I’m off to Bangkok in the morning which, if all goes well, will just be a stop-over until I can arrange a ticket to Kathmandu. Yes, at least today, I’m still planning on going to Nepal despite the growing civil unrest. I figure if things get really dicey I can always check into one of the many monestaries or ashrams and do a little meditating for a week or so until the dust settles. If the city seems safe enough I’ll be visting my favorite places from my last visit (Bodnath & Swayambunath) and places I didn’t get to (Bahktapur, Patan) to gorge on photo ops.

Seems like a long way off since I still need to negotiate the Bangkok travel agents. Next post from Bangkok where it’s forecasted to be 95 degrees F and a steamy 88% humidity.

This is me, taken in the bathroom of the Bangkok airport just before going through imigration. I don’t think I look that bad for having spent close to 20 hours dessicating in a packed airplane. The whole trip was 30 hours door to door and while it wasn’t the easiest trip to the other side of the world, it wasn’t the hardest either.

As soon as Phil dropped me at BWI it felt like adventure travel and the letting go it demands had begun. The united agent did not want to allow me to go without at 60 day visa for Thailand since my return flight is not until March 16. Bangkok being the giant transit lounge that it is, I could not beleive that was the first time she’d encountered someone going to Thailand before heading elsewhere but I suppose most people book their flights from home despite it being way cheaper to wait till you get here. And it is a good thing I’ve waited cause my first destination, Kathmandu, is in question due to rising civil unrest exacerbated by the upcoming elections. My current plan is to decompress with some thai massage and watch the news closely while I await news from folks living in Kathmandu (thanks for the contacts Susan).

My flight had some minor excitement when an elderly asian woman collapsed at my feet while I was sound asleep with about 4 hours to go to Bangkok. I was unceremoniously evicted from my seat while the crew searched the plane for a doctor to help her. I wandered around the plane for about an hour, checking occasionally on the health of the patient and whether I could retrieve my passport and camera but the repeated response had to do with bodily fluids and staying clear for my own safety (Yes, this guy mentioned bodily fluids no less than 6 times to anyone who asked if she was ok). Finally, a very helpful gentleman, astonished that I had not been given another seat, retrieved my belongings and sat me in business class for the last 2 hours. Word was, the patient was fine or we would have made an emergency landing.

A treasure-hunt search for my guesthouse was well worth it. I’m hanging in one of the best places I’ve ever found in bangkok – a quiet, airy, and very clean place that reminds me of the Polonesian Village in Disney world (yes, i’m embarrassed to admit this). Suk11 is cinder-block building disguised with bamboo slat floors, rice-paper lamps, and plenty of thai kitch, all of which summon nostalgic childhood memories of tiki torches and bamboo coctail lounges.

After only 4 hours of sleep (but some gut-bustin coffee) I’m feeling great. I think that NO_JET_LAG stuff actually works! I figured I had nothing to lose by taking it though it was tough to remember to every 2 hours.

Thanks to all who sent bon voyage msgs. Will post daily as long as I’m in thailand with convenient and cheap internet.

p.s. no spell-checker so parden the mess

It’s hard to believe that I have never been to the Royal Palace considering all the time I’ve spent in Thailand, at least until today. It kinda felt like commuting to work since getting there involved battling the masses during rushhour on the BTS skytrain, and me with a tripod, ugh. It also required a 20 minute boatride down the river and a few block walk past apparently helpful locals who attempt to convince you that the Royal Palace is closed and will not open until 3. In fact, it closes at 3. I can’t really figure out what’s in it for them and why everyone has chosen the same line.

The Royal Palace is a glut of tourists but it adjoins a nice monestary. The grounds of Wat Phra Kaew are beautiful and it’s not hard to imagine that if you took away all the tourists it might actually feel sacred. I did my thing with the camera and then bolted straight for Wat Pho but not before encountering another round of “Wat Pho is closed” lines. I’m embarrassed to say I did not take a single pic as all I could think about was getting a thai massage. So nice. An hour thai costs a whopping $7.50 and comes with tea.

My commute home to the lovely and peaceful Suk11 Guesthouse took about an hour reversing riverboat and skytrain. I was totally sucked in by an iced latte on the train platform before I remembered that ice in developing nations is a no-no. If I don’t post tomorrow you’ll know why.

I can take only one commute a day so i’ll probably spend the rest of today chillin at Suk11, reading a bootleg paperback of Harry Potter (apparently copied from a copy of a copy..) I swapped out for Tipping Point, which, by the way, didn’t even last me from Chicago to Tokyo.

This guy was being blessed with incense and prayers at the local thai massage parlour outside my guesthouse at 8 am this morning. Preparations for the Chinese new year are underway today all over Bangkok. I’m thinking of heading to china-town since I’ll be much happier milling about the decorators than the revelers. I’m not much into crowds and it’ll be nice to see the place all done up.

And yes, I’m still fine. The iced-latte has not married me to a toilet yet so I think I’m in the clear. I’m still jet-lagging so last night I ate dinner at the guesthouse, read a couple hundred pages of harry potter, and crashed by 9:30. I must have slept hard cause I never heard the visitor I had who nibbled his way into a packet of emergen-c that was in my camera case. Silly of me to leave it open and lying on the floor but who knew that a mouse (I prefer to be optimistic) would be interested in it. I now have the emergen-c, vitamins, etc.. packed in double zip-locks nowhere near the floor. yuk! and after I built up my guesthouse so. It really is a nice place compared the dumps I’ve staying in on Khao San road.

I’ve only spent a few days here but it’s hard to imagine another couple weeks in Bangkok. I’m chompin’ at the bit to head to Nepal despite the unrest and have corresponded with a place on the outskirts that provides ayurvedic treatments. I’m thinking it might be a good way to spend a week over the elections since it’s certainly gonna be a tense & chaotic time in Kathmandu.

sawadee kaa

Not sure what it is about bangkok that takes so much energy outta me. It feels like every foray takes alot. I geared up yesterday with a chocolate coffee banana shake but within an hour I had the worst stomach ache. By this time I was already in chinatown and was determined to stick it out long enough to get a few pictures but then I got lost! I still can’t figure out what the deal was with my map (I’m not above blaming the map, it’s true). While I was, in fact, in chinatown, I was in this weird place where all the shops specialized in a single functional industrial item: springs, cleats, and bearings ranging from minute to dinner plate sized. Every street I turned on was the same thing! I back-tracked to where I started and then ended up visiting Wat Trimitur’s Golden Buddha cause it was there despite the fact that I was aiming for chinese lanterns and firecrackers. While the Buddha is impressive (at 5 tons of pure gold, it’s purported to be the largest golden buddha in the world) it’s hard to get a good pic so instead I’ve included a snap of the vegas-slot-like-buddhist-horoscope-machines. I have no idea how these things are supposed to work but there is a slot for alms, spinning lites, and a different statue of buddha incarnate in each, the one shown here containing the Buddha protected by a Naga (a 7-headed serpent).

I feel like I’ve hardly seen any of Bangkok’s “hidden treasures” but they seem to require much with very little payback. I’m debating heading up to Chiang Mai where it’s easier to cross the street or biting the bullet and going to Nepal. I wish I’d consulted the “risk merit making” machine at Wat Trimitur. In the meantime, I will head back to Chinatown in the next day or two, maybe even on the new year this sunday.

What a difference a day makes. Saturday in Bangkok is like a whole ‘nother place. Those of you who know me will be completely suprised that I was up before the sun at 5:40 am, practiced yoga, ate breakfast, read the Bangkok Post, and was on the skytrain by 8 am. At that hour on a weekend morning there was hardly a car in sight which meant crossing the street was not an epic. phew. Since I’ve decided to leave for Nepal on Monday my Bangkok time all of the sudden felt short and I was motivated to cram in Temple of the Dawn and Wat Pho today. I was so beaten down yesterday that I could only muster the energy to go a couple of skytrain stops down to Siam Square where there are ultra slick shopping centers. I’ve actually never seen anything like the Gourmet Market in the basement of Siam Paragon. It made Whole Foods Market look like a miniature wal-mart. The shelves were so perfect I am sure they have staff lurking at every towering aisle in case someone buys something so they can front it immediately. Thats grocery store speak for pulling the next item up to the very front of the shelf. I snapped this pic in the ladies room cause it looked like something out of Woody Allen’s sleeper.

Ok, back to Wat Pho… After almost 300 pictures today I felt the need for some self-indulgence (the fried bananas at temple of the dawn didn’t count) and headed to the far end of Wat Pho for a thai massage. I should have quit while I was ahead. There are literally 50 or so Thais, mostly young girls, in two buildings working on people side-by-side but by the luck of the draw I ended up with an older woman who at first glance I could tell was gonna hurt me. She didn’t speak any english and I am pretty sure she also didn’t speak the universal language of wincing in pain. OHMYGOD. After a few choice thai words directed at the stubborn knot in my left trapezious she decided she was gonna get that thing if it was the last think she did… with her elbow and all her weight. I am still feeling a bit wonky in my upper back after that one. Serves me right for being such a massage-glutton.

This little kitty was just too perfectly ignoring the beautiful lotus blossom in front of her at Wat Pho so I have now entered the land of calendar photos for cat lovers. sue me.

Other highlights of the day – I noticed an english woman almost to the end of a big fat book and traded her the Tipping Point for it. It doesn’t matter what book it is and to impress upon you just how much I mean that, I actually grabbed Danielle Steele from the guesthouse bookshelf but it turned out to be in German. After devouring the half blood prince in 3 days I was left with the only other english book I could find – a collection of science fiction short stories about Christmas edited by Isaac Asimov. Not as bad as it sounds.

More tomorrow – my last day in Bangkok.

Sue Borchardt in Bangkok on January 28, 2006 where it’s currently 90 degrees at 3:43 pm

So I was draggin’ my feet this morning after sleeping almost 11 hours last night. Maybe it was the benadryl I took at 11:30 when I woke up with itchy hands, in my experience, a pre-cursor to hives. I did eat three mangosteens last night after dinner. I finally rallied about 9 a.m. and took off on my daily commute, 2 skytrains and a riverboat ride, to chinatown for the big doin’s. It was SO worth it, mostly cause I stumbled on some alley temples where monks were blessing the dog for the parade – this would be the kindof Chinese-Parade-Dog costume with guys inside running around looking like a giant caterpiller. The monks were chanting with one keeping time with a wooden drum that looked like a hollow whale about twice the size of a watermellon. The chants were amplified to permeate the whole neighborhood which made for an amazing atmosphere.

Heading out to the main drag I decided to follow a throng of Chinese, most wearing red in honor of the holiday. I figured if that many people were queueing up it must be for something good. So many of us were funneling through narrow gates that it felt a little like the Haj or a British soccer match in that any moment the mob could have panicked and crushed someone. Once inside I couldn’t really see what the goal was. There was lots of incense-burning and candle-lighting but no beautiful buddha or giant shrine. Much more stark and functional with the feel of a makeshift church set up in a school auditorium so I funneled right back out on the street. Wandering back into the pedestrian-only alleys I came upon a similar scene only much more chaotic with blazing hot open fires for lighting incense, pictured above.

The highlight of my day was finding this stunning buddha shrine in a temple that was very Chinese in it’s architecture and decorations but the Buddha was all Thai. I actually circled back to take a few more pics with the tripod since I’m notorious for shooting fuzzy pictures.

I filled up a Gig chip in 2 days and am now killing time while I back up everything I’ve shot so far onto cds. Tomorrow I’m off to Kathmandu where my first stop is Thamel, a tourist ghetto not unlike Thailand’s Khao San Road. I am assuming it’s a good and insulated spot from which to assess Kathmandu’s current tension level. Next post, from Nepal – the world’s only Hindu Kingdom… I think.

Sue Borchardt in Bangkok on January 29th, 2006 where it’s currently 93 degrees at 3 pm.

i arrived in kathmandu this afternoon and am now suffering the culture-shock of this chaotic place. it took me quite awhile to find $ today. all the atms are down due to a telecommunications problem. a nice french couple allowed me to tag along with them to a bank they knew that was more connected. looks like the pics will be few and far between here as the internet is sloooow.

my guest house is muy rustic. the door to my room is locked with a giant padlock on two rickety wooden doors. the place smells like kerosine which means i will probably not last long there. it all works out cause i won’t last long in thamel either. i forgot how nutty this place is.

as you can see from the lack of caps, i’m having a bit of keyboard trouble. half are broken and the keys are worn free of their letters so i’m typing two keys ahead and one back. more later if i find someplace with whole keyboards.

sue borchardt in kathmandu of january 30 where it’s 62 degrees at 4:35… at least i think that’s what time it is. kathmandu has it’s own strange realtionship to greenwhich mean.

I have felt a little crappy since arriving in Kathmandu yesterday afternoon and it’s making for some hard decision-making. Where to go first, where to spend the bandh (the week-long strike called by the maoists), where to eat, even. My head is pounding like nobody’s business. I’ve decided to go to Bodnath tomorrow and stay at a guest house connected to the Sechen Monestary. Can’t deal with the thought of hiding out in Thamel for much longer. While there is tons to buy, and I have bought a few things, it’s just too much to take. I’m not even sure why. Of course, it’s touristy but all that means is there are alot of tourist and alot of businesses catering to them. Right now, it’s only the businesses so the locals are hungry fo the few tourists there are right now.

Today I was up at 4:15 a.m. though I waited until 6 to head out to wind through the maze of streets from Thamel to Durbar square. I really great time to experience Kathamandu as those up at that hour are stopping at corner hindu shrines to start their day. Some of these sacred nooks are tiny little hovels of stone where devout leave the day’s offerings of flowers, pigments, and fruit.

With my head feeling like it will explode I’m having a hard time sitting here typing so I’ll be off.

Sue Borchardt from Kathmandu Nepal on January 31 at 2:24 p.m. where it’s 73 degrees

So long Thamel. This pic gives you a tiny sense of the visual chaos here though not the smells & sounds. I’m not going far, just across town to Bodnath. I’ll be staying at the Sechen Monestary for a few days before heading out of the city to the Ananda Yoga Center for a week course. I had written them a few weeks ago to find out what sort of courses they offer and how much they are and never heard back from them so I’d forgotten.

Then yesterday I got an email addressed to Blessed Self. That would be me! So I will go for some pranayam (yogic breathing), hatha yoga (the standard stuff), kitrtan (chanting), and yoga nidra (yogic sleep, though you’re not *really* sleeping. It will be a nice way to escape the Bandh and frankly, I’ve had a hard time finding out if and how much the strike will affect my ability to get around. Now it doesn’t matter much since i’ll be posing and chanting away in once spot.

Here are a couple pics from yesterday’s dawn walk to Durbar Square. I wanted to get closer to this bull (?) but wasn’t sure how much he would appreciate it.

I have been shopping with uncharacteristic abandon. My normal pattern is to scope things out to excess so I know what’s around and what it’s going for. Not this time, yesterday I bought a Thangka! My first and without so much as really shopping for it. I passed a place in Durbar Square with an orange and red Wheel of Life that caught my eye. The salesman was uncharacteristically non-aggressive. He told me how much it was and as I hemmed and hawed over it he said, “That is my first price. You are supposed to say your price now.” In the end, I spent 4000 Rupees (about $60) for a large unframed Thangka that I love. I’d call it a deal.

