I was vague about disappearing for a few days because I really did not know all of the details about this secret mission. It would not have been such an adventure if I knew all that was going to happen or talked about the adventure that I was about to go on. As much as I tried to not bring my culture with me, kelly day followed me. I have stayed fairly busy working two jobs and dodging traffic. My time here was coming to an end and there was the chance to add more adventure to the journey. Nepal is full of natural beauty (yes, the people here do not know what a trash can is or how to use one and there is no system in place to get rid of the refuse, but the country is still impressive once you block out the garbage) and I had 2 days to see more of it. There are two options to pick from: mountains or plains. A large number of people come to this country to trek and there are a large number of paths and areas to walk. It is the roof of the world. If you like hiking in the mountains, this is the place for grown-ups. The option of trekking can get a little expensive and you need some professional-grade gear to do it. Plus, to really enjoy it, you might want to set aside a few weeks. I did not have the time and did not want to buy the equipment or rent the equipment or pay what could easily reach into the thousands to see the mountains. I saw the Holy Himalayas from the air and I see them from the level of the stairs to the world's roof that Kathmandu is on. Plus, I have done a fair amount of walking on this journey...
This left me with only the choice of heading out of the mountains to the plains: the Terai, the region at the foothills of the Himalayas. The place to go is called Chitwan and it is a national park. All I had to do was talk with a local travel company and work out a deal. The deal was pretty good I say, 100 U.S. dollars for a tourist bus ride to a lodge in Chitwan, meals, why tour the wild on foot when you can take a tour on an elephant, a guide to help navigate you, the stay at the lodge, and a culture program. Two days, one night. It fit into the schedule that my kelly day allowed and it was well worth it. What started as an idea for a mini-adventure during an incredible journey provided a total of three adventures...
I do not watch a lot of TV, but I have seen bits and pieces of IRT Deadliest Roads (India) and Amazing Race. The past few days for me were a combination of these two shows...My body became the camera and my mind became the audience...and it was a trip to remember within the trip to remember...
Pre-Adventure: The scheduling was easy, like I said, go to the travel company and pretty much let them know what I want to do in the time frame I have and let them know what I can pay. Pick up the vouchers (bus, lodge/excursion details). Done. It was inevitable that I was going to get sick on a trip like this. I figured it would be fairly early on, but no, I got it at the end. I had a few minor illnesses throughout this journey, but from Thursday night to this very moment, I have been quite ill. From fever to a GI system that I guess has grown tired of new crazy foods, I have felt bad. Stomach cramps, headaches, body aches, chills, cough, snot, and the two directions GI works with, I have been sick. It does not stop me. I still like to believe that with your mind you can control your body. This is why I am not surprised to hear that things like yoga and meditation are great ways to beat illness, physical and mental. I can be sick in america and that is the plan. I am running out of time on this journey. Press on. It is just sickness, beat it by out thinking it. So I keep my mind too busy and leave little room for it to worry about how sick the body is...
I decided to take it easy on New Year's and ended up going to bed around 2230. Lame. I know, but I felt like death. I went out with my roommates to Thamel and it was crazy as expected, but I needed to try and eat something...cheese and tomato sandwich should be ok, right? I don't know the answer to that question, but I know that I liked the sandwich and it was neat to see a different crowd of people for New Year's and share a few hours with the cool roommates that I have. Then to bed...the race starts in the morning, board the bus at 0630, which means I need to get up at 0545 : /
Start the race...
Of course the race starts with me arguing with a taxi driver who wants to charge me 10 times what I have been paying for a cab throughout the duration of my journey, but it is an easy argument to win and I head to the bus. The bus out of Kathmandu is a tourist bus, but still a bus on the streets of Nepal and the beginning of adventure number one...get out of the mountains and down to the plains. It sounds simple, but the infrastructure of the country is not the greatest and riding in a vehicle in the city was an adventure on its own, so the bus ride out of a mountainous region should be interesting. This is where the connection to Deadliest Roads comes into play. I am not the driver, I am like the camera mounted on the truck. It was a spectacular 6 hour bus ride full of ups and downs, stops, swerves, and bumps. I sat on the left side of the bus and only had a brief view of what appeared to be 1000 meters to the bottom, but the road wrapped around a mountain and I spent the rest of the ride facing the mountain side and was constantly looking up at such an amazing range of mountains. There was also the opportunity to see many rural mountain villages along the way. At some point the bus reached a river and followed a path that moved against a mountain following the river to the plain. I don't know how a safe ride is possible in a society with poor infrastructure and no driving laws or no enforcement of driving laws, but I made it out of the mountains to Chitwan. The only thing I can think of is that drivers here have to stay more focused on their driving because there are no laws. Maybe americans rely on the driving laws to keep them safe instead of actually paying attention to what they are doing.
