Taiwan

Ha!! I managed to find my old blog site. Thats a start. I'm in Taipei awaiting the final leg of my trip to Bali. Unfortunately, figuring out how to make the internet appear in English, get onto the internet, find my blog site, and eat a large bowl of noodles for breakfast has squandered all of my time and I've got to board the plane.

Trekking

I think we'll do this with minimal commentary today. Pictures of mountains tend to be pretty self explanatory. Also, I'm rather famished and planning on another excellent steak at K-Too Steakhouse with Peter in a few minutes. I'm back from what was an abbreviated trek due to an excessive amount of snow thus leading to avalanches that kill people. I told my guide I wasn't scared of a little snow but he prevailed and we stayed relatively low. However, we did see some snow and some pretty mountains. This is Peter the Dane and I the morning we left for the trek on the balconey of our hotel in Pohkara. You can see some mountains behind us and unseen is a lake that is rather nice as well. Us looking rather chipper on the 1st day I think. Day 2 is the one that starts with 3,500 steep stone steps for the first 1/3rd of the day and doesn't get much easier from there.One of many waterfalls
Sunrise at Poon Hill Mountains and of course us on Poon Hill
Another from the morning at Poon Hill
A mountain
A particularly sad and dirty child that I couldn't understand too well but sat by me as I waited to Peter who managed to get lost during our descent back to Pohkara.
And of course the neighborhood "chicken donkey"

tel

Bodnath Stupa and Pasupati Temple

This afternoon Niraj and I went to visit a few more famous temples. This is a picture of the Bodnath Stupa which is very famous. The whole area is owned by Tibetians and many monks live in the area. While I didn't take pictures of them we did walk into some of the rooms where they were meditating. We also saw a "Holy Body" of a famous monk who recently died. His body will be cremated in 10 days but in the meantime there is a display set up with him in it.A doorway in one of the buidlings surrounding the stupa A calendar depicting heaven and hellMe at one of the many buidlings surrounding the stupaNiraj on the phone in the area surrounding Pasupati - a very famous Shiva temple


Me in front of a Shiva statue. Shiva never has a face and is always depicted by a phallic symbol of sorts. I apologize to all of you with better understanding of the religious and cultural aspects. But here is a picture of the statue nonetheless. The main Pasupati Temple. On Shiva Day last week is was absolutely mobbed with people lined up for nearly a mile waiting to get in. It don't know where the fire marshall was during all of this.
A cremation in process. Everyday there are many cremations at this temple.
One of many depictions of Ganesh. He is the son of Shiva and there is an elaborate story about how he came about his unique form. It involves his mother and Shiva becoming angry with him and chopping off his head then having to save him at his mother's request. He used an elephant head and now prayers go through him making him on of the most famous gods. Like I said before, there are over 1,000 Ganesh temples in the Kathmandu Valley.
Milk Baba - this fellow only drink milk for sustanence and meditates alot.

My Danish friend Peter at dinner tonight. We met rather coincidentally on the way to Chitwan last week. He was on a different bus but we happened to stop at the same place for breakfast and chatted a bit. Thought we were at the same hotel but weren't so figured we lost touch. Turns out we were on the same bus back together so we've been hanging out a bit the last few days. He's going to join our trek so now we'll have 4 - Niraj, Peter, myself, and a Sherpa. Tonight I had a rather good filet mignon at a very nice place serving western style food. Tomorrow I'll take it easy and try and get over my illness. Not enough to be crippling but I'll be miserable if I try and trek in my current condition. I'm hoping a few days will fix me.

Back to Kathmandu

It was nice to get away from the city again for a few days. The lodge I stayed at was nice and clean in Chitwan but not too many people to socialize with. I read my book and enjoyed the quite. It was a rather long bus ride and I'm happy to be in one place for a few days but am very much looking forward to getting out in the mountains this week. The trip was rather uneventful although seeing the recently overturned bus at the botton of the canyon 50meters below undermined my faith in the mountain highways a bit. However, it didn't keep me from relaxing on the bus and I don't mind the long rides all that much. It was 6 or so hours to Chitwan and will be a bit further to Pohkara where we'll begin our trek. Pohkara is supposed to be very nice. It's right next to a lake at the base of the mountains. There is a great view of the mountains and their reflection can be seen in the lake.