So I’ve lucked into this little alleyway internet spot with Mozilla Firefox, image editors, and usb ports but I’m guessing that will be rare since this one was hard to find, even in Thamel. I’m not sorry to say good-bye to the Kathmandu Guest House. It’s a very weird mix of utter luxury and ick. I mentioned my rustic room which gave you the ick part but it is a beautiful place with manicured gardens, nightly movies, outdoor cafes with night time fires and expensive food. It’s the oldest Guesthouse in Thamel in what used to be a palace. Once inside the gates, yes gates, it’s very civilized but being such an institution, every tout in Thamel is stationed outside waiting to pounce.

The parting good news, the power has only been off for 3 hours since I arrived, the atms are back up, and my headache is gone!

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 1, 2006 where it’s 64 degrees at 11:0-9 a.m.

i have nothing but benign memories, fond even, of tibetan momos from my last visit to nepal so i was a bit surprised when, after ordering them a few days ago, that the smell of them made me a want to barf. ok, maybe just a tad queasy. needless to say, i have since steered clear of the momo shops. oh, and what, you might be wondering IS a momo? it’s basically just a chinese pot-sticker. the vegetarian version appears to have only cabbage and garlic inside, no doubt, sauteed in yak butter. mmm.

after much discussion with locals and visitors alike over the affects of the upcoming week-long strike called by the maoists i’ve decided to skip the ananda yoga center and head back to the lovely haven that is thamel. i can only imagine how i’ll find something interesting to post here after spending an entire week there. since there are many stories i’ve had to skip over due to the slow typing here on broken keyboards on this side of town maybe i can fill in some of the gaps in between trips to the pumpernickle bakery for lattes.
Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 3, 2006 at 3:12 p.m. where i have no idea what temperature it is.

I’ve encountered all of the above in the last few days. Now back in Thamel (I was being sarcastic in my earlier post when I described it as a lovely haven) I have nothing better to do but fill in some of the details of my time away.

Walking out of one of the central Thamel guesthouses with a backpack makes you a pretty easy mark for a gouge so I was very proud of myself when I passed up offers for 300 and 250 Rupees to get me over to Bodnath and found one on the street for 150. Ask a cabbie to take you to Bodnath and he’ll look at you quite blankly so when he did, I said Boudha which is how it’s known everywhere but the guidebooks. I tried to explain that I wasn’t actually going TO Boudha to instead to the Shechen Monastery just northwest of there. It didn’t take me to long to realize that Monastery wasn’t registering either and switched to Gompa, the Tibetan word for same. A half-hour later he pulls up alongside the gate to Boudha and pronounces us “there” to which I reply with more pointing to the tiny map in the Lonely Planet and more references to Shechen Gompa. So off he heads but we only go about 2 blocks before he pulls over to asks someone on the street. I am like a dog who hears only the recognizable words: “bla bla bla Shechen Gompa bla bla bla”. There are no looks of recognition on their faces, no pointing as if to say, “go that way”. So off we go again but only for a couple more blocks, another stop but this time he turns off the engine and crosses the street to ask. He comes back and asks some ladies next to the cab. At this point I get into the conversation and point to the place on my little LP map and finally, someone seems to know what we’re trying to find! A nice young woman, who, incidentally, turns out to be Bhutanese, converses with the cab driver and then hops in. She’s taking us there. Quickly off of the main road we are on a one-car-wide, washed-out, dusty, dirty ,alley-way at which point we get a flat tire. This gives me a chance to discover that our spontaneous navigator is from Bhutan and that her husband is a sculptor at Shechen Gompa. I’m also given the chance to survey my surroundings. I have no idea how far we are from the central Stupa of Boudha or the Gompa but I feel I’m in good hands. Off we go doing 3 point turns when coming to cross-roads as there’s not enough room to just turn the corner. We arrive at the gates moments later and after depositing my backpack I go for a little walk-about only to discover that the entire time we had been within 3 blocks of the Stupa.

During the 3 days I spent in the neighborhood I visited the Stupa at all hours of the day and night, in between checking out the many Gompas in the neighborhood. It’s a major pilgrimage site for Buddhists of all stripes but especially Tibetans who make up the vast majority of the circumabulators.

Shortly after my arrival I cautiously explored my host Gompa but got shooed out of the main building by a mean monk, for taking pictures, I suppose. It surprised me a bit since they have so many western students there and it’s not like I was stepping over monks or anything. The building was empty at the time. I’m usually quite cautious about photos but am even more so after being chastised by a wizened old crank. I’m happy to say that my subsequent experiences were much more welcoming. The Tarik Gompa was not only stunning but inhabited by the most cheerful monks I’ve ever met. I *never* try to sneak shots of monks but these guys were asking to have their pictures taken. I visited this place four times to take pictures and every time they opened the central temple and turned on the lights for me (when there was power, that is). Here is a pic of their lovely main room.

The only other highlight of my visit was running into a Doctor from Brooklyn and his documentary film-making son. They entertained me for a couple of hours at a roof-top cafe while we watched the light change on the Stupa as the sun set (I must have taken a hundred pictured of that thing). They had just arrived from visiting a friend in Kolcutta where the doc performed 12 cleft palette surgeries in a few days. It made me realize how recharging it can be to converse with people! Most of the westerners I’ve come across have not spoken such great english – the French couple told me I talked way too fast.

The first thing I did back in Thamel was to stop in for a chocolate eclair which is more like bread filled with cream and topped with chocolate that an actual pastry but at this point, I’m not complaining. The bandh called by the Maoists begins tomorrow and it’s anybody’s guess how this will affect life here in Kathmandu. I have heard everything from no affect at all to a total shut down of businesses and traffic. The yoga center outside Kathmandu where I had been planning to hole up for the week turned out to be in a Maoist controlled village and one of the locals at the Shechen Guest House said it was maybe not such a good idea to travel there right now. I must admit I was a little shocked that the Maoist controlled someplace so close to Kathmandu. It’s about a 30 minute cab-ride away.

So here in Thamel I will do the only things there are to do here: eat and shop. I just checked and this internet shop will be open during the bandh so if nothing else I can post on my developing bargaining skills.
Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu of February 4, 2006 where it’s 72 degrees at 1:26 p.m.

If you’ve been following my story so far you’ll already know that today was the first day of the week long strike called by the Maoists in Nepal. I got conflicting responses to the question “will you be open during the bandh?”, sometimes from the same shop owner. My search for breakfast and internet were both successful though you had to know where to look. At 8 a.m. all the storefronts were shuttered but a few side doors were open. As the day wore on a few of the hippy clothes & cd shops opened but the business-people are noticeably on edge.

I thought I’d take advantage of my proximity to Swayambunath (a.k.a the monkey temple) to walk over and shoot some pics since they can’t really keep people from circumambulating, can they? On the way I passed North of Durbar Square where there was a large military presence on the street. Lots of guns, big ones, in hand. Yikes. Just a few short blocks later it appears almost as though life is normal: corner stores are open, no soldiers, taxis every so often.

It took me about 35 minutes to reach the base of the hill on which Swayambunath is perched. It took me another 30 minutes to climb the hill. Once on top I chased the many monkeys round and round the stupa in the proper direction. Man they’re fast but I got a few good ones, the last shown here of a baby monkey that kinda creeps me out. He looks like a bat… a vampire bat.

I’m almost done with my latest book find, a copy of the Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood left behind at Shechen Gompa guest house. When there’s no laundry, yoga classes, shelf stocking, and art making there is ALOT of time for reading. In a stroke of luck, my current home, the Tibet Guest House, has cable! I’ve already watched the schmaltzy love story Wimbledon, 1/2 of the Jessica Alba vehicle Honey, and 4(!) episodes of Friends.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 5, 2006 where it’s 65 degrees at 6:58 PM

Gradually businesses are opening in Thamel on day 2 of the strike. I’d say almost 20 percent of the storefronts were open by this afternoon. It was a pretty slow day here for me though as I woke up with a sore throat, expectorating a color of mucus that should not be discussed in polite company. Then again, all mucus attributes are probably off limits. I slept in majorly and almost took the day off but my conscience got the better of me and this afternoon I decided to explore the maze of streets south of Thamel (there’s absolutely nothing picture worthy *in* Thamel). Just a few blocks out of the tourist ghetto, Kathmandu feels very exotic and largely grey with the intense exceptions of mostly red & gold: women’s sari’s, the pigments offered each morning at the shrines, the fabric that curtains the roof of temples, and the fruits & vegetables for sale .

After reading the latest Reuters report on the bandh I realized that anything I wrote about taxis with covered plates and Thamel’s deserted streets would be redundant. If you’re interested in the vibe in the Kathmandu right you can read about it here.

All the highlights of my last 24 hours involve food: a few bakeries have opened (phew! though the pumpernickle is still shuttered), the chocolate/coffee/banana shake place is open and the shakes taste as great as I remember them from 2001, I actually found someplace that appears to have a baked goods made with actual chocolate, no small feat here where most chocolate items taste like saw-dust. As a rule, it’s better to stick with croissant and donuts – the non-chocolate varieties, that is. I know i’ve got you all just drooling for my next post so I’ll see if I can manage to DO something tomorrow.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 6, 2006 at 6:35 p.m. where the weather is exactly like it was yesterday

I might be getting into the flow of doing nothing and since nothing is what I did today I have no choice but to share my internal world. scary. It not news that I’m a bit of a navel-gazer but I usually share the fruit of my introspections with one person at a time. Since I have no idea if anyone is actually reading these posts I might be sharing them with the world or just with people who already know, only too well, how much time I spend ruminating on synchronistic events. While I don’t remember if I was entertained by the movie, I heart Huckabees, I do love the premise which has the protagonist hiring a team of existential detectives to sort through the seemingly random connections and their meanings. Yes, I love this kind of thing.

In my little 4 square block world of Kathmandu I’ve found a few clues over the past few days but, as they all are, mine remain undecodable. As the result of email from my friend Lissa, I was motivated to make my first visit to Just Juice & Shakes for the previously mentioned coffee/chocolate/banana shake. Here I met an interesting woman from Canada studying Tibetan Culture in Dharamsala, a fellow bead-weaver who’s penchant for baked goods equals my own – we visited 2 bakeries after finishing our shakes. As an aside, I’ve decided that these shakes are a highly effective anti-depressant, possibly even euphoria inducing. I returned this afternoon for today’s shake and noticed a flyer on the wall for a meditation center that has daily classes in a style of tibetan meditation called thong-len. I was introduced to this practice when studying with Katchie Gaard in Berkeley about a year and a half ago and I don’t think I’ve run across it since but at the time I found it an incredibly powerful practice and one I think would be especially useful each day as I run a gauntlet of hungry kids, rickshaw pedalers, and tiger-balm salesmen. I’m glad I asked the shake shop owner where the meditation center was because It has apparently moved since the publication of my Lonely Planet. It is now a short walk instead of a cab-ride away. As I walked over to check out the place out I noticed a man, like so many I’ve seen over the past few days, hanging out in the common asian squat, arms wrapped around shins, wearing a fez-like hat that’s very popular with local men. I was reminded of a painting I did for a class in the late 1980’s. It was a class assignment in photorealism. For my subject I chose a photo from a National Geographic of a man in Kathmandu – same pose, same hat. At the time I chose this photo I’d never even considered coming to Nepal. Now that I’ve seen one of these guys I see them everywhere and wonder how I didn’t notice them on my first visit to Nepal. I guess the point is not to decode these events but simly to notice them, to follow the bread-crumbs or pull the thread to see where it all takes you.

In the meantime go in search of more food. You might think that since food is the highlight of these strike days that it’s actually good food. In fact, the food here is abominable. It actually boggles the mind how universally bad it is. Every place is like every other place – pizza, grilled cheese, muesli & curd, dal bat (lentils). The prevalence of alfresco dining might make up for it though. Breakfast in the sun and dinner by an outside fire can improve even the blandest of meals.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 7, 2006 at 5:36 p.m. where the weather appears to never change at all

It’s been a really bizarre couple days here in Kathmandu. Yesterday was Election Day as called by the King but nobody else really wanted to play along so he resorted to various draconian tactics like shutting off the cable tv & forcing public employees to vote. Some of his measures were laughably self-defeating: in an effort to assure citizens it was safe to go to the polls he ordered police and military to shoot anyone disrupting the vote. um, right. Makes me feel safe. On the bright side, he banned ALL vehicle from the streets. Since horns are more frequently used than turn-signals here, Kathmandu has never been quieter.

The trickle of shop owners defying the bandh came to an abrupt halt yesterday when almost *everything* was closed. Fortunately for us kitchenless visitors, one or two intrepid restaurateurs opened up on the QT. Not so intrepid was my trusty internet and laundry guy who was just closing (!) when I arrived at 10 a.m. I later found out he opened for about an hour but then something wigged him out. Needless to say, it was a desperately boring day. I did go check out the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Center for their afternoon sit. It was a pleasant enough way to kill an hour and even finished up with tea and cookies. While walking home to my guest house I was surprised to find an open book store (run by a german guy) and acquired a big fat fatty of a read: Salmon Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh. That should last me for awhile.

I emerged from the Tibet Guest House this morning at the late hour of 10 and was shocked to find 95% of the storefronts in high gear. When I arrived at the fully stocked Pumpernickle Bakery this morning and pilfered a paper from a neighboring table I discovered that the Maoists called off their strike last night. Not sure how the word got around so fast that they could actually bake croissants for this morning. It’s a remarkable transformation on the streets and one, I’ll admit, I’m glad for.

So now it’s time to get moving again but I wish I felt a little better. I can’t figure out if I’m actually sick but I did skip dinner last night – highly unusual for me. Breakfast this morning did not sit too well either so I might just need to lay low for one more day to let this gurgling stomach settle down. Fortunately the pharmacies are open again so I have access to an electric-orange version of the broad-spectrum antibiotic Cipro that appears to be made in Gujarat (I’m pretty sure that is not a FD&C approved color). Here’s hoping it doesn’t get to that point.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on February 9, 2006 at 11:53 a.m. where everything is now open!

I started my day with a little Nepalese bureaucracy when I tried to confirm my flight to Bhutan as instructed by my tour operator. I was told the only way I could confirm would be in person. After emailing my Bhutanese tour organizer in the states he wrote back that the Nepalese were a bit fishy and said not to worry about it, he’d take care of it. This afternoon I received an email from our tour operator in Bhutan who said he’d confirm the flights from Bhutan after adding a few more descriptors on the Nepalese way of doing things.

Since I was feeling better today I was able to take advantage of the fact that the bandh was called off and head to Patan for some shooting & shopping. My main reason for going was to shop for Buddha statues since that is where they’re made. As a bonus, the town has a high concentration of old temples. Both pictures in this post were taken at the Golden Temple a few blocks outside of Patan’s Durbar Square. It was a major haggling day as I went into at least 20 shops. After about the 3rd one I had a local follow me for the rest of the day and he actually helped me out alot. He called the bank when my ATM card was eaten by the machine (yes, well apparently you only have about 5 seconds to grab it or the machine sucks it back in and keeps it), he translated with the shop owners who spoke no english, and he kibitzed with me about the quality and prices of the statues. I can’t impress upon you how absolutely far fetched it is that I met a Nepali outside Durbar Square who I would let tag along with me. It’s the context that makes it so as the only people there are tourists and tourist hunters. As a westerner, everywhere you turn, every step you take you are asked where you’re from, what guesthouse you’re staying in, if this is your first visit to nepal, do you need a … rickshaw, pashmina, guide, guesthouse, tigerbalm – the list is endless. Even conversations that start out seeming like innocent attempts to practice english end in invitations to purchase *something* which is why it was so wild to have this guy spend the afternoon with me and never ask for a thing. If he ended up getting a commission for the statues I bought I would have no problem with it – he made the whole process more fun. After he put me in a metered taxi for Thamel I gave him one of my gilded stickers and he seemed genuinely thrilled. In the end, I bought three statues from the guy who made them: one Buddha and two Green Taras. I haven’t decided If I’ll cart ‘em home of ship them but it will probably depend on what else I buy while I’m here.

