The warning from that morning was ringing in my ear and I felt stupid and shamed for not having heeded it, and for dumbly walking right into that group of guys, and letting myself get separated even an inch from Cameron. It had been too easy for the group to force us apart, so that they could get their feels in behind Cameron's back.  As a result, he didn't fully understand what had happened in the moment that I yelled at him that I wanted to get away from these guys. And it was only when we'd walked a couple blocks away that I was able to communicate exactly what had happened. Naturally, he was shocked, upset (especially at seeing me so upset) and questioning, as was I, whether we should make a full stop and shut ourselves in at the hotel for the rest of the day. It was only 11 o'clock by this time, and neither of us wanted to let the incident ruin the day so we carried on.  A few more groups approached us and I was studying their faces, staring into at all their eyes to see if they were drunk or not, and rejecting hugs so as to limit my contact with them to a dab on the forehead and maybe a handshake. Finally we made it to the temple of Krishna's birthplace, and fended off a few more wandering hands in the lineup before finding sanctuary inside. Things were much more quiet and subdued at the temple, and we enjoyed the colourful, ornate statues and designs, the translated Hindi scriptures, as well as the delicious snacks and sweet lassis for sale in the front courtyard. When we finished seeing the main temple and prayer hall, we relaxed in the garden for a while before wandering outside and catching a rickshaw back to our hotel. 

BEIN' REAL - SKIP IF YOU'RE NOT INTO READING ABOUT MY FEELINGS N STUFF RIGHT NOW

I've been very careful as I write this because it's a pretty personal and sensitive story, difficult to describe to someone who wasn't there at the time to experience the environment and energy being felt in the moment. At first I wasn't sure if I should write about it at all, and debated whether I ought to gloss over it somehow so as not to alarm or invite judgment upon mine and Cameron's decision-making. But I've decided to tell you about it because it was a significant  experience for me, and a very complex one at that. It was one of the most intense experiences of our trip I've had so far. Weeks later, I find I'm still processing it and reflecting on many aspects to it. Part of me wishes I'd kept my eyes open long enough to spot the creep who pinched me so I could punch him in the face, and watch the astonishment of the group at witnessing a woman strike back. At the very least I think I could have stood my ground and made more of a scene, instead of just shouting "No" and running. But I am proud of how both Cameron and I handled it, individually and as a couple. In the aftermath, we didn't allow difficult emotions to ruin our day, or boil into an argument about who was to blame. We showed ourselves to be an even-keeled team in what, for many couples, could have been a really destabilizing event. We've talked about it at length and strongly agree that we don't regret our decision to go ahead and play Holi the way we did that day. What happened was significant and unfortunate, but when examined against the vast cesspool of sexual harassment present in the world, and India in particular, I was fortunate that I only got a toe-dipping compared to what might have happened if, say, I had been alone. The experience also served as a brief introduction to what Indian women are faced with on the daily - as often as every time they ride a public bus, or dare not to ride in the 'women only' carriage in the Delhi metro. And when bad things happen to them, the men are given a slap on the wrist while it's often the woman who is  blamed for putting herself in the situation in the first place. This might explain why, when walking down most city streets in India, it's only men or older women who work in the shops, run the street food stalls, and work in the hotels - because few can expect a young to middle-aged female employee will be safe enough to work alone, even in a public place.  It's ridiculous that 50% of the population has to live with this reality from the moment they are born - and for some, until the day they die - no matter where they go in India. As tourists, it has a noticeable effect on our experience; even though we are quite far removed from the bleakest side of the injustice here, we both experience a palpable sense of treading in an odd, unhealthy, unbalanced environment when walking through a crowded neighbourhood with plenty of men working and young children milling about, but not seeing any women around... not to mention the slightly awkward and unwelcome feeling that arises when I recognize I'm the only female on the street... I could go on but I'll stop there, because there are a lot of good stories still to tell! 

