Happy New Year. We are now at the Indian holy city of Varanasi on the Ganges River. The same place we were exactly 8 years ago along with the Dalai Lama and gurus from all of India's religions to welcome in the new millenium. We are even staying at the same hotel, Ganpati Guest House. Room prices have doubled, but are still reasonable at $9 for a room with an incredible view of the sun rising over the Ganges each morning. 8 years ago on the day we checked in a French guy jumped off the hotel's roof committing suicide. His dead bady sat there all day, the police refusing to touch it because it was below their caste to do so. It was quite a shocking welcome.

Coming from Nepal, we stopped at Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, and Kushinagar, where he died. Neither Yoshimi or I are religious, but we enjoy visiting religious sites. On this trip we stopped at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Jesus was crucified, and the Dome of the Rock, from where Mohammad was said have ascended to Heaven. Religious pilgrimage sites are interesting to me because they are the reason people started traveling for pleasure in the first place, often walking long distances or climbing mountains to get there. So these sites incorporate two of my passions in life: travel and hiking/climbing.

It feels great to be back in India again. It is not an easy place to travel, but it is by far the most interesting place to do so. There is never, EVER a boring day in India. Every minute is an all out assult on the senses, especially(and unfortunately)the often underutilized sense of smell. This place is so full of the drama of life. And not just human life. The one billion plus people here closely share their lives with monkeys, dogs, goats, chickens, and the ubiquitous sacred cow. Today I even saw an man riding an elephant stuck in rush hour traffic. While Kathmandu is probably my favorite city, Yoshimi's would probably be Varanasi. She keeps coming back(this is her 4th time here)because this place somehow feels the most Indian, the craziest city in a country full of crazy cities. A few hundred yards from our guest house is the burning ghat, the most sacred place in India to have your body cremated. And the burning takes place not in a crematorium, but in the open, along the banks of the river. Dead bodies are carried through the narrow streets by chanting family members, washed in the river, laid on piles of wood, and set on fire. Poor families often cannot afford enough wood to completely burn the bodies of their dead, so the partially burned body is then tossed into the river. Because death is presented in such an open way here it really makes you think about it differently.
From here we head west to the state of Gujatat on the border of Pakistan, where hopefully it is warmer. It's weird to think of India as cold, but it is freezing here and we don't have many warm clothes.
-Shawn

some people might have heard that a bridge collapsed in southwest nepal yesterday(12/25/07 christmas day!), just let you know we're still alive and we actually did cross a bridge yesterday, but it was NOT the bridge that collapsed, so no need to worry.

yoshimi

Masala Dosa: batter is made from rice and split, skinned urad bean blended with water and left to ferment. The batter is then ladled in small amounts onto a hot greased skillet, where it is spread out into a thin circle and fried with oil or ghee until golden brown.
Look! Shawn got huge one, it's called paper dosa.


This place serves best drip coffee in the town! and these japanese style thick toasts are great with honey and butter....ahhhhhhh


One morning, Shawn was craving a "Big American Breakfast".


This buck wheat noodle kick ass! sooooooooooooo yummy!


we're spoiled with japanese food here... eating rice again made me cry.

Thank you Kathmandu...tastes like home, yum yum yum.

yoshimi

I've noticed a certain pattern with our traveling style: a couple of weeks of moving rather quickly and then staying put for a week or so in a good spot. And Kathmandu certainly is a good spot. This is my third time in Nepal and I've probably spent six weeks of the four months I've been in Nepal hanging out in Kathmandu. But I can see how some people, especially those arriving straight from home, may not like it. It's dirty, has horrible pollution, bad traffic, and there's an endless stream of people trying to sell you things: tours, rickshaw rides, drugs, Tiger Balm(kind of like an Asian Ben Gay), and for some reason Nepalese ukalele-sized violins. That's quite a few strikes against it, however the positives more than make up for it. The people are super sweet, shy, passive, always smiling and singing. The city of Kathmandu itself is like a living museum. It's attractions are not kept behind closed doors, but instead are just an everyday part of life here. 500 year old temples are used as vegetable markets and Buddhist statues that would be in a museum in Europe or the States are used to dry laundry.There are hilltop temples filled with frollicking moneys. And the Tibetan community here feels more Tibetan than the Han Chinese staturated city of Lhasa.