As I sat writing today’s post, basking in the fact that I was able to eat, take a taxi, and shop today, I overheard that another bandh has been called for Sunday. AGGGG! How can this be?!?! Geez, this is a frustrating place to be right now. It wouldn’t be such a big deal but for the fact I need to return to Patan on Sunday to retrieve my eaten ATM card. I think I have enough $ to hold out until Monday as long as I don’t shop which is a total pisser. I have about 5 days left here before heading to Bhutan and my plan had been to shop during the day and shoot in the late afternoon sun. Since shopping will have to wait I should probably take advantage of my freedom to move about tomorrow and head to Bhaktapur. It’s an expensive trip (in budget travel land) – about $4 each way for a taxi and $10 for a ticket into the pedestrian-only city. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. In the meantime, I’ll try and get independent confirmation on the new bandh.
Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu on Friday February 10, 2006 at 5:32 p.m. where it’s raining bandhs.

When I ordered my latte at the Pumpernickle this morning the reply was “no latte, nescafe.” The power was out, yet again, and with it, the espresso machine. Yes, I sound like a primadonna but there are so few creature comforts here I really needed that latte. I settled for the ubiquitous black tea and then went in search of the bead bazar. The markets make Kathmandu’s streets colorful but I kinda suck at framing anything interesting or arty amid such chaos so no market pictures today. I found the bead bazar but nothing really grabbed me. I’d get more excited shopping for Tibetan beads but they are pricey.

So back to Thamel where I wandered into one of the million Buddha shops and proceeded to sit on the floor for about an hour testing out singing bowls. I found one I really liked the sound of and after waiting about 20 minutes for the guys at the shop to figure out the credit card machine (i’m still atm-less) I was off, loaded with my singing bowl, a bone buddha, and tons of sandalwood incense (Phil’s fave).

I deposited my haul back at the guesthouse and headed for lunch – a salad to offset the baked goods I’ve been surviving on. Since the lights came on while I shopped, I returned to Pumpernickel for that latte to motivate me up Swayambunath hill for late afternoon sun. I can’t seem to get enough of those monkeys. They were super agitated since the monks were opening up each of the shrines around the edge of the stupa and placing offerings on the Buddha statues inside. Since people tend to chase the monkeys off the Buddhas it makes it a bit tough to get a shot. Lots of monkey fights and monkeys hissing at kids. I must have taken 200 pictures in an hour. While it makes me feel a tad gluttonous, it’s so nice to be able to shoot with such wild abandon. Also nice is having a camera that actually takes the picture when you press the shutter, especially useful when chasing monkeys. Even when they’re sitting still they’re practically vibrating so only about 1 in 10 of my monkey pics is in focus.

When I had my fill I walked back to Thamel with a Welsh guy also up there taking pictures. He tried to convince me to walk the plank bridges across the super-stinky river which, in practice, is Kathmandu’s sewer but I opted for the extra 20 feet of airspace the real bridge bought me. I feel like quite the soft traveler after hearing the Welshman’s stories – He’s biked through Pakistan, India, Tibet, and Nepal. Hard to fathom. I’m realizing I don’t have too many more of these budget travel trips in me. Next time, I’m signing onto a tour group! I’m kidding but I can totally see spending the same amount of money in less time which, of course, raises the comfort level all around.

I’ve heard nothing more about a bandh tomorrow so I think the rumor was bogus. Assuming the city is open I’ll head back over to Patan to retrieve my ATM card and maybe revisit the temples there.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu. February 11 2006, 7:27 p.m.

So far, I’ve been pretty dependent on ATMs despite their on-again off-again operation in Kathmandu so it is with great relief that I report the retrieval of my “captured” card from the Himalayan Bank. After answering several questions about when and where it was captured (made me smile everytime they used that word) I was told to come back later. I basically just told them I couldn’t (which I could have) and waited them out. 45 minutes later I had my precious card in hand. I’d planned on making the most of my return trip to Patan to hit the temples again but for reasons I could not understand my cabbie could not take me there. I guess I should carry around the Nepali phrasebook Phil got me for the trip instead of leaving it back at my guest house but it would have only meant I would know why I couldn’t go. It wouldn’t have actually gotten me there. In a stroke of luck, the cabbie hit this mysterious impasse only a couple blocks from the main branch of the Himalayan Bank.

After I did my stint at the Bank I walked down the street a few blocks to a luggage store I’d seen on my earlier cab-rides. It is with much embarrassment that I admit my long-standing obsession with a certain type of suitcase – one with four wheels instead of the common two. These are no standard suitcase wheels either – they’re more like casters so that it can roll around in any direction. I’ve been looking for one of these elusive babies since 2003 when I got bumped from a flight in Tokyo and had to spend the night in the airport hotel which gave me ample opportunity to see all the well-equipped young & hip japanese tourists with their state of the art luggage. I thought, I’m gonna get me one of those suitcases in Bangkok! After scouring the malls of Bangkok (a welcome relief from the unbearable heat) I came up empty – no suitcases with casters. Imagine my shock when I thought I’d spied one of them while blowing past in a cab last week on my way home from Patan. As luck would have it, the main branch of the bank that ate my card was only blocks from the siting. So yes, red-faced I sit, the proud owner of a brand-new medium sized hard-case suitcase with FOUR wheels. I rationalized this purchase after finding out how much it was gonna cost me to send home my newly acquired Buddhas – waaaay more than the suitcase.

So that was pretty much my day. I’m chucking in a few monkey-less shots from yesterday’s Swayambunath trip. And no, there was no bandh today but yes, there is another rumored for tomorrow. I guess it’s getting less newsworthy.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu. February 12, 2006 at 5:00 p.m.

Every Nepali I talked to last night (all of which were selling me things) told me they might not be open in the morning cause of a called bandh. “It’s 9 p.m. and you don’t yet know If you’re opening tomorrow?”, I asked. “How do you find out if it’s ON? Is there a phone tree???” They laughed but the replies were completely inscrutable. One guy said he’d just open late to give himself time to see what was up. I think, in practice, it comes down to basic word of mouth.

I needed only to walk the half-block to the main drag to know the deal on the bandh this morning. The shutters were up which meant the bandh was off so away I trotted to the Pumpernickel. It’s not that the food there is anything special but the courtyard is nice and sunny in the morning and they usually have english language newspapers so I can read my horoscope which today warned me that the hardships that I’ve set up for myself are optional and I could just bail. huh.

I plan to leave my new beloved rolly luggage behind when I head off to Bhutan and Sikkim which has freed me up to acquire Nepali stuff with wild abandon. Most of what i’m buying is heavy (metal statues) and I’m glad to not have to carry it around with me. In fact, if I were carrying it I would not be buying it. Today I’m setting things up for the major transits left on this trip – I’ve already got my ticket to Bhutan and am planning to leave there via land into India and then back into Nepal but I’m not too psyched about overland travel on Nepal’s sometimes unsafe highways so am buying a plane ticket back to Kathmandu for the end of my trip. It’s a civilized 40 minute hop on Buddha air from the eastern border of Nepal which will save me a 14 hour overnight bus-ride. Since these in-country flights are not always reliable I’ve built in a buffer of a couple days back in Kathmandu before my return flight to Bangkok which means I also need to setup a place to stay for those few days. I’d like to have have a plan for my arrival back in Kathmandu as the instant I walk out the airport doors I’ll be smothered with people trying to bag a fare or a guest house commission. Not sure why I find that whole scene so stressful.

Yesterday’s mass mail prompted lots of quality replies from peeps back home so I’ve spent most of this morning replying to private notes. This electronic connection is unbelievably important to the long-time travelers and some are really sophisticated in their methods. I’ve seen people sitting in my internet hole-in-the-wall with headsets and webcams talking to friends using skype or just instant messaging with and without webcams. Sometimes it’s hard not to notice the interactions at the pc next door. Yesterday I sat next to a woman laughing and smiling as she instant messaged her girlfriend who held up the cat to the webcam, then the jack russell terrier, then lifted her shirt at which point my neighbor turned bright red and tried to cover the screen. Ahh technology. What would we do without it – be content with traveling to foreign lands in search of banana pancakes, I guess. That, in case you have never been on the budget travel circuit, is a reference to the peculiar subset of western comfort foods that are available no matter where you go.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu. February 13, 2006 at 11:40 a.m.

Yesterday’s big Nepali news was that the head of the Maoist Insurgency gave an extremely rare interview to the BBC. The analysts claim his image is extremely well crafted in a not entirely accurate way but he comes across as quite moderate, rational, and progressive. I can only imagine what the political situation will be in Nepal in the coming years but there seems to be agreement among everyone but the king that it will get worse before it gets better. There seem to be many positive forces of change active on the political scene but the royal government seems to be, um, unbelievably inept. On the plus side, the current government is not completely dictatorial or I wouldn’t be writing this.

On a more personal note, I might be just about shopped out on Thamel. With the exception of a few textile (read light) items I will stop now though I’m still considering getting a few wooden Buddhas before I come home. I’m also thinking about having a dress made for a wedding in April but it’ll run about $40 (about 3 times the price it was in Vietnam) and can’t decide if I really need it. Money takes on such skewed proportions here. A lunch of $4 (yesterday’s stuffed tofu at the top-notch Ying Yang restaurant) is huge relative to the local economy where you can get a plate of the dreaded momos for 15 Rupees (about twenty cents) . Pashminas and gold buddhas are off the charts maybe because they, like stuffed tofu, are only tangentially related to the local economy.

I guess I’ve burnt out on Kathmandu’s photo-ops. I’m going on my third day of not taking my camera out of the case. Assuming the infrastructure supports it, I’m hoping to restart the picture postings once in Bhutan. I’m also hoping for inspiring gompas.

In a frustrating twist I recently discovered that the Tiban New Year (Losar) falls on February 28 this year which is 2 days after I’m scheduled to leave Bhutan. Because of the tourist infrastructure there I don’t think it’s an option to extend my stay and if it is possible it’s not affordable at $200 per day to be in-country (yes, a completely unique tourist economy created by Bhutan’s government in an effort to protect their local culture). There are plenty of Tibetans around in neighboring Sikkim but I will be in transit so will have to wait and see what sort of celebrations are underway wherever I happen to be.

It’s valentine’s day here though it seems odd to have such a western hallmark holiday being pushed in local media. I think they miss the mark a tad – one of the movie channels has a romantic movie marathon featuring the good girl . (um, have they seen the movie?). The Kathmandu times carried a full page of Thamel business ads one of which suggested that having a sandwich would be a special way to celebrate with your loved one. I know I’ve always thought that nothing says love like a sandwich. For my part I marked the occasion with a big-splurge phone call to Phil who sounded happy for the surprise – a whopping 10 minutes of 3 second-delayed tele-connecting. If we were both a bit more tech savvy we could have celebrated with some shirt-lifting and web-caming but not so, at least on this trip. Of COURSE, dad, i’m joking.

Rumor has it my soon to arrive travel companion Susan made it out of Baltimore despite the almost 2 feet of snow to fall on the eve of her departure. If all went well she should be living in the lap of luxury right now in a 4 star hotel in Delhi. I can only imagine what kind of pair we will make in Bhutan – she is bringing a hair drier and maybe even multiple changes of clothes. I will be wearing every item of clothing I have brought with me since it’s significantly colder in Bhutan. Since we are on the move most days I am imagining there will be little opportunity to get my clothes washed though washing around here does not necessarily translate to cleaning. The water that comes out of the tap is often brown and towels and sheets are a brilliant shade of grey. Fortunately, most of what I brought is black. The other curious thing about laundry is the fact that items come back about 2 sizes larger than they go in. I imagine ladies pounding my silk long underwear on a rock and wringing it out within an inch of its life. It looks as if it was used for tug of war.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu. February 14, 2006 11:13 a.m.

Yesterday afternoon I headed back up to Swayambunath (a.k.a the Monkey Temple) and shot 250 more pictures. I’ve created a monkey gallery of some of the better ones (suprisingly few considering how many hours i’ve spent up there).

While I had no intention of buying anything more in Kathmandu I couldn’t help myself. The nicest Tibetan couple are camped everyday on the steps up to Swayambunath and I ended up buying two zee stones from them. There is much mystery surrounding these stones so I don’t really get why they’re so sought after but from what I understand, the Tibetan’s believe they are the source of power. If I have any money when I get back to Kathmandu I plan to buy a Buddha Box from the same couple. These are also kindof mysterious to me. Imagine something that looks like a silver shrine, the center of which has a little window displaying a buddha. The whole thing is encased in quilted fabric with a strap and cover flap so you can wear it like a ladies handbag. I’m thinking it’s a buddha-to-go for nomadic people.

I got email from Susan yesterday – she made it to Delhi despite the snow-storm but had to drive to Newark to get her conencting flight. Her first day she went on a shopping spree that puts mine to shame but, then again, Susan believes in abundance. I’m hoping some of that rubs off on me. She and I will hook-up when I join on her on Druk Air’s Delhi-Kathmandu-Paro flight early tomorrow morning. Next post, tomorrow night (that will be Thursday morning in North America) from Bhutan, land of the thunder dragon.

p.s. i just checked the weather in paro and while the forecast was for a high of 64 and low of 29, the temp at 11 a.m. is 18!!! yes that’s farenheight (-8 degrees C). I will, indeed, be wearing every item of clothing I have with me.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu. February 15, 2006 @ 10:39

Susan and I arrived safely in Bhutan where it was beautiful and sunny but a steady rain has been falling all afternoon. I’m posting this from the office of the Gantey Palace where we are staying and I’m not able to check email for some reason so don’t expect any personal email from me until we get to the capital city tomorrow. Gantey Palace is like an alpine lodge with huge timbers and low ceilings. We are bummed we will only be here one night.

My parting impression of Kathmandu was seeing a goat in a taxi. My first impression of Bhutan was the airport that looks like a Bhutanese Monestary – incredible.

Must keep this short so they can get back to work on this computer.

Sue Borchardt in Paro, Bhutan. February 16, 2006 at 5:46 p.m.

I think Susan and I are both finding Bhutan a completeley new kindof travel experience. First off, we’re on a tour. We have some flexibility in what we do but we have a driver and an English speaking guide so we have pretty much handled over control of everything – where we go, what we eat, etc… It’s actually a little nice. Our guide’s name is Kaphel which translates to Destined for Failure. really. He and our driver wear traditional Bhutanese attire which is kindof like a plaid dress with large white cuffs and high knee socks. I think we’d been in the country about 3 hours when Susan asked Kaphel what Bhutanese men wore under their “dresses”.