ON TO AGRA

When Holi was over, we decided we simply couldn't pass up an opportunity to see the Taj Mahal when it was only two hours away, so we hopped in a morning bus and made it to Agra

Front entrance to the Oberoi Agra

by lunchtime.  Centuries ago, Agra used to be the seat of government, and then that marble-loving Shah Jahan built the Taj, so the place is kind of a big deal and a lot better equipped for tourists than its neighbour Mathura. We happily settled into a hostel before heading out to explore the area. Near the Taj Mahal we ogled at an amazing hotel called the Oberoi, which is a hotel chain akin to the likes of Fairmont in India and the Middle East. It felt like walking into the palace from the Disney movie Aladdin: beautiful fountains, arching latticework windows, cool marble floors, sky-high domed roofs, intricately painted with a royal blue and gold design on the inside... And that view. We

From inside the front lobby of the Oberoi, looking out to
the terrace where we had  a drink

splurged on a drink out on the balcony so we could sit and continue to gawk at the palatial landscape, gorgeous terraced garden and outdoor pool with the Taj Mahal perched on the horizon.  And their signature cocktail, the Mumtaz (gin, pomegranate, watermelon, basil and orange), was so amazing it was (almost) worth the $20 price tag.

TIRED, BROKE AND HANGRY... CAN YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING?

 We nearly saw the Taj Mahal up close the next day with some friends we made at the hostel, but ran into a snag. It concerned our money. Cameron misplaced his debit card in Calcutta, and mine doesn't work in India so while we waited to get a new one sent to us, we were down to my credit card for cash flow. In Mathura I'd been able to withdraw, but as I found out later, that had set off a security alert with my credit card company and they put a block on my card. I tried to call and have this fixed but the wifi connection at the hostel wasn't good enough to support a Skype call so I would have been in a real pickle if it hadn't been for my wonderful Mom, who was able to call them and have it sorted out the next day. The 24 hours before my card got unblocked, was a bit of a mess though. We woke up at 5:00am to catch the sunrise over the Taj with our friends, but when we (unknowingly) went to get the cash we needed to buy tickets, the ATM rejected me.. actually all four ATMs rejected me, to be exact. Then, bewildered, tired, and stressed, as I leaned on a bench and kind of... passed out. Like a Victorian lady. It's kind of embarrassing but true. I wasn't sick, just a bit hungry maybe and that, combined with money stress at gruelling 5:30am, resulted in me collapsing into Cameron, who luckily came over to reassure me just in time to see the blood drain from my face and catch me before I tipped, face first, into the concrete. Apparently I was only out for about a minute, but it scared Cameron, who right away told our companions to go on ahead without us, and took me straight back to my bed at the hostel.  I slept for a couple hours and woke up rested but feeling like shit because of our money problem, the fact that I fainted like a waif, and that we'd had to bail on the Taj Mahal with our friends. It also really sucked that the hostel was already fully booked for the night and we would have to go look for another cheap place to stay using the little cash we had left. But sweet, sweet, wonderful Cameron had been busy whilst I slept, and returned triumphantly, instructing me to pack up because he had already found a new place for us to stay. "Is it cheap?" I asked. "No, but don't worry about it. We'll be fine, just give me your bag. I'll take our stuff over there first, then come back to get you." I was sceptical, but things turned our more than okay.  Turns out, it was decided that this justified as an occasion to use the emergency American Express card his parents gave him before we left, to book us into a nice hotel until we got my credit card issue resolved. (We'd already learned that the American Express didn't work in ATMs and all low-midrange hotels in India don't accept foreign credit cards, doh). That's how we ended up spending two blissful nights at the luxurious Radisson Blu Hotel in Agra, but couldn't afford the rickshaw fare to get there. 

