From the Rooftop of the World

 

23 May - 25 May 2009 

I was happy to escape the bugs and heat of Chitwan as we made our way to Kathmandu. We arrived during the day, and could tell we were getting closer to the city as a heavy blanket of smog hung over the valley. It’s an extremely colourful city, the homes in the suburbs are like bizarre, twisted versions of the McMansions of Suburbia back home. The houses are similar to display homes, all looking the same or at least very, very similar, but oddly designed. They are generally 3 or 4 stories high, and very thin, with each house painted in a different bright colour. Some of the houses have no windows on an entire side of the building, instead they would use that space for advertising, so it is not uncommon to see massive billboards of Everest Beer or Coca Cola painted on the side of someone’s home. 

We stayed in the centre of the Thamel area, the main tourist hub of the city, at the Kathmandu Guest House, the first hotel to open in Thamel. The hotel hosted the Beatles during their trip to Nepal in the 1960s, with a sign in every room reminding you that the Beatles were once guests, but when you’re gone, no one will care. 

The next morning a group of us headed to the airport for our mountain flight to see Mt Everest. The weather was terrible (or maybe the smog was THAT thick), and we didn’t see a single mountain until we were above the clouds. But that proved to be the most amazing part of the flight. Seeing the mountains jot out from above the clouds is just not something you see everyday. The fact that there are people that believe climbing to such heights is ‘fun’ is just insane. Although having seen Mt Everest popping up through the clouds, I can imagine how amazing it would be to be physically standing on top of it looking over the clouds, and onto nothingness. But peering at it from a seat in an airplane is as close as I’ll ever get, considering climbing 2 flights of stairs at work leaves me breathless! 

We visited two temples while in Kathmandu, the first one being Swayambhunath, or ‘The Monkey Temple’, named after the families of monkeys that have chosen to make it their home. Legends tell that Kathmandu was once a lake, and the hill that the Monkey Temple was built on was self-arisen, not unlike a lotus leaf rising from the muddy waters of a lake. 

We made our way to the Bodhnath Stupa, one of the biggest stupas in the world (or the biggest? Not sure....) It was built in 600AD after a prince accidently killed his own father, and searching for forgiveness from a monk, was told to create something spectacular as penance, and so he built the largest stupa of his times. It is really impressive, prayer flags fly off the stupa in all directions, monks and holy men walk around the stupa spinning the prayer wheels as they do so, and lots of Tibetan ladies trying to sell you their handmade jewellery. 

There is a huge Tibetan influence in Nepal, not only can you see it in the jewellery and handmade beanies and socks made of yak wool, but there is Tibetan food on nearly every menu in the country. And I love it. Nepalese food is more similar to Indian, with Thalis and basic curries, just without as much spice as the Indian varieties! Momo is staple Nepalese food, and they are delicious. They are very much like Chinese dumplings, little dough packages of vegetables that are boiled and served on a plate with dipping sauces. Tibetan food is very similar to Chinese food, as in very basic, but very tasty. The most delicious meal I’ve had so far is Tibetan Thungtha Noodle Soup. Consisting of a soup that’s mostly vegetable stock, heaps of herbs, cabbage, carrots and thick noodles. So simple, but oh so delicious! The problem with the restaurants in Nepal (and we found this to be so in India too) was the painfully slow procedure of payment. It’s not so bad if you’re by yourself, but with a big group of people, patience is definitely a virtue. You get your own separate bill, which sounds like a great idea, however they bring only 2 or 3 out at a time, go through it with each separate person, tell them how much the extra service charge is, collect the money, work out the change, try and find someone who has the correct change to give back, and then start all over with the next person. The process tends to take over 20 minutes, and it is so frustrating! 

For the last night of our tour, we headed to Rum Doodle, one of the most popular places in Kathmandu. It is covered with paper feet which visitors write their adventures or their hometowns on. We sat under the Everest Summiter’s Club wall, where paper feet dangled containing names of those who climbed the “Big E” as it is affectionately called. Most bragged about climbing Everest 6 or 7 times. I mean, why? I get that it’s an honour and an achievement to reach the top, but do you need to do it over and over again? Isn’t once enough!!!! I later read in the Kathmandu Times about a crazy Sherpa who had recently set the world record for climbing Everest the most amount of times. I’m pretty sure the paper quoted 32 times. 32!!! Unbelievable. We had a fantastic night at Rum Doodle, we all got very drunk, and the band was amazing (or was that because of my drunken state?) and played lots of old rock and roll songs that we jumped up and danced like crazy fooles too. Our paper foot came along far too late in the night, I’m pretty sure they won’t be putting it up for other’s to view considering some of the language that found it’s way on there! We probably should have written on it pre-drinks. The texter meant for the foot found it’s way to various body parts on all of us, we woke up the next morning with random swear words and insults over our arms and legs! Too funny. We said our goodbyes to our awesome travel mates, as we all headed our separate ways

Currently....