We’ve had pretty full days since arriving – today’s highlight being a 3 hour roundtrip hike up to view the Tiger’s Nest Monestery. Had we been game they would have taken us all the way up but having seen the rocks and sheer cliffs surrounding it I cannot image how one gets there without a rope and harness. We were totally content with our sun drenched alpine forest climb to a sunny cafe for tea and bisquits which for some reason they called a cafeteria. After lunch and a stop at a Dzong ruin, we drove an hour and a half through steep switchbacks to get to the capital city of Thimpu where we’ll spend two nights. Our hotels have been fabulous so far and have things like hot running water, down comforters, and hotwater bottles delivered to the room! I am a bit cooked right now and am having touble putting two words together so please ignore my typos and bad grammer. Internet access is not so great here so don’t worry if you don’t see much from me.

I’m pasting Susan’s impressions below. If there are discrepancies: my version is correct :) that hike was 3 hours!

Sue Borchardt in Thimpu Bhutan. February 17, 2006 at 8:02 p.m.

Hi Everyone!
My last day in India was great — as I alluded to, I sat by the pool and enjoyed India/Ayruvedic massage stuff – it was delightful. The flight to Bhutan was easy and uneventful and it was so much fun seeing Sue walk across the tarmac in Katmandu! On the way in we were treated to the awesome sight of Mt. Everest and a few other giant peaks – we were flying right next to them – breathtaking. The airport in Bhutan is hard to describe – their architechture is so unique – think of a Swiss Chaelt with all sorts of wood cutouts and beautiful colors – it has to be the prettiest airport I’ve ever seen.

We were greeted by our guide Kafel Dorji and our drive Thimpel (I think!) Dorgi –Dorji is kind of like Smith here…they will be with us for the duration. Very nice young guys.

The Himalayan sun was shining and so warm – it was just spectacular. We made our way to a few temples and a spiral shaped museum housing all sorts of Buddhit tresasures. A few more stops to some truly breathtaking temples from the 1600 – the Buddhas, of course, are everywhere. (I feel like they shold have a bumper sticker taht says “Buddha Saves” )… Then to our lovely hotel in Paro – it was just so pretty. Our room was big with gorgeous wide-plank hardwood floors and lovely painted wood furniture. It tunred cold and rainy – but even that was nice!! We splet like babies.

After tea and eggs in the a.m we took off for a rather daunting hike that Sue and I madaged to whittle down a bit — instead of climbing to some ungodly hight to see a little temple, we talked our guide into just hiking up to the cafeteria – we were very excited when he agreed…but even that turned out to be an almost 2-hour high altitude hike. We took it slow and did pretty good. Lots of sun — so warm – we got a bit sun burned. The altitude medicine we are taking seems to working great. So, after tea and biscuts and lots of little dogs running around we descended and took another trip to a temple ruin. Lots of history here between Tibet and Bhutan…anyway – at the end of the day we drove an unbelievably winding road to the capitol town, Thimpu – it really is a nice sized town. Our hotel borders on luxurious. We were so excited about the bathtub — but the water kept coming out a discouraging yellow — so just a shower sufficed. Oh, I have to tell you about the running shower tally: Susan – 2; Sue – 0. I’ll keep you posted. Sue says I smell good enough for both of us!! She’s a great traveller and I’m taking lots of tips from her – but not the bathing tips…

So that’s all for now – it’s really just the most beautfiul place. Our guide is great. It’s just a wonderful vacation. Our guide – Kafel, has promised us some mornings of hour-long meditation sessions in ancient temples – I’m so excited about that.

I’m not spell checking – so please forgive me!!

So much love to all of you!!

more tomorrow,

susan

Man did we do alot of running around today. We started out at the weekend market when one there are fruits & vegetables as well as ceremonial paraphanalia like prayer flags and mala beeds. Susan did her bargaining thang buying things for breathe books and then we went to the Heritage Museum which has traditional rural Bhutanese house complete with a special phalic totem said to ward off evil spirits. The modern Bhutanese houses have replaced the phalic sculputures with paintings on the side of the buildings.

We then went to the King’s Memorial Chorten, the National Temple (aka the baby temple where children are taken to be named and blessed), and the “zoo” which has only one species – Bhutan’s national animal, the takin.

Susan made an afternoon visit to a nunnery for prayers but I chilled for a bit before joining her for a little interneting. Sadly, Kaphel (our guide) and Dorji (our driver) are under the weather so they postponed a plan to take us out for extra spicy local cuisine tonight. Tomorrow we start out with a 3 hour drive to Kaphel’s hometown.

Sue Borchardt in Thimpu, Bhutan. February 18 at 6:18 p.m.

and from Susan…

Hi All,
I just wanted to remind those interested to check out the alternative perspective of our trip at www.sueborchardt.com ! She’s got some photos up of the trip. She’s also very good at recounting exactly where we’ve been while I’m just kind of vague – this temple that temple…but this evening I did have a wonderful experience. Our guide took me to a local nunnery for evening prayers. The temple was built in the 1600’s especially for Green Tara. We meditated while the nuns chanted their prayers. It wasn’t a very sacred time – little nuns (kids!) were running in and out with messages. The chanting nuns would continue undeterred, nodding, or scolding to the kids – but never stopping. It was a unique experience to see everyday Buddhism in action. No cushions to sit on – just a hard wood floor. But I loved it. We will visit more temples as we travel around.

Tomorrow we drive for three hours to another part of the country where we will see more spectacular views. The weather has been fabulous – warm during the day and cool at night. The sun is unbelievably hot – we are so close to it you can almost touch it.

PLEASe NOTE!: For those of you who read Sue’s post on her website yesterday about the traditional dress the men wear – please know that I did NOT ask our guide what he was wearing underneath it!! I was simply talking about the similarities to Scottish Kilts…and anyway – we don’t know what’s underneath it…

much love to everyone!!

Love,

Susan

Susan and I are having some fabulous experiences but the blogging has gotten a tad tricky since there was no internet yesterday and only expensive internet today. We are staying in a beautiful resort tonight perched on a cliff adjacent the town of Trongsa. A full report will probably be delayed until we get back to the capitol city of Thimpu on Feb 25, I think.

Sue Borchardt in Trongsa Bhutan. February 20, 2006 at 3:46 p.m.

So, this afternoon we were able to connect with an internet place that only charges 10 cents a minute! So we thought we would write a joint post to fill you in on all our adventures over the past few days. Yesterday we stayed at the most fabulous place – you can google it – the Yanghkil Resort. We loved it! Bathtub! some hot water (Sue used it all up but I don’t begrudge her this fact cause it’s only the second time she bathed in pat 4 days – so new bathing tally: Susan: 6; Sue 2). Last time we wrote we came to you from Thimpu, the Capitol. We passed over the Dorchu La at 10,000 feet. We were walking pratically in the clounds amongst 108 stupas. We took lots of phots that we can’t post now cause it’s too expensive.
Then we drove to Wangdue (pronouned ong-dee) we ate a fabulous lunch on a riverbank with sun and wind and good fruit! From there we visited the Punakha Dzong (Temple) which was spectacular. Really – I don’t think either of us has ever seen anything like it. so maney beautiful little kids were visitng the dzong to see a dance performance but it seemed like Sue and her camera were a bigger hit. One little boy in particualr squated in front of Sue till she finally took the hint that all he wanted was his photo taken! Thrilled, he ran over to his mom so excited afterwards. The thing about this is – no one ever asks for money. It’s just the sheer joy of it – really – not a single person has tried to hit us up for a single ngultrum.

It was also here that we had the most distiguished experience of our lives….we peed with monks. So auspicious. So there is this trough-like system for peeing at the Dzong and they told us we could use it…for some reason I (Susan W.) entered alone while Sue B. stood watch – we don’t know why we did this as the place was big enough for a circus. So – I’m peeing and I hear a group of monks enter…you have to picture this – it’s just some cement walls separating each “trough”. Up I stood to be faced with five monks peeing. I bowed and moved on….then Sue entered where I think she peed wioth only one monk. I bet this has never happened to any one else we know!

Later we hiked across some rice and wheat paddies to a Gompa built by a mad lama to bury a demoness – not as impressive as the previous temple – where we didn’t mention – but we saw GIANT Buddha statues that were astounding. Anyway – back to the mad man – nice little temple where Sue tried a bit of the local liquor. (She hasn’t been right since). It was a lovely walk…

Then to our not-so-auspicous hotel called the YT – stands for yuck toey. But last night at the swanky resort made up for it. Are tyou confused yet?

Anyway – today we made our way to the Trongsa Dzong – very impressive line of ttemples and administrative buildings built onto the side of a cliff. Beautiful sites of women washing red robes and laying out to dry on the rocks (pictures to come soon). I (Susan W.) found a gorgsous 300 year old thanka on our trip from Trongsa to Bumthag. To see it – you will have to visit me at home cause it’s not for the store – just for my home! We also found some giant prayer flags – we are so BLESSED. So we are in Bumthang – the hotel is also called a resort – but, sadly, it’s not. We do have a sort of pot-belly stove in our room to keep us warm (we hope). As we walk around town this afternoon they are boiling water for our – I kid – MY shower! (tally will be Susan 7; Sue 2). (I just like to be clean – but really – Sue doesn’t seem too dirty) . Ok – so I think we’ve spent about a lattes worth of time with you on this duel post. We are sitting in a tiny shack next to each other on benches posting away. Don’t expect a post tomorrow – we hope this will satisfy you Bhutan updates for a day or two. Full schedule tomorrow in Bumtang seeing temples, etc.
Love to everyone!!

Sue and Susan in Bumtahng, Bhutan where it’s kind of chilly – and 3:29 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21.

Susan and I opted for our layover in Wangdue instead of Bumthang. Bumthang is about dead-center in the country, the furthest east into Bhutan we ventured and by far, the most rustic. We actually got up in the middle of the night and stoked our wood fire but it wasn’t nearly as cold as we expected and we easily could have done without it.

After a few phonecalls by our guide and a 6 1/2 hour drive through switch-backs and passes (where we got to see white langur monkeys!)we arrived back in Wangdue where banana trees, oranges, and warm winds awaited us. We ‘re now at the Dragon’s Nest Hotel where we’ll be for one more night.

Today we visited the Wangdue Dzong, the last of our trip. I can’t remembered if I mentioned that a Dzong is a fortress in which the administrative goverment offices and the monastic bodies of each region are housed. At Wangdue’s Dzong we were treated to a sit-in with a group of about 20 young monks chanting prayers.

After a little walk-about the town, we convinced our guides to take us to the little white sand beach that runs along the turqoise river here. Simply beautiful with frog-eggs and minnows in a tidal pool and mountain goats cautiously feeding nearby. The four of us spent an hour there where the guys got downright goofy hiking up their dresses and playing around in the water and later, Tenly (sp?) Dorji hid one of Kaphel Dorji’s (we call them the Dorji boys) shoes in the sand. Have I mentioned the fashionable shoes the Bhutanese men wear with their traditional dress? – both Susan and I said we would wear them given a chance.

I cannot believe that we only have one more day together. Once back in the capitol, Susan and I will part ways: she to Paro where she catches a flight back to Delhi and me to Phoentsoling where I cross the border into India. We should have good internet tomorrow so expect some pictures. There have been some amazing photo-ops.

Sue Borchardt in Wangdue, Bhutan. February 23, 2006 at 2:58 where it reached the mid 80s today!

Such excitement. After yesterday’s post Susan and I were hanging out reading and watching a movie in our room with the warm afternoon Wangdue wafting in from the balcony. As luck would have it, I walked into the bathroom at the instant our geyser (hot water heater) short-circuited and burst into flames. Susan ran down to the lobby to get help. I grabbed the towels underneath the fire so they, too, wouldn’t catch fire and then unplugged the heater. In retrospect, this was not the brightest idea with only a hand-towel for insulation. We’ve heard of many big fires in Bhutan’s history (many Dzongs have met this fate) so we weren’t all that surprised when nobody was really acting fast. After Tinley found a fire extinguisher that didn’t work he stepped up and started running to bring another. Susan and I hung around outside our toxic smoke-filled room with only our passports while Susan tried to impress upon the crowd that they needed to pick up the pace a bit. Fire out and a re-visit from the cleaning staff and we were all settled back in. They probably would have given us a new room if not for the fact that the Dragon’s Nest was full-up with kids from a foreign highschool in Bangkok. Pretty unusual since most nights we have been the only tourists in our hotel. This meant that the Dorji boys did not get a room at the hotel but they told us not to worry – most nights during high season they stay in the “japanese guesthouse”, their toyota corona. At breakfast Susan and were told that we slept through an earthquake. Susan joked that all we need now is a plague of locusts and a flood.

We spent the morning driving back to the capitol, Thimpu, then had our best meal so far (which is not saying much – the food is bland), lunch at a Bhutanese restaurant. We bailed on the afternoon plan of a hike up to the Tango Monestary (a Buddhist college) cause we couldn’t face the hour drive to get there and opted instead for a walk-about in town where we shopped like mad-women. While walking to the weekend market I snapped this photo of a truck the likes of which pepper bhutan’s roads. They are adorned with Buddha eyes, auspicious symbols, Buddhas, images of Guru Rinpoche, Green Taras – you name it – and a quite festive looking. Some even have tinsel fringe.

Tonight, we spend our last night together dining with the tour company owner and Susan’s new guide who will take her back to Paro for her flight back to Delhi. The Dorji boys and I are heading south for 7 hours (!) to Phoentsoling (pronounced fent-so-ling) from which I will post tomorrow if there’s internet access.

Sue Borchardt in Thimpu, Bhutan. February 25, 2006 at 6:14 p.m. where is a perfect 72

Here’s Susan’s post from yesterday…

Hello All,
We have been in Central Bhutan the past few days where internet usage has been expensive and slow. Now we are back in Western Bhutan where it’s still dial-up – but cheaper…so here’s a little update…(please remember to visit www.sueborchardt.com for more!)

We skipped a day in Central to head back to the sunny western area. After a slightly harrowing 6 hour mountainous drive we arrived in Wangdue (Ongdee) again. What a beautiful place. After vising a circa 1400 Dzong (Temple) we talked the Dorji Boys (our guide and driver) to take us to the “beach” — a local river with a beautiful span of white sand. Apparently, strolling along the beach isn’t much of a past time here. It seemed the be the first time our guys have done this! They literally frolicked – it was a joy to watch them having so much fun. We walked and sat and took in the spectacular view. Sue noticed folks up on the road stopping their cars to look at us – we were quite the spectacle. The only other people down by the river were women washing clothes.

As I sat on the sand I realized that less then 4 weeks ago I was sitting on the sand in Long Beach, California gazing out over the Pacific Ocean. I was feeling enormously privileged and blessed. Later I thought – I wonder what I did in my past lives to deserve this life now. It must have been something really good.

So we are drowsy now from the sun (it was over 80 degrees!!) and are taking it easy for the afternoon – vacation is hard, man!

Tomorrow we head back to the capitol – Thimpu – for one last night together. Then Sue faces a 6 hour drive to the Indian boarder, and I will spend a night alone at a palace (!) in Paro. I fly to Delhi on Sunday morning and leave for Newark, New Jersey Monday night 11:45 India time. I land in Newark at 5 am Tuesday. Since my BWI-Newark flight was cancelled because of the snow when I left Baltimore – I have my car in NJ. After a rest, I’ll drive home Tuesday afternoon.

I plan to spend my last 2 full days in Delhi either by the pool (!) or shopping in the local market. Delhi will be quite a shock after this sparsely populated peaceful country. I hope all of you can come here one day – it’s simply a treasure.

So I hope all of you are well. We will email again tomorrow from Thimpu with photos.

