just one more detour

Sunday, March 27, 2011

been back to kakaka-kathmandu/beginnings

been so long, just not sure where to begin.

i guess an appropriate staring point would be the moment i returned to nepal. got back four days before a festival, february 19th rings a bell. shivaratri, a festival for shiva, the hindu god, the destroyer. celebrated in india and nepal by ingesting/inhaling copious amounts of ganja, i thought would make for an interesting arrival.

but arriving i caught a bad flu from the plane, and bedridden and feverish, i barely managed the call to insurance to point me in a direction of a somewhere to get looked at. fever broke, so on the mend i went to the festival. pashnipati was the location, home of the holiest hindu shrines, uncountable people, a thronging mass of epic size, a haze as cover, of ganja and smoke from the creamations of the folks lucky to have died on such an auspicious occasion. now normally this kind of surreal expereince would have me switch into participant/observer mode, ready to five sense my way through. unfortunately, my post-feverish condition had me claustrophobic and completely unable to enjoy the other-culture-ness of it all. instead, i wanted the hotel bed, SAT TV and an order of room service veggie food in hopes that it would steel me for the beginning bus ride; the start of my longest most difficult trek yet.

day 1: Kathmandu to Shivalaya (bus/1770m/5807ft)
the bus ride was an over-extended jacked up bumpy ride of more-than-necessary legnth. reported time of travel of 6 hours eventually ended up being a near 12 hour affair, tire puncture, people puking and all.

at points the bus a bucking bronco, propelling people out of their seats and into the ceiling. this was a bus ride that i finally felt fear. the bus driver reminicent of those nutters drunk on chicha in ecuador, that rare mix of speed, road conditions and lack of driver concern.

scrounged a room in a nearly shuttered lodge, as the *season* had yet to begin in earnest. early trekker gets no worm. no-love dahl bhat, the food of trek-champions, that i must write up a proper explanation, as what it deserves.

so that began my first day, the next, first day-walking:

day 2: Shivalaya to Bhandar (900m ascent-600m descent: 2180m/7152ft)

Monday, January 31, 2011

364 days till 40

so i got me a year. actually, less. a bout of food poisoning had me spending the last days of 38 and the beginning of 39 regretting a poor food stall decision, so i've lost a bit of time in the resolutions for my last year of 30.

so yesh, one shy of 40. never even saw it coming. distant footsteps, always behind me so quiet, i never even gave it a thought. and then the shock of staring up into the face of my 39th year. but at least i have made it this far, relatively unscathed and still scrapping for a wee bit more...

so, on this second day of 39, i shall set into pixilated stone a few resolutions that if not at least attempted, shall mockingly stare up at me from this screen:

spend as much time as i can with my family
give pittsburgh a proper chance
buy a place that needs work, and fix 'er up
whittle down the ideas into a concrete business plan
learn a martial art
road trip across the usa
study italian
a return to many of the skills i used to know and love: snowboarding, biking, climbing, cooking, dancing, languages, yoga...
be a better, more communicative friend
relearn my social-ness
more blogging

Monday, January 17, 2011

no economic woes to be seen in bangkok

tourists and thais everywhere, spending money shopping, eating movies-you name it. and random scenes like this one put on at malls:

where have i been?

okay, so i have slacked. been slow to post, not yet even caught up with posting all the pictures and video from nepal, and now another country. so, for my loving family, a return to the computer to recall who/what/when/where/how is necessary.

so the cold of nepal, and my inability to cope, as well as the wait till march for the everest trek pushed me into a return to thailand. so where? here i sit, several days into my exploration of slack, poolside in one of the reasonable retreats that $40 can bring:

so the primary setting of slacking established, onto the question of why thailand comes to mind. i was thinking of immediately heading to india, but needing to relax coupled with my familiarity of thailand and a meeting with a friend, enticed me to delay and head to the land of smiles.

so i met up with sophie for a few days of my favorite bangkok diversions. first a sky train ride, then on my favorite form of bangkok public transportation down the chao phraya river:

then a quick walk:

juice and penis postures

and then on to one of my favorite places in bagkok, wat pho:

wat pho is the birth and rebirth place of thai massage. rebirth as it was a lost art, that was pieced back together from temple carvings created by teachers who the above statue depicts. it also houses the ashes of many prominent figures in thai history in chedis scattered about the massive complex:

wat pho is also famous for having the world's largest reclining buddha. this always struck me as strange, and no one has ever been ever able to tell me when, so many years ago, the monks were aiming for a record involving big buddhas, that they decided on making one lying down. but never mind, and here it is:

it is tradition when you leave the wat containing the buddha, that you drop coins in a succession of pots. it is said if you can make it to the end, putting coins in all the pots, but having some left for the last one you will have good luck. like this:

another of my favorite things about wat pho is getting a real thai massage from a temple trained masseuse. i remember the first time i went here in 1998, it was a small scale, simple affair, no ac, open air and just a few tourists. but today, they have expanded into a largish building, all ac, which i bet pulls in $25-30,000 a day. how things change.

we walked into chinatown, had a tea and a small snack, and took the boat back, watching the city lights reflect in the water.

now sophie was thai-fooded out, so i happily obliged with a trip to my favorite japanese restaurant outside of japan: tsu-nami. tsu for sushi and nami for kobe beef. we opted for nami: