Nepal...

...and the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek.

Anyone who knows us and has been to Nepal has always said: "You guys will love Nepal." You're all right: like countless travellers before us, we fucking love Nepal. We've ditched our plans of returning to India for June/July and have decided to stay here until we fly to Nairobi on July 20th: do some treks, a longer kayaking expedition or two, maybe a trip into Tibet.

A little confession: I would trade the entire five months I spent in India for the two weeks I spent trekking among the Himalayan Annapurna giants. This of course says more about me than either India or Nepal, and it's the kind of claim that can only be made with authority after experiencing both.

So we're currently base-camped in the lovely town of Pokhara, which is a little like Squamish on a lake...if you made Mt Garibaldi a foothill used to view the real mountains in the distance. It's the start of monsoon, the town is virtually empty of tourists and prices are cheap. The short evening rains are warm, plump up the rivers and leave the hillsides see-through green. Occasionally we glance up and are startled by a ring of mountains that have decided to detach themselves from earth and hover above, more sky than stone.

Some photos from out two week trek into the Annapurna Sanctuary, one of the finest mountain amphitheatre's on our planet.

OK. We're off, Nepali-style: loaded onto the roof of a bus. No goats tied by the legs this time, just a cargo of propane stoves to be dropped off at roads end and carried on a porter's back to remote villages. The blinding white reflection is Dylan, all smiles because he thinks he's done the impossible: travel the subcontinent without a serious round of the pissing shitters. But that will change...


Our first evening saw us at around 2500 meters. Not too high yet, but enough that our Satan's fire-pit-of-India heat adjusted bodies were loving the cool mountain breeze.


Happily surprised to find the first night's dinner (dhal bhat, a plate of rice and various lentils and vegetable curries, the local staple) were what in BC are called fiddleheads: the uncurled heads of young ferns.


Dayna crushing the trail. The busier trails have an elven-wood quality to them: stone steps, bamboo bridges. These are not 'wilderness' trails as we know them in the West; instead, they connect remote mountain villages and are used to transport goods from lowlands to high. They are often part of ancient trading routes between the Gangetic Basin of India and the high plateau of Tibet.


Children walking to school. The group we talked to had a three kilometer uphill walk every morning. The fat kids stay home.


Detail of a traditional Nepali stacked-stone home. Sometimes the stone is filled in with clay and plastered.


This woman is sifting barley, a grain that flourishes at altitudes above 3000m.


Chillin out at a teahouse.


Oops I switched the captions around so now they're at the BOTTOM of the photos.


Hotsprings! But in the Pale One's stomach a beast lurks...

View across the valley to terraced fields and scattered stone homes. Most of the hill-people live a hand to mouth agrarian lifestyle. It's exceptionally picturesque, and exceptionally easy for zanged-out Western minds to romanticise. It's also incredibly hard labour just to stay fed through the winter.


The trails are punctuated with stone benches, often built in the shade of banyan or pipal trees. This photo is of a post-violently-ill Dylan; I know because he's finally smiling. That must have been a great night, eh Dilly: teetering over a wretched hole in the ground with a plastic bucket in your hands?? LET 'ER BUCK!


I watched this man weave a porter's bamboo head-basket in less than an hour.


Morning views of Machapuchare, the unequaled-in-perfection Fishtail Mountain.


Small people, big landscape. Up the headwaters of the Modi Khola and into the alpine.


Dayna cool like lemonade across a little snow pocket. To her right is a four hundred foot death slide into the freezing river.


Potatos were intoduced to Nepal by Europeans, and have become a favourite plus 4000m crop.


Machupuchare again. The massive face is about 5000ft high. We spent hours in the evenings watching cloud and sun shift it's symmetry.


All up the trek we heard stories about 'crossing the glacier'. Apparently this little snowpatch qualifies as a glacier for some.


Posing beneath the massive headwall of Annapurna 1 (8000m) at 4100m, or about 14,000ft. At this altitude a person is receiving 40% less oxygen with every breath than at sea level. We took our time, aclimatized properly, and had no problems.


The obligatory prayer-flag photo.


For most of the trip we stayed in trekker's lodges in villages. As you get higher food prices become excessive, as everything must be carried up the mountain by porters. We carried our own stove and some dehydrated food. I also had hope for some exploratory rambling around the various side ridges and peaks but the minus five temps and unsettled weather put a fast end to that fantasy. So here we are enjoying some MEC dehydrated food under a pretty boulder.


Machapuchare again. Are you getting the feeling I enjoyed this mountain?



The South face of Annapurna 1. This monster is about 9000ft of near vertical snow and ice. That's around six Squamish Chief's stacked on top of the other. The Brit Chris Bonnington made the first direct ascent of the face. He needed two extra porters just to lug his weighty set of solid brass balls.