Adventure number two...
I survived the thrilling ride out of the mountains and made it to Chitwan on the Terai plain. I hopped a ride from the bus drop-off site to my lodge, the Hotel Jungle Lodge, and it was a very nice place. Quick lunch and then it was off to see some nature while riding an elephant. Note to self, look into getting an elephant driver's license, that would be awesome. I guess the elephant tour lasted about two hours and the thing walked through rivers across open land and into the jungle. Awesome, I just rode an elephant in Chitwan, Nepal.
This left me with only the choice of heading out of the mountains to the plains: the Terai, the region at the foothills of the Himalayas. The place to go is called Chitwan and it is a national park. All I had to do was talk with a local travel company and work out a deal. The deal was pretty good I say, 100 U.S. dollars for a tourist bus ride to a lodge in Chitwan, meals, why tour the wild on foot when you can take a tour on an elephant, a guide to help navigate you, the stay at the lodge, and a culture program. Two days, one night. It fit into the schedule that my kelly day allowed and it was well worth it. What started as an idea for a mini-adventure during an incredible journey provided a total of three adventures...
I do not watch a lot of TV, but I have seen bits and pieces of IRT Deadliest Roads (India) and Amazing Race. The past few days for me were a combination of these two shows...My body became the camera and my mind became the audience...and it was a trip to remember within the trip to remember...
Pre-Adventure: The scheduling was easy, like I said, go to the travel company and pretty much let them know what I want to do in the time frame I have and let them know what I can pay. Pick up the vouchers (bus, lodge/excursion details). Done. It was inevitable that I was going to get sick on a trip like this. I figured it would be fairly early on, but no, I got it at the end. I had a few minor illnesses throughout this journey, but from Thursday night to this very moment, I have been quite ill. From fever to a GI system that I guess has grown tired of new crazy foods, I have felt bad. Stomach cramps, headaches, body aches, chills, cough, snot, and the two directions GI works with, I have been sick. It does not stop me. I still like to believe that with your mind you can control your body. This is why I am not surprised to hear that things like yoga and meditation are great ways to beat illness, physical and mental. I can be sick in america and that is the plan. I am running out of time on this journey. Press on. It is just sickness, beat it by out thinking it. So I keep my mind too busy and leave little room for it to worry about how sick the body is...
I decided to take it easy on New Year's and ended up going to bed around 2230. Lame. I know, but I felt like death. I went out with my roommates to Thamel and it was crazy as expected, but I needed to try and eat something...cheese and tomato sandwich should be ok, right? I don't know the answer to that question, but I know that I liked the sandwich and it was neat to see a different crowd of people for New Year's and share a few hours with the cool roommates that I have. Then to bed...the race starts in the morning, board the bus at 0630, which means I need to get up at 0545 : /
Start the race...
Of course the race starts with me arguing with a taxi driver who wants to charge me 10 times what I have been paying for a cab throughout the duration of my journey, but it is an easy argument to win and I head to the bus. The bus out of Kathmandu is a tourist bus, but still a bus on the streets of Nepal and the beginning of adventure number one...get out of the mountains and down to the plains. It sounds simple, but the infrastructure of the country is not the greatest and riding in a vehicle in the city was an adventure on its own, so the bus ride out of a mountainous region should be interesting. This is where the connection to Deadliest Roads comes into play. I am not the driver, I am like the camera mounted on the truck. It was a spectacular 6 hour bus ride full of ups and downs, stops, swerves, and bumps. I sat on the left side of the bus and only had a brief view of what appeared to be 1000 meters to the bottom, but the road wrapped around a mountain and I spent the rest of the ride facing the mountain side and was constantly looking up at such an amazing range of mountains. There was also the opportunity to see many rural mountain villages along the way. At some point the bus reached a river and followed a path that moved against a mountain following the river to the plain. I don't know how a safe ride is possible in a society with poor infrastructure and no driving laws or no enforcement of driving laws, but I made it out of the mountains to Chitwan. The only thing I can think of is that drivers here have to stay more focused on their driving because there are no laws. Maybe americans rely on the driving laws to keep them safe instead of actually paying attention to what they are doing.
