Dateline Nepal: The Rooftop of the World

I’ve been absent from my blog because (1) my camera broke on an outing to the beautiful city of Udaipur, (2) I’ve been at meetings and a conference in Nepal, and (3) before Nepal we were entertaining Steve’s sister and husband in Jaipur when I wasn’t scampering at work to be gone for a couple of weeks, so I was busy having fun or working.  It was great fun for us to have such easy, delightful company, and to take some time to visit the highlights of our hometown as well as some of the lesser-known cool haunts that Abba dug up from a very different, interesting guidebook titled Love, Jaipur.  I now have my camera back, but now lack a computer camera cable where I am, so the pictures will have to wait for another day.  UPDATE:  Here's the link to some photos from Nepal:  http://flic.kr/s/aHsjE4ytoN   Got a new cable!

Currently S and I are on a short sightseeing tour that includes Nepal and then back to India, to our state of Rajasthan, for quick trips to Jodphur, then Jaislamer for the annual Desert Festival before we head back home.

Last night we arrived in Nagarkot, Nepal yesterday from Kathmandu. It was cold and windy and the clouds were covering the reason we came, the spectacular views of the Himalayas. There was no heat nor hot water in our room, which we thought was about maybe 40 degrees, so when the front desk gave us hot water bottles, S and I went to bed at 6:00 p.m. to stay warm! It’s as close as I want to come to camping.

However, this morning we were not disappointed as we awoke to one of the most spectacular sights the Earth has to offer right out our room’s window, the Himalayas in full glory.  We began our day with a 3-hour hike, and it was pretty cool at the beginning, but given the steep climbs and fit guide we were soon sweating and opening shawls and jackets.  We walked through what they called a jungle, which was to us a forest of pines that were very fragrant.  We traversed to a couple of different look-out points, which we kept circling in order to take it all in.  There were gorgeous terraces of rice down in the valley, and corn and wheat higher up.  There were mountains covered in trees in front of the Himalayas.  It’s a bad blog to write without the aide of the pictures.

While in Kathmandu Abba and I visited Bhaktapur,  a quintessentially Nawari city that makes you feel like you have stepped back a couple of centuries  in time with its herringbone brick paths, and pagoda roofs atop highly ornamental edifices made of local brick and the intensely decorated woodcarvings everywhere possible on the temples. There are lots of narrow alley ways to get lost in that lead to woodworking shops and metal smiths who specialize in lots of copper around the city, but also do lots of work in bronze and silver.  There are signs that the tourism is leaving its mark, but most of the villagers seem to be carrying out a typical day in spite of us. 

In general Nepal impressed the 3 Greenleafs that visited.  We saw much less trash in the streets than in Jaipur, heard much less horn honking, and enjoyed a general vibe of laid back,  friendly citizens, although I find the Indian people very friendly as well.  Nepal has recently (about 6 years ago) just gone through a revolution, so there are still scars and veiled or not so veiled allusions in speeches to the unpopular ruling party, and today saw a general strike in the country, so no transportation was working from sun up to sun down.  Not sure what the strike was supposed to accomplish, but it does effectively shut down the country for the day.  We saw kids walking to school at the beginning of our hike who were walking back 3 hours later because the teachers couldn’t come because none of the buses were running.  The inscrutable Panda should leave some explanatory notes on labor strikes as a form of protest, because I can’t see how it really shows much more than their ability to run a strike and make citizens fearful of not obeying the order for a strike. I’m sure there’s more that I don’t understand.