Escape From Rebels Under a Cloud of Smog

19 May - 22 May 2009 

A knock on the door awoke us around midnight. Myself and my roommate both being slightly anxious about opening a door to some random knocker in the middle of the night, hid behind the toilet door for protection (it seemed a good idea at the time) as we called out asking who it was. It was Javed our tour leader, calling an emergency meeting. We instinctively thought we were in trouble, and were about to be told off and kicked off the tour in front of the whole group - how humiliating! Lucky for us we weren't busted for some unfortunate travel crime, instead we were told Maoist rebels had called a strike in our area and we had to get out straight away. We packed in record time and within 15 minutes we were in a minivan on the way to the Royal Chitwan National Park. Javed warned us that if we were stopped for any reason, heard shouting or screaming, we were not to get off the bus under any circumstances. Now that is a way to make us feel confident about our safety right? 

The Maoists are the Communist Party of Nepal, and have been fighting a People’s War for over 10 years. They’ve really hurt the tourism industry in Nepal, the Royal Chitwan National Park used to see 92% of all visitors to Nepal before the Maoist insurgency, now it sees less than 40%. A few days later we heard that they did strike in Lumbini, a few people were injured, and we were glad we left when we did! 

Lumbini itself is one of the most important religious sites in the world, being the birthplace of Buddha. It’s a very peaceful small town, almost a village, surrounded by Buddhist temples. The temple that is at the heart of Lumbini and the first place we visited was the Maya Devi Temple, the exact spot where Buddha was born. Buddha was born there in 563 BC, when his mother Maya Devi was travelling between two states when she came across a pond surrounded by flowering sal trees. She bathed in the cool waters, and shortly after she went into labour, had enough time to walk 25 steps to grab a branch of a tree for support before the baby was born (thank you Lonely Planet history pages!) The pond is still there, and the huge sal tree that has grown beside it is still used today by monks to meditate as they search for enlightenment. We spent maybe 8 hours in Lumbini, before being evacuated. The 5 hour trip to the Royal Chitwan National Park was thankfully uneventful, and even more amazing was that we were the first trip in 2 months that made it into Lumbini in the first place! We spent 3 days at Chitwan, and during that 3 days, I did absolutely nothing, and it was fantastic! Chitwan is home to Indian Elephants that wander through the streets of the village with their trainer sitting on top of them, which mortified me to the max. Nothing is more terrifying than enjoying a gentle stroll down the street when an elephant passes you by. Ergh. Everyone in the group apart from myself did a wildlife tour sitting on an elephant, which brings you closer to the rhinos, monkeys and on the rare occasions tigers. If I wanted to see animals, I would go to a zoo. So rather than join my travel companions on jungle treks and elephant safaris, I hung out at the hotel, read, slept, hit the bar, and slept some more. I played board games with the locals, the Tiger Moving Game is a huge hit in Southern Nepal, and I kicked butt because I’m amazing, not because I was ‘allowed to win’ the game so I would buy it like other tourists believed. As if. 

Electricity (or the more common local pronunciation Electric City) came and went randomly, sometimes it would only last a few hours each day, providing no relief from the crazy heat. Nepal gets it’s Electric City from India, and they randomly pull the plug either accidently or if you believe the Nepalese, completely on purpose just to piss them off. No power at night did keep away the mosquitos (which were probably malaria infested) and the humongous cicadas that were roughly the size of a fist. I was happy to escape the bugs and heat of Southern Nepal as we slowly made our way to Kathmandu. 

Rustic Asian Inspired Lounge

Just wanted to share my favourite pieces from my our Lounge Assignment where I chose Rustic Asian as a 'theme'. I adore the rustic Kuta seat, handmade using 100 year old railway sleepers. Amaze! The peasant dress I cut out from a magazine years ago, the stockists no longer exist which is unfortunate. I would love this is my bedroom.

This Antique Chinese Apothecary Cabinet is quiet possibly my most favourite thing. Ever. I would sell my firstborn to have this in my home, I absolutely adore it.
All drawers still have their original paper labels, and I'm sure it still has the delicious smell of herbs and spices. 
Shame it's $4500 USD..... hot damn.




This was the 'hero' item in my design, used as a solution for the client's need of creative CD storage space. I'm pretty sure I killed it.