Adventure number two...
I survived the thrilling ride out of the mountains and made it to Chitwan on the Terai plain. I hopped a ride from the bus drop-off site to my lodge, the Hotel Jungle Lodge, and it was a very nice place. Quick lunch and then it was off to see some nature while riding an elephant. Note to self, look into getting an elephant driver's license, that would be awesome. I guess the elephant tour lasted about two hours and the thing walked through rivers across open land and into the jungle. Awesome, I just rode an elephant in Chitwan, Nepal.
It was a great break and a unique way to view nature. After the elephant tour, I was dropped off at a culture program and was able to have yet another exposure to a very unique culture.
CC and Kerah, I have been trying to stay vegetarian but it was hard to do so at dinner at my lodge : / I think the consensus at the table was that the meat was water buffalo, but who knows...be polite and eat the dinner the hosts prepared for you. Like I said, I was sick prior to eating this meal, so I am not really sure if it was the sickness I already had or the water buffalo that caused the terrible stomach cramps...power of the mind beats anything...sleep it off. In the morning after breakfast, a few of us went with a guide on a nature walk for about an hour. This was not as exotic as riding an elephant, but the view is exotic. Too many pictures and not enough internet...
Adventure three...
Hope you had fun on the plain, now get back to the mountains. Damn. Coming down was an adventure which only means that going back will be too : / The package deal I had did not have a bus ride home, only a ride to meet a bus. So for 300 rupees, I got on a local bus and this proved to be a little more fast paced of a ride when compared to the tourist bus. I am pretty sure I was segregated and placed on the back of the bus away from the locals with some other guy I think from Germany, but it does not matter how big of a proponent of civil rights I am, this was not the time or place for a civil rights movement. On a positive note, I think you get a little more bounce from the bumps at the back of the bus...so sure add some more adrenaline to the ride. I sat on the left side of the bus just like I did for the ride down and for the ride home, I get to ride the edge : / I just found the cure to any anxiety, fear, or sad feelings...take the ride from Kathmandu to Chitwan and make it round trip, 12 hours of your life and you will never have to deal with those problems again. I am a pretty fearless person and after this ride, I laugh at fear. The ride on the edge was the most exciting ride of my life...it makes KTM streets look like kiddie land. You just expect for it all to end at any second. I kept wishing my geologist friend was beside me so he could point out the geological formations of the mountains and valleys and tell me which piece of geology I had the highest probability of leaving my face print on when the bus went a few more inches to the left. It was a scary-thrilling-exciting ride and I was surrounded by remarkable views for another 6 hours. I highly doubt I will be phased by anything in life after adventure number 3.
It was me and death in a starring contest for 6 hours. After a while, death and I just got use to each other and enjoyed the ride. Power of the mind...set your mind to it and you can do it...don't live in fear and don't run from something just because you think it won't work or is difficult...put forth some effort.
It is always an amazing race on the roads here. Speed is dependent upon the grade of road and don't forget to just pass whenever you want...of course do it on a blind curve : / What I saw on IRT deadliest roads was similar to the rides I experienced on this adventure within a journey, but experiencing it had a completely different impact in my brain. With so many impacts on my brain during this journey, I should probably have an MRI when/if I return. Tomorrow is the last day for me at the hospital :( Then I pack and then I leave.
Don't forget you have a brain between your ears, under you skull, and behind your eyes...Use it!
amazing kind of days for you! have a wonderful trip home and thank you so much for sharing your adventure!! it was cool from this end, just reading about it!
ReplyDeleteSorry this adventure has come to an end, but now it's on to the next one...have a safe trip back my friend, can't wait to hear more about it
ReplyDelete