Much love to all,

susan

And that abyss would be India. On arriving at the border Kaphel decided we’d just pop over to Jaigon, India to get my bus ticket to Darjeeling (plan A). ohmygod. The lonely planet has made a bit of an understatement when it describes the constrast in cleanliness and organization you experience when traveling to/from Bhutan & India. It is almost overwhelming. After switching to Hindi and discovering there is no direct bus from Jaigon to Darjeeling Kaphel and Thinley took me back to Bhutan (I don’t want to leave!) to try to get a ticket to Kalimphong, India at the Phuentsholing bus station (plan B). That too turned out to be a no-go so they took me to my home for the night, the very modern and spotlessly clean Lhaki Hotel. After we shared a pot of coffee they headed back over to Jaigon in India to see if they could get me a ticket to Kalimphong from the first bus station we visited (plan C). The place was intense and I am not looking forward to that ride but I am looking forward to the cool north of India where tea and cardamom plantations and mountain vistas await. Kaphel tells me it is chaotic and dirty but there is alot to see.

I kinda skipped over my dramatic journey to get to the border so I will fill you in. The Dorji boys and I left our hotel this morning just after 7:30 with an extra passenger, his best friend Tshering, a woman who owns a shop in Thimpu. We had to get an early start to catch the one hour when mountain road would be open. They are currently widening the road so it is closed most of the day. We arrived with about 20 minutes to spare and parked the car. As soon as the road opened we hopping into the car and took a spot at the back of the queue of cars only to have the first two through get in an accident. The word was that a policeman would have to come from Thimpu (a 45 minute drive) to document the accident and nothing could be moved until then. Thinley to the rescue. After hanging about for only about 10 minutes he decided he could fit the Toyota through the gap between the conjoined car & bus (with passenger barf visible on the sidewalls) that had the accident and the adjacent rock wall. Remarkably, he made it but only after folding the side-view mirrors in. The road work was wild to see: whole families working at breaking big rocks into little rocks. We’d seen Indian road-workers and their families all through Bhutan but this was the first time I saw children working alongside their parents.

The rest of our ride was fairly mellow with lovesongs of the 80s on the tape-deck and only a few holdups: another construction road-block & a government minister’s entourage spanning 10-20 cars.(i’m not exactly sure where his motorcade ended). The Bhutanese take their VIPs seriously. We picniced on the side of the road: potatoes, rice AND noodles. I kid you not. If you were to add bread, cauliflower and mushrooms you get an idea of what the past 10 days have been like, culinarily. I cannot wait to eat what I want, when I want.

Last night, Susan and I got to meet the owner of our tour company, a gracious and soft-spoken Bhutanese man named Pema. He told me he’d visited my website several times to view my art and had tons of questions for Susan. Despite the fact that he lives in a Buddhist country he has not had a personal meditation practice and was very interested in hearing about Susan’s brand of Buddhism. Although the dinner started out a little awkwardly we eventually got the conversation rolling and covered alot of topics including Bhutan’s approach to Buddhism, other religions, and toursim.

Susan and I parted this morning after a quick breakfast but she left me with earplugs, antiseptic wipes, pepto bismal, wholefoods raspberry/amond/chocolate trailmix, and a pair of warm socks (I destroyed mine on our potbellied stove in Bumthang in less than 30 seconds of trying to warm them up). It would have been fun to have some time for some free-form/non-tour travel with her. Some other time.

No pictures today as I’m just about out of Bhutanese Ngultrums. Next post from somewhere in India (Kalimphong or Siliguri, most likely).

Sue Borchardt in Phuentsholing, Bhutan. February 25, 2006 at 4:36 p.m. where it’s 80 degress.

Big move days are always difficult and today was no exception. Yesterday I described the efforts my Bhutanese guides had made to see me off into India. We ended up with none of the earlier plans but yet another – a shared jeep to Kalimpong from the Indian border town of Jaigaon. When I showed up this morning I saw that the same company had jeeps to Darjeeling which left me baffled as to why they didn’t buy me a ticket there since they knew that was my intended destination and Kalimpong was chosen as the only nearby place I could actually get to. I will never know.

I hung out on the streets of Jaigaon for an intense hour waiting for my jeep to finally load up and hit the road, only about 45 minutes late. What an awful place it was. Grey as can be, rubble everywhere (gravel and disintigrating cement), cinderblock buildings blackened from exhaust (?), and *lots* of people and animals. It was a place to move from as fast as humanly possible. My fellow passengers (mostly bhutanese, including a couple monks) spent the time setting up their morning beetle nut fix (*). One of the monks had an entire bag of the nuts and leaves in which people wrap them along with a smear of lime paste (the stone, not the fruit). He and a few of the older ladies prepared their nuts and popped them into their mouths. They later spit out the leaves, thankfully before we took off since I had the window seat. This, of course, costs extra and I was relieved they thought to splurge on my behalf when buying the ticket ( a whopping $3).

It wasn’t until we loaded up that I realized there would be 14 of us plus a baby crammed into the jeep about the size of a suburban. There were 4 across on the bench behind the driver that I’m pretty sure was designed to fit 3 – me, a normal-sized man and two of the largest Bhutanese woman I’d seen my entire trip. The round lady next to me quickly fell asleep and spent about half the 6 hour ride uncounscious with her head on my shoulder. The drive took us through some lush terrian with tons of monkey sitings to distract me but I was thrilled to escape when we finally arrived in Kalimpong after a short detour to a crossroads where our driver found a new jeep for the passengers heading onto Gantok in Sikkim, the Indian province to the north of here. It was a bit like leaving the frying pan to enter the fire as I began my hunt for a place to stay with way too much on my back (I can’t figure that out. My pack was incredibly light when I left Kathmandu and the only things I bought in Bhutan were prayer flags and a prayer flag wooden printing block.) My first stop was the Crown Lodge listed in the lonely planet as the “best choice” in the budget section. It was $10 for a not-so-clean room with a squat toilet so off I went in search of my second and third choices which were thankfully close together. Unfortunately, they were about 1 km hike uphill from town. With my LP map out I eventually found Cloud 9, a really nice little place with lots of windows but there was no room in the inn so off I headed uphill to the Kalimpong Park Hotel where they had room for me but only only for 2 nights. It’s pretty upscale for me: $25 for a musty room with a tv but the common areas are just fantastic as the place was originally the summer residence of the Maharaja of Dinajpur. After settling in and handing over my laundry, I headed back to Cloud 9’s restaurant for a little lunch and tea. What a treat! It was the first real tea I’ve had since leaving home. Actual tea leaves brewed strong in a pot and served with milk on the side. The owner is a very friendly man who plays Eric Clapton cds and stops by all the tables to chat. I will try and get a room there when I have to leave the KPH in a couple days.

Post tea, I headed into town to explore a bit and find internet. What little I’ve seen so far is a big improvement over Jaigaon. Kalimpong has an amazing number of things in bloom right now: banana trees (I’d forgotten about banana flowers!), pointsettia (yes, as big a trees), rhodadendren, orchids, bougainvilla, azalea, lantana, hibiscus, nasturtiums and things I’ve never seen before. I saw an amazing stand of bamboo in town that’s at least 60 feet high, each stalk almost too big to get your hands around. No pics today as I spent too much time catching up on paying bills and personal emails. Write if you have time! I long for electronic connections since my travel partner Susan has gone home : (

Sue Borchardt in Kalimpong India. February 26, 2006 at 6:17 p.m.

* Beetle Nut – From the Middle East through Asia to Solomon Island this fruit growing on palmtrees is even more popular than alcohol and cigarettes. The nut is wrapped in the leaf of the betel pepper and sprinkled with burnt lime, catechu gum from the Malayan acacia tree and nutmeg, cardamom or other species. This is placed in the mouth and sucked on for several hours. Arecoline, a central nervous system stimulant, is released from the nut by the action of saliva and lime. It increases respiration and decreases the work load of the heart. Betel leaf has mild stimulating properties. Frequent use of beetle nuts stains mouth, gums, and teeth deep red. Long-term overuse of beetle nut is said to weaken sexual potency.

I’d planned on having a restful day today but couldn’t resist a walk into town. It’s quite a nice place when you’ve had a good night’s sleep. Built into a hillside with lots of pedestrian stairways joining the few main roads, Kalimpong practically oozes charm. I’ve included a few shots of the town but they don’t even begin to give you a sense of it. As I walked through the streets I was hit by the smell of cardamom as a shopowner sifted the husks from the ground pods. Yum. I also hit a few buddha shops where I bought two more statues despite the fact that they will be adding even more weight to my pack when I head out again. Ug. One of the shops has a swallow singing from the wires of the celing light fixture. I asked the woman if it was a pet and she said it comes and goes but returns every day to the same spot.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a tourist focus here which is such a nice change. There are actually sidewalks which are clogged with people, mostly with students at the Kalimpong college. I have run into a few other travelers though. A couple from Bombay on holiday with their little girl chatted me up at the hotel this morning and I met a young couple from Vancouver on the street hunting for a guesthouse. All of us are on the same basic circuit: Kalimpong, Gantok, Darjeeling.

I’m still debating whether to try and make it to Pelling, a small town in Sikkim. Doesn’t make much sense to plan too far ahead since you never really know what your options are until to get someplace as eveidenced by my attempts to get to Darjeeling from the Bhutan border. I sussed out the options for getting to Gantok this morning when I passed the busy jeep stand in the center of town and it looks like I can there in about 3 hours by shared jeep.

Gotta head up the big hill now to have some tea and lunch at the lovely Cloud 9. That hill felt STEEP, long, and dark last night when I finally finished my post. The power was out but the only broadband place in town has an interrupted power supply so I didn’t realize the farkness wasn’t normal since it’s a fairly deserted stretch of road but when I got to my Hotel it was lit throughout with candles – on the landings, in the hallways, in the rooms.

I’m hoping to head to a Gompa on the south side of town tomorrow where they allow photographs. I stumbled on a very cool one today called the Tronga Gompa. Those of you who have been following along might remember that Trongsa is the name of a town in Bhutan where Susan and visited and the Gompa by the same name here is, in fact, Bhutanese. I got a hang out for prayers in the main room, something I rarely see happening mid-day. There were monks ranging from 6 to 60 years old blowing horns, banging drumps, clanging symbols, and chanting the whole time. The place has some amazing wall paintings that looked very old but were uncovered unlike many of the temples in Bhutan where they’ve hung fabric in front of them to protect them from the sun.

Ok – time to face the hill, fortunately, packless this time.

Sue Borchardt in Kalimpong, India. February 27, 2006 at 1:25 p.m. where 72 degress with a warm sun and a cool breeze.

It’s always nice when I’ve actually done something worth writing about so I can spare you the foray into my internal world. Today was absolutely stellar weather but I didn’t get out and about until the afternoon which worked out well since I had golden sun, long shadows, and cool breeze. I spent the morning breakfasting in the sun since I had to switch guesthouses. The Kalimpong Park Hotel filled up with Indian vacationers with reservations. Not much of a problem since I was only going about 200 feet downhill to my tea-spot, Cloud9. Once moved I headed into town to buy my jeep ticket to Gantok tomorrow. I took advantage of the taxis in town (they seem to be available from one spot only) to get a ride all the way up the hill to one of the peaks outside of town where the Durpin Monestary is. It was a beautiful place but though the sky is blue and the sun shining there seems to be a persistent haze near the horizon (at least as long as I’ve been here) that makes pictures of the surrounding rolling hills (and further off mountains) underwhelming. Durpin is one of the rare monestaries in these parts that allows photography (shown in the first pic) so I had my cab driver stop at the cloud 9 so I could pick up my tripod. The frescoes in this place are absolutely beautiful and this pic gives you a sense of how intense the colors are.

After trying to get some shots (with mixed results) of the ceiling mandalas I stopped at the touristy little hilltop restaurant outside the gates for some lunch before I geared up for the 3km walk down the hill back to Kalimpong. I had thought of hitching a ride with a minivan of monestary visitors that arrived while I was eating but I’m so glad I decided to walk instead. It was an incredibly perfect day for it.

My route took me past the Kalimpong Army Base (why is it that they always paint rocks white at military sites?) complete with 18 hole golf course shown here. Not sure if you can tell from the pic but the town of Kalimpong is stretched out on the ridge in the backround and there are prayer flags scattered around the course.

On the roughly one hour walk I passed brightly colored little hobbit houses, the ruins of a mansion, the lawn of which has been turned into a cricket field, kids waving and yelling hello (I guess I’m pretty obviously not from around here even from far away), hens & chicks, and a sprinkling of catholic school kids in uniform (the jesuits have been here) who test out their english, sometimes getting about 10 feet past you before they assemble a question.

When I got back to the cloud 9, Benode (sp?), the owner, was lunching with a few friends withone of them picking away on a steel string guitar. My guide in Bhutan, Kaphel, told me it’s customary for Bhutanese to eat with their hands but they don’t when dining with clients so I never saw anyone actually do this. I guess it’s customary here as well cause Benode and his buds were doing just this, rice and all. I get a real kick of out Benode. He is also an artist having painted lots of tibetan looking scenes that hang int he Cloud 9. He and his friends ended up fighting over my last illuminated sticker. It made me quite happy that they liked it enough to create such a fuss.

I’m leaving tomorrow and am left with the impression of Kalimong as really nice little town where people just do their thing with very little focus on the few visitors they get. There’s not much to make this a destination spot but it’s lovely, nonetheless. They have a rotary club (could that have come with the Jesuits?) and their own little revolutionary movement, Ghorkaland, that heats up occasionally demanding to be an independant state. Kalimpong is contained in the state of Darjeeling which contains the city of the same name.

It took me a few days to find an internet place that has all the apps I need to quickly post and an atmo that’s nice to hang out in which is where I sit now. They only have a dialup connection but most of customers are local kids playing computer games and not using the bandwidth anyway. The guys that run the place have a band and play Bonjovi covers so we are all singing along to “wanted, dead or alive”.

Tomorrow it’s off to Gantok around noon. It’s the capitol city of Sikkim, India and from the maps it appears to be much larger than Kalimpong and much higher too. It takes about 3 hours to go 70 km. I’m expecting steep and windy so am psyched I got a window-seat again. phew!

Sue Borchardt in Kalimpong, India. February 28, 2006 where the weather could not be better.

p.s. I almost forgot. I created a gallery of just a few of the pics from Bhutan. I will add more when I get home and if there are any you’d like prints of just drop me a note and I’ll send high-resolution versions to you.

After such an amazing day yesterday I hate to have to recount my evening. I was violently ill and did not sleep too well. You never know what it was that hit you in these cases – there was a slice of tomato on the vegetable cutlet I had for lunch. Haven’t had problems with tomatoes before but then again, Kalimpong didn’t seem to be too tourist oriented. By morning I felt exhausted and dehydrated despite the fact that I guzzled water all night long and stayed in bed until 11 am when I hauled myself verticle and packed for the jeep ride to Gantok. Thankfully, it was only a 3 hour ride including the stop at the border of Sikkim for a permit.

My least favorite part of traveling is arriving the bus stand in a new town with way too much weight on my back as I wander around trying to find a decent place to stay. Tonight I’m in an icky (and expensive!!!) hotel on the main drag of Gantok. After having my first food of the day, a coke and grilled cheese at the hotel restaurant, I hit the streets looking for internet. All the spots in the Lonely Planet have disappeared and I had to ask about 8 people before I found a single place where I now sit. Gantok, like Kalimpong, is built into the side of a hill. Makes for an intense guesthouse search involving climbing unfathomably steep staircases that save you the long switchbacks. I’ve already found a place for tomorrow night (even more expensive but so much nicer) so I’ll move in the morning.

