March 26-27
March 26-7 Wandered Kathmandu one last morning, streets familiar and unfamiliar, then took taxi to airport for entirely too many hours of dubiously comfortable travel. Let’s just say connecting through New Delhi is more than any human should ever have to endure, even if paradise is promised at the other end. Flying out along the […]
March 24-5
March 24-5 Winding down my time in Nepal, visiting old haunts: Sam’s bar, Himalayan Java, New Orleans Cafe and just a lot of wandering. Had dinner with Brian Suskiewicz and some people working on programs associated with Coaches Across Continents–insightful conversation. Needed to refresh my gear–replace my worn-out trekking pants, new gloves and warm hat […]
March 22
March 22 Happy Holi! A festival where everyone ends up covered in bright colored paint/powder, in part to assure good weather as I understand it. It’s equinox so it must be a fertility ritual of sorts (actually there is a whole complicated story about Hindu gods). Had to buy a cheap t-shirt just in case […]
March 21
March 21 Reading Emerson in Pokhara–a challenge. First there is the voice, an insistently American presence in a place where no one hears a Yankee accent, a southern drawl, or even the flatness of the Midwest. Here unamerican is not a question of patriotism, it is simply a state of being, a place where american […]
Water
Water Mountains weep. No sadness there, though they do have moods. Water seeps from cracks in rocks, down from thin streams, or gurgles beneath mats of moss. Paths are suddenly slick, the smell of the air changes as does the temperature. You become aware of something that had been absent–or maybe it was following you […]
March 20
March 20 Lazy days in Pokhara, a town that begs for aimless wandering (the kind I do best). Being an American with a grey beard seems to bring recognition. The people who first tried to sell me things now just smile and wave as if we are all old friends, and the faces up and […]
March 19
March 19 Pokhara again Pokhara is hot– I mean temperature. After weeks of hiking at high altitudes waiting for the guest house proprietor to start the dung fire in the small wood stove in the center of the common room, I find myself in a place where shorts and t-shirts are all that’s required. Having […]
March 18
March 18 Pokhara Pokhara is the Queenstown (New Zealand) of Nepal. Of course there are differences– the air is much more polluted here, but people also do other things besides cater to tourists. The city opens out onto a lake and offers lots of high adventure tours, coffee shops, and bars. This morning over breakfast […]
March 17
March 17 last day of Annapurna Circuit Finishing the Annapurna Circuit left me a little sad. On walking out onto the Simon Guest House deck that morning I knew that it was the last time I would be looking out on the massif I’ve been circling for almost three weeks. The peaks remain infinitely interesting […]