Cutie!


Close up of the South Face. You're lead, mate.



South Face with shrine to the alpinist Anatouli Boukreeve, who was avalanched off the fucker. This fact didn't impress much upon the group of pseudo-hippies who proclaimed: "It's like shangri-la, man! It's paradise!". No. Paradise is fig leaves and sunshine. Without the thousands of dollars of gear we were all wearing, the Sanctuary would have froze us to death in a single night. That's part of it's beauty.


Fourteen thousand feet equals breathless bouldering. And don't bother falling: it's a long hobble back down!

Dilly, stylin' the slack.


Day, stylin' the slack.


Annapurna is, unsurprisingly, a holy mountain for Hinduism. These tridents symbolize Shiva, who lives here.



Did I mention the leeches? Dilly got one right in the crotch! Ha! They like to cling to branches and plop off onto you as you pass. I collected a total of six, Dylan one (but a sweet one), and Dayna escaped unscathed.


The trail heading out of the Sanctuary, through the warmer hills.


Nepali children at play.


"Civilized" hiking: we had just slogged up a 1500ft hill. Time for a cup of ginger tea!

The trail wandered through fantastic rhododendron forests.


Evening teahouse. Dilly composing the script for a porno film he was daydreaming about. Machapuchare hovers above.


Dayna helping the local ladies club strip bamboo shoots for curried bamboo and rice.


Machapuchare. Again. Here you can see its 'fishtail' aspect. Keep in mind that this peak is taller than anything in North America. Stack BC's Coast Range three times as high and you begin to get an idea of how these mountians dominate the land and mind.

A donkey with a load of Yak wool. Several of these 'donkey trains' would pass us per day, bells tinkling, the herders coming along behind. Trekking is an incredibly wonderful and vibrant experience...and we're fortunate to be planning two more two-week treks!

Rewind: Out of India

Cheers everybody! Let's play the blog catch-up game.

We left India ...sometime in early May. I remember a riverbank on the Ganges, the (in)famous sacred cremation spot, slick with pre-monsoon muck and melted fat. Dogs, cows and goats. Bodies wrapped in kitschy ribbons. An entire class of people born to be corpse-burners, handlers of death. (Wierd: the internet cafe I'm in just started blaring Nepali death metal. Yes, apparently there is such a thing.) A familiar crook of angle between arm and shoulder, and the recognition that what is being tossed in the river was once human. A few yards downstream people bathe, wash clothes. The same process for centuries. You guys stood on the moon, fuck that, we're sending our people off on flickering ash and smoke. I walked down the wrong set of stairs, into the wind, and inhaled a choking ounce or two of someone's fat uncle. I saw a delicate foot curl into itself from the heat.

Did I mention somewhere that India is fucking strange? That one is more likely to decode the intricacies of Indian electoral politics than India's religions...but the religions are far, far more interesting.

This music sounds like early Slayer. Dayna and I are really digging it for some reason; we're on a post-three day kayaking high so it's all good. Constant near-death tends to mellow the rest of the road a bit, hmm? That's basically the Hindu perspective as well.

Every evening in Varanasi there's a huge puja (worship ceremony) to the Great Ganges. Classic stuff: banging noisy things, swinging giant fire lanterns, chanting. Captivating. This public square was one of the few places we found in five months were we could sit and people watch. India has few great outdoor public spaces, and no beautiful central squares like Latin America where people chill out in the evening. Actually there are some public spaces but they tend to be fenced off with iron and barbed wire to prevent them becoming slums. They're nice to walk by.

Dylan's Indian nickname "Shitty Transit Luck Man" was in full effect during our escape North. Our midnight train was three hours late. I was deep into one of my weird monthly fever/violent stomach problem bouts. Three hours is a LONG time to wait, stretched out on your backpack in a packed Indian train station in 40 degree heat, cramping and cold-sweating with a 39.7 degree temperature (which, according to my lovely wife is "almost really serious.") while rats, cockroaches and Israelis swarm around.

Israeli to Dayna: "You guys are from Canada? Why are Canadians so stupid?"
What was that? Sorry, I couldn't hear you mumble through that Yankee dick in your mouth.

Ahem. Onward. Some Varanasi photos:



Looking upriver from our hotel rooftop.


A child-labourer snake-charmer. Both are officially outlawed in India, but this is better on paper than in practice. And yes, I'm well aware that by taking the photo I'm contributing to both. The real question is...what is the current price of pork futures?


A ghat is a series of stone steps used to gain access to a river or tank of water, in this case the Holy Ganges. Pilgrims travel from across India to visit the ancient and sacred bathing ghats on the Ganges.