The town pretty nice – at sunset the cars were shooed from the main drag and pedestriqans walked down the middle of the wide street. There are loudspeakers on the lightposts from which pan-flute musak is emitted. Hoping i’m feeling good enough to explore the town tomorrow. I only have 3 days on my Sikkim permit so I’ll probably need to head to the Foreign Registration Office tomorrow If I want to hit the small town of Pelling.

Feeling the need to go back to my hotel and be horizontal again.

Sue Borchardt in Gantok, Sikkim. Mar 1, 2006 where, yes, you guessed it, the weather is perfect.

This is Sikkim’s tourist advertising line and it’s plastered on everything from pedestrian bridges to trashcans. The capitol, Gantok, is definitely a tourist town – downtown is full of hotels, restaurants, and tour agencies – but most of the visitors are Indians on holiday from Bombay and Delhi (maybe this explains why there are NO banana pancakes and almost no internet cafes). If you’re not into visiting monasteries or checking out orchids (there are 453 varieties native to Sikkim) I’m guessing the big attraction is the great weather and clean air. I’ve only explored the town center on foot but so far I’ve found they have public toilets and a firehouse. The former is a rarity all over the world; the latter, rare only in this part of the world. I’ve seen tons o’ monks plying the streets but have yet to see a monastery – according to LP they are on the outskirts of town so will require I gear up for a taxi ride up the hill and a long walk down. Tomorrow.
The big news in India is Bush’s visit to New Delhi (he’s here now) and 2 bombs that exploded in Karachi (which I think was his next intended stop). I caught up on the latest on the very large TV in my new room in a Hotel directly across from my old Hotel. I think I was paying for the view which was not my priority as I’d much rather have a bathroom I’m not totally icked out by. The best part is that the staff at the new place is helpful and friendly which alone is worth the high price. Ok, I realize that is entirely relative. My new room costs $20 and is not fabulous or expensive by western standards. Here, it is.

Today, I am still nursing myself back to health though I feel I’m making a speedy recovery. Toast for breakfast only left me mildly nauseas (I cannot quite figure out why the jelly is the color, consistency, and yes, flavor, of a gumdrop) and this afternoon I actually found and ate pizza with OLIVES! It could have wept it was so good. I can’t really believe how important food from home ( or simulations thereof) become while traveling. This explains why the tourist hubs for international travelers (Kathmandu, Bankgok) are full of western food (or simulations thereof). As you’d expect, there is fantastic Indian food here but since my last meal before the stomach upset was malai kofta and chapati I am off the Indian for a while. My incredible pizza find is a first floor (that’s second floor to us but maybe we are the weird ones) bakery cafe (playing cat stevens, no less) with cappuccino and desserts that look fabulous… or maybe they are just very good simulations. I was fooled in kathmandu until i ate one of of those chocolate looking things only to discover it tasted like crisco & sugar. If my stomach holds out I will definitely check one out later tonight.

Not much planned tonight so I’m thankful for a great book score from the Cloud9 bookshelf: Tom Robbin’s Half-asleep in Frog Pajamas. I never could get into the Moore’s Last Sigh which I paid $ for in Kathmandu. It was enough of an impediment to my reading enjoyment that I actually picked up two books (the only ones) left behind at our remotest location in Bhutan (Bumthang). I read both in short order, the first a book by Jeffry Archer called the prison diaries? The other, I’m embarrassed to admit, was a bodice ripper. Really. I remember neither the author (though Susan told me she lives in Maryland) or the title (homepoint?) but I will admit to be completely engrossed for about three days. It’s almost as embarrassing as getting excited about buying luggage.

Enough rambling. I got my Sikkim permit extended today at the Foreigner’s Registration Office so am good for at least another week here though I’m still working on the plan. Ooo, and i just got the picture resizing thing figured out on this computer (no image resize apps) so I’ve added a few of town and one of me. Can you tell how tan I am!? Ok, it’s just my face that’s tan which’ll make me old before my time but it’s sunny as hell here and hard to avoid.

Sue Borchardt in Gantok, Sikkim. March 2, 2006 at 5:34 p.m.

I woke up before 6 am today (pretty normal for me here – i have no idea why) so I had two hours to kill before the Bakery cafe opened giving me access to some of the only real caffeine in town. At least they told me they opened 8am . At 8:30 they still weren’t open so I chalked it up to a miscommunication (very few people speak english here, something that surprised me) and headed down to the only other place in town i’d found for a jolt. They were sorta open but not yet ready for business so I did another lap down the main street to see if anything else was open and found the shutters up at the bakery. Up I went with great anticipation only to find the cases empty, the cappuccino machine not yet screaming, and the tables still in the middle of the room. I was the first one there but within minutes there were about 8 of us standing around. In the afternoons this place is all Indian locals but in the morning there were only coffee-starved westerners. Sometime after 9 I finally had a cap, a croissant, a danish, and 2 fried (um, those would be deep fried) eggs in front of me. I guess my stomach’s back to normal.

I hopped a taxi up to the Enchey Gompa and while hunting for a taxi stand it occurred to me that this quite an organized town. Taxis do not just stop anywhere, only at designated stands. The only dogs I’ve seen around town were on leashes. There are traffic cops at every major intersection and pedestrians have little bridges for crossing the main streets. I already mentioned the public toilets and firehouses. Other things are baffling in their dis-organization like the aforementioned random restaurant opening times and the mysterious closing of my favorite internet spot today (hence the lack of pics in this post). Their disarray does not hold a candle to the State Bank of India though which I visited today since it is the only place in town to exchange foreign traveler’s cheques. It’s not hard to imagine where Terry Gilliam got his inspiration for Brazil. No doubt he just visited a government office anywhere in the world (even Baltimore city – have you been to the department of records?). The foreign exchange desk was up two flights of dilapidated cement stairs and through some rabbit-warren hallways of a nondescript institutional building. There I had three different men handle my transaction filling out forms, stamping things, handing me tokens. Their desks were covered in giant ledgers, tons of paper scraps, and currency. The man who took my dollars examined them quite carefully but it seemed he was mostly concerned with how they felt as opposed to how they looked. The guy who finally handed me my rupees added my total by hand (at least he did it several times to be sure). He got the coins I was due out of a little plastic jar!

Flush with cash I headed down the street for lunch which I thought should include some vegetables since i’ve been eating way too many grilled cheese sandwiches (more white food). I settled on Chinese food: The vegetables are cooked, the restaurants are well-versed in vegetarianism (the menus here are divided into veg and non-veg sections), and my veggies would be cooked under a high heat to kill any bugs that may send me back to the fetal position. Woah. I have NO idea what I ordered or which part of China it might have come from but it was basically a bowl full of brown gravy in which floated little brown balls of something that tasted vaguely like the insides of an eggroll mashed together with something doughy and then deep fried? Thank goodness for rice.

Post lunch I headed down the hill to check out another Gompa that a German girl told me about over breakfast. The views were amazing and the walk took me down vertiginous windy cliff roads directly under the ropeway which I had forgotten that Gantok had. It must be new since it’s not yet in the Lonely Planet. It makes the place look like the green hillsides of an alpine village where some kook terraced all the hillsides with rice paddies. Amazing. I was thankful for that bonus cause when I arrived at the second Gompa I was completely disappointed. It was abysmal. I think this is the first monastery I have ever visited that was genuinely depressing. I did one look around the stupa and high-tailed it outta there and caught a shared taxi back up to Gantok just in time for the sun to set, the air to turn cool, the streets to be cleared of cars (man i love that!), and the musak to started wafting out of the loudspeakers (my friend shelley said it’s just like m*a*s*h which hadn’t even occurred to me).

I’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow since It’s probably my last day here. In the morning I head to Rumtek and the Darma Chakra Center which is about a three hour roundtrip. In the afternoon I’ll hit whatever else I have time for.

Sue Borchardt in Gantok, Sikkim. March 3, 2006 at 6:07 p.m.

Feeling the pressure of moving on soon so I’ve been trying to cram a few of the remaining Gantok sites into this day. I started at 8 this morning for a trip to a monastery across the valley from Gantok. Rumtek is the seat of the 17th Karmapa of the Kagyu sect of Buddism, kindof. There is apparently much controversy surrounding the correct identification of the Karmapa’s current incarnation. I hate it when that happens. There are posters all over Gantok with the young lama’s photo and the caption “We’ve waited long enough”. They are referring to the fact that the Indian government has forbidden him to take his seat in Rumtek and he is currently residing with the Dalai Lama in Daramsala. Originally from Tibet, he seems to be a political football between the Chinese and Indian governments as well. Incidentally, he is quite the hottie with long black braids. Rumtek is a largish place with a beautifully festooned main hall (but the frescoes couldn’t hold a candle to Enchey and others). The monks were playing basketball outside the monastery. In the pic you can see a monk holding the basket. The ride to Rumtek was an ear-popping coulda-churned-butter-it-was-so-bumpy trip down a big hill and up a big hill. The scenery was beautiful though and it gave me lots of time to process many of the things I’ve taken in here. There are alot of visuals in the hopper that will be gestating on my trip home, hopefully to come out later as entirely unique and beautiful works of art. I have a whole section of my journal devoted to art ideas to crank on when I get home. Crossing the valley back to Rumtek I bailed out of my ride at the Gantok Ropeway for a little tourist action – the views are incredible but still there is a haze over the valley. I’ve yet to have a really clear day here but I guess that’s the price I pay for the fabulous weather. I’m guessing there are many more crystal clear days when it’s cold.

Many of the local Indian stations, the BBC, and CNN were all running Bush’s speech to the Indian Parliament last night so I tuned in for as long as I could stand which turned out to be not very long at all. It was painful to watch. He began with Namaste which, of course, is a traditional greeting in these parts but he pronounced it n’-MAAAA-stay and frankly, I think it took the MPs a beat or two to figure out what the hell he’d just said cause there were only a few claps of acknowledgment. The rest of the speech was standard George.

My early start this morning (by Sikkim standards) meant I had to breakfast at the Hotel. After ordering a cheese omelet and pot of tea I was told, about 20 minutes later, “no eggs”. Toast it was. Lunch was a grilled cheese so I am even more committed to finding vegetables for dinner tonight. Tomorrow I leave for Ravangla in South Sikkim mostly cause it’s half-way to Pelling in West Sikkim where there is a very old monastery and the mountain most famous in these parts, Kanchendzonga. It’s kindof a long way to go for not much but I’m pretty much through with Gantok and not quite ready to face the bustling Darjeeling. Rumor has it that neither Ravangla or Pelling have much in the way of internet connections so this might be my last post until Mar 7. If I find a connection (even a shack with dial-up as in Bumthang) I’ll definitely use it though so stay-tuned.

Sue Borchardt in Gantok, Sikkim. March 4, 2006 at 1:30 p.m.

Yesterday was no less than EPIC. If you are bored, read on. If you don’t have much time you might save this one for later…

My final night in Gantok I continued the search for a meal containing fresh vegetables, protein or both. I thought I’d hit the jackpot with the Tibetan restaurant in the Hotel Tashi Dalek where the menu lists chinese dishes with tofu! I have not seen tofu on a menu since I left Kathmandu. Alas, there was no tofu in the house and no eggs either but I did get the answer to the mysterious no-egg phenomenon. Apparently, there is an egg shortage all over Asia right now due to the bird flu outbreak. I still had a nice meal of noodles with tiny traces of carrots and hot peppers (where DO all those vegetables in the street markets end up?!). Without Susan’s parting gift of trailmix I think cheese would be my only source of protein in India.

Since I was leaving early (8 a.m. yeah, not exactly early by the rest of the world’s standards but I’m realizing the North Indians like their sleep) the next morning for Ravangla in South Sikkim I knew there would be no breakfast for me unless I got it the night before so after dinner I hit the Quickbite – a slick Indian fast food joint – and stocked up on Indian sweets and pastries I could not identify but that looked pretty tasty. I got about 8 items (they’re really small) in case any of them were awful but most were fantastic and went well with the nescafe I scrounged up in the hotel dining room the following morning. Had to leave the hotel about 7:30 to get to my shared jeep in time and off we went, on schedule.

The ride from Gantok was pretty uneventful – standard switchbacks and steep roads for about 3 hours. Ravangla is a small mountain village looking a little like something out of the old west. I planned to stay only one night before heading onto Pelling in West Sikkim and when I arrived I had two things to do before I explored the town: find a place to stay and book a jeep to Pelling for the following day. This is when things started to fall apart. I think I checked every Hotel in town (of course, with pack on back) and I was in the unfun position of choosing the least of the creepy, smelly lot which turned out to be the 10-zing (get it?). Frankly, I was not sure if I could survive a night here. It was a damp, bare-bones, cell of a room with no sheets on the bed and no toilet seat but I wasn’t ready to deal with the prospect of sleeping there yet and frankly, had no other choices. Bag stashed, I went back out to book my jeep before hiking up the hill to the local monastery for views of the dramatic location. It was at this point I found out that there were no jeeps to Pelling. No sweat, how about Darjeeling? Nope. okaaaayy. So I went back to the 10-zing and picked the brain of the teenage english speaker running the place. She ran down many options all of which involved 3 steps – buses, shared jeeps, connections. hmmmm. She also told me there was no place in town to change money. Somehow I mis-calculated on this but didn’t realize it until after paying my hotel bill in Gantok and it was too early to do anything about since nothing was open. I decided to let all this percolate for a bit while I scoped the town which did not take long. I had visited all Ravangla’s corners and polished off the last of the trailmix by about 1:30 p.m. so I sat on the front steps of the 10-zing and dove into Tom Robbins for a bit until a Spanish couple arrived (via one of those 3 connection days) and we exchanged info until they ran off to turn their geyser which I now know is pronounce geezer. At about 2:15 I decided to walk up to the Jeep stand again just for the hell of it – I mean, there were something like 50 jeeps parked on Ravangla’s side road and I couldn’t believe none of them were going where I wanted to go. As luck would have it I found a guy who said he’d take me to Darjeeling for 1200 Rupees. That’s about $30 and alot of money in these parts but I was beginning to get antsy since I have only 6 days remaining in India. So after telling the driver I did not have enough $ to pay him but would change dollars in Darjeeling, I said “let’s go”. We grabbed my pack from the 10-zing and headed south for West Bengal and out of Sikkim. (I had the Darjeeling province wrong in a previous post. It’s actually in West Bengal).