THE TAJ MAHAL

As I said, my Mom came to the rescue the following day and had my card unblocked so I could withdraw money again to buy tickets to see what we'd come to Agra for in the first place - the Taj. Like Mathura, it lived up to its reputation. I was blown away by the incredible craftsmanship in the intricate carvings that covered so much of its immense

surface area, and the impeccable symmetry within the whole palatial grounds. The fact that the place wasn't actually a palace at any point, but was built as and remains a tomb for the Empress Mumtaz Jahan, really impressed me; it's the most stunning monument to a dead lover in the world, whose tragic story tells of a rich emperor with several wives, whose favourite one of all dies while giving birth to their 14th child. Overcome by grief, and as a way to preserve her memory, he commissions the Taj Mahal. It takes more than 20 years and some 20,000 labourers to complete the marvel, and then, just a couple years after it's finished, the Emperor's son rises to power and imprisons his father behind the high walls of the Agra Fort, a few kilometres up the Yamuna River, until his death 6 years later. We also visited the Agra Fort later that same day, and it was just as incredible to explore. 

Inside the main mausoleum, where the Tombs of Emperor Shah Jahan and his Empress Mumtaz

The front Gate to the Fort

Outside the Agra Fort

In the Royal Court area of the Agra For

The place is HUGE - it took us 2 hours to get through the palace area of the Fort, that portion only consisted of 1/4 of the total area enclosed, the rest was off limits and still being used by the Indian Military. Besides the grandiose, gleaming white marble and sandstone royal chambers, with their walls embedded with patterns of semiprecious stones and roofs of gold, the enormously high red stone walls, with their tiny slivers of windows for archers to defend the old city within, thoroughly inspired the imagination. It all transported us to a time when the Fort was a bustling walled city, alive with bazaars, courtesans, camels, and crusaders. India has a fascinating history and we found it utterly enchanting to walk down the same corridors as the emperors of ancient days.

ONWARD TO RISHIKESH

Our next destination, and the final one we'd actually planned before departure from China, was Rishikesh, tucked into the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. Outside of India, Rishikesh is famous for two things - yoga and the Beatles. In the 1960s, the Fab Four came over here to stay in an ashram for what was initially just supposed to be a couple of weeks, but for John and George, it turned into well over a month, and a really productive period for the band - they wrote something like 20 songs which ended up being the bulk of their

famous White Album. From then on, Rishikesh has been an important stop on many foreign yogis and spiritual seekers' lists of must-see places in India, as well as an already nationally famous religious site thanks to the holy mother of all rivers, the Ganges (or Ganga as it's known around here) whose sacred, not-yet-polluted waters run down from the Himalayas through the city and south to other eastern parts of the country. Our journey there from Agra was 10 hours and luckily left on time, bringing us to Haridwar around 9:30pm, but we still had to wait until the following day to get a rickshaw to take us the last 45 minutes to get to our accommodation - Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram. For our night in Haridwar, we took a really cheap and dirty hotel... but that only made the next night (in a

A public Ghat down to the Ganges, with
Cafes at the top

hotel near the ashram, whose rooms were fully occupied) seem all the more heavenly. There was a large, properly sealed window, hot water, a/c and a nice, quiet ceiling fan, with a big, soft bed complete with clean sheets, and we only had to walk one minute up the road to get to the ashram, where we got all our meals plus 2 yoga classes a day. Despite not actually living inside the ashram per se, we found there were actually a number of perks which made it preferable to stay off site. Most importantly, we had wifi in our room, whereas the ashram provides only one desktop computer with a really slow internet connection for all the residents to use. And, they lock the gate at 9:30pm so residents have to be back before it closes at night or they're in trouble, whereas we could come and go as we pleased any time of day at our hotel. Then again, our first yoga class of the day did start at 6:00am soo it was not really in our best interest to stay out much later than 9:30 at night anyways, thus negating the advantage most days. 

No idea what this guy was about. He came up to Cameron and put a bindi on his
forehead (a sign that you've worshipped a diety, which we hadn't) without asking,
then asked us for money. He hissed at us as we walked away without paying. 