Clockwise top left:

Shang Dynasty Flask indigo-uk.com

Clay Urn indigo-uk.com

19th Century Calligraphy Signs indigo-uk.com

Peasant Dress

Kravet Fabrics  elliottclarke.com.au/

Carved Wood Table westelm.com

Kuta Seat baliathome.com.au

Ancestor Painting indigo-uk.com

Apothecary Cabinet silkroadcollection.com

Slowly down the Ganges to Varanasi

 

14 May - 19 May 2009

We boarded our luxury cruise liner (HA!), a four person long row boat with no standing room, 2 rowers and only just enough room for our bags! We were to spend 2 days rowing down the River Ganges, and it was to be the most relaxing and peaceful part of our entire trip. The days before the boat trip we were extremely nervous about it, about 5 of us had only recently got very sick (and not the kind of sickness you want on a row boat if you know what I mean). We had all taken way more Immodium than is recommended, after filling our heads with images of resorting to leaning over the rowboat with our pants down to relieve ourselves. That wasn’t in the brochure! But we were all fine. 

We spent the whole day reading, sleeping, chatting, sleeping and then when we got tired from doing all of that, we slept some more. At lunchtime, we stopped in the middle of the Ganges as the cooks had prepared for us a delicious Indian meal; potato curry, daal bhat (lentils - my new favourite thing), veges and other yummy things. We continued rowing (well, the rowers did, we just slept) until dusk where we off loaded the boats and set up camp. We had tiny 2 people tents, and our toilet? The sand. We walked for ages just to keep ourselves out of view from the rest of the group, dug a hole, and went for it. We had a huge dinner, including fries, and omg I have never seen so many people leap at food before. We had only had 4 or 5 days without Western food! Too funny.

 That night was loooong. It was so hot, I would open the tent flap to let the breeze in, then the girl I was sharing the tent with would close it because she was scared that the wild dogs would get in our tent. Frustrating much? It wasn’t until the next morning we learned that the tents had air vents on all sides. Dammit. 

We woke up earlier than is natural the next morning and started off again towards Varanasi. We arrived on land around 2pm and took a car to the city. Varanasi is the most sacred city in all of Hinduism, the place where hundreds of people bathe in the Ganges, and the only place you can burn the bodies of the dead 24 hours a day. Everywhere else along the Ganges you can burn the dead from sunrise to sunset. 

We had so much fun in Varanasi, the first night we headed to the main ghat along the waterfront and got in boat to watch the religious ceremony that was going on. We lit candles to make a wish and send them off into the Ganges but it was so windy that the flame went out before even touching the water. How awkward. We ended up re-doing this ceremony the following night, we made our wishes and watched them float down the river. 

The next morning we woke before dawn (ew) and jumped on a boat to watch the sunrise over Varanasi. It’s so beautiful in the morning without millions of other tourists like us! The guy who was rowing our boat was wearing a cotton skirt thing, and nothing else which we unfortunately noticed time and time again when the wind picked up. 

We spent the whole day shopping, we were first taken to a cotton factory, and learnt all the different ways to colour the fabric, make patterns on the fabric, all in the most intense and enthusiastic detail from the owner of the shop. We wandered through the streets for the rest of the day, and organised a henna session for later on that night. The henna lady was meant to arrive at our hotel at 7. 8 o clock came and we were slightly angry, but we were already used to ‘India time,’ which basically means, don’t hold your breath. We spoke to the guys in reception who called her and said, oh she is waiting for you and her house, we’ll take you there. So we followed this teeny Indian woman through the backstreets at dark, dodging random cows and bulls which by the way were the biggest damn cows I have ever seen in my life. We met the henna lady who invited us into her home and had her sister give us henna tattoos. I’m guessing she was practicing on us, the other lady was telling her to do this, and don’t do that. They kept pointing at us and saying stuff in Hindi and then laughing their heads off, clearly at our expense. It’s so awkward when you know someone is making fun of you right to your face but you don’t know what they’re saying! The sister only spoke French and because we could speak a little French (and by a little I mean like 3 sentences), she tried to teach us more French. So we were in the middle of India with Hindu ladies learning French. As you do. The henna tattoos took about an hour each to finish, and we had to wait a further hour to let it dry before washing it off. As we couldn’t wear shoes while waiting for it to dry, we had to walk back to our hotel barefoot, trying to miss the potholes, cow dung, spit, rubbish and god knows what else! But our feet looked amazing so totally worth the effort! 

The next day we started our drive to Nepal, 13 hours squished in a car with no air conditioning. But I’ll save that story for my next post.

A Curry In A Hurry

09 May - 13 May 2009


Delhi was one of the craziest places I have ever been to, not wholly unexpected of course, but I wish I spent longer than 12 hours there! Even just the drive from the airport to the hotel was an eye opening experience! 