What a wild ride. The drive took us from a chilly 8000 feet down to a balmy river valley and back up to Darjeeling. Once we passed warm Jorethang on the banks of the Rangeet river, we crossed the border out of Sikkim where they double-checked my permits (even though I was leaving). The lonely planet lists the drive from Jorethang to Darjeeling as taking 2 1/2 hours but my driver said he would take a shortcut that would get us an hour faster. He was right, it was faster but what a road it was. Just barely wide enough for the land-rover, the road took as through tea estates, tiny villages of tea workers, and over axel-busting rocks and ruts. Had we encountered another car on some of the narrower stretches of road there would have been nowhere to go but it wasn’t a problem cause no-one in their right mind would take this road. The tea plants practically skimmed the sides of the jeep. Man are they cool, too. They look like little flat-topped topiaries in several shades of green with the new flush a bright spring green. We drove up, up, up for over an hour before we reached Darjeeling around 5:30 p.m. It was at this point that my driver told me he could not drive me to a hotel which I still don’t understand – something about him being a registered taxi in Sikkim but not West Bengal. We parked the jeep on the outskirts of town at his brothers jeep company and off we walked into the Darjeeling night. Even dropping $30 on a private jeep I still end up schlepping my pack around looking for a hotel! After checking into the Crystal Palace (if the lonely planet describes this place as spotlessly clean I am scared to see the rooms they list as musty) I changed some dollars for my driver (whose name I could not get even after many repetitions) and got a veggie burger at a vegetarian snack place not far from my Hotel (were there vegetables in it? not sure. seems a little like a chick pea cake of some sort but it came with a slice of cheese and I was starving). Kinda weird scoping a town at night. The roads are quiet, dark and yes, steep – almost medieval in a weird way.

I survived my one night at the Crystal Palace but did not get in the bed or use the pillow (again, so grateful for my sleeping bag). It was a challenge to take a breath in the room it was so musty and damp. I was up at 5:30 a.m. and walked the town until 8 when the local western-style bakery opened up where I ate a cheese pie, two pieces of toast, an apple muffin (!), no less than a 1/4 stick of butter, and a small pot of delicious Darjeeling tea served in a silver teapot.

Darjeeling is beautiful and ugly at the same time. There are shells of building that are all but falling down, there are narrow, grey, stairwells up it’s very steep hillsides, there are beautiful raj-era buildings and remnants of British culture: gardens are well-kept and people are very affectionate with their dogs!

Ok, on with the story of my search for a new Hotel. This proved to be really tough as there is, apparently, no correlation between lonely planet recommendations, prices, and actual rooms. Places highly recommended in LP were horrible. Expensive places were horrible. Nice looking places with reasonable prices were full. I even got a little desperate and visited the way upscale colonial era Elgin Hotel (where I will definitely visit for high tea this week). It was expensive and nicely decorated but… musty. My last stop, a place only steps from the crystal palace, turned out to be lovely amd affordable with Tibetan decor, a friendly staff (is there some sort of correlation here?) and a steal at only $12 per night (the Elgin ran a steep $75). So onto the exploration of Darjeeling. There are tons of things to see here starting with a sunrise trip to Tiger Hill at 4 am tomorrow to see Kanchendjonga meet the sun. Other places on my list: tea estates, the monasteries of Goom (a neighboring town), the toy train ( a steam powered mini locomotive that runs to Goom), and maybe the town of Mirik, famous for growing tea and cardamom on India’s border with Nepal.

Sue Borchardt in Darjeeling, West Bengal. March 6, 2006 at 5:18 p.m. where it gets COLD at night and warm and sunny in the day.

Last night I was sound asleep by 9 p.m in preparation for my early day today. I was surprised by a knock at my door at around 9:15 when the hot-water-bottle delivery man showed up (could a $12 hotel get any classier?). My 3:50 a.m. wakeup call was unsolicited but I’m guessing my hotel is used to having people sleep though their Tiger Hill sunrise tour. If I’d had my way I would have rolled outta bed about 10 minutes before my 4:30 pickup. As you’d expect for a sunrise trip, it was quite dark as I quietly descended the 5 flights of stairs from my room to the lobby. There I found 4 Indian tourists, the lot of us still locked in for the night. They were not shy though and were running around calling “Bai, Bai” which means little brother in Nepali (the main language spoken in these parts). Bai is how waiters, hotel guys, etc… are referred to and I’m told it is completely acceptable though it seems a tad demeaning to me. When we made it onto the very dark street via a side door there was nothing there – no taxi, no jeep. We hung about for a bit and then a man came down the street and talked to the other tour-goers and then asked me my room number and took only me up the street in the dark (one of the few times I’ve had occasion to use my headlamp on this trip). The jeep was waiting a block away, full of Indian tourists. I piled in the back of the jeep and then off our driver went again to find our last passenger, who, as it turned out, was also staying at my hotel. Not sure why he didn’t fetch us together.

Tiger Hill is your standard tourist experience. I think most countries I’ve visited have had these sunrise or sunset locations where every visitor goes at least once and Tiger Hill is Darjeeling’s version. When we got there we were pretty curious to see everyone facing east – I guess they really did come to see the sunrise but I came to see Kanchendzona, the third largest mountain in the world and the highest in India. As luck would have it the sky was clear enough to see the mountain light up but the valley was full of haze so the pics were not as amazing as the view in real life. Still glad to have seen it since I’d heard from many people they’d made the trip but saw nothing but clouds.

Once the sun was up everyone piled back into the jeeps to caravan back to Darjeeling by way of a couple of other bizarre points of interest – a monastery that was closed but outside of which women line up selling plastic souvenirs and a world war II war memorial that consists of a loop of railroad track and an obelisk.

By this time, I had discovered that the passenger sharing the way-back of the jeep with me was Tony, a computer programmer from New York City born in Rajasthan. Tony was in Darjeeling for one day only and was up for splitting a private car rental with me so we could cram as much as possible into the day. The transportation situation in Darjeeling seems unlike anywhere else in India – it’s very expensive to hire a taxi so I was a bit up in the air about how I was gonna see the places I was interested in anyway. A plan was hatched over breakfast. In keeping with my habit to write about my eating habits I’ll confess to having eaten even more butter this morning than yesterday’s 1/4 stick. If you have ever shared a meal with me than my butter consumption is probably already burned into your memory – I am now legendary on yet another continent. After breakfast we decided to walk to the market to get some paan – this is what they call the beetle nut concoction I described a while back. Tony convinced me that I would be missing an incredible experience if I came all this way and did not try it. I was skeptical but couldn’t help thinking about how I almost left southeast asia without even trying a mangosteen (my new favorite fruit). The basic version of this thang is a split beetle nut and some lime powder wrapped in the betel leaf. We were getting some extra fancy version though from a place that came highly recommended by the locals. I shudder even writing about it – one bite of the leaf wrapped around god-knows-what and I knew it was a taste-sensation I had no interest in. Imagine a soapy tasting leaf filled with silver cookie decoration balls, spices, weird brownish-orange juice, spearminty tasting green gelatinous stuff, and countless other unidentifiables. I spat it out immediately, glad nobody was there pointing a camera at me.

Our next stop was the Toy Train station where we tried to get tickets for the joyride on an old steam engine (my dad would be proud) that travels to a neighboring town with several monasteries. The morning train was sold out so we decided to stick around for pics of the steam engine and then go find a cab to hire. What an ordeal. Despite the fact that Tony spoke Hindi it still took us a long time of running around to different cab-stand negotiating with drivers slipperier than used car dealers. By about 12:30 we had lined up a driver who took us to, i think, 5 monasteries, many of which allowed us to take photos. bonus!

We parted ways at about 4 pm after visiting the Zoo and a tea garden where baby goats grazed. Tony was heading back to the first big monastery we stopped in for the afternoon Puja when the monks chant. I was tanking and could think of nothing but high tea. I’m not even a huge fan of Darjeeling tea, preferring Assam’s caffeine punch and malty flavor to Darjeeling’s perfumey brew. The tea at the Elgin, however, was fantastic and made me enormously happy. The location didn’t hurt either: I sat in a garden, surrounded by orchids, as the sun lit up the city on it’s way down. At the table next to me sat a jacketed scottie-dog just in from his afternoon walk with one of the hotel’s maids, sporting a floor-length frilly apron. ahem. I guess that’s the British for ya. Tomorrow I think I’ll take my tea at the Wyndamere Hotel where I’d planned to go today but crapped out half-way up the hill where the Elgin awaited.

Sorry about today’s pics – there is no single internet place with all the tools I need so I had to mail these to myself at one place and upload them to my blog at another so the quality is a little off. Hopefully, you still get the idea.

Sue Borchardt in Darjeeling, West Bengal. March 7. 2006 at 7:07 p.m. where I’ve been up for waaay too long.

It’s been a pretty mellow day focused mostly on food and napping. After yesterday’s marathon of tourist activity I needed a rest-day so I stretched out breakfast into two stages having my tea and toast at the vegetarian place that bakes brown bread and then moving onto a late-opening spot on the main darjeeling square for cereal with milk. I really missed the huge portion of butter served up at my normal spot but reason prevailed and I took a break from the decadence of it. I don’t think I can hold out two days in a row though so I will most likely be back to gorging on butter tomorrow morning.

So I mostly just stretched out the spaces between meals with short walks and long tea in the afternoon at a rooftop cafe. For dinner, I bravely ventured back into Indian food territory at the Hasty Tasty, a vegetarian cafe that’s very popular with the local students. I got the special thali which was loaded with vegetables though all cooked to the extreme. Homemade bread, rice, dahl, a paneer (fresh cheese) dish, and the previously food poisoning malai kofta all served in little stainless steel dishes on a large stainless steel platter. So far so good.

Good news, I have finally found the Indian sweets here in Darjeeling that I discovered in Gantok – little blocks of sweet something sometimes with nuts or coconut or cardamom. I really have no idea what they’re called since every variation has a different name – some made with ghee, some with milk, and some so sweet they make your teeth hurt. After hunting since my arrival in Darjeeling I finally found them in a tiny stall, down the steep hillside, in the bowels of Darjeeling’s huge marketplace. No slick and shiny mainstreet sweetshops as in Gantok where I discovered these treats.

I’m now at an internet place that doesn’t support uploading pics so I’ll use one from yesterday when I had high tea at the Elgin. Note the scottie dog on the right at his own table.

Feeling a little guilty about having such a lazy day so tomorrow I’ll try and hit either the Japanese Peace Pagoda or the Bustia Busty monastery, both a bit of a walk but in opposite directions.

Sue Borchardt in Darjeeling, West Bengal. March 8, 2006 at 5:51 p.m.

I don’t think I’ve had a cloudy day since Susan and I were Bhutan a couple weeks ago which, by the way, is part of the reason there is a serious water shortage here as well as in Sikkim and Bhutan. I shouldn’t complain but it does make for a dull picture day. I took ‘em anyway since I climbed hills way too big to leave empty handed. My targets today were the Buddhist Monastery, Bhutia Busty, and the Hindu Temple, Mahakala Mandir.

Bhutia Busty is reported to house the original Tibetan Book of the Dead but it is locked up somewhere and not shown to many. I did luck into a very nice old monk who opened the main hall and took me around the murals that depict the life of the Buddha beginning with his birth from his mother’s side in Lumbini, Nepal*. This particular monk spent decades in Nepal at Bodnath (a.k.a Boudha) which I think just might be my favorite spot on this trip, especially in the evening when the butter lamps glow and the Tibetan pilgrims are out in full force. He explained to me that Bhutia Busty was originally located high on what is called Observatory Hill here in Darjeeling which, at that time, was part of the kingdom of Sikkim. Later, he showed me the stick with which he taps the monks when they fall asleep during prayers. He assured me that he does not hit them very hard.

When I left Bhutia Busty I had to climb a steep hill back up to Darjeeling’s main square (where the tourists take pony rides) and then just kept on climbing up to Shree Mahakala Mindhir, the town’s main Hindu Temple. Never have I seen so many prayer flags in one place. They practically create a canopy over the temple grounds which, incidentally, happen to house the only monkeys I’ve encountered in Darjeeling. There weren’t too many of them and they didn’t seem to like to be messed with. While I was engrossed in trying to get a good shot of a baby I was oblivious to the fact that a mama monkey was showing me her displeasure. Yikes they are scary when they want to be.

Again, I indulged with an afternoon pot of tea at the Elgin but, I’m proud to say, made it through a second day without any butter at all! It’s been an egg day despite the threat of illness. I was really feeling the need for the protein so ate a cheese omelet for breakfast instead of my usual apple muffins under an obcene amount of butter. Mmmmm… it has me salivating just thinking about it. Maybe tomorrow.

I got a little antsy at the prospect of another day here in Darjeeling. It’s impossible to stay in go-mode when you’re traveling for two months but I have perfected the art of spreading out seeing, shooting, chilling, and eating. Darjeeling, however, has nothing on Kathmandu when it comes to all 4 of those so I’ve decided to head on out to Siliguri tomorrow to see if there’s any chance of getting on a Buddha air flight one day early. If I could squeeze another sunset at Swayambunath or Bodnath in before I head home I would be thrilled. If nothing else I get to explore another town, Siliguri, my last in India before crossing into Eastern Nepal.
Sue Borchardt in Darjeeling, West Bengal. March 9, 2006 at 5 p.m. where it seems to be getting a little warmer every day.

* India has long claimed the actual birthplace of Buddha is in India and not Nepal. However, archaeologists discovered in 1996 a commemorative pillar placed there by the Indian Emperor Ashoka in 249 B.C. that marked the precise location.

UNESCO has said that Lumbini is one of the holiest places of one of the world’s great religions, and its remains contain important evidence about the nature of Buddhist pilgrimage centers from a very early period.
more info…

Sorry for the long gap between Darjeeling and Kathmandu. It was only two days without a post but looking back on it, it feels much longer. I decided to break up the trip into two days since getting from Darjeeling to the airport inside Nepal was full of unknowns. Even in retrospect I can’t really say if that decision made much of a difference. For some reason, when I’m way out of my element it feels like very little is up to me.

The first leg was a shared jeep from Darjeeling to Siliguri, only about 2 1/2 hours (first pic is from the Darjeeling jeep stand). It was the standard steep switchbacks that I’ve kindof gotten used to. It was nice to finally make it to the plains where it was much warmer and the tea in full flush with the spring harvest already underway. The town of Siliguri is someplace to get gotten out of as soon as humanly possible. For some reason it made me think of Joliet Illinoise where I foolishly planned a stop on my trip across the country in the fall of 2005. I was so glad to have a 70 lb dog with me cause the place was suitable only for recently discharged inmates from the prison. Ok, maybe Joliet was worse but then again, I did have a car and could have driven on if I’d had the energy. In Siliguri, I was pretty sure the next town on my trip was gonna be worse, being a border town, so I set out in search of a decent place to stay. After checking out a few places on the main drag, a wide, dusty, and desolate strip of hotels, jeep stands, cane furniture shops, and shacks, I found the only place that seemed tolerable from the lonely planet description. As it turned out, the Apollo Hotel was worth the 1.5 km walk with my pack on. There was a nice restaurant, a clean room, and a big tv – so nice considering I had no intention of leaving the hotel again until I left town the following morning. It was a fabulous evening of room service and movies in between explorations of India TV – Sylvester the cat speaks Hindi… I discovered a new dish while indulging in Indian room service: peanut masala. It was kinda like thai green papaya salad without the papaya – peanuts , tomatoes, chillis, red onion and lemon. Was glad I stepped out of my comfort zone though I had hedged my bets with a cheese sandwich. This time the risky food item turned out to be the edible one cause a cheese sandwich in Siliguri is sorta like a cheese salad sandwich (grated white cheese mixed with spices and mayonnaise(?) on whitebread with the crusts cut off). Breakfast was just so civilized as I ordered room service for the second time in less than 12 hours: my last pot of darjeeling tea and toast. Did I mention the tea billboards on the way out of Darjeeling’s Hills? Even TAZO was represented. Huh.