ASHRAM LIFE

As the reigning yoga capital of the world, today Rishikesh is home to over 100 ashrams, so you might be wondering how on earth we chose the one we did. Truthfully, it was tough because, beyond the sheer number to choose from, we were faced with the added challenge of having differing ideas for what we each wanted out of our ashram experience. I was more open to the  traditional, structured lifestyle that ashrams are known to provide (or 'yoga boot camp' as Cameron identified it), whereas he was looking for a more flexible, participate as much or as little as you like, 'yoga holiday'-style arrangement. We looked at dozens of websites and reviews for different ashrams, but we found most either didn't have enough or any yoga at all, or seemed to be either one or the other style of operation. But when we looked at Anand Prakash, they intimated a more moderate stance which appealed to us both. There was 2 yoga classes a day, including some authentic ashramy things like karma yoga (selfless service), silent periods, chanting and Ayurvedic meals - which all made me happy - but there was also no

Silent breakfast in the dining hall at Anand Prakash

mention of being required to attend all scheduled events or at any time facing expulsion - which  relieved Cameron. After our first day there, we knew we had made the right choice. Even though we had to get up early, the ashram schedule from Monday to Saturday (Sunday was a free day, except for volunteering to clean and do chores around the ashram as an act of karma yoga) wasn't difficult for either of us to keep; our day would start at 6am with yoga for an hour and a half, and then fire puja - which is prayers and chanting in Hindi around a fire pit, interspersed with offerings of ghee (clarified butter) and spices - followed by breakfast at 8:30. Outside of the chanting in yoga class, fire puja, and the breakfast prayer, we were asked to keep silent from 9:30pm until 9:00am when inside the ashram, and this was the only rule I ever heard of anyone getting scolded for for breaking (but they were very gentle about it). We ate meals in the dining hall, sitting cross-legged in front of short stools for tables. All the food was Ayurvedic (vegetarian, with no

strong chili spices or garlic but plenty of turmeric, curry, cum, and other healthy herbs and spices) and prepared fresh by the most adorable, glowing, round-faced Nepali woman named Nihru. Breakfast usually consisted of delicious pitted dates, some kind of fruit and two other items such as porridge, granola, banana samosas, chickpeas, or a lightly curried rice with peas and carrots. For lunch and dinner, we ate a lot of rice, chapati (a thin hybrid between pita bread and wheat tortillas), dal (curried lentils), mixed vegetable curry, palak paneer (spinach with cubes of fluffy indian mozzarella), and chickpeas, but it was always delicious and never predictable, so we loved it. Towards the end of our stay, Cameron was starting to crave meat pretty badly, but I didn't miss it much at all. After breakfast, we'd break the silence and start chatting with our

Fire Puja

ashram mates and exchange plans for the day, sometimes joining up to go to a nearby cafe or down into Rishikesh for the market and amazing lassis and samosas, and other times we'd just do our own thing. At 12:30, the bell for lunch at the ashram would call us back, but sometimes we'd be so comfortable at one of the cafes by the Ganga that we'd forgo the ashram meal in favour for something a la carte; this eventually ended up being the (only) justification for us leaving the ashram after two weeks, because we were eating fewer and fewer meals on site and it didn't make sense for us to be paying for food we weren't eating. Between 1-4pm we had more free time to relax, make use of the yoga & meditation halls and well-stocked library, again make an expedition to the shops, cafes and dozens of ashrams lining the river, go for a swim in the Ganga or hike up to one of the

Relaxing near the Ganga

handful of waterfalls nearby. Some people from the ashram took advantage of the many tour companies who offered white water rafting, guided hikes, bungee jumping, and jeep safari tours in a national park 1hr away where you could supposedly see elephants, tigers, and rhinos among other things. Then, at 4:00pm we'd have our second 90-minute yoga class of the day, followed by a healthy dinner in the dining hall at six. On Tuesday and Saturday evenings there was Kiirtan, which is like group singing, music-making and chanting, but it didn't really tickle our fancy so we'd usually go out for a masala chai or head back to our room for the night. The best part of the ashram experience for me?