People would randomly take a leak on the side of the road, not bothering to hide behind a wall or similar, just let it out for all too see! Security guards would huddle in groups of 4 or 5, all carrying massive guns that looked like plastic machine guns you can buy from Toys R Us, although probably slightly deadlier. Cricket inspired billboards littered the streets, Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting probably making a good deal of money selling bubble gum and Vodafone plans in India. Streets dedicated to single themes, such as Wedding Street, with stores selling everything from invitations, decorations, and jewellery, to thank you cards, DJ’s, and flashing neon lights. We passed FireCracker Street, about 30 stores carrying firecrackers in dubious looking packaging, with laughing babies holding sparklers on the covers: it’s definitely not safety first in India! We spent time at the Friday mosque and the Sikhism temple, our first chance to mingle with the locals and take part in daily life! We had a great group of people on our tour, there was 12 of us, 2 Aussies, 2 Kiwis, 4 Brits, 1 Welsh, 1 German and 1 Swiss and myself! 

After spending only about 12 hours in Delhi, we boarded a local train and headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal! Agra is not at all what I expected, it is home to the biggest attraction in all of India, yet it is a tiny, almost derelict town, it makes you wonder where the money from the ridiculously expensive entry fee goes. Before the Taj, we were taken to the Red Fort, a massive monument that I can’t for the life of me remember what is used for (note to self: must listen). The place was amazing, a massive moat surrounded the whole fort, which was once filled with crocodiles to avert enemies. If any invader passed the moat of inevitable crocodile doom, they would then face an Indiana Jones style array of death traps from massive boulders falling down the hill, to burning oil, flaming arrows and I think they mentioned tigers?? Talk about intense security! 

Our hotel was within walking distance of the Taj Mahal, and it began to rain on our parade as we made our way there. How unfortunate. But the Taj does not disappoint, it really is spectacular, we just look like drowned rats in our photos! A couple of us spent about 20 minutes just standing on a nearby ledge thinking how lucky we were to stand in front of the Taj. It is truly amazing, and no matter how many pictures I have seen of it, I was still in awe. We spent about 2 hours just roaming around the grounds and inside the Taj itself, taking about 200 photos, of which I’ll probably keep only 3 of! 

The next morning we got up before sunrise to take in the Taj as the sun rose. We got on this incredible dodgy boat (and I use the word ‘boat’ very loosely) to make our way across the river to get the best view of it. So pretty :) That day we took another local train to Jhansi, this time in 3rd class seater, with no air con and very tight squeeze with the locals! It was a great experience though, the family sitting opposite us kept staring at us while we would say ‘Namaste’ to them, they would say it back and then ask us other questions in Hindi that we could only answer by nodding or shrugging our shoulders because we had no idea what they were asking us! Midway through the trip, the mother took out these little newspaper bundles from her bag, each one containing a different type of curry, naan bread or chapati, and fashioned the paper into little plates and handed them out to her entire family. She had basically created an entire elaborate meal just for the train trip! We took out our packet of shortbread biscuits and tried to offer them to the family, but who would want a dry biscuit when you’ve got curry covered garlic naan? 

The train ride lasted only 5 hours, though it felt like about 10 hours, and we boarded a tuk tuk to the small town of Orchha to spend the next couple of nights. Orchha was amazing, and so, so HOT. Oh my goodness I haven’t felt heat like that in such a long time, and there was just no relief from it! We were lucky to have air conditioning in our ‘deluxe Swiss tents’ but the air con was so cold that honestly we just couldn’t win! Then I got sick. I’m not sure if it was the food, or the fact I was going from one extreme temperature to the other, or maybe even a little bit of both, but I got sicker than I have ever been before in my life! Oh it was hell, and I really wanted to call home but I was too afraid I would break down and book a trip home because all I wanted to do was be in my own bed! I managed a few temples before I got really bad, and they were incredible, particularly the massive palace in the middle of the town, but I missed the cooking class which I was so looking forward too. 

The people there were so friendly, there were heaps of kids wandering around, one group of kids would come up to us asking to be our friends. I automatically grabbed hold of my bag and kept it close, and this one girl came up to me and put a little bracelet on me saying that we are friends now this is for you. I kept telling her that I didn’t want it because I didn’t want to spend money on something I didn’t want, but she was so insistent, saying we are friends, I want to give you this. She tied it on me and ran away, not even asking for money. I felt so bad about judging this sweet little girl, when she was really just giving me a gift. I am such a bad person! I did get rammed by a cow about 2 hours later so I guess karma caught up with me! We were standing around talking to some locals and there were all these mangy dogs jumping up at us and I felt something hit me hard on my butt and I turned around to shoo the dog away and noticed it was a massive cow hitting me! I screamed like a girl because it was so unexpected, and then curled up on the floor laughing until I cried. It was so funny. The cows would just wander the street randomly, they would even walk into people’s homes trying to find food. God knows what they actually ate, there was hardly any grass or ‘regular cow food’ around. After Orchha we drove a few hours to Allahabad to begin our River Ganges boat ride, where I downed a whole packet of Immodium, just in case. :)

today....