The lonely planet describes the journey from Darjeeling into Nepal as easy but requiring 4 changes involving buses, jeeps, & rickshaws. yeah… ok, maybe easy if you speak Hindi. I figured it was worth checking into whether a private car was affordable but that would have run me $40 so I decided to get an early start and try for the easy connections. Step one was not too bad. After stopping by a shack on the strip for Indian sweets for the journey I walked the 1.5 km back to the Bus/Jeep stand. A bus was taking off for the border town of Panitaki, only an hour away and a mere 50 cents. Once in Panitanki the fun began. A rickshaw driver grabbed my bag straight off and when I asked him how much it was to cross the border into Karkarbhitta, Nepal it kicked off a argument among the rickshaw drivers. I have no idea what was going on. Nobody even looked at me they just yelled back and forth as if they were arguing about which one would get the fare. After asking a few more times and being ignored I shouldered my pack and took off in what I hoped was the direction of Nepal. About a block down the dirt road of another old-west looking town (this one even older and wester looking than back in Ravangla) another rickshaw driver approached me. Again I tried to figure out how much this would cost but the only reply was a slap to the vinyl seat of the rickshaw instructing me to hop on. As luck would have hit a nice english speaking gentleman did a little translating for me, his parting words being, “I know this guy and he said he’d take you for 10 rupees. If he asks for more money just give him 10.” So up I climbed and off we went. The ride to the border was only about 10 minutes. We stopped at Indian immigration where 8 men processed my departure. Over a bridge and through a gate I was dropped at the Nepali immigration office where my driver did, in fact, demand 20 rupees. Still a reasonable price but locals have cautioned me to pay only what’s agreed upon as paying more can have adverse affects on local prices so 10 rupees it was. After getting my second (and thankfully gratis, as it said on the sign) Nepali visa this year (the first cost $30) I started down the road to the Nepali border town, Karkarbhitta. It was a tad surreal but at the time, I couldn’t really put my finger on why. As I headed for a collection of rickshaws I was approached by taxi driver who said he’d take me to Bhadrapur (where there is an airport at which I intended to hop a flight one day earlier than my scheduled flight) for a mere 1600 Rupees. I didn’t bother to ask if that was Indian or Nepali Rupees cause either way it was a lot of money for a half-hour drive (either $40 or $23, respectively). He said his was the only taxi in town. Perplexed, I continued down to what looked like the center of town. There I found the standard dirt-lot of buses but still something not-quite-right. I did not see a single car, jeep, or taxi. I walked into a guesthouse and asked them how I could get to Bhadrapur and they told me “You can’t. Strike”… You have got to be kidding. I just had to double check this with someone without a vested interest in selling me a room for the night so I asked at a little tobacco and chip shop on the street. They corroborated there was a strike but that the rickshaws could take me to Bhadrapur and the planes would still run. Ok, this explains why the buses are just sitting and the cars are non-existent. At this point, I was still a bit skeptical about the rickshaw thing since the airport is, like, 50 km away but I strolled back over to the rickshaws and was instantly feeling like a piece of red-meat in a dog-pack. Within seconds I’m surrounded by 20 hungry bikers angling for the only fare in town. I’ve got a guy who says he can get me there in 2 hours for about $5 US. Doesn’t look I have many options (I no longer see the one taxidriver willing to flaunt the strike) so I hop in. It’s right about this time that, you’ll never believe this, it starts to rain. Yes, I’ve been traveling in sunny bliss for most of this trip with only one little shower back in Bhutan and now I’m facing a 2 hour rickshaw ride in a steady downpour. Nice. Once I settled in it wasn’t such a bad ride but I did get a little cold. We encountered other rickshaws and ambulances (not to mention oxen, goats, chickens, etc…) but no cars on the road so things were pretty peaceful. My driver struck up a conversation with another rickshaw on our way out of town – a guy driving a Nepali and Japanese guy to the same airport but since he had two passengers we left them behind pretty quickly. As promised, I got to Bhadrapur after only 2 hours (but only after countless questions to passersby for direction to the airport – apparently, my driver had never been there before).

I was relieved to be out of the rain despite my soaked butt and backpack. I’d managed to keep my camera dry with a rain poncho, never before used. So, all excited that I’d dodged a bullet of being stranded in the middle of nowhere in the rain (forgot to note that part of our journey was on an unpaved road) I saunter up to the Buddha Air counter in the one-room airport of Bhadrapur. After about 15 minutes and countless buddha air employees ignoring me I finally get the attention of a guy who cares but he tells me that there is no way I’m getting on a plane today – they are booked with Indian tour groups. My heart sinks but I ask him if it’s ok to wait around and see. It’s only 11 and there are 4 flights out. Plopped on a bench waiting for my pants to dry I watch the Indian tourists come and go (In two days is the Hindu festival of Holi which, no doubt, many have chosen to spend at Kathmandu’s huge Hindu temple, Pashupatinath). I read Tom Robbins. I eat my Indian sweets. I sweat bullets. At one point in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas, Tom Robbins has a character that gets a seat on a booked airplane by offering another passenger $65 for his seat. I start to eye up prospective passengers that might not be with the group and who might consider such an offer. 3 flights later, just pages before the finale of frog pjs, one of the Buddha Air guys comes up to me and motions for my backpack. Stunned, I approach the counter and ask the only guy who appears to speak english if I got a seat and he says YES! During my wait I had run through all the possible scenarios : sleeping in the airport (probably not an option), finding a room in the tiny town of bhadrapur with a wet sleeping bag, miraculously scoring a seat on a plane and dining on fabulous thai food in Kathmandu. Oh joy, I could have kissed this guy.

I only needed to survive the scary plane-ride to Kathmandu. This was quite possibly the scariest flight of my life on a plane the size of a small school bus rocking and rolling though menacing storm clouds. While waiting at the airport, Nepali TV reported that the rain of the day was the first in 5 1/2 months. Yes, 5 1/5 months of no rain and the storms roll in on the one day I take a 2 hour rickshaw ride and a flight through the Himalaya. What a number those rains did on Kathmandu though. The city might not be clean but it is clearer than I’ve ever seen it. I’d heard you could see the Himalayan range from the city but you could have fooled me since I’ve only ever seen white haze in the distance but today the sky was clear and blue and yes, the mountains were there for all to see. I got warm welcomes from my guesthouse (third pic is the rooftop garden at tibet gh), my laundry/internet guys, and the pumpernickle bakers, asking where i’d been. The gayatri mantra wafted down the streets of Thamel, now packed with westerners. Now that the contentious elections are over and the mountaineering season is gearing up, the tourists are back in droves and it’s alot easier to be one of them as the salesman have more targets, I guess.

My first day back I had a fabulous breakfast and lunch, al fresco, with a trip to Swayambunath in between. I think I might be pushing my luck with the monkeys there. I get so engrossed with looking at baby monkeys through the camera view-finder that I’m sometimes oblivious to an angry monkey mama at my feet. These guys move so much faster in the morning! I took about 125 pics and got maybe 3 clear ones. If you’re not completely sick of monkeys, here’s one more for good measure. Incidentally, Tom Robbins has a reformed jewel-thief, born-again monkey in half-asleep in frog pajamas which definitely qualifies as an existential detective novel. I picked it up from the bookshelf way back in Kalimpong at the Cloud9. Coincidence?

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu, Nepal. March 12, 2006. 3:30pm.

It was such an incredibly beautiful morning here I had a hard time tearing myself away from my breakfast in the sunny courtyard of the Northfield cafe where there are bottomless cups of brewed coffee and homemade banana muffins. I’m not usually a coffee drinker but the when the tea sucks, as it does here, my caffeine addiction takes over.

Post-breakfast I ventured into the more modern neighborhood around Durbar Marg which is home to the fancy hotels and airline offices. My target was an Indian snack shop reportedly selling burfi! This place has almost as much variety as the shiny Quickbite where I got hooked on these little chunks of bliss back in Gantok. They actually call at least one of the varieties of sweets here burfi though again, there are tons of variations. I only tried one but plan on going back to stock up for the plane ride home this wednesday.

The walk back to the neighborhood of Chetrapati took me past the old part of Kathmandu where carvings like the ones shown in the first picture are the backdrops of the market stalls. I think the Hindu festival of Holi has already started in some neighborhoods cause the water balloons were flying. I had a few close calls with my camera so I’m in a bit of a conundrum over what to do tomorrow. I’d love to go to Pashupatinath and see the festival but am not too psyched about risking my camera amidst flying water and “color”. Not sure yet what form the color takes but if the Indian TV ads for cosmetics are any indication there are super-soakers full of thick orange and pink and yellow stuff flying everywhere. If I do go, I’m pretty sure the camera will be tucked safely away in a ziplock bag so expect no pics.

Also in the neighborhood I saw market stalls selling big hunks of Himalayan Salt (shown in the second pic) like the ones they make lamps out of. My friend and Bhutan travel partner, Susan, gave me one of these salt lamps for my birthday and I absolutely love it. Should you want want of these lovely lamps for your very own you can visit her shop, breathe books, in Baltimore where she sells them along with tons of stuff she brought home from India and Bhutan.

The rest of my trip, I fear, will be pretty dull to read about (as if you’ve been on the edge of your seat wondering if I ate a heart stopping amount of butter for breakfast). I mostly have planned a dress fitting (the first fitting left me less than enthused about the chinese style dress I had made – still hoping he can make it fit better), more alfresco dining (peanut masala at the tibet guesthouse courtyard is my lunch plan), and more shopping. There is just too much good stuff to buy in Kathmandu (red-heart beads from Nagaland, wooden Buddha statues, Tibetan door hangings, more varieties of incense than you can shake a stick at) and who knows when I’ll get back here again.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu, Nepal. March 13, 2006 at 1 p.m.

The water baggies started flying last night with boys aiming at girls and kids aiming at tourists but this morning, the Holi festival is in full swing. It’s like a massive, city-wide game of paint-ball. Even now from my internet hideout I can hear cheers & screams echoing in the streets of Thamel. It’s like a giant sporting event where all the cities inhabintants are simultaneously participants & spectators – very festive. If it was just water it wouldn’t be so bad but I’ve already seen countless people dyed red and yellow. The tailor working on my dress said the dye is really strong and will last for weeks if you get it on your skin. Nice. The woman sitting next to me at the internet and the guys that run the place have smears covering both cheeks. If I arrive home red-faced you’ll know why. I’ve got my camera tucked safely away in two ziplocks and my hard-drive has been in a fancy waterproof bag, an xmas present from my mom, for the entire trip.

I had breakfast at an ultra-hip Isreali restaurant high above the street but could still see sprays of water as bags hit the side of buildings. The breakfast at this place is huge: an omelete, tons of potatoes, salad, a basket of bread, butter, cream cheese, and real jam. The welsh guy I met on my earlier trip to Kathmandu told me about it but, up until now, I’ve always opted for outdoor breakfast. This morning I was starving so went for quantity over atmosphere. Actually, it was only outside atmosphere I gave up as this place had atmo to burn: hand drawn menus, psychodelic paintings, blacklights, and techno lounge music. The low tables are spread out in a shoeless area covered with beautiful carpets. You would never find this place but for word of mouth (unless you read arabic). There are no english signs on the street and you need to walk down a tiny hall off an already narrow street, then up two flights of stairs. It’s almost too cool.

I went for my second fitting yesterday and my dress was vastly improved over the first try-on. My guy is closed today for the holiday but is doing a couple more tweaks for me before I pick it up tomorrow – hopefully fitting perfectly. The fabric is a very understated brown raw silk so unless it fits really well it will be kinda bland. I’ve got faith in this guy though. He’s sortof a mini nepali fashion designer. He’s all of 5′1″ and reminds me of a Nepali version of one of my favorite designers from season 2 of Project Runway, Nick.

Very little else planned for today and tomorrow. Just a few more things to pick up in Thamel’s shops and the marketplace to the south. Of course, I’m planning a trip to the south indian snack shop in the morning to stock up for the long trip home. Since this is, mostly likely, my last post before arriving home I’ll give you the run-down of the next few days: Tomorrow afternoon I fly from Kathmandu to Bangkok, arriving at about 6:30 pm due to the time-change. I have a 12 hour lay-over in the Bangkok airport and have scoped out tons of options but at this point I’m thinking I will just stay at the airport, bouncing around the transit lounge, the all night internet, and the kids playground which, reportedly, has a padded floor. The Amari Hotel which adjoins Bangkok airport is charging a steep $250 per night so that’s out. There’s a very nice place called We-train only a few minute cab-ride from the airport. It even has a pool but when I called they told me they are booked with a visiting group for 2 months. After some googling-around I found a website completeley devoted to sleeping in airports! Bangok gets mixed reviews (that’s how I found out about the padded play area) but I’d say the consensus is that if you can find a place to curl up you will not be bothered by security and If you choose to stay awake there is plenty to do. If I can manage to stay up all night It’ll put me on track for the eastcoast timezone. My plane for home leaves at 6:30 thurdsay morning (6:30 wednesday night in Baltimore) by way of Tokyo and Chicago and if all goes well, I’m home by 4:30 Thurdsday afternoon.

By the sound of it, the chaos in the streets of Kathmandu is working up to a fevered pitch. If I end up multi-colored I just might need to post the story from the Bangkok airport.

Sue Borchardt in Kathmandu, Nepal. March 14, 2006 at 12 noon. Happy Holi!!

I’m back in Baltimore after a 48 hour transit which, all in all, went very smoothly. The last installment of my story was from my favorite internet and laundry spot, a hole in the wall place off an alley in Thamel (Kathmandu), while holiday revelers cheered and ran about in the streets. I wasn’t sure what to expect on my walk back to the guesthouse despite the descriptions of Holi celebrations I’d been given by locals. Yeah, I knew that pigment and water was thrown about but didn’t have much sense of how easy or hard it would be for a non-participant to avoid being turned colors. Once on the street it became obvious that if you were out, you were celebrating Holi. I saw one or two western women walking past with random people smearing colors on their faces – these women did not look amused.

After about a block and 1/2 a guy asked me if I “played Holi” which I poliltely declined but then he suggested “Just a tikka”. (A tikka is the gob or smear, depending on wet or dry, of colored pigment seen on the foreheads of hindus where they have been blessed.) Judging by the fact that this guy looked like a mid-western college football fan wearing team-color face-paint I had the feeling the “just a tikka” would turn into a smear down my entire face, a fear that was warranted when, after ducking his hand, I ended up with a skunk stripe of yellow and orange starting on the back of my head and trailing down my back. The rest of the walk I attempted to skirt the war zone while practicing being invisible, running a gauntlet of water ballons in the last block before turning down the alleyway to my guesthouse where I found pretty much all the guests holed up in the restuarants waiting out the festival. After sundown it was safe to go out again and while the shops were still mostly closed, the restaurants were open.

I took off for the airport the following day with a farewell kata (a scarf used to bless people) around my neck from the Tibet Gueshouse. After a scary/bumpy take-off from Kathamandu (the second storm in 5/12 months) I arrived in Bangkok for my 12 hour layover. Thanks to the Robber Bride, I was able to stay awake and read the entire night. Despite the tight connections in Tokyo and Chicago I made it home without a hitch. My tea came early this morning after my eyes popped open at 4:30 a.m. Suprisingly, my breakfast involved absolutely no butter! Now onto retraining my body on the nights and the days. Thanks for following along. It’s good to be home (just in time for beer dyed green).

Sue Borchardt in Baltimore, Maryland where , despite the rumors that it’s been like late spring, there were big fat flakes of snow falling this morning. March 17, 2006 1:13 p.m.