And then there's the food. Travelers arriving here after difficult overland journeys and weeks spent trekking in the mountains are craving all their comfort foods from home. So its possible here to get good burritos, pizzas, pad thai, sushi, kim chi, steaks, espresso, felafel, croissants, and big American-style breakfasts. All for a faction of the price you'd pay at home. Each afternoon we spend hiking or riding rented bikes trying to work up an appetite so we can eat more of this good stuff. Reading this blog you may have gotten the impression that we don't eat local food. We do, probably 90% of the time. It's just that when we are given a chance to eat anything else, we jump at the chance. Oh, I almost forgot the highlight of each day, at 8pm all the bakeries sell their remaining pastries at 50% off. There's usually a bit of a competition to get the good stuff, especially the huge cinnamon rolls selling for a quarter instead of fifty cents.

There's also a great selection of shops. I'm not much of a shopper myself except for books and I'd put Kathmandu's used book stores up against any big American city. Don't get me wrong, they are no Powells(though I did see a Powells label on a book here), but they seem to have exactly the book you just happen to be looking for(even if you didn't realize it). That's the sign of a great bookstore.

The outdoor shops here could easily outfit you for an Himalayan expedition. It's pretty cold here now(dropping down onto the 30's at night), and I needed some warm clothes. I was able to pick up some long underwear, a Patagonia fleece jacket, a pair of Mammut gloves, and an OR hat all for $20. And all fake of course, but all perfectly functional.

Tomorrow we catch a bus to Pokhara in Central Nepal and from there south to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, before returning to India. Even though I'm sad that we are leaving tomorrow, I know Kathmandu is a place I will always return to.

-Shawn

While planning this trip we decided to include several small trips within the bigger one. The smaller ones included: visits to old friends in Europe, some new destinations(the Middle East, the Balkans), a stop in Japan to see Yo's family, a few wild cards(Iceland, Hong Kong, Dubai), and a return to our favorite place of all, the Indian Subcontinent. Leaving Egypt the Middle East segment of our trip came to an end. It's a part of the world that I've wanted to see for years, but kept putting off because the situation there always seemed a bit too volatile. Finally I realized that there is always going to be some situation or other going on. It's just the nature of the Middle East. So now seemed as good a time as any. But its funny, the only time I did feel nervous while traveling there was when I happening to see some CNN or BBC. The news really does a good job of making the Middle East look a lot scarier than it is. When I think of the Middle East now it will not be of suicide bombers or Muslim extremists, but rather of old bearded men with callouses on their foreheads from a lifetime of touching their heads to the ground while praying, sitting at outdoor cafes drinking tea, playing dominos and smoking apple flavored tobacco from water pipes. I like this image a lot better.

From Cairo, we flew to India via Dubai on Emirates Airlines, voted the best airline in the world several years running. It was the only time I ever wished that the flight had been longer. Yo and I didn't speak to each other at all on the flight instead playing around on our personal TV's and it's 500 channels. Unfortunately they made us get off the plane in Dubai where we had a 12 hour layover. Instead of hanging out at the airport we caught a bus into town. Dubai is like the Las Vegas of the Middle East. The locals, rich with oil money, make up only 15% of the population. The remaining 85% are foreigners(mostly Indians, Philippinos, Indonesians) who do all the work the locals don't feel like doing, which happens to be most of it. It has all this crazy architecture, buildings that look like sailboats & flowers and are in the process of constructing the biggest building in the world... on a foundation of sand. Sounds scary. We spent all night roaming the city, then it was back to the airport for our 6am flight.

A few weeks ago we thought it might be fun to pop up to Kathmandu before diving into the kookiness that is India. If you've always wanted to go to India, but were a little nervous(and rightly so), I'd recommend coming to Nepal first. It's like India Lite, all the craziest you've come to expect, but with one third less hassels. So when we arrived in Delhi from Dubai, we bought one way tickets to Kathmandu(it was no easy task, but I'll spare you the details). And so it was that we landed in Kathmandu 36 sleepless hours after leaving Cairo. From the Pyramids to the Himalaya in less than two days. We're both a bit wiped out so we'll be chilling out here for a while.

-Shawn