Early morning, looking downstream toward the cremation ghats.


An evening boat audience gathers for puja. The following few photos are of the worship offering.







Crazy sadhu.


Crazy Canadian eating street food from a leaf bowl.


The lassi man. A lassi is a drink made from pounding fresh yoghurt and adding sugar or fruit. If you ask for a special lassi he'll pound in some bhang (ground up hash and god knows what else). Good times all.

Moo

So, after more than five months in India, I'm still not used to the cows.

In Varanasi's Old City the lanes are often only four feet wide; getting anywhere requires carefully squeezing past a massive, heaving, swaying and potentially lethal bullock. Dayna seems to enjoy finding the most mountainous bull possible, sneaking past it, and whippings its ass in an attempt to cause a stampede that crushes Dylan and I.

I've decided that cows are the epitome of Hindu spiritual aspiration: unfazed by heat, stench, noise and all of teeming India screaming by in a rush of mad buying and selling. Their glassy eyes, often mistaken for idiocy, are really examples of profound bovine spiritual detachment. They are the enlightened sadhus of the animal world: beyond physical illusion, at peace.

goodbybe India, HELLO Nepal!

Wow.

Feeling a little overwhelmed that our time in India is coming to and end. We leave for Nepal at midnight. While in Rajasthan, I was feeling completely done with India. I couldn't wait for a change. I had zero tolerance for touts. I was losing it on anyone who tried to rip me off. I couldn't cope with the traffic. I felt withered by the heat. But Delhi and Dylan's arrival in India gave me a burst of energy.

We busted through to Agra, visiting the Taj and the red fort. The Taj was actually more stunning than I expected. You see so many photos, hear so much about it, that you expect to be underwhelmed. But it was simply incredible. We went visited first thing in the morning. The jasmine bushes were blooming, scenting the walkway with their gentle and embracing aroma. The sunrise hit the eastern side giving it a soft golden glow, while the other 3 sides burned brilliantly white. Even all the tourists posing for silly photos didn't mar the view. Only the eternal India smog/pollution detracted from the surrounding beauty. I found the red fort to be underwhelming after Rajasthan's forts but Dylan enjoyed it!

Khujarho: 1000 year old temple orgies. Amazing sculptural feats. I don't have the wordsmith abilities to describe it.

For the first time in India we had some transit issues. We got stuck on route to Khujarho due to the local elections: simply no buses running at all. We had to resort to taking a very expensive 3.5 hour taxi ride. While on route to the National Park (for tigers) we got stuck due to a late running train and no available seats the following day...We had to scrap the tiger safari after piecing together that it was an extremely busy train route with no available seats, and unlike other routes waitlisted seats don't become available. We had already lost a day and to travel by bus would take 15 hours, nevermind the return trip to Varanasi of greater than 20 hours. So off to Vara-nasty we went.

I was also ready to be underwhelmed by Varanasi. I thought it would be like Rajasthan, with such a long history of tourist trade that it had lost it's original charm. Not so. Yes, it was still overrun with touts, but much less aggressive compared to Rajasthan. We were able to get good prices on our room (with AC, which made the 42-45 C heat bearable). Local food was available and even the tourist restaruants served decent flavoured and priced meals. We could hang out on the ghats with minimal disruption (for India). The cremation ritual was fascinating as it was so different compared to the western funeral, and I have to admit, pretty strange to see bodies burning in public. Nevermind that this is a sacred site, but I have such a hard time comprehending this when the entire area is covered, literally, in shit. Garabage every where. The ganges is TOXIC. Yet people bath and drink it daily. Gross.

So overall, I feel like I am ending India on a unexpected pleasant experience and with good feelings rather than on a sour note. BUT I am excited to get to Nepal...

More blog posts after we finish our trek, we won't have computer access for a few weeks!

xoxo
Day







Dyl, on his first India train.

Dyl and Shilo walking towards the Taj.

Shilo doing his "sexy sexy dance" in front of the Taj mosque.

The amazing inlay and Koran script along the Taj.

Dyl, chilling inside the red fort.

Crazy camel standing infront of the backside of the Taj.

The Taj, through the early morning smog from our hotel rooftop.

Khaj.






OH my!
Either picking a thorn or painting mehndi.

The burning ghats.

Varanasi street scene.

Flowers for Puja.

Night puja.

Close-Ups and Texture Studies

Clay coal-burning stove, Varanasi.

Scuzzy hotel wallpaper, anonymous transit town.

Sculpted stone wall and posters, Rajasthan.

Hand carved wood blocks used for block printing fabric, Rajasthan

Block printed fabric, Rajasthan.

Sacred kitsch, Mumbai.