Puppy Yoga at the Ashram

 For sure the daily yoga (especially on the rooftop at sunrise!), which definitely increased my flexibility while providing some much-needed routine exercise to boost my fitness and metabolism, and then of course the great friends we made through the ashram community. People from all over the world and all walks of life come to Rishikesh, some seeking spiritual enlightenment, others to train as yoga teachers or just to relax and do the body some good for a while.  We've got a lot of stories to tell about the many interesting characters we came across here, but I'll save those goodies to tell you in person ;) Thankfully, there wasn't really any bad parts to speak of, but if I had to choose, I'd say the greatest challenge for me was probably the sitting cross-legged at all meals - even though other postures became much easier with practice, this one actually became much harder. My knees and hips protested vehemently right up until the last day >_<. And for Cameron? His greatest challenge can be summed up in one word: vegetarianism. 

OM

Though our two weeks at the ashram were up, we weren't quite ready to leave harmonious Rishikesh just yet. So, we found ourselves a new guesthouse one block away (so we could still meet up with our lovely ashram friends) and carried on with our "busy doing nothing" routine of chillin in cafes, reading, eating delicious vegan baking and vegetarian Italian pizzas, drinking lassis and chais, walking, swimming in the Ganga, doing yoga, and occasionally getting wild by venturing out of the hippy ghetto around the ashrams and into the more Indian part of Rishikesh. Oh, and I learned how to make a proper masala chai! It's

The Real Chai

ridiculously simple - ask me how when I get back. It felt like we'd found bliss, but it wasn't through quite the same path our Yogirishi had been teaching us while we meditated during yoga class. Nevertheless, we felt supremely balanced and content. I had this confirmed for me actually when I went for a consultation appointment with an Ayurvedic doctor. It was an hour long session in which he took my pulse, checked my tongue and fingers, then conducted a personality and behavioural test to determine my 'Dosha', or my Ayurvedic constitution/body type. I was diagnosed as dominantly Pitta (the fire element), minoring in Vata (the air element), and the doctor explained to me at length what this meant for my life in terms of what sort of diet and eating pattern best suits me, as well as typical mental and emotional tendencies and dysfunctions that may arise when my Doshas get out of balance. He advised a bunch of "best practices" to include in my life like yoga postures, mantras, herbs, massages and scents which will all help me to fortify my Dosha and ward off sickness. But, he said he didn't have any recommended treatments for me because he felt I was a very balanced person already, so that was cool. 

It took three weeks, but finally we mustered up the motivation to move on from Rishikesh. We took a night train to Gorakhpur, from there a 2 hour taxi to the Sanauli border crossing,

Tansen Town Centre

followed by a 4 hour bus ride to Tansen, Nepal. It's a very historic hill town in central Nepal, sitting on and surrounded by mountain. There are no rickshaws there because I suspect they wouldn't be able to handle the steep hills on every street. But it was good practice for us! We hiked up to a park on the top of the small mountain it's located on, and were led by a group of elementary school boys to the top of an unfinished view tower which is being rebuilt after Nepalese Maoist revolutionaries bombed it in 2002. At lunch, we found ourselves at a hotel overlooking the whole of Tansen and  had ourselves a delicious Nepali lunch of Thupka (Nepali chicken noodle soup) for me, and mutton curry for my meat-starved man. We also had our first beer in over 3 weeks (no meat or alcohol anywhere in Rishikesh) and it was oh so refreshing.

Note the Goat: Nepalese Buses take all manner of passengers 

The next morning, we bussed to beautiful lakeside Pokhara, the second biggest city in Nepal after Kathmandu, and have found our base before starting our weeks-long trek in the Annapurna mountains in a couple days time! 

Besides trekking, for now our future plans include a return to Northern India after Nepal, in particular the picturesque Kashmir and Punjab region for the Sikh facet of fascinating Indian culture. Then, the next country on our list is none other than Turkey. 

Until next time..

Ta-ta (Nepalese for bye bye :3)

Julie