I got back mid-afternoon yesterday and wandered my way back to Thamel with a few folks I'd met on the trip, Peter from Denmark and Christina from Switzerland. Anyway, we stopped at a rooftop cafe and chatted. I was starting to feel a bit under the weather and I continued to get sick as the evening went on. I stayed in my room most of today and downstairs to the Internet cafe is as far as I've made it. More cold/flu symptoms than your typical traveler's illnesses. I'm just a bit achy with a cold but enough to make me feel lousy. I'm hoping I kick it in the next day or so or I'll have to postpone the trek and shorten it. I'm optimistic though and think I'll be up for at least a little sightseeing tomorrow. Anyway, that's about it. I'm going to go meet Peter at a cafe in a few minutes and hopefully eat something. The Danes have the hook up for education as do most of northern Europe. He's studying the political climate in Nepal for his master's but has really spent the last 3 months hanging out trekking and diving between Nepal and Thailand. He's exhausted his education expenditures but for anyone tuition is paid and you get a stipend to live on. Like my set up but he doesn't have to pay it back. Anyway, nice guy and it's nice to have someone fluent in English to hang out with for a few days.

Royal Chitwan National Park

Me on my elephant safari - you can also see my Swiss friend Christina who is facing the camera behind me. I met her on our canoe ride in the morning and we just happened to be on the same elephant ride as well. She's been traveling for months and months now. Did a tour of Europe then more recently spent 3 months in India but she'll be returning home to find a job this weekend.

Here is one of the bull elephants at the breeding center outside Royal Chitwan National Park. After I arrived on Monday afternoon I went to the visitors center then over here to see some of the elephants and briefly walked through the edge of the jungle before settling by the river that marks the park boundary.

Here is the sunset over the park. The dugout canoes seen in the picture are what we took about 5km down the river the next morning to view the wildlife. Following the canoe ride I got out and had a guide that took me on a jungle walk. We saw lots of crocodiles and many evidences of other animals but didn't actually run into any of them.

A waterlilly of sorts that populate the river and float along in it

One of the 2 types of crocodiles they have. This one resembles and alligator with the longer snout. It eats only fish.

The other crocodile species is "much more aggressive" and will eat just about anything. Seeing at this guy was only 12 or 15 feet long I figured he'd probably start to get full by the time he got to my torso.


After the jungle walk I went by the river where they daily have "elephant bathing" and let the tourist get in the water with them. The elephants play, let people ride them, buck them off into the water, and spray them.


I think this picture actually happened first. We went and got on the elephant and at the last minute before he stood up this German fellow in quite a nice speedo decided to join me. Unfortunately, he didn't situate himself quite right and mauled me in order to stay on the elephant nearly causing us both to plunge into the water and providing quite the entertainment for the onlookers.
Here is another photo of the elephant safari. This is a different group. Turns out our elephant was giant - they all are but ours towered above the rest by at least a meter or more. It was a fun although bumpy ride. We saw some spotted deer and a wild boar in addition to the rhinos shown below.

Mother and baby rhino

And more pictures with no particular theme in no particular order

Me on the bungy bridge Another posting of the canyon since I managed to distort it below while attempting to enlarge it

On my porch during one of many rainstorms drinking tea, listening to music, and watching the rain Children during morning prayers and exercises
Some kids outside the hospital

Nepali paper drying in a particularly nice piece of farmland Monkeys (seriously, does this really need a label?)

Buff meat for sale - who's hungry? Upendra and Bimala on our walk to the Buddhist temple
Me on a mountain somewhere

Some pictures

A women using her scale at the Saturday market in Khandbari A man and his spices at the market

Upendra and Ganga taking a break during our hike down to Tumlintar to catch my flight to Kathmandu. We ended up catching a taxi for the last 3rd after we had completed the steep part.

Dr. Rajesh and the district hospital's x-ray tech our last day. Dr. Rajesh is looking in on his replacement as he does rounds.