Rickshaws, Rajasthan

Puppets, Rajasthan.

Clay pots, Rajasthan.

Antique iron. Hot embers are placed inside the iron. Mumbai.

Tapioca for religious fasting, Mumbai.

Streetside shrine, Mumbai.

Chillies and lime: a Hindu good luck charm placed on businesses, vehicles, etc. This one hangs on a burlap scaffolding cover at a construcion site. Mumbai

1950's Peugot taxi, Mumbai.

Water truck. Swastikas are all over India. They predate Nazi Germany by several thousand years: 'Swastika' is a Sanskrit word meaning an auspicious or blessed object. The design originates from the common pattern that occurs when basket-weaving.

Time and wear create beautiful layered effects on surfaces here. Since replacing an object with its first scratch is not an option, household objects must be reused, rebuilt and reinvented. Each object becomes heavily invested with the lives that have handled it; a preciousness is worn into it that has little to do with the equivalence of cash. Occasionally people and objects are so intimate they nearly merge: a sadhu with a stained wooden cane that has altered his gait over decades; a chai-wallah with layers of scar tissue on his hands from handling hot brass kettles; an ancient woman whose neck has folded under the weight of her belongings.

Yet as always, the opposite: India is awash in cheap, sparkly, trashy, lovely plastic kitsch. Tinsel and fake garlands pile in gutters, mixing with shit and rot-dirt. Shiva-lingams, one of Hinduism's holiest symbols, come in sparkly-gold painted miniatures. The bodies of the dead at the cremation ghat in Varanasi come prepared for release wrapped in fine silk, silver tinsel, plastic lotus flowers, and cheap fake beads.

The Taj Mahal

What is the shape of the universe? If we could stand apart from all that is, and view it like a cool stone in the palm, would it be symmetrical or asymmetrical, ordered or chaotic? I don't know. I don't know if an involiable structure and physical law prevail, or if all is finally random, senseless. I can't see how a trajectory of stars, a ham sandwich, a single life, or an absence of life can possibly be explained. Is there a Theory of Everything? Is there meaning? Maybe. Maybe there are reasons for how and why, but our scale prevents us from glimpsing them, so we fear senselessness and nothingness is all there is. We create lavish worlds for assurance. Then again, maybe all is just matter in a cosmic tumbler, being dusted over ages, to vanish.

The Taj Mahal is a believer's response to the fear of nothingness; it is our collective aspiration for meaning, rendered by calloused hands in simple white marble. From the earth but no longer of it, the Taj resides in the three-AM fear that wakes you up, choking, tasting your own end. The Taj is an illusion: you can walk to it, reach out and have your hand fall through its light. A residence of death whose curves soften death: the Taj is an answer, a braggart-Queen. Sure, her boasts are sweet-tongued jasper and ruby inlay, crenellated arch, gracious geometry, delicate magnificence. But like all braggarts, her boasts belie an inner insecurity: "Is what I am saying true?". The question drips from every studied line: in many ways the Taj overstates her case, and in so doing, reveals the ambiguity that plagues all monuments. If Shah Jahan -if we- were truly certain of meaning we wouldn't need the Taj Mahals, the grand cathedrals and riotous temples to reassure us. But we are not, so we do. Somewhere between what the Taj professes, with absolute conviction, as true, and the fear she both masks and is motivated by, we find her vulnerability, her grace.

All of our monuments are in some sense memorials to those who made them. What of the smashed thumbs, crushed limbs, the whips and worse? Proletarian concerns, no doubt. Rumour has it Shah Jahan mutilated the hands of his most talented stonemasons to prevent them from ever building anything to rival the Taj. What is this terrible relationship we find everywhere, between grandiosity and suffering? Between beauty and suffering? Or, more to the point, between meaning and suffering?

I have a hobbyists's interest in the architecture of 20th Century fascist states. Most of their early (modernist) inspiration came from Islamic architecture. Islam, being iconoclastic, prevents naturalistic depicton of either its God or its prophet. Divine truth in Islam's sacred spaces is embodied in the geometry of its construction. The symmetry of the Taj is no accident: it is an Islamic embodiment of perfect order, perfect life, perfect death: the divine order of the cosmos, God. As in Germany's Nuremberg, all is subsumed in a larger vision, a design we (the flawed! the imperfect!) can only hope to emulate. This is, partly, what is so refreshing about postmodern architecture (at its best): it is willing to expose its uncertainty, fallibility, flux. It says somehting positive about our culture that we can admit, through our cultural productions, what no other culture in history has: that we don't have all the answers, that we are unsure. It is a kind of tenuous freedom that places us at a large remove from the rallies of Nuremberg, or the crystalline false certainties of the Taj.